Signs from Heaven (3 page)

Bart nodded. “So where do we stand? What we're doing?”

“The
Edison
didn't encounter any real threats—other than anything set by the Disruptors. But then at that point we were still in talks to just keep it in the air. It wasn't until we discovered we didn't know how to keep it up that the idea of bringing it down manually came about.”

“So we should perhaps do our work out of sight?” Gold said. “Beam directly to Stratos?”

“That's my suggestion. For now. The High Advisor has put a hold on things until he can calm the general fears of the parliament.”

“What if that's decided for us? As in we can't get it down, we can't keep it up, and the tractor beam fails.”

“That's what they're going to vote on this afternoon. Vanov will contact me when he knows. But until then, they don't want any of the S.C.E. in Stratos.”

Carol pointed to the artifacts. “So why would anyone try and take these?”

Lense stood at that moment. She moved slowly toward Carol and took the padd from her. Her pregnancy was as obvious as pregnancies can get and Bart felt for her in this condition.

Gold said, “I think I know why.”

Lense smiled at him. “Those boxes you see on the table were once known as carns. Earth had its own definitions of carns: doorways to other worlds. The opening of a hole between dimensions—like Portlyn's tesseract.”

She pointed at the screen. The bustling street disappeared and became an image of a green and blue transparent octopus. Bart frowned. Actually it looked more like a wolf spider with thinner, longer legs.

Lense looked at the assembled group. “This is what lived in those carns.”

“The parasite,” Gold said.

With a nod Lense pointed at the screen. More of them appeared, moving back and forth, only these had thinner, longer legs. “From what Nancy and Tev found, each of these carns is protected by a bio-magnetic field—a mini-stasis chamber—which allows the parasite to live for an indefinite amount of time.”

She moved to the table and picked up the cylinder. “This was the only one still active. And Mr. Stevens somehow tripped the magnetic field on it—whether it was his presence or by touching it, I don't know. What I do know is Fabian now has this parasite”—she gestured to the monitor with the cylinder—“burying its way and multiplying inside his cerebral cortex.”

“He's got those wee beasties inside his brain?” Scott placed his left hand flat on the table as he moved his head around to see the monitor. “What are they doing to him, lass?”

Lense put the cylinder back down on the table. “Let me try and put this plainly. The parasite is causing Fabian to experience what we know as synesthesias—the melding of two or more sensory inputs so a signal stimulus results in a double sensation. For example—and this one fits with what Fabian's experiencing—” She clicked at the monitor and a tone sounded in the room. The monitor turned blue. “There are some people who hear music and see colors.”

Corsi moved forward. “You mean that's why he saw indigo when I talked to him?”

Sarjenka spoke up as Lense nodded. “And why he saw yellow when I spoke.”

“He's seeing colors when he hears voices?” Gold said.

“Evidently everything he hears is emitting some sort of tonal color. It comes and goes, and he's experienced several waves—dizzy spells where he says the room moves in a rainbow.”

“Elizabeth,” Gomez said, her tone cautious. “What exactly is it doing
to
him? Making him into one of these Sentinels?”

“Well, since I don't really know what a Sentinel is, I can only guess the parasite's doing what it was made to do.”

Bart spoke up. “Which is enhance creative abilities.”

“So much so that Fabian's already fixed the replicator in my office because he said it sounded wrong.”

Scotty narrowed his eyes. “Pardon me, lass, but did you just say he said it
sounded
wrong?”

Lense nodded.

“That's impossible,” Tev said. “He can hear the replicator's…systems?”

Pattie spoke up. “Well it would make sense, wouldn't it? Fabian's creative instincts are in engineering. He loves solving problems—like all of us do. So the parasite is somehow enhancing his ability to find the problem and solve it.”

Bart looked at Gold. The captain looked less than pleased. “Lense, what exactly is it doing? I mean in here.” He pointed to his head. “Is Stevens in danger?”

“According to what Bart and Carol found, the Sentinels lived for decades with the parasites in place. What I can tell you is the way they grow makes it hard to treat them.” She pointed to the monitor and the spiders elongated, their limbs now needle-like and wispy.

With a wince she moved toward the table and Scotty immediately stood and offered her his chair. She took it with an appreciative smile. “My feet were getting tired. Now—” She turned back to the monitor. “Once inside the parasites split up and migrated to the posterior inferior temporal cortex and the parieto-occipital junction. These two regions are responsible for color and sound. Once there they settled in and used the concentration of neurochemicals in those regions to facilitate growth of its dendrites that have extended deep into these areas. These dendrites act as wires that allow for crosstalk between these regions—instant synesthesia.”

Bart understood most of it—in the short form these things were burying themselves deep into his roommate's brain. Changing him.

“So how do we get them out?” Gold said.

Lense turned and looked at him. “We don't.” She shrugged. “I don't know how. They've already worked their way deep into those areas.”

“Are they spreading?” Gomez asked.

“No—they seem to be limiting themselves to just those two regions.”

“Will it hurt him?” Corsi asked. “Other than the headaches?”

“The headaches are caused because of increased hormone output. Appears to be a side-effect of the neurochemical ingestions.” Lense looked back to Gold. “He's fine—in excellent physical shape. Only he can see sound now.” She sighed. “In color.”

“There's one thing nobody here has mentioned,” Pattie said.

Soloman nodded. “She's right. If Mr. Stevens now possesses the parasite we've just learned about, is it possible that he can use it to operate Stratos?”

No one spoke.

“How?” Tev asked. “He knows as much as we do about those engines, which is apparently nothing.”

“Well.” Scotty turned to face Gold. “I say we ask him if he'd like to try. Once we get the okay from Vanov.”

Gold gave him a withering look. “Time's running out, Scotty. They've already wasted a day.” He looked at Lense. “Have you told Stevens what's happened?”

She nodded. “He seemed more fascinated than upset. When Sarjenka and I left sickbay, he was asking Nurse Wetzel to sing.”

Sarjenka gave a soft laugh, as did Gomez.

“I didn't know Sandy could sing,” Carol said.

Lense gave her a sour look. “She can't. He just liked looking at the wacky colors. His words”—she put up her hand—“not mine.”

“S
ort
of a green—Vulcan blood green actually.” Fabian noticed T'Nel arch a dark eyebrow. “No offense.”

“What about me?” Nemeckova asked. “What colors do you see when I talk?”

Fabian was in engineering, leaning back comfortably against the main console in front of the warp core. Sandy had told him he could leave sickbay—in fact she'd all but pushed him out. Muttered something about needing peace and quiet.

But hey, who knew his own voice carried a sort of gold hue to it? And so he'd set about making sentences. “Hi, my name's Fabian. Fabe is my name. I am an engineer.”

But he was sure she'd only sent him on his way because he'd made fun of the colors her singing caused to dance about the room. He might have heard her voice as off-key, but the colors they made—weird.

He put a finger under his chin. “Blue—a soft powder blue.”

“And how about me?” Maxwell Hammett asked as he crossed his arms over his chest.

Fabian narrowed his eyes. “Red. Definitely red.”

“I thought you said I was red,” Rennan Konya from security said.

“You are.” Fabian frowned. “Why can't more than one person be red?”

“Fabe.” Rizz spoke up from where he stood in front of the deflector array panel. “What about my voice? What color do you see?”

Fabian narrowed his eyes at the Bolian, then narrowed them harder. He tilted his head to the right, then the left. “Rizz, I'm not sure that color exists.”

Several people snickered.

A sharp sound, much like fingernails on a bare hull, cut through the others' voices. He closed his eyes and pressed the palm of his right hand to his forehead, almost doubling over at the waist.

“Fabian?” Nemeckova asked, her soft blue tone easing the stinging in his brain. “What's wrong?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her. Just after she'd stopped speaking the blue of her voice had shifted and formed into a half circle. “I'm—I hear something—”

Again the sound of nails screamed into one ear and impacted inside his head. “Ow—” He held his head in his hands. Where was that sound coming from?

“Max,” Rizz said and the world behind Fabian's eyes shifted into the indescribable color of the Bolian's voice. “We need to get the shield harmonics calibrated before Conlon comes back—we've wasted enough time.”

Keeping his eyes closed, Fabian formed a shadowy picture in his mind of Rizz, standing in front of the panel. He touched the surface. Again the sound ran through Fabian's mind like a speeding shuttle. He saw interweaving reds, silvers, bright blues, and whites, all coalescing into the panel in front of him.

Opening his eyes he saw Rizz. “Do that again.”

“Do what again?”

“What you just did—to the harmonic frequency.”

Rizz reached down and touched the panel, though he kept his gaze fixed on Fabian.

Again the colors coalesced into a single ball of light, and turned completely white.

White—what did that mean? He moved to the panel and touched the surface. Colors jumped out of the circuitry and swirled around him, filling him, taking him inside….

“What's he doing?” came a whisper behind him.

“His eyes are closed.”

He was concentrating on the colors, watching the white ball bristle like ignited magnesium along a path. It stopped in a single spot along a three dimensional plane of color. When he looked closer he saw no color.

White.

“White is the absence of color,” he said aloud and his voice carried in a stream of golden thread that wrapped around the ball of bristling white. He saw numbers in his mind….

“Rizz,” Fabian said, his eyes still closed. “Adjust the harmonics in grid 002 by 665.”

There was a pause and he could see Rizz in his mind calling up the grid on his tricorder. “But that's not where the fluctuation is happening. The disruption is in grid 0100.”

“No.” Fabian smiled. “It's there—in 002—but it's resonating loudest to 0100, which is why the tricorder is picking up that grid. Just adjust the harmonic, but make sure it's negative 665.”

He knew Rizz had done what he'd asked when the sound in his ears ceased. The plane of light moved back and forth, ebbing and flowing through the circuitry. He opened his eyes and lifted his hands from the panel's surface, unaware he'd actually placed both of them there.

Rizz moved behind him, touched a panel on the wall. “That's it.” He looked over at Fabian who had turned to check. “You did it. No more anomaly.”

The doors to engineering opened. Nancy stepped through, along with Gomez and Captain Scott. When Nancy saw everyone standing around Fabian, and saw the look on Rizz's face, she looked at Hammett. “What's happened?”

“He did it.” Hammett nodded to Fabian. “He got rid of that pesky anomaly near the rear deflector shield. The one we spent hours chasing yesterday.”

Nancy frowned at Fabian. “How did you find it?”

He swallowed. His throat was dry, as were his lips. When was the last time he'd had water—or any beverage for that matter? “I saw it—Well, I mean I heard it. Both. It was like this little ball of sparkly light, like a tribble on fire—”

Scotty moved through the gathered engineers. “Lad, you saw and heard the shield's harmonic frequencies?”

Gomez moved through the crowd of people to stand beside Rizz and started checking the controls.

Fabian replayed what had happened inside his head. He smiled. “I guess I did. I mean, I heard it—this terrible noise in my head—and then I followed it to—”

But Nancy was already moving past them to the console. She touched several panels and then turned to the controls behind her on the wall next to Gomez. After a few seconds she turned to Gomez, and then to Captain Scott. “Rizz is right. The reason I kept delaying the test was because I didn't trust the readings on the shield harmonics. The anomaly is gone—we can proceed with the test.”

Fabian smiled, and then put his hands back on the panel. No colors or sounds came to him. In fact, his head was pounding between his ears as if he'd just tried standing on his head.

“Lad.” Scotty touched his right arm. “Are you okay?”

“I'm a little light-headed, and very thirsty.”

Gomez moved to stand on his left. “When was the last time you ate?”

Fabian looked at her, and when she didn't look away he smiled. “Eat—” That smile became a frown. “Uh, I'm not sure. Yesterday? I sort of forgot.”

“Since when have you ever forgotten to eat?” Gomez asked.

Nancy made a rude noise. “Never.”

“Gold to Scott.”

Scotty tapped his badge. “Scott here.”

“Vanov is asking for you. We'll take this in my ready room.”

“I'm on my way.” He turned to Nancy. “If that's the call I'm hoping for, I'll need you to get ready for a test run—just to see how badly the hold taxes the engines.” He turned to Gomez. “I'd suggest getting that boy back to sickbay—and feed him.”

With that the burly man hurried out of engineering.

Gomez watched as Nancy gave her crew orders.

“I don't bite,” Fabian said, still leaning heavily on the panel. It wasn't that he felt bad, he was just afraid that if someone moved the panel he'd fall on his face. His legs felt like rubber.

She looked at him. A few seconds passed without a word. Then, “Fabe…”

But he shook his head. This wasn't the time to discuss what had happened. He wasn't sure there would ever be a time, though it had been sitting like an open wound between the two of them for months now. “Look, I'll be fine. You don't have to walk me to sickbay—I can find my way.”

With that he straightened up. His knees gave beneath him and he started to lean forward on the panel again. Gomez grabbed his left arm and pulled it up, then nestled her right shoulder beneath his left. “You probably can find your way, but I'm not sure you can actually get there.” She straightened up. “Put your weight on me.”

He didn't want to stumble in front of her, but something wasn't right. His legs felt like lead one minute and then were fine the next. With a sigh he leaned on her and the two of them made their way to the door.

It opened and Corsi stood in the center.

Her eyes widened as she looked at Gomez, and then looked at Fabian.

Fabian felt Gomez tense next to him and he thought for a second she might drop him in her haste to distance herself from him.

“Domenica, I—” Gomez stammered.

“What did you do?” Corsi took a step toward Fabian.

Fabian figured he should intervene before Gomez completely fell apart with embarrassment. “I fixed something, and now the commander is helping me back to sickbay.”

Corsi looked again at Gomez. “Are you all right? You've gone awfully pale.”

Gomez swallowed. “I'm fine. Really. Captain Scott ordered me to take him to sickbay.” She started to pull away. “But if you'd like to escort him there—”

But Corsi held up her hand. “That's not necessary. He's in good hands.” She touched Fabian's shoulder. “You feel okay?”

Fabian twisted his mouth in a thoughtful expression. “Remember that time on Merangue when I drank the green stuff and was supposed to drink the blue stuff?”

Corsi's eyes widened. “Definitely go to sickbay.” She smiled at Gomez, though her gaze shifted back to Fabian, and then back to Sonya. “Either of you seen Konya? The computer said he was down here.”

Fabian nodded backward. “In there.”

Corsi patted his shoulder and moved past them.

After a few seconds passed, he nudged Gomez. “We can go now.”

She blinked and then moved them forward, out of engineering and toward the turbolift.

“Corsi's not going to eat you.”

“You never told her.”

Fabian shook his head. “No—didn't see what that would really accomplish. It was an honest—” He meandered in his head for a second, trying to come up with the appropriate word. There wasn't one. “Thing.”

Gomez didn't say anything else until they were in the lift. Fabian disentangled himself from her and leaned on the wall. He was still light-headed, and a bit shaky.
This is from not eating
—
low blood sugar.

But why hadn't I even thought of food?

“Fabian.” Gomez looked at the floor. “I do apologize, and I hope you didn't—and don't—think less of me.” She ended the statement with a look up at him.

“Oh, Commander.” He grinned. “I really don't think anything of you.”

He knew he'd stuck his foot in it the second it was out of his mouth. Her expression softened before it hardened.

“Oh, wait.” Fabian put out his hand. “That's not what I meant. Not like that—”

“Oh, that's okay. It's nothing that I've felt like a real heel all this time, kissing a friend's boyfriend and then lacking the courage to tell her.”

“Well, don't do that. Really. It was innocent. And harmless.” He tried to smile at her, to reassure her.

Then he felt his knees give on him as he fell head-first onto the turbolift floor.

Bart sat beside Fabian's bed in sickbay, his padd in his lap, his eyes aching from reviewing the Ardanan history files. He was amazed that a people could say so much—and not make a damn bit of sense.

Blah, blah, blah, blah…

With a glance at the door, Bart pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. He'd received it in a special delivery package at the same time they received the goodies from Ardana.

It was only one page.

But it was enough.

It was from Anthony Mark.

After so many letters. So many unanswered messages, his lover and closest friend had answered him. He'd been afraid to open it—the very fact it was on paper instead of in the form of an electronic message was enough to make him nervous.

A simple Dear John letter?

That was what he'd been afraid of.

But, no—

Again he slowly opened the outer envelope. With ceremony he pulled the neatly folded piece of paper out. With a deep breath, Bart opened the top by pulling it up, and then unfolded the bottom.

In beautiful, block-like handwriting, Anthony had given Bart hope for the two of them.