Bashir paused for a moment before answering. “It’s possible, sir. But I’ll need to run some tests before I can say for certain.”
“I have run some tests,” said Tenmei. Vaughn and Bashir both favored her with a blank look. “On the Sagan itself, I mean. The Sagan is in close to optimal condition. Except for a peculiar quantum resonance pattern, that is.”
“Meaning what?” Vaughn said.
Tenmei shook her head and shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
Vaughn abruptly put aside every reverent thought he’d had about the alien artifact thus far. He didn’t like the direction this was taking one bit.
Vaughn looked at Ezri again. This time he had no doubt—she was indeed looking pale. Why hadn’t Julian noticed? “Lieutenant, how long have you been feeling ill?”
Ezri sighed wearily, evidently deciding it was best to come clean. “It happened…I think it started during the flight back from the alien artifact.”
“I see.” Vaughn was fully aware that this fact might or might not be significant. Shifting his gaze to Bashir, he said, “Has anyone else from the Sagan’ s crew experienced any symptoms?”
The doctor suddenly looked uncomfortable, as though he wanted to be parsecs from the mess hall. He appeared to be groping for words.
That wasn’t like him at all.
“Doctor?”
“I…believe I may have experienced a lapse in concentration while tending to our alien patients,” he said finally. “I’m not at all certain what to make of it. If anything.”
Vaughn felt his cheeks flush with anger. He glared first at Bashir, then at Ezri. “And you were both planning on reporting these difficulties exactly when?”
Bashir stiffened at that. “With respect, sir, at the time neither of us was aware that there was a problem. I’m still not entirely convinced there is one now.”
Vaughn moved his hand through the air as though to wave the question of timeliness away. “All right. But what about Nog? How has he been feeling?”
“I’ll contact him,” Bashir said. “He’s still making repairs to the alien vessel.”
At that moment, Dax cried out and collapsed across the conference table, clutching her belly and screaming in pain.
Ignoring the pain raging in his leg, Nog watched as the alien EPS conduits finally lit up in the correct sequence. Power had begun flowing into the proper channels. And, more importantly, nothing had exploded.
Permenter heaved a theatrical sigh of relief, then displayed an I-told-you-it-was-going-to-work grin to the still sheepish-looking Senkowski. Even Shar wore a triumphant smile, which Nog knew was a carefully constructed affectation on the Andorian’s part, for the benefit of the humans around him. Even the alien engineer looked pleased, his chitinous mandibles moving from side to side to display what might have been happiness or gratitude.
“Release the magnetic bottles now, Shar,” Nog said. After Shar touched the appropriate controls, Nog could feel the rumble in the deckplates that signaled the resumption of a controlled matter-antimatter reaction. Now that warp power was partially restored, the rest of the repairs would go forward much more easily. Force fields could be erected strategically throughout the ship, buttressing the collapsed sections and reinforcing the crude patching that had already been applied to some of the exterior hull breaches.
But I won’t have to supervise the rest of it directly, Nog thought, now eager to get to the Defiant’ s medical bay so that Dr. Bashir could examine his leg.
The deckplates continued throbbing, with increasing intensity.
The throbbing sensation moved up from the deckplates and into Nog’s left leg, which suddenly felt as though it had been thrust directly into an unshielded antimatter pile. Nog screamed and watched the bulkheads trade places in slow motion. Deck became wall. Bulkhead became ceiling. His back pressed up—or down?—against something cold and unyielding.
He looked up, straight into the impenetrable eyes of the alien engineer. Beside the alien stood Shar, his image pulled and twisted as by a crazily warped mirror.
“Defiant, emergency beam-out!” he heard Shar shout as darkness engulfed him.
7
Two weeks, RO thought as she leaned back in the chair behind the security office desk. Unbidden, a muscle in her upper back began rhythmically clenching and unclenching itself. Rolling her shoulders to work out the kink, she tossed the padd containing the incident report—the unfinished incident report—onto the desk.
Two weeks, and I’m still mopping up after Thriss.
The door chime rang. Ro looked through the glass to see who was trying to monopolize her time now. But the moment she saw who it was, she relaxed and ordered the computer to open the door.
“Didn’t expect to find you still in your office so late, Ro,” said Lieutenant Commander Phillipa Matthias, leaning tentatively through the doorway. “Got a minute?”
Ro smiled. She genuinely liked the station’s new counselor, not simply because she was friendly toward her—not to mention solicitous of her sometimes prickly moods—but also because she spoke plainly and directly. Starfleet counselors were rarely so refreshingly free of professional psychobabble as was Matthias.
Ro also knew that she could rely on Phillipa not to waste her time. “A minute?” she said as she rose from behind her desk and stretched. “I’ve got as many as you need. Tell me: Have the Andorians agreed to talk to you?”
Phillipa bit her lip, looking uncharacteristically uncomfortable. “Well, doctor-patient confidentiality would have constrained what I could tell you. If Dizhei and Anichent had decided to open up to me. But they haven’t. Frankly, I’m not a bit surprised. Andorians aren’t known for being overly fond of the counseling trade.”
“I wonder why.”
“It’s the antennae.”
“Come again?”
“Those antennae are a wonderful means of nonverbal communication. Sometimes unintentionally so. That’s why Andorians are lousy at keeping their poker hands a secret, but absolutely terrific at judging other people’s emotional states. They probably realize it, too, which explains why they aren’t keen on having counselors around. Especially when they’re this raw emotionally.”
Ro felt another slow, pounding, warp-core-breach of a headache coming on. She understood, and sympathized with, the anguish
