CHAPTER EIGHT
Aboard the USS Voyager, the skeleton crew, which had assembled for
their rather unusual and ludicrous mission, made the final preparations
for departure. Kathryn Janeway had been given command of this mission,
since it was her ship that had been fitted for the task. Sisko, Picard
and Kirk all three tagged along, with Worf at tactical, Tom Paris at the
helm, Data at navigation, and Jadzia Dax sharing the science station with
Spock. A total of three engineers and two doctors occupied engineering
and sickbay, the holographic Doctor and Julian Bashir cooperating on the
research topic of the effect of parallel universes on creativity, while
B'Elanna Torres, Geordi La Forge, and Miles O'Brien ran diagnostic after
diagnostic on the warp core. Montgomery Scott, Captain Kirk's chief
engineer, had skipped out on the occasion to visit himself, having discovered
that he was still alive
after a long eighty years.
Anja had asked Captain Janeway to meet the "time traveler" she had mentioned, and was surprised to find that it was Lizzie, another of her good friends. "This is just getting stranger and stranger," Lizzie had announced, and Anja agreed.
Now Anja sat, eyes shut tightly, ideas whirling about in her head. Only one hour ago she had handed the fictional coordinates of the fictional planet to Captain Janeway, and since then many doubts had crossed her mind. What if she was wrong? What if she could not create this universe anymore, once she found out that it existed? But she hammered the coordinates into her memory, somewhat certain that if she convinced herself, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Shadah was where she said it was, then it would be there.
Tuvok strode up beside her. "You are agitated," he stated matter-of-factly.
"The success of this mission depends upon my ability to create . . . not fiction, but reality. It's strange."
"I myself am somewhat disturbed as to the nature of our quest," Tuvok replied. "It is . . . disconcerting to think that our wildest imaginings may not be pure fantasy, but rather reality, somewhere else." His serene Vulcan face betrayed no emotion, but Anja could tell from the content of his statement that he was bothered by their situation as much as any human would be, realizing that even wakefulness could not protect him from his dreams.
"What we create in our minds must be positive," Anja agreed. "For it is someone else's reality."
Tuvok was silent for a long moment, and Anja thought she saw a flicker of respect flash in his eyes. "Admirable," he commented, lifting an eyebrow.
"We're ready, Captain," came Torres' voice over the comm channel.
Janeway stood, as if ready to boldly face this new frontier. "Mr. Paris," she instructed, "engage."
In
a moment Deep Space Nine was gone, and only Voyager and the stars
remained.
Once again the familiar vortex of brilliant swirling orange engulfed the viewscreen, and Lizzie wondered why Q couldn't have chosen a better color to pound into their faces. Blue would be pretty, green would be alien, purple exotic, but the foamy orange of the vortex reminded her too much of melted orange sherbert. However, the color soon dissipated as a tiny, blue-green sphere replaced the vortex.
"Magnify," commanded Janeway, and as the planet loomed larger on the viewscreen, her eyes widened in awe at the bluest azure that colored the oceans, and the emerald-green that intermingled with it to form continents, islands, and great sheets of algae thick enough to build a city upon.
"Boy, do you have a good imagination," breathed Hannah.
"Now I'll know what to plan for my next vacation," stated Frau happily. Her comment brought the crew back to the present with a dozen or so chuckles, and each officer turned back to his or her work.
"From information gathered by our scans," informed Spock, "there are three thousand lifeforms on the surface, meaning the planet was most likely colonized around twenty years ago."
"We're here. Now what do we do?" invited Kirk.
"Simple," said Anja. "Make first contact. These people meet all your requirements. They're more than warp capable, and in this timeline, earth has had a centralized government for several hundred years. But no one in this universe has ever seen an extraterrestrial, and most people have given up hope in any intelligent life other than humans."
"Wouldn't that pose a risk?" asked Picard. "This universe was created, it seems, to be without extraterrestrial intelligence. Shouldn't we let them live out their reality without subjecting them to a fantasy which might create false hopes and cause great disappointment?"
"You forget, Captain," Anja reminded him, "that this universe was created by me. I know those people down there," she stated, pointing, "and I know that they won't ever give up hope. I want to give them a sign, show them that they're not hoping in vain."
"And you're forgetting that this universe was merely implanted in your mind by Q," argued Picard. "You didn't create it. You discovered it, and that doesn't give you the right to determine their course of their history."
Stung,
Anja scowled into the viewscreen, certain that she, of all people, should
know what was best for those people. "Why did Q send us here, then?
To make us discover that we could traverse dimensions? Sure, that
would be a great scientific discovery, but it's a shallow one at that.
Q's not
interested in our technology, he's interested
in our development as individuals. That's why he let us survive after
Farpoint. If we don't talk to the Shadan colonists, we came here
for nothing."
"It would be like Q to teach us such a lesson," agreed Picard slowly.
Janeway
smiled. "Then it's settled. Prepare to make first contact."
The away team assembled composed of the four captains and time travelers, eight in all, each thrilled at the prospect of making first contact not just with a new race, but with a new dimension. "Think about it," Janeway mused. "This is what we'd be if it weren't for the Vulcans."
"And the Andorians, and the Klingons, and the Tellarites, and so on," Hannah reminded her.
"You should have been born in the twenty-fourth century," Janeway complimented her.
The away team assembled in a city square to the amazement of every Shadan in the vicinity. Janeway strode up to a tall, middle-aged man, with sharp, well-defined, dark-brown features. "Excuse me," she began. "Can you tell me where I can find someone in charge here?"
"Sure." He blinked. "Just go down Main Street till you reach the StarCommand building. It's right beside the McDonald's. You can't miss it."
Frau wrinkled her nose. "They still have McDonald's? I can't believe it."
"Of all the fast-food chains, it would be the one," stated Lizzie.
"Well,
crew, shall we go?" queried Janeway. The group followed her down
Main Street.
Anja recognized the admiral sorting papers behind her desk immediately, even though she'd never seen her or even really thought about what she would look like. "Rachel Stoner," she gasped.
Admiral Stoner spun in her chair to face the sound of her name and raised an eyebrow in confusion when she saw Anja and her seven other guests. "You may call me Admiral Stoner," she corrected Anja. "Who are you? You aren't colonists."
Anja smiled sheepishly and slipped behind Captain Janeway, who introduced, "I'm Captain Kathryn Janeway from the United Federation of Planets."
Stoner frowned. "Is that what the Nasrardians are calling themselves now?"
"Uh, no." Janeway looked behind her to catch the reassuring glances of the other captains. "Admiral Stoner, you may find this hard to believe, but we come from a universe parallel to yours, and we represent thousands of worlds, not just humans."
"You're right," Stoner commented. "I do find that hard to believe."
"Admiral," Anja broke in, "we've come an awful long way to tell you this. We want to show you that there is life out there, other than humanity. I know there's not much evidence . . ."
"Evidence!" Picard interjected. "Scan our temporal signatures. They should be out of phase with the rest of your universe."
Stoner rolled her eyes, a dull blue-gray that matched her uniform. "I'll humor you," she said, producing a small scanning device. She seemed distracted as she began gathering data, but soon she sat straight and rigid in her seat, and her head popped up. "You're right."
Janeway smiled agreeably. "We have a vessel in orbit. You should be able to detect it. Perhaps you'd like to join us onboard?"
"Well," Admiral Stoner chuckled, "I'll have to notify the planetary supervisor of your presence, and we can work things out from there." She bounced up out of her seat, despite her sixty-plus years and skipped out of her room, the expression on her face as giddy as a schoolgirl's.
"See?" Anja grinned, cocking her head at Captain Picard.
Picard,
however, grumbled, "I didn't know Q could be so caring."