A Time to Sow Read online

  His work was meticulous and precise, but slower than he would have preferred. Still, he knew that to work in haste here and now was to invite discovery. The slightest misstep could bring an end to his mission—to everything they had been working toward. One tug on any loose thread he left behind could unravel the entire fabric of what he was attempting to accomplish.

  Therefore, he sat at the workstation, slowly weaving his way through the computer’s vast databases and using the opportunity to copy into his newly acquired Starfleet tricorder any and all information he thought would be useful against his unwitting hosts.

  No reason to let all of this work go to waste.

  After nearly two hours of careful searching, Kalsha finally had been able to forge access to the high-clearance portions of the computer’s data banks. It had required every bit of his technical expertise to penetrate the security surrounding that area of the ship’s main computer storage without alerting anyone else to his covert activities.

  Despite the effort and the risk accompanying it, he had succeeded in finding the information he had been sent to obtain: the complete technical schematics for the Enterprise’s android crew member, Lieutenant Commander Data.

  While much information had been gathered about the android in the past, one of the key facts that had proven elusive was how to deactivate it. Kalsha had briefly considered trying to destroy Data outright, but that was far too drastic an action. The Enterprise crew would certainly exhaust every available resource trying to locate the responsible party, which would of course risk exposing the entire mission and was therefore out of the question.

  As he scanned the schematics, it took little time for him to learn about the emergency manual control located on the android’s back. If he could get to that switch, he would be able to disable Data easily. Unfortunately, that was only a temporary measure and one the Enterprise engineers would be able to diagnose easily. Further, it would only serve to ignite suspicion among the crew about who might have triggered the switch, and that was attention he did not need at this juncture, not when there was still so much to do.

  There had to be another way, something more subtle. If he could devise a method to render the android inoperative in a manner that left it intact yet unable to function, such a mystery might turn the engineers’ collective attention away from other duties and devote much time to determining the scope of the problem and finding a solution. Such a plan, if successful, would allow Kalsha even more freedom in which to operate.

  A perusal of Data’s maintenance and diagnostic logs revealed something promising. Apparently an incident had occurred that required the Enterprise’s captain to deactivate the android when it began to malfunction. The chief engineer had modified a tricorder to emit a pulse of energy transmitted at a particular frequency, something called an “actuation servo,” that resulted in a shutdown of Data’s neural net and disabled him until such time as the ship’s engineering crew was able to repair the android.

  It stood to reason that such a pulse, modified properly, could fuse the circuitry of Data’s positronic brain irreparably. The specifications for the actuation servo were recorded here in the diagnostic logs, providing Kalsha with everything he needed to devise a new protocol for his purposes.

  His work completed, he reminded himself that in order to perpetuate his disguise, it would be necessary for him to risk doing what he had sought to avoid: interact with members of the ship’s crew. It was an aspect of his assignment that he had quickly come to loathe. For one thing, he had discovered that humans, who made up a large portion of the Enterprise’s crew, emitted a distasteful odor, one the ship’s atmospheric systems seemed unable to remove from the air.

  Resigning himself to the idea, he rose from the desk, pausing a moment to examine his reflection in the deactivated wall-mounted monitor and insure that his outward appearance of Lieutenant Diix was still in place.

  He certainly had not meant to insinuate himself among the crew using such a conspicuous persona. In fact, his goal would have been better served had he remained in the role of a lesser officer, one with computer access but fewer responsibilities to others. Instead, his new position of leadership was an unanticipated result of being interrupted by the luckless Andorian.

  Still, assuming the identity of Diix brought with it a new opportunity, something he slowly realized as he strode past other Starfleet engineers busying themselves with their various tasks. As Kalsha made his rounds, his “fellow officers” went out of their way to inform him about their progress toward their designated objectives; assignments the Andorian must have doled out before his demise. They also freely entered their personal computer-access codes in his presence, something they certainly would not have done had they realized that the open tricorder in his hand was attuned to capture those code sequences so he might make use of them later.

  All about him, computer stations and monitors provided a wealth of information about the status of nearly every major shipboard system. The engines, environmental control, even the weapons and defensive systems were all observed here. On one monitor Kalsha even noted the current status of the ship’s deflector shield energy modulation. An enemy would surely find that bit of intelligence invaluable during an attack, yet here it was for anyone to see. Did these people know nothing about operational security?

  Of course, the officers had no reason to suspect that anything untoward might be going on here. There was nothing about him that appeared overtly out of place, let alone a threat to the ship. The mimicking shroud’s advanced arrays made certain of that, yet Kalsha still harbored heightened senses of alert and vulnerability as he interacted with the crew. Occasionally he stopped to listen to another crew member’s report, nodding silently with presumed interest or understanding before informing the unsuspecting engineer to carry on with their duties. He hoped his charade was enough. Acting out of character from his adopted persona could well draw attention, so he erred on the side of discretion, allowing the shroud’s sensors to passively scan his surroundings and gather information.

  Kalsha approached one of the consoles encircling the room’s dominant feature, the warp core that was the heart of the starship’s propulsion system. Towering overhead and extending twelve decks through the middle of the ship’s secondary hull, it pulsated with life as it controlled the reaction of matter and antimatter to generate the massive energy required to propel the vessel at faster-than-light speeds. Unleashed, that energy carried the potential to obliterate the ship and its occupants in the blink of an eye.

  And by their own design, here it stands…so vulnerable.

  “Lieutenant?”

  Turning quickly, he found himself facing a female alien dressed in a Starfleet uniform. She was blue-skinned and devoid of hair, and it took Kalsha a moment to remember that this was a Benzite. That in turn helped him to draw the officer’s name from the list of engineers he had earlier committed to memory.

  “Yes, Ensign Veldon?”

  “I caught you,” the officer said, smiling.

  His eyes narrowing, Kalsha slowly drew a breath, preparing for what might come next. “I am not sure I understand.”

  “I caught you staring at the reactant flow,” the Benzite said. “I get mesmerized by it myself, sometimes.”

  She was attempting to connect with him on some conversational level, Kalsha realized. He was not at all interested, but tried to feign it. At least she did not smell as bad as her human counterparts.

  “We all get drawn to our jobs by something, I suppose,” he said, smiling politely and stepping away from the warp core. “If you will excuse me, I need to get back to those status reports.”

  Veldon nodded knowingly. “Oh yes. Commander La Forge gets cranky when those reports are late.”

  Moving away from the ensign, Kalsha decided he had done enough interacting as he headed back to the relative safety of the chief engineer’s office. Once there, he could begin testing a few of his newly acquired passcodes to see if they might yield acces
s to other areas of the ship’s computer.

  He forgot all about that, however, when his quarry stepped onto the main engineering deck.

  It was his first sighting of the gold-skinned android since boarding the vessel, but Kalsha’s people had learned a great deal about Data’s capabilities in the past. While he did not know many details about the mechanism itself, he knew enough not to let his wits down in its presence. He kept his stride, thinking it best to avoid the android altogether.

  It, however, had other ideas.

  “Excuse me, Lieutenant Diix,” Data said. “I have been ordered by Captain Picard to research possible refinements of the Dokaalan terraforming procedures. I would like to gather some data in engineering, if I may.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Kalsha replied. “I am sure you know your way around.”

  The android nodded. “Of course. Thank you,” it said as it stepped around him toward a computer console. “I am attempting to gather information that we might compare with the findings of Commander La Forge upon his return to the Enterprise. We may be able to suggest options for accelerating the terraforming process in such a manner that we would still be able to respect their wishes of not interfering to any significant degree.”

  “That is interesting,” Kalsha said, actually meaning it. The task of transforming the planet’s atmosphere into an environment capable of sustaining life was a long one, even prior to his people’s arrival. Unwilling to risk discovery by the Dokaalan, they had found it necessary to adapt to their own primitive terraforming techniques. If the Federation could offer less time-consuming alternatives, then so much the better.

  He nodded politely. “I will leave you to your work, Commander,” he said before turning and nonchalantly moving to another workstation.

  This was a perfect opportunity to strike, he decided as he observed the android engrossed in its work. Deactivating it here and now would elicit immediate confusion among the other engineers, and they would certainly waste no time turning to the sudden problem in their midst. Further, there would be little time to suspect any one person, especially him, of being responsible for causing Data’s abrupt malfunction.

  Pretending to study the status displays on the computer terminal before him, Kalsha pulled his tricorder from the holster at his waist and activated it. He called up the actuation protocol he had created, verifying that it was ready to execute at his command. The pulse would be effective only within a small radius, no more than five meters, he suspected, but the workstation he currently occupied was within that distance.

  Kalsha took one last look at the android, marveling once again at the speed at which it was able to input and extract information from the computer. Reports of its physical capabilities, he noted, had not been exaggerated. It would be a shame to lose such a valuable specimen of artificial intelligence, but it was a small price to pay in order to insure the success of their larger mission. Besides, with the technical specifications he had copied from the Enterprise’s computer, it was entirely possible that, one day, a duplicate of Data could be made.

  Slowly, he slid his thumb across the tricorder’s face and over its recessed keypad, at the same time taking one last look around to verify that no one in the engineering section was paying attention to him.

  “Lieutenant Diix,” Data suddenly said, looking in Kalsha’s direction at the exact instant he pressed the transmit key. “I wonder if I might—”

  It stopped in midsentence, its mouth remaining open as if to pronounce the next word. Joints locked in midmotion as the android was turning from its workstation, momentum carrying it off balance until it tipped over and fell like a rock to the carpeted deck.

  “Commander Data!”

  Kalsha heard the cry from behind him even as he moved from his own workstation, already assuming the role of concerned colleague. All around him, engineers were scrambling across the room toward their fallen comrade. Trying to appear as alarmed as everyone else, he knelt beside Data and held his tricorder over the android in an effort to appear useful. He took the opportunity to look at Data’s face, looking into its yellow eyes and seeing no glimmer of activity.

  “What happened?” asked a light-haired crewman whom he could not identify.

  “I do not know,” he replied. “He was just standing here and then he collapsed.”

  Suddenly Data blinked. Once, twice, then a dozen times before his eyes began to sweep from left to right.

  What? How was this possible?

  “I…I…I-I-I-I,” it stammered, remaining motionless while emitting the sound but still causing one of the kneeling engineers to jump back.

  Another crewman, an ensign he knew only as Leisner, said, “We should run a diagnostic.” He looked to Kalsha, “What do you think, Diix?”

  Kalsha, still trying to figure out what he had done wrong in trying to disable the android, scrambled for something to say that would not raise suspicion among the other engineers. His efforts were hampered as the human engineer, Leisner, knelt closer, the odor emitted by his body launching an all-out assault on Kalsha’s nostrils.

  “I have suffered…a catas…trophic failure of my…neural net,” Data said, its voice sounding broken and digitized. “I must shut…down to run in…ternal diagnos…tics. Do not attempt…repair. Inform Command…er La Forge.”

  Kalsha struggled not to fidget in front of the other engineers. What if he had only inflicted minor, easily reparable damage? All his efforts might well have been wasted. Relieved that the engineers had in effect been instructed to leave Data alone for the time being, he nodded. “It is probably best to do as he suggests. His own diagnostic abilities can do more for him than we can until Commander La Forge returns.”

  Beside him, Ensign Leisner said, “It might help if we move him to his diagnostic alcove.”

  Nodding in agreement, Kalsha organized the engineers to raise Data from the deck, a task easier said than done owing to the android’s weight, which was of course far greater than that of a living humanoid of comparable size.

  As the other officers maneuvered Data into the alcove specially constructed for use by the Enterprise engineers when performing diagnostics and maintenance on the android, Kalsha could only puzzle over why the actuation servo he had programmed had failed to work properly. He activated his tricorder again and reviewed the unit’s scan log from the point when he had triggered the pulse, frowning as the recorded data showed a deviation in the frequency and intensity he had selected.

  How had that happened?

  Something, another energy source, had interfered with the actuation protocol at the time of execution. What could be responsible for that, especially at such a close range? Then it struck him, and he nearly cursed aloud at the realization.

  The mimicking shroud, with its own contained power source, had to be the culprit. In his haste, he had failed to modify the servo’s frequency to compensate for the interference generated by the garment. Reports submitted by other operatives in the past had detailed malfunctions in weapons and equipment later attributed to the shroud’s energy field. How could he have forgotten something like that?

  He tried to shake off his frustration at his foolish error. In fact, he had been lucky indeed that the pulse had not caused an adverse affect on the shroud itself, something else he had failed to consider when devising his plan.

  Fool! I need to exercise greater care, or I risk compromising everything.

  With Data now ensconced in his diagnostic alcove, he watched as Ensign Leisner activated a control that locked a pair of metal bands in place across the android’s chest.

  Pointing to the Benzite ensign, the engineer said, “Veldon, set up a terminal to monitor the progress while Data runs his diagnostics. We’ll use that to see if we can figure out what happened.”

  Kalsha regarded the android’s immobile form with its frozen, impassive face and its yellow eyes staring blankly back. Had the actuation servo been enough to permanently incapacitate Data’s neural net, or had he caused only sligh
t damage that could be remedied in short order? If Data could be repaired, either through his own efforts or those of the other engineers, it was entirely possible that the android would be able to identify Kalsha, or Lieutenant Diix, rather, as the one responsible for the injury inflicted upon him.

  “We need to report this to Commander Riker,” Veldon said, looking uncertainly at Kalsha.

  Kalsha nodded. “Of course.” Doing so would expose him to contact with senior members of the ship’s crew, but there was no avoiding that now. Having assumed the identity of the senior engineer on duty in the absence of Commander La Forge and Lieutenant Taurik, it was his responsibility to speak on behalf of the engineering section. All he could hope for was that the conversation that was sure to come would be as brief as possible.

  Assuming what he hoped was a convincing air of worry, he tapped the combadge he had confiscated from the real Lieutenant Diix prior to killing him. “Engineering to bridge. Commander Riker, we have a serious problem down here.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  PERHAPS IT WAS just his imagination, but La Forge was sure that there was more of an edge to the attention he and his companions were receiving from the Dokaalan.

  Not everyone, he thought, trying to soothe his rising anxiety. Quite a few of the workers they passed in the corridors of the processing plant’s main level continued to exhibit the same type of curiosity and warmth toward the visitors as La Forge had seen all day.

  Still, he had not mistaken the look of keen interest on the face of Alerott and his assistant as he and Taurik had left the command center, had he? Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Had Taurik’s report touched off a streak of paranoia?

  Perhaps, but it also was possible that something out of sorts just might be going on here. If an act of sabotage was under way, then lives could be in danger. He and Taurik had a responsibility at least to investigate the possibility.