“All right then,” Kirk relented, but he was not pleased. He addressed the ensigns. “You both have your cameras?”
“Yes, sir.” Stanger patted his belt as Lamia nodded in silent agreement.
“I want you to focus on their sickbay, where the bodies were found. Get everything, whether you think it’s important or not. And the staff’s quarters, too. Under no circumstances are either of you to turn off your suits”
“Understood, sir,” the guards chorused.
Kirk thought for a moment. “Aid the lab. I want detailed pictures of everything in the lab facility.”
“Yes, sir.” Stanger ascended the platform, closely shadowed by Ensign Lamia.
McCoy turned to Kirk. “I know how worried you are about bringing a potential hazard on board, Captain. All I can say is that we’re prepared and the chance of a breakage in containment is virtually nil.”
Kirk sighed inaudibly as the doctor climbed the platform and the three of them turned on their suits. “It’s the virtual part that bothers me, Bones.”
Stanger was ready for the darkness this time. His flashlight was lit before they dematerialized on the transporter pad. Once they beamed down to the lab, he immediately began setting up a small floodlight to illuminate the containment chamber.
McCoy moved toward the chamber and began testing the controls. One neutralized the energy field; the entrance went dark. But the doctor frowned. “We’ve got a problem here. I can’t get the seal to the chamber open.”
“I could try to find the manual override” Stanger offered, knowing full well it meant a time-consuming search through the circuitry embedded in the bulkhead. But he was in no hurry to return to those dark corridors.
“That’ll take too much time. I’ll just cut a hole with the phaser.”
“It’ll take some time, too, to burn through that.” Stanger nodded at the crystal casing. “I’ll help. If we both do it at once”
“I think I can handle it, Stanger. You kids run along and do what you’re supposed to. If I need any help, I’ll just holler.”
Stanger shrugged. “Can’t say I didn’t try, Doctor.” He managed to sound nonchalant instead of angry. I’m not a kid, dammit, I was an officer. Lamia, here, she’s a kid. He stopped the thought immediately. Keep it up, and you’ll have the beginnings of an ulcer outside of a week.
He turned and nearly ran into Lamia, who had been standing close enough to almost touch his right shoulder. The surprise of seeing her right there startled him. Easy. It’s a little early to start letting this place get to you, isn’t it? She moved with alarming speed to get out of his way.
“We’ll start by searching the lab here,” he told her.
She seemed surprised. “Look, the whole point was to split up so we could get the job done faster. That’s why Tomson sent both of us down.”
Are you going to question a direct order? He almost said it, but stopped himself in time. Trying hard not to sound aggravated, he said, “We could be more thorough if we both comb over an area. That way we can check each other, in case we miss something.”
For no reason he could fathom, she took offense. "I don’t intend to miss anything,” she said coldly. Her sharp chin was tilted up, and he had met enough male Andorians to recognize the gesture of disrespect.
He looked down at the ground for a moment until he felt he could speak without sounding angry. His quick temper was his worst failing, and he’d always worked to keep it under control. Lately, though, it had been flaring up at the most trivial things. And it certainly didn’t help matters that the ensign appeared to have her own private chip on her shoulder. “I’tell you what,” he said finally. “How about a compromise? We both go off in our own directions, but we each go over the lab and sickbay.”
“I thought I should do sickbay by myself,” she challenged, gazing at him steadily, chin still in the air.
“Why?”
“We know it to be a contaminated area. It’s very unlikely that I would be affected by the microbe. It would be less dangerous”
“Ensign” He broke off, letting the frustration show in his voice. “I’ve already been to sickbay once. For God’s sake, I fell over one of the bodies and I survived.”
“So far,” Lamia said softly, in a tone that made him nervous.
“All right, so far. Quite frankly, my guess is you’re straight from the Academy, and this is your first deep-space assignment. Am I right?”
“Yes.” She glowered at him defiantly. “And you’re going to ask me how much violence I’ve seen, right? What do you think, that I’m going to faint when I see human blood on the floor of the sickbay?”
He didn’t back down, but looked directly down into those green eyes. “How much violence have you seen, Ensign?”
“None. None at all. But I can handle it.” She was truly angry now, clenching her fists and leaning forward. “Just because I’m young and female”
“Female?” Stanger shook his head, truly puzzled. “For God’s sake, what does being female have to do with our discussion?”
“Never mind.” She dropped her eyes for a moment and then looked back up at him. “Anyway, you think I’m too young to be efficient. That’s it, isn’t it?”
He groaned loudly and shook his head without answering her.
“You can’t say it isn’t true. You try to get rid of me, then you act so superior”
“How am I acting superior?”
“You keep calling me ensign. We’re the same rank, in case you haven’t noticed. People of the same rank call each other by name. Mine is Lamia.”
He didn’t say anything for a minute. He had thought that everyone on board knew about him but she was new. She obviously hadn’t heard. Finally, he said, “I’m sorry Lamia. I will try not to call you ensign anymore. If I do, let me know.”
“I will,” she said frostily.
He raised his arms in a “what more can I do?” shrug and dropped them again. “Lamia, I wasn’t trying to suggest that you were incompetent. I was trying to keep from making a mistake myself by having us check each other’s work. Remember, the captain said he wanted us to go over everything in the lab and the sickbay. Now can we stop arguing and get to work?”
“Amen,” came a voice from behind them. McCoy’s back was to them, and orange-red heat streamed from his phaser and smoked gently where it impacted with the crystal. He had heard everything, Stanger realized, and was fed up with listening to it. Embarrassed, he turned back to Lamia.
“Do we have a deal?”
“If you mean will I check your work, I suppose so,” she answered stiffly.
“We’ll save the lab for last, then,” he said, and at her expression, added: “I just issued another order, didn’t I?”
She nodded.
Fine. Let her stay mad. Why should I worry about her liking me? I should worry instead about protecting myself. “Do whatever the hell you want, then,” he said, exasperated, and stalked out the door of the lab into darkness.
Getting into the containment chamber was a task that reduced McCoy very nearly to tears and very definitely to curses. Once he had cut away a large enough square of crystal from the containment chamber, he slipped an arm inside up to his shoulder, only to find that the test tubes that sat on the glistening black counter were far beyond his reach. He spent a decidedly uncomfortable moment angling first his head and then his neck, left shoulder, and arm inside the chamber. It was at that inopportune moment that McCoy realized that the hole was not large enough.
He pulled himself out awkwardly, producing a crick in his neck, which in turn encouraged him to comment on the legitimacy of the person who had sealed the chamber.
It took him several minutes to burn away another piece of crystal, but this time he met with greater success. He managed to wriggle in both shoulders and arms, and finally his torso up to the waist. In an effort to reach the sample vials on the counter, McCoy stood on tiptoe, pressing his body as close as the field allowed against the sharp, unyielding
edge of the crystal. It was still not close enough.
He leaned precariously further, his fingers and neck stretched out, standing so far forward on the tips of his toes that he was in great danger of falling forward. He strained just a little more.…
At which point he felt a tearing sensation in the muscles of his lower back.
His immediate impulse was to straighten himself, which of course so increased the level of pain that he bent forward again with a groan, supporting himself against the counter with both glowing hands. It took him five seconds to register the absolute futility of his situation, and less time than that to try to reach for his communicator. It was not a fun proposition—reaching backward with his arm dramatically increased the torment in his neck and back—but teeth gritted, perspiring, the doctor persisted until his fingers touched the hard edges of the communicator strapped to his waist. With a grunt, he triumphantly pulled it free.
The communicator slipped from his fingers and clattered on the shiny surface of the counter, well out of reach.
He decided that only one thing could have made the predicament any worse: Spock could have been there to see it.
It wasn’t as bad inside the living quarters as Stanger had feared: he could rig the portable floodlights so that the rooms were blindingly bright, stripped of the eerieness that had so oppressed him in the dark corridor.
He wandered through the cabins, aided by the small sketch made by Adams—a dubious choice of informant at best, Stanger thought—and found little of interest in Yoshi and Adams’ rooms: the former was spartan, monastic, consisting of no more than a bed, a chair, and a terminal; the latter was disheveled and littered with personal effects, but free of anything incriminating.
Krovozhadny’s quarters amazed him.
It was like stepping into a different world, a different era. The ubiquitous colorless carpeting had been covered with a large oriental rug—not a real antique, but a decent replica. There was a heavy wooden roll-top desk, and a four-poster bed, along with tall wooden shelves that held the only true antiques: paper books. One of them had been pulled out and lay open on the desk, next to a brass lamp with a candle inside it. The candle had been burned almost all the way down. Stanger reached out and closed the book gently, then grimaced at the title on the cover.
He felt very sorry that the occupant was now dead. He would have liked to meet her.
As in all the rooms, there was no sign of violence or a struggle. He was in the doorway when it occurred to him that he had forgotten to check the contents of the desk.
The top drawers contained female undergarments in neat piles. Stanger filmed them as instructed, not without questioning the investigative merits of so doing. The bottom right-hand drawer was deeper than the rest. It had been converted to a small refrigeration unit, and inside he found a half-full two-liter lab container and a used drinking glass. He pulled them out and set them on the desk to film them before he realized what was in the container.
Stanger’s hand moved instinctively to his mouth.
The blood in the bottom of the drinking glass had long ago dried.
Chapter Three
MCCOY REMAINED FOR some time in that unbearable and undignified situation until at last he heard a stifled chuckle behind him.
“Dammit, Stanger,” he growled, recognizing the origin of the sound. “Laugh again and I’ll see to it that your next checkup is a painful one.”
The laughter stopped abruptly, but Stanger’s voice kept its ring of good humor. “Sorry, Doctor. How did this happen?”
“You don’t need to know. Just get me out of here!” Pain made McCoy petulant.
Out of the corner of his eye, the doctor saw Stanger and Lamia lean up against the crystal to study his predicament. “It looks simple enough to me,” Stanger said. “You just need to straighten up.”
“Don’t you think I would if I could?” McCoy flared. “I’ve pulled my damn back! Of all the stupid things”
Lamia interrupted him calmly. “Do you have any pain medication, Doctor?”
McCoy nodded, which made the pain shoot down his back. He clenched his teeth harder. “In the black kit, to the left of my waist.”
The Andorian positioned herself just behind him, then slipped her thin arms inside the chamber and around the doctor’s waist. In spite of his discomfort, the humor of the situation was not lost on McCoy.
“My dear,” he murmured, “you have me at a disadvantage.” She didn’t answer, and McCoy dropped his lascivious air. “Inside the hypo with the blue coding on it. Set the indicator to four cc.”
He felt a slight tingling as she administered the spray to his backside. The pain eased. He sighed and sagged back into her arms. “Have you considered a job in the medical field, Ensign?”
She answered with a great tug; the doctor felt himself falling backward and slid out with a groan. Lamia staggered, still holding on to him, until the two of them finally regained their balance.
“Thanks,” McCoy said sheepishly, rubbing the offended muscle in his lower back. He did a couple of test stretches. “It’s much better.”
Stanger narrowed his eyes at the hole McCoy had cut in the crystal, then glanced at the Andorian. “Do you think you could fit in there?”
“Probably,” she answered, barely civil; apparently their feud hadn’t been resolved. McCoy was going to protest until he realized that although she was as tall as Stanger, she was at least a third narrower. She put her long, slender arms through the hole at first, then ducked her head and pulled herself in, sliding on her stomach onto the counter with surprising ease.
McCoy shook his head. “Do you have to make it look so easy?”
Lamia was already completely inside the chamber, crawling on her hands and knees. She retrieved the doctor’s communicator, clipped it to her belt, and then, with gentle deliberateness, began collecting the vials from the stand on the counter.
“They’re not sealed,” she said, looking up at the others. “If they contain samples, shouldn’t they be sealed?”
“They should, but maybe these folks were sloppy housekeepers,” McCoy said. “Try not to spill any of them.”
Lamia peered down into the vials. “I don’t think there’s anything to spill.”
“Of course there’s something to spill,” Stanger argued. “You’re not going to tell me that I came down here a second time for nothing.”
Without saying another word, Lamia crawled to the opening in the crystal and thrust the vials at Stanger. He shied away involuntarily.
“Look for yourself, Ensign,” she said, with a slightly nasty inflection on the last word. “There’s nothing there.”
Stanger stared. Stiffly, McCoy reached for his tricorder and passed it over the open vials.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “She’s right.”
“Nothing!” Mendez thundered on the viewscreen in Kirk’s quarters. The admiral’s heavy brows formed a threatening V above his eyes. The Enterprise was eight hours from Tanis, close enough at last for direct visual contact.
“Nothing, sir.” Kirk felt only relief at McCoy’s findings, but Mendez’s reaction struck him as odd. The admiral was furious at the situation and not doing a very good job of hiding it. “Tests were run on all labware confiscated on the base. No organisms of any sort were found in the laboratory.”
“Are you sure there wasn’t some sort of mistake?”
“My people are extremely competent, Admiral. I trust their report.”
Mendez hunched forward over his desk so suddenly that Kirk instinctively moved back, as though expecting him to come charging through the screen. “Did it occur to you, Captain, that it is a trifle odd to find a completely empty laboratory?”
“Yes, sir, it did.” Kirk managed to maintain his composure, though he cursed himself for flinching. Mendez was bullying a subordinate for no reason other than the fact that the admiral was disappointed. He felt a surge of contempt: how was it possible that this man was José’s brother?
Kirk’s expression was pleasant and respectful, but his jaw was clenched. “One of three things, sir. One, someone destroyed the microbe; two, it has been stolen; or three, it never existed, in which case Adams caught the disease some other way.”
“Tanis is extremely isolated, Captain. Don’t you think that the third possibility is rather unlikely?”
“Yes,” Kirk admitted. “Although it doesn’t rule it out”
“There was a microbe down there, Kirk. All the evidence points to it. And it was destroyed or stolen. And in that case, it was either one of your landing party or Adams.”
Kirk felt his face redden in spite of himself. “With all due respect, Admiral, it was not one of my people. Such an accusation is unjustified.”
“I tend to agree with you there, Kirk. I’m sure it was Adams.”
“Or one of the dead researchers”
“It was Adams. The man is obviously mad and murdered the others.”
“He denies it, sir, and the computer says he’s telling the truth.” Kirk didn’t mention McCoy’s reservations. Something about Mendez’s dogged insistence made him want to stick up for Adams and the concept of innocent until proven guilty. “And we have no evidence against him except for the fact he was the only survivor.” He also didn’t mention the drinking glass better to wait and see what Forensics found before he gave Mendez more reason to condemn Adams.
“The two corpses—were they infected, too?”
“The woman was in the initial stages of infection, but the man was clean. Adams said the man went mad, attacked the woman”
“Impossible,” Mendez snapped. “Why would he kill her if he didn’t have the illness?”
“Sir, you’re presuming that the illness causes madness. My ship’s surgeon claims that Adams seems fairly sane”
“Then maybe you ought to get a new ship’s surgeon. I’m not going to argue with you about this, Captain. You’re to put Adams under arrest and turn him in to the nearest star base for questioning now. Tell them to arrange the proper containment methods.”
Bloodthirst Page 5
