Studying the diagram, Tom saw that Harry was right. Based on what Tuvok had mapped so far, the fold was quite large. As he watched, several more blinking dots appeared: more probes. Tom cocked his head, then pointed at the line formed by the points. “It’s curved,” he said.
Harry cocked an eyebrow and turned the monitor back so he could see what Tom meant. “You’re right,” he said. “I hadn’t noticed the arc.”
“It’s very slight,” Tom said. “If it weren’t for those last couple of probes, I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. Does that mean anything?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said staring at the monitor while tapping the tip of his chin with a stylus. As they watched, another half-dozen probes blinked on. “Tuvok is working fast.”
“How is he marking the perimeter?” Tom asked.
“The probes are emitting small amounts of warp plasma particles. They react with the edges of the fold.”
At that moment, Tuvok must have fired another volley of probes, because the edge they had been watching form suddenly grew several hundred kilometers longer. The slight curve became more radical.
Harry tapped his combadge. “Kim to Tuvok.”
“Tuvok here.”
“Tuvok, I’m looking at the map of the fold you’re creating and wanted to know if you could quickly launch a few more. I’m interested to see where that curved edge goes.”
“Very well, Mr. Kim. Please stand by.”
Several minutes ticked by before another cluster of lights appeared on the screen. The curve of the line grew radically tighter, then disappeared into a corkscrew spiral.
“Is that sufficient, Mr. Kim?”
“Can we map some more?”
“Not at this moment, Mr. Kim. We have used up our compliment of probes for now. I am in the process of assembling more, but our resources are low. It will require time.”
“Understood. Kim out.” Harry continued to stare at the peculiar curved shape. Tom watched his friend and was surprised to see that a slow grin was creeping onto his face.
“What is it, Harry?” Tom asked. “What are you seeing?”
Harry did not respond to Tom, but rather tapped his combadge and said, “Kim to Captain Janeway.”
“Janeway here.”
“Captain, could you meet me in astrometrics right away? I think I have something.”
* * *
In truth, sneaking into the compound turned out to be almost fun, and the electrified fence was no match for any of B’Elanna’s tools. Tricorder scans got them through the guards. Locks opened with no resistance, and less than six minutes after B’Elanna cut through the fence, they were inside the main building.
Checking her tricorder, Seven said softly. “There are no internal alarms. We may move—cautiously, but without fear.”
B’Elanna’s wrist lamp illuminated banks of primitive (to her) computer equipment and generators. At the center of the main floor, they found a stairway that led down into what her scan said was a deep underground chamber filled with water and lined with photomultiplier tubes. “What is this?” B’Elanna asked. “A reservoir? Emergency supplies?”
Seven shook her head. “I do not think so. I believe we have stumbled onto a research station. This appears to be a neutrino observatory.”
“A what?”
“You know too little of your own history, Lieutenant. Four hundred years ago, humans first theorized the existence of neutrino particles. Researchers hit upon the idea of building or adapting large chambers like this one, filling them with pure water, and lining them with very sensitive light detectors. Primitive engineering, to say the least, but functional, to a point.”
“What does this have to do with the energy wave we felt earlier?”
“Probably nothing,” Seven said. “Subatomic particle research of this sort is highly theoretical work—‘pure science,’ as you would call it. I am intrigued that the Monorhans, a people enmeshed in such difficult circumstances, would expend resources in the pursuit of abstract knowledge.”
“Maybe not such pure research,” B’Elanna suggested. “If you lived this close to a white dwarf, wouldn’t you want to know as much as possible about exotic particles?”
Seven considered this, then nodded. “Though a moot point in our current investigation. This apparatus has not been used in several years.”
“Meaning what? The Monorhans abandoned their pure research in favor of weapons research?”
Shaking her head, Seven said, “I do not think the energy wave was meant to be a weapon. This installation does not look like a weapons lab.”
“For something that wasn’t meant to be a weapon, the energy wave did a hell of a job.”
“We require more information,” Seven said, then indicated a cluster of consoles in the center of the main room. “I believe we can find out more by checking that data center. Readings indicate it was used most recently.”
“All right,” B’Elanna said, pointing her lamp down at the stairwell one more time. The idea of the large water-filled chamber below made her skin crawl. Maybe the idea reminded her of one of the death traps the heroines in Tom’s silly serials always seemed to get trapped inside.
* * *
“Harry thinks he has something,” the captain said, still leaning over the latest batch of sensor logs scrolling up onto the science officer’s station. Studying her face in the glare from the monitor, Chakotay saw the dark circles under her eyes. She hasn’t slept in over a day, he realized. “I’m going to meet him in astrometrics.”
“What about Captain Ziv and the rih-hara-tan?” Chakotay asked. “You told them we would meet with them.”
When she rose from the chair, Kathryn’s knee joints popped loudly. “Agh!” she said. “I need to stretch. What I said was ‘Someone would meet with them.’ You’re my officially anointed ‘someone.’ Find out what they want and then try to find out what they really want. I don’t trust Sem. The way she and Ziv act around each other—there’s something wrong there.”
Chakotay nodded in agreement. Even in their short encounter in the conference room, he had sensed the tension between the pair. “Try to join us later,” he added. “I get the feeling Sem thinks the rest of us are…beneath her.”
Even as Kathryn disappeared into the turbolift, Chakotay heard her say, “It’s good to be the queen.”
After a moment’s reflection, Chakotay asked Neelix to throw together a quick meal. Kathryn wouldn’t have done such a thing, but she had put him in charge of the Monorhans. As was his wont, the Talaxian put a little too much effort into “a quick meal.” When Chakotay arrived in the conference room, the table was laden with an abundance of “typical” food items, everything from peanut butter sandwiches and fried tofu to Rian pickled eggs (Chakotay knew better than to ask where they came from) and a lovely replicated roast chicken, which was one of the very few foods everyone agreed tasted just as good replicated as real. Chakotay supposed this latter had something to do with the fact that all replicated food basically tasted like chicken.
As soon as everyone sat, Chakotay realized his observation about Sem was correct: the rih-hara-tan wished only to speak to the captain and neither Chakotay nor Neelix would do. She stewed and fumed while Ziv halfheartedly attempted to make conversation. The hulking Morsa helped himself to every food on the table, then methodically and meticulously chewed every bite into paste before swallowing. Chakotay hadn’t heard him speak a word since the shuttlebay. What was that about? And why does he deny remembering it?
Finally, when food was no longer a distraction, Chakotay asked, “You had questions?”
Sem responded impatiently, “Will the captain be joining us?”
“Eventually, yes. Until then, ask me whatever you’d like.”
Sem clicked indignantly, but finally said, “Do you know how to get out of the fold?”
“The captain is working on that problem as we speak.”
“Does your captain always spend so much time working on these sor
ts of problems?”
“The captain,” Chakotay said flatly, “possesses one of the finest scientific minds in the service. If anyone can guide us to an answer, it’s Captain Janeway.”
“Hear, hear,” said Neelix.
“She asked me to get additional information about our situation,” Chakotay continued. “Perhaps we can cover some of that until she joins us.”
Responding (perhaps) to Chakotay’s tone, Sem straightened her back, but gave him her undivided attention. “What would you like to know?”
“Tell us more about the Blue Eye—scientific data, history, even legend. Anything you can tell us might be useful.”
“All right,” Sem said, her voice becoming formal. “The Blue Eye is the most prominent feature in our sky except for Protin herself.”
“Protin?” Chakotay asked, then guessed, “The main star?”
“So we call it in my tribe. Among the fourteen tribes, it has other names.”
“The fourteen tribes?”
Neelix inserted himself into the conversation. “All Monorhans identify themselves as being a member of a tribe, Commander. Each of the cities on the planet is the origin point of a tribe, though according to Mr. Dora, members from many tribes live in each of them.”
“I have a very good memory,” Chakotay said, addressing the comment to Sem. “When we saw your planet from orbit, I saw thirteen cities. Was there once a fourteenth?”
“A fourteenth,” Sem said. “Yes. And many smaller towns, but as the population has dwindled, most of our people have returned to the cities, where they can be better protected.”
“That’s avoiding the question. Fourteen tribes?”
Sem stirred uncomfortably, then settled again. “Yes, fourteen.”
“What happened to the fourteenth tribe?”
“That is a very long story, Commander, and not relevant to your first question. The Eye has not always been as we see it now. Historical documents tell us that it was once a pale red.”
“When did it turn blue?”
Sem spoke a phrase that the translator deciphered as “Twenty-five hundred years.”
“Is Protin the Blessed, All-Knowing Light?”
Shaking her head as if Chakotay had asked a childish question, she said, “No, Protin is a name out of legend—a hunter, I believe. I don’t know the story in any detail.”
“When the Blue Eye changed color, did its behavior change?”
“It is difficult to say. We know for a fact that the Eye began to emit more harmful radiation approximately one hundred and fifty cycles ago. Our environment began to degrade at the end of the previous century. At first, our scientists thought it might be part of a process we had not previously perceived, that the cycle would end shortly after it began, that our atmosphere could protect us….” She shook her head slowly. “Sadly, none of this was true.”
“When did your scientists determine this?”
“Some say they knew as long ago as forty cycles, but I was only very young then. Certainly it has only been during the past ten that any concerted effort has been made to protect ourselves.”
“The shields over your cities?” Chakotay asked.
“Yes, of course.”
“What about the energy pulse that put us here? What do you know about it?”
“Very little,” Sem said. “Those who did it were…” She searched for a word. “Outlaws? Outcasts? I hear the correct word in my head, but neither of those is correct. The Emergency Council believes they are trying to find a way around the inevitable.”
“The inevitable?” Chakotay asked. “What do you think is inevitable?”
Sem looked first at Ziv, then at Morsa, still quietly eating. “That our planet will die. That we must find a way to leave it or die, too.”
The words hung in the air for several seconds and Chakotay considered trying to find something reassuring to say, but before he could say anything, someone else broke the silence.
Ziv said, “And tell them the last thing, Sem. Tell the whole truth. Explain how we already know that not everyone will escape. Explain how you and the other rih-hara-tan have decided who may be allowed to quietly perish.”
* * *
“That’s Voyager,” Torres said, pointing at a tiny blip on the monitor built into the console. “They knew she was up there. Not a very friendly thing to do, shooting off their little cannon.”
“Just because we found Voyager in their scans,” Seven retorted, “does not mean the Monorhans knew she was there. Researchers frequently have tunnel vision.” She was surprised when the engineer let the comment pass without a response. Likely, Torres did not consider herself a researcher and so did not perceive the statement as an insult.
“We need to get this panel off and take a look inside,” Torres said, addressing the immediate problem. She pointed at the quick scans she had performed on the console and the large array on the roof. “Is it just me, or does this remind you of a deflector dish?”
The similarity was slight, but Seven had to admit these sorts of intuitive leaps frequently baffled her. “Perhaps,” she said. “Do you believe the Monorhans were attempting to upgrade their shielding technology?”
“I don’t know,” Torres said while opening her tool kit. “It’s a possibility. We may need to talk to some of these people later and find out what they think they’re doing.”
“They will probably not want to talk with us,” Seven said. “I am under the impression that they are not affiliated with the planet’s emergency planning council.”
“Which suggests another question,” Torres said, feeling around the edge of the panel. “Here, hold this light so I can see.” Carefully running her fingers along the seam of a console, she found a recessed catch. “If these guys aren’t part of the Emergency Council, why hasn’t anyone come looking for them?”
Seven had also been wondering about this and decided there was only one possible conclusion. “If this is some kind of deflector array, the energy wave may not affect their technology, but only ours.”
In the shadow cast by the lamp, Seven saw Torres make an unhappy face. “Seems unlikely,” she said. “More likely the officials detected the wave, but don’t have the resources to do anything about…Oh, wait, I got it.” The panel popped off the console with a quivering twang.
The shadows disappeared from Torres’s face in a blaze of white light. Seven’s ocular implant attempted to parse the event and capture every moment, but the result was only a sputtering mélange of images: Torres’s eyes snapping shut as her hair flew back; tiny bits of steel and plastic flying out from the console; a belch of smoke bleached white by the bright flash. All these images assaulted her, overlapping, then faded into a pinpoint of contracting darkness.
Chapter 11
B’Elanna awoke in darkness, hearing nothing but the sound of water dripping—a disturbing noise for a spacer, as bad in its way as the hiss of escaping atmosphere. Recognizing that she was in a pool of icy water, she sat up quickly and rolled awkwardly to her knees. Sniffing, she smelled mold, rust, and a musty chemical aroma. She lifted her hands and rubbed her arms briskly, then groaned with pain. Cramping muscles? Injury? Probably the former. That fit with the cold and the wet, anyway.
B’Elanna passed her hands in front of her face to make sure her eyes weren’t bound and, finding nothing, tried to be still and listen carefully. For the first few seconds, the sound of her own breathing filled her senses, but she was soon able to focus past the whoosh of air and make assessments about her surroundings.
A drop splashed into a pool, and the echo reverberated through the air. Large room, she decided, and a chill not caused by the cold ran down her spine. Cavernous. She inched her hand carefully along the floor by first her right side, then her left. To the right, she encountered a callused and pitted metal wall damp with condensation. The floor to the left, also metal, went on for her full arm’s length, until her fingertips found a steel mesh barrier.
I’m on a walkway, she concl
uded, though there was no telling how old it was or how strong.
Groping carefully, B’Elanna found a small chunk of crumbled concrete, which she lifted, then tossed toward the mesh wall, careful not to put too much force into the throw in case the concrete bounced back at her. A moment later, she heard a gentle plop. She had been pretty sure where she was, but this clinched it. “Great,” she said. “I’m in the neutrino-detection chamber.”
“Correction,” Seven said. “We are both in the neutrino-detection chamber.”
The voice made B’Elanna gasp, equally surprised and annoyed that she hadn’t detected her traveling companion. How can she be so quiet?
“I see,” B’Elanna said, attempting to conceal her surprise. “Except I don’t really. Not yet, anyway.” She knelt and felt around her waist to see if their captors had inadvertently left them any useful equipment. “Do you have anything we can use to see with? Even the light from a tricorder display would be good.”
“I do not,” Seven replied. “Whoever searched us was most thorough.”
“And even enhanced Borg senses can’t see in total darkness?” B’Elanna asked, glad to finally find some flaw in Seven’s array of special enhancements.
“In fact they can,” Seven said. “Or would if we were in total darkness.”
“Then we’re just going to have to be careful and feel around until…” Seven’s last comment registered. “Wait. What are you saying?”
Seven paused, and B’Elanna could sense her struggling to think of the most efficient manner to explain the situation. Finally, she settled on “You cannot see anything.”
“Nothing,” B’Elanna said, trying not to let panic creep into her voice. “Are you sure your Borg enhanced senses aren’t just in overdrive?”
“Quite sure.”
B’Elanna sagged back against the wall. “Oh, crap.”
Her mind raced. Blind? Blind?! How could she be blind? What good would she be to anyone now, especially to Seven? The Borg would surely figure some way out of the trap, but B’Elanna was useless now, so she’d be abandoned down here in the dark where her captors would either torture her or leave her to starve or drown or…Stop! Enough! Holding her breath, B’Elanna clenched her fists and then punched the concrete at her feet. None of this! she thought. Hold it together! There’s a way out of this. There’s always a way. If I have to find a stick and put a leash around Seven’s neck, I’ll find a way.