Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [28]
“Oh, Geordi … ” Crusher murmured.
“Sometimes,” he said, “I go through twenty or thirty levels of analysis and every one takes a piece out of me. When I can’t tell what it is I’m seeing, it’s not like a sighted person looking at a box and not being able to see what’s inside. It’s like holding your breath and diving deeper and deeper, no matter how much it hurts … and when you can’t touch bottom, you still have to plow back to the surface before your lungs explode … oh, I can’t explain it; I can’t make you see.”
He reached out in his blindness and by instinct alone he found the visor she held as she stood nearby-a blind man’s instinct that told him where her hands were-and with his artificial eyes back in his own hand he slid from the table and somehow found the door. As it opened for him he went flawlessly through it, homing in on the sound and the faint gush of air from the corridor, as though to show her he could be a whole person without the burden of his high-tech crutch.
“Geordi,” Crusher called after him, but she did so only halfheartedly, for she had no words to help him. She winced as Riker appeared out of nowhere and Geordi bumped into him. It would’ve been such a smooth exit otherwise …
“Lieutenant-” Riker started to greet, then simply gaped as LaForge plowed past him without even a “sorry, sir.” After Geordi rounded the arch of the corridor and disappeared, Riker crooked a thumb in that direction as he came into the sickbay. “What’s eating him?”
“You are.” Crusher folded her arms and sighed.
“I am? How’d I get into this?”
“Funny you should ask.” She grasped his arm and drew him into the sickbay, then planted him in the nearest chair and assumed her lecture position-any parent knows it. Sliding her narrow thigh up onto an exam table, she broached the subject with a practiced look of sternness. “He’s a little bothered by that episode on the bridge.”
“He told you about that … okay, I’ll bite,” Riker said. “Why’s it bothering him?”
Beverly Crusher’s lovely art deco features were marred by the situation. “You sure you want to know?”
Frustrated, Riker held his hands out. “When did I start looking so aloof to everybody? I want to know.”
“That’s not what you came down here for.”
“No,” he admitted. “I came down because I knew LaForge was here and I wanted an analysis of physical composition of those life images. I figure he’s the best man to do it.”
“I think you’d better get Data to do it.”
“Why? All of a sudden, everybody’s functioning at half power. Isn’t Geordi LaForge the expert on spectroscopy?”
“Only by necessity,” she said, “not by choice.”
Riker looked at her; just looked at her. Then he shook his head. “You’re mad at me. Been conniving with the captain?”
Suddenly a common thread looped around them and Crusher’s lips curved into an understanding grin. “Oh … I see. No, I’m not mad at you. But let me give you a bit of advice.”
“Please!”
“Listen to Lieutenant LaForge. Just listen.”
“I do listen.”
“You don’t. You hear what he has to say, but you don’t appreciate it. You think all he does is ‘see.’ “
Riker tried to interpret what she was saying by looking into her deep-set eyes and reading them, but after a few seconds of that he floundered and admitted, “I don’t know what you mean.”
She settled her long hands in her lap. “My God, Will. Do you think he just puts that thing on and sees? Okay, not fair … I’ll explain. Of course that’s what it looks like to everybody. I tried to tell him that just now, but from his perspective-well, Geordi LaForge is one of only four blind people successfully fitted with the optic prosthetic. I mean, four who’ve successfully learned to operate it. Four. That’s all in the whole Federation.”
“Really … ” Riker muttered, rapt. “Keep talking.”
Crusher drew in a long breath, trying to find the words to explain something she herself had never experienced. “When he looks at an apple, he has to interpret between twenty and two hundred separate sensory impulses just to get shape, color, and temperature. After