Oblivion - Michael Jan Friedman [4]
The captain hadn’t intended to be on his way so quickly. He had hoped to nurse his tea for a while, to linger over it. Now he would have to proceed at an alltoo-leisurely pace, perhaps even loiter here and there, lest he reach the location of his rendezvous too soon.
He frowned. In every plan, there was an X factor—an unexpected element. The woman in the unusual hat had been such an element.
He could only hope he wasn’t going to have to deal with any others.
Chapter Two
GILAAD BEN ZOMA, the first officer of the Federation Starship Stargazer and her commander in the captain’s absence, couldn’t sleep worth a damn.
He had been lying in bed for hours—four, by his last count—and had succeeded thus far in making a detailed inspection of his ceiling, naming every crewman on the ship, and calculating escape velocities for a half-dozen different shuttle types from ten different Federation planets.
It wasn’t the first time in his life that he had suffered from insomnia. The first time was when he was ten years old, and his younger brother Levi had come down with a bad case of Andronesian encephalitis.
Ben Zoma remembered catching a glimpse of his brother from the corridor outside Levi’s bedroom. Levi had looked so small in his dark blue bedcovers, so pale, that it didn’t seem possible he would survive another day.
Then their mother had shooed Ben Zoma away, lest he contract encephalitis as well. But he had seen enough of Levi to keep him blubbering under his blanket all night, afraid that his brother was going to die.
Fortunately, the disease wasn’t as serious as Ben Zoma’s imagination had made it out to be. Levi not only survived, he went on to run a Federation research colony on Bejarus III and have a couple of kids of his own.
Ben Zoma’s brother was no longer a cause for concern. Jean-Luc Picard, however, was a different matter entirely. It wasn’t that anyone expected the captain’s mission on Oblivion to hit a snag. In fact, there was every reason to believe it would proceed exactly as planned.
But there were no guarantees. Hence, the first officer’s inability to fall asleep.
With a sigh, Ben Zoma surrendered. Throwing his legs out of bed, he padded across the room on bare feet. Then he opened his closet, pulled on a clean uniform, and left his quarters.
There really wasn’t any point in his visiting the bridge. Elizabeth Wu—the Stargazer’s petite second officer—was perfectly capable of completing her shift there without any inteference from her superior.
Nonetheless, by the time Ben Zoma reached a turbolift, he had already decided on the bridge as his destination.
He was waiting for the lift compartment to arrive when he heard the echo of distant footsteps. Glancing down the corridor to his left, he saw a crewman come into view from a perpendicular passageway.
The first officer recognized the man as Nikolas, one of the ensigns who had beamed aboard with Wu, just prior to their pursuit of the White Wolf. But as Ben Zoma recalled, Nikolas had been assigned to the day shift. There was no need for him to be up at this hour.
The ensign paused at the joining of the corridors and returned Ben Zoma’s scrutiny. Then, like some kind of ghost, he picked up his pace again and was lost to sight.
Clearly, thought the first officer, a fellow insomniac. However, Ben Zoma had a reason to be up. He wondered if Nikolas could say the same.
He was still considering the question when the turbolift doors opened. Entering the compartment, he programmed in his destination. Then he watched the doors close, and felt the slight vibration that meant he was moving through the ship.
In this case, it was only a short trip. A few seconds later, Ben Zoma felt the vibration stop.
Then the lift doors opened and he stepped out, drawing glances from the officers on duty. They all looked surprised to see him, though no one commented on the fact.
Since Wu wasn’t in the center seat, Ben Zoma guessed that