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

Ensign Richter and Ensign Juarez can give the alien whatever therapy he might need.”

He regarded her in silence for a lengthy moment, apparently about to explode in an emotional outburst. But when he finally spoke, his voice was surprisingly calm and gentle.

“You don’t understand, Ezri. The therapy isn’t for my patient. It’s for me.”

Ezri suddenly understood something: Whatever skills the artifact had taken from Julian, his courage and determination—his emotional intelligence—still remained with him, at least in some measure. And she knew that now wasn’t the time to hide—or to surrender. Not while the alien artifact still held onto its secrets.

All he seemed to be asking for was some simple dignity. Maybe, she thought, that’s the only thing nobody can ever truly take from any of us.

Tears stung her eyes as she forced aside all thought of her own loss. Simultaneously galvanized and shamed by Julian’s courage, she arrived at a command decision.

“Let me walk with you to the medical bay, Julian.” A moment later, they were moving together down the corridor.

And for at least a few fleeting minutes she felt far less like an impostor. She wished she could believe that the feeling would last.

Right ahead of Shar, Nog stepped onto the bridge. He relished the solid feel of his left leg as he put his weight on it. The new limb seemed every bit as strong as the other one. Don’t get too attached to it, he reminded himself, then nearly laughed aloud at the absurdity of the notion.

Seated at the ops console, Ensign Tenmei glanced over her shoulder, acknowledging Nog and Shar with a smile and a nod. Commander Vaughn swiveled the command chair in their direction, an expectant expression on his face.

“Have you found a way around the blockade problem yet?”

Nog shook his head, feeling somewhat disappointed with himself. “Not quite, sir. We’re still working on that.”

“We did make another discovery, Captain,” Shar said. “And we thought it best to bring it to your attention immediately. It concerns the alien text.”

Vaughn’s eyebrows rose. “You’ve translated it.”

“Partially,” Shar said, nodding. “I believe we’ve uncovered some of the artifact’s history, or at least some sort of…origin myth.”

“Go on,” Vaughn said, stroking his silver beard thoughtfully.

“Apparently the Oort cloud artifact was once located on the surface of an inhabited planet,” Shar said.

Bowers approached from the tactical station, his curiosity obviously piqued. “And where is this planet now?”

“Lots of places, as far as we can tell,” Nog said. “And in lots of little pieces.”

“The artifact’s world of origin was apparently destroyed aeons ago,” Shar said, “in some great, planetary-scale cataclysm.”

“Caused by what?” Vaughn wanted to know.

“We think by the artifact itself,” said Nog. “Whatever the artifact did released enough energy to send it way out here, to the outskirts of the system.”

Vaughn gestured toward the main viewer, which continuously displayed the object’s eternal tumble. “It’s powerful enough to destroy an entire planet?”

“I don’t think there’s much that’s beyond its capabilities,” Shar said. “The text mentions a progenitor species, perhaps ancestral to both the D’Naali and the Nyazen, who constructed the artifact to ‘reap the bounty of the many unseen realms.’”

Bowers frowned. “‘Unseen realms’?”

“Parallel universes, perhaps,” Vaughn said. “Maybe it’s some kind of interdimensional power collector.”

“That’s our best guess,” Nog said. “We think it was designed to draw energy out of higher-dimensional spaces and the parallel universes adjacent to our own.”

Bowers looked impressed. “I guess that would explain why parts of the thing are always bobbing in and out of normal space.”

“And it might also explain,” Tenmei said, “the weird quantum resonance patterns the Sagan’ s been giving off. The shuttle must be carrying the fingerprints of some of those other universes.”

Shar nodded, his expression dour. “And if the artifact is some sort of energy collection device, that might also account for the power-draining effect it had on the Sagan.”

“So what do you suppose happened to the people who built this thing?” Vaughn asked, his eyes riveted to the artifact on the screen.

Bowers’s brow wrinkled in thought. “And how did they manage to incorporate stuff into this text about what happened after their homeworld got blown to kingdom come?”

“That’s been bothering me, too,” Nog said. “From these translated fragments, it looks as though a number of people were aboard the artifact during the disaster. A few survivors evidently amended the text.”

Shar glanced at his padd before weighing in on the matter. “Those survivors may have persisted for many generations, and might even be the remote ancestors of the D’Naali, the Nyazen, or both. Whatever really happened is shrouded in mythological language, so it’s hard to be certain. But it appears that the attempt these beings made to mine the adjacent dimensions unleashed forces that literally ripped their homeworld apart.”

“And the artifact itself survived because it was in the eye of the storm,” Vaughn said.

Shar nodded. “Exactly.”

“And the forces that destroyed the planet flung the object way out here,” Nog said. The image of the powerful artifact caroming off billions of frozen planetesimals and icy Oort cloud fragments brought to mind a complicated bank shot on some cosmic dom-jot table.

Vaughn rose from the command chair. “Good work, gentlemen. Mr. Bowers, you have the bridge. Mr. Nog, I want you and your people to keep searching for a way around that blockade.”

“Aye, sir,” Nog found himself suppressing a sudden urge to smile. For some reason he couldn’t quite articulate, he felt he was on the verge of a breakthrough. But he knew that a good engineer didn’t discuss such things with his captain until after he’d taken the time to test them.

“Shar, I want you to come with me,” Vaughn said on his way to the turbolift.

Shar’s antennae rose in evident curiosity as he fell into step beside Vaughn. “Sir?”

“I want to know whether Sacagawea can shed some light on your translations,” Vaughn said, throwing a backward glance toward the image of the artifact. “Maybe he can even help us use it to get inside that thing.”

Striding into the medical bay a few