Constellations (41 page)

“Sorry, Doctor, it was unavoidable.”

The doctor grunted but said nothing else. Instead, his attention was drawn to the image on the forward screen. Fortunately, the aliens had not taken advantage of their superior maneuverability to elude the
Enterprise.
Instead, they seemed content to sit and wait for the starship to come back to them. “Drop to one-quarter impulse,” Scott ordered, and as the image of the alien ship on the viewer grew larger, they got their first good look at their nemesis.

The immediate impression the ship gave was that of a snail shell: a whitish-gray ovoid, tapering toward the stern, with darker bands of pinwheeling spirals marking the hull. It had no apparent means of propulsion, at least not in a way Scotty could understand. Then again, any ship that could do the things they'd already witnessed this one doing was, by definition, outside of Scotty's understanding. He began to wonder just how fortunate they really were that the ship hadn't just disappeared on them.

“In full sensor range now,” Sulu reported.

“Scan them,” Scott ordered. “Uhura, any response to our hails?”

Uhura frowned as she pulled her remote audio receiver from her ear. “I'm…not sure, sir. This is very odd…”

“What is?”

“Here, let me show you,” she said, shuffling through data tape cartridges and plugging one into her console. “Here's the initial response we got to our standard hail.”

She pressed a button on her console, and the bridge speakers came alive, speaking in the familiar, vaguely feminine voice of the ship computer:
“unoen vesel this is thestarshipenterpriez repreesenting theyunietedfederaeshunuvplanets wee wish tukomyunikaet pleez respond.”

Scotty cocked his head. “They're just repeating our hail message back to us.”

“No, sir. If they were simply repeating it, we would hear it back through the universal translator in unmodified Standard. They're
mimicking
the linguacode. There's evidence of intelligence there, in the way they understand that ‘the
Starship Enterprise
' and ‘the United Federation of Planets' are single concepts.”

“All right. But why is that so strange?”

“What's strange about it is, they aren't using their own language. Linguacode is a system for finding commonalities in different languages, not a language in and of itself. But these aliens are using it as one. It's almost as if they don't
have
their own native language.”

“That's preposterous,” Scott said. “How could any culture advanced enough to build a ship like that not have a language?”

Sulu turned to look over his shoulder at Scott. “I don't believe it
is
a ship.”

“What?”

“Mr. Frank, do a level-one scan sequence,” Sulu said to the science officer, and then gestured for Scott to look at his tactical scan readouts. “There's no centralized power system, no discrete propulsion or weaponry; its physical structure more closely resembles an organic design than an artificial one.”

“You're saying this is a
life-form
?” Scott looked at the thing floating before the ship, his mind beginning to reel. A spaceborne life-form, one naturally adapted to a tachyon environment…. “Uhura, could that explain why they're responding to our hails the way they are? Or it is?”

“Maybe,” she said uncertainly. “It has the capacity for language, just not the skill. It's as if—”

Whatever she was about to say was cut off by a loud gasp. Scotty moved back to the orange rail separating her level of the bridge from his. “What is it, Lieutenant?”

Uhura turned to him, her mouth slightly agape, and her eyes sparkling. “Mr. Scott…the way it's mimicking our communication attempts…it's like a child, trying to learn adult speech.”

“What?” McCoy, who'd been watching unobtrusively from the edge of the bridge, stepped forward now. “You mean to say that thing out there is a
baby?
” Almost as one, every set of eyes turned to the alien creature on the screen, just sitting out there, as if awaiting parental guidance.

“Big baby,” Chekov muttered.

“A baby that attacked an Andorian science colony,” Sulu added. He turned to face Scott, whose gaze had also moved to him…though there was something else going on behind those eyes.

“We've been coming at this the wrong way,” the engineer announced.

“What do you mean?” Sulu asked.

Scotty started to pace the bridge. “We've been asking, why would an unknown alien attack Thraz? We never asked
how
it attacked. The scientific outpost exists for the primary purpose of studying this tachyon streamer, which would seem to be this creature's natural habitat. Plus, it's an
Andorian
outpost—not a people who tend to be lax about security issues. How then could this alien—this immature alien, no less—reach the planet and attack the heart of a population center without anyone ever detecting it?”

“But they did see it, as it was”—Sulu hesitated as something seemed then to click in his brain—“leaving, after the attack.”

Scotty nodded encouragingly. “After, but not before. What if this newborn was never detected approaching Thraz because it was
born on
Thraz? What if, instead of blasting a hole in the planet, it dug itself out?”

Sulu's eyes widened in comprehension. “Like a sea turtle laying eggs on a beach. It could have been there years before the Andorians arrived. You really think that could be what happened?”

“It's easy enough to tell a blast crater from an excavation,” Scotty said. “I suspect, in the confusion of the immediate crisis, no one on Thraz has taken that close a look, but once we do…”

“Gentlemen, excuse me,” McCoy interrupted, a frown furrowing his brow, “but something occurs to me. Sea turtles don't tend to bury one egg at a time.”

Sulu blanched. “The tremors.”

As did Scott. “Dear God…”

Hovering just on the edge of the flowing energy field that called to the deepest part of its still-forming consciousness, the alien watched confused as the adult flew away, in the wrong direction. Unable to understand, it eventually let its instinct guide it back into the streamer, which would take it where it was meant to go.

 

The
Enterprise
dropped out of warp on the outskirts of Thraz's star system and slipped neatly into orbit above a moonless, blue-white planet. Crossing the terminator to the planet's lit, starward side, the Andorian settlement came into view: a small city of close-built structures sitting just south of the equator, straddling the banks of a river that wound through a broad savanna. Other than the relatively small sinkhole left by the alien hatchling, the colony appeared, at a glance, a pleasant, tranquil settlement. With more than just a glance, though, they found trouble stirring below the surface.

Ensign Frank frowned into the sensor hood, then turned to Scott and Sulu. “I count at least fifty of the aliens, buried across a five-kilometer stretch of land, running right under the colony…almost all of them moving toward the surface.”

Sulu leaned in to take a look for himself. Ghostly blue images generated by the ground-penetrating sensors outlined several dozen small spherical masses—more closely analogous to larvae than eggs, in his judgment—deposited in what had been a deep furrow dug by their progenitor decades earlier. As Frank said, the majority of them were now animate and preparing to emerge from their nest, heedless of what lay between them and their freedom.

“Sir, we're being hailed again,” Uhura said, her voice calm, but also conveying the impatience that was no doubt part of the message from the planet. It was more than an hour past their original ETA, and they'd been in orbit now for five minutes without responding to planetary hails.

“Stand by, Lieutenant,” Scott answered, sounding not a little impatient himself. He looked to Frank then. “Are you sure we can't just beam them out?”

“No, sir, I'm not sure,” he admitted. “But every species I know of where their young are incubated and born in any way similar to this, the struggle of freeing themselves is an important part of their development. If you dig a sea turtle out of the sand, it won't be strong enough to get to the water on its own, or avoid predators if it does. We have to go on the assumption that the same holds true for these creatures.”

Scott sighed. “Then all we can do is try to minimize the damage they do. Come on, lad,” he said, moving toward the turbolift. “You're with me.”

“Mr. Scott,” Uhura said again as he and Frank brushed past her, the frustration in her voice coming now more from her own emotions.

“Mr. Sulu,” Scott called over his shoulder, “you can deal with the Andorians.”

The turbolift doors began to slide shut, but suddenly Sulu was across the bridge from the science station, with one hand holding the car. “Mr. Scott, with all respect, they aren't going to be happy if I'm—”

“I suspect they're not going to be happy, no matter what,” Scott said. “But I trust you'll be able to handle them.”

“I really don't think—”

“Lad…don't be modest. You got a way of speaking, of making others see your way, despite themselves,” Scott said, giving the younger man a self-effacing smile.

Sulu gave him an apologetic grin back. “They're bound to come back to their senses eventually.”

Scott chuckled at that. “If this works, we'll only need a few minutes.”

“I'll do what I can, sir.”

Scott nodded and said, “Mr. Sulu, you have the conn,” as the doors slid shut.

After a moment's reflection, Sulu moved down the steps and lowered himself into the captain's chair. He stared forward, fingers steepled beneath his chin, and said, “Uhura, open a channel.”

The image of the planet was replaced by that of a blue-skinned, antennaed, fiercely scowling alien.
“Well, it certainly took you people long enough to respond!”
the Andorian said in a surprisingly high, reedy voice that did not quite match his cragged face and short white hair.

Sulu, holding himself steady, replied, “Our apologies. We were delayed due to a number of factors. I am Hikaru Sulu, commanding the
U.S.S. Enterprise.”

“Did Starfleet send us a cadet training ship?”
Sulu realized that, holding his arms as he did, the single lieutenant's braid on his uniform sleeve was clearly evident.
“Why are we part of this Federation with you Earthers if this is the level of respect we are afforded?”

Resisting the instinct to drop his hands to his lap, he said, “I'm sorry you feel disrespected by our presence, Mister…?”

The Andorian's scowl deepened at that. Sulu wondered briefly if he'd given more offense by misjudging the alien's gender.
“You may address me as Director Shrevan.”

“Director Shrevan,” Sulu said with a nod. “You need to immediately evacuate your relief teams and any remaining residents from the area around the blast site to a safe distance of at least five kilometers.”

Now Shrevan smiled at him, but it was anything but a friendly expression.
“I don't take orders from Starfleet officers, especially not ones as ill-informed as you. We've determined the alien did not blast the residential quarter as first reported, but instead excavated some object beneath the surface. Now, Lieutenant Sulu, I'm transmitting a list of medical and reconstruction supplies, which you will beam down immediately. Then you will set out in pursuit of these thieves, and recover that which they stole from us.”

Sulu considered Shrevan's supposedly intimidating expression for a moment in silence, and then turned to Uhura to signal for the transmission to be muted. “Are you receiving Shrevan's lists?” he asked once she indicated the Andorian was no longer privy to their conversation.