Intellivore - Diane Duane [72]
“I will be finished with the initial report in two more days, Captain,” Data said. “I received so very much sensory and other information from the intellivore that a complete record will take rather longer. And it is very fortunate that I was directly linked to the ship’s computer and memory facilities at the time, for much information had to be stored there as overflow.”
He was quiet for a moment, as if organizing his thoughts. “What is certain, though,” Data said, “is that the intellivore was directly responsible for very many more attacks than we had suspected. For a very long time it preyed on planets in this area as well—moving in close to them without any particular concern about tidal effects—and in many cases, it slowly destroyed entire species over the course of months or years, either as a result of natural disasters secondary to the tidal effects, or by its own predation. The decline of a number of the older alien races in this part of the galaxy, which we could not understand, was directly attributable to the actions of the intellivore. So Captain Maisel’s present mission, at least, is now complete: the source of many disappearances is solved.”
“I wouldn’t know about complete, Mr. Data,” Ileen said, giving him a slightly covert look. “There are still some old planets around here that could use mapping.”
“You mean,” Picard said, with a slight smile, “that you would appreciate some peace and quiet.”
“Well,” said Captain Maisel, “yes. We didn’t suffer the same kind of structural damage that you did—the head start Data gave us saw to that. So there’s no particular reason for us to go running back to the center of things. And I would like to do some more looking around up this way to check for other signs of the intellivore’s involvement. There are quite a few empty planets up this way that have shown evidence on mapping of odd tidal effects, as if a ‘grazer’ or planet trying to be captured had had a close encounter with them.” Her expression turned slightly grim. “Under the circumstances, I would start suspecting such planets of having had intelligent life, and I’d want to examine them a lot more closely. That will be the rationale I give to Starfleet to avoid being recalled … and I think they’ll probably respect it.”
“I suspect they will,” Picard said.
“There is this to consider as well,” Data said, “when Starfleet debriefs us. The intellivore was indeed getting ready to change hunting grounds. Two forces existed balanced in it: a desire to remain secret and the desire for more food. For a long time the first had remained paramount, and this behavior had caused it to downscale its predations a great deal; colony ships and wandering spacecraft would, in its earlier days, have been considered very poor fare, hardly more than scraps and crumbs. The peculiar multiplex personality existing inside the planet’s memory matrices was beginning to shift emphasis, however. The parts of its ‘mind’ intent on remaining undiscovered were beginning to lose their arguments with those parts that felt it was time to rove more widely and ‘eat’ better. Sooner or later—within the decade, if I am any judge—the intellivore would have actively turned inward and begun attacking the most heavily populated planets it could find. The result would have been chaos, especially since the creature was very clever indeed about working out how to exploit technologies new to it. I am certain that it would have most thoroughly ‘researched’ Federation science until it found ways to defend itself against nearly anything we could throw at it … and then the wolf would have gone out into the fold, as it were, and might have remained unimpeded—and very destructive—for a very long time. At the end, it might have taken the same kind of concentration of forces that were required at Wolf Three Fifty-nine to stop it.”
Everyone sat quiet and thought about that one. “Well,” Picard said,