Cybersong (15 page)

The fact that all the information was parallel helped decision making.

And when he created his first biocomputer with high recognition capabilities, he had used a rude form of this kind of parallel reasoning. Dr. Vhanqz’s machine was the prototype for Voyager’s computer. So Daphne knew that this computer possessed a certain level of what could only be called judgment, which was one of the reasons why she had wanted to check the fixes.

These people were used to working on computers that didn’t do integrated processing of this nature. They would have regarded their additions and jury-rigs as peripheral when in fact the computer on Voyager had the ability to use this data as indicative of other problems.

Mandel was convinced that the computer had an idea of what was going wrong with Voyager. It must know that they were lost, and it must be trying to fix that. How, precisely, she didn’t know yet. And why it had stopped all of a sudden here, now, was not clear to her. But she would bet real money that it had something to do with the alien transmission.

The alien had told Voyager something. She just had to get in and find out what it was.

She began to fall back into the trance of deep concentration once more, this time slowly as if a light shone through a gauze curtain in her mind.

She lost track of time, of herself entirely. There was only interaction, the computer responding to instruction. There was order and precision in this place.

And then there was a message. It was clear and in her own language, and it was strange and lonely. Daphne Mandel did not understand completely, but she could comprehend intuitively what it was. She knew. This time she really knew.

She had to tell someone. Chakotay or B’Elanna Torres, someone who would understand. Not Tuvok.

She went to the door of her quarters, her mind barely registering the physical realities. She was still far too deeply entranced in the revelations of the code. She walked straight at the door and straight into it.

The door didn’t open. She tried again, and again it locked her in.

There was no reason to this, she thought. Maybe this was all a dream and she was trapped, trying to get awake. That made as much sense.

She tried to leave one more time. Now she was certain that she had been locked in.

The computer. She knew the secret, she knew the aliens. And it wasn’t going to let her tell.

Daphne Mandel wondered how long this would last. She wondered if the computer meant to starve her here, or let her die of thirst.

Her replicator rations were low anyway.

But they would come for her. She knew that. They wouldn’t let the computer hold her prisoner the way it was holding Voyager.

The way it had been told.

Voyager’s computer didn’t understand that the aliens were going to starve Voyager to death. The computer, for all it had judgment and intelligence, was innocent. It had no program to recognize evil. It had no concept of ill intent.

And the alien who had sent the transmission was using that. It had begged for help, for company. Begged? Not precisely, Mandel thought.

Ordered was more like it. It had inserted instructions to stay in the deepest levels of the computer’s program.

Now she had to get that out. Only she couldn’t do it from her own terminal. She had already tried and the access was restricted, which only made sense. In fact, she was almost relieved to find at least some safeguards still in place.

No, she had to get down to one of the main programming stations in Engineering, much as she didn’t like either the department or the chief running it. And then she had to tell the captain.

Maybe Tuvok and Torres as well, but the captain was the one who needed to know most of all.

The captain could do something even while she was locked in, Daphne Mandel thought. The captain could have someone else get started on the basics of disassembling the problematic code while someone else distracted the locking routines. It was the best Daphne could think of on short notice.

She tapped the comm switch on her terminal and requested the bridge.

“You are not cleared for that request,” the computer informed her.

Daphne was stunned. She thought about it, and that did make sense.

She wasn’t bridge staff, she wasn’t a senior officer.

She spent her time holed up as far from those centers of activity as she could get.

She curled up in her big overstuffed Andorian chair, the one luxury item in her quarters. It was her thinking place, her working place where her body was utterly comfortable so her mind could be free. Now the comforting hollows of the great chair cradled her, and the unutterably soft Andorian cashmere caressed her exposed skin.

And so she could find a solution. She knew she could.

Perfectly, utterly confident and calm, she reviewed the goal.

She was here, she had to transmit to over there, and the computer was in the way. She breathed deeply, the near trance she had needed in order to read the computer code settling on her once again.

***

“If you will wait one more minute while I run this final scan, you will be free to go,” The Doctor tempted Captain Janeway.

Who, in all honesty, did try to comply. The Doctor was right to be thorough, she told herself again. No matter how well she felt, she couldn’t risk the possibility that there was something the basic pressure to the base of the brain and nerve stem was masking. A buildup of internal fluid pressing on the brain that could cause changes in perception and even personality was possible. The Doctor had told her about that in grim detail.

“The way our luck has been running lately, I wouldn’t want to take the chance,” she had agreed. And so she endured these infernal tests while she should be on the bridge.

Not that there was anything she could do, she told herself.

B’Elanna and the programmer and Tuvok were the ones who had the essential skills to pull them through. And Harry Kim still lay sleeping in the restorative restriction of a reconstruction unit.

“When will he be ready to come back on duty?” she asked Kes as The Doctor studied the output of the latest scan.

“Very soon,” Kes said, reassuringly. “He’s healing very quickly.

Exceptionally well, really. Maybe six or ten more hours, and he’ll be as good as new again.”

“Youth,” the captain sighed, and smiled. “So, what about me, Doctor?

Fit for duty?”

The Doctor began to clear his throat when the communications speaker came through with the dispassionate computer voice.

“There is a medical emergency report from Quarters Two-Zero-Three Alpha on restriction.”

“Go ahead,” The Doctor barked.

“This is a restricted terminal on security alert,” the computer continued.

“This is a medical emergency,” The Doctor said. “Put it through immediately.”

“Doctor, this is Daphne Mandel. I have to get a message through to the captain.”

“What is the nature of the medical emergency?” The Doctor snapped.

“I have isolated the alien transmission,” Daphne’s voice sounded clearly over the speaker. “But I can’t reconfigure the program from my quarters. And I seem to be locked in. Anyway, I’ve found it and we can delete it and get away from here. This is some kind of alien—I don’t know what—a thing to make us stay here. And it’s inserted right into the code of the basic operating system. Can you tell the captain that? Someone else will have to get down and pull it all out, but I have the locations.”

“You’ve just told the captain,” Janeway said. “Why are you restricted?”

“I don’t know,” Mandel replied. “I think maybe the computer knows what I’m doing. I can’t think of anything else. But I’ll start relaying the line numbers that have to be deleted now, and anyone can change them that way. It should be very easy.”

“Excellent,” the captain replied.

And then the computer cut in. “This is not a medical emergency discussion. Vocabulary analysis shows that no medical problem has been addressed. I am terminating communication now based on security program S-seven six one three on the authority of the chief of security.”

“No,” the captain ordered, but the computer had already cut communication.

“This is very odd,” The Doctor said.

“It’s a lot worse than odd,” said Janeway as she touched her forehead briefly before heading out the door. She had had enough of being confined. Her head hurt, that was all. The Doctor had his tests. And she had a ship to run.

She returned to the bridge but didn’t take her seat. Instead she asked Mr. Tuvok into her private office. “Mr. Tuvok,” she began as soon as the door had closed. “It seems that we have a security problem. And Ensign Mandel has been confined to her quarters, unable to communicate except in medical emergency, and she tells me that she has the answer to the computer problems that are keeping us here.”

The Vulcan nodded. “I am still concerned about the possibility of sabotage. I do not feel it is advisable at this time to give Ensign Mandel direct access to the operating system.”

“Whether it is advisable or not, Mr. Tuvok, it is against regulations to confine a crew member to quarters without my knowledge.” Janeway massaged her temples. At this point she couldn’t decide if her headache stemmed from her injuries or from pure tension.

“Yes, Captain.” the security officer replied. “However, due to the extraordinary nature of the circumstances, logic dictated …”

“We’ll discuss this at greater length after the crisis is over, Mr. Tuvok,” Janeway said crisply. The Doctor may have declared her fit to command a starship, but she knew her limits. It would be .several. days before she would be up to arguing logic with a Vulcan.

Janeway sighed and looked at the console that sat innocently on her worktable. She brushed it with her fingertips as she thought, as if somehow the computer were one of Chakotay’s talismans and would guide her. No such luck.

“Who besides Ensign Mandel and Harry is capable of looking at her work and then pulling it apart to make sure there is no sabotage involved?” the captain asked herself, musing. There had to be someone. Or something. Or some way around it.

“I am afraid that Mandel and Kim are our best programmers,” Tuvok replied.

“Which means that unless someone is as good as she is, she could slip something by,” the captain said thoughtfully. “If she’s a saboteur.

But if she’s right, then we’ve got to act. And the sooner the better.”

She paused for a moment and thought. Her head pounded and she pressed her hand against her forehead again.

Not that it made any difference, but it helped define the pain as opposed to the problem.

She had looked over the updated supply reports while she had been in sickbay. The Doctor couldn’t refuse her that, and even if he had, Neelix had come in to visit Kes while she was on duty. It was easy enough to engage Neelix in conversation. Indeed, the trick was getting him to stop. Especially when the topic involved his beloved kitchen.

“I hate to tell you, Captain, but we’re running very low on those Tasalian cabbages. The ones everyone likes so much. Especially when I stuff it with grated onion and Chorean steak. We’ve completely run out of steak, but I do have another recipe for the cabbage. This one with those apples and tubers, the way I made it a few months ago? Only now we’re running out of cabbage.

After that last stop, I thought we had enough to last for a year at least. Well, that’s what happens when something’s popular.”

Neelix had only paused to take a breath, but Janeway jumped in.

“What about other foodstuffs?” she interjected.

Neelix shook his head, his mouth pressed in a tense line. “As the morale officer, I have to say that rationing is a very bad move.

People worry. It makes them insecure. But as your chef, I have to say that I will have to get very—inventive in order for there to be enough. And we’ll have to follow a very healthful diet. Maybe The Doctor and Kes can help. We know that a vegetarian diet is low in fat, and far too many cultures have overpraised protein. In fact, most sentient creatures need far less protein than they consider normal.

We’ll have to make a real campaign of it, but I think it can be done.

“However, my cookies have been very popular. I’ve set out trays of them near the replicators, so when people have wanted a quick snack, they could find something wholesome immediately without draining any power.”

Captain Janeway couldn’t repress a slight smile. She appreciated his irrepressible imagination.

“How long do we have before you have to get too creative? Or we have to get much too healthy?” the captain pursued the question.

“Oh, ten or twelve days,” Neelix said. “I can probably squeeze out two more with stew.”

“Stew. Yes,” Janeway said managing to catch herself before she winced too obviously. Neelix’s stews were not among her favorite meals.

Though to be honest, it was better than his coffee substitute.

Her mind started to wander, and she brought herself briskly under control. The tendency to drift off from the topics at hand was part of the trauma, she knew, but it was one symptom she could keep firmly in hand, as long as she was aware it was happening.

“Neelix, I think you’re tiring the captain,” Kes said. “She is supposed to be resting, not making conversation about next week’s menu.”

Kes gave the captain a pointed look, and so Janeway let the medical assistant lead the Talaxian away. She had gotten the information she needed, at least. Supplies were running out faster than they had anticipated while the ship was still stalled here. It was as if it was planned. As if the loss of foodstuffs was directly proportional to the time they spent trapped by their own computer.

“The tachyon field,” the captain muttered. “I wonder … Doctor, could you come here for a moment? I have a theory …”

The Doctor appeared with a disapproving look. “You are here to rest, Captain, and to recover. All this excitement isn’t going to help you.”

“Doctor, is it possible that the bombardment of the tachyon field is breaking down the cell structure of our fresh food, causing it to spoil?” Janeway asked urgently.

“It could be,” The Doctor said hesitantly. “I don’t believe that any work has been done in the area. Certainly, none that I’m aware of.