The Red King - Michael A. Martin [45]
Of course, Donatra must have realized that she wouldn’t be able to conceal this doubtless embarrassing fact from any of them for very much longer.
“Of course, Commander,” Will said to Donatra in soothing tones. “Titan’s sensor are fully engaged in the search, now that we’ve cleared most of the disturbances coming from the rift.”
Donatra inclined her head forward toward him, her dark eyes momentarily refulgent with gratitude. “Thank you, Captain.”
Jaza’s emotional state, in stark contrast to Donatra’s, seemed nearly as serene as ever, though it covered an undercurrent of great urgency. “I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the importance of this place,” the Bajoran science officer said, obviously speaking primarily to both Donatra and the Klingons. “The spatial rift out there seems to be having some extremely strange effects on local space.”
“What sort of ‘strange effects’?” Dekri asked in surly fashion.
While Jaza seemed to be gathering his thoughts, Norellis stepped into the conversational breach. “Simply put, space itself here has begun coming apart.”
Donatra’s eyebrows rose, and she radiated equal parts incredulity and incomprehension. “ ‘Coming apart’?”
“More precisely, large volumes of space are in danger of being…permanently displaced,” Jaza said.
Tchev bared his snaggly teeth. “Displaced by what?”
Jaza leaned forward and touched a control on a keypad that was built flush into the tabletop. A meter-wide model of the spatial anomaly obligingly appeared nearly a meter above the conference table, the image overlaid by a latticework of fine, distorted grid lines that reminded Troi of twisted nets woven by ancient Betazoid oskoid fisherfolk.
“By what appears to be another universe,” Jaza said. “An emergent universe, which is even now in the process of forming. A protouniverse, if you prefer. The process could complete itself in a matter of weeks, or perhaps even days. And if this happens while we’re still anywhere near the rift…” He trailed off, obviously aware that finishing that particular sentence was unnecessary.
Dekri looked askance at the spatial rift’s holographic image, then fixed a skeptical eye on Jaza. “You have evidence of this?”
Only now did Troi sense a disturbance in the tranquillity of Jaza’s emotional surface. The senior science officer nodded, a look of sorrow darkening his features. “Definitive evidence. Unfortunately.”
In response to Jaza’s next quick manual command, the image of the spatial rift vanished, to be replaced by a computer-rendered schematic of a blue, Earthlike world.
“This is the sort of evidence I hope never to encounter again,” Jaza continued. “The world you see before you has endured for perhaps five billion years since its formation by the ordinary processes of stellar and planetary evolution. Until recently.”
“What are you saying?” Donatra asked.
Jaza looked haunted. “Simply that this world, its primary star, and every other object in its system from the size of a planet all the way down to dust grains has…disappeared. We believe the protouniverse that’s now emerging from the spatial rift has something to do with the phenomenon.”
Although Troi already knew this much, like all the Titan personnel present, a hush again descended on the room as Donatra and the Klingons processed Jaza’s revelation.
“Newaerth,” Frane said. Troi realized then that he was familiar with the arrangement of oceans and coastlines of this world.
“Our guest,” Donatra said, nodding toward Frane by way of explanation, “would also have us believe that the Great Bloom—the spatial rift—caused a world and its entire system to vanish mere weeks ago. We have trained the Valdore’s long-range sensors on the coordinates Frane provided for this system. Other than a few stray subatomic particles, there’s no evidence that anything at all ever existed there.”
“So where did this image come from?” Tchev asked, gesturing at the blue holographic planet.
His huge hands folded primly on the table before him, Akaar chose