Architects of Infinity Read online

  U.S.S. GALEN

  Lieutenant Nancy Conlon stood on a ridgeline, marveling at the forest below. It wasn’t the riotous golden shades of the leaves that held her enthralled, although they were spectacular. It was another mind-boggling feature of this particular holographic vista.

  As far as the eye could see, for acres in every direction, a canopy of autumnal glory topped tall, slender, white-barked trees that numbered in the thousands. She had spent most of the morning walking among them, struck by the regularity in the twenty-meter-high trunks, peering closely at the black scarring that looked like self-inflicted wounds, and pausing from time to time as a crisp breeze wafted through, setting the leaves aquiver.

  Gorgeous as they were up close, however, they were best appreciated en masse from above. It was from this perspective that the quaking aspen really knocked one’s socks off.

  Because all of them, every single trunk, belonged to one tree. Technically, they were clones of one another, but the vast interconnected and invisible root system created what was, essentially, a single living organism. The vast deciduous masterpiece of nature had grown from a single seed, and a few hundred years later had spread itself out, mile after mile, daring anyone who witnessed it to deny its power.

  Conlon had spent a great deal of time lately wondering at and cursing the mysteries of genetic biology, and when she’d come across this holodeck program’s description in Galen’s library—a file placed there by the ship’s captain, Commander Clarissa Glenn—she hadn’t been able to resist a peek.

  A brief walk meant to clear her head had given way to hours of exploration. But the exertion had cost her dearly. Her heart rate refused to slow, even after several minutes of stillness. A dull throb in her head was ratcheting itself up toward pounding. She fervently hoped that the headaches that had followed on the heels of Xolani’s attack several months prior weren’t about to return. Her empty stomach churned mercilessly. A few sips of water only made it worse and threatened to come right back up her esophagus.

  Keep it together, she chided herself, trying to take long, deep breaths. She had come a long way in the last few weeks. She had been taken off “suicide watch” within days of its imposition, and her use of Galen’s holodecks had become unrestricted. She had submitted dutifully to her daily sessions with Counselor Hugh Cambridge and their talks had done much to help put her current condition in perspective. Now that she was no longer considered a danger to herself, she had asked and been granted the right to return to light duty aboard Voyager. Tomorrow would be her first day back, and she was truly looking forward to it, as was Commander Torres, the fleet’s chief engineer who had been filling in for Conlon since she was first diagnosed with the DNA damage repair syndrome that was likely going to kill her.

  She had also made peace with the pending termination of her pregnancy. It was not a choice she took lightly, but she knew in her bones that it was the right decision. She and Harry loved each other, but they were not ready to be parents. Even if they had been married, she might have made the same call given her current life expectancy. Without a miracle she was going to be lucky to see the next three years, and it was likely she would be moderately to severely disabled for much of that time. She had agreed to continue the pregnancy thus far while wrestling with the decision Doctor Sal had pressed upon her. Sal wanted to extract embryonic stem cells to determine whether or not they could be used to help repair the damage to her DNA. Conlon had resisted until now. Finally, that choice, too, had been made.

  All that remained was to inform Harry and her doctors and to get back to the life she had worked so hard to create for herself as Voyager’s chief engineer. She had no idea how long she would have to enjoy it, but she was determined to make the most of it until that was no longer possible.

  These thoughts had cheered her as she walked among the quaking aspens. They should have calmed her as she stood above them, awash in their vast beauty.

  The distant sun suddenly began growing, its light blinding as it expanded, absorbing the golden foliage below. Conlon turned her head away and closed her eyes as a sharp pain shot through her skull. The last thing of which she was aware was the odd momentary sensation of floating above the earth.

  She lost consciousness before her body impacted the soft soil of the holodeck.

  2

  * * *

  U.S.S. VOYAGER

  I don’t want you to violate Lieutenant Conlon’s privacy, Counselor,” Captain Chakotay insisted.

  Voyager’s counselor, Lieutenant Hugh Cambridge, a lanky, middle-aged Brit who was sporting a few days’ nonregulation stubble on his cheeks, continued to meet his captain’s eyes defiantly. In an officer Chakotay didn’t know as well, the counselor’s expression might have risen to insubordination, but for Cambridge this was pretty much his default setting.

  “Then stop asking me questions you know I can’t answer,” Cambridge suggested.

  “Is she going to die?”

  “Someday.”

  “Hugh.”

  “She’s probably already in surgery. As of this moment, you know as much as I do about her prognosis. All I can tell you for certain is that she will be unable to resume her duties for the foreseeable future. Her medical leave aboard Galen has once again been categorized as indefinite by her physicians.”

  “Why indefinite?”

  “None of us can say how long it’s going to take to crack this thing.”

  “And her entire medical team is in agreement?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  Chakotay shrugged. “I imagine everyone gets along well enough with Doctor Sharak.”

  “Indeed,” Cambridge agreed. “The man is utterly delightful.”

  “And Doctor Sal certainly seems competent.”

  “She’s the only one among us with any experience treating a condition similar to Conlon’s. Her expertise is invaluable even if her bedside manner tends toward the bracing end of the spectrum.”

  Chakotay smiled in spite of himself. He could well imagine how little patience Vesta’s octogenarian chief medical officer had for anyone’s nonsense. Personally, he liked her directness. Then again, he’d never been her patient.

  Although both Sharak and Sal were consulting physicians and Cambridge had chosen to continue on as Conlon’s psychological counselor, Voyager’s former Emergency Medical Hologram, known only as “the Doctor,” was taking the lead on the case. He was one of a handful of crew members Chakotay thought of as family, and the captain’s confidence in him was absolute. He was well aware however, that Cambridge had not always felt the same.

  “How are you and the Doctor getting along? You’ve had your challenges in the past,” Chakotay said, cutting right to the chase.

  “I can’t speak for the Doctor, but as far as I am concerned, that is where they will remain: in the past,” Cambridge assured him. “When it comes to Lieutenant Conlon’s health, we all want the same thing. If anything, I’m concerned about the Doctor. You know how he is when he’s got something stuck in his teeth. His program has been running constantly since she was first diagnosed, and his tolerance for failure is even smaller than mine. He will leave no avenue that might lead to a cure unexplored.”

  Chakotay expected no less. Conlon was in the best possible hands. But she was also a critical member of Voyager’s crew, and her temporary loss was proving difficult to manage.

  “B’Elanna is swamped balancing her responsibilities as both the fleet and Voyager’s chief engineer. Her son is barely two months old and Miral is a handful. I’d like to offer her some relief, or at least certainty that there’s an end in sight.”

  “When there is, I’ll tell you.”

  “Fair enough,” Chakotay said, stepping back toward the desk in his ready room and picking up a padd containing the day’s duty roster. Despite the fact that his ship was currently holding position with the rest of the Full Circle Fleet several light-years from the nearest star system in a pocket of unexplored space, the number of is
sues requiring his immediate attention was daunting. The status of his chief engineer wasn’t the least of his worries, but there were several other matters that currently took priority. Every morning since her diagnosis when Cambridge had briefed him, Chakotay had expected to hear that Lieutenant Conlon had been cured. He understood that her medical condition was serious and complicated, but he was also accustomed to the Doctor making short work of the most challenging medical mysteries. That he had been assisted by Doctors Sharak and Sal and still made no discernable progress was discouraging.

  “Should I take this development as a sign that I need to make other arrangements?” the captain asked.

  “We’re not there yet, Chakotay. We are exploring a number of promising therapies. And given the rigors of her normal duties and the sheer tonnage of devastation she and the other officers and crewmen in the fleet have faced in the last year, a few weeks of complete relaxation hardly seems too much to ask.”

  “I’m starting to wonder if a little rest and relaxation wouldn’t do all of us good,” Chakotay mused.

  Cambridge shrugged. “Our efficiency reports have been lackluster lately, and a fair number of my other patients are clearly struggling. I’ve searched your logs but found no mention of any previously discovered worlds you could classify as the Delta Quadrant’s version of Risa, but if one existed, I’d be willing to declare a shipwide medical emergency, assume command, and set a course.”

  “It won’t come to that,” Chakotay said.

  “Pity. I look rather striking in red,” Cambridge quipped.

  “Commander Paris to Captain Chakotay,” the first officer’s voice sounded over the comm.

  Chakotay tapped his combadge. “Go ahead, Tom.”

  “The Van Cise just made contact. Seven’s preliminary report is promising.”

  “She was right?” Chakotay asked, a smile breaking over his face.

  “Yes, sir. For the one million, six hundred and ninety-two thousandth time.”

  Cambridge chuckled as Chakotay said, “Forward her report to me. Set an intercept course. Advise Admiral Janeway that we’ll be breaking formation but should return in a few hours.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Why the rush?” Cambridge asked.

  “Seven didn’t tell you anything about the planet she and Lieutenant Kim just went to investigate?”

  “She might have.” When Chakotay’s eyes narrowed, he added, “Had I known there was going to be a quiz, I would have given her my full attention. As it stands, I recall something about an unusual mineral deposit.”

  “Element. She thought she had discovered a new element.”

  “Oh, well done,” Cambridge said.

  “Yes. And the planet in question has several habitable areas free of hostile life-forms, or any life-forms if her initial scans are to be believed.”

  “Indeed?”

  “It’s not Risa.”

  “These days, even Risa isn’t Risa anymore.”

  “But it might do.”

  “What percentage of our resources do you think Admiral Janeway will consider allocating toward further exploration of this new element and the planet it calls home?” Cambridge asked.

  “Forward me the most recent efficiency evaluations and request copies of the same from Vesta, Galen, and Demeter,” Chakotay replied. “I’m going to suggest a fleet-wide break.”

  “Ambitious.”

  “Necessary.”

  “Care to wager on her response?”

  “Wouldn’t be fair.”

  “No? I’m not sure the words ‘rest’ or ‘relaxation’ are even in the admiral’s vocabulary. Not with so much of the Delta Quadrant still to be explored and only two more years in which to do it.”

  “True. But we don’t have to describe it that way.”

  “How would we describe it?”

  Chakotay grinned. “Leave that to me.”

  “Just don’t get your hopes up, Captain.”

  “Shouldn’t one of us?”

  GALEN

  Surgery wasn’t often a team effort. Most procedures performed aboard a starship could be completed quite safely with one attending surgeon guiding the medical scalpels and cellular repair sutures. The computer could also notify the surgeon if common medications might be required during surgery and inject them upon verbal authorization.

  The unique sickbay aboard the Federation Starship Galen had been designed by the Doctor, his creator, Lewis Zimmerman, and the holographic specialist Lieutenant Reginald Barclay to make reliance on other organic medics or doctors unnecessary in almost all cases. This wasn’t only because the Doctor preferred to work alone. The entire experimental vessel was a testbed for the Federation’s latest holographic technology and, as such, meant to collect data on the viability of staffing any ship’s sickbay with a minimum number of organic doctors and a plethora of specialized medical holograms.

  The procedure the Doctor was performing to repair a rupture in Lieutenant Nancy Conlon’s anterior cerebral artery was an exception to this rule for two reasons.

  The first was that Nancy Conlon wasn’t the only patient on the biobed. The embryo she carried was developing normally despite the genetic damage that had caused the bleeding in Conlon’s brain. It was also in danger of spontaneously aborting if Conlon’s blood pressure fell too low or her other organs began to fail during the surgical procedure. Voyager’s current CMO, Doctor Sharak, was on hand to monitor the embryo’s vitals and advise the Doctor should its biosigns indicate distress.

  The second was the other urgent issue at hand—determining whether or not the arterial rupture was an isolated incident or a systemic failure brought about by the inability of Conlon’s DNA to repair itself as all cells did in the normal course of their lives. As the Doctor worked carefully to repair the damaged artery, Doctor El’nor Sal, the CMO of the Vesta, completed a thorough neural scan, hunting for any other damage that had not yet presented itself.

  The Doctor’s internal chronometer indicated the procedure was at the five hour, eighteen minute mark when Sal asked, “What is your count, Doctor?”

  “Estimate seventy-nine more points of closure along the arterial wall. We’ve got at least another hour to go.”

  “Once you’re done, we’re going to need to reinforce two other arterial lines,” Sal advised. “And just so you know, I’ve decided here and now that your creators were wise beyond their ken. You could do this for the next three days without growing weary if you had to, couldn’t you?”

  The Doctor registered satisfaction at Sal’s remark. There were still numerous physicians who distrusted the use of medical holograms on principle. The Doctor didn’t know how long it would take, but he firmly believed that eventually, petty prejudices would be overcome and that he and others like him would regularly stand shoulder to shoulder beside their organic brethren in healing.

  “I could,” he replied, “but I don’t think our patient could survive that. Assuming there are only two other detectable weaknesses, we should be able to close in the next three hours.”

  “You’ll be inducing a coma at that point, yes?”

  “Absolutely. We’ll monitor any residual swelling for at least a week, perhaps more,” the Doctor agreed.

  A small bleat of alarm came from Doctor Sharak. “Doctor?”

  “Yes?”

  “The embryo’s heartbeat is slowing. It has averaged a little over one hundred beats per minute but in the last three minutes has fallen to ninety-three.”

  The Doctor couldn’t tear his eyes from the microsurgical monitor through which he observed the repairs to Conlon’s brain. He could imagine, however, the concern on the Tamarian doctor’s wide, mottled brown face.

  “Let’s give it another minute to stabilize,” the Doctor suggested.

  “Is the gestational incubator prepped and ready for emergency transport?” Sal asked.

  “It is standing by,” Sharak replied.

  “We will not remove the embryo unless the heart rate falls below
eighty beats per minute,” the Doctor said.

  “Do you want our patient to live?” Sal asked, exasperation creeping into her voice. It could also have been exhaustion, the Doctor realized. She was, after all, only human, and in her early eighties.

  “I would think the answer to that question would be obvious,” the Doctor said. “I also want the embryo to survive and while it can be stabilized within the incubator, its chance for a normal gestation when transport is induced at only five and a half weeks is reduced by almost thirty percent.”

  “Has Lieutenant Conlon made a determination about terminating the pregnancy?” Sharak asked. “Her most recent chart entries do not contain current orders.”

  “We all heard her say that she did not intend to carry the child to term when we advised her she was pregnant,” the Doctor reminded them.

  “And you all read the notes that indicated she had agreed to postpone termination until she had decided whether or not to allow me to remove the embryonic stem cells her therapy is going to require,” Sal said. “As of this morning, she had not given me an answer, and while this surgery is going to save our patient in the short term, her long-term prognosis depends entirely on the survival of the few undifferentiated stem cells still present in the embryo. We need to save the embryo, if only to harvest those cells. I recommend embryonic transport at eighty-five beats per minute.”

  “We are now at eighty-seven beats per minute,” Sharak reported.

  The Doctor was conscious of competing ethical subroutines running through multiple consequence vectors creating a point zero-zero-two percent diminishment of his primary program efficiencies. It wasn’t enough to compromise his ability to perform the surgery, but the sooner it was reconciled, the better.

  “Once we remove the embryo, it cannot be safely implanted again,” the Doctor noted, knowing full well that both Sharak and Sal were aware of this.

  “Nor can the lieutenant elect termination,” Sharak said. “Once the embryo is no longer gestating within her body, it becomes an individual, enjoying the same rights to exist as every other person.”