Boogeymen - Mel Gilden [65]
Riker said, “Where are the real d’Ort’d, the creatures who wrote your program?”
“Creatures? Like Baldwin?”
This was taking a very strange turn, Picard thought. He said, “Yes, like Baldwin.”
“There are no creatures. We are the d’Ort’d.”
Eagerly Picard said, “Number One, if what they say is true, it would explain why we could not find the location of the other set of aliens our sensors detected aboard the original Omega Triangulae teardrop. They have no bodies. They are a computer program.”
“Computer programs don’t spontaneously generate. Somebody has to write them.”
Pilgrim said, “No one wrote us. Our planet has a highly organized crystalline structure. The heat from the molten core is converted to electrical energy. Over millennia, the energy became organized, too. No one wrote us. We evolved.”
Contemplatively, almost as if speaking to himself, Picard said, “You were part of the information Baldwin took from the teardrop ship on Tantamon Four. You were on the infowafer he brought aboard.”
“We were happy to help Baldwin delete himself from Federation records.”
“Why?” Riker said.
Pilgrim said, “We want Baldwin. We need him.” A little of the old Boogeyman barbed inflection returned to his voice momentarily.
“To be your pusher?” Picard said.
“Yes. Our organic units died on Tantamon Four. We need Baldwin to be our pusher so that we can go home.”
“Only Baldwin?” Riker said.
“Yes. Enterprise has no focusing mechanism. Many minds were needed to push your ship back to Tantamon Four. Our ship has the focusing mechanism. We need only Baldwin to push the ship into warp.”
Picard nodded and said, “Knowing that should please Baldwin and Shubunkin.” As he had guessed, the d’Ort’d were indeed the key to Enterprise’s problems, or at the center of them, anyway. If they were telling the truth about not being able to control the Boogeymen, knowing the d’Ort’d were a living race only made things more complicated.
Riker said, “Baldwin was aboard your ship for months, poking around, doing tests. If you needed him, why did you allow him to leave?”
“We didn’t know he was there. We were asleep, awaiting rescue.”
“A rescue mission is on its way?”
“Perhaps.”
“Enough of this,” Picard said. “Before we can discuss Baldwin, I must have control of the Enterprise.”
“The Boogeymen are in control. We can restrain them, but we cannot stop them. When we decided to help Baldwin erase himself from your records, we let him modify our basic structure for his purposes. That modification allowed your Boogeymen to attach themselves to us.”
“So you can’t get rid of them either,” Riker said.
“That is correct,” the d’Ort’d replied. “Nor can we stop spreading through your computer. It is our nature to grow. The Boogeymen grow with us.”
Picard wondered again if the d’Ort’d were telling the truth about their powerlessness against the Boogeymen. He decided there was no way to know and therefore it was not worth worrying about till circumstances forced him to do so. He had enough to worry about as it was—and clearly, their first concern was stopping the Boogeymen.
Picard called out, “Mr. Worf, please have Professor Baldwin join us.”
Baldwin fought Worf briefly and then went limp. Ensign Perry followed and stood between Picard and Riker. “Sir?” she said.
“Not now, Ensign,” Riker said.
Perry looked at Riker, obviously puzzled by his abruptness.
Worf deposited Baldwin like a sack in the extra chair. The exologist seemed gray and shrunken. His hair was not combed or even rakishly disheveled, only in disarray. He was not dirty, but then, Enterprise offered few opportunities to get that way. He would not look at them.
“Eric,” Picard said as gently as he could. He had to say it again before Baldwin looked up. The eyes, the slackness of his face, everything about him suggested madness.
Picard said, “Eric, we need to know how you changed the d’Ort’d code so that it would erase any mention of you from Federation documents.