Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [197]
Joseph smiled a tolerant smile. “That was the first thing we tried. But internal sensors aren’t very dependable in the vicinity of the warp engines, which is where the junction was located. And whoever did the tampering was smart enough to take off his or her combadge so we wouldn’t be able to track them that way either.”
The doctor shrugged. “It was just a thought.”
“Thanks anyway,” said the security officer.
But he didn’t leave. He just stood there, his eyes glazing over, as if he had fallen deep into thought.
“Lieutenant?” said Greyhorse.
Joseph looked at him as if he had woken from a dream. “Hmm?”
“Are you feeling all right?” the physician inquired.
“I’m okay. Just a little…preoccupied is all.” The security officer hesitated. Then he said, “Can I level with you?”
Greyhorse nodded. “Certainly.”
Joseph smiled again—a little sheepishly, this time. “To be honest, I don’t have a whole lot of friends on the ship. It’s always been that way for me, I don’t know why. But when I was guarding Ms. Santana, I…well, I sort of came to like her.”
“As a friend?” the doctor asked.
“That,” said the security officer, “and maybe a little more. I know it sounds ridiculous, but I think I fell for her the first time I saw her—when she was sitting on her cot in the brig.”
Even Greyhorse had to chuckle at that. “Quite an image,” he conceded.
“I thought she liked me too,” Joseph confided. “Maybe not the way I liked her, but at least a little. Then I found out that she was playing me for a chump, right from the start.”
“Playing all of us,” the doctor interjected.
“But me most of all,” the security officer insisted. “I mean, I trusted her. I let a pretty face make me forget my training.” He looked embarrassed. “I’ll bet that never happened to you.”
Greyhorse was about to agree with the man, at least inwardly—when a sequence of images flashed through his mind, coming one after the other with jolting familiarity.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw someone carrying a wounded Gerda into sickbay. Then he took another look and realized that it was Gerda who was doing the carrying, and that it was Leach who had been hurt.
The doctor’s heart began to pound as it had pounded then. Even if he managed to forget everything else about Gerda, he would never forget that sight as long as he lived.
Greyhorse regained his composure. “Never,” he agreed, lying through his teeth. “But that doesn’t mean you should be beating yourself up over it. We’re people, Lieutenant, not machines. We have feelings. And sometimes, like it or not, those feelings get in the way of our jobs.”
Joseph considered the advice. “Maybe you’re right.”
But Greyhorse knew the security officer didn’t mean it. He would continue to berate himself, advice or no advice.
Well, he told himself, at least I tried.
“If you think of anything that might shed some light,” said Joseph, “let me know, all right?”
“I will,” the doctor promised him.
But as the security officer left, Greyhorse wasn’t thinking about Joseph’s problem. He wasn’t thinking about psilosynine either. He was thinking about Gerda Asmund again.
Phigus Simenon looked up at the wedge of blue sky caught between the spires of Magnia’s tallest towers.
He couldn’t see the Stargazer. But then, he hadn’t expected to. The ship was too far away even to be spotted at night, when the atmosphere of this world wasn’t suffused with its sun’s light.
Abruptly, the engineer heard his communicator beep. It was what he had been waiting for. Tapping it, he said, “Simenon here.”
“This is Commander Picard. I’m taking us out of orbit.”
“Acknowledged,” said the engineer.
“Good luck,” Picard told him.
“To you, too,” Simenon replied.
“Picard out.”
The Gnalish stared at the sky a little longer. Then he turned to Armor Brentano, who had been attending him patiently.
“Ready?” asked the colonist.
“Ready,” said Simenon.
Then he followed Brentano across the plaza to the elegant pink building that housed the