Signs from Heaven Read online

  She stood and approached the wall monitor. A touch of the padd in her hand revealed Stratos and Bart made a slow smile. It resembled something out of an old Earth fairy tale. The image looked as if it had been taken by a passing shuttle—which followed what he’d read on the city’s tourist trade. A city of spirals, skyscrapers, and torrents, all nestled together on a bed of clouds. He knew the clouds were only an illusion and little more than the emissions from the graviton engines.

  “Stratos was built with one thing in mind—the arts. An Ardanan named Moran Busk conceived of the idea of a floating city, and according to what we know of the past, his son Soske Busk built the first engines to actually lift and maintain the city’s anti-gravity engines.”

  She flipped pictures to a barren, rocky landscape, with orange skies and burnt sand. “During the years of Stratos City Dwellers, the culture split itself into two peoples. The Stratos Dwellers reaped the luxuries the city had to offer in art, music, and food. Those less fortunate were left on the surface of Ardana to mine zenite—one of the earliest minerals used in preventing bacterial plagues on several worlds. They were called Troglytes.”

  Carol flipped the screen again to show several workers in drab suits of gray and blue, with silver eye-wear partially hiding their faces. “Neither people were aware of the dangerous gas emitted from the mining of zenite or its effects on the people breathing it. Decreased mental aptitude and tendencies toward violent behavior were the first signs—prolonged use caused retardation in learning capability. In other words, the Troglytes were in a sense dumbed down from mining the only source of export and trade the planet had.”

  Captain Scott spoke up. “I served on board the Enterprise when Captain Kirk was directed there to pick up a shipment of zenite. He, as well as the planet’s High Advisor Plasus, were exposed to the gas as a way of proving to the Cloud Dwellers as well as the Troglytes that it did exist.”

  “If I recall my history lesson”—Gold frowned at Scott—“Kirk gave you an order to put Plasus directly into the mines.”

  Scott tilted his head to his left to give Gold a withering glance. “I did no such thing.” He straightened up. “I simply put him in his place.”

  Carol cleared her throat. “Following what happened to Fabian, Bart and I did some extensive research on what was known about Stratos culture. What we found was somewhat…enlightening.”

  Bart knew his cue but deferred from visuals. Everyone’s attention turned to him. He leaned forward on the conference table and clasped his hands. “Most, if not all, of Stratos’s scientific as well as cultural achievements were based on art. The flow of the city’s architecture right down to the construction of the technology that runs the anti-gravity engines.

  “How this was achieved was by accident in their own scientific laboratories during their experiments with genetic engineering. They were trying to create the perfect artisan, but instead created a parasite that would enhance their artistic abilities—supercharge them with that creative energy—and that parasite was what inspired Soske Busk to make his father’s dream a reality.” He checked the padd in front of him. “If I recall, he was the first one to welcome the parasite.”

  Gomez shook her head. “They enhanced themselves—creatively—with parasites?”

  Bart nodded. He wasn’t finished yet. And wait till they hear what Elizabeth had found. “The technology grew around the abilities of the parasites. So much so that much of the workings inside of Stratos were only accessible if you had them. We suspect the City Dwellers were in the process of weeding out the need for Troglyte workers in the city. But even that became a chore, and a group of watchers—or Sentinels—were engineered to have these parasites and basically run the city.”

  “So they had the Troglytes mining on the surface, and Sentinels running the city for them.” Scott gave a short chuckle. “I’m not surprised it all fell apart.”

  Carol continued from there. “What followed next was a cascade of social events. The Federation promised to work with the Troglytes in providing the masks necessary to mine the ore. The High Advisor took his complaints about Captain Kirk to the Appeals Board at Starfleet Command. When his case was dismissed—Kirk’s actions deemed necessary to facilitate the protection of a subjugated peoples—Plasus withdrew Ardana from the Federation and forbade any Federation representatives to come to Stratos.”

  Scott shifted in his seat. “That man was pure evil.”

  “The Troglytes—no longer under the gas’s influence—established their own central government on the planet and turned their efforts—with some help from the S.C.E. of the time—toward terraforming the planet.”

  Gomez sighed. “Let me guess—that’s when the war started. The one they call the Great Disruption.”

  Carol nodded. “And it was a disruption. The Troglytes were in the midst of creating their own culture planet-side when the Ardanans attacked. Used their transmat technology for surprise attacks. Assassinated the Troglytes’ elected High Advisor.”

  Bart shook his head and sighed. He’d read the historicals as well. Remembered the bloodshed inflicted upon the Troglytes as families were murdered in their sleep, the Ardanan army appearing in their bedrooms and then leaving just as quietly.

  He was glad Carol hadn’t mentioned that little piece of Ardana’s history.

  “The Troglytes were nearly destroyed—until a new leader emerged. A descendant of Soske Busk, he led the revolt against Stratos by stealing the transmat technology—as well as a little of the Federation’s own beaming capabilities. They used it to invade Stratos.” She stopped, her lips pulled thin in a grim expression. “Let’s just say the body count rose significantly. The Troglytes only needed an occasional knife or stick to corral thousands of Ardanans in a corner and push them over the side.”

  Everyone’s positions shifted uncomfortably at the very thought of mass murder on such a scale or in such a fashion.

  Carol pointed to the monitor again. A new picture replaced the rocky terrain with that of a street, busy with hovercar activities, bustling people in all sorts of costumes, even a few Starfleet uniforms. To the side was a market full of fresh fruit, and what Bart thought was a café, complete with wrought iron chairs. “This is the Ardana of today—a culture and technology similar to Earth’s in the late twenty-second century. There are three main cities. First City, Lejico, and Droxana. Droxana is the capital, but because of its location to Stratos’s position, First City is the main tourist center.”

  Scotty spoke up. “From what I’ve gathered since arriving, the Ardana of today in no way resembles what existed a century ago. They’re still rebuilding, and taking their time.” He stood and began a slow pace in front of the monitor. “They cut themselves off completely from Stratos after the rebuilding and reformation. Now it stands as a monument to what happened in the past. They use shuttles to take visitors by the city, flying in close range. As for the transmat system, it deactivated from non-use several decades ago.”

  “So when you stepped on board,” Conlon began, “you and the Edison team were the first in more than a hundred years?”

  He stopped and gave her a slow smile. “Aye, lass. And what an honor that was. But”—he looked at everyone—“all of you know what happened to poor Commander Alverson. During the years leading up to the Enterprise’s arrival, the Troglytes’ resistance force—the Disruptors—used terrorist tactics on Stratos, setting traps everywhere to hurt or maim, even kill the City Dwellers. They defaced works of art as well. As I told Captain Gold, the areas of main engineering and the control center have been examined. Alverson was investigating one of the larger buildings”—he glanced at Gold—“searching for something we’re going to need to find.”

  Pattie raised two of her arms. “I can assume you’re referring to the engine schematics?”

  All eyes turned to her. If a Nasat could blush, Pattie achieved it. “I figured when my request for the city’s blueprints went unanswered it was something like that.”

  Tev tur
ned a shocked expression to Scotty. “You don’t have the schematics for the engines?”

  “There’s no central computer?” Soloman asked.

  “No, lad.” Scotty shook his head as he looked at the Bynar. “Nothing at all resembling what you or I would call a computer.” He pursed his lips, his mustache bristling. “Everything’s running, or at least the main engines are. Some things came on as we investigated further. The lights, and heating—it’s freezing at that altitude. We were able to identify the engines—simple makeup really. Massive graviton generators, similar to the ones we use in starships.”

  Bart noticed Sarjenka shift in the back, her hand up. “Excuse me, but can I ask a question?”

  Scotty gave the new recruit a smile. “Anything, lass.”

  “How—” She shook her head. “Exactly how does that work?” She gestured with a nod to the monitor, indicating the picture of Stratos floating in the distance above the city street. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  Scott appeared pleased to answer her question, only it was Tev who spoke up first. “A graviton generator forms the core of artificial gravity on a starship, akin to a cyclotron superconductor that generates the gravitons by spinning at a particular rate. When damaged, they slow down and the field weakens. Inertial dampeners are used to simulate ‘up’ and ‘down,’ even though those terms are functionally meaningless in space.”

  “But in this instance, the direction of the gravitons define where down is,” Scotty interjected. All eyes turned to him. “We were able to establish that Stratos’s underside creates anti-gravitons which create a negative gravity beneath the city. This in essence pushes the city off the ground.”

  Conlon nodded slowly, then frowned. “But without any sort of central computer, how is this thing directed? How are diagnostics run? How do you pinpoint what’s wrong?”

  Scotty sighed again. “Now, lass, you see our delays. Those were the questions plaguing us when Alverson was injured. We can see the engines, we can understand what it is they’re doing, only we don’t know which buttons to push. We can’t even find the buttons. And we don’t know what’s powering it. We do know the anti-gravitons are weakening—my educated guess is the engines are producing fewer of them.”

  “Is the generator still spinning at the prescribed rate?” Tev asked.

  Scotty’s face split with the grin he gave the engineer. “Lad—if you can figure out exactly what the prescribed rate is, we’ll be a quarter of the way to solving the problem.” He sighed. “It’s spinning. We don’t know how or why.”

  “So you’re no closer to finding out if the city even has landing capabilities,” Gold said.

  “None that we could find.” He gave a short sigh. “And you know how the people of Ardana are handling that idea. The whole concept of landing the city has several groups of people in an uproar. If it touches Ardanan soil intact, a whole lot of people are threatening another war.”

  “And it starts all over again,” Gold said.

  “Aye,” Scotty said. “Several museums have been raided, and copies of the artifacts were stolen. But they were only copies—the museum in First City had the originals. I suspect Historian Vanov gave them to me just so they would be safe.”

  Carol said, “So there are groups or factions that don’t want Stratos landed and explored? Are these cultural mandates or religious beliefs?”

  “A little of both,” Scotty said. “I saw a good bit of protesting, especially when the High Advisor hinted we might try and bring Stratos down. Most protestors were tourist venues—those that make their money off of Stratos’s position. Vanov said there are two main factions—the ups and the downs.” He smiled. “Or that’s what I called them. The side that wants the city down so it can be excavated and explored, and the side that wants it destroyed because of what it represents. No one’s even listening to the business people who want it left right where it is.”

  “Sounds familiar,” Carol said. “Some see it as an opportunity for advancement, and then there’s the yin to the yang with those who fear it.”

  Bart nodded. “So where do we stand? What we’re doing?”

  “The Edison didn’t encounter any real threats—other than anything set by the Disruptors. But then at that point we were still in talks to just keep it in the air. It wasn’t until we discovered we didn’t know how to keep it up that the idea of bringing it down manually came about.”

  “So we should perhaps do our work out of sight?” Gold said. “Beam directly to Stratos?”

  “That’s my suggestion. For now. The High Advisor has put a hold on things until he can calm the general fears of the parliament.”

  “What if that’s decided for us? As in we can’t get it down, we can’t keep it up, and the tractor beam fails.”

  “That’s what they’re going to vote on this afternoon. Vanov will contact me when he knows. But until then, they don’t want any of the S.C.E. in Stratos.”

  Carol pointed to the artifacts. “So why would anyone try and take these?”

  Lense stood at that moment. She moved slowly toward Carol and took the padd from her. Her pregnancy was as obvious as pregnancies can get and Bart felt for her in this condition.

  Gold said, “I think I know why.”

  Lense smiled at him. “Those boxes you see on the table were once known as carns. Earth had its own definitions of carns: doorways to other worlds. The opening of a hole between dimensions—like Portlyn’s tesseract.”

  She pointed at the screen. The bustling street disappeared and became an image of a green and blue transparent octopus. Bart frowned. Actually it looked more like a wolf spider with thinner, longer legs.

  Lense looked at the assembled group. “This is what lived in those carns.”

  “The parasite,” Gold said.

  With a nod Lense pointed at the screen. More of them appeared, moving back and forth, only these had thinner, longer legs. “From what Nancy and Tev found, each of these carns is protected by a bio-magnetic field—a mini-stasis chamber—which allows the parasite to live for an indefinite amount of time.”

  She moved to the table and picked up the cylinder. “This was the only one still active. And Mr. Stevens somehow tripped the magnetic field on it—whether it was his presence or by touching it, I don’t know. What I do know is Fabian now has this parasite”—she gestured to the monitor with the cylinder—“burying its way and multiplying inside his cerebral cortex.”

  “He’s got those wee beasties inside his brain?” Scott placed his left hand flat on the table as he moved his head around to see the monitor. “What are they doing to him, lass?”

  Lense put the cylinder back down on the table. “Let me try and put this plainly. The parasite is causing Fabian to experience what we know as synesthesias—the melding of two or more sensory inputs so a signal stimulus results in a double sensation. For example—and this one fits with what Fabian’s experiencing—” She clicked at the monitor and a tone sounded in the room. The monitor turned blue. “There are some people who hear music and see colors.”

  Corsi moved forward. “You mean that’s why he saw indigo when I talked to him?”

  Sarjenka spoke up as Lense nodded. “And why he saw yellow when I spoke.”

  “He’s seeing colors when he hears voices?” Gold said.

  “Evidently everything he hears is emitting some sort of tonal color. It comes and goes, and he’s experienced several waves—dizzy spells where he says the room moves in a rainbow.”

  “Elizabeth,” Gomez said, her tone cautious. “What exactly is it doing to him? Making him into one of these Sentinels?”

  “Well, since I don’t really know what a Sentinel is, I can only guess the parasite’s doing what it was made to do.”

  Bart spoke up. “Which is enhance creative abilities.”

  “So much so that Fabian’s already fixed the replicator in my office because he said it sounded wrong.”

  Scotty narrowed his eyes. “Pardon me, lass, but did you just
say he said it sounded wrong?”

  Lense nodded.

  “That’s impossible,” Tev said. “He can hear the replicator’s…systems?”

  Pattie spoke up. “Well it would make sense, wouldn’t it? Fabian’s creative instincts are in engineering. He loves solving problems—like all of us do. So the parasite is somehow enhancing his ability to find the problem and solve it.”

  Bart looked at Gold. The captain looked less than pleased. “Lense, what exactly is it doing? I mean in here.” He pointed to his head. “Is Stevens in danger?”

  “According to what Bart and Carol found, the Sentinels lived for decades with the parasites in place. What I can tell you is the way they grow makes it hard to treat them.” She pointed to the monitor and the spiders elongated, their limbs now needle-like and wispy.

  With a wince she moved toward the table and Scotty immediately stood and offered her his chair. She took it with an appreciative smile. “My feet were getting tired. Now—” She turned back to the monitor. “Once inside the parasites split up and migrated to the posterior inferior temporal cortex and the parieto-occipital junction. These two regions are responsible for color and sound. Once there they settled in and used the concentration of neurochemicals in those regions to facilitate growth of its dendrites that have extended deep into these areas. These dendrites act as wires that allow for crosstalk between these regions—instant synesthesia.”

  Bart understood most of it—in the short form these things were burying themselves deep into his roommate’s brain. Changing him.

  “So how do we get them out?” Gold said.

  Lense turned and looked at him. “We don’t.” She shrugged. “I don’t know how. They’ve already worked their way deep into those areas.”

  “Are they spreading?” Gomez asked.

  “No—they seem to be limiting themselves to just those two regions.”

  “Will it hurt him?” Corsi asked. “Other than the headaches?”