Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [10]
For the next few hours, the Enterprise orbited Elysia, circling the planet repeatedly with a slight change of angle on each pass, as if winding an invisible ball of yarn, thereby gaining a complete picture of the planet below.
Meanwhile, Data joined Darryl Adin’s crew in the shuttle bay. While the others tore apart the instrument panels and demagnetized or replaced the scrambled equipment, he and Sdan, Dare’s science expert, connected the shuttle’s memory storage to the Enterprise system. They spent hours locating every byte of unscrambled data, managing to recover most of the ships” logs.
Pieces of the ships’ programs were recoverable, but they would be far easier to replace than to debug.
By this time, most of Adin’s gang were growing weary.
Sdan, who appeared superficially Vulcan (but did not act it because he was actually a mix of Vulcan, Romulan, human, Orion, and possibly other ancestry), also had Vulcanoid stamina. He and Data spent 28 the time until Data’s next duty shift restoring the navigational programs and began the adaptation of the shuttlecraft operations program, which would take many more hours of work.
Data reported to the bridge, to find that while he was occupied the survey orbit of Elysia had almost been completed. Calling up the information on his console at the fastest rate his positronic brain could absorb it, he transferred the data to his own memory within minutes, and was already sifting through it for significant information when the captain entered the bridge.
“Mr. Data, Number One, Counselor Troi, my ready room,” said Picard. “And you, too, Lieutenant,” he added as Worf stepped out of the turbolift. Data saw Wesley Crusher’s eyes follow the captain eagerly, but their young acting ensign was certainly not going to be invited on an away team to a potentially dangerous planet. At the door, though, Picard turned. “Mr.
Crusher-was With a quick “Yes, sir!” Wesley was halfway out of his chair before the captain finished his instructions.
“comask Mr. La Forge and Dr. Pulaski to come to my ready room, please. And Mr. Thralen from Sociology.gg*thorn] The boy’s disappointment showed, but all he said was “Aye, Captain,” as he slid back into position and keyed the intercom to Engineering. As they waited for Geordi and the ship’s CMO, Data gave his assessment of the planetary survey. “There can be little doubt that this planet is artificially maintained.
Humanoid life could not have evolved naturally on Elysia, for the atmosphere is made up of 29 gases poisonous to carbon-nitrogen-oxygen based lifeforms. Except for small areas of extreme cold near the poles, Elysia is a planetwide noxious swamp.” “But there are settlements of intelligent humanoid beings,” Riker argued. “We have tricorder records from the original survey team, who met and spoke with them, and our own survey verifies their existence today.”
“That is correct,” Data said with a nod. “There are nine inhabited areas, where the land is arable, the atmosphere appropriate to a class-M planet. Such a configuration is not possible under natural conditions. Something must keep the poisonous atmosphere from overwhelming the settlements. Something must prevent the cloud cover which holds temperature and moisture at intolerable levels over the swamplands from blocking sunlight to and heat radiation from the inhabited areas.”
Before Data could continue with his list of impossible things “something” was doing on Elysia, Picard interrupted to suggest, “Forcefields?” “None that our sensors can detect,” Data replied.
“Physical barriers, then?”
“None, sir.”
The doors opened to admit Kate Pulaski, Geordi La Forge, and the Theskian sociologist