Star Trek: The Next Generation "Belly of the Whale"
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From: mcmelmon@btr.btr.com
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: Belly of the Whale - final
Message-ID: <6298@public.BTR.COM>
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:46:49 GMT
Sender: mcmelmon@public.BTR.COM
Distribution: na
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM
Lines: 475
Scene IV
[Blackness cut by a narrow band of light. Rising through the
band, the Enterprise. Flood-lamps flare along the rim of her
saucer,
their glare reflecting off pale skeletons of steel.
Enterprise bridge.]
Worf: We have lost direct contact with the T'Kiar and
R'Shal. As expected, Captain. Establishing contact via probe
links.
[The Highest strides towards the main viewing screen. She
stops before it, cutting an imposing profile.]
Attendant: The Highest senses a mind.
Picard: A mind? Singular?
Attendant: Singular. A primitive mind. Barely sentient.
Troi: It's true, Captain. I can feel it as well. Primitive,
yet vast.
Data: I do not understand. How can a mind be 'vast?' and
yet 'primitive?'
Troi: I don't understand, either. It feels as if I am
surrounded by thoughts - or more rather, feelings - but all
emanate from the same entity.
Data: I do not think that would be possible.
Attendant: Quite possible, android. This ship is alive.
Killpatrick: You mean, we're in the belly of a whale!?
Attendant: Your metaphor pleases the Highest.
Troi: The full spectrum of emotional activity one would
expect in a truly animate creature is not present.
Picard: An artificial life-form?
Troi: Very possible.
Data: We are nearing the fore section of the craft. As
their initial programming did not anticipate the super-
structure, the probes did not penetrate this far.
Picard: Meaning we may yet bump into something.
Data: A possibility. We are detecting a massive structure
ahead, Captain. A wall. We should clear enough of the super-
structure that our lamps will illuminate it's complex
surface soon.
Riker: Complex?
Data: According to sensors, reliefs and embossings mark the
surface. On a very large scale. From an averaged base,
projections and valleys occur to plus and minus seven
meters...
[Picard rises from his chair. He steps towards the screen,
until he stands by the Highest's side. Light from the
Enterprise begins to illuminate the wall. We see shapes.
Humanoid shapes taking part in a colossal dance, not unlike
those which grace the ceilings of palaces and churches of
Renaissance Italy.
From space, we see the Enterprise stopped before the wall.
Her flood lamps stream across it as far as we can see.
Throughout this range, the wall is flat, and the figures
continue to dance.]
ACT V
Scene I
[Enterprise bridge.]
Picard [voice-over]: Captain's log, supplemental. In the
belly of the whale. We have found what we believe to be a
portal. Remarkable in that we can find no others. The hull
of the vessel blocks both our scanners and transporter.
Access to the Behemoth proper thus apparently limited to a
single, small entrance. Not much larger than a shuttle
craft. Commander Data has left the Enterprise in an attempt
to open this door.
Worf: The R'Shal reports Vulcan industrial vessel Ch'iar
and Federation battleship Yamato arriving, Captain.
Picard: Excellent. Request the R'Shal join us. Have the
Ch'iar begin salvage operations on the Nadia.
Riker: Don't like the idea of being alone in here any
longer than necessary either, Captain?
Picard: No, Number One. I do not.
Worf: Data hailing us from Shuttle 4.
Picard: Visual.
Data: I have been unable to find any mechanism for opening
this portal, Captain. In fact, I can find no automatic
systems at all.
Riker: Have you tried "Open Sesame?"
Data: No, Commander Riker. I am not familiar with that
device.
Attendant: There are no automatic systems. There is no
computer. Only the ship.
Riker: A starship without a computer?
Attendant: Correct. This vessel is alive. It must be
treated as such.
Picard: Then perhaps "Open Sesame" is the right idea,
Number One.
Data: Forgive me, Captain. Could you explain what "Open
Sesame" is?
Picard: Not now, Data.
Riker: You're suggesting we ask to be let in?
Picard: Right, Number One.
Killpatrick: But ask who? We've been hailing for hours.
Haven't gotten a peep back yet.
Picard: We've been asking the wrong way.
Data: Ah, 'Open Sesame...' Taken from the myth of 'Ali Baba
and the Thousand Thieves.' The magic words which, when
spoken, would open the cave used by...
Riker: Data...
Haifa: I believe I understand.
Picard: Prepare for a guest, Data.
Scene II
[Haifa floats by the great wall. Data floats near her. Her
gloved hand brushes against the surface. For a moment, she
is still.
She takes a hold of the glove with her other hand and begins
to remove it.]
Data: That is not wise, Commander. We are still in deep
space. The elbow pressure point will protect the rest of
your body, but you could loose your forearm to the extreme
cold.
Haifa: I must touch the ship.
Picard: Transporter Room. Lock on Commander Haifa. Energize
on my command. Dr. Crusher, prepare for a case of severe
frostbite.
[Haifa removes her glove. Air puffs from the forearm section
of her suite. Frost crystallizes along her fingers. We can
see the bulge of veins. She touches the wall of the ship
gingerly.
Haifa: Open.
[Light flares along the periphery of the small circular
portal. It moves back several meters, then slides to the
left, revealing a dock slightly larger than the shuttle
craft.
Killpatrick: That's my girl!
Picard: Energize.
Scene III
[Enterprise sick bay. Haifa lays on a platform. Dr. Crusher
finishes examining her arm with a monitoring device.]
Beverly: That was very brave. And very foolish. It'll be
awhile before you have full use of your fingers again.
Haifa: I understand.
[The Highest and her attendant enter. Dr. Crusher does not
recognize her. The Highest touches Haifa's head tenderly.
Several moments pass.]
Attendant: You were not happy on Vulcan.
Haifa: There is no happiness on Vulcan.
Attendant: You did not consider it home. Did you feel ill
treated?
Haifa: I was treated as a Vulcan.
Attendant: And this did not please you?
Haifa: I am not a Vulcan.
Scene IV
Picard, the Highest, and her Attendant move quickly down a
corridor aboard the Enterprise.
Picard [voice-over]: Captain's log, supplemental. The inner
door of the docking chamber does not possess enough of the
outer hull's unidentifiable materials to block our
transporter. This provides us a window of opportunity
into the main ship. Captain Killpatrick has already lead an
away team, comprised primarily of his own crew. Their
training in infiltration and commando activities made them
ideal for the first-in scenario. They report no signs of
life.
[Enterprise transporter room. Riker, Worf, and Data ready
themselves on the platform. Picard enters. Behind him, the
Highest and her Attendant.]
Riker: Is it wise...?
Picard: The Highest insisted.
Riker: Even so...
Picard [interrupting]: Argument is useless, Number One
Riker: Energize.
The team materializes within a cavernous chamber, not unlike
the lobby of a hotel, on a truly enormous scale. On three
walls of the square, rising up almost beyond sight, are tier
after tier of balconies. Everything covered in baroque
carvings. A graceful, arching double-door marks the fourth
wall - several stories tall itself. Above that, a
hanging banner emblazoned with a coat-of-arms. Killpatrick
walks over to the new arrivals.]
Killpatrick: Pretty spectacular, eh Picard? This room here,
about a hundred meters square. Must be eighty stories up
that way. Rooms spread out and out and out. It'll take weeks
to go through the whole thing. I've pulled my men back to
form a perimeter. If something wanders over, we'll be ready.
Picard: Have you opened those?
Killpatrick: No. Haifa thought the Highest would be coming.
Thought she'd like to open them.
Riker: And if there's something on the other side?
Attendant? Then we shall know soon enough. Where is
Commander Haifa?
Killpatrick: Checking the perimeter. Always a soldier, that
girl...
Attendant: Please tell her we are grateful.
[The Highest walks across the chamber. She places her hand
on the smooth, metallic surface. The doors shimmer slightly
as they sweep back silently.]
Attendant: Truly a fascinating vessel. It shall take far
longer than weeks, Captain Killpatrick, to investigate it's
complexities.
[The group passes between the doors. They enter another
cavernous chamber, though smaller than the first. Darker as
well. And littered with towering mound after towering mound
of glittering, broken swords. A path leads through the
useless weapons. It ends before a glossy black disk, raised
slightly from the floor.
Picard: What is it, Data?
Data: It would appear to be some manner of projector,
Captain. Holographic.
[The Highest's kneels, placing her hand upon the surface. A
brilliant image chases away the darkness. An incredibly
tall, fiercely beautiful woman with billowing silver hair.
She begins to speak, but at first her words are foreign and
cannot be understood. A look of concentration washes over
the Highest's face. The words become clearer.]
Data: Fascinating, Captain. The Highest is interacting with
this vessel to translate the words as they are spoken.
Woman: ...Lady Niam, Empress on Avelos. But this is all
that remains of my empire. Empty chambers and broken swords.
But even that is more than all the others. Their kingdoms,
ash. Their people, dead. Forty millennia of star-spanning
civilization. Ended. These, the fruits of my strength, now
stand as mute testimony to our weakness.
[As Lady Niam speaks, other images flash by. A whirling
galaxy. A planet. Massive ships like the Behemoth disgorging
swarms of smaller craft. Titanic struggle. Then nothing.
Just the Empress. Her head bowed.
Lady Niam: Our failing... But perhaps all shall not be ash.
Here, in the holds of ships within this ship, the life of
those worlds - in vanity - I called mine. Primitive life.
'Foolish,' my generals screamed at me. Foolish to waste so
valuable a carrier - the greatest in space - on animals.
'Mere' animals. But it is they who were foolish. They who
could not see. Why could they not see? From the lowly come
the high. Perhaps it shall not be as it was, the second time
around?
[The image vanishes. An uncomfortable blackness returns. The
Highest stands.]
Attendant: There is no more. Nothing.
Data: The galaxy shown in the holograph matches what we
call Andromeda. Apparently, this vessel has crossed the
intergalactic void, to escape the calamity of warfare.
Riker: What does it all mean?
Worf: From the lowly come the high? Second time around? And
ships within this ship? Where did they go?
Riker: Escape with nothing but animals? Why wouldn't the
Empress escape herself? With her people. A carrier of this
size could hold perhaps hundreds of thousands.
Attendant: You do not see. They did escape.
Riker: In the ships this vessel carried? She said only
animals...
Picard: Perhaps they are us?
Riker: Captain?
Picard: Noah's ark, Number One. 'The second time around.' A
second chance. The Empress understood the process of nature.
From animals come successively higher forms of life.
Data:'From the lowly come the high.' It could be, Captain.
And it would help to explain the similarities of alien life
throughout the range of our travels. Though it would place
this ship's age in the hundreds of millions of years.
Riker: Which I find rather difficult to accept.
Picard: There may be other explanations, Number One.
Granted. But imagine. A common thread, woven through all of
our histories. Imagine.
[We rise into the darkness, looking down at the team,
surrounded by the broken swords. Light falls on them from
the open door, itself shaped like a dagger.
From: mcmelmon@btr.btr.com
Newsgroups: alt.startrek.creative
Subject: Belly of the Whale - final
Message-ID: <6298@public.BTR.COM>
Date: 15 Apr 92 16:46:49 GMT
Sender: mcmelmon@public.BTR.COM
Distribution: na
Organization: BTR Public Access UNIX, MtnView CA. Contact: Customer Service cs@BTR.COM
Lines: 475
Scene IV
[Blackness cut by a narrow band of light. Rising through the
band, the Enterprise. Flood-lamps flare along the rim of her
saucer,
their glare reflecting off pale skeletons of steel.
Enterprise bridge.]
Worf: We have lost direct contact with the T'Kiar and
R'Shal. As expected, Captain. Establishing contact via probe
links.
[The Highest strides towards the main viewing screen. She
stops before it, cutting an imposing profile.]
Attendant: The Highest senses a mind.
Picard: A mind? Singular?
Attendant: Singular. A primitive mind. Barely sentient.
Troi: It's true, Captain. I can feel it as well. Primitive,
yet vast.
Data: I do not understand. How can a mind be 'vast?' and
yet 'primitive?'
Troi: I don't understand, either. It feels as if I am
surrounded by thoughts - or more rather, feelings - but all
emanate from the same entity.
Data: I do not think that would be possible.
Attendant: Quite possible, android. This ship is alive.
Killpatrick: You mean, we're in the belly of a whale!?
Attendant: Your metaphor pleases the Highest.
Troi: The full spectrum of emotional activity one would
expect in a truly animate creature is not present.
Picard: An artificial life-form?
Troi: Very possible.
Data: We are nearing the fore section of the craft. As
their initial programming did not anticipate the super-
structure, the probes did not penetrate this far.
Picard: Meaning we may yet bump into something.
Data: A possibility. We are detecting a massive structure
ahead, Captain. A wall. We should clear enough of the super-
structure that our lamps will illuminate it's complex
surface soon.
Riker: Complex?
Data: According to sensors, reliefs and embossings mark the
surface. On a very large scale. From an averaged base,
projections and valleys occur to plus and minus seven
meters...
[Picard rises from his chair. He steps towards the screen,
until he stands by the Highest's side. Light from the
Enterprise begins to illuminate the wall. We see shapes.
Humanoid shapes taking part in a colossal dance, not unlike
those which grace the ceilings of palaces and churches of
Renaissance Italy.
From space, we see the Enterprise stopped before the wall.
Her flood lamps stream across it as far as we can see.
Throughout this range, the wall is flat, and the figures
continue to dance.]
ACT V
Scene I
[Enterprise bridge.]
Picard [voice-over]: Captain's log, supplemental. In the
belly of the whale. We have found what we believe to be a
portal. Remarkable in that we can find no others. The hull
of the vessel blocks both our scanners and transporter.
Access to the Behemoth proper thus apparently limited to a
single, small entrance. Not much larger than a shuttle
craft. Commander Data has left the Enterprise in an attempt
to open this door.
Worf: The R'Shal reports Vulcan industrial vessel Ch'iar
and Federation battleship Yamato arriving, Captain.
Picard: Excellent. Request the R'Shal join us. Have the
Ch'iar begin salvage operations on the Nadia.
Riker: Don't like the idea of being alone in here any
longer than necessary either, Captain?
Picard: No, Number One. I do not.
Worf: Data hailing us from Shuttle 4.
Picard: Visual.
Data: I have been unable to find any mechanism for opening
this portal, Captain. In fact, I can find no automatic
systems at all.
Riker: Have you tried "Open Sesame?"
Data: No, Commander Riker. I am not familiar with that
device.
Attendant: There are no automatic systems. There is no
computer. Only the ship.
Riker: A starship without a computer?
Attendant: Correct. This vessel is alive. It must be
treated as such.
Picard: Then perhaps "Open Sesame" is the right idea,
Number One.
Data: Forgive me, Captain. Could you explain what "Open
Sesame" is?
Picard: Not now, Data.
Riker: You're suggesting we ask to be let in?
Picard: Right, Number One.
Killpatrick: But ask who? We've been hailing for hours.
Haven't gotten a peep back yet.
Picard: We've been asking the wrong way.
Data: Ah, 'Open Sesame...' Taken from the myth of 'Ali Baba
and the Thousand Thieves.' The magic words which, when
spoken, would open the cave used by...
Riker: Data...
Haifa: I believe I understand.
Picard: Prepare for a guest, Data.
Scene II
[Haifa floats by the great wall. Data floats near her. Her
gloved hand brushes against the surface. For a moment, she
is still.
She takes a hold of the glove with her other hand and begins
to remove it.]
Data: That is not wise, Commander. We are still in deep
space. The elbow pressure point will protect the rest of
your body, but you could loose your forearm to the extreme
cold.
Haifa: I must touch the ship.
Picard: Transporter Room. Lock on Commander Haifa. Energize
on my command. Dr. Crusher, prepare for a case of severe
frostbite.
[Haifa removes her glove. Air puffs from the forearm section
of her suite. Frost crystallizes along her fingers. We can
see the bulge of veins. She touches the wall of the ship
gingerly.
Haifa: Open.
[Light flares along the periphery of the small circular
portal. It moves back several meters, then slides to the
left, revealing a dock slightly larger than the shuttle
craft.
Killpatrick: That's my girl!
Picard: Energize.
Scene III
[Enterprise sick bay. Haifa lays on a platform. Dr. Crusher
finishes examining her arm with a monitoring device.]
Beverly: That was very brave. And very foolish. It'll be
awhile before you have full use of your fingers again.
Haifa: I understand.
[The Highest and her attendant enter. Dr. Crusher does not
recognize her. The Highest touches Haifa's head tenderly.
Several moments pass.]
Attendant: You were not happy on Vulcan.
Haifa: There is no happiness on Vulcan.
Attendant: You did not consider it home. Did you feel ill
treated?
Haifa: I was treated as a Vulcan.
Attendant: And this did not please you?
Haifa: I am not a Vulcan.
Scene IV
Picard, the Highest, and her Attendant move quickly down a
corridor aboard the Enterprise.
Picard [voice-over]: Captain's log, supplemental. The inner
door of the docking chamber does not possess enough of the
outer hull's unidentifiable materials to block our
transporter. This provides us a window of opportunity
into the main ship. Captain Killpatrick has already lead an
away team, comprised primarily of his own crew. Their
training in infiltration and commando activities made them
ideal for the first-in scenario. They report no signs of
life.
[Enterprise transporter room. Riker, Worf, and Data ready
themselves on the platform. Picard enters. Behind him, the
Highest and her Attendant.]
Riker: Is it wise...?
Picard: The Highest insisted.
Riker: Even so...
Picard [interrupting]: Argument is useless, Number One
Riker: Energize.
The team materializes within a cavernous chamber, not unlike
the lobby of a hotel, on a truly enormous scale. On three
walls of the square, rising up almost beyond sight, are tier
after tier of balconies. Everything covered in baroque
carvings. A graceful, arching double-door marks the fourth
wall - several stories tall itself. Above that, a
hanging banner emblazoned with a coat-of-arms. Killpatrick
walks over to the new arrivals.]
Killpatrick: Pretty spectacular, eh Picard? This room here,
about a hundred meters square. Must be eighty stories up
that way. Rooms spread out and out and out. It'll take weeks
to go through the whole thing. I've pulled my men back to
form a perimeter. If something wanders over, we'll be ready.
Picard: Have you opened those?
Killpatrick: No. Haifa thought the Highest would be coming.
Thought she'd like to open them.
Riker: And if there's something on the other side?
Attendant? Then we shall know soon enough. Where is
Commander Haifa?
Killpatrick: Checking the perimeter. Always a soldier, that
girl...
Attendant: Please tell her we are grateful.
[The Highest walks across the chamber. She places her hand
on the smooth, metallic surface. The doors shimmer slightly
as they sweep back silently.]
Attendant: Truly a fascinating vessel. It shall take far
longer than weeks, Captain Killpatrick, to investigate it's
complexities.
[The group passes between the doors. They enter another
cavernous chamber, though smaller than the first. Darker as
well. And littered with towering mound after towering mound
of glittering, broken swords. A path leads through the
useless weapons. It ends before a glossy black disk, raised
slightly from the floor.
Picard: What is it, Data?
Data: It would appear to be some manner of projector,
Captain. Holographic.
[The Highest's kneels, placing her hand upon the surface. A
brilliant image chases away the darkness. An incredibly
tall, fiercely beautiful woman with billowing silver hair.
She begins to speak, but at first her words are foreign and
cannot be understood. A look of concentration washes over
the Highest's face. The words become clearer.]
Data: Fascinating, Captain. The Highest is interacting with
this vessel to translate the words as they are spoken.
Woman: ...Lady Niam, Empress on Avelos. But this is all
that remains of my empire. Empty chambers and broken swords.
But even that is more than all the others. Their kingdoms,
ash. Their people, dead. Forty millennia of star-spanning
civilization. Ended. These, the fruits of my strength, now
stand as mute testimony to our weakness.
[As Lady Niam speaks, other images flash by. A whirling
galaxy. A planet. Massive ships like the Behemoth disgorging
swarms of smaller craft. Titanic struggle. Then nothing.
Just the Empress. Her head bowed.
Lady Niam: Our failing... But perhaps all shall not be ash.
Here, in the holds of ships within this ship, the life of
those worlds - in vanity - I called mine. Primitive life.
'Foolish,' my generals screamed at me. Foolish to waste so
valuable a carrier - the greatest in space - on animals.
'Mere' animals. But it is they who were foolish. They who
could not see. Why could they not see? From the lowly come
the high. Perhaps it shall not be as it was, the second time
around?
[The image vanishes. An uncomfortable blackness returns. The
Highest stands.]
Attendant: There is no more. Nothing.
Data: The galaxy shown in the holograph matches what we
call Andromeda. Apparently, this vessel has crossed the
intergalactic void, to escape the calamity of warfare.
Riker: What does it all mean?
Worf: From the lowly come the high? Second time around? And
ships within this ship? Where did they go?
Riker: Escape with nothing but animals? Why wouldn't the
Empress escape herself? With her people. A carrier of this
size could hold perhaps hundreds of thousands.
Attendant: You do not see. They did escape.
Riker: In the ships this vessel carried? She said only
animals...
Picard: Perhaps they are us?
Riker: Captain?
Picard: Noah's ark, Number One. 'The second time around.' A
second chance. The Empress understood the process of nature.
From animals come successively higher forms of life.
Data:'From the lowly come the high.' It could be, Captain.
And it would help to explain the similarities of alien life
throughout the range of our travels. Though it would place
this ship's age in the hundreds of millions of years.
Riker: Which I find rather difficult to accept.
Picard: There may be other explanations, Number One.
Granted. But imagine. A common thread, woven through all of
our histories. Imagine.
[We rise into the darkness, looking down at the team,
surrounded by the broken swords. Light falls on them from
the open door, itself shaped like a dagger.
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