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  “That is not what I wanted to hear,” said Gomez. “We just lost contact with the da Vinci.”

  “What?”

  “Relax, it’s probably nothing,” Gomez lied. She frowned over her readings. Her tricorder had enough range to confirm that the temporal-spatial displacement waves were now propagating in all directions, reaching out far enough to wash over the Kwolek. “I don’t think it’s lost-lost. Probably just moved out of communicator range.”

  “Without telling us?” Then, after Gomez told her about their last communication with da Vinci, Conlon said, “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Yeah, that’s what Nog said. Look, I’m going to secure the shuttle on one of the runabout launch pads. Beam-out will be faster than walking and now that we’ve got the deflector going, probably safe. I’ll check for the da Vinci with the Kwolek’s sensors. They have better range.” She looked over at the Ferengi. “You okay here, Nog?”

  “Sure,” said Nog, though he didn’t seem too happy about it. “I got stuff to do, and Soloman’s not going anywhere.”

  “I can go to the shuttle,” said Hawkins.

  “Negative that. You’re security, remember? So, you and your nice, shiny phaser rifle watch Nog’s backside. I’ll be right back.”

  Snapping her tricorder shut, Gomez slung the strap over her shoulder and tapped her combadge to contact the shuttle’s computer for a beam-out. An instant later, she heard the familiar whine. Her skin tingled as the annular confinement beam caught and read her pattern while the transporter’s phase transition coils simultaneously disassembled her body into a phased matter-energy stream.

  But after that initial second of dematerialization, when her mind invariably froze for the span of a heartbeat, she saw something. In the stream. With her. Stasis or not, Gomez could still think, and her brain digested the suggestion of a face—yes, a face, because this wasn’t some thing. The pattern was some one, and she registered that one’s eyes widen in shock—just as the realization of who that was smacked her in the face as solidly as a good, hard slap.

  No. It can’t…

  Sonya Gomez was fit to be tied. The Gettysburg’s matter/antimatter reaction chambers were acting up, and she was still struggling with that pesky intermix…. She exhaled, blew hair away from her face because she was flat on her back, futzing with the damn valve, her hands smudged with grime.

  Her combadge trilled. “Gomez.”

  “Commander, we’ve made it to the rendezvous site. The Li’s chief engineer’s standing by. Thought you might need the extra hands.”

  A surge of relief flooded her veins. Oh, thank God…She scrambled to her feet, tugged on her soiled uniform to smooth it into place. “Well, don’t just stand there, Feliciano, energize the crap out of him.”

  Feliciano laughed. “Hold your horses, lady. Energizing…”

  A scintillating column appeared three meters away, and Gomez watched as the sparkles resolved into an outline, coalesced—then stuttered. Gomez’s heart leapt into her mouth. God, no, not a transporter malfunction, not now…But then the pattern stabilized and the glitter resolved, coalesced, and became a man. The sight of him thrilled her to her toes.

  “Whoa, that was pretty freaky,” said Kieran Duffy, looking befuddled. “Déjà vu all over again.”

  “Whatever the hell that means. But, God,” she said as she flew into his arms. “God, how I’ve missed you.”

  …be.

  The transporter beam let her go, and Gomez exhaled. Then she stood, rigid, her heart hammering against her ribs. A distortion wave rolled past; she felt the shuttle jiggle on the docking pylon. But she couldn’t move for a second, was afraid to.

  It can’t be.

  Numb, she tapped on her tricorder. Nothing but residua normal for a standard beam-in. But I’m not going crazy; I saw…She hadn’t blacked out. This wasn’t a dream. She’d been conscious the whole time; everyone was unless you overrode the system and programmed in a stasis loop the way Scotty had.

  So. Transporter psychosis? No way. Multiplex pattern buffers virtually eliminated transporter psychosis. The distortion waves weren’t anything like interphase, so she could discount interphase-induced delusions.

  Okay. What if. They’d already seen that Soloman had made contact with a quantum twin. So. What if the holes between universes also allowed for a phased matter transfer—as in a transporter beam?

  Then he could be alive. No, strike that. Duffy was alive in some universe somewhere, maybe even the one where Soloman was now. Then she had another thought: The Duffy she’d seen hadn’t been wearing an environmental suit.

  “God, I hope he didn’t materialize on the wrong part of Empok Nor.” She didn’t know if such a thing was even possible, although she knew DS9 had experienced its share of visitors from a mirror universe. Those people appeared to have the technology to go back and forth. Maybe that Duffy had been from that mirror universe?

  No. Her nose crinkled. Didn’t feel right. Most humans in that universe were slaves. In fact…

  She blinked back to attention as the deck jerked beneath her feet. The Kwolek’s onboard computer blatted a warning, and she hurried to the pilot’s chair. First things first: Look for the da Vinci. Secure the shuttle. Then, think about how she wanted to talk to Gold about this.

  When she brought up sensors, she didn’t see the da Vinci, or anything that looked like debris.

  “Oh, crap,” she said. “This isn’t good.”

  Chapter

  9

  “Give that to me again, Kane.” Gold crossed his arms over his chest. “You think what?”

  They were in sickbay: Gold, Salek, Kane, Dax, and 111. Haggard and paler than usual, the Bynar looked like a refugee from a month-long siege.

  “I said that 110 looks to be in communication with another computer system,” said Kane. “I can’t nail it down precisely; that is, I know there’s a code flowing back and forth but whenever I try to tap into it, it changes. I can’t get a precise lock. Don’t even know where or when it’s coming from.”

  Gold blinked. “What do you mean, when?”

  “Exactly what I said. There’s something very…odd about this thing. I’m no computer whiz by any stretch. Bynar physiology is tough; half the time, you got to look at them more like sick computers than humanoids.” Catching herself, Kane cringed. “Sorry,” she said to 111.

  “It…is…all right,” said 111, and Gold almost winced. Listening to the Bynar was like revving up an old digital recording from centuries back on a machine that skipped and lurched from one section to the next.

  If I think it’s tough to listen to, imagine what it must be like for 111.

  “You’re not considering the obvious, you know. What if it’s not another computer?” Jadzia gave an adamant toss of her head that set her earring flashing in the light. “What if 110’s in contact with a Prophet? We’ve always hypothesized this possibility, that the Prophets are coherent energy. The Androssi specialize in using quantum dimensional shifts. But who’s to say that their tinkering didn’t open up a rift that connects us with the Prophets?”

  “That is a logical hypothesis,” said Salek.

  “Yeah, but with only one way to prove it,” said Kane. She looked at 111 who shrank back perceptibly and in a way that Gold suddenly felt, keenly, how much they were using the Bynars to their advantage: not as partners but tools. “111 has to be willing to try communing with him.”

  “What…perhaps…” The Bynar quailed. “This might…be…infection. Not…a Prophet.”

  Kane made an impatient sound, and Jadzia opened her mouth but Gold silenced her with a look. Hunkering down on his haunches, he brought his face level with 111’s. “It might be an infection. You’re right to be frightened. No one blames you for that. Hell, it shows good sense. But 110’s not coming out of it. Kane can’t help him. We humans value love. I don’t know about Bynaus, and I can’t know your heart. But what price are you willing to pay to help your bondmate?”

  So was that a chea
p shot, or what? Gold, you hypocrite. He watched 111’s struggle, hating himself more with every passing second. He was very conscious of the ring squeezing his finger. Or do I really mean that; if I had a second chance, would I—?

  He was saved from finishing the thought. 111’s throat moved in a hard, convulsive swallow. “I wish…I will…I will try.”

  “All right.” Gold nodded. He didn’t think that what he felt was relief. More like…dread. No, more than that even: Finality.

  Because one way or the other, I’ve just got this feeling. This will end. Soon.

  Gomez said, “I’m not imagining things.”

  A pause, and then Conlon said, “I didn’t say that.” She didn’t sound convinced, though.

  Nog said, “Neither did I.” He didn’t sound convinced either.

  “Don’t look at me,” said Hawkins. “I’m just a dumb jock.”

  Gomez ignored him. “Yeah. But? And?”

  “And,” Conlon tapped her tricorder, “there’s no evidence anywhere that there was another phased matter stream. All I’ve got is you.”

  Nog said, “I checked after you called from the Kwolek, and I’ve checked again, just now, when you beamed back.” He held up his tricorder, screen out, so Gomez could see the readings. “See for yourself, you don’t believe me.”

  “I believe you,” said Gomez. She had no choice; her tricorder showed the same readings. “It’s still a possibility. Let’s just think a sec. Besides biofilters and phase transition coils, what else does a transporter have that nothing else on board the ship does?”

  “A Heisenberg Compensator,” Conlon said, promptly. “So?”

  “So, what’s the compensator for?” She answered her own question. “It’s designed to make up for changes you make on a quantum level whenever you use a transporter. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle says that you can’t know everything about a particle at once, not with any accuracy.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Conlon. She looked faintly annoyed, too. Like Gomez was a teacher trying to catch her out for not studying. “The principle stipulates that you can measure either position or angular momentum but not both. The more you measure one aspect of a particle state, the less you know about another. The compensator is designed to override the inevitable informational drift. Doesn’t tell you anything; just gives you information in a general sense and compares what it reads to what’s stored in the buffer. Otherwise, I rematerialize with my arm hanging out of my ear.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Nog, and Gomez heard the ah-hah in his voice. “Commander, you think your transporter beam snagged some information in a datastream and then compared it to what’s already there. In the Kwolek. And…”

  “And the transporter came up with Duffy,” said Gomez. Hearing it again, out loud, set off this little electric jolt zipping through her heart. “Not the Kieran Duffy that we knew, obviously, but another Kieran. As the temporal distortions here increase, the temporal signatures of the universes must be momentarily synchronized, allowing for vacant time-space to be briefly occupied by reassimilated energy.”

  “In other words, that Commander Duffy filled a vacant space in this universe.” Conlon’s eyes held that faraway look she always got when she was thinking really hard about something. “And the da Vinci? You think that when I activated the deflectors, we pushed da Vinci into a time-space bubble, or into the other universe altogether?”

  “I think so. We won’t know until we bring down the deflectors.”

  Hawkins said, “Wait a sec. If you snagged hold of Duffy and we’ve got everyone’s patterns on file, can we, I dunno, put the transporter on a continuous receptive mode? You know, catch pieces of them in a datastream and then have them rematerialize here?”

  Gomez shook her head. “I thought of that. There are two problems: Casual directionality is one. If Duffy was a book, then his life has been written up to this point. Bringing that Duffy here—even if we could do it—is like bringing in another chapter by another author and plunking it right smack dab into the middle of a book. It won’t make any sense to him, and he sure as heck won’t make any sense here.”

  “And there’s conservation of matter and energy to think about,” said Conlon. “The only reason Duffy almost materialized here is because we’ve wrapped space-time around us. Eventually, we’ll have to take down the deflectors, and the hole will collapse. But if we bring energy into this system that we can’t release or get rid of, then, theoretically, there’s this big ka-boom. Think of it the same way you do when matter and antimatter collide. Kind of defeats the purpose.”

  “But that does imply there’s an energy imbalance somewhere,” said Gomez. “Maybe on both sides of the equation. It’s like we’re trading information to make up for gaps, and they’ve activated a search program that’s trying to compensate. The problem is to figure out what’s missing from there that they could possibly want here.”

  Nog held up his tricorder. “Why don’t we just ask them?”

  “You’re a million kilometers away.” Gomez frowned over at Duffy. They were recalibrating the plasma injectors. “Something on your mind?”

  “Me?” Duffy grinned, shook his head. “Just…thinking.”

  “About what happened during transport?” Duffy had told her about catching a glimpse of her in an EVA suit but she figured stress, had to be. On the run all the time, people shooting at you. Bound to have an effect. So she’d dismissed it. “That still bothering you?”

  “A little. It was weird, Sonnie, like a vision of the future, or something. I dunno.”

  “Wishful thinking, you ask my opinion. You saw me on a Cardassian station. Well, isn’t that exactly what we’re trying to accomplish here?” Then she scrutinized him more closely. “You’re really bothered by this.”

  “Yeah. Ever since coming aboard I have this bad feeling. Something’s going to go wrong.”

  Gomez put her arms about his waist. “Nothing’s going to go wrong. We’ve been shot at a lot. We’re still here.”

  “For now.” Duffy nuzzled her hair, and inhaled the aroma of jasmine and musk. Tightened his grip. “You smell good. And, God, you feel wonderful.”

  Gomez sighed, burrowed. “Feeling’s mutual.”

  A pause. Then: “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Come on,” Duffy said with mock severity. He pulled back and squinted down his nose. “You know what.”

  “Yeah?” Her eyes flicked down to his right trouser pocket. The fabric tented over something square. “Is that a box in your pocket, or are you just glad to see me?”

  “Cretin. What, I’m supposed to get on my kne—?”

  A hail shrilled, and Gomez threw her head back, closed her eyes. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe what?” It was Gold.

  She rolled her eyes at Duffy who smothered a giggle. “Nothing, sir. Commander Duffy and I are nearly done here. If you’ll—”

  “Let your team finish up. I want you and Duffy in sickbay, pronto.”

  “Aye, sir. Gomez, out.” She waited a split second to make sure the channel had closed then said, “Damn.”

  Grinning, Duffy planted a kiss on her lips. “It’ll keep. Maybe I’ll reconsider.”

  “You reconsider,” Gomez said as they started off, “and I’ll take out your tonsils.”

  All three stared at Nog. “You figured out the code?” asked Gomez.

  “I will in a sec,” said Nog. His fingers played over his tricorder.

  “How?”

  “It’s what you said about Duffy.” Nog gave a ferociously triumphant smile, all zigzag Ferengi teeth. “The Kwolek’s got patterns of Soloman when he wasn’t Soloman, right? So if I access them now, compare the two and whittle down…”

  Gomez saw it. “You get rid of the twin effect. Whatever remains will be the interaction between Soloman and that universe’s 111.”

  “Yup. And that means I can talk to her. So,” Nog gave his tricorder a final jab, “what do you want me to say?”
<
br />   “How about,” said Gomez, “what the hell do you want?”

  For Soloman, it was like sitting at the bottom of an infinitely deep pool. He was aware of light shimmering overhead and a world beyond this hermetic seal. But that life was far away and strangely muffled, and he had no strength to reach for it, or the desire. At a rudimentary level akin to instinct, he understood what he had done: caught 110 in a paradox, a recursive algorithm that could not be resolved.

  Then the quality of the light above changed, and the surface seemed to split, and Soloman knew that they—someone—had come after him.

  “Beneath the surface,” said 111. The chip on her left temple winked furiously, and the buffer on her belt hummed. Her lips quivered, and her blue eyes were wide and liquid. “It’s another line of code. Not thought.”

  “A fourth Bynar?” said Gold. “Are you sure? How do you know that the Androssi haven’t planted a virus designed to simulate a Bynar’s cerebral patterns?”

  “No, no…” 111 shook her head in the exaggerated way of a little girl trying to make a point to an adult who just did not speak the same language. But her hesitancy was gone, and her speech had acquired the high singsong Gold associated with the Bynars. “This is no virus. This is not 110 either, and it is not 110’s doppelgänger. Both are unchanged. This one says that the doppelgänger is Soloman, a Bynar existing outside in another temporal realm.”

  “It’s a Prophet,” Dax blurted. “Look, the reason we stole the device in the first place is because the ancient Hebitians built it, and the Cardassians can’t access it. The pictographs on those Hebitian tombs on Cardassia strongly favor the view that the Hebitians were telepaths—”

  “That’s only legend,” said Gomez.

  Salek said, “Legends usually have a basis in fact. We know that there are no Cardassian telepaths. Yet the Hebitians leave behind a device that relies on the ability to access information on a digital level when combined with telepathy. The Bynars are the only species capable of both.”