Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Star Ghost by Brad Strickland

Author:Brad Strickland
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Star Trek Young Adult, Star Trek
ISBN: 0671879995
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 1994-02-01T07:00:00+00:00

Defeated, Nog went along quietly. Valpasians were a skinny, green species that had descended from a race of intelligent lizards, and they were quick and keen-eyed. He would have no chance of giving Vissh the slip.

Still, Nog knew, he had to find some way of helping Jake.

He wished he had some faint idea of what that way might be.

CHAPTER 6

With a strangled cry Jake threw his arms out and revolved them like a windmill as he tried to regain his balance. Before him, the now-solid “ghost” hovered beside a strange chest-high device shaped a little like a mushroom. The hooded creature held out its device of spheres and rods—and a voice, coming from this contraption and not from the creature’s lips, spoke softly: This form will adjust solidity for more comfort. The voice had an odd, nonhuman tone, halfway between male and female. It added, Close eyes, please.

Closing his eyes was one of the hardest things that Jake had ever done. The vast emptiness of space terrified him, and he had the awful feeling that if he shut it out, he would open his eyes to discover himself alone and dying in the cold vacuum between the stars. But he forced his eyelids closed, and for a terrible minute he seemed to float in an infinite, lonely blackness. Then light burst against his closed eyelids, bright enough to make him see a vivid red, and he felt a humming, droning vibration. He took a deep, shuddering breath of that ozone-scented air.

Open now. Is done.

Trembling, Jake opened his eyes. He blinked. Now the life-form in front of him was almost transparent again. The station, however, had come back—partially. It, too, was somewhat transparent. Jake stood on a deck that was like fogged glass, and through it he could see the piping, support struts, and machinery that kept the life support functioning. He gasped at the brilliance of several “rivers” of multicolored light. Dazzling blue-white streams gave birth to bright yellow tributaries, which fed to orange branches, which finally gave way to very small networks of reds and purples and magentas. “What’s that?” Jake gasped. “All those colors!”

The tall, humanoid creature turned its head to look at the rivers of light. That is energy flow of station power generators to all servo-mechanisms. Turning back toward Jake, the creature made the speaking device ask, That form is now functional?

“Huh?” asked Jake. “Uh—do you mean am I all right?”

Am I all right? said the creature.

“I don’t know,” Jake said. “Are you?”

After a moment of silence, the creature waved its speaking device again. Explain I, you.

Jake’s head swam. “Well,” he said, “I am, uh, me. Jake Sisko.” He patted his chest. “This form is I.”

Then am I all right?

Jake laughed. “No, no,” he said. “When you speak, you are I. I become you.”

The creature inclined its head. Ah. You and I are a Whole. This form understands.

“I—I don’t think you do,” Jake said. “Look, I guess I’m okay. But what’s happened? And who are you?”

You are I.

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