It had been to the credit of the Starfleet engineers that they had acted with all haste to seal the breach in the bulkhead—though Ezthene suspected they’d done so more to protect themselves than to save him—but there had been nothing that any of them could do for Nezrene. Her life had been snuffed out in a wild flurry of violence, one for which Ezthene was sure there would be no retribution. No consequences. No justice.

Since then he had been alone. Unlike Nezrene, he had never known the cruel touch of the mind of a Shedai, so he had no idea how to help the Federation scientists in their quest to pilfer the Shedai’s ancient secrets. More important, he had not wanted to help them. In his opinion, these long-buried secrets were best left unearthed.

Some days, however, his isolation became so unbearable that he almost considered volunteering himself to help in their experiments, for no other reason than to dispel the crushing boredom and suffocating loneliness of his solitary existence. Most of all, he longed for contact of any kind with another Tholian mind. He wished that he possessed the technical expertise to construct a subspace thoughtwave transmitter. Even the daily waves of vilification he was certain to receive would be preferable to the utter silence that enveloped him.

Instead, he passed the interminable spans reliving moments from his memory-facets, savoring the emotional colors and the harmonious tones of concordance that had once been his norm, the soothing auras of—

Agony split his mind in twain.

Psionic roars of fury washed away all his thought-colors except those of primal terror. Scathing hues of hatred and a cacophonous, piercing shriek disrupted his mind-line and left his thoughts broken and scattered. He knew this sickening dread, this overpowering sensation of being telepathically smashed down and torn apart. This could only be the Shedai.

The brutal onslaught of images beyond understanding, thoughts too alien to comprehend, and truths too horrifying to face swallowed him like the volcanic fires of Tholia reclaiming the husks of its dead. Paralyzed and robbed of vigor, Ezthene collapsed in a trembling mass, cut down as certainly as if a Shedai tentacle had cleaved his thorax in half.

Collapsed on the deck inside his habitat, with his quaking limbs curling inward like those of a hatchling, all he could do was pray for death.

There was no escape from the white-hot sound of rage and the icy touch of enslavement.

The entire Lattice reeled in shock from the violation of Tholia’s communal thoughtspace. Every Castemoot and SubLink faltered and collapsed before the Shedai’s unstoppable pulse of unadulterated malice. The infinitely variegated hues of billions of Tholian mind-lines blanched and faded, and all the sonorous chimes of harmonized expression fell silent.

Flickering thought-facets recalled the terror of the Shedai thoughtwave they had been forced to extinguish years earlier. That incident had traumatized the Lattice like no other tragedy in all of Tholian history. Now every mind that possessed the Voice knew only fear and suffering, an excruciating violation orders of magnitude worse than its predecessor.

Hereditary memories that had been passed down for hundreds of millennia, ancient knowledge locked in the crystalline molecules of every Tholian mind, suddenly erupted forth, like liquid fires shattering the Underrock from below. Locked in the throes of unspeakable torment, every Tholian throughout the galaxy remembered their ancestors’ first moment of sapience: the moment when they understood that their dolor came from the ones known as the Shedai, the Old Ones who had engineered the Tholians for their own purposes.

With the memory came a collective resolve to slay their oppressors and be free.

Silence.

Emptiness yawned in the mind of every Tholian. For the first time that any of them could remember, the Lattice was devoid of hue or tone. The Voice of the Shedai had gone, leaving only the exquisite aching of the void.

Luciferous fury erupted from every level of the Lattice, and bright hues of indignation fountained from every SubLink and Castemoot. Tholians of every age, station, caste, and hue cried out for a war to answer the oppressors’ wrongs.

With supreme effort, the members of the Ruling Conclave elevated their mind-lines above the psionic maelstrom engulfing the whole of the Assembly and convened in their private SubLink of the Political Castemoot.

Destrene [The Gray] was the first to compose his mind-line. The Enemy has risen!

The thought-colors of Korstrene [The Amber] were tinted with alarm. Our sensing units on the border have confirmed it: the power of the Old Ones has been unleashed.

I have opened a thoughtwave to the armada, declared Eskrene [The Ruby]. She tried to project calming hues into the discussion. We will know the truth of this soon enough.

Yazkene [The Emerald] scintillated with rage. We already know the truth! The Federation’s soldiers on the starbase did this! They are in league with the Old Ones!

Dissent swelled within the Conclave’s ranks, momentarily drowning out all Voices with deafening waves of scarlet anger. Radkene [The Sallow] rose above the clamor to call for order. We must be certain before we act. If what we sensed was accidental, we will calm the other castes and remain vigilant. If it was the Enemy’s dying thoughtburst, we can rejoice.

Cynicism and suspicion gloomed the mind-line of Falstrene [The Gray]. And if it was the Federation taking up the Enemy’s standard?

Then we must avenge, affirmed Narskene [The Gold].

A dulcet chime signaled the inclusion of armada commander Tarskene [The Sallow] in the Conclave’s private SubLink. His thought-colors were golden with loyalty but tinged with distress. Hail and concord, Exalted Ones.

Velrene [The Azure] answered on behalf of the Conclave.

Harmony and clarity, Commander. What news do you bring of the Enemy?

The commander projected a series of sensing-unit transcriptions ahead of his reply. The Voice of the Enemy originated from within the Federation starbase. Interception of their long-range subspace communications has confirmed their use of the Shedai thoughtwave for destructive purpose. Their target appears to have been a lifeless world inside their own space.

The mind-line of Azrene [The Violet] flickered with uncertainty. A test? Or a warning?

Hostile colors coursed through the Conclave. We should assume the worst, insisted Radkene. We gave the Federation a chance to act for the greater good. They failed.

The will to vengeance within the SubLink flared to a blinding intensity, and there were no colors of dissension. Destrene issued the unanimous judgment of the Conclave.

If the Federation will not destroy the Enemy, we must. Commander Tarskene: Launch your assault—and leave no survivors.

29

A deep groan became a falling hum as the array cycled down to its standby power levels. As the last creepers of violet electricity vanished from the consoles ringing the isolation chamber, Xiong heaved a grateful sigh. That could have gone a lot worse, he reminded himself. All the major indicators on his panel had receded from their red-bar warnings to the hairline separating cautionary yellow from “all’s well” green.

He asked Klisiewicz, “How was that for operations?”

The Endeavour’s black-haired science department chief regarded his own panel with a tired and wary frown. “No errors, no feedback loops, no interference,” he said. “As for whether it actually did what it was supposed to do, I have no idea.”

“Containment’s holding,” Theriault reported without being prompted, “but only just by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin. If we run this same experiment again tomorrow, I can’t guarantee the whole thing won’t go up like a bomb and take us with it.”