Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [81]
The mention of swimming, though, brought up the image of Pris, and along with it the odd feeling that Data had somehow treated her unfairly. He could not “put his finger on,” as the human expression had it, the reason for his sense of ingratitude.
Dr. Pulaski did another brain scan, and showed him the comparison with the first. “Some change,” she said, “but you still think like an android,” She shrugged. “Perhaps those thought patterns will never change completely. That also doesn’t matter, Data,, so long as you are able to function.” It crossed his mind to say that he was indeed functioning fully, but he didn’t. The thought was not amusing today.
As Data was getting ready to leave, the doors opened to admit two ensigns with an antigrav trolley piled high with equipment. “Here are your new diagnostic consoles, Doctor.”
“Now?” Pulaski objected. “I gave Ship’s Supplies the specs weeks ago. So now, when we’re hurling headlong into potential danger, when in the next thirty-six hours I could have this place full of casualties, now you decide to tear my sickbay apart to install new equipment?”
“We’re just following orders, Ma’am,” said one of the ensigns. “Well, you just follow these orders,” the doctor said acerbically. “March all that stuff right back to Supplies, and tell Lieutenant Carson in the future to do her job on time.”
As the two ensigns struggled with the unwieldy
trolley, Pulaski continued, “And you also tell Carson that if I have any problems before this Konor situation is resolved, that could have been prevented if you had installed this equipment while we were in transit, I’ll hold her personally responsible!”
In their eagerness to escape the doctor’s scathing tongue, the two ensigns were working at crosspurposes. The Vulcan at one end had kept his head and was attempting to reverse the controls to remove the trolley without turning it. The human at the other end was attempting to do just that, his fingers hastily punching the control buttons to make the trolley rotate. “No, Tom,” said the Vulcan, “we don’t have to turn it. Just reverse the controls.”
“Reverse the-“repeated the very nervous human comand began hitting all the switches in turn.
“No!” exclaimed Data, who could see what the man was doing. The Vulcan’s vision was obscured by the pile of equipment. “Not the inertia and friction-was But it was too late. The forcefields which increased friction and reduced inertia to keep the components in place shifted to do exactly the opposite. The trolley was still moving; the Vulcan could not stop the rotation Tom had started.
And Tom, by reflex, did exactly the wrong thing when Data yelled at him: he hit the Emergency Stop.
With friction reduced and inertia increased, the components tumbled off the trolley and into the ship’s Earth-normal gravity. A sharp-edged metal box on the very top pitched off, right toward Dr.
Pulaski. Data darted forward, caught the falling equipment comand was propelled backward off his feet as efficiently as if Worf had slammed into him.
Put there was no safety field to catch him here.
Data fell, the equipment slamming down on top of him. It was sheer luck that the flat side struck him, father than a corner or an edge, which might literally have cut him in half.
As it was, he had the breath knocked out of him.
Then he felt a wave of unbearable pressure, which swiftly changed to pain as his already bruised ribs protested with renewed anguish.
Then Tom and the Vulcan ensign were lifting the weight off him as Pulaski warned, “Data, don’t move!” A second later, she was bending over him with a scanner, white-faced and thin-lipped.
He couldn’t have moved if he had tried. In his brief human life he had never known such pain!
He struggled to draw air into his lungs.
Pulaski studied her readings and said, “Thank God,” in a tone of relief. “Nothing’s broken, Data, but you have four slightly cracked ribs.and a badly bruised diaphragm and spleen.” She turned to the two ensigns