The Sky's The Limit Part 22

Deanna tensed as they approached the nearest sizable fragment, but Taurik was as skilled a pilot as Geordi had claimed. He eased the runabout closer until they hovered only thirty meters above the fragment and then transported several cubic centimeters of the fragment into the isolation chamber.

A spark of confusion, flaring briefly and then gone. That was from the fragment, Deanna thought. This time she was sure. And inside the chamber, a faint... satisfaction. "Ensign," she said over the comm. "I think the material you just pulled from the fragment is reacting to the particles from Beta that are still inside the chamber. It's as if they're aware of each other on some level. And I think the fragment is confused, as if it knows there's something missing. Pull away from it, just in case it's going to react somehow."

When Taurik reached an alt.i.tude of five hundred meters above the plane, Deanna told him to hold position.

"Once more, to make sure," Deanna whispered to herself. She retrieved the sample jar she had brought on board from Beta and pushed it through a pressurized seal in the side of the isolation chamber. She then eased her hands through a slot covered by an ultrathin, flexible membrane that allowed her to manipulate the jar without actually contacting anything else inside the chamber. She unscrewed the lid and poured Beta's soil on top of the sample they'd just transported aboard.

Satisfaction. Confusion. Fulfillment.

Coming directly from the isolation chamber.

She was right. There was life here. It might not be any form of life recognizable by the sensors-yet-but it was here in the rings, and it was, not quite happy, but content, to have even this small bit of itself restored.

She went forward to share the information with Taurik, who raised his eyebrows in an expression that might have indicated pleased wonder had he not been a Vulcan.

A beep from the console redirected their attention. "Commander, the Enterprise has dropped out of warp only a few kilometers from Beta."

"Can you raise them?" Deanna asked.

"We should be able to contact them, but I can't get through," said Taurik. "I believe we are being jammed."

Enough is enough, thought Deanna. "Ensign, put your helmet back on. Divert all power except sensors and short-range communications, including life support, to propulsion. I want full impulse and then some. Is there any sign that Enterprise is powering weapons?"

"No, Commander."

"Engage," said Deanna. "I'll keep trying to raise them, just in case."

The trip back seemed twice as long, even though they were traveling faster. When they arrived at Beta, Taurik, without prompting, parked the runabout squarely between Beta and the shuttle, which was piloted by two rather confused technicians from the outpost. Apparently Maher had not fully explained matters to them either.

The jamming, now futile, quietly disappeared, and Deanna found herself looking at the familiar bridge of the Enterprise. Giddy with relief, she almost laughed when Riker, exactly as she had expected, demanded, "What the h.e.l.l is going on here?"

"I'll explain," she said. "But first we need to get Data off that rock."

In sickbay, Deanna sat next to the portable anbaric chamber, a thin pane of gla.s.s separating her from the table on which Data lay.

As always, the suddenness with which Data woke and sat straight up startled her.

"Data," she said with a tired smile. "How are you feeling?"

For several seconds, Data's eyes gave the impression that he was looking inward as his diagnostic subroutine a.s.sessed his condition, then he looked back at Deanna. It was wonderful to see thoughts behind his eyes again.

"I am fine, Commander," he said. "My memories are somewhat fragmented but I am in the process of reindexing them." He looked around. "I appear to be in an anbaric chamber."

"Yes," she said. "You were in a vacuum for a little over four hours, Data. Doctor Crusher thought the chamber would help your skin repair itself more quickly. I hope you aren't uncomfortable?"

"No, Commander."

"Data...I'm sorry. I put you at risk, and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I thought it was necessary."

"At risk?" he asked.

"Yes, Data. I left you on the moonlet, completely unprotected. Well, almost completely. Director Maher had threatened to destroy Beta and I left you there as, well, as a hostage."

"Why, Commander?"

"There's life in the rings, Data. We're not sure what kind of life yet, and the sensors couldn't detect it at all until we told them what to look for, but there's a life-form that we think has been spreading slowly across the rings, probably for thousands of years. Geordi and Taurik have been making such wild speculations that I can hardly keep up with them. They think the rings may have been seeded at some point by comets carrying organic compounds, and that radiogenic decay of some of the rings' elements provided a heat source strong enough to allow cellular reproduction. When the outpost scientists moved Beta, the life-form seemed to sense that it was being taken away, and it reacted by causing outga.s.sing. It was trying to get back to its own kind, but it didn't know how."

"Intriguing," said Data. "Doctor Aaron must be very excited as well."

Deanna's face fell. "Doctor Aaron is dead, Data. He died during the crash."

"I am sorry, Commander."

Deanna was silent.

"I hope you do not blame yourself," Data said. "You could not have known. We could not have predicted the moonlet's reaction."

"You're right, Data," she said. "But it's difficult."

Doctor Crusher came over to the chamber. "Good morning," she said with a smile. She peered at the readout in the lower left corner of the chamber's window. "We'll bake you for another hour, Data, and then I'll let Geordi get his hands on you again. I think he's repaired you just fine, but he wants to double-check. It's good to have you back."

"It is good to be back, Doctor. I look forward to conversing with my colleagues about the recent discovery in the rings-"

"Speaking of which," Deanna broke in, "I have to go, Data. I have to file the report that will a.s.sign Prime Directive protection to Heaven's rings. There are plenty of people interested in watching what will happen here over the next thousand years."

"Congratulations, Commander," said Data. "That is quite an honor."

"I also need to talk to Doctor Aaron's family," Deanna said. Beverly threw her a sympathetic look. If anyone could understand what that would be like, it was the doctor.

"You'll do fine," she said, touching Deanna's shoulder briefly before walking away.

"Yes, Commander," said Data. "With your training, I imagine you are well suited to the task."

"I'll give it my best, Data," she said. "If Pica.s.so could, then I can."

Friends with the Sparrows Christopher L. Bennett

Historian's note:

This tale is set several months after the events of the feature film Star Trek Generations.

CHRISTOPHER L. BENNETT.

Christopher L. Bennett has been lucky enough to get to explore many different corners of the vast Star Trek universe. With this story, he becomes the only author to have stories in all four Star Trek anniversary anthologies, the others being "...Loved I Not Honor More" in Star Trek: Deep s.p.a.ce Nine: Prophecy and Change, "Brief Candle" in Star Trek: Voyager: Distant Sh.o.r.es, and "As Others See Us" in Star Trek: Constellations. He has also visited the original series in Star Trek: Ex Machina and the eBook Star Trek: Mere Anarchy Book Four: The Darkness Drops Again; the Corps of Engineers in Star Trek: S.C.E. #29: Aftermath; Riker and Troi after the Enterprise in Star Trek: t.i.tan: Orion's Hounds; and Captain Picard before the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation: The Buried Age. He has branched out beyond Star Trek with X-Men: Watchers on the Walls and the upcoming Spider-Man: Drowned in Thunder (January 2008), and is working on various original fiction concepts as well. More information, original fiction, and cat pictures can be found at http://home.fuse.net/ChristopherLBennett/.

DEANNA TROI'S DESTINATION WAS NOT HARD TO IDENTIFY. It was the only one of Starbase 264's guest quarters to have a guard posted outside the door. "I wouldn't recommend going in there alone," the starbase's security chief advised her.

She threw the Ktarian a look. "The commander is under confinement at his own request," she reminded him. "I'm certain he's no danger."

"I know you served with him for eight years. But you didn't see what his little tantrum did to that lab. Maybe he's not the person you knew anymore."

"And were any people hurt in that outburst?" she said pointedly.

The security chief sighed. "We'll be right outside if you need anything."

"Thank you," she said, reminding herself that the man was simply doing his job. And from what Geordi had told her, even he had been afraid for his safety at the time. Clamping down on her own momentary burst of fear, she stepped inside.

The room was dark. She spotted him brooding in the shadows and moved closer. "I would not advise that, Counselor," he said. "It would be safer if you kept your distance."

"Nonsense. I know you'd never hurt me."

"Not if I were in control of myself. But the way I am now...I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you, Deanna."

She eased herself into a seat opposite him. "The way you are now is something you can learn to manage. And I'm here to help you do that. If you'll let me." She reached over and placed her hand atop his. "I'm not running away from you, Data."

Her eyes were adjusting to the dark now, and she saw his nervous smile and blinked-away tears. "Thank you, Deanna. Your friendship means a great deal to me." He gathered himself, pulling his hand back to rest upon his lap. "Still, it is best if I avoid becoming overemotional."

She sat back. "Is it all right if I turn on the lights?" He nodded, and she gave the computer the order. She studied his face, trying to gauge the extent of his tears. It was harder with him. Although the emotion chip Data had implanted in himself several months ago allowed his brain to simulate human emotional states, it did not enable his face to simulate puffed eyelids and red eyes. And she didn't get the psionic input from him that she'd get from an organic being. Sensing Data's emotions was not unlike reading them over a viewscreen, relying mainly on a skilled reading of body language and expression plus whatever EM-frequency neural emissions she could pick up.

Still, she gave him a rea.s.suring smile. "There, that's better. One thing you should learn about emotions is that darkness tends to promote depression."

"I am aware of that, Counselor. Yet oddly, despite the unpleasantness of depression, I find myself motivated to prolong the experience. Perhaps because I deserve the punishment."

She studied him. "Data, why don't you tell me what happened?"

He moved uneasily in his seat. "I am uncertain how to characterize the experience. It is...disquieting to reflect upon."

"Well, let's ease into it. Talk to me about the work you were doing. How you and Geordi came to this project."

He frowned, but it was a cla.s.sic Data frown of puzzlement. "I a.s.sumed you had been briefed on the Tamarian communication project."

"Oh, I have been. I was invited to partic.i.p.ate, but unfortunately I had other obligations." The former EnterpriseD command crew had scattered to various short-term a.s.signments, expecting to be rea.s.sembled once the new Enterprise was completed. For the second time, Picard's reputation as a commander and importance as a statesman had spared him the stigma that befell most captains who lost their ships, ensuring he would remain at the vanguard of the fleet and have his pick of command crew. But for now, Deanna had been busy counseling former shipmates-many of them civilian scientists and their children-who were still suffering trauma from the Enterprise's destruction at Veridian III. "But I want to hear it from your perspective."

He nodded. "Very well. It began when Captain Picard introduced me to the noted xenoanthropologist Doctor Sofia Borges, who had come to him with an intriguing request..."

"There's no question," Sofia Borges said, "that what you and Captain Picard achieved with the Children of Tama was a remarkable breakthrough."

"I cannot take credit," Data told the doctor, who was a human female of approximately thirty-five standard years, standing 1.72 meters in height, and showing a mix of Native American and Mediterranean in her physiognomy. He felt a desire to impress her, one he believed to be a.s.sociated with his moderate physical arousal at her appearance, but this was overridden by his loyalty to Picard and his commitment to accurate presentation of the facts. "Captain Picard achieved the breakthrough independently of the more limited work that Commander Troi and I were able to perform aboard ship."

"Still," Borges replied, "the work you did in determining the nature of the Tamarian ego structure was valuable for putting the captain's achievement in context."

"I am pleased that you think so," he told her, smiling.

"Besides," Picard said, "all I did was help set the process in motion-or rather, make it possible for the late Captain Dathon to do so."

Data took a few microseconds to review the events of stardate 45047.2 to 45048.6. The Enterprise had traveled to El-Adrel IV to meet with the Children of Tama, an enigmatic race that had made several prior, unsuccessful attempts to open relations with the Federation. Though universal translators had been able to interpret their basic vocabulary, their grammar had remained incomprehensible, their statements appearing to be merely a hodgepodge of names and descriptions. Despairing at Picard's lack of comprehension, the Tamarian captain, Dathon, had beamed himself and Picard to the planet's surface while his ship had generated atmospheric interference to prevent rescue. On the planet, Picard had learned that the Tamarians communicated through metaphor and allusion based on their culture's mythology and literature. Dathon's plan had itself been a metaphor of sorts, reenacting the myth wherein the hunter Darmok and the warrior Jalad met on an island, battled a beast, and departed as friends. Regrettably, reality had diverged from the myth and Dathon had not survived the encounter. But his sacrifice had been recorded by the Tamarians as a new myth, and they had departed peacefully. More recently, they had sought to engage in further diplomatic discourse with the Federation.

Picard continued. "Doctor Borges and her colleagues are doing the real work of building upon that first contact and establishing a meaningful relationship with the Tamarians."

"Which is proving difficult," she said. "With all due respect to Captains Picard and Dathon, the understanding they brought us was only the first step. Yes, we know now that Tamarian is a series of allusions to myths and history, but that just raised a wealth of new questions. How do they teach the basic vocabulary to their children, or convey the full stories of those myths in the first place? How do they communicate technical information or give instructions on how to build and operate ships? And most important, how do we express ourselves in terms that are meaningful to them, without having to settle for a pidgin-"

Data had begun nodding impatiently. "Yes, I have followed your research on the matter, Doctor Borges," he a.s.sured her. "You have made impressive advances. For instance, your recognition that the spoken word is only one of multiple semantic channels within Tamarian, alongside vocal intonation and gesture."

"Thank you, Data," Borges told him, though her tone had cooled for some reason. "But there's still a long way to go. The key problem is that the Tamarian brain is simply structured differently from the humanoid norm. That's why it's so hard to get a full computer translation. You see," she explained to Picard, "the fundamental rules of grammar that underlie all human languages are innate in our brains. Different languages put those rules together differently, but they share the same building blocks."

"Transformational grammar," Data interposed. "A theory formulated by Noam Chomsky in the twentieth century on Earth, and independently by T'Soni of-"

"Yes, thank you, Data," Picard interrupted, as he had done many times in the past. Data snapped his mouth shut. Before he had installed the emotion chip, he had never realized how irritating it was to be interrupted.

Borges continued, "And since most humanoids have similar brain structures-presumably due to the shared genetic program you and Professor Galen discovered two years ago, Captain-their languages usually follow those same patterns, patterns the translator is designed to recognize and use as a Rosetta stone of sorts."

"But the Tamarian brain structure is different," Picard said, nodding.

"That's right. They don't have a strong sense of themselves as individuals. They perceive reality in terms of archetypes and see themselves as manifestations of those archetypes. Instead of Sofia Borges embroidering a dress, say, I'm Arachne at her loom. If I then go to mop the floor, I'm Herakles in the stables. Or I'm embodying him for as long as he needs me to."

"Remarkable," Picard breathed.

"I suspect," Data said, "that this is related to the Tamarians' vaguely defined sense of time. As you know, their language is based on images of successive moments rather than descriptions of change or action. Their only time referent is 'when' or 'during.' They have little sense of past and present, and thus may perceive themselves as indistinguishable from the figures of their mytho-historical past. Also-"

"That's exactly what I'm thinking," Borges said, interrupting again. "And it leads to a problem. It makes the Tamarians intensely concerned with proper ritual forms. Everything has to be done consistently with the appropriate mythic precedents, or it isn't done at all. That's why they insisted on making contact on their terms, requiring us to figure out their language, rather than making an effort to communicate in our terms. To them, a first contact has to be carried out in accordance with one of the contact tales in their cultural background, whether Rai and Jiri, Zima and Bakor, or Darmok and Jalad-which, by the way, is considered a last-ditch, desperation tactic."

"I should hope so," Picard said dryly.

"And the same goes for diplomatic relations as well. We have to negotiate within their ritual context in order for it to have meaning to them. If we don't follow the right pattern, it upsets the balance of the universe in their view, and they're likely to react badly."

Data nodded. "The Tamarians responded aggressively when we attempted to diverge from the ritual script of the Darmok scenario. Historical precedents include the death of Captain James Cook at the hands of-"

"Right. If we can't play by their rules, it could lead to the end of diplomatic relations at best, war at worst."

"And," Picard added, "it would render Captain Dathon's sacrifice meaningless. I am not willing to accept that, Data."

"I understand, sir. But what does Doctor Borges believe I can contribute to the effort?" He said it with a touch of skepticism. He could forgive Picard's quirks, but Borges's tendency to interrupt him made him doubt whether she really valued his input.

Borges gave him an impatient look, supporting his hypothesis. He was finding her much less attractive. "Like I said," she told him, "the problems arise from our different brain structures. We can scan the activity of the Tamarian brain and deduce some things about how it works, but we can't fully understand their way of thinking unless we can approach it from the inside. We need someone who can think like a Tamarian but then come back to thinking our way and report his insights in terms-"

"So you need a cerebral shape-shifter." Data chuckled, but broke off as he realized that, as usual, n.o.body else thought his joke was particularly amusing. He sighed.

"Sort of," Borges said. "And, uh, you've just demonstrated why you qualify."

He frowned. "Because of my emotion chip?"

"Exactly. Emotion is a cognitive process, one you didn't have before. And it isn't just something that's superimposed on your previous, unemotional thought process. It's something that affects the way you think, the way you perceive and experience the world, on a fundamental level. That chip has transformed the way your brain works. And if it did it once-"