Orion's Hounds

by Christopher L. Bennett

  Orilly told Deanna of a day when she and her little sister were on a trip to the islands, and fell in a ravine while out exploring. She sprained a trunk, while her sister broke a leg and several ribs. A voliro, a local predator, came near, and she felt its need, its place in the gestalt. She filled in what she could for Deanna, contextualizing her instinctive awareness with specific knowledge she’d gained after the fact. The island’s ecosystem had been damaged by shifts in the climate which brought heavy storms and unwonted cold. The voliro was one of the last of its kind on the island. It was pregnant, but half-starved; one meal would make the difference between its litter’s life and death. If the litter died, there would not be enough of the animals left to limit the population of a small rodentlike creature. Out of control, the rodents would consume the roots of the local flora, killing them. Other species in the gestalt would normally feel the imbalance and react to restore it; but it was isolated, out of reach of other predators. The Irriol would do what they could, but only so many resources could be spared. If the voliro’s litter died, the region’s ecology would be damaged. Many creatures of multiple species would die. The local Irriol village, a community of hundreds, would also have to relocate in time.

  Orilly had not known these specifics at the time, but she had felt the gist of it in her bones, and known that at that moment, the predator’s rights were weighted more heavily in the gestalt than her own or her sister’s. Her sister felt it too, and gave up trying to stand on her broken leg, simply laying there for the predator to take. “But I didn’t want her to die,” Orilly said. “I didn’t want to die either. So I…I threw rocks at the voliro until it ran. And I put my sister on my back and carried her to safety.”

  At home, she went on, her family was disturbed, sensing that she’d violated gestalt. “Did they punish you?” Deanna asked.

  Orilly seemed bewildered by the question. “The gestalt is punishment enough. I felt the wound I caused, felt it grow and spread. The mother’s babies died unborn. Within months, the rodents had overrun the area, the plants were dying. So many were starving.” She shuddered. “But my crime was worse than I knew. With the plants gone, the roots were gone, and when the next storm season came…there was a mudslide. The village was buried. Hundreds died.” She gazed up plaintively at Deanna. “I am a mass murderer, Counselor. The pain of it…feeling the gaping wound I tore in the Whole…in some ways, exiling me for my crime was almost an act of mercy.”

  Deanna chose her words carefully. “I won’t presume to judge your people’s ways. But you did what you did out of love, to save your sister. And you couldn’t have known, even with the gestalt, that the indirect consequences would be so great. If anyone could have predicted the mudslide, it would have been prevented, or the village evacuated.”

  “It does not matter. I knew that depriving the voliro and her babies would cost many lives—Irriol lives or others, it makes little difference. I heard the gestalt and I chose to ignore it…and others paid the price.” She lowered herself to all fours, resting her head sadly on her forepaws, and wrapping her trunks around them. “My sister was ready to give herself. She understood what I could not. And she did not forgive me for making her the reason for my crime.”

  It was a while before Deanna spoke. “I had an older sister once. Her name was Kestra. And she died before I was old enough to remember her. I would give anything if she could be alive today, even if she hated me.” She slid out of her chair and to her knees, to meet Orilly on her own level. “Malar…you had a difficult choice to make. Either choice would have been just as painful, for you and for others. But either choice would have saved lives as well as cost them. The choice you made was made out of love, and the desire to help another being.”

  “No. I was selfish. I could have given myself to the voliro.”

  “Then who would have carried your sister to safety? You made the right decision for your gestalt—the smaller one that was your family. So I know I can trust you with this small gestalt I’m asking you to help me form.”

  She leaned forward, made sure to catch Orilly’s eyes. “I won’t tell you your sense of guilt isn’t valid. In fact, I think it’s extraordinary that your people can care so deeply for your world, feel such a profound bond to its life. If anything, Malar, the guilt you feel is a testament to the strength of your empathy. And that strength is what I need.

  “So will you help me?”

  Orilly tilted her head and spoke slowly. “You could order me.”

  “I need you to choose this. To open yourself willingly. That’s the only way it’ll work.”

  The cadet drew in a long, shuddering breath and sighed. “Very well. I will try.”

  Aili Lavena fidgeted within her hydration suit as she headed back to her quarters after a long shift at the helm. The Selkie appreciated the garment for allowing her to function in Starfleet, to interact with air-breathers in a way she no longer could on her own, now that she’d outgrown her amphibious phase. But being enclosed in it for hours at a time could grow uncomfortable. She didn’t like the way her twin gill-crests, which started atop her smooth head and continued down her back, had to stay sandwiched within the stiff fins on the suit’s back, confined within the porous layers that kept oxygenated water circulating across their surfaces. Every day at end of shift, she was eager to get back to her water-filled quarters, strip fully nude and luxuriate in the freedom of it. It was often even nicer when she had someone to join her in luxuriating, but today she was just as happy to have some solitude. Arranging sex with an air-breathing partner could get complicated and strenuous. Aili liked complicated and strenuous sex, but right now she was feeling too lazy.

  As she neared her quarters, she saw Dr. Bralik, the Ferengi geologist, approaching from the other direction. She waved absently to the small-eared female, intending to leave it at that, but Bralik seemed to have other ideas. “Ensign Lavena!” she crowed in her loud, nasal voice, whose grating qualities were only slightly muffled by the air-water interface between it and Aili’s dainty seal-like ears. “You know, I’ve been hoping to have a talk with you.”

  Lavena stopped, accepting that comfort would have to wait. “Hello, Dr. Bralik. What can I help you with?”

  “Oh, just a matter of curiosity, if you can spare a few minutes.”

  “I’m glad to help, if I can.”

  “Good, good. Now, let me see, if I’ve got this straight, you Selkies, you can’t breathe out of the water, right? I mean, of course, you’ve got that suit on and all, but is it just a convenience or do you need it all the time?”

  It was a question she’d gotten many times, and she didn’t mind satisfying the Ferengi’s curiosity about her species. “In this phase of my life, I’m fully aquatic,” she said. “In the first phase of our lives, we’re amphibious, able to breathe on land at least part of the time, though we need to stay near water so our gills don’t dry out. Later in life, after childbearing, our lungs can no longer sustain us, so we live in the water full-time.”

  “But you still have lungs, right? I mean, you’re talking to me.”

  Aili smiled. “My lung is smaller than it was, and has changed in structure. It serves as a flotation sac, nothing more. And my voice is produced by muscle vibration, not airflow.”

  “Hm. I’m no biologist, but that seems kind of an odd evolutionary twist.”

  “We don’t have much land on Pacifica,” Aili explained. “We go out to the sea so we don’t use up resources our young need to grow. As humanoids we need to develop at least partly on land.”

  “Okay. I’ll take your word for that. Still there’s one thing, though, one other matter I’m wondering about.”

  “Yes?”

  “So if you can’t breathe air even for a little while…how exactly did you frinx with Dr. Ra-Havreii last week?”

  Aili gaped at her, speechless. Bralik shrugged and added, “That is, unless Efrosians can breathe water. I asked Ravvy about that at lunch the other day, but he didn’t want to go into detail.
”

  “He…he told you?” The bastard had insisted he’d be discreet!

  “Oh, I’m sorry, are you, did I upset you? Didn’t mean to, honey, really. I mean, I thought Selkies were pretty liberal about such things. Judging from the gossip I’ve heard from Ferengi males, though you can’t always believe that.”

  “No, it’s…I’m certainly not a prude,” Aili insisted forcefully. Being thought of as a prude was perhaps the one thing more embarrassing to an aquatic Selkie than…well, the other thing her people thought of her. “It’s just…other species, you know, and their standards…I’d just really rather appreciate it if you didn’t talk about my liaisons to others. And I’m going to have a talk with Dr. Ra-Havreii about that, too.”

  “Oh, don’t worry, Ravvy didn’t tell me.”

  “He didn’t? Then, how—”

  Bralik tapped one of her ears. “I may not hear as well as a male, but my quarters are nearby. I overheard Ravvy talking to Counselor Troi when he left your quarters.”

  Oh, Abyss! “Troi?” Aili gasped. “You mean—she saw him leaving…she knows about…oh, no.” She was almost tempted to rip her suit open right here and drown herself in the air.

  “Say, what’s the problem? No reason she’d be jealous. It’s not like Ravvy was frinxing her too—though not for want of trying, I can tell you.”

  “Look, just—please, don’t tell anyone else, okay?” Without waiting for an answer, Aili moved on and hastened to her quarters. Now more than ever, she needed to be alone.

  “Just to be clear,” Deanna explained in the next morning’s briefing, “the gestalt is not like a mind-meld. The ship’s telepaths and empaths will be linked together, but only to share psionic sensitivity and power, not thoughts or knowledge. We will be…aware of each other’s presence, affected by each other’s responses and needs, but on a visceral level, not a cognitive one.” Riker was glad to hear that. He didn’t want every telepath on the ship to share in Deanna’s memories of last night, or any given night.

  “It will be necessary for Dr. Ree to neutralize the telepathic suppressants he administered before,” Deanna added. “We may need every psi-sensitive mind the ship has. The larger the gestalt, the better.”

  Tuvok seemed uneasy. “What you propose will be difficult for…the Vulcans on board. Once we make contact, the influx of intense emotion will prove difficult to endure.” Riker didn’t need to be a telepath to know Tuvok was concerned on a personal level, not just a tactical one. Most Vulcans weren’t nearly as good at hiding their feelings as they liked to think—a discrepancy which had served Riker well in many a poker game.

  “Your role in the gestalt,” Deanna explained, “and that of the others, will be mostly passive. You’ll essentially serve as psionic amplifiers for Cadet Orilly and myself, allowing us to broadcast more strongly. Hopefully once we have the star-jellies’ attention and can open communications, the gestalt won’t be necessary any longer—they’ll be able to read my thoughts and send theirs back to me.”

  “Hopefully,” Tuvok repeated.

  “Even if not, Orilly and I will bear the brunt of their communication. That may shield the rest of you from the full effects.”

  “But again you cannot say so with certainty.”

  “Mr. Tuvok,” Riker asked with a touch of steel, “will you be able to perform this duty or not?”

  The Vulcan met his gaze evenly, though he was very closed off. “Yes, sir, I will.”

  “Good. Counselor, proceed.”

  Deanna chose to assemble the group in stellar cartography, adrift in free fall, in order to help them find the right state of mind to communicate with beings who lived most of their lives that way. She knew it was an uncomfortable environment for Orilly, but it was important for the Irriol to accept it, to open herself to it, if this was to work. The cadet understood that and was making a brave effort, though her legs and trunks were still flailing some and she kept putting herself into a slight spin. Fortunately, Lieutenant Chamish was nearby and used his low-level telekinesis to halt it. The simian-featured Kazarite was an ecologist, his telepathy limited to communion with animals, since higher cognitive functions interfered with it somehow. Deanna was hoping that wouldn’t reduce his usefulness here, since he was serving mainly as a conduit. Then again, the jellies’ emotions had affected him before, even though they were sentient beings. That anomaly might be worth exploring later on, but for now it was simply convenient. At least he was comfortable with floating; the Kazarites could use their TK abilities to levitate for short distances, a useful skill in their mountainous home-land.

  The others here were all Vulcan—Tuvok, T’Pel, Savalek—except for Ree. He was here mainly to monitor the others’ health, but Deanna was hoping that, although he lacked the active empathy of some Pahkwa-thanh, he might have some latent sensitivity that could contribute to the gestalt.

  Deanna realized that she hadn’t yet had much chance to get acquainted with Tuvok’s wife T’Pel, even though she’d been aboard for weeks now. She was a civilian with no scientific credentials, and thus had no formal shipboard duties requiring interaction with others. She had kept largely to herself so far, and Tuvok had shown no interest in discussing his personal life with his crewmates. When T’Pel had arrived in cartography, Deanna had apologized for imposing on her. T’Pel had simply stated that Tuvok had briefed her on what was expected and she was ready to serve. Deanna sensed a tentativeness in both her and Tuvok, and perhaps between them as well, but maybe it was just their unease at the situation.

  Ree handled himself unexpectedly well in free fall, using his heavy tail to maneuver about his center of mass gracefully, almost like a cat. He scanned each person present with his medical tricorder, and bringing himself to a halt facing Deanna, reported, “The psi-suppressant has been fully purged from all your systems. All your psi indices read nominal. Sadly, mine is also at its normal, immeasurably small level.”

  “Then we’re ready,” Deanna said, and turned her head to Orilly. Reaching out to take the cadet’s trunk-hand, she caught her gaze and said, “It’s time, Malar.”

  Ree tilted his head at them. “Should we all join hands?”

  Orilly looked puzzled. “Why?”

  “Oh. Never mind, then.”

  “Just try to relax and clear your mind,” Deanna told him. “Like meditation.”

  Ree sighed. “I knew I should have eaten first. Anyone willing to volunteer a limb?”

  Orilly winced. “Please, Doctor,” Deanna said. “Not all of us find your sense of humor relaxing.”

  “Sorry.”

  After that, things grew quiet. With a little physical and empathic handholding from Deanna, Orilly was able to calm herself and begin reaching out with her mind. At first, there seemed to be no effect. But gradually Deanna recognized a change in her awareness. There were no other thoughts impinging on her mind, no subsuming of her identity; but she seemed to feel her own mind expanding in scope and perspective. It was like she was opening up, freeing herself from constraints she hadn’t even been aware of, as though the full range of her senses before had only been tunnel vision. The rest of the universe seemed closer than it had before, clearer to discern.

  She reached out her senses, listening for familiar voices, sending out a probe: We are here. Speak to us. It seemed to echo now, her mental voice/presence; it was stronger, more resonant than before. She knew it would carry farther.

  And indeed, before long there was a return echo, a faint impression on the edge of awareness: acknowledgment, curiosity. We are also here; where are you? Or so it would be if it were in words, rather than emotions and impressions.

  Here. Deanna opened her eyes, taking in stellar cartography’s display of the heavens around the ship. Six others were with her, but she saw only the cosmos. Stars—founts of lifewarmth—watering holes. Dust clouds—ticklish softness, nourishment—grazing fields. Emission nebulae—invigorating, soothing—cool breeze. Stellar nurseries—turbulent lifewarmth [too much/careful you don’t
get burned/whee, let’s do it again!]—swimming the rapids.

  Yet there was more than she could see, and now she saw it. Fields of energy: gamma, radio, tetryon, psi [how’s the weather?/let’s ask it!]. Contours of [starpull] gravity, hills and vales in spacetime. All of it a veneer atop the fathomless depths of subspace [we dive, but not too deep!/mustn’t lose our way].

  They saw what she saw, and she felt attention focus upon her, engulfing her—gentle curiosity, but that of a child’s hand cupping a ladybug, not threatening but still overpowering. We greet you, but you are not-us [wary/ caution/curious]. How do you know us?

  We have met your kind before, Deanna sent back, a long way from here in space and time. She looked around, found Deneb in the sky and focused her attention on it. There, she thought, and gave them her memories of Farpoint.

  Yes—our cousins sang of you! Listener and Liberator [great joy/gratitude]. Not so far from here, though.

  We wish to get to know you, be your friends, she projected. She hesitated to send the next thought, since it might commit her a bit too much; but this was a bond of emotion, and it just felt right. We believe we can help you with a problem.

  Chapter Six

  Christine Vale had been staring at Jaza Najem for over a minute now, while he stared in turn at his console. The Bajoran was so enthralled in his studies that he didn’t even realize she was studying him—his warm coffee-colored skin, his wide dark eyes, his high, intelligent forehead, his expressive lips, the way the ridges between his eyebrows gave him a perpetually thoughtful look.

  Knock it off, she thought. Yes, he was handsome. Yes, he was intelligent and thoughtful, and an extremely generous lover…Stop that. That was something that needed to remain in the past, and not affect her job. She was the first officer, he was the science officer, and that was all there was to it. So if she wanted to go up to him and ask for an update on his researches, she should just do so. As simple as that.