The Eyes of the Beholders - A. C. Crispin [65]
She wondered how long it had been since the beam-over. Not more than a minute or so, she supposed. She tapped her communicator, wondering if her own voice would be heard and understood above the sounds. “Gavar here,” she said in her husky, snuffling voice. “Terrible sensory distortion. I’ve had to cover my eyes and ears or risk madness. Commander Data is unconscious … or shorted out … whatever. I can’t hear you, because I can’t risk uncovering my ears. I’m going to try and get the landing party together so we can beam back. Do not attempt rescue until you hear from me. This place—it’s terrible, like being inside an alien nightmare …” She trailed off, then said, “I’ll signal again soon. Gavar out.”
Faintly, she heard a different sound, the noise of human pain, a noise that she had heard only too many times before. This one reminded her of the sounds she’d heard when she’d been detailed to a human psychiatric ward—a thin, high-pitched screaming that went on and on, keen as a knife edged with madness.
Catching the shape of a dark bulk moving toward her, Gavar scuttled back on her rear, out of the way, and the human, whoever it was, blundered into Data’s inert form and fell hard. For long seconds he scrabbled, struggling—Gavar could dimly see his dark form moving before her, screaming all the while in that thin, piercing way. Then, abruptly, he was still.
The Tellarite scrambled back over to check for a pulse. The man was breathing and alive, but his pulse was fast and thready. Her questing fingers found the crescent shape of the VISOR across his face. It was La Forge.
Gavar left him where he was, his legs resting across Data’s back, and, lurching to her feet, she fumbled her way along the wall, searching for any familiar shapes among the alien ones she could half glimpse.
Her sensitive nostrils twitched, discerning a familiar odor among the alien stenches. Human vomit—she squinted and made out a dark shape outlined against the colors of madness. Commander Riker? she wondered, and moments later, touching the man’s forehead, she had her answer.
He was alive, though, if anything, she judged, in even worse condition than La Forge. Grasping the folds of his jacket, she began dragging his heavy body back toward the others. Gasping, she let him go when he lay within a handsbreath of his fellow officers, then straightened up. The Klingon … where had he gone?
She tapped her communicator. “Gavar again. I’ve found the humans. They’re alive. I’m going after Worf now. Gavar out.”
Wondering where to try first, she decided to risk loosening the bandage in one ear. She’d listen for only a second …
That second nearly proved her undoing. Gavar sagged against the wall, knees weak, feeling the hinges of her mind rattle as insanity pushed against the puny barriers she’d raised against it. But she’d heard a distinct roar that was nothing like the alien, undefinable sounds that surrounded her. It had come from, she thought, her right …
The nurse hesitated, thinking, considering. Insane humans were one thing, but a crazed Klingon was something else again. For a moment she was tempted to abandon the security chief and tell the Enterprise to beam them back. Then her chubby features tightened, her stocky, porcine body stood taller. She had to at least try. She couldn’t leave a fellow creature to die in this hideous place.
As she turned to head right, her fingers touched her medical kit. Gavar paused, then opened it quickly, as a sudden thought struck her. If she could just locate the right ampoule …
Removing the injector, she searched her memory for the location of the medicines within, striving to bring to mind a mental image of their arrangement. Crusher conducted frequent drills with her people, drills where they had to function without gravity, with poor or no light, among simulated wreckage.
Got it, she thought as her stubby, hoofed fingers closed over the correct sedative. At least she prayed to all the Tellerite