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“Except for Tom,” Kim said, grinning slyly. “But he has to push a button.”

“Never underestimate the importance of button pushing,” Paris retorted.

Chakotay glanced at the captain, who was not smiling, but not frowning either. Her expression said, Let them blow off some steam if it helps. “The important thing is having the right man for the job,” Chakotay said. “Get your finger ready, Mr. Paris.” Turning to Kim, he said, “Go to sickbay. If everything works, you’ll be back here in ten minutes.”

Kim nodded once and headed for the lift. “Aye, Commander.”

A minute later, the comm piped and Joe Carey called, “Captain?”

“Joe.”

“Ready to go?”

Kathryn settled back into her chair, gazed around the bridge at her crew, then glanced briefly at the all-too-conveniently lost Sem. She inhaled deeply, then sighed. Looking over to Chakotay, she asked, “Do I have time to get a cup of coffee?”

“Not really, Captain.”

“Then go ahead, Joe. Deflectors to full.”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Tuvok, shields around the bridge to maximum. Launch torpedoes on my mark. Mr. Paris…”

“Aye, Captain.”

“Get your button finger ready.”

Chapter 14

“Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?”

“Sure,” B’Elanna said. “I remember that dead tree.”

“If you say there’s a dead tree over there,” Kaytok said, “then I believe you. The first question I have is, how can you see that dead tree? And, second, how can you tell that the dead tree you’re looking at is any different than the twenty other dead trees we saw before the sun set?”

Kaytok, B’Elanna noted, liked to complain. Sure, he might very well be a brilliant individual, even a being of exceptional personal strength, but, goodness, a complainer. And he didn’t like walking. He didn’t like carrying a backpack—an empty backpack. He didn’t, in fact, seem to like being outside his lab. The farther they got from it, the more Kaytok grumbled. And now he was moaning about the damned dark when it wasn’t really that dark in the first place. Maybe Monorhans’ eyes were poorly adapted to night vision, which certainly didn’t seem sensible considering how large…

Then B’Elanna remembered: She was looking at the world through nanoprobe-enhanced eyes. Well, eye singular. With an ease that mildly worried her, she mentally commanded the implant to return to human-normal mode and watched as the world turned dim and faded to black. Then, experimenting, she slowly increased the lens aperture until the scene before her was as bright as a summer’s afternoon, though the absence of shadows was weird and disconcerting.

“Are you all right?” Kaytok asked.

“Sorry,” B’Elanna said. “I was playing. So are you saying it’s too dark for you to travel?”

“Not if we’re careful, but I like feeling I know where I’m going. Are you sure this is the right way?”

Pulling out her tricorder, B’Elanna checked their position. She had set the device to automatically record the route she and Seven had taken, then programmed it to ping if she wandered too far off course during the return journey. “Yes,” she said. “We’re about three-quarters of the way there.”

Kaytok peered at the backlit screen, then glanced up at B’Elanna. “That’s a wonderful little device. May I see it?”

B’Elanna had an engineer’s disinclination to share tools, especially items that could not be easily replaced, but she trusted Kaytok. The closer she had examined his shield generator, the more convinced she had become that she was in the presence of a certifiable genius-level intellect. She handed him the tricorder without comment.

Kaytok adjusted the display, touched several controls, then walked around in a small circle while carefully observing the changes in the scans. After flipping through a variety of screens, he clapped the device shut and handed it back. “Lovely,” he said.

“You seemed to pick up the controls pretty quickly.”

Kaytok shrugged. “Good design.”

B’Elanna nodded and clipped the tricorder to her belt. “You mind if I ask you a question?”

“You can if I can,” Kaytok said.