Part III: The Lightning of the Gods

O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a

king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams.

HAMLET ACT 2, SCENE 2, 251–259

Chapter 20: The Knot Universe

Does a hard beginning make for a good ending? Do stories ever really end? I could only answer with respect to this story. I could, but I won't, since you have made it with me this far and will presumably stay until the end, when you shall see.

Lorca1[1] walked out of a meeting on Starbase 46 regarding Discovery's plan for breaking the Klingon cloaking algorithm. He felt pleased that everything was following protocol. He didn't realize that he was just lucky. Stamets, Saru, and Lorenza came up with the idea of doing dozens of jumps to crack the cloaking algorithm over the past few weeks and Command finally approved the plan. Lorca's crew never went to Pahvo. He was never forced to make a decision regarding its fate.

This Lorca did not enjoy breaking rules, nor was he a Terran interloper. In fact, if he had known how many asshats and psychopaths were tarnishing his good name, he would probably have changed it.

He beamed back to Discovery and went to the bridge, to make an announcement about the upcoming task. Then he and Saru discussed the best location to lure the Ship of the Dead. Command decided they needed a second ship to keep the Klingons occupied while Starfleet officers beamed onto the Ship of the Dead and set up the transmitters. Since she already had experience challenging this ship, Philippa Georgiou volunteered to help.

Discovery and the Shenzhou moved to the agreed-upon location at maximum warp. They planned to insult the Klingons and call them out for a battle. With a few hours to go before they started, Georgiou beamed over to Discovery and found Lorca in his living room. They greeted each other with a kiss. Why shouldn't they? In this universe, they'd been married for eleven years. Stranger things have happened!

"Michael would have loved this plan," said Georgiou. "It's a triumph for science, whether it works or not."

"Michael would have loved Discovery in general," said Lorca. "I think about her every day. I know Saru does too."

"I was sad to see him go," said Georgiou, "but I suppose it was too painful for him to stay with my crew. I never expected to lose so many dear friends when I first started in Starfleet. I sometimes find it very difficult to keep it together and be encouraging to my crew. Our training did not really prepare us for this. Nothing did."

For any Georgiou to reveal weakness and uncertainty was a rare occurrence. She put her head on Lorca's shoulder and they looked sadly at a holographic photo on the table. It showed them, Amanda, and Sarek next to Michael Burnham, who'd recently been promoted to lieutenant. Georgiou stifled a sob as she thought of Burnham's death at the hands of T'Kuvma, who was now waging war against the Federation with an allied Klingon front. If it wasn't for Discovery, they would have been destroyed already.

"Remember how we tried to take a vacation and discovered a rare animal fighting ring?" Said Lorca, trying to cheer up Georgiou.

"You pretended to be a sleazy businessman who wanted in on the action," said Georgiou. "You played the part a bit too well!"

"It wasn't so fun when I got swallowed by a tranceworm. I still don't know why it didn't kill me."

"It was just disgusted by all that nasty cologne you put on. I did all the work that time! You were completely useless after the worm spit you out."

"I was in a trance! I had the weirdest hallucinations about versions of my life where you and I hate each other. I couldn't stand such a world for real! I know I'm not much of a gift but I will always be there for you."

Georgiou glanced at the photo, thinking promises of this sort were just empty sentiments in a world gone mad, but she didn't say so.

Eventually they had to part and return to their tasks. T'Kuvma took the bait, the Shenzhou and Discovery distracted him with a skirmish long enough to set the transmitters, then Discovery did its thing. It never even finished the required number of jumps. Discovery vanished without a trace and no Terran ship replaced it.

When this happened, over and over in different universes, the Stametses got trapped in the mycelial network for at least a day. Stamets1 got a glimpse of the universe they entered and managed to tear himself out of the mycelial network without any special strain of mold or opera music, just through force of will. But he was too late.

"Hey there, Paul," said Stamets0. "I wish I could chat with you, I'm sure we'd have a lot to discuss, but my orders were to kill you before you compromised the equipment on this ship. Sorry, see you in hell!"

[Just in case my endnotes are not being read in situ, let me note here that although there's nothing wrong with pronouncing these names as Stamets-Zero, Lorca-Zero, etc., I have always thought of them as Lorca-Naught, etc. That way the title of the chapter is a pun on the numerical designator, or maybe the numerical designator is a pun on the title.]

Stamets0 shot Stamets1 dead. Tilly0 took out the rest of the engineering crew, including her counterpart. Up on the bridge, Lorca1 stared at a screen showing the life signs of his crew going out one by one. He couldn't believe it. This had to be a glitch. Or did something go wrong with the jumps? Had they made the same error as the scientists on the Glenn?

Saru started to say something about universal constants when Lorca0 and his officers beamed onto the bridge and killed everybody except Lorca1. He sat back in his chair. Everybody was dead. Georgiou was right. Their training had not prepared them for this.

"Look, I'll make this quick," said Lorca0. "I may have just killed your entire crew, but I'm not so big a jerk as to deny you an explanation. You're in a parallel universe. If you had been born here, you'd be me."

"What did they ever do to you?" Asked Lorca1.

"It's not what they did but what they could do," said Lorca0. "I'm almost supreme ruler here except for a small band of pesky rebels. Your crew would somehow end up joining them, I'm sure, and telling them tales about the great and wonderful Federation, increasing the rebels' morale and shit. I just don't have time to deal with that. And I also don't really have a jail big enough for your crew. I don't put many people in jail. Genocide is so much cleaner."

Lorca1 looked at Saru's body and wondered what he had done to deserve this. Then he chastised himself for being illogical. Bad things happen randomly. Was there anything left that Lorca1 could do? Killing this prick would help out a lot of people…but Lorca0 indicated for some officers to put a phaser to Lorca1's head.

"Don't you want to know how you got here?" Asked Lorca0. "My Stamets killed his buddy Strall many years ago, so they never developed the spore drive technology. But Stamets continued to do research into the mycelial network. He figured we could build a power generator, but I had the foresight to realize that would end badly. Instead I had him inoculated with fungal DNA so that he could traverse the mycelial network like some sort of astral projection. I wanted him to spy on my enemies but he is only able to get glimpses of outside worlds when something passes into and out of the mycelial network. That's how he noticed your ship. Every time you jumped, my Stamets observed you. He also observed a number of other Discoveries, but they were too far away to make out clearly. Stamets found that he could physically affect your ship for a few moments after every jump. He practiced with flickering lights, screens, fragmented reflections in mirrors and so on. I wanted to steal your ship so I had him change the coordinates of one of your jumps while you were trying to break the cloaking algorithm."

Lorca1 put his head in his hands as it hit him that they hadn't completed the task and the Federation was doomed. His Philippa was probably dead already.

"What exactly do you need this ship for?" He asked.

"Oh, I don't really need it," said Lorca0. "Stamets and I could probably have built one of these just by observing you through the mycelial network. But it saves me some time. After all, every moment counts when one is trying to take over the entire Supraverse."[2]

"So you killed my crew and doomed my world just to save yourself some time?"

"Well, when you put it like that, I feel I ought to be ashamed…but I'm no-o-ot!" Said Lorca0 in a sing-song voice.

They went down to Lorca1's living room, where Lorca0 looked at some schematics on the computer. He noticed the photograph of Burnham1 and her adopted sets of parents. There was a wedding photo of Lorca1 and Georgiou1 next to it. Lorca0 rolled his eyes.

"Oh for crying out loud, you married the bitch?" He said.

"Do not speak that way about my wife!" Snapped Lorca1.

"I may be a psychopath, but you're just out of your mind. That woman is…is…"

Lorca0 could not come up with an adjective for Georgiou that fully expressed his emotions, so he just gave the table a kick so that the photographs fell over.

Tilly0 came up and gave Lorca0 a status report. Lorca1 thought of his Tilly, lying cold and dead in the lab she had loved so much. He sighed and moved to pick up his photos, but the officers with the phasers to his head held him back. Lorca0 noticed this motion and said, "Ugh, relax, you'll join them soon enough." Then he chuckled for some reason. He wandered over to some of Lorca1's medals in a case on the wall.

"Let me tell you something I've never told anybody else," he said. "I really don't like violence. But it's the fastest means to the ends."

"I don't believe you," said Lorca1.

"No? Why, I guess you're right! I've been lying to myself for so long and you've helped me learn the truth. I actually do like violence!"

Lorca0 looked at the medals closely.

"I guess you're pretty accomplished," he said. "But you have no vision. I took over this universe even though I was born dirt poor and condemned to die. Now look at me! I'm Emperor! Or should I call myself Tsar? I just can't decide what sounds better. Maybe I should stick with plain and simple King Lorca? What do you think? Or maybe I should be called the Pharaoh. Sometimes I really lean toward Pharaoh."

"Just kill me already," said Lorca1.

"Don't be in such a hurry to die!"

Lorca0 wore a thick black cloak. He took it off for some reason and went through the pockets. Not satisfied, he shook it until a bunch of stuff fell out, including various engineering tools and three small phasers. He wasn't a fan of throwing knives like Lorca50.

"It's about time I replicated a new one anyway," he muttered, then looked at Lorca1 and said, "Before we say goodbye, I need you to do one thing for me. Take off your clothes."

Harcourt Fenton Mudd0 met Burnham0 in the middle of nowhere in space. They blocked each other's communications. How they even knew where to meet was a complicated mess of code and couriers. Burnham beamed over fully armed. Mudd stood back against the wall with his hands in the air while she examined the package.

"Is Stella OK?" He asked. "You promised you'd show me a photo this time."

"I forgot," said Burnham. "I can't be expected to remember to take stupid photos when Lorca is poisoning my friends. Consider yourself lucky to be alive. If I thought you had anything to do with the poisoned clone I would pull out your guts."

"But she is OK, though, right?" Mudd insisted. "You're brushing her teeth and making sure she has enough protein in her diet?"

"Keeping her alive and our hostage is the only way we can trust you."

"I miss her so much! You know, she likes to lick my toes! That's how I know she really loves me. Once I make enough money, I will take her back from you and go far, far away, where Lorca will never find me."

"He'll find you."

Burnham walked around the coffin-sized stasis chamber. She moved aside a panel near the top and looked at the sleeping man in the box with disgust.

"It sure looks like him, but I bet it's another clone," she said. "So what happened again?"

"Rumor has it that Tilly betrayed Lorca. She knocked him out and thought it would be funny to deliver him to you. She hopes you'll treat him very nicely. I got him from another mercenary so I don't have this info firsthand."

"Of course you don't."

Burnham inserted a syringe into a port on the chamber and took a blood sample. She put it into a device she brought with her and waited for the DNA analysis to be complete. Everything was hermetically sealed. Burnham didn't need a repeat of what happened a month ago. Mudd brought some of Burnham's friends a man who looked like Stamets. He acted and spoke like Stamets and knew things that only the real Stamets would be expected to know. But a few days after they caught him, "Stamets" began to cough up blood and died. Burnham's friends caught the infection from him and soon died too. The real Stamets laughed at them from Lorca's palace.

The DNA analyzer claimed the man in the chamber was Gabriel Lorca. Burnham sighed long and hard and paid Mudd. This had to be another clone, but she needed to be sure. She beamed onto her ship with the box, ignoring Mudd's cries about Stella, and warped to the rebels' secret hideout. Some other rebels, including Detmer0 and Owosekun0, helped her carry the chamber through the tunnels. They all wore suits because the planet had no breathable air except for some small habitats they constructed underground. Living on a Class K planet was their latest idea to hide from Lorca's forces.

"I think Stella has forgotten any housetraining she had," said Detmer.

She only got a smile from Owosekun in reply. The rebels weren't big on laughter and good cheer these days.

They connected the stasis chamber to a larger glassed-in chamber. Everything was still hermetically sealed, except for the ventilation, which was triple-filtered.

"Let's shock him a little to wake him up," suggested Owosekun.

"Guys, don't get your hopes up," said Burnham. "It's just another dumb clone. He's innocent of Lorca's crimes and probably only five days old. Sucks that he was born just to die."

"So he has the virus? And you still took him?" Asked Detmer.

"Had to," said Burnham, "If Tilly has taken over and that really is Lorca, he's dead and he'll want to give us all the dirt on her that he can think of."

Georgiou0 arrived and put her hands on the glass of the chamber. Detmer and Owosekun left. Burnham told Georgiou all she knew. They waited for Lorca1 to wake up. He daydreamed a little about better times, when the Shenzhou and the Buran flew side by side. He recalled how he was away from Georgiou1 on a mission for eight months, how much he missed her and how happy he was to be reunited. They always maintained a professional attitude around their crews, but that time he picked her up and spun her around in front of everyone. Never again…[3]

Lorca1 pushed himself up and looked around. His hand slipped on the black cloak. If Lorca0 had believed his plan would trick the rebels for even a moment, he would have been more careful about Lorca1's outfit. He forgot or didn't bother to take Lorca1's wedding ring. Perhaps he was too disgusted at the idea of being married to Georgiou to bring attention to it. Either way, Lorca1 was glad he still had it. He also guessed where he was. After all, if he were Lorca0, this is exactly where he would have sent himself.

He stood up and regarded the doppelgangers of his wife and protégée.

"So, what will it take for me to convince you I'm not a psychopathic evil villain?" He asked.

"Not much," said Burnham. "We're almost certain of that already. But it's odd that you know. The Stamets clone really believed he was Stamets."

"I'm not a clone. I'm from a parallel universe."

He told his story, trying not to stare at them impolitely. Georgiou shook her head when she heard the details of their relationship in the Federation. The story took a while and Lorca coughed a few times, quite painfully. He remembered that Tilly injected him with something.

"It's ridiculous," said Georgiou when he was done. "The real Lorca must be screwing with me, coming up with this story. That I could be married to you in any universe!"

"It was a long courtship," said Lorca. "Perhaps you'd be more willing to believe me if I hadn't mentioned our relationship at all."

"We'll find out soon enough if we see this Discovery," said Burnham.

"Do you know that you have a virus that will kill you in a few hours?" Asked Georgiou. "We don't have a cure yet. It will be excruciatingly painful. Whether you're from a parallel universe or a clone, the most I can do for you is to give you the mercy of a quick death."

"There's my Philippa," said Lorca. "Never sugar coats anything."

"You stop that! I'm not your Philippa."

They moved away from the chamber and discussed things, then came back and demanded Lorca tell them everything he knew about Discovery and the mycelial network. He was no engineer but he'd absorbed enough of the information to draw them some schematics on a panel in the wall and explain as much of the astromycology as he could. He started to cough up blood and developed a fever but Georgiou pressed him until she was satisfied he knew no more. Burnham passed him some water through an antechamber in the wall. She asked about his brief conversation with Lorca0. Lorca1 repeated all he remembered of it and added that when Lorca0 said that he wanted them to change outfits, Lorca1 got rather worried.

"I told him that I'd rather put on the filthy rags from a two week old corpse than wear anything that touched the likes of him."

"Well spoken," said Burnham.

"He didn't seem offended and he got some spare clothes from his ship."

Lorca looked gloomily at a rash spreading on his arm.

"All I have is the past now," he muttered.

"I don't even have that," said Georgiou. "I've been fighting your evil twin my whole life, waiting for a future that I suspect will never be achieved. Reflect upon your comfortable, carefree life. I've known nothing but sorrow."

"What? That's not true," said Lorca. "You found Michael somewhere. Hasn't she been a great relief to you? What about all your friends who are fighting with you? I know it seems dark but you are infinitely richer than my evil twin."

Georgiou just sighed instead of admitting he was even a little correct.

Lorca's head spun and he thought he would fall. He held onto the antechamber, losing his grip on reality. He forgot this was not his wife.

"You didn't want to go out with me but I won you over," he said. "Remember how we used to compete at everything? I only tried so hard to prove to myself that I was worthy of you. And then you were so surprised when I revealed that I liked you! It took a good three years for you to get over that surprise."

"Goddamn it, I'm not your wife! You won't win me over!" Said Georgiou.

"But I know all the tricks now," continued Lorca. "I know that you'll never admit to anybody how much you like hamsters. You had 37 as a kid. But I figured it out and I used to send you cute hamster videos when you were away on long, boring missions."

"What the hell is a hamster?" Asked Georgiou.

"And then I know you have a weakness for drinking cocktails on a holodeck beach at night," continued Lorca. "I set up some programs like that when we served on the Resilience together. I picked the sound of the wind and the sand pipers rushing along the waves and we used to sit there, pretending the ship and our duties were not just behind the wall."

Burnham nodded at Georgiou and said, "Doesn't that sound nice?"

"And then when we were alone in our room," said Lorca, "you liked it when I slowly took off your…"

"All right, that's enough!" Said Georgiou. "I am not your wife and we were never that intimate with each other."

"Mother, just leave him be," said Burnham. "Let him die happy, thinking he's with the person he loved most."

"No, that's not fair to him and disrespectful to her," said Georgiou. "If this other Philippa is anything like me, then she'd want him to die with some dignity, not like a madman."

She rapped the glass. Not catching Lorca's attention (he barely looked at her while he spoke of his romance with the other Georgiou) she took the control for the chamber and zapped him with a small charge.

"Ow! Jeez! Why?" He wailed.

"Look around you!" Said Georgiou. "You are dying on a planet far from home, in a different universe. Accept defeat and face the end honorably."

Lorca remembered everything and reality brought tears to his eyes.

"What a disaster," he said. "Still, I hope you win."

Georgiou picked up the control again.

"Will you do one more thing for me?" Asked Lorca. "You're too serious. Smile for me."

Georgiou took in a deep breath, made a face, then a different face, and finally managed some sort of grimace that may have passed for a smile.

"Thanks," said Lorca. "That's just how she smiled at me on our first date."

Georgiou blasted the inside of the chamber until there was nothing organic left and even Lorca0's clothing had burned away. A few bits and pieces remained, including an electronic caliper that Lorca0 didn't remove from his cloak, some buttons, and Lorca1's wedding ring. Georgiou entered the chamber to clean it up. Burnham went to take a photo of Mudd's dog, for something about the day's tragedy made her think that perhaps small kindnesses do make a difference, even in the face of extraordinary misdeeds.

In the glass chamber, Georgiou picked up the ring and read the inscription:

In the field of exploration, destiny only favors those minds which have been prepared.[4]

Footnotes

[1] A subscript (in the word doc) and a superscript? OMFG!

[2] It's unclear where he got this term. Perhaps he and I were just on the same page when it came to naming collections of parallel universes.

[3] It would have provided him some comfort to know that Georgiou1 and a handful of Starfleet vessels as well as all the refugees they could save survived the war. The Klingons chased them to the ragged ends of nowhere and the remnants of the Federation spent the next several centuries trying to establish a new home without compromising their mission and values. The Klingons were eventually defeated by all the other species they pissed off and one day, the Federation returned.

[4] A modification of a quote by Louis Pasteur.