The Red King - Michael A. Martin [50]
“No, but we’ve turned up other patterns that do,” Cethente said. “For instance, we’ve detected complex, highly organized, orderly releases of power. Not to mention significant, otherwise unexplainable releases of neuromagnetic energy.”
Jaza nodded. “Taken together, these readings look a lot like the ones taken ten years ago aboard DS9. And just like that incident, it’s a safe bet that this protouniverse has already developed at least some sort of awareness.”
“He is awakening,” Frane said. “The Sleeper rises. Soon, His dreams will cease. Along with all the corrupt works and sins of my people.”
And maybe along with the entire Small Magellanic Cloud as well, Troi thought, shuddering as she picked up a momentary burst of fear-tinged exultation from Frane. Did some part of him really want such a catastrophe to come about? The notion caused her an intense sensation of revulsion, which struggled mightily against the compassion she automatically felt for all such troubled souls. She breathed a quiet prayer of thanks to the Old Gods of Betazed that the latter might remain stronger than the former.
“The Red King,” Vale said, her light brown eyes fixed on the chess piece that Frane had set back upon the tabletop.
“What?” Troi asked before she even realized she was speaking.
“From Lewis Carroll. Through the Looking-Glass. The Red King dreamed all the characters that appeared in the book, from the Tweedle boys to Alice herself. But if the Red King were ever to wake up…” She trailed off, just as Frane had done.
Frane raised the red chess piece toward Vale, as though in salute. Troi realized only then that the piece was indeed the king. And that the Neyel had comprehended Vale’s literary allusion.
“The Sleeper,” the Neyel said. “You understand.”
“I suggest you save your literary symposium for another time, Commander Vale,” Tchev said with a low snarl.
“Agreed,” Will said, glancing significantly at his first officer, who acknowledged his mild rebuke with a silent nod.
“Does it really matter whether this is an exotic physics phenomenon, or the Sleeper coming awake, or some creative dreamer out of ancient Terran literature?” Jaza asked. “No matter how we look at it, the potential result is the same: destruction on an almost unimaginable scale.”
“Also, we appear to be unable—and some of us are almost certainly unwilling—to simply kill this ‘Red King,’ ” Donatra said, her dark, intense gaze locking with Will’s. The Klingons cast expectant looks at Titan’s captain, and Troi sensed her husband’s increasing desperation over the prospect of finding a morally defensible course of action.
Will’s combadge chirped perhaps half a second later. “Bridge to Captain Riker,” it said, speaking in the precisely enunciated voice of Zurin Dakal.
“Please excuse me,” Will said, then stood and tapped his combadge. “Go ahead, Cadet.”
“I think I have good news, sir. The long-range sensor nets have picked up dozens of bogies, apparently flying in formation at high warp. They are on an outbound trajectory from a G-type star system located less than five light-years from our present position.”
“Configuration?”
“Exact configuration isn’t determinable at this range, Captain. But the warp signature readings are consistent with those of Romulan singularity drives.”
Donatra rose, her dour face suddenly flushed green with emotion. Her voice, however, scarcely rose above a whisper.
“My fleet.”
Troi saw that Jaza was quickly entering commands into his tabletop console controls. He then consulted the display of a padd he was carrying. “I’m tapping directly into the main science station,” he said.
Whatever he saw in the padd’s tiny screen was making him scowl in perplexity. His Bajoran nasal striations seemed to spread upward vertically across his brown forehead until they nearly reached his hairline.
“Are we sufficiently clear of the rift’s interference to hail them?” Will asked the cadet.
“I think so, sir.”
“Then do it, Cadet.