Relics - Michael Jan Friedman [12]
Scott tested it. Not bad, not bad at all. He could move around now a good deal more easily. He looked at the ensign, intending to express his thanks.
But before he could get a word out, Franklin tilted his head toward the open transporter unit. “You said you needed help, sir?”
“Aye,” Scott acknowledged. There would be time enough for thanks later. “Here’s what I’d like ye to do. Y’see these circuits? They enable the transporter’s diagnostic function.” He used the tool to point to a spot where they nearly converged, then handed the tool to Franklin. “Take this and meld the circuits .”
The ensign’s soot-blackened forehead furrowed right down the middle. “But won’t that lock the pattern buffer into a diagnostic cycle?”
Scott smiled approvingly. “Aye, lad. It’ll keep the signal cycling in a perpetual diagnostic mode.”
Franklin looked at him. “But why?”
“Ye’ll see,” the older man told him, “as soon as I’ve made a few adjustments of my own.” And with that, Scott got to his feet.
The smoke was starting to clear a bit-a good sign that life support was working as well as the monitors said. But with any luck, Scott thought, they wouldn’t have to worry about that too much longer.
Concentrating on the control panel, he called up a diagram of its link to the auxiliary power batteries. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t supply enough juice for what he had in mind.
Frowning, Scott brought up a second diagram-that of the emitter array. As he’d hoped, it was as intact as the rest of the transporter assembly.
One more diagram-a cross section of the phase inducers. He nodded, satisfied. No damage there either. So far so good.
Now came the iffy part, the part he wasn’t entirely confident about. After all, the phase inducers weren’t meant to work with the emitter array. That’s not what their designers had in mind.
Of course, their designers had never been in a wrecked transport with starvation and slow death looking them in the eye. Holding his breath, Scott asked the computer to cross-connect the inducers to the array.
If it worked, they’d have a regenerating power source-one that could keep the transporter running until help arrived. If it didn’t, they’d be back to square one.
It worked.
“Damn,” Scott breathed, consumed by a wave of relief.
“Everything all right up there?” asked Franklin.
“Everything’s fine,” said the older man. “Just fine, laddie. And down there?”
“Almost done,” the ensign told him. “There.” Rolling back onto his haunches, Franklin popped the tool into the back of the panel and then put the panel back where it belonged.
As if neatness counted. Scott couldn’t help but chuckle, even under these most macabre of circumstances.
The ensign stood. “Now what, sir?”
The older man pointed to the transporter platform. “Now we go for a long ride, laddie. Though if our luck continues to hold, maybe it will nae be too long.”
Franklin didn’t get it. “Where are we going?” he asked. “If our sensors can’t penetrate the sphere, there’s no way we can beam inside. And even if we could, we don’t know what it’s like in there. It could be …” His voice trailed off as realization dawned. “Wait a minute. With the pattern buffer locked into a diagnostic cycle, we can’t go anywhere. Our atoms will just keep … flowing through it. Over and over and over again.”
Scott nodded. “That’s exactly right. Over and over again-until someone answers our distress call and brings us out of it.”
The ensign shook his head in admiration. “How did you ever think of that?”
“Laddie,” said Scott, “it’s my job to think of that. Or at least it used to be.” He indicated the platform again. “Shall we?”
Franklin hesitated. “What… what if it doesn’t work?”
Scott shrugged. “Then we’ll be nae worse off than if we’d sat around waiting for it. And maybe better, depending on how ye look at it.”
That seemed to make sense to the younger man. Anyway, he didn’t ask any more questions. He just made his way to the transporter platform and took his place on one of the two positions there.
Brave lad, Scott thought. Reminds me of myself when I was a wee