Broken Bow - Diane Carey [48]
“I’ll be damned ... How can you confirm any of this?”
“I probably can’t. All I can do is keep going forward with nothing to hide. A spy’s no good if you’ve got nothing to hide.”
“How ’bout that ... T’Pol’s the lab animal. What do you know!” Tucker slapped the end of the bed with a victorious hand, then recoiled. “Sorry! Did I hurt you?”
Archer leaned back, put his arms behind his head, and luxuriated. “Trip, I don’t think anybody can hurt me anymore today.”
“What are the symptoms of frostbite?”
Hoshi Sato picked at her fingertips. Behind her complaints, the sensor console was making a strange and frantic ping every few seconds.
Lieutenant Reed didn’t offer her a sympathetic glance, but did explain, “Your appendages blister, peel, turn gangrenous.”
“I think I have frostbite.”
Ah, well. He moved closer to her, glad he didn’t have to cross in front of T’Pol in the command chair. “Let me see ... Dr. Phlox may have to amputate.”
Hoshi frowned. “I never had to worry about frostbite in Brazil.”
Before he could respond, the pings became suddenly more frantic and closer together.
“They’re getting too far ahead of us,” Ensign Mayweather said, watching the helm with frustration.
“Match their speed,” T’Pol said flatly.
Mayweather glanced helplessly at Reed, then declared, “I’m not authorized to go beyond four-four.”
T’Pol tapped a button.
“Engineering,” Tucker’s voice answered.
“Mr. Tucker, would you please give the helmsman permission to go to warp four point five.”
“It’s okay, Travis. I’ll keep an eye on the engines.”
Reed watched Mayweather, but couldn’t tell whether the helmsman liked or disliked what he was now doing. The ship surged under them, physically and with great confidence. The pinging slowed down to a normal rhythm and volume. The sensors were much happier.
There was a certain irony in T’Pol’s being the one to give the order to go to four-five. Reed tried not to be affected by such trivialities, but some rites of passage should belong to the captain alone. Yet, without consideration, the Vulcan woman had seized the privilege for herself. And the glory, if any came?
He respected the uniform, as he must, but her presence here was the culmination of a dire prediction by Trip Tucker. Tucker’s instincts had proven correct, or partially. In fact, this woman had bothered to execute the captain’s plans instead of her own.
Still, his investigation had turned up a strange trail of communiqués culminating in her assignment here. The captain had chosen not to question the trail, but to push them all farther down it. Now T’Pol was, perhaps, still being manipulated, but by Jonathan Archer.
Very nice. Reed rocked on his heels. Very nice indeed.
“Archer to bridge.”
Reed relieved Hoshi of the need to use her poor fingers by pushing the intercom himself. “Yes, sir, Reed here.”
“Tucker says we just accomplished four-five. I’d have liked to have been there for that.”
T’Pol glanced at Reed, but let him do the talking.
“You are here, sir, in all our spirits. We wouldn’t have been here at all if not for you.”
“The farther in the future they are, the more crazy and dangerous it is that they would be doing these things. While it has marginal effects on people here, it could completely change their own time. So what do they want?”
Jonathan Archer took tentative steps as he circumnavigated the table in his office. His leg was tingling from the knee to the hip. Still not good.
“Trip ... give me a hand.”
Trip Tucker rushed to him from the couch and eagerly helped him back into the office chair. Beside them, stars streaked by the portal at high warp. Archer felt out of commission, wearing only his T-shirt and nonreg trousers, but he knew he had to give himself another hour to come out of the doctor’s funny sedative. He seemed to have the time. They were in hot pursuit, but only matching the speed of the people they were pursuing. They didn’t, after all, want to catch them—not quite yet. They wanted to be led somewhere first.
Warp four point five ...
“It’s possible