But there was no branch of knowledge that could make sense of what the Monitor had discovered.
And what so disturbed Soren was unequivocal evidence that whatever the Monitor had discovered, it was hostile.
And it was coming this way.
The final viewscreen image faded and the reading lights glowed brightly again.
Except for the three civilians, every person at the table was involved in conversation. Soren’s sensitive ears picked up suggestions for forming task forces, for sending out more probes, for calling general meetings of the Federation Council, for holding secret meetings.
It brought her comfort to hear the explosion of ideas. Perhaps the Federation could withstand this new threat. Perhaps there was no reason to be afraid.
And then one of the civilians stood. The woman. She caught Soren’s attention. “If I may?” she asked.
Soren nodded and the woman walked from the table to join her at the viewscreen. It was impossible, but in the shifting lights and shadows of the briefing room, just for those few seconds it took for the human female to reach her, she had looked just like Soren’s Vulcan mother.
But in the pool of light by the viewscreen, Soren could see why she had made the mistake. The woman wasn’t human after all, she was Vulcan. Then the woman smiled, and Soren hid her astonishment at that display of emotion, wondering if in fact the woman might be Romulan.
“Admiral Meugniot,” the woman said, “members of the emergency board. I know that what we have just seen could be considered alarming.”
Soren’s face remained impassive, but she was startled by the woman’s choice of words. Could be?!
“But as someone who has studied this phenomenon in depth—”
Soren was even more surprised by that statement.
“—I would like to explain why it’s nothing to be frightened of.” She looked directly at Soren then, and her smile was exactly like that of Soren’s mother; the secret smile that Vulcans share only in their most private moments, with their most beloved.
“Nothing at all,” the woman said. “Indeed, what is coming is something to be welcomed.” She held out her arms as if to embrace everyone in the room. “Because it is the true reality of existence.”
Soren stared at the woman, even as her outline seemed to blur before her. Vaguely she was aware of a distant, almost explosive shudder that passed through the floor of the briefing room. She thought there might have been alarms going off, warning lights flashing, combadges chirping.
But none of that seemed important.
This woman had something compelling to say, and Soren wanted to hear it, even as the woman turned to her and reached out to her with a hand that seemed to be made of writhing particles of black powder, stretching like dust in a whirlwind to caress Soren’s face, exactly as her mother had caressed her as a child.
“No need to be afraid,” the woman whispered in flawless Vulcan.
Soren took the woman’s hand, ignored the screams that came from the people at the conference table, ignored the banging on the briefing room door, the even more violent explosion that seemed to tilt the room for a moment.
Soren was used to ignoring distractions. She held the woman’s smokelike hand, watching with fascination as her own flesh took on the writhing character of windblown sand.
“Accept…” the woman whispered soothingly. “Embrace…Be loved…”
“Be loved,” Soren said as she felt her body dissolve beneath her, the tendrils of black curling up, consuming her.
Commander Soren was not afraid. She was at peace.
Just as everyone else at her starbase was in that same moment.
As everyone else in the galaxy would be soon enough.
The Peace of the Totality had arrived.