Intellivore - Diane Duane [10]
“Well. It seems to me,” Riker said, stretching in his chair and folding his arms as if settling in to really get his teeth into this idea, “that it ought to be equally possible to design courses that would sort for loci of ‘toward’ occurrences. Wouldn’t it, Data? If this scholium of mathematics were reliable enough, you ought to be able to work out courses on which nothing but good things would happen.”
“The question would remain,” Troi said, looking mischievous now, “good for whom? Surely that needs another value judgment.”
“Well, for example, for the starship personnel.”
“Sir,” Data said, looking grave. “The variables are at present so many, and handling them so complex, that it would take years of analysis to determine such courses reliably. But bearing in mind a Starfleet ship’s basic brief—among other things, to assist vessels in distress—pursuing those courses would not be ethical.”
“Isn’t this where I came in?” said Riker. He stretched again, with a slight sound of joints popping, then got up, grimacing.
The wince made Picard put his eyebrows up, slightly surprised. “Physical problems, Number One?”
“Nothing serious, Captain. Dr. Crusher said I needed to get a little extra exercise this week, so Mr. Worf very … kindly programmed a Klingon workout into the holodeck for me.” Riker grimaced again. “Klingon exercise trainers are, uh, enthusiastic.”
Worf, behind his console, smiled very slightly and said nothing. Then he glanced down, and his face changed. “Captain—”
Picard glanced up. “Mr. Worf?”
“Radiation readings, sir,” Worf said, touching his console here and them. “The space we are presently transiting is ‘hotter’ than I expected.”
At that, Picard looked thoughtfully at Data, who had already begun consulting his own console. Data said, “Background temperature of the interstellar medium is elevated by the adjusted equivalent of two degrees Kelvin, a fairly significant rise over what would normally be considered normal.”
“Causes?”
Worf was still studying his panel with increasing interest, Picard noted. “Particle decay residues in this area contain exotics,” Worf said. “Lacking an astronomical cause—”
Data’s hands were dancing over his console now, but after a moment he shook his head. “We are sufficiently far from Kepler’s Star now to discount any effect from the supernova remnant,” he said, “and surrounding stars show no overt signs of flares or other abnormality. Additionally, flares only rarely cause such high percentages of exotics.”
“Then these readings could be considered evidence of a battle of some kind in this area,” Worf said, “with considerable use of phasers or other energy weapons.”
Picard smiled a small, grim smile. “Abstruse mathematics aside,” he said, “if you go looking for trouble, you’ll find it:—and we came looking. Mr. Worf, call Oraidhe and Marignano.”
“Oraidhe is hailing us, Captain.”
“Put them on.”
Oraidhe’s bridge showed itself on the viewscreen, with Captain Clif standing behind his center chair, looking over his shoulder at his own security officer’s panel. “Captain, there seems to have been some kind of fracas in this area recently.”
“We think so, too,” Picard said.
“Sir,” Data said, “if I read these data correctly, I would suggest that there were two main groups or forces. One was significantly larger than the other, and it, or elements of it, headed off to the galactic northward after the engagement, if, as I judge, a running engagement was indeed the source of these readings.”
“The trail looks fairly cold, though,” said Clif. “Captain, we’ll shoot our projections over to you and to Marignano. I would hope Mr. Data would lend us his assistance in this regard.”
“The trail proper is at approximately four degrees K, which is cold by most standards,” Data said.
Oraidhe’s science officer, who was standing behind the captain, nodded her head in Data’s direction. “All the meson residues out there are showing signs of decay, but not of stripping,”