Synthesis - James Swallow [103]
• • •
Despite himself, Torvig gave a slight yelp as the avatar blinked into being in front of him, blocking his path down the corridor. He straightened, attempting to regain some of his composure.
“I’m in the observation lounge,” she told him. “Doctor Ra-Havreii just summoned me there.”
“I was on my way to assist with the last of the deuterium slush transfer. You’re multiplexing?” The hologram nodded in reply. The Choblik watched her carefully. There was no apparent slowdown in process speed, no sense that she was distracted by the fact that she was holding two—perhaps even more—conversations at once.
“The captain is asking me to absorb all of the sensor data from the Sentry called White-Blue. Lieutenant Commander Pazlar is encountering difficulties in interpreting it.” She nodded again. “I was aware of that. Melora does not know that I have been observing her activities. I was afraid she might resent it if she did.”
“Can you help her?”
She looked at him. “Should I?”
The comment seemed odd. “Those data could help the crew, your crew. I thought they—we—were important to you.”
“This is a test, Torvig,” she said. “They’re testing me. They want to know if I will lie to them. To see if I am still loyal.”
A chill crept along the ensign’s spine, and he could not stop himself from asking the next question. “Are you?”
The avatar gave him a look he couldn’t quite read. Was that something like disappointment he saw there? Or perhaps pity? She looked away as she replied, “I am processing the data.”
That, it seemed, was all the answer Torvig was to receive. “What’s your evaluation?”
The hologram met his eyes. “Worse is yet to come.”
Riker watched her sketch lines in the air and conjure screenlike panes from nothing. He couldn’t help noticing that she had changed again, shifting her outward aspect by tiny, incremental amounts. The avatar still resembled the Minuet holoprogram, but now, along with the strange gossamer robes she adorned herself with, her face had a different texture, a tone that strayed more toward porcelain than flesh. The captain wondered if the manikinesque aspect was some sort of unconscious statement on her part, as if she were taking on the appearance of something artificial, reminiscent of a doll, in order to remind them of what she was.
“I have assimilated the information,” she told the room.
“That was quick,” said Keru.
“Indeed,” noted Ra-Haverii. “You managed something in seconds that Melora couldn’t do in hours?”
“Yes,” replied the avatar. “Lieutenant Commander Pazlar is not able to engage multiple virtual iterations of herself on a single problem, as I am. In addition, I slaved supplemental computing systems to the main framework for extra processing power.” Riker thought he detected a slight air of smugness in the words.
“What systems?” demanded Melora.
The hologram glanced at her. “There are several tertiary computers aboard Titan not in active mode at this precise moment. I took direct control of them. Those aboard the complement of shuttlecraft parked in the hangar bays, one hundred ninety-six inactive tricorders and personal auxiliary data displays, as well as civilian crew domestic units, entertainment modules—”
Vale broke in. “You daisy-chained all of those devices together?”
“It seemed the most efficient method.” The avatar looked toward Riker, past a floating screen of spooling data. “You did ask me to process the data as soon as possible.”
Riker frowned at the avatar’s cavalier explanation but pressed on. “Conclusions?”
“Worse is yet to come.”
“We’re going to need a more specific analysis than that.” Melora was terse.
“Lieutenant Commander Pazlar’s initial estimation is correct,” continued the hologram. “Based on the data from White-Blue’s scans and the corresponding information recovered by my sensor grids, there will indeed be another Null incursion. The incidence and magnitude of the subspace events are increasing at an exponential scale and at locations ever closer