Cathedral by Michael Mangels (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

Nog smiled, obviously happy to be back in his element. “She’s spaceworthy, just as long as no one else attacks her anytime soon. I told the D’Naali captain he can get under way whenever he needs to. Once we get Sacagawea back aboard his vessel, that is. I have to say, Shar’s revamped translators really made the technical conversations go a lot more smoothly.”

“Does that mean you were able to learn anything more about why the D’Naali were being chased out here?” Vaughn asked. “Our running into them so close to the alien artifact can’t be a coincidence.”

Nog shook his head. “They never did give us access to much of their ship, outside of the engine room and a few of the most heavily damaged portions of the hull. And whenever you ask them a direct question…” He trailed off.

“They’re evasive?” Vaughn prompted.

“I’m not sure it’s deliberate. The translators still haven’t ironed out a lot of the wrinkles in their language. So the D’Naali are about as easy to understand as some of Morn’s Lurian Postmodernist poetry.”

Vaughn had heard some of Morn’s poems shortly after his initial arrival aboard Deep Space 9. The occasion had been an “open mike” night at Quark’s; Vaughn recalled that he hadn’t comprehended so much as a couplet of Morn’s work. He made a mental note to recommend Shar for a promotion if he could coax just a little more performance out of the universal translator.

“Captain,” Nog said, “if you don’t need me up here at the moment, I’d like to get back to engineering. While Permenter and Senkowski and I have been off the ship, Merimark and Leishman have been a bit overworked.” Vaughn watched as Nog looked down at his regrown limb yet again. Nog’s smile made him appear more genuinely happy than Vaughn had ever seen him.

Tenmei was grinning in Nog’s direction. “It’s always best to stay on Merimark’s good side,” she said. “Especially if Leishman’s hid the candy stash again.”

It suddenly occurred to Vaughn that Nog could have saved time by making his report over the intercom. Of course, it wasn’t every day that one’s amputated leg grew back. Who could fault the lad for wanting to use it as much as possible?

“Dismissed,” Vaughn said with a paternal smile, then watched as Nog exited.

He looked toward Bowers, who occupied the tactical console. “Please open a channel to the D’Naali ship, Mr. Bowers.”

“Aye, Captain,” Bowers said.

Moments later, a bug-visaged alien face appeared on the screen, its vertical mouth parts spread in what might have been a D’Naali smile. “Grateful thanks of ours you have, humandefiantcaptain. Indebtedness, with thanks/ beholden again reiterated/multiplied.”

“Not at all. We were happy to assist you.”

“Anything in recompense/requital, we offer with gladness/joy to provide/make available. State the need/ request.”

Vaughn blinked while he parsed the translator’s fractured grammar. Then he realized that the D’Naali commander was not only presenting his thanks, he was offering to provide something of value in return for the Defiant crew’s labors.

He decided to seize the opportunity. “There is one thing we’d like to ask of you.”

“Denominate that one thing, I request.”

“We need to survey a remote part of this solar system. In the outer comet cloud. We could use a guide who is familiar with the territory.”

The D’Naali lapsed into what seemed a thoughtful silence before he spoke again. “Answer/result is affirmative/positive. Ryek’ekbalabiozan’voslu now dwells aboard your vessel.”

Vaughn realized that the other captain was referring to the D’Naali whom Bowers had dubbed Sacagawea.

“We would be grateful if Sacagawea would act as our guide,” he said, glancing back toward Bowers, who now looked somewhat embarrassed. Vaughn was aware, of course, that the translators had been calibrated to render the nickname into the D’Naali language. “If he is willing.”

The D’Naali captain made a sweeping gesture with one of its slender limbs. “Unneeded it is to check. Ryek’ekbalabiozan’voslu will be/is obligated to be your guide. What time-interval is requested/required?”

“A few solar days at the most,” Vaughn said. “Then we will return your crew member to you.”

The D’Naali captain’s head bobbed up and down. “Assent granted readily/with enthusiasm. After/following five turnings-of-the-star, we will await/expect your return to this place/coordinates.” And with that, he vanished, replaced by an exterior view of the D’Naali ship.

Vaughn returned to the captain’s chair, sat, and looked at the conn station, where Tenmei was posted. Her dark eyes regarded him expectantly, and he could see that she had already laid in a course.

“Best speed to the alien artifact,” Vaughn said.

The flight into the fringes of the system’s Oort cloud, guided by the subspace beacon Nog had deployed during the Sagan’ s close encounter, took less than ten minutes. Vaughn ordered Tenmei to bring the Defiant to a relative stop a mere one hundred kilometers from the coordinates where the Sagan had nearly been swept forever out of normal space by the enigmatic artifact’s interdimensional effects.

In the center of the screen, an indistinct structure appeared, growing steadily in apparent size as Tenmei increased the viewer’s magnification levels. At first, Vaughn thought it might be one of the countless dead, icy bodies that spangled this cold, remote region of the system. These objects were diffused throughout the Oort cloud, covering a volume of space so vast and dimly illuminated by this system’s distant sun that any one icy body was scarcely distinguishable from any other.

But the object that was growing on the screen swiftly resolved itself into something else entirely. Its artificial nature was now clearly discernible, as it continued its stately, eternal tumble through the unfathomable interdimensional deeps. Its shape was constantly morphing as new, hitherto unseen facets rolled into view. Spires, arches, buttresses that evoked Gothic buildings appeared and vanished, each in their turn. Curving, swirling lines seemed to fall into existence, then straightened into right angles, contorting immediately afterward into shapes that no mind could fathom but which nevertheless bewitched the eyes.

The feeling of awe that had descended upon him when he’d first