Dragon's Honor - Kij Johnson [60]
“We should be delighted,” the Celestial Mechanic said. His colleague assented readily. La Forge had gotten the impression that the Celestial Mechanic outranked the Astronomical Savant, but he wouldn’t have bet a warp field coil on it.
They took a turbolift to Holodeck Three, and La Forge led the Pai scientists into the empty holodeck. The scholars swiveled their heads about, uncertain what to make of the glowing yellow-on-black grid pattern. “Is this the light show you mentioned?” the Celestial Mechanic said uncertainly.
“It’s very nice,” the Astronomical Savant added in haste.
“No, no,” La Forge chuckled. “This is just the empty stage. Computer, run Program Seven-D/La Forge/Fireworks. Freeze just after inception of program.”
Instantly, a blue-and-green globe appeared in the center of the holodeck, floating serenely at eye level.
“Pai,” La Forge explained. “The entire show will be staged from on board the Enterprise. Much of the remote equipment is already orbiting in space. The rest will go out first thing in the morning. We’re using our defensive phasers to produce light and color instead of the usual destructive force. Additionally, I’ve added a few new twists, including a transformational hyperbolic extender which should interact with some of the colored phasers to generate some terrific effects.”
“It sounds most … technical,” the Astronomical Savant commented. La Forge guessed that he hadn’t understood most of his explanation. He wondered what sort of engineering background an “astronomical savant” required.
“I suppose it does,” he said. “Forgive me for running your ear off, but I am pleased with what we’ve managed to accomplish. Let me show you the mock-up. Computer? Run program at twelve times speed.”
The globe lit up. Coruscating light flickered and rippled, sheathing the entire globe in a radiant display. Sheets of light shimmered, showing patterns half-hidden in the color.
“It’s all based on the auroras of Earth, my home planet,” La Forge said, unable to keep silent. While it might seem ironic to assign a blind man the job of designing a light show, La Forge had leaped to the challenge. Hey, he thought, Beethoven was deaf, wasn’t he? Through his VISOR, he watched his artificial auroras unfold, until the last swirls of iridescent light wrapped around the globe and wisped away.
Pretty good, he thought smugly, if I say so myself.
“That was it?” the Celestial Mechanic asked. He sounded distinctly underwhelmed.
“Sure it is,” La Forge replied, with a little more heat than he intended. “That was state-of-the-art Federation technology.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” the Celestial Mechanic cooed soothingly. “It’s really quite pretty. We just didn’t realize there wasn’t more to it. I mean, after your description—”
“Wait a minute,” La Forge said. “Is there a problem with the light show?”
“No, not at all!” the Celestial Mechanic said.
“It’s lovely, really,” the Astronomical Savant added.
“There is something wrong with it.”
“Not wrong, precisely,” the Celestial Mechanic said. “Just rather ordinary.”
Ordinary! La Forge bristled at the suggestion, then took a deep breath to calm himself. There was more at stake here than his own ruffled ego. “I think you’d better explain this to me,” he said. “I want my light show to reflect well on the Enterprise—and the Federation.”
“I’m sure it will. It looks as though you had worked very hard on it,” the Celestial Mechanic reassured him. “The only problem—”
“—and it’s just a little one, a tiny little thing,” interjected the Astronomical Savant.
“—is that it wasn’t five years ago that we went through the Dragon’s Tail, so almost everyone remembers it.”
“Since you what?” La Forge asked.
“Went through the Dragon’s Tail,” the Celestial Mechanic repeated. “Rather poetic, really, calling it that. But what it means is that, every century or so, Pai and the rest of the Empire’s core system passed through one of the nebula’s trailing clouds of gas. The gas interacts with the solar and atmospheric gases to produce a display of lights a little like yours.”
“Well, very like