Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (35 page)

“Thank you, Praetor.”

“You may go, Saldis.
Jolan tru.”

“
Jolan tru,
Praetor.” And, with that, Saldis was out of the gaze of the trigger-happy bodyguards, and back to work.

A
D’Deridex
-class warbird dropped out of warp in a nameless system through which a number of the intercepted signals had passed. It remained cloaked, and began to
launch probes. As the first wave of probes spread out from the warbird’s launchers, it made a short warp-jump to the opposite side of the system. There, it repeated the process.

After a few moments, during which time its crew checked that the probes were all functioning properly, the warbird leapt back into warp, heading for the next system on its itinerary.

No sensor on the Ferengi marauder which was orbiting the fourth of six planets registered the arrival or departure of the warbird, or the existence of the probes.

“What does this part of the signal mean?” Subcommander Saldis asked the operative from the Technical Directorate. They were in the downlink room on the lowest level of Saldis’s building, and Saldis had sent the duty officer out so that the pair could converse alone.

“These are copies of sensor logs. Presumably the ship that transmitted this message had attached them.”

“Sensor logs . . . Can you interpret them?”

“Given time. There are two sets of sensor logs here, both Starfleet in origin. One set are two hundred years old, dating from the Earth war. The other is current. These have already been decrypted?”

“Yes. I just need the sensor data interpreted,” Saddie said.

“We have emulators for Starfleet systems on floor ten. Join me there in an hour, and we’ll see what they say.”

Exactly an hour later, a very excited technical operative welcomed Saldis into a computer lab filled with what looked to be Starfleet science computers. “Subcommander, the praetor will shower you with rewards!”

“I take it that the sensor logs are of some value?”

“Some value? Have you no idea—no, of course you haven’t, or you wouldn’t have needed me. The sensor logs appear to show something similar to the wake of a slipstream drive in subspace. But not actually slipstream.”

“How different?”

“As far beyond slipstream as slipstream is beyond warp.”

“Trans-slipstream . . .” Saldis murmured to himself.

C
aptain’s Log, Stardate 60214.1. Since Tyler Hunt’s memorial service and the completion of the
Challenger
’s repairs, we have been on an extended detachment to test a new transporter upgrade that’s intended to provide near-instantaneous transport. No visible materialization phase, just pop, and you’re there. I’m sorry that that doesn’t really sound technical enough, but it’s the most accurate description of that I’ve heard so far. The ideal is that the full dematerialization and dematerialization phases should, together, take no more point zero two of a second. So far, the technology works, but the pressure differential caused by so quick a departure or arrival has
—
according to the results from testing with human-analog test objects—burst eardrums and caused other pressure-related problems. As a result, the program has gone back to the drawing board at the Daystrom Institute, and
Challenger,
I hope, will be free to resume a duty that, I don’t mind admitting, I find more appealing.

Captain Geordi La Forge sat in Scotty’s—no, he forced himself to admit, his—ready room and greeted the on-screen image of Admiral Halliday with a pleasant face.
“What can I do for you, Captain La Forge?”
the Frenchwoman asked.

“Admiral, I was wondering if there was any objection to
Challenger
looking into the source of the trans-slipstream
wakes that we discovered while dealing with the
Intrepid.”

“If these are natural phenomena, they may be something we regularly encounter without really noticing.”

“Perhaps, sir, but given what happened to
Intrepid,
it looks like there’s something more to them than just a natural phenomenon. I’ve transmitted all the relevant data, and Mister Scott, Doctor Brahms, and our chief engineer all agree that there’s enough evidence that these wakes are being caused by some technological means.”

“The word wake implies a ship,”
Halliday prompted. She canted one eyebrow in an almost Vulcan gesture.

“That’s exactly what we think, that some kind of vessels are causing these.”

“So you’re still sure there’s a technological discovery to be made here, then.”

“We do. At the very least, even if there were no ships and the effects were all natural, the fact that
Intrepid
was lost to one suggests that, if nothing else, they are a possible navigational hazard. And if it’s the result of the use of a technology . . .”

“Well, you are the go-to people for drive technologies,”
Halliday acknowledged.
“Go find your trans-slipstream wake, Captain.”

La Forge kept the urge for a triumphant exclamation to himself. “Thank you, Admiral.”

“Halliday out.”

Scotty sat on a biobed in sickbay, while a nurse adjusted the cellular regenerator over his head, and Alyssa Ogawa read through the results of his latest tests. He had got back into the habit of wearing his old uniform trousers from the 2280s, with the red stripe down the side, and a gray pullover and suede vest. They were definitely more comfortable than the modern uniform.

“That spleen seems to be coming along nicely,” Alyssa commented. “I doubt it’ll ever be a hundred percent again, but . . . Your heart worries me more. Have you been getting out of breath lately?”

“I have, yes.” Scotty didn’t need to ask how she knew; she was a doctor and so it was her job to know, or find out, these things.

“That’s the legacy of your exploits in the
Jenolen
’s transporter.”

“Let me guess,” he said, putting on the charm, “the electrical rhythm of the nerves that make the heart pump is out o’ whack.”

“You should go into medicine.”

“Nothin’ to it, lass. I know just exactly how much the matter stream in a pattern buffer both affects and depends upon the electrical field of the body. Normally it’s so small it’s harmless, but . . .”

“Even over nine decades it was fairly harmless, and not even detectable by Doctor Crusher’s examination back on the
Enterprise
. But it was a cumulative effect, and when you took enough knocks . . .”

“That’s always been the way.”

“Don’t worry.” She peeled the backing off of an adhesive patch, and slapped it onto the back of his hand. “There you go. The patch radiates a radiogenic field tailored to your heart. It’ll need to beswapped once a week or so.”

“Thanks, lass.”

“So, how are you enjoying being a civilian specialist?”

“Too bloody much,” he admitted.

When the day’s treatment was over, Scotty intended to pop into Nelson’s, but he found La Forge waiting for him outside sickbay. “Hi, Scotty.”

“I was just going for a drink, laddie. You wouldna’ care to join me, would ye?”

“I think I could put up with that.” So they went in to Nelson’s together. Guinan’s bullet-headed deputy was in charge, so they took a seat by the big windows, safe in the knowledge that nobody was likely to disturb the captain and the legendary engineer.

“I was hoping we could get together,” La Forge began. “We’re going to go looking for the trans-slipstream wakes again.”

“I thought we might. They’re a remarkable thing. I didna’ think Starfleet would object.”

“I wish I could have been so sure.” La Forge looked out of the windows at the distant stars. “I’m not sure I’m the right person to be making those kinds of choices.”

Scotty understood perfectly. “Ah, command decisions. They aren’t as easy as engineering ones.”

“No . . . At least in engineering there’s a physical result, cause and effect. No need to worry about repercussions of feelings or politics.”

“Aye. Command is all about harder choices; which means thinking harder.”

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

“Ye won’t know, Geordi, until you’re in it. That’s the only way to find out. The first thing I always find myself wondering is: ‘What would Captain Kirk do?’” Geordi chuckled, as Scotty continued. “But then I remember that Captain Kirk would probably be on the landing party that’s in the middle of the trouble in the first place, and I’m too old and too in love with the engines to be in that position.”

“So then you have to think for yourself.”

“Aye, but I can count myself fortunate to have learned
from the best; Captain Kirk and Mister Spock, both. And it’s not just me; I’m pretty certain that serving under them is what made Mister Sulu such a good captain when they gave him
Excelsior.”

“So, when Captain Kirk was on an away—I mean a landing party—and you had the conn, how did you work things?”

“By the book, by the captain’s wishes, and—from time to time—by threatening to drop a barrage of photon torpedoes.” Scotty punctuated his remark with a wicked and wolfish grin. “We always find ourselves affected by the commanders we serve under, and they always color our own command styles. You’ll be the same, Geordi.”

“You mean, ‘What would Captain Picard do?’ ”

“Aye. Unless, of course, ye deliberately set out to do the exact opposite, you’ll be influenced by how your captain did things, even if only subconsciously.”

“Well, I’m not Captain Picard . . .”

“And I’m not Jim Kirk. And Jim Kirk wasn’t Captain Garrovick, but every captain always finds their own voice. You will too, and someday somebody will be askin’ themselves what Captain La Forge would do.”

Geordi looked away absently. “I think part of the issue I’m having is that I already wonder that myself.”

“Really?”

“What would my mother do? I guess whatever happened to her has been preying on me a little recently. It’s like the
Hera
is . . . haunting me.”

“It’s only natural that you’d think about her when signs of her ship showed up, after all these years.”

“There was a time when I thought maybe she . . . maybe the
Hera
was out there somewhere, and that if I kept looking, I’d find it. In the end it was just a dream. I was obsessed
beyond the ability to think rationally. Worse,” he admitted, as much to himself as to Scotty, “I was beyond the ability to accept what had happened and move on.”

“Grief messes with everyone’s senses.”

“I know, and after a while, with the help of Counselor Troi, I got past that. I accepted that the
Hera
was gone, and my mother was dead. It wasn’t easy.”

“It never is.”

“And, now, all of a sudden . . .” LaForge shook his head. “Now it looks like maybe I was right the first time. Maybe I should have kept looking, back then.”

Scotty sighed. “It’s a bloody awful thing to happen to you, Geordi, and I wish I knew the right things to say.”

“I still don’t know yet whether it’s really an awful thing or a good thing. Or both.”

“Both, without a doubt.” Scotty leaned forward, and his face took on a serious demeanor. “Let me tell you something from my experience. When someone you care about dies, you wish you could just have them back, because you think that will be easier, and things will be better again. And, sometimes, you get that wish. Sometimes the person is only missing, or for whatever reason they’re restored to you.”

“And it turns out not to be easier or nicer?”

Scotty’s eyebrows shot up at the suggestion. “Oh, no, not at all. It feels great. You’re together again, and what could be wrong with that? What could be unpleasant?”

“But there must be a downside. I can see that much in your face.”

“Well, most beings of most species have a finite lifespan. They’re not immortal, and sooner or later, they die.”

“Again . . .”

“That’s right. From your point of view, they die again. You lose them again. And you think it’d be easier, because
this time you’ve had time to prepare, or you think you did your grieving the first time round.” He shook his head. “And I’d love to be able to say that was true and that that’s how it works, but it isn’t.”

It was obvious to La Forge what was coming next, and he didn’t really want to hear it, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything to stop it.

“It’s worse.”

“How can it be worse?” La Forge could hardly hear himself.

“Because this time you know, with double the certainty, that’s it’s over, it’s final . . . And you’ve had that much more time and love to power the grief.”

Breakfast for La Forge, the next morning, was coffee and waffles with Leah in his cabin. “You convinced Starfleet about the need to track down the source of the trans-slipstream wakes,” she was saying.

“I think finding the
Intrepid
has offered us a chance to learn about the next stage of slipstream technology.”

“And the
Hera.”

“Maybe. It’s always possible that the hints we got are all that there is, but . . . I think maybe it’s a meaningful coincidence. Serendipity.”

“You know, this focus on the
Hera
could be seen as . . .”

“Obsessive?” He had been there before. It was like a drug, both destructive but irresistibly comforting.

“Just a little. I mean, I don’t think it’s something that needs medical attention. In fact it might be something good.”

“I’ve never heard of obsession being a good thing.”

“You can’t be passionate about something without being a little obsessed with it, and I’m sure you’ll agree that passion is a good thing.”

“When it’s something like love, yes, but . . . Look at Daimon Bok, and there’s an example of passionate hatred.”

“I understand it quite well, Geordi. Look at me. I have a passion for engines. I have a passion for technology. And I don’t think it’s done me any harm. Sometimes obsession is a sign of illness, but I think there’s also a type of obsession that’s a driving force, like the mental equivalent of slipstream.”