Part 12 (1/2)

”Captain,” Riker began, holding out a hand as though to steady the situation, ”if we can talk to it now-”

LaForge pushed forward, stopped only by the presence of Picard. ”No! We've got to get him out of it!”

”This might be our only chance,” Riker insisted.

”He doesn't deserve to be on your sucker list, Mr. Riker,” LaForge said bitterly, just short of snarling.

”I know,” Riker told him. ”I know. Move back. That's an order. Captain ... ”

Picard made a half-circle around the android and the force that held him. ”Yes ... yes ... steady, everyone.” He moved in so closely that the static field ran down his arms and legs and caused ripples on his skin. ”Data, can you hear me?”

The crackling settled down suddenly. It was as though a balloon popped and shrank to its natural shape, ugly transparent colors wrapping Data and schooling around him. His breathing lost some of its gaspiness, though he still panted and strained against what was obviously still an attack. His eyes were fixed on the dimly lit battle bridge ceiling, but working as though there were words up there to read. He blinked and squinted, fighting for meaning in what he saw. His arms were flared at his sides, his hands spread, long fingers twitching.

Riker moved to the captain's side very slowly, and spoke in low tones barely above whispers. ”There's some kind of harmonic sympathy going on. Like radio waves causing a crystal to vibrate. Somehow, he's compatible with it.”

Picard nodded, once.

”Data?” he began again. ”Can you hear me? Do you understand me?”

For a time there was nothing.

Then, the tiniest ”Yes ... ”

The response went through them all like a knife.

”Data, speak to me,” the captain prodded, using his resonant voice for the effective tool it was.

”I ... ”

”Go on. Try harder. I'm listening. Go on.”

”Sub ... circuit ... com ... com ... ”

”Communication?”

”Yes ... ”

”That's what I was hoping to hear. Can you talk to it?”

Data's brushstroke features contorted with frustration. ”I can't ... can't transmit ... ”

”Keep trying. Stay calm, everyone. No one move. Worf, report.”

Even the Klingon was driven to lower his voice in the presence of the vortex's a.s.sault on Data. ”Still chewing the antimatter reactions in the asteroid belt, sir. No sign of changing course.”

”Speaking to you ... ”

Her voice was soft, but this time it had an inflection they didn't recognize, one that made them turn to her now in spite of Data's entrapment as Deanna Troi stepped stiffly down to the main deck. Riker reached out for her and she took the hand he offered, but her expression was that of one who was looking into a blinding light. The same as Data's now-seeing something that wasn't there.

”Your language,” she murmured. ”I speak in.”

Riker was holding her hand, and now he began a hesitant step that would draw him right up close.

”No,” Picard said sharply then, gesturing him back. With an extra push he nudged Riker away and came between them, quite aware of Troi's hand, suddenly empty, reaching for Riker's as it fell away. So part of her was here, at least.

”Who are you?” Picard began carefully.

Troi's eyes began to tear with the strain. ”All ... you end ... ”

”We don't understand. We don't know what you are,” the captain clearly said.

Troi began to tremble, a bone-deep trembling that came as much from her own effort as from the effect of whatever was happening to her. Despite Picard's renouncement of folklore and ghost stories, the battle bridge took on the hazy elemental aura of a seance. Troi herself was like a specter now, a thing of dark times, of times when ignorance made indelible marks upon the imaginations of all men for all time. She was a whisper of legend somehow transferred into the present. Her hair glowed, ebony beneath the flas.h.i.+ngs, and in spite of all the lights from Data's a.s.sailant, her eyes were their usual pumice black. Yet in the midst of enchantment there was also the conscious work of a scientist. And never once were they allowed to forget that Data was also involved; the snapping brightness from the vortex around him slithered across Troi's face in a constant and patternless reminder.

Riker stepped tentatively toward her, and was grateful that Picard didn't try to stop him. ”Deanna ... ” he began. Then he had nothing to say afterward.

Troi forced herself to speak. Somehow they could see and understand that the insistence was hers and no one else's. ”You ... can end ... it.”

The captain squinted as though he could see the words. Something about the way she said it made him motion the bridge to silence.

Her voice-still soft. A raspy whisper only. But it held a power, a decisiveness Picard hadn't expected to hear at such a moment. And when the statement was over, it was completely over. Her effort slid off, she was allowed a deep breath, and the light patterns reflecting on her face began to fade.

Riker and Picard spun about, and sure enough Data was looking more like Data and less like a Fourth of July sparkler.

”No one move!” Picard warned. ”Wait till it's completely gone.”

In spite of the order, Riker sidled toward Troi, keeping his eye on her while Data glittered in his periphery, and when she suddenly collapsed, he was almost beside her.

The color fled from her face, and Troi dropped so sharply that Riker almost missed her completely. He was able to catch her upper arm and keep her head from striking the bridge rail, but she turned in his grip like a dangling fish until he could rearrange himself and lay her down on the deck. He knelt beside her, brushed the trailing black curls from her forehead, and looked up in time to see the same thing happen to Data.

The android's denser body struck the deck with a loud thud, and both Geordi and Worf were there to turn him over. In the dimness that suddenly reestablished itself on the bridge, he looked baffled and confused, but unlike Troi he was conscious.

Picard glanced once around the bridge to be sure the electrical effect had truly gone away. Then: ”Yar, condition of that creature?”

”Still involved with the asteroids, sir,” she reported, ”though going after the antimatter explosions very deliberately. It doesn't seem to understand what the disturbances are. Seems unclear about what it should do.”

Picard huffed. ”Aren't we all. LaForge? Leave Data to Worf and get us away from here quickly.”

”Yes, sir-heading?”

”Back toward the saucer. While we still have the chance.”

With that he knelt beside Riker, who was hovering rather helplessly over Troi. ”She alive?”

”Her pulse is like a ba.s.s drum,” Riker told him. ”Under these circ.u.mstances, who knows what that means?”

”I'll take it for the good,” Picard said ruefully, ”since it's all we've got.”