Possession - J.M. Dillard [98]
No one could respond to the android’s bald statement, so they merely filed out of the room, leaving the still, helpless body of George Tarmud in their wake.
Chapter Eleven
IN THE CRAMPED QUARTERS of Jeffries tube sixteen, Kyla sat atop the uneven powerline housing, focusing intently on fastening the last link of delicate microcircuitry to the VISOR. Perhaps, if she stared at it hard enough, she might be able to forget the image of George Tarmud lying near death—because she had panicked. Troi sat nearby, watching with an expression of both interest and sympathy; no doubt, the counselor in her yearned to ease Dannelke’s guilt. But at the moment none of them could spare the time.
“Are you almost finished with that unit?” Data asked Kyla quietly. “The Vulcan ship should be within transporter range momentarily.”
Kyla swallowed, made sure her voice was firm before she answered. “Yes. Almost. Just a minute …” She rechecked one last connection, then handed the device to the android. “That’s it. The last one.”
Worf, Alexander, and Deanna stared at the odd equipment—five VISORs connected by wiring and a thin filament of artificial organic optic nerve to a small box that could be clipped to a belt. The box was the containment field, a crude substitute for the elegant and enigmatic artifacts.
As the others watched in anticipation, Data tied a belt around his waist, clipped the small box to it, then slipped on the VISOR.
“So, how does it look?” Kyla asked.
“It does not impair the vision too severely,” Data commented, moving his head about to test the device’s range. “And its new programming is allowing me a dim approximation of Geordi’s vision. Normal electrical wavelengths generated by humanoid life-forms appear like a glow—a halo, if you will. We should be able to actually see the entities—or at least their frequencies—as they approach the VISOR to infect us.”
Kyla shook her head. “You say that so blithely.”
“If the VISORs work as we have programmed them,” Data reminded her, “the entities will not reach our eyes, but will follow the VISORs’ circuitry, travel down the artificial optic nerve, and become trapped in the containment field.”
“If it works as we planned,” she emphasized.
“And this is the best that we can do?” Worf asked again, clearly frustrated by this passive method of battling their enemies.
“It is the most likely solution to this complicated problem,” Data assured him.
Worf tried his VISOR on and scowled. “It will be very difficult to aim a phaser properly with this on.”
“I don’t think phasers are going to help us this time, Worf,” Deanna reminded him, adjusting her own VISOR.
Kyla watched Alexander wrestle with his adult-size VISOR. “Mine’s too big!” he complained, holding it awkwardly in place.
The ophthalmologist came up behind him and, taking one of her hairbands from a pocket, tied the two ends of the VISOR together, so it would fit him more snugly. As she did, she looked at Worf. “Don’t you think Alexander could stay in the Jeffries tubes till this is over? He’d be safe there. Does he really have to do this with us?”
Suddenly Worf’s hand was on the child’s shoulder. “Kyla. We are all in danger. We can all be hurt. Alexander is a member of this crew, of this ship. He will do his part. We will all be proud of him.”
“I do not wish to bring this up again,” Data interjected, “but while we seem to have a good working model of an entity collector and containment device, we have still not concocted a lure.”
“Can’t we just walk up to the Possessed members of the crew and pull the entities out of them?” Alexander asked.
“I only wish that were possible,” Data replied. “However, when a person is infected by the entities, the transmission that takes place is only partial. Some entities enter the new host, and some remain with the old to keep that host infected. We must find a way to lure all the entities out of each host, into our containment devices.”
“I know a way,” Deanna said softly. She was about to say more when a small viewscreen in the bulkhead panel brightened.
On the Enterprise