Force And Motion Part 16

"No worries, Nita. Everything's secure." O'Brien wanted to say something better, something more rea.s.suring, but now he was thinking about his wife, wondering what Keiko would say if she knew what he was doing at that moment. Out in s.p.a.ce with a thruster on his back, tugging a disintegrating s.p.a.cecraft back to an infected s.p.a.ce station. Most likely, she'd say, in a mildly disappointed tone, "Miles...o...b..ien, you're a d.a.m.ned fool."

A sour knot twisted in his gut. When was the last time he had consumed anything that wasn't liquid and alcoholic? Might not be any other options anytime in the near future. He wondered if Nog had made it past the interference and was on his way back. He wondered whether the Hooke was holding together. He wondered if Captain Maxwell was still alive.

Feeling a lump of self-pity and woe forming in the pit of his gut, O'Brien did what his mother had advised him to do. He began to sing: "The minstrel boy to the war is gone, In the ranks of death you'll find him; His father's sword he has girded on, And his wild harp slung behind him."

A voice crackled over the comm channel. "That's an awfully sad song, Chief."

O'Brien turned to look to his left and then to his right. Nog was coming up beside him, skillfully piloting his own thruster pack. A second cable was stretched out behind him. He must have fixed his harpoon as he had flown past the Wren. When his cable went taut, O'Brien applied a little more thrust, confident that the two of them would be able to slow down the transport when the time came. He checked his velocity and did the mental calculation. He smiled, though only when his head was turned away from Nog. "Aye," he replied. "It is a bit. It's a song we used to sing back in the day on the Rutledge. Captain Maxwell liked it."

"Is there more?"

"There is, but it doesn't get any more cheerful."

"Another time," Nog said.

They flew along in companionable silence for a few minutes, Nog nervously checking their velocity and course. O'Brien watched the stars until Nog settled, and then asked, "What happened with the Amazon? I saw her go into warp."

"You did," Nog said. "After you left the s.h.i.+p, it occurred to me that I could program the runabout to get clear of this distortion zone and send a message to the station. There was another thruster pack-I'm going to find out who stowed two of these on a runabout when we get back-so I figured I'd come and lend a hand."

"Ah," O'Brien said. "Well, thanks. Appreciate it."

"Should have thought of this sooner." He checked their course again, then added, "I'm sure Doctor Bas.h.i.+r would have thought of it sooner. I'm just not as smart as he is."

O'Brien let the sentiment echo around inside his helmet for a few moments. "Well," he offered, "who is, Commander? Who is?"

"True," Nog agreed.

Neither spoke for what was probably a long spell, but O'Brien found that he didn't mind the quiet. At the appointed time, the pair of engineers began to s.h.i.+ft their configuration in an attempt to bring the Wren to a safe stop. Before heading off on the necessary vector, Nog added, "If we survive this, I swear I'm never going anywhere with you ever again."

Ops Center Robert Hooke "There are a lot of uncertainties here," Maxwell said as he tugged the legs of the environmental suit up over his trousers. "A lot of things we don't know."

"This is true," Finch allowed. He was seated in the chair in front of the primary environmental control panel, which showed a slowly spinning schematic of the Hooke, replete with blinking colored swaths to indicate problem areas. There were, Maxwell noted, lots of blinking red and orange blocks, and not very many yellow or green bits. The situation was rapidly going to h.e.l.l.

The ops center had fared better than most of the rooms they had visited on the other decks, though this was likely because there were fewer pieces of fragile lab equipment here. "Just for fun," Maxwell said, standing and slipping his arms into the sleeves, "let's list some of them. Seeing as we're not doing anything else."

While no longer semicomatose, Finch had lapsed into recalcitrance. "Fine," he murmured. "Let's."

Maxwell pushed his hand through the suit's rigid cuff and extended his index finger, counting off. "We don't know how much of the Mother is still upstairs in your lab."

"True," Finch agreed. "Though we believe she was jettisoned."

"Belief is not evidence. And we don't have any working sensors in there, do we?"

"Sabih made sure of that."

Maxwell frowned, but did not reply. On the trek back to ops, he had been thinking about Sabih and his disastrous attempt at theft. While he hadn't known the young man well, he had never struck Maxwell as either particularly enterprising (beyond the venture capitalist model) or larcenous. Current circ.u.mstances, alas, did not lend themselves to additional investigations. One thing Maxwell knew for sure was that he wasn't going to allow Finch into the lab without being carefully supervised. As insurance, he had locked the second environmental suit into a cabinet for which the station owner no longer had the access code. "And if any remnant of the Mother is up there, do we know if she would be attracted to this suit's energy signature?"

Finch unfolded his hands and tapped together the tips of opposing fingers. He stared into s.p.a.ce. "We do not," he drawled. "Although evidence indicates she is attracted to radioactive energy sources. Your suit runs on a battery with a modest energy signature. I doubt she would find it appetizing, especially with so many other tasty morsels to consider."

As if on cue another section of the Hooke's hull changed from orange to red on the display. Maxwell felt a shudder through the soles of his boots, though, thankfully, the gravity remained stable. "So," he said, "good news for our side. Any other bits you'd like to offer?"

"It will be very cold," Finch said. "Do not tarry. Your suit was not meant for prolonged exposure to vacuum."

"Noted."

"Otherwise, my only question is simply this: What do you hope to accomplish besides determining whether the Mother is still in residence?"

"And retrieving Sabih's body," Maxwell said.

"Naturally. And that."

"I want to see why the radiation blast didn't fire," Maxwell said. "I want to see if someone tampered with it. I want to see if it can still be used."

"Really?" Finch asked, his brows knitting together. "To what end?"

"I should think that would be obvious, Doctor," Maxwell said, standing up and lifting the recycler onto his back. "If I can, I'm going to reset it so we can fire the d.a.m.ned thing."

"And kill the Mother?" Finch had come back to life again. Maxwell doubted if Finch realized it, but he was gripping the arms of his chair with both hands.

"If the opportunity arises," Maxwell said, snugging up the straps on the harness. He mentally added, And with a small amount of pleasure.

"You couldn't," Finch said through gritted teeth. "You mustn't!"

"I could," Maxwell said, retrieving the helmet and brus.h.i.+ng off the last of the packing material. "And while I'm not sure if I must, I'm pretty sure it would make me feel a lot better." He inspected the helmet's visor to see if a layer of thin film protected it. He found one, which meant the helmet had never been used. Peeling it away, Maxwell wondered how long the gear had been sitting in Zerkowski's storage closet, unused, unchecked.

He glanced at Finch, who was silently seething, and wondered if the big man's rage would get him out of the chair. Maxwell half wished it would. Though Finch probably had twenty or thirty kilos on him, Maxwell felt confident he could take him if it came down to an altercation.

Finch disappointed him by clenching the chair arms and turning back toward the monitor. Another square of the station's hull turned from yellow to orange. "We're not going to last long at this rate," Finch said.

"Then I'd best get on with it," Maxwell said, fitting the helmet into the suit collar. The servos meshed and he felt a rush of cool atmosphere flow into the helmet. It smelled like lavender soap. He found the communicator control on the left gauntlet and tapped it. "Is this working?"

Finch looked at him and nodded.

"Are we reasonably sure the hatch into the lab is sealed?"

"We are," Finch said. His voice sounded tinny through the helmet's small speaker.

"When I open that door there." He pointed to the closed hatch that led to the foot of the short stairway. "We won't lose all the air in here? It'll serve as an airlock if I close it behind me?"

"It should," Finch said. "But why would you care? I'm the one who doesn't have a suit."

Maxwell considered his point. "That's true," he said. "But then I wouldn't have anyone to chat with."

"How dreadful for you," Finch drawled.

Maxwell walked to the hatch, all the while trying to find his balance. The suit's joints were stiff, and he felt like he might tip over at any moment. He tapped the door's control stud, half expecting it to beep at him ominously, but, no, it swooshed open with only a small pop. He glanced back at Finch to make sure he hadn't collapsed. The station owner was still upright and alert, watching Maxwell attentively.

Suddenly, Maxwell felt very exposed, very at risk. If Finch could somehow seal the door behind him, then he would have to . . . do what? Maxwell had the environmental suit. If he must, he could figure a way out of the lab and back into the station through one of the many, many gaps in the hull. He might have to contend with the Mother in some fas.h.i.+on, but there was no proof yet that she . . . it was dangerous as long as you weren't housing a radioactive power source. So, things are going my way, Maxwell concluded as he mounted the stairs. Nothing to do but recover a body and fire a small thermonuclear device. Janitor's work, really.

Reaching the top step, Maxwell stopped and considered his options. Firing a thermonuclear device might be a bad idea. Considering the creature seemed to like radiation.

He stopped in front of the door and pondered, but then decided he wasn't required to make a decision at that moment.

Light. He would need light. Feeling foolish for not checking it earlier, Maxwell found the control stud for the torch embedded in the suit's right gauntlet. It lit up, seeming unreasonably bright in the narrow s.p.a.ce. He touched his helmet about the faceplate and felt another lamp, but couldn't find the control switch to turn it on. Probably won't need it, he decided, though he didn't like the idea of having to hold up one arm all the time to see where he was going.

He laid his left palm on the door and felt the chill of vacuum radiating through it.

When Maxwell tapped the control stud, once again his expectations were defied, and the door silently swooshed open.

Emergency lights cast long, distorted shadows. Maxwell moved his arm back and forth, looking for familiar shapes. He hadn't visited Finch's lab often, so he wasn't sure which console contours were correct and which had been disrupted or distended by the Mother's escape.

The tank. He knew the tank was in the middle of the room. Sabih had been there when he died. He would use the tank to get oriented. Maxwell half turned and extended his arm to frame the tank in the beam from his torch. He expected to find nothing more than a frame with cracked sides and the frozen remains of the Mother smeared against the inner walls, but such was not the case.

"Finch," Maxwell whispered. "It's still here."

"You'll have to be more specific, old man. What is still there?"

"The Mother," Maxwell said, speaking louder. Why shouldn't he speak in a normal tone of voice? It wasn't like there was atmosphere to carry his voice. Or like it would be able to hear him even if there was. "It's still here. Floating. How is that possible? Shouldn't the liquid have been sucked out? Shouldn't it be frozen?" Other questions rose up out of the murk of his mind, many of them quite logical and sensible. His calm state of mind was surprising, considering how completely and totally disturbed he was feeling at that moment. Starfleet training is still holding strong, a distant part of his mind said.

Finch did not reply immediately, though Maxwell heard him breathing deeply, just shy of panting. "It's possible," he said finally, "that Sabih reprogrammed the environmental controls."

"Why would he do that?"

"I don't know," Finch said. "One cannot predict the actions of a criminal. Or the young. Can you describe her condition?"

Maxwell rolled his eyes and thought, Yes, it's a blob. Next question? But he knew Finch was asking for actionable information, so he tried to comply. "I don't really know what it looked like before, but it's floating in the middle of the tank. Tendrils are moving slightly. Some of them are pressed up against the walls of the tank. Wait . . ." He stepped closer and shone the torch onto the face of the transparent surface. "What's the tank made out of?"

"A form of transparent aluminium." Finch p.r.o.nounced the word like a British person would. "Reinforced with ceramic fibers. Very durable. Why?"

"It's cracked," Maxwell said. "But the cracks are very fine. It seems to be exerting pressure against the cracks. I think I see . . ." He had to move at a forty-five-degree angle away from the surface of the tank wall and s.h.i.+ne the light from above to make sense out of what he was seeing. "There's something coming out of the tank: a thread or fiber of some kind." As much as Maxwell hated the idea of moving closer, curiosity had gotten the better of him. He s.h.i.+fted his stance and lifted his right arm at an awkward angle.

The knuckles of Maxwell's gloved fist brushed against Sabih's face.

He was standing up, his head canted at an awkward angle. Sabih's eyelids were open, the muscles around them twitching, but the eyes looked like frosted gla.s.s, discolored by broken and distended vessels. His mouth moved slowly, soundlessly.

Maxwell stared. He imagined he could feel the young man's breath through his gauntleted hand, though, of course, that was ridiculous. There was no atmosphere, no medium for breath to move through, and no heat to be transferred.

He watched Sabih's lips as they moved over and over again in the same pattern, even though no other part of him moved. He looked, Maxwell decided, like a marionette, one controlled by an amateur puppeteer. Maxwell took a cautious step away, the better to see the nightmare.

Poor, dead Sabih's lips and tongue kept making the same movements over and over, slowly, but precisely. Connections clicked into place inside his head. Words were shaped.

Let.

Me.

Out.

Chapter 14.

One Month Earlier Wellington, New Zealand "To old acquaintances," Nog said, lifting his gla.s.s.

"Not forgotten," Jake replied, and tapped his gla.s.s against Nog's.

Despite the fact that (or possibly because) he had spent much of his youth working in a bar, Nog had never developed a taste for alcoholic beverages, though he had never lost his love for root beer. On the occasions when Nog visited Jake Sisko on Earth, his old friend always made sure to lay in a couple of cases of the soft drink. If the two of them ever wanted something a bit stronger, they would mix in a bit of sanar, which, his uncle (who was a bit of a sn.o.b on such matters) used to say, was nothing more than Terran vodka, but with none of the complexity. Neither Jake nor Nog cared. It was the inebriant that the two of them had first shared as boys, and the ceremony of its consumption meant a lot to them. They clinked their gla.s.ses together and the ice cubes jingled merrily.

Both smacked their lips, admired their frosty tumblers, and settled back into their chairs. They grinned at each other, but neither spoke for a time, not wanting to spoil the moment. Finally, Nog couldn't resist and exclaimed, "Happy New Year!"

Jake smiled like he had won a bet and said, "And to you." For more than a decade, a.s.suming they were in the same sector of s.p.a.ce, Nog and Jake made it their practice to seek each other out on the turning of the Earth year and toast each other.

"To twenty-three eighty-five," Jake declared, taking another sip of his drink.

"Good riddance," Nog added.

"Really? That bad?" Jake set aside his beverage and eyed the spread of snacks he'd prepared, a cross section of goodies that both men had either tolerated or enjoyed for the other's sake since they were boys.

"That bad," Nog said, scooping up a handful of pistachios and cracking the sh.e.l.ls. He wasn't crazy about pistachios, but enjoyed the cracking.

"The station opened."

"And the president was a.s.sa.s.sinated there."

"Garak became castellan."

"And Doctor Bas.h.i.+r was court-martialed."

"He saved the Andorians."

"Only by doing something so illegal that we don't even know what it is."

"But . . . wait. Never mind," Jake said. "No matter what I say next, you'll think of something terrible to counter it."

"Probably," Nog allowed, brus.h.i.+ng the wisps of pistachio sh.e.l.ls off his uniform. "It doesn't take much to think of bad things."

Jake studied his friend out of the corner of his eye. "Or one bad thing," he added. "The one you're not telling me about."

Nog didn't reply, focusing all of his attention on the snack selection. Korena had raised a rueful eyebrow at the glaringly mismatched items before slipping out of the house to visit some friends.

"Or," Jake continued, "can't tell me about."

Nog shrugged, picked up his drink, and sipped it.