Death of a Neutron Star - Eric Kotani [26]
IN ALL HIS LIFE DR. MAALOT COULD NOT HAVE imagined a ship like Voyager. And being on such a ship, watching the final hours of a binary neutron star, was not even something he could have dreamed. The entire last day had seemed unreal, as if maybe he had actually died on that small yacht and this was an after world of some sort.
He finished calibrating the sensor and glanced around the area called "Engineering." A dozen humans, both male and female, worked silently at panels, or over instruments, as he was doing. The area was big and well lit, and felt, for lack of a better term, scientific. It was cleaner than any lab at home, as if ready for inspection by top government officials. Only here, in Engineering, this was how things always were. Everything in its place and a place for everything. He had never seen another lab like it before.
A half-dozen humans worked silently while the large bluish column hi the center seemed to pulse lightly, making no real noise. All seemed well, normal.
He glanced down at the panel near him. It showed the details of the binary with incredible accuracy. From the readings, there wasn't much time left before the two would touch, in a virtual sense, causing the distended secondary to explode and sending the more massive primary shooting through space, the deadliest missile ever conceived by the universe. In about ten hours.
His finger flew over the board, bringing up a schematic showing the plane of the two neutron stars' orbits. Then he extended that plane like a flat board through the nearby star systems. The plane cut the Lekk system like a knife. If the Qavok succeeded in sending the runaway neutron star at his homeworld, or even close to it, there would be nothing left for him to return to. If that happened, he had already decided to ask if he could stay on board.
Behind him the door swished open. Maalot turned and smiled as Captain Janeway entered. She returned his smile, seemingly at ease. That surprised him. She had just come from standing off Qavok warships, yet she looked as if the incident had been an everyday occurrence. Maybe for this ship it was.
"Doctor Maalot," the captain said, "are you ready?"
"Just finished the last sensor," he said. "We'll get readings on every band, in every spectrum of light and gravitational radiation, from all angles. Well have so much information, we could almost rebuild the binary."
"Wonderful," Janeway said, laughing. "But I think once is enough for me."
"Agreed," he said, laughing with her.
"We're almost back in position," she said. She glanced down at the schematic he had displayed on the board, then up at him.
Her gaze held his, and he could feel the understanding coming from her. "We won't let the Qavok destroy your home," she said, her voice firm.
"Thank you" was all he could think to say.
She moved so that she stood directly over the board. Her powerful hands didn't move as she studied something. And after a moment her shoulders slumped. She turned to him. The expression on her face had changed from a smile of elation to a frown of worry.
"Doctor, I need you in the briefing room in ten minutes."
He nodded. He couldn't think of anything to say. What had caused her sudden shift of mood?
As one accustomed to having her orders obeyed without question, she turned and headed for the door. He watched her for a moment, then turned back to the schematic displayed on the control panel.
What could have caused such a reaction? Had he done something wrong?
For the next five minutes he studied the schematic, finding nothing. Then, after getting quick directions from a crew member, he headed out for the briefing room. It was the longest two-minute walk he could remember taking.
She was the first in the conference room, and she allowed herself to drop down into her chair for a moment. It had taken her only a minute to get the information she needed from the prince's yacht's computers. Far quicker than she had expected. She tried to make herself sit back,