They weren’t watchdogs at all, she thought. They were exploring, just like us. Only their motivations were different.
“There is a larger [possible meaning: intruder] corrupting the local waves out beyond the other of Erykon’s creations,” said the Mater, and Vale was sure she heard a bit of malice creeping into the tone. “Do you have [possible meaning: knowledge] of this thing?”
There it was. She could admit knowledge of Titan, of the mission, of the shuttle’s attempt to land on Orisha and get them to stop their warp experiments. She could beg the Mater not to allow the events she knew had already occurred to progress as they had before, thereby creating a paradox that should save her friends. Or she could follow the rules, protect the temporal line and let them and probably herself, Troi, Keru, and Ra-Havreii die.
This was where Will Riker had been only days before, and now she understood the horrible price noninterference could exact on any officer, much less a captain.
Screw it, she thought. They can court-martial me when we get home.
The information poured out of her so fast she was sure the translator in her badge could never keep pace. She told them, as quickly as she could, of the events that had led Titanhere, what Titanwas, who it represented, and how there really was no need for anyone to fire anything at anybody much less the warp cannon on the nose of the Orishan ship.
“You are [possible meaning: brain injured],” said A’yujae’Tak once Vale was done.
“No,” said Vale, suddenly desperate and struggling futilely against the grip of the soldier who now held her. The watchdog vessel had already fired on the shuttle once and missed. It was now gearing up for its second shot. “It’s the truth. If you just let them alone-”
But it was already too late.
Vale watched, fascinated in spite of herself, as the warp cannon fired. The space around the bolt rippled very much like the waves the Orishans described. At the last instant another ripple appeared around the shuttle-Jaza’s unstable warp bubble. The bolt hit the bubble and after sending more ripples out through the waves of multicolored energy, seemed at last to grow still.
Vale was the only one who knew it was just a momentary breather before the storm, and sure enough, even as the Orishans were puzzling over how the shuttle had twice survived their greatest weapon, a small spark of light appeared in the center of the thing they called the Eye.
Vale, knowing what to expect, saw it first, but soon, one by one, all the Orishans present took notice. They all watched in obvious horror as the spark grew to encompass the entire swirling orb and then erupted.
“They have awoken Erykon,” said A’yujae’Tak, aghast. “The Eye is open! Deploy the Veil. Now! Before we are lost!”
It took Vale a confused moment to realize “the veil” did not refer to her, but something else entirely. Whatever it was, they were clearly desperate to have it activate. Everywhere workers scurried to obey their Mater. Buttons were pressed, commands were entered by trembling talons. Machinery, in the walls, in the floor, and for meters above began to hum and vibrate. Suddenly some force, some kind of invisible energy, rolled through the chamber, rattling Vale’s teeth as it went into the walls and up, up, up to the apex of the Spire.
There was a flash of incandescent white that, for a moment, obliterated all sight. When it was gone, so was the image on the giant viewer. There was nothing to see there but a solid field of white.
“Something is wrong,” said A’yujae’Tak. “This did not happen bef-”
Everyone present was suddenly slammed to the ground as the earth above and around the chamber did its best to rip itself to bits. The noise was thunderous, impossible. It lasted long enough that Vale actually thought this might be the planet shaking itself apart, but as quickly as the quake had begun, it vanished.
She barely felt the claws of the soldiers hefting her back to her feet, barely noted the Mater ordering someone to give her a visual shot of the world outside.
“The sky,” said A’yujae’Tak. “Let me see the sky!”
There was another flurry of workers running to obey, and then, slowly, the field of solid white on the main viewer gave way to an image of the sky above the Spire.
Vale knew it wasn’t possible, that what she saw there was only the visual display of massive cosmic forces banging against each other, but it looked like fire. It looked exactly as if the sky over Orisha was burning.
Vale lay on the floor where they had dropped her, unmindful of the bruises and cuts she’d sustained on the way down from the control chamber.
She couldn’t hate them or weep or feel anything really beyond the wide black chasm opening up inside her and sucking her down and down and down.
This was twice now that Titanhad died in front of her, but unlike the first time, this last destruction had been her fault. She had been too thick or too clumsy or not enough something to make the Orishans see in time what they were about to do.
They were all dead, again, and as soon as the quakes had subsided, the Mater had assured her that she and the rest of her companions would join them.
“You will feed our larvae,” she had promised Vale.
Yes, she thought. I’m sure we will.
So she lay there, waiting for it, feeling the occasional rumble in the walls and listening to-
Somebody was humming.
“Hello, Commander,” said Xin Ra-Havreii from some dark corner of the little cell. “When you are ready to hear it, I believe I have some news.”
He went on humming after that and she went on listening, this time without the critical ear she’d given him previously. None of that mattered now. His eccentricities were trivial things, as were most of the frictions that had plagued them before.
The melody was actually quite pretty, she realized, as was his voice, which was not deep, but full and somehow sensual. She’d heard him humming it so often in the last few days but had been too irritated by the fact of it to ask him what it was. She did so now.
“It is an aural schematic of a Luna-class starship, Commander,” he said. “ Titan, specifically. I’ve been deconstructing and reconstructing it for days.”
She recalled how his people on Efros Delta had been required to develop a predominantly oral tradition as they weathered the rigors of their world’s ice age. An entirely oral means of storing data necessitated an entirely aural means of deciphering it.
She laughed then, bitterly. All the time she’d thought he was becoming less and less sane, becoming more and more intractably eccentric, he had, in fact, been carrying the entire schematic of the starship Titanaround with him in the form of this tune.
Her laughter became hysterical at that, wrenching out of her in long shuddering jags that could just have easily been sobs. When she was done she looked over at him, sitting on the floor with his legs folded just so.
“So what’s your news?” she said.
“I was confused at first,” he said. “When I examined the ship’s wreckage, there was so much missing, so much that was destroyed, that I could feel the ghosts of the Lunareaching out for me. This is not an exaggeration, Commander. I’m sure Counselor Troi has kept you somewhat abreast of my…situation.”
“It’s come up,” said Vale.
“And rightly so,” he said. “Though I doubt it will again.”
“Probably not,” said Vale, thinking of the hungry larvae.
“I have aural schematics of all of the Luna-class vessels committed to memory,” he said. “Though they all leave drydock essentially the same, very soon their music changes as they experience different events.”