Текст книги "Over a Torrent Sea "

Автор книги: Christopher Bennett

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She was grinning at his inability to solve the riddle, and he racked his brain, desperate to take the wind from her sails. But he just couldn’t see it. Maybe he was just too unwilling to get into the mindset that sacrifice could be acceptable. Yes, there were causes worth fighting for, but the ideal was to win the fight and come out alive. When lives were lost—like the engineers aboard Lunawhen his prototype engine failed catastrophically, like his predeces sor Nidani Ledrah when his design had failed to protect her and Titan’s crew sufficiently from a Reman attack, like so many billions in the Federation when their technology had proven unequal to the Borg—it was a failure, a mistake, a result of inadequate tools or resources. Believing in no-win scenarios was an excuse to avoid admitting inadequacy. And only by admitting your own inadequacy—at least to yourself, no matter how much you denied it to others—could you strive harder to make sure such failures did not happen again.

But of course he was getting off the subject. A colony of floater polyps had no such profound concerns. But the one concern they did have was survival. The goal of life was to stay alive at all costs. If half had to die, there must have been some desperate need, something that would have killed them all otherwise.

“If they get too heavy to swim,” he reasoned, “they would just float in place, or drift randomly. They…they would deplete the resources in their immediate area and be unable to travel elsewhere.”

“Very good,” Melora said, with less snideness this time. “But how does surfacing help them compensate for that?”

Somehow it had to bring them new food sources, but Melora had ruled out all his hypotheses along those lines. He sighed. “Why don’t you just put me out of my misery and tell me already, woman?”

But it was Aili who responded. “Currents,” she said, sounding like it was the most obvious thing in the galaxy. “Once they can’t swim on their own, they need to rely on currents to take them to new nutrient sources—and the surface currents are stronger because of the wind.”

Ra-Havreii supposed he shouldn’t be embarrassed that someone who’d grown up on a pelagic planet would have more knowledge of the subject than he did. But he was nonetheless. It was so obvious. Except…it was nature. How could anyone expect him to know that? If anything, he told himself, he’d been quite brilliant to figure out as much as he had.

But try telling Melora that. The female was impossible to please lately. “Nice to see someone here’s paying attention,” she said with gross and deliberate unfairness. “We think they grow together into clusters so they can support more of an ecosystem, including taller trees, which let them catch more wind. As well as supplying more nutrients. Still, even with all that,” she went on to Aili, essentially ignoring him now that she’d successfully proven him ignorant of one minor bit of trivia, “they still have trouble finding enough food once they get too big. So eventually the new-formed polyps grow into bubbles, or maybe buds is a better word. The buds break off and form new floaters, and eventually all that’s left of the parent colony is a dead, hollow husk. Which, of course, has got its own little island ecosystem growing on top of it. And the whole cycle begins again.”

“That’s lovely,” Aili said. “What an amazing planet. Thanks for convincing us to come here, Melora.”

“My pleasure.”

Another swell sent the island racing skyward, leaving Xin’s stomach behind. He clung to the mossy growth on the ground beneath him until the ocean dropped him back down again. “Yes, thank you,” he grumbled, clambering to his feet– No, don’t bother helping me, oh, that’s right, you aren’t—and rubbing his sore back. “A veritable Endless Sky you’ve brought us to. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going back to camp to lie down.” At least the camp had its own gravity plating and inertial damping field. There he could ride out the swells and feel as steady as he did aboard Titan—so long as he didn’t open his eyes.

He had an agreeable nap, until he was awakened by Melora joining him in bed. They might not have been very fond of each other right now, but fortunately the lovely Elaysian understood that that was no reason to deny themselves the pleasures of the flesh. Indeed, their mutual annoyance with one another added a stimulating intensity to their physical passion. He rather hoped she wouldn’t stop being angry at him anytime soon. At least it would make things interesting until she finally left him.

Because it was inevitable that she would leave him, wasn’t it? They would have their fun and move on, just as always. Perhaps with somewhat more duration and intensity than most of his affairs, and to be cherished for that, but that was all.

But he found himself unexpectedly troubled by the prospect of its ending. So he stopped thinking of it and concentrated on the here and now, delivering a finely calibrated taunt on the subject of her pleasuring technique in order to goad the highly competitive Elaysian into proving him wrong….

Three hours later, the away team’s hydrophones in the deep sound channel picked up the contact signal agreed upon between Aili Lavena and the squales, coming from a location currently about thirty kilometers northeast of the main base. Aili wished the squales weren’t so wary of approach ing technology; she couldn’t swim that distance in a reasonable time, so she would have to don the hydration suit and ride in the scouter gig again.

The captain seemed distracted when he arrived in the shuttle half an hour later. “Is everything all right, sir?” Melora asked him as he headed toward the waiting gig and its Selkie pilot. This time it would be only Aili and the captain, since Ra-Havreii was currently working with Y’lira Modan on a linguistic analysis of the sounds made by the squales’ various helper species (on the theory that decoding a simpler form of the language might provide the foundation for a squale translation matrix) and Huilan had some kind of counseling emergency up on the ship. (Counselor Haaj wasn’t qualified as a diplomatic officer; with his confrontational manner, that would be a good way to start a few wars.)

Riker filled them in on the asteroid detection. “It turns out to be on a collision course with Droplet after all, about seven hours away. I’ve ordered Commander Vale to intercept and deflect it onto a safe trajectory.”

“Damn,” Melora said. “Should we be preparing for an evacuation?”

“It’s not that grave a risk. More an inconvenience. It’ll take a fair amount of power, cutting it this close, but nothing the ship and crew can’t handle.”

“Sir,” Ra-Havreii asked, “doesn’t the Prime Directive say we shouldn’t interfere in natural disasters?”

“Consider it a precaution to protect our own away teams. Besides, we’re in a delicate enough Prime Directive situation already without an asteroid impact complicating things.”

Aili could tell that Riker wasn’t happy to have been called away from the bridge—or to be away from his wife and child—at a time like this. As they boarded the gig, she said, “Captain, I really want to thank you for agreeing to help with this. I know it must be rough to be away from your family right now.”

He smiled. “It’s quite all right, Aili. Counselor Troi and I both understand the demands of duty.” Settling in, he started the gig’s induction motor, which gave off only a quiet hum to signal its activation as the craft sped forward. Aili appreciated that; she’d read horror stories of how the crude propulsion systems of industrial-era Earth and other worlds had polluted their oceans with constant, deafening noise, making life unbearable for their denizens.

“Besides,” Riker went on, “I’ll get to see plenty of my little girl once she’s born. After all, Deanna’s the diplomatic officer—aside from these last few months, she spends more time off the ship than I do.”

She smiled at him through her faceplate. “You seem excited about becoming a father.”

He chuckled. “Excited is one way of putting it. To be honest, I—” He broke off. Though Will Riker was a gregarious captain, there always remained a dividing line between a captain and his crew. “Let’s just say it’ll be a new experience for me.”

“Seems to me you’ve always been quick to embrace new experiences.” After a second, she felt her crests flush hot inside the hydration suit’s fins—that had come out with more innuendo than she’d intended. “Uh, sir.”

If he caught the implied double entendre, the captain gave no sign of it. “But you—how many children did you have again, Ensign?”

Her crests flushed deeper. “Uh, eight, sir. Three sons, five daughters.”

“That many,” he said, sounding impressed, though it was an average tally by Selkie standards. “After all that, you’ve got to have some real insights. Any pointers for the new guy on what to expect? What to watch out for?”

“I, um…” Aili wrung her webbed hands together, hating where this was going. Why did he have to remind her of this? Of course, it wasn’t his fault; he couldn’t know what a sensitive area this was for her, since she had pledged never to tell him. Twenty-two years ago, when she had seduced him in the private, sea-connected swimming pool of the Federation embassy, she had played the nervous innocent, not letting on that he was just one of many. Not letting on that she was a libertine by her people’s standards, an irresponsible mother. The uninhibited sex lives of Selkies were the stuff of legend to young, libidinous starfarers; many of them didn’t understand that it was only the final-phase, post-amphibious Selkies who had that freedom, that it was different for Selkies in their amphibious phase. That phase, their species’ window of fertility, was only about two decades long, and Selkies were expected to raise large families. The amphibious phase was thus a time for selfless discipline and dedication to the young, with the free sensuality of their elders put on hold for the duration. Many amphibious Selkies longed for a respite from the discipline, a taste of the sexual liberty their elders enjoyed. Offworlders, who generally didn’t know better, were a favorite release valve, a chance to flout tradition and pro priety without consequences. For some reason, the alien colonists who lived in Pacifica’s resort towns, research bases, and the like—those who interacted enough with the Selkies to understand their culture—did not go out of their way to explain matters to offworld visitors; perhaps they felt it was the Selkies’ place, or perhaps they were simply objective enough to see the occasional dalliance as a necessary release valve. Or maybe they just appreciated the heavy tourism that the Selkies’ interstellar reputation brought to Pacifica.

Aili, though, had done it more than most—not just the odd, infrequent fling after several years of parenthood had left her aching for release, but hundreds of dalliances with alien males, females, and miscellanea, starting before her first child had even learned to walk on land. It hadn’t been cheating in the human sense; Selkies didn’t mate monogamously, and indeed rarely had more than two children with the same partner. And she didn’t feel guilty about the sex itself; that was just a natural part of life to her, one she still indulged regularly. What she regretted was her negligence, indulging herself while she left her children in the care of her siblings and neighbors, making one excuse after another until she had realized that she no longer needed to pretend because everyone knew what she really was. Everyone except the offworlders who didn’t understand or didn’t care.

Will Riker would have cared, had he known. But to him, it had been a pleasant, harmless interlude, a brief encounter he remembered fondly. (Well, not that brief. He’d lasted most of the night, actually one of her longer affairs.) She couldn’t confront him with the reality of what a sor did thing she’d involved him in. He would no doubt feel guilty, as though he’d taken advantage of her in some way. At least, it would spoil a memory that was wholesome and happy to him, and she needed at least one of them to feel that way about it.

But all she could remember now when she thought back on that night was that she’d been indulging herself while her two-year-old son was at Aili’s eldest sister’s home, crying and burning up from a lekipanaiinfection that kept the child up all night while his mother was off keeping Will Riker up all night. And now Will Riker was asking herfor advice on how to be a good parent?

He was watching her expectantly, his expression so innocent, so open. What could she say to him? “There’s nothing I—There’s no magic formula. I don’t know…I don’t know what your daughter will be like, what challenges you’ll face. Just…make sure you always try to do right by her. And…never take her for granted.”

He smiled. “I never could.”

Then he shook his head and chuckled. “It’s hard to believe you have grown children who must be parents themselves now. It doesn’t seem it’s been that long since we—uh, met.” He cleared his throat. “You must miss them a lot.”

She stared out at the sea. “You can’t imagine.”

CHAPTER E

IGHT

TITAN

“I’ve been getting complaints from the security staff, Tuvok,” Deanna said, resting her hands atop her belly and striving to maintain her serenity despite the fact that her daughter seemed to be trying to kick her way out of the womb. “They don’t understand why you’re still conducting holodeck combat drills involving the Borg.”

On the chair opposite her, Tuvok sat with his wonted erectness and cocked a brow. “I was not aware that tactical training procedures fell within your bailiwick, Counselor.”

“I’m more interested in understanding why you continue to train them to fight the Borg. There are no more Borg.”

“It is best to keep security personnel ready to face any threat. The Borg are the most formidable, adaptable threat Starfleet has ever faced, and thus are an excellent virtual opponent to train against.”

“If you can beat them, you can beat anybody.”

“Crudely put, but it approximates the principle.” He took a breath. “Also…we have encountered groups of Borg severed from the Collective before. We do not know if all such groups were affected by the Caeliar transformation. We can never entirely rule out the possibility that some aspect of the Borg may achieve a resurgence in the future. Or that we may encounter another cyborg race developing along similar lines.”

“But those are low-probability events, wouldn’t you say?”

“A kilometer-scale asteroid impacting a planet a mere eleven days after our arrival there is also a very low-probability event, Counselor, even in a system as rich in asteroids as this. Yet Titanis currently responding to such an event. The improbable does occur.”

“That’s true.” Deanna considered her words. “But if you want to prepare them for anything, doesn’t that suggest using a wide range of different training exercises? Is there a reason you use the Borg simulation so often?”

Tuvok sighed. “You seek to elicit an admission that I am exacting a form of symbolic revenge against the Borg for the death of Elieth. I would point out, Counselor, that I am far from the only member of this crew to have lost family, friends, or colleagues to the Collective. I believe that the simulations can be cathartic for many members of my staff.”

“Interesting,” Deanna said—and the word was not merely the boilerplate “interesting” that therapists used to sound supportive. It genuinely was interesting that Tuvok had become comfortable enough with the idea of manag ing rather than repressing emotion that he would use it as a factor in his training decisions, and that he would be empathetic enough to want to offer his subordinates such a catharsis. Still…“That may well be. But many members of this crew suffered post-traumatic stress in the wake of the invasion. Your Borg simulations are giving some people nightmares.”

She wanted to stand and walk around a bit to inject a pause in the conversation, gather her thoughts—hell, just to get the circulation back in her butt. But standing up would be such a time-consuming production that it would derail the conversation. “Tuvok, I’ve found that indulging anger doesn’t really relieve it—more often, it simply feeds it. If you—your personnel can’t be allowed to move past their rage toward the Borg, if they’re made to channel and express it over and over again, it just delays their recovery.”

He caught her in that no-nonsense gaze of his. “By which you implicitly mean my recovery as well.”

“Yes. But both are worth considering.”

For a time, the centenarian Vulcan pondered her words. “Perhaps I have…imposed my own needs too much on my personnel. I shall endeavor to refine my training to suit their needs better.”

“I’m sure they’ll appreciate it.”

He gave her the look she’d come to recognize as amusement. “Obviously you have never trained under me.”

But the moment was fleeting, and soon she felt the returning weight of his grief, his bitterness. “But what I choose to simulate in my own private training sessions…is my business, Counselor. Perhaps I am simply…not ready to let go yet.”

Unconsciously, Deanna wrapped her arms around her belly. She could feel the gaping wound in his soul where his youngest son had been, so much like the one in her own where her daughter’s unborn predecessor had lived for so tragically brief a time. She felt his frustration at his inability to protect his flesh and blood, and she understood it for reasons that had nothing to do with Betazoid senses. “Let go of what, Tuvok?” she asked. “Of futility? Of the desperate fantasy of going back and making it not happen? How do you hold on to Elieth’s memory by continuing to take revenge against an enemy that no longer exists?”

“Elieth’s last moments were spent defending against that enemy. His life was lost only because he chose to stay and defend others.”

“To help them evacuate—not to fight the Borg himself.”

“He defended in his way, as I do in mine. He gave away his life to confront the Borg. That is what I have left of him, Counselor.”

“He…gave awayhis life? Why that choice of words?”

“Federation Standard is an imprecise language. There are many ways to convey the same concept. Is this relevant?”

“Everything’s relevant in here, Tuvok.”

“No. You simply try to make it so.”

Hostility. Interesting.It was an almost refreshing change from the grief. “Another thing about anger, Tuvok…sometimes you can’t let it go until you realize just who or what it is you’re angry with. When it’s displaced, it brings no satisfaction, no resolution.”

He stared, brows furrowing. “With whom or what would I be angry if not the Borg?”

“Well, who else made a choice that contributed to Elieth’s death?”

“The question is so broadly defined that there are countless possible answers. The admirals who failed to defend Deneva successfully. The Denevans who approved his employment there. Admiral Janeway for crippling the Borg’s transwarp network and triggering their mass retaliation. Captain Picard for choosing not to use the Endgame program to destroy the Borg thirteen years ago. There are many other possible answers to your question.”

Deanna shrugged. “We’ve still got half an hour. Let’s consider some.”

“Commander, we have a problem.”

Christine Vale suppressed a wince at the fluting observation from Ensign Kuu’iut, the lanky Betelgeusian who stood beta-shift tactical. She always hated to hear those words. “Don’t keep it to yourself, Ensign.”

“Close-range scans show the asteroid to consist of considerably denser materials than expected. Possibly large deposits of rodinium, diburnium, indurite. Its mass is sixty-eight percent greater than previously estimated.”

She sighed. “Making it sixty-eight percent harder to deflect. Or is it the square of that? I forget which.”

“One-half the mass times the velocity squared,” said Peya Fell, the Deltan woman at sciences. “Goes linearly with mass.”

“That’s something. Thanks, Ensign. Kuu’iut, can we still deflect it successfully?”

He shook his bald blue head, baring the sharp teeth in his lower eating mouth while responding through his beaklike speaking mouth. “Not by tractors alone. We’d burn out the emitters.”

“And blowing it up would just leave a bunch of smaller rocks heading on the same course. Would that be any better for the planet?”

“Not much. Same amount of kinetic energy delivered, just a bit more diffusely. And given its density, the surviving chunks might still be sizeable. It might actually endanger life across an even wider area of the ocean.”

Oh, great.“Options?”

The ’Geusian leaned forward eagerly. It would be just like a member of his highly competitive culture, Vale thought, to see this as an entertaining challenge to pit himself against. “We could use phasers and torpedoes to vaporize a portion of the asteroid, creating explosive thrust that would push it off course, supplementing the tractor beams. We’d have to use the beams in pressor mode, pushing in the same direction as the thrust reaction.”

Vale nodded. “Do it.” She had almost regretted insisting that Tuvok keep his counseling appointment with Deanna rather than supervising the deflection as he’d requested, but Kuu’iut seemed to have the matter well in hand.

In moments, the Betelgeusian had the target coordinates computed and coordinated with Ooteshk at the conn, who moved Titaninto position, reversing thrust until the ship was keeping station with the asteroid. “If my gamble pays off,” Kuu’iut said, “a phaser strike and two quantum torpedoes in that central fissure should blow off a fairly large chunk or two, providing some extra reaction mass. I’m boosting shields in case of blowback.”

“We’re not here to gamble, Ensign,” Vale reminded him. “I want the surest thing you can give me.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the ’Geusian said, but he sounded like he was humoring her. “Engaging tractor beams in pressor mode.” On-screen, a false-color overlay made the beams visible, a tight cone of lavender rays extending to make contact with the asteroid. Vale idly wondered why Starfleet imaging technicians generally chose blue or purple shades to represent gravitational phenomena.

“Deflection…point oh six arcseconds per minute,” Ensign Fell reported after a moment. “Point oh eight,” a few moments later.

“That’s below projections,” Kuu’iut said, “even accounting for its density.”

“Beam status?” Vale asked.

“Full power is being delivered. But it’s not having its full effect.”

“Boost tractor power to compensate. How long can the emitters run at overload?”

Kuu’iut’s clawed fingers danced across the console as he replied. “At this level, thirty-eight minutes. It should be sufficient.”

“Deflection rate rising to…point one two,” Fell reported in an incongruously seductive lilt.

“Still below projections.”

“Internal temperature and radiation readings beginning to rise,” the Deltan went on. “Something may be absorbing some of the beam energy, transforming it into radiant energy rather than kinetic.”

“Something like?”

Fell tilted her smooth, elegantly contoured head. Bald,Vale thought in passing. There’s a look I haven’t tried.“Readings could be consistent with sarium or yurium.”

Vale recognized them as elements that could store and channel energy. “Could that affect the use of phasers, Kuu’iut?”

“Not materially. As long as I boost the power as with the tractors.”

She turned to Tasanee Panyarachun at the engineering console. “Have engineering stand by to deliver extra power, if needed.”

“Aye, ma’am,” the dainty Thai woman answered.

“Phasers and torpedoes ready,” Kuu’iut said. “We’re in the window, ma’am.”

Vale gave a curt nod. “Fire.”

A red beam lashed out, another enhanced image, though less so than the tractors. It struck the fissure perfectly, and a cloud of vaporized rock erupted around the impact site. Two bright torpedoes followed it a moment later, detonating inside the pit the phasers had carved. There was no sign of the chunk breaking off as Kuu’iut had predicted. “Temp and radiation spiking!” Fell called after a moment. “Some kind of internal surge—”

“Feedback pulse along the tractor beam!” Panyarachun cried.

Kuu’iut’s corvine cry almost drowned her out: “Detonation! Brace for impact!”

Vale raced to the command chair to strap herself in as power surges ripped through the ship, jumping breakers, blowing circuits. The lights flickered and died, and the consoles danced with St. Elmo’s fire, though luckily the new-generation wave guides woven into the material channeled the energies through the walls and away from the crew. But that was small comfort when Titanrocked under a chain of rapid-fire collisions, hitting so hard it felt like the whole asteroid had struck the ship. Vale was sent flying before she reached the chair.

“Tuvok!”

The lights were gone, only the emergency illumination remaining, but it was enough to let Deanna see that the Vulcan was sprawled motionless on the floor beneath the office table, his head coated in something dark and glistening. She couldn’t see color, but she knew it was green. “Oh, God.” She struck her combadge. “Medical emergency, Counselor Troi’s office!” Maybe emergencies, she thought as she felt her insides heave and she vomited up her last meal onto the carpet. She couldn’t tell through the inner turbulence if the baby was still kicking. “Sickbay, acknowledge!”

Nothing. “Computer!” She began dragging herself toward Tuvok. “Where are you, you stupid computer?” But that voice, the one that reminded her so maddeningly of her mother, remained silent. “Somebody!” she yelled. “We need help in here!”

Finally she reached Tuvok and began pulling him toward the door. Her muscles, overtaxed from months of service as a walking baby carriage, strained from the exertion. It felt like that wasn’t all she was straining. “Dammit, Tuvok, wake up! Help me out here! I’ll leave you here if I have to!”

Now her own voice was starting to remind her of her mother’s, in attitude if not in timbre. So be it,she thought. Lwaxana Troi’s sheer cussedness got her through the occupation of Betazed in one piece. And kept her baby boy alive.She’d never been more glad to be that woman’s daughter.

Finally she reached the door, which shuddered halfway open—better than nothing. Forcing it the rest of the way, she channeled her mother’s sheer vocal volume and began screaming for help.