Intellivore - Diane Duane [41]
Picard sat back in his chair. “So, two of the ships decided to make planetfall there; the third continued to the next candidate star. When the fourth ship caught up with the first three, it found one of them gone, crashed on the planet surface, and another on its way down, its orbit rapidly decaying. Psi-talented communications crew on the late-arriving ship said they knew there were live minds on the ship that was going down, but there was no answer from any of them, only a horrible blankness. And something else they were supposed to have sensed: very strongly, and nearby, a great hunger recently assuaged. Then that ship crashed, as the first one had, hard: no question of any attempt at a soft landing. The ships were crashed, the story had it, purposely crashed by some agency of hunger.”
Crusher looked up at Picard again at the mention of “blankness,” and still said nothing. “The late-arriving ship stayed just long enough to assess the situation,” Picard said, “conscious that their mechanical troubles must have saved them from the same tragedy. Whatever force had affected the other ships didn’t affect them, and the crew of the late arrival wasn’t minded to wait around until it did. They went on through the system as quickly as they could, on the trail of the other ship that hadn’t lingered. The only colony ship that hadn’t yet passed that way did so about a month later and found the star once again barren. There was no planet, and no sign remained of anything that had passed there. That last ship got out of there in a hurry and finally caught up with the vanguard, and the crews of those remaining ships settled the two Romulan worlds … so the story says.”
Looks were exchanged around the table as Picard mentioned the missing planet. Picard turned again to look briefly out into the night. He could suddenly hear the voice of the man who had told him the story: rough, troubled, almost tormented. It might have been a long time ago, but some memories remained surprisingly sharp, almost as if they knew they would be needed someday.
Into the silence, Clif said, “We get little enough news from the Romulan homeworlds. And much of what we do hear is uncertain of provenance. You never know when you’re being lied to for personal or political reasons, or just to keep the wicked aliens confused–”
Picard shook his head. “I think this material was trustworthy,” he said. “At least, the man who told it to me believed it. Somewhat later I found, from other sources, that he was the son of a Romulan spy, and a spy himself, surgically altered; he looked as human as you do. He was then in fact mourning his father, who had just been killed, and he was in no mood to lie.”
There was a silence. Pickup shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “It does sound like it could be a tall tale. After all, it might be embarrassing if word got out that your remote forebears fell foul of pirates, for example, after a navigational error. Much more interesting for them to be attacked by some kind of planet-moving, mind-eating monster …”
” ‘Mind eater,’ ” Picard said somberly, “was very close indeed to the name the Romulan gave it: iaehh, ‘Intellivore.’ And, Lieutenant, I thought as you did, originally. But the Romulans’ ancestors apparently knew pirates well enough, having lost at least one ship to them earlier, and my source had no hesitation