Ghost Ship Part 8

She fidgeted. "Evidently a bombardment of pure antimatter," she said, casting a nervous glance at Geordi and Data, still huddled on the floor. "Engineering reports the thing absorbed the energy from our s.h.i.+elds and about half the systems on board, mostly the ones on the outer parts of the s.h.i.+p. The computer core itself is still intact, sir, but I doubt we could stand off another attack of that level."

"Seventy-nine percent drain? I should think not."

Now Riker looked up from where he knelt holding Troi and said, "I never saw such a burst of speed before. What happened? Why did it move off?"

"For the moment," Picard said steadily, "only it knows."

He stooped down and helped Riker lift Troi into her chair. Her eyes were crescents, and she was shaking even harder than Data. When two orderlies charged out of the turbolift, Picard directed them to her and stood to one side as they gave her a quick check.

"I'm sorry ... I'm so sorry ... " she quavered.

"Can't imagine why," Picard said gently. "If not for your warning, we wouldn't have had our s.h.i.+elds up. I shudder to think what might've happened in that case. I want you checked out in sickbay. No, no arguments, Counselor."

Riker stood straight and said, "The antimatter would've ripped the s.h.i.+p apart."

"But the weapons," Troi choked, "I should've warned you ... I didn't remember ... "

"Remember what?" Picard prodded. "What are you talking about?"

"I knew ... I knew the weapons would-Captain, I'm so sorry-"

"You knew the weapons would draw that thing's attention? Is that what you're saying?"

She fought to stay upright in the chair as her arms and legs shook, but she managed a very distinct nod.

"Get her to sickbay," Picard said, impatient to have her back to normal. "This subject is not closed."

"Yes, sir," she murmured, and let herself be led from the bridge by the two orderlies. She knew Riker was watching, knew he wanted to come with her, but there was so much cluttering her mind-so much....

"Captain," Geordi interjected, and waited for this attention. "According to my spectrographic a.n.a.lysis, it was basically the same visual structure as those beings we saw walking around on the bridge."

Picard glowered at him. "Are you telling me it's a big ghost?"

"Sir?" Yar looked up from her readout screen.

"Go ahead," the captain said.

"I'm getting a.n.a.lysis from engineering now. The thing's peppered with antimatter, but it isn't made of antimatter alone. When it enveloped the s.h.i.+p, we became a million tiny explosions all over, wherever the bits of antimatter hit the s.h.i.+elds. If it had broken through them, we'd-"

"Keep all systems shut down until further notice. Stabilize within that context." Picard tightened his fists and strode toward the Ops position. He tipped downward to get the attention of the floor brigade. "Data? You functional?"

Looking more like a threatened child than an android as he knelt s.h.i.+vering and holding on to Geordi, Data dragged back what little was left of his energy and looked up at Picard. "F-functional ... sir ... "

"Were you in contact with that thing out there?"

"With something ... sir ... conclude that must have been the case ... "

"Anything to report?"

"Nothing clear, sir; there was no ... no sense to the contact."

"On your feet, then. Can you?"

"Captain?" Lieutenant Yar seemed to really hate interrupting him again, and with more bad news, but she stiffened and pressed against the tactical station as Picard turned. "The thing's energy output is up thirty-one percent from before it hit us."

Riker shook his head. "Great. That's our energy it's got."

From below, Geordi was driven to comment, "And we sit here like a log on a pond while Irving the Ent.i.ty out there digests three-quarters of our power."

Suddenly aware of Geordi again and feeling a renewed obligation, Riker said, "I'll bet a stars.h.i.+p qualifies as extra spicy. I wonder how long till it's hungry again."

"Colorfully put, Number One, but not much help," Picard wryly said as he hauled Data to his feet. He held Data's twitching arm, and Geordi the other arm, while the android regained his equilibrium.

"No, sir," Riker admitted, "but if it zeroes in on energy outlay, we might be able to hide from it."

Picard looked impressed. "My thoughts exactly."

"Sir?"

The captain craned his neck around. "Now what, Yar?"

She braced herself, but plunged on with her report, because it was too bizarre to keep to herself. She bent over her readout screen and tried to disbelieve what she saw. "Sir, I think our pa.s.sive sensors might not be working properly. Or I'm not very good at reading them ... "

"Report. Now."

She tilted her head and frowned. "The thing's energy level appears to be slowly dropping. Definitely going down."

"In the thing itself?"

"Yes, in the thing."

"What's the matter with that?"

"Well, its ma.s.s isn't-Worf, can you corroborate this?"

"Checking," Worf rumbled.

"Lieutenant!"

"Yes, sir. The ma.s.s isn't changing. And there's no change in the antimatter, and it's not emanating enough energy to account for the drop."

"That's not possible," Picard said. "The energy can't go nowhere. That's a fundamental law of the universe. It has to go somewhere."

"I wish it would," she muttered. "Aye, sir, that's the strange part. It tends to phase as we're reading it. Its ma.s.s, its total energy-there's almost nothing about it that's constant."

"That's the clue, then. What's the conclusion? Hypotheses, anyone," he called sharply, doubling the pressure of the moment by putting the whole bridge on the hot seat for answers.

"Inter ... inter ... "

"Yes, Data? You have an idea? Data, you all there?"

"Inter ... dimen ... sionality ... " The android leaned against Geordi unashamedly, but his expression was one of fierce concentration rather than the alarm of a moment ago.

"Keep trying, Data," Picard prodded, stepping closer to him but resisting the urge to help him straighten up.

"The only possibility," Data said, "is that it must exist ... between dimensions if the energy ... is dissipating without ... emanation ... sir." He steadied himself with a distinct effort, glanced in grat.i.tude toward Geordi, and stood on his own. "That must be where the energy is going. It is the only way to account for the enormous energy drawn from our s.h.i.+elds without our being able to detect it now."

Picard scowled, but the idea did make sense. It had better, since Data said it twice without realizing he was repeating himself.

On the upper deck, Yar shook her head. "Too weird for me," she grumbled.

"It is outlandish," Picard mused.

"But it's the only conclusion that makes sense," Riker said. "h.e.l.l, it makes our idea of ghosts seem sane."

"It does that," the captain agreed ruefully, "and it also means that anything we do from this moment on is pure guesswork. For all we know that thing could extend through a hundred solar systems on a hundred levels of existence."

Riker looked at the screen, at the image of the ent.i.ty sizzling in the upper left of the starscape, two light-years off their port bow. "And any energy we use to defend ourselves is just its next meal. Maybe we should put some distance between us."

Picard bobbed his brows as though he'd very much like that idea. "We can't," he said. "At least not yet. That ent.i.ty put on a burst of warp nearly warp fifteen. It'd be all over us in an instant. We've blinded it by shutting down our power. As we hang here, we're hidden. For the moment."

"How are you doing?" Riker asked privately, trying to make his approach to Wesley's side an in.o.bvious one.

Wesley flinched. He hadn't thought anyone was paying attention to him, considering events. "Okay, sir. It's really a bother to just hang here in s.p.a.ce, though."

Riker eyed the screen, and the distant false-color pattern that sought them. "It's all we can do until we get systems back on line and figure out a way to leave the area without attracting attention."

"Maybe a solar sail, sir? We could coast on the waves from the sun in that little solar system-"

"Too slow. It'll find us long before then. Look at it. It's working a search pattern that we can't escape on impulse power. A box pattern a couple of light-years across, and it's going at lightspeed. If we try to sneak through and it happens to pa.s.s that area while our s.h.i.+elds are still down ... well, you know."

Wesley's narrow shoulders tensed. "Guess I do. Sometimes I wish I didn't see things so clearly in my head. Then I wouldn't have to look at them. Mr. Riker, I never heard of pa.s.sive sensors."

"Oh," Riker murmured. "Pa.s.sive sensors can only a.n.a.lyze data that other ent.i.ties and objects put out. Active sensors actually send out a beam, then wait for the information recoil to return. If that thing's looking for us, it'll be looking for an energy source. If we use active sensors, we'll be sending up a flare for it to home in on."

"Same with s.h.i.+elds," LaForge added.

"And weapons." This cryptic bit from Yar, who stood on the starboard ramp, keeping one eye on her tactical monitors and one on the false-color shape on the monitor as it roamed the area, hunting.

Riker waited until the impact of their words faded. He hadn't meant to be overheard. Leaning closer to Wesley, he lowered his voice even more, but it might as well have been going through a bullhorn on the eerily quiet bridge. With half the systems blown out and the other half shut down, the bridge noises were disturbingly low. "Without active sensors, we'll have to be very careful about plotting any course. We'll be as good as under sail again. Minor navigation will be very tricky."

Wesley nodded, and resigned himself to the undiluted truth; there would be no beautiful miracle of warp speed to carry them from the danger.

Standing at the foot of the port ramp, near the entrance to his ready room, Captain Picard clasped his hands behind his back and watched his crew work against their helplessness. He watched Riker and Wesley whispering to each other and felt a sudden jab of inadequacy. If only he could find it within himself to comfort them.

Suddenly he wished he was in the middle of a Romulan attack, outnumbered six to one. His only concern would be himself, his s.h.i.+p, and a band of fellow soldiers who knew what they were getting into when they signed on. He would have a free hand, then, free to be radical, without the anchor of concern for innocent spouses and children. Without having to worry about them if the s.h.i.+p took a hard lunge, much less charged into a hull-rattling battle. Every time the s.h.i.+p lurched, those innocent faces popped into his thoughts and ran under the flimsy umbrella of his protection, fully expecting to be safe there.

As he gazed at Riker, Picard indulged in a small feeling of envy. Each time he looked at his first officer, he saw Riker standing on the transporter platform with an away team, about to beam down, about to leave the captain behind to tend the s.h.i.+p. At those times, those interesting times, Riker was responsible only for himself and the away teams, while Picard must remain responsible for a s.h.i.+pful of families. Where was the old adventure of a s.h.i.+p with a lean, raw, trained crew? How had he suddenly become governor of a tiny overpopulated island?

At once he missed his days as first officer, and of captaincy in a vessel without children aboard. To be captain of a vessel whose calling is danger-it was the best of both. And now he was caught in the middle, governor of a group of s.p.a.cegoing families. Neither captain nor first officer, answerable to the decisions of Riker, whose job it was-admittedly- to stand between Picard and that exhilarating peril that was any captain's right.

Trial by fire. Earn the right to be forever cus.h.i.+oned. And his first officer, who should be the trusted extension of himself, by circ.u.mstance became a resented obstacle.

In their few adventures together so far, Picard had told himself he could find a compromise. But there was no compromise in some situations, and that was the painful reality. Some situations required either forward movement or utter retreat, and this was one. Riker would always be a barrier. And that would always be the image in Picard's mind as he watched away team after away team beam off the s.h.i.+p without him. The feeling of being left behind would never subside.

Captain. Was that his true t.i.tle? Or was he governor of Enterprise?

Here they were, these thousand-and-some, colonizing a s.h.i.+p instead of a planet. Colonizing s.p.a.ce itself, citizens of the Federation at large. In generations to come, these children's children would come to see these kinds of s.h.i.+ps as their country, their planet, their nationality. The answer to "Where are you from?" would be "I'm from Enterprise."

Habitat. Environment. A place, not a thing, not a s.h.i.+p. A moving place. Instead of "I'm a citizen of this sector or that system, this planet, that outpost," the answer would be "I'm a citizen of the Federation."

Finally there would be total unity within the Federation, the first step toward people's being at home on any planet instead of only one. The principle from the old United States, basically; it didn't matter if you were raised in Vermont and lived in California. You were still home, still American. If your name was Baird or Yamamura or Kwame, you weren't necessarily loyal to Scotland, j.a.pan, or Ghana, but to America. A few decades of s.p.a.ce travel, and the statement became "I'm a citizen of Earth," and no matter the country. This s.h.i.+p was that kind of first step. Whether born on Earth or Epsillon Indii VI, you were a citizen of the Federation. The children on this colony Enterprise would visit the planets of the Federation and feel part of each, welcome upon all. This stars.h.i.+p was the greatest, most visionary melting pot of all, this s.p.a.cegoing colony. Unique. Hopeful.

Risky.

And it befell Jean-Luc Picard to make it work.

Why me? Has the prestige blinded me to my losses of freedom and adventure? Children. Imagine it.

"Mr. Riker," he spoke up then, breaking into his own thoughts. "I want you, Data, and LaForge to go down to engineering and get me a thorough spectrometric and electronic a.n.a.lysis of the phenomenon's composition while we still have time. I want to know what'll happen if we fire our weapons directly into it, and what'll happen if we don't." He suddenly jabbed a finger at his first officer and firmly said, "Riker, you're in charge of figuring out how to deal with that thing."

It took every bit of Riker's control to keep from fidgeting. He felt his body stiffen. "Aye, sir." He nodded and wheeled toward the turbolift. "Data, LaForge-with me."

They filed off the bridge, and in a fluid bouquet of movement were replaced at the Conn and Ops positions by Worf and Tasha. Picard watched them leave and felt less alone against the coming hours' dark tunnel walls. He glanced around; the s.h.i.+p was still here, systems clicking and rerouting power in a million tiny alternative tracks, anything to get working again, stealing energy from each other, certain systems taking precedence over others as the giant computer core made the kinds of tiny decisions only machines could make. He felt the presence of the myriad engineers belowdecks, all scrambling to guide that delicate energy theft, felt them just as surely as Counselor Troi felt the presence of the beings who posed so plain a threat.

"I'll be in sickbay," he said, and started toward the turbolift.

"Confusion, sir."

Troi lay on the diagnostic bed in the artificial quiet of sickbay, trying to put words to that which had no letters, no punctuation. To her right, Captain Picard took charge, kept things in line, gave her fort.i.tude. To her left, Beverly Crusher provided another kind of anchor, watching her in a different way altogether. But now the captain wanted answers, suggestions, and none were presenting themselves without a fight.

"There seem to be thousands of separate emotional bands, if you will," Troi said. "Perhaps there are millions. I feel helpless to explain this to you clearly-doctor, may I get up, please?"

Crusher scolded her with a look, then said, "I suppose so. But only because I can't find anything wrong with you. That doesn't mean you're not injured in some way."

She swung the diagnostic sh.e.l.l away from Troi and stood back while the captain helped the counselor down from the table. Without a pause he led her to a nearby desk; evidently the conversation was far from over as far as he was concerned. He put Troi into a chair, motioned Crusher into another, and settled himself into a third, then clasped his hands and rested his arms on the cool black desk before him.

"Could it be that this thing is a vessel and you've been reading its crew?"

"That possibility has occurred to me," Troi said, determined not to say she didn't know, even if she didn't. "I haven't dismissed it. But if we can label those humanoid images as ghosts, I suppose there's no more harm in labeling these impressions as their ... souls. No, please-let me continue. I realize that's imprecise, sir. I regret having to speak so. 'Soul' is a subjective term, but I believe that's the image these ent.i.ties have of themselves."

"You're receiving a perception of self?" Crusher asked. The long copper fan of her hair moved against her shoulders as she leaned forward.

Troi's nymphic eyes widened. "Oh, yes! That's why I've been doubtful of my perceptions. Some of the visions are startlingly clear. The image of Va.s.ska, for instance, and the memory of giving him orders as that ent.i.ty struck the Gorshkov."

"You didn't say that before," the captain pointed out. His tone rang with annoyance, as though he did indeed expect her to give a clearer report on these unclear things.

"No, sir. I wasn't very sure of it before. I only remembered it when I was attacked on the bridge. I wish I could explain."