“That’s none of my concern.” Janeway’s expression told Tuvok all that was necessary—she didn’t trust Andross.
The viewscreen blurred as Andross moved away. From a distance, Torres called out a warning, as Janeway’s black uniform slumped out of the frame.
“Captain!” Chakotay exclaimed. “What’s going on there? Andross, what are you—” “As your captain told you,” Andross said, breathing faster as if from some effort, “the situation has changed.”
“What have you done to them—” “Commander, I believe you should listen to me.” The threat was clear in Andross’s voice.
“I’m listening,” Chakotay said flatly.
“We need more power from your processor. Give us the schematics of the procedural sequence, and show us how we can link into other network analyzers.”
Chakotay slowly shook his head. “That’s impossible.”
Tuvok refrained from mentioning that Captain Janeway had ordered them not to assist Andross.
“Once our leader is in power,” Andross urged, “your people and your computer will be returned. You will be free to go about your own business.”
Chakotay sounded as if he were in pain. “We do not bargain with the future of a society.”
“I’ll give you one day to provide the information I’ve requested.”
Andross glanced down briefly. “Your people are nothing but a nuisance at this point. Don’t make me use them to prove how serious I am.”
Paris realized he was on his feet when Tracer actually moved out of the shade to get away from him. He knew the Tutopans didn’t have transporter technology, and he couldn’t understand how they could simulate deadly force without one. “How is this illusion created?”
Tracer avoided his glare. “I’m no tech, don’t ask me.”
“Photo-holograms are one thing,” Paris muttered under his breath.
“But they have no substance.”
He tossed his jacket aside and calmly walked over to the transport container. He punched it as hard as he could. The metal shell made a faint resonant sound and felt solidly resistant against his knuckles, so he punched it a few more times. Tracer scrambled out of the way, as sand went flying.
When Paris finally stopped, he was flushed and warmer than before. He also felt better than he had since he woke up in the airlock globe.
“There! That’s real enough for me.”
“Yeah.” Tracer was watching him warily. “Your sleepjourneys seem real too. But you can’t die from dreaming.”
It took Paris a moment to realize what he said. “You mean simulations are like a hallucination?”
“They create it in our minds. Sort of the way misto-tripping happens after you’ve had too much.”
Paris wanted to crawl right out of his own skin. But it felt real—his hands were throbbing from the pounding. He watched as a single drop of blood welled up on one knuckle, forming a perfect dome of red that reflected the brilliant suns overhead.
Then it slid down the back of his hand, leaving a faint trace of blood as another drop started to form. Was it real, or was it only in his mind? It was enough to send him right to the edge”Okay, let’s not panic,” Paris reminded himself. “First rule, don’t panic. Anything can be dealt with…”
Tracer inched back into the shadow of the container. “What are you going to do?”
His mouth curled up in distaste. Any way you looked at it, his mind was being invaded. They were watching him, evaluating his choices, recording every flicker of energy that went through his body. Even if he had broken their law, he didn’t deserve to be punished like this.
“How long can Tutopans go without drinking fluids?” he asked for lack of anything better.
“I don’t know.”
Of course Tracer didn’t know. Paris wasn’t sure Tracer knew about anything except for cleaning floors and going to some dive for the few hours of relief he could find in the bottom of a misto bottle. “Well, humans can last for a couple of days, tops, in this kind of dry heat.
Maybe not even that long if we’re walking. I bet Tutopans aren’t much different.”
Tracer settled down in the sand. “If this is Faltos, they could be using us to establish a baseline for simulations. That means it could go on for days. They often use criminals to get the baselines.”
“Criminals!” Paris snorted. “You’re hardly a criminal, and I never even had a trial. What kind of people are you?”
“You mean you didn’t steal information from the Cartel computers?”
Paris abruptly shut up, remembering the spying eyes. “I didn’t touch their computer,” he said honestly.
“You didn’t?” Tracer asked, wide-eyed.
“Besides, aren’t there such things as extenuating circumstance?”
Paris asked. “I only wanted to find out what would be common knowledge anyplace else.”
“What was that?”
“Docking manifests, tracing merchandise,” he said vaguely. “I wanted to know if Min-Tutopa had something to do with the theft of our computer processor.”
“Did you find out?”
“I was caught almost immediately.” Paris wasn’t sure if they knew about Kim, or if Tracer had told them about another man.
“What exactly do you remember?”
Tracer chewed his bottom lip. “It’s hard… there’s the bar, and that other place we went… your ship, was it?”
“Yes.”
“I must have been out of my mind,” Tracer sighed, shaking his head. “I knew it as soon as I saw that Neelix guy. You weren’t looking for a good time, you were running some kind of scam.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought that’s why you came over, that you were one of those weird aliens who likes unusual women.” Tracer gestured self-consciously to the mottled patches on her face.
“What?!”
“I’m a female.”
Paris knew his mouth was open, but he couldn’t help it.
“You’re—” “Female.” She turned her mild eyes away. “I thought you knew.
But you called me `him’ when you were yelling at the Cartel.”
Paris sat down, hard. “I didn’t know….”
Tracer shrugged, that same laconic gesture Paris had seen a dozen times before. It didn’t look any different, but a filter seemed to slip over his vision and all of his protective instincts rose.
“I’m sorry. It’s just that you Tutopans look so much alike,” he added lamely. He kept remembering the way he had pummeled her into the closet. “I’ve acted atrociously.”
She squinted up at him. “You’re not so bad.”
If he felt guilty before, now it was a thousand times worse. Why hadn’t he figured out that Tracer was a woman? Now that he knew, it seemed obvious.
“Come on,” he told her, holding out his hand to help her up. “We can’t just sit here.”
She stared at his outstretched hand. “Why not?”
“Because, the least we can do is try to help ourselves.” He shaded his eyes, checking the horizon. “There’s got to be something around here.”
“You want me to come with you?”
He leaned over and took her arm, pulling her up. “I got you into this.
I’ll get you out.”
She flinched at his touch, quickly moving away when she was on her feet “You will?”
“I can try.” Paris got his bearings. “Over there. It looks like there’s something in that direction.”
Tracer actually gave him a little smile. “Thanks.”
Paris let out a short laugh. “Sure, any time you want a one-way trip to nowhere, just call me.”
“I’ve never been on a test with someone like you before.” Tracer slogged through a patch of soft sand, avoiding his offer of help.
Paris figured he might as well find out what he could. “This testing of yours seems pretty severe. Don’t you lose a lot of children this way?”
“Children don’t get survival testing. Only those who are destined for command or exploration or some sort of high-level position. That way the weak and unfit are winnowed out.” She smiled again. “I read that someplace.”
“It seems like a lot of effort to go to just for us.”
“People give away valuable information when they’re trying to save themselves.”
Paris thought back on what he might have said, then decided that worrying about that wasn’t high on his list of priorities. “I don’t know what I hate more—having them so deep inside my head they could create a simulation that feels this real, or really being stuck in a desert with no hope of rescue in sight.”
“It could be worse,” Tracer said philosophically enough. “Once my hands were tied behind my back. That time, it turned out to be real.”
His tongue felt as if it was sticking to the roof of his mouth, and his lips were starting to crack. This couldn’t be a simulation. “You know, I’m getting tired of always comparing my situation to the worst case scenario.”
Tracer was obviously trying to be helpful. “I heard of one guy who drew the same test someone else at work had been talking about. He thought it was a simulation until the very end, when he realized it was real.”
“What happened?”
“He broke his legs in fourteen places. He said he shouldn’t have jumped off the roof.”
“That’s probably a safe bet anytime.” It was getting more difficult to walk through the deep sand. “Do you have any more horror stories you want to share?”
Tracer stumbled to one side, just as Paris realized his boots were sinking into the sand.
“Keep walking!” Paris cried out, prying one foot out, then leaning forward to pull the other free. He tried to turn around, but everywhere he stepped, there seemed to be nothing but liquid sand, drawing him down.
“Help me!” Tracer called out, flailing her arms as she went over on her side. Her legs were buried up to the knees.
Paris couldn’t stop and he couldn’t turn around. His only object was to get back to firmer ground. With each step a superhuman effort, he could barely see Tracer flopping around on the sand.
“I’m sinking,” she gasped out.
Paris fell forward as he hit the edge of the quicksand, rolling to see Tracer half covered. Her muffled cries and frantic movements got him moving.
“Turn over!” he called out. Testing the edge, trying to find a way around, he circled in closer as the sand shifted over the top of Tracer.
There was a terrible inevitability to the struggle. As Paris stretched out, trying to reach for her, the last bit of her coverall sank beneath the sand.
“Tracer!” Grains of sand continued to slide into the depression where Tracer used to be.
Rolling onto his back, Paris shouted, “No! Get down here before she suffocates! Before it’s too late—” Staring up at the blinding sky, his eyes blurred, maybe with tears.
When he blinked, he saw an unfamiliar face. The flat features immediately identified him as a Tutopan.
“An excellent reading on that one,” someone said outside of his vision.
The Tutopan leaned over him, barely reacting. “We can begin the interrogation tomorrow. Notify his ship.”
Paris struggled to sit up, but thick bands were secured over his arms and chest. Even his legs wouldn’t move. It was as disorienting as waking up in a hospital, with everything too clean and bright and cold.
Dispassionate hands removed a strap from his forehead and he saw electrodes gleaming with conductive gel.
“What are you doing to me?” he cried out, even as the other Tutopan returned. He felt the burning contact of an injector against his neck.
“You are undergoing testing, Prisoner 07119.”
Kim rifled through the stacks of isolinear chips that covered the top of Zimmerman’s desk. He knew the one he wanted was around here somewhere, but he couldn’t find it.
In frustration, he banged the desk with the flat of his hand, making some of the isolinear chips slide off. It didn’t make him feel any better. Kes was right, this wasn’t like him. He couldn’t think straight anymore—not while the captain and B’Elanna were being help captive. Not while Tom Paris was confined in the bowels of the Hub, paying for a crime that Kim had actually committed.
Kim slumped back down in the chair. If only he hadn’t been envious of Tom and B’Elanna, then his judgment wouldn’t have been impaired when Paris asked him to go into the Hub. If he had refused, or checked with Tuvok first, Paris might still be here….
Then again, maybe he was wallowing in his misery in order to avoid the fact that he’d failed to fix the computer network.
But how can I fix something that always keeps changing?
He wondered if the scientists at Utopia Planitia were also finding out just how tricky their new wonder-computer was. It integrated with the other systems in a way that was certainly as unpredictable and complex as a living organism. And he had realized that the neural gel packs weren’t accessing faster than nanoprocessors, they were learning patterns and interpreting them without having to go through the processor every time. Even then, the patterns that the impulses followed were a loose guideline. From moment to moment, though the end points were fixed between certain isolinear chips, the pathways through the neural tissue changed to suit passing requirements. Each cell apparently had hundreds of thousands of possible synapses, or paths of transmission. He couldn’t pinpoint and isolate the problem areas or determine which systems would be affected next by the erratic impulses.
And he couldn’t stop the neural gel packs from processing information according to past scenerios.
To make matters worse, clusters of the nerve cells seemed to be migrating. There was no other word he could use to describe it—and nothing about the phenomenon made sense. No matter how many adjustments they made to the chemical infusions, efficiency had risen only another three percent. He didn’t need Chakotay to tell him that wasn’t good enough.
In the outer room, Kes glanced up from her tissue analysis. Her smile was completely sympathetic. Kim knew she’d already forgiven him for being so mean to the doctor when he had tried to access the ODN, and he added that to his list of things to feel bad about.
He called through the glass. “Found out anything yet on those cell clusters?”
“You were right,” she said, pushing back from the monitor as he joined her. “They’re migrating within the core, and I think I’ve found evidence of a few clusters that are forming in the bridge main subprocessor.”
Kim let out a groan of disbelief. “That’s the last thing we need!”