Intellivore - Diane Duane [69]
“I think I’m going to do this one myself,” said Ileen, and she headed for the weapons control console. “Frances, take the conn. Keep us oriented, keep us still relative to them.”
It was not as easy as it sounded. The planet began to rotate, yaw, and roll as it went, trying to add as many new sets of variables to the problem Data was solving, and Maisel could feel that maddening itch at the back of her mind, threatening to get stronger again.
“I don’t like this, Captain,” McGrady said. “Even with the thought screen, that thing’s trying to dig through.”
“Yeah, well, I plan to do a little spadework myself,” Ileen muttered, programming Data’s coordinates into the weapons console. “Just keep us in sync, and if that thing goes into warp, make damn sure you know which way it went.” She locked a phaser collimated down to practically a yard wide onto the spot Data had indicated. Please, whoever’s listening, she thought, please don’t let there be any antimatter conduits down there that aren’t marked on the diagram. Otherwise …
Otherwise, it would be Kepler’s Star all over again. She didn’t want to think about it. “You match that spin now, Frances,” Maisel said, getting her phaser ready. “Keep me steady over that spot.”
“Acknowledged, Captain.”
Ileen fired.
There was an initial explosion from the planet’s surface that made her flinch for fear of what she was certain would follow. It didn’t follow. A hole began to appear, and deepen. “How far down do you want this, Mr. Data?”
On Enterprise, Data had his hands full—not that he had hands at the moment. The intellivore was getting scared, and its fear was making the fluctuations in the prewarp field more random. This was making his job harder. Point-seven-six cee. Point-seven-eight—
I am fortunate, Data thought, that the planet is so slow on impulse. But it has never had to be fast, until now, and its difficulties with its beam weapons suggest that it has not had much need for them, either. It has become rusty. “Ten kilometers will do, Captain,” he said. “Once the bomb is emplaced in the upper part of the mantle, the explosive and shock effects will propagate right through it, whether the antimatter pods are breached or not.”
“But they will be breached, Mr. Data. Won’t they?”
“Almost certainly. Captain,” Data said, “I must emplace the bomb before the intellivore goes into warp—otherwise, it and the Enterprise will be trapped together, and attempting to break out of the conjoint warpfield will destroy us, though possibly not them. That would be an undesirable outcome. Once you have finished digging your hole, I encourage you to be elsewhere, at great speed. The explosion should be … memorable.”
“Mr. Data,” said Maisel, “you and I are entirely of one mind in this matter, with one proviso: you have to do the same, and in one piece.”
Data could feel, with the ship’s sensors, the bodies that lay quietly sleeping around him on the bridge, and the many others all through Enterprise. “That is a foregone conclusion, Captain,” Data said.
“Point-eight,” said Pickup’s voice. “Point-eight-one. Eight-two—”
“I’m digging, I’m digging!” Ileen said. The phasers had run into a whole level of that refractory material, and it was giving them trouble. “They’ve got goddamn reinforcement here at crust level—”
“Don’t worry about the collimation, Captain,” said McGrady. “Give it multiple banks.”
“I said I wasn’t suicidal. I refuse to start contradicting myself at this late date.” Nonetheless, Ileen fastened another phaser onto the spot. It, too, collimated down as tightly as it would manage, and the two of them went to work. She started to see a red glow from the refractory material. “Getting some results,” she said, and added another.
The prewarp field of the planet flickered and jumped, dimpled and smooth and dimpled again all over, like a golf ball. It began to develop that long, whiplike tail that Maisel had noticed earlier. Data, hanging on via the tractor beam as if by his fingernails, flickered