Nightshade - Laurell K. Hamilton [73]
‘All right, Doctor. You handle the evacuation, and I’ll try to take a crash course in Milgian engine mechanics.”
Two hours later Geordi was back in front of the glowing panels. They had been unable to convince any more of the Milgian crew to abandon ship. Finally, the Enterprise, with the few refugees, had warped to a safe distance. Veleck and Dr. Crusher were standing at either side.
Veleck had tried to explain what it would be like to “speak” with the engines, but the idea hadn’t translated well. Geordi guessed it was one of those occasions that you just had to experience. Either Geordi would understand once he’d made contact with the engines, or he wouldn’t. Either they would blow up, or they wouldn’t. Nice to have such simple choices.
‘Everybody ready?” Geordi asked.
‘A Milgian is always ready to give his life for his ship,” Veleck said.
‘Sorry I asked. Dr. Crusher?”
‘I’m with you, Geordi.”
‘Here goes everything.” He spread his hand over the panel and moved it slowly closer. When his hand was almost touching the panel, but not quite, a tingling shock raced up his arm. Then his whole arm went numb, as if he’d hit the nerve in his elbow, the funny bone.
The engine room receded, as if Geordi were being pulled down a narrow tunnel. Colors flashed and glowed behind his eyes. He tried to shut them, but the colors were inside his head. He couldn’t make sense of it and found himself drowning in a whirl of colors-red, blue, yellow, pink, orange. Then suddenly it all made sense. The colors were the engines talking to him.
They had no voice, nothing to hear, and the colors that were visible to the eye were only the outward manifestations, like his own skin. The “talking” went on underneath where you couldn’t really see it. But you could feel it.
The engine, for it was one being, was very curious about Geordi. It had never met a non-Milgian. It could read his mind; there was no need for words or even concrete thoughts. It just drank the information directly from his mind.
The engine flowed and pulsed, and Geordi could feel it. His mind ran through circuit boards and conduits. He was one with the engine. It was overwhelming and wonderful, and he knew it would run forever just working with his hands.
‘Geordi, can you hear me?” It was Dr. Crusher’s voice, floating through the colored language. It was a shock to hear real speech.
‘I can hear you, Doctor.” His voice sounded very distant to him, almost unattached.
‘Are you all right?”
‘I’m fine. Why?”
‘You’ve been standing motionless for over twenty minutes. You wouldn’t respond to my voice. Veleck wanted to break the connection, but I was afraid it would harm you. If my instruments are correct, the engine is bound to your involuntary nervous system.”
‘Is that bad?”
‘Not as long as it doesn’t hurt you.” Her voice’s concern was a deep violet color washing through the engine’s language.
‘I’m all right, Doctor. The engine likes me. It’s eager to learn from me. I need time to sort out what it’s telling me, but I think we’re in business. Contact the Enterprise; tell them we’re okay and we’re going to operate on our patient as soon as it tells me what’s wrong.”
‘It’s going to tell you what’s wrong?”
‘Yeah, its name is two long yellow flashes followed by a quick blue dot. Yellow-Dot-Blue.” The colors swirled more intensely when Geordi thought of the engine’s name. The kaleidoscope of colors whirled around him and dragged him in, and Geordi didn’t fight it. He needed to learn how the engine worked, and now it could show him.
Chapter Nineteen
Troi coughed hard, and even though the breathing masks were suppose to help you breathe, Troi found herself gasping. Her breathing was loud and labored. Sweat trickled down her forehead. She raised a hand to wipe it away and bumped the mask. Sighing, she forced herself to let her hands drop loosely to her sides. She was supposed to be passing as an Orianian, and they did not rub at their masks or tug at their cloaks.
Worf stood beside her even more uncomfortable, if that were possible.