Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [187]
“That’s correct,” Greyhorse confirmed.
“Is it also possible that she was never in a coma in the first place—and only gave the appearance of it?”
The doctor mulled it over. “According to my instruments, the woman was definitely in a coma. And just a little while ago, in the Magnians’ medical center, I saw their doctors working on her—which wouldn’t have been necessary if she were just faking it.”
“What sort of work were they doing?”
Greyhorse shrugged. “They were using the power of their minds.”
“Just standing there?”
“Yes,” said the doctor.
“Which, if you were a suspicious person, you might have discounted as window dressing.”
Greyhorse looked at Picard. “You’re suggesting that their procedure was a sham, Commander? A show for my benefit?”
“I am not suggesting anything,” said the second officer. “I am merely bringing up the question.”
The doctor’s dark eyes narrowed. “I don’t understand. I thought you trusted the Magnians.”
Picard sighed. “I am so inclined, yes. However, in the position I now occupy, I feel compelled to consider all the angles.”
Including the angle that assumed he was wrong about Shield Williamson…and that he was placing his people in deadly danger.
Not for the first time, the commander wished he had the benefit of Captain Ruhalter’s input. But the captain was in a long, coffinlike capsule in one of their cargo bays, pending their return to the Federation, and in no position to offer advice.
“Thank you for your input,” he told Greyhorse.
“It’s my job,” the physician reminded him.
Yes, thought Picard. Just as it’s my job to see to it we’re not caught by surprise a second time.
Captain’s log, supplemental. Despite the questions that have been raised concerning the Magnians in general and Serenity Santana in particular, I am still willing to trust them. Even as I speak, the colonists are manufacturing critical replacement parts for our propulsion system, phaser banks and shield generators. In exchange, we are applying our own expertise to the rebuilding of the several deflector stations that form a perimeter around Magnia, making those installations even more effective than before. I’m on my way to the planet’s surface to see how the work is progressing.
Picard tapped his combadge, automatically ending his log entry, and entered the Stargazer’s main transporter room.
Vandermeer was the operator on duty. Nodding to the woman, the second officer crossed the floor to the transporter platform and took his place there. Then he turned back to Vandermeer and said, “Energize.”
The next thing he knew, he was standing in a grassy valley full of rocky gray outcroppings, dwarfed by one of the Magnians’ shield generators. Rising at least a hundred and fifty meters into the air, the device looked like a child’s ice cream cone—minus the ice cream.
The nuclear reactor that powered the device was located several hundred meters underground, where the Starfleet officer couldn’t see it. Fortunately, there wasn’t a problem with the reactor; the problem was with the mechanism that converted the reactor’s energy into a stream of polarized gravitons and projected them out into space.
A group of four was laboring at the squat, squared-off base of the generator, where an access panel had been removed. Three of the four were Magnians; the fourth was Simenon, who was showing the colonists how to alter their equipment to produce vidrion particles.
Teams were working on the city’s five other shield generators as well. They hoped to have all six locations producing vidrions as well as gravitons by the time the Nuyyad returned.
As on the Stargazer, the retrofit process looked to be a tedious one. However, if it bought the colonists another few minutes in the upcoming confrontation, it would be well worth it.
Picard’s hair lifted in the rising wind, a harbinger of the blue-gray storm clouds piling up behind the pastel skyline of Magnia. The birds that had circled the splendid towers in twos and threes earlier in the day were gone, having fled to more secure positions.