Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [43]
“About half an hour till we’re finished, sir,” O’Brien said, “and then about half an hour for testing. Then Mr. La Forge and the counselor can go whenever they’re ready.”
“Very well,” Picard said. “I wouldn’t want to wait much longer than that. I’m having enough trouble understanding our counterparts’ state of mind as it is, but I don’t believe they’ll think it would take us very long to notice”—he frowned—”a dead body. The sooner we get on with this and get our people back, the better I’ll like it.”
“Yes. I’ve installed an extra decontam routine in the biofilter circuits,” O’Brien said quietly, “after what Dr. Crusher told me about Stewart. There’s no telling whether other crew members might be carrying such tailored bugs around inside them—and I wouldn’t want Mr. La Forge or the counselor to bring back copies of their own. We’ll be taking very careful baseline measurements on their transport out, to make sure we have clean data to compare them against when they come home again.”
Picard nodded approval. Across from them, the doors to the corridor opened, and Commander Hwiii came swimming in on his pad, carrying several isolinear chips in one of his manipulators.
“Captain,” he said as he came up with them, “Chief—how is it going?”
“We’ll be ready shortly,” O’Brien said.
Picard reached out, curious at the different look of the chips. “Ah,” he said, turning one over in his hands, “these are the new high-density chips.”
“That’s right,” Hwiii said, “five hundred twelve terabytes each. Mr. La Forge should be able to pack a fair amount of what he needs into these, assuming that this does what we intend.” He held one of them up.
“The search routines,” Picard said.
Hwiii swung his tail in agreement. “He asked me to add what I could. The one thing I feel sure of, Captain, is that what’s happened to us has something to do with the odd way that the hyperstring structure was behaving in our home space, just before we swapped over into this one. Besides Mr. La Forge’s searches on crew information, history, and engineering science, I’ve added search parameters for everything that would seem to pertain to hyperstring theory in conjunction with engine performance, shield function, warpfield, and transporter theory—you sing it, it’s here.” Hwiii looked resigned. “The best I can manage. Nothing to do now but sound a few notes in the One’s waters and hope for the best.”
Picard felt more or less the same way. “Thank you, Commander,” he said.
“Don’t say it, Eileen!” came Geordi’s voice from the doorway, sounding annoyed—though the annoyance still had a cheerful sound to it. Picard turned, saw him coming, and had to school his face to stillness.
“”Drafty,”” he said to Geordi as the chief engineer of the Enterprise came up to them, his expression a study in rueful amusement. “I think Mr. Riker may have been understating somewhat.”
Geordi spread his well-muscled arms for a moment in a helpless gesture, then let them drop. There was no doubt about the quality of their musculature, for the top half of the uniform he was wearing was more of that gold-mesh material, cut as an open-fronted vest. The rest of it was a matching sash at the waist, and black breeches that looked to have been sprayed onto him, the ensemble completed by high black boots and another of the officer-level knives.
Geordi was plainly caught between outrage and laughter. “This isn’t an engineer’s uniform, it’s a stoker’s jacket! What have they got in that ship, solid-fuel engines? “Motors”? How hot does it get over there?” He waved his arms and laughed again, thoroughly embarrassed.
Picard had to cover his mouth, for the vest was skimpy, and while it showed off Geordi’s physique to good advantage, it was no protection against anything whatsoever. The pants were as bad. Picard considered that he would have been nervous of bending over in breeches that looked like those—or even