24

“We’re just going to have to ride it out,” Riker said. “The captain knows our situation. I’m sure we can manage for a few days.”

Crusher, Riker, and Data were sitting in the second lab, away from the others, considering their options.

“It appears we have no other choice,” Data said. “However—”

The lights flickered.

“Not again,” Crusher said.

The windowless room was plunged into darkness. All she could see was the vague outline of Will and Data. She pushed herself up and felt her way toward the door, brushing her hands along the surface of the lab equipment. The path was narrow, and she knocked her knee up against something that let out a loud metallic clang upon impact.

“Data,” she asked, “can you pry the door open?”

“Of course.”

She squeezed herself up against the table so he could step past her. If the pattern held, another technological malfunction was next.

With a harsh, metallic grinding, the door opened and thin light spilled into the lab. Even though it had only been a minute, the air from the corridor seemed fresher, cleaner. Crusher knew it was her imagination.

“How are you?” she said softly to Data.

“I am fine.” They walked side by side down the corridor, Riker behind them. “However, before we see the others—” He stopped, a few paces from the entrance into the common room. Crusher could hear Rikkilä and Talma through the wall. Rikkilä moaned, “We are never going to finish this.”

“What’s even the point?” grumbled Talma.

“I know—”

Crusher agreed with the Bolian, although she also understood why Riker had told them to get back to the lab when the power came back up. Maybe there was something they’d missed.

“Data?” Riker asked.

“Commander, it is likely I will experience another failure,” Data said. “As they seem to follow with the failures of the technology in the station.”

“You’re not just technology, Data,” Crusher said.

“I appreciate that, Doctor,” Data told her. “However, I may begin to experience a disruption. And when I do, I would like you to examine me in any way you see fit.”

Crusher took a deep breath, not sure how to respond.

“Examine you? What do you mean, exactly?” Riker pressed him.

“I am offering myself,” he said, “as a test subject. Unlike the other pieces of technology, I have a more robust communication system. It is my hope—”

His words garbled and turned to a hissing, rhythmic static.

“Will, it’s starting—”

“—source of the problem.” He paused, looked at the others. “Oh. I see. It—”

More static.

“Data,” Crusher asked, “can you understand me? Nod your head yes or no.”

He nodded.

Well, that was something.

“Data, I’m not an engineer. I’m not the best choice.”

He opened his mouth and a burst of static spilled out, then sharpened into words: “—my best interests. I trust you.”

Crusher smiled in spite of herself.

More static. “Assistance?”

Crusher put her hand on Data’s shoulder. “Data”—she glanced back at Riker—“I know Malisson doesn’t have a lot of experience with cybernetics, but I’ll need all the help I can get.”

He nodded.

“As for the rest of the team,” Riker said, “we need to focus on preserving power. If this keeps happening—” He gestured up at the darkened lights. “We need a plan.”

“Doctor, what do you need?”

“I’ll need light.” Crusher looked at Data, who stood quietly, listening. The previous attacks had been the same. He could understand what was happening; it was just communication that was difficult. Crusher filed that observation away. “I think the sleeping quarters is our best option for now.” Other than the common room, the sleeping quarters was the only space with windows.

Crusher watched as Riker turned the corner into the common room. She turned back to Data. “Are you ready?”

He nodded.

Together, they walked to the other end of the corridor, past the common room where Riker was handing out orders. Malisson darted out. “Doctor, you need me?”

Data turned and tried to speak. This time the static sounded more like wind, low and keening.

“Whoa.” Malisson jerked back. “Okay. I don’t know how much help I’ll be, but—”

“Anything we can learn,” Crusher said, “I’ll consider a success.”

The sleeping quarters were dim without any power. And silent. There was a stillness to the station when the power was off. She wondered if the station computer believed the assignment was complete, and it was time to dissolve the structure.

Crusher shoved the thought aside. The power failures had never lasted long.

Data and Malisson were both staring at her expectantly.

Crusher took a deep breath. She was a doctor, and she had a patient.

“Data, if you could have a seat on one of the unused beds.”

He nodded and perched on the edge of a bed that was shoved up against a wall. For a moment Crusher studied him, frowning.

“Let’s start with the basics.”

Data tried to speak again, but there was more of that howling wind noise, rising and falling the way the static had. She shook her head at him, and he stopped, peering up at her.

“That sound he’s making,” she said to Malisson. “What does it sound like to you?”

Malisson frowned. “White noise?” She shook her head. “No. It’s—honestly, it reminds me of Bluster Beach.”

“The beach where all this started?”

“Yeah.” Malisson pushed her hands through her hair. “Crazy, I know. But the wind down there—” She asked Data, “Commander, can you say anything?”

Data tried, but the sound of the wind swirled through the dim room, dancing over the rows of empty beds. Crusher’s skin prickled.

“Keep talking,” Crusher said to Data. She closed her eyes, listening. Earlier his words had dissolved into static, into true white noise, chaotic and harsh. But there had been a rhythm to it, a rising and falling like Crusher was hearing now.

“Thank you, Data.”

The howling wind didn’t stop. Crusher’s eyes flew open. Data’s mouth was still open, his expression slack.

The howling grew louder.

“What’s wrong?” Malisson dropped down beside Data. “Commander? Can you hear us?”

No response.

Crusher stepped over to the bed. “Data,” she said. “Data, I don’t want to shut you—”

The sound rose up around them, louder and sharper. Her fingers tightened around Data’s arm.

“I hear waves,” Crusher whispered. “Do you?”

Malisson listened. “I do,” she whispered.

“The comm station showed Bluster Beach.” Crusher’s pulse quickened. It wasn’t an answer. But it was a connection. Whatever was happening, it wasn’t random.

“Data.” Crusher tilted his face toward her. “We’re going to look inside your brain. See what might be causing this.”

He didn’t react; he didn’t seem to hear her. It was like Data wasn’t there, that he was just playing back a recording. The endless howling moan of wind on an alien beach.

“Okay,” Crusher said. “I need my tricorder.”

Malisson jumped to her feet. “It’s back in the lab. I’ll go grab it.”

Crusher sat back on her heels, watching Data, waiting—hoping—for a change in behavior. But he just kept up that strange, haunting wail.

Abruptly, Data’s mouth shut. The room fell into silence.

“Data?” she said hesitantly.

He turned his head toward her, the movement stiff. Crusher tensed. It wasn’t him.

Suddenly the power flared back on, flooding the room with light. The computer’s voice spilled out: “Kota is an uninhabited Class-M planet—”

Somewhere else in the station, someone shouted.

“Data,” Crusher said. “Data, can you hear me?”

“Kota is an uninhabited Class-M planet,” he said. Crusher took his hand and squeezed, but he didn’t react.

He wasn’t there.

Where was Malisson? Distracted by the generator coming back on? Had she been the one to shout?

“—located in the Nilko system,” he said. “Circumference is 160,000 kilometers.”

“I’ll be right back,” Crusher said, jumping to her feet. “I promise.”

“—Oxygen, 21 percent. Nitrogen—”

Crusher rushed out of the room and slammed hard into Rikkilä.

“Doctor Crusher!” Rikkilä cried. “Lieutenant Solanko is injured.” She held up her hands, streaked red with blood. “I tried to use the combadge, but it didn’t work—nothing’s working—”

The doctor could still hear Data and the computer reciting the database’s entry on Kota. “Where is Solanko?” Crusher asked.

“The common room.” Rikkilä took off down the hall at a jog and Crusher followed. “When the power came back on, a phaser fired.”

“What?” Crusher careened through the common room door and skittered to a stop. The room was in chaos. The computer was reciting the Kota database in here, too, and Solanko leaned against the wall, clutching his arm to his chest. Sand was piled up beside the replicator.

Sand—

“Your medical tricorder’s not working,” Rikkilä said briskly as she handed it to Crusher. Rikkilä had wrapped what looked like a scrap of uniform around the wound. “Nor the replicator.”

Phaser fire blasted through the door, scorching the far wall.

“Lieutenant Talma!” Riker shouted. “I told you to get that thing away from the station, not set it to kill!”

“I did.” Talma was already yanking open the door. “And it must have changed the setting on its own somehow.”

Another phaser blast zipped through, this one leaving no scorch marks. Talma ducked out through the door.

Concentrating on Solanko, Crusher knelt down beside him and examined the dressing. Rikkilä had done a good job.

“Cecil,” she said, “what happened?”

“The damn thing just fired.” Solanko groaned. “I’ve been hit with phaser fire before, but never when I didn’t expect it.”

“I’m going to check the wound,” Crusher said, unwrapping the dressing. Solanko grunted.

Talma flew back into the room and slammed the door shut. “I threw it out the door, but it’s burning the grass out there. I tried taking out the power cell, but it was jammed.”

“Kota is an uninhabited Class-M planet in the Nilko system—”

“Good enough. Doctor?” Riker asked.

Crusher peeled away the fabric from Solanko’s arm. The wound underneath was clean, the skin charred shut. The phaser had been on a low heat setting.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “It barely grazed you.”

“Shouldn’t have fired at all,” Solanko replied. “It was locked away in the supply closet. Suddenly, zap.”

Rikkilä nodded in agreement.

“It’s clean but painful,” Crusher said.

Solanko leaned back. “Hurts like hell.”

“I should have something for that.” Crusher looked up at Josefina. “My medkit is in the lab.”

Rikkilä was already moving. “On it.”

“You’ll be fine,” Crusher said. Right now she wondered if it was a comforting lie she was telling herself.

The computer was still chattering out the database’s information about Kota. Riker and Talma were no longer in the room. She hadn’t been paying attention while she treated Solanko. Where were they?

Rikkilä jogged into the room, clutching the medkit. “Got it,” she said, heaving it up triumphantly.

“Was Malisson in the lab?”

Rikkilä shook her head and knelt down beside Solanko. She checked the dosage and administered the painkiller.

“I’m going to check on Data.” Crusher slipped into the hallway. It was slightly quieter; there were no comm speakers here. But she could hear the computer’s voice coming from all of the other rooms.

“Doctor Crusher?” Malisson’s head popped out of the doorway leading into the sleeping quarters. “Thank goodness you’re here. I just— I don’t know what to do.”

I wish I did, Crusher thought.

“Have you seen Commander Riker—” Crusher stopped. The computer was still reciting from the database. Data was not. He lay on his back, and the top of his head opened up to reveal its inner workings.

A loud, shuddering whump, and all the power failed again.

For a moment, Crusher reveled in the silence. Distantly, she heard shouting coming from outside.

Then the room erupted with loud, piercing shrieks, high pitched and squealing.

“Now what!” asked Malisson.

Crusher clamped her hands over her ears and whipped around, trying to find the source. All the power was still out. Data was unmoving, lights rippling across his circuitry.

Her combadge.

All of them.

“The combadges!” she yelled, and yanked hers off. The shrieking rose in pitch—

Then silence.

Crusher flung it on an empty bed in frustration. “It’s like Data said—you were infected on the beach, and now the technology is infected. How? And with what?”

The same question, over and over.

“I don’t know,” Malisson said. “And why did it start when the Enterprise away team arrived?”

Data jerked up to sitting, so abruptly that Crusher jolted in surprise. For a moment he didn’t move, only sat in that perfect right angle. He turned his head.

“Doctor,” he said, “you must go outside immediately.”

And then he slumped over.

“Data!” He was motionless, his head lolling against his chest.

“Did he shut himself off?” Malisson said uncertainly. “Can he do that—”

“No.” She was struck with that familiar, sick feeling that came when she was on the verge of losing a patient. She tamped it down through her own determination.

Not Data.

“Why did he tell you to go outside?” Malisson said.

Crusher eased Data onto his back. He was dead weight. She would give anything for her sickbay.

She pressed the pattern on his skull to pull the top of his head back into place.

“Doctor?” Malisson said softly.

“I don’t know.” Crusher looked down at him. “I’m not sure opening Data up will give us the answers. All the other technology has been going haywire, and we never found anything wrong with it.”

More shouting was filtering through the walls from outside.

Malisson moved to the window. “Do you think they are trying to get in contact with us?” She tried her combadge. Nothing.

“Possibly,” Crusher said. “Rikkilä tried her combadge, but that was when the power was still on.”

Malisson had to stand on her toes to peer out the window. “I don’t see— There’s Commander Riker. Everyone else is outside.” She pulled away from the window. “They’re all around something.”

The only thing outside was the phaser. Talma had thrown it out when it kept firing—

“We should go out there,” Crusher said.

“Will Data be okay?”

Crusher frowned. “He told us to go outside.” She took a deep breath. “And that was the first comprehensible thing he said since the attack started.”

Malisson nodded. “Okay.”

They made their way out through the common room. “Look at the replicator,” Crusher said.

“Sand,” Malisson said. “That damn beach keeps coming back up.”

“Almost like—” Crusher shook her head. “Almost like something doesn’t want us to forget about it.”

Malisson’s frown deepened.

The door was open, letting in a cool, damp breeze. The wind was singing—unlike the wail she’d heard from Data or the comm station, but close enough. They walked around the side of the station.

Malisson put her hand on the outside wall of the station.

“It’s not—” Crusher started.

“No,” Malisson answered before she could finish the question. “Not yet.”

Not yet.

“How soon?”

“I don’t know.” Malisson picked her way back through the grass. “Under normal circumstances, the structure shutdown wouldn’t begin until both the commanding officer and their second give the command to initialize.” They walked together, grass brushing against their uniforms. The voices of the team were drifting on the wind to them. “But there’s a fail-safe in place. If the power has been inactive for twelve hours, shutdown will commence. The system assumes emergency evacuation.”

Twelve hours. They would have to be here for at least another two days.

“Doctor, you’ve been on lots of away teams,” Malisson said quickly. “Have any of them been as bizarre as this one?”

“No, it’s one for the books.”

Riker spotted them and shouted, “There you are. We’ve been trying to get in contact.”

“Combadge. Another malfunction,” Crusher answered. The grass was burned in some places, sliced off cleanly in others. The malfunctioning phaser. Crusher looked up at Riker. “Is it safe to be here? That phaser—”

“We destroyed it,” Riker answered. “But not before it did this.”

Crusher’s pulse quickened. She strode quickly through the grass, swatting it away with her hands, and stepped up next to Riker.

The phaser had burned a pattern into a patch of grass. A series of circles linked together by lines radiating out in jagged, uneven paths.

“How,” Crusher whispered, “is this even possible?”

Riker pointed silently back toward the structure. Malisson gasped.

The biomass had expanded along the ground, seeping through the grass in a narrow, dark line, then lifting itself up like a snake. Crusher could see the form it had taken to hold the phaser.

“That can’t be,” Malisson said. “The biomass can’t expand like this. Not without explicit commands—”

“The phaser was covered in biomass,” Riker said matter-of-factly. “Somehow—we don’t know how—the station did this.”

Malisson shook her head. “I don’t— There’s some pulses in the biomass, but it shouldn’t be enough to form… I mean, not unless someone programmed it.”

Crusher studied the patterns in the grass, her mind racing. It all started with the team collapsing on Bluster Beach.

The beach, appearing on the screens. How? Data’s howling. The replicator, making sand.

Dreams. The affected crew members all talked about dreams. With water. A beach. The beach.

Could all the people, all the technology, even Data, be reacting to the sensory input it received? Impossible. Crusher dismissed the thought. However, Malisson had said the same thing about the biomass expanding.

Is something programming the station? Crusher thought. Is something spilling strange, watery thoughts into the team’s dreams? Into Data?