Security - Keith R. A. DeCandido [30]
Smiling in the way a professor smiled at a student who got a right answer, Gomez said, “That’s it exactly, sir. The device is currently cycling through six different quantum realities. In addition, the field keeps expanding, which is why we got shook up—the da Vinci was right at the event horizon of the fissure. If we’d been even ten meters closer, we’d have been dragged into the fissure and into another quantum reality.”
“Which,” Tev said, “is what we hypothesize happened to the Missouri.”
Blue added, “We were able to detect debris from the runabout in one of the quantum realities.”
“Sir, there’s something else.” Gomez hesitated.
“I can take it, Gomez—spill.”
“Based on the rate of expansion, we think that the device was activated a little over two weeks ago— about when Empok Nor started endangering the Bajoran system. We think that whatever the Bynars did in that other quantum reality, it also set this thing off.”
“Gevalt,” Gold muttered. Unable to help himself, he glanced at Soloman, who looked a bit guilty.
“I am sorry for what happened, Captain Gold,” the Bynar said.
“Stop shvitzing, Soloman,” Gold said, although Bynars did not, as far as he could determine, sweat, “it wasn’t your fault, it’s the fault of whoever it was in that universe who thought probing ours was such a hot idea.” He leaned back in his chair. “All right, looks like we have two things to accomplish; get our two doctors back, and shut this thing down.”
“Something else this device does,” Gomez said, “is alter the quantum signature of whatever passes through it. The debris that Pattie detected is a molecular match for the Missouri, but its quantum signature matches that of the universe it’s in. Which means,” she added quickly, probably noting the expression on Gold’s face, “we can go in after the Missouri. But when we do, we’ll only have seven minutes and twenty-two seconds to find the runabout, rescue Elizabeth and Dr. Bashir, and come back.”
Gold sighed. “I know you can’t answer this, but I’m gonna ask anyhow. What happens if we take longer than seven minutes and twenty-two seconds?”
“We wait for the thirty-six minutes and fifty seconds it’ll take to cycle through the other five quantum realities and hope for the best.”
Blue said, “The good news, sir, is that we continue to detect the Missouri in the quantum reality in question. That means we’ll have that thirty-seven minutes.”
Testily, Tev said, “Thirty-six minutes, Specialist, and fifty seconds.”
Making a tinkling noise of annoyance, Blue said, “I was rounding up.”
Before his engineers could devolve into an argument, Gold said, “What about the other part?”
“That part’s pretty straightforward,” Stevens said. “According to Worf’s report, the fissure was closed by using a broad-spectrum warp field to collapse it.”
“Creating that will not be a problem.” Tev spoke with his usual confidence/arrogance. “It will require only twenty minutes—less, if I am not forced to make tiresome explanations.”
And here I was about to compliment Tev on how well he seemed to be getting along with others. Gold sighed. “Good.”
“Sir, there’s only one problem,” Corsi said. Everyone turned and looked expectantly at her. She didn’t usually contribute to an engineering discussion, but Gold figured she had a security concern. “That solution worked on a natural quantum whozits. But this is an artificial one.”
“I fail to see what difference that makes,” Tev said.
Staring daggers at the second officer, Corsi said, “If I was building something like that, the first thing I’d program into it is a failsafe against something that could stop it prematurely.”
Stevens was nodding. “You’re saying they may have built in a countermeasure to the warp field.”
“Like I said, it’s what I’d do.”
Gomez folded her arms in front of her. “All right, Pattie, Fabian, start working on a Plan B in case the warp field doesn’t work. Soloman, your job is to get the sensors and transporters and engines to talk to each other. We’ll only have a few minutes, and we need to set