“I just know,” she said.
“Because you don’t want them to be dead?”
“No, because I just know they’re not.”
“If anybody else said that, I’d suggest therapy,” Patel said. “I’m guessing you’ve already spent most of the last few days with Counselor Cambridge, however, so…”
“Have you ever loved anyone, Devi? I mean, really, totally, unconditionally, irrationally loved anyone?”
Had Gwyn ever seriously asked this question in the past, Patel would have laughed aloud. The answer was, she hadn’t, and neither, she suspected, had Gwyn.
Until now?
“Who?” Patel asked. “Who are you in love with that was on that ship?”
Gwyn shook her head. “I can’t…” she said on the faintest of breaths.
Patel stepped back. The pinging back and forth between raw emotional connection and forced distance was confusing, infuriating even.
“Okay,” Patel said, trying to pretend it didn’t matter. “Well, I’m sorry. Thank you again for saving my life. I promise I will do my best to make it unnecessary in the future. I’m going to go now.”
“Devi,” Gwyn said as Patel started for the door.
“What?” Patel replied sharply as she turned back.
“I’m not very good at this,” Gwyn said in an abrupt moment of clarity. “I’m not used to needing people. It’s hard for me when things matter.”
Patel smiled sadly. “For what it’s worth, I’m not used to people giving a shit about me. It’s unnerving in a totally different way. When I get back, if you want to, we can compare notes.”
Gwyn nodded. “Don’t die.”
“I won’t. I promise. And, Gwyn, there are worse things in this universe than needing people. Sometimes, it can be kind of great. Especially when they need you back.”
Gwyn smiled faintly but hardly looked convinced.
DEMETER
“So here’s some of what we know,” Commander Liam O’Donnell said as Seven and Patel pulled chairs closer to the table in the lab Demeter’s captain had repurposed for their briefing. A small holographic generator had been placed at the table’s center and a series of three-dimensional images began to cycle through as O’Donnell spoke.
Seven and Patel had already spent considerable time analyzing the structure of DK-1116 both before and after it had been activated. Seven was interested to see how Commander O’Donnell’s conclusions compared with theirs.
“Behold DK-1116,” O’Donnell began. “I have taken the liberty of renaming this place in my head Species 001’s World of Wonders, or SWOW, but don’t worry, I don’t expect that to catch on. I find it more precise than its current astrometric designation, but—”
“Commander,” Seven interrupted him wearily.
“Right, time rushing inexorably forward and all that,” O’Donnell conceded. “At some point prior to four thousand, eight hundred years ago, the Edrehmaia brought a baby star into this system, where it was captured by the orbit of a larger, older star. Thus, a new binary system was born. The Edrehmaia then created SWOW, with the intention of using it to recapture that baby star and send it on its way at some future date.” Here O’Donnell paused for effect. “And then, something miraculous happened.”
“Permit me to guess,” Seven said. “Species 001 discovered…” But here she faltered.
O’Donnell’s face broke into a wide smile. “Come on, Seven. You can do it.”
“Species 001 discovered this planet,” Seven continued, “and created a containment system designed to prevent the planet from releasing the vast quantities of energy it was storing to move that star so that they could study the Edrehmaia’s technology.”
Here, Patel picked up the tale. “Shortly thereafter, a number of other species, at least a hundred and ninety-six of them, were either invited here or independently discovered the… uh… planet, and biodomes were created for each of them to experiment with an incredibly powerful substance left by the Edrehmaia. It was combined with biological life-forms as well as other elements in an effort to understand its nature and whether or not it could be made to work in concert with their own biology and technology.”
O’Donnell had been considering Patel intently from the moment she began to speak. When she finished, he said, “How much time have you spent studying those experiments, Lieutenant?”
“Hardly any,” Patel replied. “While trapped in Station Four data storage, my team was able to download details of many of those species’ experiments, but I haven’t had a chance to begin to review that data.”
“It’s truly fascinating,” O’Donnell said. “You really should make the time. I’m certain that you would find them as extraordinary as I have.”
“It is worth noting,” Seven interjected, “that while their experiments resulted in the creation of a number of unique life-forms and elements, and the technology created to sustain the biodomes is remarkable, our interactions with the Edrehmaia substance to date have produced catastrophic results. Ensign Gwyn was seriously injured when it made physical contact with her EV suit. When it touched our shuttle, it proceeded to mutate and transform it. And the biodome regulation system was so delicate that within hours of our arrival, our mere presence there disrupted it thoroughly.”
“Haven’t you figured that one out yet?” O’Donnell asked.
Seven favored him with a withering gaze. “The, for want of a better term, ‘power conduits’ running throughout the entire planet were designed as a closed circuit. The purified water brought to the surface once the biodomes were complete was strategically placed to disrupt those circuits. Once we entered that water, it lost its purified state and ceased to effectively disrupt the system.”
“Which we could not have known or even suspected when we began to study the surface,” O’Donnell said.
“I do wonder, though, given how advanced Species 001 had to be, why they wouldn’t have left some warning for those who came after them. It’s not that hard to put up a ‘No Swimming’ sign,” Patel noted.
O’Donnell shook his head. “We may never know. The system remained intact for thousands of years and was surely a beacon to any curious and sufficiently advanced species passing through. It occurs to me that Species
