Signs from Heaven (7 page)

“How do we shut the shield off?”

“
That is the question, lass,
” Captain Scott said. “
Tev and I are working on it
.”

Corsi tapped her badge. “Captain Scott, did it work? Is the city still falling?”

“Aye, we're still falling
—
it looks like the dampeners are now working fine
—
but he wasn't able to finish the RPM recalibration.”

Bart and Carol frowned at each other. Gomez narrowed her eyes. “What does that mean?”

“
It means we no longer have two days before Stratos falls. We have less than four hours. We need Mr. Stevens. Sarjenka's trying to revive him. Keep looking for something that could help us
—
I'll let you know if something changes.
”

“I'm heading your way,” Corsi said and started to move around Gomez. Bart felt for her—she was concerned for Fabian. They all were.

“No, Domenica,” Gomez said. “You stay here—make sure we don't trip another Disruptor trap. Let Captain Scott and Tev keep working on getting the shield down.”

“We'll have it ready in a jiffy, Commander, worry not. Scott out.”

Carol moved to stand in front of two of the odd pictures hanging on the wall where she and Gomez came in. Bart sighed and looked at the pieces to see what was so fascinating. It occurred to him that those—including the other eight positioned in exactly the height between the floor and ceiling—bore a strange resemblance to the one he'd noticed near the entrance. Just as Corsi had said.

He turned to his left to look at the three behind him. The left painting was a brilliant red, the middle one green, and the right one blue. Looking to his right where Carol stood, the two pictures were light blue and a pinkish sort of red.

“Carol?” Gomez strode across the room to where the cultural specialist stood.

He turned back to the original three behind him and visualized them on the floor like a great puzzle piece. Only five of the ten pieces had any sort of title. He typed them into his padd. They all translated into phrasal definitions—much the way Japanese or Andorii did.

Where He has been. Where He shall travel. As above. In station be.

Bart grunted.

The one at the front of the museum had said
So below
.

He swallowed as he took a closer look at the farthest painting—the one to the right of the pole. It said
As above
.

No. It couldn't be.

Not the same translation found in China on Earth centuries ago?

As above, so below.
The second line was,
As within, so without.

The others were merely directions. Forward, back, and still.

Could it be that easy? That the key to moving Stratos was within. Within the innermost museum? The city's central core?

That the schematics to the city propulsion—the plans, the blueprints—all hidden within the paintings themselves?

Hidden in plain sight—and the Stratos Dwellers always believed the Troglytes were too slow and stupid to figure things out. They could read blueprints—simple enough.

But what if what they needed was actually a part of the artwork?

“Commander, I think I might have found something.” He turned and smiled at her. “The city plans”—he pointed to the walls—“They're in the paintings!”

G
old
entered sickbay, his irritation building with each passing second. “All right, Lense, I'm here. What's so damned important?”

Lense motioned him to her. “We need to get Fabian out of there.”

“Right now, I can't beam
anyone
in or out of Stratos. The whole city's sealed up tight—not even the Ardanan transmat devices are working.”

“What kind of defense is that?” Lense asked.

“Scotty says it's the work of a madman,” Gold said. “He believes it was installed by Plasus during the verbal war with the Federation. Because Kirk had Scotty beam Plasus to the surface, Plasus installed a safeguard against that. What we don't know is if the restart of the dampeners keyed it, or if it was the tractor beam Conlon threw around the city.”

“Can't you just somehow grab the city again and put it on the ground?”

“Not according to Conlon. That one second of power the
da Vinci
used to hold Stratos in midair caused a sufficient drain on our own power. By more than forty percent. She and her team are working on building the power back up, but we can't try that again soon. And the
Bataan
is still too far out of range.”

Lense absently rubbed at her belly as she drew her lips into a thin line. “Sarjenka sent me up the latest scans on the parasite dendrites.” She leaned her head to the left. “They're spreading. And as much as I hate to admit it, she was right as to the cause. It's the stimulation. Every time he stimulates the dendrites, they get excited and grow.”

“Are you saying they're dangerous now? You told us Sentinels lived with these things in their brains for years.”

“Well, that's true.” She held out her hands. “These things were genetically engineered for the Ardanan brain, which I've been studying. The human brain is different on many levels—mainly in the areas of neurochemicals.”

“Lense…plain English.”

“Sorry. The relevant neurochemicals that these things feed on aren't relegated to discrete areas of the brain in a human, but all over the place. So what's happening is similar to the strangler-ivy effect. The old Earth cancer equivalent. These things are starting to spread, making connections to other regions they were never meant to connect, going first to adjacent areas, advancing like ivy you can't control.”

Gold frowned at her. “You mean like kudzu.”

She shook her head, her expression showing her unfamiliarity with the strangling southern weed. “I'm assuming that's like ivy…”

He moved his head from shoulder to shoulder. “More or less, but I get the point.”

“It's started moving all over the cerebral cortex, not just in those previous areas. If it continues it will interfere with all sorts of centers—having different regions of the brain talking to each other that were never meant to at all, including the reticular activating system of the brainstem.”

He frowned. “Lense, what are you telling me?”

“It's going to interfere with his RAS, Captain. The RAS is responsible for breathing, temperature regulation—without it, he'll die.”

“
Gevalt
. Is there any way to stop it?”

“The only thing we've come up with is to slow the stimulation. But that thing's programmed to integrate with that city. Sarjenka said he managed to reset the dampeners before he became disoriented. His temperature's up. Captain, it's going to happen faster and faster unless she sedates him, cuts him off from the city itself.”

He rubbed at his chin. “I can't authorize that. Stevens is the only one who can get this city stabilized—we're running out of time. He's already corrected the dampeners—as of ten minutes ago he was able to adjust the generators and the city's showing signs of slowing. Faulwell's found something in a series of paintings in a lower vault—we think they might be able to show Stevens how to move the city, maybe even land it.”

She looked up at him, her gaze shifting across his face. “Captain—”

“I know, I know. We'll watch out for him, but the fate of millions rests in his hands. I can't let them down.”

“Just—” She took in a deep breath. “Just remember what I said when we bury another good man.” With that she put her hand to her face, turned, and moved as quickly as she could into her office.

Fabian shifted the generators again—achieving another jump in the RPMs. It was getting easier as well as harder to manipulate the Ardanan controls. Most of it was conceptual—images drawn from his own mind and used to lead him to the right course of action.

Only he'd found nothing in the system about a shield to prevent transmat and beaming technologies. It didn't exist.

Tev called out from the right podium where he was manipulating the holographic controls. “There—that's done it. The city has stabilized.” He frowned at the images moving in front of him then nodded. “We're lifting. The city should reach previous altitude in less than thirty minutes.”

From next to Tev, Scott turned to Fabian and smiled. “Don't want to suddenly jump altitudes—might be damaging to the city's structure.”

Fabian nodded before lowering his head. He removed his hands from the podium and spread his fingers over his face. The holographic images faded from all three centers, though the team was certain the last instructions would be carried out.

Sarjenka ran her tricorder over him again. He was starting to hate that little machine. “Your temperature's up another half degree.”

That much he knew. He felt flushed, his skin warm to the touch. But he was also cold and had put his own jacket back on when everyone else discarded theirs.

“And your heart rate keeps fluctuating.” She closed the tricorder.

He kept his eyes closed. It would be so easy to just lay down on the floor and take a nice long siesta. But he couldn't. Not yet. “They've grown again, haven't they?”

He didn't need to look at her to know she nodded.

Scott said, “Lad, you've done good. Take a rest. The city's no longer in danger of falling—the generators are happy as pigs in mud.”

“But the shield…” Fabian shivered.

“There's an idea I had…” Pattie spoke up.

Opening his eyes he turned to his left. “Shoot.”

“Do what we did before when you reset the dampeners. There was a one second or so window there where the power was shut down. Why not do it again and have Poynter beam us back to the
da Vinci
?”

It was feasible, but not what he wanted to do. He wanted to turn the shield off completely. What good was a floating city when no one could get in or out? Taking a shuttle in was highly dangerous because of the winds—Stratos had no docking ports at all.

Completely self-contained.

Fabian looked at Scott and Tev. The latter spoke. “That would only be acceptable as a last resort. The power required to hold the city in place was taxing on the
da Vinci
's engines, which are currently only at seventy percent efficiency.”

Pattie made a bell-like noise that Fabian knew meant she was crestfallen.

Fabian put a hand on her carapace. “I think it's a sound idea—as an alternative if something goes wrong.” He smiled. “So let's hope nothing goes wrong.”

“Faulwell to Scott.”

“Go ahead.”

“We're still waiting on those tools.”

Fabian laughed. Just as his roommate had called in that he'd found something of interest, Fabian connected again with the engine's map and found out how and where to increase and reset the generator speed.

Bart had wanted some cutting tools—apparently what he needed had to be taken down. “I need to see the whole picture,” he'd said.

Fabian tapped his own combadge. “I'll be right there, Bart.”

“You still alive?”

“Yeah. Hold tight.” He stood and moved slowly away from the podium to the satchel of tools they'd brought with them.

“Lad, maybe someone else should go. You look like death warmed over.”

Fabian made a lopsided grin. That pretty much described how he felt. “No—I need to see what it is he's found, in case these buggies in my head can tell me something about them. If there is a way to move the city, I'd feel much better about it. In case the Band-Aid doesn't hold and it comes down anyway.”

“But that's exactly what you need to avoid,” Sarjenka said. “More stimulus. You need to rest.”

“I will as soon as we get that shield down.”

Sarjenka tucked her tricorder into the medical pouch over her shoulder. “Then I'm coming with you.”

“Fine.” He looked at Scott, who now stood at the transmat platform. They'd discovered the technology still worked within the city. “Just get us to Bart's location.”

“All right, lad.” He turned to the podium and activated the start-up sequence.

Fabian frowned, his peripheral vision noticing the still-hovering Ardanan engineers. Not one of them had lifted a finger to help—they just stood there and watched.

The four of them made Fabian uncomfortable, especially since it looked as if they were always staring at him.

Gold kept his expression neutral as he listened to the yammering of Council Spokesman Yaffie, Ardana's voice of the New Future movement—the faction that wanted Stratos destroyed. Since announcing that the descent of Stratos had been halted, and its anti-gravity engines fixed, his voice had been the loudest. According to Elected High Advisor Nelois, Yaffie had quite a following.

He, Nelois, and Gold were discussing a new timetable for the S.C.E.'s estimated completion—and for getting the shield shut off.

Yaffie, of course, wanted the city destroyed now.

Nelois wanted them to transmat the new Sentinel to the planet so he could be thrown a party (not that Gold thought Fabian would ever miss a party).

And Gold—Gold just wanted them both to shut up.

The two of them appeared now together on the front viewer of the
da Vinci
. Gold leaned to the right in his chair. Susan Haznedl, promoted to lieutenant junior grade, sat at ops, her finger poised on the mute button.

“…ridiculous idea that our people want any ties to the atrocities committed against the Troglytes by the City Dwellers,”
Yaffie said. He was a medium-sized man—broad shoulders with a shaved head, white goatee, and mustaches. His dark eyebrows gave a stark contrast to his pale skin.

“But that is our history up there,”
Nelois insisted.
“How can you want to destroy something that is still a part of us? There are descendants here, of those who once dwelled in the city. They renounced what their forefathers did, but there could be pieces to their families locked away.”

“All the more reason to blow it out of the sky,”
Yaffie said.

“Gentlemen.” Gold sat forward and waited until he had their attention. “As it stands now, Stratos is stable. My people are working diligently on getting the shield that's keeping them there removed.”

“How do we know your people are truly held there by this…shield? How do we know you're not secretly working with the High Advisor to land the city as he so wishes to do?”

Gold fixed the Ardanan with the coldest stare he could muster. “Spokesman, I have a man on that station who is dying—literally—from a parasite your forefathers created. That parasite and his engineering ability saved that city. I want him off of Stratos. But I can't get to him until that shield is down. Once my people are clear, it's up to you and your government to decide what to do with it.”

Yaffie blanched white.
“You
—
you found one of the carns?”

Gold glanced at Nelois, who looked everywhere but back at him. “Well, yes. One of my crew was infected with the parasite.”
Why does my stomach suddenly feel very uneasy?