Survivors - Jean Lorrah [55]
“Hey-you won’t blow out the power system?”
Oh what a tangled web we weave-
“No,” Data assured him, recalling Tasha’s briefings to the officers who most frequently formed away teams: if you must lie, keep it simple. “I brought what I need with me.”
“Oh. Well, good night, then.”
Data breathed a sigh of relief as he closed the door behind him.
To give the guard time to relax, he exchanged his dress uniform for a standard one, then turned out the light. He could still see-not on as many frequencies as Geordi, but simple infrared made his environment as bright as day, while his internal processor interpreted the color shifts.
After a time, he carefully cracked the door open-only to have the guard look up and ask, “Is there something you need, sir?”
“No, thank you,” Data replied. The guard did not appear at all sleepy now. “Please do not allow anyone to disturb me for the next four point six hours,” he improvised.
“Yes, sir,” the guard replied. “I’ll tell my relief.”
Data pulled back into his room and looked for another exit. His tricorder had already told him sensors of an alarm system surrounded the windows. The suite consisted of an anteroom, a bedroom, and a bath. The only extra door opened on a closet, with no concealed exits. There were no trapdoors beneath the carpets.
Weren’t palaces supposed to come equipped with secret passageways? Apparently only in fiction.
The bathroom was equipped with water plumbing, not sonics. Its small window was frosted, but sealed shut and also equipped with alarm sensors. Data wondered if they had been installed for Tasha and himself, or if Nalavia frequently entertained “guests” who might seek to sneak or break out. If challenged, she would undoubtedly claim it was protection against anyone trying to break in.
Data examined the fixtures, accessing all his knowledge of water plumbing. Assuming the culture had proper pipes that neither broke nor leached poisons into the drinking water, its primary weakness was a tendency for drains to stop up. Chemical cleansers could be used to prevent or correct the problem … but there were times when the pipes themselves had to be replaced. There should be access panels, then-As it turned out, the entire floor of the bath lifted out, to expose all the pipes coming in and out of the small room. Data lowered himself into the crawlspace, and began worming his way toward the area of the palace where Nalavia had first greeted them. The communications and information center would presumably be in that area.
He listened carefully for sounds above, to tell him what kinds of rooms he crawled beneath, knowing he was past the sleeping apartments when the pattern of plumbing leading to a bath every few meters ceased.
Ultimately, he pushed up the floor in a tiny lavatory and found it connected to a suite of three small offices. There were no computer terminals to be seen. Although the door to the corridor was locked, it had no alarm sensors; whatever went on in here was obviously not security sensitive.
He didn’t have to pick the lock, as it opened with a knob from the inside. There was no one outside, so he slipped a stylus from one of the desks between door and frame to keep it from locking behind him, and crept down the deserted corridor, every sense alert.
Two live guards stood outside the computer room, and the door sported an array of sensors that his infrared could perceive from twenty meters away. But he had no intention of going in through the door.
Now that he knew where the main computer was, Data moved swiftly but silently back to the suite of offices, climbed back down into the crawlspace, and carefully pulled the lavatory floor back into place above him. Then, unerringly, he crawled through mostly empty space until he was directly under the computer-he could see the warmth of its motor above him. He then