Cybersong (14 page)

“Nothing decisive. However, the circumstances are most indicative of some untoward activity originating here.”

Chakotay nodded. “I may have a lead for you,” he said, and then he proceeded to tell the security officer about Torres’s reaction to Daphne Mandel.

“What makes you suspect a Cardassian agent under deep cover?”

Tuvok asked, curiosity making him sound almost as if there were emotion behind the question.

Chakotay cleared his throat. He didn’t quite know how to explain the uncanny feelings he’d been having lately. Faced with the Vulcan’s pure logic and patience, he suddenly thought that his recitation sounded thin and ephemeral.

Tuvok, however, did not react negatively. “So you say, Commander, that you believe that you and Kes have experienced some manipulation from a trained empath or telepath who is sending messages. However, it appears that Lieutenant Mandel could have had no knowledge of the away team’s problems or your plans.”

“Then you think it unlikely that Mandel is a problem?” Chakotay asked.

Tuvok remain absolutely still. “I did not say that, Commander.

In fact, I think that you may have given me a very valuable lead, and I shall pursue it as soon as I leave this office. However, from your description of events, I think it is possible that there are two entities involved and only one is Cardassian. It is my belief that something is happening with the aliens here and that our Cardassian saboteur is merely taking advantage of the opportunities.”

“Every time I think we’re getting closer to a solution, the mess only gets worse,” Chakotay said. “We were looking for one saboteur. Now we’ve got two entities. And two injured.”

“I shall begin with Ensign Mandel immediately,” Tuvok returned to the task at hand.

Chakotay shook his head. “I’ve asked Ms. Torres to order her to inspect the computer logs during the time frame of the alien transmission, instead of concentrating on all the programming anyone has done since Voyager left home port. I think that her reaction to being assigned a very specific task might push her to reveal herself.”

“An excellent plan, Commander,” Tuvok congratulated him.

“However, if the computer problems originate with the aliens, it may well be to her benefit to bring it to our attention, thus throwing any suspicion from herself.”

“If she recognizes an alien pattern and corrects the program, then we can deal with her being a spy later. If she is one. I don’t want to make assumptions too easily.”

“Understood,” Tuvok said. “I shall be discreet. But we will discover a solution.”

“And we’d better do it quickly,” Chakotay added. “We’ve already had injuries, and we’ve lost two days out of our schedule.”

“Schedule?” Tuvok asked. “Why would that take precedence over the current situation?”

Chakotay sighed. He had known why Janeway was so careful about timing, but having looked into the supply situation himself, he had been horrified by how few reserves Voyager had.

“Yes, schedule,” Chakotay said. “This region of space is fairly empty.

It will be at least two weeks before we hit the next M-class planet where we can resupply. Our stores are very low, Mr. Tuvok. That is not for general knowledge. But if we can’t get away from here in the next two days, we risk shortages and food rationing. I don’t have to tell you what that would mean.”

“Being required to eat less of Neelix’s cooking is a dubious hardship,” the Vulcan said.

“I think a lot of us would agree with you,” Chakotay said, smiling.

“But we need food. And we need supplies, and we’re not going to find anything out here until we get to the next star system, which is two weeks away at our current safest speed. And t hat means we can’t linger here and indulge our curiosity.

There isn’t any good reason for us to be here except that we’re trapped by a malfunctioning computer that won’t let us go anywhere else.”

“I appreciate the gravity of the situation,” Tuvok : assured Chakotay.

“And I shall pursue this Ensign Daphne Mandel discreetly. I, too, have no reason to wish to stay in the middle of this wasteland. We shall resolve the problems very quickly.”

Tuvok left and Chakotay was alone. “I wish I was as confident as you are,” the commander muttered at the closed door.

***

Ensign Mandel was aghast. “I thought you wanted me because I know what I’m doing,” she protested. “Now you’re telling me to take a completely different course of action and trash what we just done when it could lead to an answer.”

“This could lead to an answer, too,” B’Elanna Torres said. “And it’s a direct order from the commander. So if you have a problem with it, you can take it up with him.”

“He doesn’t know nearly enough about programming,” Mandel explained didactically. “It’s much “ore likely a malfunction, bits of code tripping over each other, than it is some alien transmission. How would some alien know anything about how our computer works, anyway?

Let alone be able to reprogram it on this deep a level. It doesn’t make sense.”

“If you have a problem you can take it up with the commander,” B’Elanna repeated herself, then walked away leaving Mandel shaking her head in utter disbelief.

Daphne Mandel slowly looked away from the screen where she had been reviewing the alterations that had been made in Voyager’s computer code since they had entered the Delta Quadrant. She had already cleaned up a good bit of what she had studied. Her changes might even save a touch of energy or speed a process.

She was very pleased with her work. It was fun, rewarding.

Maybe not quite as much fun as stellar cartography, but fun all the same.

And she had felt almost as if she were part of Voyager. That element of her personality, her perception, was now integrated into the fabric of the ship.

She knew that what the commander wanted surveyed wouldn’t take long.

But she had been doing so well with the other job, and this was probably a dead end. And then she would find out that the whole problem was not an alien communication at all but that the power and frequency that the communication came on had burned out an essential line or two or garbled some subroutine. It would turn out to be something boring, and then she wouldn’t get to finish the fine-tuning that needed to be done.

But it was a direct order. To disobey, even when she was certain she knew better, would be insubordination. Daphne Mandel was no rebel.

She liked order, she liked the security in the chain of command.

Sometimes that meant doing something she didn’t like because someone in authority had ordered it. And she believed in orders to the very depths of her soul.

Very slowly she moved to blank the screen. Then she called up the internal logs for the specified time. At this level the screen filled with what appeared to be a jumble of meaningless garbage.

To Daphne Mandel it was perfectly comprehensible. As she stared at it, she was able to start seeing patterns, traces that flowed through the routine business of the day. She went back ten minutes to get a view of the internal workings before the alien transmission so that she could separate what was alien and what was Voyager.

She didn’t read and translate line by line. Instead she became passive, let her base mind get into this mode of thought. She was actually thinking in machine language, naturally and without interpretation.

Her concentration was so profound, she was almost in a trance.

Nothing existed except bytes and movement. She started recognizing the bio-packet components, which had four instead of two possible positions for storing data and their parallel architecture. She began to understand the map of the internal universe of the computer in the same way she understood the map of the stars.

It was nothing she could explain. Rather it was like a dream; she could feel it and had a sense of where the next place was, what the next lead meant. But to try to categorize it in human language would kill the fragile structure of her knowledge.

“Excuse me, Ensign Mandel. Could I be of any assistance to you?”

The voice broke into her trance and destroyed her train of thought.

The symbols, which only a second earlier had begun to resolve into something greater, went flat and meaningless again.

She whipped around in her chair to see who had broken her concentration at that crucial point.

A close-faced Vulcan looked back at her, his expression no more than mildly curious. “I did do some studies in Computer Architecture,” he said blandly. “And Commander Chakotay has informed me that this is currently the highest priority project aboard. He said that everyone who could be of assistance should consider this to override all normal functions and duties.

Therefore, I have come to offer my assistance.”

Daphne Mandel blinked. She tried, truly she tried, not to want to kill him. She had been so close, so very near the heart of the problem.

Just a little longer and she would have seen it all clearly.

Suddenly she understood B’Elanna Torres’s temper. It wasn’t simply a Klingon thing. It was the inevitable frustration of having to deal with people who did things wrong, who made stupid mistakes, who interrupted in the middle of delicate intellectual processing.

That didn’t happen in Stellar Cartography. People left her alone. She realized that was a luxury most of the crew on Voyager didn’t have.

Especially the chief engineer.

But unlike B’Elanna Torres, she had not been working for months on keeping her temper in check. Daphne Mandel didn’t even know she had a temper. Not until Lieutenant Commander Tuvok destroyed the ethereal mental construct she needed in order to do her job.

“No, I don’t need your assistance, sir,” she said furiously.

“All I need is to be left alone.” She turned away from him, barely able to leash her combined anger and confusion. He was a Vulcan.

Didn’t he understand that interruption was the worst thing anyone could do to the fine art process of programming?

“That is not logical,” Tuvok pointed out. “The problem is one of proportion, and the more people working on it, the easier is the burden.”

“Logic be damned; it isn’t a logical process,” Daphne Mandel sputtered, completely baffled. No reasonable person could think that she had been involved in anything but the finest creative endeavor. “I was in there, and it’s going to take a long time to recreate that, and you went and blew it. Right out of the water.

I would have had it in twenty minutes, another hour. I would have had it. It is art, and it was going to be perfect, and you ruined it.”

“I do not understand the process you are trying to describe,” Tuvok said.

“You don’t understand? Well, I don’t care what you understand or don’t understand. Do Vulcans even have art? How can you create a perfect program and not understand?”

She stared at him for a moment, waiting for an answer. The Vulcan said nothing, and that perplexed Mandel even more. “I’m going to my quarters. No one is going to disturb me there.”

Daphne Mandel got up and strode angrily to the turbolift. Tuvok let her go.

The security officer did not return directly to his station on the bridge. Instead he went to a lesser station in the security office, with a board that included readings on every area of the ship. It was staffed by an ensign, who was trying to remain alert. Tuvok had some sympathy for the boy. The job was detailed and dull and nothing ever happened.

Except now.

“When Ensign Mandel returns to her quarters, lock her in,” Tuvok ordered the officer at the board. A good security recruit, all he replied was, “Yes, sir.” And showed no curiosity about the order, either. Tuvok didn’t know whether to think that was reassuring or worrisome.

He didn’t have time to concern himself with it, though. That suitability of the boy to the position was a minor consideration in even placid times. Right now there were much more important things that needed investigation.

Daphne Mandel’s reaction to his very benign offer indicated that she was not trustworthy. Not given the present conditions. Then Tuvok reported to the bridge to tell the executive officer what he had done.

***

Daphne Mandel didn’t know she had been sealed in her quarters, that she was essentially under arrest. If she had known, she wouldn’t have cared. In fact, she would have been very pleased to know that no one was going to disturb her, which was why she had left Engineering anyway.

It was a glorious luxury to be all alone with her work, in the comfort of her own space. She had a big armchair full of cushions and a soft flannel throw that she wrapped around her shoulders. There were no distracting people or lights here, only her nice familiar paintings.

“Computer, transfer data from work station E51 to this terminal,” she said. The computer most likely did not note the pleasure in her voice and the ease with which she sprawled in the chair.

Now she would be able to get something accomplished.

The computer transferred the data with no trouble. That in itself was indicative. Either the malfunctions were tied up with a single program, or the computer considered her requests valid and nonthreatening.

That made Daphne think about the center of the computer itself.

Because even in the bare glimpse inside she had formed—not quite a theory. Theory was far too grand a word. More a hunch, a vague idea of the computer as personality.

In assessing people of whatever species, the mind processed a large number of unquantifiable details to arrive at a single reaction. She had had more than a passing interest in this when she was a cadet, even more so since Dr. Vhanqz was one of the team creating the high level biocomputers. His team had spent years researching sentient processing and how this influenced personality and reaction. So she knew that she had been trained all her life to judge things like appearance and body language and vocal tone and pupil dilation to make her assessment.

The computer had none of these tools, let alone the subtle training that said This face is not trustworthy or This is someone I really want to know. The whys of such a decision, Dr. Vhanqz taught, were based on immediate recognition of hundreds of subtle clues, all of them processed together.