by S. D. Perry
“Our thoughts are as one,” he said, his voice even softer, deeper, the sound like a sudden small light in total darkness, drawing her focus—and the change was so gradual, so peaceful, that she hardly noticed the transition as she slipped into his consciousness.
Distantly, she felt his fingers in her hair, through his hands. She felt a cool tide of mild thought, the careful structure beneath . . . and beneath that were emotions, but not quite as she knew them. The feelings were strangely removed, powerful but abstracted. She felt them, but it was her own perception that gave them definition. Struggle. Doubt. Regret. Love. And loneliness, so strong that she ached with it, so pervasive that it was not separate from him, from them.
These were the things that he did not allow himself, but could neither cast out. She found disdain for himself, and frustration. She found his honesty, his morality—and there she found herself, and understood.
There is no lie.
Again, the silver-blue rush of intellect, washing over it all, and she realized that she had seen things, felt things that he seldom acknowledged. The intimacy was shocking in its depth, thrilling and frightening, and she felt him trying to guide her away, to give her back to herself—but he wanted to enter her mind, too, he resisted the desire but couldn’t hide it.
With great effort, she found her voice.
Feel me.
She didn’t know if she spoke out loud or only thought it, but he heard her. Now, she noticed the change. Spock had opened to her slowly, cautiously, and though she understood that he was now trying to move as carefully into her own thoughts, the sensation was different, a shift of control, an acceptance—being seen instead of seeing. The restrained and gentle essence of him was moving inside of her, experiencing her, just as she had experienced him. And then there was no separation. They were one.
There was no understanding of time where they were, no awareness of physical form. She hadn’t understood how vulnerable she would be to him, how dependent on him to determine and reestablish boundaries until she recognized him as distinct again, felt herself as apart. There was relief and sadness, a shared understanding of the experience as unique, singular, a recognition that their paths were dissimilar and separate. There was a sensation of drifting away . . . and then she felt her heart beating, and his fingertips pressed lightly against her temples.
When he moved his hands, she opened her eyes, watching as he backed away from her personal space, moving to a conversational distance—although for a few moments, there was nothing that needed to be said, nothing at all.
After a time, he asked her questions about the cloaking device, and she started talking.
Chapter Eleven
Except for the captain’s calls, Uhura had done nothing but fuss with that stubborn and mean-spirited code for coming up on three hours straight. She’d never seen anything quite like it, and neither had the ship’s computer—for all the hundreds of written symbol languages the Enterprise had on file, not one of them matched up to what was on the data chip any better than another.
Three symbols, single-digit number. Six symbols, two-digit number. Ten symbols, another single-digit number, and so on, pages of it. At first glance, it hadn’t looked too difficult—a symbol for a letter, a number for a space . . . except there were an odd number of symbols and too many of them, even though Captain Darres’s files didn’t indicate that he knew any language besides English. And the symbols weren’t consistent when she tried to plug in substitutes, not to any language she’d ever heard of. The symbol that might represent one letter in one word didn’t seem to be the same in another, and she couldn’t tell where the representations changed, where they became something else. After the first two hours, she tried glaring at the screen until everything ran together, but that didn’t help much, either.
Although she could have chosen to work in a more private area, she stayed at her station on the bridge, so used to tuning out distractions that her concentration was just fine. Her frustration level, though . . . she’d been at the top of her class in the Academy’s code and cryptography program, but at the moment, looking at all those angular and curvy little characters in no perceivable pattern, she couldn’t for the life of her remember how she’d managed to pass at all.
The numbers had to indicate where the representations change, they had to . . . except they didn’t have to, no matter how obvious it seemed, no matter how much she wished it were so. It was deeply vexing, to have a chance to use some of her skills on something besides the every day, and then to find herself so absolutely stuck.
“Computer, highlight the probable vowels again,” she sighed. Assuming it was English. Assuming the words weren’t spelled backward, or cross-matched from a grid . . . or worse, that the code was based on a book or a writing, the numbers and symbols representing marked pages and words. Without a key, those were nearly impossible to break . . . which was why she hadn’t seriously considered it, not yet. Because if that was the case, she might as well go ahead and tear her hair out now, rather than putting it off—
“Still no luck, huh? Have you tried substituting the small groupings with words like ‘the’ and ‘and’?”
Uhura glanced up, saw Sulu looking over her shoulder.
“Yes, thank you,” she said, hard-pressed to keep the irritation out of her voice. He was only trying to help.
“I was going to get some coffee,” he said. “Would you like me to bring you some?”
That was much more helpful. She smiled gratefully. “Thank you, Sulu, that’s very nice of you. Cream and sugar?”
“You got it.” He squinted again at the screen, then shook his head. “It all looks the same from here, bunch of lines and squiggles.”
Tell me about it.
He left, and Uhura sat back in her chair, frowning. It did look all the same, really. A vertical line, two curves. A curve, a slash, another curve. Four lines in a row, of different heights. It was as though someone had dropped the alphabet into a blender and poured the results out on her screen.
Uhura started to stretch, raising her arms above her head—and then froze. She dropped her hands and leaned forward, studying the characters with new intensity. There were patterns, physical patterns. Those four lines in a row were common, where a vowel might be. Where the letter “E” might be. Two curves and a line, the letter “B,” maybe, and there were the same curves and lines in a different configuration—
If the letters were taken apart and put back together and if the numbers represent which letter in each group is going to change configuration, or the number of words away where the change takes place . . .
It fit, it fit and it felt right. She’d still have to figure out the numbers, get the computer to sort characters by shape, fill in the obvious ones and then start looking at the math—
The lieutenant smiled widely, suddenly giddy with pride. Sulu deserved a kiss; it seemed she was going to get to keep her hair, after all.
* * *
The captain was waiting in the transporter room when Scott returned to the ship, standing with his arms crossed, his impatience as plain as day. As the hum of the transporter faded, the captain was already stepping up to the platform. Scotty picked up his tool kit, sighing. As glad as he was to be back on the ship, he wasn’t particularly looking forward to their conversation.
“Well, Mr. Scott?”
“Sir, I didn’t find anything you could call real evidence, exactly—but I didn’t not find anything, either.”
“Explain,” the captain snapped.
Aye, he was in a mood. Scotty put the tool kit back down, and saw Tam shoot a sympathetic look in his direction from behind the transporter console. Scott ignored it, though he made a mental note to later remind young Mr. Tam that he should pay mind to his own business.
“Well, I checked Captain Darres’s temporary quarters, like you asked,” Scotty said. “Did a real thorough job of it, too—I went over every square centimeter with the tricorder, looking for variations of density and t
emperature in the walls, floor, and ceiling. I scanned the furniture, his personals—even a bottle of Saurian brandy I came across, all of it for any sign at all that something was amiss. There was no bug, sir, I would’ve found it . . . but I did find evidence that someone has been at the ventilator duct in there. The vent’s grating had been pried out of place, and recently; the tiny scratches in the alloy had barely begun the oxidation process.”
The captain was plainly unimpressed by the information, giving it a perfunctory nod. “Nothing we can use. What about the transporters?”
“Again, there’d be nothing I could prove, one way or another,” Scott said. “There was nothing tangible, you understand—”
“I understand,” Captain Kirk said briskly. “What didn’t you not find in the transporter system?”
“My diagnostic matched up to theirs,” Scott sighed. “The malfunction was due to a stray irregularity in the autosequencing program—a one-inabillion mishap, and only dangerous in about ten percent of those cases. It’s probably the most common reason for transporter fatalities, though you’re still looking at a very small number . . . but it does happen every now and again.
“The thing is, I decided to open up the control console, just to take a look, you know, give her a once-over, scan the phase-transition coils and the like—and at the very highest tricorder setting for field readings, I picked up what could be evidence of a directed magnetic pulse.”
The captain was frowning. “Which means . . .”
“If I was looking to get rid of someone using a transporter without raising any eyebrows, that’s how I’d do it, sir,” Scott said. “One tap on a standard magnetic generator, set for a specific range and quality—and they make them no bigger than a communicator, mind you—and you’ve got one dead man. It would only affect a single trip, too, so there’d be no chance of killing another.”
“That’s it, it has to be,” Kirk said, seeming both agitated and excited by the discovery—which made Scott all the more reluctant to tell him the rest of it.
“Sir, I said it could be a magnetic pulse,” he said heavily. “Unfortunately, with as weak as the trace was, it could also be about a dozen other things, most of them caused by natural emissions from an overused system—and with that conference going on, the station’s transporters have had plenty of use lately. There’s just no way to tell for sure.”
The captain sighed. “I don’t suppose there were any security monitors in or near that transporter room, either.”
“No, Captain. Nary a one.”
“What about M-20’s investigation? Did you talk to the station manager?”
Here was the kicker. Scotty braced himself, fully aware that it was going to go over like a lead balloon.
“Aye, I talked to him. Mr. Miatsu walked me to the scene himself. Station security has already interviewed everyone—the guard who escorted Captain Darres to the transporters, and the young man who ran the controls, as well as a few others working in the area. It seemed it all happened just after a shift change, and with the summit and all, there were a few minutes that the room was empty and no one was watching . . . but without any evidence . . .”
Scotty took a deep breath. “The manager told me that unless something else turned up, he was going to have to rule Captain Darres’s death an accident. He said he’d send you the report as soon as he was done with it.”
Although he’d expected an angry response, Captain Kirk only shook his head. He looked frustrated and unhappy, but somehow not a bit surprised by the news.
“Captain, do you know what’s happening?” Scott asked. “Is it something to do with Captain Darres’s looking into the Sphinx misfortune?”
“I don’t know anything for sure, not yet,” the captain said grimly, looking at Scott but not seeing him, his expression troubled and deeply thoughtful. “But something’s going on . . . and I’m starting to think that whatever it is, it’s a lot bigger than we know.”
He focused on the engineer again, reaching out to clap him on the shoulder. “You did a good job, Mr. Scott.”
“Thank you, sir,” Scotty said, proud as always when the captain acknowledged his hard work.
“Bridge to Captain Kirk.” Lieutenant Uhura’s voice.
The captain stepped to the intercom. “Kirk here.”
“Captain, I’ve managed to decipher the data chip.” Uhura’s pretty voice was as efficient as always, but Scott thought she also sounded thoroughly pleased with herself.
“Excellent, Lieutenant. I’m on my way, Kirk out.”
With a nod at Scotty, and Mr. Tam at the transporter controls, the captain headed off to the bridge looking a wee bit more hopeful than he had only a moment before. Mr. Scott was glad to see it. The afternoon he’d spent at the station had been an uncomfortable one, looking for proof that a Starfleet captain had been watched and murdered. It was enough to drive a man to drink, but if it was true, the captain would get to the bottom of it . . . and if he thought that some data chip would shed light on the matter, maybe it would at that.
Gladly putting the whole sorry business out of mind, Scott turned a sharp eye toward Mr. Tam to give him a few words about good manners.
* * *
The expression on Chekov’s face when he walked into sickbay made McCoy’s heart sink. The boy looked undone, pale and bleak, and McCoy was suddenly absolutely certain that Karen Patterson was dead. She was dead, and his hope was dead along with her.
“Why hello, Mr. Chekov,” Nurse Chapel said brightly. She was at the counter, sorting through the second to last batch of physical test results. “Is something the matter?”
Chekov managed to smile, but it was a weak affair. “No, ma’am. Dr. McCoy, may I speak to you privately for a moment?”
“Of course,” McCoy said, his voice far away to his own ears. He hoped that Christine would mistake his dread for concern. “We can talk in the recovery room.”
Chekov followed him, practically stepping on his heels he was so anxious. Whatever it was, it was bad.
As soon as the door closed behind them, McCoy turned to face the young navigator, bracing himself for the worst. It had been a long shot, anyway.
“Doctor, I found something—I didn’t think I was going to at first, she was hard to pick up after she left Altair VI, but I tracked her down,” Chekov said rapidly, and even as obviously distressed as he was, McCoy could hear a trace of pride in his statement, the accent on “I.”
Maybe she’s not dead after all. Chekov certainly wasn’t acting like someone delivering bad news. A spark of hope rekindled.
“After Altair she took some time off, that’s what made it difficult, there were no records for six months,” Chekov continued. “But then she got a research job with a medical chemical company in the Tellun star system, a division of the Carter Winston Group. She was there until just two months ago, when she suddenly resigned and booked passage to Deep Space Station R-5. Her and a half-dozen other Federation doctors met there from all over, very important people, I saw the arrival logs.”
“So, is that where she is now?” McCoy asked.
“No, sir,” the young man replied, his eyes wide. “A ship picked her up from R-5 only a day later, and the others, and not one of them has turned up anywhere else. It’s like they all just disappeared into thin air.”
McCoy shook his head, confused and thoroughly irritated, but before he could say anything, Chekov spilled the rest.
“Doctor, the ship that picked them up was the Sphinx, Jack Casden commanding.”
McCoy just stared at him for a moment, speechless, until Chekov started babbling nervously about how they had to tell the captain. In spite of his shock, McCoy somehow managed to assure Chekov that he would take care of it, not to worry and not to talk about it to anyone else. Having shared the burden of knowledge, the navigator calmed down and wanted to talk about the unlikely coincidence, but McCoy made an excuse to get rid of him, thanked him and sent him along his way.
McCoy sat down on one o
f the diagnostic beds, thinking. He needed to decide what to tell Jim . . . and it was time he got caught up on what had been happening since he’d stopped paying attention to ship’s business, because it appeared that his personal business was about to become a part of it. After a few minutes, he got up and went to see if he could find those station arrival logs Chekov had been talking about, wondering if he would know when it was time for him to stop hoping.
Chapter Twelve
The death of Captain Darres was most regrettable, the more so because it was highly doubtful that it had been an accident . . . although Spock also considered it doubtful that a murderous intent would ever be proved.
Spock was informed of Darres’s demise upon his return to M-20, by an ensign who had been a part of the Sphinx investigation team. It seemed that the ensign and the other members of the team actually believed that a transporter malfunction was responsible. Spock made no attempt to dissuade them, primarily because he wished to return to the Enterprise and speak to the captain, but also because it now seemed that the overly knowledgeable had become exceedingly short-lived.
After his extensive conversation with the Romulan commander about cloaking technology, Spock felt that he had enough information to present a theory to the captain. Not a complete one, there were still a number of unknowns, but he believed he’d reached a workable premise from which to take action.
The captain was in his quarters when Spock beamed back to the Enterprise. Spock decided to go to him rather than ask to be met, as he believed that the death of the captain’s friend and former shipmate had likely taken an emotional toll.
As he left the transporter room and started for the captain’s quarters, Spock considered some of the unknown factors they still faced. He felt reasonably certain that Dr. Kettaract was using cloaking technology for his own designs, and that he had obtained the technology from his study of the device that Starfleet Intelligence held. Spock had reached the conclusion after the commander had informed him that only the single cloaking device, the one that he and the captain had taken from her ship, had ever been lost by the Romulan Empire. However, he still did not know what Dr. Kettaract was trying to keep hidden, or who else was involved.