Intellivore - Diane Duane [20]
The group began to make their way up. This hall was as dimly lit and cramped as the one beneath it, lined with the same short, shut doors.
“Thorsson to Riker—”
“Go ahead.”
“Sir, we’re in the ship’s engine room. Kind of a cobbled-together place—” A pause. Riker swallowed. “Doesn’t seem to be much damage, though. Nothing unusual down here, no sign of boobytraps. Otherwise, the ship’s just been left running on reduced power, to save energy—not because of damage.”
Riker let out another of those long breaths, relieved. “Can you get us some light in here?”
“We’re working on it, sir. The controls are a little obscure—”
“All right, keep working on it.” Riker went on after Maisel.
Dr. Crusher was pushing her way on up through those away team personnel who were ahead of her. “This way,” she said. Several of the armed security people hurried to catch up with her.
Crusher eyed her tricorder, then took a few more paces down the dim hallway. Near one doorway, she put up a sudden hand. “Look,” she said.
Riker looked at the spots on the floor: dark blue spots and a dark blue smudge on the doorframe. Blood? he wondered. “Blood,” said Crusher, almost as if in response.
The doctor held up her tricorder and let it have a good look around, scanning the ceiling as well as the walls and floor. “All right,” she said at last. “Don’t touch any of those—there may be need for forensic work later. Someone come give me a hand with this—”
Abruptly the lights came up. Riker looked hurriedly around him, half expecting the ship’s denizens, hiding until now, to come boiling out of the closed doors like some deadly surprise party. But there was no other change, no sound except that of their own breath and footsteps.
“All right,” Riker said then, waving his people forward. He and Maisel came up close behind Crusher as one of Marignano’s security people got busy levering and pushing the door open. It stuck and screeched dreadfully.
The room was storage of some kind, its walls lined with cabinets and closets. Against the lower tier of cabinets on the left side of the room, someone—a humanoid figure—lay crumpled. More dark blue was spattered around and smeared on the cupboard door.
Riker watched Crusher go over to kneel by the faintly breathing shape, still keeping an eye on her tricorder. “It’s an Alpheccan,” she said.
“He’s a long way from home,” Riker said, somewhat surprised.
Dr. Crusher gave him a sidewise glance and said, “And we’re not?” She reached over the Alpheccan’s shoulders to pull him carefully back into a leaning position against her. He wore a dark coverall, the upper right side of which was smeared and sodden with blue from a gaping chest wound. The normal navy blue of his skin was paled almost to cerulean. His eyes were open, even the nictitating membranes contracted out of the way, so that the violet orbs of the inner eye looked sightlessly out into the hallway, past Riker and the crewman with the imaging device. But there was no sign of consciousness in those eyes. Riker shivered.
Picard leaned back in his seat, looking up at the screen, now divided between the away team’s view and a view of Oraidhe’s bridge. “The question, now,” he said to Clif, with whom he had been talking while watching the teams finish their work, “is what to do with this vessel.”
“Well,” Clif said, looking slightly quizzical, “its crew has abandoned it. By the laws of salvage, it belongs to anyone who now comes along to claim it. We could do so … but frankly, Captain, I don’t relish the idea of dragging this thing along after us while we’re on patrol.”
“Jean-Luc,” said Ileen from the bridge of Marignano, “if you feel you might want to have another look at it later, why not just leave a sensor buoy with it, set to notice if anyone comes along and shows interest. If anyone does, the buoy can notify us … and also broadcast a message that this vessel is under investigation.” She sat down in her center seat and smiled a big, bright, sunny smile. “You might even slap a Q on it.”
“Quarantine?