To Be A Seeker

[Shadow 0]

To Be A Seeker

 

Their energy was impure. Impure. Shadow struggled to explain what he meant to Kairi. Adding to his problem, the biological method of communication was also impure, primitive, and required so much expulsion of energy (much of which was wasted in the process), and was so inexact it defied Shadow’s efforts to convey ideas. To communicate with his own species or with a telepath, Shadow expended one wave of thought, its complexity varying with the complexity of the thought being conveyed. For him to communicate with a non-telepathic biological it required that same energy wave to pass through various systems throughout the biological body, only to be converted into sound and propelled through an atmosphere cluttered with other energies – the energy of the communications network, the energy in every console, every illuminating device, even the very energy that powered the various systems which enabled the ship to keep the biologicals alive in the alien environment they called space. They were, in essence, Renaissance characters maneuvering their elaborately costumed panniers awkwardly around a cluttered stage.

 

As a consequence, Shadow spent much time in the environs of the holodeck, where he could simultaneously absorb energy and interact with various programs that taught him to relate to and interact with these strange biological beings. The Harper had required him to assist the engineers with insuring that those who stole the three crewmen from Agincourt would not be able to steal more. But Shadow was a seeker, not an engineer.

 

And so he sat, face to face – figuratively speaking – with a conundrum. He considered the warp core and how, when it produced energy, it traveled through so many conduits to so many systems that by the end of its travels a mere 10% was left that actually produced the warp bubble that propelled the ship. He considered the shields that protected the ship from attack but did not protect the one from being stolen. The skin of the ship was all wrong. Instead of protecting the ship its metallic content acted as a conductor, allowing the pure energy of the others to penetrate the shields and steal the three. But how to explain this?

 

Packets of holodeck information flew around him. To solve the other problems he must communicate. He had tried to approximate his own biological form, but it did not work effectively; in a word, it was awkward. In the beginning he had received a likeness from the thoughts of The Levy and had appeared as her grandmother. It frightened her and blocked communication. Therefore a form that had no kindred to any of the crew, perhaps one from the holodeck collection, should be used. A classic seeker, what the crew called a science officer, was what he needed, and within seconds he found what he was looking for.