Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (35 page)

But what would they decide?

Not for the first time this day, Christine Vale cursed the speed of sound for being so slow.

Sure, the idea of a layer in the ocean that allowed effectively global telecommunication simply through a quirk of water density was fascinating and elegant, but why did it have to be the layer with the lowest speed of sound instead of the highest? She was used to subspace radio making it possible to speak instantaneously with people twenty par
secs away. The notion of having to wait an hour and a half to know the results of an action being taken less than nine thousand kilometers away was infuriating.

Especially given what had been happening in that hour and a half. The compound floater had been eroded down to its last few segments around the base camp; indeed, the camp might have fallen already if not for Ra-Havreii. He and Y’lira had returned to the base an hour ago, making a daring run of the squales’ blockade and driving the scouter gig clear up onto dry ground—though the Efrosian engineer had insisted that any bravery in the act had been inspired by his greater fear of remaining in the water.

Since then, he had somehow figured out a way to conduct a structural integrity field through the organic shell material of the floaters, making them far more resistant to the icebreaker creatures’ attacks. But it took a great deal of power and couldn’t be maintained for long. And it had the unfortunate side effect of making the remains of the island more rigid, no longer flexing with the constant swells of the ocean. More than one segment had snapped off under its own weight when too much of it had been suspended out of the water, overstraining its connections to its neighbors beyond what the SIF could bear. The squales had seemed puzzled by the change at first, but now had modified their attacks to take advantage of it, waiting for swells and then sending the icebreakers in to strike sidelong at the bases of the suspended floater segments.

“I never imagined myself saying this,” Ra-Havreii told Vale as they and Keru watched a segment adjacent to the base rock and twist under just such a bombardment, “but the island can’t take much more of this.”

“Aili, come on,” Vale muttered through clenched teeth, knowing that whatever Lavena had attempted was already completed by now. They were out of comm range of the surviving hydrophone, without the
Marsalis
to relay through the interference, so there was no way to get a status report. The shuttle had ferried the captain back to
Titan
and had then suffered an ill-timed engine failure, the delayed result of an attack by one of the electric-tentacled dreadnought creatures; and replacement parts were slow in coming as long as the ship’s industrial replicators were in full-time probe-making mode. The shuttle was on its way back down to evacuate the base, but there was no guarantee Bolaji would make it in time. At least Vale could take comfort in the knowledge that Captain Riker was alive and safe.
One way or the other, I won’t have to be the one giving orders for much longer.

“Commander, come quick!” It was Ensign Evesh, calling from the sensor shed. “You need to hear this!” she cried.

Vale jogged over to the waving Tellarite, while Ra-Havreii remained at his equipment, trying to keep the SIF from burning out just a while longer. Keru stayed on guard, watching the icebreakers closely, phaser at the ready in case defensive measures failed. The islet shuddered and heaved beneath her feet; the inertial damper field had been cut to minimum to boost the SIF. She was getting seasick.

But music was coming from Evesh’s console—a chorus of squalesong combined with Selkie, the translator rendering the latter for her ears and filtering out the echoes. “Diffraction leakage from the deep sound channel,” the sensor tech explained. Vale listened for a while and was
moved; even after serving with Aili Lavena for a year and a half, she had never learned this much about her.

“But did it work?” Vale asked as the islet shuddered again. “Are they listening?”

“They must be,” Evesh said. “They’re relaying the sound forward.”

“Okay, but the sound I want to hear is the one that calls off the damn icebreakers!”

Evesh stared. “Would you recognize that if you heard it?”

Vale glared back. “Context is everything, Ensign.” The ground shuddered again. “Case in point.”

“Understood, ma’am.”

“Oh, no,” Ra-Havreii called.

“Oh, no?” Vale called back. “That’s
not
a sound I want to hear, Doctor!”

“Oh, no.”

“Doctor!”

“The field’s going. I can’t stop it.”

The ground heaved, knocking them both over. Keru somehow managed to keep his footing, though just barely. “Oww…don’t tell me, the dampers too?”

“The whole field assembly! I told you this would happen.”

“Then that means…” She looked up and saw the Cerenkov sparkle as the deflector dome around the base decohered and died.

“It means I should’ve stayed in my nice safe lab at Utopia Planitia. That it should come to this…dying out here in this desolate waste…”

“Hold it together, Doctor.”

“I should’ve known I’d be killed by
nature
!”

She grabbed him by the front of his uniform. “Would you rather be killed by a pissed-off Izarian?”

He cleared his throat. “Ah. Apologies, Commander. What are your orders?”

She clambered to her feet. “Vale to
Marsalis
. What’s your ETA?”

The response was barely audible through the static.
“Ano…lve minutes, Co…der…. ld on.”

The ground jerked forward three meters and left her behind, landing her on her behind. “Easy for you to say,” she groaned.

Rising only into a crouch this time, she drew her phaser. Keru caught her gaze and nodded, raising his weapon as well. Ra-Havreii’s eyes widened. “It’s come to that, then?”

“I’m afraid so, Doc.”

“Do you think they’ll even penetrate those shells?”

“It’s what we’ve got.”

He nodded. “I understand.” He drew his own phaser and waited.

And waited.

It took a few moments for Vale to realize the ringing in her ears was from the sudden silence. She scanned her surroundings. The icebreakers were veering off, wending their way through the detached floater segments as they retreated from the remnant of the islet.

Evesh staggered out of the sensor shed, breathing hard. “They’re singing a new sound pattern. Part of it is a single Selkie word. ‘Yes.’”

Vale closed her eyes and lowered her phaser.
Yes. Thank you, Aili Lavena. Thank you for everything.

TITAN

R
iker climbed out of bed as Christine Vale entered, despite the attempts of Doctor Onnta and Nurse Kershul to keep him down. He was still weak, but he was tired of being off his feet, even if they would only support him for a few moments. “Any word on Deanna?”

Vale shook her head. “Not yet, sir.” His heart fell. “But the news from the surface is good.”

“The probes are being deployed?”

“Yes, sir. Lavena did an amazing job getting them past their fears. They’re letting us drop the probes—in fact, they’re even helping. It’s amazing—they’ve already figured out the deployment pattern we’re using, and they’re offering ways to improve it, based on their knowledge of the deep-sea currents. They may mythologize it, but I think they probably have a better scientific understanding of Droplet’s depths than we do. And Cethente’s actually
been
there.”

“Oh, yes, I heard about that. Is it back in one piece?”

“All four legs are reattached and healing nicely,” Onnta said. “Cethente should be back on regular duty within two days.”

“Good, good.” Riker looked back to Vale. “Aili didn’t come back with you?”

She shook her head, which was still tinged midnight blue. “She still needs to stay as an interpreter. But she asked me to send her best.”

He smiled. “She already gave me that. And more.”

After a moment, he realized the others were giving him a very strange look. “I…I didn’t mean that the way it sounded!”

“Oh, of course, sir,” Vale said. “I’m sure you were completely professional while you were naked together for nearly a week.”

“Hey, I had a thong! Unhh…” He suddenly felt dizzy, his feet giving way under him.

Vale was there, catching him and easing him back into the bed. “Uh-huh. Well, like the old punch line says, the thong is over but the malady lingers on.”

He stared at her. “I don’t remember. Were you always this sarcastic?”

She sighed. “Consider it a defense mechanism. This has not been a good week to be the one making the big decisions. I’m really glad to have you back, sir. Really glad.”

He smiled. “Thank you.” Then he cleared his throat. “Then…could you do me a favor?”

“Of course, sir.”

His eyes went to the top of her head. “I am…really sick…of the color blue.”

She laughed. “I’ll get on it right away, sir.”

“When you can spare a moment.”

DROPLET

It took two days to finish replicating and deploying all the probes, and another half a day before the squales began reporting that the dissonance was fading from their magnetic Song of Life. The Song was not fully restored yet, since it would take time for the dying barophiles to heal and the population to replenish itself. The Song would be subdued for a time, and might even be changed once it returned, since the attrition of some species in the dynamo layer might allow other, faster-reproducing species to gain an edge, altering the “orchestration” of the Song. But the squales saw the Song as an evolving thing, and were confident they and their fellow Dropletian life forms would keep up with the changes. When he came back down to Droplet, Riker told them they had the spirit of true jazz musicians.

“And you were amazing too,” he told Aili when he was reunited with her. “I’ve heard the recording…. I never knew you could sing like that.”

“Neither did I, sir,” she said from where she floated in the water, next to the scouter gig where he sat. She still hadn’t donned any clothing, choosing to “go native” as much for the squales’ comfort as her own; but she now wore a field-damped combadge on a choker around her neck, at least. He still wished she’d put something on, but over the past week, he’d come to associate the sight of her
nudity with experiences that were less than pleasant, so it evoked no stirrings in him anymore. “But I guess after living with the squales for a time, learning to think and communicate like them, I couldn’t help but improve my singing.”

He studied her, sensing something beneath her words. “Ensign…are you thinking of staying here?”

Her mouth hung open. “Oh, sir. No.”

“But the squales…they’ve essentially adopted you into their pod, haven’t they?”

“Yes, but…pods change members all the time. It’s like a family in a lot of ways…but it’s really more like a crew. And I already have one of those.” She smiled. “My responsibility is to
Titan
, and to you. I wouldn’t run away from that. I’ll stay here as long as you need an interpreter, an ambassador. But then I’m going back to the conn.” She winced. “Back to living in that damn hydration suit.”

He smiled down at her. “Maybe there’s a way to make the suit more comfortable. How about adding a pin?”

She tilted her head. “A pin, sir?”

Riker nodded. “A small, round gold pin with a black circle in the middle. To go next to the solid gold one on the collar.”

The Selkie gaped. “Sir?”

“Aili, you just saved a planet. People who save planets get to be lieutenants.”

She was speechless for a moment. Then she grinned. “Well, it’s about time!”

“It certainly is. I—”

“Gillespie
to Riker. Come in.”

Riker looked up, though the shuttle was not in sight.

It had been on
Titan
at last report and wasn’t scheduled to return; it must have come down to relay a message. “Riker here.”

“We’ve just heard from the
Horne
and the
Armstrong,” came Ensign Waen’s voice.
“They’re coming in, sir, all hands safe and well. And Commander Troi says there’s an extra passenger she wants you to meet.”

TITAN

As soon as the shuttles had landed, Riker raced inside the
Horne
and into its aft compartment to see Deanna. The sight of her with their daughter in her arms was the most extraordinary thing he’d ever seen. He felt whole in a way he never had before.

He embraced her softly for a long time, the baby between them. She offered her to him without a word, and his arms cradled the tiny girl with great delicacy and care, though it felt like the most natural thing in the world. Her big black eyes looked up at him with awe to match his own.

“
Imzadi
,” he said. “Look what we did.”

“Mm-hmm. We did good.”

“I am so sorry I wasn’t there,” he told them both, shaking his head.

His wife stroked his cheek. “You were,
imzadi
. I felt you.” She nodded at the child. “Something tells me she felt you too.”

His eyes went away from the baby for the first time since he’d first seen her, moving to Deanna. “How
much empathy do you think she’ll have? Only a quarter Betazoid…”

“Hey. Don’t sell the Troi genes short. Remember, this is a daughter of the Fifth House. An heir to the Sacred Chalice of Riix.”

“And let’s not forget the Holy Rings of Betazed,” Riker added in a mock-bombastic voice, wiggling his daughter’s tiny hand as it clutched reflexively at his thumb. He frowned and glanced back at Deanna. “Really? I never thought of that. We get
the
Holy Rings of Betazed?”

She gave a sheepish grin. “Don’t get excited. There are fifty thousand of them. Half the families on the planet are heirs to them.”

“Fifty
thousand
?”

Deanna shrugged. “The ancient Betazoids were a very holy bunch.”

“Captain.” It was Tuvok, coming back from the cockpit. “Commander,” he added, then nodded formally to the child, to Riker’s great amusement. “It is gratifying to see you reunited.”