The Eyes of the Beholders - A. C. Crispin [75]
Picard frowned in perplexity and glanced around the room. Riker looked skeptical, Data curious, Worf disturbed. Geordi shook his head. “You have to understand, Captain, that when I use a term like triangle, that’s an approximation. All of what I’m saying is the best I can do at putting something that’s not translatable in any human language into English.”
“I understand,” Picard said. “Go on.”
“Anyway, these triangle things, there was a texture to them, to their patterns, smooth or rough or silky—all in addition to being shiny. And I’m not sure, but I think the sounds were tied in with them in some ways, too. But while my VISOR could translate the images so that I could make some sense out of them—as Commander Riker’s and Lieutenant Worf’s natural eyesight could not—my other senses, including my ears, are normal. So I heard those sounds as terrible noises, a cacophony that made me wish I were deaf. I could smell them, too, and taste them and feel them on my skin.” He shuddered at the memory.
“Did you see anything besides this one place where we materialized?” Riker asked.
“No, I passed out too quickly. But I wish I had.”
“Were there other things besides the triangles that you thought of as living beings?” Data asked.
“Yeah, but the triangles were the most prevalent. That’s what made me think they were the image of the people who built the artifact.”
Geordi began making shapes in the air as he continued. “There were these slithery things that looked sort of like snakes, only with fronds like willow trees. And big blocks of something lumpy that looked kind of like mountains seen through water—you know, with ripples running through.” He shook his head. “That’s just about all I remember. I was only conscious for a few seconds longer than Commander Riker.”
Geordi fell silent as the captain seemed lost in thought. “You say it was beautiful,” Picard murmured.
“It sure was!” Geordi said. “It was so beautiful that I’ll remember it all my life.”
“Beauty,” the captain said, raising his head, his hazel eyes very serious, “is in the eye of the beholder.”
“A common expression, often applied to the appreciation of art,” Data volunteered helpfully.
Picard nodded. “Exactly.”
“Art?” Geordi mumbled, then his face lit up, and he straightened abruptly. “Of course … art!”
Will Riker looked nonplussed for a second, then the light slowly dawned across his bearded features. His blue-gray eyes widened. “You’re saying that the artifact is … a repository of alien art? Like an art gallery?”
“I believe so, Number One,” the captain said. “What other type of place includes small rooms that contain a single object? What other type of place has corridors and rooms where the walls are filled with images?”
“An extraordinary idea,” Data intoned. “That would indeed explain a great deal about the artifact. For example, it would tell us why there are many objects there, but no two are alike. They must be sculptures or other three-dimensional art objects.”
“But why would the artifact prove so destructive?” Worf rumbled, still puzzled and skeptical. “It injures humanoids to look at it or exist near it.”
“Because it was never intended for humanoids to appreciate,” Geordi said eagerly. “Some other race built it, some race that I’ll call, for want of a better term, the Artists. And these aliens had some kinds of art that were similar to human art forms—sculpture and music and painting and moving pictures—but their minds were so alien that their art makes humans sick to see or hear it, just as their architecture does!”
“Yes, and I believe there is another component,” Picard said. “I believe that the Artists created an art form using emotions. They composed with emotions. Like telling a story where you never discover the plot but only feel what the protagonists felt. But their alien emotions are extremely distressing to human”—he nodded at Worf—”or humanoid minds.”
“So the energy field that’s surrounding us is trying to tell