I came back to the chamber of abandoned machines. Darkness and deep shadows and the smell of old lubricants---just what I needed. Although I hadn't taken even a sip of alcohol, I felt almost drunk, or otherwise drugged. With my hand torch on its dimmest, widest setting, I stumbled along among the useless machinery, trying to think of anything but Father O'Heron. The deeper I went into the chamber, the harder it was to keep away the image of her broken body, the warmth of her smile, the memory of honey and cinnamon.
I climbed across a tangle of metal pipes and sat on a pile of cabled wire, gazing down into the open bay at the bishop's lifeless machine. Damn him and his machines! I switched off the hand torch and sat motionless in the dark. Don't think about her, I told myself. Don't think about her. So I concentrated on the alien ship, envisioned it suspended in the depths of space, surrounded by black night and silver stars, and tried to imagine a means of escape.
Two or three hours later, Sulu and Jean-Luc found me there. I heard them calling my name, and I thought about doing what Charles had done that time---scramble deep into the ruined machinery where they would never find me----but I didn't have the guts or the energy for it. Hey, what was the point? So I sat and waited for them, watching the thin beams of light arcing back and forth, up and down, listening to them calling my name over and over. Would they just give up?599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtFmqjGGvId
Thirty minutes later they came around a wrecked cylinder and one of their torch beams sliced across my face and they came to a stoop.
"Damn!" Sulu said. "Scared me." He laughed nervously. "Why didn't you answer, Pavel?"
Jean-Luc just looked at me, waiting for a response.
"I didn't feel like it," I said.
"We've been looking for you for hours," Jean-Luc said. "I tried signaling you, but Sulu said you had the system disabled. He suggested we look for you here."
Sulu shrugged. "I know your secrets, Pavel. Some of them, anyway."
"Why are you looking for me? I just want to be left alone."
"The bishop told me what happened," Jean-Luc said. "He seemed to expect me to order his imprisonment, and was shocked when I didn't. I thought that if you hadn't come to me demanding he be imprisoned, then you didn't want that. I figure you probably don't care any longer what happens to him. He's in his own private Hell, and you're happy with that."
I managed half a laugh. "You're too damn sure about what I'm thinking and feeling."
"No," Jean-Luc said. "Just a guess."
Neither of them said anything for a long time. Their hand torches were aimed at the floor, and their faces were barely distinguishable in the dim light.
"I know you're hurting," Jean-Luc said, "but we've got a ship with several thousand people who are still alive, and we've got to figure out a way to save them."
"Have you two lost your minds?!" I asked. "Why would you want my advice? My suggestions? Every decision I've made seems to have been the wrong one. I chose to join with Sulu and the downsiders in the failed insurrection, and spent seven months in a cell for my trouble. You put me in charge of the alien ship away team, and we end up with a shape-shifting alien creature on board the Enterprise, people dead and gone mad, Doyle's suicide. Finally, when everyone is ready to abandon that damned ship, I convince you all to dock with it and take it with us. Now we're probably all going to die. One bad decision after another, and you want my advice?"
Sulu grinned.
"What's so damned funny?"
"You are, Pavel."
"Everything you've said to me is true," Jean-Luc added, "but it's not that simple. Your choices, your decisions, were not necessarily the wrong choices. Sometimes, they were the right choices, the moral choices. They just didn't work out."
"That's an understatement."
"I'm not just saying this to make you feel better," Jean-Luc offered, "but docking with their ship probably didn't make any difference in the long run."
"What do you mean?"
"Did Sophia tell you how we would drift closer to the alien ship every few days?"
"Yes." It didn't matter now if he knew.
"I'd bet they were just feeling things out. They have technology we can scarcely imagine, and I would guess that they could've sucked us right into their ship any time they wanted, and we wouldn't have been able to do a damn thing about it. I also believe that if we'd tried to leave them behind the way the bishop wanted, they would not have let us go. They would have drawn us in, or come after us, and we'd be right where we are now, more or less."599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZ4PkyZaNZ
"So all I did was make it easier for them?"
"We made it easier for them, Pavel." Jean-Luc paused. "That's why we need your help."
"What about the rest of the Executive Council? I thought you were going to meet every twelve hours and exchange ideas?"
"Oh, come now, Pavel, we both know how much use that's going to be. With the possible exception of Sophia or Racine, nobody's going to come up with a damn thing, and you know it. And they don't need some misguided brainstorming session to think; if either of them comes up with something, they'll let us know." He paused. "Like I said, we need your help."599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡxTjUnuFhDb
"What? The three of us are going to brainstorm? You and I and Sulu, sitting in the darkness surrounded by derelict machinery, we're going to come up with a way to save everybody?"
"We might. This is as good a place as any."
I looked from one to another. Finally, I gestured for them to sit and said, "Okay. Stay for a while." I managed a brief, mirthless laugh. "What the hell. You want an idea? I've already got an idea. I've been sitting here in the dark, surrounded by ruins, and an idea has occurred to me, an idea I don't trust because I don't trust anything I think anymore. So I'll tell you my idea, and you two can tell me whether I'm as crazy as everyone else."
They sat, and Jean-Luc said, "Proceed, Pavel."
I breathed deeply. "We go back to Antioch."
Neither of them said anything for a long time. They stared at me, they looked at one another, and they stared at me some more. "I don't understand," Jean-Luc finally said. "How?"
"We take the shuttles."
That gave them something to think about for a minute. "There aren't enough to take everyone," Sulu said.
I nodded. "I know. That's only the first of a whole lot of problems with this idea."
"What are some of the others?"
"The logistics alone are a serious problem. Fuel and food and water....How long do you think it'd take for a shuttle to get back to Antioch?"
Jean-Luc sighed. "I don't know, but I'm sure it'd be a long time. Weeks, or months. Yes, fuel's a problem. Initial acceleration....deceleration...descent and landing...." His eyes were unfocused as he was thinking. "The less used for acceleration, the longer the trip----the more mass in people and food and cargo, the more fuel we'd need...." His voice trailed off. "Yes. But we can work all that out. We'll know how many can go on the shuttles."
"And how many have to stay," I said.
"Yes, and how many have to stay."
"And that's another problem," I started, "how..."
"....to decide who goes," Jean-Luc finished. "I know. But, as with the logistics, it's something that can be done. Even if we can only save a thousand, or several hundred, that's better than nothing."
"The harvesters," Sulu said.
We both looked at him.
"We've got three harvesters," he continued, "and their holds are huge. They'd carry a lot of food and people and equipment."
The harvesters. I shuddered inwardly, thinking about them. Once again I saw them rising before me during the failed insurrection, like fire monsters, nuclear versions of the bishop's Leviathan.
"There's a big problem with the harvesters," Jean-Luc said. "Actually with the shuttles, too. And why not? There's a big problem with every aspect of this idea."599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJkfFqvg4vU
"What problem?" Sulu asked.
"Gravity," Jean-Luc answered. "The harvesters and shuttles don't have any. I don't care how much room you've got, you can't pack hundreds or thousands of people in zero-g holds for weeks and months on end."
"Constant acceleration of half a g or so," Sulu said.
"And then constant deceleration?" Jean-Luc. 'Way too much fuel needed for that. If we could convert the ship drives and install them, maybe, but that's just not possible. With conventional fuel...."
I started laughing.
"What?"
"It's grotesque," I said, "but the bishop's got part of the answer. The gravity device he used to murder Father O'Heron. He can make it work. We install it on one of the harvesters, rotate people in and out so nobody has to do the whole trip stored like cargo in zero gee. Put people in two of them, one with gravity, and use the third harvester for cargo, food, and equipment, anything that can be tied down."
"Okay, that's just my point," Jean-Luc said. "Any of these problems can be worked out."599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5nWPXza2nU
"Of course," Sulu added, "even with the harvesters and all the shuttles, it may still not be enough space to take everybody."
"I know, dammit," Jean-Luc snapped. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We'll deal with every problem. At least this is a way out."
"Is it?" I said. "You've obviously forgotten about the one thing we must do before we even think of trying to resolve all the logistical problems."
"What's that?" Jean-Luc asked.
Sulu was nodded. "Yes," he said. "We need to find out what the alien ship will do when a shuttle or harvester leaves the Enterprise."
I looked at him. "Are you willing to make a test run with me?"
Sulu nodded. "Let's do it right now," he said.
We went out in one of the harvesters. I wanted to take one of the shuttles, but Sulu agreed that a harvester, being so much larger, would be a better test; I couldn't argue. The pilot's cabin was a half-bubble of duranium atop the forward end of the harvester. We sat behind the pilots, watching the expanse of stars in front of us and the receding ships behind us. Monitors placed throughout the cabin gave us a variety of views.599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAbP8zvTVTK
We had launched from the Enterprise at low speed, accelerated slowly for ten minutes, then cut the engines, traveling in silence except for the pilots' periodic exchanges. We were moving at a constant velocity away from the two locked ships, which grew smaller and smaller on the monitors. All four of us waited for something from the alien ship---a missile launch, an energy beam, magnetic disruption pulses, some other unknown and unknowable weapon or force that would destroy us, disable us, or pull us back into the Enterprise or the alien ship.
Thirty minutes passed without incident. Forty-five minutes. Sixty minutes. The ships had disappeared from view, then even from the monitors, although instruments still registered their presence.
"How far do we go?" one of the pilots asked.
I looked at Sulu. "Another hour?" I suggested.
"At least. We've got to be sure. Or as sure as we can be."
When we were two hours out we tried another fifteen-minute acceleration, boosting our velocity. Then we continued for another hour. Nothing.
Finally we were satisfied, and I think shocked. We told the pilots to turn around and take us back.
"Take it slow going back, too," Sulu said. "We don't need to go roaring in, calling even more attention to ourselves." Then he turned to me. "Think it'll be this easy?"
"It didn't feel th at easy," I said. "The truth is, even if we manage to get away from the ships, the journey back to Antioch in these things is going to be miserable."
He nodded. "Yeah. You know what won't be easy? Going to the Planning Committee with this. And we have to have their support, we have to have them all with us. Without them, we won't be able to retrofit and ready the shuttles and harvesters, get several thousand people prepared to go, all of that. Everything that will have to be done efficiently and quickly. They've got to be with us."
"I don't get it," I said. "What's the problem? There's no other choice. This is our only chance. Why would it be hard to convince them?"
"Because many of them have already given up all hope. They're so far gone, it'll be hard to bring them back. A tiny shred of hope isn't going to do it. We'll have to convince them that there's a good chance of success."
What Sulu said made sense. "You're right. So let's hope nobody brings up this other minor matter."
"What's that?"
"Assuming we get away from the ships, what's to prevent the aliens from following us back to Antioch?"
"Well, let's hope nobody mentions it." Sulu laughed. "Besides, I don't know why you worry about that. Forget this test. You know what the chances are they'll actually let us all get away in the first place?"
"Then why are you going along with this?"
"You said it. This is the only option we've got. And if by some miracle we can get to Antioch, at least we'll have a chance. We stay on the Enterprise, we have none." He nodded once. "None."
Nobody said anything more the rest of the way in.599Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡs26UwbrSZx
