Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [110]
A long morning. The afternoon stretched before him with a dozen problems. The electrical system in the complex had begun having fits a few minutes ago, and he could do nothing effective with the Constrictor system if the power kept blinking.
Perhaps he could accomplish something by remote while he waited. Yes, that would be better.
His chair rolled slightly under him as he reached to the corner of his desk and keyed the external communications system, touching the autochannel. “Sykora, are you there?” “l just arrived. You nearly missed me.” “Did you visit the physician?”
“They can do nothing for me here. I’ll tend myself as I always have.” “Sykora..”
“I’m much stronger today. The welts are responding a little to the poultice l made yesterday. If only I had-” “You’re not a nurse, you know.”
“On this planet, I am all there is for us. Would you like to argue now or later?”
“Later, I suppose. Would it be possible for you to route yesterday’s matter-discharge telemetry readings to Light Geologics at Laateh Mountain?” “Are you certain I have them here?” “Certain beyond life.”
“I suppose that means I have them here. Give me time to arrange the files for relay.”
“You’ll have it. For some reason, several power centers in the complex have failed. They’re tracking the source.” “Why would several fail at once?”
“I hesitated to ask. It’s enough that I must handle satellite electrical problems. If I begin solving local ones, I may forget to adjust the deflector grid.” “I would never let you forget.” “I owe you my happiness.”
“Yes, you do. Who else would cook you Romulan dinners to keep you from choking on the pathetic Pojjana palate?”
Zevon smiled. “No one on this rock. I shall signal you with the relay channel as soon as the power returns.” “What do they say on a ship?-Affirmative?” “Affirmative, they say ‘affirmative.’ Are you-“
He never finished his question. The communications system crackled suddenly as if he’d put his hand into the den of a spitting animal. Almost as abruptly, it went dead. “Sykora? Do you read?” Nothing. He tried a reroute of the local flow. “Sykora?”
But there was still nothing. The system lay quiet. Someone would get to it.
Ah-there were the alarms from the central bunkers. Would the alarms go off for an electrical power failure? Strange. Power didn’t even go off after a Constrictor anymore. He’d made sure of that. Perhaps some work was being done somewhere. He should’ve been notified. He thought about calling to ask, but how could he call? “Possibly the reason for the chill,” he murmured to himself, and slipped into the leather-fringed chenille cardigan Sykora had given him at the precinct bazaar last year. The six shades of moss green, brushed soft as moss itself, threaded with dyed leather, comforted him when things went wrong. He liked to see the cardigan hanging on the wall hook next to his desk even better than wearing it. When he had it on, he couldn’t see it so well.
However, today it would keep him warm. He pulled it over his shoulders, hitched it into place-awkward, since he was still sitting down and apparently too lazy to stand and began tying the leather lacings over his chest.
A green chenille Pojjana cardigan with dyed leather lacings, leather lacings threaded through his shoulderlength hair… there was so little left of him from that other life, he could no longer find hints of the times before. Only speaking to Sykom occasionally reminded him that he had ever lived anywhere else.
Through the closed window, he could still hear the alarms going off. Possibly there was some trouble. A revolt, perhaps. They still happened sometimes, after a Constrictor, in fear of the next one. He could hide here, in retreat from such mundane troubles, and do his science, battling the next Constrictor in his own way. He hadn’t won yet, but the enemy feared him.
Someone was pounding up the stairway down the hall. Through the old walls of his office he could hear the clop-clop of boots on the wooden stairs. Good. That meant someone else was as bothered by