The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [10]
“Data, I’m not getting any readings.”
Then the medscanner trilled once; the life-signs were not only faint, they were also widely spaced.
“Of course,” said Crusher. “She’s in a Vulcan healing trance. I must get her up to the ship immediately.” She hit her comm link.
“Emergency transport! Two to sickbay.”
T’Sara was no heavier than a child when Crusher gathered her up in her arms. The doctor whispered in the woman’s ear, “You’re safe, you’re among friends, and you’re going to live!”
As the transporter beam took hold of the doctor and her patient, Beverly Crusher hoped she could keep that last promise.
Over the many years of their service together, Picard had learned to trust his crew’s observations and perceptions, to let them serve as his eyes and ears on Away missions. This rapport had helped ease the captain’s sense of frustration at remaining so far removed from the reconnaissance of Atropos.
The planet loomed large in the conference room windows as two members of the landing party summarized their activities of the last few hours. Between Data’s detailed recital of the essential facts and Riker’s more subjective evocation of the carnage, Picard was able to recreate their experience in his own mind.
His first officer had worked his way through a list of the dead to the last archaeologist. “We finally found Skorret at the bottom of one of the excavation pits. He had been working near the edge, evidently cataloging some ceremonial weapons, when someone took the broken shard of a sword and stabbed him through the back.”
“I detected blood-stained fingerprints on the hilt,” said Data, “so it will be possible to determine who is responsible for Skorret’s murder. Unfortunately, culpability will prove more difficult to establish in most of the other cases.”
“Under the circumstances,” said Riker, “the question of guilt or innocence hardly matters since the murderers are all dead, t oo. Assigning blame for this tragedy won’t provide much comfort to their families.”
In Picard’s experience, Vulcans were less interested in comfort than in truth. “This is not so much a matter of justice, Number One, as it is of discovery. In order to unravel why these murders occurred, we must catalog the way in which they occurred.”
“Standard forensic recovery procedures are already in effect,” confessed the first officer. “Two paramedic teams have been assigned to remove the bodies from the planet surface and take them to sickbay for autopsies.”
As Picard suspected, Riker’s instincts were sound, even when he professed to balk at Data’s dispassionate perspective. The captain smiled at the quizzical look on Data’s face. The android appeared confused by the apparent contradiction between the first officer’s words and his actions.
Checking a final notation on his padd, Riker then said, “Lieutenant Worf will supervise the removal of the team’s personal effects from the planet surface, but what should we do about the research equipment and camp facilities?”
Unfortunately, Picard realized, this was one detail Commander Miyakawa had not thought to clarify in her briefing report. “Data, check the camp records to see who has jurisdiction over the property. We’ll need instructions on whether the excavation will continue without T’Sara and the other Vulcans.”
“I can’t imagine it would be abandoned,” said Riker. “From what I saw, the ruins are quite extensive. There must be hundreds of artifacts to be recovered.”
“How odd.” The first officer’s observation triggered a new avenue of curiosity for Picard. “What you describe would be considered a major research project, yet I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of this site before.”
“Falling behind on your journal reading, sir?”
“On the contrary,” said Picard. Having achieved minor acclaim as an amateur archaeologist, he made a concerted effort to remain current in the field. “I used to follow T’Sara’s research reports with great interest, but her last publication appeared nearly two decades ago, before the departure of the Stargazer on an extended deepspace mission.
By the time I returned