“I’ve studied you, Calhoun. More than that: I’ve been watching you. And your most consistent attribute is that you remain resolutely your own man. You do not bow to peer pressure, nor do you willingly live in the world as it is presented to you. Instead you live the life you wish and wait for the world to catch up with you.”
Calhoun didn’t bother to answer.
The D’myurj kept talking; apparently Calhoun’s response was not required to keep the conversation going. “I am similar to you in that respect. Do you know what I am?”
“A pain in the ass.”
“I am a visionary. More: I am the Visionary. Because I, of all my people, am able to see what is going to happen to all living things if matters are allowed to proceed as they currently are.”
“And what would that be?”
“Terrible things, Calhoun. So terrible…” He actually seemed to shudder, although Calhoun assumed that to be an affectation rather than genuine concern. “So terrible that others of my race cannot begin to see it. They still believe in the fundamental potential of living beings.”
“And you don’t.”
“No. Because I am a Visionary, as I said, and am uniquely able to understand the truth of things.” His voice sounded heavy with knowledge that was weighing him down. “The future is open to me. The end of all things is open to me. I have seen what is to come, the future of this galaxy, and I am here to tell you that, in the great, infinite body of the universe, that which you would call ‘life’ is nothing but an infection. An infection that will, sooner or later, destroy the body.”
“You want me to believe that the mere existence of life is going to destroy the universe.”
“Yes.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Calhoun flatly. “Life developed from nature. Nature would never create something that will lead to its own destruction.”
“That would seem a viable theory, but in fact, it is erroneous,” said the D’myurj. “Living bodies ‘create’ things that are poisonous to the system all the time. And you keep finding cures for them, but your bodies come up with new things all the time that are self-destructive. And all living beings were made in the image of the universe. Therefore it stands to reason…”
“It doesn’t stand to reason. Nothing you’re saying makes any sense.”
“It all makes perfect sense. It’s hardly my fault if you simply don’t want to see it. If it’s of any consolation, others of my race did not want to see it either. So you should not feel alone in your beliefs, even though the proof of what I say is right in front of you, should you care to look.”
“Oh, is it now.”
“Yes, it is. Remember, for instance, when your beloved Starfleet personnel were exceeding the safe limit of warp speed and, as a consequence of your precipitous actions, damaging the very fabric of space-time?”
“Of course. But we took action in response. The Council implemented a limit of warp five, except in emergency situations. And it was subsequently corrected. All you’re doing is holding up an example of how we rose to a situation and worked together to fix it. Hardly an instance of life being about destruction.”
“Ah, but what if you had not realized the damage you were doing?”
“But we did.”
“But what. If you. Had not? What if the damage to the space-time continuum had persisted until it was too late? The fact is that you got lucky. The universe cannot count on luck.
“And what if there are other races in other galaxies, with similar technology, who have not realized the danger it represents?”
“We can’t assume that all FTL drives represent a danger,” said Calhoun.
“We can’t assume that they don’t,” shot back the Visionary, “and considering your own situation, isn’t it preferable to anticipate the worst? And that’s just a single aspect of the destructive nature of living creatures, Calhoun. Just one tiny piece of it. Do you have any idea, for instance, what happens to the separations between the multiverse every time one of you goes back in time and mucks with the continuum? Do you begin to see the vastness of the big picture that I’m trying to lay out for you?”
Never in a million years would Calhoun have admitted that he did. Never would he have acknowledged that a lot of what the so-called Visionary was saying made sense. The concepts that were being described… they seemed just too big for one Starfleet captain to