GHOST SHIP Read online

  “Report. Now.”

  She tilted her head and frowned. “The thing’s energy level appears to be slowly dropping. Definitely going down.”

  “In the thing itself?”

  “Yes, in the thing.”

  “What’s the matter with that?”

  “Well, its mass isn’t—Worf, can you corroborate this?”

  “Checking,” Worf rumbled.

  “Lieutenant!”

  “Yes, sir. The mass isn’t changing. And there’s no change in the antimatter, and it’s not emanating enough energy to account for the drop.”

  “That’s not possible,” Picard said. “The energy can’t go nowhere. That’s a fundamental law of the universe. It has to go somewhere.”

  “I wish it would,” she muttered. “Aye, sir, that’s the strange part. It tends to phase as we’re reading it. Its mass, its total energy—there’s almost nothing about it that’s constant.”

  “That’s the clue, then. What’s the conclusion? Hypotheses, anyone,” he called sharply, doubling the pressure of the moment by putting the whole bridge on the hot seat for answers.

  “Inter . . . inter . . . ”

  “Yes, Data? You have an idea? Data, you all there?”

  “Inter . . . dimen . . . sionality . . . ” The android leaned against Geordi unashamedly, but his expression was one of fierce concentration rather than the alarm of a moment ago.

  “Keep trying, Data,” Picard prodded, stepping closer to him but resisting the urge to help him straighten up.

  “The only possibility,” Data said, “is that it must exist . . . between dimensions if the energy . . . is dissipating without . . . emanation . . . sir.” He steadied himself with a distinct effort, glanced in gratitude toward Geordi, and stood on his own. “That must be where the energy is going. It is the only way to account for the enormous energy drawn from our shields without our being able to detect it now.”

  Picard scowled, but the idea did make sense. It had better, since Data said it twice without realizing he was repeating himself.

  On the upper deck, Yar shook her head. “Too weird for me,” she grumbled.

  “It is outlandish,” Picard mused.

  “But it’s the only conclusion that makes sense,” Riker said. “Hell, it makes our idea of ghosts seem sane.”

  “It does that,” the captain agreed ruefully, “and it also means that anything we do from this moment on is pure guesswork. For all we know that thing could extend through a hundred solar systems on a hundred levels of existence.”

  Riker looked at the screen, at the image of the entity sizzling in the upper left of the starscape, two light-years off their port bow. “And any energy we use to defend ourselves is just its next meal. Maybe we should put some distance between us.”

  Picard bobbed his brows as though he’d very much like that idea. “We can’t,” he said. “At least not yet. That entity put on a burst of warp nearly warp fifteen. It’d be all over us in an instant. We’ve blinded it by shutting down our power. As we hang here, we’re hidden. For the moment.”

  “How are you doing?” Riker asked privately, trying to make his approach to Wesley’s side an inobvious one.

  Wesley flinched. He hadn’t thought anyone was paying attention to him, considering events. “Okay, sir. It’s really a bother to just hang here in space, though.”

  Riker eyed the screen, and the distant false-color pattern that sought them. “It’s all we can do until we get systems back on line and figure out a way to leave the area without attracting attention.”

  “Maybe a solar sail, sir? We could coast on the waves from the sun in that little solar system—”

  “Too slow. It’ll find us long before then. Look at it. It’s working a search pattern that we can’t escape on impulse power. A box pattern a couple of light-years across, and it’s going at lightspeed. If we try to sneak through and it happens to pass that area while our shields are still down . . . well, you know.”

  Wesley’s narrow shoulders tensed. “Guess I do. Sometimes I wish I didn’t see things so clearly in my head. Then I wouldn’t have to look at them. Mr. Riker, I never heard of passive sensors.”

  “Oh,” Riker murmured. “Passive sensors can only analyze data that other entities and objects put out. Active sensors actually send out a beam, then wait for the information recoil to return. If that thing’s looking for us, it’ll be looking for an energy source. If we use active sensors, we’ll be sending up a flare for it to home in on.”

  “Same with shields,” LaForge added.

  “And weapons.” This cryptic bit from Yar, who stood on the starboard ramp, keeping one eye on her tactical monitors and one on the false-color shape on the monitor as it roamed the area, hunting.

  Riker waited until the impact of their words faded. He hadn’t meant to be overheard. Leaning closer to Wesley, he lowered his voice even more, but it might as well have been going through a bullhorn on the eerily quiet bridge. With half the systems blown out and the other half shut down, the bridge noises were disturbingly low. “Without active sensors, we’ll have to be very careful about plotting any course. We’ll be as good as under sail again. Minor navigation will be very tricky.”

  Wesley nodded, and resigned himself to the undiluted truth; there would be no beautiful miracle of warp speed to carry them from the danger.

  Standing at the foot of the port ramp, near the entrance to his ready room, Captain Picard clasped his hands behind his back and watched his crew work against their helplessness. He watched Riker and Wesley whispering to each other and felt a sudden jab of inadequacy. If only he could find it within himself to comfort them.

  Suddenly he wished he was in the middle of a Romulan attack, outnumbered six to one. His only concern would be himself, his ship, and a band of fellow soldiers who knew what they were getting into when they signed on. He would have a free hand, then, free to be radical, without the anchor of concern for innocent spouses and children. Without having to worry about them if the ship took a hard lunge, much less charged into a hull-rattling battle. Every time the ship lurched, those innocent faces popped into his thoughts and ran under the flimsy umbrella of his protection, fully expecting to be safe there.

  As he gazed at Riker, Picard indulged in a small feeling of envy. Each time he looked at his first officer, he saw Riker standing on the transporter platform with an away team, about to beam down, about to leave the captain behind to tend the ship. At those times, those interesting times, Riker was responsible only for himself and the away teams, while Picard must remain responsible for a shipful of families. Where was the old adventure of a ship with a lean, raw, trained crew? How had he suddenly become governor of a tiny overpopulated island?

  At once he missed his days as first officer, and of captaincy in a vessel without children aboard. To be captain of a vessel whose calling is danger—it was the best of both. And now he was caught in the middle, governor of a group of spacegoing families. Neither captain nor first officer, answerable to the decisions of Riker, whose job it was—admittedly—to stand between Picard and that exhilarating peril that was any captain’s right.

  Trial by fire. Earn the right to be forever cushioned. And his first officer, who should be the trusted extension of himself, by circumstance became a resented obstacle.

  In their few adventures together so far, Picard had told himself he could find a compromise. But there was no compromise in some situations, and that was the painful reality. Some situations required either forward movement or utter retreat, and this was one. Riker would always be a barrier. And that would always be the image in Picard’s mind as he watched away team after away team beam off the ship without him. The feeling of being left behind would never subside.

  Captain. Was that his true title? Or was he governor of Enterprise?

  Here they were, these thousand-and-some, colonizing a ship instead of a planet. Colonizing space itself, citizens of the Federation at large. In generations to come, these children’s
children would come to see these kinds of ships as their country, their planet, their nationality. The answer to “Where are you from?” would be “I’m from Enterprise.”

  Habitat. Environment. A place, not a thing, not a ship. A moving place. Instead of “I’m a citizen of this sector or that system, this planet, that outpost,” the answer would be “I’m a citizen of the Federation.”

  Finally there would be total unity within the Federation, the first step toward people’s being at home on any planet instead of only one. The principle from the old United States, basically; it didn’t matter if you were raised in Vermont and lived in California. You were still home, still American. If your name was Baird or Yamamura or Kwame, you weren’t necessarily loyal to Scotland, Japan, or Ghana, but to America. A few decades of space travel, and the statement became “I’m a citizen of Earth,” and no matter the country. This ship was that kind of first step. Whether born on Earth or Epsillon Indii VI, you were a citizen of the Federation. The children on this colony Enterprise would visit the planets of the Federation and feel part of each, welcome upon all. This starship was the greatest, most visionary melting pot of all, this spacegoing colony. Unique. Hopeful.

  Risky.

  And it befell Jean-Luc Picard to make it work.

  Why me? Has the prestige blinded me to my losses of freedom and adventure? Children. Imagine it.

  “Mr. Riker,” he spoke up then, breaking into his own thoughts. “I want you, Data, and LaForge to go down to engineering and get me a thorough spectrometric and electronic analysis of the phenomenon’s composition while we still have time. I want to know what’ll happen if we fire our weapons directly into it, and what’ll happen if we don’t.” He suddenly jabbed a finger at his first officer and firmly said, “Riker, you’re in charge of figuring out how to deal with that thing.”

  It took every bit of Riker’s control to keep from fidgeting. He felt his body stiffen. “Aye, sir.” He nodded and wheeled toward the turbolift. “Data, LaForge—with me.”

  They filed off the bridge, and in a fluid bouquet of movement were replaced at the Conn and Ops positions by Worf and Tasha. Picard watched them leave and felt less alone against the coming hours’ dark tunnel walls. He glanced around; the ship was still here, systems clicking and rerouting power in a million tiny alternative tracks, anything to get working again, stealing energy from each other, certain systems taking precedence over others as the giant computer core made the kinds of tiny decisions only machines could make. He felt the presence of the myriad engineers belowdecks, all scrambling to guide that delicate energy theft, felt them just as surely as Counselor Troi felt the presence of the beings who posed so plain a threat.

  “I’ll be in sickbay,” he said, and started toward the turbolift.

  “Confusion, sir.”

  Troi lay on the diagnostic bed in the artificial quiet of sickbay, trying to put words to that which had no letters, no punctuation. To her right, Captain Picard took charge, kept things in line, gave her fortitude. To her left, Beverly Crusher provided another kind of anchor, watching her in a different way altogether. But now the captain wanted answers, suggestions, and none were presenting themselves without a fight.

  “There seem to be thousands of separate emotional bands, if you will,” Troi said. “Perhaps there are millions. I feel helpless to explain this to you clearly—doctor, may I get up, please?”

  Crusher scolded her with a look, then said, “I suppose so. But only because I can’t find anything wrong with you. That doesn’t mean you’re not injured in some way.”

  She swung the diagnostic shell away from Troi and stood back while the captain helped the counselor down from the table. Without a pause he led her to a nearby desk; evidently the conversation was far from over as far as he was concerned. He put Troi into a chair, motioned Crusher into another, and settled himself into a third, then clasped his hands and rested his arms on the cool black desk before him.

  “Could it be that this thing is a vessel and you’ve been reading its crew?”

  “That possibility has occurred to me,” Troi said, determined not to say she didn’t know, even if she didn’t. “I haven’t dismissed it. But if we can label those humanoid images as ghosts, I suppose there’s no more harm in labeling these impressions as their . . . souls. No, please—let me continue. I realize that’s imprecise, sir. I regret having to speak so. ‘Soul’ is a subjective term, but I believe that’s the image these entities have of themselves.”

  “You’re receiving a perception of self?” Crusher asked. The long copper fan of her hair moved against her shoulders as she leaned forward.

  Troi’s nymphic eyes widened. “Oh, yes! That’s why I’ve been doubtful of my perceptions. Some of the visions are startlingly clear. The image of Vasska, for instance, and the memory of giving him orders as that entity struck the Gorshkov.”

  “You didn’t say that before,” the captain pointed out. His tone rang with annoyance, as though he did indeed expect her to give a clearer report on these unclear things.

  “No, sir. I wasn’t very sure of it before. I only remembered it when I was attacked on the bridge. I wish I could explain.”

  “You’re empathizing with Captain Reykov, then?” Picard surmised.

  “At times,” she answered. “His is the strongest personality. But, sir . . . there are many others. Many others. Those sharp visions are clouded over by uncountable life forces around the phenomenon. Not in it, but existing in a halo all around it, as though drawn through space wherever it goes.”

  “Are they prisoners?”

  As Picard shot those blunt words at her, Troi flinched. She settled back in her chair, almost as though to remove herself, and dropped all emotion from her Mediterranean features and those inkdrop Betazoid eyes. “Are you asking me to theorize, sir?”

  “I’m asking you to help me formulate a plan of action,” he said, “or at least a plan of approach.”

  “Yes,” she murmured. “Rather than helping, I’ve put you in a difficult position this time.”

  “It’s not your fault, Deanna,” Crusher said.

  “Not at all,” Picard echoed.

  Troi searched her telepathic self for more from him, but the captain was not a man whose feelings gave up their shields easily. She sensed his resistance of her probe, a resistance as refined as he himself was, and respectfully drew back within herself.

  “If these life essences are prisoners, as you suggest, and we destroy the prison,” she continued, “will we be committing murder?”

  With that question, she cut to the core of Picard’s problem. He studied her. She was graceful, thoughtful, exotic—yes, that was the word for her—and so concerned, yet as helpless as the rest of them.

  “You do have an artistic curve to your clinical self, don’t you, Counselor?” he observed softly. “I realize your task is a strain. But mine is too. If our only chance of survival is to destroy those thousands or millions of minds you sense, what do I do? Save or sacrifice? Whose lives are forfeit?”

  “That’s the one flaw in the Prime Directive, Jean-Luc,” Crusher said. “When interfering with another culture is the only way to save the lives you’ve been entrusted with—I don’t know what I’d do either. Count heads and see who has more lives to save?”

  The captain leaned back and ran his knuckle along his lower lip. “From what the counselor says, that puts us in a rather noticeable minority.” He tapped the nearest intercom on the desktop and said, “Picard to bridge. What’s the status up there?”

  “Unchanged on the thing, sir,” Yar reported. “Ship’s condition is improving, but we’re having to task many systems to reestablish power to the shields. Everything’s strained, including warp power.”

  “Charming,” Picard responded. “They’re going to have to work faster.”

  “Yes, sir, I’d like to see that myself.”

  “Picard out. Counselor, do you have anything, anything more concrete to say?”

  Troi sighed. “
I’ve been trying to isolate the impressions, to see if they’re only memories of life-forms or actual life essences, but so far I have no specifics to offer.”

  “It’s you I’m worried about,” Crusher told her.

  Troi’s mouth bowed. “You’re kind. But if I can’t use my abilities to the good of the ship—”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” the doctor interrupted. “The inherent danger of telepathy. If other telepaths are more overbearing than you are, the force of their minds could damage you, Deanna. And I can’t put a bandage on your mind.”

  “I’ve tried to close my mind, but they batter through my barriers—”

  “Are you telling me these things could present an actual danger to you?” Picard suddenly roared.

  Startled, Troi clamped her mouth shut and stared at the whole prospect. She hadn’t yet heard it put into words, and it didn’t sound very good.

  “This whole business worries me,” Crusher said. “After what Wesley described to me, I’d have suggested a mass delusion if it hadn’t come over the computer screen. That element adds a frightening scientific reality to all this. Oh . . . Captain, Wesley asked that I apologize to you on his behalf.”

  Picard puzzled this for a moment, then asked, “Whatever for?”

  Crusher blinked. “I don’t know. I thought you did.”

  After a moment he shook his head. “Don’t recall anything particular, doctor.”

  She shrugged, embarrassed. “I see. Then the apology is mine. Wesley’s at that age where he thinks all adults are prejudiced against children.”

  Picard cocked his hand toward her and mused, “Of course we are. They’re children. They have to grow out of it. No one expects any more, or any less. When they’re adults, they won’t be children anymore. And there’ll be new prejudices for them to ford.”