The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [24]
“Correct,” said the android. “The last digit designating the day has been changed on the identification slate. That alteration obscured a twenty-four-hour lag between the receipt of the original message at Starbase 193 and the transmission of a forged version to the Enterprise.”
“And during that time,” said Crusher angrily, “the Vulcans were being slaughtered.”
“That would appear to be the case.”
The screen image shimmered as Data advanced the recording to the middle of Sorren’s communiqu`e. Black and white lines lightly scored the Vulcan’s face, then increased in intensity, fracturing the picture beyond recognition.
Data continued his explanation. “The second modification involves the sudden appearance of static that obscures part of the message. Any transmission interference should have been noted by the subspace receiver; however, the data verification field indicates that the Vulcan’s message was received intact at Starbase 193. Neither is there any record of difficulty in the transmission from the starbase to the Enterprise. Thus, I surmised that the burst of Hovorka radiation is actually a graphic forgery introduced to suppress five seconds of the image.”
“Can the original be restored?” asked Picard.
“Yes, I believe so. The transmission envelope contains a compressed digital duplicate of lower resolution, but this copy contains sufficient information for our purposes.
By judicious cross-referencing and multiple digital sampling I can reconstruct the missing segment.”
“Make it so.”
A high whine ensued as the android ran the message at high speed; his fingers blurred with equal rapidity over the console as he adjusted controls, then repeated the process again and again.
With each repetition the tape image became clearer. “This should be sufficient for comprehension.”
Sorren’s movements slowed to real time, and his voice dropped back to a deep pitch.
Despite a slight blurring of image and sound, his words were intelligible.
“Her behavior is growing increasingly erratic she is prone to outbursts of emotion and persists in irrational accounts of her communion with the Ko N’ya.”
“The Ko N’ya again,” exclaimed Crusher.
Picard’s thoughts flashed to the memory of two gnarled hands, the hands of an alien who had walled itself up alive. What had those cupped palms been holding when T’Sara entered the chamber?
“After all these years of searching,” he wondered aloud, “could she really have found it?”
Troi stirred in her cabin bed, her legs thrashing beneath the sheets until she kicked off her covers entirely. The loss of warmth and a nagging agitation prodded her up through the layers of unconsc iousness.
Her eyes fluttered open for only a second. Fighting against the impulse to wake, she buried her face back into a pillow. This nap was no luxury. The last few days had been filled with emergency sessions that had pulled the counselor out of her cabin in the middle of the night. That was often the case after Away Team missions that involved violent death, and this time several members of the paramedic team had been plagued with nightmares.
Of their own accord, Troi’s feet twitched as if she were pacing back and forth across a deck.
Of course. Imzadi.
Belatedly, the empath realized what was happening. Commander Will Riker was striding through the Enterprise with a heightened vigor and intensity of purpose, and she was unwittingly keeping him company. His forceful emotions often overrode her mental block, like rising floodwaters spilling over the edge of a dam. Stronger defenses would prevent these intrusions, but the effort would require a constant mental strain, and it would also mute the comforting knowledge of his presence.
Having identified the source of her unease, Troi damped down her emotional link with the first officer until the muscles in her legs relaxed. Then she groped for her covers and sighed contentedly at the prospect of falling back asleep.
She drifted lazily into unconsciousness.
“Data to Counselor Troi.”
Troi’s eyes flew open. “Yes, Data?”
“The captain