Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation (30 page)

Picard sighed. “From time to time.” He regarded Commander Tarl’s diminishing form. “She doesn’t seem happy, does she, even though we’re giving her all that she’s asked for. Even more.” “Who understands the Romulan mind?” Riker said. “I know she thinks she’s actually helping the Empire by turning over the Borg artifact to us, but still, for a Romulan to not think that her system and science and technology are the best…” Riker shrugged. “But she is doing the right thing.” “You mean,” Picard said, “according to us. In our.

‘arrogant’ viewpoint.” Riker eyed his captain with interest. There was little the two men could hide from each other. “Are you having second thoughts about this transaction?” For the first time, Picard wondered if he was. Or was it just an echo of Sarek’s long-held doubts about the Romulans that was affecting him?

“You don’t suppose it’s gone too easily, do you?” Picard asked.

“You mean: Are we being set up?” Picard nodded.

Riker laughed. “Now you sound like you’re recovering from a mind-meld with Worf.” Riker saw that Picard was not returning his laughter and he responded to the question seriously. “If it is a setup, you have to admit it’s fantastically elaborate.” “It all depends on what the purpose of the setup is,” Picard said.

“Any theories?” Riker asked.

Picard had been asking himself the same question. “Perhaps their intention is to mislead us about the nature of the Borg.

Therefore, they have given us this artifact to study, to base our defenses on, only for us to discover in battle that it’s not true Borg technology at all and that all our efforts have been wasted.” Riker shook his head. “Our defeat under those conditions would leave the Romulans facing a Borg Collective which had assimilated all the technology and firepower of the Federation. I doubt even they could be so shortsighted.” That had been Picard’s only plausible theory and he was glad that Riker had pointed out its obvious flaw. He supposed there was a possibility that the Borg artifact contained a bomb of some sort. But any explosive device powerful enough to damage the En[erprise would have been easily detected by the away team. And if the Romulans were that intent on destroying a Federation starship, then there were other, more direct and efficient ways to go about it.

“Do you suppose they know about the Preserver object within the artifact?” Picard asked.

“lt’s apparent that Commander Tarl doesn’t. No matter what she thinks about the Empire’s scientific capabilities, she would have to be a fool to give away something with a power source that’s still functioning after three and a half billion years. I can only think of a few devices like that that have ever been discovered, and so far they’ve given up none of their secrets.” Picard agreed. The Preserver object about to come into his possession was on the order of the Guardian of Forever in terms of age. And that device had defied all attempts to understand it over the century it had been studied.

“So the only question remaining,” Picard said, “is how to get the artifact aboard the Enterprise.” “Geordi is mapping out the tractor-beam support points in its structure,” Riker said. “At close range, we could probably handle it with our cargo transporters, but Geordi and Data are both concerned about whether or not the artifact’s power supply will remain functioning after transport.” Picard understood. There was an entire class of molecules, substances, and devices that could not be transported without having their structure subtly altered. Until his engineer knew exactly what was powering the device, it made good sense to treat it cautiously.

“Then if Mr. La Forge is considering towing the artifact to our shuttlebay,,, Picard said, keeping caution in mind, “I’d recommend using two tractor beams from two shuttlecraft, just so we have the extra factor of safety.”

“I’m sure Geordi is already planning on that,” Riker said. “But there is one other problem we have to address. Commander Taft has a ‘skeleton’ crew of three hundred and twelve personnel on board. She’s insisting on turning over this vessel to DaiMon Pol as soon as the artifact is off-loaded, so we’ll have to make arrangements for taking all those Romulans back to Legara IV.” “For one day we have ample room for that many passengers.

I’m sure Mr. Worf can handle the security arrangements. Anything else?” Riker looked serious. “Only that we not send word of the Preserver object to Starfleet until after we’re back in friendly waters. Once word gets out about this, I have a feeling a lot of people are going to come looking for it.” “If,” Picard emphasized, “it is what we think it is.” Riker angled his head questioningly. “Is that Ambassador Sarek speaking again?” “Only Jean-Luc Picard,” the captain replied with a shake of his head. “With so much at stake, I prefer to take the conservative approach.”

Though his excursion to the Romulan ship had been exhilarating, and a welcome change, Picard had no doubt that his proper place was on the bridge of the Enterprise. He sat in his command chair, perfectly at ease, as the great ship pulsed with its own inner life around him. He was glad to be part of it. He felt at home. Here he could deal with any problem the universe presented him, and that included 312 Romulans and what might be the greatest archaeological find of human history.

La Forge’s voice came over the bridge communications system.

“Captain Picard, the Gould and the Cochrane have established tractor-beam linkup with the artifact. We’re ready to bring it aboard.” “On visual,” Picard requested. At his Ops station beside Ensign McKnight, Data changed the main screen image. Instead of the two Warbirds, Picard now viewed the interior of Tarl’s hangar deck as seen from the optical sensor Mr. La Forge carried with him there. The presence of two of the Enterprise’s sleek, type-7 shuttlecraft, hovering among the predatory designs of the

Romulan Warbird’s parked fighters and shuttles, was incongruous to say the least. But perhaps it was a harbinger of things to come.

There would be peace between the Federation and the Romulans one day. Picard was certain. Perhaps this exchange would someday be seen as its starting point.

-‘Picard to main shuttlebay,” the captain said. “Are you prepared to receive the artifact?” Riker acknowledged.

“XVe’re standing by, Mr. La Forge,” Picard confirmed. “Proceed when ready.” On the viewscreen, the two Federation shuttlecraft began to lift even higher off the hangar deck, and the angle of the sensor changed so that Picard could see the Borg artifact, now clear of scaffolding and lights, begin to rise, bathed in the shimmering blue glow of twin tractor beams.

“We are registering no stress on the artifact,” La Forge reported. “Taking it out.” The Gould and the Cochrane and the Borg artifact began to move slowly forward, until they escaped the Warbird’s bright interior lights and were framed by the wide hangar doors.

“Switch to external viewers,” Picard said.

The viewscreen image changed again. Gracefully, the two shuttlecraft emerged from the hollow void between the Warbird’s dorsal and ventral planes. The artifact, four to five times the size of each shuttle, trailed easily fifty meters behind them.

“We’re clear. Captain,” La Forge announced. “I’m beaming back to our main shuttlebay.” “Well done. Mr. La Forge,” Picard said.

“Registering no change in the artifact’s power load,” Data said.

“After all that artifact has been through,” Picard observed, “I’d be surprised if it reacted at all to this gentle ride.” “Captain~La Forge here. I’m back on the Enterprise.

Shuttlecraft pilots advise two minutes to landing.” Picard Felt pleased with himself. Everything was proceeding perfecth. exactly as planned. Sometimes he suspected the Enter-priw actually ran herself.

“Mr. Data,” he said, “once the artifact is stowed, begin the transportation of Commander Tarrs crew to Shuttlebays Two and

Three.” Dr. Crusher had set up the standard refugee-processing centers in those bays. Picard was almost certain the treatment the Romulan crew would receive there would be better than they received in their own quarters on Tarl’s Warbird.

Data acknowledged the order, then added. “Captain, I am picking up an increased neutrino flux.” Picard leaned forward. “Is it coming from the artifact?” “Negative, sir. It seems to be emanating from the Ferengi Warbird. The signature is as if the ship were decloaking. But since it already is decloaked, I am at a loss to explain the reading.” Picard sat back. “Perhaps the Ferengi have found something else to break on their new ship. Mr. Worf, hail DaiMon Pol.” “Coming onscreen, Captain.” Picard forced himself to smile as the image of the Ferengi-run, Romulan bridge appeared on the main viewer. “DaiMon Pol,” he began, about to inquire if there was any assistance the Enterprise could once again supply.

But DaiMon Pol was not in the command chair. Instead, Picard saw two Ferengi rush past behind it. He heard Romulan warning sirens, Ferengi shouts of alarm.

“DaiMon Pol!” Picard said, getting to his feet. “What is the status of your ship? Mr. Data: Full scan of the 62nd Rule.” Then DaiMon Pol lurched into the range of the viewscreen.

“They’ve cheated us/” he squealed, high-pitched, full of anger.

“None of it works! They’ve—” In a burst of static, DaiMon Pol and the Romulan bridge disappeared from the screen, to be replaced by a forward view in which Commander Tarl’s vessel still maintained position on the right, but where DaiMon Pol’s vessel had been to the left was nothing more than a rapidly expanding ball of plasma, studded with spinning hullplates.

“Data…” Picard said in alarm. “What happened? Did they self-destruct somehow… ?” But before Data could reply, Picard saw the answer to his question for himself.

A third Warbird flew through the cloud of destruction that had been the 62nd Rule.

All phasers blazing, it flew for the Enterprise.

Some of them had been doctors once.

But the Optimum had closed the universities. The Optimum had believed in the survival of the fittest, and medical care was considered a luxury. To the Optimum, those who were too old, unhealthy, incomplete, were little different from those of the wrong color, the wrong religion, the wrong political beliefs. Doctors were unnecessary because those who were nonoptimal would be cleansed ,/horn the Earth by the raging fire of change, of purification, of rebirth.

But the fire had come to Adrik Thorsen first.

In the long weeks of his recovery, he remembered little of how that last night in Battersea had ended. He remembered Cochrane, O/’course. He remembered how the scientist had mocked him, had lied to him. had dared to touch him.

He remembered how the scientist had raised his laser, rejecting Thors’en, rejecting the.future.

Cochrane
, light had cut across Thorsen’s face, seared his eve, so t/
at in all the years ever after, whenever he was in darkness, the xcintillation of that laser still echoed in what remained of his optic nerve. A flickering shadow, a shimmering souvenir of his.first and only meeting with the one man who could have guaranteed a new life for the Earth. The one man who, through his refusal of the Optimum, had brought about all that had followed in the vacuum of the Optimum’s collapse.

Thorsen had crawled along the turf of Battersea, the laser afterimage burning in his eye, his brain. He had screamed Cochrane’s name as he had crawled, tasting blood, feeling pain, seeking darkness and coolness and relief He had crawled onto concrete, down rough stairs, to a place where cameras had once been installed, when the Battersea Stadium had meant something.

Then the night had caught fire and he remembered nothing else until they woke him up to scrub the dead skin from his body with wire bristles that found each nerve on his shiny new skin.

Eventually, the worst of the pain faded, except for the light that would shine forever in his missing eye, and the ache that would haunt his arms and legs.

Although those who had been doctors explained that he had no arms and legs.

Adrik Thorsen had been cleansed by fire.

And been left incomplete.

Nonoptimal.

As he lay helpless in his sterile bed, what had happened to Thorsen happened also to his dreams of salvation.

The mistakes of Khan had been avoided. But new mistakes had been made. The Optimum collapsed. Pilloried by those who had no vision.

From his sterile bed, Adrik Thorsen called for doctors to make him whole, so he could escape with the others of the cadre. Go into hiding. Learn from their mistakes and try again.

But those who answered his call were no longer doctors. He had helped see to that. They were interface experts now. And Adrik Thorsen learned firsthand **,hat happened to human nervous tissue when Josephson probes were inserted into the brain.

When they were through with him, Thorsen was whole, after a fashion. He could walk, he could pick up and manipulate objects, after a fashion. But his new limbs ran on batteries, and every nerve impulse intended to cause movement also triggered intense pain through the crude interface of the Josephson probes.

Nonoptimal.

In return for information about those in the cadre who had abandoned him, certain fanatics eager to replace him gave Thorsen passage.from the Earth, forcing him to become what he despised most—someone who deserted the homeworld.

The night he left, another fire ignited round the globe, and when the ashes fell and Earth’s sun shone through the smoke again, and the postatomic horror had exhausted itself and the planet, thirty-seven million corpses shamed those who had survived.

The inevitable cry went out: This must not happen again.

And this time, on the colony worlds, that cry was finally heard.

Something changed in humanity with that last war, because for the first time it was clear even to the masses that no human conflict, even one that could consume a world, could ever be allowed to overshadow or assume more importance than the human race itself There was a universe waiting, and with the infinite possibilities it offbred, there came a generation that had no time or need for bigotry, intolerance, and greed.

Even as enemy soldiers turned to one another to share water on the battlefield once the guns had fallen silent, humanity finally abandoned the old ways and learned the new.