Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [208]
“I’ve been meaning to speak with you,” said Picard, his voice filling the physician’s office. “Have you got something to report?”
“I do,” Greyhorse told him. “I’ve completed my clinical work and I’ve come to a conclusion.”
“Which is?” asked the second officer.
“That, as far as I’m concerned, there’s no reason not to give the Magnians full doses of the synthetic psilosynine.”
“They’ve shown no personality aberrations?”
“None that I have noticed. No erratic increases or reductions in their telekinetic or telepathic abilities either. In fact, nothing at all that we need to be concerned about.”
“But their abilities can be amplified?” asked Picard.
“Significantly,” said the doctor. “By fifty to seventy percent, depending on the individual. Enough, I imagine, to make a difference in the effectiveness of our enhanced tractor beam.”
“To say the least,” the second officer agreed. “Tell me…if you began administering full doses to the Magnians now, how long would it be before they took effect?”
“Two to three hours—again, depending on the individual.”
“We will arrive at our target in approximately thirty-six hours,” said Picard. “Plan accordingly.”
“I will,” Greyhorse assured him.
“Picard out.”
His conversation with the second officer completed, the doctor got up from his desk to check on his last remaining patient. Bypassing the triage area, which was occupied wall to wall by Magnians, he proceeded to his sickbay’s small critical care facility.
There, he saw Commander Leach.
The first officer was laid out on a biobed, a metallic blanket covering him from the neck down, a stasis field preventing his condition from deteriorating. But even with all that, Leach looked deathly pale, an unavoidable consequence of his coma.
Greyhorse used the control padd on the side of the first officer’s bed to check his vital signs. They were stable, which was about all the doctor could hope for at the moment.
If and when they reached a Federation starbase, there were things that could be done for Leach—procedures that would give the man an opportunity for a full recovery. But on the Stargazer, with its limited equipment, Greyhorse had done all he possibly could.
More satisfying was his work with the colonists. His efforts there would give Picard and his tactical people an advantage—the edge they needed to achieve a victory, perhaps.
I should be pleased, the doctor thought.
Unfortunately, his accomplishment hadn’t obtained the thing he wanted most—Gerda Asmund’s attention. He had seen her on two occasions over the last couple of days, once in a corridor and once in the lounge, and she hadn’t even acknowledged his presence.
She must have known about his work. It had to be the talk of everyone on the ship. But it hadn’t fazed her.
In that respect, at least, Greyhorse’s victory seemed a hollow one.
Lieutenant Vigo was sitting at the computer terminal in his quarters, running yet another time-consuming scan of the ship’s myriad command junctions, when he heard his name called over the intercom system.
The voice was Commander Picard’s. Having heard it every few hours for the last couple of days, the Pandrilite would quite likely have recognized it in his sleep.
“Aye, sir?” said Vigo.
“Anything?” asked Picard.
“Nothing at all,” the weapons officer told him. “I haven’t seen even a hint of impropriety.”
The commander sighed audibly. “I wish I could say that no news is good news, Lieutenant. But in this instance, that is not the case.”
“I’ll keep at it, sir,” Vigo promised. What else could he say?
“I have no doubt of it,” said Picard. “And, of course, if anything does come up—”
“I’ll contact you immediately,” the Pandrilite told him.
There was a pause. “Someday,” the commander said, “you and I will have more pleasant matters to talk about. But if it’s all right with you, Lieutenant, we won’t talk quite as often.”
Vigo smiled. “I’ll be sure to remind you, sir.”
* * *
For the second time in seventy-two hours, Jean-Luc Picard found