Surak's Soul - J.M. Dillard [30]
“Ensign.” T’Pol’s cool, measured tone was a tonic, making Hoshi instantly alert. “Report to sickbay immediately. T’Pol out.”
Hoshi turned on the light and struggled into her uniform, her mind focused on the image of rising waters.
Archer stood waiting in sickbay, keenly aware of the backdrop behind him: that of Ensign Cutler tending Dr. Phlox, unconscious on the diagnostic bed. He also realized how grim his own expression had to have looked—and when Malcolm Reed, and then Hoshi, stepped through the entrance to sickbay within seconds of each other, Archer watched them react.
Reed immediately did a double take at the sight of Phlox down, then grew stone-faced, and stood stiffly at attention; Hoshi simply let her concern show.
For a moment, no one spoke; no one really needed to, Archer realized, but he said what his crewmates already knew.
“Doctor Phlox is in a coma,” Archer said. “He’s showing the same signs as the Oanis did—slowed pulse and respiration, gradual failure of internal organs. We have to assume it’s the radiation Wanderer warned us about.” He found himself in the awkward position of suddenly having to clear his throat. “I’ve ordered standard radiation treatment for everyone in the crew. The landing party first; because we went down to the planet’s surface, we were the most exposed.”
As he spoke, Cutler left Phlox’s side and moved toward the group, hypos in one hand.
For an instant, Reed looked distinctly uneasy; then he steadied himself, and said easily to Hoshi, “Ladies first.”
“Ladies first?” Hoshi looked at him quizzically. “What is that, some sort of British expression?”
“I’m not sure,” Reed said. “My grandmother was always saying it so she could be first in the queue.” He gestured, and Hoshi shrugged and rolled up her sleeve for Cutler. Within a few seconds, both of them had been inoculated.
“By the way,” Archer told them, “I’m going to be waking up the rest of the crew and having them inoculated. It’ll go a lot faster if Cutler has volunteers….”
He said it not so much because Cutler needed help, but because he wanted Hoshi and Reed close to sickbay, in case anything happened.
And if anything does happen, what good will it do them? What good did it do Phlox?
“If you don’t mind, Captain,” Hoshi said, “I was very close to finishing up the Oani medical logs. I’d really like to go ahead with that now.” She did not say the obvious—that she was in no mood to return to her quarters, and that if she didn’t finish her work now, she might not have the time later. “I just…I can’t explain it, sir. Even if they didn’t know what killed them, I have a feeling that we’ll learn something by viewing everything they left. Call it a hunch.”
“Go ahead, Ensign. I happen to believe in hunches.” Archer gave her a nod; she responded in kind, then left.
“With your permission, sir,” Reed said, suddenly military-formal. “I should like to take care of a personal matter. It will only take a moment—”
“Take all the time you need,” Archer said gently.
“—at which point I shall return and render whatever assistance I can to Ensign Cutler.”
“Go,” Archer told him.
For a moment after Reed left, the captain watched the empty doorway; then he sighed as he went to the companel on the wall and pressed the control for shipwide address.
Trip Tucker was sitting on the edge of his bunk, still rubbing his eyes, when the door buzzer sounded. He had been dreaming of the Keys, of diving in the ocean only to suddenly realize he’d been under water for hours without his scuba gear, when the captain’s shipwide announcement had wakened him.
“Come,” he groaned, then coughed to try to clear the sleep from his voice.
Malcolm Reed entered and stood in the open doorway, in uniform, hair neatly groomed.
“Malcolm,” Trip said. “You’re looking entirely too sheveled.”
Reed drew his head back, confused; he was deeply preoccupied, and responded with no humor