as it might give me a sense of satisfaction.”
“I wasn’t aware that Starfleet had irons anymore.”
“We bring them out for special occasions, and I think this would most certainly qualify. But never mind that,” she went on briskly. “I’m just going to have to trust you to keep this information to yourself.”
“Have I ever given you reason not to trust me in the past?”
“No,” she said softly. “No, you haven’t. And I’ve no reason to think otherwise now.”
“Your vote of confidence is greatly appreciated,” said Calhoun, shifting in his chair. “You’re sure that this new business with the D’myurj is unconnected to the parasites?”
“Reasonably so, yes. But that doesn’t lessen the paranoia level. It’s difficult to know exactly who to talk to about this entire business, so obviously I have to proceed carefully.”
“I appreciate that you’re talking to me about it.”
“You’re the one who brought it to my attention, so obviously…” Her voice trailed off and then she added, “And I’m honored that you trust me.”
“We’ve been through far too much for me to stop trusting you at this point,” said Calhoun easily. “And besides, I rely on my instincts enough that if there were something wrong with you—if you were duplicitous in some manner—I would know it.”
Good. Good. His ego and overconfidence will be the end of him yet. None of those thoughts were conveyed in her expression. “I have no doubt that you would. However, Mac… and we’ve been a while coming to this point, for which I apologize… the reason I wanted you to come here really has nothing to do with the subject of what you discovered on AF1963.”
Calhoun crossed his legs, tilting his head slightly in that way he had that made him look like an inquisitive dog. “What, then?”
“You touched on it already in the course of this meeting. It’s Morgan.”
“Ah,” was all he said at first.
“I’m worried, Mac,” she said. She had interlaced her fingers tightly and was now leaning forward on her desk. “Once upon a time, she was a living, breathing being with a soul and a conscience. But the being—the creature, if you will—that’s taken up residence within the core of the Excalibur… that isn’t Morgan.”
“We’re not entirely sure of that,” said Calhoun guardedly. “She’s not the woman she was, I’ll give you that. And I freely admit that there have been some changes in her personality. But she’s become cut off from humanity. It’s impossible to say whether she’s Morgan Primus having undergone behavior alterations due to an existence that neither you nor I can begin to comprehend… or if she’s an incredibly sophisticated computer simulation that thinks she is Morgan Primus, when she’s truly…”
“A ghost in the machine?”
He nodded. “A phrase coming from a philosophical work about mankind heading inevitably toward self-destruction.”
“Exactly.”
“Written centuries ago and yet,” he gestured around them, “mankind is still here.”
“True enough. But if Morgan Primus decided to shrug her shoulders and rid herself of us, I can’t entirely say she wouldn’t be successful.” She started ticking off her concerns on her fingers. “She’s astoundingly powerful. She has access to all manner of information, as you’ve just demonstrated in this very conversation. And as near as I can determine, she is more or less bereft of conscience. What if…?” She hesitated, as if she were just coming to the realization instead of having thought it all out ahead of time. “What if she decided to send a self-destruct pulse into every shipboard computer all at once? She would have access to the prefix codes. She could override every attempt to manually stop the self-destruction. What if she decided she wanted to wipe out the entirety of Starfleet in one shot?”
“Why would she do that?”
“Would she need a reason?”
“Generally speaking, yes, she would.”
“Because she feels threatened. Because she wants to issue a warning. Because you beat her at chess. Any one of a dozen reasons, and I don’t accept your contention that she requires one, but even if she did, it certainly wouldn’t have to be a good one. True?”
“True,” Calhoun admitted. “All it would have to do is make sense to her, even if it made none to anyone else.”
She paused, keeping her gaze fixed upon him, trying to get a read off him. None was forthcoming. She’d never played poker against him, but she couldn’t imagine what his poker face was like, other than to think that he epitomized the concept of inscrutability. “Mac,” she said finally, “you are one of the best strategic