Possession - J.M. Dillard [33]
Picard looked as if he were seriously considering it, when Crusher intervened. “Captain, perhaps you would feel more self-assured if you viewed the artifacts that Skel rescued from the Ferengi.”
“Excellent idea, Doctor,” Picard said, as if relieved to have a change of atmosphere. He turned to the Betazoid. “Counselor, are you up to accompanying us?”
“Aye, sir,” she said. She looked at the gray-haired Vulcan once more, but could not make herself scan him again. She would do almost anything to avoid reading that terrible childhood memory.
“I appreciate your suggesting the change of scene, Doctor,” Picard said, as they entered the primary area of sickbay on their way to the quarantine lab that held the artifacts. “Deanna, are you really all right? You went white as a sheet!”
She placed a reassuring hand on the captain’s arm. “I’m quite fine now, sir. It was just the shocking jolt of emotion—a child’s emotion, perhaps the strongest there is—and from a Vulcan it made it doubly odd. I was simply unprepared. But his story is clearly true, Captain. You can certainly release Skel from quarantine.”
Picard turned to Crusher as if for confirmation of Troi’s story. “The readouts I got from Deanna when she was reacting to the Vulcan’s mind matched his so closely,” Crusher said, “I knew she was really linked to him. This wasn’t her normal Betazoid scan where she picks up feelings or senses an emotional state. Since he’s a telepath, yet burdened with these vivid emotional memories, he may have inadvertently augmented her mental scan.”
The three continued walking to the quarantine unit. “Well, since you both feel releasing him is appropriate, I’ll agree,” Picard said.
Crusher took the lead as they entered the lab, leading the others to a transparent container that looked like a miniature version of Skel’s facility. In its center sat two innocuous-looking black receptacles. They resembled, Deanna thought, some of the beautiful jewellike shellfish from Betazed; the light caught the artifacts’ smooth black surfaces and reflected shimmering pastel colors—yellow, green, blue, pink.
Crusher held a hand out toward the container. “There they are! There are double containment fields surrounding the artifacts on the interior, and a safety forcefield blocking entrance or egress. The forcefields and containment fields have special on/off codes set up by the computer. Only you, Captain, and I have access to the codes.”
“You mean,” Picard said, incredulous as he stepped up to the field, “all this fuss is over those two little things?”
“I’m afraid so.” Crusher gave a gentle shake of her head, clearly as unable as the captain to believe it.
“They look no more imposing than a Terran clam!” He leaned down to get a better look.
“That may be so, Captain,” Crusher agreed, “but looks can be deceiving. I can’t exactly tell you what’s in there, but I can tell you it’s kept inside by a self-generating forcefield fueled by an unknown power source. It can’t be opened from the outside, not with all the force we could generate from this starship. It can only be opened by trigger mechanisms from within—mechanisms still only vaguely understood. We don’t have the technology to create anything like this; we can only speculate about the people who did.”
“The Vulcans think this was deliberately created, then?” Picard asked. “They don’t think it’s alive, that it evolved?”
“The current theory is that they may have been a delivery method for an advanced germ-warfare-type weapon,” Beverly said.
Picard nodded. “They’re quite old, I understand. Have they been able to translate the writing on the shell?”
“Not yet. I think they have a phrase, but that’s all.”
“Maybe Mr. Data would like a crack at it,” Picard mused. “He’s got a singular talent for cross-referencing language matrixes. He might have an insight on this that the Vulcans couldn’t have. I’ll talk to Skel, see