Enigma Ship - J. Steven York [20]
Duffy felt a tightness in his chest. Of course the duranium was in there, but in what form? The seconds ticked by.
“Away team, we’re—She’s intact! The Lincoln‘s still in one piece!” In the background audio, Duffy could hear cheers. He surprised himself by letting out a whoop and pumping his fist at the stars. He surprised himself even more when he leaned over and gave Gomez an awkward hug. More surprising yet, she hugged back, laughing all the while.
“What,” said Pattie, a puzzled tone in her voice, “was all that about?”
“Elation,” said Soloman. “A release of accumulated emotional tension. A human thing, perhaps, but I felt some of it myself. Our comrades are quite possibly alive.”
P8’s pickup transmitted an odd, tinkling sound. “Our orders were always to proceed on that assumption.”
“Sorry, Pattie,” said Duffy. “Humans can’t just be ordered to be optimistic. There’s hope, and there’s justified hope, and most of the crew just crossed from the former to the latter.”
“Gold to away team.”
Duffy was surprised to hear the captain’s voice. He quickly let go of Gomez’s waist and tried to put himself back into professional mode.
“You heard the man,” the captain continued. “If there was ever a doubt, this is now definitely a rescue mission. Get us inside.”
“Aye, sir,” responded Gomez. “Soloman, take us in.”
Chapter
7
Dr. Lense leaned over Stevens’s shoulder and stared at the console. “How much do you trust this data?”
Stevens shrugged. “I’m guessing maybe seventy percent accuracy. All our information is inferred, and Enigma was trying to mask our pulse.”
On a viewscreen to Stevens’s right, a tall, nervous-looking officer with a high forehead looked on. Lense understood that his name was Barclay, and he was some kind of expert on holotechnology.
Barclay shook his head in wonder. “A neutrino hologram. I—I wouldn’t even have thought it was possible.”
Stevens looked up at the screen and smiled wryly. “They haven’t seen anything like this in the Delta Quadrant, Lieutenant?”
“Voyager has encountered some amazing things. But nothing like this.”
“So you’re saying Enigma represents a more advanced technology than ours?” Stevens said.
Barclay seemed hesitant to commit. “In some ways, but there’s no sign of warp drive. You’re familiar with Principles of Parallel Technologies?”
Stevens nodded. “It’s already come up several times since this mission started. You think this is exception that proves the rule?”
Barclay’s eyebrows lifted. “Technically, the exception can never prove the rule, but it’s possible this is an exception of some sort. Waldport thought the urge to explore and to seek simulated experiences, through storytelling, or more advanced technologies like holodecks, were interrelated. Perhaps that might lead the occasional civilization down a different—different technological path.”
Lense squinted at the readouts. “I’m not an engineer, but how different are they? I mean, the ship hypothesis is mine, but shouldn’t there be more metal in there?”
Stevens shrugged. “Given the resolution of this method, we pretty much had to know what we were looking for, so there could be lots of nonduranium alloys inside there that aren’t showing. But we do show plenty of carbon-organic signatures, and only a small number of them correspond to the Lincoln crew. If we assume those are living creatures, and not corpses or somebody’s food supply, then it still looks like a ship.”
“There’s—there’s something else that’s bothering me,” said Barclay. “You said that Enigma showed some sign of—telepathic capabilities?”
Lense nodded. “According to our Betazoid crewmember, yes. Why does that bother you?”
“If we assume the crew have some telepathic abilities she’s picking up, then probably not. But if it comes from the holographic systems, possibly. Starfleet Intelligence, years ago, did some studies of a telepathic hologram feedback system.