String Theory_ Fusion (Book 2) - Kirsten Beyer [34]
Be at peace.
He could not be certain if he was meant to construe the intentions of those who were tending to him in these words, or if they were a product of their work within his damaged mind and body. Ultimately he did not care. They seemed to be doing all they could for him, and for this, at least, he was grateful.
Too much damage.
Growing weaker.
A gentle hum washed over him. He had never been so near dying that he could say for certain, but this seemed to be the beginning of the release he believed could only end in death. There was no fear. He was no longer troubled by the loneliness. What he was experiencing was both gentle and somehow appropriate.
He did not believe he would be capable of speaking, or producing any sound that his caregivers would understand. But he did not wish to die without trying.
Parting his dry and cracked lips, he willed enough air to flow from his lungs over his vocal chords to say all that he could.
“Thank… you.”
He surrendered himself to the inevitable long before the next wave of knowledge burst through the failing pathways of his mind.
Danger.
The captain entered engineering to find B’Elanna hovering around the diagnostic station where the Key to Gremadia had been encased in a level-ten forcefield.
Janeway was more than a little dismayed.
“This thing has been sitting in my cabin for almost two days. Why is it behind a forcefield in engineering?” she demanded.
“It’s resonating on a subspace frequency that is barely detectable,” B’Elanna replied evenly. “Our internal sensors didn’t even pick up on it until I calibrated them to a precise resonance frequency.”
Janeway shuddered slightly as the significance of the frequency rose vividly to her mind.
“Would that be the same frequency that disrupted the Caretaker’s remains?” she asked.
“Yes, Captain. I completed a thorough investigation of sickbay with the Doctor’s assistance. When I analyzed the debris from the explosion I discovered that even though the particles had been disrupted, the molecular bonds of the powder that remained were still highly resonant. I tested the resonance frequencies of all gravimetric distortion waves present within the system, those emanating from the singularity around the array, and those generated from the microsingularity closer to Monorha. None of them are distorting subspace in the way we anticipated. Of course, there are dozens of anomalous factors which utterly defy analysis, but until I began to search for the precise frequency still emanating from the remains, I couldn’t find anything to account for their sudden disruption.”
“And now…?”
“There is a small subspace dissonance field emanating from this sphere. I recalibrated the sensors and was able to see that for approximately fifteen seconds in the last three hours that field expanded to include the entire area of your cabin. That time period corresponds exactly to the moment when the Caretaker’s remains disintegrated.”
“What caused the field’s expansion?”
B’Elanna slammed her palm down on the diagnostic table and replied wrathfully, “I don’t know! The two events are linked. They have to be. But I’m missing something.” B’Elanna massaged her forehead ridges with the palm of her hand as if willing the answer to form itself in her mind. After a moment she said, “There was an electromagnetic discharge in your cabin a few minutes later…”
“That was Phoebe doing some work on my replicator,” Janeway informed her.
“So the sensor logs showed me. But it doesn’t make any sense.