of equipment lockers.
“Ensign!”
The young man did not respond.
Riker searched his memory. The young man was one of the few humans on board, fresh from the Academy. Riker had met him briefly, spoken to him at the orientation assembly… the name flashed before him.
“Ensign Doyle!”
Three things happened then, ensuring that Riker would never forget the young man’s name again.
First, Doyle turned his head quickly and easily to look at him.
Second, like Tuvok, who’d been born and bred in the higher gravity of Vulcan, Doyle was not breathing with effort.
And third, just as Tuvok reported four gravities had been reached, Ensign Doyle came apart.
Riker stared as the ensign split into squared-off tendrils as if he were being pushed through a sieve, each cubelike segment losing color as it unwound to the deck, transforming in turn to grains of what looked like black sand that slowly lost definition and substance until there was nothing left, not even a stain.
The Titan’s bridge crew gaped in silent shock. The only word spoken was from Tuvok. “Fascinating,” he said.
“Captain Kirk…” Riker finally managed to gasp in the crushing pressure of four gravities. “Did you see that?”
“More importantly,” Kirk replied, also struggling to speak, “Jean-Luc, did you see that?”
“Indeed, I did,” Picard said with difficulty. “I… I’ll stand by to be beamed to the Titan at your convenience, Will.”
Riker summoned the strength to poll the deck commanders throughout his ship. In addition to Doyle, seven members of his crew had dissolved: two humans, the others alien.
The conclusion was inescapable: Despite the medical monitors and constant surveillance, the Totality had infiltrated the Titan completely undetected.
To Riker, that meant one thing and one thing only.
Each Starfleet vessel, starbase, and installation must now be considered occupied territory.
Kirk, Picard, and Riker-three generations of Starfleet’s finest-returned to Mercury at warp, on board Kirk’s Belle Reve.
When challenged, they refused to beam down to meet with the members of the Provisional Starfleet Command. Neither would they explain themselves over open communication channels.
The enemy was everywhere.
Instead, their messenger was the Emergency Medical Hologram. He had no physical body that could be duplicated by the Totality. The details of his one physical attribute-the advanced-technology holographic emitter- had been mapped and measured by Starfleet down to the molecular level. Though its sophisticated components could not be duplicated by twenty-fourth-century technology, the emitter itself was easily checked against existing records for alterations.
In less than an hour after the EMH beamed down to the Vostok Academy deep beneath the surface of Mercury, he returned with Admiral Janeway.
To avoid injury to the admiral, Kirk had his engineer set the Belle Reve’s transporter room to one gravity for her arrival. Once Janeway had positioned herself on a chair from one of the staterooms, Scott, working from the bridge, slowly brought the gravity up to the safe setting-four times Earth normal.
To the relief of the three captains-and the EMH-the admiral, though distinctly bothered and uncomfortable, maintained her integrity. She did not disintegrate into black sand and disappear.
A few minutes later, their meeting took place on the bridge, where the console chairs offered headrests and better support. Spock and Scott were present as well. McCoy had retired to the infirmary and a diagnostic bed, monitoring the bridge discussion over a communications channel.
Following captains’ orders, the EMH was prepared to administer tri-ox and other pharmaceutical aids to the admiral upon her request. But since Janeway still hadn’t determined if this was another ruse on the part of an enemy other than the Totality, she refused.
The holographic doctor remained by Janeway’s side nonetheless, helpfully explaining that he was convinced by the captains’ story and that he was certain she would be, too, soon enough.
Then the admiral, with a scientist’s skepticism, listened as the three captains told her their tale.
Kirk assessed Janeway’s reaction as the sensor log from the Titan played back on the central viewscreen.
When Ensign Doyle, by decomposing and vanishing, was revealed as a projection of the Totality that had presumably been somehow reabsorbed, the admiral’s expression did change from neutral, to concern.
But she was not yet convinced.
Kirk caught Picard’s eye, signaling his unspoken query. They still needed to make their case.
Janeway shook her head, carefully, in the punishing gravity. “Interesting, but it doesn’t make sense.”
“It is a completely unknown form of life,” Riker argued. “It stands to reason that it might not behave according to logic.”
Janeway turned her gaze to Spock. “No objection to that, Ambassador?”
“I am curious to know why you believe what you’ve seen doesn’t make sense, Admiral.”
Kirk’s experienced eye and ear told him that Spock was impatient with Janeway’s caution.
“Many reasons,” Janeway said coolly, indicating that she would not be rushed into agreement. “The most important one is that given the power of this so-called Totality, why did they limit their attack to denying us warp travel? Why haven’t we been completely overrun by them?”
Kirk had spoken with Norinda often enough to know the answer. “They don’t want to force us to do anything.”
Janeway frowned in disbelief. “You say they want to wage a war without using force, which they do by destroying hundreds of our ships, and inflicting thousands of casualties? Come on, Kirk.”
Kirk tried to shrug, but under four gravities, his shoulders didn’t budge. “The Totality is convinced that once we truly understand what it is they’re offering us, we’ll embrace it-without a fight.”
“And,” Janeway asked, “they’re offering us what, exactly?”
“The chance to join them,” Spock said.
Janeway’s reply dripped with cynicism. “And become one with the universe.”
Spock, impervious to such emotion, focused on the facts. “Admiral, they believe they are the universe, and in a way, they are correct.”
To Kirk, it seemed as if Janeway momentarily lost her struggle to ignore the extreme circumstances of their rendezvous. Even talking under four gravities was the equivalent of a heavy workout. She paused for a long moment, took a deep breath as the holographic doctor unobtrusively aimed a tricorder at her, just to be sure she was holding up. “Ambassador, where exactly were you this past year?”
Spock replied easily, maddeningly in control of his breathing and his speech. “I existed in a realm of shadow matter. My personality remained intact; I had an illusion of my body with which to interact with an illusory physical environment constructed to put me at my ease. But I was aware of other minds around me, as if I were in a constant state of residual mind-meld with uncountable individuals.” He looked at Kirk. “And, when I was given the opportunity to meditate, I found myself able to sense the minds of others who remained in this dimensional reality.”
“It worked, Spock. You got my attention.”
Spock acknowledged Kirk’s confirmation with an almost imperceptible nod. Then he looked back to Janeway. “And underlying the experience, at a distance yet always beckoning, I felt the mind-force of the Totality, urging me to take the next step to total absorption.”
“Absorption into what?” Janeway asked after a long moment of silence.
“The Totality itself,” Spock said.
“A group mind?” Janeway grimaced. Kirk felt sympathy for her. It had been hard for all of them to truly comprehend. “Like the Borg?”
