Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [112]
“No, Data of Starfleet, you do not see. There are a few rare points along the space-time continuum at which choices govern vital events in the structure of galactic history. We have shown you the result of one such choice. his Data frowned. “The last major change in galactic history was the Federation-Klingon Alliance. I had not even been activated then.”
“No, Data. The last major change in galactic history, from your present perspective, was the failure of the Federation to bring peace to the Samdian Sector. The interstellar war you started will escalate until all the major cultures of your galaxy waste themselves in its destruction. was “Then we have to go back to Dacket and find a way to make peace!” “It is not possible in the time-choice of your present experience. You should have taken a different path at the point at which you made the choice leading to Starfleet’s failure. his “T made the choice?” Data exclaimed.
“When you involved yourself in Thelia’s destiny,” the voice of the “Elysian “gods” replied. “When you placed your curiosity above your duty. was When I … sinned, Data realized. He had been human indeed, in the only sense he had ever truly intended … and he had never known it.
“Put me back there!” he asked desperately.
“I can beam up before Thelia sees me, and I interfere with her destiny.”
“You can do so,” the voice replied. “We have no assurance that you will. his “Why-?” Data began.
“Our law is much like your Prime Directive.
We cannot interfere with your free will, Data of Starfeet. We cannot “put a person back” at the point in time at which he made a fatal choice and allow him foreknowledge of his error. his “Then … nothing can be changed,” Data said in despair. “My pain at losing Thelia is insignificant against the destruction I have somehow brought about. But how could my foolish error change galactic history?” “You wished to know what it would be like if you were human. That knowledge includes all the consequences, past and future, of your humanity.
We will show you. his Without warning, knowledge flooded Data’s perceptions.
His human mind was not equipped for such an overload of information. There was no hope of assimilating the billions of details; rather, overall impressions came into his consciousness, and he understood ….
That time was not a constant. That the knowledge of these beings the Elysians called “gods” was not confined, as that of humans was, to a stream of time moving in a single direction. To them all of history was a single event, where time, and space, and thought were one. He understood the Elysian habitats: the barrier between the swamp and the habitable territories was that of probability. They were protected by … an expectation, a union of space and thought on the molecular level. When he observed it, all was perfectly clear equals and yet he could not have reproduced the effect in a thousand years.
A forcefield based on probability theory was within Data’s comprehension. His android mind might have
been capable of understanding the rest of what the Elysian gods showed him, but his human mind could only create analogies. Within the event which was all of time to the Elysian gods were … “threads,” as it were: events that met and intermingled, each life interweaving with others, a mutable pattern upon a fixed substructure. The Elysian “gods” showed him his life, influencing numerous others. There was only the “what” to be seen. He could not understand “why” his transformation meant interstellar war.
The Konor extended their dominion from Dacket to Gellesen. He saw Darryl Adin and his gang training the Gellesenians in guerrilla warfare, hoping to make the price of taking the planet too high in Konor lives. He saw the Ferengi arrive, seeing a quick profit in selling to the Konor a fast-dissipating poison dropped from the sky, with no risk to the Konor. He saw the cities of Gellesen become necropolises, among the corpses those of his friends, of Dare, and of Pris.
He saw the