A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [4]
Riker nodded. “I see. Then you would say that twenty-four hours or so is enough to dull one’s edge?”
Picard looked at him. “Of course, Number One.”
“And anyone up here on the bridge that long would do well to take a break?”
“Without question.” The captain’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he scrutinized his first officer. But Riker was maintaining that poker face he had worked so hard to perfect. “What are you telling me, Will? That there’s someone up here who’s been at it that long-and failed to follow my order?”
Riker and Troi exchanged glances.
“Aha,” said Picard. “There is such a person-isn’t there?”
“Aye, sir,” said the first officer.
“Then out with it, Number One. Who?”
Riker looked apologetic. “You, sir. By my count, you’ve been on the bridge for twenty-six hours now.”
“Twenty-seven hours, thirty-nine minutes,” said Data, “to be precise.” He offered it rather matter-of-factly, looking back over his shoulder.
Picard felt himself frown. He wished that Data’s sense of discretion was as acute as his other senses-hearing, for instance. Gathering himself, he turned back toward Riker.
“Thank you,” he said, “for the imposition of perspective on the matter. You’re on your own, Number One.”
And with a nod of adieu to Troi, the captain joined the growing clot of officers at the turbo doors.
At first, Fredi figured it was only fatigue. After all, he was working overtime to catalog the geological data he had collected on Baldwin-McKean’s Planet.
And not because he had to. Lord knew, there was very little that smacked of urgency in the professional life of a geologist. The Baldwin-McKean rocks had been around for a long time; they’d be around for a long time after he was gone. Nor would he be collecting any new ones until well after the search for the Mendel was concluded-one way or the other.
Even under normal circumstances, he wasn’t the busiest of men. How often did the Enterprise stoop to such a mundane chore as planet survey? Very seldom. There were smaller, less capable vessels for that. Vessels like the Mendel.
In a sense, he was a luxury on the big ship. A component that only came into play when there was nothing really important going on.
When news of the research ship’s disappearance came down, certain science subsections had sprung into action. Nucleonics. Quantum mechanics. He should have been used to watching his colleagues labor in double and triple shifts, shuttling up to the bridge and back, while he twiddled his thumbs. But he couldn’t tolerate it-not this time.
He felt too hyper. Too full of energy. Thank God he still had the bulk of the Baldwin-McKean analyses ahead of him, or he might have exploded. As it was, he launched himself into them with the same fervor that drove the subsection search teams. Like them, he worked double duty, slept a little and chained himself to his workstation again.
What’s more, it felt good. Damned good. Not that his work contributed anything to the problem at hand. But it was a fine thing to be working hard, swept up in the wave of purposefulness. He hadn’t felt that way in many years-maybe since school, and that was a long time ago.
Then he had started to feel the weariness-in his fingers, in his back. The natural results, he told himself, of long hours spent hunched over a monitor, no matter how ergonomically it had been designed. And that had been explanation enough to set his mind at ease.
But things had gotten worse-and quickly. His fingers had become wooden, inflexible. The muscles in his lower back, in his legs, were cramping with the effort to hold him erect in his chair.
A break, he told himself, I just need a break.
It was only then that he got an inkling of how badly off he really was. Because when he rose to get something to drink, his knees buckled beneath him. And as if he’d had jelly in his legs instead of bones, he crumpled over on his side.
Damn. What’s happening to me? he asked himself.
Even then, his impulse was to deny that