Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [101]
The monitor wasn’t shattered, but a gaping black hole had appeared in the middle of it, growing as he watched. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, McCoy felt drawn toward the increasing blackness.
“Look at me!” Jocelyn yelled.
The hole was enveloping the table. It would soon swallow the entire room. He could feel it reaching out to him.
The doctor knew he had to touch it. He extended his hand toward it. “I have patients to help, Jocelyn.”
“You could help me.” She sounded hurt rather than angry. The hole was pulling him in. He could feel it, a whole new universe beckoning him.
With a great deal of effort, McCoy turned to look at Jocelyn. She was crying. Regret coursed through his body. Could he have done it differently? “I wish I could, honey.”
With a gigantic jerk, McCoy was pulled out of his chair.
“But not—”
“—today.”
McCoy was alone in the darkness.
There was nothing here. As far as he could see, there was inky blackness, featureless and empty.
It felt real. The places he’d passed through before had felt insubstantial and weightless. He opened his mouth to call out, but no sound issued forth. McCoy reached for his throat, only to realize he didn’t have any hands.
He didn’t have anything. No hands, no feet, no head, nothing.
Instinctively, he tried to speak. Again, no sound. The only evidence that he still existed was his thoughts. And he was alone for the first time in two days.
Welcome.
A chorus of voices came from everywhere and nowhere.
He formed a question in his mind, as if he were talking to them. “Is that you?” No noise, yet McCoy felt a normal conversation was appropriate. The doctor wasn’t trained in mind matters. “Who am I speaking to?”
Olivier Bouchard.
Gaetano Petriello.
Hanna Santos.
Nanase Fraser.
Rammal Salah.
Then, as one: We are here.
“I made it.”
Thank you for coming.
“What’s the matter with you all? What happened to you?”
We reached out and we found Nothing.
“There’s not always going to be a mind for you to touch.”
We didn’t find nothing. We found Nothing.
“What are you talking about?”
We hadn’t noticed it before. We are low-level telepaths, none of us can read minds. And yet we always heard something. A buzzing, a crackling, a knowing. There was always something for us to hear.
“Quantum entanglement,” realized McCoy. “All your particles were linked to everyone else’s.”
We could hear the universe.
“But not anymore?”
No. Our minds reached out as they always do, to feel the other universe… and felt Nothing. A whole reality of Silence, from end to end.
“And that’s what caused your comas?”
We didn’t understand. Our minds didn’t understand. They shut down, drove us into comas. We reached out and found each other. We took solace in each other’s minds, falling together. Pushing against the Nothing. We needed to hold it back. But there was nothing we could do.
“Why has the medical staff been seeing and hearing things?” McCoy demanded.
We sought other minds, ones that might show us a way out. We found you and the others. We worked our way in.
“Why the hallucinations? Who thought it was a good idea to appear as our worst doubts and fears?”
The only way we could gain access was via the weakest point of everyone’s minds. Doubt. Your doubt was the strongest… your mind was the easiest to enter.
It was hard to deny. He had been restless, thinking about moving on. His doubts had opened him up to outside interference.
A thought stirred at the back of his mind. Weak … defenseless. “Did you try to reach Lieutenant Haines? Or Specialist Huber? They were in pain despite being sedated.”
We tried to contact them. It… did not work.
“You caused unbearable agony.”
We were desperate. We still are.
“You still haven’t explained how you were able to do this.”
We reached out and found each other. Together we are stronger than we ever have been alone.
“Five panicked minds working in concert… that could be enough to overwhelm even Spock.”
It’s difficult to control our power. We didn’t want this. We didn’t seek it out. Because of the Nothing,