Signs from Heaven

by Phaedra M. Weldon

  “The headaches are caused because of increased hormone output. Appears to be a side-effect of the neurochemical ingestions.” Lense looked back to Gold. “He’s fine—in excellent physical shape. Only he can see sound now.” She sighed. “In color.”

  “There’s one thing nobody here has mentioned,” Pattie said.

  Soloman nodded. “She’s right. If Mr. Stevens now possesses the parasite we’ve just learned about, is it possible that he can use it to operate Stratos?”

  No one spoke.

  “How?” Tev asked. “He knows as much as we do about those engines, which is apparently nothing.”

  “Well.” Scotty turned to face Gold. “I say we ask him if he’d like to try. Once we get the okay from Vanov.”

  Gold gave him a withering look. “Time’s running out, Scotty. They’ve already wasted a day.” He looked at Lense. “Have you told Stevens what’s happened?”

  She nodded. “He seemed more fascinated than upset. When Sarjenka and I left sickbay, he was asking Nurse Wetzel to sing.”

  Sarjenka gave a soft laugh, as did Gomez.

  “I didn’t know Sandy could sing,” Carol said.

  Lense gave her a sour look. “She can’t. He just liked looking at the wacky colors. His words”—she put up her hand—“not mine.”

  Chapter

  3

  “Sort of a green—Vulcan blood green actually.” Fabian noticed T’Nel arch a dark eyebrow. “No offense.”

  “What about me?” Nemeckova asked. “What colors do you see when I talk?”

  Fabian was in engineering, leaning back comfortably against the main console in front of the warp core. Sandy had told him he could leave sickbay—in fact she’d all but pushed him out. Muttered something about needing peace and quiet.

  But hey, who knew his own voice carried a sort of gold hue to it? And so he’d set about making sentences. “Hi, my name’s Fabian. Fabe is my name. I am an engineer.”

  But he was sure she’d only sent him on his way because he’d made fun of the colors her singing caused to dance about the room. He might have heard her voice as off-key, but the colors they made—weird.

  He put a finger under his chin. “Blue—a soft powder blue.”

  “And how about me?” Maxwell Hammett asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

  Fabian narrowed his eyes. “Red. Definitely red.”

  “I thought you said I was red,” Rennan Konya from security said.

  “You are.” Fabian frowned. “Why can’t more than one person be red?”

  “Fabe.” Rizz spoke up from where he stood in front of the deflector array panel. “What about my voice? What color do you see?”

  Fabian narrowed his eyes at the Bolian, then narrowed them harder. He tilted his head to the right, then the left. “Rizz, I’m not sure that color exists.”

  Several people snickered.

  A sharp sound, much like fingernails on a bare hull, cut through the others’ voices. He closed his eyes and pressed the palm of his right hand to his forehead, almost doubling over at the waist.

  “Fabian?” Nemeckova asked, her soft blue tone easing the stinging in his brain. “What’s wrong?”

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. Just after she’d stopped speaking the blue of her voice had shifted and formed into a half circle. “I’m—I hear something—”

  Again the sound of nails screamed into one ear and impacted inside his head. “Ow—” He held his head in his hands. Where was that sound coming from?

  “Max,” Rizz said and the world behind Fabian’s eyes shifted into the indescribable color of the Bolian’s voice. “We need to get the shield harmonics calibrated before Conlon comes back—we’ve wasted enough time.”

  Keeping his eyes closed, Fabian formed a shadowy picture in his mind of Rizz, standing in front of the panel. He touched the surface. Again the sound ran through Fabian’s mind like a speeding shuttle. He saw interweaving reds, silvers, bright blues, and whites, all coalescing into the panel in front of him.

  Opening his eyes he saw Rizz. “Do that again.”

  “Do what again?”

  “What you just did—to the harmonic frequency.”

  Rizz reached down and touched the panel, though he kept his gaze fixed on Fabian.

  Again the colors coalesced into a single ball of light, and turned completely white.

  White—what did that mean? He moved to the panel and touched the surface. Colors jumped out of the circuitry and swirled around him, filling him, taking him inside….

  “What’s he doing?” came a whisper behind him.

  “His eyes are closed.”

  He was concentrating on the colors, watching the white ball bristle like ignited magnesium along a path. It stopped in a single spot along a three dimensional plane of color. When he looked closer he saw no color.

  White.

  “White is the absence of color,” he said aloud and his voice carried in a stream of golden thread that wrapped around the ball of bristling white. He saw numbers in his mind….

  “Rizz,” Fabian said, his eyes still closed. “Adjust the harmonics in grid 002 by 665.”

  There was a pause and he could see Rizz in his mind calling up the grid on his tricorder. “But that’s not where the fluctuation is happening. The disruption is in grid 0100.”

  “No.” Fabian smiled. “It’s there—in 002—but it’s resonating loudest to 0100, which is why the tricorder is picking up that grid. Just adjust the harmonic, but make sure it’s negative 665.”

  He knew Rizz had done what he’d asked when the sound in his ears ceased. The plane of light moved back and forth, ebbing and flowing through the circuitry. He opened his eyes and lifted his hands from the panel’s surface, unaware he’d actually placed both of them there.

  Rizz moved behind him, touched a panel on the wall. “That’s it.” He looked over at Fabian who had turned to check. “You did it. No more anomaly.”

  The doors to engineering opened. Nancy stepped through, along with Gomez and Captain Scott. When Nancy saw everyone standing around Fabian, and saw the look on Rizz’s face, she looked at Hammett. “What’s happened?”

  “He did it.” Hammett nodded to Fabian. “He got rid of that pesky anomaly near the rear deflector shield. The one we spent hours chasing yesterday.”

  Nancy frowned at Fabian. “How did you find it?”

  He swallowed. His throat was dry, as were his lips. When was the last time he’d had water—or any beverage for that matter? “I saw it—Well, I mean I heard it. Both. It was like this little ball of sparkly light, like a tribble on fire—”

  Scotty moved through the gathered engineers. “Lad, you saw and heard the shield’s harmonic frequencies?”

  Gomez moved through the crowd of people to stand beside Rizz and started checking the controls.

  Fabian replayed what had happened inside his head. He smiled. “I guess I did. I mean, I heard it—this terrible noise in my head—and then I followed it to—”

  But Nancy was already moving past them to the console. She touched several panels and then turned to the controls behind her on the wall next to Gomez. After a few seconds she turned to Gomez, and then to Captain Scott. “Rizz is right. The reason I kept delaying the test was because I didn’t trust the readings on the shield harmonics. The anomaly is gone—we can proceed with the test.”

  Fabian smiled, and then put his hands back on the panel. No colors or sounds came to him. In fact, his head was pounding between his ears as if he’d just tried standing on his head.

  “Lad.” Scotty touched his right arm. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m a little light-headed, and very thirsty.”

  Gomez moved to stand on his left. “When was the last time you ate?”

  Fabian looked at her, and when she didn’t look away he smiled. “Eat—” That smile became a frown. “Uh, I’m not sure. Yesterday? I sort of forgot.”

  “Since when have you ever forgotten to eat?” Gomez asked.
r />   Nancy made a rude noise. “Never.”

  “Gold to Scott.”

  Scotty tapped his badge. “Scott here.”

  “Vanov is asking for you. We’ll take this in my ready room.”

  “I’m on my way.” He turned to Nancy. “If that’s the call I’m hoping for, I’ll need you to get ready for a test run—just to see how badly the hold taxes the engines.” He turned to Gomez. “I’d suggest getting that boy back to sickbay—and feed him.”

  With that the burly man hurried out of engineering.

  Gomez watched as Nancy gave her crew orders.

  “I don’t bite,” Fabian said, still leaning heavily on the panel. It wasn’t that he felt bad, he was just afraid that if someone moved the panel he’d fall on his face. His legs felt like rubber.

  She looked at him. A few seconds passed without a word. Then, “Fabe…”

  But he shook his head. This wasn’t the time to discuss what had happened. He wasn’t sure there would ever be a time, though it had been sitting like an open wound between the two of them for months now. “Look, I’ll be fine. You don’t have to walk me to sickbay—I can find my way.”

  With that he straightened up. His knees gave beneath him and he started to lean forward on the panel again. Gomez grabbed his left arm and pulled it up, then nestled her right shoulder beneath his left. “You probably can find your way, but I’m not sure you can actually get there.” She straightened up. “Put your weight on me.”

  He didn’t want to stumble in front of her, but something wasn’t right. His legs felt like lead one minute and then were fine the next. With a sigh he leaned on her and the two of them made their way to the door.

  It opened and Corsi stood in the center.

  Her eyes widened as she looked at Gomez, and then looked at Fabian.

  Fabian felt Gomez tense next to him and he thought for a second she might drop him in her haste to distance herself from him.

  “Domenica, I—” Gomez stammered.

  “What did you do?” Corsi took a step toward Fabian.

  Fabian figured he should intervene before Gomez completely fell apart with embarrassment. “I fixed something, and now the commander is helping me back to sickbay.”

  Corsi looked again at Gomez. “Are you all right? You’ve gone awfully pale.”

  Gomez swallowed. “I’m fine. Really. Captain Scott ordered me to take him to sickbay.” She started to pull away. “But if you’d like to escort him there—”

  But Corsi held up her hand. “That’s not necessary. He’s in good hands.” She touched Fabian’s shoulder. “You feel okay?”

  Fabian twisted his mouth in a thoughtful expression. “Remember that time on Merangue when I drank the green stuff and was supposed to drink the blue stuff?”

  Corsi’s eyes widened. “Definitely go to sickbay.” She smiled at Gomez, though her gaze shifted back to Fabian, and then back to Sonya. “Either of you seen Konya? The computer said he was down here.”

  Fabian nodded backward. “In there.”

  Corsi patted his shoulder and moved past them.

  After a few seconds passed, he nudged Gomez. “We can go now.”

  She blinked and then moved them forward, out of engineering and toward the turbolift.

  “Corsi’s not going to eat you.”

  “You never told her.”

  Fabian shook his head. “No—didn’t see what that would really accomplish. It was an honest—” He meandered in his head for a second, trying to come up with the appropriate word. There wasn’t one. “Thing.”

  Gomez didn’t say anything else until they were in the lift. Fabian disentangled himself from her and leaned on the wall. He was still light-headed, and a bit shaky. This is from not eating—low blood sugar.

  But why hadn’t I even thought of food?

  “Fabian.” Gomez looked at the floor. “I do apologize, and I hope you didn’t—and don’t—think less of me.” She ended the statement with a look up at him.

  “Oh, Commander.” He grinned. “I really don’t think anything of you.”

  He knew he’d stuck his foot in it the second it was out of his mouth. Her expression softened before it hardened.

  “Oh, wait.” Fabian put out his hand. “That’s not what I meant. Not like that—”

  “Oh, that’s okay. It’s nothing that I’ve felt like a real heel all this time, kissing a friend’s boyfriend and then lacking the courage to tell her.”

  “Well, don’t do that. Really. It was innocent. And harmless.” He tried to smile at her, to reassure her.

  Then he felt his knees give on him as he fell head-first onto the turbolift floor.

  Bart sat beside Fabian’s bed in sickbay, his padd in his lap, his eyes aching from reviewing the Ardanan history files. He was amazed that a people could say so much—and not make a damn bit of sense.

  Blah, blah, blah, blah…

  With a glance at the door, Bart pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He’d received it in a special delivery package at the same time they received the goodies from Ardana.

  It was only one page.

  But it was enough.

  It was from Anthony Mark.

  After so many letters. So many unanswered messages, his lover and closest friend had answered him. He’d been afraid to open it—the very fact it was on paper instead of in the form of an electronic message was enough to make him nervous.

  A simple Dear John letter?

  That was what he’d been afraid of.

  But, no—

  Again he slowly opened the outer envelope. With ceremony he pulled the neatly folded piece of paper out. With a deep breath, Bart opened the top by pulling it up, and then unfolded the bottom.

  In beautiful, block-like handwriting, Anthony had given Bart hope for the two of them.

  My dearest Bart,

  I must say, I was a little upset by the sudden absence of letters from you. At first I thought you were busy, saving the universe one messed-up piece at a time.

  But when the months passed and I heard of Dr. Lense’s pregnancy from other friends, and not from you, I started to worry. You work with her, and you didn’t share this wonderful piece of information with me?

  I started thinking of life without you, fearing you’d gone on. I knew I’d somehow pressured you at the wedding. I suppose suggesting marriage was a bit…forward of me.

  After a bit of reflection, and a small vacation on Risa, I’m a little more aware of what kind of decision that would be. For both of us. We need to see each other, Bart.

  I have to talk to you.

  I have to show you everything.

  I have to know if you love him.

  Or me.

  Bart closed the letter and slid it back into the envelope. Love him or who? Jolen? Bart had explained what had happened with Jolen in great detail in his last letter—the last one he’d sent—that nothing had happened.

  A chaste kiss.

  Okay, well, maybe it was more than a kiss.

  Bart sighed and set the letter back down.

  Great. How can I be honest with Anthony when I can’t even be honest with myself?

  Sarjenka came by for the fifty-third time in the last six minutes and touched Fabian’s arm. The man didn’t stir. Didn’t budge.

  Bart leaned forward over his roommate and caught her attention. “Sarjenka, he’s got a full stomach. He’s not going to wake up.”

  She nodded. “Well, he might. It’s been two hours—”

  “Worried?”

  She nodded and looked down at the sleeping man. Bart touched her arm. “Don’t worry about him—I’ll be here for a while. I found I couldn’t read without him nearby snoring.”

  “He’s not snoring.”

  “Rude of him, isn’t it?”

  She saw the note. “What’s that?”

  “Oh, a note from someone very special.”

  She smiled at him. “From your partner, isn’t it?”

  He returned the smile. “Oh,
you’ve heard of Anthony Mark?”

  A frown darkened her face. “Anthony? I thought Fabian said his name was Jolen.”

  Bart shot his roommate with a stare of daggers. He didn’t care how sick the boy got—once he was better the engineer was in for a new round of verbal abuse.

  “Ah, no, Sarjenka. Jolen and I—”

  The doors to sickbay opened. Captains Gold and Scott stepped in, along with Gomez. Lense came out of her office. Gold gestured for Bart to join them.

  “The Ardanans have given the go-ahead. Vanov and a few of his engineers are going to meet the team on Stratos. Will Stevens be ready?” That last question was at Lense.

  She looked doubtful.

  “What is it, lass?” Scotty asked. “I know that look on a doctor’s face can’t be all good.”

  “Well, it’s not all bad either. Follow me.” She led them into the lab attached to sickbay. On two monitors Bart could see the same little spider squids he’d seen before—only there was something different about them.

  Ah—they’ve got longer legs. Bart leaned in close and narrowed his eyes. And more of them.

  “I took another scan of Fabian’s brain.” Lense moved to the chair in front of the workstation and sat down. “After he fell in the turbolift.”

  “What caused that?” Gold asked.

  “Well, that’s what I’m going to show you.” She called up a side, wire-framed image of a human’s brain. “This is the hypothalamus, here. It’s the master gland of the body. It regulates certain functions, one of them being how much food you eat and when.”

  She looked at each of them. Bart nodded to let her know he understood.

  “Now, it’s also responsive to light and smell and other influences. Because the parasites’ dendrites are snaking their way into the two regions governing light and sound, they’re interfering with the hypothalamus.”

  “In what way?”

  “Well, namely, Fabian keeps forgetting to eat. Or drink. I think the last time he ate anything was yesterday morning, before he and Shabalala pulled that double shift on repairing the shields.” She looked at Gold. “Which I understand he fixed earlier today.”

  Scotty nodded. “Aye—he did a fine job. And with no tricorder. Not one device to tell him where or what. It was incredible.”