Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [59]
“I’m being careful,” the doctor told him.
“Well?” asked Picard, who was standing over them, a couple of meters back from the crevasse and the dangling bridge.
Greyhorse rolled back onto his haunches and made a face. “You’re lucky,” he told Simenon. “I don’t think those ribs are broken, after all. And your arm’s in remarkably good shape considering it could have been torn out of its socket.”
Somehow, Simenon didn’t feel that fortunate.
After all, his hope of progeny had just been crushed. Unless he could get across the chasm, one of the other teams would claim the eggs waiting for them at the finish line. And without a bridge, the odds of their making it across seemed slim indeed.
Not that it was impossible. The chasm was only six or seven meters from one side to the other. An Aklaash might have had the size and the power to leap across it.
But not a Gnalish of Simenon’s stature—especially one who had injured himself the way the engineer had. For someone like that, leaping the gap simply wasn’t an option.
“We still need to get across,” Ben Zoma said.
“Someone’s going to have to jump it,” Joseph added.
There was silence for a moment. Then someone said, “I think I can make it.”
The Gnalish looked around, eager to see who had spoken. So did everyone else in his party—with one exception.
That of the captain.
Chapter Eighteen
“YOU?” SIMENON SAID.
He had already blurted it out before he realized how derogatory it sounded. But he hadn’t intended to disparage the captain. It was just that he hadn’t thought of Picard as the most likely candidate to negotiate the chasm.
Vigo, perhaps, with his Aklaash-like strides and his muscular physique. But not a normal-size human with a normal-size human’s strength and speed.
“I mean,” the engineer added quickly, “are you certain you want to risk it?”
The captain still looked as if his ego had been bruised. “Though you may not be aware of it, Mr. Simenon, I’ve always been a rather decent track-and-field man. With a little luck, I’ll be able to make the jump. Then, if someone can toss me the loose end of the bridge, I can make it fast again on the other side.”
Simenon frowned. He had seen Picard engage Captain Ruhalter in some sort of swordplay, even work out a bit on the pommel horse in the ship’s gymnasium—and he had certainly seemed proficient in those activities. But he had never seen the man perform a long jump.
And as much as he wanted to win the race, he didn’t want to do it at the cost of his captain’s life.
“I can’t ask you to do that for me,” he told Picard.
The captain’s eyes crinkled at the corners, as if he had managed to find some humor in their predicament. “I’m not doing it for you,” he said evenly. “I’m doing it for generations of brilliant but irascible Gnalish to come.”
Simenon looked to his other colleagues. No one was objecting to Picard’s proposal—not even Ben Zoma, who was supposed to protect his commanding officer at all times. In fact, the man was smiling as if in appreciation of the captain’s quip.
But Simenon didn’t find it funny. He didn’t find it funny in the least. It was his fault they were down here, his fault that they were placing life and limb in jeopardy. If Picard came up short in his jump and hurt himself—or worse, killed himself—that would be the Gnalish’s fault, too.
“Sir,” he said, meaning to talk the captain out of it. “If anything happened to you, I’d—”
“It won’t,” Picard told him unequivocally. He glanced at the chasm, then nodded. “I’ll make it.”
“But, sir—”
“Belay that,” the captain said. His eyes narrowed as he regarded Simenon. “That’s an order, Lieutenant.”
The engineer scowled. It didn’t seem he was being given much of a say in the matter.
“All right,” he said, yielding to his superior. “But for the gods’ sake, be careful.”
“I will be as careful as the situation permits,” the captain promised him. Then he turned to the crevasse again and focused his attention on the task ahead of him.
First, he approached the chasm and inspected the turf at its edge. It appeared to be as