Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (28 page)

Soon they came upon a variant of the farm lattice organism, this one with a second spiral framework down below, forming an enclosed cage. Fast-swimming, dangerous-looking squale-related animals with fearsome beaks patrolled its perimeter. Here, Eres rendezvoused with the others in his “life-maker” pod, who had been alerted to his arrival hours ago by
ri’Hoyalina
telecommunication. The pod passed Aili through the defense cordon and let her examine the woodlike columns that formed the cage. They were made of a material considerably harder than normal wood, though presumably hollow enough for buoyancy. Aili suspected that they had used a lot of their limited metal reserves to supply this organism with its structural strength.

The columns were arranged in a precise pattern, forming a complex maze. Using their keen sonar as well as firsthand memory, and with Aili clinging to Eres’s back, the squales navigated the maze, finding the spaces wide enough to admit them but taking care to avoid the deceptively clear-looking paths which would lead to dead ends. Aili realized that a maze made of broomsticks was far more treacherous than one made of walls; at least in the latter there was no ambiguity about what was an opening and what was not. But here, openings abounded, and the constantly shifting parallax made it devilishly difficult to tell which ones were really the clearest. As the pod wound
through the perimeter, they passed a few small animals that struck Aili as being quite at the end of their ropes.

Aili wondered how they got larger organisms into this facility if need be. But before she could ask, they cleared the maze into a zone of clear, still water, shielded from wave action by the surrounding lattice. At the heart of the clear zone, she saw what it was that the squales were protecting so carefully.

The core mass of the organism, floating in the center of the lattice, was easily the size of Earth’s largest extinct whales. From that mass extruded over two dozen stems, or trunks, or limbs, each of which led to a bluish oval pod. Some of the pods were irised open at one end like the petals of a flower. They came in various sizes; the smallest, of which there were several, were about a meter long, while the largest one could accommodate a small humpback whale. The majority of the pods seemed to be just right for the squales, though. The stems were complex, with numerous veins of various sizes and tints weaving among each other.

The core mass itself pulsed with life. Its structure was startlingly complex, a mélange of colors, textures, and contours, seeming as dazzlingly sophisticated in an organic way as
Titan
’s control consoles. Multiple valves pulsed and peristalted, taking in water, expelling bubbles of gas; while at least one orifice was hungrily sucking in a supply of food being shoveled like coal by a small, dextrous helper species. It made sense that the organism would need a rich and steady fuel supply. It certainly seemed busy enough, pulsing and throbbing and exhaling vapors unknown.

But most of all, it was
singing
. And its squale tenders sang back to it. It was an interspecies chorus, liturgy and
antiphon, builder and tool conversing in a common tongue. Rich, complex chords, elaborate phrases recurring, being repeated back and forth, sometimes changing from one statement to the next. The mathematical perfection of Bach or T’Lenye meeting the improvisational energy of Riker’s beloved jazz musicians.

Aili took some time to make sense of what she’d seen, seasoning her analysis with the occasional answer from the squales. It was a machine, she reasoned. It took in a living sample and analyzed its genome, probably using enzymes like those that zipped, unzipped, and assembled nucleic acids. Somehow, that information was converted into sound, a melody with the notes A, C, G, and T, the four component bases of the genetic code. What the lifesmiths sang back were instructions, modifications to the genes and protein structures; those changes were probably made through the action of further enzymes. This could be used for healing, and indeed many of the attached oval pods held squales who were being treated for injuries inflicted by the other frenzied species of this world. Eres led her to one pod and sang a tone that caused it to iris open partway, far enough for her to see a squale inside. After a moment, she recognized it as Grabby, the defender squale who had lost a tentacle days before. Now that tentacle was almost fully regrown!

Aili remembered the perception of a womblike environment that both she and Riker had experienced after the asteroid strike, and realized that they must have been placed in these “lifepods” (as she mentally dubbed them) for treatment of their injuries. But as Grabby’s rapid regeneration showed, the lifepods were capable of far more than
that. Eres confirmed this, singing that the lifepods could also be used to make more fundamental changes, transforming creatures at the cellular or even genetic level.

Now she understood what the lifesmiths were proposing. Using this remarkable technology, they could modify Aili’s and Riker’s biochemistry to be compatible with Dropletian life, able to survive with fewer minerals in their diet. Even if
Titan
never found them, they would be able to live out their lives here on this world.

But there was a danger, as Eres explained. A transformation this drastic would alter their bodies on the cellular level. This would include the neurons in their brains. Their memories would be affected as a result—not so much lost as blurred. They would still retain their identities and knowledge, but certain details of their former life would be hazier, as if more distant in time.

But if they underwent the change a second time, Eres warned, the effect on their memories would be exacerbated. They would lose too much memory of their past, their identities. If Aili and Riker underwent this change, they could never go back.

Aili knew that Riker would never accept that. His conviction that he would be reunited with his wife and child was unwavering. And in the wake of their recent argument, given what he thought about her intentions toward him, he would not be receptive to the suggestion coming from her.

But what about me?
She found the lifesmiths’ proposal did not instill fright or despair in her. On the contrary, she felt more at home here on Droplet than she ever had anywhere else. And she couldn’t share Riker’s certainty that there would be any rescue from
Titan
. For that mat
ter, after her fight with the captain, she wasn’t sure how welcome she would be aboard
Titan
—or how willing she would be to continue serving under a commander who didn’t respect her.

Or was it really her own lack of self-respect she was feeling? The argument had dredged up memories she wasn’t proud of.
Maybe losing some of those memories wouldn’t be so bad,
she thought.
It would be like…being reborn. Starting over with a clean slate.

Maybe the song of my life is out of tune,
she reflected.
And not just biologically. Maybe getting “transposed” is just what I need.

But thinking in terms of the squales’ Song of Life brought her a different perspective. To them, everything that happened in life was a part of the flow and rhythm of the Song. Every event was a note in a greater symphony, progressing from what had come before. True, there could be dissonance, but that was a part of music too, tension leading to an inevitable resolution.

What if everything that’s happened in my life was part of a bigger purpose?
she wondered. The way she had rejected her family’s example and become self-indulgent and irresponsible, which had led her to seduce countless visitors from space and alienate her from her own people, which had pushed her to leave Pacifica, which had brought her to Starfleet Academy on a quest to become responsible at last, which had put her aboard
Titan
and led her here to Droplet…maybe all of these events were notes in the cosmic song, the requirements of harmony arranging the melody of her life, inexorably guiding her to this point.
Maybe this is where I’m meant to be.

But what about the captain?
she asked herself.
He would never believe that for himself.

But the bottom line was, they might very well have no choice. Whether or not Riker could be happy with that, Aili knew that she could.

And if it came to that…maybe she could help bring him around.

LUMBU

B
y the time Tuvok’s team arrived in the UFC 86659 system, Ree and his captives had been on the surface of Lumbu for nearly twenty-one hours, evidently besieged within a local hospital in the nation-state of Lirht. Once Ellec Krotine had tapped into the signal leakage from the city’s land-line audio communications system to listen in on the local authorities, Tuvok reflected that it was fortunate the Lumbuans were a people predisposed to philosophy and discussion above action. Even now, more than a local day into the crisis, the police commander on the scene, her chief, and their mayor were still locked into an involved debate over the best way to negotiate with an alien monster—with sidebar discussions about whether Ree’s origin was extraplanetary or paranormal, and what either possibility might reveal about the nature of existence. If anything, the mayor seemed more interested in capturing Ree and the women in order to interrogate them on the meaning of life
and the truth of the cosmos than in ending the immediate threat Ree posed to the hospital staff. As for the siege commander, she seemed content to try out new negotiation tactics indefinitely so long as no imminent mortal threat to the hostages arose, and if anything seemed to be quite stimulated by the intellectual challenge.
Admirable in principle,
Tuvok thought,
but somewhat paralyzing in a crisis. Luckily, that works in our favor.

On the negative side, the police chief was rather eloquently arguing the position that this incident was too ontologically important for city officials to handle and that federal assistance should be sought. While news of the incident had been reported by wire to the national news services, it was apparently not being taken seriously in the absence of concrete evidence. The Lirhten military was monitoring the reports in case they were proven legitimate, but was currently on alert due to tensions with a neighboring nation-state and had not assigned the situation a high priority. Had this world been a generation more advanced, with the capacity for live video broadcasting, the situation would have been rather worse. However, the police chief was proposing that photographic evidence and eyewitnesses be flown by propeller-driven aircraft to the regional capital in order to persuade the government to supply soldiers, diplomats, and philosophers to address the crisis. If that happened, it would worsen the Prime Directive violation. If Tuvok could end this situation while it remained isolated and leave no physical evidence behind, the incident would likely become a local legend and have no global effect. But if a major government gained proof of alien life, the contamination would be far worse.
Moreover, given the current tensions between Lirht and its neighbor, dividing the attention of the Lirhten military could weaken their position and lead to the conquest of their nation. It would probably not be a very bloody conquest, but it would be a major political change caused by a Starfleet presence on the planet, and that was unacceptable.

The police chief was close to winning the debate, leaving Tuvok no choice but to act. “Rig the warp core to emit a magneton pulse,” he ordered Krotine, whose years aboard an S.C.E. vessel had given her more engineering experience than the others on his team. “It should be sufficient to knock out the power systems citywide and prevent them from summoning outside help.”

“But what about the hospital?” Ensign Hriss asked. “What if Counselor Troi needs that power?”

“The hospital should have an emergency generator,” he told her. “Failing that, Starfleet equipment should be unaffected.”

“And if the hospital does shut down,” Chief Dennisar opined in his deep voice, “maybe that will make Ree abandon the place, come out in the open.”

“Unlikely,” Tuvok told the hulking Orion. “Doctor Ree is a resourceful individual, and he clearly feels the hospital is the safest place for his patient. He will adapt rather than retreat.”

“Predators don’t like taking unnecessary risks,” Hriss observed; as a predator herself, the Caitian spoke from experience. “They tend to retreat when faced with unexpected opposition.”

“As a rule, yes. But I believe Ree is in the paternal
guardian mode of a Pahkwa-thanh male. In that mode, the survival of the child overrides individual safety. His instinct will be to stand his ground.”

Just as Elieth stood his ground to protect the people of Deneva,
he thought.
Just as I would have stood my ground to protect him…if only I could have.
He understood very well how Ree thought right now. And he would be just as ruthless in protecting Counselor Troi and her child, if Ree forced him to.

“Emitting the pulse,” Krotine announced. Outside the viewport, Tuvok saw the city lights flare and go dark. Moments later, faint lights returned at a few key facilities with emergency power, including the hospital below.

“Take us down,” Tuvok said. “Can we get a transporter lock on any of our personnel?”

Krotine shook her cherry-tressed head. “No, sir. There’s a jamming field being generated by the heavy shuttle. We can’t beam in either.”

“Very well. Douse all external lights and bring us in as stealthily as possible. We shall make our way on foot.”

TITAN

“The situation is worse than we thought,” Melora told Vale and the others in the observation lounge.

“Naturally,” Vale said. “Because things have just been going
so
well this week.”

Melora waited, but rather than saying more, Vale nodded, signaling her to continue. “It turns out the barophilic life Cethente discovered in the saltwater dynamo layer
has more influence on the life up above than we initially thought,” the science officer went on. “In two ways. First, it turns out that a lot of the subtle patterns we read in the dynamo layer’s field were actually generated by the barophiles’ communication. It’s the disruption to the barophiles’ life cycle, caused by the exotic radiation in the infalling asteroid dust, that’s altering the planetary magnetic field, and that’s what’s stirring up the surface life.” It was odd to start referring to the oceangoing life of this planet, even that living in the deeps kilometers down, as “surface life.” But a world like this forced one to redefine one’s parameters.