Synthesis - James Swallow [27]
Chaka shook her big, oval head, doing her best to mimic the human gesture. “More than that, sir. I believe it is trying to communicate with us.”
“The whole ship as a huge mechanism…” said Dakal, repeating the words Ranul had said on the wreck back to him. “I think the specialist is on to something, sir.”
He gave Sethe a hard look, and reluctantly, the Cygnian nodded. “Fine,” he said flatly. “But if it does that again, I’m going to blow a hole in it.”
Riker laid his hands flat on the observation lounge table and measured the look on his first officer’s face. “Throw it out the airlock. That’s my chief of security’s tactical evaluation?”
“I can’t say I don’t see his point of view,” Vale replied. Along with Christine, she and Deanna were clustered at the top end of the conference table.
“I thought we had protocols for this sort of thing,” said his wife. “How many times has a Starfleet ship had alien technology take root inside it? We had more than our fair share of that on the Enterprise.”
“That’s why the labs have the isolation controls,” noted Vale. “Sethe remembered his training, locked the room off as he was supposed to. I ordered a level-one diagnostic, and it came up clean. The data that device transmitted never went any farther than the console.” She paused, framing her words. “And Chaka tells me she thinks it had no intention of going any farther. Dakal agreed.”
Riker frowned. Intention implied purpose and something beyond just a programmed response. “It’s more than a computer core, isn’t it?”
Vale sighed. “Captain… I don’t know what to say. This is out of my league. I look at that thing, and I see a box of blinky lights, just a jumped-up version of the replicator in my quarters. But Sethe and his people are telling me something different.”
“It’s sentient.” Troi said it more like a statement, less like a question.
“That’s a bit of a leap, Deanna,” he told his wife. “What evidence is there to support that claim? The galaxy is full of thinking computers. We have them built into our ships. But there’s a big gap between a sophisticated machine and an intelligent consciousness. What makes the lieutenant think this one is self-aware?”
Christine’s lips curled in a sardonic smile. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I read Chaka’s report, and according to her, the thing… it made a guess.”
“How so?”
“Dakal figured that the device’s external sensors had been observing ever since we brought it aboard. It most likely extrapolated how to interface with the systems console by watching Sethe use it. But the thing is, it didn’t have all of the information it needed. Apparently, several crucial command strings were missing, and there were any number of alternatives that would have backfired if chosen. So it took a chance. That’s not something a logical, programmed intellect does. You need a different kind of smarts to roll the dice.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed. Could it be possible? Was there a thinking, reasoning mind inside the nexus core, or just some high-functioning software programmed to give that impression?
Troi smiled briefly. “You know, if it was an organic being, I could answer this question with one look. A living, intelligent mind has a certain complexity that can be sensed on a telepathic level, even if you can’t completely read it. A machine, though… there’s nothing there to grasp hold of.”
The captain sighed. “This doesn’t change anything,” said Riker. “We still need to know what took place out here, and that device, sentient or not, is the only thing that can tell us. One way or another, we’re going to have to talk to it.”
Vale leaned forward. “I’ve ordered the science team to relocate it to cargo bay two and put an armed detail on round-the-clock surveillance. There are force barriers and dampening fields in place, and every console they’re using down there is a standalone unit. And I am still convinced that this device is a danger to the ship.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” he told Vale. “But as I said, it changes nothing, Chris. It wants to talk to us.