Star Trek Page 2

  “N-no, I … I know that,” she sputtered, making only a sideways glance at the untouched mayo between them. “On all counts. Why would you think—”

  Midbite of his wrap he put up a hand to stop her, and after he swallowed said, “Tilly, I was kidding. What do you want to talk about that you can’t seem to?”

  “I think your spore dreams have meaning,” she blurted out.

  Stamets rolled his eyes. “For the nine hundred and twenty-third time, no.” As much as he intellectually wanted to deny Tilly’s notion, however, there was a part of him that did feel something special about those dreams. They were becoming a passion unto themselves. He would dread their return, but also feel empty without them if one didn’t occur. The voice in the dream, both familiar and yet unknown, did more than call to him on a literal level—it had an emotional pull.

  “I don’t mean it like you think I mean it, sir. I mean something totally different.” Between bites of her de-breaded sandwich, she explained. “I had a dream about your dreams, but mine was a normal dream where we were discussing the possibility that your spore dreams were really communications. Like, someone warning you about something or reaching out for first contact.”

  He offered her a blank look in the hopes she would retreat and rethink the discussion.

  “Are you, uh, following me so far?” she pressed on.

  “Unfortunately.” He grumbled and surrendered to the inevitable. “Go on.”

  “Mycelial communication. Why not? If a ship can travel the mycelial network, why can’t a signal?”

  Stamets had been down this road before. “Straal and I tried that. Subspace communications won’t work in the network.”

  “Who said subspace?” Tilly said. “Did you ever try actual, old-fashioned radio?”

  Stamets was intrigued, if a bit stunned he’d never considered it. “Uh … no. No, we did not.”

  She grinned. “Maybe you should.”

  He waggled his finger between them. “By ‘you,’ you mean ‘we.’ ”

  “Oh, yah, I totally mean ‘we.’ ”

  “And you think the captain is going to let us just”—he shrugged—“play around with this?”

  A twinkle in her eye, Tilly said, “We’re a science vessel. This is very science-y.”

  “We’re in the middle of a medical emergency requiring an unprecedented number of jumps. As soon as we deliver the antivirals to one planet, another colony or outpost finds an outbreak. I’m not sure we want to risk mycelial experiments right now.”

  “Nothing we do will keep us from jumping when we need to.” Tilly’s expression saddened without becoming a full-on pout.

  “Have you ever seen someone with Symbalene blood burn?”

  She shook her head.

  “Me neither. Because if we had, we’d probably be dead. That’s how fast this thing moves. We need to move faster, and the spore drive is the only way.”

  “We can at least run simulations. That won’t interrupt any jumps.”

  He inhaled a breath and let it out slowly. He liked the idea in concept. In fact, he very nearly loved it. But part of him didn’t want to know if there was mycelial communication. Something about his “spore dreams” was personal, and he didn’t want to share them. If a presence was trying to communicate with him—an alien presence …

  If this is real, he thought, then something knows me. The voice did more than call out to him—he got the impression that it needed him. And in return, something within Stamets felt that need as well. Then again, what if there were life-forms trying to communicate and they could only access him this way?

  The tardigrade creature from which they took the DNA now spliced into him had established a precedent for intelligent life-forms who traveled mycelial space. Perhaps there was another sentient species calling out to him.

  Stamets decided right then that it might be best to know if he was either dreaming this presence or simply receiving it. “Okay. So long as we can fit it in between jumps, we can run some simulations. But no practical tests. We have to be ready to jump anytime we get word of an outbreak.”

  “Agreed!” Tilly’s grin was nova bright. “Yay!”

  Stamets frowned and mock-chided her. “Did you actually just say ‘yay’?”

  “I did! I’m excited!” She finally grabbed his mayonnaise and began spreading it on her half-finished sandwich.

  “I thought you—”

  “The mayo?” she asked. “Yeah, well, I think I’ve earned this.”

  * * *

  “Paul? Can you hear me?” Always the same tone, neither close nor far, and yet infiltrating his very being. “Paul?”

  Yes, I hear you! Stamets thought. He didn’t know how else to cry out in a mycelial dream. Still assuming it was a dream and not, as Tilly implied, an alien attempt to communicate.

  “Why can’t he hear me?” the voice demanded. It was an irritated, hushed, ethereal question. “You said to call to him and he should hear me! You have to help me get through to him!”

  “I said he might. Sometimes he just can’t,” came the answer. A different voice. And still, oddly familiar as well. “You say he is your beacon, so you must also be his.”

  I’m a beacon? How? Instinctively, Stamets could feel the jump coming to completion. He knew it took mere fractions of a second, but in the network, time was not beholden to natural laws. That’s the way it was in dreams, too, wasn’t it? They could linger … but this one did not.

  “Paul? Hear me! This is you!”

  Me? Stamets wondered.

  “It’s you! Please hear me, Paul! It’s you!”

  Growing in familiarity as well as urgency, the voice demanded to be recognized at the same time it faded. Stamets struggled to find who was speaking, but saw only the dark sparkle of shut eyes he could not open. The determination in the voice—its purpose and desperation—flowed into him and he began to feel it as well. The presence he experienced was more than calling to him—once again, it was as if it needed him.

  Before he could resolve that feeling, it was all ripped away as the alabaster flash of the jump’s end came abruptly—as if he’d managed to finally open his eyes and look into the sun.

  2

  “Why can’t he hear me?” the man demanded. “He can never hear me!”

  “Or,” his companion said, “he eternally hears you, but cannot always respond.”

  “Is that it? Is that why? I tried to connect! I told him who I was and I didn’t connect!”

  “I’d like to think that’s so,” the figure grumbled in what the man knew was really a sigh, “though I suppose it depends on the interaction.”

  “Dammit, why can’t you ever answer directly?”

  “Ever? So you remember me now? I was pleased you remembered your name this time.”

  “I—this time? Y-yes.” The man hesitated, uncertain. “I think so. No, I’m not sure.” He slumped to his knees. “I don’t know I don’t know I DON’T KNOW!”

  “Then I suppose you have trouble with opaque answers yourself.”

  Recovering his wits, the man took a moment before replying. “Yes, I … It’s like déjà vu. I think I know you. I do, don’t I? Don’t I?”

  “You do,” his companion said. “And have, and will again, and also won’t.”

  “That makes no sense,” he barked. “I need you to make sense. I need something—anything—to make sense!”

  “It makes complete sense. Or will … and did … and, sadly, also won’t.”

  “No. You won’t derail me. I have a thought. Let me finish my thought!”

  “Of course.”

  “I reach out to him, but instead I find you. Why?” The man turned to the entity accusingly, but kept close enough to the yeel tree to feel safe.

  “I think it’s less that you find me, and more that I find you.”

  He shook his head and quietly sobbed. “I—I’m not looking to be found anymore.”

  “Oh, that is far from true. I find you because you reach out
. Your very thoughts, your essence, are constantly probing and searching this place.”

  “Liar!”

  “I have no reason or desire to be dishonest.”

  Shaking his head, the man slumped against the tree, closely hugging the trunk. “I hate this place. I hate you!”

  “I don’t understand your feelings,” his companion said, crestfallen. “I am trying to help calm your mind.”

  “You’re in charge here, aren’t you? Let me go. Let me leave this place—and I’ll … I’ll do whatever you want. Please! I am begging you!”

  The entity bristled and shifted uncomfortably. “I am sorry. It is not within my abilities to excise you from this place. From your perspective, that moment has yet to arrive.”

  “B-but this will end?” the man asked as he slowly pushed himself upright. “The burning will stop and I will be free?” He took the dust from the yeel bark that had settled on him and rather than brushing it off, rubbed it in, covering what was left of his clothing as well as the exposed skin behind the tatters.

  “Everything ends. And everything begins again. That is innate not just here, but to existence itself.”

  “Riddles!” the man snarled. “Why always riddles?”

  His confidant shuddered sympathetically. “I do try to make you understand.”

  “Don’t talk down to me. Don’t patronize me!”

  “I promise you, friend, I am not.”

  The man looked slowly up to his companion. “Y-you’re my friend?”

  “As I’ve come to understand the term, I think so. I admit ‘friend’ is an easier concept for me than ‘enemy.’ ”

  “I always thought enemy was the easier concept,” the man bitterly scoffed. “Enemies don’t disappoint. Friends do.”

  “How so?”

  “Arrrgh!” He slammed his eyes shut and pressed forward into the tree again, beating the trunk with balled-up fists. “You’re always asking ‘how so?’ How so this and how so that! Why? What am I? A lab experiment gone wrong? An alien creature you’ve captured to study and test? Why are you torturing me?”

  “I would not,” his companion assured him. “Is it common to capture aliens and show them brutality?”

  The question landed hard and jarred the man, pushing him toward a troubling recognition. “W-we tortured you … didn’t we?” he asked, his anger crystallizing into self-loathing.

  The figure was noncommittal. “ ‘ We ’?”

  “Humans. People from my ship.” The man straightened again, studying the entity with more empathy now than anger. “Well, a human from— No, I don’t know. Others were complicit, too, so that’s no excuse, is it?”

  Without guile, without resentment, his friend replied nonchalantly: “One universe is much like another.” He cocked his head left and then right. “And, I suppose, also completely different. I admit they blend together, even for me. But I notice you remember a ship now? And that you’re human? And that there is more than one universe, as your kind conceives?”

  The man’s brow furrowed. “I—I think so. I remember another. Or both. Two? Different universes?”

  “And no others beyond that?”

  “Beyond th—? No, I … What universe are we in right now?”

  His friend spread his arms wide. “We inhabit …” He struggled for a way to put it so as to not confuse the man further. “I suppose you’d call it a conduit between universes. One that connects them all. Well, most of them. And yet, it is a universe unto itself.”

  As if struggling with a conclusion he’d long ago made but never came to terms with, the human began pacing, kicking up black soot as he walked. “So I’m not dead? For certain not?”

  “Do you feel dead?”

  The man shrugged. “What would dead feel like?”

  “I don’t know.” His companion tried to make the same movement, which on his form appeared awkward, if not painful. “I’ve never known death.”

  “But if I’m not dead, why am I stuck here for eternity?”

  “Is that what dead is? Being ‘stuck’ somewhere, forever?” The question was sincere.

  The human caustically chuckled. “Some people think so. I never did.”

  “Then what is death to you? And why do some people think it is a forever place? Is ‘dead’ endless?”

  “I don’t know why people believe what they believe,” the man admitted with a grumble. “I’m not sure what I believe anymore. But, yes, death is supposed to be endless. But I don’t think it should feel endless.”

  Truly curious, his companion moved closer. “I’d like to know what you believe happens when the death of beings like you transpires.”

  Struggling to remember philosophical views rather than the emotions that roiled within, the human slowly plied out a cogent thought. “I think … that I believed there was nothing after life ended. That when our brains stop functioning … we are just gone …”

  “But?” his friend gently prodded.

  A memory surfaced, though the man couldn’t place the where or when, so instead latched on to the notion itself. “I remember wondering what happens in that moment just before death.” Calmer now, he slowed his stride and their march became an almost leisurely walk through the forest. “As the brain’s function diminishes, perception changes, distorts … and—and perhaps in the final seconds before it stops, you feel love … you think you see family … and for you, time slows … to an eternity.”

  “Do you believe this?”

  “I believed in science … before I died.” He stopped, lowered his face into his hands, and wept. “But now I’m locked in this place.”

  “You’re not here forever.”

  “You say that but I need you to prove it!” He continued to cry. “And you say I’m not dead, but I feel dead.”

  “You said you’d feel nothing if you were dead.”

  “Then I was wrong. I’m buried, in space, or at sea … not afloat but not sinking.”

  “That’s very poetic for someone who thinks they’re dead,” his companion pointed out. “But since I’m with you, I thought we decided we’re both alive.”

  For a long time, the human was silent, and the entity just watched as the man softly, slowly bounced his forehead on his own fist. “If I’m here … and not there … I have to be dead.”

  “We also decided ‘dead’ wasn’t a place, didn’t we?”

  “I told you,” he snapped, “I don’t know!”

  Giving the man some physical space, his companion backed away a bit, but pointedly asked, “Tell me what you do know.”

  “I know that … Paul is my anchor. My beacon, like you said. But he can’t hear me now. It has been forever and I think he’s forgotten.” As the air cut into his cheeks where the tears washed away the bark dust, he smeared his dirty palms across them to soothe his skin. But then his hands didn’t have enough of a coating, and the harassing sparkles in the air bit into him again.

  “The air burns me!”

  “The JahSepp. They ride the wind and recondition this plane.”

  “They try to erase me. Is that it? Is that why Paul can’t hear me? Because I’ve been erased?”

  “Erased?”

  “From reality.” The man looked up mournfully at his companion. “Are the JahSepp erasing me, and when I recover, I’m not me anymore? Have I been wiped out of time and no one remembers?”

  His companion didn’t hesitate to answer. “Paul remembers you.”

  “He does? Are you sure?”

  “He does, and he doesn’t, and he will, and he won’t.”

  “Yes, I … I remember a Paul who didn’t remember me right. He wasn’t my Paul. He tried to trick my Paul. He wasn’t good—wasn’t right.”

  “Figuring out who is and is not ‘good’ can be as difficult as learning what good means.”

  The human snuffled a sob and searched the mycelial sky. “I don’t know where I am! I don’t know where he is and—” Suddenly he twisted, as if hearing a faraway call. “Is t
hat him again? I feel him. I think. But …” He searched left and right. “From where?” After a long moment, he dropped his gaze down again, disappointed and dejected. “Gone.”

  “Was that him or another him?”

  “What does that even mean?!” the man shouted.

  “It means my efforts to explain are not helping. But I will continue to try. We must find you a clearing. It is the only way to reorder your mind.”

  “A what?” The human skewed his head toward his companion, his eyes narrowing once more with confusion. “I know you, don’t I?”

  “You do,” his friend said, melancholy in his voice. “And you have before. And you will again. And, sadly, sometimes you will forget.”

  * * *

  “You’re back?” the man asked, scrambling up from where he sat against his most protective tree. He wasn’t sure how long since he’d last sensed the entity who called himself a friend, but it felt as if it had been an eternity.

  “I am back,” came the reply. “And I never left. And I was not here, and I will be again.”

  The man shook his head, furious. “No! You’ve been gone for … I don’t know how long. Days? A week? A year?”

  “Yes.”

  Ignoring the confusion within and without as best he could, the human glared toward the horizon. “He’s here again. I know it.” He turned in the other direction, then to the side, still searching, and quickly asked his companion, “Don’t I?”

  “I can’t easily know what you know.”

  “You seem to know everything else! But you won’t explain anything.” Pivoting in a new direction, he tried to regain the “scent” he’d lost.

  “I know as much as you, I suppose, just about different things. My senses are quite dissimilar from yours.”

  “I’ve told you, I don’t know what I know anymore.” He stalked past his companion, looking into the air on the other side of him, then into a patch of trees, as if the answer might be somewhere inside, hiding among the dark trunks.

  “Then tell me what you think you know.”

  The request came with a sense that this had been asked of him a million times, and somehow also that it would be asked that many more. Still, when he found the answer and gave it, he felt insulted that his “friend” didn’t already know. “I’m in pain!”