Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [91]
He turned to Asmund. She stared back at him, hard. As if she were fighting to keep her grip on emotions so powerful they might rip her apart.
Momentarily, Riker’s heart went out to her. It was a terrible thing to see one who had been Klingon-bred fighting to maintain her dignity.
Then he remembered what had been done to Ben Zoma. And to Cadwallader. And his sympathy for the woman melted away.
“If you please,” he told her, indicating the exit.
With a visible effort, Asmund collected herself. Then, without another word, she gave herself up to the security officers waiting outside in the corridor.
“Let me get this straight,” the engineering chief said. “You think we can skim the Enterprise out of the slipstream?”
“In a word,” Simenon answered, “yes.”
They were gathered again around the master situations monitor in engineering—Geordi, the Gnalish, Data, and Wesley. And the ensign was finding it increasingly difficult to keep quiet.
It was Simenon’s theory, Simenon’s plan. So it only made sense for Simenon to explain it. But Wes was so sure it was going to work that he could feel himself bubbling inside with excitement.
“You see,” said the professor, “I was teaching Wesley how to skim stones. You know—flat rocks?”
Data looked puzzled. “I am not familiar with the activity.”
“That’s all right,” said Wesley. “You don’t really have to be.”
The android took the ensign’s word for it. “Very well,” he said. “Please proceed, Professor.”
“Anyway,” Simenon went on, “in all my years on Gnala and elsewhere, I’ve skimmed hundreds—maybe even thousands—of stones. But I never gave much of a thought to the principles of physics that govern it. After all, they are so basic, so simple, as to be taken for granted. The stone’s surface and the water’s surface collide; the resulting exchange of energy between the two objects impels the stone upward as well as forward. In short, it skips. Its momentum has been diminished some, thanks to things like friction and gravity and the energy absorbed by the water in the collision—but not by much, as long as two conditions are satisfied: the angle of collision must be fairly oblique and the stone must be relatively flat.”
As the Gnalish paused for effect, Geordi leaned forward over the monitor to look at him. “Professor, this is all very enlightening. But what’s it got to do with—”
Simenon stopped him with a raising of his scaly hand. “All in good time, Commander. All in good time.” He frowned. “Where was I?”
“Fairly oblique and relatively flat,” Wesley reminded him.
“Oh, yes.” He punched up a schematic of the Enterprise on the monitor screen. “Let’s say this ship is such a stone. It has left our hand, and is hurtling along parallel to and just above the slipstream.”
“Excuse me,” said Data, “but we are in the slipstream—not on it.”
Simenon snorted. “Commander, you would never make it as an engineer—or a Gnalish, for that matter. There are very few precise analogies in this life—particularly when we’re talking about something as esoteric as a warpspace phenomenon.”
Geordi nodded, placing a reassuring hand on Data’s shoulder. “It’s all right, Professor. We’ll bear with you.”
“My gratitude,” the Gnalish muttered, “is boundless. In any case, the Enterprise is hurtling along, basically parallel to the surface—perhaps skipping every now and then without knowing it, because so little energy is lost in each collision. However, the collisions are what serve to keep us on the right path. Now, if we could somehow change the angle at which we strike the surface, we might go shooting off in a different direction entirely. If we approach it edge-down, for instance, we might go under the surface—which would put us in a completely different medium. A slower medium—just as regular space is a slower medium than subspace. Still with me?”
“Still with you,” Geordi replied. “Of course—”
“Of course,” the Gnalish interrupted, “we can’t change our position. The slipstream won’t let us—because we’re dealing with not