The moment the words were out of her mouth, she felt mortified. Soleta’s face was like an expressionless mask. Zak Kebron, still at his post even though there was no need for him to be, looked up but said nothing. The rest of the bridge was filled with techies working on bringing systems online, and the name of McHenry meant nothing to them, but even they sensed that the mood on the bridge had abruptly shifted.
“I’m sorry. Sorry, folks,” Robin said with genuine chagrin. “I ... it’s ...”
“It is difficult to think of him as gone?” asked Soleta quietly.
Immediately Robin nodded, feeling a rush of relief. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”
“Understandable. Particularly considering the curiosity of his ‘corpse’ in the sickbay.”
Robin shuddered at that. The entire thing had taken on an air of ghoulishness. Starfleet had even sent someone from the surgeon general’s office, and she hadn’t been able to make any more sense of it than Selar or her people. It seemed that McHenry’s body was caught in some sort of ... of cellular stasis, as Robin had heard it (admittedly thirdhand). There had been a brief hope that some sort of miracle might occur, that a regeneration of the cells would commence. Such had not been the case. He was just lying there. Starfleet had requested the body be turned over to them for more detailed analysis, and Calhoun had point-blank refused. That she had heard about firsthand, specifically because everyone on the bridge had heard Calhoun’s raised voice from within his ready room ... a certainly unusual-enough occurrence.
“You people can’t seem to determine whether he’s alive or dead!” he’d said loudly and clearly. “Until such time as you do, he’s still under my command, even if he’s just lying there. And there is where he’s going to stay until we get this sorted out.” Perhaps realizing he’d let himself get too loud, Calhoun had promptly reined himself in and the rest of the conversation was lost. The end result, though, was that “there” was indeed where McHenry had stayed.
Now Robin looked up at Soleta and shook her head in bewilderment. “Do they have any clearer idea of what’s happened with him than they did before?”
“None,” said Soleta. “It is ... perplexing. I ...”
She looked briefly uncomfortable, and Robin frowned. “What?” she asked in a lowered voice. “What is it?”
Soleta glanced right and left, seemingly ill at ease over the prospect of anyone else listening to her lowering her guard, however incrementally. But the rest of the bridge crew had returned to its respective duties and was paying no attention. “It is most illogical for me to find it frustrating ... yet I do. I have known McHenry for many years, going back to the Academy. I dislike the current situation, and I am increasingly of the opinion that, if I can find some way in which to take a hand, I am obligated to do so. I have not yet determined, however, what that might be.”
“It sounds to me like you actually might have determined it, and just don’t want to think about it.”
Appearing momentarily amused, Soleta replied, “You are most perceptive for a human.”
A muttered curse came from across the way at the engineering station. A cybertech named Devereaux was working on it. Although he was in his twenties and purportedly quite brilliant (having spent his internship at the Daystrom Institute), he looked to Robin as if he was about twelve years old. Not surprising; most of the best and brightest computer experts looked like juveniles.
Soleta, who had been leaning over, stood. “Problem, Mr. Devereaux?” she inquired.
He scowled at her. “The mnemonics in your whole computer system are still off by a huge margin.”
“How so?” She glanced at Robin and said, “The system has been functioning in a satisfactory manner, has it not?”
“Aside from when it screamed a few weeks back, yeah,” Robin replied with a shrug.
“Yeah, well, it shouldn’t be. The rhythmics are completely out of whack.”
“Rhythmics?” asked Robin.
“Lord, don’t they teach you people anything?” Devereaux said impatiently. “Rhythmics are ...”
“Rhythmics are the electron flow of a computer’s ‘thinking,’ ” Soleta cut in, not even bothering to glance in Devereaux’s direction.
“Right, except computers don’t actually think,” said Devereaux. “They process information, but draw no conclusions, nor do they have personalities beyond what we program into them to give a semblance of personalities. So the rhythmic for a computer is very, very consistent. It never changes, because it doesn’t react to anything.”
“And that is not the case here?” asked Soleta.
He shook his head vigorously. “They’re all over the damned place. It’s like the computer is ... I don’t know. Studying its own databases. Trying to comprehend what it knows rather than just regurgitate on command. Except it’s impossible. The only time I’ve ever seen anything like it is in textbooks.”
“So you’re saying it’s a textbook case?” Robin asked, confused.
“History textbooks. The M5 computer. A computer that Richard Daystrom had imprinted with human en-grams. That had these kinds of hiccups ... except this is a hundred times worse. I just don’t get it.”
“I am certain,” Soleta told him, “that you will figure it out.”
He gave her a sour look that indicated just how much her confidence in him meant before returning to work.
Leaning back in toward Robin, Soleta said softly, “You have detected nothing unusual in ops?”
“All systems seem normal,” replied Robin. “Then again, I’m not running the sort of detailed analysis that he is.” Then she chuckled and added, “Maybe I should ask my mother for guidance.”
“Your mother?” Soleta’s eyebrows came together in a puzzled frown. “Is that some manner of intended jest?”
“No, I ...” Robin’s cheeks colored slightly. “Not at all. I’m sorry, that probably sounded a little weird.”
“Just a touch,” Soleta acknowledged.
“I was just thinking about that program you created for the holodeck. It seemed so ... so realistic. So much like her. And since she always seemed to have all the answers ...”
“Wait.” Soleta’s head was cocked like a curious bulldog. “What are you talking about?”
“I know, I know,” sighed Robin. “I should have thanked you for it ages ago. I’m sure you went to a lot of work for that, and I’m sorry, I simply got distracted with all of the ...”
“Robin,” Soleta said firmly, placing a hand on Robin’s shoulder to command her attention. “I have no clue as to what you are referring.”
“When you suggested I go to the holodeck a few weeks back,” Robin reminded her. “And the holoimage of my mother was waiting for me. The one you put together.”
“I put together no such thing.”
“You did! You must have!” Her voice was getting louder, once again attracting attention. “I mean ... why else did you suggest I go to the holodeck if you didn’t have that waiting for me?”
“Because the holodeck can be a diversion. That’s all,” Soleta said. “I had no ulterior motive other than to suggest you engage in some pastime that you might find amusing.”
“So ... so what are you saying? That you didn’t ... ?”
“I believe,” said Soleta with careful patience, “that I have said this far more times than should be necessary.”
“Well then who ...”
Her voice trailed off and very slowly, she looked at the ops station. She felt a pounding beginning in her head as matters that seemed too insane to contemplate began to occur to her. “It couldn’t be,” she whispered.
“What could not be? What are you ... ?” And then Soleta’s mind went in the same direction as Robin’s, and she likewise was stunned at the notion, although the shock did not register as openly on her face. “You ... are not insinuating what I think you are ...”
“Devereaux!” Lefler suddenly called, and she didn’t realize she was standing even as she rose and backed away from
the ops station. “Stop fiddling with the computer systems a minute!”
“Fiddling?” He sounded very put out. “I would hardly term what I do fid—”
“Just shut up!” She licked her suddenly dry lips, cast a quick glance at Soleta, who nodded in encouragement, and then called, “Computer.”
“Working,” came the familiar computer voice. Except for the first time, Lefler noticed it sounded a little ... too familiar.
Her mouth started to move, to try and form the next words, but nothing emerged at first. And when it did, it was as a strangled whisper. “Mother?”
Silence from the computer.
All eyes were on Robin as she took a step forward, cleared her throat, and said more loudly this time, “Mother? It’s me. It’s Robin. Mother ... if you can hear me ... say something.”
Another pause, and then ...
“You really need to do something about your hair, dear,” came the slightly disapproving voice of Morgan Primus from the computer console. “Mourning is all well and good, but you don’t have to let yourself go to seed because of it.”
The world went black around her, and for the first time in her life, Robin Lefler passed out dead away from shock.
RUNABOUT
SI CWAN STARTED TO WONDER what was going to get to him first: the damage to the runabout’s life-support system, or the deathly quiet.
Ever since the runabout had torn away from Danter, Kalinda and he had known that there had been systems damage from the farewell shelling they had taken. They had managed to keep the engines going, and between those and the simple tendency of objects in motion to stay in motion, they had continued on a fairly straightforward heading away from Danter.
They had watched for any signs of pursuit for the longest time. It wouldn’t have been all that difficult for anyone chasing them to catch up in fairly short order. The ship was barely able to attain warp speed, and even then it couldn’t maintain it very long without sustaining serious structural damage. No one, however, did. For a time, Si Cwan wondered why, and then it occurred to him: He and Kalinda simply weren’t important enough to go after. It was a harsh realization for him to come to, and irrationally he almost wished that they had come in pursuit and blown them out of space. Better to be dead than ignored. Then he realized what he was thinking and cautioned himself not to repeat his sentiments to Kalinda, lest his sister give him that dead-eyed stare she used to indicate she thought he’d just said something amazingly stupid.
It was not long after they had made their initial escape that Si Cwan realized his ruminations about oblivion being preferable to obscurity might be coming to unfortunate reality. The systems-wide damage they’d sustained was worsening at an exponential rate. The runabout was simply not on par, in terms of quality, with similar Federation equipment.
The first thing to develop problems was the replicator, which would be providing them with food and water for however long they were out in space. Neither Si Cwan nor Kalinda were technicians; nevertheless, they did everything they could to effect repairs with the help of oral computer instructions. This worked right up until the moment when the computer suggested they slam their heads repeatedly into the console, then blow open the hatch and go for a long walk, at which point they realized the computer systems were malfunctioning.
So they eked out what they could from the replicators whenever they could get them to work in some sort of spotty fashion, and that kept them going for quite a few days until the air started feeling thick. It was at that point they realized the air purifiers were going offline. They weren’t running out of air, but the toxins from their exhalations were being filtered out at a slower and slower rate. The Thallonians realized it would be only a matter of time before they were unable to function or even breathe.
They minimized their activities. Both of them were trained in deep meditative techniques, and they reached into that training in order to minimize both their breathing and their movements around the cabin.
Si Cwan had no idea how long this situation went on, because the chronometer had started counting backward. For a while he’d hoped this was indicating that they were, in fact, going back in time. That, at least, would be interesting. Eventually, he had to settle for the realization that something else was broken on the runabout.
Along with the navigation system, of course. Never had Si Cwan so wished for the presence of Mark McHenry. That amazing conn officer somehow always just knew where he was in the vastness of space, with or without guidance systems. Si Cwan, however, was not quite as blessed. He had a general idea of the star systems, but navigation was more than just being able to pick out stars unless one was interested in heading into a collision course with a sun. It meant being able to know precisely where a planet was in its orbit in order to find it. Otherwise solar systems could be mighty big affairs while trying to locate one particular sphere. And that was information Si Cwan simply didn’t possess. Nor did he know where particular man-made outposts or space stations might be.
Besides, it wasn’t as if the ship’s engines would have been up for the voyage even if he knew precisely where to go. They were coasting well enough with occasional warp-speed thrusts, but the aim was to conserve energy in the engines because who knew when those might go?
The com system went shortly thereafter, so any sort of distress signal was moot. There would have been an automatic distress beacon on a Federation runabout, but he didn’t know if a Danteri craft carried such equipment. Ultimately the entire question was likely moot. Even if it did have such equipment, the way things were going it would probably be broken.
And so they sat in the runabout.
And sat. And sat.
Because the Excalibur so routinely interacted with other vessels, and because there was so much to occupy one’s time on the great starship, and because the ship went so damned fast, Si Cwan tended to forget just how gargantuan and empty space truly was. At first he had told himself that they couldn’t possibly travel for too long without running into another ship that would be able to provide them succor. Now, however, so much time had passed that he was starting to wonder if the opposite was true. If they would, in fact, ever see another ship for the rest of their lives ... however long that might be.
Every so often in the endless floating haze of their existence, he would glance over at Kalinda and smile, or give her an encouraging nod. At first he had been filled with confidence that they were faced with only a temporary inconvenience. That confidence eroded as time passed, although one could never have known it from the way he continued to look in a positive manner at his sister. What choice did he have? Focusing on the growing likelihood that they would not survive their predicament wasn’t going to help anything.
But the silence was just ... just staggering.
Naturally there was no sound in airless space. On a day-to-day basis, the Excalibur was filled with noises, ranging from the distant thrumming of the engines to conversations, laughter, argument, and so on. Here, though, there was nothing. Endless nothing. He thought he was going to go insane.
So he was slightly startled when Kalinda abruptly said, after who knew how long, “We’re not getting out of this, are we.” There was no whining or fear in her voice. She was very matter-of-fact about it.
He supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised at that. She was, after all, someone who seemed to have extended congress with the spirit world. Kalinda tended to view death as an extension of existence rather than the end of it. Si Cwan didn’t find that view comforting, unfortunately.
He wanted to lie to her. To tell her that everything was going to be okay, and that she shouldn’t worry her pretty little bald red head. But he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He had too much respect for her to insult her by feeding her cheery fabrications just to spare her feelings.
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. He was surprised to hear his voice coming out as a sort of croak. That made sense. They hadn’t been talking all that much. The smart thing would
be to refrain from talking now as well, but dying in the vacuum of space was pointless enough. Dying in silence while waiting for it to happen seemed a true exercise in futility. “I admit, matters look bleak. But they’re not hopeless.”
She stared out through the front viewing port at the vista of emptiness before them, that stretched to infinity without the slightest hint of another ship in sight. “Not totally hopeless.”
“No.”
“But significantly hopeless.”
He sighed and nodded. “Of sufficient significance as to warrant consideration, yes.”
The silence settled upon them once more as Kalinda absorbed his opinion ... an opinion that, on some level, she doubtless already knew.
“Any regrets?” she said abruptly.
He blinked. “Excuse me?”
“Any regrets. Over your life. All the decisions you’ve made.”
“Ah.” He could smell how stale the air was, and he was feeling light-headed besides. Every instinct told him that it was an obscene waste of resources and energy to be holding a conversation with Kalinda under these circumstances. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell his sister to be quiet. For all he knew, this might be their last conversation. “Well ... obviously I regret the decisions that have brought us to this pass.”
“Really? I’m surprised. I mean, I personally thought this was your best decision ever.”
He laughed softly at that. “I see your powers of sarcasm remain undiminished.”
“I’ve worked hard to make it so. It’s comforting to know all that effort hasn’t gone to waste.”
“Is there really any point to examining regrets?” He sighed. “Really. Wouldn’t it be preferable to dwell on all the positives?”
“I don’t see the point of that. Dwelling on positives would simply be an exercise in self-congratulations bordering on eulogizing. Pondering the things you’ve done wrong is more forward-thinking. It allows you to consider different directions you might take in the future ...”