String Theory, Book 2: Fusion (Mass Market Paperback)

The disruption in the space-time continuum caused by the creation of the "Blue Eye" singularity continues: Thread by thread, the fabric slowly frays and peels away, breaking down barriers between dimensions. As the lines between realities blur, the consequences cascade.

Voyager pursues Tuvok to a long-dormant space station, a place of astonishing grandeur and wonder. Ancient almost beyond imagining, the city seduces the crew with the promise that their greatest aspirations might be realized. Such promise requires sacrifice, however, and the price of fulfilling them will be high for Voyager.

Unseen sentries, alarmed by Voyager's meddling in the Monoharansystem, send emissaries to ascertain Janeway's intentions. Unbeknownst to the captain, she is being tested and must persuade her evaluators that their contention -- that Voyager poses a threat to the delicate web of cosmic ecology -- is baseless. And failure to vindicate her choices will bring certain retribution to her crew.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Tuvok was conscious of the song from the first fraction of a second that he began to emerge from his meditative state. He gradually roused himself through the stages of alertness; awareness of the weight of his limbs, his slow, rhythmic breathing, the hum of the shuttle's engines, the soft caress of the environmental controls setting the cabin temperature much warmer than most humans would be comfortable with. Finally, as he recalled where he was, and how he had come to be here, the intensity of the music threatened to plunge his Vulcan restraint into chaos.

With the precision only years of rigorous training in the Temple of Amonak had given him discipline to master, he forced the passion, the longing, and the unutterable pain into the recesses of his mind, and only when he was certain that he, and not the music, was in control did he open his eyes.

"Computer..."

The computer replied with a chirp, awaiting his command.

"What is our current heading?"

The cool voice devoid of all emotion answered as expected. "Current heading remains unchanged: one six seven mark one four."

"Estimate arrival at the singularity."

"One hour, twenty-seven minutes, eleven seconds."

Exactly as he had anticipated.

With great care, Tuvok rose from his knees next to the shuttle bunk, and sat on its edge. He shifted his focus inward, until he had counted exactly one hundred times the quarter of a second between each beat of his heart, and satisfied himself that no matter what, it would continue to beat at precisely the same rate, substantially slower than the normal Vulcan resting heart rate, until he allowed it to do otherwise.

He then turned his attention to the corner of his mind where he had placed the music. It had been a desperate struggle over the last nine hours to maintain his ability to perform even the most rudimentary exercises of piloting the shuttle, but finally he had forced the living presence that now shared his mind into a section of his consciousness that he could examine at will.

He was certain he was experiencing a telepathic communication, source unknown. He had considered the possibility that he might be suffering from an as of yet indefinable side effect of the strange properties of Monorhan space and subspace to which he and all of Voyager's crew had recently been exposed. And after careful consideration, he had dismissed that theory.

The presence that called to him was alive. Its life, though painful and somehow disconnected...no...stuck in between...whatever that meant...was more than life, at least life as he had known it during his hundred-plus years of existence. And somehow, it knew him.

Tuvok.

Vulcan.

Head of security.

Husband.

Father.

Friend.

Traveler far from home.

It saw beneath the disciplined walls of self-control that fortified him against passions and emotional extremes that most humanoid species could only imagine, but all Vulcans knew intuitively as the enemy of stability, logic, and reason. It lived in these extremes and somehow managed to survive them without fear. It contained...no...experienced all that was possible, and merged that reality into harmony that his mind could almost, but not quite, hold. But it was somehow incomplete. The deepest notes, which pounded discordantly against the simplicity and beauty of the rest of the song, were sounds that spoke of yearning...need...desperate painful desire...for home.

But what would an entity of such vast and incomprehensible variety call home?

It was pointless, for now, to even attempt to imagine. It was enough for Tuvok that this presence had effortlessly compromised the deep and secure defenses of pure logic and reason that guided every moment of his life, and forced him to face the desires that he had never allowed himself to feel. They met upon this common ground. They both wanted...needed...desired home.

He was absolutely confident that when he found the source of the song, he would be able to somehow translate the nature of the communication and enter into dialogue with it.

That or it would drive him mad.

Either way, it was a journey best undertaken alone. Whether he succeeded or failed, he felt obligated to fully understand the nature of the presence and any threat it might pose to Voyager. Though to be absolutely accurate, part of him knew already that Voyager was not of intrinsic interest to it, because Voyager was an object with which it could not communicate. It needed someone to know...to help. It needed Tuvok.

The possibility that he would not survive this mission was very real. But, he reasoned, he had already been given up for dead on more than one occasion by his family, both genetic on Vulcan, and adopted in Starfleet. While he was certain they would mourn his loss, in time they would come to terms with their grief and integrate it into themselves in a way that brought meaning to both his life and theirs. That was the worst-case scenario. Much more likely, he would return from an unauthorized absence of a few days, give a full report of his findings to the captain, accept an official reprimand on his record, and return to his duties.

Had he been capable of feeling irony, he would have found it appropriate to describe the reality that the four years he had spent facing violent death at almost every turn while serving as Captain Kathryn Janeway's chief of security on Voyager had bought him, and all of the colleagues who had made that journey with him, a certain amount of latitude. It was not as if any deviation from standard protocol would be looked on lightly, but experience had shown that their odds of survival would have been seriously reduced were it not for the creative thinking and occasional renegade impulses that seemed required of most of the senior officers from time to time. Such ingenuity had saved their lives on more occasions than Tuv