String Theory_ Cohesion (Book 1) - Jeffrey Lang [52]
“Sorry.” Tom hung his head and turned back to his patient, hoping and praying the conversation was over.
Hearing the medical tricorder purr, he knew it was, at least for a while. “Let’s see what we have here, Mr. Grench. The report says you collapsed and had a bit of a seizure. Is that correct?” the Doctor asked.
“I think so,” Grench said. “I don’t remember. Is that why everything looks so funny?”
“Funny? Funny how?”
“Kind of bright and glowing. There’s a prism around everything, like colors, but glittering.”
“Very descriptive, Mr. Grench.”
Tom finished with Chilkis, then looked to see who was next and was surprised to find that he was finished. “No more patients, Doc.”
“Yes, the last few were frightened away…. No, please don’t look like that, Mr. Paris. I cannot abide another long face. What’s wrong with everyone today?”
Tom and Grench said in chorus, “I don’t know.”
“Of course you don’t. This is why I’m the doctor. Oh.”
Tom didn’t like the catch he heard in the Doctor’s voice.
“Something wrong?” Grench asked.
“What? Oh, no. I think Mr. Paris may have miscalibrated the tricorder. Yes, that must be it….” Tom turned to the Doctor, wondering what he might have done, and was shocked by his sour expression.
Afraid to hear the answer, he asked, “Did I break it, Doc?”
“Something did. Something must have or I don’t understand what I’m seeing….”
Abruptly, Grench let out a sharp gasp and went rigid, arms stiff by his sides, toes pointed, and eyes staring wide.
The Doctor shouted. “Mr. Paris! Quickly!”
Tom ran to the biobed, sick with worry that his clumsiness with the tricorder may have created a problem. “What? What do you want?”
“A stasis field!” the Doctor shouted as he spun to the drug dispenser. “We may only have seconds! I’ll see what I can do with…”
But they were already too late. His face fixed in a grimace of pain, Grench inhaled once so deeply that Tom thought his sides might burst, then released it in an explosive grunt. His stiffened arms fell over the sides of the biobed and Tom watched in fascinated horror as first one and then the other stretched out like ropes of maple syrup. The elongated limbs folded over onto themselves, then dribbled away from Grench’s shoulders. A moment later, the Bolian’s body wobbled, then lazily oozed away from the center of the bed in rubbery sheets until the only thing left was a sticky residue.
Tom and the Doctor stared at the viscous mess spreading around their feet, both of them rendered speechless for a count of one, two, three seconds. Then, without looking away, the Doctor said, “Computer, this is the chief medical officer, requesting a voice verification.”
The computer replied blandly, “Verified.”
“Quarantine.”
Chapter 9
“We should stay.”
“We must go.”
“Stay.”
Seven refused to reply. Stupid Borg, B’Elanna thought. Doesn’t even know how to have a decent argument.
“The shuttle’s self-repair routines will only go so far, Seven,” B’Elanna said, trying to sound persuasive, abandoning the much more satisfying prospect of verbal combat. “If we stay, the two of us working together can have Montpelier off the ground inside a day.”
“By which time any chance of assisting Voyager will have long passed,” Seven replied tersely.
“How do we know we can help her? Especially dirtside. If we can get airborne, we could go inspect the site where she disappeared, maybe get a better idea what happened.”
Seven sat down heavily in the copilot’s chair, cradling her side cautiously. “And if we contact the Monorhans, we may be able to persuade them to let us use a spacecraft.”
“We don’t even know if they have any more spacecraft,” B’Elanna said. She was eyeing the tool locker, itchy to do some real work. The sitting-and-talking was beginning to grate. “This isn’t Earth, you know. No shuttle in every garage.”
“Humans do not have shuttles in their garages,” Seven said.
“My point is, these people just aren’t that technologically advanced.