Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [24]
Greyhorse turned back to his computer screen, where the biomimetics monograph was waiting patiently for him. He saved it, clearing the screen. Then he got up and smoothed the front of his standard-issue, pale blue coveralls.
It still seemed like an error to him. There was only one person who visited him these days, and it wasn’t like her to surprise him this way.
Still, he supposed anything was possible. As someone who had served as the chief surgeon on a starship, he was in a position to know that as well as anyone.
Greyhorse had been incarcerated for more than a decade, and he had never complained about the passage of time. But now, as he waited for his visitor, time seemed to drag. He began counting his heartbeats, wondering how many it would take.
Finally, his door slid open again. McGovern stuck his head in, just to double-check that everything was all right, which it clearly was. Then he withdrew and someone else entered the room.
A short, small-boned man with straw-colored hair and watery blue eyes, wearing the gray-and-black uniform of a Starfleet captain. The doctor noted the maroon stripe of command on his sleeve.
“Doctor Greyhorse,” the man said warmly, “my name is Jefferson. I work for Starfleet Command.”
He extended his hand for Greyhorse to shake. The doctor looked at it as if it were some rare variety of alien fauna.
After all, it was a long time since he had shaken hands with anyone. In all the years he had spent in the Federation’s penal settlement in New Zealand, his counselors and physicians had never once initiated physical contact. Neither had his fellow prisoners, whom he had seen only on the rarest of occasions.
As a result, it was a little daunting for Greyhorse to contemplate the touch of flesh now. However, he didn’t want to give his visitor any indication that he was still unstable, so he clasped the proffered hand.
It felt cool and dry. And ridiculously small. The doctor had forgotten how big and strong he was in comparison with other humans, almost as if he were a member of another species. He did his best not to squeeze too hard.
Finally, Jefferson took his hand back. Greyhorse found that he was sorry about that.
“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” said the captain, “so I’ll get right to the point. We need your help.”
The doctor blinked. “To do what?”
Jefferson laid it all out for him. When he got to the part about Doctor Crusher and what had happened to her, Greyhorse must have made a face, because his visitor paused.
“I hope this news doesn’t come as too much of a shock,” he said, a note of concern in his voice.
It did. In fact, it cut Greyhorse to his core. But he was determined not to show it.
“Please,” he said, “go on.”
As he absorbed the rest of what Jefferson had to say, he began to understand why he, of all people, had been asked to help. Outside of Doctor Crusher, he was the Federation’s only real authority on the disease in question.
“What would you like me to do?” he asked.
“We are sending a team to Kevratas,” said the captain, “to pick up where Doctor Crusher left off-to find a cure for the virus and distribute it among the Kevrata. I’ve come to ask you to be part of that team.”
Greyhorse could barely contain his excitement. The idea of leaving the penal settlement, leaving Earth entirely… it was so exhilarating as to be overwhelming.
Calm yourself, he thought sharply. “I will be happy,” he said in a carefully measured way, “to help in any way I can.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” said Jefferson.
But he had reservations, and Greyhorse knew what they were. He would have been an imbecile otherwise.
“Unfortunately,” said his visitor, “there is the matter of what happened on the Enterprise several years ago… your attempts to murder Captain Picard and others.”
“Which were unsuccessful,” Greyhorse noted.
“Of course they were, and we’re all happy about that. But the attempts were made nonetheless.”
Greyhorse didn’t know what to say to that, so he said