Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [101]
“Done,” said the computer.
“Run.”
“Executing,” it said.
He breathed out a long breath. “Store three times randomly in other locations,” he said softly, watching the top of the shaft to see if Eileen was coming down.
“Done,” said the computer.
“Set no-warn,” he said, touching the display to silence it as Eileen came down on her floater again. Confirm, the computer flashed on his tricorder screen.
He pulled his own chip out, tucked it away safe, and touched the display to change it back to the scan-for-bad-chips routine.
“Here you go,” Eileen said, coming down level with him, and handed him the replacement chips.
He started replacing them while she pulled out her own tricorder and scanned the lower panels. “This is a little unusual, isn’t it?” she said, looking sideways at him.
“What? The computer falling apart? Damn straight it is.”
“No … I mean, you coming down and working … getting your hands dirty like anybody else.”
Geordi swallowed. “Welllll …” The excuse was near to hand. “Sometimes you have to do strange things to be alone with a pretty girl.”
She briefly gave him a superior look, then burst out laughing. “Is there anyone around here you haven’t tried that on?”
Apparently this was at least one area in which he and his counterpart were similar. “Working my way through the ship, I can only hope …”
“Working your way through upward or downward?” There was a slight twinkle in her eye.
“Which direction do you favor?” he said, sliding a couple more chips into place.
She looked at him for a moment, then said, “Mine.”
Aha, Geordi thought. “Well, I don’t know. I assumed you were hanging around me so that you could get a promotion.”
“Well,” she said mildly, “you do only have three assistant chiefs now … and frankly, they’re all total losses, but I’m sure that’s why you chose them.”
Geordi kept his face straight and swapped another chip. “After all,” Eileen said, “there’s no point in promoting someone who’s seriously going to be a challenge to your job. You have to have assistants, after all, but”—she gave him a wicked smile—”there’s no use in their being too good at the job, is there?”
“You’ve got a point there,” Geordi said, thinking it was hardly the point he would have made. What kind of decent work could get done on a ship when you purposely chose your subordinates not for their talent but for their lack of it? It was no wonder the maintenance in here was so sloppy.
“Well,” he said after a moment, mock-seriously, “I would have to give it due and proper consideration, I suppose. After due and proper evaluation of your work.”
On her floater, she leaned quite close to him, until she was practically breathing in his ear. “I had hoped we could bypass the evaluation.”
“Oh? And use what instead?”
“Bribery?” she said very softly, and breathed in his ear again, more purposefully this time.
Geordi swallowed and tried to get some control of himself. “Ensign, the sooner we get this done, the sooner we can discuss this in more detail.”
She smiled slightly at him. “It’s still a little strange to see you actually interested in working. I suppose I can cope. But some people aren’t going to know what to make of it.”
Geordi made a wry face at her. “Let’s just say that at this point I’m fond of not being turned into so much radioactive dust by whatever’s chasing us out there. Or having someone from” —he “ahemmed” slightly—”“higher up” get hold of me.”
“Yes, the counselor has been on the prod the last day or so. Harry thinks she’s nervous about something.”
“The counselor? Nervous?” Geordi thought of that cool regard on the bridge and shook his head, doubting it very much indeed.
“Well, that’s the scuttlebutt … and you know how she is when she gets nervous.”
“Uh-huh,” Geordi said, sounding concerned, as he suspected he was supposed to. “Well, I’m gonna try to stay out of her way. In the