As Vaughn circled the vortex, waving away the gray mist suffusing the air, he felt strongly that he stood at the brink of understanding all that was happening—and all that had happened—here. He reviewed everything that he now knew about the thoughtscape and this world. According to Dax, the pulse resulted from the thoughtscape—the Inamuri, she called them—attempting to enter this universe. That did not necessarily imply hostility, he knew. The question he had to answer was, Why?Why did the Inamuri want to cross into this universe? The Prentara had violated their space—had violated them—via their virtual-reality technology, so perhaps they wanted to counterattack. But Dax had said that the Inamuri considered the Prentara both invaders andsaviors. How could that be? And whether invaders or saviors, or somehow both, the Prentara had died out long ago, something the Inamuri must know.
Vaughn stepped over a girder that had fallen in such a way that it now hung out over the vortex. He looked back and saw that he had come about ten meters, and so he pulled out another device. He armed it, bent down, and set it in place. Then he moved on.
His own experiences here must tie into all of this, Vaughn thought. As he recalled the various scenes he had encountered, he reflected on the fact that they shared a common thread beyond simply being past events from his life. All of the incidents—from Captain Harriman to Prynn to his mother—had engendered a profound sense of loss or abandonment in him. And the Inamuri, through the energy clouds, had caused that. They must obviously have sensed his mind, his memory, in some way.
Vaughn remembered thinking this morning that he had dreamed dreams not his own, and he wondered now if that might have been an indication of some mental or emotional connection—a communing—with the Inamuri. But he had also felt as though he had dreamed Prynn’s and ch’Thane’s dreams, so perhaps this entire planet was connected to the Inamuri, united by the energy that circled it. He recalled the high-pitched sound he had thought of as the voice of the clouds, and he realized now that he might have been more right than he had known.
Ten meters to the next location. Device, arm, set.
Vaughn continued around the vortex. He waved idly at the gray mist, and thought about the mechanism by which bits of his past had been re-created. The energy from the clouds had reorganized local matter into different forms, but again, the question was, Why?Had Vaughn’s experiences been intended as an attack on him? As communication? And if the—
Awareness surged in Vaughn’s mind. He dropped to his knees, his hands coming up to the sides of his head. His consciousness felt as though it had been split open.
The mist,he understood at once, and knew that the understanding was not entirely his own. The mist, like the cloud cover, was an extension of the interface with the thoughtscape. And he stood within it, and sensed a tenuous connection with—
The Inamuri.
And suddenly Vaughn grasped it all. The Inamuri had not been attempting to navigate through the interface into this universe, although they eventually would. They had been sending the energy clouds through the interface, and all of that energy squeezing through the relatively small interface had caused the pulse. And the sea of clouds, the energy within, had been sent here to reorganize the matter of this world into a form that the Inamuri could inhabit.
“Why?” Vaughn asked aloud. “Why?”
Still waiting for answers, he staggered to his feet. He knew that he had to keep going. You have a mission,he told himself. He moved on.
Tell me,Vaughn thought, exhorting the Inamuri to give him more. Why did you re-create events from my past? And why events of loss and abandonment?
Because the Inamuri knew loss, Vaughn realized, because it knew abandonment. The re-created events of his life had been either its attempts to communicate or manifestations of its thoughts and emotions.
It,Vaughn thought. Not they.The thoughtscape, the Inamuri, was not a race of beings; it was a singular entity. One being that had known only one reality, that of its own “pocket universe,” as Dax had called it. It had known only its own existence, and nothing beyond that.
Until the day that the Prentara had connected their technology to it. Connected their minds to it through their virtual-reality systems. They had invaded the living mind of the Inamuri.
Vaughn saw the first device he had set up sitting just ahead, and he turned to see the previous one. Standing an equal distance from each, he pulled out the last device. Armed it, bent, and set it down.
Still crouching, Vaughn gazed through the mist around the perimeter of the vortex, at the interdimensional explosive devices that now surrounded it. Then he looked out into the vortex itself, at the sweeping, twisting surface that so closely resembled the sea of clouds above. The private domain of the Inamuri had been invadedby the Prentara, but then the Inamuri had come to understand that theywere other beings, that there wereother beings, and therefore that there was more to existence than only itself. In some sense, Vaughn saw, the Prentara had savedthe Inamuri, adding unexpected knowledge and sensation to its solitary existence. It had tried to establish contact with the Prentara, had tried to enter this universe, not understanding the destruction it caused by doing so. After the first pulse, though, the Prentara had withdrawn from the vortex, from their connection with the Inamuri, leaving it alone again.
No,Vaughn thought. Notagain. The thoughtscape had been left alone for the first time in its life. Before then, it could not have understood the concept of being alone, because such a thing had been outside of its experience. But then the thoughtscape had learned what it meant to be alone, in the most profound way. And so it continued trying to enter this continuum, and to find other beings.
And now Vaughn was going to seal it back in its own universe. Alone. Forever.
Vaughn had agonized, but he had made his decision, and now he had committed to it. He stood at the edge of the vortex, peering down into its center. Nog’s interdimensional explosives would detonate in fifteen minutes. Even if Vaughn changed his mind now, he could not possibly make his way around the vortex again and undo what he had done.
Predictably, he thought about Prynn. She had always thought of herself as being so much like her mother, and he had always thought that too. Certainly she carried a great deal of Ruriko in her, but he saw now that there was also a lot of him within her as well. That might or might not have been a good thing, but it provided him a small sense of peace right now. He was very proud of his daughter, and he loved her. Just moments from his own death, he hoped that his last desperate act would somehow manage to save her. He should have thought of it as a long shot, but he found that he actually believed that he would be able to communicate directly with the Inamuri, and convince it to save Prynn and Shar if it could.
What bothered him most right now was that, if she lived, he would be leaving Prynn alone again. He felt more than foolish for not having seen how much she had needed him since Ruriko had died. He had selfishly allowed his guilt to override his paternal responsibilities—and that his guilt had been justifiable provided him no solace, and no pardon. He had failed his daughter, and his only regret about his attempt to save her now was that he would definitely fail her again; either she would die with him, or she would live, and be without him.
Vaughn checked the chronometer on his tricorder. Thirteen minutes left now. He turned toward the complex and headed for the corridor from which he had first seen the vortex. He climbed over the rubble, then squeezed past the beam, holding his burden out in front of him. Once past the beam, he found the beacon where he had left it. He picked it up with his free hand and switched it on, then strode the twenty meters down the corridor to the intersection there. He bent down and deposited the bag on the floor. Then, one by one, he examined the eight interdimensional explosives he had removed from around the vortex, and he verified that all of them had been disarmed. When the others detonated, he supposed that the force might set these off as well, but without being armed, they could not slip into other dimensions and have the effect Nog had intended. The vortex would not be closed.