Force and Motion (7 page)

“Why?” Nog asked. “What's wrong?”

“I can guess,” O'Brien said. “The genetic code.”

Finch tipped an imaginary cap toward the chief as he wandered back to the trolley to see if any of the Stilton remained. Presentations always gave him an appetite. “They all want to know how the bread is baked. I say to them, ‘You all know what's in bread. You don't need to know the exact recipe.' ”

“What are you afraid of?” O'Brien asked. “The Federation has laws to protect intellectual property.”

“The Federation,” Finch said, plucking a piece of cheese from the tray, “is in the business of governing, and any government is only one crisis away from either anarchy or totalitarianism.” He popped the morsel into his mouth and let it melt on his tongue. “Or haven't you heard about the tenure of President Baras?” The Starfleeters exchanged anxious glances. Finch sensed he had scored a hit. Bacco had been assassinated on Deep Space 9. For all he knew, one of these men might have been nearby when she was felled.

“This is all very interesting,” said Nog, withdrawing from his enthusiastic position in regard to Finch's future earnings. “But I don't see how anyone would be willing to let you use your organisms without knowing more about them.”

“Perhaps if you vouched for me,” Finch said, his tone dry.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Perhaps if
you
vouched for me. You are Nog, son of Rom, the current grand nagus, aren't you?”

“Yes,” Nog admitted. “I don't see what that has to do with anything.”

“Really? Hmph. And I'm usually such a good judge of character. I thought you wouldn't have to be dragged all
the way into the river before you realized you were dying of thirst.”

“What?” Nog demanded.

“Or perhaps I should quote the Ninth Rule of Acquisition.”

“ ‘Opportunity plus instinct equals profit,' ” Nog said. “So?”

“Wouldn't your father look upon your visit as an opportunity? What are your instincts telling you?”

“My instincts,” Nog replied, “tell me that you don't know anything about my father.”

“And mine,” Finch replied, “are telling me it might be time for you to meet the Mother.”

“What?” Nog asked.

“Who?” O'Brien asked.

“No!” Sabih shouted, rising from where he sat. “No! That is a
terrible
idea! You can't just . . .” He dug his fingers into his curly hair as if he was planning to tug out fistfuls. “I don't understand you!” he continued, his tone nearing hysteria. “You can't resist, can you?
Every
time!” Sabih threw his arms up into the air and shrieked. “That's
it!
I'm
through!
I really wanted to be a part of this, Mister Finch, but I can't stand this anymore. I'm going
home!
You can keep the damned credit!” He stalked to the turbolift, which, embarrassingly for Sabih, took several seconds to arrive, during which all he could do was fume.

Finally, the lift arrived, the doors parted, and Sabih stormed off.

No one spoke for several seconds until Finch said, “Apologies, gentlemen. I've had concerns about that one. He's young, excitable . . .”

“Where's Ben Maxwell?” O'Brien asked. “I think I've had—”

Ignoring his comrade, Nog asked, “Who or what is the Mother?”

“The first question,” Finch replied, “I could answer if you'd like, with the touch of a button. The second question, if you really want to know, I can answer too, but you'll have to come with me.” He pointed at one of the pair of stairways that led up to the topmost deck—his private lair. “Be prepared to have your life changed.”

Chapter 6

Three Years Earlier

Nantucket Island, Earth

“T
hat's all that's left?” Maxwell asked.

“That's it,” Brody said.

“Damn.”

“Yeah,” Brody said, drawing out the word in a typical island fashion. He poked the toothpick he always seemed to have in the corner of his mouth into whatever crevice he was working at the moment. “Damn.” This last word he said like there was iron at its core, as if he possessed the power to really, truly
damn
something. He jammed both hands into his jacket pockets, burrowing for warmth. He hadn't bothered to find gloves before escorting Maxwell over to the cottage. “Still,” he mused, “could be worse.”

Maxwell stared at the remains of his mother's house. He could barely see the outline of the foundation, but only a charred, blackened concrete slab. Any wood or plaster that had been part of the structure was gone, reduced to ash and blown out to sea. “How could this be any worse?”

“She coulda died of old age,” Brody said. “Your mum, she wouldn't have liked that. Struck by lightning, though. It suited her.”

Maxwell carefully played back Brody's words for any
sign of sarcasm or insincerity or even just plain cruelty, but no . . . he couldn't find any. Maxwell had known—or known of—Cyrus Brody, his mother's best friend (and companion—he couldn't ignore the possibility) for well over twenty-five years and was reasonably certain the man could not express an insincere sentiment. It wasn't in his nature.

“Your mother was probably content about being vaporized in a freak lightning strike on the day before her hundred twenty-eighth birthday.”

Maxwell reflected,
It would have been nice to hear something like regret
.

“She was a fine woman,” Brody continued. “Your ma was . . .” He exhaled, vapor puffing from his mouth and nostrils. He turned his head away and rubbed his cheeks with his surprisingly long fingers. Maxwell knew that in addition to being one of the best fishing guides on the island, Brody was also a fine pianist. He remembered a family get-together, almost fifteen years ago—one of the handful of times he had brought Maria to see his mother—when Brody had spent the evening sitting at the old upright in the parlor cycling through a program of Brahms, drinking songs, and Elton John, utterly charming Maxwell's wife. Turning back into the wind, Brody rubbed the corners of his eyes with the tips of his index finger. “We miss her,” he said. “Everyone misses her.”

Maxwell wanted to say—he truly, deeply, and sincerely wanted to say—“I miss her too,” but all he could manage was, “Thanks.” He knew that he loved his
mother, always had, but he couldn't honestly say that he had thought about her very often over the past thirty years except on the occasions when he needed to announce significant passages: when he had married, when the children had been born, when they died, when he was sent to prison.
What a strange litany,
Maxwell thought, absently counting the events by touching the tips of his fingers to his palm.

When he was released from the penal colony, Maxwell had been forced to consider,
Where do I want to go?
Somehow, Nantucket had seemed like the best idea. There were two things he could count on there: the sound of the ocean and his mother's comfortable silence. Never much of a talker, Maxwell knew he would have been able to sit on the porch or in the kitchen and just stare out at the water for as long as he liked without her asking him what he planned to do next. Mom had been good that way: she didn't ask many questions because she didn't care about the answers.

He hadn't been surprised when she didn't respond. She rarely replied to any kind of communication unless she had something very specific to convey. Brody had been the one to meet him at the dock, which had initially pleased him, and then alarmed him, and then simply confused him when the old man began, “There was a storm last week.” A storm? Of course there was a storm: it was Nantucket. A freakish lightning storm in mid-winter? Unusual, but not unknown. Lightning striking a house? Also unusual, but not out of the ­question . . .

All Maxwell could do was shake his head and say, “Was there anything left? In the house, I mean.”

“Just bits and bobs,” Brody said. “What the fire didn't take, the wind and the rain did. It was over a day before anyone even noticed what had happened, her living out here on her own.” His mother had lived on a lonely spur, a spot that Maxwell imagined as the closest she could come to being on the bridge of her tug as a land-bound structure could be. Brody pulled a small parcel from his pocket. “I saved this—pretty much the only thing I thought anyone might want.” He handed the package to Maxwell, who, feeling the rectangular shape and the four corners, guessed what the object might be, in general terms if not specifically. Brody didn't say another word, but only stared at Maxwell as if waiting. Though he didn't really want to do it, Maxwell felt like he was expected to open the package at that moment, so he carefully tore the paper away from one corner.

It was a photograph, as Maxwell had suspected, a flat, two-dimensional image, the kind his mother had always preferred. She felt holograms were too fussy to take on an oceangoing vessel, so she never had much patience for them. He tore away another corner of paper, and a sudden gust of wind ripped it out of his hand so the scrap went skittering down the beach and out into the breakers. Maxwell stared at the half-revealed photo. He remembered the moment it captured, but couldn't remember sending it to his mother, which meant Maria must have done it. He was kneeling on the ground, smiling up at the camera, his son and daughter both standing beside him. Carlo had that bad haircut he got when he was four,
so Sofia must have been three. They were both pointing at the fourth pip on his collar, both of them grinning proudly, like they understood what it meant. Maria must have been the photographer.

“This is from the day I was promoted to captain,” Maxwell said flatly. “The day I got the
Rutledge.
”

“I know,” Brody said. “She had it on the mantel. Made sure anyone who came into the house saw it.”

“Really?”

“Sure.”

“I don't remember ever seeing it.”

Brody shrugged. “It was always there, long as I can remember.”

Drops of rain wet the glass protecting the photo. Maxwell slipped the parcel into the big side pocket of his coat. “Thanks for saving it, Brody.”

“No worries. Figured it belonged to you. Found a couple other things that I kept for myself—nothing that would mean anything to anyone else.”

“Okay. Good.” He didn't know what else to say and so, as his mother would have, Maxwell said nothing at all.

Without another word, the two men turned away from the burned-out building and trudged back up the beach to where Brody's small vehicle waited. Maxwell was thinking about jamming his feet up against the heater. After living in New Zealand for so many years, he had completely lost the ability to cope with the kind of cold weather you got on Nantucket.

“So,” Brody asked, clearly having waited as long as he could to do so, “what're you going to do now?”

Maxwell chuckled, though the sound was probably
lost in the wind. He rubbed his chin and felt the stubble. “I really have no idea,” he admitted. “Kind of thought I was going to stay here for a while, but, well . . . not much chance of that now, is there?”

“No,” Brody allowed. “Guess not. Got any friends you can stay with?”

In his head, Maxwell answered,
Friends? You mean, like former shipmates? Colleagues? Men and women who I served with, commanded for twenty-five years? People who don't think I betrayed their trust and nearly started a war? The friends I haven't heard from or tried to contact for the past ten years? You mean those friends?
To Brody, he said, “Yeah,
probably
. I'll have to make a couple calls, but I can think of a couple.”

“Because if you need someplace to stay, I have a room you're welcome to use. Not much. Just a bed and a dresser and a chair, but it'd be nice to have some company.” He looked back at the spot on the beach where the cottage once stood. The island, Maxwell realized, was already taking back the spot. Except for the charred ribs of the cottage and the outline of the slab, it was difficult to see where his mother's home once had stood.

“To be honest, Brody,” Maxwell said, reaching for the handle to the passenger side door, “I don't think I could stand winter here anymore. My blood's thinned out. I need to go someplace warmer.”

Brody nodded and pulled open his door. When they were both in the vehicle, he pushed the heater up to maximum, much to Maxwell's relief. Brody said, “Or you could go back into space, I guess.”

“Space?” Maxwell asked.

“Well, that was your job, wasn't it? What you trained to do.”

“Sure, but . . .” He let the words trail off, waiting for Brody to catch up to the obvious point.

“You don't have to be the
captain,
you know,” Brody said. “Ship only has one of those, but there are lots of other jobs. Captain wasn't the only one you ever had. Just the last one.”

Maxwell rubbed his hands together to try to get some circulation back into his fingers. He looked out at the surf as Brody revved the accelerator and the vehicle began the slow slog up the potholed road. He lifted his eyebrows and cocked his head to one side, letting the idea sink in. “I guess that's true,” he allowed.

“Somebody somewhere needs something that you know how to do.”

“Thanks, Brody.”

Brody nodded his head and clamped both hands on the manual controls. The guidance system on a vehicle as old as his probably needed some help anyway. “And, just so you know, most people around here think you got kind of a raw deal.”

“Thanks, Brody.”

“Your mom, too,” he added.

“Thanks, Brody.” Maxwell felt foolish repeating himself, but couldn't think of anything else to say. Also, he was fairly certain that Brody was lying. It was nice of him to lie, though, and there was no reason, Maxwell decided, to abuse the courtesy. He also decided there was no good reason to point out how cold a person could get in space if one wasn't careful.

January 9, 2386

Finch's Lab

Robert Hooke

“What the hell
is that?” the chief asked.

“That—
she
—is the Mother,” Finch declared in what Nog considered to be a defensive tone. He let it pass. One should be defensive about a Mother, any Mother.

“It's . . . it's,” O'Brien said in a tone that mingled disgust and awe.

“
Sir
,” Finch said, drawing himself up as tall as he could and standing on his dignity (which appeared to be quite profound), “choose your words more carefully
.
”

The chief shot his fellow engineer a sidelong glance, the kind that Nog knew meant “Get
this
guy.” Nog cocked his head at a neutral angle, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. He was trying to be politic. He studied the Mother and found her, on the whole, to be quite beautiful.

The tank was ten meters long and wide and perhaps half that high, meaning it was (he did the math in his head) five thousand liters. The liquid—presumably some kind of nutrient solution—was completely clear and the sides of the tank were utterly and completely unstained, which meant Finch took very good care of the Mother's enclosure and Nog's view of her was unobstructed. She floated tranquilly in the exact center of the tank, approximately half its length and breadth and height, a rosy red tinged with lilac highlights. In simple terms, she was a blob. Shapeless, she undulated, a study in soft curves. Eddies in the tank—probably from some sort of exchanger—made her ripple and shimmy, but whenever a tendril or glob
ule moved too near the tank's inner surface, an invisible agent gently pushed her away.
Some kind of force field,
Nog thought.
Or maybe just an antigravs supporting the mass.

“What is it?” O'Brien asked.

“And why do you call it Mother?” Nog added, though, in the safety of his own head, he wondered what other name she could be called.

“I am in the business of creating designer microbes,” Finch began, caught in the grip of a sales pitch. “Not a new concept by any stretch of the imagination, but still an expensive and laborious one. And, in the Federation especially, there are certain—how shall I say it?—­prejudices against genetic enhancement.” Nog sneaked a glance at O'Brien to see how Finch's comment landed, given the chief's friendship with Doctor Bashir, one of the few genetically enhanced humans either of them knew. But the chief appeared to be unmoved, except for a raised eyebrow, a sign for Finch to continue. “The microbes I demonstrated earlier—the Borg-waste consumers—normally would have required years of development and an intensive breeding program to ensure stability and longevity, but, using my new process, I've shortened that time frame considerably, all thanks to the Mother.”

O'Brien shook his head. “I'm still not following you.”

“Or why you call it Mother,” Nog added.

“It's my little joke,” Finch said, smiling and smoothing the front of his jacket over his considerable midriff. “Are either of you gentlemen familiar with how vinegar is made?”

“Vinegar?” Nog asked, who knew of the substance from his years of working in his uncle's bar.

“In theory,” O'Brien replied. “Wine gone bad?”

“More or less,” Finch said. “A fermenting liquid will produce a substance composed of cellulose and acetic acid bacteria. It's a gel-like substance that can be added to wine or cider, which will in turn transform it into more vinegar. These acetobacters, propagated and maintained over many generations, are called mothers because of their boundless fecundity and giving nature.”