Chapter 3
An odd-looking bird perched
in an average-looking tree, gazing out at nothing
in particular. The bird suddenly flinched as it heard
an unfamiliar noise. The noise
grew louder, and the bird made a squawking sound and flew.
The shuttlepod whined and glided
gracefully past the edge of a great forest.
To its left was what appeared to be a large lake, covered
completely by a blanket
of dark green slime. The engine strained, and the pod
pulled up short, then it settled
gently on the sandy beach near the woods.
T'Pol had suggested 'early morning',
and the captain had agreed. Though the
sun had yet to crest the trees, the area still offered plenty
of light by which to explore.
After the pod had cooled its engine, the hush of dawn returned,
accented only by
occasional bird calls.
Momentarily, the hatch opened.
Archer stepped down from the
shuttlepod and took a deep breath, gazing
out across the covered lake. He squatted and picked
up a handful of white sand,
watching as it ran through his fingers.
T'Pol followed him from the
craft and stepped lightly onto the beach. She
glanced left and right, then she quickly flipped on her scanner
and started analyzing
the green mass.
Phlox fumbled from the hatch
with a cumbersome array of bags and devices.
He dropped them down next to T'Pol and made a bee-line for
the shore, some
twenty meters away.
Lastly, Mayweather exited, glowing
with excitement. He tried to look at
everything at once, then, after a moment, he circled the shuttlepod
and examined
the exterior. By the time that he returned to the open
hatch, Phlox was back with
some research.
"I believe that it is some
sort of...insect larvae," he told the captain, holding
forth his slimy hand. "If you look closely, you
can see them, ah, wiggle!"
He raised the goo for Archer's
inspection. The captain winced and snarled
his nose, then he cautiously peered.
"Are you saying that the...storms...are
these things?" he asked.
"It's highly likely, Captain."
T'Pol wandered over and scanned
the dripping green ooze, then she headed
off up the beach. After some distance, she paused and
looked down, then she
reached and picked something up.
Archer turned and paced, low-gear,
his hands locked before him.
"Are you suggesting that
they give off some sort of...light?" he furrowed.
"I simply do not know,"
Phlox said, averting his eyes. "I suppose we'll just
have to wait and see, hmm?"
Pointing to his bags, the doctor
politely asked Travis to find him a jar. Travis
noisily rummaged through them until he found one that met
Phlox's satisfaction. He
opened it, and Phlox plopped the ooze inside. The doctor
then looked around for
a moment. Finally, he shrugged and bent down awkwardly,
cleaning his hand on
the beach.
"What time do you think
they'll...hatch, Doc?" Travis asked, tossing him the lid.
Phlox puzzled, then started
to answer, when T'Pol returned with her discovery.
"Captain."
"What is it?"
"I believe that I have
found a...mature specimen," she said. "It is, however,
deceased."
T'Pol presented her palm and
scanned her fortune. She held a small butterfly-
like creature, slightly larger than a thumbnail. Its tiny
wings were translucent, but
as she moved her hand, the wings seemed to change colors,
reflecting reds, blues,
yellows, and greens, all muted in the morning light.
"This creature appears
to have the same genetic signature as the larvae," she
stated.
Phlox engaged his device, and
the two together produced a pleasant harmony.
"Are these things dangerous?"
Travis asked.
Phlox didn't answer right away.
Finally, he drew the scanner in close and
pushed some buttons, then he looked up and chinned.
"I detect no signs of poisons,
no harmful pathogens," he smiled. "I would say
that they are as harmless as...butterflies, ha!"
"What about...everything
else?" Archer asked.
"Our orbital scans picked
up nothing out of the ordinary," he assured. "And the
water, at least here, has high concentrations of sodium chloride
- very few, if any,
creatures can survive in such conditions. It's similar
to your, mmm, Grand Salt Lake!"
"Great."
"I couldn't agree more,
Captain!" Phlox beamed, then he flew off into a merry
monologue of predictions.
Archer tried to correct him,
but he gave up and listened. Phlox waxed scientific
for quite a while, finally ending his speech with, "any
minute now, hmm?"
"Any minute" turned
into ten, then thirty, then sixty. Although the landscape
was noticeably brighter, the alien yellow sun appeared to
be pacing itself for the
long day and had yet to breach the tall trees behind the shuttlepod.
Though not
unpleasantly so, the air was somewhat chilly, and it stirred
on occasion from a
light breeze.
Phlox spent the time fussing
with his various instruments, while Travis wandered
off into the woods. Archer sat silently on the beach,
looking out across the dark
green lake; T'Pol stood near by, consumed with her device.
Finally, she turned it off
and attached it to her belt. Archer took notice and
spoke.
"Nothing left to scan?"
he asked.
She paused, then she walked
up to him, hands behind her back.
"No."
Archer smiled down at his feet,
then he patted the ground next to him.
"Have a seat," he
said. "Enjoy the view."
T'Pol looked at him, then she
considered the sand for a moment. Finally, she
relented and sat stiffly. She folded her legs as if
preparing to meditate, then she
stared blankly across the slime-covered water.
"Something...bothering
you today?" he asked. "You seem a little...distracted."
"I suppose it is the...gravity,"
she said flatly, then she consulted her scanner.
"It is approximately 1.26327 times that of Enterprise."
"You sure?"
T'Pol blinked then offered him
the proof; Archer graciously declined.
"You know," he said,
leaning back on his elbows. "There are all kinds of
butterflies on earth. Some, like Monarchs, even migrate.
They travel...thousands
of miles every year from Canada to Mexico."
"Fascinating."
"I remember...when I was
a kid," he continued. "They always passed through
upstate. Me and my cousins, we used to...go out...and
hunt them...out in the fields
on my uncle's farm. We'd search for hours and hours."
(A few meters away, Phlox clanked
something; he fumbled, then he clanked
something else.)
"We would, uhh, bring them
back home and play with them for a while,"
he tried. "Then we'd just let them go on their
way. They usually just...fluttered off."
(Somewhere in the forest, a
bird flapped its wings. A twig snapped, distant
and muted, and leaves lightly crunched.)
"They're sort of yellow
and...orange-ish, Monarchs are..." he struggled.
"They've got some...black spots on them, too. Big...they're
big. You lay one out
and it's a good, oh, I don't know, twenty or so...centimeters
across...or something..."
(The shuttlepod shifted and
softly creaked.)
Archer wearily sat up and stretched
his back, then he exhaled deeply.
T'Pol blinked.
Archer sniffed and cleared his
throat.
"Do you have...uhh...butterflies
on Vulcan?" he asked the lake.
"Yes," she said.
Archer nodded, then he looked
over towards the ever-busy Phlox and
grimaced, tugging on his earlobe. T'Pol paused, then
she also looked towards the
doctor. She took a short breath.
"I kept one for a while,"
she said slowly, "as a child."
Archer carefully returned his
attention to the lake.
"You...had a pet butterfly?"
"Not a pet," she clarified.
"It was...an experimental subject."
"Did this...'subject'...have
a name?" he peeked, scratching his jaw.
She paused then gave him a wary
glance.
"Jal Lox," she said.
Archer bit his lip and turned
his head for a moment.
"Was it...colorful?"
he asked, looking up at nothing.
T'Pol shifted as if sitting
upon an uncomfortable grain of sand.
"No," she replied
cautiously. "It was quite...plain."
"How long did you, uhh,
study it?"
"For almost ten-"
she started. Then she stopped abruptly and focused intently
on the lake.
Archer looked at her.
"T'Pol?"
"Wait."
"What?"
She stood up, and Archer followed
suit.
"What?"
"Listen," she shushed.
A faint popping sound came from
the lake, then another, then several, over-
lapping.
"Captain!" yelled
Phlox.
"We hear it."
Phlox quickly turned on several
devices, and Mayweather sprinted out of the
tree line and ran down to assist him. T'Pol opened her
scanner and held it towards
the green mass, and Archer leaned over her shoulder.
The pops continued, and dozens
of tiny flies began flittering about the surface.
After a moment, the whole lake fell silent, until suddenly,
the popping resumed in
earnest.
Then the lake exploded.
The sound was as though some
distant celebration was drawing to a climax.
An unseen hand lit an entire package of firecrackers, which
in turn, ignited the
entire box, then the flames quickly spread to the factory.
Though a single puff was
barely audible, the dissonance of the mass communion produced
a low, rolling rumble.
This noise was joined directly by a soft flapping, which grew
louder as thousands,
then millions, then billions of little butterflies breached
the surface. Each released
a tiny sprout of water, and the entire lake seemed to boil
and bounce as a breeze
blew in towards shore.
The surface of the lake, now
very much alive, began to ascend, and the vast
host of flies circled in upon itself, rising slowly, singular
in thought and purpose. The
distant shoreline wavered, then undulated, diffused through
gossamer wings, until
finally, the top of the swarm broke the tree line, and the
air itself seemed to burst
into flames, bathing the landscape below with the light of
a thousand colors.
The breeze blew into a steady
wind, warm with the smell of salt, and the
multitudes rose higher and higher. The popping rapidly
diminished, leaving only the
constant rush of infinite wings, and the bubbling lake simmered
and chopped. As
more and more millions reached the sunshine, the entire sky
became a kaleidoscope
of blues, yellows, silvers, greens, and reds, with all imaginable
colors in between -
ever changing, iridescent, climbing, swirling, higher.
After a few minutes, the gigantic
cloud seemed to rise no more, though it continued
its slow revolution and broadened somewhat. The wind
faded back to breeze, then
the breeze, itself, withdrew, leaving behind an eerie silence
beneath the vast ocean
of color above.
Then the lake grew still.
Suddenly, from the center of
the rainbow storm, a single fly fell - floating,
tumbling, like a sparkler, flashing through the entire spectrum
and back again,
before finally landing silently on the water. A few
more followed, then a few dozen,
then a steady stream descended gently from the circling mass,
like painted cherry
blossoms, like psychedelic snow flakes. Soon, the air
was filled, saturated completely
with falling butterflies, most landing on the lake, some landing
on the shore, where
they flittered a bit before laying still.
Archer, who had stood motionless
up until now, finally looked over at Travis
and Phlox, both with their mouths wide open. After a
moment, they appeared to
shake the trance, also, and they looked back at him in wonder.
Archer shook his
head and returned his eyes to the heavens, then he quickly
glanced at his neglected
science officer.
Intently focused, she held her
scanner at arm's length, watching as the data
flashed. He looked at the scanner, then he looked down
at her, but she did not
appear to notice. He paused for a moment, then slowly
reached out and gently
pulled the device from her hand. She glared up at him
in dismay, and Archer softly
smiled, meeting her eyes, as he casually tossed the thing
to the sand. She looked
at the scanner, then back at him, then she crossed her arms
and peered out across
the sparkling lake, as the butterflies continued their fall.
Archer bent and sat upon the
beach. Without looking, he reached beside him
and tapped T'Pol's leg. She flinched and glanced down,
then she stared at him for
a moment before returning her eyes to the lake. Finally,
she relented and sat beside
him, and they quietly watched until the last fly fell, almost
ten minutes later.
T'Pol lightly sighed. She
swiped a few butterflies from her hair, then examined
the rest of herself for more. Finding none, she looked
up at Jonathan Archer. He sat
motionless, hands around his knees, and though he was still
gazing out across the lake,
his eyes appeared to focus farther than the distant shore.
She hesitated, then reached
and brushed a tiny butterfly from his shoulder.
Archer noticed, and he cleared
his throat. He looked down at her with a fleeting
smile, then briefly glanced up. He extended his arm
and gently plucked a fly from
her hair and gave it to her. Looking away, he slowly
got to his feet.
She considered the butterfly
in her palm for a moment, then she considered
the hand near her shoulder.
"T'Pol?"
She traded, and Archer helper
her up.
Phlox slowly approached them
and started to speak, but nothing came out.
Finally, he took a deep breath and quietly said, "Thank
you, Captain."
Archer smiled and nodded.
"Where's Travis?"
he asked.
"I, mmm, think the ensign
wanted to...inspect the shuttlepod, perhaps?"
Archer thought for a moment,
then he nodded again.
