Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [148]
The tunnel was too narrow for her to turn around in, so B’Elanna was forced to go forward and hope it widened farther on. She crawled along, the beam from her headlamp casting strange jagged shadows on the uneven crystal surfaces.
As she moved, she listened to the pandemonium surrounding the Doctor’s unknown predicament.
What was causing this? What should they do? Did anybody know how the Doctor’s mobile holoemitter worked? Was it something to do with the alien artifact or had the thing just broken down somehow?
B’Elanna fought to get a word in, to ask for a clear description of the Doctor’s condition, but her people weren’t giving her the room.
“Everybody stop moving and shut up!” yelled B’Elanna.
Instantly the chatter ceased. All that was left was the Doctor’s oscillating staticky wail-more like a feedback loop than anything organically produced. “Now. Who’s actually there with him?”
“Just me and Lessing, Lieutenant,” said Browder’s thickly accented voice.
“Good,” said B’Elanna. “What exactly is happening to the Doctor?”
“Can’t say,” said Browder, obviously shaken. “He’s all distorted. Bent out of shape, like.”
Browder had a gift for understatement. In her mind B’Elanna could picture the actual event-the Doctor writhing in simulated agony as invisible fingers stretched and bent him in several directions at once.
“Can you see his emitter?” said B’Elanna.
“No, I-wait- yes, ma’am,” said Browder.
“Grab it,” said B’Elanna.
Browder hesitated, telling her he didn’t know if that was such a good-
“Grab it, crewman,” B’Elanna snapped. “Now!”
Browder paused for a second and then said, “Got it. But he’s twisting around and- “
“There’s a small oval depression on one side,” said B’Elanna. Browder found it easily. “Okay. Press in on it-slowly- and tell me what happens.”
All at once the weird artificial squalling stopped.
“Browder,” said B’Elanna. “Status.”
“He’s-the Doctor’s gone,” said Lessing’s voice.
“I’m talking to Browder, Lessing,” said B’Elanna, irritated.
“Lessing’s right, Chief,” said Browder, a hint of panic creeping into his voice. “The Doc’s-he’s just gone.”
“Relax,” said B’Elanna. “You just switched off his emitter.”
She ordered him to stay there to maintain a com link with Voyager. The rest of them were too deep inside the artifact for external transmissions to penetrate. Then: “Seven of Nine, how close are you to Browder?”
“I am nearly to his position now,” said Seven
“Get the Doctor’s emitter back to Voyager,” said B’Elanna. “Then run a full diagnostic and, if necessary, effect repairs.”
“Acknowledged,” said Seven.
“What about me, Lieutenant?” said Lessing’s voice.
“Get back to work,” she said after a brief pause. “It’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?”
“I’ve found something,” said B’Elanna, pulling herself through. Her little tunnel had finally dead-ended in another hatch, a smaller version of The Front Door. She activated the lock easily, crawled through, and found herself suddenly able to stand upright.
The surface on which she stood-maybe the floor, maybe not-was overtly curved. It was as if she had crawled into the bottom of a massive bowl.
There were enormous semi-curved struts, twelve of them, reaching up from the floor in two evenly spaced rows of six and extending farther into the upper dark than her helmet beam could penetrate.
She directed her tricorder’s scan wave at what she perceived to be the center of the darkness above. Again there was the maddeningly diffuse reading of power somewhere.
She cast around for any sort of recognizable control pad or activation device, but all she could see were the same uneven facets twinkling in the light of her helmet lamp.
But, when she looked close, they weren’t all uneven, were they? Some of them were more precisely carved and inlayed at regular intervals along the wall.
She approached the nearest carving-a perfect isosceles triangle.
“V**ger’ *d*ring n m*ediate bugout,” said Browder, his signal suddenly shredded.
Damn it. Of course Janeway would pull them out the second she learned of the Doctor’s condition. She had