Myriad Universes 02_ Echoes and Refractions - Keith R. A. DeCandido [189]
Crusher nodded. “I find it easy to talk to you, as well,” he said.
A moment’s silence passed, as Crusher stood there smiling at her.
“There was something you wished to ask me about the gateway control mechanism?” Lal finally said.
“Oh, right,” Crusher hastened to answer. He held up his tricorder. “I’ve just started to take preliminary readings of the energies involved, and I had some questions about what sort of coordinate system the network uses. It can’t be absolute, or it wouldn’t be possible to open a door onto another planet, like Romulus.” He paused, thoughtful. “Why was there an open gateway to Romulus, anyway?”
Lal cocked her head to the side, considering her answer. “I am afraid that I was not part of the project who requested that gateway, and with the Turing communications network down cannot contact the individuals who were.”
Crusher nodded, and then narrowed his eyes. He couldn’t help noticing that she hadn’t actually said that she didn’t know. Was she trying to hide something?
“Okay,” he finally said, filing that thought away, making a note to watch for any sign of subterfuge or obfuscation, “so the gateways must employ some sort of relative coordinate system, compensating for planetary orbits, the movements of star systems, and so on.”
Lal nodded. “Yes, you are correct.”
“Good,” Crusher said, tapping a few terms into his tricorder. “Now, it’s only a rough analogy, but it looks to me like what the gateway controls do is something similar to opening a subspace wormhole, which is really the only possible way to cover those kinds of distances. But even with a wormhole there’s a transit time, and there’s a considerable spillover of energy whenever the terminus opens and closes. But with the gateways, the transfer is instantaneous, and as near as I can tell there’s barely any residual energy bleed-off whatsoever.”
“That accords with our findings, as well.”
Crusher pressed his lips together, thoughtfully. “Well, the only thing I can figure at this point…and I have no idea how this might be possible…is that the network somehow distorts space-time to create a multiple-connected topology for a finite amount of time. But in order to do that, without the use of a subspace wormhole-and without the distorting effects of a warp field-the network would have to be changing the fundamental characteristics of space-time itself.”
“But, Wesley,” Lal said, somewhat perplexed, “is that not impossible?”
Crusher grinned. “Well, of course it’s impossible. Clearly it’s impossible. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done!”
Lal smiled, giving him an apprising look.
“Allow me to restate, if I may,” she said, “how pleasant it is to meet you, Wesley. This promises to be a most intriguing relationship.”
Crusher raised an eyebrow. Across the room, he caught Sito glancing his way, grinning. He realized he was blushing, and tried to concentrate on the physics of the impossible, with only partial success.
It had been eighteen hours since Captain Picard had ordered Ro Laren to get the Enterprise out of sight, and she had all but exhausted her patience. It was deep into the night watch, but she couldn’t imagine sleeping at a time like this. Instead it was a large number of cups of iced raktajino, sitting at the desk in the ready room, and poring over page after page of scrolling data on the captain’s computer screen.
Their last attempts to signal the away team had failed, and ops was reporting that a blanket of subspace interference had fallen over the planet Turing, doubtless broadcast by the Romulan warbird in orbit. For the last hour, Ro had been reviewing everything in the Enterprise’s databanks about D’deridex-class warbirds like the Haakona, but so far hadn’t found the magic bullet she’d been looking for. What she had found had given her a considerable respect for the designers of