Turning in the direction of the original bubble of light, he saw, fifty meters away, the whitish green dome that was the crystal-or as much of it as poked up through the ice. Next to it, wearing even bulkier hooded jackets than his own, were the Romulans. The breath of all three plumed out from mouth and nostril, rising to form wispy clouds over their heads. Two were working with a pair of antennalike devices, nudging them repeatedly as if trying to align them. The third turned and stood facing the group from the Enterprise, saying nothing, making no gesture, either of welcome or warning. With his back to the light, his face was invisible in the shadow of the jacket's hood.

 

 

"Tiam," McCoy opined. "The other two are doing the work while he watches." "The one facing us is armed, Captain," Spock said, looking up from his tricorder.

 

 

STAR TREK PROBE "At least he isn't pointing it at us," Kirk said softly. turned a few degrees and continued toward the crystal, "And Hiran did say he'd given them notification of our now heading for a spot roughly a third of the way around impending arrival." from the Romulans. McCoy and the others quickly "So what are we waiting for?" McCoy asked. "He's followed.

 

 

not about to send us an engraved invitation." As they crossed the last few feet, hundreds-no, Kirk turned to the Romulan archaeologist. "Dajan, thousands-of tiny, geometrically perfect facets became under the circumstances, if you would prefer to be visible in what, from a distance, had seemed like a beamed back aboard the Enterprise- " simple dome. And from inches away, they could see that "I will stay. I will not let that pompous ass determine each facet was divided into a series of irregular polygons, my movements even now. In any event, I doubt that he from triangles to at least octagons. McCoy, squinting, would attempt anything. He is brave with my sister but shook his head. It almost made his head spin, like a with few others." straight-line version of a Mandelbrot Set that just kept "As you wish." Kirk turned and began to lead the way duplicating itself over and over in ever smaller dimen across the ice. Their boots clicked on the ice as if on sions.

 

 

steel. The slight breeze created by their forward motion Spock's gloved hands turned his tricorder toward the bit at the exposed flesh of their faces. It reminded crystal facets and moved the input grid slowly along, McCoy of his first winter trip away from Georgia, to almost touching them. Benar was doing the same a few Alaska of all places. He couldn't for the life of him meters away, as was Dajan on Spock's other side, while remember why his family had gone. McCoy stood by feeling oddly useless. Kirk remained At a dozen meters, the light from Benar's lamp finally watching the Romulans.

 

 

penetrated the shadows and revealed the watcher's face. After a few seconds, Spock lowered his tricorder.

 

 

"Ambassador Tiam," Kirk said. "There is no magnetic field," he said, "but there is a "Captain Kirk." Tiam's eyes darted across the others. detectable structural distortion. Do you agree, Dr.

 

 

"KerDajan," he said, nodding. "Have you come to join Benar? Dajan?" your countrymen?" "That appears to be the case," Benar said, her agree "I have not." ment echoed by a simple "Yes" from the Romulan.

 

 

Tiam almost smiled. "That is good. The Empire was "Then I suggest-" served far better by your defection and that of your sister Spock stopped abruptly as a faint glow pulsed some than by anything you and your misbegotten family have where deep within the crystal, far below the surface of ever done before." the ice.

 

 

Abruptly, Tiam turned his back on Dajan and the "What-" McCoy began, but before he could say others and resumed watching the two Romulans as they more, the glow, still pale, flooded to the surface of the worked with the antennalike devices. crystal and cast an eerie light throughout the cavern. As Kirk seemed to study Tiam's back for a moment, then he looked up, the cavern's true dimensions suddenly hit 278 279 home. Until that moment, the dimensions supplied by the Enterprise sensors had been just that-dimensions. Now they were reality. A kilometer above his head was the ceiling, as smooth and glasslike as the ice beneath their boots, as if the entire cavern had been phasered out of solid rock. At least three kilometers away in all directions were the walls, similarly smooth, similarly unbroken-except for what must have been an entrance when the cavern had been all or mostly underwater: a gaping, circular blackness halfway up one wall, a tunnel that had no end.

 

 

Abruptly, the glow itself flowed out of the crystal like a luminous fog. A curse shot over from the direction of the Romulans. McCoy's fingers seemed to glow, and for a moment his eyes couldn't focus. His hands, his arms, were fuzzy and indistinct.

 

 

He grabbed his communicator-it, too, was enveloped in a fuzzy glow-and raised it to speak. `Enterprise-"he began, but then a hand was gripping his arm.

 

 

"Wait, Bones!" It was the captain, "Look," Kirk said, gesturing upward.

 

 

McCoy looked up: And gasped.

 

 

Where moments before there had been only the smooth, kilometer-distant roof of the cavern, there was now a kilometer of rippling, crystal-clear water. And swimming serenely through it, no more than a hundred meters over his head, was a flippered leviathan that would have dwarfed anything that had ever swum the seas of Earth.

 

 

TWENTY As Subcenturion Kital entered Hiran's quarters, the commander found himself remembering how, only days ago, Tiam had been here, introducing himself and delivering his "diplomatic guidelines." Guidelines for failure, Hiran had thought at the time, and he had unfortunately been proven right. Kital had been summoned and had no guidelines to offer, but he did have the same superior attitude, although it was less obvious, less blatant than in Tiam.

 

 

As if, Hiran thought uneasily, he had more reason than Tiam to be quietly confident.

 

 

"Commander?" The subcenturion stood erect, not quite rigid enough to be at attention, but almost.

 

 

Hiran remained seated behind his Spartan desk. "Subcenturion Kital, do you have plans of your own for the Galtizh?" he asked with quiet abruptness.

 

 

For just an instant, a flicker of surprise widened the aide's eyes, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, leaving his almost ascetic face an impassive mask. "I do not understand, Commander." "Or are they perhaps Ambassador Tiam's plans?" This time there was not even a flicker. "I still do not understand, Commander Hiran. What, precisely, are you referring to?" "A conversation between yourself and another of Ambassador Tiam's aides." "There have been many such conversations, Commander, as you must know. Communication between members of any organization is vital to its efficiency. Is there one in particular that has attracted your interest?" "The one that took place a few minutes ago, in your quarters." Hiran resisted the impulse to remark on the apparent lack of "communication" that had resulted in the execution of another member of this particular organization, the late Subcenturion Jutak.

 

 

Nothing in Kital's features betrayed his thoughts, but there was a slight pause before he spoke. "You have listening devices in my quarters, then?" "If I do, it is my right as commander of this ship. Some would say it is my duty." "I see." "That is good, Subcenturion. Then you will not object to explaining." "Of course not, Commander, if you will tell me precisely what it is you wish me to explain." "The questions you were asking, Subcenturion, struck me as questions that might be more appropriately asked of the ship's navigator, or even of its commander, rather than of another aide to Ambassador Tiam." "For example, Commander Hiran?" "For example, questions about the maneuverability and firepower of a ship of the Galtizh's class. For example, questions about how quickly the Galtizh could be positioned at a specific point in relation to the object that brought us here." Kital was silent this time for several seconds, although his face remained impassive. Finally he nodded. "I was making preparations, Commander Hiran." "Preparations? For what?" "For the possibility that Ambassador Tiam will fail in his effort to gain useful information from the crystal." "Preparations formulated by Ambassador Tiam? Or by yourself?" Kital was again silent for a number of seconds. "If Ambassador Tiam ordered you to fire on that object out there," he said finally, "would you obey?" "I would not," Hiran said flatly. "Nor would I obey him if he ordered me to place a phaser to my own head and fire." "I take it from your response that you feel any such attack would be suicidal." "I know what that thing did on Wlaariivi. And what it did to the Henzu and to the civilian ship that had the misfortune to be in the area." I also know what was being done to the native life on Wlaariivi that likely prompted the attack, he added silently.

 

 

"What would you say if I told you there was a chance that we would not suffer the same fate as the Henzu?" "I would ask your reasons for making a statement so obviously contrary to observed fact, Subcenturion." Succinctly, Kital recounted the experience of the Romulan ships that had been on training maneuvers when the object had appeared next to them. "I believe there is a chance," he concluded, "that we may be similarly inside its defensive perimeter and that we could damage it severely, if not destroy it, if we were to launch a sudden, all-out attack on what appears to be its one vulnerable area." "An intriguing possibility," Hiran said when the Subcenturion fell silent. "But even if I accept it as a possibility, why should I wish to make the attempt?" "Isn't the destruction of the Romulan facilities on Wlaariivi enough of a reason? The vaporizing of the Henzu?" "Tiam seems not to be worrying overly about that aspect of the situation. He seems, in fact, extremely anxious to find a way of communicating with this thing." "As are we all. However, we must consider the possibility that he will fail. And that someone on the Enterprise will succeed." So that was it. "You would rather destroy it than take that chance," Hiran said flatly.

 

 

For the first time, the subcenturion bristled slightly. "As would any patriotic Romulan." "The war against the Federation ended a hundred years ago, Subcenturion." "And it would start again in a hundred seconds if the Federation felt it could destroy us without suffering massive losses itself." "You sound as if you're talking about the Romulans, Subcenturion, not the Federation. As I understand it, we are the ones who have been working secretly to learn how to control this thing, to turn it into a weapon to use against the Federation." "We would be fools not to. We were merely fortunate that it passed through the Empire before reaching the Federation." "A lot of good it did us! It took that bunch on the Enterprise to-" "It took the wife of Ambassador Tiam, a Romulan, to alert them to the possibilities!" Hiran blinked at the sudden intensity in Kital's voice. "In any event, Subcenturion, I do not believe the Federation would act in this way, particularly now that there is a chance of a real peace between our peoples." Kital laughed, a harsh, bitter sound without a touch of humor. "You are a fool, Hiran! You have let yourself be taken in by the lying words of that captain! You would-" "You overreach yourself, Subcenturion!" Hiran snapped, reaching for the intercom. "You will be confined to quarters until Tiam returns. Then we will discuss the matter further and see if he is as daft as you." Before Hiran could activate the intercom, Kital had reached across the desk and with surprising strength, slapped Hiran's hand from it. A moment later, the door to the corridor burst open and two of Tiam's aides stepped inside, phasers trained on the commander.

 

 

After countless millions of repetitions, something changed.

 

 

Deep within the entity, one of the crystal pathways shunted a bit of data in a different direction.

 

 

And the entity remembered: the Crystal Wisdom.

 

 

The creators might be gone, dead or departed hundreds of millennia ago, but surely their memories remained. And perhaps the answer to the paradox-to all of the paradoxes that had descended on it in these last terrible days-would be there. Perhaps the creators, after the entity had left, had anticipated these very situations.

 

 

Shifting the focus of the crystal sensor, the entity reached out, not for living things but for the memories of living things.

 

 

It was still there. The Crystal Wisdom: a memory that dwarfed the entity's own.

 

 

A crystal memory filled with the history, the wisdom, of its creators. It would not only provide solutions to the paradoxes. It might even be capable of replacing the entity's own lost memories, filling in the gap that had existed for more than three hundred millennia.

 

 

The entity probed, carefully, cautiously, slowly, taking full seconds.

 

 

Everything was intact.

 

 

Safe.

 

 

Even more cautiously, even more softly, the entity Spoke to the Crystal Wisdom, gently awakening it, much as the entity itself had been Awakened five hundred millennia ago.

 

 

And the information began to flow.

 

 

Within seconds, at least a hundred of the leviathans, some as much as a hundred meters from rounded snout to flippered tail, swarmed overhead.

 

 

"I'll be damned!" McCoy muttered. "You were right, Spock! Except they look more like superdolphins than superwhales." "A hologram!" Kirk breathed, sweeping his palely glowing arms through the air as if to check its consistency, to make sure the cavern hadn't suddenly been filled with water. He looked back at the glowing crystal. "Or whatever passes for holograms with someone who could build that monster out there. Spock, is this crystal the source?" "Unknown, Captain," Spock said as he studied his tricorder. "Whatever the source, it is not any known form of holographic projector. As in the case of the Probe's emissions, there is no direct evidence of any form of energy transfer, either from the crystal or from any other source." "The glow emanating from the crystal appears to be nothing more than a side effect," Benar put in. Like Spock, she had been concentrating on her tricorder almost since the moment the images had appeared.

 

 

"But what triggered it?" McCoy wanted to know. Then he remembered. "The Romulans!" He spun to look in their direction.

 

 

Tiam smothered a gasp as the glow appeared within the crystal.

 

 

"You have succeeded!" he exulted to the backs of the subcommander and her assistant. 1 have succeeded! Jenyu will be the one who- "No, Ambassador," the subcommander said. "Whatever is happening, it is no doing of ours. Power has been removed from our probes for the last several minutes while we attempted to align them to intersect properly." "Then what-" "I do not know, Ambassador. Perhaps we should return to the Gallizh until-" "No! We are not leaving this to-" Tiam broke off as the glow erupted from the crystal and engulfed them. A moment later, as the bodies of the subcommander and her assistant were cloaked in a diffuse glow, he jerked backward.

 

 

But it was too late. Already he could see the same pale glow surrounding his own body. Instinctively, violently, he brushed at it, as if to rid himself of a horde of clinging insects.

 

 

And stopped.

 

 

Swallowing, he forced himself to stand still as the others fumbled with gloved hands to activate their portable sensor units. Whatever the glow was, it wasn't damaging him.

 

 

He turned as the sound of other voices finally penetrated his shell of self-absorption. Thirty meters away, the traitor Dajan and his newfound friends were chattering away.

 

 

Were they responsible for this? Tiam's hand twitched toward the phaser concealed beneath his bulky jacket, but he stopped. One of them-the ship's physician?was looking in the Romulans' direction, scowling.

 

 

No, Tiam thought, they were not responsible. They had brought only their own portable sensors, nothing like the equipment the subcommander had been trying to set up for more than half an hour. And they looked as taken by surprise as the Romulans. But except for the physician, they all had their portable sensors out, scanning-upward?

 

 

Frowning, he looked up.

 

 

His heart felt as if it were trying to leap out of his chest as he saw the scores of massive creatures swimming in the rippling water above them.

 

 

But they were images, only images, logic told him a moment later. Images coming from the crystal.

 

 

Abruptly, he turned back to the subcommander. "Find out what those things are," he snapped, gesturing skyward, "and how they are being produced." "We are trying," the subcommander said. "It is un- doubtedly some form of hologram, but the energy producing it is as undetectable as-" The subcommander broke off, stiffening, as the ice floor beneath them vanished.

 

 

No, McCoy thought as he saw Tiam's upturned face take on a look of wide-eyed panic behind the enveloping glow, the Rom ulans aren't responsible. Or if they are, it's purely accidental.

 

 

As he turned away from Tiam, Spock confirmed his intuition. "Their equipment is not operating, Doctor, and has not since we arrived." "So what did set it off?" McCoy wondered aloud. "Not our tricorders, certainly. And what the blazes is it supposed to be, anyway? Did we stumble into some kind of holographic aquarium?" "Unknown, Doctor." Spock had turned his tricorder onto the images themselves. "They are not, as you suggested, Captain, holograms." "Then what-" "Not holograms as we know them, Captain. They are obviously images of some kind, but unlike standard holograms, there is something more substantial about them. They contain no mass, and yet each contains an internal structure that the tricorder can-" He broke off as the crystal vanished, followed a moment later by the ice floor beneath their feet.

 

 

But it was not gone. McCoy could still feel the pressure on the bottoms of his boots, and if he shut his eyes, it was as if nothing had happened. The icy air of the cavern still bit at his exposed flesh and was beginning to creep through his fur-lined jacket.

 

 

After a moment, he realized that the glow that had enveloped them had vanished as well. And more of the gigantic, dolphinlike creatures had appeared below them, swimming serenely through what must have been solid ice.

 

 

Overhead, something glittered.

 

 

"The surface of the ocean," Spock said, not looking at his tricorder but remembering what he had seen when he had swum upward from his encounter with George in the warm waters off the Barrier Reef. For the first time McCoy could remember, he thought he could detect a note of awe lurking somewhere in the Vulcan's otherwise flat tones.

 

 

Suddenly there were sounds, coming at them from all sides. Something that could have been a distant cousin to George's brief saga. Something that could have been the creaking, popping sonar of a hundred dolphins. And countless other sounds, beyond the experience of Spock or any of the humans. A total cacophony, like the emissions of the Probe, and yet- "A sonic hologram," someone breathed. It was Benar. She had abandoned the tricorder and was working with one of her own tools, a device a quarter the size of the tricorder. "These images reflect sound. The internal structure the tricorder reveals is evident to my sonic probe as well." "Of course!" Kirk said abruptly, turning toward McCoy. "You said it yourself, Bones, just a minute ago: not superwhales but superdolphins!" He looked back at Benar. "And dolphins `see' more with their sonar than with their eyes, so any images-their equivalent of a hologram would have to include the ability to be `seen' by their sonar!" He shook his head. "I'll be damned!" For a long moment, they all stood silently, listening and watching the massive creatures-the massive images flowing through the image of the water.

 

 

"I believe, Captain," Spock said finally, "you and Dr. Benar may have given me the key to the Probe's emissions." "What? Spock, how-" Kirk broke off as he reached for his communicator but belatedly realized he had transferred it to one of the jacket's storage pockets before beaming down. "Never mind how! Let's get back to the Enterprise and see if you're right. As interesting as this display is-" His hand was poised to unfasten the clasp of the pocket when, suddenly, he could not move. He started to speak, but he could not.

 

 

He could not breathe.

 

 

Whatever the Probe had done to them when they had tried to escape using warp drive, it was doing it again.

 

 

TWENTY-ONE The second Winnowing, the creators called it, and the entity found it recorded in detail in the Crystal Wisdom.

 

 

Like the first, it had come from space, but not in the form of millions of tons of rock smashing into the planetary crust and unleashing centuries of darkness and lava and ash, covering the oceans with a suffocating blanket that only those who possessed a primitive form of the power of Speech could part.

 

 

The second Winnowing came in the form of massive, sharp-edged cubes, spacegoing metallic bubbles of air, swarming with mites no larger than those who had infested the land before the first Winnowing. Their only response to the True Language was a ray of destruction that slaughtered thousands before the massed Voice of the creators had turned it back. Simultaneously, they had called out to the entity to return, for only it possessed the power to defeat this machine of destruc- tion. But it had not responded, for this had been the period of its own lost memory, when it had been slowly repairing itself from its encounter with what it now saw were those same spacegoing mites.

 

 

Without the entity's artificially generated, almost limitless power, its creators had been able only to defend themselves, keeping the homeworld free of the mites and their destructive rays with their massed Voice. But they had been powerless to drive them from the system, and when the mites had turned their attention to the homeworld's sun, they had been helpless.

 

 

And the sun had faded.

 

 

Apparently satisfied they had dealt a death blow to the homeworld, the mites and their cubic bubbles moved on.

 

 

But a death blow to the homeworld was not a death blow to the creators. In an effort that in some ways surpassed the creation of the entity itself, they shattered the homeworld's satellite and constructed a fleet of spacegoing ships from the rubble. In a race with the ice that had already spread over half the planet, they drained the oceans and the atmosphere to fill the ships, and finally, putting their Voices to a use that surely had never been intended, the few tens of thousands that remained had lifted themselves into the waiting ships.

 

 

And they had departed in a hundred directions, not knowing when, if ever, they would find another world, not knowing when, if ever, they would again encounter the mites and perhaps, this time, be destroyed.

 

 

Where? the entity asked. Where did the creators go? Even now, I could aid them and they could aid me. Where?

 

 

But to that question the Crystal Wisdom held no answer.

 

 

But it was good that it held no answer. If such an answer existed, it would be available not only to the entity itself but to the mites who had destroyed the homeworld. If they returned, they could extract the information and track them down to their new worlds-as they had undoubtedly extracted the location of the homeworld from the memory of the entity itself.

 

 

But still, it needed to know. Its creators, if they still existed, needed help. The entity needed their guidance. It could not resolve the paradoxes on its own.

 

 

As it scanned the data for the thousandth-or perhaps the ten-thousandth-time and still found nothing new, something within it decided. It would attempt again to communicate with the mites who mimicked the True Language.

 

 

It reached out with the crystal sensor, seeking them.

 

 

And was instantly presented with yet another paradox.

 

 

When it had come to the end of its constructed path and emerged in the system of the homeworld, it had searched the homeworld for not only its creators but eventually, for any form of life anywhere. And it had found none.

 

 

And yet now-within the very chamber of the Crystal Wisdom, within meters of the Wisdom itself, were eight living beings.

 

 

Mites.

 

 

The ones who had destroyed the homeworld? Returned to destroy the Crystal Wisdom?

 

 

The entity gripped them, even more tightly than it had gripped the mites it had brought here in their spacegoing bubbles.

 

 

And while the mites were held rigidly unmoving, the crystal sensor reached out again, searching the entire system and nearby space.

 

 

But the only spacegoing bubbles were those it had brought here itself.

 

 

The only mites were those that had swarmed throughout those bubbles.

 

 

But there were fewer of them, it saw as it inspected the bubbles more closely. Five fewer in the larger bubble, three fewer in the smaller.

 

 

But if those eight in the chamber of the Crystal Wisdom were the same eight who were now missing from the spacegoing bubbles, how had they gotten there?

 

 

The entity searched the data that had entered, unnoticed, into its memory since it had taken up its position above the homeworld. No lesser bubbles had detached themselves from the larger ones and descended to the homeworld. Nothing had entered the atmosphere, no matter what the source.

 

 

And yet, the eight were there.

 

 

Just as the two primitives had not been on the blue world, and then they had been.

 

 

It turned its full attention on the eight.

 

 

And saw that they were dying.

 

 

It loosened its grip but did not release them.

 

 

Suddenly, Kirk could breathe again. Not easily, but he could breathe, and the light-flecked blackness that had been closing in on him withdrew.

 

 

Turning as quickly as he could, which was not all that quickly, he saw that the only one who had fallen to the invisible ice floor was McCoy, and Spock was already leaning over him in the strained slow motion that was the only movement possible. It was as if the water that submerged them had turned real and thick.

 

 

Kirk tried to speak, but he couldn't. His lips could slowly distort into the necessary shapes, but no sounds would form in his throat.

 

 

The transporters? Angrily, he realized he shouldn't have stopped McCoy from calling to be beamed up, while they had had the chance. With maddening slowness, he resumed unfastening the clasp of the storage pocket that held his communicator.

 

 

But as his gloved fingers moved, as his breath crept in and out with painful slowness, the images around him began to slide downward. Not individually but together in a dizzying plunge. When he finally noticed that, overhead, the glittering surface was drawing closer, his mind altered its references and he was suddenly in an invisible turbolift, shooting silently, meteorically upward.

 

 

Somehow, his hand reached the communicator and began pulling it from its pocket.

 

 

He broke the surface.

 

 

And stopped. The chaos of sounds faded abruptly, as if they could not free themselves from the imagined water.

 

 

A sun-twice as bright as the one he had seen from the Enterprise-hung low in the sky, not yet beginning to redden. Gentle waves rose and fell all about him, not touching him yet moving through him time and again. The only holdovers from reality were Spock and McCoy and Benar and Dajan. And still thirty meters away, the three Romulans. The waters rose and fell about them all, never quite submerging them except for McCoy, who was still horizontal, and Spock, who was kneeling over him. Overhead now, white-winged birds swooped and glided. One after another, the great, dolphinlike creatures leapt from the water in graceful arcs and plunged back in, raising barely a ripple until their fluked tails would slap down thunderously at the last moment and fill the air with a fountain of spray. In the distance, beneath the hovering sun, was land-a towering mountain range sloping sharply down almost to the water's edge. And on that slope, carved out of the forest that reached almost to the peaks, was what must have been a city, although its buildings, all square and blocky and gray, and its strangely curving streets had none of the sharp-edged clarity of the mountains or the water or the creatures that swam in it and flew above it.

 

 

Finally, Kirk had the communicator free of the storage pocket and was activating it. Its chirruping sound was immensely comforting. At least something was still working normally.

 

 

But he still could not speak, could make no sound except the dull rasp that was his labored breathing. He could scratch weakly at the face of the communicator with his gloved fingers, but that was all. Slowly, he began to lower the communicator toward the metallic clasp he had just struggled to open.

 

 

A second sun flared into existence 180 degrees across the sky from the first: And began to move upward, toward the zenith.

 

 

And grow brighter.

 

 

As it crossed directly overhead, it was brighter than the first sun, and moving ever more swiftly, as if on a collision course. Sparks, each as bright as the parent object, spun off, first by the dozens, then by the hundreds.

 

 

Halfway down the sky toward the first sun, it shattered. A dozen smaller suns arced in all directions. From the other side of the sky, where it had first appeared, a deafening roar assaulted Kirk's ears and began moving toward the zenith, trailing far behind the object that had generated it.

 

 

"Captain?" Over the roar, Uhura's voice emerged from the communicator. He wondered if the noise was being picked up or if it was designed only for living ears. All he could do in response was force his reluctant muscles to slam the communicator in slow motion against the pocket clasp.

 

 

The largest fragment of the exploded sun disappeared behind the nearest peaks of the shoreline mountain range. Moments later, slowly, majestically, a fiery bubble that must have resembled an early nuclear explosion magnified thousands of times began to bulge above the nearer peaks. Even more slowly, the peaks themselves began to rise and distort and flow toward the shore, crumbling the forest and the city into chaos. Smaller bubbles began appearing at other places along the shore, and some in the ocean itself.

 

 

The asteroid, Kirk thought finally. We're being shown the asteroid that destroyed all land life on this world 2 million years ago.

 

 

"Captain!" Uhura's voice was louder, more urgent, but still barely audible over the roar. Then it was gone. The communicator fell silent.

 

 

The water rose, and the roar was suddenly muffled as the image of the liquid closed over him.

 

 

The sky darkened as the first and largest of the explosive domes expanded to block out the sun.

 

 

The water itself-the image of the water-shuddered.

 

 

Abruptly, he was frozen. For an instant he thought the Probe had tightened its grip again, but then the familiar tingle told him it was the transporter energies gripping him.

 

 

He waited as the sky grew darker and darker, as the shuddering of the water grew more powerful, and he wondered what this display had done to his time sense.

 

 

Finally, the telltale streaks of light sprang into being around him, and moments later, the water and the growing darkness faded out.

 

 

The transporter room faded in.

 

 

The transporter energies released him.

 

 

So did whatever energies the Probe had focused on him. The warmth-the heat, compared to the subzero of the cavern-hit him solidly. And suddenly he could breathe and move normally, except for the rubberiness of his muscles. Breath rushed into his lungs as he spun unsteadily around and found Spock on the transporter circle just behind him, still kneeling over McCoy, who was stretched across two of the circles, sucking in air in great gulps.

 

 

"Get him to sickbay," Kirk snapped between gasps of his own as he stepped off the platform and struggled out of his jacket, but even as he spoke, McCoy was getting control of his breathing and was starting to get to his feet with Spock's help.

 

 

"I'm all right, Jim," he managed to get out as Spock helped him remove his jacket, but Kirk gestured to the Vulcan.

 

 

"Take him, Spock. Carry him if you have to, but get him checked out!" "There's no blasted need-" McCoy began, but fell silent when his rubbery knees threatened to give way.

 

 

Half supporting McCoy, Spock, still in his jacket, the hood pushed back, stepped off the transporter platform.

 

 

"We will take him," Dr. Benar said as she and Dajan stepped down from the platform, removing their own jackets. "If what Captain Spock said about having the key to the Probe's emissions is true, it is of the utmost importance that he make use of it as soon as possible." "She's right, Jim," McCoy said, then added to Spock, "Get your pointy ears to that computer, quick, before that thing out there decides to do something really nasty." Without waiting for Kirk's acquiescence, Spock surrendered McCoy to the two archaeologists, and a moment later they were moving toward the door, one on each side of McCoy. As it hissed open and they stepped through, a pair of orderlies appeared from the direction of the 'lift.

 

 

"Commander Uhura said-" one began, but the rest was cut off by the closing door.

 

 

"Spock," Kirk said, "now that Bones has more help than he probably wants, get to that computer." "Of course, Captain." The door hissed open and he was through it by the time Kirk had turned to the ensign at the transporter controls.

 

 

"There are three Romulans still down there," Kirk said as the door hissed shut behind Spock, "just a few meters from where we were. Get their coordinates from Lieutenant Parnell at the science station." "Aye-aye, sir." Moments later, as Kirk was at the intercom calling for a security detail-and Ensign Handler-to report to the transporter room, the ensign was acknowledging a set of coordinates.

 

 

"Get them out of there as quickly as you can," Kirk said, turning back to the ensign, "but don't complete the transfer until security gets here. One of them has a phaser, and all the craziness that was going on down there may have gotten him a little nervous." The ensign acknowledged with a nod and concentrated on the controls.

 

 

"Got them, sir," he said after a few seconds. "Bringing them up." The characteristic warble of the transporter filled the room as a trio of insubstantial figures came into being on the platform. The door hissed open a moment later and a pair of security lieutenants stepped through.

 

 

"That was fast," Kirk acknowledged.

 

 

"Commander Uhura said-"the one began, but was cut off by a sudden laugh from Kirk.

 

 

"She was right, as usual," he said, and quickly went on to explain about the Romulans and Tiam's phaser.

 

 

Phasers drawn and set to stun, they positioned themselves flanking the platform. Kirk placed himself directly in front of the indistinct forms, then gestured to the ensign at the transporter controls.

 

 

The warble intensified, and the images solidified.

 

 

Tiam, Kirk saw instantly, was in no condition to put up a struggle. The ambassador, his eyes tightly closed, lurched and almost fell as the transporter energies released him. All three began sucking air into their lungs, and Tiam's eyes snapped open.

 

 

At Kirk's nod, the security lieutenants put away their phasers. All three waited as the Romulans caught their breath.

 

 

"Ambassador Tiam, Subcommande*," Kirk said quietly, "welcome aboard the Enterprise. " TWENTY-TWO The sounds and images, each more insane than the last, had paralyzed Tiam's mind almost as effectively as the behemoth itself had paralyzed his body. Finally, he had closed his eyes-an action that had taken several seconds to complete-and concentrated only on forcing air in and out of his lungs and wondering desperately when it would all end.

 

 

Then, abruptly, he had felt himself gripped by the energies of a transporter, and hope flared through him. Hiran-or even Jenyu-had realized something was wrong and was having him beamed up.

 

 

But then the energies had released him. His eyes had snapped open, and his muscles, still straining against the force that had gripped him in the cavern, had sent him reeling, almost crashing to the floor. And as he regained precarious control of his body, as he gasped in lungful after lungful of the suddenly breathable, suddenly warm air, he realized where he was: in the transporter room of the Enterprise, not the Galtizh.

 

 

And he realized he had failed. Whatever he had hoped to gain from that crystal, he was obviously not going to get it.

 

 

But the Enterprise had come away equally emptyhanded, he realized an instant later. They had been engulfed in those insane sounds and images as quickly and completely as he had been. He had seen them pointing and gesturing and exclaiming about the images when they had first appeared, and they had been as surprised as he. So, although the hoped-for windfall of the crystal had fallen through, there was still hope. And with the false patterns the Enterprise team had to work with...

 

 

"Ambassador Tiam, Subcommanders," the Federation captain was saying, "welcome aboard the Enterprise. " Tiam managed a weak smile while the two subcommanders acknowledged with curt nods.

 

 

"Thank you, Captain Kirk," Tiam said. He glanced toward the ensign at the transporter controls, noticing the security team as he did. He turned his eyes back to Kirk. "I assume we owe our presence here to the fact that your transporter personnel are a bit more alert than those on the Galtizh. " "Bridge personnel," Kirk said with a faint smile, "Commander Uhura, communications officer, to be precise." "Convey my gratitude-our gratitude to the commander, Captain." "Gladly, Ambassador. Now, do you wish to be transported directly to the Galtizh?" "The subcommanders, yes, if you please. 1, however, would like a word with you before I return, Captain, if that is possible." "Of course." Kirk nodded to the ensign at the transporter controls as Tiam stepped down from the platform.

 

 

. "Inform Commander Hiran of the situation," Tiam said to the subcommanders as he removed his heavy fur jacket, the phaser still deep in one of the pockets, and handed it to one of them. Under the circumstances, he had decided, it would be best not to have the weapon on him or even acknowledge its existence. "Tell him I will transport over as soon as possible. And have our own transporter personnel attempt to retrieve the equipment you were utilizing in the cavern." "Very well, Ambassador Tiam," the female subcommander said while the other nodded and folded Tiam's jacket over his arm.

 

 

Tiam turned back to Kirk, noticing as he did that Riley's aide, the one named Handler, had appeared and was standing uneasily next to the captain.

 

 

"Sorry it took me so long, Captain," the aide was saying, "but I was down in sickbay, you know, seeing how Commander Riley is doing." "And how is the ambassador doing?" Tiam asked.

 

 

"Still not awake," Handler said, "but they're expecting it anytime now." "That is good to hear, Mr. Handler," Tiam said, trying to emulate the virtually human smile that Hiran seemed to find so natural. "You will have much to tell him when he awakens, will you not?" "Quite a lot, yes, sir." Handler darted a look at the captain.

 

 

"You said you wished a word with me, Ambassador," Kirk said. "What can we do for you?" Tiam swallowed, summoning up the distasteful words. "I would like you to accept my apologies, Captain, for my actions in transporting down to the planet without first notifying you of our intention." "Of course," the captain said. "Does this mean you would like to resume negotiations? If so, perhaps you should speak with Mr. Handler, here." Tiam repressed a scowl. The human was obviously toying with him. "I am not speaking of formal negotiations, Captain Kirk, Mr. Handler. Primarily, I would like to assure you that we will continue to cooperate in the effort to decode the object's emissions." Kirk's eyebrows raised in what struck Tiam as mock surprise. "Then you are not aware of the actions of your aide, Subcenturion Kital, in your absence?" Tiam's stomach knotted. Jenyu! What had he done now? "I was not, Captain." "While we were preparing to beam down to `join' you," Kirk said, "Subcenturion Kital-acting on your behalf, I was given to understand-ordered all Romulans aboard the Enterprise to return to the Galtizh. We assumed, in light of your having already beamed down on your own, that you had decided that the time for cooperation in the matter of the work on the Probe's emissions had ended." Tiam bit off an angry response to the captain's obvious sarcasm. "That was not my intention, Captain. I can only repeat my apologies and ask you to believe that I was overeager in my actions and did not take the proper time to consider the circumstances. We would of course have shared whatever knowledge we gained." "Of course, Ambassador." "And I will deal with my aide. And I will ask those who were.part of the team working with your Mr. Spock to return-if you will allow it." "As you wish, Ambassador. However, there may not be a great deal to do by the time they return. Mr. Spock believes he has found the key to-" "What?" The words hit Tiam like a physical blow. "When? Was he not in that madness with us!" Kirk shrugged, obviously enjoying himself. "He hasn't explained precisely what, Ambassador, but the `when' was in that `madness,' as you call it.- Something down there gave him a clue. I suppose we'll see soon enough if it pans out." Tiam swallowed. Was this human simply tormenting him? Paying him back for the transgression of transporting down to the cavern alone? How could even the Vulcan have learned something from that insanity? Tiam was sorely tempted to vent his true feelings, to refuse to acquiesce in this shameful treatment, but he dared not take the chance. If the Vulcan had found something down there...

 

 

"That is good to hear," Tiam forced himself to say. "The knowledge to be gained from this-thing-could be immense." Abruptly, Tiam turned and stepped up onto the transporter platform. "I will speak with my aide," he repeated, "and I will send back those he mistakenly called away. I am grateful that you are willing to overlook my impulsive act and the mistakes of my aide." The last thing Tiam saw as the transporter energies closed around him was Kirk's smiling, hateful face.

 

 

"Was it my imagination, Mr. Handler," Kirk asked as the Romulan vanished from the transporter platform, "or was Ambassador Tiam gritting his teeth a lot when he `apologized'?" "Yes, sir, it did seem that way," Handler said, and then, for once forgetting his nervousness around senior officers, particularly this senior officer, asked, almost breathlessly, "Was that true, sir? What you said about Mr. Spock being able to talk to the Probe?" Kirk laughed. "Come along to the bridge and we'll see," he said, heading for the corridor and the 'lift. "But just for the record, what I said was, Mr. Spock `believes he has found the key.' There's a big difference." "Yes, sir." Kirk sobered. "You looked in on Kevin, you said?" "Yes, sir." "Still no sign of awakening?" "They said-" "I know what `they' said, Mr. Handler. I want to know what you think. " Handler swallowed. "I'm not a doctor, sir." "I know that, Mr. Handler. But you are his friend." "Yes, sir, I like to think so." "Then tell me what you think-as his friend." Handler swallowed again. They were in the 'lift on the way to the bridge. "I'm worried, sir. They expected him to wake up three days ago, but when that thing grabbed us like it did, and we couldn't breathe-" He broke off, shaking his head. "I know Dr. McCoy said it didn't have any-any lasting effect, but I'm still worried. I think Mr. Sulu and Commander Uhura are, too." Kirk put a hand on Handler's shoulder, squeezing gently. "So am I, Mr. Handler. So are we all." The 'lift opened on the bridge. The unnamed planet, the shadow of its ring darkening a good quarter of it, still filled the viewscreen. Commander Scott stood up and moved from the conn.

 

 

"Good to have ye back, sir. Mr. Spock tells us ye had an interesting time doon there." "That's one way of putting it, Mr. Scott. Though I would've thought it rated at least a `fascinating."' Kirk came to a stop next to the conn and punched up sickbay. "Status of Dr. McCoy," he said briskly.

 

 

"As good as can be expected, Captain," came the voice of Commander Chapel, "when you have to physically restrain a patient to get any readings." "I'll take that as an `okay,"' Kirk said. "Any change in Commander Riley?" "None, Captain. Although you might want to ask Dajan. He went in to see Riley when he and Dr. Benar delivered the doctor, and he's still there." "Not right now, thank you, Commander." He turned to Spock, who, though watching the readouts closely, was doing nothing else. Jandra stood to one side, not looking at the readouts but simply waiting, listening.

 

 

"So, Mr. Spock, were you right?" "Undetermined, Captain. I have submitted my hypothesis to the computer. We can only await results." "How long?" "Also undetermined, Captain." "You're a great help today, Spock. While we wait, can you at least tell us what your hypothesis is? And how, logically, you got it from anything Dr. Benar or I said?" "Of course, Captain. The two of you indicated that the images were, in effect, sonic holograms, detectable by her own sonic probe and in all likelihood, by the sonar of the dolphinlike creatures whose images were being dis- played to us. That, in addition to the sounds themselves, prompted me to review what I had learned during my study of cetaceans prior to my attempt to meld with George, and that review proved fruitful." "You reviewed what you'd learned?" Kirk marveled. "In the middle of all that was going on down there?" "Of course, Captain, as, I suspect, did you. My conclusion was no more remarkable than your own logical analysis of the relationship between sonic holograms and dolphins." "That wasn't an analysis, Spock, just a realization, a hunch." "I suspect the difference, Captain, is more in the semantics than in the reality." Kirk sighed. "Have it your way, Spock. But you were about to say... ?" "I was about to say, Captain, that the literature contained many descriptions of the ability of earth dolphins to use the `clicks' of their sonar to `look' at an object while simultaneously using `whistling' sounds to communicate with other dolphins. This would be, a number of the descriptions said, the equivalent in a human of speaking in two different pitches and carrying on two conversations simultaneously." "So you're saying what, Spock?" Kirk asked when the Vulcan paused. "That the Probe is saying two things at once? At different frequencies?" "If my hypothesis is correct, Captain, it could be saying many things at once, at many different frequencies. Or possibly it is saying the same thing in many different ways at many different frequencies. At this point, it is impossible to know." Kirk nodded, suddenly beginning to understand.

 

 

"Each of. those patterns-how many did you find? Twenty? Thirty? Each of those patterns could be a different language? All saying the same thing?" "That is one possibility, Captain, as is the possibility that each is saying something different. I have instructed the computer to isolate each band of frequencies that contains a pattern and to treat each as a possibly separate language." Kirk glanced at the readouts. "And it's still thinking about it?" "Apparently, Captain." "If there's any way you can hurry it along, before-" "Captain!" It was Sulu, at the helm. "The Galtizh is engaging impulse power." Kirk spun toward the viewscreen. "Stay with it, Mr. Sulu. Where is it headed?" "Higher orbit, Captain. It may be returning to the orbit of the Probe." "Commander Uhura-" "Hailing the Galtizh, Captain. No response." "Keep after them, Commander." "It's definitely heading for the Probe's orbit, Captain," Sulu reported. On the viewscreen, the frozen planet had disappeared, replaced by the fragments of the ring along one side while in the center was a minuscule Galtizh. And beyond, still small in the distance but rapidly growing larger, was the lightless mass of the Probe.

 

 

One paradox had been resolved, only to be replaced by another.

 

 

The entity, once it had partially loosened its grip on the mites in the Chamber of the Crystal Wisdom, had continued to observe them as they were engulfed in images of the first Winnowing, just as countless thousands of the creators themselves had been engulfed throughout the millennia before the Second Winnowing.

 

 

But then, before the Triumph, before the recreated images of those who became the creators' ancestors had used their nascent power of Speech to clear the mass of ash from small breathing areas, the eight had vanished, snatched directly from its grip.

 

 

And they had reappeared in one of the spacegoing bubbles.

 

 

They were the same, the entity saw now. One moment, they had been in the Chamber. The next moment, they were outside the Chamber, thousands of kilometers in space.

 

 

Like the primitives on the blue world, they could appear and disappear.

 

 

The chances that these mites were responsible for the appearance-and previous disappearance-of those primitives were increasing.

 

 

As were the chances that they were somehow connected to the mites that had driven the creators from the homeworld hundreds of millennia ago.

 

 

But the entity would do nothing now.

 

 

It would wait. It would observe.

 

 

And if they proved to be the same, if they proved to make use of the same killing rays, their mimicking of the True Language would not save them.

 

 

TWENTY-THREE Tiam knew something was wrong the moment the Galtizh transporter room formed around him and he saw that Jenyu, not Kital, was waiting for him. Dressed now in a somber but bemedaled commander's uniform, Jenyu had jettisoned all traces of Subcenturion Kital. Subcommander Feric stood uneasily to one side, flanked by two officers Tiam did not know.

 

 

"What was the substance of your clandestine exchange with the Federation captain, Ambassador?" Jenyu asked almost before the transporter energies had released him.

 

 

"It was not clandestine!" "Then why did you send the subcommanders on to the Galtizh before speaking with him? Do not waste my time, Tiam. What was said?" Tiam swallowed nervously. "I was told that you had withdrawn all our people from the Vulcan's group. And I-I told him they would be returning. He agreed." "They will not return. Nor will you." "But the Vulcan-they say he has discovered a key to the object's emissions! If true, it could mean we will soon be able to achieve the late Praetor's objective-but only if you allow me to return to the Enterprise!" Jenyu had started to turn away, but he turned back at Tiam's final words. "How so?" "The false patterns our people `found' for them! With those added to the true patterns they must work with, there is little chance their key will do them any good! On the other hand, if I am allowed to work with them and discover what their key is, I will be able to return here and-" "Can you guarantee they will fail? And that you will subsequently succeed?" "Perhaps not guarantee, Commander, but the odds-" "The odds against virtually everything that has happened since I came aboard this ship are incalculable, yet it has all happened! Can you give me a guarantee?" "Of course not, but-" "Enough," Jenyu said, turning and stalking toward the door. "Place Ambassador Tiam with Commander Hiran." And he was gone, Feric trailing in his wake.

 

 

In a heartbeat, the two subcenturions stepped forward, and barely a minute later, Tiam found himself being shoved unceremoniously into Hiran's quarters. An instant later, he heard the click of the newly installed manual lock he had glimpsed on the outside of the door.

 

 

Hiran looked up from his desk, his eyes widening slightly as Tiam lurched to a stop.

 

 

"Inquisitor?" Hiran asked. "Or fellow prisoner?" "What happened, Hiran?" "May I take that to mean `fellow prisoner,' Ambassador?" "Take it as you like! Just tell me what has happened here." "I would have thought that obvious to a man of your acuity, Ambassador. It seems I was as naive as I accused you of being! We were both pawns in the game, and your `aide' turned out to be, in truth, the only player on board." Hiran laughed bitterly. "Not that he will be a player for long. Tell me, Ambassador, are you aware of what your former aide is planning?" Tiam shook his head angrily. "I thought I did, but obviously I don't. All I know is, he is throwing away a chance to accomplish what the Praetor originally set out to do: utilize the power of that thing that brought us here! He refuses to let me return to the Enterprise and-" "You have no idea, no idea at all, do you? He's determined to destroy that `thing,' as you call it! And the Galtizh in the process!" Tiam gaped. Destroy it? No one could be that mad! "How in the gods' names? He knows as well as I what it did to the Henzu, to Wlaariivi!" "He thinks he has a way around that little difficulty," Hiran said, beginning to recount Jenyu's tale of the ships on the training mission. "He thinks we might be inside its `defensive perimeter,' as he called it, and he also thinks he may have found a vulnerable spot. But he doesn't really care. He is willing to be destroyed in the retaliation as long as he feels there is a good chance the retaliation will take out the Enterprise as well as the Galtizh. All he cares about-" "Officers and crew of the Galtizh, Romulan citizens." Jenyu's voice crackled from the intercom, drowning out Hiran's words.

 

 

Subcommander Feric listened with growing consternation to Commander Jenyu's announcement to the officers and crew. With each word that came over the speakers, it became clearer that he was outlining their coming deaths, and worse, the end of any hope for peace between the Empire and the Federation. Following his course of action might even mean the destruction of the Empire itself.

 

 

They were to attack this behemoth that had brought them here. There was a small chance, Jenyu said, they would succeed in disabling it, in which case the Enterprise would in all likelihood turn its own firepower on the far more lightly armed Galtizh. There was a much greater chance, the commander admitted, that the attack would do little or no damage to the monster but would provoke a response that would vaporize the Galtizh-and, Jenyu fervently hoped, the Enterprise.

 

 

And all, according to Jenyu, solely to prevent the Federation from gaining control of the thing.

 

 

It was insane.

 

 

It was sheer paranoia-typical of those of Jenyu's and Tiam's warlike stripe-to think that the Federation had already influenced the thing to attack Wlaariivi. There was nothing to indicate that anyone could gain control of it, ever, and everything to indicate such control was impossible. According to Hiran, the Empire had been trying to communicate with it or take it over for months, ever since the first time the object passed through Romulan space, and the Empire had failed miserably.

 

 

The best either the Empire or the Federation could hope was to learn how to communicate with it. It would no more do the Federation's bidding than it would the Empire's. As its actions had proven, both in the Federation and the Empire, it was not the derelict the Praetor had first assumed. It was fully operational and had an agenda of its own, an agenda that saw the Empire and the Federation-if it saw them at all-as distractions at best, insects to be swatted if they proved too troublesome. To attack it now could accomplish only one thing, aside from their own instant deaths. This would be at least the second attack by a Romulan vessel, and that might be enough to elevate the Empire from the status of distraction to the status of enemy. It might well prompt it to do on its own what Jenyu irrationally feared the Federation might order it to do.

 

 

Jenyu finally paused in his announcement, which had now gone on for a good five minutes.

 

 

"It was my duty to inform you of the situation," he resumed quietly. "I have done so. Now, except for those whose duties lie with me, on the bridge, you may do as you see fit these next few minutes." Make your preparations to die, you mean, Feric thought, suddenly angry, wondering how many others were echoing his thoughts. But what could they do, after all?

 

 

Now, more than ever, Jenyu had the power.

 

 

Finally, the intercom in Hiran's quarters fell silent. A moment later, through the viewport, he and Tiam saw that the Galtizh had begun to move.

 

 

"He is mad!" Tiam said, shaking his head.

 

 

Hiran shrugged. "He is also in control. And the ones he has manning the bridge are as mad as he is. But I would have thought your own philosophy of war rather than negotiation would have placed you firmly in their camp. And yet you now say they are mad?" "War is a contest, not pointless suicide!" "Jenyu knows it is suicide, but he obviously disagrees about its being pointless." Tiam pulled in a ragged breath. "Is there nothing you can do? You are the commander of the Galtizh, after all!" "You did not seem to hold that opinion a few short hours ago, Ambassador!" Hiran flared, then calmed himself. "In any event, when Jenyu revealed his true identity-through an announcement just like this onehe accused me of treason against the Empire, of `conspiring' with the enemy, in the person of the Federation captain. He invoked the Master Dominion Pandect for Martial Crisis. I do not know how many believed him, but there were enough who did not rise to my defense that it was easy for him and his six men to assume control of my ship! Most are still loyal to me, but-" "The civilians, the scientists and musicians! Certainly they cannot wish to die." "I would assume not, but they were all assembled and locked away-in your quarters, no less. They are as helpless as we." "But surely-" The click of the manual lock brought a sudden silence. Both men turned to the door as it slid open, revealing a grim-faced Subcommander Feric.

 

 

"Feric! What-" "Commander," Feric said. Hiran felt himself grinning -and a split-second later, Feric followed suit.

 

 

It was the first time Hiran could recall seeing his first officer smile.

 

 

TWENTY-FOUR The glittering blackness of the Probe filled the Enterprise viewscreen. At the center, the speck that was the Galtizh had dropped to minimum impulse and was barely moving.

 

 

"What the hell are they up to?" Kirk muttered, not for the first time.

 

 

"Still no response to our hail, Captain," Uhura volunteered.

 

 

"It looks like they're heading for that appendage," Sulu said from the helm, "the one we decided might or might not be what it uses to transmit and receive whatever it is it transmits and receives. Sir." "So they can whisper in its ear in hopes we won't hear what they say?" Kirk shook his head. "It doesn't make sense." McCoy, who had escaped Commander Chapel's ministrations and made his way to the bridge, snorted. "I'd start worrying if they did something that did make sense." "Response from the Galtizh, Captain," Uhura announced abruptly.

 

 

"On-screen." The Probe and the minuscule Galtizh vanished, replaced a moment later by an image of the Romulan bridge. But a badly out-of-focus image. A grim-faced and equally out-of-focus Hiran stood at the rear of the bridge, looking over the shoulder of a subcommander at the Romulan equivalent of a science station.

 

 

Hastily, Hiran dragged the guard inside his quarters and used the guard's phaser to bolster the stun that Feric had already administered. Resetting the manual lock, the three hurried down the corridor to the nearest 'lift.

 

 

But it was disabled. "Commander Jenyu is taking no chances," Hiran said with a curse.

 

 

"We cannot reach the bridge?" What little color was left in Tiam's face drained away. "Is there no other way?" "Emergency service stairs, of course, but he will surely have sealed off all entrances to the bridge." "Then there is no way of stopping him?" "Not unless we can cut off power to the weapons-or to the bridge. And I doubt that his preparations have been lax enough to allow that." "With your permission, Commander," Feric volunteered, gripping his phaser more tightly, "I will attempt it. I am as familiar with the Galtizh as anyone." Hiran's eyes darted briefly upward, in the direction of the distant bridge. "Very well. We will go together. Tiam?" Tiam swallowed, his lips parchment dry. "There is another possibility," he said, barely above a whisper.

 

 

Hiran spun to face the ambassador. "And you have said nothing until now? What is it? Quickly!" "My quarters-there is a subspace transceiver. We could contact the Committee and-" Hiran snorted. "Halfway across the galaxy? Don't be a fool, Tiam!" Tiam blinked, then slumped as the reality of the distance hit him. "Then we are lost." But Hiran had suddenly brightened. "Perhaps not." He turned to Feric. "Go, try to cut power to the weapons or the bridge." "Yes, Commander." Without another word, the subcommander sprinted for the nearest entrance to the service stairs.

 

 

"Come, Tiam," Hiran said, gripping the ambassador's arm and dragging him in Feric's wake toward the stairs, "take me to this transmitter of yours." Kirk frowned at the blurred image of the Galtizh bridge. "Commander Hiran?" The indistinct figure looked sharply around at the screen. "Captain Kirk," Hiran said slowly, drawing in a breath. The commander's voice was oddly distorted, as if to match the images. "I must reluctantly request your assistance." Kirk glanced questioningly toward Spock while surreptitiously signaling to Uhura to cut the audio portion of the transmission.

 

 

"Audio cut, Captain," she said after a moment.

 

 

"Spock?" "There are no indications of malfunctions in any of the Galtizh's primary systems, Captain." The audio returned at Kirk's signal. "Of course, Commander Hiran," he said. "What can we do for you?" "In light of what happened when Tiam and the others transported down to observe the crystal, we decided to investigate the object's crystal appendage more closely," Hiran said, answering Kirk's unasked question. "Now that we have approached it, however, we find that we are unable to maneuver." "Is it similar to what happened while we were being brought here?" Kirk asked. "Whenever we tried to use impulse power?" "No, Captain Kirk. The engines simply do not respond." "I see. But what is it you wish of us?" "If you could approach to within tractor-beam range and attempt to free us-" "And get caught ourselves?" "The effect appears to have a very short range. We first encountered it at less than ten kilometers. You will be able to get within tractor-beam range without exposing yourself to danger." "Is the Probe affecting your transmissions as well, Commander Hiran? Your images are blurred." Hiran blinked at the sudden change of subject. "Yours are blurred as well, Captain Kirk. Perhaps it is the result of whatever field is preventing us from moving." "Perhaps." Kirk looked to Sulu at the helm. "Take us in, Mr. Sulu, very carefully. Reverse course the moment you detect any loss of efficiency in the impulse engines." "Aye-aye, sir." Kirk started to look back at the screen when the audio channel was cut abruptly.

 

 

"Captain," Uhura said, speaking rapidly, "there is a subspace hail from the Galtizh-audio only." "Mr. Sulu, belay that order. Keep us where we are! Commander Uhura, make it look like we're having transmission trouble, too. No clear transmissions, audio or picture, to the Galtizh bridge until we find out who this other audio is coming from." The transmission from the Galtizh bridge resumed in midsentence.

 

 

"I'm sorry, Captain," Uhura said loudly, overriding Hiran's incoming voice, "but I'm losing your signal." A moment later, the viewscreen image faltered and broke up. Hiran's voice was lost as well.

 

 

Kirk vaulted from the conn and was at Uhura's side in a second. "Who-" he began, but another voice cut him off.

 

 

"This is Commander Hiran, Captain Kirk. I must warn you-" "Commander Hiran was just speaking to me from the Galtizh bridge." "A poor image? Out of focus? Low-quality audio?" "Yes, but-" "It is Jenyu-the one you knew as Kital. He has taken over the bridge. He must be using the computer to alter his image, to simulate mine. I have used similar deceptions myself. The image and the sound are purposely of low quality so that the simulation-itself of low quality -will not be detected." "Hiran," Kirk broke in, "do you still have the same desires regarding the Erisians?" "What? Kirk, do not waste-" "I have to know which of you is the real Hiran!" Kirk snapped. "Now tell me, the Erisians!" "I see. Very well, during my tour of the Enterprisewhich I would very much like to complete some day-I expressed the hope that the Erisians would prove to be ancestors to you humans, so that the Empire would be forced to open the Neutral Zone." Kirk let his breath out in a whoosh. "Commander Hiran," he said, "what is the warning?" "Kital-he is in reality Commander Jenyu, late of the Shalyar-has taken over the bridge. He plans to fire every weapon we have into the cavity from which that thing's appendage is extended. He hopes to damage the massive crystal structure just below the cavity, but he expects the thing to return fire and vaporize both the Galtizh and the Enterprise, just as it did the Henzu and the cargo ship near Wlaariivi." There was a gasp from somewhere on the bridge, but Kirk ignored it... except to note, out of the corner of his eye, that Jandra had left Spock's side and was hurrying toward the turbolift.

 

 

"So that's why he wanted us close in." Kirk nodded. "But if you can't stop him, how do you expect us-" "Fire on him first, Kirk! Destroy his ability to launch the attack if you can. If you cannot-" Hiran paused, swallowing audibly. "If you cannot limit your fire to his weapons alone, you must destroy the Galtizh itself. We cannot take a chance with anything else." "But why is Jenyu doing this?" "He is convinced there is a chance you will learn to control that thing, particularly after Tiam informed him of the progress your Mr. Spock is supposed to have made. He is afraid-convinced-that you will order it to destroy the Empire. I am more afraid that, if he manages to attack it-this would be at least the second time a Romulan ship has attacked it-it may decide we are an enemy worth paying attention to, an enemy worth destroying." "If it is aware that there is such a thing as a Romulan Empire. Or that there is a difference between a Romulan ship and a Federation ship." "I am well aware of the uncertainties involved, Federation captain. The only certainty is this: if you do nothing and allow him to attack, the Galtizh will be a cloud of vapor like the Henzu within seconds, as will the Enterprise. If you can disable our weapons, there is a chance that at least some of us will survive." "Commander Hiran is right!" another voice shouted.

 

 

"Who-" Kirk began, but Hiran had already anticipated the question.

 

 

"Ambassador Tiam. He agrees with our decision, but he wants to be beamed over before you act." "We can probably beam several of you-" "Captain," Spock broke in, "the Galtizh phaser banks are being deliberately overcharged, presumably in order to maximize their initial discharge." "All transporters!" Kirk snapped. "Lock onto any life-forms you can on the Galtizh and-" "Galtizh shields raised, Captain," Sulu reported.

 

 

So the transporters are gone. Nothing else for it, then. Kirk gritted his teeth, ignoring the knot that had suddenly formed in his stomach. "Mr. Sulu, lock all phasers on the Galtizh weapons systems. Fire when the phaser-charge buildup stops." And hope to God that's all we hit. A Federation starship destroying a Romulan cruiser...

 

 

That could mean war.

 

 

He turned in his chair to face Uhura. "All transporters, be ready to pick up any survivors!" "Captain!" It was Spock again. "The computer is producing a translation of the Probe's emissions." Talk about timing! "Can we talk to it?" "We can try, Captain. The modified tractor beams are-" "Then talk to it, Spock! Warn it! Tell it to get the hell out of here-now!" Spock's fingers stabbed at a half dozen controls. "You are in danger," he said, no more emotion in his voice than ever. "Remove yourself immediately from this area." For a moment there was only silence. Suddenly a rumble, nothing higher than forty hertz, filled the bridge as the translation was sent not only to the tractor beam but to the bridge speakers and over the intercom. The upper frequencies, Kirk could hear. The lower, below the nineteen hertz his last exam had proclaimed as the low end of his hearing range, he felt, not just where his boots met the deck but throughout his body. If he spoke, he knew the vibrations would be superimposed on his words.

 

 

The sound, both heard and felt, was eerily beautiful, he realized, like George's song played on the lowestpitched pipes of a massive organ.

 

 

But it bore no resemblance to the Probe's emissions that he could discern.

 

 

And the Probe remained perfectly still, going nowhere.

 

 

And the Galtizh phaser banks continued to mass their deadly charge.

 

 

In sickbay, Dajan looked around sharply as the door to the ambassador's room hissed open and Jandra hurtled through.

 

 

"What-" he began, but he was startled into silence, first by the tear-stained anger in her face, then by her arms as she wrapped them tightly about him.

 

 

"Sib!" Her voice trembled.

 

 

His stomach knotted as he pulled free of her arms and stepped back to look at her face. "Kirk is sending us back to the Galtizh. " "No! Some madman on the Galtizh is about to order an attack on that thing, and it will surely destroy us all!" To his own surprise, Dajan felt a measure of relief. If the Federation had betrayed him and turned him back to Tiam, it would have meant the Federation was little better than the Empire, and that thought was suddenly intolerable to him.

 

 

"It will not come to that, certainly, Little Sister," he said, though he had no idea whether it would or not.

 

 

"I do not care!" she said, her voice filled with anguish. "I only know that, if it is our time, we must be ready. When our parents were driven to their deaths, we were not even allowed to say goodbye. I will not allow that to happen to us!" For a moment, his instinct was to again protest. But he could not. For he knew she was right.

 

 

He held out his arms and she came into them. They held each other as tightly as ever in their lives.

 

 

And they waited.

 

 

And as they waited, their words and their feelings slowly filtered down to where Commander Kevin Thomas Riley and the four-year-old he had once been began to take them as his own.

 

 

! Suddenly, yet another paradox assaulted the entity.

 

 

The mites that had first mimicked the True Language were mimicking it again, and yet they were not.

 

 

The energy they were producing was the same they had employed earlier, a short-range, painfully slow imitation of Speech, not the bewildering array of frequencies in which the other mites had buried their own mimicry of the True Language.

 

 

But the content could not have been more different.

 

 

It was not merely another echo of the message the entity itself had been continuously proclaiming for five hundred millennia.

 

 

It was something totally new, a warning of danger.

 

 

And it was carried not by the True Language in its entirety but by only one primitive aspect of it, the aspect its creators had employed before they had developed the power of Speech, when their voices had still been matter-bound. It was the aspect they had retained and continued to use, not because it was the most useful, because it was not; nor because it could communicate the greatest amount of information, because it could not. In truth, it could convey only the most elemental information, little more than the matter-bound languages of the thousands of primitives the entity had found and nurtured over the millennia.

 

 

It was retained because it was the first.

 

 

And now these mites had isolated that one most primitive aspect and had chosen to communicate through it.

 

 

Had they chosen to use more aspects, they could have communicated a thousand times more information: the source of the danger, the precise nature of the danger, all the ways the danger could be avoided, the reasons for the danger, how long it had been present and how long it would remain-all these and a mass of other details could have been communicated in those same moments had they not chosen to limit themselves to this single, primitive aspect.

 

 

But perhaps it was all they were capable of.

 

 

After full milliseconds of consideration, it searched for the danger.

 

 

But there was none.

 

 

Even if these mites possessed the killing rays, the defenses the entity had discovered in its possession after the destruction around the blue-green world would keep it safe. If either of the mites' spacegoing bubbles used the rays, they would both be reduced to their component atoms within milliseconds.

 

 

There is no danger, it said: Kirk stood by Spock's station, listening as the computer produced a translation of the Probe's response.

 

 

"It doesn't understand," he said frantically. He spoke again-directly, he hoped, to the Probe. "There is a weapon that is about to be fired at you. We do not want it to be fired, but we cannot stop it. If you can stop it, there will be time to explain, time to talk." Silence.

 

 

Finally, the computer produced another eerie series of low-pitched tones and subsonics.

 

 

"Galtizh phaser banks leveling off," Sulu reported. "They could fire any second." There is no danger. The words played themselves back as Kirk waited helplessly. No danger because the Probe could not be damaged? Because it could shrug off phasers and photon torpedoes like dust motes? Because it could strike back, as it apparently had with the Henzu, and vaporize the attacker before any damage could be inflicted?

 

 

He couldn't take the chance. "Fire, Mr. Sulu."... time to talk.

 

 

The entity seized on that fragment of the message. For five hundred millennia, it had searched for those with which it could Speak.

 

 

Once, it had searched solely so it could bring word back to its creators, but now its creators were gone.

 

 

There was only itself.

 

 

And these mites-mites who spoke the aspect of the True Language that was the first its creators had ever spoken.

 

 

Mites who wanted to communicate. Mites who, no matter how mistakenly, had warned it of what they had perceived as a danger to it.

 

 

The entity reached out and gripped the spacegoing bubbles and the mites within them more tightly than it ever had before: Everywhere in the Enterprise and the Galtizh, all motion stopped.

 

 

Sulu's hand was frozen centimeters from the firing control.

 

 

Jenyu's order to fire all phasers and photon torpedoes was frozen in his throat.

 

 

In sickbay of the Enterprise, Dajan and his sister were frozen in each other's arms, while the four-year-old Kevin Riley found himself held just as tightly by first his mother, then his father, as they bid him goodbye.

 

 

Gently, swiftly, the entity placed the mites and their spacegoing bubbles beyond the point at which their killing rays-if indeed they possessed them-could trigger a response.

 

 

It released them.

 

 

We will talk, it said.

 

 

On the Enterprise viewscreen, the Probe suddenly began to shrink. Within seconds, even its huge bulk was a speck in the distance.

 

 

The Galtizh, as if attached to the Enterprise by an invisible rod of force, seemed not to move at all.

 

 

As suddenly as it had come, the paralysis lifted.

 

 

Sulu's hand jerked backward from the firing control.

 

 

The Galtizh's phasers lashed out harmlessly into empty space, followed a fraction of a second later by a photon torpedo. A hundred kilometers out, the torpedo vanished, harmlessly vaporized.

 

 

In the Enterprise sickbay, Dajan and his sister, realizing they were going to live, released each other with a smile. And Commander Kevin Riley's eyes fluttered open, and before the four-year-old boy from his nightmares faded entirely from his memory, he realized that, somehow, the goodbyes he had never been able to say had finally been spoken.

 

 

The Probe spoke, now using only the frequencies the computer used.

 

 

"We will talk," the computer translated.

 

 

And they did talk.

 

 

For hours, with the computer constantly mastering new aspects of the Probe's language, adding new complexities to the dialogue, they talked.

 

 

And they learned, all of them. Even the stubbornnest of the Romulans, listening, first eagerly, then angrily, found themselves learning.

 

 

Finally, of necessity, the return to reality-to the Neutral Zone and the problems that could only have grown worse in their absence-was begun.

 

 

TWENTY-FIVE Captain's Log, Stardate 8501.2: According to Mr. Sulu's "looking out the window" calculations, the Probe made equally good time-roughly warp thirty-on the return leg of what must have been one of the longest towing jobs in either Federation or Romulan history. Its departure moments after releasing the Enterprise and the Galtizh at the edge of the Temaris system was equally speedy.

 

 

Not surprisingly, the Temaris "conference" has not been resumed, and all parties involved are anticipating orders to withdraw from the 'Neutral Zone until further notice. The one surprise is that the reform-minded Interim Government is still in power, albeit precariously. They are reportedly getting a boost from Hiran's accusations of sabotage against Ambassador Tiam and Commander Jenyu, but Jenyu's sponsors are firing back with the expected accusations against Hiran, most of which boil down to "collaboration with the enemy," meaning me. At least Hiran has regained control of his ship-and Jenyu and his men are locked safely in the Galtizh's brig.

 

 

We learned a lot from the Probe in the last three days, and the Probe appears to have picked up a little from us "mites." Spock, for instance, once he became the only mite to be allowed direct access to the Probe's "innards," as Dr. McCoy calls them, was able to resolve the various paradoxes that had apparently driven it, first, to drag us halfway across the galaxy, and second, to almost shut itself down. With the help of the Enterprise computer, Spock expanded on its creators' rather rigid definition of intelligence, so that it now includes most technologically advanced mites, even those such as ourselves who can generally carry on only one conversation at a time. Similarly, he was able to modify the goals its creators had given it, so that it will be able not only to go on searching for life-forms who might someday become like its creators, but also to search for the creators themselves, wherever the survivors might have gone, in or out of the galaxy.

 

 

One thing Spock was not able to do was restore the Probe's "lost" memory, other than to confirm the logic of what the Probe had itself already deduced: that it had encountered a particularly nasty and persistent group of space-faring aliens who had half-destroyed it before it had managed to drive them off, and that these same aliens had traced it back to the homeworld, where the Second Winnowing was the result. As Dr. McCoy remarked, they sound like "super-Kiingons," and we can only hope that their current three-hundred-thousand-year absence continues.

 

 

Dr. Benar, however, has suggested that that is an overly optimistic hope. She suggests, in fact, that they have not been entirely absent and may even have played a role in the disappearance of the Erisians, whose ancestors, she now believes, were the very mites whose civilization was destroyed in the first Winnowing.

 

 

Unfortunately, she makes a compelling case.

 

 

"Do you go along with these crazy ideas, Spock?" McCoy asked, a not-uncharacteristic skeptical frown creasing his brow. Senior officers and scientists, including Dajan, had gathered in a briefing room while they waited for official word from Starfleet that the conference had indeed ended. McCoy had missed most of the earlier discussions, having spent more than the usual amount of time keeping a personal eye on the nowconscious Commander Riley during the return towing, and was using this opportunity to catch up.

 

 

"Either of her hypotheses would account for the observed data, Doctor," Spock observed, not for the first time.

 

 

"Let me get this straight, Dr. Benar," McCoy persisted. "You're saying you were able to recognize that city as Erisian? In just those few seconds before the asteroid blew it all to hell?" "Not as Erisian, Doctor," Benar responded quietly, though she had answered basically the same question many times before, "as Erisian-like. The pattern in which it was laid out appeared to be a simpler version, perhaps a primitive forerunner, of the patterns in which the Erisian ruins I have studied were laid out. If we had not been barred from returning to the chamber, I could have proven or disproven the relationship with a mathematical analysis. As it is, I can only say that I recognized the pattern, in the same sense that you would recognize the `pattern' of an adult human in a human child and be capable of distinguishing it from a Vulcan or Klingon child. In addition, however, there is the matter of the memory crystals that have been found in the Exodus Hall of every Erisian site. As Captain Spock has pointed out, that crystal is indeed identical to the crystal that produced the `sonic holograms' and that occurs naturally on that world." "But it's a pretty big jump from saying the Erisians started out from there two million years ago to saying that those super-Klingons did them in more than a million and a half years later. For instance, how the blazes did they even find them after all that time? Even if the Erisians were building Exodus Halls back then, there wouldn't have been much left of them after the asteroid and the volcanoes." "Perhaps not, but the other worlds in the system were not similarly afflicted. And for there to have been survivors at all, there had to have been off-world colonies, possibly with Exodus Halls of their own." "Don't fight it, Bones," Kirk said with a grin. "She's got all the bases covered." "So the super-Klingons found some of the worlds they'd moved to," McCoy persisted, pointedly ignoring Kirk's admonition. "You'd think by the time they got to Temaris-when was that again? A hundred thousand years ago? You'd think they'd have learned not to leave a forwarding address by then, wouldn't you?" "Perhaps they did not know they were being pursued," Benar said patiently, "although I suspect that they did. If they did, it would explain a great many things. For example, why all known Erisian worlds were evacuated at approximately the same time, roughly one hundred thousand years ago. Why Erisians were so careful to leave no record of their physical appearance." McCoy shook his head. "They didn't want anyone to know what they looked like, but they left their forwarding address? It doesn't make sense." "But the Exodus Hall records may not have been their `forwarding address,' as you put it, Doctor. If you will recall, every destination so far identified has proven to be an unstable star, including many that later went nova, even supernova." "And that surprises you? After the way those superKlingons did in the Probe's homeworld sun?" "That sun neither went nova nor developed into a flare star, Dr. McCoy. That sun's output was decreased, not increased." McCoy shrugged. "So they developed better, faster methods of extermination. They had more than two hundred thousand years to work on it." "That is one possibility, Doctor. However, I tend toward the other: that the Exodus Hall records were meant as either a misdirection or a trap, more likely a trap." "So now the Erisians are able to make a sun go nova at will? When they didn't even have the power to deflect an asteroid from their own homeworld?" "As you yourself just now pointed out in regard to their pursuers, the Erisians had two hundred thousand years to develop their science, their weapons." "Don't say I didn't warn you, Bones," Kirk put in when McCoy stalled out. "I've already put up every objection you have and more, and I've gotten nowhere. And believe me," he added, sobering, "there's nothing I'd like better than a believable and thoroughly mundane scenario, anything that doesn't involve either the Erisians or your super-Klingons going around setting off novas by the thousands." "Captain Kirk." It was Lieutenant Kittay's voice from the bridge. "The Galtizh is hailing us. Commander Hiran-" "Patch him through, Lieutenant." A moment later, Hiran's face, touched by the barest trace of what struck Kirk as a wistful smile, appeared on the briefing-room viewer.

 

 

"Commander Hiran, what can I do for you?" "As I recall, Federation captain, our tour of the Enterprise was never quite completed...." Instead of completing the tour, Kirk found himself repeating part of it, escorting Commander Hiran to the Enterprise's botanical gardens. This time, with no rehearsals and no Erisian ruins to occupy the civilians, it seemed that at least half of them, musicians and archaeologists alike, were wandering the paths and lounging on the benches. More than one pair of eyes was distracted by the sight of a Federation captain and a Romulan commander seemingly out for an afternoon stroll.

 

 

"If you would care to walk on the grass again," Kirk said with a smile, "I suppose it could be tolerated for a time." A small laugh escaped Hiran's throat. "You remembered, Federation captain." "Taking a walk through a garden with a Romulan starship commander is not something that is quickly or easily forgotten." "That is true." Hiran looked around, triggering the averting of several civilian eyes. "I suspect few of our audience will forget it either." "Particularly if it is a prelude to something of greater import," Kirk said quietly.

 

 

Hiran stopped on the bank of the stream that meandered through one corner of the garden, from the small waterfall in an alcove of one wall to the pond where the recirculating pump pulled it back beneath the deck.

 

 

"You suspect me of wanting more than a few minutes in your decadent Federation garden, Kirk?" "The thought had crossed my mind, Commander." "And mine as well. Tiam would welcome my defection, I am sure. Otherwise I doubt that he would have stood by so calmly when I announced my intention to transport over." "I was wondering about the lack of uproar." "There was none, only a look-a hopeful look, if I was not mistaken." Kirk nodded. "Doubtless he and Jenyu would do better in the Citadel with only their version of the mission to cope with." "Doubtless. Which of course is one of the reasons I cannot stay, much as I might like." "And the others? The other reasons?" "I think you know, Federation captain. Our victory this time was tiny: there will not be a shooting war, no matter how much Jenyu and his backers desire it. Perhaps someday our victories will be larger." "You feel there is still hope, then?" "If I did not, I would not hesitate to join Dajan and his sister." "In that case, I can only wish you well. And hope to speak with you again someday." "Thank you, Federation captain. I have little doubt that you will-someday. Your Admiral Cartwright will someday be replaced." Hiran fell silent a moment, his eyes seeming to study the tiny, multicolored fish that darted and drifted through the stream at his feet. "And that replacement," he continued softly, "will need a source of information he can trust. As some of my friends are fond of saying-censorship, is one of the things our Empires have in common." A tingle brushed at Kirk's scalp. You know, he realized, but he left the thought unspoken. Instead, he smiled. "He certainly will, Commander." Together, they made their way back to the 'lift.

 

 

EPILOGUE fit.

 

 

The dingy labyrinth of corridors and workshops and dressing rooms was no more glamorous than the last time Uhura had found herself backstage at Lincoln Center Philharmonic Hall. Although, she mused wryly, the full-dress uniforms of all the senior officers of the Enterprise, not to mention the cobalt formalwear of Ambassador Riley, did lend a touch of color, even elegance, that had been absent before.

 

 

"Commander," Kirk said as he narrowly avoided collision with a young man racing along the corridor wearing a green tuxedo jacket while carrying the matching trousers gingerly over one arm, "are you positive this is a good idea?" "Not really, Captain," Uhura admitted, "but a promise is a promise." "At least," Sulu said with a grin, "you didn't promise PROBE to hold `Andy' Penalt's hand at the debut of his Probe concerto." Uhura snorted discreetly. "If I were going to hold something of `Andy's,' it wouldn't be his hand-except, of course, in self-defense." "Advance word in diplomatic circles," Riley volunteered, "is that there may not be a debut." Sulu's grin broadened. "Now wouldn't that be a kick in the head." "Do your diplomatic circles have any reasons to go along with the word?" Uhura wondered.

 

 

"The only ones I've heard were `flashy but conventional."' "Like his playing." Uhura laughed.

 

 

"And like his public relations campaign," Riley added.

 

 

"Oh?" Uhura, Kirk, and McCoy joined in the onesyllable chorus.

 

 

Riley's eyebrows, both fully recovered from Temaris, rose in mock surprise. "And here I thought Starfleet officers prided themselves on keeping current with all aspects of Federation life and culture." "Kevin!" Kirk shot him a dark look.

 

 

"I'll have a complete file squirted to the Enterprise computer if you want the details. Suffice it to say, he's been throwing around words like `derivative,' though he's stopped short of `plagiarism."' "You're joking!" Uhura sounded genuinely outraged. "He is accusing Jandra and Dr. Benar of stealing? From whom? Not from him, I hope! That would be too much even for him!" Riley shook his head. "From the Probe, he says. Those first two messages, the sounds the computer translated into `There is no danger' and `We will talk.' According to Penalt, what they did was nothing more than `variations on a theme."' Uhura's eyes flashed, but before she could say more, Sulu laughed. "He's just ticked off because he didn't think of it first," he said.

 

 

"And couldn't have done it if he had thought of it!" Uhura snapped.

 

 

"No doubt about it, Commander," Kirk agreed. "However, could you try to look a little less tense when we get to their dressing rooms? You said the idea was to show them a few friendly faces before they go on, not to make them wonder who just killed your cat." Uhura stopped, closed her eyes tightly for a moment, pulled in a breath. "You're right," she said, a smile appearing as she opened her eyes.

 

 

Ahead of them, they saw Maestra Espinoza and Dajan gesturing to them, directing them to their destination.

 

 

Two melodies flowed simultaneously from the single augmented keyboard, inspired by each of the two simplest aspects of the Probe's language. Both were produced and blended flawlessly by Jandra's unerring fingers, while the language's other aspects-those at least that the computer had succeeded in isolatingwere suggested by the orchestra under Audrea Benar's precise baton.

 

 

Penalt won't dare to show his face after this performance. Riley decided after less than five minutes, let alone put his own composition on display.

 

 

Uhura, who appreciated the difficulty of the performance as well as the eerie beauty of the melodies, could only marvel wordlessly.

 

 

Even Spock was impressed by Jandra's sheer physical dexterity.

 

 

It was left to Kirk, he of the tin ear, to realize near the end that the composers had, perhaps inadvertently, reversed the order of the Probe's first two messages, giving the composition a symbolic significance no one had yet noted: We will talk. There is no danger.

 

 

The proper order, he thought as the performance ended and the applause began; the logical order, at least for the Federation and the Empire. With Hiran and himself, with Jandra and Dajan and Benar, the talk had begun. Someday, with luck and intelligence on both sides, the talk would spread. And the danger would, someday, go away.

 

 

He stood and added the sound of his own hands to the thunderous applause that filled not only the hall but several of the hearts within it.

 

 

Somewhere on the far side of the galaxy, the entity paused and extended its crystal sensor. It had passed this way many times before, but it had never before paused, for other than navigational reasons, to check its predictions against reality. There were of course none here that Spoke the True Language, nor were there ocean-dwelling primitives who might someday become the equals of its creators.

 

 

But there were mites galore, its crystalline memory told it, and a mite that called itself Spock had made it aware that mites, too, had a place in the rightful scheme of things and might even have something interesting to say, whether in the True Language or some other. But they must be approached cautiously, the Spock mite had said, although that was something the entity had obviously already known. And you must take care not to Speak too loudly or their fragile, spacegoing bubbles will cease to function and they will think you mean them harm.

 

 

Across nearly half a parsec, it reached out to the pale, gray-green world fifth out from a star not unlike that which had once shone down on the world of its creators.

 

 

Carefully, it set the molecules of the world's atmosphere to vibrating while it listened for a reply. It would take time, as it had with the ocean-dwelling primitives of a thousand worlds, but someday soon, the mites would understand the entity's new greeting: Would you like to talk?

 

 

The End