Chapter Eleven
DR. CRUSHER STOOD IN the engine room of the Zar, staring up at the swirling framework that Geordi assured her was the ship’s engine. The smooth metal seemed inert, no moving parts, nothing that Crusher recognized as mechanical. She turned back to Geordi and the alien engineer. “And you say that this . . . engine is alive?” Her voice held all the scepticism that she managed to keep off her face.
Geordi smiled almost apologetically. “I know it sounds strange, but if what my VISOR is showing is real, then the engine has more similarities to living tissue than metal.”
Crusher shook her head. “I believe you, but I . . .” she glanced at Veleck. “Could we have a few moments in private?”
The engineer glanced at Geordi but turned and lumbered away without a word.
When he was far enough away, Crusher turned back to Geordi. “I am having enough trouble understanding the cell structure of the Milgians themselves without moonlighting as an engineer.”
“Are you able to heal the Milgians?”
“Yes, now that I’ve figured out how to modify some of our equipment, but all I can do is surface healing. Any surgery or internal rearranging . . . I’m afraid to operate on them. Their bodies seem to compartmentalize all injuries. If they suffer blood loss, the body shuts off that part of the body, sacrifices it for the survival of the whole. If I start operating on them, I don’t know what their natural defenses will do.”
“You think that the engines will have the same problems?”
“I just don’t know,” she said.
“Well, if I’m right, I think that working together, we might be able to fix the engine.”
“What makes you think that if they can’t do it, we can?”
“I’m sure we can try.”
Crusher nodded. “Agreed. How long do we have?”
Geordi turned around to find Veleck just standing across the room. He seemed to be doing nothing. If it had been the Enterprise in danger, Geordi knew he would work until the engine blew up underneath him. Every member of the alien crew seemed to have given up already. That was taking fatalism one step too far.
“Veleck,” he called.
The alien turned his head without turning his body. It was an odd sensation watching the head turn around independently of the body, like an owl. Again there was that bright band of heat just under the head, as if the turning of the head gave off some sort of energy.
“Veleck, how much time until the engines go critical?”
“Perhaps six hours.”
“Six hours,” Geordi said. He turned back to the doctor. “If it gets close, you can beam out any time you want. Fixing engines isn’t in your job description.”
“I’ve been trying to convince the main crew of the Zar to evacuate. They won’t leave. They’re going to go down with their ship.” She shook her head. “Data is still trying to convince Captain Diric of the waste of it all. I was getting too angry to talk to him anymore.”
Geordi smiled. “I’ve been having the same trouble with Veleck here. They all seem convinced it’s useless.”
“Fatalism is one thing, Geordi, but this is just giving up,” she said.
“Well, we’ll show them that one thing the Federation doesn’t do is give up.”
Crusher nodded. “All right, let’s do it.” She lifted a scanner from a small kit at her side. Crusher raised the scanner over the metallike structure.
Veleck came up behind them. “What are you doing?” His slow as molasses voice was just a bit rushed. It was the quickest speech Geordi had heard him make.
“The doctor is scanning the engine structure.”
“But why? Why use a doctor for an engineer’s job?”
“Your engine is alive. Our engines on the Enterprise are just metal and power. I don’t understand how to heal living tissue, the doctor does.”
“If your engines are not one with you, then what makes them want to run for you?” Veleck asked.
“Well, they don’t want to run. We make them run.”
“You enslave your ship?”
Geordi stared at him for a moment, not sure what to say. “Our ship is just a ship, Veleck. It has no feelings, no emotions. It’s a machine.”
“But isn’t your Lt. Commander Data a machine? Do you enslave him, too?”
That was a good question, and Geordi still didn’t know how to explain it. “Lt. Commander Data is alive. He thinks and acts independently. Our ship is just metal and power. It doesn’t have a life of its own.”
Veleck’s face wrinkled and was covered in a wash of red heat. Geordi wished he could have seen what was happening to the face, but he thought that the engineer was frowning at him.
Crusher came over to them and Geordi was grateful for the interruption. “You are right, Geordi. The engine is alive. The entire ship is alive. The cell structure is very close to the Milgian’s own.” She turned to Veleck. “Do you mix biological cells in with your construction materials?”
He frowned again. “I do not understand the question.”
“The engines are not merely metal. They have living structures inside them, correct?”
“Correct,” his voice sounded uncertain as if he weren’t quite sure that it was correct.
“I don’t understand how they do it or exactly what it means, but the entire ship is alive.”
“Can you find the . . . injury?” Geordi asked.
“Not yet. All the scanner can tell me is that the metal contains living tissue. I haven’t even figured out how it works, yet. How can I tell you how it’s broken?”
“But will it be an injury?”
“I believe that it will need a combination of medical and engineering skills to heal it, yes.”
“Veleck,” Geordi said, “do you have healing as well as engineering knowledge?”
“I talk to the engines, and they respond to me.” He said it as if that answered the question.
“Then what is the injury? What’s wrong with the engines?”
“They are going to explode in a matter of hours,” Veleck said.
“We know that, but why are they going to explode?”
“I do not understand the question.”
This was not a good time for Veleck to suddenly become coy. “Why did you decide the engines could not be fixed?”
“The injury was too severe to be fixed.”
Geordi shook his head. It was like talking to a wall. “Can you show us the injury to the engines?”
Veleck seemed to think upon that for a moment. “I can.”
They waited for a moment staring at each other. Finally Geordi said, “Could you show us now?”
Veleck turned and lumbered down a narrow walkway that was barely wide enough for his squarish bulk. The shining silver filigree that rose on either side of the walkway seemed daintier with Veleck passing between them.
He stopped in front of one smooth silver wall. He passed a hand over a spot about chest level to him. There was a flash of heat that seemed to jump from Veleck’s hand to the wall. Geordi watched the wall grow hotter and hotter, until it seemed to melt.
“Beverly,” he whispered, “what does the wall look like now?”
She leaned into him. “The wall looks like glass. There are lights and controls underneath.”
Geordi nodded. “It was almost like Veleck’s body became part of the wall for an instant. The heat patterns were identical.”
“I didn’t see anything like that. His hand just passed over the wall, and it became transparent.”
“Come,” Veleck said. “This is our control panel.”
Geordi stared at the head-high screen. It was cooling even as he looked at it. Swirls, patterns, lights—but none of it made any sense to him.
“What do you think, Beverly?”
“I don’t know. It does look more like a medical readout than an engineering screen.” She pointed to a pulsing light. “Is that a heart rate?”
“I do not understand the question.”
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“Could you, please, explain what this panel says?” she asked.
“It says that the engine will implode in less than three hours.”
Geordi sighed and closed his eyes, and counted softly under his breath. “How does the panel tell you that, Veleck?”
Geordi fought the urge to mouth the words with him, “I do not understand the question.”
“Well, at least now I know I wasn’t the only one talking to myself for the last hour,” Beverly said.
“I’ve never had this much trouble communicating before,” Geordi said.
“The captain understands exactly what I mean and what I want him to do. He just refuses to do it. Veleck here on the other hand . . .” Beverly let the thought trail off, then said, “Veleck, are there any other engineers to speak with?”
“Most of them were injured. When we all agreed it was hopeless, I sent them up to help with the injured crew members. I stayed behind to see how long I could delay the inevitable.”
“I can’t believe that it is inevitable. There’s got to be something that we can do,” Geordi said.
“I do not understand this strange persistence you have with fighting against the truth. The engine will die in less than three hours. Why can you not accept that?”
The wall panel pulsed a very bright red. Veleck didn’t see, his back was to it. Geordi stared at the control panel. There was a pattern to the lights and swirls. There had to be. It was only a matter of finding it.
“I don’t believe in no-win scenarios, Veleck. It’s sort of a human trait.”
“It is puzzling, this trait.”
“Could we look at more panels?”
“This is the main panel. It will show you what you need to see.”
“We need more input before we can understand your engines,” Geordi said.
“Very well.” He moved along the wall that held the first panel, and a host of panels appeared behind his hand. Every time there was a burst of heat, an exchange of body cells, perhaps. To Geordi it seemed that for a moment the . . . hand had become part of the wall. Dr. Crusher said that to her eyes, it didn’t happen that way. But the heat sharing was so intense that it blinded Geordi’s VISOR, and the illusion of mixing hand and wall was a good one.
Geordi approached the second wall panel. It was just barely at eye level for him. Veleck stood beside him, staring down at the much smaller man. Geordi couldn’t read the Milgian’s face, but he seemed to be looming over him. Geordi had an urge to tell him to back up, give him a little room, but it was his ship, his engines. If things had been reversed Geordi probably wouldn’t have let some stranger run around his engine room unsupervised.
Geordi touched the clear panel. It still felt more like metal than anything else, but there was a warmth to it, as if blood flowed behind it. Was that the fuel of the Milgian ship—blood, life? Did the ship truly move because it wanted to? Veleck explained it that way, but Geordi wasn’t sure if he was asking the right questions. But try as he would Geordi couldn’t think of better questions.
There was no rush of heat when he touched the panels. He pressed his fingers to the flashing lights as he had seen the Milgian do, but the cool, smooth surface just sat there. No heat, no spark, not even a change in the swirling, indecipherable patterns. The control panels were ignoring him.
“How do I get them to work?” La Forge asked.
“You pass your hands over them, and they recognize you.”
“You mean they recognize fingerprints, cell structure, what?”
“Cell structure,” Veleck said.
“So, you’re saying that I can’t get the engines to do anything because they don’t know me?”
“Your hand is strange to them. There are no pieces of you in the engine. But I will do all that you require. You have only to ask.”
Geordi sighed and glanced at the doctor. Doctor Crusher shrugged. She didn’t have any brilliant suggestions.
“All right, Veleck, show me the fuel monitoring system.”
“Fuel?”
“How you know how much energy the engines have?”
“Ah, here.” He led them to the fourth panel. It was a mix of mostly red with some orange. It was indeed a very hot screen.
“Is the amount of red an indication of a full reserve of energy?”
“Yes.”
“What color would be low energy?”
“Blue.”
Three questions, three straightforward answers. They were on a roll. “What panel tells you the health of the engines?”
“Overall health is here.” The last panel on the wall was a lurid smear of violet-purple. Geordi could feel his body react to the shade and the intensity of it.
“What color should this panel be? What color is good?”
“Green.”
Either he was finally connecting with the alien, or Veleck had suddenly decided to be helpful. Geordi didn’t care which. He had an entirely unknown engine system to figure out, diagnose, and fix. All in a little over two hours. Geordi smiled slightly. It was like asking for a miracle and expecting to get it. But Chief Engineer La Forge had made his own share of miracles in the past. What was one more?
Chapter Twelve
ACTING AMBASSADOR WORF stood staring down at the sentinel of the now very dead General Alick. It had been Breck’s suggestion to question the sentinel. He was the walking dead according to Orianian law. If they were going to ask him questions it had to be soon, before he chose a way to end his life.
After the scene with Dr. Stasha, Worf was determined that this questioning would go more smoothly. He did not need Troi’s urgings to behave in a civilized manner. He was Klingon and deeply offended at Talanne’s assumption that he would not mind a little torture. He would show them what Klingon honor meant, even if it meant holding his temper.
Troi sat quietly in a corner, watching the guard. The Orianian was slender even for an Orianian. His gaunt face was dominated by shining nearly doelike eyes that seemed out of place in his starved looking face. A white lightning bolt of a scar marred his face from forehead to chin.
But it wasn’t merely the scar that stole the beauty from the Orianian’s face. There was something wrong with the way the nose lined up under the eyes. A twist to the thin lips that didn’t match the face. Kel looked pinched and somehow uncared for, as if life had been hard, and it wasn’t getting any easier.
Worf stared at the deformed face and wondered if there were worse things hiding behind their breathing masks and goggles. Perhaps there was a reason, beyond necessity, for faces to remain hidden. Perhaps many of them looked like Kel underneath. Healed by medical technology but somehow twisted.
Worf stared down at the sentinel, arms crossed over his chest. This man was a warrior, not a civilian, and that made things easier. Worf did not feel the same constraints he had felt when questioning Dr. Stasha. Kel was a warrior, he would not be instantly afraid. Worf hoped that here, at least, was a worthy opponent.
Kel kept glancing up at Worf with brief flicks of his eyes. Kel’s thin hands twisted in his lap. The darting glances that he gave Worf betrayed an obvious nervousness. He was very uncomfortable. Worf was puzzled. Were all the Orianians victims at heart?
Breck sat in the far corner of the room nearest the door. There was a Venturi officer in the other corner. She was there to see that no illegal harm was done to the sentinel. True he had failed his duty in the worst possible way, but still he was Venturi and there was still the law.
Breck and the Venturi ignored each other. Their face masks and goggles lay in their laps. The new Venturi was as beautiful as Alick had been, with white-blond hair and eyes that were the molten gold of a snake’s. It was a rule of the interrogation room on this planet that all must bare their faces.
After one brief glance, neither Breck nor the Venturi officer had looked directly at Kel. They looked at anything to avoid Kel’s face: walls, Worf’s tall form, Troi, anything but their unmasked fellow.
Kel’s eyes, too, avoided
them. He did not glance into their perfect features. He did not look at Troi, but he had to look at Worf. The Klingon had made that unavoidable.
Kel sat in his small chair, and Worf towered over him. He had found that his height made the Orianian guards nervous, and he used that now to intimidate one guard. Worf stood almost close enough for their legs to touch. He stared into Kel’s face without even blinking, as if he were trying to memorize each flaw.
Sweat beaded along Kel’s forehead, and still Worf only stood and stared. If just standing and stating would make Kel sweat, then that was what Worf would do. There was no need to do more, when staring seemed to be enough. The sentinel licked his thin lips, darted a glance upward, then down. His hands twisted the mask in his lap as if clutching it would keep him safe.
“Do you expect me to believe that you know nothing about General Alick’s death?” Worf’s deep voice seemed loud in the stillness.
Kel jumped. “I . . . I know nothing. I have told you everything I know.”
Worf leaned over, placing a hand on either side of the chair back. He glared into Kel’s face from a few centimeters. “You’re lying to us,” he growled. “Lying to me.”
Kel pushed to his feet, sending his chair to clatter along the floor. He stood to his full height, but still only came to Worf’s lower chest. He stood trembling, hands clenched into fists at his sides. His breath came in gasps. “How dare you stare at me like that!” He shouted. “I am hideous, but it is no fault of my own. I would rather you beat me than humiliate me like this!”
Worf just stood there for a moment, staring down at the smaller man. He fought to keep the surprise off his face. Staring was worse than a beating, so be it. He stepped into Kel, forcing the man to step back.
“I will stare at you if I please. You have allowed your leader to be murdered. You have no rights to anything.”
Kel’s anger collapsed, and his face twisted in the first signs of tears. Was he going to cry? Would a warrior break down in such a manner so quickly? Worf found it hard to believe, but the man’s torment was real. He fought an urge to glance at Troi, to see if she felt Kel’s pain. But Worf did not need empathy to see the pain tear at the man’s twisted features.
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