Remember...

[Atoz 77]

REMEMBER... >>>

"There's only one thing I dislike about serving on a starship," said Science Officer Weir, as her shoes crunched into a brittle pile of dry leaves which had drifted over the thermocrete walkway. "I miss the change of the seasons."

Captain Atoz, although walking beside her along the outdoor promenade in front of the spaceport, had his mind completely elsewhere. He looked up at the bright red and orange foliage of the autumn trees, struggling to come up with something sensible in response. "Seasons?" he said stupidly.

"Spring, summer, fall, winter," she said, with a playful lilt in her voice. "Remember them?"

Atoz was about to remind her that he had grown up on a colony in the tropics, where he had only known two seasons -- Dry and Rainy. But just in time to prevent himself from making such a foolish comment, he noticed that both times she had neglected to address him as "sir". This was a Diane Weir whom she rarely allowed to peek out. "What I miss is long walks," he said wistfully. "There are Hiking programs on the Holodeck, but they're not the same."

"You never struck me as the long-walks-on-the-beach type of guy," she said, tilting her head back slightly. Her hands were clasped primly together behind her, but thanks to a brisk walk in the heady autumn air of the planet Eridanus Mu, her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed.

"We have some nice beaches back home on Indra II," he said. "And forests."

"You really should take some time while we're here, sir," said Weir, a business-like tone returning abruptly to her voice. "And take a real walk in a real forest."

Atoz was shaking his head. "Our layover is only two days, and I've got tons of administrative matters to attend to."

"I always thought that was what the First Officer was for," she replied coolly.

"Yes, but---"

"Even Captains deserve a day off every now and then," she insisted.

"I couldn't agree more, but really--"

Weir suddenly stopped walking and turned to face him with a severe look on her face. "You're still thinking about Ensign T'Pana, aren't you?" she said accusingly.

Atoz sighed. "I don't like losing a crewman."

"That's understandable, but you don't have to blame yourself for it. It was a shuttlecraft accident. It could have happened to anyone."

"Diane, I was there! I should have been able to..." His voice trailed off. Should have been able to do what, exactly? Prevent a hull breach? Prevent her from being sucked out into space? No, wait a minute... that wasn't right. Atoz opened his mouth to say something else, and...

"Captain, I am getting a strange reading on long range sensors." It was the voice of Enir Rosh, his Tactical Officer and Chief of Security.

"What sort of reading, Mr. Rosh?" Atoz replied, turning away from the bridge's main viewscreen -- which at this moment displayed a twisting, spiral trail of dust and gases circling a small F-class star. The fact that a fraction of a second ago, he had thought that he was walking on a planet surface with Weir didn't trouble him unduly. That memory was already fading away as daydreams usually do.

"It is in the asteroid belt, at extreme range," said Rosh. "Difficult to be certain. It reads as an unusually complex energy waveform." He paused. "And now it is gone."

Atoz turned to the Sciences station for confirmation, but right away he could see that it would be pointless. Lieutenant Commander Weir was hunched over her displays, oblivious to the rest of the universe. It was the Leonidas Helix, of course -- an extremely rare phenomenon whereby two quantum micro-singularities, rather than absorb one another, somehow temporarily counterbalanced one another's gravitational matrices to produce a "kink" in the space/time flux. Nearly every sensor station on the ship -- and every Science Officer for that matter -- was focused on the Helix to the exclusion of all else.

"This is an amazing opportunity, Captain," Weir had told him, her eyes alight with excitement as she had reported its discovery. "Once a Helix forms, it's only stable for a matter of hours! The chances against a starship stumbling across one in time to study it are beyond astronomical!" That had been two days ago.

"Arachne?" said Atoz, addressing the ship's computer instead.

The holographic avatar of an attractive young woman wearing a white, Grecian style dress appeared on the main viewscreen. "Yes, Captain?" said the AI, doing a rather good simulation of Olympian haughtiness, yet smiling a little as she did so, as if playing an elaborate game.

"Reference the energy spike just recorded by the Tactical sensors," said Atoz. "Does it match anything in the ship's database?"

Arachne's simulated eyes glanced away for the merest fraction of a second. "I'm sorry, Captain. There is insufficient data to give a meaningful answer to that question. I have found 3,561 recorded instances of phenomena which might be consistant with the observed waveform, but the duration was not sufficient to be certain."

"It was at extreme range, as I said, Captain," added Rosh.

"Does it look dangerous?"

"There is insufficient data," Arachne repeated, again with that ghost of a smile, "to give a meaningful answer to that question."

"Yes, thank you, Arachne," said Atoz, and the atavar disappeared with a graceful nod. "What about you, Mr. Rosh?"

"She summed it up very well, Captain," said the Eminian, the two ridges of cartilage above his eyes looking ever more like a satyr's horns as he frowned. "We do not have enough information."

"And that worries you," said Atoz. "It worries me, too. Can we launch a probe? No, forget that -- it would take hours to get there at this distance." He glanced over at the Science Officer. "The Odysseus could be there in about five minutes, but I'm afraid the Sciences department would mutiny en masse if I even suggested it."

Rosh remained silent. He could already see the obvious conclusion the Captain was coming to and waited for it with his customary stoicism. Behind them, the turbolift doors hissed open as the First Officer entered the bridge. "Just the man I need to see," said Atoz, and briefly explained about the anomaly Rosh had discovered. "It's probably nothing, but since the ship is going to be stuck here for hours anyway, I thought I'd launch a shuttlecraft to check it out."

Fawkes nodded. "Very good, sir," he said, tapping his comm badge. "First Officer to hangar deck. Prep the Calypso for immediate---"

"Belay that, Commander," said Atoz mildly. "I'll be taking Penelope."

"You, sir?"

"Charles, I haven't logged a single space hour since I took command. I could use the practise. Plus, I used to be a fairly decent Science Officer. It'll make a nice change to be one again for a couple of hours." He looked around the bridge and pounced on the first person he saw, a recent arrival to the ship's company who happened to be checking the environmental monitors. "I'll take Ensign T'Pana along as copilot." The young Vulcan's eyes widened slightly, but otherwise she betrayed no surprise at suddenly being singled out by her Captain.

Fawkes realized that from the moment Atoz had used his first name, there was no point in arguing. "Have a pleasant trip, sir," he said, moving towards the command chair.

[Atoz 77]

"Captain's log, Stardate 51939.8 -- The Odysseus has spent three days so far in parabolic orbit observing the Leonidas Helix. Although the astrophysicists find this facinating, the inactivity has been something of a strain on the rest of the crew. At least I have managed to arrange a short field trip for my own benefit."

Atoz sat at the controls of the shuttlecraft Penelope, keeping himself busy with minor course corrections. There was really no need for such minute attention to the vessel's path, and when he tried to analyze his motives, he was surprised to discover that he was enjoying it. As much as he loved being Captain of the Odysseus, and as hard as he had worked to attain it in the first place, he couldn't help seeing this little excursion as a temporary respite from the responsibilities of command, and he found that he wanted to make the most of it while it lasted. He had to smile at himself.

"Is there something amusing, sir?" asked T'Pana, in the copilot seat. She had been conscientiously watching every detail of his handling of the craft with close attention, and her brows were knit together now in puzzlement as she tried to figure out what had caused him to smile.

"Only in my imagination, ensign," he said as he reached for the comm panel. "Penelope to Odysseus. Are you receiving me?"

"Fawkes here. Reading you clearly, Captain. Mister Rosh has you on Tactical sensors."

"Anything interesting to report, Commander?"

"Not a thing, Captain. Except... Weir says you're probably chasing a wild goose."

T'Pana's right eyebrow shot upwards, possibly because she was not familiar with that particular expression. "Ah, but what kind of goose is it?" said Atoz. "That's the question."

"Weir says it's likely a sensor reflection from the Helix, off of a hydrogen cloud or something." There was a very subtle scoffing tone in Fawkes' voice as he reported this. As if Rosh would make a rookie mistake like that.

"If that's all it is, I'll have it stuffed and mounted for her. Penelope out."

T'Pana had been following the conversation with the air of someone who has missed a vital part of the dialogue but can't think of when it happened. Atoz set the autopilot and turned to look at her. Few Vulcan women would be considered attractive to Humans, and T'Pana was no exception. She never smiled, for one thing. Her nose was too aquiline, her eyes too far apart, her thick hair arranged in a short cut that revealed her pointed ears, more for functionality than fashion. "So," said Atoz, in a conversational tone of voice, "where did you receive your pilot's certificate?"

"On the Challenger, sir," she replied. "I served on board for a year before transfering to the Odysseus as a replacement for Ensign Ingersol."

Atoz winced inside. Ingersol had been lost because of a faulty seal in the Deck 12 airlock, under circumstances which were not pleasant to recall. "Ah, the Challenger! I know Captain Oglesby quite well."

"Surely you knew the details of my service record already, Captain?"

"Well, yes," he confessed. "I just...um..."

T'Pana tilted her head to one side as if she were attempting to solve a three dimensional puzzle. "I understand, Captain. You were engaging in trivial conversation, in an attempt to foster a feeling of fellowship and esprit de corps." She sounded as if she were quoting from some leadershp manual.

"Um... not exactly," said Atoz, shifting his position in the pilot's seat to get more comfortable. "Trivial conversation also allows two people simply to get to know one another. I may know your service record, but getting you to describe it your own words tells me more about you." The Vulcan merely sat there looking back at him skeptically. "Okay, I'll give you an example. A while ago, you asked if I was amused. How did you learn to recognize amusement? I ask because I once had a room mate who was a Vulcan, and he could never tell the difference between a smile and a case of indigestion."

"While I was at the Academy," she condescended to explain, "I did an informal study among my classmates of the Human concept of humor. However, I cannot say that I was entirely successful at understanding it."

"Okay, right away I've learned something about you," said Atoz triumphantly. "You were curious about humor."

"It was for my sister, T'Pren. She is at the Vulcan Science Academy, pursuing a doctorate in Abnormal Psychology."

Atoz couldn't help but laugh softly at that. "You see, you can make a joke! That was very..." When he saw that the Vulcan was perfectly serious, he tried to wipe the smile from his face. "...amusing. That is, Humans would consider that... more funny than... um..." He paused, noting that T'Pana was still looking at him stonily. He turned back to the shuttlecraft's controls, desperate for something to ease the tension. "Another field note for your sister," he muttered under his breath as he turned his attention to the sensor display.

***

The wind sighed across the high desert, making a mournful, curiously hollow sound. Standing at the apex of the footpath, Atoz could look almost straight down the cliff to the desert floor, scores of meters below. A parapet of ancient stones led precariously along the edge of the cliff, to the opening of the shrine. Someone was waiting in the shadows of the doorway, cloaked and hooded. Atoz walked towards the opening, his movements muffled inside his own cloak.

"There's only one thing I dislike about serving on a starship," said Weir, as her shoes crunched into a pile of dry leaves which had drifted over the thermocrete walkway. "I miss the change of the seasons."

Atoz, although walking beside her along the outdoor promenade, felt as if his mind were completely elsewhere. He looked up at the bright autumn foliage, struggling to think of what to say next. "Seasons?" he said stupidly.

"Spring, summer, fall, winter?" she said playfully. "Remember them?"

Atoz was about to remind her that she should be studying the Leonidas Helix (whatever that was), but stopped himself in time. "What I miss is long walks on the beach," he said. "There are programs on the Holodeck, but---"

"--they're not the same," Weir said in unison with him. "You're still thinking about Ensign T'Pana, aren't you? It was a shuttlecraft accident! It could have happened to anybody!"

"Diane, I was there! I should have been able to..." His voice trailed off because he felt that something wasn't right. He had prevented the hull breach! It was Ingersol he hadn't been able to save. He started to protest and noticed that his voice sounded dull and lifeless in his own ears. And no wonder -- he was lying flat on his back, wearing an oxygen mask.

"He's conscious, doctor," someone said.

Someone else removed the mask, and Atoz could see the face of Ben Pierce, the ship's Chief Medical Officer, bending over him and looking more concerned than he'd ever seen him. "Captain? Can you speak? Do you know where you are?"

The first voice cut in again. "Doctor, his hyperencephalogram is---"

"I know what his HEG says, nurse," Pierce snapped without looking up. "Captain? Do you know where you are?"

"Sickbay," said Atoz, as his vision began to come into focus. "I'm in Sickbay... "

"Do you remember your name?" the doctor shot back.

Atoz closed his eyes. For some reason the answer was right on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite get it. He felt extremely weak, tired, and his thoughts seemed very difficult to keep hold of, like waves of sea water washing against the beach. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a tiny, tiny voice was whispering, Remember... you must remember... "Atoz," he said finally. "Seven Seven Atoz."

The relief on Pierce's face was plain. "Nurse," he said with a grin, "tell Commander Fawkes he can stop moving his stuff into the Captain's cabin. You gave me quite a scare, Seven. You're lucky not to have brain damage."

"How is Ensign T'Pana?" Atoz managed to gasp out hoarsely.

The worried look abruptly came back into Pierce's face. "Who?"

"T'Pana, the Ops officer. She was..." Remember, Captain... you must remember... "She was my copilot."

"Seven, just lie back and rest. I'll give you a sedative. You've been through a--"

A cold dagger of fear ran through Atoz' heart. Had it happened again? First Ingersol, and now... "Hawkeye, tell me what happened to T'Pana!" he demanded, struggling to sit up as alarms began to beep quietly on the diagnostic bed. Overcome with dizziness, he started to black out. The nurse hurried forward to help the doctor ease him back down.

"Seven, I don't know any T'Pana," Pierce was saying as he felt himself drifting off into unconsciousness. "You were alone in the shuttlecraft. Don't you remember?"

[Atoz 77]

"Proximity warning," said T'Pana, glancing at her own console. "A nickel/iron fragment approximately eight centimeters in diameter. We must be approaching the asteroid belt, sir."

"Reducing speed," said Atoz, tapping commands into the pilot station. "Do you see anything of that mysterious waveform?"

"Negative, sir," the Vulcan replied.

Atoz banked the Penelope wide to port around a larger chunk of debris, almost a full meter across. "I'm reading a lot of silicaceous dust ahead, but nothing that could account for an energy reading." He put the shuttle into a search pattern, which they followed for a good fifteen minutes. And then...

"Something is approaching rapidly from astern, Captain," said T'Pana, hardly raising her voice. "I am reading a fluctuating energy spectrum."

Atoz brought the shuttlecraft back around to starboard and switched the viewscreen. At the position the Vulcan had indicated, there was a bright speck. At first it seemed to be just a cloud of dust, pale violet in color, but as it grew larger in the viewer, it looked more like a thunderhead, interlaced with occasional streaks of lightning. "What the heck is that?" he asked. It didn't look like any natural phenomenon he had ever seen in space.

"Unknown, Captain," T'Pana replied. "But it contains a complex, coherent energy waveform. And it is overtaking us rapidly."

Then it couldn't be a natural phenomenon, thought Atoz. He immediately put the Penelope into a sharp, evasive turn, at the same time kicking up the thrust and raising the defensive shields. But the energy cloud was too quick. Suddenly surging forward, it elongated itself into an arm and engulfed the shuttlecraft. The vessel spun over onto her side, sparks flying from control panels, almost as if something solid had rammed into her.

"Warning!" said the calm, measured voice of the shuttle's computer, "Shield strength has been reduced to eighty percent... Shield strength has been reduced to sixty percent..."

"Engines are down," said Atoz. "I get no response from thrusters. Penelope to Odysseus! Are you reading me?"

"Shield strength has been reduced below fifty percent... "

"Communications are offline, Captain," said T'Pana. "Sensors are offline."

Blue, sparkling tendrils of exotic energy were beginning to arc and flicker over the pilot's station. Atoz snatched his hands away and leapt out of his chair. The vessel began to rock violently back and forth as if it were being shaken in a giant fist. Atoz stumbled to the engineering station at the rear of the shuttlecraft and tore open an access panel.

The tranquil voice of the shuttlecraft's computer continued. "Warning! Structural integrity failure in 60 seconds. Hull breach is imminent. Warning!"

***
The wind sighed across the high desert, making a curiously hollow sound. That would be the meditation wheel, another part of his mind told him. Without thinking about it, he turned his head to the right and sure enough, there was a cylindrical construction made of dynar wood, no more than twenty centimeters long, spinning at the end of a frayed cord and howling mournfully as the wind blew across the holes drilled in its side.

Standing at the apex of the footpath, he could look almost straight down at the desert floor, scores of meters below, with calm detachment. The ancient stone parapet ahead of him led precariously along the edge of the cliff, to the opening of the shrine. Someone was waiting in the shadows of the doorway, cloaked and hooded. Atoz walked towards the opening, his own movements muffled inside his own cloak.

Inside, out of the blowing sand, the other figure threw back her hood. "Greetings, sister," said the woman. "You come at the appointed time." Atoz recognized that she was speaking an alien language utterly unknown to him, while at the same time he had no trouble understanding every word.

"Greetings, sister," he replied in the same unknown language.

"There's only one thing I dislike about serving on a starship," said Weir, as her shoes sank into the cool, damp sand. "I miss long walks on a real beach. There are programs on the Holodeck, but they're not the same."

Atoz, although walking beside just her, was feeling thoroughly bewildered, as if his mind were completely elsewhere. He looked around at the sun on the horizon, at the rocky promontory off to their left. "Isn't that Ganesha Point?" he said stupidly, thinking of a landmark on his home planet. But this wasn't right! Weir had never been to his home planet! And there was that voice, whispering inside his head -- Remember... you must remember...

"You're supposed to tell me what nice beaches they have on your home planet," said Weir, linking one of her arms through his. "And forests."

"Forests, yes," he said. "There was one in particular I remember in Sector G. I did a project on fruit bats when I was in secondary school. But... "

"You seem confused, Captain," said Weir, turning on him accusingly. "You're still thinking about Ensign T'Pana, aren't you?"

"Of course I am! How could I not--" Remember, Captain... you must remember...

"It was a shuttlecraft accident," Weir said. "It could have happened to anybody."

"Diane, I prevented the hull breach! She survived the --"

"Captain?" said Fawkes' voice in his ear. "You wanted to see me, sir?"

Atoz flinched with surprise. He had been sitting at his desk, staring at the stars outside his porthole and having a very strange dream. Was it just fatigue?

"I rang your door several times, Captain," Fawkes was saying. "You did want to see me?"

"Yes, Commander," said Atoz, struggling to gather his thoughts together as if they were a bag of marbles which had scattered across the floor. His desk computer padd was displaying a personnel file, and that thankfully gave him a ready topic to talk about. Remember... you must remember...

"I wanted to speak to you about Ensign T'Pana..." He trailed off as he noticed the shifty expression that had come into Fawkes' face. "Charles, don't tell me..." Since she had only been on the ship a few weeks, it was barely conceivable -- just barely conceivable -- that the ship's surgeon might not have had contact with her, but the First Officer made up the duty rosters!

"Captain," Fawkes explained patiently, "there is no Vulcan named T'Pana on this ship. There hasn't been a Vulcan on this ship since I became First Officer."

"Don't tell me that, Commander," said Atoz hotly, skewing the screen of his padd around to show him. "She's right there on the..." His voice broke off suddenly -- the display on the screen was an engine efficiency report. Bewildered, he pulled the padd back to him, typing commands into the keyboard and frantically trying to locate the file he had seen just a moment ago.

"You've been working very hard, Captain," said Fawkes sympathetically. "You've been under a lot of stress. If it's not out of line for me to say so, why don't you take a couple of days shore leave, sir? It'll do you good."

Atoz slumped down in his chair. "You're right," he said, rubbing his eyes. "There's no T'Pana anywhere in the ship's computer. Maybe I do need a rest. Forget all about it." Fawkes nodded and left him. Atoz turned back towards the porthole, watched the stars streak past for a moment, and closed his eyes...

***

The energy tendrils seethed around the instrument panels and the overhead conduits, probing for any opening. T'Pana was crouched in the center of the shuttlecraft out of reach, uncertain what to do, while Atoz was on his back, desperately tinkering inside the engineering panel, as the calm, measured voice of the computer said, "Warning! Structural integrity failure in 30 seconds. Hull breach is imminent. Warning!"

Suddenly the Penelope lunged forward in a burst of ballistic acceleration like an out of control rocket. Caught off balance, T'Pana tumbled backwards onto Atoz, and together they braced themselves in between the two rearmost seats in the passenger section. The deckplates trembled underneath them, rattling their very bones, and the thunderous sound of the engines was deafening. After two minutes of this, everything went quiet. The shuttlecraft continued drifting peacefully through space, the invader left behind, and even the warning of the computer ceased, as most of the power indicators fell to zero.

"I hot-wired the overflow regulators on the ion ramjets to fire simultaneously," explained Atoz, breathing heavily as he struggled painfully upright into a sitting position. "But doing it completely drained the power cells. We may have five minutes, no more, before the cloud catches up with us again. What are our options?"

T'Pana merely stared at him, her eyes wide and shaking her head slowly as if she were unable to speak. "Just relax," said Atoz reassuringly. "I've been in worse situations that this. Do you remember your last sensor reading of the cloud?"

Given a specific task to answer a specific question, the young Vulcan made a conspicuous effort to get hold of herself. "The cloud is a coherent energy waveform showing complex synaptic patterns, indicating consciousness," she said.

"In other words it's an intelligent life form, made up of pure energy," said Atoz thoughtfully.

"Perhaps life form is an inaccurate terminology, Captain," she replied, "as there is no evidence as yet that it takes in nourishment, eliminates waste, or engages in reproductive behavior." Atoz was tempted to interrupt her, but decided not to. If this recitation of the obvious soothed her nerves and kept her focused, who was he to interfere? "I suggest entity might be a better term, for the time being."

"Undoubtedly," said Atoz. "The real question is: what does it want from us? Any speculation?"

"It could have been drawn to the energy output of our vessel," said the Vulcan. "But it expended as much energy in catching the shuttlecraft as it could have obtained from its energy cells. The logical conclusion is that there is something unique about us that it wants. Perhaps our brain patterns attracted it."

"That's not unheard of," said Atoz. "There have been similar cases, where an entity of pure thought was attracted to corporeal beings like us."

"Perhaps it means to absorb our consciousness," said T'Pana. "On the other hand, it could simply be curious about us."

"It would have made some attempt to communicate," said Atoz. "But if it needs direct contact with our minds, we're in trouble. We have no defense against something like that. It would have to submerge our selves within itself, and our distinctive personalities would be lost, possibly forever."

"If that is so, Captain," said T'Pana, "there is nothing that we can do to fight it. As an entity of pure thought, it could merge with our minds, play upon our very memories. We could no longer trust anything which we seemed to perceive."

"All we have to do is hold on, delay it until the Odysseus gets here."

The Vulcan frowned. "But Captain, we have no way to communicate our predicament to the ship."

"We have something better, ensign. We have a paranoid Chief of Security. If I know Lieutenant Rosh, he's been watching us like a hawk. Once he saw me fire the ramjets, he'd know that we were in trouble."

"But still, Captain..."

"We have to fight off its influence for as long as possible. We could each pick a single positive memory -- one that's clear and vivid in our minds -- and hold onto it, use it as an anchor to reality."

The Vulcan's eyebrow rose as she considered this. "If I may suggest, sir -- a positive experience, but not an extremely emotional one."

"Why not? I would think the more emotional the memory, the more vivid it would be."

"Emotions are generated by hormonal influences more often than not," she explained. "This is one of the reasons we Vulcans avoid them. Such a feeling would be easy for the entity to stimulate artificially."

"I'm not sure I entirely agree," said Atoz, "but I can't deny that your suggestion is logical. Okay, I'm thinking of an afternoon that I spent with Lt. Cmdr. Weir, simply talking about our likes and dislikes. That should fill the bill. It was pleasant enough to remain fresh in my memory, and yet not emotionally charged."

"Captain," T'Pana said thoughtfully, "if there were any way we could link up together, help one another other to resist, that might buy us more time."

"Well, yes..." Atoz began. "You're thinking of the Vulcan mind meld."

"I am not an Adept at the practise, but I would be willing to try."

At that moment, the shuttlecraft tilted onto her nose, tumbling erratically as the entity resumed probing for an opening. This time, there was no defensive screen, no structural integrity field, no barrier of any kind to stop it. "We're out of time, ensign. Let's try it."

They sat cross-legged on the deck of the shuttlecraft, knees barely touching. As instructed, Atoz placed his hands on the Vulcan's hips, above a major plexus of nerves which the Hindus of Earth would have associated with the median Chakra point. T'Pana took deep breaths, placed her hands on the Captain's face, her fingers feeling sensitively for the cranial nerves. "My thoughts... to your thoughts," she whispered.

Penelope heeled violently over again, a few sparks flying half-heartedly from a broken conduit overhead, as the blue energy tentacles of the entity played over the hull. "My mind... to your mind. Our thoughts are merging. Our thoughts are one. Remember, Captain. Remember..."

[Atoz 77]

The small room seemed to be filled with candles. Outside the shrine, the hollow sound of the meditation wheels could be heard faintly, moaning with the wind. The two women had removed their cloaks and were sitting very close together on the floor, eyes closed, their thighs almost overlapping. Their hands were extended, palms touching, perspiration mingling. "You are going away, sister," said one of the women, without moving her lips.

"Tomorrow," thought/said T'Pana. "I must join my starship."

"Each time you visit seems shorter than the last." The beat of T'Pren's heart was slow and steady -- down her arm, across her fingers, provoking a sympathetic vibration in the heartbeat of her companion.

"That is the way of all life, sister. It will not always be so." Chemical pheromones were being generated by glands in her skin and blending with those of her sister, but both women blocked this out by long practise. It was nothing compared to the almost alchemetical joining of their two spirits.

"You are still thinking of this man, t'hy'la," thought/said T'Pren, her entire attitude changing suddenly. "This Human. Put him out of your thoughts. Remain here with me..."

"There is only one thing I dislike about serving on a starship," said Weir, her shoes crunching into the pile of dry, brittle leaves which had drifted over the walkway. "I miss the change of seasons."

"What I miss is long walks," said Atoz, looking up at the trees and then stopping abruptly as a strange thought occured to him. "I don't like losing a crewman."

"It was a shuttlecraft accident," said Weir, linking her arm in his. "It could have happened to anybody."

"My thoughts... to your thoughts," someone else said.

Atoz put his hands to his head, fists squeezing against the sudden pounding in his temples. "I don't like losing a crewman..."

"Put her out of your mind. It was an accident..."

Remember, Captain. Remember...

***

"Doctor, he's conscious."

Someone removed the oxygen mask from his face, and Atoz found himself looking upwards into the face of Dr. Pierce. "Captain? Can you speak? Do you remember your name?"

"Of course I remember my name," said Atoz hoarsely. "It's Seven Seven Atoz." Then a horrible thought struck him, and he tried to sit up. Immediately he was overcome by waves of dizziness, and sank back down. "What about Ensign T'Pana? Is she all right?"

The next half second seemed to stretch for an eternity, as Atoz waited to hear the words he dreaded. "Don't get excited, Seven," said Pierce. "She's perfectly fine, in the next bed over. Your life support had failed, but I'm pretty sure we got to you both in time."

Atoz glanced to his right, and there was the Vulcan, lying quietly in the next bed and breathing steadily into an oxygen mask. As he watched, she blinked her eyes and turned to look at him. She didn't smile, naturally, but he got the distinct impression that she raised one eyebrow slightly.

***
"My theory, such as it is," said Science Officer Weir, standing at the head of the conference room, "is that the entity you encountered must have come from the Helix. The space/time distortions must have caused a fault in the subspace barrier, allowing this energy being to cross over from another reality. It really didn't seem well adapted to our universe at all."

"Our phasers disrupted it easily, Captain," said Rosh, from the other end of the table.

"You mean it's dead?" said Vespis, the Chief Engineer.

"As much as alive or dead have any meaning for an entity like this," Weir said, nodding. "It wouldn't have lasted long once the Helix collapsed, anyway."

"I take it the phenomenon has collapsed?" said Atoz.

"Yes, sir," said Weir, with a slightly disappointed sigh. "I'm very sorry if our study put us behind schedule, but--"

"No need to apologize, Science Officer," said Atoz. "Mister Fawkes, would you be kind enough resume course for Rala III? I'll join you on the bridge shortly."

"Aye-aye, Captain," said the First Officer, rising from his seat.

"If that's everything -- meeting adjourned." The department heads all headed for the door, leaving Atoz alone, looking pensively out the portholes of the conference room. A few moments later, the ship went to warp, the stars streaking away into infinity. Behind him, the door quietly hissed open.

"Ensign T'Pana reporting as ordered, Captain."

Atoz took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I just wanted to... express my regrets that you were forced to mind meld with me, ensign. For what it's worth, Dr. Pierce says that it very likely saved our sanity, if not our lives."

The Vulcan lifted one eyebrow. "Then there is no reason for you to express regret, sir."

"Well... I suppose it's a Human weakness," said Atoz, "to feel embarrassment in situations like this. I remember pretty well the memory you chose for your anchor. Your last visit with your sister. That was a very... intimate memory, and I'm sorry that I intruded."

"As was your memory of Commander Weir, sir."

Atoz looked up sharply, but T'Pana's expression was a cool as ever, giving nothing away. Not for the first time, he felt that he and the Vulcan were using the same words in a different meaning. There was nothing "intimate" in his talk with Diane -- unless T'Pana from her vantage point was somehow seeing something much more profound in his relationship with the Science Officer than he himself was willing to admit. Suddenly he felt even more embarrassed than he had when he had begun this conversation.

"Well, that's all I wanted to say, ensign. If there's nothing further, you may return to your duties." T'Pana nodded and turned away.

It was easy for Humans to assume that, because Vulcans never got emotional, then their personal relationships must not be as rich nor as fulfilling. Some Humans even claimed that Vulcans weren't capable of having personal relationships. But after sharing that memory of T'Pana and her sister, Atoz knew that was nonsense. It was like saying that a connoisseur of fine wines couldn't enjoy a rare vintage because he never allowed himself to get drunk on it. Absence of overt passion did not imply absence of deep feelings. It was possible that Vulcans were capable of even deeper friendships than Humans, precisely because they never got emotional.

And there was one other thing that struck Atoz as interesting, now that he had time to think about it. He had even looked it up in the linguistics database, just to be sure. The Vulcan word for "sister" can also mean "lover".

>>> THE END >>>