Something Funny Happened on the Way to the Underspace [LAB1]

The USS Redding has somehow fallen into the Underspace. Its crew will have to forge an uneasy collaboration with aliens in order to escape.

Manifold I: Ungraceful Fall

On the way to the al-Trimaltan Asteroid Field

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi looked at the bolt, turned it, and looked at it from the other side. Then he turned it again upside. Then he rotated it slowly.

He became keenly aware that Ensign Diran Koli was standing next to him, looking exactingly.

“Have you discovered something, Lieutenant?” asked Diran Koli.

“Yes. It is –” Iskander took a long breath, “broken.”

Diran made a frustrated noise. “I know it is broken! But –”

Iskander cut them off. He knew that the Betazoid, every now and then, could pout.

“This is what happens when your gravitic calliper is set on 430 and not 372 nanometers. I have to tell you, Ensign, that this isn’t the first time that I correct you.”

Diran made a somewhat frustrated expression.

“I – don’t get it, Lieutenant. It shouldn’t make any difference. The manual – ”

“ – is wrong. I, Iskander al-Kwaritzmi, tell you that the official Starfleet EPS manual is wrong. At least on board of the Redding – which is normal, since we use a modified EPS grid. But every Starship modifies their EPS grid. Listen, when our turn ends, we’ll go over it together. We’ll mount a bolt following the manual, and another following my way, and we’ll blast them with plasma. Agreed?”

Diran sighed, but before they could answer, the intercom spoke.

“This is Commande Vistia Xi. All crew brace for – eh – ”

The communication stopped.

“Brace for what?” tapped Lieutenant JG Z’Xak on their thorax with their vestigial arms. They had been silently tapping at the Warp Core control panel with their many spidery limbs.

The intercom spoke again.

“All crew brace for turbulence, it is our best guess.”

We guess?” repeated Diran Koli. “The Commander had to get a second opinion on that? And I hope that it is not Klingons again. Repairing the hull is such a chore!”

Iskander sighed. Diran was being very pouty.

“Just hold unto something, Diran” mumbled the human, while grabbing a railing with both hands.

Diran was so dedicated to pouting that, when the ship shook a couple of seconds later, they were the only person to fall on their bum in Main Engineering.

The ship shook again, and again. Iskander could swear that for a couple of seconds the artificial gravity didn’t work.

Yellow alert. The lights dimmed. The ship shook again.

Commander Mir Durbus, excellent engineer and jovial Bolian that she was, didn’t wait.

“Well, don’t stand there waiting for the bridge to inform you!” she said. “Keep holding onto something, and give me a report. Trinni, have we sustained damage to the hull or to the main systems?”

“Negative, Commander.”

“Oh, it can’t be that bad.”

Lieutenant Z’Xak however started tapping on their thorax.

“I see misaligned chronometers of the nacelle,” they tapped. “I measure time differentials in the order of the picosecond per second.”

Now, this was concerning.

Iskander turned to face the big spider. “But – the warp field can’t be maintained if the warp manifolds in the nacelle aren’t perfectly synchronized.”

Z’Xak had no facial expressions that could be parsed by a human – Iskander wasn’t even sure that their species thought in terms of having a face – but the movement of their limbs seemed to suggest worry.

“I predict a collapse of the warp field within thirty seconds”, they tapped.

“Can you compensate before it happens?” asked Diran Koli.

The spider took more than a second to think.

“No” they tapped.

This was bad, thought Iskander. The Ukarimi was basically a genius of warp theory. They had on their own invented warp travel on their home planet; they had excelled at Starfleet Academy; they took care of the Redding‘s warp core as if it was their child. They never undersold themselves, and in Iskander’s experience they had never misdiagnosed. If they said “no”, then the warp field would collapse.

Commander Mir Durbus took the statement in stride and tapped her communicator.

“Mir Durbus to the bridge. We might lose warp within twenty seconds.”

“That is not an option” answered the discorporated voice of Commander Vistia Xe.

“Now, yes, sure, it is not an option” agreed Mir Durbus. “Please tell the crew to brace for a rough exit from warp.”

“We absolutely need warp to get out of here” said Vistia Xe, nervousness creeping into her Deltan self-control. “You have to try to maintain it.”

Where is here? thought Iskander.

“Collapse” tapped Lieutenant JG Z’Xak.

Up became down as the Redding tumbled out of warp.

Manifold II: Out of Synch, Out of Time

Underspace

All attempts to restart the warp core had failed.

Everyone in Engineering had tried to lend a hand to Lieutenant Z’Xak, who needed none and declared the task to be impossible within the current configuration of the warp nacelles.

Commander Mir Durbus had taken Iskander aside.

“Aside from the warp nacelle, what do we have to be worried about, Lieutenant?” she had asked, the severity of the situation overshadowing her usual cordiality.

“The fact that we are apparently stranded and have not yet received any communication about in how much danger we are from the bridge?” he ventured.

“You morose scoundrel” she replied. “Exclusively engineering problems, I want to hear. Let the bridge sort out the dangers.”

“The ODN system. As Z’Xak said, some parts of the ship are getting time dilations in the order of picoseconds per second. If that rate were to increase – anything in the microsecond would throw the computer in a feedback shutter.”

“A feedback shutter – and a non-linear Lovelace cascade if that’s not addressed” she added, while redressing her uniform in an automatic and nervous gesture. “While everyone is bothering Z’Xak, I want you to get Sirti-nei-Plex here and do a thorough diagnosis of the computer periferics.”

Iskander nodded. Sirti-nei-Plex was the Computer Specialist on board, but was in Gamma shift and so had missed the excitement until now. Iskander guessed that he’d be alert anyway.

Commander Durbus had to leave to attend a senior staff meeting.

______________________________________________

Mir Durbus came back to Main Engineering after some half an hour in company of the Chief Science Officer, Therese Siouinon. The tall woman looked as aggravated as she always did.

Not happy with one meeting, Durbus immediately called a meeting for the senior engineering staff. It was rare for a member of another department to attend one of these meetings, and it was the first time that Commander Siouinon herself did: in the small room, crowded with equipment and engineers, she didn’t have to speak loudly to make herself understood.

Siouinon started by showing a map of the outside: the Redding was in some sort of orange space filled with debris.

“The Redding has fallen in a sort of phenomenon called the Underspace” she said, sounding neutral. “Like transwarp conduits, it is a sort of adjunct metric dimension to direct space. It is artificial in nature, having been created by – ”

She raised her PADD and searched the information.

“ – by someone. Nobody cares. They’re dead. It’s under the control of some hostile Delta quadrant species. Once again, I don’t care unless they show up. Our priority is to get out, and we know how to do it, but we need the warp core.”

“Have we made any progress, Lieutenant Z’Xak?” asked Mir Durbus, kindly.

The big spider tapped briefly on their thorax. Iskander had heard that tapping enough many times to know that it was a no even before the communicator translated.

“What is causing the desynch?” asked Lieutenant Sirti-nei-Plex. He had answered Iskander’s call to come to Engineering as he was about to go under water; as a consequence his skin looked positively dry.

“The Underspace itself” answered Siouinon. “Time does not flow at the same rate everywhere in it. The part of the Underspace we are into is particularly fragmented: the dilation factors are not large – one part in a billion slower or faster – but the Tuegg domains are meter-sized and their decoherence time is within the half second. The randomness in its recohering makes it not only a Tuegg break but a Tuegg foam.”

What, though Iskander. He wasn’t very good in physics aside from what was needed for transporters.

“Can you reformulate that, please?” asked Lieutenant Sirti-nei-Plex.

Siouinon looked slightly aggravated.

“Example. Where I sit, time goes two-parts-per-million faster than the average. One meter away – say, where you sit – time goes three-part-per-million slower than the average. Time is fragmented on the scale of the meter.”

“Ok.”

“But, say, half a second later the story will be different. Where I sit time will be suddenly going half-a-part-per-million slower, and where you sit time will go four-parts-per-million slower than average; the pattern will change in a random fashion. Every part of the ship, at any given time, can be impacted by any time dilation.”

“And the warp nacelles are more than 50 meters long” remarked Mir Durbus. “They can be affected by up to fifty different time dilations. The elements of the nacelle must be synchronized within the picosecond, so this prevents us from forming a warp bubble.”

“Can it be compensated for? Surely you can make it so that each element of the warp nacelle generates its field at a different speed.”

“I do not predict a successful compensation,” tapped Z’Xak. “I-and-you would not manage to synchronize the entire nacelle before I-and-you would have to restart a process because Tuegg foam.”

Iskander raised an eyebrow. It was a side remark, but the Ukarimi language didn’t have a plural – the big spiders were almost entirely non-social and they hadn’t developed more than the pronoun I and you. Z’Xak had started using I-and-you as a we, but did so very rarely.

“Anyone more optimistic than that?” asked Siouinon.

“No” said Iskander. “The single elements can’t change their work frequency fast enough, as Lieutenant Z’Xak implied.”

“We have to get out of the… foam, whatever that is… or to get rid of it… before we can go to warp” proclaimed Mir Durbus. “We still have impulse engines: they’re solid, almost prehistoric technology.”

Siouinon nodded slowly and stood. In doing so, she knocked a box of isolinear chips off the table, and looked annoyed.

“I’m going to discuss with the Captain. Do expect to hear from us.”

“We’ll be here thinking about possible solutions, dear” replied, perfectly cheerful, Mir Durbus.

The day ended without any solution at the horizon.

Manifold III: Help You Help Us

Underspace

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, supplemental: the Redding has been trapped in the Underspace for several hours now. I have seen it from my quarter’s window: an indistinct dark orange void, filled with junk and debris. Out attempts to restart the warp drive are still inconclusive, but today is a new day – whatever that means in this time-fractured place – and I’m going back to Engineering filled with confidence.

As Iskander arrived in Main Engineering, he immediately noticed that it was much more quiet than the usual. Not the machinery in itself – everything was buzzing and whirring as it usually did – but the crew seemed nervous, electrified.

He saw Sirti-nei-Plex and approached him. The gracile Arcadian seemed tired and dry, but this was the end of his shift and he’d probably soon go soak in his waterbed.

“Lieutenant” said Iskander. “What’s the word?”

Sirti-nei-Plex looked at him with very tired eyes.

“I have finished securing the ODN network” he said. “We are at no risk of a feedback shutter or a Lovelace cascade. I expect you to review my work.”

Iskander peeked at the monitor where Sirti-nei-Plex had been working.

“You modified the flip-flop protocols?” he hazarded.

“Sure” answered Sirti-nei-Plex. “That will defend the registers from desynch. There’s also several other things I’ve implemented. I expect you to find all mistakes I made in the code and to confirm that I have been very clever. Now I’m going to bed.”

Sirti-nei-Plex stood.

Iskander suspected there was more. “I will. Say, Sirti, the crew seems quite silent. Has something happened?”

Sirti-nei-Plex sighed. “There’s talk that we have encountered other ships in the Underspace.”

“Hostile?”

“There’s been no combat. Word is that they are equally stuck as we are. But we have received no communication from the bridge – whatever they’re saying, we are not privy to it. And now – goodbye.”

Iskander nodded to him and looked around. Mir Durbus wasn’t to be seen – she was probably sleeping after having pulled a couple shifts – which put him in charge. The turn shift was slowly happening, so he made the round to see what progress was being made and to put some stick about.

While doing the round, he saw Lieutenant Z’Xak nested in a dark ceiling corner, immobile. The big spider had a quarter, but wasn’t bothered at all by just climbing a wall and sleeping there – nobody had protested so far, although it was weird.

The intercom chirped.

“Durbus to Main Engineering” said the intercom.

“al-Kwaritzmi here. I thought you’d be sleeping, Commander.”

“If you are already back to work, it means that you yourself have had too little sleep, Lieutenant.”

Touche, thought Iskander.

“We are going to initiate reroute power and emit a strong tachyon shower,” continued Mir Durbus. She was probably on the bridge. “We must sustain it for at least twenty seconds. Be ready for it. If it goes well, we are going to warp. We are counting on you in Main Engineering to keep the ship in one piece.”

“Aye-aye, Commander” answered Iskander. A tachyon shower? Had we found a way to defeat the time distortion by emitting tachyons?

The intercom sounded again, but now it was ship-wide.

“This is Commander Vistia Xe. We are going to attempt to get out of the Underspace. Brace for turbulence.”

At least this time she hadn’t added that infamous “I guess”.

Iskander raised his voice to be heard in all of engineering. Fortunately for him, he had quite a big voice. He walked to the main table of the room, where he could see it all.

“You heard the commander. We are going to lose power on many systems, but that’s how we like it. Talk to me if something is going topsy-turvy.”

As announced, power was rerouted. On the engineering monitors, he could see the power going into the particle sympathic system, making tachyons.

“Ensign Audrey, strengthen the inertial dampers” he ordered.

“Aye, Lieutenant.”

Ten seconds passed. Twenty seconds passed. Thirty seconds. Finally the tachyon emission stopped.

They hadn’t gone to warp. They were still in the Underspace.

________________________________________________________________

Mir Durbus called Iskander to the Reddaurant a half an hour later.

That was most unusual. Iskander couldn’t recall another occasion when his direct superior had requested a work meeting at the ship’s bar. And it felt weird to leave Main Engineering to go there at the beginning of his shift.

Yet, when he entered the Reddaurant, he could understand why. Mir Durbus looked positively exhausted: so deflated that she even seemed to have changed hue of blue. The several plates in front of her might have been breakfast or a very late lunch, but there was no mistaking the coffee she was drinking.

He sat at her table and waited for her to speak.

“You know, we are not alone in here” she said finally. “I suppose that the crew knows.”

That wasn’t what he expected her to open with, but what did he know.

“The crew knows little. I have heard rumors and nothing more, Commander.”

She nodded tiredly. “We have managed to find allies in the Underspace. Four ships. They have been trapped far longer than us – the longest apparently for more than one month, although as far as we know this could also be seven seconds for the rest of the universe. A Dopterian merchant ship, a R’ongovrian civilian skipper, a patrol ship from an unknown Delta Quadrant race, and a Romulan bird-of-prey.”

That might have been worrying. “Romulan?”

“Republic.”

Iskander nodded.

“They’re stuck for the same reason we are – it is impossible to create a stable warp bubble with time shifting and desynchronising as it does. Since they have been here longer than us, they came up with a plan.”

“The tachyon shower is their idea, I take it.”

Mir Durbus took a large bite of something purple and chewed a long time before answering. “It is. They mapped the Underspace and found a number of weakpoints. The theory is that the tachyon shower will resonate the Underspace and repel the Tuegg foam and – oh, I’m too tired to explain, and honestly I don’t understand it fully but Therese says it is brilliant and will work.”

“I trust Commander Siouinon, but we emitted a lot of tachyons and are still here.”

Mir Durbus made a crooked smile. She was too tired to be jolly, which was another first in Iskander’s book.

“One ship isn’t enough. The plan is five ships, each located in an Underspace weakpoint, each emitting tachyons simultaneously. That might stabilize the whole region for long enough.”

“Why five?”

Mir Durbus looked out of the window at the weird and orange Underspace.

“There’s four of them. They tried four and it didn’t work. They hope that five is enough. If it isn’t, we’re going to wait for a sixth ship, I guess.”

Iskander scratched his chin.

“Am I wrong in assuming that half an hour ago we tried with five? And it didn’t work?”

“It didn’t work because the Romulan Bird-of-Prey couldn’t take it. Their power grid gave up while setting up the tachyon shower. It almost took the ship with it. We’re going to try again when they have fixed the malfunction.”

Iskander digested the information. They depended on alien ships to get out of here, and some of them had been here so long that they had fallen in disrepair.

“How long are they going to need for the repairs?” he asked.

“That depends on us” answered Mir Durbus.

“Oh, no.”

“Apparently most of their engineers are dead, Iskander.”

“You can’t be serious, Commander.”

“I’m way too tired to be unserious” she said eating a gelatinous pink fruit. “They have been dead for weeks – apparently they got hit by a really large space debris and part of the ship depressurized for a while.”

Iskander looked out of the window.

“And – you are sending me?”

“Are you jumping to conclusions, Lieutenant?”

“Am I?”

She chewed. “Yes. But you are also correct. The Captain has already decided. You are to assemble a small team and go by shuttle to the Romulan ship. Fix whatever engineering mess they have, make sure the ship can survive creating a tachyon shower, and call for reinforcements or for resources if you need any.”

He looked out of the window again. He somewhat hoped to see the Romulan ship in the foaming chaos of the Underspace, but of course he didn’t.

“Understood” he said, a bit more rigidly than he would have liked to.

“And don’t get backstabbed or anything like that, Iskander. Pretty please.”

Manifold IV: in the Mouth of the Bird-of-Prey

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace

Lieutenant Iskander al-Kwaritzmi, log, stardate unknown: the Romulan Republic ship that’s trapped in the Underspace with us has experienced quite a severe failure and requires help for the repairs. I have been entrusted command of a team of seven engineers and we are traveling via shuttle towards the crippled Bird-of-Prey. I can finally see out of the window: the classic design, with the bird-like saucer hull and the two wing-like nacelles, green and menacing. It has been a while since I’ve been confronted with Romulans, and the last occasion wasn’t the easiest. I trust that we are going to maintain our eyes on the objective. Without that ship, we might be trapped in the Underspace.

Iskander turned off the recording and looked at his engineering colleagues, tightly packed into the shuttle.

“What happened with the Romulans last time?” asked Ensign Diran Koli, sitting next to Iskander. In the cramped shuttle, of course, everyone had heard the log.

“That is a mystery that I’m going to keep” answered dryly Iskander.

“We are in sight of their shuttlebay” announced the pilot.

The shuttle maneuvered slowly and deliberately, entering the dark shuttlebay of the Romulan ship. When it made contact with the floor, groaning metal could be heard.

For a moment, after the shuttle had landed, nobody moved, as if expecting to be immediately captured by the Romulans or something. It was an absurd thought – the Romulan Republic was friendly to the Federation – but old habits could be hard to die.

“Let’s go do our job,” said Iskander finally.

When they stepped out of the shuttle, a group of seven Romulans were standing there, in the dark shuttlebay, perfectly immobile. Dressed in their green, checkered uniforms, their expressions were entirely indecipherable.

The two groups faced each other. Finally, one of the Romulans stepped forward. Iskander’s first thought was that he didn’t know Romulans could have curly hair.

“Thank you for coming” said the Romulan. His voice sounded surprisingly deep and raspy.

Iskander pondered whether he should give some sort of stereotypical answer like Starfleet always answers a request for help, but he suspected the Romulans would interpret it as propaganda.

“There is no need to thank us. I am Lieutenant Iskander al-Kwaritzmi. These are Lieutenants Trinni and Yimari, Ensigns Koli, Audrey, Kornex, and Chiefs Timbili and Felton.”

The Romulan looked at them as they were being introduced.

“I am Sublieutenant Dhae” he said finally. He made no attempt to introduce the other six Romulans. “You are going to communicate with me.”

“I take it you are an engineer, Sublieutenant.”

“I am the acting chief of science, Lieutenant.”

“I suggest that we communicate directly with your engineering staff for the repairs.”

Dhae took a long pause.

“They are all dead. I suppose that makes me also acting chief of engineering.”

All dead? thought Iskander. Mir Durbus had said that “most of them” were dead. The Romulans had been keeping needless secrets.

He sighed.

“Well. Please lead the way. It’s probably high time that an engineer takes a look at the situation.”

__________________________________________________

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, supplemental. We have been aboard the Romulan vessel for close to six hours in local time. We are still assessing much of the situation, really. Many easy fixes have been already implemented, but the main power source needs a longer study as it is an uncommon design. Few Federation engineers have experience with an artificial singularity as a power source. On the bright side, despite their absolute mood, the Romulans are being collaborative. A couple of them – I take it they are security – are keeping an eye on us, but Sublieutenant Dhae has proven himself to be resourceful and available.

Proven by six hours of working, Iskander stood and stretched. He was quite aware that he looked like a mess: he had been sprayed by some sort of lubricant, and had been doused both in coolant and in vapour: his hair was standing in all weird ways, his face was of all the wrong colors, and he had discarded the jacket of his uniform, ending up in his undershirt.

Sublieutenant Dhae emerged from the darkness, suddenly being next to him.

“Do you need anything, Lieutenant?” asked the Romulan.

He had been very present until now. The Romulans didn’t want Federation crew wandering their ship, so he arranged for stuff to be brought.

“I need a break” he said. “Well, my team needs a break. For most of us it is lunch time anyway.”

Sublieutenant Dhae nodded.

“We have brought food rations” said Iskander.

“Food rations? I’ll be dead before allowing such barbarism and lack of hospitality” answered Dhae. “Please let us treat you for dinner. This vessel has an exceptionally good canteen.”

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in the canteen. The crew was sitting at a table, but Dhae had insisted that he and Iskander sit separately, in a quiet and secluded part of the canteen.

The canteen, built in hues of dark green and bright orange, was surprisingly elegant. Aside from the Federation crew and the guards, there was no other Romulan. The food was brought and was abundant and absolutely delicious: it turned out to have been handcooked.

“The cook survives” said Dhae to Iskander, in the quiet of their table, when the food was brought. “Funny how these things go. The whole engineering team dies, but the cook survives: we are broken but well-fed.”

“Did the crew die when you collided with a piece of debris?” asked Iskander.

“Debris?” repeated Dhae. “We collided with a dead ship that was five times larger than ours. But to answer your question – yes, that is the event where we suffered extensive losses.”

“May I ask how many of the crew died?”

“That is not to be shared unless you absolutely need to know it, which you don’t.”

Dhae signaled to Iskander to pick one of the plates – otherwise identical. Iskander chose the one on his left and tried a bit of a vegetable. It was cured in a dark sauce and roasted, and thoroughly alien and delicious.

“What is your assessment, Lieutenant?” asked Sublieutenant Dhae.

Goodness me his voice is so deep and raspy, thought Iskander.

“The damage is extensive. Most of it can be repaired quite quickly and easily” he pronounced.

“What does quickly mean for Federation engineers?”

“Another six more hours. However, the artificial singularity doesn’t seem to be working correctly. Something in its power output is out of whack, Sublieutenant.”

Dhae chewed on a small sort of savory pastry before proceeding. “The artificial singularity has not been cared for since our engineering team died. Not properly cared for.”

“It is a sort of system I am not familiar with. We use matter-antimatter annihilators.”

“Are you implying you can’t fix it, Lieutenant?”

“I’m implying I can’t tell you how much it’s going to take for us to figure it out and repair it, Sublieutenant.”

They ate for a couple of minutes in silence.

“The food is delicious, though” said Iskander.

“Oh” evaluated Dhae. “Yes.”

__________________________________________________________________

Lieutenant Iskander al-Kwaritzmi, log, supplemental: We have been on the Romulan ship for almost ten hours and have addressed most of the issues. However, the artificial singularity remains a problem that I can’t easily diagnose. We are going back to the Redding and are going to try again tomorrow.

The number of Romulans present at the departure of the Federation crew was much smaller than when they had arrived: only Sublieutenant Dhae and two security officers.

They could see the Federation shuttle approaching the shuttlebay, coming straight from the junkyard.

“We are going to be back tomorrow in ten standard hours” said Iskander to Dhae.

“It is acceptable.”

The shuttle entered and landed. The metal groaned again under its weight, but after a full day repairing a deserted Romulan main Engineering, that sound was nothing.

The door of the shuttle opened.

“Thank you for having come here, Lieutenant” said Dhae. “Relay my thanks to your Captain.”

“I will. And thank you” answered Iskander, probably too tired to know what he was saying. That left the Romulan very confused, but the door closed before he could clear the mystery of what those words meant, if anything.

Manifold V: Everyone is So Nice in the Underspace

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace
September 2402

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, fourth day in the Underspace, morning: the Dopterian captain has arrived and is being escorted to the Koruba‘s Main Engineering. Commander Mir Durbus and I have gone again through my entire analysis and are confidently sure in it. For this meeting, Sublieutenant Dhae is going to be joined by Lieutenant Nivarek, whose name I just learned, acting chief of security.

The Dopterian entered the dark and green-lit Main Engineering of the Romulan Bird-of-Prey and looked around with an air of superiority.

“I have brought the cobalt and the rubidium, as you asked” she said. “Now, will you tell me what this is all about and why I should part from it?”

Dopterians shared much with their relatives, the Ferengi: amongst it, guessed Iskander, was greed.

The two Romulans looked at each other with unease.

Commander Mir Durbus seized the silence to insert herself in the discussion with a tone that was jolly to a parody. “How lovely for you to come, Captain Larqueck! You can’t imagine how happy we were when you said that your merchant ship was carrying the elements that we need! Please come in and look at our analysis.”

The Dopterian advanced and quickly looked at the wall monitor, where the whole engineering situation had been laid in display.

“I understand none of this. I do business, not engines” she said, finally.

“I can break it down for you if you want to know why you should part with it” said Mir Durbus. “We can get out of the Underspace only if all of our ships emit a tachyon shower. However this ship’s power source – the artificial singularity – has been damaged. It can be repaired, but we need materials. Which you have.”

The Dopterian looked unconvinced. “Is it really so simple? Is that the story with which you expect me to gift you such a quantity of precious resources?”

“Tut tut, Captain Larqueck, tut tu!” exclaimed Mir Durbus. “You either want to discuss the engineering details, or you don’t! Do you want to know why it is cobalt and rubidium that we seek? I’ll be overjoyed to go through every single minute technical detail.”

Larqueck looked dismayed, but didn’t seem to have a good answer to that. “Does your Federation starship not carry these elements? Why is it us who have to part with our precious cargo?”

“We provided hundreds of kilos of duranium, tungsten, transparent aluminum, gadolinum, ytterbium and borosteel” remarked Iskander quietly. “We are not carrying enough cobalt or rubidium, though.”

Larqueck didn’t acquiesce. “That may be. But surely you have something to compensate us with. This hasn’t to be a gift when it can be a trade.”

Finally one of the Romulans couldn’t take it anymore. Lieutenant Nivarek spoke, his voice high and crystalline in contrast to Dhae’s raspy and chocolatey tone. “What is the value of your life, Captain Larqueck? What is the monetary value of dying of hunger in the Underspace? You are going to invest these resources for your own survival, so that you may get out of here and seek your silly profits back home. Or not. Take your cobalt back to your ship and die asphyxiated while cradling it.”

Mir Durbus changed hue of blue. “I wouldn’t have said it like that –”

Nivarek snarled slightly. “This is a Romulan Republic ship and I am going to decide how much I lower myself in obsequiecence to a Dopterian.”

Captain Larqueck for a moment seemed about to leave the room, but then sighed. “I am going to get reprimanded for this by the Coin Admiralty but I can’t be seen going out empty-handed. You have to give me something. Anything.”

“A hundred kilograms of Argyllian powder,” said Nivarek at the end of his patience.

“What a horrendous rip-off, but it saves my face. Have the resources.”

Everyone nodded and some thanks were uttered.

“How long is the repair going to need?” asked the Dopterian.

“The new virtualizing interface has to be grown via epitaxy” said Iskander. “Forty days.”

The Dopterian’s face went first through unbelief and then fear. “We do not have that much time, human.”

“I’m sorry. It can’t happen faster.”

“Our ship is not going to last for forty days. We’re stuck here if you don’t repair this Romulan carcass, and we’re stuck here if you take forty days.”

___________________________________________________________________

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, fourth day in the Underspace, evening: Commander Siouinon’s careful mapping of the time distortions in the Underspace has turned out to be a life-saver. She has just boarded the Koruba and we’re discussing her idea.

Commander Siouinon, looking tired and vexed, pointed at the map of the Underspace, brightly coloured in greens and purples, shining almost painfully in the dark Romulan Main Engineering.

“That is the best spot, according to my analysis” she said.

Dhae and Nivarek looked at the map and at the spot. The spot was not far from where the Koruba was, in the direction of what could be maybe described as the wall of the Underspace – where the time distortions were stronger, more chaotic, more invasive.

“What is the time dilation in there?” asked Lieutenant Nivarek.

“It oscillates between thirty and eighty” said Siouinon. “A minute out for us, here where time is still quite normal, is going to be on average almost one hour for anything that is in that spot.”

“The repair is going to take only one day from everyone else’s point of view” evaluated Dhae. “And the distortion is very localized. Only a small part of our vessel will experience it.”

Everyone nodded.

“It is a good plan” said Nivarek. “We’ll plot a course immediately.”

“There is only a small hitch” said Commander Mir Durbus. “The epitaxial growth – the repair – has to be regularly monitored, and not only by a computer.”

“Are you going to request that one of you stays here, on our ship, learning our secrets, for forty days?” said Nivarek, brow furrowing. “I do not like it.”

“Sure, darling Lieutenant, I know you don’t,” retorted Mir Durbus, “but I am not going to request it. I am going to offer it. Refuse and let your black hole engine get fixed without supervision, if you wish. It is not the Redding that’s going to be gravitationally torn apart and devoured by its power source.”

Goodness me, everyone is so nice today, thought Iskander tiredly. The day had been filled with negotiations and tense discussions, all which came down to reminding each other that failure to collaborate meant dying of something in the Underspace.

“You underestimate – ” started Lieutenant Nivarek.

“The Denobulan Durbus is right” intervened Sublieutenant Dhae, taking no joy in the words. “The epitaxial growth needs to be monitored. I am going to be stay here in Main Engineering for these forty days while the repair is underway, but need the assistance of an engineer.”

“Well, a scientist does see reason!” exclaimed Mir Durbus. “I am going to – ”

“Not you, Commander. You are far too important for the Redding for you to leave it for one day unattended” cut in Dhae again. “I request that it is Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi.”

Well, of fekkin’ course I’m the one who has to stay for forty days in this dark Main Engineering with a Romulan breathing down my neck, thought Iskander.

“Splendid”, he forced himself to say, and smiled.

Manifold VI: the Bird flew in the Time Eddy

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, fifth day in the Underspace, morning: my personal affairs have been brought, I have hugged a last time Diran, and the Koruba has flown into the boundary of the Underspace, positioning the rear half of the Bird-of-Prey into a highly accelerated time distortion. Dhae and I are the only people in here – everyone else has been moved to the front half. We are to start the repair recrystallization, and then our long watch will begin.

The power system in which the artificial singularity was embedded was, in its way, a wonder of engineering. Romulans weren’t famous for their technical prowess, but any close study at any of their achievements revealed a meticulousness and abstraction that could rival the Vulcans’.

It had taken days to Iskander and the other crew of the Redding to understand what the parts did and what was broken, but now Iskander felt relatively sure. He had taken much of the power system apart, and finally isolated the malfunctioning virtualizer.

It was a single-domained crystal of twenty centimeters by one meter, black and dull to the eye, whose surface was blemished by a couple of dull red scratches: insignificant visually, but enough to render the whole thing useless.

“Demotivator, please” he said.

Dhae picked the tool and passed it. Iskander removed the clamps. “The 5-nm Ark-Levinson.”

In the dark Main Engineering, the human and the Romulan worked side-by-side, silently aside from those brief commands, until the virtualizer was in the crystal growth unit and the ingredients of its epitaxyal growth had been set. Iskander relaxed only when he had double-checked the Argon flux.

“You have worked well, Lieutenant” said Sublieutenant Dhae, observing the monitors. “At least, in my laymen eyes. Are you satisfied?”

“I’m never satisfied before the job is done, but I’ll agree that until now we have met no obstacle, Sublieutenant.”

“How often do you need to check on it?”

“Every couple of hours” replied Iskander. “Have you secured the computer systems?”

Dhae nodded. “You shan’t worry.”

There was every reason to worry. Like a Federation starship, the Romulan Bird-of-Prey had a central computer server. Its functioning relied on every other computer agreeing on what time it was and how fast information could be sent and received: usually a simple ask, but with a time distortion as they were in, the desynchronizations could grow enormously. The worse case was the Lovelace cascade: a gradual descent into digital madness where parts of the ship-wide computing system would become incapable of synchronizing with out-of-time devices, corrupting the code and ultimately shutting down something – or everything. The USS Nestoris, twenty years prior, had exploded when the antimatter containment system had accrued a time-shift of half a second: the Redding‘s warp nacelles had stopped working at the microsecond time-shift, and the Koruba had to survive days of time-shifting.

“I’ll trust you” said Iskander.

Dhae looked perplexed. “Why would you do that?”

Iskander was unsure at his puzzlement. “What choice do I have?”

“Mistrusting me, of course.”

“Would that do me any good? I am forbidden from looking into your computer system too much. I can’t double-check how you have secured the computer. If I worried I couldn’t do anything about it. Should I do it aimlessly?”

“You might. I would. You have no reason to think that my solution will work.”

Iskander raised an eyebrow. “Well, I won’t worry aimlessly, because that’s just going to ruin my mental health. I decide that it’s better to just trust that you are competent enough.”

Dhae mulled those words for a moment in his head. “So that’s why you would trust me? To help your mental health?”

“Sure. Let’s say so. As a Romulan, you probably think that I’m being unforgivably human and naive and exploitable, but trusting you simplifies my life.”

Dhae seemed thoughtful again. “It is naive but also sounds very effective. You have to concentrate on the epitaxyal unit. There is wisdom in trusting me.”

They stood silent, motionless, side by side, looking at the epitaxyal growth machine, for a couple of minutes.

“By the way, why didn’t you want Mir Durbus here assisting you?” asked Iskander. “She’s way better than I am.”

“You have performed more than adequately. I do not think she’d have done better than you,” answered Dhae.

“You haven’t answered my question.”

Dhae stared at him, in a perfect Romulan non-expression, then walked with his secrets away.

___________________________________________________

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, fifth day in the Underspace, evening: it’s been a quiet day in the Koruba’s Main Engineering room. The epitaxyal regrowth is proceeding about as well as planned: we have achieved a quiet rate of 0.61 nm per hour, and the crystalline lattice is perfect. I have adjusted slightly up the Argon flow. I am otherwise forbidden from doing any other sort of engineering task, so Sublieutenant Dhae has kept quite busy with all of those tasks, alone. In the free time, I am reading.

Iskander stood and stretched. The Romulan ship seemed not to be made for comfort, with the exception of the mess hall that was in the other half of the ship; the human had therefore had to create a makeshift sofa in one angle of the engineering room.

Sublieutenant Dhae looked at him across the room: impossible to know what he was doing, but he quickly finished whatever task it was and approached.

“What are you reading, Lieutenant?” he asked. Iskander had told him a couple of hours earlier that he was going to do that.

“Oh? An old classic. I hope that you don’t mind that I do nothing. You have forbidden me from meddling in your systems, but I’m still feeling guilty about that.”

Dhae dismissed the thought with a gesture. “No need to feel guilty, Lieutenant. But this time you haven’t answered my question.”

“It’s an old Earth book called A Hundred Years of Solitude” replied Iskander.

“Isn’t that a bit on the nose due our circumstance?”

Iskander laughed. “At least it’s set in a house, not in a stranded battleship.”

Dhae nodded. “Please come with me, Lieutenant.”

They exited the engineering room and walked along the corridors in silence. Since they were the only two people in the rear end of the ship, many automatic systems had been shut down to spare the power: the lights had been dimmed to the point that Iskander could barely see, and the silence was eerie.

Their destination turned out to be one scientific lab: astrometrics. Its main feature were two large windows, as wide as the room, that gave an amazing view of the Underspace, orange and fiery. The decore was minimal, but – incongruously – a set dinner table had been positioned in the middle of the room, where Iskander would have expected to find stellar projections.

“We can’t go to the mess hall” explained Sublieutenant Dhae, husky. “I thought the view from here would be good enough.”

“It is very thoughtful. It’s going to give a better taste to the emergency ratios.”

Dhae looked at him raising his eyebrows. “What is it with you and emergency ratios?”

Iskander sat at the table. “We can’t go to the mess hall.”

Right on cue, the door opened and a small robot whirred in. Its primary function was probably cleaning or some other menial task, but it had been enhanced with a makeshift tray on which were two dishes loaded with food.

“You’re kidding me” said Iskander.

“I never kid when the topic is food” retorted Sublieutenant Dhae, taking the two plates and setting them on the table. The cleaning robot whirred out of the room. “It’s freshly made.”

Iskander gingerly touched the plate. It was warm. The smell was almost intoxicating, after the long day in engineering.

He ate a big scoop of the blue mush. It was spicy and delicious.

“This was somewhat complicated to organize” was saying Dhae, starting by plucking the tiny green vegetables on the plate. “The cook is going to make food for us non-stop for the whole time we are here. Due to the time distortion, he has to send a robot with a meal every… five minutes maybe? The robot is going to traverse the time distortion and keep us fed.”

The Romulan looked out and sighed. He added: “I’m afraid that, with a new plate every five minutes for one entire day, we are going to see many repeats in the menu. It can’t be avoided.”

Iskander tried too the tiny green vegetables. They were not to his taste. “Of all the things I did not expect of a Romulan scientist, it was to find a foodie.”

The Romulan didn’t say anything.

“A food enthusiast, I mean, Sublieutenant.”

“I did understand. I do not know how to take your words. Is there a contradiction between being Romulan, or a scientist, and enjoying good food, Lieutenant?”

“Sublieutenant,” replied Iskander with a smile, “I didn’t know that being a foodie was a personality trait a Romulan could have. But it is you who keep your culture so secretive – is it my fault that you keep your mysteries?”

Dhae munched for a moment. “I guess you are right. When you are done with your book about being lonely, would you like to read some Romulan literature?”

“So that I may learn more about your culture?”

“Yes, Lieutenant, precisely.”

“I’d rather not learn the fiction” smiled Iskander trying the doughy stick. “But I’d love to read something Romulan. Maybe you’ll want to read something human in return.”

Dhae smiled back, stood and went to a console. Unexpectedly, he opened a compartment and took out a bottle: triangular – well, tetrahedral – thin and filled with a blue liquid.

“At any rate, if we are to spend forty days together,” said Dhae uncorking the bottle, “let’s agree to be on good terms. Have you already tried Romulan ale, Lieutenant?”

“I have not, no. I do not drink much alcohol, but I feel it would be rude to refuse” pondered Iskander, finishing his plate. “I’ll drink at the condition that you stop calling me Lieutenant. Please call me Iskander.”

“Oh” said the Romulan, pouring. “Call me Dhae.”

Manifold VII: Tenderly Stuck in Underspace

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace
September 2402

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, day 8 in the Underspace: the crystal growth is proceeding slowly but steadily. I’m quite happy with it. I’m otherwise quite bored: Dhae has forbidden me from assisting with any sort of engineering task, probably afraid that I’ll get to spy or something like that. So I spend my days in main engineering, reading. Due to the time difference, speaking with anyone on the Redding is almost impossible: they live 50 times slower than I do, and for anyone to send me one message per hour would be for me to wait for more than two days. A couple of Romulans have made the trip from the ship’s slowside to the fastside — nothing stops that — but they’re not very talkative. Dhae however is opening up, being forced in here with me, and turns out to be quite a curious individual who really wants me to read Romulan literature.

“I don’t get it” said Iskander.

Dhae was sitting next to him, with a collection of small pastries and a Romulan dark hot beverage (some form of coffee, Iskander knew) laid on an engineering panel. In any other context Iskander would have been horrified to see something like that in a place of engineering, but in the desolate and dark Romulan bird-of-prey Koruba the standards were slipping quite fast.

“What do you not get, Iskander?” he replied, eyeing one of the small pastries. How could he eat so much and still be so lean?

“The ending, I mean. I can’t decipher what it means.”

“They all die. Why do you think it should have a meaning?” smiled the Romulan.

Iskander smiled back. “This is a book, right? A story made up by a person to communicate a message. The fact that the author — D’Kilbar — chose to have them all die is interesting and purposeful. A human would want to know the meaning behind that. But maybe Romulans don’t — although I was sure you were good at reading between the lines.”

“We are excellent at reading between the lines, thank you” claimed Dhae, eternally pleased by their verbal sparring. “Fine, I’ll bite. Their deaths are of course symbolic and necessary. They have to all die.”

“But why? They clearly won already.”

Dhae furrowed his brow. “Them? No, clearly not. They are only officers of the state — they can’t win. It is the State that wins.”

“The State?”

The curly-haired Romulan nodded. “Surely. And the State lives on thanks to them — its servants — who have expired their purpose and can die. Their deaths underscores who the winner is. To have them survive would be… paradoxical.”

“But surely all that they did until now was also in service of their own safety, Dhae. They worked for the state to have something in return.”

“Certainly not. They worked for the State because it is in the nature of the State to be worked for.”

“If that is so, why did the state protect them until the end? The state is clearly doing something for them. If they work for nothing in return, why do they get something in return until their demise in the last page?”

Dhae seemed slightly surprised. “The State protects them because — well, the State has power, because it is in its nature to have power. And power has to be in use — unused power is an oxymoron. Hence, the State always exerts power, the whole time, without needing a further reason, just by its nature, necessarily. Some of its power is used to protect its loyal citizens, and there is no need for the State to have a reason past that.”

Iskander mulled on the concept. “That is — odd.”

Dhae smiled genially. “But I have another book that will clarify all of this! Tense in the Night’s Garden by zh’Vasti.”

Of course he has another book, thought Iskander. A foodie and a bookworm.

“And are you liking my book?”

“It is very alien, Iskander, very alien indeed. I find that this Frankenstein fellow is an incomprehensible figure. I’ll want to discuss the role of Romantic idealized friendship with you when I’m done.”

Dhae took a long sip of his beverage.

“You know, Dhae, I can’t but help to notice something.”

“Don’t keep me waiting, Iskander.”

“All of the books you have given me — they have all been written on the planet ch’Kovex.”

Dhae seemed enormously pleased. “Why, Iskander, there is still hope for you! Next thing I’ll know, you’ll be sneaking around looking for secrets, and my restrictions on your activities will have been proven correct.”

What an odd thing to say.

“Are you perchance from ch’Kovex, Dhae?”

“I am, Iskander. My taste in books is the only campanilism I indulge. One has to be proud of being kovexsu: it is an old colony, six thousand years of history, billions of inhabitants, hotpot of numerous philosophical and literary and musical schools…”

“Are curly hair common on ch’Kovex?”

This made Dhae stumble, but he put on a stoic face — whatever was bothering him, for a moment, set aside. “It is a common trait, yes. At the beginning the planet was barely habitable: the very thin atmosphere helped a lot of radiogenic mutations. Curly hair are very common on the planet.”

“I see. Well, they suit you.”

Dhae looked like he wanted to recuperate the upper hand. “Well, I’m glad that you have discovered something against me.”

“Something about you.”

“Yes, something against me. It is of course poor info when compared with what I know against you.”

“Is it?”

“Of course. You were spaceborn, but your family comes from a region called Egypt, and your family name hints at an origin in the region called Persia. Your first assignment was on an R&D space station. You dislike being promoted. You have been married a long time ago, but your wife died and you still have complex feelings. A couple months ago you almost died in a crisis where the Borg were involved. You do not like firing phasers. You have a passion for differential equations and logical puzzles. You have never spoken to the Captain of the Redding. The people whom you appreciate the most in your Engineering division are a Betazoid and a big spider. You wish you could play a musical instrument.”

Satisfied in the enunciation of this list of facts, Dhae put a small pastry in his mouth.

“See how many things an attentive inquirer can discover?” he added.

Iskander couldn’t believe his ears. “Dhae… I shared all of these things!”

“Of course you did, Iskander. You couldn’t resist my invitations to overshare.”

“Overshare? Dhae, I wanted you to know these things!”

Dhae froze for a moment. “You wanted me to know things against you?”

“Yes, you curly-haired oaf!” Suddenly Iskander was really amused. “It’s things that everyone knows about me! None of them is a secret. Why should you be excluded?”

Dhae still couldn’t believe it. “How can we possibly be so different, Iskander? Why would you ever want me to know things against you?”

“Because –“

Iskander wanted to go on a deep delve on how humans forge relationships of trust, but the crystallizer buzzed in its dark, Romulan tones. It was time for the three-hourly control, and maybe to top off the vanadium.

The human sighed and rose. “It’s a good topic for another time, I guess. In the meantime, if you allow me to correct your list of facts, it’s husband.”

“Husband?”

“Not wife. I was married to my husband who died.”

Dhae raised an eyebrow, very much in a Vulcan way. “I didn’t know that you humans had such a predisposition, that you could feel that way.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Dhae. We aren’t subtle about it, either.”

The Romulan scientist nodded. “Maybe at least in some regards we are more similar than I thought.”

The crystallizer buzzed again and Iskander rose, leaving Dhae to his secretive, Romulan thoughts.

_____________________________________________________

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, day 13 in the Underspace: I just finished scraping the last two defective atomic layers and recycling the material. I can’t stand being in that dingy engineering room for a minute longer. I think I am going to kick back and relax in my quarters.

Iskander’s quarters were, of course, not his, but whomever they had belonged to had died. They were amongst the closest quarters to the engineering room, and had been cleaned within an inch of their life to make them perfectly antiseptic and impersonal, destroying any secret that the previous inhabitant might have left in them. Iskander had replicated a couple of wall decorations — the first page of a Baghdad treatise on astronomy hailing from the House of Wisdom, a copy of Ada Lovelace’s first program, the album cover to Liam ibn Wallace’s 2184 magnum opus Like Leaves. Appropriately magnified, they filled the walls with some life, although the overall effect was still alien and desolate.

The room had been meant for two occupants and had two beds, but Iskander had modified the second bed to make a longchair. He suspected that the Romulans would take this as vandalism, but after repairing their ship and giving up a month of his life in this trap, he felt justified in some vandalism.

He changed out of his uniform, remaining shirtless and in mint green shorts, and threw himself on the longchair. He put on some music — the Romulan ship had a small selection of Federation music,  and while Iskander never thought he’d listen to so much Bolian waltzes, it was better to his ears than the vast repertoire of Klingon opera that the Romulans also had elected to bring around — and closed his eyes.

Removing the two defective atomic layers had been excruciating for his nerves. The problem had been fixed, but it was one of an infinity of similar problems, all possible to occur.

Maybe he fell asleep, maybe not, but he didn’t know how much time had passed when the door rang. It was surely Dhae. Was it already dinnertime?

“Enter” he said.

Dhae in fact entered and looked at Iskander with puzzlement. The human realized that this was the first time the Romulan had seen him outside of his work uniform — in his underwear, no less.

He carried his bottle of Romulan ale and two glasses.

“Iskander” he said, carefully. “Maybe this isn’t the good time.”

“There is no time in this blarned pocket of reality. But it’s a good time as any. Come in.”

“Should I let you dress?”

Iskander shrugged. He hadn’t moved yet from his longchair. “Why? The secret is out. You have sneakily discovered what I look like in shorts. I’m too tired to care and also too tired to bother. Will you join me on my longchair? Is that a drink I see in your hand?”

“Is it appropriate to stay in your quarters, Iskander? I thought of inviting you to astrometrics.”

“Too tired to stand. But you’ll love the longchair. I’ve made it out of one of the beds.”

Dhae for a moment looked like he was seriously contemplating leaving, but at the end he gestured for Iskander to scoot a bit and sat next to him.

Dhae looked around quickly. “The quarters on this ship are not really meant for social gatherings.”

Iskander smiled. “Is anything meant for social gatherings?”

Dhae considered the question. “Do interrogations count as social gatherings?”

“No.”

Dhae nodded and opened the bottle.

“I’m not entirely in the mood for a drink, honestly,” said Iskander.

Dhae poured one glass fill with the blue liquid. “It’s alcohol-free and devoid of mycellin, if that’s what’s bothering you. I offer it to you just for its complex taste.”

“Where do you find non-intoxicating Romulan ale?”

“I brew it myself. It requires a special yeast which is native of ch’Kovex and a secondary snap-freeze distillation process. And one of the perks of being in the scientific division is that you have access to high-technology biology equipment.”

Iskander took the glass while Dhae filled the second one. “Do you mean to say that for all this time we have been drinking this?”

“Yes. I do not enjoy clouding my mind.”

They tapped the glass to each other and Iskander took a sip. “It explains why I never felt like I had radiation poisoning after drinking.”

For a moment they stood still. In the background music was still playing: now it was Berlioz.

“You are at unease” said finally Dhae.

Iskander stared at the glass of Romulan ale. Should he bare his feelings to a Romulan or should he try to keep some secret? “I apologize for that.”

“Apologize? You have been forced to stay on an alien ship and to experience loneliness in order to fix our engine, which we can’t do on our own, and you offer me an apology?”

Iskander shrugged, tiredly. “I’m making you worry, which isn’t my goal. Repairing this morning’s epitaxyal misalignment took six hours and was very taxing. I just need some rest and I’ll be as good as new.”

Dhae didn’t look convinced. “Are you keeping secrets from me, Iskander? Is that all? Should I just let you rest and listen to music and trust that any discomfort will be solved?”

Iskander closed his eyes. “Am I keeping secrets, Dhae? You ask me that?”

Dhae didn’t answer for quite a while. Iskander, his eyes closed, couldn’t see his face, but was sure he wore his usual expression: completely neutral, controlled, Romulan, secretive. But when he spoke, his voice sounded deeper and raspier than usual, as if he was talking despite himself. “I am at unease, Iskander.”

Well, that was new, thought Iskander. It was the first time that in those two weeks that the Romulan scientist had mentioned his state of mind — with the exception of some appreciation for food, possibly.

“You are equally stuck here with me, Dhae” he said finally. “I do not know how much society you Romulans need, but you’re experiencing as much loneliness as I am.”

“Seventeen of us survived, Iskander.”

“Eh — sorry, what?”

“It’s a question you asked me the first day we met. How many people died when our ship was damaged by the collision that has crippled us. Our crew compartment numbered 164. We are now 17. I’m the last scientist, too. A Romulan isn’t supposed to grieve, but I’ve lost almost everyone I knew on this ship.”

Iskander didn’t quite know how Romulans expected condolences. Physical contact and hugging like humans? Unlikely. Soothing statement? Also unlikely. A call to be strong? Iskander wasn’t going to do that.

“I am sorry” he said finally. Probably the easiest statement was the safest.

“You didn’t even know them.”

“I am sorry for you, Dhae.”

“Oh.”

Dhae turned his head and looked at Iskander with intensity. His eyes were unusually dark and inscrutable, his expression seemingly at the brink of showing some emotion.

“Thank you” said finally the Romulan.

They sat there on the longchair for long minutes, silently, until something moved. Iskander couldn’t quite understand if he moved first or if it was Dhae, but the first kiss tasted like Romulan ale.

Manifold VIII: a Round City in the Underspace

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace
September 2401

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, day 23 in the Underspace: I’m really happy about the latest modifications to the crystallization process. We have been making lots of progress and might be finished before the Redding has experienced a full day. Nothing else to report.

Iskander opened his eyes and thought something was wrong. He turned his head and noticed that he was alone in bed. It was the first time, in his experience, that Dhae had gotten out before him: even when he woke up first, the Romulan preferred to remain tucked in, reading his PADD.

Iskander checked the hour. It wasn’t even late.

However, as soon as he sat up, he noticed that there was a PADD on Dhae’s pillow. That felt like a message. Yawning and scratching his naked chest, he picked it up and had a look. Indeed, there was a message: “Come here when you are ready”, with instructions on how to navigate the labyrinthine bird-of-prey.

The human slowly got out of bed and for a moment wondered what to wear: uniform or civilian? After quite a long hesitation, deciding that the message hadn’t felt official enough, he picked some civilian clothing — comfortable camel trousers and a crop shirt decorated in old Coptic motives.

He, of course, passed by engineering. The crystallizer was working. Good.

Iskander arrived at the indicated junction. Dhae was waiting for him, leaning on the wall, dressed in his own out-of-work clothes: an absurdly tight black sleeveless shirt, and equally tight dark-green trousers. The colour wasn’t of the most vivacious, but the clothing clung to his skin almost lewdly. After 23 days in the Underspace, his curly hair was becoming a bit unruly, but Iskander found that to be delightful.

The Romulan smiled. “There you are, Iskander.”

“I am here and I am intrigued.”

The Romulan pointed at the nearest door. “I have a surprise for you. I really do hope that you’ll like it.”

That was the first time that Dhae had led him to any room that wasn’t an engineering space, a quarter, or the astrometrics lab that they now had converted to their eating room. That was intriguing. “Only one way to find out.”

Dhae looked sceptical. “What way would that be?”

“… Seeing what it is? Sorry, it’s a common human turn of phrase.”

“I can tell. No self-respecting Romulan would wait that late to have a confirmation. A Romulan should know before seeing.”

“It just sounded like you hoped instead of knowing, Dhae.”

He flushed slightly. His skin wasn’t particularly pale, going for a caramel tone similar to Iskander’s, so the fact that Iskander could see it getting slightly green was impressive. “My judgement is emotionally compromised”, admitted the Romulan, and pressed a button to open the room.

The two lovers entered in room showered in a light bright more than anything had been bright since weeks.

Eyes trying to adapt, Iskander could first feel the warm, warm air that brought odors of river, of palms, and of spice. The sound of wind.

As soon as he could see, his heart jumped a bit.

“It’s the Round City!” He exclaimed. “Goodness! This is one of my favourite places in all of space and time!”

Dhae, at his side, seemed to relax considerably. He smiled — his smiles were becoming less rare, but not for that less affective and sexy. “I am really pleased to hear that.”

Iskander kissed him and decided to calm down a little bit.

The holographic simulation had put them on Main Bridge: the Tigris flowed peacefully under them, with the typical beauty of a natural river free to meander how it wanted. Behind them was the Nahr Buk quarter, and in front the impressive stone wall of the Round City.

“Care to give me a tour of the place?” Asked Dhae. “I launched the simulation knowing barely what all of this is.”

“I am absolutely amazed. How did you get a holographic reconstruction of ancient Baghdad?”

“I sent a request to the Redding two days ago. Your friend Diran Koli transmitted it personally.”

“I didn’t know that you had holographic decks on the ship, also.”

“Of course we do, Iskander. We do not use them for recreation but for training or interrogations. Please do not tell anyone that I’m doing this — I don’t want to explain why this isn’t a misallocation of energy and a superfluous activity.”

“My lips are sealed, Dhae. Let’s go.”

They walked rapidly across the river, approaching what Iskander assumed was the Khorasan Gate. The simulation was set in mid summer: the riverbank was filled with simulated life, papyrus and reeds; but a scarce meters away the grass and bushes looked almost dried in the oppressive sun while large trees seemed to still thrive — Iskander could recognize only some figs, and the rest of the trees remained a mystery.

“How old is this place?” asked Dhae.

“This specific city has been built roughly 1500 years ago. Not far from here there’s much older cities — thousands of years older — and this started as around the new government palace of the Abbasids. Now it’s still a very large city.”

They had arrived at the gate and walked through. As Iskander recalled, the Round City had been built according to more ancient Sassanid standards, but it had two round walls and not one: the outer ring was a residential and commercial area, which in the simulation teemed with all sorts of people. Dhae and Iskander, standing out thanks to their attire, had at times to fight through a crowd of people.

Iskander was trying to give at least some pointers on the history of the place, but he knew that there was a specific building they had to get to.

“You seem to know where we are going” commented Dhae.

“I certainly do.”

This simulation had come from the Redding, and Iskander had already visited it several times: he knew quite exactly where to find the House of Wisdom, and they made their was there with little deviation.

The House of Wisdom, in the simulation, was large and built in baked brick, featuring several iwats and a hypostyle section, carved with extreme precision and decorated with calligraphy and glazed tilework. They entered.

“A library” commented Dhae with delight as they had entered and found themselves in a much fresher, darker vaulted hall of hushed voices and silent, old academics sitting at tables and looking at parchment and paper. “Your favourite place in the whole universe is a library.”

“It was also the workplace of some of the finest philosophers, scientists and mathematicians.” Iskander pointed. “We are in the public section, but down there work the copyists and the translators, while down that hallway you’ll get to the natural science laboratories, and up that staircase you’ll find the mathematicians.”

“Do you think we can find a table in here?”

Iskander led them to the silent cloister in whose garth was a large fountain and a collection of noble trees. The table was in dark wood, octagonal, and the chairs were comfortable.

“Computer” said Dhae as they had sat. “Initiate protocol 7.”

“What’s protocol 7?”

As an answer, a cleaning robot appeared whizzing and drove all the way to them: carrying breakfast.

Iskander laughed and kissed Dhae. The put the breakfast on the table — Romulan pastries, fresh fruit, some sort of purple brew.

“This is absolutely lovely. Why haven’t we done this before, Dhae?”

“I didn’t have the holoprogram.”

“I’m sure your computer has a database filled with several holographic simulations of beautiful places. Some of them might even be not-interrogation themed.”

Dhae reflected for a moment. “I wanted you to feel a bit closer to home, Iskander, not even further away from it.”

“Oh. Well — I appreciate this.”

They ate silently, enjoying the sound of the fountain and the taste of the food. One could have even have forgotten that they were trapped in the Underspace.

“You see why I want you to know things about me?” asked finally Iskander.

“No.”

“I told you what I like and where I come from and you had enough information to do something for me that I really enjoy.”

Dhae raised his eyebrows and mulled over the idea. “It’s a novel concept. Knowing something against someone is a way to know how to do them harm. Knowing something about someone is a way to know how to please them. Is it always like that amongst humans?”

“No. We can be very cruel to each other even if we know about each other.”

They poured hot beverage.

“Dhae?”

“Yes?”

“You never ask about Orsos.”

“Who is that?”

“My dead husband.”

“Ah. No, I never ask. I assumed that it is k’vanit zhaman.”

Iskander tilted his head a bit. “The translator didn’t get that word.”

K’vanit zhaman. It is — eh — the secret of self-death.”

“There is a secret to achieve self-death and it has to do with my late husband?”

Dhae was very serious. “No, Iskander. It is a belief on ch’Kovex. We believe that each person has to carry one secret — is given, in their life, one secret — that they can’t reveal. Should this secret be discovered, it will surely lead to an annihilation of the self, to a destruction of personhood: the person will maybe look and behave as always, but their inner self will be nihil, empty.”

“Do you really believe this?”

Dhae nodded. “Of course. A Romulan of no secrets is not a Romulan, as far as I am concerned.”

“And if this… k’vanit zhaman… is discovered by someone else… what? Your consciousness vanishes?”

“What’s consciousness to do with any of this? No, the self vanishes, the personhood. Your capability to serve the State.”

They stared at each other.

“Goodness me you are so alien sometimes” said Iskander.

“Ah. I suppose that humans do not think of themselves as having a k’vanit zhaman. Not even all Romulans do. It’s ch’Kovax philosophy.”

“We, indeed, do not. You can ask me about Orsos if you want — you do not have to avoid the topic. And I’ll keep being a good Federation citizen even if you learn about him.”

“I thought it was your k’vanit zhaman because you really, really avoid the topic.”

“Because it hurts.”

“Why would you share your pain? I can’t feel it for you.”

“Because you’d know something more about me.”

Dhae made that face that he always made when he was trying to assimilate a completely alien concept, then he smiled. “I will think about questions. They have to be the correct ones.”

“Whenever you want.”

“Is this place still standing on Earth, Iskander?”

What an elegant pivot in topic, thought Iskander. Sadly he loved history too much to resist.

“No. The House of Wisdom was destroyed about a thousand years ago.”

“I do hope that the knowledge within was preserved!”

Iskander made a pensive move. “That is historically unclear. The legends say that the invaders threw so many books into the Tigris that its waters became black with ink.”

Dhae looked completely aghast. “You must be joking.”

“No. But those are legends. The true damage is unknown, but it was enough that the House of Wisdom ceased to exist.”

“Absolute barbary! Positively revolting! Things like this make you want to go back in time and bomb people from orbit!”

Iskander was quite surprised at how emotional and angry Dhae sounded. He had rarely seen him react so viscerally.

“Let’s… not do that” he said. “But I agree.”

Dhae calmed slowly down. “Sorry.”

They looked at the table: their breakfast was now completely finished, and Dhae had meticulously eaten even all the crumbs.

Iskander offered his hand to Dhae. “But it’s still going to be five-hundred years before, in this simulation, the Mongols knock this place down. Plenty of time for us to visit. Want to go and see some books?”

Dhae’s expression cleared. “Let’s!”

And they giddily explored the House of Wisdom, forgetting for a brief moment the horror of the Underspace.

Manifold IX: a Pinch of Earth Spice

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace
September 2401

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, day 29 in the Underspace: if I wasn’t with Dhae I’d have gone completely insane. That’s loneliness for you. Although the books are good. The crystallization is proceeding without parameters, although the xenon leak yesterday almost destroyed everything. I try not to think that if the singularity virtualizator isn’t properly repaired, there is a distinct possibility that we’ll be stuck in the Underspace for a much more considerable amount of time. I try not to think about that. I try not to think about that.

Iskander stopped his narration and looked around. The engineering room was dark and deserted as it always was, the massive singularity casing silent in the middle, everything else pulsing silently in the background. Dhae had gone for a routine check of all the systems of the rear half of the bird-of-prey — what they had taken calling the fastside, or their prison. No one from slowside came back here.

Trying to push aside the ever-present concern regarding the artificial singularity and the looming threat of dying of old age in the Underspace, Iskander and Dhae had tried to construct some sort of normalcy on the fastside of the ship. They ate together and slept together, but had agreed that it was necessary to spend at least six hours apart, lest they bore one another. They went almost daily to the holographic suit — Dhae had decided that his concerns about it not being meant for entertainment were secondary to the necessity of spending the time: they had played all the storylines that had been programmed in the Baghdad holoprogram — to their great delight they had saved Mohammed al-Khwarizmi’s life from a secretive group of mathematical thieves, and completely derailed another story by deciding that the budding love story between a Jewish seamstress and a Zoroastrian fishmongress was what they really want to sink their energy into — and then had visited several Romulan planets. Those holoprograms, coming from the database of the Koruba, had no storylines that weren’t somehow interrogation scenarios or tests of loyalty, so they just visited and chatted.

Iskander stood and went to check on the virtualizor. It was growing as always. It was the seventh time that Iskander had checked in the last hour, but he was nervous.

The door of the engineering room opened with its distinctive shushing noise, and one of the cleaning robots came in, carrying a tray. Iskander knew now that there were three different cleaning robots that were tasked with taking the food: one was a slightly older model, one had a series of dents in its casing, and the third’s lights were a bit out of synch. For this lunch it was Denty.

But, much more important, it was carrying not a deliciously prepared meal from the cook, but a series of ingredients.

“Yes!” triumphed Iskander at the sight. It hadn’t been easy to organize the transport from the Redding, and to do it behind Dhae’s back, so it was a relief to see it delivered.

He took the tray and walked all the way to astrometrics.

When Dhae joined him, a scarce twenty minutes later, the Romulan immediately knew something was afoot. He sniffed, not finding the usual odours, and his gaze went to the suspicious unexpected tray.

“Iskander?” he asked, suspicious. His curly hair was really getting somewhat messy, but Iskander had talked him into not cutting it.

“Dhae?” replied Iskander, innocently.

Dhae still insisted on wearing his uniform; Iskander now almost invariably dressed in civilian. It wasn’t good practice to do engineering in inappropriate clothing, and he had already ruined a couple of tops, but once again he had to take off his mind.

“So the plotting you tried to hide from me was with the cook of all people?”

Of course he had noticed something. But he didn’t stop me. Iskander smiled. “Plotting? Oh — I almost forgot that you hate surprises.”

Dhae smirked. “I do not. I am very neutral on surprises.”

“I organized a surprise for you.”

“I am neutral but willing to be swayed.”

The Romulan approached and looked at all the material, bowls and small bottles and uncommon utensils. “This is all from the Redding” he added.

“I had to use all of my leverage to convince them to do a shuttle run just for this” admitted Iskander. “It’s food from Earth.”

“How does one eat it?”

“We have to prepare it first.”

Dhae looked at Iskander for a moment, with a perfectly neutral expression, then pointed at the food. “Show me!”

When they worked together, they were a good team. This wasn’t an exception: Dhae was very open to be taught. Also, it was a very simple recipe.

“Try a bit of this, Dhae, and tell me if you like it.”

“Yuk. It’s very, very aromatic. I wasn’t expecting that.”

“We can leave it out.”

“I love it. Such a novel experience. How do you call it?”

“Garlic.”

The cloves of garlic were peeled and mushed.

“And what do you call this?” he asked taking the bottle filled of a yellow, viscous fluid.

“Olive oil. It’s the result of pressing a fruit.”

Dhae sniffed. “Aromatic. A carbohydrate solution?”

“Almost entirely fat.”

“Ah. You probably used it to fry.”

“You’d think so, but it’s got a very low flash point.”

“Ah.”

They mixed most of the ingredients and Iskander told Dhae to mush them.

“Like this, Iskander?”

“A good start, but it really has to become silky smooth.”

“What’s silk?”

“A fabric.”

“Does this recipe involve eating clothes?”

“Eh” wondered Iskander. “No. Just, eh, mush it until really smooth.”

“Should it become an emulsion?”

“No. Our goal is a creamy paste.”

In the meantime Iskander cut the carrots. He had specifically requested for them to be of all colours, and to his delight he found not only orange, white, purple and red, but also the much more recent blue Regan variety.

“What about this red powder, Iskander?”

“Red pepper. A noble spice from Earth. It goes on top, not to be stirred in. Just add a bit.”

Within a couple of minutes of good work — thanks to the chickpea had already been de-skinned — the two time-stranded lovers were sitting at their dinner table, a big bowl of handmade food between them.

Dhae scrutinized the result with some suspicion. “How do you call this?”

“Hummus.”

“That’s certainly a decomposing earth substrate. You humans aren’t very good at naming things, are you?”

“Ehm. I hope you like it.”

Dhae, for all of his bravado, turned out to be quite hesitant before the first bite: he loaded the smallest possible amount onto the tip of a yellow carrot, inspected the beige paste with his eyes and then with the nose, and had to take a big breath before putting it in his mouth. His expression changed completely.

“By the Raptor!” he mumbled, and immediately tried to load as much hummus as he could onto his humble bit of carrot.

The Romulan ate a positively unwise amount of hummus in a positively short amount of time, all while mumbling.

“Why does the Federation keep things like this a secret from the rest of the galaxy?” he asked. “We should conquer you just to find out what culinary delights you hold.”

“Dhae, Dhae, by now you should know how happily I share. The question is why, with all of the spying and lurking that you Romulans do, you haven’t yet stolen a cookbook.”

Dhae shook his head, amused at a realization. “We probably have, which means that this has been kept from me by a Romulan!”

Iskander nodded. “There you go, you Romulans and your love for secrecy. I suggest you go to the Tal Shiar’s main building and raid their cooking database.”

For a moment Dhae seemed deadly serious. “Please do not say that even as a joke.”

The mood immediately lightened as Dhae, undignified, cleaned the bowl using his finger. “We have to eat this again.”

“It took ten of our days to have it delivered, you know? And I don’t think I have enough leverage to have a shuttle made into a delivery mule. But, when you get out of the Underspace, you’ll surely be able to get chickpeas imported.”

Dhae’s mood soured again very quickly at those words. “Yes. When we get out of the Underspace.”

“Yes.”

Dhae took on staring at the bowl with an undecipherable expression.

“You can talk to me, Dhae. This secret isn’t going to kill you.”

“You have been learning against — learning about Romulan society. What do you know of how we love?”

Iskander knew quite well. It was a common topic in the books he read, along with obedience to the State. He answered carefully. “You love in depth, and when that love ends, your next love shall be even deeper.”

“My previous lover was amongst the 150 who died.”

That was unexpected. Iskander gulped. “I am really sorry to hear that.”

“We are both survivors of our previous lover, aren’t we.”

“Have you had time to mourn?”

Dhae shrugged. “Romulans do not mourn as humans do. We honour the dead by renewing our passion for love. What I mean is: it is not too early for me to be in a relationship. But it could be too far a relationship if you are onboard the Redding, deep within Federation space. You know… when we get out of the Underspace.”

Iskander sighed deeply. “I know how you feel. We are not different in this.”

They stared into each other eyes, without finding words. Our of the large window, the Underspace seemed to boil and glow in its orange, horrible splendour.

Dhae spoke, finally. His voice was deep and raspier than usual. “What can we do, Iskander?”

“We will honour the dead by surviving this. And, I don’t know how, we find a way to honour what we have found here.”

As they stood, Dhae pulled Iskander close and kissed him. He preferred to kiss him on the neck and not on the mouth, and did so with surprising care. Later, while remembering the moment, Iskander wondered whether that had been the first time that Dhae had initiated the kiss.

Manifold X: the Last Flight of the Koruba

Romulan Bird-of-Prey Koruba, Underspace
September 2401

Iskander al-Kwaritzmi’s personal log, day 36 in the Underspace: last log of the day before going to bed. The recrystallization of the singularity virtualizor is 94.3% done. I am still extremely torn. This means that soon we’ll be able to try to escape the Underspace. If we manage, that will mean freedom and separation. I don’t know how to solve this emotional dilemma.

The alarm sounded during the night.

It was, of course, unfamiliar to Iskander in its sound and specific message — on a Federation ship it sounded vaguely like an electronic trumpet, but on the Koruba it resembled somewhat an insane percussionist — but the general idea was quite clear.

Both Iskander and Dhae jumped up from the bed, naked and confused, groggy from the little sleep. They looked at each other, finding only confusion and fear.

“Is this a red alert or a yellow alert?” was Iskander’s first question.

“We only have one type of alert” answered Dhae, his voice incredibly deep and smoky.

Iskander turned to take his trousers, but in doing so he looked out of the window of Dhae’s cabin. The Undercroft looked different.

That’s a first, he thought for a moment. But then the alert signals came into his head. It had never looked like that: the amount of junk and detritus Iskander could see from the window was extraordinary. Usually they would see a couple of broken ships or unfortunate asteroids, out there, floating in the orange chaos, but now he couldn’t even count the number of dots, large and small, that was to be seen.

“Dhae!” he said, nervously. “Look there.”

Dhae went to the window and looked out. For a moment he froze and his expression showed terror.

“Dhae! What is it?”

The Romulan had to try twice to speak. “It’s… we call it the Undertide. A tide in the Underspace.”

“You have already seen it?”

“It’s the phenomenon that damaged the Koruba. Iskander… we are dead.”

Iskander, looking out, could now see that the junk and detritus came in all shapes and sizes. For a moment he could swear to see a dead Galaxy-class starship: and the whole thing was coming their way.

“It’s actually a distortion in time” said Dhae nervously, ever the scientist. “It’s not an actual tide. The time distortions somehow bond to some of the junk and take it with them.”

“And accelerate them?”

“No, the junk is still traveling at relatively low velocity. But time accelerates around them: from their point of view, they are slowly drifting through space. But, from our point of view, their movement happens thousands, if not millions, of times faster.”

Iskander cursed under his breath.

“I’m sorry, Iskander” said Dhae, looking out. “We are dead. The tide will be upon us much sooner than we realize — time is its ally. The Koruba was almost destroyed, last time this happened. And if not, another of our allies will be hit, and we’ll never manage to emanate the tachyon field.”

“No.”

“Iskander –“

At that moment, the intercom of the ship sounded. A loud voice, towering above the alarm, in a neutral voice. “Sublieutenant Dhae. Code 3. Code 3.”

Iskander looked at Dhae. “Code 3?”

Dhae breathed. “They want us to put the virtualizor back in. What are they thinking? It’s not ready.”

Iskander took his trousers and put them on. “I can tell you what they are thinking: if we don’t emit a tachyon field escape now, then we’re going to get destroyed by the junk flung at us by the Undertide.”

Dhae shook his head. He was still naked, and looked vulnerable. “The virtualizor isn’t ready. It’s probably around 95%.”

“You know what? Sure. And I’m going to run to main engineering and put it back into the artificial singularity engine. And I’m going to make sure that it works.”

Dhae stared at him. “And if it doesn’t?”

“Dead if we stay here, dead if we fail. What choice do we have?”

Dhae shook his head, but couldn’t find anything to object. “Do you need help?”

“I’ll manage. It’s better you run to the bridge and inform them about the status, Dhae.”

Dhae nodded, nervous. “When you are done, please come to the bridge.”

“Am I welcome to the bridge?”

“The engineering position on the bridge is where — hm — monitoring is most efficient.”

Iskander looked at Dhae. He had looked slightly away when saying that. “Are you keeping a secret from me, Romulan?”

Dhae scoffed. “Fine. If we die, then you die at my side. Now go.”

Iskander kissed him lightly and then looked him over. This might be the last time they see each other. But he forced himself to smile. “We’re not going to die.”

The human ran out of their quarters thinking that it was, somehow, justified that the Romulans kept so many secrets. They probably didn’t want the galaxy to know what adorably big softies they were when in love.

______________________________________________________________

The recrystallization process had been around 94.6%. The machine hadn’t been happy to interrupt the process at this point, but Iskander gave it little choice. Working as rapidly as possible he reinserted the virtualizor where it belonged, and restarted the machinery.

It whirred back to life and didn’t explode. The artificial singularity was producing energy within parameters, enough to generate any tachyon field and to go to warp. The question now was how long it would last: hours or minutes or seconds? Iskander had no understanding of how an artificial singularity really operated in time, and didn’t have any useful heuristics. He knew that a dilithium crystal in the same state would probably shatter very quickly, and hoped that the virtualizor wasn’t equally sensitive.

Nervous, he pressed the big button that signaled that the artificial singularity was ready. It was now out of his hands.

He ran out of main engineering, heading for the slowside.

_____________________________________________________________

The bridge was small and had an unusual planimetry. Iskander had recollected that there were two schools of bridge engineering amongst the Romulans: some bridges resembled their Federation equivalents, with a commanding officer sitting in the middle and command panels with chairs positioned around them; and some bridges were dominated by a large central panel around which everyone worked, standing.

This was a bridge of the second making: a roughly dodecagonal room build around a large dodecagonal command panels. In its centre, a column that went up to the ceiling.

It was also crowded. Iskander for a moment wondered if all 17 surviving Romulans were packed in there, but then thought that probably the cook wasn’t.

The Romulans turned to stare at him, with a certain hostility.

“Sublieutenant Dhae” said a Romulan man with the insignias of a Centurion, “did you ask the human to come to the bridge?”

“We need an engineer on the bridge, Centurion” answered Dhae without a trace of emotion.

The Centurion seemed displeased, but finally looked at Iskander and pointed. “Lieutenant, please take that position and monitor the artificial singularity.”

Iskander nodded and went there. He glanced at the monitors: there was all the information about the engineering systems, the ODS grid, the artificial singularity. All within parameters.

“Thirty second until we have achieved position” said a Romulan woman, probably the pilot.

The Centurion nodded. “The alien ships?”

Another woman, probably at the tactical position, looked over her readings. “They are all at the coordinates, waiting for us.”

“Is the tachyon pulse ready?”

“Yes, Centurion” answered Dhae. “At your command.”

The Centurion nodded slowly. He didn’t have a position at the dodecagonal command panel, preferring instead to walk around it and observe what everyone was doing. “Sublieutenant V’Syanisk, open a channel to all, audio only. This is the Koruba. We are going to emit the tachyon beam as soon as we are in position. Do follow our lead. Koruba out.”

“The other ships have confirmed, Centurion” reported Sublieutenant V’Syanisk.

“Position reached, Centurion” said the pilot.

“Full stop. How long until the Undertide hits us?”

“Minutes, Centurion” said the woman at tactical.

For a couple of seconds nobody spoke.

Only at that moment Iskander realized that there was a big screen in the bridge: one could see, lost in the Underspace, the other four ships, and the incoming wave of junk.

Everyone is terrified, thought Iskander. He was too, of course, for that was the only rational state of mind to be in.

Finally the Centurion spoke, in hushed tones. “Science, initiate tachyon pulse. Navigator, lay a warp course out of the Underspace, ready at my signal.”

Iskander could easily see the output in power of the artificial singularity increase enormously as the tachyon pulse was being produced. If the virtualizor was to break, it would break now, he thought. And yet… it didn’t. Twenty seconds passed, during which nobody spoke, and the artificial singularity was still producing energy.

“We did it!” said Dhae, trying not to scream. “No time distortion on our ship! Centurion, we did it!”

On the screen, the ships started vanishing with the typical flash of light of the Warp drive. The Dopterians were the first.

“Go to warp” said the Centurion to the pilot.

They jumped to warp and immediately alarms started blaring. The pattern of starlines on he screen didn’t seem normal.

“The Warp field is not stable” said the pilot, in terror. “We are going to fall out of Warp.”

“WHAT!” screamed the Centurion, completely losing his Romulan calm. “What’s happening, human?”

“The artificial singularity is working correctly” said Iskander.

“I’m detecting massive data corruption in the computer, Centurion” intervened a Romulan who had not yet spoken, a small male, probably the youngest. “Fatal desynchronization of the central server.”

A LOVELACE CASCADE, thought Iskander, now also terrified.

They had travelled. The slowside and the fastside were now experiencing time at the same rate. But the parts of the computer that had been on the slowside and those who had been on the fastside had been programmed to communicate with each other taking into account the time distortion for all of those 36 days. But as soon as the Koruba had moved, the slowside and fastside hardware hadn’t been reset properly, and had started communicating at incommensurate times: some hardware sending data fifty times faster than expected, some hardware receiving data fifty times slower than expected.

The first result was a feedback shutter, a series of local desynchronizations of single machines and devices, mostly leading to error messages or shutdowns. But, if the feedback shutter was too severe, the central computer banks would start being affected: that was a non-lineare Lovelace cascade, a phenomenon capable of completely corrupting the entire computer.

Needless to say, on a starship where everything was done by the computer, that meant death. A slow death. It would take hours for the data corruption to reach something vital like life support or the artificial singularity containment system, but whenever that happened life on the ship would be over.

“IT WAS YOUR JOB TO PREVENT THIS!” roared the Centurion to the young Romulan. “DO SOMETHING.”

“Nothing can be done” opined Iskander quietly. He really hated to be the bearer of bad news, especially ones related to everyone’s impending demise. But he could see now traces of data corruption on his monitors: gradually, the first engineering systems were shutting down.

“We did all of this and we only succeeded to save the Dopterians?” screamed the Centurion. “The plan worked and we’re being destroyed by something unrelated?”

“Are we out of the Underspace, Uhlan?” asked the woman at tactical.

“Negative. If we lose warp now, we’re falling back into the Underspace” answered the pilot.

In a move of absolute unprofessionalism, the Centurion stormed out of the bridge. Everyone started talking and shouting.

Who knew that panicking Romulans are so unruly, thought Iskander, breathing deeply.

Suddenly he became aware that Dhae was standing next to him. They hugged.

Dhae whispered something in his ear. “There is something I want you to know. My name.”

Iskander didn’t understand. “Your name?”

“I am called Ishvanyl.”

Iskander stared at him without understanding.

The Koruba shook violently. Everyone looked at the screen.

“We have lost the warp bubble” said the pilot.

“We haven’t fallen out of Warp” remarked the tactical officer.

The Koruba shook again, and again, but the starlines on the screen didn’t change. Finally it stopped shaking, and it was still going at warp.

Dhae went back to his command panel and took a moment to understand.

“What happened, Sublieutenant? Why are we still at warp?” asked the pilot.

“The shaking was a tractor beam” said Dhae, enormously pleased. “It was a tractor beam!”

The USS Redding, a most humble California-class starship, flew out the Underspace carrying in its Warp bubble a crippled Romulan bird-of-prey.

Manifold XI: Epilogue

Nu Epinorum, Betazed Sector, Federation space
September 2401

Lieutenant al-Kwaritzmi’s log, stardate… out of the Underspace: the Redding saved the day, carrying the dying Koruba out of the Underspace. The seventeen surviving Romulans and me have been beamed aboard the Redding as the bird-of-prey is suffering a catastrophic computer failure that will destroy it.

Iskander was definitely low on energy, so he went to the replicator and ordered a third coffee. He might have gone to sleep, but on the Redding it was early Beta shift, and it would have completely messed up his rest habits.

Since returning from the Koruba, a few hours ago, not much had happened. The two ships had re-emerged roughly one hundred light-years from where the Redding had been before falling into the Underspace — not a big jump for the Federation ship, but a very long way from home for the Romulans, who were also devoid of a ship. They had been taken under custody by the security officers and were probably being given provisional lodgings: the Romulan Republic was nominally a friendly power to the Federation, and good-will gestures were expected.

The pilot of the Redding was being celebrated as the hero of the day: the manoeuvre to catch the Romulan bird-of-prey while it was starting to tumble out of Warp had been exceedingly complicated and had risked both vessels; navigating the Underworld with twice the mass on the engines had also proven a challenge. The pilot would probably get a promotion out of this feat: Iskander would probably pass by and thank her at some point in the following days.

Out of the window of the Reddaurant — the Redding‘s infamously named bar — the bird-of-prey could be seen dying it slow death. Main power had already gone out, making it nothing more than a dark silhouette hard to be distinguished from the stars in the background. Iskander had lived there for more than a month, but didn’t consider it to have been his home in any way.

It was funny how time had passed in the Underspace: for him it had been more than a month, for the crew of the Redding it had been a couple of days, and for the rest of the galaxy it had been seven minutes.

Iskander stared out of the window, trying not to doze off, until something caught his eye: a Romulan had entered. His excitement at the idea that it could be Dhae — it would be perfectly in character for him to find his way to an eatery — was short lived, though: it was the young uhlan whom he had met on the bridge, the one who had been blamed for not preventing the Lovelace cascade.

The Romulan ordered something at the bar and picked a table. Iskander, on a whim, picked up his coffee and approached.

Jolan’tru” said Iskander.

The young Romulan looked at him with suspicion, then somewhat relaxed. He didn’t seem happy. He had ditched his uniform, preferring instead quite bland civilian clothing.

“Lieutenant” greeted him the Romulan. “It is agreeable to see a known face.”

“Likewise. Could I sit for a moment? I would like to ask a question.”

The Romulan made a permissive gesture and Iskander sat. Then he took a sip of the drink he had just ordered and grimaced. “That’s not what I ordered.”

“Did the Tellarite at the bar serve you? He’s new. Nothing can be done, uhlan — if you tell him that he’s made a mistake, he’ll try again and invariably get it wrong in a new, unexpected way.”

“Please do not address me as uhlan.”

“Apologies. I must have misheard your rank.”

The Romulan breathed deeply.

“You didn’t, Lieutenant, but I’m sure that my rank isn’t for long yet. I failed to prevent a critical mass desynchronisation of the computer. My career in the Romulan Republic military has ended.”

Iskander looked out at the bird-of-prey. He knew that the artificial singularity containment field had stopped working when its software had corrupted; the artificial singularity had escaped and, now morphing into a black hole, was consuming the ship. Soon the Koruba would be completely attracted and engulfed into its former source of power; the Redding would drop a black hole buoy and that would be the end of it.

“Were you qualified for that task?”

The Romulan grimaced again. “That is irrelevant. The ship is lost. Our Centurion, who abandoned his post out of frustration, will be similarly expelled. Sublieutenant Dhae, despite having come up with the plan to use a tachyon field, will most likely also follow.”

“He didn’t do anything!” protested Iskander, immediately regretting the defensive tone he had automatically assumed.

“He broke protocol at least seven times on the bridge” replied the soon-to-be-former uhlan, “mostly by insisting that you be present. Also, his rule-breaking use of the holosuite has been noted.”

Iskander could say nothing.

“The ship is lost, and so is the crew, Lieutenant.”

Iskander sipped his coffee.

“But you wanted to ask me something, Lieutenant.”

“Right! What is the meaning of names amongst Romulans?”

The young Romulan raised his eyebrows.

“Each of us has three names, Lieutenant. One is used in public by strangers and colleagues. One is used by the family. But the last, the true name, can only be known by the one that your heart has been given to. Why do you ask?”

Iskander breathed deeply. Dhae had given him his name, and Iskander wasn’t family. He swallowed. “I am going to have to keep that a secret, uhlan.”