STAR TREK: Strange New Worlds II

by Dean Wesley Smith (Editor)

  “Okay, now that that’s settled, let’s move on. I want to talk with both of you about the changes the treatment may cause.” The two scientists nodded, and Pulaski launched into a detailed explanation of what they hoped the transporter filter would do.

  “Essentially,” she concluded, “we want the filter to trap the pathogen in your pattern buffers, removing it from your systems before they are reassembled. It’s common practice, but we’ve never tried to capture an unknown pathogen before. As I’ve said, we can’t guarantee results, though our tests and simulations indicate a high probability of success.”

  The Prescotts both nodded solemnly. “We do understand, Doctor,” David said. “And we’re talked it over a lot. Even if it doesn’t work exactly the way we expect, we feel like we have to do this.”

  Laura patted his hand, and he turned to smile at her. She spoke, as though they had scripted the exchange. “There is more than just our relationship at stake here, Doctor, at least for us. If this works, Starfleet can add this pathogen to the routine scans and learn to scan for unknowns. How can we say no?”

  [179] “Don’t get us wrong,” David said. “We want to be cured, Doctor Pulaski. We want to know what’s real and what isn’t. We need to know. We’ve been together nearly thirty years, but we don’t want to live the rest of our lives as a lie.

  “You can understand that, can’t you?”

  Pulaski nodded in agreement and left the Prescotts. She stripped off the isolation suit, and replaced the breather in the sterilization pod. What a liar! She acted as though she understood, when she didn’t have a clue. She shouldn’t even pretend to understand the complicated relationships between men and women, not with her record.

  “Pulaski to Barclay. Come in, Lieutenant.” The disembodied voice caused Reg’s stomach to flip-flop. His concentration was so complete he had forgotten about Dr. Pulaski.

  “Barclay here. What can I do for you, Doctor?”

  “You can tell me that the transporter is ready, and the tests went smoothly.”

  Reg hesitated. He could tell her that, it just wouldn’t be the truth. Better to tell her what he had found. “Not quite. The pattern analyzers and biofilter are working fine, but I’m not sure that we’re getting everything. I need to run a few more tests. Say, another three hours.”

  Even over the communication channel, Reg could hear the effort it took to keep her voice level. The tension was clearly held in check with an iron will, the same determination he had seen her focus on problems throughout the project. “Very well. Continue with your work. I’m going to my quarters.”

  He shrugged. That was exactly what he had been doing, and would still be doing if she hadn’t interrupted. The idea [180] of using the transporter to identify and trap an unknown pathogen excited him. He wished she would just leave him alone, let him do his job, and get back to the Enterprise, and that cute Vulcan, Ensign T’Kaal, who just transferred into engineering.

  Sleep. Even a few hours would do her a world of good. She had been working too hard for too many days, with too little rest. Some food, a little sleep, and she’d be ready to go again. Solve this problem and move on.

  The terminal in her quarters was beeping quietly, announcing a message for her. She keyed the replicator.

  “Coffee, black.” Wait, she was supposed to be going to sleep. “Change that. Tea, peppermint. Light sugar.” The slightly sweet tea would soothe her, maybe allow her to relax.

  The solid warmth of the mug warmed her hand, and the spicy scent of sweet mint reached her nose. She reached for the message button. Personal messages were rare for Katherine Pulaski. She had no close family, and her three ex-husbands had each gone their separate ways and never looked back.

  Until now. The image of Brian, her second husband, filled the communicator screen. There were a few more lines in his face, a touch of gray in his hair, but the lopsided grin, the perfect teeth, and the hint of adventure in his eyes were still the same.

  “Hi, Kat.” His voice was the same, too. Soft and warm, wrapping around her heart and sending flutters through her. It reminded her of the time they had spent together, the time before boredom and career demands had sent them in different directions.

  [181] “I’ve missed you.” He paused, as though waiting for a reaction. Pulaski examined his face, then noticed the two new pips on his uniform collar. Whatever Brian had been doing the last few years, he had been very successful. “I thought maybe we could get together, for old times’ sake. I heard you were on the Debakey, and I was in the neighborhood.”

  Neighborhood? Neighborhood in this case was defined in cubic parsecs. Brian Anderson, Admiral Brian Anderson, never did anything “for old times’ sake.” He did his job, and when it was done, he moved on. Just as he had when their marriage was over.

  “We’ll be passing your location tomorrow, Kat. Can I count on you to beam aboard for dinner? About twenty hundred hours? I know I can. It will be good to see you again.” His voice had dropped into that soft register that had wormed its way into her heart the first time, and she felt a tug. Was it some residual affection for Brian, or just nostalgia? Or just a reflection of her confusion over the Prescotts?

  The Prescotts. She keyed her communicator and talked to David. “We’ll try it in the morning,” she said. “Lieutenant Barclay is running a last set of tests, it’s getting late, and I’d rather we were all rested before we start the procedure.”

  “Fine by us,” David said, and Pulaski could hear Laura’s murmured assent in the background.

  “See you in the morning, then. Pulaski out.”

  She reached for her mug and sipped. The tea was cool now, and the sugar clotted in her throat. She should eat some dinner, she should be hungry, but she was too tired to care. She forced Brian, the Prescotts, and Lieutenant Barclay out of her mind, and went to bed. In ten minutes she was asleep.

  * * *

  [182] “Ready?” Pulaski asked. Barclay nodded. The Prescotts, standing on the transporter pads dressed in isolation suits, signaled with upraised thumbs.

  Barclay had added a containment field around the viral trap, where the pathogen would be reintegrated after it was extracted from the Prescotts. One last measure of security. Until they knew more, they couldn’t afford to take any risks.

  At Pulaski’s signal, Barclay initiated the transporter. Within seconds, the Prescotts reappeared on the transporter pads. It all happened so quickly, Pulaski felt as though nothing had changed. But if they had been successful, everything had changed.

  Barclay fiddled with the controls on the transporter console, then turned to Pulaski. “I have readings indicating some pathogens trapped in the filter. You’ll need to test them to see if they’re the right ones, but we caught something.”

  Her pulse raced. They had succeeded in filtering out an unknown pathogen, something that had only been a theory minutes before. Now she would have to determine if they had the right one. The trick was identifying the genetic sequence of the specific pathogen they were hunting.

  The Prescotts, still in their isolation suits, followed a security officer back to their temporary quarters. Pulaski would see them in a few minutes, after she started the scans of the trapped pathogen.

  “You think we got it, Doctor?” Barclay could barely contain his excitement. If they had the pathogen, he had helped trap a new threat to the Federation. Maybe they would name it after him. Probably not, though. More likely Pulaski would get the credit, or the Prescotts, or even Cygnus IV. [183] Still, he knew he had played a big part in capturing this particular bug.

  “Hard to say, Lieutenant. I wouldn’t even guess until I see the Prescotts.”

  They turned the vessel over to a medical lab technician, with detailed instructions for its handling. They had drilled the technicians for days on the procedures, but Pulaski didn’t want any slip-ups. Safety was the key.

  The Prescotts sat as they had the night before: close together, fingers entwined, voices low and eyes only for each other. Clearly,
the treatment had failed. They were as deeply immersed in each other as before. Nothing had changed.

  Laura looked up when Pulaski entered, and caught her eye. There was a flicker of something—relief, maybe—which was immediately hidden behind a mask of disappointment. David, watching her face, composed his expression to match hers. Together, they faced the doctor.

  “Looks like we didn’t make it this time,” David said. There was a note of near-triumph in his voice, a repudiation of his earlier dedication to finding a cure.

  “Maybe next time,” Laura added. She couldn’t cover the hope in her voice that there wouldn’t be a next time.

  “Actually, the results aren’t clear yet. We know we trapped some pathogenic agents. We’re just waiting for the laboratory evaluations. It’ll be several hours before we know for sure.

  “In the meantime, though, I want you both to think about whether you want to try again. Perhaps speak with the ship’s counselor, if you think it might help.”

  [184] The Prescotts both nodded, but there was a dismissing quality to their postures. They wanted to be left alone, and they didn’t particularly care who knew it Pulaski left them, and wandered back to her quarters.

  Now that the procedure was complete, the sample was with the med techs, and Barclay was baby-sitting his transporter, there was little left for her to do. Little except to think about Brian, and what his message last night had meant.

  She replayed the message, searching his face for a clue to what he really wanted. A reconciliation? Hardly. Brian knew as well as she did that it wasn’t possible. They were Starfleet officers, dedicated to their careers. He was born to command, and he loved it. Ultimately, he had loved it more than he loved her. Be honest, she chided herself. She loved medicine, loved healing. In the end, medicine was more important than Brian. He had asked her to choose, and she chose a different path than he did. Still, it might be nice to see him again. They had parted as friends, but nothing more. Not like Kyle.

  Kyle Riker, the man who had simply disappeared from her life one day, his body healed, his command restored. Three husbands later, she still thought of him as the one that got away.

  She shrugged off the melancholy that threatened to envelop her. There was a pile of paperwork stacked on her desk, ignored while she worked on the pathogen. There was time to clean it up before she had dinner with Brian.

  Barclay paced outside the medical lab. He considered names for the pathogen. Regicilium? Reg-Bar Syndrome? Barclaynosis?

  There wasn’t anything else to do. The med techs had [185] made it clear he couldn’t help. In fact, they had made it painfully clear that he wasn’t even allowed in the lab.

  Lieutenant Rosemary Lowell, the dark-haired chief technician, had smiled prettily at him and then taken him forcefully by the arm. “We’ll handle it from here, Lieutenant Barclay. There won’t be any results until late tonight. Go realign some sensors or something, and let us do our job.”

  She had secured the door behind him, and he had found himself outside the med lab with no place to go and nothing to do. This assignment was only temporary, after all, and he had been too busy to get to know any of the other crew members. Even Pulaski was off on some personal business she had refused to tell him about.

  He’d spent hours wandering the ship, wondering if someday the pathogen might be called Barclay’s Disease. Or Reg Pox? Barclay Fever? Naturally, he was susceptible, as he was to so many other bugs.

  Twice he got lost and eventually had to ask the computer for directions back to the lab. Each time, Lowell had answered his chime with a distracted, “Not yet. Come back later.”

  He tried the door again and got the same answer, albeit more annoyed than the previous six times. He shrugged. The only other people he knew were the Prescotts. Desperate for company, he decided to visit them in their quarters.

  When David Prescott keyed the door and invited him in, Barclay realized with a start that this was the first time he had actually been in the isolation chamber. The first time he had seen the scientists as human beings, and not just the subject of his experiment. And they seemed genuinely glad to see him.

  [186] “I’m glad you stopped by, Lieutenant,” David said, extending his hand, then pulling it back in confusion as he realized the futility of the gesture. “Sorry. I keep forgetting.”

  David resumed his seat next to his wife, draping an arm casually across her shoulders. For a few minutes the three of them sat smiling and nodding at each other, the silence stretching until it approached an awkward length.

  Laura coughed quietly, then cleared her throat “Have you heard anything about the tests, Lieutenant?”

  “Not yet The medical technicians keep telling me to go away.” He grinned nervously. Now that he was here, he wasn’t sure why he had come. He just hadn’t wanted to wait alone anymore. He wanted to talk to someone. Someone who understood what it meant to be in love.

  “So, how long have you two been married?” The minute the words left his mouth he wanted to hide beneath his chair. These people were getting divorced, once the treatment succeeded. He couldn’t have picked a stupider question.

  But Laura smiled at him, and patted David’s knee. “Twenty-four years in August,” she said. The pride in her voice was evident. “Most of them have been pretty good, with a few clinkers now and again.”

  David chuckled. “And now we’re waiting to see how much longer.” His smile slipped for a moment, then he regained control. “Have you ever been married, Lieutenant?”

  Caught off guard, Barclay stuttered slightly. “N-no. But there is someone back on my regular ship.” He was about to launch into a detailed description when his combadge interrupted.

  “Med lab to Lieutenant Barclay. Come in, Lieutenant.”

  [187] Barclay jumped to his feet, upsetting the chair he’d been sitting on. “Barclay here. Go ahead.”

  “This is Lowell, Lieutenant Barclay. Figured you were anxious to know. The genetic signature of the pathogenic material is an exact match. You caught your bug.”

  Barclay wanted to shout with joy. They had done it. His calculations and calibrations and tests and tests and tests had done the job. He was a success! Maybe they would name it Reginald’s Disease, or Barclay’s Lament. He liked that one. Barclay’s Lament.

  But there was something in the technician’s voice. ...”

  “Lowell, what aren’t you telling me?”

  “Nothing much. It’s just that you might want to check your instruments. Our tests show an extremely small discrepancy in the volume of pathogenic material. You and Doctor Pulaski were the only ones near the containment vessel, right?”

  “Yes.” Barclay held his breath. He didn’t want to hear her reply, but he had to know. “What kind of discrepancy?”

  “Your filter recorded 3.287 micrograms, but we only have 3.244 micrograms here in the lab. Somewhere we lost .043 micrograms.”

  Barclay sank back into his chair. It didn’t sound like much, but the quantity recovered had been so small to begin with, he had no idea whether the missing amount was dangerous or not. Besides, he’d bet it was probably just a fluctuation in the instruments. If he was a betting man. If he took chances.

  Katherine Pulaski took a long, slow look around her. Brian had beamed her directly to his quarters. “Admiral’s [188] privilege,” he’d called it. There was a small table in the middle of the room, set for two. The room was sparsely furnished, giving an impression of neatness and order. The few decorative touches were subdued, as though to downplay any personal connection. The exception was a portrait that stood on the console table below the window. She stopped and stared, feeling her head spin. It was an image of the two of them, made early in their marriage. It took her back to a time and place she hadn’t been in many years.

  “I hoped you would like it.” Brian broke her concentration, taking her arm and leading her to a low settee in the center of the room. “It always reminds me that there was once a time when we were happy together.”

>   Pulaski sank into the cushions of the settee and drew a deep breath. “Yes. Yes, there was a time. ...” Her voice trailed off. She resumed, stronger, “But we were never unhappy together, were we.” It wasn’t a question. “We just ... stopped being together at all.”

  “True. You always did have the ability to cut right to the heart of the matter, didn’t you?” He kissed her lightly on the cheek. “That was something I admired about you from the first time I saw you.”

  She turned to look directly at him. She could feel her lips curling into a warm smile, in spite of her determination to keep her distance. “You did? Usually people want to avoid me once they realize I speak my mind.”

  “No, Kat. I liked the way you cut through the baloney and saw the real reasons, and said so. It got a little, uh, rough sometimes, especially toward the end. But I really think it made things easier in the long run.” He grinned and made a rueful face. “At least I always knew where I stood with you.”

  [189] Pulaski felt an unexpected moment of tenderness toward Brian. They had been content together, occasionally happy, and they had never really fought. Even the divorce had been amicable. They were both too busy to be married, and had just decided to call it quits.

  After a few more minutes of “remember when,” Pulaski could wait no longer. “So, Brian, just what was it you wanted me here for?”

  “Same old Kat. I’d have been disappointed if you didn’t ask.” Brian’s grin faded, and his eyes grew serious. The hint of adventure remained, but it was dimmed as he continued. “I’ve missed you, Kat. I never thought I could say that, much less mean it, but there it is. I miss you, and I want you back.”

  For an instant, she couldn’t make her mouth form words. She had speculated, in a flight of fancy, that Brian might want to reconcile, but she had never thought it a real possibility.

  Now he had said it. She forced a deep, canning breath through her body, just as she did before a delicate medical procedure. She had to think very clearly before she turned him down. If she turned him down. Of course she was going to say no. That “if” was a moment of nostalgia talking. Still, he had reached over and taken her hand, and she enjoyed his touch.