Surak's Soul - J.M. Dillard [22]
Mayweather, born in space and as blasé about new experiences as anyone Archer had ever met, craned his neck forward to gawk openly at the creature, and when he glanced over his shoulder to gauge the reaction of the others, his dark skin bathed in the alien’s glow, his eyes were as round as Archer’s.
“You ever heard of anything like this?” Archer asked him softly.
“No, sir,” Mayweather breathed, then turned back to stare at the creature.
As for Reed, he took a step forward from his station, his eyes also widened by curiosity, but in his expression was distrust; instinctively, his right hand moved for the phase pistol he no longer wore.
The captain gathered himself and stepped toward the semitransparent, pulsating sea of energy. He wanted nothing more than to ask, How did you do that?, but the considerations of diplomacy came before any improvements to the transporter. “Welcome aboard. I’m Captain Jonathan Archer of the starship Enterprise.” Extending a hand was out of the question; the creature was the general size of a human, but other than that, was entirely without form. There was definitely nothing there to grab hold of.
T’Pol moved forward from her station to stand beside the captain. “It has no name for itself, but it thinks of itself as a wanderer, and asks that we address it as such.”
“Very well…Wanderer. I’d like to escort you down to sickbay so that you can confer with Doctor Phlox, our chief medical officer. Will you accompany me?”
T’Pol made the slightest sound, which Archer interpreted as an extremely courteous clearing of her throat. “Captain…Wanderer requests that I be present at all times to serve as translator.”
“Oh…yes. Of course.”
“And,” the Vulcan added, “it says it is ‘anxious’ to meet with Doctor Phlox, as it has important information to share with him.”
Archer brightened at once; while the creature wore no expression, it suddenly appeared to him as wise and beneficent. Its blue-green glow seemed as warm and radiant as a smile. “Then let’s get moving.”
“Wonderful,” Doctor Phlox said, his face bathed in Wanderer’s azure glow as he stood in front of the sealed, decontaminated corpse of an Oani. The Denobulan’s eyes were bright with excitement, his tone even more animated than normal at the sight of such an unusual being. To T’Pol, he said, “Ask it—may I touch it? Study it?”
“Wanderer has already agreed to a cultural exchange,” the Vulcan replied.
“Doctor,” Archer interjected, “there’s a more serious issue to deal with first. Wanderer says it can help you find out what killed the Oanis.” The captain himself had hundreds of questions for the alien: Where had it come from? Were there others like it? It referred to itself using a neuter pronoun—how did it reproduce? Yet, staring at the bronze-colored body on the bed behind Phlox, Archer felt an anxious sense of urgency.
“Indeed,” T’Pol agreed, most seriously. And then, with that wry, infinitesimal quirk at one corner of her mouth that betrayed a startling sense of humor, she added, “Besides, Wanderer warns against your touching it. It believes that its energy patterns might cause you to feel something akin to an electrical shock.”
Phlox did not actually release a disappointed sigh, but Archer got the clear impression that he repressed one. “Very well,” the Denobulan said. “Let us get started, then.”
Archer lingered for only a moment—long enough to watch as Phlox gestured the swirling energy column behind him, toward the dead Oani, long enough to stare with amazement as the creature compacted itself even further, and began, slowly, to seep inside the Oani’s body, lighting it up from within with an iridescent bluish glow.
He forced himself to leave. All he could do now was return to the bridge, and wait, and hope.
Meanwhile, Hoshi crouched over the hooded viewer in one of the labs near sickbay. She’d been staring at the images for some time, and finally