Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [24]
“It must take a considerable amount of energy.”
“Yes, but such would only be apparent when the “platform” was actually transporting.”
“And recklessness,” Picard said softly. “If the power should fail …”
“Precisely. It is not what you would call a “low-risk” form of transportation. Interesting enough in its own way: a sort of stasis, or so it could be used. But in this case, I think not. I think our intruder’s transport started somewhere else—a long way somewhere else—was caught halfway by this device, and then the device was sent toward us, as we might send a probe. When it came within optimum distance, it transported.”
“Then turned away again,” Picard said. By the redshift it was showing, the object was now running away from them at about point five cee, not using warp, which would attract their sensors’ attention.
Picard shook his head. What kind of people would transport a man’s essence into this kind of limbo, then fire him away on the off chance that he would find the object they intended him to spy upon? And if he never found it …
“These are not nice people, Mr. Worf.”
Worf shook his head. “No, sir. They seem entirely too fond of stealth for my tastes. Honor is apparently quite foreign to them. One other thing, though.” He pointed. “Notice the probe’s course. Though much slower than ours, it is roughly following us; while I have been watching it, very slight alterations have been made to keep it more or less pacing us, along our course line. It will not get too far away from us, I think. And at some later date, it is doubtless intended to slip back into range and attempt to make a pickup.”
Picard nodded. “Tell Dr. Crusher that I want that man checked again, this time for subcutaneous transponders—we may have missed something. Tell her to leave no bone unturned.”
Worf nodded. “At any rate, the import of this device is that someone can transport aboard this ship while their home vessel, if vessel there is, is very far away. And without alerting us—for that waveform is how it was managed without immediately triggering the intruder alert.” Worf pointed again at the display. “Our systems recognized the pattern as their own and therefore did not raise the alarm.”
Picard frowned. “Definitely another Federation ship, then.”
“Not just a Federation vessel, but one of our class, and in our present state of repair. Otherwise there would be identifiable variations.”
“Definitely another Enterprise, then.”
“The odds would seem to be in its favor.”
Picard breathed out uneasily. It all still needed more consideration. “Have you shared your information with Mr. Data?”
“I am doing so now.”
“Good. See to it that Chief O’Brien gets it as well. I want him to have a word with the transporters and see to it that their own waveform is slightly altered—just enough to serve as a “tag,” if he likes, but in such a way that another of these incoming transports will register properly as an intrusion.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
Picard took himself off into the ready room and spent the next hour or so working on reports about other business. One of the problems with starship command was that no matter how much you managed to delegate or get the computer to do for you, there always seemed to be more of what Dr. Crusher called “administrivia.” After a while, he found his tension level rising. And why not? he thought, pushing his padd away. I don’t understand what’s happening and I don’t know what to do about it. A good enough reason.
He went over to the shelf, scanned the volumes there for a moment, and finally reached for the Anabasis, the “Journey of the Ten Thousand”: a good textbook for a man who wasn’t sure where to go or what to do next. Those Greeks had not, either. Marooned in Asia after their battle with a huge Persian force, their officers assassinated, trapped between the Persians and unknown country full of savage tribes, they headed home the long way—walked across a fourth of Eastern Europe as it was in those days—until they found the sea. Nothing had stopped them,