Again, Xiong felt that nonsensical, enveloping sensation of trepidation beginning to wash over him. His pulse racing in his ears, he exchanged looks with Lorka. Despite her normal bravado, he was only somewhat surprised to see that her own expression seemed to mirror his own.
“Remove it!” she shouted, waving to the two guards who had been easing away from the pedestal. At her command, they lunged forward, gripping the sphere in their massive hands and yanking it free of the column. The very instant the separation was made, the control console went dark beneath Tasthene’s hands, and the room was plunged once again into near silence.
Perhaps angry with herself for her outburst, Lorka now seemed to be having difficulty regaining her composure. Did she also sense that all was not as it appeared to be with regard to the crystal?
“We will proceed,” she said after a moment, “but we shall do so without undue haste.” As though for Xiong’s benefit, she added, “Progress is worthless if all we accomplish is destroying this planet.”
Xiong nodded, doing his best to keep his own excitement in check. From the moment Tasthene had reported the signal broadcast, he had begun thinking of its other possible uses.
The trick now, Xiong knew, would be getting an opportunity to test his idea.
49
INTERLUDE
Fools! What have you done?
Despite the vast distance separating her from them, the Shedai Wanderer heard the cries of terror and anguish as an entire civilization died. It came only moments after she detected a sudden, potent surge of power through what remained of the Conduits. It was a familiar sensation, one she had experienced several times, the last while dealing with the Telinaruulwho had enslaved the primitives on the forest-green world. She had been left with no alternative on that occasion, forced to annihilate the planet lest it and the treasures it held fall into the hands of the interlopers. With a thought, she had reduced it to dust.
Somewhere, far away from the lifeless orb the Wanderer was forced to call home if only for a time, another world had succumbed to a similar fate, but by whose hand?
Extending herself across the Void, she sought any sign of her kind—the Apostate, one of the Serrataal,anyone—but found nothing. Had Telinaruuloverreached, their arrogance finally triumphing their insatiable curiosity? It was a possibility, though one the Wanderer could not confirm without traveling yet again, and her strength was far from ready for such a journey.
There was another prospect, of course, that the native inhabitants of a world controlled uncounted generations ago by the Shedai had stumbled on technology they did not understand and could not control. It had happened on other, isolated occasions, long ago, when Shedai rule was new to this part of the galaxy. Some worlds had resisted or openly rebelled, and in those few instances, those Telinaruulalso had paid for their insolence, their destruction serving as an example to others who would reject destiny.
How far we have fallen.
The Shedai would return to their former grandeur; of that the Wanderer was certain. What continued to concern her was how far the Telinaruulhad advanced while she and her people had lolled in slumber. If and when the Enumerated Ones returned, what would they face? A galaxy waiting for guidance and harmony or adversaries who long ago had forgotten what it meant to live under the all-encompassing wisdom of the Shedai?
Another rush of power pushed itself through the compromised Conduits, and the Wanderer felt it touch her consciousness, unsure what she was sensing. It was not nearly as formidable as other Voices she had encountered, but there was an incontestable, unsettling quality to the pulse unlike anything she had ever experienced. Its raw, brutal aura seemed to reach out to seize her consciousness, and in that instant, the Shedai Wanderer was afraid.
What is this?The question drifted into the Void, nearly drowned out in the face of the awesome entity that now commanded her attention. Was this some new enemy? The Wanderer had no answer, though on some level of which she was only fleetingly aware, she perceived other facets of this new presence—something old, something ancient, something angry. Perhaps it was some long-forgotten rival to the Shedai, swept from history by apathy and shortsightedness and now returned to seek some form of retribution.
Despite the discomfort she felt in the face of this mysterious new Voice, the Wanderer still was able to comprehend some aspects of the song it sang. There was a rough, unpracticed rhythm to the pulse she felt, indicating unfamiliarity, even hesitancy. It suggested something the Wanderer had been afraid of since rising from her own long sleep: the Telinaruulmight have found a way to interact with Shedai technology.
No,she decided. It cannot be possible.
Extending herself into the vast gulf of space, the Wanderer searched for the source of the Voice. Even this escalated her sensations of dread and confusion, as though her very actions were being turned back on her. Never before had she faced such primitive, base emotion channeling through the Void. This was different from the obsession demonstrated by the Apostate or even her own drive and determination to see the Enumerated Ones returned. This was altogether different. This new Voice appeared driven by a single, unwavering purpose.
Fear. Absolute, merciless terror.
As abruptly as it had appeared, the Voice was gone. Nevertheless, its residual presence remained, taunting the Wanderer.
This could not go unanswered.
50
For perhaps the thousandth time, Carol Marcus stared at her computer monitor, upon which was displayed a cross-section of the Taurus Meta-Genome. Her eyes traced over every detail, savoring the wealth of information that promised so much and yet seemed determined to defy every effort to understand it. In the three years that had passed since its initial discovery, the meta-genome remained largely an enigma. Its matrix consisted of several million base pairs of biochemical information and featured molecules made of elements unknown to current science.
Starfleet geneticists had taken little time to determine that the genome was of artificial design and that only the smallest portion of it was devoted to the creation of living organisms. What remained unexplained was the purpose of the rest of the complex genetic segments. Though there had been some limited success deciphering fragments of the meta-genome, true understanding remained elusive.
Irritating little bastard, aren’t you?
Marcus recalled the excitement she had felt upon first reading the voluminous information pertaining to the genome, collected since Starfleet’s first forays into the Taurus Reach. The encounters with the Shedai by the crew of the Sagittariuson Jinoteur IV had confirmed the suspicions she harbored from that first day: the mega-genome, if ever it could be translated and understood, was the key to uncounted medical and other scientific advances that until now had largely resided in the worlds of fiction. Reading the report from the captain of the Sagittarius,detailing the astounding discoveries made by the vessel’s chief medical officer, Marcus believed that the doctor’s findings were but the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Healing injuries, repairing damaged or lost organs and limbs, perhaps even replacing them with organic rather than biomechanical substitutes? Fascinating, to be sure, but Marcus had been envisioning scenarios on an even grander scale. The Jinoteur system had been artificially created, as far as all sensor readings could determine, with the meta-genome as its catalyst and with every planet and moon and even the star itself infused with the unique, peculiar energy waveform the Shedai were able to summon and control. Based on the age of the system, the Shedai had possessed this power for at least five hundred thousand years and likely far longer. If the power to create planets and the stars that sustained them could be understood, harnessed, and employed with due care, concerns stemming from population overages and resource shortages would become as quaint as the notion of suffering from simple ailments such as influenza or cancer.