Intellivore - Diane Duane [70]
Hurriedly, he launched the torpedo that carried Geordi’s device, snagged it with another tractor beam, and held it ready to emplace. “Captain—” he said.
“You just hang on,” said Maisel, sounding harried.
“That is precisely what I will not be able to do much longer, Captain, if—”
“There we go!”
There was a sudden spit of red light from the planet below—not phaser fire, but magma leaping up. “Right there, Mr. Data,” said Maisel.
“Point-eight-seven,” said Pickup’s voice. And then, sounding more alarmed, “Eight-nine, nine, nine-one—”
“Mr. Data, get out of there!”
He killed the tractor.
He was not expecting, however, the one that lanced up from the planet and caught him.
And then, almost immediately, the tractor let him go.
“Get out, Captain!” he said.
And silently, to the place at the back of his mind that burned with growing pain, and someone else’s astonishment and rage—the intellivore’s—he said, This is theirs. And now it comes back to you. But then … space is curved.
Marignano had spun on her vertical axis and was fleeing. Warp six—eight—nine— He saw the rainbows trail away behind her as he arced away himself in the opposite direction, pushing all the consciousness he could spare into the warp engines as if he were physically running a race. Warp five. Six. Eight. Eight-point-nine—
He heard the scream. If a sound could be said to be blinding, this one was—the scream of pain, and rage, and disbelief. It had tried so hard not to die, for so long. It thought it had succeeded. And to fail now—even now, it didn’t quite believe it. Even now, it—
Terror.
White.
Everything went white. The light alone could not have physically pierced the hull, but with his eyes and his skin all sensors at the moment, it seemed as if it did. Then came the shock wave. He experienced the pain of it in his body, all along his chest and stomach and some along his back—ripping, melting pain. He fled. He fled blind. He did not know where he was going; it was good there were no stars or planets anywhere nearby.
The world remained white for a very, very long time. Is this a sensor malfunction, Data wondered, or have I burned out some part of my own positronics? At least it was not shutdown, the closest thing to death. Shutdown was dark, or rather, had no color. But perhaps I am now sense-blind. I wonder if the condition is reparable.
There was nothing to do but run, and keep running, and wait.
After a long time, Data thought he saw the faintest darkening of the white, and he could hear a faint hissing sound. “Mr. Data—”
The voice was very faint and far away, staticky, thin.
“Mr. Data—”
“Captain Maisel. You have survived.”
“So have you. Will you for pity’s sake slow down?”
“I have been unable to tell whether it is safe to slow down.”
“Well, it’s safe. I wouldn’t slow down much, though. There’s a big cloud of plasma behind us, and it’s not finished annihilating itself, not by a long shot.”
“I am in sensor whiteout, Captain. I cannot tell where I am going.”
“Your present heading is three-thirty-eight-mark-four, plus two. You just keep heading that way … decelerate gently. I’ll come up behind you. Our sensors overloaded, too, but you should get yours back in a while.”
“I do not know, Captain. My situation was not like yours.”
All the same, the world was graying down, getting darker. He hoped that was a good sign. He waited quietly for some while.
And then, from behind him, came something that so shocked and startled him that he nearly cried out. “Mr. Data,” Picard’s voice said, a little slurred, a little blurred. “I see we’re still here.”
“Yes, Captain,” said Data. “I briefly had some uncertainty regarding the issue … but we are here.”
“And the intellivore—”
Data was silent.
“Are you all right, Mr. Data?” said the captain.
Data kept silent for a moment more, then said, “I know now what pain is, sir.”
Now it was Picard’s turn to be still. Data could not see his face yet, or anything else, even though