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Written By

Michael Gray

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Chapter 1 – Addition By Division

September 25, 2383…

Mei-Wan Lau couldn’t believe what she saw in the doorway of her apartment on Kel-j’na, nor what she had just heard. She took several long breaths to calm herself. It was as if the universe had twisted itself into something unrecognizable.

They had just told her the being she was in love with, Dani, the one she intended to marry in the next year, no longer existed. They said they were…

The Undinan children hurried Mei-Wan to a couch before she lost her balance. They sat in the other one across from her.

“What happened?” Mei-Wan asked. “Who are you?”

The two small, blue-skinned beings looked at one another a moment, then turned back to Mei-Wan.

“We are Dani,” the girl said. “Or rather, we were her. Dani became us.”

“I don’t understand,” Mei-Wan said. “How can that be possible?”

“Remember when I told you my species reproduces by division?” the girl asked.

Now it began to make sense. “Dani… reproduced? Why would she do that?”

“It’s complicated,” the boy said.

“I need to know,” Mei-Wan said.

They looked at one another again, as if communicating non-verbally.

Mei-Wan wondered if they were telepathic.

After several moments, the girl looked at Mei-Wan.

“There are things Dani kept from you,” the girl said. “Things she wasn’t supposed to tell you.”

“Why?” Mei-Wan asked, more hurt than angry. “She could tell me anything.”

“I know,” the boy said. “However, if she had told you, it might have made the last several days even more difficult.”

“I don’t understand,” Mei-Wan said. “What does any of this have to do with Dani splitting into the two of you?”

“Please understand, while we are now two beings, we are still Dani.”

Mei-Wan shook her head. She couldn’t believe that. They were children. The one she loved was gone.

“Everything which made Dani who she was is part of us. We have all her memories, all her feelings, all her… love.” The girl looked at Mei-Wan. “I remember that way you like to have your thighs touched during sex.”

“Stop it!” Mei-Wan shouted. The thought of this child having those memories… “You aren’t Dani!”

“Isn’t that the point of reproduction?” the boy asked. “To be different from the original?”

“Not like…” Mei-Wan stopped herself. She was judging another species by her own biases, her own sense of what was normal. Dani’s species, the Undinans, were nothing like humans. “Okay,” she said, calming herself. “I recognize this may be part of how your people perpetuate your species. But it… I don’t see the person I loved in front of me. I see her children.”

The girl nodded. “I think I understand.”

“Can you blend together again? Become Dani?” Mei-Wan asked.

“No,” the boy said. “Once the division occurs, it cannot be reversed. We would suffer severe mental damage in the attempt.”

Mei-Wan’s world collapsed in on itself. She had hoped there might have been a way to have Dani come back. No matter what they said, she couldn’t think of these children as the Dani she loved.

“What are your names?” Mei-Wan asked.

“I took the name Gahziana,” the girl said with a smile.

Mei-Wan grinned. The sound was so like Dani's name. She could almost... Then she turned to the boy.

“I am Gahdelv,” he said.

Gahziana looked at Mei-Wan. “You can call us Ziana and Delv if you'd like. I know you preferred calling Gahdani by Dani, and that humans have an affinity for shortened names.”

“I like your name... both your names,” Mei-Wan said.

They smiled at her.

Ziana leaned toward Mei-Wan. “Can one of us stay with you?”

Mei-Wan looked down. “Why would you want to?”

“We still love you, Mei. We want to make a life with you.”

Mei-Wan shook her head. “Still get married?”

“Yes,” Delv said.

“That’s impossible!” Mei-Wan shouted. “I can’t! It’s… No.”

Ziana frowned. “Dani was nearly a thousand years old as an individual when she met you. But her memories went back thousands upon thousands of years. Her memories were of all those who had divided, and divided until Dani came to exist. We both have those memories.”

“All of them?” Mei-Wan asked, again shocked at the intimate details these two might know about her.

“Yes,” Delv said. “Every experience Dani had with you.”

Mei-Wan closed her eyes. “You shouldn’t know any of that. It was between me and Dani. We were in love…” Tears began to fall down her face.

“You’re upset,” Ziana said. She started to get up off the couch.

“No,” Mei-Wan said, holding a hand up. “Please… stay over there.”

“I just wanted to comfort you,” Ziana said.

“No,” Mei-Wan replied. “Please, respect my wishes on this.”

Ziana sat back down, nodding. “We can still…”

“No, we can’t,” Mei-Wan said. “I know you're not the same as human children, but as the persons you are, you have been in existence for less than five days. I don't have a right to have so large an influence on someone who has yet to find their own place in the universe.”

“But we want you to be a large influence in our lives,” Delv said. “We still love you. That will never change.”

“No,” Mei-Wan said. “I can’t. Please understand, it simply isn’t possible.”

“Your criteria for infancy and age appropriate behavior does not apply to us,” Delv said. “We are far more mature than you can comprehend, our memories spanning millennia.”

Mei-Wan looked at Delv. She tried to accept their words, but when she saw him, all she could think of was a ten year old boy. “I tell myself that intellectually, but emotionally, you are both children.”

“You mean your emotional perspective,” Ziana said. She stood and her form stretched to match Mei-Wan's height. “Does this make you feel more comfortable?”

“No,” Mei-Wan said. “Because I still know you are not yet even five days old.”

Ziana returned to her previous height and sat down again, letting out a long sigh. “Humans can be so...”

“Difficult?” Mei-Wan asked.

“Perplexing,” Delv said.

It was so strange to see them thinking along the same paths at every point in the conversation. It was as if she were speaking to Dani in two persons.

Ziana suddenly looked up and smiled. “What if you were to adopt us?”

“As children?”

“Yes!” Delv shouted. “We could live with you as your children.”

“And we could love you as mother instead of as...”

“Companion and lover,” Delv finished.

Mei-Wan so wanted them in her life, but it was Dani she really wanted.

She thought a moment. If Dani had been a human and had died, leaving two children behind, would she accept a dying wish to raise those children as her own?

“Please?” Ziana asked. “We love you Mei. We want to be a part of your life.”

Mei-Wan looked at them for a full minute, thinking about that possibility. But there was something else nagging at her mind.

“Before we even discuss that possibility, I need to know what this is about,” she said. “I need to know what Dani kept from me.”

Ziana looked at Delv. After a moment he nodded.

“Dani was one of several Undinans who were sent throughout the galaxy to determine the status of humanoid life forms,” Ziana said. “She was observing the humanoids within your Federation and the surrounding space.”

“Determine the status?” Mei-Wan asked. “What exactly does that mean?”

“To assess if, like the Ancient Progenitors from which you came, you were a threat to everyone else in the galaxy,” Delv said.

Mei-Wan didn’t like this. “And if she had determined we were?”

Ziana and Delv looked at one another again for several moments.

“Understand, we don’t…” Delv started to reply.

“Tell me,” Mei-Wan said.

“If you were found to be violent and destructive like the Ancient Progenitors then you would be exterminated,” Ziana said.

Mei-Wan took a long breath as she realized this was much larger than her love life. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She needed your reactions to be sincere,” Delv said. “If your feelings of love were expressed with the knowledge that the fate of all humanity as well as the other species living in the Federation hung in the balance, she might never be able to untangle it from your true feelings.”

“But…”

“Your ability to fall in love with Dani was what had led her to the position your Federation would be spared,” Ziana said. “If you could love one of us, then you were not the same as the Ancient Progenitors.”

“Was her love for me real?” Mei-Wan asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“Yes,” Ziana said. “It was completely genuine, and it surprised her. She had never anticipated falling in love with a humanoid life form. That she developed those feelings for you also surprised her, and informed her position on the question of your kind.”

“If she had come to that conclusion, why divide into two people?” Mei-Wan asked.

“The other Undinans were unconvinced,” Ziana said. “They thought she had allowed her mind to be clouded by her love for you, ignoring the other humanoids in your area of the galaxy. The Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians are known to our people as violent species. If the non-humanoids of the galaxy were to judge based only on them, humanoid life in your area of space would have already been eradicated. But the Vulcans shifted the balance. Humanity would be the deciding factor as you seem a midpoint between those extremes.”

“But Dani had decided,” Mei-Wan said. “Why was there a need for her to do anything?”

“The others were going to insist on assigning someone else to the Federation,” Delv said. “But we… Dani, insisted she was still the best one for that task. They were unconvinced. It was then that Dani offered to divide. She persuaded them if she were two individuals that would give her the perspective to determine not only the fate of humanoids in your Federation, but determine if her love for you had blinded her to reality.”

“How long had Dani been observing us?” Mei-Wan asked.

“After what you called the Vegan Tyranny collapsed, she was sent to investigate the humanoid civilizations in your area of the galaxy.”

Mei-Wan didn’t like the implications she was seeing in her mind. “The Vegan Tyranny kept us under control, didn’t they?”

“Yes. They were a control on humanoids as they have been in other areas of the galaxy, as are the Borg.”

“You created the Vegans and the Borg?!”

“No, others did that, but we watched. Our judgment is respected among those you describe as non-humanoid, those we call living beings. We had noticed various Vegan groups collapsing throughout the galaxy. We believe the Vedala may have been responsible, but we do not have enough information to be certain. It’s also possible the design of Vegan society was faulty.”

“The Borg were designed to…” Mei-Wan began.

“No,” Delv answered. “The Vegans were, but the Borg arose on their own. They were seen by the non-humanoids of the galaxy as a control on humanoid expansion.”

“This is frightening,” Mei-Wan said.

“And among my people, I… we… our judgment is respected,” Ziana said. “That is why Dani was tasked with being one of many to evaluate humanoids. For several centuries, we… Dani, of all of our people, held out hope humanoids would evolve beyond the limitations of the Ancient Progenitors. Our people felt she was well suited toward that goal as they felt it best to err on the side of life as we do in all things. That is why we convinced the other non-humanoids of the galaxy to withhold their vengeance against the children of the Ancient Progenitors, and instead give you the time to become more than your forebearers were.”

“But the relationship with you was seen as problematic,” Delv added. “It was one thing to have hope. It was quite another to have a conflict of interest due to love.”

“Love can…”

“Love blinds one to reality, or so our people felt,” he said. “Which is why they came here to talk to Dani, to get a sense of whether it was simple compassion she had for you or if she had truly fallen in love.”

“They determined it was indeed love,” Ziana said.

Mei-Wan couldn’t help smiling, but she also couldn’t help but feel that if it hadn’t been love, Dani would be standing before her now whole and a single person.

“So they decided to get another opinion,” he said. “A second opinion.”

“With Dani reproducing, there are now two of us, or shall be after the passage of time,” Ziana said. “They decided that if we both felt the same way about humanoids, then Dani’s conclusion would stand, and destruction would be averted.”

“But if not?” Mei-Wan asked.

“Then the non-humanoids of the galaxy will exterminate the children of the Ancient Progenitors,” he said. “Ending what has been a five billion year nightmare.”

Ziana smiled. “At this point, though it is too early to see our final conclusion, we agree with our earlier assessment, Dani’s assessment. Humanoid life has evolved beyond what they were.”

“Have you ever exterminated humanoids anywhere in this galaxy?” Mei-Wan asked.

Delv and Ziana both looked down.

“Not we Undinans, however, we did observe such exterminations,” Delv said. “But based on our conclusions about certain worlds… yes. Some civilizations have been deemed so like the Ancient Progenitors that there was no hope they would ever change.”

“Genocide is never the answer,” Mei-Wan said, but without as much force as she had wished. She could only imagine the suffering so many beings had endured because of the Ancient Progenitors. Didn’t they have a point? But no. She refused to believe that even in this case. “There has to be another way.”

“That is why we will continue our work,” Delv replied. “We are confident humanity, and the others in the Federation will be allowed to survive.”

“But Forcas…” Mei-Wan began. “Did you tell them about his plans?”

“No,” Ziana said. “But if he proceeds with them, that will change the equation completely.”

“If he brings the Ancient Progenitors forward into this time, the other non-humanoids will not wait for our assessment,” Delv said. “They will strike all humanoids indiscriminately.”

“But by then it might be too late. With the Ancient Progenitors brought into our time, they might be impossible to defeat,” Mei-Wan pleaded. “Help me stop Forcas before he can act.”

“You were correct,” Delv said. “We must find the place and means Forcas intends to use to bring back the Ancient Progenitors. Only then can we stop him from plunging this galaxy back into that ancient war.”

“But that still leaves the question of our relationship,” Ziana said.

-GO TO CHAPTER 2-