Star Trek: Voyager - 041 - The Eternal Tide Read online

  • • •

  Once the Doctor and Cambridge departed, Eden rose from the sofa, almost ready for bed and intent on doing her best to pretend that this day had never happened. In truth, part of her was relieved that she had only learned what she had. The time spent scrabbling among the rocks had been like her adventures with Tallar and Jobin, so much so that she’d felt as if they were walking beside her, instead of the Doctor and the counselor. That had been pleasant. The rest—what it might mean for her or might have meant to her uncles—seemed so far beyond the probability of comprehension that Eden was beginning to believe she could put the entire episode behind her without regret.

  The gnawing sense of dread that tinged the edges of each discovery she had made thus far still haunted her. But she was content to leave it on the fringe of her consciousness. Whatever unnamed thing she had feared had obviously not come to pass. Eden wondered if the anxiety that had knotted her stomach when the day began was connected to Tallar and Jobin’s fate. To lose them without ever knowing when or how they had died had troubled her deeply. Over time, she had come to a grudging acceptance. However, she had never shaken the feeling that if she had stayed with them rather than pursuing the normal life they’d wanted for her, things might have been different for all of them. This was the one regret that might never leave her. But even if her search for the truth of her past ended here, she decided she could live with that.

  Yet, the images on the padd unsettled her. Usually the answers she was seeking came without effort. That this one did not meant it might be beyond her, but an itch in the back of her mind told Eden this was not the case. Instead, it suggested, she was not seeing the nose upon her face.

  Eden set the padd aside and turned again to the alien sunflower. It was a beautiful specimen, but usually nature did not so transfix her. She thought back to her days with Jobin and Tallar but could not remember once encountering a similar flower.

  Let it go, something in her begged.

  The captain started toward the cabin’s ’fresher. As soon as she had reached it, she bent low to splash a little warm water on her face, then rose and caught her reflection in the mirror.

  “Perfection,” Tallar’s voice came unbidden from her memory. Suddenly a warm spring day returned to her with breathtaking clarity. She was kneeling over a freshwater pool as Tallar sat next to her, doodling in the dirt with a short stick. “Let those with eyes to see know such perfection,” he had said when he saw her staring at her reflection.

  She remembered the conversation well, though she hadn’t thought of it in decades. The love of both of her uncles had been a fierce, unmovable thing. Like any parents, they had seen more of her strengths than her weaknesses, her beauty rather than her flaws.

  This particular day, Tallar had been pointing out to the timid adolescent girl the perfection of her features, at least from a mathematical point of view. That the Doctor’s studies of her genome had shown similar, bizarre results now troubled her and tainted the memory.

  As with most of the things they did, Tallar had turned the simple compliment into a lesson. For hours after describing how her features were in perfect mathematical proportions, he had gone on to explain the significance of the “divine proportion” or “golden ratio” that for scientists, artists, and architects throughout the galaxy held a special fascination.

  The ratio was a simple mathematical expression. Two numbers were said to be in the golden ratio if the ratio of the sum of the quantities to the larger quantity was equal to the ratio of the larger quantity to the smaller one. It was an irrational mathematical constant, something that had never particularly interested Eden, though her awkward younger self enjoyed solid proof that her face was pretty. Tallar had gone on at great length to describe the uses to which many had put the golden ratio: drawings, buildings, and numerous other artifacts. Because the ratio produced pleasing lines, whether expressed in rectangles, triangles, spirals, or even in physical forms, it occurred with greater frequency in many cultures than other mathematical constructs.

  In fact, the golden spiral was sometimes linked with another integer sequence that yielded similar results when constructed in spiral form.

  Hurrying back to the sofa, Eden looked again at the honeycomb, pine cone, and sunflower. All of them occurred naturally on Earth, but to find all three in such close proximity on a distant world had alarmed her on a subconscious level.

  With trembling fingers she mapped out the precise locations of the starscapes they had discovered that day on the hillside, using topographical data provided by the ship’s sensors as a guide. She instructed the computer to calculate the distances between the artifacts and then, the number of large rocks present where the artifacts were discovered.

  She knew what she was going to see. Finally, she instructed the computer to extrapolate the point on the surface where the next artifact was likely to be found. It complied in seconds, and Eden felt the blood rushing to her head as it placed the Lazria artifact at the edge of the desert that began just south of the hillside they had already searched.

  The math told her unequivocally that the entire hillside was an artificial construct. Decoding it required a detailed aerial view, and advanced calculations, another constant in evolving civilizations.

  The honeycomb, the pine cone, and the sunflower were clues. The rock formations surrounding those that the starscapes were carved on and the distances between them were equally important, but only if you knew what you were looking for. Eden sat, taken aback at the depth of planning that had gone into the creation of the puzzle before her.

  The mathematical expression in question was common, a Fibonacci sequence, where each integer was the sum of the two that preceded it. It occurred in nature in a variety of instances, including the honeycomb, the pine cone, and the seed head of the sunflower, but was replicated on the hillside in the numbers of rocks upon which the starscapes had been rendered, as well as the relative distances between them. Beginning in the clearing at 0, they followed 1, 1, 2, 3, and 5. The next integer was 8 and that, the computer indicated, was related to a longitude and latitude found bordering the southern desert. The length between integers was not a standard Federation measurement, but it was constant, roughly a quarter of a kilometer. More important, the arrangement of the starscapes on the hill formed a perfect Fibonacci spiral, almost exactly the same shape as a golden spiral.

  “Let those with eyes to see,” Eden said softly, as the eerie inner silence that foreshadowed her intuitive episodes descended upon her.

  Beyond Lazria, Altreen. Beyond Altreen, Vesra. Beyond Vesra, Unasala. Beyond Unasala, Pesh. Beyond Pesh, Kehlia. Beyond Kehlia, Som.

  Though she now knew precisely where all of the markers were, she no longer needed to find them. The end of the journey lay roughly thirty-five kilometers into the southern desert along the arc of a golden spiral.

  Som.

  The starscapes so diligently rendered on the surface below were not a map that led to a distant planet. They led to something on the planet itself, likely buried somewhere below its surface.

  Eden had no idea what Som was, but she damned sure wasn’t going to wait until night fell again on the southern desert to find out.

  • • •

  Commander Drafar stood on the Achilles bridge next to Ensign Rosati’s ops station. He knew the harried young woman was doing her best to locate the requested coordinates and that she was frustrated at her inability to complete the task at hand.

  The moment the bridge’s rear tubolift doors hissed, Drafar turned and his mouth actually fell open. Standing in the door, resting one arm on the frame, stood Counselor Cambridge, clad in a long brown robe tossed over he did not care to know what. The counselor looked terribly put out to have been summoned to the bridge in the middle of his sleep cycle.

  “Is it possible I imagined the emergency call I just received?” he asked hopefully.

  Drafar didn’t know how his fellow officers ran their ships, but if Cambridge had been h
is responsibility, the counselor would have been assigned several extra duty shifts de-ionizing resistor coils with a microfilament during which to consider proper attire for a Starfleet bridge. As this was not Drafar’s privilege, he simply closed his mouth and hoped that the firmness of his gaze communicated his displeasure as he replied briskly, “You did not.”

  The Doctor hurried past Cambridge onto the bridge and immediately reported, “She is not in her quarters, and her rucksack is missing.” Turning to Cambridge, he added, “Nice of you to join us, Counselor. Does the term ‘emergency’ not carry with it an implied command to move quickly where you’re from?”

  Cambridge ambled toward the pair, blinking the sleep from his eyes.

  “Captain Eden transported to the surface of the planet without advising either of you of her intentions?” Drafar asked.

  “She what?” Cambridge demanded, now considerably more alert.

  “We just covered that, Counselor,” the Doctor interjected. “Try and keep up.”

  Drafar stepped between them and said, “I have just received an urgent message from Voyager. Achilles will depart orbit within the next half hour to render aid as requested. When I attempted to advise Captain Eden of this development, I did not receive any response from her quarters, and the ship’s computer was unable to locate her. Our logs indicate that two hours ago she transported to the surface without leaving word of her destination or the intended duration of her away mission. I am even more surprised to learn that neither of you seem to be aware of her actions. We can’t get a signal from her combadge, and there are no discernible life signs present within a radius of ten kilometers of the transporter coordinates, the maximum distance she could have covered.”

  Cambridge’s eyes again met the Doctor’s, this time filled with concern. Drafar could not sense what was communicated between them, but he was satisfied that the counselor was now completely awake and ready to be of assistance.

  The Doctor looked back to Drafar and indicated the ops station, asking, “May I?”

  “You have some special expertise in sensor configurations of which I am not aware?” Drafar shot back harshly, though he didn’t normally allow his emotional response to a situation to color the manner in which he performed his duties.

  “In this case, I might,” the Doctor said, unperturbed.

  “By all means.” Drafar nodded to the Doctor, who moved quickly to stand beside the ops console.

  “This tricorder contains the parameters of a subatomic scan. If you patch it in, your sensors might help us pinpoint the captain’s location,” the Doctor advised Rosati.

  Ensign Rosati, both perplexed and intrigued, quickly created the new routine. Within moments, she offered Drafar a subtle nod. “We’ve got her. Captain Eden is three hundred meters below the surface and appears to be continuing downward.”

  Without another word, Cambridge hurried toward the turbolift.

  “Counselor?” Drafar asked of his back.

  Cambridge turned back. “Commander?”

  “It is customary when having settled upon a plan to advise a starship’s commander of your intentions,” Drafar observed.

  “I’d have thought it was obvious. Go to Voyager’s aid. The Doctor and I will go after Captain Eden. Let us know as soon as you’re back.”

  “Take pattern enhancers. You’ll need provisions for at least two days to be on the safe side,” Drafar advised.

  Cambridge nodded wearily as he asked, “We won’t be within walking distance of a nearby settlement?”

  “Her initial transporter coordinates were over fifty kilometers from the nearest inhabited area,” Drafar replied.

  “Well, this should be ghastly,” Cambridge quipped. “Doctor?”

  As the EMH followed the counselor off the bridge, Drafar wondered if the captain would be pleased when they joined her. Eden might have had her reasons, and they might even have been good ones, but that did not mitigate the danger she had placed herself in or the damage she had just done to Drafar’s opinion of her and her judgment.

  Chapter Eleven

  Q CONTINUUM

  Kathryn Janeway sensed rather than felt Q’s hand free hers as a familiar sight took shape around her: a long deserted stretch of highway beneath a brightly lit, cloudless sky. Just ahead, a small, ramshackle white house in desperate need of paint sat on dry brown dirt dotted with weeds.

  The first time Kathryn had experienced this representation of the Q Continuum, there had been others present. A dog had been stretched out on the porch as a woman sat, leafing through a large magazine. Q and the Q she had come to think of as Quinn had also been there, attempting to demonstrate to her the incredible ennui that accompanied immortal existence.

  This time, the only individual present was Q’s female companion, she of the fiery red hair and acerbic tongue, whom Kathryn might have found considerably more tolerable were it not for her insufferable arrogance.

  Q stood on the porch of the house, her long, trim body nicely accentuated by the black and red command uniform she had the unmitigated gall to wear. She gestured impatiently for Kathryn to follow her inside, but something equally powerful stayed her.

  This isn’t right.

  The voice was her own, but Kathryn couldn’t place its source. When she had been alive, she might have called it intuition. Now, whatever she was—and Q had already been annoyingly vague on the topic—there was considerably less distance between her conscious desires and the thoughts and needs of what she used to think of as her subconscious mind. All was one now, which was both good and bad. Good, in that it brought a sense of empowered clarity to her existence she had never before known but often longed for. Bad, in that it made decisions such as this harder than they might have been. For her to do anything, even something as simple as following Q onto the porch of the shack, she must want it with her entire being, and for now, her being was divided on the subject.

  “What are you waiting for?” Q demanded, a familiar petulance creeping into her tone.

  “Why have you brought me here?”

  Q’s shoulders dropped, her chin lowered to her chest, and her head moved slowly back and forth. Finally, she bit back what Kathryn sensed were her first three or four retorts and replied simply, “Because Q asked me to.”

  The thought of seeing the entity that would always, in her mind at least, be Q, the one who had tormented and toyed with Jean-Luc Picard numerous times before adding Kathryn and her crew to his list of diversions, was almost enough to propel her forward. He was a maddening creature, but could be, at least in Kathryn’s experience, almost reasonable. His mate, Kathryn didn’t trust at all. But the fact that Q had need of her was worth investigating.

  This isn’t right, part of her asserted again. Kathryn took a moment to search within for the source of discord. It was surprisingly simple to locate. She understood that she was in the Q Continuum, but on some level she knew that she was meant to be elsewhere, and soon. Too far behind her—she dared not look—was unspeakable agony. The further she moved from it, the more centered and calm she became. Beyond this moment, however, a peace she could only imagine, a sense of knowing beyond all, willed her toward itself. This great still point was her true destination, and to refuse to throw herself into it now with her whole being felt almost as painful as glancing toward what she had left behind.

  The female Q stood, arms crossed and foot tapping impatiently on the porch. Suddenly, Kathryn understood that she was being held here by this Q’s power. More important, she knew that she could release the tie that bound her here of her own accord. She had been accustomed to thinking of Q as an entity of power beyond any she could imagine. Only now did she see that, at least in this moment, her own will was a match for any that opposed it.

  That’s right. Let go, her deeper knowing urged.

  Kathryn smiled. Whatever game Q and his mate might have in mind was intriguing, but did not approach the pull of this other unnamed and unknowable force. She had no hand to raise in farewell, but
knew that Q would sense the gesture. Her will faltered, however, when another figure stepped out of the shack, saying, “Mother?” He then turned, and the relief in his eyes at seeing Kathryn was so palpable, so overwhelming, that all thought of moving on was instantly banished.

  Q, she thought with genuine happiness.

  No longer the lanky, awkward adolescent she had known, the man before her had matured into a striking creature. Both his parents were visible in his features, though he still favored his father. Gone was the reckless arrogance he had inherited. The power that was his birthright radiated from him, cascading over Kathryn in warm, golden waves, and she wondered if either of his parents knew what an astonishing being they had created. Why was all of this so much easier to see without eyes?

  “Hello, Q,” Kathryn greeted him with genuine pleasure.

  “Aunt Kathy.” He smiled, and immediately his warmth overwhelmed Kathryn as he moved quickly toward her, his eyes alight.

  “Won’t you join me inside?” he asked respectfully. “It’s a lot more comfortable.”

  “All of this is an illusion,” Kathryn corrected him gently. “One that is no longer necessary.”

  Q looked back to his mother, his face clouded by concern.

  “She’s not wrong.” The lady shrugged.

  Turning back to her, Q said, “As you wish.”

  Kathryn heard his mother’s voice echoing, “I’ll leave you to it, but do hurry things along.” Suddenly, the desert landscape was gone, as were all points of reference. Darkness replaced it, but not the dizzying blackness of the void. Instead, Kathryn floated in absolutely calm waters that more easily transmitted thought and sensation than any environment she had ever experienced. It was the freedom of zero-g without the environmental suit, the buoyancy of diving without a breathing apparatus, more luxurious than any of the countless warm baths she had taken in her life. If she had a memory of her existence prior to her birth, she might have recognized it as the womb of the universe.