Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [7]
A moment later he was hypnotized again, but this time it was not by the subdued presence of Captain Picard. Now the gas giant caught him, held him, cradled in its unparalleled blueness as it roiled before them on the wide ceiling-to-floor viewscreen.
Ah, that viewscreen. It was the only thing on this ship that truly conveyed the size of the vessel and its technological grandeur. Dominating the bridge, the screen was half a universe all by itself.
The other half was over Riker’s shoulder: the new Enterprise. Barely broken in, swan-elegant, she spread out behind him like the wings of the bird.
Birds. Everything’s birds all of a sudden, Riker thought, and he glanced at Jean-Luc Picard.
“Condition report, Mr. Data,” the captain requested then, directing his gaze to the primary science station aft of tactical.
Riker turned aft in time to see a slender humanoid straighten at the science post. The face was still startling, its doll-like pyrite sheen softened only by its sculpted expression. Data’s expression, when there was one, always carried a childlike naďveté that eased the severeness of his slicked-back hair and the cartoon colors of his skin. For the hundredth time, Riker involuntarily wondered why anybody smart enough to create an android so intricate was too stupid to paint its face the right color or put some tone on its lips. If his builders filled it with human data-pardon the pun-somewhere in the download must have been information that the palette of human skin types didn’t include chrome. It was as though they went out of the way to shape him like a human, then went even further out of the way to paste him with signs that said, “Hey, I’m an android!”
Data’s brushstroke brows lifted. “Readings coming in from phaser blast echoes now, sir. Absolutely lifeless-high concentrations of uncataloged chemical compounds, very compressed … extremely rare reactology, Captain. This information will prove valuable.”
“Is there a margin of safety to attempt probing through to the gas giant’s core?” Picard asked.
Data’s face was framed by the black mantle of the slenderizing one-piece flightsuit, its color picked up again by the breast panel’s mustard gold, a standard Starfleet color since the Big Bang. “A wide margin, sir. I recommend it.”
Riker pressed his arms to his sides. There was something unreal about Data’s voice. More human than human, the words were rounded and spoken with an open throat, as though it was always working a little harder than necessary.
“He.” Not “it.” For the sake of the rest of the crew, think “he.” No sense rupturing the trust others might have by accidentally pointing out the fact that he’s an instrument, even if he is. Riker shook himself from his thoughts as he sensed Picard’s glance, and in that moment he collected the authority he needed to carry out the captain’s unspoken order.
He cleared his throat. “Increase phasers to full power. Let’s see what’s at the heart of this beauty.”
“It is beautiful, isn’t it? You don’t stumble on one of these every day,” Beverly Crusher commented. Folding her long arms, she sat on the bench just port of the counselor’s seat, exercising a ship’s surgeon’s traditional right to be on the bridge when she didn’t feel like being anywhere else. Dr. Crusher was yet another stroke of color against the bisque walls and carpet. Over her cobalt-and-black uniform her hair was a Cleopatra crown of pure terra cotta-and there was just something about a redhead. She was reedy and quick, smart and graceful, and inclined toward sensible shoes in spite of her narrow-boned loveliness. Riker liked her. So did the captain. Especially the captain.
“Yes,” Captain Picard murmured, using the conversation as an excuse to move a few steps closer to her, “and it’s twice the size of common gas giants. Fire phasers.”
The muted phhhiiiuuuuuu hummed through the ship again, and on the screen an energy bolt cut downward into the surfaceless swirl.
“Reading various concentrations of gas,” Data reported, “merging