Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [36]
Maybe a Rampartian would tell his intended, “My attraction to you is expressed in this bar graph, using fractional courting algorithms for a male and female at sea level, noon standard time.”
And she would say, “Thank you. You have just increased by two percent the secretions of my endocrine glands.”
Wesley saw they would have to reject all those things which were impossible to put into words or even thoughts but which, for him, made women—like Shikibu—into magic.
The Rampartians would have to block it all out. Make it into two animals mating, or two machines docking.
In his mind he pictured the one-eye that shot Shikibu, and the other ones running rampant on the ship. He hated them; he hated the people that made them, because they thought they knew everything.
In Wesley’s field, physics, such people retarded the growth of knowledge, and were invariably wrong anyway. The great discoveries had always been made by those with the most imagination.
Behind him he could hear Worf talking, relaying to Geordi a plan for neutralizing some of the one-eyes. Tactical stuff, none of his business really. But he itched to participate somehow.
Some time ago, Dr. Crusher had analyzed Security Chief Worf’s musculature and found the muscle tissues so strong, efficient, and fast to respond, that she had wanted to write an article about him.
“You’ll appear in only the best medical journals, I promise,” she had said with a wry smile.
“A Klingon does not submit to the fussing and coddling of doctors,” he had replied gruffly, getting off the table, impatient to get back to work. “One is bad enough, but all the doctors in the Federation—the dishonor would be unthinkable.”
“Some football scout might get it off the data nets and decide to try you out,” replied the pleasant, auburn-haired doctor. “You’d probably make an ideal tight end.”
“I agree, except the opposing players would not survive the intensity of my play.”
“I was just joking, Worf.”
“I was not.”
Now, Worf ran, the footfalls of his six-and-a-half-foot body booming along the corridor. His eyes shone with the adamantine flame of a Klingon entering combat. There was no greater glory for Worf than defending his ship, his crewmates, and the Starfleet organization, which had rescued him when he was a child.
He also knew in the back of his mind that everything that happened to him now could later figure in his own secret attempt at personal glory, his clandestine quest made possible by Oleph and Una.
But that would come later.
Now, entering a service crawl space, he reviewed what he would have to do inside. He would station himself at the intersection with a certain Jefferies tube the one-eyes would probably use to get to Engineering. There he would wait in ambush.
The plan depended on the armed one-eye preceding the locksmith one-eye as they made their way along the tube. He and Geordi were of the same opinion—the soldier would go first to protect its unarmed specialist.
When the soldier one-eye passed his hiding place Worf would move a metal cover-plate into the Jefferies tube, separating the soldier one-eye from its companion. Worf was then to touch the unarmed locksmith with an electric probe, giving it a healthy megawatt to think about.
The Klingon felt inclined to take on both of the intruding robots right now, no matter what his odds against the armed one, but Geordi had flat-out refused such a suggestion. Stopping the locksmith would be enough for him.
As Worf crawled along the conduit-lined crawl space, his communicator came to life. No voice, just an audible signal—three clicks—from Lieutenant Regina Wentz, who had the bridge. It meant the one-eyes had been observed, and were on their way.
Worf moved quickly on hands and knees, and stopped at the plate that separated him from the Jefferies tube.
He heard two clicks from his communicator. It meant the one-eyes were proceeding toward the ambush point.
He looked at the short-range sensor he’d brought with him, which now had an exact fix on both intruders.