CHAPTER 16

"I think I know why the bench in Observer was moved," Sisko announced. Sisko was standing in the holosuite simulation of the probe preparation Bay along with Dax and O'Brien. "It was to make room for different equipment. Computer, move the bench from its original location to its new location."

The bench dissolved, and reappeared about three-quarters of a meter away.

"Now," Sisko said, "look at how little room there is between the bench and the scanner. A person could hardly fit in there. So, we do this: Computer, remove scanner." The scanner dissolved. "There! Now there's room to move around the bench."

"But there has to be a short-range scanner," O'Brien protested. "The probe team needs to make scans, so they have to have a scanner. And if you move the bench like that, there's no good place to put it."

"Isn't there?" Sisko smiled. He knew something, but he wasn't going to let Dax and O'Brien in on the secret just yet. "Chief: what kind of scanner was in this Bay?"

O'Brien thought for a moment, and answered, "A 1400 series. Probably a 1424 or a 1430."

"It was a 1430," Sisko said. "I checked. Used to scan cargo, mechanical equipment, propulsion systems, all sorts of things. It's a standard scanner, used all over Starfleet. There's nothing special about it, and its design is not top secret. As far as I can tell, it was not physically modified for use with these probes. The only top secret things about it are the programmed scanning routines that it runs."

"Benjamin?" Dax was hoping to get Sisko to get to the point.

"And just over three years ago, Observer's model 1430 scanner was removed. I know this because the removal is mentioned in the ship's logs. It's not a classified piece of hardware, and it is listed as one of the components that was replaced during a layover at a starbase."

"It was the scanner in this Probe Prep Bay that was removed, you're sure?" O'Brien wondered.

Sisko smiled again, and asked rhetorically, "How many 1430 scanners do you suppose were on Observer?"

"I'd suppose just this one," O'Brien answered, thinking it ought to be easy to verify, and that Sisko probably had already verified it. "Do the logs say what was wrong with it?"

"Yes. They said it was registering intermittent ghost images."

"That's a pretty non-specific complaint, and hard to verify," O'Brien smirked, "but it's not necessarily frivolous, either. Assuming the scanner was acting up, it might slow down probe preparation. Hard to say by how much, though. It would be an annoyance, no doubt about that."

Dax still didn't see what this all meant. "So they had a quirky scanner, and they replaced it with another scanner?"

"That's right," Sisko said. "They replaced it with another piece of standard, unclassified hardware. But it wasn't a model 1430 scanner. It was a model 1706 scanner."

Dax still didn't see. "So?"

O'Brien got part of it. "Well, for one thing, a 1706 could fit in this corner right here; a 1430 couldn't. Also, if you took out the old 1430, the 1706 wouldn't fit where the 1430 had been."

"Computer," Sisko announced, "show 1706 scanner." A set of boxy components materialized in a corner. The fit was perfect, and with the bench moved to a new location, this placement of the scanner left adequate space for personnel to move about the Bay. Sisko looked at O'Brien and Dax. "So, I ask you, does this make sense? One scanner goes out, and another comes in. And to accommodate the new scanner, they move the bench."

It made sense to O'Brien and Dax.

"Now, answer me this." Sisko paused for effect. "Other than the overall shape, what is the difference between a model 1706 scanner and a model 1430 scanner?"

O'Brien answered, "I don't think that there is much difference. They both do the same things in the same way. The same programmed scanning routines would run on both models. They use the same auxiliaries in the bulkheads. The 1706 might be a little faster, but not appreciably so. The 1706 might also have some additional functional capabilities, but those are capabilities that Observer wouldn't use, just as there are some functionalities of the 1430 that Observer wouldn't use. Why? Do you think that this different scanner model might be to blame?"

"I don't know. All I do know is this. Just over three years ago, Observer received a new scanner. And just about three years ago, Observer started showing that it was faster and more efficient than Surveyor. Observer started to get its reputation for being the better mapping ship, and it started getting the better assignments. Now, that timing might just be coincidence." The tone of Sisko's voice suggested he wasn't sure it really was coincidence.

O'Brien didn't see a connection. "Did Observer give any reason for wanting a different model of scanner? Did they say they wanted a faster scanner or anything like that?"

"No. The logs simply said that a 1706 was available. Maybe that means that a replacement 1430 was unavailable."

"Does the Commission know about the change in scanners?" Dax wondered.

Sisko wasn't sure he had an answer. "I find it hard to believe that they didn't know. If they did, perhaps they deemed the change in hardware to be insignificant, for the reasons the Chief just said: no major changes in function."

"Did they know that the equipment in the Bay had to be rearranged to accommodate the new scanner?" Based upon his recent conversation with Stoan, O'Brien wasn't sure that the Commission knew that Observer's Bay was laid out in a manner different from Surveyor's.

Sisko didn't have a ready response to that question, either. He offered a small shrug and said, "Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Maybe they felt, if this new arrangement helped improve efficiency, why make any objection to it?"

Sisko abruptly changed the subject. "Oh, by the way, have you made any headway in finding ways around the safety systems?"

"Yes, we know to a certainty that the gravitational sensor can be spoofed, if someone really wants to fool it,' O'Brien said. "But we haven't yet figured out a way to defeat the environmental sensor or the life sensor."

"And we still don't have any reason why anybody would give a command to detonate," Dax added somberly. She sighed. "Benjamin, that is the one thing that really disturbs me. Why would anyone do this? Why would they do something so terrible, something that would be certain to kill an entire crew? Why would they go to this effort? The chance of all of these safety systems going bad simultaneously, by accident, is beyond astronomical. So someone must have meant to blow up that probe inside the ship. But why? Why? That one question disturbs me."

Sisko listened patiently, his lips pursed. Dax and O'Brien could see he too was troubled.

"This investigation disturbs me, too, for a lot of reasons," he said. "We've learned so much; but what we've learned doesn't seem to explain anything. On the one hand, we think that the explosion cannot be a mistake, it cannot be an accident, because too many things would have to go wrong for it to be an accident. So it has to be intentional. But it cannot be intentional, either, because there's no motive for it and, let's not forget, the systems are all set up to prevent people from doing exactly this sort of thing. Plus, in order for this to be an intentional action, there would have to be collusion between the people in the Bay who remove the safeties and the people at the Control Station who give the command to detonate; and we have precisely zero evidence of any collusion. We have, for that matter, precisely zero evidence of any motive on the part of any of those people to commit such a destructive, hurtful act!"

Sisko took a deep breath and calmed himself for a moment. "So we know one scanner was removed and replaced with a different model three years ago. So what? Does that mean a plot to blow up Observer was three years in the making? So the coded authorization to detonate is given while the probe is still aboard. So what? That doesn't mean that the command to detonate was given as well. So the member of the probe team assigned to the shuttlecraft was away from his post. So what? That couldn't possibly contribute to what happened, and in any event, he could get to his post quickly enough, if he needed to. So the gravitational sensor can be defeated. So what? The other safety systems still work perfectly well, as far as we can determine. So the explosion occurred in the Gamma Quadrant rather than the Alpha Quadrant. So what? The physical laws there are the same as they are here. So the mission in the Gamma Quadrant was time-critical. So what? The Observer had previously handled dozens of time-critical missions without incident. So the Observer gets all the good missions, and Surveyor gets all the poor ones. So what? So what?"

"The answer must be there, Benjamin." Dax's voice included confidence that she did not actually have.

Sisko shook his head. "Maybe. Or maybe it's in the information that the Commission guards so jealously. Maybe we'd be able to bring it into focus if we had the statistics about Observer's previous missions, if we had some basis for identifying those things that really might be significantly unusual. Or maybe information about previous missions won't tell us anything at all. The Commission has surely looked over that data, and it hasn't told them anything."

Sisko threw his hands in the air. "Who knows, maybe the Commission has psychological profiles on members of the probe team that indicate that some people on the probe team were mentally unbalanced. I don't see anything like that in the ship's logs, but maybe the Commission has more detailed profiles. And maybe those profiles show warning signs, and maybe the Commission ignored those warning signs. That's a lot of 'maybes,' I grant. But if those maybes turn out to be true, will they ever tell us? Of course not! Almost every request I've made for additional information has been refused. 'Classified,' is the response; always 'classified.'"

The three officers stood silent for a while.

Eventually Sisko spoke. "If we can't come to any conclusions, I guess we'll just have to tell the Commission that, when they get here."

"In three days," O'Brien added.

"All right. Let's have one more conference at 2100, see where we are. Then we have to start putting together our reports, whether complete or not."