Star Trek_ A Choice of Catastrophes - Michael Schuster [57]
“I thought it was a universal psionic field,” said Chapel, “tapped into by the brains of telepaths.”
McCoy shook his head. “That’s the Bormanis Theory, but it’s never been proven. It doesn’t explain human espers; we don’t have a paracortex like some telepathic species. There are theories about quantum consciousness, projected electrical energy… all sorts of things.”
“If we could just move the ship—” Chapel offered.
“That doesn’t seem likely,” said McCoy. “Until they come up with a way to move this ship without shaking it apart, we’ll have to solve this one ourselves.”
“You should go to auxiliary control, see if anything has changed.”
“I need to keep working here.” McCoy leaned back in his chair.
Chapel closed the distance between them, leaned forward, and said, “Go. You can’t keep yourself holed up in sickbay.”
But you’d prefer it, if it let you avoid your problems, wouldn’t you?
McCoy grabbed his medical kit. Now, he hoped Uhura was going to tell him what they were going to do.
Initially, Chekov had found the hibernating Farrezzi fascinating, but now they were beginning to unnerve him. He imagined that everyone he passed was staring at him. And how would he know? Without backs or fronts, they could see him coming from any direction. Chekov told himself they were all unconscious and had been for over a hundred years.
“How close are we?” Tra whispered. The Arkenite security man seemed completely unperturbed by the whole affair. He was staying just ahead of Chekov, phaser in hand. His uniform shirt looked almost purple in the blue light.
The ensign checked his tricorder. “One more row of pods.” He pointed in front of them. “Once we squeeze through there, we will reach the source of the life sign.”
“Can you tell what it is yet?” asked Tra.
“It is definitely not Farrezzi.” He tapped some controls. “I cannot penetrate the interference in here.”
“We need to see what it is and get back to the captain and the others.”
Chekov nodded.
Tra squeezed between two pods, and he called back sotto voce, “Clear.” Chekov came through behind him. He was getting tired of forcing himself between these things.
On the other side, he could see a small, curving row of cryopods that came to an end right in front of them. Most of the pods were empty, no blue light emanating from their interiors, all the water drained out. But the last pod was still on—and it was where the life sign was coming from. Chekov pushed past Tra, who was advancing cautiously, and almost let out a cry when he discovered who the life sign belonged to.
Fatih Yüksel was almost unrecognizable, his face frozen into a shriek of pain, his eyes open and unblinking. The Turkish exobotanist was bobbing slowly up and down in the middle of the chamber, looking tiny in the pod designed for a Farrezzi. Tubes ran from the walls of the pod into his wrists. Blood was mixing with water where they’d been attached, coloring the pod’s interior pink.
“Damn,” Chekov gasped. No wonder he hadn’t been able to get a lock on the type of life-form inside—they were keeping him alive to Farrezzi specifications, muddling the readings. Chekov didn’t know what the treatment would do to him, but there was no way it could be good.
“Can we get him out?”
Hesitating, Chekov scrutinized his readings. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “We could kill him if we just try to turn this off. I need Doctor M’Benga.”
His tricorder vibrated in his hand, a silent alarm. “Farrezzi life signs approaching from the end of the chamber,” he told Tra, pointing toward where the row they’d just passed through curved out of sight. “Three or four.”
“I’ll scout them out,” Tra said. “You stay here and see what you can do for him. But if a Farrezzi comes, get out of sight.”
“Right,” said Chekov, watching Tra slip off. The ensign bent down to look at the power feeds on the cryopod. Could he cut them off? Was that even a good idea? If he came all this way only to kill