by Gene DeWeese
“And how do you know this?”
“I don’t know for certain, not as yet. Based on what we have seen so far, however, it seems to be the only logical conclusion. I am of course assuming that the Borg in this universe originated in the Delta Quadrant, as they did in ours.”
“They did,” said the Guinan on the screen.
The Romulan turned to scowl at her. “I realize you know many things, Guinan,” he said stiffly, “but I did not know you were more of an expert on the origins of the Borg than are those who have made it their life’s work to study them.”
“There are many things you do not know about me, Tal,” she said in a tone so familiar it sent chills up and down Picard’s spine. Then she turned to look out of the screen at him. “Captain Picard, would it be possible for me to visit the Enterprise? I would like to learn more about this universe you say you are from. It could be most useful for the Alliance,” she added, glancing at Tal.
Picard hesitated, remembering how his own Guinan had fled from the bridge moments before the hail from the Romulan ship and the appearance of this Guinan’s image on the screen.
“I don’t see why not,” he temporized, “but we are far outside transporter range.”
“Of course,” she said, looking again toward the Romulan, whose scowl faded into a look of resignation.
“Very well, Guinan,” Tal said, “but someday you will go too far, even for you.” Turning back to the screen, he said, “You are welcome to her, Captain, at least for the time being. In the meantime, I will be making a complete report of this incident to Alliance Prime, which may well have further questions. I trust you will have no objection to answering them.”
“None,” Picard said, and the images wavered and disappeared from the screen. The moment the connection was broken, he stood up from the command chair and strode to the turbolift. “Number One,” he said over his shoulder, “let me know if our friend Tal—or anyone else—makes contact. And Mr. Data, keep me informed of any changes in the level of chronometric radiation. I’ll be wherever Guinan is.”
Fourteen
NOT EVEN the discipline that came from a hundred-plus years of iron self-control could keep all traces of shock and surprise from Sarek’s face when the two creatures appeared on the Wisdom’s viewscreen.
They were doubly impossible.
First, they appeared to be Terrans, but Terrans no longer existed except as mindless Borg drones. The only existing records and images of that lost race were contained in the thoroughly studied logs and diaries of the few travelers that had sporadically and unofficially visited the world in earlier, less troubled centuries.
Second, Sarek recognized them not only as Terrans but as specific Terrans that he had until this moment believed existed only in his own hallucinatory memories of a life he could not possibly have lived.
One was named Kirk, those memories told him. He had been a captain and then an admiral in the fleet of starships maintained by the “Federation,” which Sarek had long ago decided was nothing more than his rogue subconscious’s idealized version of the constantly-coming-apart-at-the-seams Alliance.
The other Terran, he “remembered,” was named Scott. For many years he had been an engineer on the ship the one called Kirk commanded.
Logically, neither one could exist here, in the real world.
But, equally logically, it was pointless to deny their existence, just as it was pointless to doubt his own sanity. He had to assume he was sane despite evidence to the contrary.
And he had to find out who and what these beings really were.
It was the only logical course.
But before he could even begin to formulate a plan, one of the beings, his eyes widening in seeming surprise, blurted out Sarek’s name.
For a fraction of a second, the Vulcan froze. How could this creature from his own hallucinations know his name?
Abruptly, keeping his hands out of range of the viewscreen, he signaled for Varkan to break the connection.
As the impossible image was replaced by the sensor-provided image of the aliens’ tiny craft, the commander turned toward Sarek in puzzlement. “What—” he began, but Sarek cut him off.
“Transport them both to Interrogation.”
Varkan hesitated but only for a moment. Stepping forward, he spoke the security code that only a ship’s commander possessed, then activated the transporters and watched the lines of data that streamed across the bottom of the screen.
“Transport complete, Arbiter.”
“Now program it to respond to my voice rather than yours, Commander.”
The hesitation was longer this time, but finally Varkan complied, speaking the code again and adding a transfer sequence. Sarek repeated the code, watching the screen as the computer indicated its acceptance.
“Arbiter—” Varkan began but again was cut off.
“I will speak with the prisoners myself, Commander. Signal me immediately if there is any further communication from Outpost No. 3. Or any communication whatsoever regarding the prisoners or the Vortex.”
“As you wish, Arbiter. But I urge you not to interrogate them alone.”
“Are you suggesting the chamber’s security is insufficient? Or malfunctioning in some way?”
“Of course not, Arbiter,” Varkan said hastily. “All mechanisms are checked regularly. It is just that—”
“I appreciate your concerns, Commander, but you will serve the Alliance best by remaining on the bridge.”
The Romulan looked for a moment as if he were going to continue his protest, but he finally nodded an uneasy assent. “As you wish, Arbiter,” he repeated.
Sarek turned and strode from the bridge, making his way down a dimly lit secondary corridor to the auxiliary transporter cubicle that provided the only means of access to Interrogation, itself buried deep in the Wisdom, as were similar rooms in all Alliance ships.
“Enable entry,” he said distinctly, waiting a moment for the newly reprogrammed computer to recognize his voice and accept his command.
The door slid open and he stepped through, onto the single transporter pad that made up most of the cubicle’s floor. “Interrogation,” he said, unable to entirely suppress a shiver as the transporter field gripped him.
A moment later, he found himself in another small room, this one with no entrances or exits. The only way in or out was by transporter. A control panel and a meter-wide viewscreen took up half of one wall. He was, he realized, probably the first person to occupy this space since the Wisdom had been commissioned, just as the two beings from his false memories were the first to occupy the chamber on the far side of the still-opaque wall opposite the viewscreen.
The so-called “drone chamber.”
One was built into every Alliance vessel, all in the so-far-vain hope that a Borg drone could be captured and totally isolated from the collective.
And interrogated.
As yet it had never happened.
Unless these two were themselves Borg creations, Sarek thought. Could the Borg have learned how to extend their mental links beyond the collective? Could they have eavesdropped on his thoughts and then modified two of their Terran drones to match his false memories?
Or could they have somehow created those false memories in the first place?
Anything, he feared, was possible. After more than a century of observation, no one in the Alliance could do more than make wild speculations about the Borg’s true capabilities.
“Enable automatic extraction mechanism,” he said.
“Enabled,” a soft voice replied from the walls. Until the mechanism was disabled, any significant change in his life signs would be detected and would trigger the transporter.
“Security protocol alshaya.”
“Security protocol alshaya,” the computer confirmed. Until Sarek removed or altered the protocol, the only connections to the outside world were a hard-wired incoming link from the bridge, allowing the commander to signal him in an emergency, and a
hard-wired two-way link allowing him to access the Wisdom’s records.
“Enable iso-vision,” he said. The wall he faced faded to one-way transparency.
The two beings—Terrans? Modified drones?—were both looking in his direction, frowning. Could they have heard his voice despite the force fields that separated them? Or had the faint hum of the transporter alerted them?
Sarek could not entirely suppress the chill he felt as he saw that these two did not just resemble the beings from his false memories, as he had hoped this up-close, detailed inspection would reveal. Other than the stubble on the face of the one called Scott, he could detect no differences between these two and the two from his “most recent” false memories.
Finally, he turned and inspected the bio readouts on the control panel beneath the viewscreen. There were dozens, but collectively they showed two things:
The beings were one hundred percent organic, which meant they were not Borg—at least not in any way that Alliance technology could detect.
And they could be Terrans. None of the readouts conflicted with any of the biological parameters that had been assembled from the records of pre-Borg visitors to the world.
“Full vision and sound,” he said.
A moment later, the beings’ eyes widened. With the sound baffles down, he could hear their accelerated breathing.
Kirk and Scotty lurched and almost fell as the transporter field released them and they found themselves in a featureless, gray-walled room—box?—with no doors, no windows, nothing. The only light source was a square glowing patch above their heads.
“Sarek!” Kirk half-shouted, but there was no response.
At the same time, Scotty snatched the remote control unit from the utility belt at his waist, studied its readout a moment, then entered his security code.
Nothing happened. The Goddard’s computer did not respond.
This was not good, Kirk thought. Even if Sarek reappeared and took the time to talk with them, Scotty’s ill-timed exclamation had committed them to something at least vaguely resembling the truth, which unfortunately was, in its simplest form: “We’re here to radically alter the past and present of dozens of worlds, including your own.”
Not that they would ever have a chance to do any such thing, not if their present situation was any indication.
“Ideas, Scotty?”
The engineer shook his head, frowning as he replaced the remote control in his belt and extracted what Kirk assumed was a tricorder, even though it was closer in size to a communicator. Scotty’s frown deepened as he scanned slowly in all directions.
“There’s another room not much bigger than this one on the other side of this wall,” he said, pointing, “but there’s no way out of either one, except by transporter. And there’s a force field to block that.”
Kirk grimaced. “A maximum security dungeon? But where? In Sarek’s ship?”
“Aye,” the engineer said after a moment’s study of the tiny tricorder screen, “we’re in a ship, at least. There are more than a hundred life forms, including Vulcan and Romulan and half a dozen others. I wouldn’t—”
Scotty broke off, directing the tricorder toward the wall that concealed the adjacent room. “The force field is going down,” he said. An instant later the silence was replaced by a faint, directionless hum.
Hastily he grabbed his remote control, but before he could re-enter his code, the humming stopped and the tricorder indicated the force field was back.
And that the adjoining “room” now contained a life form.
A Vulcan life form.
Hastily, Scotty stowed the tricorder while Kirk nodded his approval. The last thing he wanted to do was call attention to that or the communicator and possibly have the devices confiscated.
As they watched the wall, its entire length wavered like a viewscreen going out of focus.
Suddenly, then, it was transparent, and they found themselves facing not a viewscreen image but a seemingly real and still-haggard-looking Sarek less than two meters away. In the otherwise featureless wall behind him were a small viewscreen and control panel.
“Are we prisoners?” Kirk asked sharply.
“That depends on who and what you are and how you come to know my name,” the Vulcan said, his voice indistinguishable from that of “their” Sarek.
Suddenly, Kirk had an idea. The truth!
But not quite the whole truth…
“What the devil are you talking about, Sarek?” he asked, putting on his best puzzled frown while surreptitiously laying what he hoped was a restraining hand on Scotty’s arm. “Scotty and I’ve known you for thirty years. Your son is one of our best friends.”
Watching Sarek’s eyes closely, Kirk was virtually certain he saw a flicker of reaction but couldn’t tell if it was surprise, anger or disbelief. Sarek—his Sarek—had always been even harder to read than his half-human son, and this version was obviously no easier.
“Explain,” the Vulcan said. “I have no son, and, to the best of my knowledge, I have never seen either of you until a few moments ago.”
“What is this, some kind of Vulcan mind game?” Kirk asked, escalating his frown to a scowl. “Damn it, Sarek, there’s more than enough craziness going on without you pretending not to know us!”
“To what ‘craziness’ are you referring?”
Kirk snorted, chancing a sideways glance at Scotty to see if the engineer was on board yet. “You mean besides you beaming us into some kind of high-tech dungeon for no reason? Where do I start? For one thing, there aren’t supposed to be any Borg within thousands of parsecs, but there they are. Worse, they just appeared, quicker than a bird-of-prey can de-cloak. Where’d they come from? For another, what kind of ship is this Wisdom? That is where we’re being held, isn’t it? You said it was an ‘Alliance’ ship, whatever that is. Did Vulcan pull out of the Federation when Earth wasn’t looking and start its own—”
“I assure you I am not playing games of any kind,” Sarek interrupted. His voice was still under tight control but his face was beginning to take on a pallor Kirk had never seen on a Vulcan. “Tell me what you were doing when you say the Borg vessels ‘appeared.’”
Kirk let out an exasperated sigh but inwardly he exulted. “We were investigating that thing back there, that ribbon of energy,” he said, giving his voice the angry impatience of someone being forced to waste his time answering foolish questions. “Whatever it is, it’s already destroyed at least two ships and killed hundreds of people. We were trying to get a closer look at it, trying to find out what it is, but mostly we were looking for a way to get rid of it before it had a chance to incinerate anything else!”
“The Vortex,” Sarek said, half turning to the viewscreen behind him and entering a series of commands into the control panel beneath it. A moment later, the screen was filled with the now familiar maelstrom of crackling energy.
Visual aids, no less, Kirk thought as he nodded with feigned impatience. “If that’s what you Vulcans call it, yes, that’s what we were trying to get a good look at. We were observing it from what we thought was a safe distance when…something happened. That thing—the Vortex—must’ve reached out and done something to us. For a second, it flickered, and the next thing we knew, there were those two Borg ships. Obviously, we weren’t inclined to stick around to see what they were up to.”
“Do you have sensor records of the events you describe?”
“We’d just gotten there, Sarek. We were just getting set up when things went crazy. Now are you going to tell us what the devil is going on? And why you’re treating us like strangers? Or enemies, even?”
Sarek turned abruptly back to the screen. “Here,” he said as his fingers tapped in more commands, “is an enhancement of what one of our observation platforms recorded in the vicinity of the Vortex at the time you say the Borg ships appeared.”
The image of the Vortex vanished, replaced by a motionless starfield. Within seconds, something flickered into existence a
nd vanished, but it was enough to draw their eyes to that spot on the screen. A moment later, the object appeared again and again faded, but this time Kirk recognized it, and he didn’t have to fake his look of astonishment.
It was the Goddard.
Another appearance, another fade, and finally it remained, solid.
“It would seem,” Sarek said as the image of the Goddard froze on the screen, “that you are the ones who appeared out of nowhere, not the Borg.”
Which should not have been a surprise, Kirk realized abruptly. From his and Scotty’s point of view on the Goddard, this entire universe had suddenly appeared around them, brought into existence by something Picard had done far in the past. It was only logical that, from this universe’s point of view—from Sarek’s point of view—Scotty and he were the ones who had come into existence, suddenly and inexplicably.
Which would, Kirk realized with relief, fit perfectly with the idea that he had been trying to hint at—the idea that the Goddard had accidentally been transported here from an alternate reality, perhaps by some side effect of the energy ribbon, which looked to be the only thing that existed, unchanged, in both universes. If he could sell that idea to Sarek—or better yet, if Sarek came up with it himself—it would then be only logical for Scotty and himself to try to find out where and when the two realities had parted company. Scientific curiosity would demand it. They could simply lay out the history of their reality and compare it to the history of this reality, with particular emphasis on when and where the Borg first appeared.
Kirk put a look of suspicion on his face as Sarek turned away from the screen to face them again. “I thought you said you weren’t playing games with us, Sarek,” he said accusingly, gesturing at the viewscreen. “Then what the devil do you call that?”