Enigma - Michael Jan Friedman [68]
Emily Bender swiveled in her chair. “All right,” she said, “I’ll see if we’ve got anything like this on file. Can you think of any others?”
He could almost hear her add “…Dikembe?” But this wasn’t a friendly visit. It had to remain on a businesslike footing.
Ulelo shook his head. He had described all the images he could remember. “That’s it.”
Emily Bender looked disappointed. After all, her friend’s stay in the science section was predicated on the number of images he could describe. When he ran out, he was supposed to leave the science officers to their work.
Ulelo was disappointed too. Having had a taste of freedom, he wasn’t looking forward to returning to the brig. He wished he could stay here with his friend Emily Bender.
However, Captain Picard wouldn’t let that happen. Despite Ulelo’s demonstrated eagerness to cooperate, the captain still considered him a security risk.
Ulelo understood. It was difficult to trust someone who had done what he had done.
He cast a glance back over his shoulder at Lieutenant Pfeffer, who had been assigned to keep an eye on him. Prior to his arrest, he, Pfeffer, and Emily Bender had belonged to the same circle of friends. Under the circumstances, however, Pfeffer was compelled to put that relationship aside.
He turned back to Emily Bender. “If I think a little longer, another image may come to me.”
His friend looked sympathetic. So did Kastiigan, who was sitting at the next workstation and looked up at Ulelo’s remark.
“Unfortunately,” said the sciences chief, “the captain’s instructions were quite specific—when you ran out of places to describe, you were to be returned to the brig.”
Ulelo felt his heart sink. “Of course.”
Kastiigan regarded him a moment longer. Then he gestured to Pfeffer, indicating that Ulelo’s time there was done.
As the security officer came for him, Ulelo turned back to Emily Bender. “Visit me,” he said.
“I will,” said his friend.
But it didn’t fill the hole that was growing inside him. Ulelo desperately didn’t want to be returned to the brig. His feelings were so intense that they scared him.
“I can’t go back,” he muttered.
“I beg your pardon?” said Kastiigan.
But Ulelo couldn’t answer him. His emotions were so strong, they were choking him. He could barely breathe.
“Something’s wrong,” said Emily Bender, her eyes wide with apprehension.
Something was wrong. Ulelo couldn’t let himself be returned to the brig. He had to find a way to prevent it.
If only I could think of another image, he told himself. If only I could come up with another—
“Kastiigan to sickbay,” someone said. “We have an emergency here in the science section! Hurry!”
Whatever else was said, Ulelo missed it, because his mind was suddenly full of alien landscapes—not just the ones he had seen and described already, but an army of new ones. A barren, brown valley stabbed by a boiling river. A blue-veined mountaintop sprinkled with black ash. Clusters of red ice exploding in midair…
And a hundred others, assaulting him all at once, slashing through his brain like a storm of alien wings.
Ulelo pressed his fists against his temples, trying to stanch the flow, trying to make it stop. But it kept coming, one tableau after another, pushing him to the limits of his sanity.
Off in the distance, someone screamed. It seemed strange to him that someone else should be in so much pain. Then he realized that it was he who was screaming.
For mercy. But none was forthcoming.
Ulelo lurched, staggered, fell. He felt the press of hands, and in the distance a promise of help. But still the images kept coming, a torrent of them, a cascade. And little by little, he was drowning under the terrible weight of them….
Chapter Seventeen
CAPTAIN SESBALLA STOOD beside his bed in his sleeping clothes, and listened to his com officer over the Exeter’s intercom system.
“It didn’t come from any Starfleet vessel,” said Ottamanelli. “In fact, it wasn’t transmitted by any communication system