Dead Endless

by Dave Galanter

If the Binary Stars incident had gone differently in Culber’s universe, that suggested the mutiny she’d considered and thankfully avoided had put into motion a series of events that brought about a war and stripped her of her rank, and yet somehow she still wound up on the Discovery ? If she wasn’t the captain, who was? Philippa Georgiou? Saru? Someone else? What other similarities and differences did that reality have?

“What if these aren’t blank spots, but unseen, unknown pathways? It’s what I tried to explain in sickbay. What if the mycelial network doesn’t just connect places in our galaxy, in our universe, but also to other, parallel, alternate universes.” He indicated the gaps in the map. “These could be markers of not just conduits to Hugh’s universe, but a multitude of others.”

“Creating easier ways to explore? And just … figuring out life, and saving it? As much and as often as possible.” The attitude was pure Paul Stamets, not the bitter-tinged man that Culber had watched him become after the Klingon War began. Stamets and Justin Straal had joined Starfleet to further space exploration on every possible level. They hoped to unlock the mysteries of the universe. Then all-out war twisted their research—their life’s work—into a tactic rather than a tool of discovery.

“I could do that anywhere. I didn’t have to be in Starfleet. I suppose I wanted adventure and saw it as a way to merge that with my passion for medicine.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Got more than I bargained for.”

“My mother was emotionally abusive.” Landry paused and her eyes darted away a moment. “And … my father let it happen.”

“Things that told me he wasn’t as selfless as I thought.” Landry’s voice didn’t falter but there was a vein of emotion through it. “I’d always run to him for protection, and it wasn’t until after his death that I realized he wasn’t protecting me, as much as he was preserving the status quo of their relationship.”

Lips as soft as the real Paul’s, the same electrical pop of excitement thumped Hugh’s heart. Was it even stronger than he remembered? That made it all the more bittersweet. The man was the same, but not the same. The connection was right, but wrong. How could Hugh ever reconcile the Paul-not-Paul dilemma?

The captain pushed herself from the command chair and stood between Owo and Detmer. “Good. How long can we maintain?” She watched as another wave of JahSepp crashed into their defense bubble, sending tiny jolts of lightning crackling across the screen.

“I feel at home here more than any place I’ve been in a long time.” All those he’d met on this Discovery, reflections of the people he knew, were here. And because they were unhampered by the Klingon War, they were the same … but better. “But these aren’t my people …” Culber told him, feeling some sort of reverse, warped survivor guilt. “I know I shouldn’t exist here.”

“ ‘There’s a clearing in the forest.’ ” Stamets had said it once, and Culber whispered it now to himself.

“I caused you,” the tardigrade said, and the emotional state he broadcast was a mesh of pride and regret.

“There’s a clearing in the forest. That’s how they go.” I’m the “they,” he realized. Ephraim’s conception of a being like Culber was too different to say it another way. “You brought me to this place … this clearing, to restore me? My memory? My mind?”

“Greetings of peace also to you, Great Angel of Science Sailing House. I am Breytik, humble, nonrival angel twin of the Maligonq Familial Consideration.”

No wonder the Vulcan Science Directorate denied the possibility of time travel for so long.

“Yes we— I’ve heard.” Slow to take Straal’s hand, he was unnerved by the awkwardness of meeting yet another person he’d known who was, to him, dead. I guess I’m dead, too, to my universe. How often, though, would this happen? It was always an overwhelming feeling: that crushing, foreboding reverse–déjà vu he’d now felt a dozen times. “I’m guessing you know me in your universe, but I’m different?” Straal asked. “Paul filled me in too.” “Yeah, a little different,” Culber said. How about turned inside out by a navigational mistake?

Perhaps this Paul Stamets only seemed a bit more caring and more together than the one he left behind because he’d been without him for what seemed like an eternity. Is this heaven, or hell? he mused. Heaven was in his husband’s arms. Hell was in his doubt: How could you throw him aside? The guilt radiated across Culber’s psyche like a toothache—throbbing everywhere but difficult to localize.

“If you understood,” Culber growled, oozing wrath and angst, “you would put me out of my misery.” He lurched toward the tardigrade, bringing his nose just centimeters away from Ephraim’s maw. “Kill me.”

“The … one that wanted me more than my own Paul. The one I wanted to stay with.” A heavy weave of guilt blanketed him. “Can you take me back to him?” He could feel hope intertwine with the thick remorse, and tried to cover his anxious sobs with words. “Please. I can’t live here. I can’t live like this.”

“I travel. Because I am alone without you.” The tardigrade gestured to the plane around them. “I am here, but also outside here, because I need you to learn from me, and I need to learn from you.”

“Yes,” the tardigrade confirmed. “But they isolate themselves. They can be curious and occasionally mingle, but they tend to find your conceptions of existence distasteful. Mostly, they keep to their continuums and passages … and avoid the clearings.”

Struggling to use the musty air, Culber took a deep, focusing breath, then eyed the tardigrade suspiciously. “D-did you let the Glenn capture you? In my universe?” He pulled away from his touch. “Or, did you at least know it would happen?” “Yes and perhaps.”

Culber circled his exceptional friend, trying to hold on just a bit longer to the mental stability he’d been given. “And you give people—like Paul—the ability to travel here, to share what you experience, the way you share what they experience in their, I mean our, clearings. Did you help the Maligonq also?”

“In the clearings, my friend.” The tardigrade took the human’s hand. “I have, and I will, lead you to them.”