Chapter 29: Return
The shuttlecraft Copernicus had traveled half the distance to the worldship. Sulu flew; Buffy took the copilot's seat and continued trying to get some response from Stephen or Lukarian.
Jim paced in the cramped space and fumed.
Cloud Touching, pleading hunger, had transported back to the worldship, but the other three flyers came along for the ride, poking around and asking questions about the instruments, the layout, the uses of the craft. They acted as if the trip were a picnic. Perhaps, for them, it was.
"Which of your companionship has taken up sailing, James?" Scarlet said without any hint of anger.
The flyers' sailboat sped past Copernicus, falling toward the worldship and vanishing into the distance of complex visual and electromagnetic background noise.
"I don't know," Jim said.
"Jim," Buffy said. "The Enterprise is hailing us. On speakers."
"Go ahead, Mr. Spock," Jim said.
"Commander Summers has escaped sickbay, used transporter -"
"—and stole the sailboat," Jim said. "So, I see. Is Dr. McCoy —?"
"He is uninjured, but Commander Summers used her Millennial abilities to stun him."
Jim nodded to Buffy to close the channel.
"Jim," Buffy said as she closed the channel, "what are we going to do about Dawn?"
"If we see her, we'll bring her back. If we don't—I'm sorry."
"Then I will be blunt," Buffy said. "I will not be leaving the worldship till she is found and brought back to the Enterprise."
"I understand, Buffy," Jim said. "If it comes down to that. While I don't want to leave you behind, I will give you my permission."
Buffy nodded and returned to trying to raise Stephen's ship. "Copernicus to Dionysus, come in please. This is an emergency—please respond." Again, the only reply was the static of the worldship's magnetic field, and silence.
Scarlet flexed wing-fingers and closed them. "James, is it important that your contact with Stephen be conducted through your machines?"
"That's the only way we—can you contact him? Is that what you mean?"
"I have already requested that the companionship watch for Dawn. If you wish, I will ask them to look for Dionysus and Stephen as well."
"Scarlet, I would be grateful—if anyone sees Ame, please tell them to tell her how important it is that she come back," Jim said.
"That is more difficult. Cloud Touching will convey your language to those who want it, when he finishes hunting, and Green and Sun-and-Shadows and I will convey it to others when we return. But until then, no one else on the worldship speaks Standard."
"You have to teach them when you get there," Buffy said in understanding. "Much like we do."
"Yes."
"Couldn't Cloud Touching look for Dionysus?" Jim asked.
"He is hungry. When he has hunted, he may choose to search. Or perhaps he will sleep."
"If we don't find Lukarian at the least and Dawn at the most. Then get back soon—our lives are at stake. The ship is at stake!"
Scarlet regarded him calmly. "Yes. People live, and they die."
"How soon before we might hear something?" Jim asked.
Scarlet touched his sensory mustache. "I do not know. I cannot even promise that anyone will tell me who sees the ship. They will if it pleases them."
"Is there anyone who can promise?" Jim wondered.
"Are you seeking someone in the worldship who holds a position analogous to yours?"
"Please don't be hurt, Scarlet, but, yes, I would like to talk to someone with responsibility for the worldship. I can understand why your leaders might want to observe us before revealing themselves. But surely you've seen enough to know we're peaceful."
"I believe that your intentions are peaceful because of what I learned from Dawn," Scarlet said. "But what I have observed is that your ship carries engines of destruction. That is all beside the point. There is no person who leads. The worldship has neither leaders nor followers."
"What do you have? Anarchy?" Jim wondered.
"I have myself. I live my life as I choose."
"I don't understand how your system works—I don't understand your organization. Who directs the worldship? Who designed it, and why, and where are they? Who decides what will happen to it? Who put you on it? Is there another species of people?"
"Too many of your concepts have no analogy on the worldship. I am different from you. The group of all flying people is different from the group of all Enterprise people. The people who created the worldship are dead, many generations, a few generations. I hope that the people who must decide the worldship's fate have not yet been born," Scarlet explained.
"If you'd ask the other people in the worldship to look for Dionysus," Jim said to Scarlet, "and to let you know if they see it, I'd be very grateful."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
The diaphanous appearance of the worldship's outer skin resolved itself into the pebbled surface of close-packed spheres. The sailboat touched a landing extension. The shroud-spines contracted, furling the sail. The free spines curled around the extension. The boat slid downward, slowing, coming to rest against the surface of the worldship.
Dawn drew the boat's operculum from the ventral opening. The boat had matched its opening to a similar circular opening, closed by a similar pearly disk, in a larger, more thickly walled sphere that formed a part of the worldship's wall. The silky webbing that held the spheres together also sealed the connection between sailboat and worldship, keeping the air inside.
Dawn pushed the second operculum away and entered the worldship wall.
The familiar gray illumination welcomed her. Yet she found herself, confused and unhappy, seeking a darker, redder light.
Making her way through layers of interconnecting spheres, she headed always inward. The light grew stronger. She reached the edge of the wall, the interior of the worldship.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Sun-and-Shadows loomed behind Sulu, watching the helm officer manipulate the controls.
"Scarlet, I feel responsible for the theft of your sailboat—" Buffy said.
"Buffy, I own nothing. Nothing can be stolen from me."
"I'm glad you can regard the incident with such equanimity. But I still feel responsible as Dawn is …"
"Your mate," Scarlet finished for Buffy.
"May I sail this boat?" Sun-and Shadows asked Sulu.
"No, sir, I'm sorry—it takes quite a lot of training, it isn't as easy as it looks."
"Of course, it is." He reached his long arms over Sulu's shoulders and spun the shuttle on all three axes.
Jim shouted and gulped.
The spiraling, tumbling spin ceased and the shuttlecraft continued on its path as if it had never deviated.
Sulu flung himself at the controls. But nothing needed fixing.
Sun-and-Shadows blinked at Sulu calmly, touched the edge of his sensory mustache with his tongue, and said nothing.
"Scarlet!" Jim said. "Please ask your friends to stop endangering my people with their little games!"
After a long hesitation, Scarlet replied. "James, why do you shout at me for something that happened over there, when I am over here?"
"Why do you speak only to Scarlet?" Green spoke in Standard for the first time. "You act as if Cloud Touching and Sun-and-Shadows and I never existed, and only she does. We learned your language, too," he said petulantly.
Jim looked from one flyer to the next, feeling confused. "She?" he said. "Who is she?"
"I am, in your language, she," Scarlet said. "What does that have to do with Green's question?"
"I hadn't realized ..." Jim said.
"Why should you?" Scarlet said. "I see no reason for you to care one way or the other."
"In certain parts of our society," Buffy said, "gender is something that we care about to some degree."
"You still have not answered my question," Green said looking at Jim.
"I don't have a good answer. I began by speaking to you, Scarlet. I got the feeling you were in charge."
"That was your perception, not reality," Scarlet said. "I told you we do not have leaders."
"Green, I apologize," Jim said. "I didn't mean to offend you."
Green flicked his tongue against the edge of his mustache. "You are but young," he said. He blinked.
"Captain! Quundar is going inside the worldship," Sulu said.
Jim joined Buffy and Sulu. Quundar arced up and over and inside the wall.
"Increase velocity."
"Yes, sir." Sulu refrained from mentioning that Quundar was heavily armed and Copernicus carried no weapons at all.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Dawn paused at a ventral opening of an interior sphere, gazing into the beauty of the worldship, drinking the wind, spreading her arms to the light. The land lay many times her height below her, a moment's flight to reach.
But she could no longer fly. Her voyage had changed her, the starship beings had changed her. They had taken her wings, half her sight and hearing, most of her ability to communicate. She cried out again into the silence of her mind. She received no reply, not even echoes.
She had spent time in silence, by her own choice, a response to grief and loss. Now she was forced into it. She could see only one course for her existence.
She began the long climb to the ground.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Sulu swooped Copernicus over the iridescent wall of the worldship, between the rays of the light web, and through the clouds to hover above the easy curves of the land.
Dionysus continued to ignore all transmissions.
"I will leave now," Green said.
"Green, I know I offended you," Jim said with consternation. "But it wasn't intentional. Please accept my apology. Please stay with us."
"You are but young," Green said again, his tone gentle. "You cannot offend me. I will leave because I am hungry, and because this enclosure cramps my wings."
"I wish you'd said something before—I'm sure we could have programmed the Enterprise's synthesizer to produce something safe for you to eat."
"I saw your food," Green said. "It was dead."
"Many people find it quite palatable," Jim said.
"I am sure Green is like some of our ancestors, Jim," Buffy said. She looked at Green. "You prefer to hunt your food."
"Yes," Green replied.
"Very well ... We'll land and let you out. I wouldn't keep you against your will," Jim said.
"No need to land," Green said. He opened the hatch. The wind wailed in with cutting cold. Green leaped into the air.
Jim lunged for the hatch. Ten meters below, Green fell as if in slow motion. He gradually extended his wing-fingers, putting himself first into a glide, then a turn, finally a high, fast soar.
"Will you come?" Sun-and-Shadows said. "Hunt with us."
"No," Scarlet said. "I'm not hungry yet."
"Good-bye."
Sun-and-Shadows leaped after Green.
Buffy stood from her seat and moved to the hatch, she watched the flyers and humming an eerie tune. She leaned toward the open hatchway. For an awful instant Jim thought she was going to plunge out into the sky.
Jim grabbed her arm. "Buffy!" She said nothing. Drawing her back, he closed the hatch. "What's wrong?"
Buffy raised her head to look at him. Her face glowed with joy and wonder. "Nothing, Jim. Why do you ask?" She hummed again; a refrain Jim did not recognize.
Scarlet laid one long delicate arm across Buffy's shoulders; her wing draped across Buffy's back like a scarlet cloak. She drew Buffy deeper into the shuttlecraft. She hummed a simple musical phrase. Buffy copied it. Scarlet hummed the phrase again; Buffy copied it with more assurance.
Jim left them humming to each other and rejoined Sulu at the controls. "Any sign of Dionysus? Or of Athene?"
"Not yet, captain. They could be anywhere by now. Quundar has got to be around here someplace, though."
Jim gazed out the viewport, hoping for some sign of Dionysus, wondering if he preferred to have Koronin close enough to keep track of, or a long way away. He searched the clouds, wondering if Lukarian had finally found a place where Athene could fly. That would be some sight, he thought. It would.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Koronin woke slowly and painfully. She opened her eyes. She expected a prison cell or the interrogation chamber of a dreadnought. Instead, she found herself in her own bed.
She sat up. Her body ached all over and her inner ears pained her. But she was alive, unwounded.
The Sergeant dozed on the floor nearby. A poor job of guarding: she wondered why he had not simply locked her away.
Then she saw her dueling blade and her disrupter, laid side by side at the foot of her bed. She picked up the blade. The edge was not so much chipped as melted away. She cursed.
"Koronin!" The Sergeant clambered sleepily to his feet.
"Why did you bring me back?" Koronin said. "Why didn't you kill me and take the ship?"
"I offered you my loyalty," he said in a hurt voice.
She stared at him till he dropped his gaze. "Now," she said. "The truth."
"The empress's mercy is said to be expended. If I return, who would forgive me? I'm safer staying here. But I know my weaknesses, Koronin. I know your strengths. If you command Quundar, I may remain a free renegade. If I command it, I soon become an imprisoned renegade. Or a dead one."
"Did those aliens have a weapon? What happened?"
Koronin slid her blaster beneath her belt. She would accept the Sergeant's story, until the moment he overstepped his position and demanded her gratitude.
"I don't know, Koronin. It appeared to me that the surface of the sphere exploded."
"It defends itself." An unfamiliar voice spoke. They turned and saw Dawn sat on the deck on the far side of the command balcony. A restraining forcefield shimmered around Dawn.
"Can't anyone in this benighted place speak a civilized language?" Koronin shouted. "Who are you? What are you talking about?"
"I took her hostage," the sergeant said proudly.
"The worldship," Dawn said. "It defends itself."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
"Captain, here's an odd reading."
The gray-green plain stretched beneath them, endless, featureless—except where Sulu had found the strange ground marking.
"Let's take a look."
Sulu guided the shuttlecraft to a landing.
The patch of scorched succulents and the crushed places in the vegetation traced out the lines of Koronin's fighter. The shattered sphere in the worldship wall added to the story.
"She must have fired at something," Jim said.
"You say 'fired,' James," Scarlet said. "This is a term associated with weapons?"
"Yes. She probably had a disrupter. Look, the beam exploded the whole side of the wall-sphere."
"If she directed either energy or a projectile at the worldship wall, her ship would be spread in pieces on the field. So, would she."
"What? How? I thought you didn't have any weapons."
"She forced the wall to react, and it reacted in a way commensurate with her actions. That is its design."
Scarlet's tongue flicked over her sensory mustache.
"But if she didn't fire, what did she do? What did the wall react to? A fight? Could Dawn ..." Jim said as he looked toward Buffy.
"It depends on how much energy she had stored," Buffy said.
Sulu picked up one of the iridescent fragments. He looked warily through the blasted hole. The wall-sphere was as beautiful inside as out, faintly luminescent, cool and mysterious. An opening in the lower curve of the sphere led deeper into the wall.
Curious, Sulu entered the sphere and peered down. A pale shiny thing reached out of the opening. Sulu yelped with surprise. He jumped back, by reflex grabbing his phaser. A synapse of caution kept him from drawing and firing. His boot slipped on the edge of the broken wall. He tumbled backward and bounced to the ground. In one-tenth g, he did not even fall hard enough for the broken shards to scratch him.
"Sulu! What is it?" Jim asked.
"I don't know, captain—there's something alive in there!" Sulu climbed to his feet and brushed himself off. "It didn't do anything—it just startled me." He felt embarrassed. He returned to the opening. His boots crunched the shards. He touched his phaser again, then thought, If I'd fired it, it'd be me who was in pieces on the ground. "What is that thing?"
Sulu peered into the sphere. The creature resembled the giant slugs he had seen on hikes across the northwest coast island where he had taken his vacation. But the earthly variety would barely span his hand. This one had oozed several meters of its length into the sphere as if it had every intention of filling the interior.
"It's only a builder," Scarlet said.
"A builder?" Jim said.
"They help maintain the structure of the wall. This one will secrete several layers onto the interior of the sphere till it makes the wall whole. It is quite harmless."
Scarlet spread her wings with a snap of the webs, leaped, and flew nearly straight up the worldship wall.
Behind him, Buffy began to hum.
"Buffy?"
She remained where she was, gazing after Scarlet.
"Buffy! What about Dionysus?"
Buffy acted as if she heard him from a great distance. "Stephen doesn't answer," she said. "He's there. I know he's there. But he's silent."
Jim left her alone and sat on his heels beside the wall's jagged opening. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes, captain," Sulu replied.
Jim held up his hand in a quick "be silent" gesture.
"Can you hear me? Can you understand?" Jim spread his hands in the gesture of peace he had used with the flyers.
"No response," Sulu whispered. His tricorder warbled: background noise. "Nothing outside our range of sight and hearing, no chemical reaction, nothing resembling pheromones."
Jim stepped over the shelf of broken pearl. The creature continued to ooze into the sphere, creeping over the curved floor. Jim touched it, thinking, We come in peace.
"James," Scarlet said, "what are you doing?"
Slime covered Jim's hands and his arm and his side, everywhere the giant slug had touched.
"I was trying to communicate with the builders of the worldship," he said.
"Why?"
"Why? Because you said you didn't create the worldship."
"I didn't. How could I, or anyone else alive?"
"You said that was a builder." Jim pointed to the giant slug. "I don't care if I talk to exactly the people who built the worldship. But I want to talk to their descendants, to people who have the ability to build it."
The slime hardened, taking on its pearly sheen. Jim rubbed his hands together. Dusty iridescent flakes drifted away.
"People did not build the worldship. Builders built it. But people created the worldship in their minds, and they created the builders to make it real. People created everything you see. I am among the descendants of the people who created the worldship. You have talked to me."
"But you said—" Jim stopped. The discussion had consisted of one misapprehension after another. "What I meant by my question was, did people like you create the worldship?"
"Oh," Scarlet said. "Yes. Of course, they did. But that isn't what you asked me."
"I understand that now. Do you know how it was made?"
"Of course."
"Could you make another?"
"Not while this one exists. Two entities cannot occupy the center of the universe at the same time." Scarlet sang a trill that made Jim shiver. Buffy responded.
Jim clapped his hands over his ears after a few moments. "Could you two stop for just a minute? I can't hear myself think!"
They stopped. Jim could not read Scarlet's expression, but Buffy's was shocked and hurt.
"I found this in the passage above." Scarlet held something out to Jim. "But I saw no sign of Dawn, there or on the land around us."
Buffy hummed again, the sound like a whisper.
Jim took Dawn's blue uniform shirt from Scarlet's hand.