Humans,Koval thought. They saywe are difficult to understand.
The Romulan walked to a table in the center of the room and lifted a clear decanter in which a pale, aquamarinecolored liquid sloshed. He poured a small amount into three glasses, then raised one to his lips.
“To the future of the Geminus Gulf and the Chiaros system,” Koval said before emptying his glass. He relished the burning sensation the pungent liqueur created as it went down.
Zweller picked up the other two glasses and handed one to the woman. “I can drink to that,” he said, and downed the beverage without a moment’s hesitation. Though the woman seemed a bit put off by the drink’s piquant bouquet, she drank her portion as well, though not as quickly.
“It’s been a good while since I’ve had nonreplicated kali‑fal,”Zweller said. Though he was smiling, his eyes were hard.
Regarding Zweller coolly, Koval segued straight into business. “You must be aware by now that the Federation’s presence on Chiaros IV is at an end, Commander. Most of the precincts have already reported their election results. Within perhaps ten of your minutes, First Protector Ruardh will formally announce her people’s willing entry into the Empire.”
“I suppose so,” Zweller said, nodding slowly.
“Then perhaps we should finish our transaction as quickly as possible,” the woman said evenly.
Koval held up his left hand, palm up, and one of the guards stepped forward and placed a slender data chip into it. Koval was about to present it to Zweller when the secure comm chip implanted into his jaw vibrated gently. Because the tiny speaker conducted sound through the bones of his skull, only he could hear Subcenturion V’Hari’s urgent hail.
Go ahead, Thrai Kaleh,Koval subvocalized. Only the slight clenching and unclenching of his jaw muscles betrayed the fact that he was having a covert conversation.
“There’s been an attempt to sabotage the Core, Chairman Koval,” V’Hari said emotionlessly. “However, the security failsafe programs are already isolating and purging the intrusion.”
Acknowledged, V’Hari. Keep me informed.
Koval studied Zweller and Batanides through narrowed eyes. He was well‑aware of Ambassador T’Alik’s failure to persuade Picard to make an early departure from the Geminus Gulf. He could only assume that this incursion on the Core was Captain Picard’s doing. The scoutship that T’Alik had said Picard claimed to know nothing about–despite the fact that he’d used it to escape from the Army of Light compound–could have given the Starfleet captain some of the tools necessary to mount an effective assault on the Core.
But he knew it couldn’t give him the capacity to defeat the rokhelh,the state‑of‑the‑art artificial intelligence that patrolled the Core’s every system. Nothing Koval had ever encountered could do that.
“Chairman Koval?” Zweller said, ending the protracted silence. “Are you all right?”
Koval still held the data chip tightly in his hand, and continued searching the humans’ faces with his eyes. Their expressions betrayed nothing. Was Zweller involved in the sabotage as well? Or had Picard undertaken the attack entirely on his own initiative?
Deciding that the rokhelhwould render those questions moot soon enough, Koval surrendered the data chip to Zweller, who responded by flashing a toothy smile.
“When you return to the Enterprise,”Koval said quietly, “tell Captain Picard that he plays a very dangerous game. That is, if he survives his current endeavor.”
Koval was pleased to see that Zweller’s smile had faltered ever so slightly. So hedoes know something.Koval suppressed a triumphant grin.
Koval set his kali‑falglass down on the table, none too gently. “The Federation’s welcome in the Geminus Gulf is now worn out,” he said, freighting his words with menace. “And when Protector Ruardh makes the official declaration, you and every other human in this system would do well to be heading back toward Federation space very, very quickly.”
Chapter Fifteen
‹ You do not belong here › the rokhelhrepeated. Most of a millisecond passed in silence as it awaited greeting protocols from the Other. ‹ Identify self, or face decompilation. ›
The errant code‑sequence did not respond in any intelligible fashion, nor did the rokhelhimmediately recognize it. Perhaps this unknown Other was, like the rokhelhitself, another security subroutine, but one that had somehow become corrupted. Whatever the Other’s identity, the rokhelhrecognized it as the source of the failsafe shutdown command, the fatal disease that had nearly been loosed into the heart of the Apparatus.
The rokhelhprobed tentatively at the intruding lines of code, gently insinuating its binary feelers below the Other’s surface. More code lay beneath, and more still below that, a seemingly infinite regress of expanding fractal complexity. The rokhelhsaw at once that the interloper was a sentient artificial intelligence–a complex, constructed entity like itself.
But unlike the rokhelh,this Other was crafted by alien, non‑Romulan minds.
With a thought, the rokhelhraised the alarm, even as it sought to do to the Other what the Other had just tried to do to the Apparatus–to neutralize it by probing its manifold cybernetic pathways with a billion fractallyexpanding tendrils.
A millisecond later, the rokhelh’s consciousness was deeply embedded within the Other’s innumerable circuitry pathways.
Data sat silently in his seat, his body rigid.
“Data?” Picard said, swiveling in the cockpit to face the android. The last word he had heard the android utter had sounded like an uncharacteristic “Uh‑oh.”
Hawk took over the conn as Picard disengaged from the cockpit and made his way over to Data. Kneeling, the captain was met with a glassy stare. “Data? Mr. Data, report.”
He snapped his fingers before his friend’s dead, artificial eyes. Nothing.
Picard stood and turned back toward the cockpit. Hawk regarded him uneasily.
“Captain, shouldn’t the singularity have started slipping back into subspace by now?”
Picard nodded. “Yes. IfCommander Data succeeded in transmitting the abort command into the singularity’s containment protocols.”
But on the forward viewer, Picard could see that the inferno at the singularity’s heart continued to blaze just as brightly as ever.
Merde,Picard thought, his heart sinking.
* * *
Data felt disembodied, a ghost floating in cybernetic freefall. And he noticed the disconcertingly near presence of something.It was asking him questions, but he was having difficulty parsing them. Then this Presence was suddenly all around him, engulfing him, holding him immobile. A moment later, it began probing at his thoughts–from the inside.
Fear emanated reflexively from Data’s emotion chip, coursing through his consciousness as he realized that another entity–an artificial intellect not altogether unlike his own–was attempting to seize control of him. He was being overridden, hijacked as he once had been by the multiple personalities stored in the D’Arsay archive. With a tremendous effort of will, he shut his emotion chip down. This maneuver did nothing to halt the advance of the Presence as it invaded his positronic systems, nor did it allow him to assess the damage the alien entity might be causing to his hardwired subroutines. But with the emotion chip inactive, he had at least exchanged fear for clarity.
Data clung tenaciously to that clarity, aware that without it he and his shipmates might never make it back to the Enterprise.