Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [20]
“Fascinating,” Picard said, leaning forward. “Who is the third man in the image?”
“The third … ? Haftel asked. “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you knew. That’s Emil Vaslovik.”
“Emil Vaslovik?!” La Forge asked unbelievingly. “How did you ever convince him to join you on the project? Everything I’ve ever heard about him made me believe that he would never work for Starfleet.”
“It wasn’t easy,” Reg said. “Or so Bruce said. I wasn’t involved in those negotiations, though I do know that Dr. Zimmerman signed on because Vaslovik did.”
“I’m sorry to say I’m not familiar with the name,” Riker confessed.
“A neurocyberneticist,” La Forge explained. “Some might say the neurocyberneticist. Prior to Vaslovik’s studies, most of the research in AI had been attempts to mimic human thought processes in machine systems. Vaslovik theorized that rather than program computers to act like humans, we should create machine systems that imitate human neural structures, then let them develop however they would. In fact, the recent development of bio-neural gel pack technology owes a lot to his early work.”
“It also has been suggested,” Data interjected, “that my father used Vaslovik’s research as the basis for creating my positronic brain. And that Vaslovik laid the groundwork for many of Ira Graves’s accomplishments in molecular cybernetics.”
Riker’s eyes widened slightly, recalling Graves as the dying genius who tried to cheat death by forcibly transferring his mind into Data’s body.
“He’s also notoriously anti-Starfleet,” La Forge added. “He did the majority of his work decades ago. Frankly, I’m surprised to hear he’s still alive.”
“I’m afraid that I have bad news on that score,” Haftel said. “Dr. Vaslovik died in the explosion that brought half the lab down on Maddox and destroyed the prototype android.”
There was silence around the table as the group absorbed this new information. Finally, McAdams asked, “What did your security people find?”
“Nothing to suggest foul play,” Haftel answered, getting the lieutenant’s drift. “I’ve arranged to have the incident report and related files uploaded to the Enterprise immediately following this meeting. But to sum it up, it looks like the primary culprit was a malfunction in the weather control grid. We had a very large storm that night and the grid went down while Maddox and Vaslovik were working in the lab. A bolt of lightning hit an unshielded transtator cluster in the power grid and the lab’s primary EPS conduit overloaded. Vaslovik must have been standing right next to the wall where the explosion occurred, because there was hardly anything left of him. Maddox was luckier.”
“You weren’t there, Mr. Barclay?” Picard asked.
“No, Captain,” Barclay said. “I w-was due to be there in another three hours. We were going to activate the android that night. I truly wish I had been there earlier. Maybe then Bruce and Emil—”
“—might have ended up the same way, with you just one more victim,” Haftel snapped. “We’ve been through this, Reg. You’re not responsible. Stop blaming yourself.”
“Aye, sir,” Barclay said quietly.
“What else did the investigation reveal?” McAdams asked.
“Not much. The damage was so severe, it’s been difficult to get in without triggering a complete building collapse. We managed to get Maddox out, but we didn’t dare risk doing more until we could figure out how to stabilize the structure, and that took time. When we were finally able to get back inside, it was clear the prototype had been crushed under fallen debris. We still haven’t succeeded in extracting it—the debris pinning it is holding up a major portion of the upper floor, so we can’t even beam it out yet.”
“Admiral,” Picard said, “it sounds as if you’re satisfied that this tragedy was an accident. If that’s the case, I hope you’ll forgive me if I repeat my earlier question: Why was the Enterprise summoned here?”
Haftel nodded. “That’s quite all right, Captain. It’s a valid question, and I quite understand your impatience. But you needed