“Yes, ma’am.”
“Because we thought shooting an asteroid would be a helpful thing to do.”
“Well…we did mean well.”
Vale sighed. “What exactly will happen if we don’t fix this?”
“Gradually, more and more of the barophiles will die. They’ll sink to the mantle, and there won’t be enough surviving barophiles to bring up enough clathrates. That’ll lead to a crash in the bathyplankton population, and that’ll leave the surface life with progressively worsening metal deficiencies. Meanwhile, with the magnetic field patterns permanently disrupted, the surface life will continue to behave erratically or have difficulty performing necessary tasks. Remember how on Earth, many cetaceans would beach themselves and die because the noise from human ocean vessels confused and blinded their echolocation sense?” Vale nodded, looking embarrassed. “It’s a similar principle. There’s no telling how much the Dropletians’ navigation, mating cycles, and so on could be thrown off by this. It could endanger whole species even without the excess violence this is producing among the sea life.
“In time, the contamination will dissipate; the dust will either use up its exotic charges in the dynamo layer or will sink to the mantle, get locked in clathrates, and dissipate its charge into the ice. The surviving barophile life will recover, and there will probably be enough dormant bathyplankton left to resume the nutrient exchange with the surface. But not before there’s major loss of life on the surface, possibly even a mass extinction.”
Vale shook her head. “So with a few phaser shots and two torpedoes, we kill a whole biosphere. That’s efficient.”
“Don’t forget the antimatter canisters,” Melora replied, earning a glare.
“What about the squales?” Xin asked. “Could their biotechnology protect them?”
“If anything, I’d say it makes them more vulnerable,” she shot back. “They’re dependent on so many other species that I doubt they could weather an extinction event. Not without enormous loss of life, at any rate.”
There was a pause before Vale spoke. “Just for the sake of argument…if Riker and Lavena are still alive down there, somehow, what are their chances?”
Melora shook her head. “They’d succumb to metal deficiencies before this became an issue. If they managed to escape the crazed predators.”
Vale glared at her. “Somehow, that’s not very comforting.”
LUMBU
The landing was fairly rough, since Krotine brought the Armstrongin on antigravs for the last few hundred meters. They made a water landing in one of the city’s wide canals and secured the shuttle under a bridge; luckily, travel through this portion of the canal was blocked by two large ferries at either end, both unable to move with their electrical systems and lights burned out from the pulse. In all likelihood, the shuttle would remain undiscovered for a few hours, at least.
It took the team half an hour to reach the hospital on foot, using tricorders on proximity scan to avoid encountering any Lumbuan citizens. Fortunately, Ree’s jamming field did not prevent tricorder operation, enabling the team to scan the hospital’s structure and determine an optimal stealth entry route. It was difficult for a Vulcan, a Boslic, a Caitian, and an Orion, all giants by Lumbuan standards, to make their way through the police perimeter undetected; but Tuvok had decades of experience at stealth and his teammates were well-trained. Hriss in particular was able to move with the soundlessness of a felinoid predator, but the lithe Krotine was nearly as light on her feet. Dennisar had a harder time of it, particularly since it was difficult for him to squeeze his bulk through Lumbuan doorways. Had Tuvok known that this world would be Ree’s destination, he would not have picked Dennisar for the team. But it could not be helped now. As Dennisar attempted to squeeze through a narrow maintenance passage into the hospital, he inadvertently produced a noise that drew the attention of a police officer guarding the perimeter. But Tuvok was able to waylay her with a nerve pinch before she could catch a clear sight of them or raise the alarm.
Finally they reached the corridor outside the maternity ward, where three Lumbuan guards stood, one at each of the entrances. They all kept as far from the actual ward as possible while still keeping it in sight; no doubt Ree had demanded that they keep their distance. It made it easier to pick them off one by one; Tuvok took one down with a nerve pinch while Hriss ambushed another and injected him with a tranquilizer that would leave no traces detectable to Lumbuan science.
But Tuvok’s guard let out a moan before she fell to the floor, and that drew the attention of the third guard, who came running with his weapon drawn. “What have you done?” the guard asked, his voice trembling. “What are you?”
“Your colleagues are unharmed,” Tuvok told him. “The same will hold for you if you do not interfere with us.”
“You—you’re another giant. Another monster.”
Tuvok raised a brow. “What leads you to that conclusion, sir?”
“Why…your size. Your color. And…Great Anam, you have no clarfel!”
“So are these the qualities that define a Lumbuan?”
The guard thought it over. “Well…some of them.”
“But are they not mere appearances? And cannot outward appearance be deceptive?”
More thinking. “I suppose. My supervisor says I appear unintelligent. For that matter, so does my wife. And she appeared warm and loving when I married her,” the guard added, speaking more to himself now.
“Then, as an intelligent man, you must know better than to take outward perceptions at face value. What you see could be a dream or a hallucination.”
“Oh, no.” The guard shook his head. “I’m not falling for any Solipsist casuistry. That’s Kumpen talk, and I’m as loyal as they come.”
Tuvok realized he had overreached himself. “Very well. I will stipulate that I am objectively real. Even so, the standards you employ for defining me as not Lumbuan are still in question. Is it your external attributes that define your identity? Or is it your intellect? Your self-awareness? Your ability to communicate?”