Slowly, she relaxed, taking a proffered blanket from Prynn, tucking it up around her chin. “As a child, Doctor. I was caught in a coral tunnel near my House. Nothing to worry about.”
Shavoh appeared with Minister M’Yeoh in tow. He waddled across the room and squatted down by his consort. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said, taking Tlaral’s hand in his.
“Congratulations are in order. You’re going to be parents, I think?”
M’Yeoh didn’t have time to follow up with Bashir; an announcement boomed over the comsystem, announcing the Avaril’s approach to the Consortium.
When Vaughn arrived on the Avaril’s bridge, he saw what looked like a frozen spray of brilliant white gold exploding on the viewscreen. For a moment, he questioned whether they’d actually dropped out of warp, though the warp-engine pulse had been replaced with the static hum of impulse. He looked more closely.
Geyserlike eruptions of a giant-size gas particle fountain spread slowly with spindly, chrysanthemum grace.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?” Minister M’Yeoh gurgled, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
Absorbing the spectacular vista, Vaughn simply nodded.
“Our scientists have postulated it’s a ruptured singularity,” M’Yeoh said.
“A white hole?” Vaughn ventured, wishing Shar were here.
“I’m afraid I’m not familiar with that term, Commander. Nevertheless, I think you’ll agree it is a glory to behold by any name.”
The navigational sensors were recalibrated. Chieftain J’Maah barked an order to raise shields and increase stabilizers in response to the ebb and flow of gravitational winds originating from the fountain, but not soon enough. Forceful gusts slamming into the starboard side sent the massive Avarillurching and swaying. Yrythny crew and guests alike grabbed onto the closest fixed rail, chair or terminal to avoid being thrown to the floor.
“These straits before we reach the Consortium are the worst, storm-wise,” J’Maah explained to Vaughn. “We’ll be rocking for a few more minutes and then it’s steady traveling until we dock.”
The Avarilheaved with drunken equilibrium until she passed into a dome-shaped debris field created when matter spewing from the fountain coalesced and cooled, leaving hard, pitted asteroids behind. Nearer the fountain, hot particulate globs glowed white, gradually darkening to invisibility as the vacuum of space cooled them. It was for these nondescript space rocks that they had traveled so far, motivated by the hope of obtaining material resilient enough to manufacture femtobots.
Because the Avarilmoved slowly, using her tractor beams to move the larger space rocks (some the size of starships) blown into the shipping lane, Vaughn had time to watch the small mining pods flitting around the debris field closest to the particle fountain. He admired the ingeniousness of the mining pods utilizing small ramscoops to gather in the cooling particle matter. As J’Maah had explained, the total matter collected by a pod on a single trip to the particle fountain was called a “load.” Each Consortium member was entitled to a fixed percentage of loads. Once the member quotas were satisfied, loads became available on the open market. Tomorrow, Vaughn anticipated that one of those mining pods, now flitting about like pollinating insects, would be bringing back a load with Defiant’s name on it.
Full pods flew back to their launch bays in the heart of one of the larger asteroids. Rimmed with flashing lights, silver doors rised open and the pods skimmed along narrow octagonal tunnels drilled inside. Hints of the asteroid’s internal structures emerged on the surface: glittering domes, needle towers, tunnelways, and massive, reinforced support struts linked to other inhabited asteroids.
One asteroid linked to another and another, and still others beyond Vaughn’s sight creating a massive, asymmetrical structure resembling a complex molecular model or the frame of a geodesic dome. Here, a surface glowed with radiant lights where architects had burrowed deep into rock; there, derrick-style living space perched on the surface of an asteroid. J’Maah had shown him a Consortium map more akin to a molecular model than any city state Vaughn had familiarity with. He had counted more than eighty-five “suites” (as inhabited asteroids were called) before J’Maah clicked to the next screen.
The Avaril,because of her size, would dock at a publicly held platform. Such a location facilitated better access to the Core, host to the Consortium’s primary business operations, the matter collecting operation, and public facilities.
Vaughn’s task was straightforward. A small Starfleet contingent would go with Minister M’Yeoh to the Member Business Offices. The necessary permits would be acquired, a trade negotiated, and once the matter load was safely ensconced in the Defiant’s storage bay, the Avarilwould return to Vanìmel. Vaughn expected to see Dax’s away team six days from now, even anticipating a few bumps along the way. Rare was the plan that proceeded without some complication. Consequently, he decided to hold off contacting Dax until the deal had been settled. That way, she’d have a better idea of how much time she had to work with the Yrythny assemblies. Reassurance that a critical component of the Defiant’s upgraded defense system had been acquired would put her mind at ease. If luck smiled on them, they might be able to establish a subspace link early enough in the evening that Julian and Ezri could exchange good nights before retiring for the day.
All in all, a workable plan,he thought, and left his observation post to set the gears in motion.
“File these,” Lieutenant Dax ordered, offloading a shoulder bag and passing it to Shar as they walked down a winding streetway in one of Luthia’s upscale residential districts.
Taking the bag, Shar studied his commanding officer quizzically. What exactly was it he was filing, where was he supposed to file it, and how was it, after four years at Starfleet Academy where he’d won a shelf full of awards, published several well-received articles and graduated with honors, he was filing at all? Mostly he was unsure how moving padds, tomes and isolinear chips from conference room to conference room would help resolve Yrythny civil unrest. “Yes, sir,” he said neutrally. “Is there anything else you need?”
Lieutenant Dax seemed not to notice his uncertainty. She’d hardly looked at him this morning. Earlier, she’d walked past him to her desktop terminal, pulled up her daily meeting schedule, and brewed a hot seaweed tea before saying “hello.” Not that her preoccupation wasn’t understandable: the Yrythny committees she worked with had a tendency to change their minds almost hourly.
“Breaking down the historical precedents for establishing Wanderer rights—” she said, “—have you written the summaries yet?” Dax absently waved to an Assembly official Shar remembered meeting during yesterday’s padd and data shuffling. Attended by servants and clerks, the official cocked his head in their direction, looked down at his hand, clearly wondering what Ezri meant by wiggling her hand in the air.
“They’re in your database, filed under ‘representation issues,’” Shar answered. “Delegate Keren signed off on them late last night. She will join us at the Aquaria.”
“With Vice Chair Jeshoh following shortly after, I suppose?” Ezri said, rolling her eyes.
“Yes, sir.” The morning argument between Jeshoh and Keren had become part of the daily routine. Keren would arrive with her agenda; Jeshoh would arrive with his and the two would quarrel until the next meeting. Whenever they entered the room, Shar’s antennae tingled with the kinetic energy they exuded. He found them more stimulating than most of their colleagues.
Dax suddenly stopped. “Let’s eat. Once the Assembly members start arriving, they’ll keep us talking nonstop.”
Chasing after her, Shar cut in front of a pushcart loaded with bushy, orange flora, past several apartment courtyards to a merchant window where a line of Yrythny waited for shmshucheese and leaberry pastries. Ezri ordered one for each of them, using her Assembly meal card to pay the vendor. She took a few bites and crooked her finger at Shar, pointing them in the direction of a crescent-shaped bench. Between nibbles, Shar determined the time had arrived to present a suggestion to Dax.