Part Three — The Spreading Silence · The Threnody
Chapter Twenty-Three
USS Enterprise-D — Present Day
The Ferengi arrived at dawn, in a ship with a name like a bank statement.
It dropped out of warp off the Enterprise's port bow at 0547, a long gold-and-crimson hull with the circle-and-coin seal blazoned across its flank in letters four meters high. Profit Margin, the registry read. It made no attempt at stealth. It made no attempt at anything but arriving, in full view of two Starfleet vessels and a Romulan shadow it could not possibly have detected, with its running lights on and every channel open.
"They are hailing," said the officer at tactical. "Sir, they request permission to send a representative aboard. They describe it as a courtesy call."
"Do they."
"The message is signed Grethis, Director of Recovery, Vantir Trade Consortium."
Picard stood at the rail. He had not slept. He had not sat down in nineteen hours. Behind him, on the main screen, the southern continent of New Beltane lay in the dawn like a photograph of a burn, and the pale line of the front had reached the coast. It had taken Harrow's Reach at 2114. It had taken the main town of Haven at 0302. There was nothing left to take but the sea.
He thought of a boy with a crutch. He thought of a woman with her child against her chest. He thought of a great pale hall ringing in the wind.
"Grant permission," he said. "Observation lounge. Commander Data and Commander Riker will attend. Mister Worf's replacement will see that no one leaves the lounge without an escort."
"Sir?" Riker said, low. "You're going to talk to him?"
"I am going to listen to him, Number One. I have found it is the most informative thing one can do to a person who believes he is about to be paid."
"Captain." Data had come to stand at his shoulder, so quietly that Picard had not heard him. "Before you meet Mr. Grethis, I have a calculation to offer."
"Go on."
"I have correlated the drift-front velocity at New Beltane against all available financial data referencing the zone. Transaction filings, brokerage notices, Zone Expansion Note settlements. The relationship is not subtle." He touched his padd. A small table appeared. "For every ten million credits of notional value entered into the Consortium's public ledger, the front's velocity increases by approximately seven-tenths of a meter per second, within ninety seconds."
Riker whistled, softly. "That's real?"
"It has a correlation coefficient of point nine four. I would call it highly suggestive." Data's head tilted. "I wish to be precise. I do not say that money causes the drift. I say that the process responds to intent. The filings are not what move the front. The intent to profit from it appears to be."
"Intent," Picard said.
"A transaction made in ignorance has no effect. I have checked. A transaction made by a person who understands what the zone is, and wishes to benefit from its growth, produces an immediate response." A pause. "It is as if the thing can tell the difference between a person who is merely nearby and a person who is asking for something."
The bridge was hushed.
"Then Mr. Grethis," Picard said slowly, "is not merely a financier. He is a stimulus."
"I believe so, Captain."
"And if he were to file a major claim in our presence."
"I would expect a significant response."
Picard looked at the viewer, where the gold-and-crimson hull of the Profit Margin was growing against the stars. He found that he was cold, and that he had known he would be.
"Mister Data," he said. "Prepare a measurement. I should like it recorded, in detail, the moment he does."
"I have already begun."
Grethis was smaller than Picard had expected.
He came into the lounge at the head of a short procession, two aides, a silent bodyguard, and a thin young woman with a case of padds. He was sixty, perhaps, and barely reached Riker's shoulder. He wore a long coat of dove-gray silk, cut in the Ferengi fashion, with a great many pockets, and he moved with the small quick rolling step of a man who is used to being underestimated and has made a fortune of it. His lobes were pink and supple and very large. His eyes were dark, bright, and warm.
He was smiling.
It was the smile that arrested Picard. It was a genuine smile. It carried no menace and no calculation, only a bright, open, unguarded pleasure, the smile of a man who had walked into a room full of friends.
"Captain Picard." He held out both hands. "What an honor. What an honor. I have followed your career. The Federation's finest. The diplomat, the explorer, the archaeologist, the great soul. I do not exaggerate. You are an inspiration."
"Mr. Grethis." Picard did not take the hands. "You are very kind."
"I am a practical man. I recognize quality." Grethis lowered himself into a chair without being invited, and waved a hand at the others. "Please, please. Sit. I dislike talking to people who loom. It makes me feel I've done something wrong."
"You have."
"Ah." The smile widened. "You're going to be difficult. I do enjoy that. It sharpens everyone."
Picard sat. Riker stood. Data stood. The young woman with the padds took a chair at the far end of the table and opened her case without a sound.
"I shall be brief," Grethis said. "I understand you have had a hard night."
"There are seven dead."
"Yes." The smile gentled, not vanishing, but softening, with what might have been sympathy. "I am very sorry for it. Truly. I do not like loss. It is bad for business, and it is bad for the spirit. But consider, Captain, that it is also, regrettably, information."
"Information."
"About the nature of the asset." Grethis folded his small hands. "I am a financier. I do not understand your theology or your physics. I understand value. And I have come to tell you that what has happened on this world, what is still happening, is the greatest discovery in the history of commerce."
Picard let it pass. He found, to his own surprise, that he was not angry. He was cold and exact and quiet, like a man who has walked off the edge of a roof and is waiting for the ground.
"Permit me to explain," Grethis said. "Four hours ago, the Federation Colonial Authority declared New Beltane evacuated. You have moved, by my count, four thousand two hundred and sixty-one citizens off a world they have held for fourteen years. Under Article Fourteen of the Colonial Charter, territory evacuated under a Colonial Authority emergency order is classified as unadministered. From that moment, any registered commercial entity may file an exclusive salvage and research claim against it."
"That article is intended to cover abandoned farmland."
"It is intended to cover whatever it covers. I have very good lawyers." Grethis nodded at the young woman, who nodded back. "Vantir-Sol, a registered Federation subsidiary of my Consortium, will file this morning. The claim will extend across the entire drift zone, as it then stands, and as it grows. The wording is most elegant. It says, all territory within the region of altered physical constants. The region's boundaries will be measured, I am told, by your own instruments."
"You are claiming the anomaly."
"I am claiming everything the anomaly touches. Consider the possibilities." Grethis's eyes shone. "A zone in which the laws of nature differ. Think of the science. Think of the industry. Materials that cannot exist in any stable universe. Energy that does not appear on the books. And all of it, Captain, all of it, available at cost to the first entity to arrive."
"At the cost of four thousand people's homes."
"They will be compensated." He waved a hand. "I am nothing if not fair."
"You bought forty-one contracts on the growth of it," Data said.
Grethis looked at him with open delight. "Commander Data. Yes. You have read the notes. How wonderful. You are quite right. The Zone Expansion Notes are a most remarkable instrument. Eleven months ago, my people were told that something was going to begin, somewhere, and that it would be large. We did not know what. We knew only that the data, eventually, would be measurable. So we bought the measurement." He spread his hands. "It is the purest form of investment. One does not bet on an outcome. One bets on the size."
"And it is growing."
"Beautifully."
"Because of people like you," Picard said.
It was the first time he had raised his voice. It was not loud. Grethis looked at him, and for the first time his smile faltered a hair, not with fear, but with something close to puzzlement, like a man asked to explain why water was wet.
"I beg your pardon?"
"There is a mechanism." Picard spoke very slowly. "I do not fully understand it. But every time one of your agents has reached a site and transmitted its location, every time someone has profited from this thing, the drift has grown. It grows faster when it is used. It grew when a man pinged a relay at Cirrus Station. It is growing now, in front of us, because of you."
"Is that so?" Grethis looked at Data.
"The correlation is strong," Data said. "I cannot yet confirm causation."
"A correlation." Grethis sat back, and to Picard's astonishment he looked pleased. "Well. Then the market is efficient. That is the best possible news. The asset is responsive to demand."
"You do not care."
"I care very much! Whatever makes the asset grow, I must learn it. And now you have told me. I should thank you." He spread his hands. "You see, Captain, you believe you are a moral man and I am an immoral one. I understand. It is a comforting story. But consider. You spent three days collecting Keys from ruins. Your friend Dr. Liang spent her whole adult life studying the Makers' texts. Mr. Kestrel risked his ship. I funded each of them, in my way, through advances and grants and retainers, and every one of them believed they were working toward something. Who among us is not profiting from this, Captain? Who among us is not selling it?"
The lounge was quiet.
"I am trying to stop it," Picard said.
"Of course you are." Grethis smiled. "And you will fail, because it is bigger than you, and because it is correct. One does not stop a market. One joins it."
He rose. The young woman rose with him. The bodyguard stepped forward. Grethis drew a small gold padd from an inner pocket and held it up between two fingers.
"You wish to know what I want. It is simple. I want your signature. A formal acknowledgment that the Federation does not contest the claim. In exchange, the Consortium will share the proceeds. Thirty percent, to Starfleet. A research partnership, in perpetuity. Complete access to the zone." He tilted his head. "You would be the first institution in history to have a stake in a miracle."
"No."
"I thought you might say that." Grethis sighed, delighted. "I will file anyway. The law does not require your consent. But I would have liked it. I admire you so much."
He touched the padd.
It was a small gesture. The faintest tap of a single finger. The padd gave a chime. A line of green text scrolled across its surface.
FILED. 0614. VANTIR-SOL / NEW BELTANE / ARTICLE 14.
And the room changed.
Picard felt it first in his teeth.
It was not a sound. It was a pressure, a swell of something enormous and patient, rising from the floor of the lounge, from the bulkheads, from the air itself. It rose, and rose, and gathered, and every person in the room turned their head toward it, as if they had heard their name called. It was a chord. It was a choir. It was a hundred voices holding one note, high and clear and perfectly in tune, the way a congregation holds the last sustained syllable of a hymn.
It had a quality of anticipation. An eagerness. A warm, soft, joyful readiness.
It sounded, God help him, pleased.
"Captain," Data said. His voice was low. "The drift front has just moved."
"How far?"
"Seven kilometers in eleven seconds." He looked up. "The velocity has tripled. It is now thirty-one meters per second."
Riker swore. Grethis stood perfectly still, one small hand raised, the padd glowing in his fingers. On his face was an expression of dawning wonder, as if a great mysterious engine had come to life in the room around him and begun, very gently, to purr.
"Ah," he breathed. "Oh, yes."
"You did that," Picard said.
"I filed something." Grethis turned his bright dark eyes on him. "It is rather moving. The asset responded. Did you hear it? It sang." He shook his head in open awe. "I had hoped, you know. One always hopes. But I did not dare expect such a direct return."
"Seven kilometers, Mr. Grethis. There were rescue crews in the eastern district."
"Then I hope they are swift."
"You asked me who among us is selling this. I will tell you." Picard had risen without knowing it. "You are. Every time you profit from it, it grows. It is not a market. It is a hunger, and you are feeding it."
"Then I shall feed it," Grethis said gently, "with great enthusiasm."
He bowed. It was a small courteous bow, perfectly sincere, the bow of a man who has enjoyed the conversation. "Thank you for your time, Captain. I hope we shall meet again. When you have seen sense." He held out a slim gold card. "My private channel. Should you change your mind about the Keys. The dampers, in particular. I would pay a great deal."
Picard did not take the card.
Grethis set it on the table, and smiled, and went out. His aides followed. The bodyguard went last, and paused at the door to look back at Picard with a flat, incurious, unreadable expression.
The door closed.
The chord faded slowly, like a bell dying in a cathedral, and in its wake Picard heard the quiet, steady hum of the Enterprise's engines, and the breathing of the people in the room, and the tick of his own heart.
"Admiral Sorokin confirms the filing is legal," Riker said at last. His voice was rough. "I've just had her on the line. Article Fourteen is sound. She can't block it. She's asked the Judge Advocate General to look for a loophole. It'll take a week."
"We do not have a week."
"No, sir."
"How long do we have?"
"At the present velocity," Data said, "the drift front will reach the coast in forty minutes. Then it will cross the sea." He paused. "It will not stop at the sea, Captain. I do not believe it will stop at all."
Picard looked at the slim gold card lying on the polished table. Then he looked out the lounge window, at New Beltane, green and gold and blue, turning below him in the light of a morning it had not been told was its last.
"Mister Data," he said. "The Cirrus Key. Dr. Liang's calibration. How long until we are ready?"
"She has delivered the sequence. I have verified it twice." Data hesitated. "I have one further check to run. I require three hours."
"You have one."
"That will be sufficient."
"Good." Picard picked up the gold card. He turned it over, once, between his fingers. Then he dropped it into the recycler, and watched it go. "Then we will stop this tonight."