Surak's Soul - J.M. Dillard [35]
The comment rankled, but Archer forced himself to cool his tone. “Well, then, let’s approach this more rationally. What proof do you have that Wanderer is correct about the radiation?”
Again, T’Pol turned her head and tilted it upward to look at her amorphous companion; its ocean-blue glow reflected off her face, bringing out the faint greenish highlights in her complexion. “I have none,” she stated flatly.
“And what proof do you have that the alien from Shikeda was wrong in saying that the Oani were killed by a microbe too small for their instruments to detect?”
“Again, none.” T’Pol frowned slightly. “However, Captain, if I were forced to calculate the odds of which alien is correct—”
Archer lifted an index finger for silence. “Odds don’t matter. This is survival, remember? I’ll take any chance, however remote, that we can get. Ask Wanderer where the Shikeda traveler is. We need to find him. And if we can’t find him, then let’s find his planet. What if he’s right? What if his civilization is more advanced than Wanderer’s, and can detect a microbe that Wanderer doesn’t know is there?”
Once more, T’Pol turned and silently addressed herself to Wanderer; while still looking at its fluctuating energy fields, she said, “Wanderer takes no offense, Captain.”
I should hope not, Archer almost said, but held his tongue and let the Vulcan finish.
“Wanderer agrees to try to find the Shikedan. It says that he—the Shikedan traveler and his ship—would, by this time, be more distant from Enterprise than his home planet is. Do you prefer to go to the planet, since it is closer?”
Archer thought of the Oani tissue samples in sickbay. “Of course. And the sooner we get there, the better. I want Enterprise headed there at maximum warp.”
“Very well,” T’Pol said. “Wanderer will transmit a course to Ensign Mayweather’s station as soon as it has ascertained the location of the Shikedan’s ship.”
“Thank you,” Archer said to Wanderer—though he meant it not in the least. And then he headed to sickbay proper, to check on Dr. Phlox.
After giving orders to the helm to make haste for the planet Shikeda, Archer arrived in sickbay just in time to see Trip Tucker administer the last injection to the last crew member, then set down his hypo. Behind him, Ensign Cutler was bent over a diagnostic bed—Phlox, the captain assumed. He stepped up to Trip, expecting the engineer to ask immediately why the ship had gone into warp.
But Tucker seemed not even to notice something that normally would have him chomping to get to his post in order to nurse his precious warp engines. Instead, he looked up at the captain with a gaze that seemed slightly lost.
“Trip,” Archer said softly, reaching out to catch his chief engineer’s upper arm. “You okay?”
Physically, Tucker looked fine—not even tired, even though he’d jumped out of bed in the middle of the night then volunteered to help Cutler inoculate the crew against radiation sickness. That was Trip: always ready for action, always the last one still on his feet. But Trip’s expression was haunted.
“Malcolm,” he said, and even before he turned to look at Cutler behind him, Archer felt dread settle into the pit of his stomach, then spread slowly outward over the rest of him.
There, on the diagnostic beds, were two patients now: Phlox, his eyes and cheeks looking even more sunken than before, and Malcolm Reed, pale and still. Archer did not have to look at the overhead scanners to know what was happening to the two men: life was all too obviously ebbing from them.
He took the stricken Trip’s elbow and guided him over toward Cutler and her patients. She was bent over Reed at the moment, administering a hypo, and she looked intently at the results as she straightened. One indicator on Reed’s overhead scanner moved up very slightly; the others stayed put.
“I just can’t seem to do anything for him.” She faced the captain, her voice filled with the same frustration and anger Archer had experienced when questioning Wanderer.
“How’s Phlox?” Archer asked softly, and braced himself for the obvious answer.