Signs from Heaven

by Phaedra M. Weldon

  “Are you sure, lad?” Scotty looked less than convinced.

  So did everyone else—well, except for Tev, who was too busy studying the schematics they now had to be concerned about something so inconsequential as the health of mere enlisted personnel. Sarjenka made up for Tev, though; her medical tricorder was out and trained on him like a phaser.

  What put him off a little was the attitude of the Ardanans. The local engineers had moved slowly up the tiers to stand to the side. Not one of them had tried to help, much less touch one of the podiums. Except for Dreena—but what she did was stay close, always watching him.

  “It’s simple.” He put his hands in the air as a gesture. The holographic schematic remained in place, hovering above the podium. “The way this system is set up…” He turned and started touching illuminated panels. The image before them changed, shifting down to the engine room. A side-layout of the cylinder as well as the tiers appeared. He pointed at the two areas beside the cylinder. “It’s the dampening system—it’s harmonically out of sync due to years of neglect.”

  Pattie nodded slowly. “That should be easy to fix. That is, if we knew where to fix them. Or how.”

  Fabian looked back at the schematic. How do I fix this?

  And the answer came to him. He stood directly in front of the podium. The images changed. He could set the sequence to recalibrate, but it would mean taking them offline for one point seven seconds before rebooting them.

  But without the dampeners to govern up or down, the city could do a somersault, lose momentum and crash.

  He looked at Scott and Tev. “I have an idea.” He tapped his combadge. “Stevens to Conlon.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Ready with that tractor beam?”

  There was a pause. “Everything’s set, but I have to warn you—with the preliminary tests we just completed, calculating for the city’s structural integrity as well as overall weight—I’d say I could hold the city in the air for maybe one point six seconds.”

  Point-one second off.

  But it would have to work.

  “What is it you intend, Specialist?” Tev asked.

  “Reset the inertial dampeners—it’s the only way to resync up the harmonics.”

  “You’re sure this’ll work, lad?” Scotty’s voice sounded concerned, and Fabian couldn’t entirely blame him.

  “Yes,” Fabian lied. No point in mentioning that point-one second. That was the sort of thing that would get Tev’s bowels in an uproar, and Scotty probably wouldn’t be too thrilled, either.

  Tev and Scotty exchanged glances, then Tev tapped his combadge. “Tev to Conlon.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Prepare to engage the tractor beam on Specialist Stevens’s mark.”

  “You got it.”

  Fabian looked at everyone. “I’d grab hold of something—this might be a bumpy ride.”

  Everyone did as he suggested.

  Except for Dreena, who watched him with narrowed eyes.

  He tapped his combadge. “Nancy—mark.”

  “Did you feel that?” Carol whispered at Bart as the two of them stood in front of three of the series paintings. The pole remained in the wall to their left.

  He looked up from his padd. “You mean the atmospheric shift combined with the abrupt drop of the floor causing me to rise about a fifth of a centimeter in the air?”

  She nodded. “Yeah, that.”

  Bart shook his head and looked back at his padd. “Nope. Didn’t feel a thing.”

  Carol smiled at him. “You always manage to make me laugh—even when I’m scared out of my wits.”

  “Why so?”

  “Bart, we’re on a flying city.”

  “Well, technically Stratos doesn’t really fly. It floats.”

  “Bart, I know you’re being silly because we just had a bad scare. But something’s just happened.”

  “Gomez to Captain Scott.” Gomez moved away from Vanov and stared at the floor.

  “Scott here,” came the familiar brogue. “Everyone all right?”

  “Yes—I think. But is the city okay? That abrupt drop was a bit unnerving.”

  “Aye. Conlon put a tow line on us for a bit while Fabian restarted the inertial dampeners.”

  “He did what?” Gomez looked at Corsi who came nearer, her face unreadable as always. “Is Fabian okay?”

  “He’s a bit disoriented—Sarjenka says the dendrites are growing larger, and longer. They’re apparently moving into other regions of the brain.”

  Gomez continued to look at Corsi. “What’s happened? Why haven’t you transported Fabian to sickbay?”

  “Well,” Captain Scott said in a tired-sounding voice. “Lass, we can’t beam out, and no one can beam in.”

  “What? How—”

  “The reset activated a city-wide shield that prevents any matter transportation in and out of the city. We can contact the da Vinci, which I’ve already done, but we can’t get to her.”

  “How do we shut the shield off?”

  “That is the question, lass,” Captain Scott said. “Tev and I are working on it.”

  Corsi tapped her badge. “Captain Scott, did it work? Is the city still falling?”

  “Aye, we’re still falling—it looks like the dampeners are now working fine—but he wasn’t able to finish the RPM recalibration.”

  Bart and Carol frowned at each other. Gomez narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

  “It means we no longer have two days before Stratos falls. We have less than four hours. We need Mr. Stevens. Sarjenka’s trying to revive him. Keep looking for something that could help us—I’ll let you know if something changes.”

  “I’m heading your way,” Corsi said and started to move around Gomez. Bart felt for her—she was concerned for Fabian. They all were.

  “No, Domenica,” Gomez said. “You stay here—make sure we don’t trip another Disruptor trap. Let Captain Scott and Tev keep working on getting the shield down.”

  “We’ll have it ready in a jiffy, Commander, worry not. Scott out.”

  Carol moved to stand in front of two of the odd pictures hanging on the wall where she and Gomez came in. Bart sighed and looked at the pieces to see what was so fascinating. It occurred to him that those—including the other eight positioned in exactly the height between the floor and ceiling—bore a strange resemblance to the one he’d noticed near the entrance. Just as Corsi had said.

  He turned to his left to look at the three behind him. The left painting was a brilliant red, the middle one green, and the right one blue. Looking to his right where Carol stood, the two pictures were light blue and a pinkish sort of red.

  “Carol?” Gomez strode across the room to where the cultural specialist stood.

  He turned back to the original three behind him and visualized them on the floor like a great puzzle piece. Only five of the ten pieces had any sort of title. He typed them into his padd. They all translated into phrasal definitions—much the way Japanese or Andorii did.

  Where He has been. Where He shall travel. As above. In station be.

  Bart grunted.

  The one at the front of the museum had said So below.

  He swallowed as he took a closer look at the farthest painting—the one to the right of the pole. It said As above.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  Not the same translation found in China on Earth centuries ago?

  As above, so below. The second line was, As within, so without.

  The others were merely directions. Forward, back, and still.

  Could it be that easy? That the key to moving Stratos was within. Within the innermost museum? The city’s central core?

  That the schematics to the city propulsion—the plans, the blueprints—all hidden within the paintings themselves?

  Hidden in plain sight—and the Stratos Dwellers always believed the Troglytes were too slow and stupid to figure things out. They could read blueprints—simple enough.

  Bu
t what if what they needed was actually a part of the artwork?

  “Commander, I think I might have found something.” He turned and smiled at her. “The city plans”—he pointed to the walls—“They’re in the paintings!”

  Chapter

  7

  Gold entered sickbay, his irritation building with each passing second. “All right, Lense, I’m here. What’s so damned important?”

  Lense motioned him to her. “We need to get Fabian out of there.”

  “Right now, I can’t beam anyone in or out of Stratos. The whole city’s sealed up tight—not even the Ardanan transmat devices are working.”

  “What kind of defense is that?” Lense asked.

  “Scotty says it’s the work of a madman,” Gold said. “He believes it was installed by Plasus during the verbal war with the Federation. Because Kirk had Scotty beam Plasus to the surface, Plasus installed a safeguard against that. What we don’t know is if the restart of the dampeners keyed it, or if it was the tractor beam Conlon threw around the city.”

  “Can’t you just somehow grab the city again and put it on the ground?”

  “Not according to Conlon. That one second of power the da Vinci used to hold Stratos in midair caused a sufficient drain on our own power. By more than forty percent. She and her team are working on building the power back up, but we can’t try that again soon. And the Bataan is still too far out of range.”

  Lense absently rubbed at her belly as she drew her lips into a thin line. “Sarjenka sent me up the latest scans on the parasite dendrites.” She leaned her head to the left. “They’re spreading. And as much as I hate to admit it, she was right as to the cause. It’s the stimulation. Every time he stimulates the dendrites, they get excited and grow.”

  “Are you saying they’re dangerous now? You told us Sentinels lived with these things in their brains for years.”

  “Well, that’s true.” She held out her hands. “These things were genetically engineered for the Ardanan brain, which I’ve been studying. The human brain is different on many levels—mainly in the areas of neurochemicals.”

  “Lense…plain English.”

  “Sorry. The relevant neurochemicals that these things feed on aren’t relegated to discrete areas of the brain in a human, but all over the place. So what’s happening is similar to the strangler-ivy effect. The old Earth cancer equivalent. These things are starting to spread, making connections to other regions they were never meant to connect, going first to adjacent areas, advancing like ivy you can’t control.”

  Gold frowned at her. “You mean like kudzu.”

  She shook her head, her expression showing her unfamiliarity with the strangling southern weed. “I’m assuming that’s like ivy…”

  He moved his head from shoulder to shoulder. “More or less, but I get the point.”

  “It’s started moving all over the cerebral cortex, not just in those previous areas. If it continues it will interfere with all sorts of centers—having different regions of the brain talking to each other that were never meant to at all, including the reticular activating system of the brainstem.”

  He frowned. “Lense, what are you telling me?”

  “It’s going to interfere with his RAS, Captain. The RAS is responsible for breathing, temperature regulation—without it, he’ll die.”

  “Gevalt. Is there any way to stop it?”

  “The only thing we’ve come up with is to slow the stimulation. But that thing’s programmed to integrate with that city. Sarjenka said he managed to reset the dampeners before he became disoriented. His temperature’s up. Captain, it’s going to happen faster and faster unless she sedates him, cuts him off from the city itself.”

  He rubbed at his chin. “I can’t authorize that. Stevens is the only one who can get this city stabilized—we’re running out of time. He’s already corrected the dampeners—as of ten minutes ago he was able to adjust the generators and the city’s showing signs of slowing. Faulwell’s found something in a series of paintings in a lower vault—we think they might be able to show Stevens how to move the city, maybe even land it.”

  She looked up at him, her gaze shifting across his face. “Captain—”

  “I know, I know. We’ll watch out for him, but the fate of millions rests in his hands. I can’t let them down.”

  “Just—” She took in a deep breath. “Just remember what I said when we bury another good man.” With that she put her hand to her face, turned, and moved as quickly as she could into her office.

  Fabian shifted the generators again—achieving another jump in the RPMs. It was getting easier as well as harder to manipulate the Ardanan controls. Most of it was conceptual—images drawn from his own mind and used to lead him to the right course of action.

  Only he’d found nothing in the system about a shield to prevent transmat and beaming technologies. It didn’t exist.

  Tev called out from the right podium where he was manipulating the holographic controls. “There—that’s done it. The city has stabilized.” He frowned at the images moving in front of him then nodded. “We’re lifting. The city should reach previous altitude in less than thirty minutes.”

  From next to Tev, Scott turned to Fabian and smiled. “Don’t want to suddenly jump altitudes—might be damaging to the city’s structure.”

  Fabian nodded before lowering his head. He removed his hands from the podium and spread his fingers over his face. The holographic images faded from all three centers, though the team was certain the last instructions would be carried out.

  Sarjenka ran her tricorder over him again. He was starting to hate that little machine. “Your temperature’s up another half degree.”

  That much he knew. He felt flushed, his skin warm to the touch. But he was also cold and had put his own jacket back on when everyone else discarded theirs.

  “And your heart rate keeps fluctuating.” She closed the tricorder.

  He kept his eyes closed. It would be so easy to just lay down on the floor and take a nice long siesta. But he couldn’t. Not yet. “They’ve grown again, haven’t they?”

  He didn’t need to look at her to know she nodded.

  Scott said, “Lad, you’ve done good. Take a rest. The city’s no longer in danger of falling—the generators are happy as pigs in mud.”

  “But the shield…” Fabian shivered.

  “There’s an idea I had…” Pattie spoke up.

  Opening his eyes he turned to his left. “Shoot.”

  “Do what we did before when you reset the dampeners. There was a one second or so window there where the power was shut down. Why not do it again and have Poynter beam us back to the da Vinci?”

  It was feasible, but not what he wanted to do. He wanted to turn the shield off completely. What good was a floating city when no one could get in or out? Taking a shuttle in was highly dangerous because of the winds—Stratos had no docking ports at all.

  Completely self-contained.

  Fabian looked at Scott and Tev. The latter spoke. “That would only be acceptable as a last resort. The power required to hold the city in place was taxing on the da Vinci’s engines, which are currently only at seventy percent efficiency.”

  Pattie made a bell-like noise that Fabian knew meant she was crestfallen.

  Fabian put a hand on her carapace. “I think it’s a sound idea—as an alternative if something goes wrong.” He smiled. “So let’s hope nothing goes wrong.”

  “Faulwell to Scott.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “We’re still waiting on those tools.”

  Fabian laughed. Just as his roommate had called in that he’d found something of interest, Fabian connected again with the engine’s map and found out how and where to increase and reset the generator speed.

  Bart had wanted some cutting tools—apparently what he needed had to be taken down. “I need to see the whole picture,” he’d said.

  Fabian tapped his own combadge. “I’ll be right there, Bart.”

>   “You still alive?”

  “Yeah. Hold tight.” He stood and moved slowly away from the podium to the satchel of tools they’d brought with them.

  “Lad, maybe someone else should go. You look like death warmed over.”

  Fabian made a lopsided grin. That pretty much described how he felt. “No—I need to see what it is he’s found, in case these buggies in my head can tell me something about them. If there is a way to move the city, I’d feel much better about it. In case the Band-Aid doesn’t hold and it comes down anyway.”

  “But that’s exactly what you need to avoid,” Sarjenka said. “More stimulus. You need to rest.”

  “I will as soon as we get that shield down.”

  Sarjenka tucked her tricorder into the medical pouch over her shoulder. “Then I’m coming with you.”

  “Fine.” He looked at Scott, who now stood at the transmat platform. They’d discovered the technology still worked within the city. “Just get us to Bart’s location.”

  “All right, lad.” He turned to the podium and activated the start-up sequence.

  Fabian frowned, his peripheral vision noticing the still-hovering Ardanan engineers. Not one of them had lifted a finger to help—they just stood there and watched.

  The four of them made Fabian uncomfortable, especially since it looked as if they were always staring at him.

  Gold kept his expression neutral as he listened to the yammering of Council Spokesman Yaffie, Ardana’s voice of the New Future movement—the faction that wanted Stratos destroyed. Since announcing that the descent of Stratos had been halted, and its anti-gravity engines fixed, his voice had been the loudest. According to Elected High Advisor Nelois, Yaffie had quite a following.

  He, Nelois, and Gold were discussing a new timetable for the S.C.E.’s estimated completion—and for getting the shield shut off.

  Yaffie, of course, wanted the city destroyed now.

  Nelois wanted them to transmat the new Sentinel to the planet so he could be thrown a party (not that Gold thought Fabian would ever miss a party).

  And Gold—Gold just wanted them both to shut up.

  The two of them appeared now together on the front viewer of the da Vinci. Gold leaned to the right in his chair. Susan Haznedl, promoted to lieutenant junior grade, sat at ops, her finger poised on the mute button.