Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [9]
Beverly didn’t answer the question. “I heard Zippor mention a Federation medical team.”
“That’s right,” said her grandmother. “We sent for one even before we got back to the colony.”
“How long will it take for them to get here?”
“A week and a half. Maybe a little more.”
Beverly felt a drop of icewater run down her back. “But… will they be in time?”
Her grandmother’s features hardened. “That’s our hope, and it’s not an unreasonable one. But no one here can say for sure. Not even Doctor Baroja.”
The girl thought about that. She wished the Kevrata didn’t have to wait for a medical team. She wished she could cure them of their virus all by herself.
Of course, she didn’t have a prayer of doing that. She wouldn’t even have known where to begin.
Her grandmother brushed aside a lock of hair that had pasted itself to Beverly’s forehead. “You know,” she said, “you did well with Jojael, keeping her calm and all. Better than anyone had a right to expect.”
The girl looked at her. “Really?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
Beverly nodded. Howards don’t fish for compliments. She had heard that often enough.
“Thanks,” she said.
“You know,” said Felisa Howard, “Bobby Goldsmith was asking after you. Sounds like you two had a stimulating conversation before the Kevrata arrived.”
Beverly wasn’t sure how much her grandmother knew, or had guessed. “It was all right,” she said.
But it seemed like a long time ago. And the kiss… had it really happened? It felt like a dream.
Suddenly the Kevrata lying beside her grandmother started to groan, his eyes narrowing in pain. The girl thought, His painkiller is wearing off.
Dr. Baroja was there in a matter of seconds, bending over the alien and administering a hypospray. Almost immediately, the groaning began to subside.
“Damn,” said the doctor.
“Is he all right?” Beverly asked.
Dr. Baroja glanced at her. “Sorry about the language. It’s just that these people have a high resistance to anesthesia.” He held up his hypospray. “And we’ve only got so much of the stuff.”
What if we run out? Beverly wondered.
But she already knew the answer, and it wasn’t a happy one: The Kevrata would have to do without it. At least until the medical team can get here.
Beverly shook her head, dismayed by the injustice of it all. The aliens were so nice, so polite, so grateful for what the colonists had done for them. After all they had been through, it didn’t seem fair that they should have to endure such a burden.
And even less so that any more of them should have to die.
23791
JEAN-LUC PICARD STUDIED THE PARTICOLORED cluster of stars glittering in front of him, dangling so close he felt as though he could touch them, and was reminded of the faery lights of French legend.
His forebears had feared them because they lured young men to their dooms in the realms of magic. But Picard, captain of the Federation Starship Enterprise, had no need to be concerned. For one thing, he was no longer a young man. And for another, he had developed a healthy resistance to temptation.
Besides, these stars weren’t faery-inspired. They were three-dimensional images, generated by the multitude of tiny holographic projectors positioned in the walls around him.
Nor was it this cluster alone they were bringing to life. In fact, there were thousands of them hanging there in the cool, dark air, three-dimendional entities so numerous as to make even the Enterprise-E’s new stellar cartography facility seem crowded.
On the EnterpriseD, stellar cartography had been much more modest-a planetarium-like chamber with images of the stars emblazoned on its concave, digitally enabled wall. The original Enterprise-E version had been only a bit more sophisticated, incorporating a few extra bells and whistles.
But this, Picard thought, is a different approach entirely.
He turned to the fellow standing beside him on a high, safety-railed platform. “And you say this is wrong?”
“Completely wrong,” said Lieutenant Paisner, Picard’s new chief of stellar cartography. “Beta Diomede, second from the top,