Nightshade - Laurell K. Hamilton [31]
A slightly smaller, yellow version of their captain walked among the wounded. The yellow alien still dwarfed any of the humans. “Which of you is the doctor?” The voice had the same slow measure, but there was lilt to the end of words. Female? Geordi honestly couldn’t tell. For that matter, why had he assumed that Captain Diric was male?
‘I am the doctor,” Beverly Crusher said. She came forward, the emergency medical kit slung over her shoulder.
‘Good, I am the only doctor for the whole ship. I am pleased for any assistance.” The yellow alien started to kneel beside one of the patients, but instead of bending knees, she seemed to melt. Geordi couldn’t see under the long robes, but the movement looked like the lower half of her body had quickly melted, then solidified when she was low enough to touch the patient.
Crusher exchanged a glance with him. Even Data had his head cocked to one side, as if something interesting had happened. Beverly overcame her surprise and knelt by the alien doctor.
Geordi searched the room and found all the Milgians had odd heat patterns. What he could only assume were injury sites were a bright screaming red-orange. The cooler the pattern, the healthier the Milgian. What was their normal body temperature? It had to be lower than a humans.
Crusher ran a scanner back and forth over the first patient. The alien doctor flowed back to her solid looking feet and moved on.
Geordi moved forward to stand by Dr. Crusher. “How is… she?”
‘Burns over seventy percent of the body, but they have some sort of cell structure I’ve never seen before. It’s almost as if the structure isn’t solid.”
‘Like when the doctor knelt down. It looked like she melted.”
Crusher nodded. “It’s as good a word as any, I guess. The temperature readings are all over the place, depending on which part of the body I’m registering, as if different parts of the body are compartmentalized.”
‘Compartmentalized?” Data said, standing just behind them. “Separate?”
‘I think so.” She stood and motioned the two men back from the patient. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If this patient were any humanoid I’d ever met, he would be dead. Parts of the body are nearly burned away, but those sections seem to have been shut down, and the rest of the body seems fine. In fact, there’s shock that I can read.”
‘Can you help the Milgians?” Data asked.
‘I think so, but their internal structure is like nothing I’ve ever seen before. It will be difficult to know what to do.”
‘But you can help them?”
She nodded. “I’ll beam over to the Enterprise with the worst of the injured. And prepare my med team for some very unusual patients.”
‘Very good, Doctor,” Data said. “If you have everything under control here, I believe Geordi and I would be of more use in the engineering section.”
‘I don’t know about under control, but yes, we will do everything we can.”
‘Good. I leave you to see to medical matters. Come, Geordi. We will ask Captain Diric to take us to engineering.”
Geordi fought an urge to give a mock salute, but he knew Data wouldn’t appreciate the joke. Though it wouldn’t be for lack of trying. No one tried harder than Data to have a sense of humor.
‘Captain Diric, with your permission, we would like to see your engines. Perhaps there is something we can do to help you.”
‘My Chief Engineer Veleck is most competent, but a captain’s duty is to his ship, and if anything can be done to save it, then of course, you may see the engines.” His voice sounded tired or perhaps sad.
Geordi glanced around the room at the more than twenty injured, some of them very small, children perhaps. Against one wall were three large covered forms, no heat, no anything. Geordi knew death when he saw it. He never needed to take a pulse, once the corpse was old enough to cool. Suddenly, he understood the sorrow in Diric’s voice.
The engine room was huge, full of flowing silvergray tubes and open structures. It was like being inside a huge architectural