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Matsubara had met with some of the Jonesborough inhabitants who had appeared in the cavern. Most of them were pretty angry, and a lot of them were scared, especially once they had learned more about their surroundings and the situation they were in. On the other hand, she had not learned much about the situation back on Charamand, except for the fact that large areas around Adamsburg had been evacuated in case of these mass-transport events. Now, according to them, the evacuated area had not been large enough. The only reason for these events, Matsubara thought, was because the captain and others on board the Athena were attempting to break into the structure. * * * Governor Whitmore had asked to meet with Thorpe in her office, and though it took away preparation time for the lander, he felt that he had no choice but to go. More than once, Thorpe knew, politicians had implied that Starfleet officers were subservient to them, and that politicians had to be respected and sometimes Starfleet had to bend to their will. He just knew that he was going to get an earful from the governor about the last of the "blanking" events had how it had carried away a hundred and thirty-seven more people. He also felt obligated to inform her of the plan, and to warn her that it could cause another round of unwanted transports. If this worked, it would be the last of the transports, and if this did not work... Thorpe hated to think of that outcome. * * * Matsubara and Kayaha were taken to a room inside the operations structure, where they were met by a couple of Dorans. They had a quantity of equipment that included what the science officer first thought was some kind of agonizer or mental information extractor, although she could not be sure what the alien equipment really did. Nevertheless, she suddenly felt a little nervous and just a little more scared, as she wondered what the Dorans wanted to do with her. For a fleeting moment, she realized that making this trip was a mistake, and that she really should have thought this through. The worst she thought that the Dorans could have done was to enslave her, but now, she realized, they could do something worse. She glanced over at Kayaha and found that he was calm. Odonans were not exactly known for hiding their emotions, but the man beside her seemed to be unconcerned about what might happen to him. Perhaps living on this planet for sixty-one years, cut off from home, the bond-links severed, might have altered him somehow.
Chapter 10
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After that conversation, she and Guerrero, and some of the other Athena officers, had a dinner of boiled beans and not-quite-ripe tomatoes, with Kayaha as their guest. "It's possible," the man started, "that the Odonans who know something about what's happening-this Lieutenant Takoo-might know that the gateway can be activated from the other side, which is why they want to break in."
"But we have no idea if they've succeeded," Matsubara replied. "None of this latest crop of people to come over know one way or the other. Most have little idea what was going on. I guess the Charamandian authorities did not keep them informed."
"That's unfortunate."
Kayaha spoke up, saying, "Are we going to give them more time to see if they're succeeding, or are we going to go ahead with the mission?"
"I'd give them until morning," Matsubara said. "Afterall, if these transport effects are so widespread that they're reaching areas that the people had been evacuated to, then that would limit their approach. We've heard of no further transports since, so they must've stopped. If they did not get in, then that approach might not work, and we might not have any choice but to go and attempt to talk to the Dorans."
"I see."
Matsubara went to her so-called quarters, and tried to sleep. However, she found it no easier to sleep on the hard surfaces on the second try. In addition, she felt increasingly uncomfortable since they did not have enough water of any kind for bathing. That, she had to remember, was the worst thing about the survival training exercise and what they were doing now. In time, her nose was likely going to lose sensitivity. It had only been a couple of days, but the shower in her quarters was the thing she was missing the most right now.
Sleep did not come. She thought about the decision that she had to make, and which she did not want to make. As the hours went by, and she tossed and turned-with increasing discomfort-on the hard surface, she was hoping that word would come to her that the gateway had been opened from the other side and that she was going home. But it did not happen. The place was very, very quiet. Even the systems that provided some warm air were silent, and nothing seemed to be moving. The fact that it was minus twenty-five outside at night meant that the underdressed population did not want to journey outside too much. More than once, Matsubara sat up and looked through the window. The galaxy was always a feature in the sky here, never sliding below the horizon as the planet turned on its axis. She fixed her gaze on it, as if that would bring her back home. She wanted to be there, to be with the captain and share a more personal conversation and moment with him. She missed that. She missed everything back there. Here, she had nothing, and judging by the Odonan experience, after sixty-one years they had nothing but the hope that one day they would be rescued. She likely would not survive sixty-one years here. How could they grow food? How could they even bathe and get replacement clothing? What about all of those civilians? Many had to feel that the situation was hopeless.
Matsubara finally got up. The eastern sky still had not shown any sign of the band of orange that signalled the approach of dawn on this strange world. She knew that she had to make a decision. It would be up to her to do what she could to get them home again. She was not used to this responsibility, but she was the senior officer and the other Athena officers deferred to her. It was the natural order of things, as the highest-ranked, most-senior officer was the one in charge. The civilians seemed to defer to the Starfleet officers too, as they represented a higher level of authority. They would listen to her. In time, they might grumble and challenge her authority, but initially, they would listen. It was all up to her. She could sit here and hope that Captain Thorpe and the others could find a way into the structure and a way to activate the gateway. But what if they never could do that? Then it became her responsibility to do what she could to get them home. The only thing she could think of was to ask the Dorans. She did not want to go on this mission. She knew that she could order somebody else to do it, but that would not be right. She would need to be in some kind of control, to have on-the-spot authority, during the mission. It was just that given what little she knew about the Dorans, she might not come back from this mission. That was what she hated the most-or was it? Maybe what she hated the most was to be trapped on this planet forever.
She braved the cold and crossed over to the operations structure. She was hoping that the gateway would be active, but it was not. She checked the cavern, but no additional material had come across since that group of Jonesborough evacuees had appeared. If the gateway was not open, that implied that the Athena and its crew could not break in, or if they could, they could not operate the gateway. She would have to do it.
"You're up early," Kayaha said, startling the human.
She turned to face the Odonan, and said, "So are you."
"I could not sleep."
"That's unusual for an Odonan."
"This place has made all of us pretty unusual for Odonans. We're all going to need re-education and adjustment to fit back in."
"But you want to?"
"We have no future here."
"I know," Matsubara admitted.
"Do you consider your deadline to be up? It's not quite dawn yet, but nobody's come through that portal. By now, they should have."
"I know."
"So are you going?"
"Yes."
"When?" Kayaha asked.
Matsubara checked her phaser and tricorder. She had them attached to the charging system that Turokuot had set up. It took all night for their power cells to be topped up, but when she looked, both had pretty well a full charge. "Right now. Lets go, before the others wake up and inform us of the same thing our own minds are going to tell us sooner than later."
"What?"
"That this is a bad idea. I keep worrying that I will wake up and not have the nerve to do this. We are taking a risk."
"Yes," the Odonan man replied. "I understand that. I also understand, based on what we had been talking about for so long, that we have just two ways to get home. Either we try to convince the Dorans to allow us to return, or we wait for your fellow officers to come through. I don't know about you, but these long years of exile have shown to me the need to be more proactive, and do things ourselves."
"Then why didn't you and others with you attempt this mission?"
"We know that the structure on Norg was destroyed. We had no idea where we would end up if we went to any other structure. We didn't know what you showed us about the map. We had no idea of the correlation."
"Yeah, that wormhole network thing is much more recent."
Matsubara took her equipment, and also gathered up some of the carrots, which were among the few varieties of food that they could carry and which needed no special preparation or care to eat. Containers of ice had been brought inside to melt, and now Matsubara used a phaser to quickly bring the water to a strong boil to hopefully kill any contaminants in the water. She poured some of the still-steaming water into metal containers that had been found and which served this purpose. The water was hot now, but taking it outside would cool it down rather quickly. Through all of this, she saw nobody else. Everybody was asleep. Strangely, nobody was over here, keeping an eye on the gateway, or even the cavern to see if anything else was coming in. Matsubara did look. The coils showed not even the slightest hint of red.
"Ready?" Kayaha asked.
"I am."
"Lets go."
The two returned to the residential section of the structure, and made their way down the now-familiar series of ramps and corridors to reach the transport station. Clearly remembering what had happened the first time she had been here, Matsubara could not help but keep her hand on her phaser, even as it sat in the holster, and was ready to shoot at the slightest provocation. The walls still prevented their tricorders from scanning into the open area ahead of them, so the only way in was to simply walk and be observant. However, no strange vehicle sat at the platform, and the room was eerily silent and empty.
Nothing much was said as the two walked over to where the system map was displayed. Matsubara simply confirmed that she had the right co-ordinates, the right pattern of dark and light slots, for what she believed to be the Doran location. She just assumed that the special symbol, which was lit to indicate that it was occupied and operational, was the central command location because it was represented differently. She looked at the symbol, and saw just a location, and even the location was abstract. There was no guarantee, she knew, that the locations corresponded with the real locations on the planet. She had no idea where she was going to end up.
Still without talking, the two walked over the crossover bridges to where the vehicles waited. They picked one of the smaller ones, and sat down in the front, facing the simple array of controls. Matsubara, using the visual scan of the Doran location symbol, made the adjustments to the lone major control in the cabin. She had her hand poised above the button that would start the vehicle, and apparently, there was no way to stop the vehicle once she pushed that button. "Are you ready?"
Kayaha took a few seconds to answer that, saying, "Yeah, I guess so. Nobody's really ready for this."
"I know. I don't think within the next few seconds, we're going to see someone running into the room saying, 'They're here! They're here!'"
"Agreed."
"And we'd still have to try to recover those who were captured already." Matsubara looked forward, and found herself closing her eyes. If she pushed the button, she was going to commit herself. She thought that at some point in her time on this planet, she was going to have to push that button and deal with the consequences. She just never thought of herself as a leader like this. Many years ago, when she was much younger, she remembered going through 'leadership exercises,' as if there was something more noble in being a leader rather than a follower. Nobody had to teach people to be followers.
"Do you want me to push the button?" Kayaha asked.
"No," Matsubara replied. Then she committed herself and pressed in the button. The vehicle started up, lifted off the mag-lev tracks and moved onto an operating track. Seconds later, the hatch to the tunnel opened, and the vehicle disappeared through it. Ahead, the woman saw nothing but rings of bluish light, which seemed to come faster and faster, and which were more closely spaced and were brighter.
"Scared?" Kayaha asked, still looking forward.
"A little," Matsubara admitted. She realized how she felt. She could feel the pit in her stomach. She could feel the apprehension reflected in a faster heartbeat and shallower breathing, and she felt the fear with the slightly increased rate of sweating, despite the cool interior of the vehicle. She felt tense. Her body was on edge. Her mind was keen and sharp, or so she liked to believe. She felt a sense of apprehension and anxiety the likes of which she had not felt since that day she took the hyperplane from Tokyo to San Francisco, and then on to Starfleet Academy. Then, she had a feeling that it was within her to make that experience a positive one, but here, no matter what she did, this mission could turn out disastrously.
The man spoke up, "What's the worst that could happen?"
"I don't know."
"You said some of your people had been captured. At worst, we would join them."
"That doesn't sound very appealing to me," Matsubara remarked.
"It beats dying."
"Maybe, or maybe not."
The bands of bluish light had merged into a kind of a blur, but now they were distinct again and were starting to spread out and not streak by so quickly. "I think we're almost there," Kayaha said.
Just those thoughts made Matsubara nervous enough that she was questioning the wisdom of eating her last meal. A part of her wanted to simply turn around and go back to the structure she had left from, and admitted failure. Nobody would really know. Ahead, a hatch appeared and opened for them, revealing a station that was similar to the one that they had departed from. The vehicle entered one of the tracks, and came to a stop about halfway down the platform length, and quite close to the exit. About the only difference between this one and the one Matsubara had departed from, and the Odonan one, was that it was about twice the size and had much more space for parked vehicles. She saw a lot of the smaller vehicles, not unlike the one she was on, but very few of the larger, multisectional ones like the Dorans had used in their first attack. Maybe the Odonans were not the only ones to destroy a vehicle of attacking Dorans. That did remind her that she had seen another lit symbol, indicating a third race had a presence here. Others might have been here previously.
"Nobody around," Kayaha said, as he looked around, his sharp Odonan eyes taking in a lot.
"I don't know if that's a good sign, or a bad sign."
Once the vehicle stopped, the two climbed out. Kayaha had his phaser at the ready, while Matsubara scanned. As at their home base, the walls contained fields that made them impenetrable to sensors. All that they could do was confirm that they were alone in the room. Part of her was thinking of the wild chance that the Dorans were not in fact here and that she could simply enter the control centre, figure out how it works and activate the outbound functions. She could dream.
"No point just standing here."
"Agreed," Matsubara remarked. They approached the lone exit, which was broad and open to them. They could see down the corridor to where the base of the ramp appeared, and they saw nobody. Nevertheless, they started to walk, slowly, aware of the sound of their boots on the well-scuffed and worn floor. Otherwise, the place was silent to the point of unease. The two did not want to speak a word to each other, in case that brought unwanted attention. Once they reached the end of the corridor, and before entering the more open area around the base of the ramp, they cautiously looked around. Several smaller corridors branched off in various directions, but they were darker than most and looked to be unused. In tones more akin to whispers, she said to the man standing beside her, "It's still a long way to the surface, and to the opposite half of the structure, which is where the control centre has to be."
"Assuming the layout is the same."
"It looks like it so far."
Once more they looked out into the open area, and saw that nobody was around. Matsubara simply signalled for them to proceed. They reached the ramp, but before climbing, they looked around, and Matsubara scanned again, to gather as much data as possible. Now she joined Kayaha in having her phaser out as they started to climb the levels, getting to the one immediately below ground level. Like the structure at home, this one had a broad corridor that led in two directions, both of which ultimately allowed access to the surface. Still their eyes and their instruments detected nothing. "Maybe there simply aren't that many Dorans," Matsubara offered. "Maybe pretty well all of them were involved in the raid."
"If only we were so lucky. Had we known that, we might've attempted this journey a long time ago."
"But we're not there yet. Lets go."
Matsubara did feel a bit relaxed. Although by no means a security officer, she had received phaser training in the Academy, and also some basic tactical skills, including what to look for in an enemy location, to be aware of the enemy and to judge the surroundings for possible enemy locations and danger points. Given the on-going war, she had taken part in refresher drills in the holodeck, a requirement of the fact that she had achieved the rank of lieutenant commander and so had more responsibilities. She knew that she would not have an expert eye in these matters, and just hoped that she had a competent one. Both she and Kayaha kept a careful eye on their surroundings, but the simple corridor did not offer much in the way of hiding spaces. At the end of the corridor, they came to the ramp that would take them up to the next level. Again, they looked around the corner, and saw nothing. They moved up the ramp, keeping to one side and looking at possible hiding places. If this structure was organized like the one Matsubara had come from, then she knew that they would be entering a concourse area, which had many different areas of the residential structure branching off in addition to the main exit to the outside. Entrances at the ends of the concourse led to corridors that went through the curving connecting structures.
At the top of the ramp, they moved around the corridor, and entered the concourse area. This place looked different. It was larger. It was built like an atrium, with higher levels, as many as thirty of them, open in a central tower. The upper levels were like balconies that were open to the large open area. Matsubara could imagine snipers at any level, and she knew that she could not see them readily. The space was closed off by what looked like tubes, which might have been elevator or turbolift tubes, and those tubes almost formed an archway-like structure that contained the exit outside.
"This is different," Matsubara said.
"No kidding."
After a sweep with the tricorder, she added, "And just as empty as we had seen before."
Cautiously, they moved towards the exit. Sunlight streamed through windows above the doors, although the doors themselves were made of metal, and that metal had the same kind of fields that prevented them from scanning through. Matsubara was again wondering where the Dorans were. Maybe, she thought, they only used this location as a stopover, and somehow were able to hide their true location. But if this was the control centre, and she could make it work, then she would not need to really track down the Dorans-except she had to find Stanislava, Warner and the other missing people.
Standing by the door handle, Kayaha looked back and asked, "Should we risk it?"
"We've come this far."
"Maybe we should try the connecting structures."
"Maybe the Dorans simply aren't here," Matsubara said. "Lets take the chance."
She had Kayaha open the tall, sliding door just enough for the two of them to slip through. Given that both were rather slender and even short individuals, he did not have to move it too far. As soon as they could slip through, they did so, and immediately took a defensive posture.
Here, they could see differences. The structure on the other side seemed smaller than the similar structure back at the home base, and this one clearly lacked the large structure like the space door. In fact, it likely did not have the cavern at all and was not part of the system that actually transported ships. Two broad, curving structures connected the opposite structure with this one, but in the centre, instead of the flat, open area with the pillars, there were other structures, what looked like one- or two-story structures that filled all of the open space, except for a broad central road. Although the roofs were generally flat and simple, they were made of the same sensor-obscuring material, and that material was active. It also looked like it was not part of the original structure, but added on later.
"What do you make of that?" Matsubara asked, gesturing at the structures spread out before them.
"I don't know," Kayaha asked.
Matsubara looked beyond the structure. Above, the sun was shining, but the Milky Way galaxy was not visible. Instead, the blackness of the space revealed tens of thousands of stars, if not hundreds of thousands of them, forming no really distinctive pattern. It was as if she was looking towards the centre of a globular cluster from within. For a moment, she thought she was on another planet, but found that unlikely. They were simply on the hemisphere which pointed away from the galaxy. She also saw where the structure was located. What looked like mountains appeared to ring the structure in all directions, but it was a curious range of mountains, looking more like cliffs without distinctive peaks.
"A crater," Kayaha finally said.
"What?"
"We're in a crater, perhaps a hundred kilometres across, with walls reaching ten to twelve kilometres high in all directions. It would be impenetrable with any kind of ground vehicle."
"And this place would kind of stand out too, as it is the only structure within it."
"Maybe not," the Odonan added. "Point your tricorder skyward. If it has the range, it'll see that it cannot scan above twelve kilometres. I would not be surprised if the entire crater is obscured by the same cloaking field that hides the structures on the planets back home. On Norg, we broke into the structure, but the cloaking field persisted."
"Yet you could see through it?"
"Yeah, but that doesn't mean we can see through this. Maybe we could, but we couldn't scan this from orbit. Nobody would think that they could build in a crater."
"Okay," Matsubara said, as she shut off the tricorder. "The next step is to make the trip across to the other side. Notice how much warmer it is here than back home."
"Yeah."
"Lets go."
The two took several steps towards the stairway that led to the main walkway across the enclosed area. As they did, they heard some commotion behind them. They quickly turned, phasers at the ready, only to see a number of Dorans, still dressed in ragged clothing and looking ragged themselves, step out of unseen hiding places, weapons in hand. One of them shouted something, but the language was unknown and the universal translator could not handle it. Matsubara looked around, and saw maybe twelve of the aliens, all around them, but staggered so that nobody was caught in a crossfire. She had her phaser in hand, but realized that in this situation, she could not use it. The Odonan forcefield belts might have offered some protection, but even they could not withstand the assault for as long as it was likely to last. The lead Doran moved forward, all too aware of the weapons covering him, and he relieved the two visitors of their weapons. Oddly, they ignored the tricorder, and did not bother with Matsubara's commbadge or the forcefield belts, neither of which were visible.
"It didn't work," Kayaha said reluctantly.
"Well, we had to contact the Dorans somehow," Matsubara said, thinking that, oddly, she was pretty sure they would be captured by the Dorans. It was necessary in the original plan, but she had gotten off of that once she was thinking that this place might be abandoned. "At least they're not going to execute us on the spot."
"We hope."
The weapons gone, eight of the Dorans also vanished back into hiding places that Matsubara had not even seen. That left four of the bluish-gray aliens, and two of them convinced the visitors to walk down the stairs to the path across to the other side, and the other two walked at their sides, as if they needed to be convinced not to attempt to flee into the structures. Matsubara had no such thoughts right now. She was feeling that tension and apprehension and fear again.
The receptionist was not surprised to see the starship captain show up. "You can go right in," she said sternly. "She's expecting you."
"Okay."
Whitmore was behind her desk. She seemed to be just sitting there, as if she did not have much to do. "Welcome, captain," she started. She seemed civilized enough. She invited him to sit down, and even offered him a cup of coffee or tea. He passed, while she availed herself of the replicator for a cup of tea. She was taking a long drink, and keeping Thorpe waiting-he never could understand the mind games that politicians play, except that they tended to need all the time possible to prepare for whatever they did. Finally, she did start, "We have a problem here."
"I know," the man answered, and he did not elaborate.
"People are angry, and upset. We have them in rather ill-prepared emergency shelters, and we can't tell them when they're going back home. Even if they do go back home, the damage has been done. The vegetation has been stripped away. The soil could turn to dust and blow away. Animals that might be pets, are important to them, are gone now. What's worse is that the event that has done this damage continues to expand, and now, it has struck close to this city, and more people have disappeared. This has to stop."
"I know," Thorpe agreed.
"What are you going to do about it?"
"Well, since it's pretty clear that we can't allow these incidents to occur, I think that will end our attempts to break into the alien structure."
"Does that mean that you're giving up on the people from Adamsburg, and your missing officers?"
"No."
"Then what are your plans?"
Thorpe had this strange feeling that his plans were not the most sound and most practical around, and that he would have to defend them against others. They would object. Nevertheless, he had to inform Whitmore what he was planning to do. "What we're going to do is to attempt to work the alien structure from the other side. We believe that the structure was built by aliens as a means to transport ships over long distances. If this is true, we'll take the landing module from the Athena and make the trip over. With our enhanced resources, we should be able to figure out a way to work the system from the other side, and perhaps learn more about the structure, how it works and how to control it to prevent these incidents. In addition, we'll be bringing over supplies and resources to help those already there."
"What if you fail in your mission? What if you can't operate the device at the other end?"
"I understand there's a risk in this mission, but it's a risk we're prepared to take. If the worst happens, and we're trapped at the other end, we'll at least have the resources in the lander to at least see us through indefinitely. However, I do anticipate that with time, we should solve this problem. We can learn, and with the lander, we can explore."
"I cannot condone this mission."
"Why?"
"The transit might cause an expanded event, which could strike right at Charamand City."
"I don't believe that will occur," Thorpe remarked.
"What makes you say that?"
"The alien structure appears to realize where signals are coming from. When something strikes at it or appears to strike at it, the 'blanking' is designed to reach out to the source of the strike. When we attempt the transit, the lander will be over Adamsburg, so the blanking should not extend beyond the original sixteen kilometres."
"You're sure of that?"
"We attempted to use some Odonan technology in a probe, to relay our signals in a manner that we believed the structure could not detect. It did not. Instead, it sensed that the probe was the source, and it launched one of its blanking events, but it only extended out to the probe itself, and not significantly beyond."
"I see," Whitmore remarked, but it was clear to Thorpe that she was not impressed. "I still cannot allow this attempt to proceed. The risk is too great."
"So what do we do?" Thorpe started, feeling just a bit angry. "Do we abandon them?"
Whitmore did not want to admit that, so she said instead, "We have to work on another way."
"I don't believe there's another way."
"Captain, I have always wondered about the philosophical argument that suggests the lives that you are attempting to rescue are worth more than the lives that you are risking in the attempt. If your attempts fail, not only will those who initially were lost remain lost, but other people, not all of them having had the choice in this matter, would be lost too."
"I can't believe you're saying that."
"You need to answer the question, captain. I do not believe that your chance of success in your scheme is worth the risk."
"And I believe that it is."
"Captain, lets get one thing straight. I am the governor of this planet. I speak for its people. I do not believe that this risk is acceptable. I mourn for the people of Adamsburg, but I cannot let you risk the lives of many others in an attempt to rescue those people already lost, using a method that you can't say will work."
"So we abandon them?"
"That's not how I look at it. I look at it from the point of the people we have not lost yet, and are risking."
"Then move them further back."
"Captain, I can't evacuate Charamand City. There's no place to go now. The people here already are going to start to suffer the same problems you're imagining the people on that planet in the Small Magellanic Cloud are suffering. I don't have the option. I don't have the support of the people in this one. You can see the problem I have."
"You want to abandon them."
"That's not what I said," retorted Whitmore.
"You want me to abandon them."
"I want you to come up with a plan that has less risk to the people still here, that's all."
"There aren't any," Thorpe remarked.
"And you're sure of that?"
"As far as I know, the device transports ships from one location to another, and it appears to be some kind of terminal, with the advanced technology at the other end. Its abilities at this end are limited. To understand and work the technology, we have to access it. There are two ways to do it, at this end, and at the other end. Our attempts to access it at this end have failed, and the blanking events are proof of that. Therefore, the only other choice is to access it at the other end. We will be using the structure as it was intended to be used, more or less, and you must admit that it's normal operation is to not send a mass of vegetation and people with each ship."
"I know that, but it's your 'more or less' comment that worries me. You don't know how to access the device 'normally,' so your approach will be to fire the mining phaser at it, and hope that the structure, in its attempt to defend itself, will transport just the ship. That's what I'm talking about. That's also your other approach. Find out how to operate the structure normally."
"That could take time. What about those already there? Nobody was prepared for what happened to them. How are they going to survive?"
"It wouldn't do them much good to add more people to their problems over there, would it?"
"No, but-"
"Maybe the solution would be to find another location that has this structure, perhaps a world that is not occupied."
"Easier said than done."
"Captain," Whitmore retorted.
"Finding another planet with this structure is not easy. Remember, the Odonans lost their settlement sixty-one years ago. They have been looking."
"I can't believe that they have done so too seriously."
"Consider this," Thorpe started, recalling the story that Takoo had told him. "One of the most influential politicians in the Odonan Empire, with access to resources to match, commanded the Odonan ship that responded to the incident at Norg. That commander regards what happened there as the biggest mistake in her career, and she wants to correct that mistake. Now, don't you think that the Odonans had been looking? Look how fast they responded once they learned what happened here. Finding another location is not the answer. There's only one thing we can do, governor. You know it."
"But I can't allow it."
Thorpe stood up, saying, "If that is all, I need to return to the ship."
"Do remember, captain, that as the governor of this planet, I have final say on what happens here. As a Starfleet officer, you are bound by duty to follow orders from lawful authorities on a Federation world."
"Of course." Thorpe headed for the door. He just knew that Whitmore would pull the rank of politician on him, and he was worried that she might go above him and contact Starfleet Command, and strongly suggest to them that Thorpe's approach to this problem was not satisfactory. The governor watched him go, but did not say anything more. She had the feeling that he could and likely would ignore her demand. Starfleet captains were sometimes like that, feeling that they were right and that mere politicians did nothing more but get in the way.
Once he left the governor's office area and entered the common area, he tapped his commbadge and had the ship beam him back up. In the transporter room, Johnson was working the controls, and Takoo was with her. "How did it go?" the first officer asked.
"Whitmore doesn't want us to go ahead."
"I can understand her reasoning," Johnson replied.
"I understand the reasoning, but that doesn't mean I accept it. She's only thinking of the blanking events, and seems unwilling to accept our understanding of how the alien structure works."
Takoo pointed out, "She likely thought about the fact that though our aim is to use the device to transit to the Small Magellanic Cloud, we wouldn't be triggering it normally."
"She mentioned that."
"So what do we do?" asked the Odonan.
"We go," Thorpe said simply.
"Captain," Johnson pointed out, "Did the governor give you explicit instructions to the contrary?"
"She did, but she's just a planetary governor. I'm prepared to take the fallout from violating what she might believe to be viable orders, but which I might not be willing to accept. On the other hand, if it works, and we bring back the Adamsburg people-and Damiko and the other officers and the more recent arrivals over there-then she might not be too serious in pressing her accusations."
"You can hope. If there's anything about politicians, it's that they're vindictive. If you cross them, they might cross you."
Takoo asked, "Could this woman go over your head and contact Starfleet Command, and have them tell you not to go?"
"It's possible," Thorpe said, "so we need to get going as soon as possible."
Johnson said, "I'm sure that the Charamandian authorities have the ability to detect the passage of the lander through the atmosphere."
"Not if it is cloaked."
"Captain."
"Nadine, we must do this," Thorpe retorted. "We are going to do this. I am getting tired of this... pessimism, of hearing what we can't do or shouldn't do. We need to focus on what we can do. We can do this..."
Seated behind a table was a Doran male, who appeared to be better dressed and better groomed than the majority of Dorans Matsubara had previously seen. The guards who brought the two newcomers to this location gestured for them to walk towards that table. The man simply handed them a large panel that was like a padd in that it displayed text. What was surprising for Matsubara was that the text was in English. She turned towards Kayaha and asked, "Can you read English?"
"No," Kayaha admitted.
She read it out, as a result, "We have captured others of your kind, and one of them had an instrument that allowed her to correlate your language with the Preserver code. This allowed us to program our translation devices to handle your language and your translation device to handle ours. We have allowed you to keep your scanning instrument for the purpose of downloading the translation matrix and integrating it with your own translation device. We are unsure of the accuracy of our ability to translate the language of your companion."
Right away, Matsubara understood the necessity of being able to communicate with the Dorans. If she was going to attempt to convince them to activate the outbound function for the structures, she would have to communicate. She also realized that if Stanislava had provided this information, the man behind the desk, and perhaps others, could already understand her. "Okay, I understand," she said. "My tricorder can accept this data. I also have the programming for his language, Odonien, which can also be downloaded and transferred."
The Doran said something, but Matsubara could not understand him. Instead, she heard Kayaha ask, "Is that wise, commander?"
"We need to talk to them," she replied.
The better-dressed Doran stood up, and took out from under the table a device that was vaguely like a tricorder in the sense that it had buttons and a display screen, but it was scratched and dented and clearly had seen a lot of use. He gestured for Matsubara to point the download port for the tricorder against his device, and then he started transmitting. As the data flowed in, she could see what was unmistakably the finely precise Preserver code linked to an alien language she had no knowledge of. Because their mission might have involved unknown alien groups, Matsubara had the necessary processing routines in her tricorder, and was able to use the downloaded data to generate a translation matrix directly between English and Doran. This, in turn, was downloaded through a wireless transmission into the universal translator implant in her right ear. As the data integrated, she realized that she could increasingly pick out words spoken around her, even as the others stopped talking.
"I can understand you now," Matsubara said.
"Good," replied the Doran leader. "Can you allow us to communicate with your companion?"
"It's possible."
Matsubara and Kayaha, and two of the Dorans and the well-dressed leader, spent the better part of ten minutes downloading and extracting data, adjusting translation matrices, trying to make the formats compatible and generally using brute force and frequency adjustments to make the incompatible equipment transmit to each other and to assimilate and use data. In the end, a direct Odonien-Doran translation matrix was developed, and the leader had this data downloaded into his own implant.
That preliminary work out of the way, the leader gestured for all the other Dorans except for the two guards to leave the room. The guards actually stood back by the door, leaving Matsubara and Kayaha in this room filled with electronic devices and other things, along with the better-dressed Doran. He stood up, and in a more forceful voice, said, "I do not know why you came here, but if your mission was to somehow achieve the release of the people we acquired in the recent journey to your encampment, you can forget it. I will not negotiate."
"Actually," Matsubara remarked, trying to sound firm but coming off a little weak instead. "What we want to do is to basically inquire about having you turn on the outbound function in the alien technology so that we can go home."
The room was silent. The Doran leader looked at Matsubara with the kind of glare that could kill the unprotected. She looked around, and had to wonder if the Dorans actually preferred to live here, in this cold and unpleasant structure on this unforgiving, even ugly planet. Thinking that perhaps the newcomer did not get the point, the leader finally said, "That is impossible."
"Why?"
"If I were to take you to the transit station at the structure where we appeared, you would be exposed to the sky, and would see the wreckage scattered over a great area of land." In short, Matsubara remarked, the structure was destroyed, so the Dorans could not go back to their home world.
"You could settle on another planet, which surely would be a better place than this, this crater that you live in here."
"No," the leader continued. "At random intervals, those who are responsible for our exile here return, and ensure that we are still here. If not, they will track us down at whatever world they find we have gone to and they will destroy us. That is their promise. We have no reason to believe that they would not carry out their threat. They will let us live here. We rule this world. This is our planet."
"Very well," Matsubara remarked. She was thinking that if the Dorans were living here by choice, then that was their decision, but what about the other races? "Okay, if you want to stay here, that's fine, but what about us? Why must we stay here? If you wish to stay and rule this planet as your own world, then you can do that, but why must we stay here? Let us return."
"That is not possible."
"Why?"
The Doran leader stood up, and the anger that rose up within him caused him to become flustered, which resulted in even deeper blue cheeks. "You ask too many questions, woman, and I have humoured you long enough by answering them. That time is through. By coming here, you will join the work brigades. You will remain here for the rest of your natural lives, and you will do as you are told. Punishment for violators is extreme. You have no rights here except those that we grant you, and you no longer have the right to ask questions. You will go now!"
As if to emphasize the point, the two guards stepped forward, and grabbed them by the upper arm and led them out of the room. Realizing that the guards were not equipped with translation devices-so Matsubara and Kayaha could understand them but they could not understand the newcomers-they started to talk. "That went very, very badly," the Odonan said.
"I know. Essentially, it was a failure."
"You had no idea of this outcome," Kayaha added.
"Yeah, perhaps you're right. I didn't anticipate that the Dorans might want to remain here as their own choice, but why would they want to take the chance that others would come here and in an attempt to rescue those who were taken, only to find themselves trapped and with revenge on their minds? Clearly, these structures are designed to transport a ship, so if somebody on the other side could figure out how to do that, the Dorans could find themselves facing ship weapons and the like."
"That's their choice, it seems. My only thinking is that perhaps not all Dorans think like that. Maybe there is a number that would be willing to risk going to some other planet to live. Afterall, to stop this tracker from coming after them, all they have to do is destroy the structure that they exit through. Maybe the leadership, to avoid this possible dissent, basically says that they cannot activate the outbound function when in fact they do not want to."
"Perhaps."
The two were herded back outside and onto the walkway between the two halves of the structure. The walkway led through the more recently-constructed buildings, which did not appear to be occupied, or else the empty spaces were being used as storerooms. Halfway down the walkway, the guards got the two to turn down a narrow laneway, and after some more twists and turns, they entered the structure and ended up in what looked like some kind of common area. One of the guards spoke up, saying, "You two will stay here until further notice. By the next work cycle, you will have assigned tasks. Both of you have on your persons electronic devices which you are allowed to keep. Those devices have been detected by the security system, and will track you. You remove them under penalty of death." Facing Kayaha, he added, "You are unknown to us, and I do not know why we have not acquired more of your kind. Because you came with this person, you will stay in this compound with her kind." With those words, the guards quickly left. The sturdy doors leading out of the compound were closed and locked from the outside.
Matsubara took a few minutes to look around. All the room had were long tables with benches, and small doors that led into what might have been sleeping quarters. She took a peek into one of them, and found two cot-like beds in a room that was barely large enough for three of them. A smaller door beyond that led to a room that had an odour that Matsubara could identify, but did not want to dwell on. The beds had old and rough-looking blankets, and both beds looked like they had been slept in. Matsubara removed her tricorder and scanned the bed. Sure enough, she found lost strands of hair and flakes of skin, both of which were clearly of the human xenotype.
"This is where they took Lieutenant Stanislava and the others they captured," Matsubara said.
"I figured as much," Kayaha replied. "They're out there, probably working the fields and providing the Dorans with food."
"And we're going to join them, no doubt." She looked down at her tricorder, and said, "I wonder why they let me keep this?"
"Maybe because it can't be used as a weapon."
"But it could still be useful."
"Yet it can't scan outside the compound." Kayaha looked at himself, and said, "They let me keep the forcefield belt, though."
"I've got mine too."
"What?"
"I've got one too." The forcefield belt had been worn under the uniform jacket, and since this was a rather cold planet, Matsubara had kept the jacket portion of the uniform on, and mostly fastened. She lifted it now, to reveal the belt buckle, with its distinctive Odonan designs.
"How'd you get that?"
"We have some on the Athena, on loan from the Odonans after we helped save one of their planets from an invasion by the Dominion."
"Which planet?"
"Pusedchou."
"Oh. But it's not connected to any kind of secondary nervous systems. Earth humans are not able to generate bioelectricity."
"No, it's externally powered, but even so, it could be useful."
"What do you plan to do?"
"I don't know yet," Matsubara said. She finally did sit down at the end of the bench, and said, "But maybe all we can do now is to wait for the others to return."
