1 The Legaran Representative
Commander Riker watched the activity being carried out by the life support team. Each person there knew what to do, of course, but it put his mind at rest to see them at work. This would be only the second trip by a Legaran off-world, and he knew how delicate these diplomatic missions could be. He didn't want a hundred years of painstaking diplomacy thrown away. Not on his watch. It had already taken too long to prepare the quarters. The Enterprise had received the signal from the Legaran homing beacon at stardate 48010 and had reached Legara IV in three days. The Legaran Representative had been beamed aboard immediately but had had to remain immersed in his vat for several hours while the technicians completed the room. Up in a cargo bay on deck five, the Legaran Representative was becoming impatient.
The Life Support team finished checking the adapted room. A large sunken area had been built in the centre of it, taking up not only two large rooms on deck nine, but also the two directly below. The engineers climbed out of the empty pool and waved all clear. Six replicator units were positioned round the edge of the pool. Riker watched as assistant quartermaster Cochrane stepped up to the first and keyed in a sequence on its control panel. Immediately it began replicating thick glutinous mud that oozed out of the replicator unit and began filling up the pool. Cochrane checked his tricorder, seemed satisfied with the result and went up to the next replicator. Riker watched him uneasily. A childhood spent living on a tiny run-down trader ship had made Cochrane pale and thin for a human and rather withdrawn. Cochrane had trained as an xeno-ethnologist at Starfleet Academy but hadn't made the grade. He'd been kicked out and had signed on with Starfleet as an enlisted person. If anyone else had assigned Cochrane the task of supervising the Legaran representative's quarters Riker would not have felt so uneasy, just because someone wasn't officer material didn't make him incompetent, but Riker had selected him, and so if Cochrane messed up then ultimately it would be Riker's error.
The pool was half-full. It stank of ammonia and sulphur. Riker's admiration for Ambassador Sarek grew immeasurably. How had he put up with that smell for 93 years?
Crewman Cochrane waited nervously in Riker's office. The Legaran Representative had not been happy with its quarters. The balance of sulphates and trace elements had been way off. The Legaran had made its displeasure known to the Counsellor and had been returned to its vat. Cochrane had been dismissed from his assignment and in his place the senior quartermaster had been given the task. When the Representative had been beamed aboard a large amount of the surrounding mud had been beamed aboard with it. The Representative and surrounding mud had been transported directly into a vat in the cargo bay. The senior quartermaster had used this mud as a guide for programming the replicators, and the Representative had found this more to its liking. Riker sat at his desk reading the details of the incident from his padd. Keeping Cochrane waiting. Cochrane toyed with his hair where it was drawn back in a ponytail, then forced himself to stop. Looking unconfident would make him look even more incompetent. It was like the Academy all over again, making some headway, then fouling it up at the important moment.
Riker looked up. "It's not good, is it Cochrane?"
"No sir."
"Didn't you think to check?"
"I did check. On the computer - the specs for the chemical balance that were used for the Legaran Representative four years ago. I was sure I'd got it right. At least I thought so."
"You thought so. That's not quite good enough, is it?"
"No sir."
"We have very high standards on the Enterprise. We all have to work hard to meet them. I expect you to do the same."
"Commander".
There was a pause. Cochrane wasn't sure what came next.
"Dismissed." Riker went back to his padd, keying something into it. Cochrane got the message. He wasn't worth bothering with any more.
"Jonah?" Ensign T'Pris stood at the doorway to the storeroom. "Jonah, are you there?"
T'Pris entered. The storeroom was one of the most fascinating places on the Enterprise. It contained artefacts and artwork, trivia and trinkets, from scores of planets, solely so that the crew of the starship could vary the way their quarters were decorated, swapping a tapestry for a portrait, an objet d'art for an item of jewellery. Those that wanted to could gradually acquire possessions, usually for the purpose of gift-giving. As assistant quartermaster, Jonah Cochrane was responsible for recommending pieces to people, distributing the items, and even acquiring them if the Enterprise happened to stopover at a planet where acquiring souvenirs would not infringe the Prime Directive. Jonah's trader background helped with the role, as did his xeno-ethnology training.
The storeroom was how the tall, unconventional human and the petite, dark-skinned Vulcan had met. T'Pris had found settling in to life on the Enterprise difficult after life at the Academy. Sharia, the woman with whom she shared her quarters, had been loud, boisterous, gregarious and very popular with many of the male crewmembers. T'Pris had found herself retreating more and more into her own private space and meditating more and more frequently. She began to take on the state of a vrekasht in her own quarters and thoughts of her home near the Voroth Sea began to preoccupy her. She had come to the store room looking for something to make her small space her own and had been surprised to find several Vulcan ritual cloaks amongst the items there. She'd wanted one to use as a wall hanging or bed cover, and Jonah had waited very patiently as she'd pored over each of the cloaks in turn. None had really been what she was looking for, but as she'd looked at them they'd talked about Vulcan, he seemed to know the planet, and she'd told him of how emotional she found the various tviokh with whom she found herself sharing her quarters. A few weeks later, when Sharia seemed to settle on one particular crewman and decided she wanted him to move in with her and T'Pris to move out, Jonah had informed her that he had a two-person quarters to himself and offered to share. She had accepted and on moving into her room had found a beautiful Vulcan ritual cloak lying on her bed. It was even one from her skan.
She'd been so surprised that she'd asked Jonah how he'd known what to replicate. He had looked hurt – at least as far as she understood the emotion, that seemed to be what his expression signified - and replied in a wounded voice that he would never replicate a gift. He had then explained his theory of replication. According to Jonah, carving or weaving or painting an object by hand imbued that object with a particular essence or being, he used the word pagh, that couldn't be recreated or reproduced by replication. She'd argued that that didn't make sense. You could beam a vase from one place to another, and it was identical at the other end. He'd accepted that, but said that the pagh travelled with the object as it was transported. But, T'Pris had argued, supposed you downloaded the transporter trace describing the vase into a replicator, wouldn't you then be able to create an exact replica? Jonah had answered that, yes, you would, but you couldn't recreate the object's pagh, it would look the same but it would somehow feel different. T'Pris had found the argument illogical and had revised her opinion that here was a human that she could relate to as effectively as she might have done another Vulcan.
Jonah had persisted with his argument.
"OK, what about people? We could do the same with people, after all when they're being transported they're just data and a stream of matter. We could just download the data to a replicator and use any matter and replicate a person, any number of times. But we don't, we even make sure that the matter stream carries the original matter broken down into energy, then reformed into the original person. Why? All matter is essentially the same anyway, we could just transfer the data and take the matter from anywhere. We mourn someone's death, but if they've been transported recently the transporter trace is stored somewhere, we could just replicate them and have them back. That's logical isn't it?" T'Pris had acknowledged as much.
"But we don't. We don't because it's a taboo, a taboo that we're not even consciously aware of. It wouldn't occur to us to do it. Why not? Because somehow we know that when someone has died then their being, their essence, or pagh or soul or katra or whatever you want to call it, has gone. And all you'd have if you replicated someone is a soulless copy. The soul travels with the matter stream, and the data stream, and is downloaded into the pattern buffers and then transferred into the body when it's recreated the first time by the transporter. Like in – what's the word - na'Tha'thhya? But you can't do it again, because even though there'd be a second body, there wouldn't be a second soul." T'Pris had decided that the argument was so illogical that to argue against it would itself be illogical, so she had excused herself and had retreated to her room, and drew the cloak around her like a warm and affectionate sehlat.
Her initial doubts about Jonah's being overtly qomi had been ill-founded, he had been a quiet, reserved and very private person. Sharing quarters with him had been very peaceful and his flights of illogic were few and far between. However, one day she had visited him at the store and he had presented her with five vases – all identical. "Pick one" he'd said. She did so, because it would have been illogical to spend more energy arguing against doing so than to simply do as he wished. He turned the vase she'd chosen upside-down. Underneath the vase was a label that said "original". Under the others were the label "replicated". Jonah seemed to believe that this meant he'd won the argument.
T'Pris found Jonah sitting at a viewer staring intently at the image on the screen. He was displaying the human emotion she'd come to recognise as "sulking". After listening to a few muttered comments about a "damn, overbearing … " (she hadn't caught the final word – but it had sounded like "half-soul") she'd been able to coax the whole story from him. The assignment to set up the quarters for the Legaran Representative. The Representative's displeasure at the ingredients for the environment. The dressing down from Commander Riker. The senior quartermaster being given the assignment.
The Legaran Representative was particularly interesting to T'Pris. Her assignment during her cadet training had been on board the Merrimack and she had met the Vulcan delegation on their return from Legara IV. She had been very much in awe of Sarek, an emotion that had been highly resistant to her t'san s'at discipline, and had tried to learn as much as possible about his work. She had not been successful. The Vulcan delegation had been highly secretive about Legara IV and T'Pris had been left with an intense curiosity about both Legara IV and Legarans. T'Pris's combadge signalled to her. She tapped it. It was a call from the ship's computer to remind her that she was on duty in five minutes. "I've got to go, Jonah. I'll talk to you later."
Lieutenant-Commander Data observed – not for the first time – the irony in the fact that the act of instructing was itself instructional. He was supervising a group of ensigns new to the Life Sciences Division, suggesting lines of research to them, helping with their enquiries, adjusting interface designs to aid the ensigns' study. As was common when the Enterprise was in the vicinity of a planet, Life Sciences was particularly busy, with every scientist from cadets to officers making the most of their opportunity to study Legara IV.
One ensign – T'Pris – had identified a very interesting line of enquiry. She had noted that the Legaran Representative preferred differently constituted mud than the previous time the Representative had been on the Enterprise. She had investigated what was known about the anatomy of the Legarans, and it appeared that the possibility that Legarans would change their preference was unlikely. She had asked Data to suggest the next step in her study.
Data had been experimenting with the idea of lateral thinking – to try a completely different line of research and see where it led. T'Pris had seemed unwilling to attempt such an illogical leap, but had deferred to his seniority. Data had suggested that she examined the geography of the planet, and determine if any particular areas on the surface corresponded with the two sets of ingredients. T'Pris now led Data to her viewer.
"Look, sir," she pointed to the screen. "The planet's surface is fragmented into many different types of mud. And if we compare with the same areas four years ago," she touched the control panel, "they show only a 4.3% drift."
"What can you deduce from this, knowing the Representative's displeasure at entering mud of a different constitution?" Data observed the young Vulcan withdraw into deep thought.
"The Legarans would only have contact with a small percentage of the population – those that lived in similarly constituted mud."
"Yes." Data had seen where the line of reasoning would ultimately lead, but chose to draw the arguments from her. "But we beamed the Legaran Representative aboard from the same location as the previous one. The location is determined by the homing beacon left behind by Ambassador Sarek's delegation."
"But it's not possible – since the Representative we have lives in a different kind of mud than the previous one."
"Then ..?"
"Then … someone must have interfered with the act of beaming aboard the Representative. We beamed aboard the wrong Legaran from a different region. But …"
"But what, ensign?"
"But that's hardly possible."
"When you have eliminated the impossible, Ensign T'Pris, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I think we have an impostor aboard."
Counsellor Troi listened to Data's briefing. As usual with Data she found herself concentrating more on his words to compensate for her receiving no empathic information from him. The transporter logs had shown that the Representative had been beamed from the specified location, but Data's evidence proved that the Legaran aboard was not the designated Representative. Somehow the log was in error. Ambassador Sarek had made it clear that only a Legaran from the area of the homing beacon should be brought off-world – in fact he had made it a General Order. It appeared that the Enterprise had inadvertently disobeyed the order. It also made Jonah Cochrane's mistake seem less of a transgression. Deanna smiled to herself. She sensed some of the activity that underlay this revelation. The networks that ran through a crew were undefined, but in some ways they were as effective as the formal hierarchy. As Counsellor she was privileged with far more information about the people on board the Enterprise than anyone else, but even she could not trace all the connections. Someone had sprung to Jonah's defence and Data's deposition here was the result.
"Counsellor" the Captain turned his attention to her. "Any luck yet communicating with the Legaran?"
"No sir."
"So we don't yet know why the Legaran is aboard."
"No sir." Deanna replied. "We picked up a signal from the homing beacon and beamed the Legaran near the beacon aboard - in accord with the agreement with Legara. At least we thought we had. We had no formal communication at any time. The Legaran has not communicated in any observable way. I can detect emotions from him, and sense that the Legaran can pick up vague thoughts, but specific information … no … I don't know how we can communicate. If we had information from the Vulcan delegation, it might give us somewhere to start."
"Perhaps Sarek used the Vulcan mind-meld," Will suggested.
Deanna shrugged. "Perhaps".
"And this still doesn't explain how the transporter was affected," the Captain added. Deanna sensed his irritation.
"The Legarans may have some psychokinetic ability," Deanna replied. "I observed some effects while in the cargo bay keeping the Legaran company, doors opening and closing, lights flickering. I felt something from the Legaran which I couldn't place at the time." Deanna hesitated. "I don't know. It's a possibility." She felt the weakness of the statement and automatically looked to Will for reassurance. He smiled in response. Deanna felt Worf bridle at the exchange. Deanna recognised her own resentment at Worf's jealousy, started to suppress her feelings for their unfairness, then forced herself to acknowledge her own feelings. She had to accept it - she was beginning to find the whole situation far too draining.
The Captain was about to dismiss them. "I want answers. Counsellor, work with Commander Data, try and find some way to communicate with the Legaran, find out why it's here, what it wants." He paused. "Dismissed."
Riker caught up with Deanna as she entered the turbolift.
"I've just spoken with the Captain. He's tried to get information from the Vulcan Council about the diplomatic mission to Legara, but so far they're not giving out anything. He's going to have to go through official Federation channels, I think. It could take time."
Deanna nodded abstractedly. There seemed to be something on her mind, thought Riker. Problems with Worf? He had to admit to himself he had been feeling jealous. But then, she'd know that, too. Maybe that was the problem – she felt he and Worf between them were making too many demands on her. But he couldn't hide his feelings from her – it was impossible. One of the difficulties of being close to an empath. He'd known Deanna for ten years and still felt exposed emotionally at times.
"Is everything OK?"
Deanna hesitated – then was about to speak when Riker's combadge signalled.
"Riker here!" he couldn't keep the annoyance out of his voice.
"Jonah Cochrane. Sorry to disturb you Commander, but I was meant to relieve Chief Allsop an hour ago and I can't find him."
Riker tapped his combadge.
"Computer, locate the Senior Quartermaster."
"Chief Petty Officer Allsop is not on the Enterprise."
"What was the last known location of CPO Allsop?"
"The last recorded location of Chief Petty Officer Allsop was the room assigned to the Legaran Representative."
The turbolift had stopped at deck nine. The doors opened and a smell of sulphur and ammonia assailed them. Thick glutinous mud oozed down the corridor.
"Security. Deck nine." Riker ordered, then he and Deanna entered the corridor.
The mud deepened the further along the corridor they walked. After a few meters they were wading knee-deep through it, struggling to keep their balance as the glutinous mass clung to their legs as they moved them. As they neared the Legaran's quarters they saw Cochrane standing still looking at something in the mud. It was the Legaran. It lay there motionless, a black mass of gelatinous substance, glistening like a slug, but flattened, like a manta ray. Slowly it raised one side of its body and it then flopped back into the mud, spattering some of it against the walls of the corridor.
"I came to try and find Chief Allsop and came across the Legaran lying here," Cochrane informed them.
"Deanna, are you getting anything?" Riker asked the Counsellor.
Deanna concentrated feeling a vague emotion of …
"It's waiting for something. It expects something from us. It's very passive."
The turbolift doors opened behind them. Worf and three security guards entered deck nine and waded through the mud to meet them. The mud was gradually deepening, the replicators in the Legaran Representative's quarters had obviously been turned on again. At this rate the entire deck would soon be flooded.
Worf had his phaser pointed at the Legaran. The three security guards did the same.
"Check the replicators," Worf ordered one of them. "Take the quartermaster with you."
Cochrane and the security guard waded slowly through the mud along the corridor. It was as deep as their thighs now and each step was extremely difficult. Worf and the other two guards maintained their watch on the Legaran. Suddenly something moved towards the two men, skimming through the mud just below the surface. It enveloped the security guard around his waist and the guard and the shape disappeared into the mud. The guard broke the surface once, about ten metres away from Cochrane, screamed and then disappeared below the surface. Cochrane took a step towards the place where the guard had disappeared, then thought better of it. Behind him Worf and the others were wading through the mud to join him.
"What happened?" Worf demanded.
"There's another one. It grabbed him and then pulled him under the surface."
"Computer, location of Ensign Peters?" Worf said to his combadge.
"Ensign Peters is not on board the Enterprise," the computer replied.
"OK, let's get everyone off this deck," Riker ordered, "and seal it off. We need to work out what we're up against."
Jonah Cochrane and T'Pris were playing kal-toh. An intruder alert was in operation, which meant that all non-essential and off-duty personnel had to remain in their quarters. Jonah held his t'an rod, trying to decide where to place it.
"I heard about Chief Petty Officer Allsop. My condolences. I know the two of you were close."
Jonah looked up at T'Pris. She rarely offered to talk about anything concerning feelings.
"Thanks", he placed the rod amongst the others. A section of the puzzle disappeared, due to the disharmony the move had created. "Sorry my mind's not on this. You're right, we were close. Eddie looked out for me. I think he looked on me as a protégé, but not one who would out-do him. He could relax around me. Not like some of the over-achievers he'd been assigned before. He did odd little things to show that he cared, like getting me a two-person's quarters to myself, although he said it was just the way the roster had worked out. He was close to retiring. It's not the best way to go, is it? Eaten alive by a giant slug."
T'Pris switched off the kal-toh puzzle. She decided Jonah needed something different to occupy him.
"I've got something from Legara IV. A pot my uncle was given. He was part of the Ambassador's delegation and gave it to me as a gift."
T'Pris went to her room and returned with a clay pot – almost spherical with an opening at the top.
"Kal Rekk took place while we were transporting the delegation between Legara IV and Vulcan. My uncle gave it to me as a focus for my meditation". She handed it to Jonah.
He held it carefully, rotating it, then gently rubbed the surface.
"Well, it's an original - not replicated."
"The delegation had dozens of them. I think my uncle may have given it to me just to get rid of it."
"How do the Legaran's make them?"
"They remove the moisture from part of their bodies then hold some of the mud against them. The contact gradually dries out the mud."
"Really? Must take days." Jonah examined the pot more closely. His xeno-ethnology training had focussed on the skill of extrapolating a species' culture and behaviour from one of its artefacts. Jonah had been able to do this with such unerring accuracy that his teacher believed he may have had some form of psychic ability, such as psychometry. Jonah looked at the residue on his fingers.
"It's very delicate. Not like most food storage containers. Usually they get so much use they have to be very durable. This is more like ceremonial usage. But the opening suggests that it was used for storing something like food."
He rotated it again. "But the shape is not that practical either. It's more like a burial pot, most cultures associate a sphere with life, death, rebirth."
He paused thinking. "Unless it's both. T'Pris, do you have a tricorder? A life sciences one?"
T'Pris brought one from her room.
"Run it inside the pot. Is there any residue?"
T'Pris set the tricorder for a surface scan and ran it inside the pot. She looked at the read-out.
"Legaran. The pot has had Legaran tissue inside it." T'Pris informed Jonah.
"I thought so. I think the Legarans eat each other, they store part of their bodies in these." He handed the pot back to T'Pris. "But why?"
T'Pris thought for a while.
"Have you ever herd of planarian worms?" she asked Jonah. "A Terran belief in twentieth century life sciences, that memories could be transferred from one worm to another by them eating one another."
"Do you think that's how they communicate?" Jonah wondered.
"Possibly. That could be how the Legaran learnt about replicators. Remember, that the Legaran gained control over them just after Chief Allsop was … consumed."
"And now it's eaten that Peters guy," Jonah realised. "So it knows our security systems. We'd better tell someone."
A slurping sound came from the replicator unit behind them. They turned to look and saw thick mud start to ooze from the unit. A smell of sulphur and ammonia filled the room.
Captain Picard sat in his ready room. Mud covered the floor and continued to issue from the replicator. Geordi hadn't yet found a way to shut them down. It seemed that Deanna was correct, the Legaran did have some sort of psychokinetic ability. Everything Geordi did was over-ridden by an external force. The only solution would be to destroy the replicators with phasers, but that would be a last resort. There had to be a better solution. He'd soon have to evacuate the room and escape to the bridge. At least there were no replicators there. If he sealed the door behind him it would contain the mud. If only there were some way to communicate with the Legaran, find out what it wanted. He decided to contact the Federation Council again and see if they would release the details of Ambassador Sarek's mission.
The Captain's combadge signalled. It was Data.
"Sir, I've just been contacted by one of the ensigns from life science. She believes that she may have a theory about how the Legarans communicate. I'll put you though to her."
"Go ahead." Picard paused. "This is the captain … ensign …?"
"T'Pris, sir. I've been reviewing information on the Legarans and a logical extrapolation of the Representative's behaviour is .." she paused. Picard heard someone in the background prompt her. "There is little evidence but - the Legarans may communicate by consuming each other. It seems that they reproduce by binary fission, when one Legaran wishes to communicate with another then both reproduce, and each consumes one of the other Legarans."
"What evidence is there for this, ensign?" Picard waited. The ensign was hesitating, concealing something?
"When the quartermaster was consumed the Legaran obtained the information about the replicators. There's a possibility that it now knows about the security systems, from Peters, sir."
"And have you any theories about how Ambassador Sarek may have communicated with them?"
"No, sir, I don't."
"Thank you ensign." Picard shut off his combadge. Eating each other? Was it possible? And could there be a security breach? He tapped his combadge.
"Lieutenant Worf. "
"Sir."
"Increase patrols on decks eight and ten. The Legaran may be able to penetrate our security protocols."
"Yes, sir."
"If you do encounter the Representative use the minimum force required to defend yourself, I don't want the Representative harmed. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir."
If the ensign's theory is correct, Picard thought, then although the Legaran was eating his crew, it was only doing so in order to be friendly. Killing the Representative was therefore something he wanted to avoid. That left the problem of how to communicate with it. He turned to his viewer, the mud around his feet, now ankle deep, made a slurping noise as he moved.
"Communications, contact Vulcan for me. I'd like to speak to Perrin, the widow of Ambassador Sarek. Tell her it's very urgent."
Time to evacuate the ready room. Picard entered the bridge, sealing the door behind him. He headed towards the turbolift and looked down at his feet, seeing that he had tracked mud across the floor of the bridge. There seemed to be no way of avoiding it. He spoke into his combadge.
"Counsellor, are you still on deck nine?"
"Yes, sir. The second Legaran is still here. Still no change."
"I'll meet you down there."
"Sir," Riker rose from his seat. "Is that wise? You could be placing yourself at risk?"
"Number One, if we don't communicate with the Legaran, this whole ship is at risk."
Picard entered the turbolift. At deck nine the doors opened and a wave of mud entered the lift, hitting him at waist height and knocking him over. Picard picked himself up, looking down at his mud-covered hands and arms. This was getting out of hand.
Picard entered the corridor, making his way slowly through the mud, using his arms to claw his way through. As he approached the circle of security guards surrounding the Legaran, he saw them suddenly react, lifting up their phasers. The Legaran was swimming swiftly through the mud in a undulating movement, heading directly towards Picard. Phaser fire cut through it, but it continued to swim, until directly in front of Picard it flipped over and lay there passively.
The Counsellor and the security guards waded towards him.
"Counsellor?" Picard enquired.
"I got a feeling of intense joy and recognition. It knows you Captain. And now, the same passivity. It wants us to do something."
"I think I know what." Picard held out his hand for a phaser. One of the guards handed his over to the Captain. Picard leant over the Legaran, adjusted the phaser to a tight beam setting and carefully cut away part of the Legaran's body. He held up the glistening flesh, it the slime congealing with the mud already on his hands.
His combadge signalled.
"Captain!" it was Worf. "Captain, we spotted the Legaran on deck eight, but it suddenly swam away from us and entered a jefferies tube. It may be headed towards your position."
Of course, Picard thought. The eater and the eaten. This Legaran wanted him to eat it. Had, in fact, appeared to single him out and head towards him in particular. But the other one …The other one would now be singling Picard out to reciprocate.
"Quickly, everyone, in the turbolift, now!"
Moving quickly through the mud was not possible. Troi, Picard and the guards waded laboriously towards the turbolift, each step requiring them to push aside kilos of mud. Picard took a look behind, the mud was rippling in an undulating movement, the ripples moving at a high speed towards them.
They were all in the turbolift. "Close" Picard yelled, and the doors slid shut. He heard a dull thud as something hit the doors and then hit them again.
Deanna Troi was concerned about the Captain. She rarely saw him with this level of agitation. She knew what it was – the one thing that angered him more than anything else was losing control of his ship. Having something wrest the Enterprise from him like this not only undermined his authority, it took away part of his sense of self, that command he felt over his environment. And for that environment to be corrupted with this foul-smelling mud, that was adding insult to injury. At least Beverly had been able to keep this part of the sickbay clear of mud, though her office was knee-deep in the stuff. Only a few muddy footprints spoilt the cleanliness of the room.
She looked up at Beverly, who was also observing the Captain with concern. The doctor then returned to monitoring his life-signs. Picard sat contemplating the orange-streaked, grey, slimy flesh on the table in front of him.
"Jean-Luc" she started, but stopped as he suddenly lifted the flesh up and took a large bite from it, swallowing it without chewing. He gagged repeatedly then shuddered at the taste. Beverly looked again at her tricorder. Adrenaline levels higher, but so far not display of toxic reaction. Then a boost in peptide levels, compatible with memory traces being laid down, very high. The Captain collapsed, his head resting against the table. Then, very slowly, he sat up.
"Incredible," he said. "A lifetime of memories from the Legaran."
"Of what?" Beverly prompted.
"Not much, swimming around in mud mostly. But then, curiosity. Intense curiosity. Also, vague mental images of activity somewhere, of other Legarans making contact with small ugly hard pale creatures. Alien creatures that are emotionless but intelligent. And then this Legaran's feeling of intense jealousy."
"Could the "small ugly pale hard emotionless creatures" be the Vulcan delegation?" Beverly asked. "Could this Legaran have somehow picked up on the other Legarans' contact with the Vulcan delegation?"
"Probably."
"And have felt left out?"
"Perhaps. But there's something else. This Legaran obtained an impression of a link, between the hard, small creatures in the mud to, somewhere else, somewhere not mud. It remembers the revelation, that there is somewhere not-mud. Then the creatures go away."
"The Legarans seem to be able to sense vague impressions, but not more." Deanna observed. "To learn more they need to consume."
"And when this Legaran sensed us returning it manipulated the transporter lock so that instead of the Legarans that had been contacted by Sarek we beamed up this Legaran instead." Picard drew upon the memories within him, the memories transferred from the Legaran flesh he had eaten. "No, not the transporter lock, it was the homing beacon – the Legaran did something to that. You were right Deanna, they do seem to have some psychokinetic abilities." Picard remembered the way in which the Legaran had homed in on him. "But why would they want to contact me in particular?"
"Perhaps they sense the link you had with Sarek." Deanna answered. "You were mind-melded for a while. Part of Sarek still lives in your mind."
Picard regarded the piece of Legaran flesh that lay on the table.
"So all this, posing as the Legaran Representative, flooding the Enterprise with mud, eating two members of my crew, all of it is so that the Legaran can travel around the Enterprise in the hope of finding me so that it can eat me and thereby commune with the part of Sarek inside me." Again he remembered the consuming need to know from the Legaran's memories. "They really are a remarkable people."
Picard's combadge signalled. "Picard here."
"Captain, I have Perrin for you."
"Put her through to the viewer in the sickbay."
The face of Ambassador Sarek's widow appeared on the viewer.
"Captain Picard."
"Ma'am."
"How can I help?"
"I need some information on the method the Ambassador used to communicate with the Legarans."
"My husband established that mind-melds would be the form of contact."
"But you must know how Legarans initiate contact – by consuming their visitors. How did he make first contact without being eaten?"
"I'm afraid I can't divulge that. He was most specific that it was not to be revealed."
"It is most urgent, I'm afraid I must insist." Picard persisted. "A Legaran is on my ship and we have no means to reach it."
"Captain, surely you are aware of General Order thirty-five, my husband was most specific that only those Legarans with whom he had negotiated were to be contacted in the future. He established certain protocols with them, but not with others on the planet. General Order thirty-five was established to avoid precisely the situation you are in now."
"We did not disobey the General Order intentionally. The wrong Legaran was beamed aboard by mistake," Picard explained. "Please tell me, how did Sarek convince the Legarans not to eat the delegation?"
Perrin hesitated, then said: "If I tell you, it must remain a private matter between ourselves." Lady Perrin regarded the three people on her viewscreen. "I don't want my husband's name to be subject to any … unfortunate talk."
"Of course, Ma'am," the Captain answered. Beside him, Deanna and Dr. Crusher nodded their assent.
"My husband … was eaten by Legarans, several times."
"What … how …?"
"He allowed himself to be replicated, and the copies were eaten."
"But the ethical dilemma!" Picard exclaimed.
"My husband was well aware of the moral ambiguities, but felt that it was justified considering the opportunity to come to an agreement with the Legarans." Now that she had revealed the truth Perrin was determined to justify her late husband's actions. "When he discovered how the Legarans communicate he was sedated and then a transporter was used to replicate himself. The original was woken, but the copy wasn't. The copy was then fed to the Legaran negotiator, without ever gaining consciousness. It was the logical decision."
Picard was astounded. Surely that was murder.
"My husband decided that logically no death had occurred since he was still alive, and the copy would not be aware of his own death, because he had never had a separate existence, since he was never conscious. Once the procedure was established my husband went through it several times, until he had convinced the Legarans that eating people is not socially acceptable within our culture, and that the mind-meld would be a preferable means of communication. This was, in fact, the lengthiest part of the negotiation, and the Legarans never really accepted that we actually preferred them to behave in a way that they thought extremely impolite. For Legarans etiquette is extremely important."
"T'Sai Perrin, may I ask?" Picard felt uncomfortable asking this, but he felt the need to be reassured. "What was your opinion of this procedure?"
Perrin hesitated again. "I must say I was never convinced of its necessity. In addition," she paused, "I don't believe the procedure was carried out with sufficient rigour. I have the distinct impression that on more than one occasion it was actually the copy that was revived and the original that was fed to the Legaran. Not that logically it should make any difference, but I sometimes wonder if perhaps my husband's apparent display of Bendii Syndrome was instead the symptoms of him being a copy of a copy of my husband." Perrin was quiet for a few moments, appearing lost in thought. "As I said Captain, I'd appreciate it if this was kept between ourselves."
"Of course, Ma'am. Thank you for your assistance."
He broke the link between them, then turned to the two women standing beside him.
"Is that what I have to do, make a copy of myself and feed it to the Legaran? Is it either that or put up with my ship being flooded with mud and my crew eaten?"
Dr. Crusher and Counsellor Troi thought for a few moments.
"We could just replicate your brain cells," suggested Troi, "as in genetronic replication."
"Perhaps," replied Dr. Crusher "but would we be able to keep its memory engrams intact as just a disembodied brain?"
Picard was growing increasingly uncomfortable with the idea. Then he felt his spirits lift, he couldn't carry out the procedure. "It won't work, there are no replicators that are still functioning, all of them are replicating the Legaran's mud."
"Are you sure?" asked Deanna. "I'll ask the computer." The tapped her combadge. "Computer, list functioning replicators."
"All replicators linked to the central computer are currently malfunctioning. Stand-alone replicators are still functioning correctly."
"Computer – give location of largest stand-alone replicator."
"Quartermaster's stores. Deck thirty." Picard felt his heart sink. He couldn't think of a good reason why he shouldn't go through with the procedure. He just knew that he felt uneasy about it.
Jonah Cochrane went through the settings on the replicator in his storeroom, making sure that it was functioning correctly. He'd assumed that it would be pumping out mud like all the others on the ship. But of course, it was a stand-alone model. Many of the people using it were artists replicating pieces of their work. They preferred using a system that wasn't linked to the main computer, they didn't like the idea of their work being accessible by anyone else. Even in the 24th century some artists were protective of their intellectual property rights.
At least it meant the storeroom was mud-free, not like his and T'Pris's quarters. The replicator there had filled the shared section, forcing them to retire to their separate bedrooms. The continued intruder alert had kept him inside for several hours. The order to go to the storeroom had therefore been a welcome escape, although it meant allowing the mud to flow into his bedroom, and wading through knee high mud to the turbolift.
The checks were complete, just as Captain Picard entered the storeroom. He held a rack of isolinear chips in one hand.
"Crewman Cochrane?"
"Sir."
"I need this interfacing with the replicator."
"Of course."
Cochrane took the rack from the captain and fitted it into the replicator. The captain's eyes never left the rack.
"May I ask what's stored there?"
Picard hesitated for a moment, then answered "Me. I am."
"Sir?" Cochrane asked. Picard seemed very distracted, lost in thought.
"My transporter trace downloaded." The Captain hesitated. He very rarely talked through his feelings, even with the Counsellor, but he suddenly felt the need to talk this thing through one last time. After the conversation with Lady Perrin he had gone to the transporter room and asked Geordi to transport him, not to anywhere, but just to upload his transporter trace into the computer. Beverly had sedated him and Geordi had activated the transporter, dematerialising then rematerialising him. The trace would now be of a sedated Picard, ready for replication. But now it came to it he was having serious doubts. Picard had the uneasy feeling after he had been revived that it was he that was the copy, and that the real Picard was stored on the rack of isolinear chips.
"Can that really be me, there stored on a set of isolinear chips?" he asked, the words felt torn from him.
"I don't know sir. Who can tell? When we're transported how do we know we're the same when we come out?"
"Ah, transporter existentialism."
"Consciousness is an emergent property of sub-quantum processes within the brain." Cochrane spoke absently while he tapped instructions into the replicator. "The transporter can't measure sub-quantum processes, after all, that's what the Heisenberg Compensators are compensating for." He finished keying in the sequence. "So how do we know we're the same people after we've been transported? The you in there," he pointed to the replicator. "Will think slightly differently from you, and if we replicate him again, he'll be different again."
"But if I kill him, will I have committed murder?"
"Perhaps, but what if I erase his data from the replicator before replicating him? Will I have killed him then? And his data will still be stored there after replication. If I erase the data then, will I have killed the person that remains in the replicator?" Cochrane checked the readout. "A couple more minutes, sir, then we can replicate you."
The two men stood in silence for a few minutes, Picard brooding intently. Then he came to a decision.
"I've changed my mind crewman. Delete the data. I won't replicate myself. There has to be an alternative."
T'Pris stood on the surface of Legara IV, between Commander Riker and Counsellor Troi, her Legaran pot held in her hands. The mud was knee deep near to the homing beacon, a relatively dry spot. She had been requested to join the landing party in order to mind-meld with the Legarans. According to the mission briefing these Legarans understood non-Legaran customs and so were unlikely to eat them. Lieutenant Worf and three security guards accompanied them, just in case.
Legara IV was dark, and foreboding. Legara was a faint white dwarf and little light reached the surface. Although she wore an environment suit she felt cold. One of the guards pointed. Undulations moved through the mud then suddenly all around them appeared Legarans, lifting the fronts of their bodies above the mud and falling with a slapping motion into it – the Legaran display of welcome, apparently.
T'Pris walked towards the nearest Legaran and removed her glove. The cold bit into her skin, briefly, before she touched the flesh of the large slug-like creature. Its slime oozed over her hand, forming a protection from the wind, and she moved her hand slowly over its grey flesh, attempting to form a link.
Thoughts came flooding immediately into her head, a ritual of greeting, precise formulations of etiquette, shaded with a wry humour, all of which she matched precisely according to her mission briefing.
Even before the mind-meld was over the Legaran had begun budding, a small bubo of flesh forming in its flank. T'Pris formed a profuse formal thanks, then broke off the lump of flesh from the Legaran and placed it in her pot.
The Legarans surrounding the landing party slapped their bodies against the mud again signifying the end of the formalities.
Without a word being spoken, the meeting was over. The visitors dissolved into light, their emissary from the planet contained in a small clay pot.
At the transporter room Picard took the clay pot from the ensign. She had performed well, especially for one so young. He would append a commendation to her next report. The group walked through the corridor, now almost oblivious to the mud that seeped around their feet. Decks eight through eleven were now flooded sufficiently for the Legaran to travel between them. The nearest was deck eight.
The turbolift disgorged its quantity of mud as the doors opened. Picard, T'Pris, Deanna and Worf entered, taking the short ride down to the deck below. As the doors opened the Legaran Representative was waiting for them.
It undulated towards them. Pseudopodia extended from its body, reaching for Picard. He held the pot before him, upending it so that the small lump of flesh from the Legarans fell – to be snatched from the air by one of the tentacles writhing before them.
The small lump was drawn within the body of the Representative and a few moments passed. Then the Representative withdrew a few metres and lay there motionless.
"Counsellor?" Picard asked.
"I'm feeling an almost overwhelming sense of embarrassment from the Representative. That more than anything. Although the desire to communicate is still there."
"Ensign, would you?" Picard stepped aside for T'Pris.
T'Pris extended her hand towards the Representative, touching the pseudopodium nearest to her. Again thoughts flooded her mind. She admired the precision and the formality and the complexity of the ideas that surrounded her. With an effort she withdrew and relayed the communiqué.
"The Representative wishes to express his apologies for his breach of etiquette in eating two of your colleagues. It hopes that you will forgive him this social gaffe. Similarly it regrets the changes made to your environment, he sought only to improve them on your behalf. It was not aware that you liked these hard dry spaces and merely believed you had not fully mastered your technology. I .. er .." she hesitated. "I replied on your behalf sir, I hope that was in order."
"What did you say, ensign."
"I replied that these minor misunderstandings are inevitable when two peoples meet for the first time, and that we fully accepted its apology."
"Anything else?"
"That it regrets not being able to communicate with yourself, sir, but rejoices in at last consuming its fellow Legarans from – the word's untranslatable, sir, but it relates to the repugnance he feels for the type of mud they live in. The Legaran hopes that the visitors from off-world will be able to facilitate many more such exchanges of – again the word is untranslatable but the meaning is a combination of 'cordialities' 'ideas' and 'food'."
"We'll pass his request on to the Federation Council. Is that all?"
"It would like to go home, sir."
"Could you convey to the Representative our profound pleasure that we have experienced in sharing his company, our resolve to aid him in his continued communication with and consumption of his fellow Legarans, and our hopes that we may be able to host his person in the not-too-distant-future."
T'Pris returned to her mind-meld and communicated the Captain's words. The Legaran slapped the mud surrounding him several times, which T'Pris copied. Then withdrew. Their audience was over.
Cochrane and T'Pris walked along the corridor towards their quarters, T'Pris carrying the small clay pot. The Representative had been beamed down to the surface and the intruder alert had been ended. Children ran along from door-to-door revelling in the mud that covered the floor, throwing handfuls of it at each other, making up for all the cooped up hours they'd endured while the Legaran had been loose on the ship.
Riker approached them. "Ah, Crewman Cochrane, Ensign T'Pris, just the people I wanted to see. The captain has placed a commendation on your report. Congratulations, you'll make Lieutenant Junior Grade before long. Cochrane - until we reach starbase 330 you will be acting senior quartermaster."
"Thank you sir."
"Don't thank me, just - " a handful of mud splattered his uniform – Cochrane heard a gasp from behind him and a child's laughter "just get this ship clean."
Cochrane looked at the thick mud oozing round his ankles, the smears of mud on the walls. He looked back at Riker and nodded forlornly.