Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [53]
Simenon’s nostrils flared stubbornly. “All right,” he said at last. “I’ll admit it.”
Then he started off down the path again.
As he fell in behind the engineer, Picard smiled through his weariness. If even Simenon could show a hint of optimism, their venture might turn out well after all.
Chapter Sixteen
“WELL?” SAID WU, scanning the faces of her bridge officers.
She could feel the hum of the Stargazer’s engines through the deck plates, hear the control consoles’ unrelenting chorus of beeps and chirps. Normally, she tuned those things out the way any veteran officer would, but they seemed all too obtrusive now in the silence that followed her challenge.
“Who’s got a way to get those people off the Belladonna?” she asked, her voice echoing throughout the bridge.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Paxton broke the ice.
“We could try using a tractor beam. But that would require us to get a lot closer to the accretion bridge.”
“And we can’t do that,” said Idun, “because the pull would drag us into the phenomenon as well.”
Kastiigan nodded at his science console. “True.”
“We can’t transport them off,” Gerda thought out loud. “Not when we can’t get a reliable lock on them.”
“And,” Kastiigan added, “the radiation and the magnetic fields in the accretion bridge would wreak havoc with a confinement beam.”
“So the transporter isn’t an option,” Wu concluded. “What is?”
Silence ruled the bridge again. Wu found herself missing the captain, Ben Zoma, Simenon, and Vigo. Had they been aboard, there would no doubt have been a few more suggestions in the air.
Paris, who was manning the weapons station in Vigo’s absence, hadn’t spoken to that point. But now he said, “We’ve established that we can’t use our tractor beam to pull the Belladonna out. But why couldn’t we use it to send in an unmanned shuttle?”
Wu looked at him. “You mean as a rescue vehicle?”
The ensign nodded. “If we can get it to the Belladonna, they can offload their people one group at a time.”
The second officer considered the notion. It was interesting, all right. She turned to Lt. Dubinski, Simenon’s stand-in at the engineering console. “What do you think?”
The engineer took a moment to run some calculations. When he looked up, it wasn’t with a great deal of optimism. And when he spoke, it was with even less.
“Even if a tractor beam could be effective in an accretion bridge environment, we’d have to stretch it pretty thin to keep the Stargazer out of trouble. It wouldn’t be able to handle the mass of a shuttle pod, much less a full-fledged passenger craft.” Dubinski glanced at Paris. “Good try.”
But the ensign didn’t seem especially gratified by the compliment. His expression said he wouldn’t be content until he had come up with something better.
Wu looked around the bridge. “Anyone else?”
No one seemed to have an idea—not even Paris, for all his obvious determination. Under different circumstances, that might not have bothered the second officer so much.
But under these circumstances, with a ship full of lives hanging in the balance, it bothered her a lot.
Picard sat down heavily and rested his back against the rough bark of a tree trunk.
“I just need a minute,” Greyhorse gasped, collapsing against another tree on the opposite side of the path.
Of course, this was the fourth time the doctor had said that since the beginning of the race a few hours earlier. Though no one had complained out loud, it was growing difficult to ignore the fact that he was slowing their team down.
To Simenon’s credit, he was managing to withhold comment on Greyhorse like everyone else. He just stood there a little farther up the trail, glancing occasionally at the paths of their adversaries to either side of them and frowning.
“Thanks a lot,” Greyhorse rasped in the Gnalish’s direction.
Simenon turned. “For what? I haven’t said a word.”
“You don’t have to,” the big man told him. “The way you’re standing there is comment enough.”
The engineer’s ruby eyes narrowed. “What would you have