Dark Mirror (3 page)

So much Picard knew about the officer from his records, but he had had enough experience with mission specialists to know quite well that the records often left out the most interesting details, or the ones that later turned out to be most necessary to get the job done, whatever it might be.

Picard hoped, as always, that he would be able to elicit that information from Hwiii before reassignment took him elsewhere. “Did you have a pleasant stay with the Lalairu?” Picard said as they went into the turbolift. “Deck five.”

Hwiii laughed. “As pleasant as possible when your hosts don’t see any point in what you’re doing. I’m afraid I was more of a curiosity to them than anything else.” He looked as if he was smiling: not so much because of his mouth, which looked that way anyhow, but more because of a glitter that his eyes suddenly got. “Not that I’m not used to that anyway. But the feeling was more pronounced with the Lalairu. They behaved toward me the way we might behave toward someone who had come to us to study the art of breathing. We take it so for granted: anyone who spent all their time wanting to talk to us about respiration would probably be considered a little odd. But location and navigational issues are so ingrained in them and their language that they have trouble understanding how navigation can be studied apart from all the rest of life. Like studying cooking without also studying food.”

Picard shook his head. “I was looking over the last communication from the Laihe, and I must tell you I had difficulty making head or tail of it. There was a general sense of concern over something being wrong with
someone’s
coordinate system… but the computer was no more certain of the translation than I was. I wasn’t sure whether the Lalairu were claiming that they were lost, or possibly that they thought
we
were. Either way, how lost can either of us be? Using their coordinate system, they found us without any apparent trouble.”

Hwiii waved his flippers, a delphine shrug. “Captain, I’ll look at the transmission, if you like. But I don’t guarantee being able to make any more sense of it than you have. Context-positive translations are thin on the bottom when it comes to Lalairsa.”

Coming out of the turbolift, they turned a corner and went a few doors down through guest quarters. Outside one door, Geordi La Forge and Data stood looking in while Geordi scanned the doorway with a tricorder and a critical look.

“Gentlemen,” Picard said as they came up. Geordi looked up from the tricorder to grin at the captain. “One of my better efforts, Captain,” he said, “if I do say so myself.”

“Gentlemen, Commander Hwiii. Commander, Mr. La Forge, Mr. Data.”

“Pleased, Commander,” Geordi said. Data put his head slightly to one side and uttered a string of sharp clicks and squeaks ending on an up-scaling squeal.

This time there were no two ways about it: Hwiii smiled. “Commander, that’s a very good Triton accent, and good fishing to you, too. You’ve got the Eastern intonation, though: did one of K!eeei’s people do the recording?”

“I believe so,” Data said. “K!eeei was listed as a source in the Delphine course on cetacean epic poetry.”

“Thought so. That accent is unmistakable.” Hwiii looked in through the open door of the room. “Are these really my quarters?”

Picard looked in, too, and was impressed. The room had been stripped of the usual furnishings, floored with sand, and flooded. Behind the open door, a force field, like the one Hwiii wore, but more robust, was holding the water inside, flat as a pane of glass. In the pale sand, aquatic plants appeared to be rooted: huge tall ribbons of brown seaweed, interspersed with taller, slenderer fronds of delicately waving translucent green, like hair. Up and down the hairlike seaweed, translucent pods burned with a cool blue light that shimmered, fading and brightening, as the currents in the water moved the weed. Below the apparent ceiling of the quarters, lighting suggested sun above the rippling Surface of the water. Across the room, the one
feature remaining that seemed slightly out of place was the windows, looking out on space and the stars, for the moment unmoving while the ship ran in impulse. But possibly a spacegoing dolphin would not find this too out of place.

“It’s partly constructs, of course,” Geordi said, somewhat apologetically. “But the biology department keeps seed in stasis for most of the bigger seaweeds, kelp and so forth, in case an emergency requires bringing up hydroponic support for the oxygen supply. I drew some of those stores, asked bio to clone and force a few specimens for me.”

Hwiii chattered softly in Delphine for a moment before saying, “Mr. La Forge, this is palatial! I thank you very much indeed. Too many times I’ve been stuck swimming around in something that most closely resembled a motel room.”

Picard burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Commander, but when were
you
last in a motel room!”

The eyes mirrored the always-smiling face for a moment. “Don’t laugh, Captain. The publicity side of the organization calls me, occasionally, and even Starfleet specialists wind up doing the rubber-chicken circuit. Though in my case it’s more usually rubber mackerel.”

It occurred to Picard that this particular specialist would probably make more interesting publicity than either the two-legged kind or more alien ones. He suspected Hwiii knew it and took it in good part. “I think you’ll find the food to your liking here, though,” Picard said. “The synthesizers know what fresh fish should taste like.”

Hwiii looked wistful. “I wish they knew what
live
fish tasted like, Captain, but unfortunately, that’s something they can’t quite manage. The aromatic esters just aren’t the same somehow.”

Picard looked thoughtful for a moment. “I must admit… the caviar does occasionally seem to lack something.”

Hwiii chuckled. “It doesn’t matter, Captain. I can’t fish up here, but I can’t do clean-hyperstring research back home, either. Too much interference! No, each thing to its proper place, and the fish can take care of themselves for the moment.”

“I would like to discuss your researches with you if you have leisure to do so,” Data said. “Especially as regards the relative ‘cleanliness’ of hyperstring structures in spaces empty of dark matter.”

Hwiii snapped his jaws in annoyance. “I wish I had more researches to discuss, but we had just gotten into such space—this area, in fact—when the Laihe decided all of a sudden that she was going to turn back inward toward the settled worlds. We only spent a month and a half in space empty enough to suit the criteria I was investigating, so I haven’t much new data to share, or many new conclusions about it. But, at your leisure, let’s split a fish or two and discuss what I’ve got.”

“
Bridge to Picard,”
said the captain’s communicator. He touched it.

“Picard. Go ahead, Number One.”

“
A hail from the Laihe, Captain,”
Riker’s voice said. “
She says she’d like to talk to you at your convenience… I think.”

Picard smiled ruefully. “I’ll be right up… Commander Hwiii, will you be all right?”

“Captain,” Hwiii said in what sounded like complete satisfaction, “I am going to be as happy as a clam in mud.”

“How does one go about quantifying the emotional state of mollusks, Commander?” Data asked innocently as Picard headed back for the turbolift. He almost wished he could stay to see how Hwiii
did
quantify it… but he had other fish to fry.

“Ahem,” Picard said, amused, as the turbolift doors shut. “Bridge.”

* * *

As Picard entered, Commander Riker got up from the center seat. “Captain, if I’m any judge of such things, she sounded downright impatient.”

“Not very usual,” Picard said. “If anything, the Laihe usually errs in the other direction. How long did it take for her to say ‘hello’ to you the other day?”

“About ten minutes,” Riker said, and grinned slightly, “and nearly that long again for me to understand that that was what she meant.”

Picard glanced over at Troi, who was sitting in her seat, arms folded, looking mildly interested. “Counselor?”

Troi shrugged. “A general sense of urgency, but nothing more.”

“Very well,” Picard said, turning toward the viewer. “Hail the Laihe if you would, Mr. Worf.”

“Hailing, Captain.” The viewscreen had been looking toward the distant Lalairu fleet, hardly to be seen in this dimness. Now that view changed to an interior, a small private chamber hung about with asymmetric drapes of some kind of dark, rich-looking fabric that held a subdued glitter in its folds.

In front of the subtly glittering curtains or tapestries sat—if that was the word for it—the Laihe. She was a Huraen, one of a species whose homeworld had been destroyed by some natural calamity some centuries before, but since all the Huraen had been traveling as one of the Lalairu peoples since well before that time, none of them particularly cared. By virtue of that ancient association, and because of some unspecified sacrifice that the Huraen had made for the other Lalairu peoples, the Laihe, head of the whole race, was always a Huraen. Huraenti were tall, slender, insectile people, compound-eyed, many-limbed, mostly blue or green in color, their chitin-covered bodies inlaid or figured with complicated patterns in malleable metals or textured plastics: as if someone had taken a praying mantis, given it a slightly mournful, understanding
look, and more legs than even a mantis would need. Huraenti were skilled artisans and craftsmen, engineers of extraordinary talent, and had a reputation for being able to understand anything mechanical within seconds. In terms of personality, they tended to be affable, subtle, and fond of the interpersonal arts: chief among them, language. They were loquacious and liked it that way. That was all right in the Huraenti language, which was structured and straightforward. But the Laihe was much more Lalairu than Huraenti, and her language showed it.

“Graciously greeted is the noblissimus entr’acte Picard chief in command subjective warning,” said the Laihe, ratcheting her top set of forelegs together.

That sounds like hello
, Picard thought,
and Will was right, she
is
in a hurry
. “I greet you graciously as well, Laihe.”

“Urgently spatial coordinate-status misfound illfound illfounded distortion in
nithwaeld
on merest dysfunction hereditary disastrous propulsion!” said the Laihe, or at least, that was all the universal translator could make of it.

Picard nodded and tried to look gravely concerned, which wasn’t difficult under the circumstances. “Laihe, forgive us, but our translator lost several words in that last passage. What is
nithwaeld
, please?”

“
Ingwe
. Or
filamentary.”

“Hyperstrings?”

“Affirmative response.”

Picard let out a breath of relief at having gotten that far. “Laihe, you must forgive me when I say that I am as yet only slightly educated in hyperstring studies. Am I to understand that something unexpected, or distressing, is going on in space hereabouts?”

“Affirmative, qualifier variancy-area room-space-location nonlocating alteration-aversion-shift loss. Loss! Shift!”

Picard found himself wishing that James Joyce had had
some input into the universal translator’s programming, or possibly Anthony Burgess. Both of them, by preference. The Lalairsa pleniphrasis, “scatter,” and borrowings would have sounded familiar to both of them. Picard glanced over at Troi: she shook her head. Worf said, “The translator is at full function, Captain. This is the best it’s able to do.”

“Understood…. Laihe, we will of course be saving your statement for later analysis and transmission to the Federation, but for the moment, what do you see as the effect of this local ‘shift’? And can you describe the nature of it in more detail?”

“Qualified affirmation, technical…” And it was, too, as the Laihe went off in a blizzard of verbiage that mixed familiar and relatively familiar physics and astrophysics terminology with words and phrases that Picard had never heard before, and that the translator flatly refused to render. All the while the Laihe sat hunched forward, her forelegs knitting frantically, and her mandibles working hard. “Longterm effect,” she said finally, “unknown, dangerous though, emmfozing, ending.”

Picard looked over at Troi.
Emmfozing?
he mouthed. Wide-eyed, Troi shook her head, helpless.

“Laihe,” Picard said, “our thanks. We will carefully consider your advice.”
As soon as we understand it!
“What are your own plans now?”

“Shift unbearable reality nature life, inturn frightened stars inworlds population loss shift lacktime losstime migration
tizhne
mystery major safe haven… suggest similar stars inworlds have exit departure lacktime losstime benefit.”

“If I understand correctly that you’re heading back into more populated areas,” Picard said, “then we wish you well on the journey. Our patrol duties lie in this area for a good while yet.”

The Laihe’s head swiveled from side to side, like that of
someone who’s sure you must be speaking to someone else. “Shift unpredictable dataless uncertainties dangerous!”

That Picard thought he understood. “I thank you for your concern. The uncertainties are our business, though: there are few things more important to us, though they can be dangerous, as you say.”

The Laihe looked at him mournfully. “Departure imminent, data dump imminent, locations safety, wellwish.”

“We would appreciate all the data you have,” Picard said. “Please feel free to requisition anything from our data libraries that you may feel would be of help to you. And thank you again for your concern. We’ll do our best to look into this problem.”

The Laihe nodded—that gesture she knew and understood—and raised a foreleg. The screen winked out, leaving a view of stars, and the dim-lit sparks of the many Lalairu ships lying thousands of miles away, ready to go into warp.

Picard turned away from the viewscreen and sat down thoughtfully in his seat. “Now what did you make of
that?”
he said to Riker and Troi.

Troi shook her head. “Certainly she was distressed, Captain. And she became more so as she got into the technical details… as if the more concretely she considered the problem, the worse it became to her. But she obviously seems intent on getting herself and her people out of here as quickly as possible.”