Author's Note: Happy Holidays
Chapter 28: Coma
The flying people all adopted names: the paisley one was Cloud Touching; the cream-colored, green-eyed, silent one was Green; and the striped one took the name Sun-and-Shadows. Jim took them to the bridge.
"Captain Kirk!" Sulu said. "Dionysus has undocked from the Enterprise!"
"What—? Enterprise to Dionysus. Stephen, this is Jim Kirk. What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Stephen's image appeared on the viewscreen. "I'm going to the worldship," he said.
"But you can't!"
"Certainly, I can."
"Stephen, this is a first contact—" He stopped, all too aware of the flyers behind him, watching curiously.
"And only certified members of Starfleet could possibly talk to these people without starting an intergalactic war?" Stephen asked. "I appreciate the vote of confidence."
"I can't allow you to go."
"How do you propose to stop me? Shoot my ship out of the sky? Declare martial law?"
"He's right, Jim," Buffy said.
"Do you know how close the border is? Not to mention our local bandit out there?" Jim glanced at Sulu. If Quundar attacked Dionysus, Jim would have to respond in some way; he would have to balance his responsibility to protect a civilian against his responsibility to the rest of the Federation.
"What's life without a little risk?" Stephen said.
"No activity on Quundar, captain," Sulu said.
"Stephen, you can't visit the worldship on your own!" Jim said.
Scarlet broke in. "But why ever not? Stephen, you are welcome to visit, as is anyone from your companionship."
"Scarlet, please—" Jim faced the viewscreen again. "Stephen, don't do this. The Federation comes down hard on people who meddle in first contacts without a clearance. Besides, it could be dangerous!"
"The interior can be dangerous," Scarlet said. "It is ... wild. But no one will harm you at the perimeter. James, why do you wish Stephen not to go to the worldship?"
"I wonder the same, Jim," Buffy said.
"We have rules—laws—that govern how we contact people we've never encountered before," Jim both explained to Scarlet and reminded Buffy.
"How very odd," Scarlet said.
"You'd better check your contact list before you send the fleet out after me," Stephen said.
"Stephen!"
The Vulcan's image faded. Dionysus stopped responding to signals from the Enterprise.
Scowling, Jim joined Sulu at the helm.
Sulu gestured at his sensors.
"Nothing, captain. Koronin's just watching."
"Waiting," Jim said.
"What are all these ... things?" Scarlet said.
"What things?" Jim said to Scarlet, distracted.
"All these artifacts," the striped flyer said.
Sun-and-Shadows wandered across the upper level of the bridge, looking at the instruments, touching the controls.
"Please don't do that!" Jim said.
"Don't do what? Walk? Touch? Look?"
"Touch, mostly."
"Why not?"
"Those 'artifacts' are the ship's controls. It's dangerous for untrained people to change their settings."
Cloud Touching said something in the flyers' language, Green replied, and all four flyers spoke simultaneously.
"I don't understand," Sun-and-Shadows said. "What are controls?"
"Devices for directing the Enterprise—for choosing its course. The worldship must have something similar."
"No."
"Then how do you guide it? How do you stop and start it? How do you monitor the environment?"
The flyers conversed again.
"None of those words applies to the worldship," Cloud Touching said.
"Now I don't understand," Jim said.
"The worldship does not move," Scarlet said. "It does not start; it does not stop—so no one guides it."
"But it did move—it moved from wherever you come from, and it came here."
"No, it stays in one place. It ... this is difficult to say in your language. It defines one place. The universe moves around it."
"The Key," Buffy said.
"Yes, Buffy," Scarlet said, "while rudimentary I believe you grasp what the worldship does."
Sun-and-Shadows, by the science station, poked at the sensor controls with unrestrained curiosity.
"Sun-and-Shadows, please don't change the settings on the sensors," Jim said, keeping his patience with considerable difficulty.
Sun-and-Shadows stopped playing with the controls but continued to hover near the station.
"Captain," Sulu said. "If the worldship drifts on its current course, within the hour we'll pass into a region over which even Starfleet claims no jurisdiction."
Jim needed to study the schematic; but the flyers also had to be kept amused. "Yeoman Rand," he said, he would have chosen Buffy for this since she was his executive officer but with Dawn down in Sickbay, he knew her priorities were there, "please give our guests the grand tour."
Rand timorously joined the four flyers and tried to keep them from playing with the controls while they pelted her with an interminable series of questions.
Sulu put the schematic up on the viewscreen. Three concentric circles represented the boundaries: Federation Survey had marked the inner one, the Klingon Empire claimed the middle one, and Starfleet considered the outer one to enclose Federation territory. The worldship's appearance had dragged the Enterprise outside the middle ring. Once they crossed the outer ring, the Enterprise would be an outlaw ship, invading foreign territory.
"Thank you, Mr. Sulu," Jim said.
"Jim," Buffy said, "permission to leave the bridge?"
"Permission granted," Jim replied as Buffy left the bridge. He turned and looked at Scarlet. "Scarlet, I must talk to you about something very serious. Your worldship is moving—"
"But I explained before, it does not move."
"All right! I won't argue semantics. The universe is moving a dangerous part of itself toward the worldship. My ship isn't allowed inside that part of the universe. I'll have to move out of it. If the worldship stays where it is, you may find yourself surrounded by hostile beings."
"I have no reason to be hostile to other beings, nor they to me."
"I know that. But the Klingon Empire has been known to attack first and ask questions afterwards."
"They will not want to attack the worldship, but they are welcome to visit, as you are."
"Please don't discount what I'm saying," Jim said. "You, all your people, and your world will be in danger, unless you can persuade the universe to keep you in a safer place."
"I would be sorry to move the universe right now," Scarlet said. "I have more to learn about you and your people, and about the beings who oppose you."
"Do you understand 'war'?"
"It is a word Dawn gave me."
"War is terrible, Scarlet. If the Klingons do behave in a hostile way, don't wait around to experience it. Move—the universe, if you have to."
"I will remember what you have told me, James."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Buffy exited the turbolift as she heard shouts echo down the corridor. She headed for sick bay, skating along in the low gravity.
Two security officers tried to restrain Dawn. One of them tumbled past and fetched up against the far wall. He slid to the floor, stunned. He was over two meters tall, massive, heavily muscled. Dawn had flung him across the room with the sweep of one arm.
"Dawn!"
Dawn struggled, freeing herself from the grasp of the second officer. She spread her arms and flattened her hands against the walls that formed a corner behind her.
"Hold her still!" McCoy carried a hypo-sprayer.
The two security officers looked at McCoy, looked at each other, and warily approached Dawn.
"Dawn!" Buffy hoped her voice might get through to a part of her sister and lover that still recognized who she was.
Dawn's shoulders tensed. Buffy braced herself for impact.
Wild-eyed, oblivious to Buffy, Dawn saw something beyond her. Instead of plunging past or through Buffy, Dawn flung both arms up and out. She clutched the air. She shrieked, her back arched, and she collapsed.
McCoy knelt, touched the corner of Dawn's jaw, and felt for her pulse. Behind Buffy; Jim and Scarlet stood in the doorway.
"Did she speak to you?" Jim asked Buffy. Before the blonde Slayer could respond another voice did. "No," Scarlet said. "But she told me ... she told us all, didn't you hear her? Her pain is great. She believed I would touch her again."
Dawn spread her hands on the deck. "Not the ground," she whispered. "The sky ... This place has no sky ..." She tried to rise.
"I'm hesitant," McCoy said as he held up a hypospray and looked directly at Buffy," without knowing how her body will react."
"Double the dosage," Buffy said. "Her body like mine will eat through a normal dosage."
McCoy nodded. He made the adjustments and then pressed the hypospray to Dawn's neck, it hissed as he injected the sedative. Dawn struggled against it briefly, then sagged, unconscious.
"I'm afraid she'll hurt herself," McCoy said. "She doesn't know where she is. She raves about the worldship. About flying."
Scarlet regarded Dawn sadly. "I never meant to hurt her. I would return her knowledge if I could exchange it for the pain, I gave her."
"Bones, what's wrong with her?" Jim asked.
"I don't know!" McCoy threw the hypospray onto a lab table. It clattered and bounced in the low gravity.
"Did that make you feel better?" Jim asked dryly.
"Yes," McCoy said. "It did. If I knew what was wrong with her, I could probably do something." He picked Dawn up and laid her on one of the exam tables. The weight of a full-grown person was negligible in one-tenth g.
"What exactly happened when you exchanged information?" Buffy asked Scarlet. "If you can describe the process ..."
"My people communicate in many ways," Scarlet said. "I can speak with another's mind, by a simple electromagnetic transmission and reception."
"Dawn's Millennial gift," Buffy said. "We assumed it was her empathy that allowed you to share the knowledge. But it wasn't. Dawn can store and house within her body electromagnetic energy."
"She used that energy," Scarlet said, "to absorb information and offer it by influencing the patterns of the brain."
"She must have absorbed too much," McCoy said. He frowned thoughtfully.
Buffy sighed. "There is only one way I know of to reach Dawn. A Vulcan mind-meld. But even then, I am hesitant. The last time she experienced a mind-meld there were side effects that continue till this day."
"What kind of side effects?" McCoy asked.
"It's not something that is talked about even amongst Vulcans," Buffy said.
McCoy studied the readings on the medical sensors. "I'm worried, Jim. Her life signs are getting weaker. I've only begun to study her medical records. They are very detailed due to her Millennial biology. I don't know how to treat her and without treatment she is likely to slip into a coma. I have no way to pull her out." He looked at Buffy. "Maybe you should talk to Spock. See if he or maybe Stephen can draw Dawn out of this fugue."
"I will talk to Spock," Buffy said as she left sickbay. When she arrived on the bridge, she found Spock in the center seat. "Commander, a word in private."
Spock nodded and left Sulu in command as he and Buffy entered the turbolift.
As the turbolift doors closed behind them Buffy turned to face Spock. "Can you perform a mind meld?"
"I can, why?" Spock replied.
"Dawn is slowly slipping into a coma. The only recourse is for someone with an ability like yours to go into her mind and try and pull her out," Buffy answered. "I am hesitant because the last time Dawn experienced a mind meld it had side effects that reoccur to this day."
"What kind of side effects?"
"Pon Farr," Buffy said. "Her mind believes it should …"
"Should be going through Pon Farr every seven years," Spock said with a nod. "This is why you and she are the adopted daughters of Ambassador T'Pol. To teach you both how to deal with it."
"Yes," Buffy said.
"I can attempt the mind meld," Spock said.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
While Buffy was talking with Spock, Jim found out that Lukarian and Athene were missing. It was quickly deduced that the pair had gone with Stephen to the worldship.
"Why are you so troubled, James?" Scarlet asked. "They are in no danger—they'll be welcomed."
"Ame's in danger from the other people I told you about." Jim said before he turned to the intercom and called the bridge. "Lieutenant Uhura, it's essential that I contact Dionysus."
"I'm sorry, sir, I've tried, but Stephen won't answer."
Jim sighed. He hated to do it but Buffy was his only recourse to get Lukarian back. "Kirk to Commander Summers."
"Buffy here. I'm on my way back to sickbay with Spock."
"I understand, Buffy. Ame has gone with Stephen to the worldship. Because of your relationship with her…" Jim explained. He swore he heard a sigh over the intercom.
"Understood, I will head to the transporter room now."
"Meet me on the shuttlecraft deck," Jim said.
"On my way."
Jim called for Sulu to join them and had Spock for the time being return to the bridge to assume command.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Dawn opened her eyes. Her sight strangely vague, her hearing dim, she inspected her unfamiliar surroundings as best she could. The dense air smelled artificial. She longed for mountains and plains and cold wind buoying her body.
She tried to sit up. Heavy straps bound her at chest and hips and thighs. In a fury she flung herself upright. The restraints ripped away. She prowled the angular room. She felt as if she were looking at two images, one well known and one completely strange.
The part of her mind that identified the image as alien drove her to escape; the part that recognized it helped her find a way out.
A creature sat near the entrance, studying some strange object. It was person like in form, but it wore protective garments as if it planned to go into space outside a sailboat. If it saw her, she might have to injure it to pass, and no matter what its people had done to her, she would never stoop to their barbarian ways.
Dawn moved stealthily toward the creature. But her body seemed alien to her. She stumbled. The creature saw her and leaped up.
"Dawn!" it said as a bolt of low level energy flew from her hand and it slid to the floor unconscious.
Careful to avoid detection, Dawn walked through the low-ceilinged corridors. She found the familiar yet alien mechanism she sought. As she changed the settings, she mused upon the device. It was ingenious, but primitive and poorly executed, with all these mechanical parts and electronic circuits. She would have designed it to reply to the touch of the mind.
She climbed onto the platform and waited out the delay until the beam dissolved her.
Dawn re-formed within the sailboat. Beyond the translucent walls of the spherical chamber, the bulk of the Enterprise hovered nearby, and the gently curved bowl of the worldship glowed and shimmered at a great distance.
The boat's sail rippled in concentric circles that trembled from its outer border to its center and back to its edge again, forming interference patterns where they crossed.
The flexible glassy spines that formed the shrouds of the sail grew from the exterior surface of the chamber. On the interior, the bases of the spines formed eight-pointed stars, translucent at the points, pearly within, a brilliant point at the very center, where the spine collected light and concentrated it.
The spines flexed and changed, altering the set of the sail.
For a moment the sail trembled and twisted uselessly and the sailboat fell toward the worldship, caught by its gravity.
Dawn stroked the bases of the spines; the spines contorted again. The sail caught the power beam, straightened, filled.
The sail acted as a brake, a parachute catching photons instead of air, changing the boat's headlong fall into a steady, slow descent.
She was going home.