ONE DOOR CLOSES


The pool glinted darkly in a falloff of light that had no definite source. There was utter, impenetrable night all around, but the ripples that eddied on the water shivered white on a surface like ebony, as reflective as silver.

He had seen this pool before, but the rest of the memory did not immediately come to mind. There was only that shimmering light where no light fell, and the old, angry scream of a bleeding wound in his left shoulder. There was a familiarity to both, and an alien hue cast over them still that was anything but familiar. The black may contain anything, but an apathy that was not his own diffused that hungry growl in the pit of his stomach, the growl that told him danger was near, and that it was time to act. He sat back on his heels at the water's edge, clutching his hand to the wound in mimicry of every other wound he had ever sustained, although this one barely bothered him.

He blinked, knowing he had waked, upright and in this very pose, although to his knowledge he had neither slept nor been knocked unconscious. This simply was.

There were movements in the black water, a ghost of gray that glided like a fish, the dark cutting away to either side of it, its wake flecked with a faint, rising steam. He had seen something like this before, once, breezing across the surface and never reaching the depths. Only bigger, cutting not through water but through night; a ship, voyaging among the stars. He extended his hand, palm down, and hovered it, unconcerned, over the spire of steam curling up from the pool. It scolded, but that, like his shoulder, only hurt in the most academic way.

The ship, or rather its smoky image warped by a water that moved without breeze and shone without light, was approached by another shape, one that spread and billowed like a cloud to swallow the ship in its reaching folds. This he knew only in the most instinctive way; it was no memory of his, but it was there, planted in his brain like a seed in a flowerbed.

He had seen this vision before.

But I stopped it, he murmured, and as his voice struck the water tiny notes rang from it like music, struck from its slick shine as a hammer strikes chimes from a bell.

She would love this, he thought, thinking wistfully of her constant assertions that she heard the patterns of voices like music . . . but he no longer knew just who the she' he thought of was. He thought she might be important to this, somehow . . . that he had something to do for her . . . but it was gone, as most of his senses beyond watching the water were gone. And what had he stopped? What had he done to stop it? He had seen this vision and it was gone, he remembered making a decision that would avert this disaster . . . but the decision itself meant nothing. It had been stopped because he was here. That was all.

You did stop what would have come, had you done nothing, a voice whispered. It blew spreading circles in the water in its citric breeze, shattering the image, making no music as his own voice had done. You removed the danger from your ship when you left it. But what you did has still to be concluded, and it won't be easy. They'll try to mislead you, to hold you back, to lie to you. They may even turn you against me. But the things you carry must be destroyed, and the beings that gave them to you must be prevented from doing this to another host. You knew that, even if you didn't want to admit it. Why else did you come here? Here, of all places?
Where is here? he asked, three notes clinking sweetly up to him as he spoke. I mean . . . I've seen this pool. But it doesn't belong here. What is this?

You hit your head. Perhaps it's only a dream. Don't you want to stop them, is that it? Stop the people who silenced you, who want to silence everybody that stands in their way as I stand in their way? They did the same to the Vulcan, you know.
He raised his head, knowing this, at least, should elicit some emotion in him. The Vulcan. Without a name, as the she' had been without a name, still he knew that it was his responsibility. The Vulcan was silenced—what exactly did that mean?—because he hadn't acted quickly enough. Why don't I remember? He dragged the words from his mouth reluctantly, liking the chimes the syllables made on the water, but finding the effort beyond his strength to give. He had no desire to move, to talk or to ask questions . . . he simply wanted to be. To watch this phantom play in the pool beside him and forget the persistent pull of duty and responsibility that never quite receded as his memories and self had done.

He was sick of responsibility.

Your ship needs protecting as much as I do, as my race does. These responsibilities are not yours to evade. I chose you for many, many reasons, as did they, but the one I never told you was this: I knew that you would get the job done. The voice stirred shadows and waves, swept a scent his way that tingled in his nose and on his tongue with that same, itching familiarity . . . and was gone. Think of the people that need you. Your friends, your ship. My enemies will hold them responsible should you fail to stop them, here, while you have the chance.
he echoed, feeling the name come unbidden, breaking through the shroud of nothing that belonged to him, placing itself in his mouth as if it wanted to be heard. It tasted exquisite as it was spoken; here was something, he knew, that belonged to him, as this place once had but now did not. And T'Pol is . . .

Silenced. He shivered, understanding of the word's many possible meanings shuddering back into his mind with a sour jolt. Ideas, fragments and names and disconnected words he didn't understand flooded in, a piece at a time, like a roll of film fed through a viewfinder one slide after another.

he exclaimed . . . and the spell was broken. Malcolm planted one shaky foot in the mud beneath him and levered himself upright, turning away from the hypnotic pool and hunting through the gloom for the figure he knew he would find. What have they done with her? Where is she?

That's what you should be asking them, it said. And then it said no more.

Reed found himself lying in a darkened room, alone with his furious heartbeat and a rage he hadn't felt since the day he ran from the dinner table when he was six years old. He closed his eyes, and tried to breathe, and to think of the stars.

-----------------------------

he murmured again, but his mouth had dried into a cracked salt plane and for an instant he worried his ears had suffered damage from the knock on the head on the way down here—the word was muddied, sound barely heard through the veil of waking. Though awake, impressions of his surroundings continued to make themselves known as if he surfaced through a progression of senses like the layers of an onion; the feel of a cool, but not chill, surface beneath him, a mild sensation of tepid air on his face . . . swollen sound without depth, carried without a breeze. The scent of lemonade hung heavily in the air, a wave of incense tingling faintly on his skin as it sizzled in his bones.

Reed explored the hard surface on which he lie, grazing gentle fingertips across the unremarkable material with the deft movements he had practiced all his life to perfect. This stuff, oddly pliant and bemusingly unflawed by the scratches and imperfections found in any material he could call to mind, had him at a disadvantage; it was like nothing he had ever felt before. But the process of analyzing his surroundings scientifically helped him to remain calm, and smoothed his professional demeanor down over his blooming temper like a damp rag smothering a fire.

Beneath the soda scent he could smell nothing in here but his own troubled sweat, and that absence irritated him in a way he couldn't describe; he would say that it felt like death if he wasn't in the unique position he was, and hadn't known better. He thumped his fist on the ground in frustration, and the stifled echoes it woke did not immediately fade, but the action itself stirred him a little. He would achieve nothing lying here, hearing only half of every sound, and too nervous to open his eyes again at all. Reeds didn't take things lying down.

But what to do, that's the question, Lieutenant. It was a good thing to ask himself—had he come all this way, had he put Hoshi in danger and lied to the captain, only to spend his energies in running away from the very impostors he had intended to confront?

(They'll try to mislead you, to hold you back, to lie to you. They may even turn you against me)
He didn't like to admit that the temptation was there, and the Reed fire burned too brightly for it to be much beyond a passing desire—but it was there, however brief. To just play along until they could get away. To run this rat maze, find Hoshi, and leave. He was not quite considering it, but far from dismissing it cold.

He slowly drew up his eyelids, letting only a murky brown horizon of light in, and made himself breathe. The memory returned reluctantly, in snatches; the floor, suddenly slanting away beneath them; the tunnel dividing, morphing before his very eyes, separating Hoshi from him deliberately. Pain had oozed into his dream—if dream it was—as the blood oozed from the wound in his shoulder, seeping and drying in the cotton of his sleeve, red darkening to a glutinous black. He pressed his fingertips gingerly to the weeping wound and immediately withdrew them again, hissing in air between his teeth, feeling foolishly giddy. It was a handicap he despised incurring, and couldn't even remember acquiring, but at least the pain and the blood were real, human, living. Glancing around at this place he could see and touch and smell and hear, it was good to know that he, at least, was real. That gave him power.

He was lying flat on the smooth black floor of an empty, curving room. It was not merely cylindrical, with bending walls and a parallel ceiling and floor; it was like being inside an opaque black bubble. The ceiling above him was a shadowed dome, and the floor he lie on concave. Although no source of light was apparent, he could see the indefinite shape of his own body, and enough of a shade to make out the shape of the room.

He stood up, steadying himself on one wall, looking around him with piqued curiosity and more than a little annoyance. Like the floor', the wall he touched felt pliable, rubbery. He could dig his fingers in, leaving indentations, and then slowly watch them fade as the alien material reformed. Had he not known who must have put him here and why, there would be a fascinating beauty to this place.

And then he noticed something that set his heart pounding in his ribs.

There were no doors.

There were no openings of any sort. The room was utterly impenetrable. He must have fallen from an opening, somewhere, from that tunnel to this jumped-up holding pen . . . and where there was a way in, there must be a way out.

In his mind, he sounded confident, but in his heart he knew better.

He tapped meticulously around the walls, scanning for a seam or a join that may conceal a door so flush it went unnoticed in the low light; but no. Whatever way in there had been—assuming they had not beamed him in—it was not there now.

If ever there was a time when your help would be appreciated, he said, to the featureless air, then now would be it.

And, sure enough, there came the fresh scent of lemonade, carried on an impossible breeze.

-----------------------------

That melting image played on his mind long after he had ceased to expect a further reply, and the foaming, by now sickening scent began to recede to only a background hum. The cells in his blood had activated, and it was answer enough, in its way, to let him know the help he asked for was a distinct possibility.

The tunnel must have melted open before him up there, and fused as seamlessly back into one behind him, or else there would evidence of his entrance now.

Reed experimented gradually with pressing his fingers into the wall, although it was some time before he felt it an acceptable risk; he was distrustful of most that was unknown to him, an occupational hazard, but this changeable institute left him more distrustful than usual. Some force was working against him, and although he also felt the help of a force equally omnipotent, he was out of his depth. His fingers left five small round marks in the black foam rubber stuff. He pressed a little harder and the marks remained a little longer. And again, harder still; once again the indentations, five evenly spaced circles, took a longer time to mend.

Reed narrowed his focus on the enduring comparison of bread dough that formed in his mind, bricking the pain of his torn left arm behind a mental barrier he would not allow it to cross. It was a distraction, and he distanced himself from it; not by telling himself that it didn't hurt, but by telling himself it didn't matter.

He was an old hand at fencing off pain.

He frowned, remembering with sudden, desperate fondness the bread his mother used to make when she felt like it. The dough struck a chord, the way it yielded under her hands, the way it molded and morphed until finally . . .

Until finally, it broke. It broke apart but broken dough always kneads together again good as new. Carefully he closed his fingers tight into a fist and pressed it knuckles-first into the wall, watching it sink slowly past his palm, to the base of his thumb and over his wrist, capturing it completely. As his hand disappeared, the dough-like substance began to close back around it.

Suddenly, very suddenly, the slight pressure on his knuckles was gone. His hand slipped out up to the wrist into whatever was beyond, the wall forming back around his lower arm where it passed through.

His hand was free.

His breath began to quicken as he moved his arm freely in the wall, the foamy stuff—in technical terms, the more yielding, rearrangeable atoms of an unstable hologram—slipping around oddly against his skin. He could barely assimilate the wild concept forming in the back of his mind, one reason why against a hundred why not. He shoved every one of them back furiously, and gritted his teeth. If he didn't think about it, then he would be all right.

It's only a hologram. And not a very good one, by all appearances. You can't stay in here the rest of your life. He breathed out harshly, expelling all the carbon dioxide in his body with a forceful shudder. He moved his tongue around his mouth, tasting the flatness of the air—air which, in this enclosed space, may run out very quickly unless his captors were kind enough to resequence the atoms, something he felt certain they could do—confirming to himself in any way he could that his assumptions were correct. That this was holographic, that somehow the Dark Man was altering its structure and allowing him to escape, something far beyond the abilities of a human being.

He tugged in a good lungful of new air, and held it in tight. This was not going to be easy, that he knew, but there was always the knowledge that he could come back. Probably. Probably could come back. It would have to be enough. Taking the deepest breath yet, Reed pressed his right shoulder, the strongest, against the wall, and channeled all his strength, all his determination, into it, pushing not from his shoulder but from way down in his gut. The wall began to give under the pressure. He leaned a little harder, bent his head into it, his hip. He fought the vicious instinct to gasp as the substance began to seal around his forehead, its wet, spongy feel gliding down the rise of his brow toward his eyes, capturing one ear completely. He must not gasp and give up his carefully stored air. He locked it down tight behind a knotted throat and clenched teeth, closed his eyes, and waited for the cold, squelching stuff to close over his face. It slid over his nose and mouth, to his chin, his shoulder and the whole right side of his body following . . .

. . . and it was then, encased in a wall and using up his last dregs of breath, that he met sudden, unmovable resistance.