Ishtar Rising Book 1 - Michael A. Martin [10]
“I am not here to have ‘fun,’” sniffed Tev. “I am here to repair what others have broken.”
“I’m sure we’ll all have a positively delightful time,” Corsi said, deadpan.
Standing behind the tactical console located at the rear of the bridge, Lieutenant Anthony Shabalala interrupted Tev’s response. “Ishtar Station is coming into view, Captain.”
On the screen, the exterior running lights of the half-kilometer-long Ishtar Station had become visible, peeking out from beyond the dark side of the planet’s terminator.
“Hail them, Shabalala,” Gold said, grateful to get back to business.
“Aye, sir,” the tactical officer said. “Hailing frequency open.”
A moment later, the noxious cloudscape vanished from the screen, replaced by the face of a dark-skinned man who appeared to be in his early sixties. When Pascal Saadya saw Gold he smiled, displaying his even, brilliantly white teeth.
“David! It’s good to see you again, my old friend.”
Rising from his command chair, Gold returned Saadya’s smile. “Likewise, Pas. What can we do for you? I know it has something to do with assistance for your terraforming project, but our last conversation was a bit, ah, vague.” As, Gold thought, was the initial message Saadya had sent him the previous day.
Saadya’s smile faltered for a moment, but quickly recovered much of its wattage. “I’d prefer we discuss that in private, if you don’t mind. Could we meet aboard the station?”
Something’s got him rattled, Gold thought.
Aloud, he said, “My first officer and I will beam right over.”
* * *
It was long past midnight as the schedule was reckoned aboard Ishtar Station, and most of the staff had already retired for the evening. But Pascal Saadya wasn’t one who tended to waste much of his precious time sleeping. He regarded the dearth of other people in the vicinity of his office principally as an absence of distraction.
Saadya was beside himself with both joy and relief as he watched Gold and his first officer materialize on the transporter pad near his office. The joy was sincere and heartfelt, for it had been too many years since he’d seen his old friend David in person. The relief stemmed from what Saadya had heard about the crack team of engineers David commanded.
Particularly his Bynar pair.
“I have to tell you, Pas,” David Gold said after the initial greetings and pleasantries were exchanged, “my boss wasn’t keen on diverting the da Vinci here.”
Leaning against the side of his cheerfully disordered desk, Saadya steepled his fingers. “Ah. Montgomery Scott. A true traditionalist. Tell me, what specifically bothers him about the project?”
Saadya watched as Gold’s eyes strayed to the cloudtops that were visible through the office viewport. “Captain Scott seems to have more than one objection.”
Saadya did his best not to scowl. Deliver me from the Starfleet brass and their retrograde thinking. And they say Venus spins backward.
“For instance?” Saadya asked carefully.
Gold appeared to consider his words for a moment before speaking. “For starters, he’s not thrilled with your plan to tow Mercury into a new orbit around Venus.”
Saadya chuckled. “I see. No doubt because I wish to tamper with the familiar early-morning skies of his youth. Unfortunately, it’s a step I will have to take eventually if Venus is ever to take her rightful place as Earth’s twin world.”
Gold offered Saadya a blank look, then gazed toward Gomez. The da Vinci’s first officer appeared to understand.
“You need to create tidal effects,” she said. “You’re planning to jump-start the Venusian core by generating a magnetic field to keep out hard radiation.”
Saadya felt a broad, involuntary smile cross his face. “Mercury will also stabilize the Venusian rotational axis over multimillion-year timescales.”
Gold’s eyebrows rose as the true enormity of Project Ishtar appeared to sink in. “You’ve taken on quite a job, Pas,” he said at length. “No wonder it’s taken six years just to get through the number-crunching phase.”
“I do not believe in taking half-measures, David. Of course, one mustn’t get ahead of oneself.