Vansittaert stands there with his mouth gaping comically open, and Surella charges across the catwalk, straight through the focus of the psi emitters. There's a brief moment when she seems to falter, that's all - and is there a tiny change in the humming sound of the machinery all around us? - but that's it. If it's even there.
"Captain, ahh, Surella," Vansittaert begins.
He never finishes. Surella's face is locked into a scowl of sheer Klingon rage, and she draws her mek'leth and slashes with it in one fluid, brutal movement.
There is a sudden stink of blood in the chamber's aseptic air.
Vansittaert's knees buckle and his body drops, heavily, to the deck. His head flies through the air, bounces off a railing, falls into the complex tangle of machinery beneath us.
Surella draws in a deep breath. With a visible effort, she composes herself. She turns towards M'eioi, snaps to full attention. "Permission requested to terminate hostilities, Admiral," she says.
There is only a faint quiver in the Caitian's voice as she replies, "Permission granted, Captain."
Surella nods. She touches her combadge. "Surella to Amphicyon. Have the jamming fields dropped?"
A woman's voice replies, "The anomaly's vanished, sir. There's some local jamming still from stations on the Carnegie, but security's shutting them down. We can get through them in any event."
"Very good. Transport field technicians to the mission pod, now, with capability to disable and remove holograms." Her gaze switches to Tarul and the inconsolably sobbing Shemosh. "We may also need conventional cutting gear. And a medic or two, as a precaution."
"Nobody's been hurt, much," I say. Surella ignores me.
"Team assembling in the transporter room now," says the woman. "Uh, we've detected some shuttle launches from the Carnegie, with human life signs aboard. I don't know if you want us to try and intercept -"
"I imagine many members of Vansittaert's staff will want to flee," says Surella. "We can pick them up later, if need be, when they return to the Federation -"
"One of them's probably Karabadian," I say. Surella turns to me. "Professor Karabadian. We think he's the psi adept Vansittaert was using to fog people's minds around here. And that someone else was using to fog Vansittaert's mind." I glance meaningfully at Shemosh. Vansittaert's security people never brought Karabadian to the mission pod, and I think that's because Karabadian knew full well the jig was up.
Amazingly, Shemosh giggles - a high-pitched, manic tittering that doesn't speak well for his mental health. "Karabadian? No, no, no...."
Whining columns of blue, sparkling light appear, resolve themselves into Starfleet techs and medics. Three of them aim tricorders at me, T'Shal and M'eioi. The holograms, still holding us in their unfailing grip, wink out of existence.
I rub my wrists, trying to get some feeling back into them. Techs with cutters are liberating Tarul and Shemosh. The Deltan continues to giggle.
M'eioi goes over to him, picking her way daintily around the gruesome spreading pool beside Vansittaert's corpse. She kneels down beside him, her grass-green eyes almost kindly in her black face. "What was it all about?" she asks. "You can tell us now, surely?"
Shemosh draws in a deep, ragged breath. "I was working on it," he said, "working on the object... when the news came. Hobus. I had just... I had just worked out what it was...."
"The supernova? What happened?"
Shemosh swallows. "GO4704 is a function of the galaxy's central black hole, and its interaction with the subspace matrix. Any galaxy with a supermassive black hole can have one like it, but circumstances - random interference from other anomalies, incident radiation in certain wavebands - usually conspire to prevent their formation or destabilize them after a short time. I was so happy when I found the records of GO4704, realized it conformed to my theoretical predictions - and then - Hobus. My parents, my whole family - they were traders, and their ship passed too close to the blast wave. But I knew - I knew - the anomaly was reaching its final phase, that within a century at most it would activate spontaneously and dissipate. I knew I could use it. Could alter the antichroniton absorption rate, could project a psi matrix... I knew." He coughs, proceeds in a dry and academic tone. "The details are not without interest. I will present my unmodified data to the Vulcan Science Academy, if I may. It is potentially valuable."
"To find more of these.... things?" M'eioi asks.
Shemosh shakes his head. "The next nearest one is in a galaxy twenty-seven million parsecs away. And the antichroniton decay rates indicate it won't be... ready... for another twenty thousand years. One chance. I had one chance...." Tears begin to run down his cheeks.
"To undo Hobus?" asks M'eioi, and then answers herself. "No. You wouldn't take that big a risk with history, would you? Just to divert the ship. To save your family."
"I could see how to do it," says Shemosh. "I knew."
"But time travel is strictly regulated," I say, "and for the best possible reasons - you can't predict the repercussions of even a minimal change. So there was no way you could ask anyone for permission -"
"Yes." His voice is suddenly stronger. "Yes, I acted illegally and unethically. And I'll take the consequences. But would you have done anything differently?" His bloodshot gaze rakes the room, challenging and accusing all of us. "Could you have?"
I could refute him. I've had hosts before, will have again; I have fond memories, and more than memories, of all of them... but I know that the time comes, finally, to move on, to let go. To accept change, and the finality of change. To let the past stay past.
I could refute him. I choose not to. Let him keep his illusion. It's all he has left.
"So you attached yourself to Vansittaert, who had the resources you needed," T'Shal says, "and you effectively employed me and my team to work out the technical details, while Karabadian's psi talent -"
Shemosh laughs again, a raw and unhealthy sound. "Karabadian is nothing. He's a dupe, a fool. His so-called assistant, though -"
"What?" says M'eioi.
"Natalia Khoklova is a human mutant," says Shemosh. "With a substantial psi index, and ability in telepathic hypnosis and projective coercion. She was exactly what I needed to keep Vansittaert and the others in line. And, of course, she herself was quite susceptible to... traditional Deltan methods of persuasion." He shakes his head. "I said, I have acted unethically."
Surella's face is a picture of chagrin. "Natalia Khoklova?" she says. "Light hair, scanty dress, attractive in an Earth-human sort of way?"
"You've met her, then?" says M'eioi.
"I let her go," says Surella. The expression on her face is priceless. It's almost worth the drubbings I've taken through this whole sorry business.
"We'll catch up with her," says M'eioi confidently, and rises to her feet. "You're right, of course," she says to Shemosh, "we will have to take you into custody. And then -" She looks around her, and sighs. "Then we'll have to make a start on cleaning up this mess."
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