Deep Gate 29

Surella

I am in something of a pensive mood as I make my way back to the bridge. The impression of my - experience - in Vansittaert's device has already faded, as I said; it was something too vast for a single brain to encompass, unaided. Nonetheless, I cannot help but wonder - should I have taken that opportunity? Did I do, or not do, the right thing?

Well, it is something, I suppose, to have turned down the chance to become a god.

Any mood of self-congratulation I might have had, though, is punctured as Thala hands me a PADD with the laconic comment, "Damage report, boss."

The Madagascar has tractored my ship away from the Carnegie, and the atmosphere leaks from both ships have been sealed. I study the PADD. It is not as bad as I feared; the forward decks of the main saucer are open to vacuum, true, and several strategically placed crumple zones have crumpled according to design... but Amphicyon's inertial dampers and high-intensity SI fields handled the impact well; we are functional, even warp-capable, though battle-ready might be too much to expect....

"Better than I thought," I remark aloud.

"Better than the Carnegie, that's for sure, boss," says Thala. "We broke her main structural unit - the keel, if you like. With that out of alignment, they can't restore their SI fields, and without those, they can't run drives - or tractor the ship away without it breaking up. Unless someone comes out here and builds a spaceyard around them, they're stuck here."

Vansittaert's giant ship, on the screen, does have something of a broken-backed look to it. I grunt. "Well. There was already a hazard to navigation at this location - all we will need to do is change the details. No doubt Vansittaert's estate will send me the bill, in due course."

Thala chuckles. "That's an interesting point, boss. There's already a lot of shouting on the news channels, and it turns out nobody knows what to do, because Vansittaert never left a will. Crazy, huh? With all the lawyers he must have employed...."

"No," I say, "no, it is... all of a piece."

If you asked Vansittaert, I suspect he would have answered simply that he never expected to die. That medical advances would keep him alive, or that he would transcend his human flesh and be uploaded into some transhumanist immortality.... The real answer, though, I think, is that people like Vansittaert think that nothing but them matters. That the world will not be real, when it no longer has them in it.

When I am dead, a human egomaniac once said, let fire the world confound.

I would rather face any amount of evil, of plain ordinary malevolence, than that sort of blinkered egotism. The unconscious, unquestioned assumption that what mattered to him was the only thing that could matter. There are monsters who delight in suffering... and there are real monsters who simply do not understand that such a thing as suffering exists.

Well. Vansittaert is dead, his schemes are confounded, and all I have to deal with now is the aftermath.... "Mr. Thala," I say.

"Boss?"

"And you, Lieutenant Lillian... all of you, in fact." I settle back in my command chair and turn from side to side, surveying the bridge. "I have been guilty of an error, I think. I believed you all to be a pack of Federation weaklings, wished upon me by Personnel to quench my warrior spirit. But you have acted, all of you, with courage and ingenuity and loyalty, in these recent events. You are a fine crew. It is my honour to command you. Qapla'."

There is a brief, bemused silence. Then Thala says, with obvious sincerity, "Thanks, boss."

"Well." I shift uneasily in the chair. "I do not know where I will command you next, though, beyond Starbase 271 and urgent repairs -"

"This might help, sir," says Som Bloxx. "Incoming transmission from Admiral Kavanagh."

"On screen." I stand up, and come to attention as Kavanagh's face appears on the viewer.

"Captain Surella." Kavanagh is an older human male, with shrewd grey eyes gleaming in a face seamed with wrinkles; his hair is grey, thinning at the top of the head, but he has cultivated some impressive snowy side-whiskers, perhaps to compensate. "I understand there was some admin foul-up that stopped you joining my task group. Something about you being classed as K6 when you're actually T22 -?"

"A17, sir." What is T22, and do I want to know?

"Well, whatever. I gather you've kept yourself busy, at least. Good. I can use an officer with initiative. Task Group Origen's mission is successfully concluded, but I have an assignment in mind that might suit you and your ship."

"Yes, sir?"

"Diplomatic thing, really. We need to wave the flag around some of the frontier systems near Tzenkethi space. I can transfer you and the Amphicyon over to Public Relations Command for the duration."

I have to choose my next words very carefully. "I'm sorry, sir. The combat damage to my ship means she's quite unsuitable for any - prestige - assignments, at least until repairs are complete. It could take weeks in spacedock to bring her up to the required standard, I'm afraid."

"Hmph." Kavanagh's eyes narrow. "Combat damage?"

"I have the damage report here, sir." I pick up the PADD and hold it out. "I can transmit the details on your data subchannel -"

Kavanagh snorts. "I'm bored enough reading my own damage reports, thank you, Captain. Very well. I'll have to turn that assignment over to someone else." He fixes me with a hard stare. "You need to think hard about your career track, Captain. You can't just go around running odd jobs for Science Division, you know. Kavanagh out." The screen goes blank.

"Dodged a bullet there, I think, boss," says Thala.

I sit down, heavily. "Indeed. Someone find out what category T22 is, why I am supposed to be in it, and how many I would have to kill in order to wipe that category out completely." I snarl at the viewscreen. "Running odd jobs for Science Division...." Someone has switched channels, and I contemplate the wreck of the Carnegie, hanging in the space where GO4704 used to be. "Well, at least that is interesting."

Deep Gate 28

M'eioi

"Whit in the guid Lord's name did ye dae, woman?" Carolyn Caird yells at Surella.

The team from Temporal Investigations arrived aboard the Madagascar ahead of every other Starfleet ship. It's headed up by Caird and her associate T'Mev, an elegant Vulcan woman in science division uniform... whose Vulcan imperturbability is starting to look distinctly ragged around the edges.

"We have cross-checked from our external temporal observatories." T'Mev looks at Surella, across the conference room table, with something approaching hostility. "The antichroniton discharge from the dissolution of GO4704 registered strongly, of course. But our most detailed study discloses no timeline variations, no paradoxical loops, no divergent timestreams -"

"But th' energy frae yon bubble o' nowt had tae gae somewhere," Caird interrupts, "so Ah'm askin' ye again, lassie, whit did ye dae?"

Surella just narrows her eyes. Maybe the defect in Caird's translator means she's not getting through to the Klingon... but I don't think so. In fact, I think I know what the answer is, now.

"She didn't do anything." I say. "Am I right, Captain?"

Surella smiles, a slight, wry smile. "That is correct, sir."

T'Mev closes her eyes, opens them again after enough time to count to ten. Caird just sits there and gawps.

"Vansittaert's machinery synchronized your mind with the anomaly," I continue, "and put you in effective control of the antichroniton discharge. Did it work properly? What did it feel like?"

"I... do not believe I can answer that, sir," says Surella. "The device put a vision of the entire universe into my head - but the device is no longer functional, and my head is not large enough to contain the memory. Considering that it was assembled by deluded and dishonest people, on a basis of ad hoc and unethical experimentation, I suppose I am lucky to have retained my sanity."

Caird finds her voice. "But in that moment... ye saw th' whole o' time?"

"Yes," says Surella shortly.

"And ye could see how tae use that energy?"

"Again," says Surella, "yes."

"You had the power to remake the world," I say. "But that wasn't good enough, was it? You had the power, but you didn't have the right."

"Self-evidently," says Surella. "It would have been a direct violation of Starfleet General Order Number One. And my own culture has views on the subject, too. To impose one's will on another by strength may be acceptable, but to completely suppress other people's self-determination -" She shakes her head.

"Dishonourable," I say.

"Yes, sir," says Surella.

"So let me get this straight in ma heid," says Caird. "Ye stepped into Vansittaert's gadget, an' it gi'ed ye th' power tae rearrange history... an' ye took a look at it, an' put it back the way ye found it?"

"It was the only honourable course of action," says Surella. Her dark gaze rests on me. "I am glad that one of my superior officers understands Klingon honour, at least."

"Aye," says Caird. "Ah s'pose there might be some timeline, somewhere, where Ah can understand it... but, aye, Ah see yer point."

"It is consistent with our external observations, at least," says T'Mev. She stabs decisively at a PADD. "We shall mark this incident as closed, then."

"Aye, Ah reckon so," says Caird. She gazes at Surella with something approaching admiration. "Someone wi' access tae temporal technology, who disnae get an urge tae meddle? We should hae ye stuffed, lassie."

---

"There are a few things we need to deal with," I say to Surella, as we walk down the long echoing corridor towards the transporter room. "Khoklova, Quon... Vansittaert."

"Starfleet Intelligence and Federation Security have been informed about Khoklova," Surella says crisply. "I am unsure what legal sanction can be brought against her, since Shemosh has admitted using undue influence over her... but she is a psi adept, and potentially a dangerous one. As for Quon -" She shrugs. "She was an employee only, and a dupe. And I gather she was some use to you, in realizing the real situation. In the circumstances, there is no reason to prosecute Quon. Even," she adds tartly, "if the Symbiosis Commission would permit it."

"Which leaves the question of Vansittaert," I say.

"Technically, sir, he was still in a state of open hostility to the Federation. I know that the anomaly vanished as soon as I had... interacted with it... but he still had resources and presented a clear and present potential danger."

"That's the line you're taking?"

"It is the correct one, sir, in terms of the applicable law. If you want a better explanation -"

"I think I do." Vansittaert was a billionnaire, a political as well as a financial operator. A Starfleet captain can't behead someone like that without consequences, and it doesn't matter if she was technically in the right. Maybe it's not fair, but it's the way the world works.

"He deserved it," Surella says shortly. "I could see - He set up that device, sir. There was no way he would have refrained from using it. And we could not have trusted his judgement, sir, as to what constitutes a perfect world."

"No. No, I suppose not. But once you'd used up the anomaly -"

"People like Vansittaert do not reach their positions by giving up, sir. He would have pleaded undue mental influence, like Khoklova and the others. He would most likely have received only a token punishment for his actions, if that." Surella's dark eyes take on a haunted look. "And then he would have found some other outlet for his benevolence."

"Yes," I say softly, "yes, I suppose he would."

"If you will pardon me saying so, sir...." Normally so direct, she appears suddenly diffident. "I think this incident... might have shown you something. About how the other half lives."

"How so?"

"You and I both know, sir, that Starfleet and the Federation mean well enough. But half the people of the quadrant... when they dream of Federation benevolence, they wake screaming."

"I... see." I do see. And she's right. Because most of the evil in the world is done, not by people setting out to be evil... but by people, honest and sincere people, trying their best to do good. "We're not all like Vansittaert, though," I protest, weakly. "We don't have his resources, or his self-belief. Vansittaert... had no brakes. He was out of control."

"Yes, sir. I appreciate that. That is why I cut off his head."

"All right. You win, Captain. I will back you at the court of inquiry." She deserves that much from me, at the very least.

"Thank you, sir." We've reached the transporter room, at last. Surella steps onto the pad.

"One last thing, Captain," I say.

"Sir?"

"I realize your position in Starfleet is - well, less than ideal." Between residual prejudice against the traditional enemy, and simple bungling bureaucracy, that is certainly true. "If you ever need a recommendation, a positive performance reference, anything of that sort - you can call on me."

Surella looks hard at me, then gives a brusque nod. "Thank you, sir. In an ideal egalitarian state like the Federation, such things should not matter. However - well, it seems they do." Her mouth twists in a wry smile. "Just look at Captain Quon."

"I'm not sure I can get you an Ouroboros-class raider," I say. "But good luck, anyway."

"Thank you again, sir." She turns to the transporter operator. "Energize."