Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [29]
"Our engineers have maintained them expertly. As they have the medical equipment. Do not try to excuse your own ineptness by blaming the technology."
Trakis turned slowly to face him. His voice was calm, almost pleasant, as he said, "Perhaps you would prefer one of your own physicians to attend to this matter."
Nimmet flushed. The Kazon had no healers, at least none that didn't do more harm than good. He gestured toward the captive. "Hurry up and do what you must before he wakes up again."
Trakis turned back to his console and began reciting in a near-monotone: "The specimen is approximately one half meter in length and possesses the familiar tripartite construction of parasectoid species: there is a head, birax, and abdomen; the exoskeleton is hard-shelled. There are two sets of wings-durable forewings that resemble the alytron of similar species, and more delicate hind wings folded underneath. Two antennae and four mandibles are present. The head presents an elongated snout with biting jaws.
There are three compound eyes. The underbelly is soft and is green mottled with black.
"The respiratory system is unique; it is clearly constructed for air-breathing but there are adaptations which permit it to exist in various environments. There is an unusual fluid circulating throughout the creature's body, similar in some respects to lymphatic fluid, but possessing superconducting electrical and magnetic properties." As he spoke, he was aware that Nimmet barely listened. The Kazon didn't understand this medical jargon, didn't care about it, didn't want to be trapped in the bowels of the ship serving as Control to a physician. And it was this indifference that Trakis intended to exploit when the time came.
Neelix and his group had moved quickly into the gloomy grove of trees, but they were soon forced to slow down. The undergrowth was thick and tangled, ripping at faces, hands, uniforms, and hair. It was so dark they had to turn on their wrist beacons, and even then the beams of light seemed to get swallowed in the fetid darkness.
The odor was cloying, a rancid dampness with the telltale sweetness that bespoke rotting flesh. Neelix' mind went briefly to the reading of life-forms he had detected earlier, but he thrust those thoughts out of his mind. They had to get through this dense thicket and unite with Tuvok before the Kazon found them. What followed them was far more threatening than what might lie ahead.
They moved deeper into the copse, the undergrowth thicker all the time, the putrid stench more intense. Neelix turned around to check on the group. "Everybody present and accounted for?" he queried cheerfully. "We're here, Mr. Neelix." Ensign Kale's voice drifted from the back of the group.
Neelix turned around again to see what seemed to be an impenetrable obstacle-a solid wall of brush and thicket. Neelix played his beacon around it, looking for a gap, at first finding nothing. Then, at the very bottom, he discovered what looked like a small burrow, a hole that showed evidence of broken branches and so was probably a route that had been used before, probably by some kind of animal. Neelix knelt down and shined his beacon into the hole; it seemed to tunnel through the underbrush for quite a distance. It might take them all the way to the other side. But that would require a squirming journey on one's belly, inching through the moist, decaying carpet of the forest, into a thick darkness that could conceal-anything. He turned back to the group. "This looks like the only way through."
The young faces looked at the uninviting tunnel without enthusiasm. No one was eager to crawl into that gamy, sour-smelling burrow, and they all seemed to be trying to come up with another option. But LeFevre wiped out that line of thinking. "Kazon... they've reached the clearing." That meant they'd