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“Is this information even necessary?” asked DeSalle, crossing his arms in annoyance. “I don’t see how the ship’s surgeon can help with the computer systems.”

“The ship’s surgeon is standing right here, thank you very much,” said McCoy, more than a trifle annoyed. “The ship’s surgeon has also discovered that there’s a link between five patients in comas and the distortions in space, and he thinks that stopping personnel from dying is what he’s here for.”

Uhura glared at DeSalle. “Quantum superposition is when one particle occupies multiple states at the same time,” she said. “For example, in our computers, an electron can have an up-spin and a down-spin at the same time.”

Padmanabhan had been standing there impatiently, obviously unable to restrain himself. “Quantum computing is the basis of the duotronic revolution,” he burst in. “Well, technically the marriage of quantum computing and classical computing—hence duo tronic, since we use both systems. In old-style computers, each bit was either on or off—one or zero—but in quantum computing each quad is a combination of up-spin and down-spin—not just one or zero, but every fraction in between, which lets us put the same amount of data in a smaller amount of space.”

“I bet you and Spock get along famously,” said McCoy drily. “But I get the idea.”

“So,” said DeSalle, “when we hit that last distortion, the laws of this other universe didn’t let the quads exist in multiple states at the same time. The quantum waveform collapsed and was released as heat, the volume of which exploded the transtators.”

McCoy couldn’t help but wonder if this was Starship 101. There were a lot of things he wasn’t required to know.

That’s true. You could never be as good at your job as these people are.

“A universe with no quantum physics—that’s amazing,” whispered Padmanabhan, close to rapture. “I don’t even see how that would work. I suppose there could be different quantum physics, ones we couldn’t recognize. Can you have your people send that information to the science labs?”

“I already did, Ensign,” the engineer said.

“Doctor, could this have any relation to what’s affecting your patients?” asked Uhura.

McCoy thought for a moment. The word “quantum” had actually been ringing a bell. “Maybe,” he said. “Lieutenant Singh, can I look something up in the library computer?”

Singh looked startled that someone had noticed his existence. “Of course, Doctor.” He hit some keys and said, “All yours.”

McCoy sat down on the empty chair to Uhura’s left and began doing searches for “telepathy.” They appeared on the main screen, replacing the sensor readings.

This is a familiar sight. He couldn’t always identify which voice was speaking, but that one was definitely Jocelyn’s. You hunched over a computer, reading intently.

What point was she trying to make? He tried to ignore her as he read an abstract of an article by a Vulcan researcher named V’v. When he realized it was primarily about touch telepathy, he moved on.

It’s basically what you did for the entirety of our marriage, isn’t it? Hunched over a computer and ignored me.

He’d been trying to survive medical school. Jocelyn should’ve been aware of that. He’d been working hard for both of them, to make sure they had a good life they could look forward to. He selected another article, the work of a Doctor Harding-Cyzewski: “The Universe Within: Neurological Quantum Effects in Telepathic Brains.” Now this looked more like it….

Well, I suppose you weren’t always hunched over a computer terminal. Sometimes you spent the entire day and night in the ward.

He was not having this fight again, he absolutely was not. He’d had it too much in reality to play it out again in the confines of his own mind.

“Anything, Doctor?” somebody asked, disrupting him. It was DeSalle, looking impatient.

“Lieutenant, I’m sure you don’t want me to miss vital details.”

“Nobody wants that, Doctor,” Uhura said.

He nodded and resumed his study of Harding-Cyzewski’s article. When he reached its conclusion, it had confirmed his suspicions.

I suppose that