T’Pol’s eyes widened ever so slightly; her lips parted an instant before she finally said, in a tone that struck Archer as being cooler than usual, “Captain. Wanderer is an extremely intelligent, very highly evolved being. I doubt it is mistaken.”
“As opposed to a puny humanoid with a body?” Archer said, allowing some of the anger through in his tone. “Wanderer may be evolved, and more intelligent than we are, but that doesn’t make it [114] entirely incapable of mistakes. Of course, I’ll apologize at once if Wanderer can show us how it knows there is no microbe involved.”
T’Pol glanced at the creature beside her; after a space of silence, she spoke again. “The problem here is the same as with the radiation. Our detection devices are very primitive. Wanderer could show us the radiation if only we were more advanced. ...”
Archer turned on her with vehemence. “You know, you’d think you wanted to do something other than come up with explanations as to why we all have to die. Don’t you want to live, Sub-Commander?”
“Of course,” T’Pol said, so unruffled and composed in the face of Archer’s frustration that he became even more irritated. “Like most humanoids, I possess an inborn survival instinct.” She paused. “But I have been trained not to let emotion prevent me from accepting the inevitable.”
The comment rankled, but Archer forced himself to cool his tone. “Well, then, let’s approach this more rationally. What proof do you have that Wanderer is correct about the radiation?”
Again, T’Pol turned her head and tilted it upward to look at her amorphous companion; its ocean-blue glow reflected off her face, bringing out the faint greenish highlights in her complexion. “I have none,” she stated flatly.
“And what proof do you have that the alien [115] from Shikeda was wrong in saying that the Oani were killed by a microbe too small for their instruments to detect?”
“Again, none.” T’Pol frowned slightly. “However, Captain, if I were forced to calculate the odds of which alien is correct—”
Archer lifted an index finger for silence. “Odds don’t matter. This is survival, remember? I’ll take any chance, however remote, that we can get. Ask Wanderer where the Shikeda traveler is. We need to find him. And if we can’t find him, then let’s find his planet. What if he’s right? What if his civilization is more advanced than Wanderer’s, and can detect a microbe that Wanderer doesn’t know is there?”
Once more, T’Pol turned and silently addressed herself to Wanderer; while still looking at its fluctuating energy fields, she said, “Wanderer takes no offense, Captain.”
I should hope not, Archer almost said, but held his tongue and let the Vulcan finish.
“Wanderer agrees to try to find the Shikedan. It says that he—the Shikedan traveler and his ship—would, by this time, be more distant from Enterprise than his home planet is. Do you prefer to go to the planet, since it is closer?”
Archer thought of the Oani tissue samples in sickbay. “Of course. And the sooner we get there, the better. I want Enterprise headed there at maximum warp.”
[116] “Very well,” T’Pol said. “Wanderer will transmit a course to Ensign Mayweather’s station as soon as it has ascertained the location of the Shikedan’s ship.”
“Thank you,” Archer said to Wanderer—though he meant it not in the least. And then he headed to sickbay proper, to check on Dr. Phlox.
After giving orders to the helm to make haste for the planet Shikeda, Archer arrived in sickbay just in time to see Trip Tucker administer the last injection to the last crew member, then set down his hypo. Behind him, Ensign Cutler was bent over a diagnostic bed—Phlox, the captain assumed. He stepped up to Trip, expecting the engineer to ask immediately why the ship had gone into warp.
But Tucker seemed not even to notice something that normally would have him chomping to get to his post in order to nurse his precious warp engines. Instead, he looked up at the captain with a gaze that seemed slightly lost.
“Trip,” Archer said softly, reaching out to catch his chief engineer’s upper arm. “You okay?”
Physically, Tucker looked fine—not even tired, even though he’d jumped out of bed in the middle of the night then volunteered to help Cutler inoculate the crew against radiation sickness. That was Trip: always ready for action, always the last one still on his feet. But Trip’s expression was haunted.
[117] “Malcolm,” he said, and even before he turned to look at Cutler behind him, Archer felt dread settle into the pit of his stomach, then spread slowly outward over the rest of him.
There, on the diagnostic beds, were two patients now: Phlox, his eyes and cheeks looking even more sunken than before, and Malcolm Reed, pale and still. Archer did not have to look at the overhead scanners to know what was happening to the two men: life was all too obviously ebbing from them.
He took the stricken Trip’s elbow and guided him over toward Cutler and her patients. She was bent over Reed at the moment, administering a hypo, and she looked intently at the results as she straightened. One indicator on Reed’s overhead scanner moved up very slightly; the others stayed put.
“I just can’t seem to do anything for him.” She faced the captain, her voice filled with the same frustration and anger Archer had experienced when questioning Wanderer.
“How’s Phlox?” Archer asked softly, and braced himself for the obvious answer.
She shook her head. “He’s deteriorating and I can’t stop it.”
Archer let a long moment of silence pass between the three of them before speaking again. “How long?”
Her eyes narrowed slightly with pain. “A day, if [118] he continues declining at the same rate. With Reed, I don’t know yet.”
Archer gave a single, unhappy nod. There might be hope. Hoshi just reported that a traveler from another planet visited the Oanis and apparently had a cure, which they refused for philosophical reasons. Wanderer is helping us track down that traveler right now.” He made the situation sound better than it actually was; it was important for Cutler, at least, to have hope if she was to maintain sanity here in sickbay.
“Good,” Cutler said, but the enthusiasm in her tone was muted. “Any idea how long that’ll take?”
“I’ll check on it and get back to you,” Archer promised. “Trip, we need to take a little stop by engineering. I need you to coax everything you can from those engines.”
The captain made good on his promise; Wanderer predicted that the planet Shikeda was reachable within twenty hours, so long as Enterprise was not forced to slow her speed. The creature was now happily settled in front of the computers in the lab near sickbay. Once Cutler was informed and warp four-point-five reached, Archer dragged Trip Tucker with him to his quarters and sat him down, once again with a glass of bourbon.
Tucker sighed. “Isn’t this where our evening started?”
[119] “Not quite,” Archer said darkly, legs stretched out in front of him on the bed. On the deck between him and Trip, Porthos paced nervously and whined.
“I know, boy,” Archer said. “You just wish I would settle down and get to sleep, so you’d know everything was back to normal. But it isn’t. Come on.” He patted the space between his legs; Porthos immediately jumped up and curled himself into a canine crescent, chin on Archer’s thigh, worried gaze on his master’s face.
“I just feel like such a damned heel,” Trip said finally, the first normal Trip-sounding noise he’d made since they were in sickbay.
“Why should you feel like a heel? Cutler said you caught Malcolm before he hit the deck.”
“Yeah, but he tried ...” Trip broke off, his voice suspiciously wavering; he coughed, then threw back his head and took a stiff belt of bourbon. Then he sighed deeply, and the resulting alcohol breeze made Archer wince ever so slightly. “Aw, heck, he tried to tell me he was changing his will and leaving everything to me. Then he fainted in sickbay, and I made fun of him. ...”
Archer decided that the best way to diffuse the tension was to add a little h
ard-boiled levity. “Yeah? And did you ask him what would happen to the family jewels when you croaked?”
It worked; Tucker’s lips curved in a faint ghost of a grin. “Depraved minds think alike. That’s [120] exactly what I pointed out to him, Captain. But he was damned determined.” He let go a huff of air, half out of humor, half out of pain, “For a Starfleet stiff, he’s pretty well off. Seems he’s got some property in the Cayman Islands, a huge spread in Argentina, a place in a hoity-toity London neighborhood ...”
“All you have to do is survive, Commander,” Archer told him. “Who knows? Behave yourself, and I might leave that little condo on Kauai to you. ... You could come out of this one ahead. And of course, there’s Porthos, here.” He stroked the dog’s smooth, warm head.
“Keep the condo,” Tucker said. “I’ll fight with Hoshi over the dog. I could use a little companionship.”
“That’s what the condo on Kauai’s for,” Archer said, and they both shared a feeble laugh. It faded quickly; Archer reached for the shelf beside the bed, where he’d left the picture of his father with Zefram Cochrane. He held the picture in one palm and gazed at it.
“Who’s that?” Trip asked.
“My dad.” Archer stared at the image a moment before he spoke. It occurred to him with resounding simplicity that, despite the occasional loneliness of the life he’d chosen, he was irrevocably happy—glad every morning when he woke to realize where he was and what he was doing; grateful every night for the same when he went to sleep. [121] That very fact made the thought of his own death less terrifying, even if he could never reconcile himself to the thought of losing a single crew member. “You know, I’ve really got it made. I’ve gotten everything I wanted out of life: a starship, a loyal crew, a life full of experiences I never dreamed of ...”
“A condo on Kauai,” Trip countered archly. “Captain, don’t get morbid on me.”
Archer sighed and straightened, carefully so as not to disturb the now-napping Porthos. “Trip, you know I’ve got to. The situation isn’t good.”
All pretense of good humor fled Tucker’s features; they sagged downward as he set his glass down on Archer’s desk and said, darkly, “I know.”
“We’re not even sure the Shikedans can help us. And twenty hours to get there—that’s a long time.” He did not add, A lot of people can die in that time. When Trip looked away and failed to reply, Archer continued. “There are a few things we need to talk about—as captain and commander.”
Tucker straightened and faced him. “Yes, sir.”
“Let’s assume I’m out of commission. The first situation is that T’Pol will assume command. I want to be sure that this ship gets in touch with the Shikedans. I’m leaving taped orders to that effect; and if she doesn’t comply, then I’m ordering you to take command and fulfill those orders. We’ve got to be certain this isn’t a microbe.”
[122] It was tantamount to mutiny for Trip to override T’Pol—but he didn’t even flinch at the thought. “You’ve got it, Captain.”
“Second thing: I want to be sure that, if this is a microbe, it doesn’t spread.”
“Understood. I’ll make sure strict quarantine is maintained until we’re sure.”
“Good.” Archer paused, then absently stroked Porthos’s head; the dog opened one eye and glared balefully at him for disturbing his slumber. “Third: If we do lose a lot of crew ...” He sighed, casting about for the right words. “If more than just the landing party is affected ...”
Trip read his mind. “You don’t want the Vulcans using this as an excuse to scrap the mission.”
It was a reasonable worry; while T’Pol might now thoroughly support the right of humans to explore space without their big Vulcan brother watching their every move, the same could still not be said for her superior, Ambassador Soval. Soval would be first to claim that any disaster involving Enterprise was proof that she should be recalled home.
Archer nodded grimly, glancing down at the image of his father and promising silently, Never.
He looked up to see Trip studying the captain’s expression, and reading it loud and clear.
“I’ll stop it, sir,” Tucker vowed. He did not qualify the statement by saying, If at all possible, an [123] omission Archer noted and appreciated. “You have my word.”
“Good,” Archer said. He lifted Porthos into his arms and stood. “Now let’s see if we can’t get a few hours’ sleep before the next shift.”
Trip set down his partially drunk glass of bourbon and rose stiffly, stretching as he did so. “God knows I could use some.”
“Me, too,” Archer said. “See you in the morning.”
As he stood in the doorway, Trip shot him a look that said, I’ll take that as a promise. “See you in the morning, Captain.”
Exhausted and bleary-eyed, Hoshi worked in her small laboratory near sickbay, which she now shared—most uncomfortably—with Wanderer. T’Pol had gone to the bridge to take over the conn, leaving the entity to scan Enterprise’s databases, presumably in order to learn more about human and Vulcan culture.
“Hello,” Hoshi had greeted the semitransparent column of blue-green swirls when it had first entered the laboratory. The presence of the energy being made Hoshi nervous, perhaps because of pure human prejudice: it just seemed unnatural that a conscious creature should not possess a body. Or perhaps her discomfort was due to the fact that her whole life was centered around communicating with other species—and [124] here was one species that she could not communicate with.
Most of all, perhaps a part of her could not forgive Wanderer for desecrating Kano’s body.
Yet at the same time, it had seemed rude not to acknowledge its presence here in her lab—even if she didn’t know whether it understood her or not. “I’m just finishing up my work on Oani logs,” she had told it.
Maybe the column had tried to respond: it deepened in color, grew a bit more opaque—like the ocean before a storm, Hoshi had thought, then turned away from the creature swiftly, before it could see the involuntary dismay in her expression. The thought had caused her to remember the disturbing dream of the night before, of Kano and Uroqa looking calmly at the waves pounding against the window. “
It’s only going to keep growing until it swallows us all.
Hoshi had shuddered at the memory. It hadn’t helped her nerves any to learn that Malcolm Reed, who had just been looking perfectly normal as he stood next to her in sickbay, had later collapsed. It broke her heart even more than the thought of viewing Uroqa’s last entry: she’d always liked Malcolm, more than she let on. There was something endearing about his awkward military stiffness and his pretense of being a suave ladies’ man, when in fact he was anything but.
[125] And now, only she, the captain, and T’Pol were left from the original landing party. T’Pol would definitely be the last to succumb to any sickness—God help the microbe or radioactive particle that tried to pierce that Vulcan hide. Which left Hoshi wondering whether her tiredness was due to the fact that she hadn’t slept all night ... or was due to some more sinister cause.
Hoshi leaned over the hooded viewer and finally steeled herself to watch the final log entry. In terms of discovering a solution to Enterprise’s medical dilemma, there seemed little point in viewing the entry: either Wanderer was correct about radiation poisoning, or the mysterious Shikedan traveler was correct about a microbe. But as a linguist, each entry provided Hoshi with more information on the (unfortunately now dead) Oani language; and as a scientist, she could not be one-hundred-percent certain that some sort of useful medical data might not come out of this last recording.
As a caring being, she felt obliged to see Uroqa’s sad story through to the very end.
Hoshi drew a breath and pressed the control that put Uroqua’s frozen image back in motion. As always, he began the log entry by identifying himself and giving the date and time, and mentioning any historical significance either of them had. This last entry was the birthdate of one of [126] the Oan
i’s most technologically progressive leaders, one born many centuries earlier, who had discovered how to effectively eliminate a great deal of the atmospheric pollution left behind by previous generations.
She was surprised to see Uroqa still physically strong, although emotionally drained by the tragedy surrounding him.
All dying or dead, he intoned, his once-forceful voice reduced to a murmur. It will not be long for Kano now, and so I yearn for my own death to come quickly.
It is so quiet here. The voices all are stilled, except my own. And I will be silent soon: I die so another creature, one too small for my eyes to see, might live. Yet its effects on my body will lead to its own destruction.
Is there meaning in this? I see none. Only darkness ...
He paused, and Hoshi pressed a control, freezing his image; her eyes were filled with tears, and she wanted to regain control of herself—for some reason embarrassed that Wanderer might see her weep over the death of this stranger, this alien.
And then she felt suddenly disgusted with herself for caring what anyone else thought. Why shouldn’t she weep? Why shouldn’t she feel compassion for the passing of this caring man and his wonderful civilization?
[127] Hoshi glanced over her shoulder: to her relief, Wanderer had vanished, apparently having finished its scan of the Enterprise computers.
She pressed the control again, then let the image play. But Uroqa had gone silent, gazing into the screen with an expression of eloquent sorrow; and then he turned his head and looked at something—someone—off-camera. His features did not shift, though his gaze was one of recognition.
I am sorry your help has been all for nothing, he said.
His intonation was irregular—not, Hoshi noted, the same he used when he was speaking to Kano, or making a log entry, but the one he used when he murmured something to himself. Someone had just entered, but for some reason Uroqa did not speak directly to them.
Star Trek: Enterprise - Surak's Soul Page 9