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Path: moe.ksu.ksu.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!mips!public!btr.btr.com!mcmelmon From: mcmelmon@btr.btr.com Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative Subject: Belly of the Whale - final Message-ID: <6298@public.BTR.COM> Date: 15 Apr 92 16:46:49 GMT Sender: mcmelmon@public.BTR.COM Distribution: na Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM Lines: 475 Scene IV [Blackness cut by a narrow band of light. Rising through the band, the Enterprise. Flood-lamps flare along the rim of her saucer, their glare reflecting off pale skeletons of steel. Enterprise bridge.] Worf: We have lost direct contact with the T'Kiar and R'Shal. As expected, Captain. Establishing contact via probe links. [The Highest strides towards the main viewing screen. She stops before it, cutting an imposing profile.] Attendant: The Highest senses a mind. Picard: A mind? Singular? Attendant: Singular. A primitive mind. Barely sentient. Troi: It's true, Captain. I can feel it as well. Primitive, yet vast. Data: I do not understand. How can a mind be 'vast?' and yet 'primitive?' Troi: I don't understand, either. It feels as if I am surrounded by thoughts - or more rather, feelings - but all emanate from the same entity. Data: I do not think that would be possible. Attendant: Quite possible, android. This ship is alive. Killpatrick: You mean, we're in the belly of a whale!? Attendant: Your metaphor pleases the Highest. Troi: The full spectrum of emotional activity one would expect in a truly animate creature is not present. Picard: An artificial life-form? Troi: Very possible. Data: We are nearing the fore section of the craft. As their initial programming did not anticipate the super- structure, the probes did not penetrate this far. Picard: Meaning we may yet bump into something. Data: A possibility. We are detecting a massive structure ahead, Captain. A wall. We should clear enough of the super- structure that our lamps will illuminate it's complex surface soon. Riker: Complex? Data: According to sensors, reliefs and embossings mark the surface. On a very large scale. From an averaged base, projections and valleys occur to plus and minus seven meters... [Picard rises from his chair. He steps towards the screen, until he stands by the Highest's side. Light from the Enterprise begins to illuminate the wall. We see shapes. Humanoid shapes taking part in a colossal dance, not unlike those which grace the ceilings of palaces and churches of Renaissance Italy. From space, we see the Enterprise stopped before the wall. Her flood lamps stream across it as far as we can see. Throughout this range, the wall is flat, and the figures continue to dance.] ACT V Scene I [Enterprise bridge.] Picard [voice-over]: Captain's log, supplemental. In the belly of the whale. We have found what we believe to be a portal. Remarkable in that we can find no others. The hull of the vessel blocks both our scanners and transporter. Access to the Behemoth proper thus apparently limited to a single, small entrance. Not much larger than a shuttle craft. Commander Data has left the Enterprise in an attempt to open this door. Worf: The R'Shal reports Vulcan industrial vessel Ch'iar and Federation battleship Yamato arriving, Captain. Picard: Excellent. Request the R'Shal join us. Have the Ch'iar begin salvage operations on the Nadia. Riker: Don't like the idea of being alone in here any longer than necessary either, Captain? Picard: No, Number One. I do not. Worf: Data hailing us from Shuttle 4. Picard: Visual. Data: I have been unable to find any mechanism for opening this portal, Captain. In fact, I can find no automatic systems at all. Riker: Have you tried "Open Sesame?" Data: No, Commander Riker. I am not familiar with that device. Attendant: There are no automatic systems. There is no computer. Only the ship. Riker: A starship without a computer? Attendant: Correct. This vessel is alive. It must be treated as such. Picard: Then perhaps "Open Sesame" is the right idea, Number One. Data: Forgive me, Captain. Could you explain what "Open Sesame" is? Picard: Not now, Data. Riker: You're suggesting we ask to be let in? Picard: Right, Number One. Killpatrick: But ask who? We've been hailing for hours. Haven't gotten a peep back yet. Picard: We've been asking the wrong way. Data: Ah, 'Open Sesame...' Taken from the myth of 'Ali Baba and the Thousand Thieves.' The magic words which, when spoken, would open the cave used by... Riker: Data... Haifa: I believe I understand. Picard: Prepare for a guest, Data. Scene II [Haifa floats by the great wall. Data floats near her. Her gloved hand brushes against the surface. For a moment, she is still. She takes a hold of the glove with her other hand and begins to remove it.] Data: That is not wise, Commander. We are still in deep space. The elbow pressure point will protect the rest of your body, but you could loose your forearm to the extreme cold. Haifa: I must touch the ship. Picard: Transporter Room. Lock on Commander Haifa. Energize on my command. Dr. Crusher, prepare for a case of severe frostbite. [Haifa removes her glove. Air puffs from the forearm section of her suite. Frost crystallizes along her fingers. We can see the bulge of veins. She touches the wall of the ship gingerly. Haifa: Open. [Light flares along the periphery of the small circular portal. It moves back several meters, then slides to the left, revealing a dock slightly larger than the shuttle craft. Killpatrick: That's my girl! Picard: Energize. Scene III [Enterprise sick bay. Haifa lays on a platform. Dr. Crusher finishes examining her arm with a monitoring device.] Beverly: That was very brave. And very foolish. It'll be awhile before you have full use of your fingers again. Haifa: I understand. [The Highest and her attendant enter. Dr. Crusher does not recognize her. The Highest touches Haifa's head tenderly. Several moments pass.] Attendant: You were not happy on Vulcan. Haifa: There is no happiness on Vulcan. Attendant: You did not consider it home. Did you feel ill treated? Haifa: I was treated as a Vulcan. Attendant: And this did not please you? Haifa: I am not a Vulcan. Scene IV Picard, the Highest, and her Attendant move quickly down a corridor aboard the Enterprise. Picard [voice-over]: Captain's log, supplemental. The inner door of the docking chamber does not possess enough of the outer hull's unidentifiable materials to block our transporter. This provides us a window of opportunity into the main ship. Captain Killpatrick has already lead an away team, comprised primarily of his own crew. Their training in infiltration and commando activities made them ideal for the first-in scenario. They report no signs of life. [Enterprise transporter room. Riker, Worf, and Data ready themselves on the platform. Picard enters. Behind him, the Highest and her Attendant.] Riker: Is it wise...? Picard: The Highest insisted. Riker: Even so... Picard [interrupting]: Argument is useless, Number One Riker: Energize. The team materializes within a cavernous chamber, not unlike the lobby of a hotel, on a truly enormous scale. On three walls of the square, rising up almost beyond sight, are tier after tier of balconies. Everything covered in baroque carvings. A graceful, arching double-door marks the fourth wall - several stories tall itself. Above that, a hanging banner emblazoned with a coat-of-arms. Killpatrick walks over to the new arrivals.] Killpatrick: Pretty spectacular, eh Picard? This room here, about a hundred meters square. Must be eighty stories up that way. Rooms spread out and out and out. It'll take weeks to go through the whole thing. I've pulled my men back to form a perimeter. If something wanders over, we'll be ready. Picard: Have you opened those? Killpatrick: No. Haifa thought the Highest would be coming. Thought she'd like to open them. Riker: And if there's something on the other side? Attendant? Then we shall know soon enough. Where is Commander Haifa? Killpatrick: Checking the perimeter. Always a soldier, that girl... Attendant: Please tell her we are grateful. [The Highest walks across the chamber. She places her hand on the smooth, metallic surface. The doors shimmer slightly as they sweep back silently.] Attendant: Truly a fascinating vessel. It shall take far longer than weeks, Captain Killpatrick, to investigate it's complexities. [The group passes between the doors. They enter another cavernous chamber, though smaller than the first. Darker as well. And littered with towering mound after towering mound of glittering, broken swords. A path leads through the useless weapons. It ends before a glossy black disk, raised slightly from the floor. Picard: What is it, Data? Data: It would appear to be some manner of projector, Captain. Holographic. [The Highest's kneels, placing her hand upon the surface. A brilliant image chases away the darkness. An incredibly tall, fiercely beautiful woman with billowing silver hair. She begins to speak, but at first her words are foreign and cannot be understood. A look of concentration washes over the Highest's face. The words become clearer.] Data: Fascinating, Captain. The Highest is interacting with this vessel to translate the words as they are spoken. Woman: ...Lady Niam, Empress on Avelos. But this is all that remains of my empire. Empty chambers and broken swords. But even that is more than all the others. Their kingdoms, ash. Their people, dead. Forty millennia of star-spanning civilization. Ended. These, the fruits of my strength, now stand as mute testimony to our weakness. [As Lady Niam speaks, other images flash by. A whirling galaxy. A planet. Massive ships like the Behemoth disgorging swarms of smaller craft. Titanic struggle. Then nothing. Just the Empress. Her head bowed. Lady Niam: Our failing... But perhaps all shall not be ash. Here, in the holds of ships within this ship, the life of those worlds - in vanity - I called mine. Primitive life. 'Foolish,' my generals screamed at me. Foolish to waste so valuable a carrier - the greatest in space - on animals. 'Mere' animals. But it is they who were foolish. They who could not see. Why could they not see? From the lowly come the high. Perhaps it shall not be as it was, the second time around? [The image vanishes. An uncomfortable blackness returns. The Highest stands.] Attendant: There is no more. Nothing. Data: The galaxy shown in the holograph matches what we call Andromeda. Apparently, this vessel has crossed the intergalactic void, to escape the calamity of warfare. Riker: What does it all mean? Worf: From the lowly come the high? Second time around? And ships within this ship? Where did they go? Riker: Escape with nothing but animals? Why wouldn't the Empress escape herself? With her people. A carrier of this size could hold perhaps hundreds of thousands. Attendant: You do not see. They did escape. Riker: In the ships this vessel carried? She said only animals... Picard: Perhaps they are us? Riker: Captain? Picard: Noah's ark, Number One. 'The second time around.' A second chance. The Empress understood the process of nature. From animals come successively higher forms of life. Data:'From the lowly come the high.' It could be, Captain. And it would help to explain the similarities of alien life throughout the range of our travels. Though it would place this ship's age in the hundreds of millions of years. Riker: Which I find rather difficult to accept. Picard: There may be other explanations, Number One. Granted. But imagine. A common thread, woven through all of our histories. Imagine. [We rise into the darkness, looking down at the team, surrounded by the broken swords. Light falls on them from the open door, itself shaped like a dagger.