Dyson Sphere - Charles R. Pellegrino [14]
The darkness did not last very long. The Darwin’s photo multipliers were capable of looking down from the surface of Earth’s moon and discerning the glow of a firefly in the Australian outback. They came on instantly, and the flattest plain in all the known universe was visible again. As Data double-checked and quadruple-checked his figures, calling out the results of his calculations from moment to moment, Picard looked forward to being on the underside of that plain. The Darwin’s time here would be too short, but he wondered if some bit of knowledge might be gained to prevent the coming destruction. It seemed unlikely, but he could hope.
“Lock opening again,” Data announced.
After a second closing, and then a third, the Horta captain said, “Open again, Data. We’ll take the Darwin in and try opening the lock from inside with the combination.”
“You have it now, Captain Dalen,” Data said.
As the lock opened, the Horta ordered half-ahead on impulse power. The Darwin eased forward, and entered the Sphere. As the ship continued forward and came around to exit, large land masses and bodies of water swept across the screen, spread across the incurving surface in full daylight. The lock was closing again as the Darwin came to face it.
Picard tensed, remembering the catastrophic exit of last time, when the Enterprise had fired upon the Jenolen as it held the lock open, beamed Montgomery Scott and Geordi La Forge out only a moment ahead of the ship’s destruction, and then slipped through the closing lock at the last instant. That had been too close a call.
“Opening signal sent,” Captain Dalen announced.
Picard took a deep breath in the seconds before the lock responded, then breathed more easily. As the Darwin came out, Riker said from the Enterprise, “Now I’m sure you’ll stay to the last minute, or you wouldn’t have made so certain of your exit.” If it works four times,” Picard replied, “it should work when we need it.”
“Not necessarily true, Captain,” Data said, “but very likely. Inductive reasoning is always a gamble, logically speaking, however small.”
Riker said, “Inductive reasoning is often throwing your hat over the cliff and jumping after it.”
“One more try, then,” Picard said, “but this time we’re going in for the duration.”
Riker was becoming uneasy, increasingly so, as the others aboard the Enterprise wished the Darwin “good luck” or “Godspeed” and a “safe return.” He did not like such farewells; they sounded like a challenge to fate. They made him think of others who had said the same timeworn phrases to people they would never see again.
At last, thinking of the Great Scott Sea, and all the other bodies of water inside Dyson, Riker recalled another kind of good luck message.
He leaned over his console. “Don’t get your feet wet,” he said to Picard and the others aboard the Darwin.
Transit of Darwin
THE SPHERE’S LOCK, closed again. Geordi, sitting aft of Captain Dalen on the bridge, monitored from an engineer’s station as the Darwin went forward. His console and display screen were nearly identical to his bridge station aboard the Enterprise, except for being closer to the floor so as to be more easily accessible to a Horta. He was sitting on one of the Horta saddles, which had turned out to be more comfortable than he had expected; at his right, Lieutenant Kar, one of the engineering officers, sat in front of another console.
Slowly the lock opened, and the ship entered the great lighted space.
“Darwin to Enterprise,” Captain Dalen said over the subspace link. “We are safely inside and proceeding sunward.”
“Reading you clearly,” Data’s voice replied.
“Captain Picard,” Geordi said, “we’ve just picked up an anomalous gamma ray flare, but it’s not from the sun. One Gev, precisely—meaning proton-anti-proton annihilation.