Redshirts

“Right,” Dahl said. “Which, even if I knew what a ‘counter-bacterial’ was, is no time at all. It takes weeks to make a vaccine.”

“Dahl, tell me,” Collins said. “When Q’eeng and Abernathy were here, how were they talking to you?”

“What do you mean?” Dahl asked.

“Did they come in and quickly tell you what you needed?” Collins said. “Or did they go on and on about a bunch of crap you didn’t need to know?”

“They went on a bit, yes,” Dahl said.

“Was the captain particularly dramatic?” Cassaway asked.

“What is ‘particularly dramatic’ in this context?” Dahl asked.

“Like this,” Mbeke said, and then grabbed both of Dahl’s shoulders and shook them. “‘Damn it, man! There is no try! Only do!’”

Dahl set down the vial so it was not accidentally shaken out of his grip. “He said pretty much exactly those words,” he said to Mbeke.

“Well, they’re some of his favorite words,” Mbeke said, letting go.

“I’m not understanding what any of this means,” Dahl said, looking at his lab mates.

“One more question,” Collins said, ignoring Dahl’s complaint. “When they told you that you had to find this counter-bacterial in six hours, did they give you a reason why?”

“Yes,” Dahl said. “They said that was the amount of time they had to save a lieutenant.”

“Which lieutenant?” Collins said.

“Why does it matter?” Dahl asked.

“Answer the question, Ensign,” Collins said, uttering Dahl’s rank for the first time in a week.

“A lieutenant named Kerensky,” Dahl said.

There was a pause at the name.

“That poor bastard,” Mbeke said. “He always gets screwed, doesn’t he.”

Cassaway snorted. “He gets better,” he said, and then looked over to Dahl. “Somebody else died, right?”

“An ensign named Lee was liquefied,” Dahl said.

“See,” Cassaway said, to Mbeke.

“Someone really needs to tell me what’s going on,” Dahl said.

“Time to break out the Box,” Trin said, sipping his coffee again.

“Right,” Collins said, and nodded to Cassaway. “Go get it, Jake.” Cassaway rolled his eyes and went to the storage room.

“At least someone tell me who Lieutenant Kerensky is,” Dahl said.

“He’s part of the bridge crew,” Trin said. “Technically, he’s an astrogator.”

“The captain and Q’eeng said he was part of an away team, collecting biological samples,” Dahl said.

“I’m sure he was,” Trin said.

“Why would they send an astrogator for that?” Dahl said.

“Now you know why I said ‘technically,’” Trin said, and took another sip.

The storage room door slid open and Cassaway emerged with a small, boxy appliance in his hands. He walked it over to the closest free induction pad. The thing powered on.

“What is that?” Dahl asked.

“It’s the Box,” Cassaway said.

“Does it have a formal name?” Dahl asked.

“Probably,” Cassaway said.

Dahl walked over and examined it, opening it and looking inside. “It looks like a microwave oven,” he said.

“It’s not,” Collins said, taking the vial and bringing it to Dahl.

“What is it, then?” Dahl asked, looking at Collins.

“It’s the Box,” Collins said.

“That’s it? ‘The Box’?” Dahl said.

“If it makes you feel better to think it’s an experimental quantum-based computer with advanced inductive artificial intelligence capacity, whose design comes to us from an advanced but extinct race of warrior-engineers, then you can think about it that way,” Collins said.

“Is that actually what it is?” Dahl asked.

“Sure,” Collins said, and handed the vial to Dahl. “Put this in the Box.”

Dahl looked at the vial and took it. “Don’t you want me to prepare the sample?” he asked.

“Normally, yes,” Collins said. “But this is the Box, so you can just put it in there.”

Dahl inserted the vial into the Box, placing it in the center of the ceramic disk at the bottom of the inside space. He closed the Box door and looked at the outside instrument panel, which featured three buttons, one green, one red, one white.

“The green button starts it,” Collins said. “The red button stops it. The white button opens the door.”

“It should be a little more complicated than that,” Dahl said.

“Normally it is,” Collins agreed. “But this is—”

“This is the Box,” Dahl said. “I get that part.”

“Then start it,” Collins said.

Dahl pressed the green button. The Box sprang to life, making a humming sound. On the inside a light came on. Dahl peered inside to see the vial turning as the disk he placed it on was rotated by a carousel.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Dahl said, to himself. He looked up at Collins again. “Now what?”

“You said Abernathy and Q’eeng said you had six hours,” Collins said.

“Right,” Dahl said.

“So in about five and a half hours the Box will let you know it has a solution,” Collins said.

“How will it tell me that?” Dahl asked.

“It’ll go ding,” Collins said, and walked off.

* * *

Roughly five and a half hours later there was a small, quiet ding, the humming sound emanating from the Box’s carousel engine stopped and the light went off.

“Now what?” Dahl said, staring at the Box, to no one in particular.

“Check your work tablet,” Trin said, not looking up from his own work. He was the only one besides Dahl still in the lab.

Dahl grabbed his work tablet and powered up the screen. On it was a rotating picture of a complex organic molecule and beside that, a long scrolling column of data. Dahl tried to read it.

“It’s giving me gibberish,” he said, after a minute. “Long streaming columns of it.”

“You’re fine,” Trin said. He set down his own work and walked over to Dahl. “Now, listen closely. Here’s what you do next. First, you’re going to take your work tablet to the bridge, where Q’eeng is.”

“Why?” Dahl said. “I could just mail the data to him.”

Trin shook his head. “It’s not how this works.”

“Wh—” Dahl began, but Trin held up his hand.

“Shut up for a minute and just listen, okay?” Trin said. “I know it doesn’t make sense, and it’s stupid, but this is the way it’s got to be done. Take your tablet to Q’eeng. Show him the data on it. And then once he’s looking at it, you say, ‘We got most of it, but the protein coat is giving us a problem.’ Then point to whatever data is scrolling by at the time.”

“‘Protein coat’?” Dahl said.

“It doesn’t have to be the protein coat,” Trin said. “You can say whatever you like. Enzyme transcription errors. RNA replication is buggy. I personally go with protein coat because it’s easy to say. The point is, you need to say everything is almost perfect but one thing still needs to be done. And that’s when you gesture toward the data.”

“What’ll that do?” Dahl asked.

“It will give Q’eeng an excuse to furrow his brow, stare at the data for a minute and then tell you that you’ve overlooked some basic thing, which he will solve,” Trin said. “At which point you have the option of saying