[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

enables you to see the big picture in ways that no one else can. But
even if you are omniscient, you still have to squint to see the
individual dots that make up the picture, the same as everyone else. So
I spend my days studying dots, to see which color this or that one is,
and how it fits in its particular place. In examining the minutiae, I
find a way to spend eternity without going mad.
Sometimes... Sometimes I wonder if I have truly succeeded.
How would I know if I were mad? Truly? There are mad creatures who
believe that they have the power of the gods, or of the Q, if you will.
Certainly their perceptions are as real to them as mine are to me. Q
spoke to Picard earlier of how, if all units of measurement were
shrinking proportionately, we could determine if the universe itself
were shrinking. Well... if I were indeed insane.." how would I know?
I would have nothing to measure it against, particularly since
my best anchors of reality--my mate and my son--were yanked so cruelly
from me.
As I hung on the wall of the abyss, my hands tightly gripping the holes
Data had created in the rock face, I couldn't help but wonder if I had
indeed been seized by a sort of dementia. What if everyone else in the
Q Continuum was right and proper and sane.." and I had simply lost my
mind, engaging in a crazy endeavor that any sane Q would have known to
turn away from? Perhaps my abilities had been taken from me as a sort
of fail-safe because I was on the verge of becoming a mad god.
To whom do mad gods pray? Englishmen?
I forced such thoughts from my mind, for that way lay ... well.." even
more madness than I was dealing with already. I lowered myself down
the rock face, grabbing cautiously onto each new handhold Data had
carved. I heard the thudding beneath me as Data punched each new
handhold, and as I listened, I began to realize what the problem was.
It was, in fact, the big picture.
Remember, the big picture was routinely open and clear to me. But not
this time. This time, I couldn't see the picture for the points. I
was exploring completely uncharted territory, with no clue as to where
I was going or what was going to occur when I got there. In a way, I
sorely envied Picard. This was something to which he was quite
accustomed. He ran headlong into things all the time without the
slightest clue as to how it was going to turn out. I hated to admit
it, but it was nice to have someone along who had no trouble boldly
going where no one in his right mind had gone before.
And Data was along for comic relief.
"Data," came Picard's voice, distracting me from my reverie. "Data!"
There was an urgency to his tone.
Immediately I realized why. Data's chipping away down
the rock face had been steady, almost rhythmic. The holes he had been
creating had been perfectly consistent in their depth and frequency.
Naturally one tended to expect machinelike precision when dealing with
a machine. But the sound of his chipping had stopped with no warning.
And if the sound had stopped, one didn't need to be omniscient to know
that there weren't going to be any more toeholds.
I could see the rock wall because my face was right up against it, but
otherwise it was as dark as a suicide's heart. I could not see Picard
below me, and I certainly couldn't see Data. "Picard, what's going on
with Data?" I called. "You're closer to him. Can you see him?"
"Not at all," Picard shouted back up to me. I wasn't sure why he was
shouting. It was so quiet around us, the silence so absolute, that a
whisper would have sounded like a cannon shot.
"Any thoughts as to our next move, mon capitain?" I asked.
And then I waited.
And waited.
"Picard, you're not remotely amusing," I told him, but I already knew
that he wasn't there to hear it. "Picard," I said once more, and when
still no reply came, I murmured,
"Well, what a fine pickle this has turned out to be!"
That was when I heard the scream.
It was long, high-pitched, and distinctly female, and for a moment,
just a moment, I was absolutely positive that it was my mate. I called
out to her, trying to make myself heard over the howling... and
suddenly the holes weren't there. I don't mean that my hands slipped
out of them or that they closed up around my fingers. I mean that one
moment I had a grip on the rock wall, and the next.." nothing. And I
hadn't even moved!
I slid down the wall, pinwheeling my arms helplessly.
The universe is dying, the words echoed in my head, and I refuse... I
refuse.." to believe that it cannot be stopped .... And with the
high-pitched scream cutting into my very soul, like the cry of a
banshee ushering in the dead, I plunged into the depths.
The scream was earsplitting. After what seemed an awfully long time I
began to realize it was not the shriek of a woman. It took me a moment
to identify the sound as something I hadn't heard in ages. A train
whistle? Yes, a train whistle!
At that same instant, someone kicked me in the stomach.
I shouldn't have felt anything. I should have been impervious to all
pain. Instead it knocked the wind out of me. It also prompted me to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]