Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [60]
“Quit saying that. You’re not a machine. I can tell that by just looking at you.”
Geordi LaForge gave Data a playful push as they entered the dark corridor that led to the warp reserve. It took clearance through three doors, each marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY before they were admitted to the especially heavy door marked
RESTRICTED AREA
ANTIMATTER RESERVE CONTAINMENT CENTER
NO ENTRY WITHOUT LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE
The room was very dark, lit only by two tiny pink utility lights on either side. Data’s flashlight cut a clean white path before them. Though the darkness still pressed around them, Geordi could see quite well by that small brightness, and he led the way through stacked storage crates and high-clearance mechanical and computer panels.
“I expected a lot of problems to come my way on space duty,” Geordi said, “but I didn’t expect one of them to be trying to find a definition for life itself.”
“That is indeed the captain’s dilemma now,” Data said, “because of me.”
“It’s not because of you. Cut it out. Boy, after all this trying to act human, you sure found an annoying way to actually do it.”
Data looked up into the darkness, quickly, hopefully. “What am I doing?”
“Pitying yourself, that’s what. Knock it off.”
Since he hadn’t been aware of doing it, Data wasn’t quite sure what to knock off. By the time he found knock it off in his memory banks, the subject had passed and Geordi was leading the way into an anteroom that held most of the computer monitors for the actual antimatter containment. On the dim panels, a few lights and patterns were flicking and flashing away happily in their mechanical ignorance, as if trying to say that all was well, all was as it should be.
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Geordi muttered. “You try the antimatter injector and I’ll-“
As the doors came together behind them, there was a corresponding clatter on the starboard side of the room that made them both look, just in time to see a dark form duck behind a panel.
“Who’s there?” Geordi demanded.
Data stepped in front of him and sharply ordered, “This is Commander Data. You are in a restricted area. Identify yourself.”
An innocent face peeked up in the corner, suddenly looking very guilty.
“Wesley!” Geordi exclaimed. “What are you doing in here? Come out of there.”
Wesley’s lanky form, still trying to grow into its own long bones, slowly sprouted from behind the panel. His hands gripped the hem of his sweater, a dark and thickly knit sweater that under these circumstances looked like reconnaissance gear. He’d known he was going to be in a cool area of the ship, evidently. “What’re you two doing here?” he echoed. “I mean, it’s sort of the middle of a crisis, isn’t it?”
“Right in the middle,” Geordi said. “The captain’s ordered an energy blackout-“
“I know.”
“And we picked up a power drain in the reserve tank. We’ve got to find it before the creature picks it up.” Through his visor Geordi saw Wesley’s face suddenly erupt with infrared.
“It can’t be much of a drain, can it?” the boy asked. “If you haven’t picked it up before … right?”
“That’s right, but it doesn’t make a bit-Wesley, what do you know about this?”
Data approached them and said, “Wesley, if you know about the power drain, you had better tell us. The antimatter from the tank has been emergency-dumped, and we cannot restock from the reserves until we discover the nature of the leak and lock it down.”
Wesley’s young eyes flashed in the dimness. “Well … I only … I was … “
Geordi fanned his flashlight’s beam angrily. “This area’s off limits, for Christ’s sake, Wes!”
“I know, but that’s just a technicality and it would’ve taken weeks, maybe months, to get the power authorization if I’d gone through channels-“
“Channels exist for a reason. So do rules like off limits. You know what off limits means? What’re you up to?”
“Nothing, really.”
“Report, Ensign,” Data said, cutting through the familiarity and putting juniors where juniors belong.
“It’s really nothing. Someday it might be, though,” Wesley said, intimidation forgotten