Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [29]
“I will meet you there, Number One.”
Leybenzon faced Worf. “We could have taken down those animals with great ease, Commander. I fail to see—”
“There is no honor in fighting an animal defending its territory, Lieutenant.”
Miranda regarded the first officer with surprise. “I thought Klingons valued the hunt.”
Worf turned his gaze onto Miranda. “The hunt, yes. But this would not have been a hunt—it would have been a slaughter. And it does not matter. Those animals were not detected by the Enterprise or by our tricorders. Neither did they read whatever kept us from going any farther. Something or someone in that cavern is being protected, and we must learn what it is before we engage it.”
“We could have done that on the surface,” Leybenzon insisted.
“Perhaps—but we will be better armed with more information, and we can obtain that from orbit.”
With that, Worf led the way out of the transporter room and toward sickbay.
“Agreed,” Leybenzon said, sounding a mite perturbed. “Why are we reporting to sickbay?”
“Commander Kadohata mentioned Talos IV. The species native to that world are powerful telepaths who can create sophisticated illusions. It is possible that such beings are present on Gorsach IX, and we are unable to detect them. I wish Doctor Crusher to examine us for evidence of psionic tampering.”
Miranda found she couldn’t argue with that logic. She tapped her combadge to contact the relief ops officer. “Kadohata to Rosado.”
“Go ahead, Commander.”
“Jill, I need you to focus the sensors on the cavern we were just beamed out of. Hit it with everything—I want to know the subatomic makeup of the dirt on the floor.”
“I’ll get right on it, sir.”
Worf gave Miranda a nod of approval as they entered the turbolift. “Sickbay,” the first officer’s powerful voice filled the lift as the doors closed.
Having left T’Lana in charge of the bridge, Picard proceeded immediately to sickbay; the captain was concerned. This was supposed to be a simple mission, one where the crew could revel in the exploration of a new world, but now there were complications.
A constructed world. In truth, this raised several fascinating possibilities, but Picard was concerned about whoever it was behind the proverbial curtain. While the landing party explored the caverns, Picard had called up previous Starfleet missions that had planets that were constructed, whether physically, holographically, or telepathically. Each, it seemed, ended badly.
The captain entered sickbay to see Doctor Crusher passing a medical scanner over Kadohata, while Doctor Tropp was doing the same for Leybenzon. A medtech with his back to Picard was fussing over an equipment cart.
Worf was standing next to Nurse Ojibwa. He turned to face Picard when he entered. “I felt it prudent to report to sickbay to determine if there was any evidence of telepathic tampering.”
Picard nodded. “A wise precaution. Doctor?”
Having finished the second officer’s exam, Crusher shook her head. “Worf checked out okay, and I’m not seeing anything on Miranda to indicate the kind of telepathic tampering the commander was concerned about. Having said that, each telepathic species we know leaves a different imprint upon the brain. Betazoid telepathy shows heightened activity in the hippocampus, whereas a Vulcan mind-meld shows an increase in neurotransmitters to the—”
Holding up a hand, Picard said, “Doctor, what does this all mean?”
Crusher continued, “What it boils down to is that neither Worf nor Miranda shows any signs of invasive telepathy that we’re aware of.”
Tropp set down his medical scanner. “And neither does Lieutenant Leybenzon.”
Leybenzon sat up. “And yet there was something that prevented us from moving deeper into that cavern.”
Kadohata added, “Yeah, something that literally set wolves at us.”
“Obviously,” Worf said, “someone does not wish us on that planet, sir—or at the very least, not in that cavern.”
“Oh, you