The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [52]
“Complying,” replied the computer. She heard a mechanism inside the doors activate, and the familiar sound of a force field springing up around the circumference of the entire room. No one could enter. Even if someone tried to transport in now, they wouldn’t be able to.
She smiled as she formed her lips around the words that would summon her photonic friend:
“Brave new world,” she said.
[154] He appeared, smiling pleasantly. She had grown fond of his balding pate, his slightly superior attitude, his smug smirk. The other versions were much pleasanter than he, but he was unique as far as she was concerned. He had helped make her Borg.
“Your Majesty,” said the EMH Mark One, and she felt warm inside at the term. “How may I assist you today?”
Chapter 13
LIBBY GNAWED on her thumbnail.
It was a bad habit, and one she thought she’d kicked years ago. It made her fingers look stubby and interfered with playing the lal shak. But right now, as she stared at her computer screen, she couldn’t help it.
Why wasn’t Harry responding?
It had been a huge gamble to send the message to Voyager. What if Harry wasn’t there? Or even if he was there, what if he hadn’t been able to gain access to his old station, Ops? What if all this fell into the wrong hands? It was possible Covington had a plant at Project Full Circle, although it damned sure wasn’t the one she had wanted Libby to think was the traitor. Maybe this person or persons unknown had gotten the message.
She hadn’t eaten in what felt like forever. She hadn’t fed her various animals either, and Rowena was letting [156] her know it. She rose and got them something to eat just so they’d shut up.
Come on Harry, she thought. This time you can actually reply to me.
Harry kept venturing back and forth from Ops to the science station, trying to look officious and very busy so that Leo Crais would quit bugging him. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes it didn’t. Apparently Crais didn’t like his solitary bridge shift and was anxious to talk to somebody, anybody. Harry let him hold forth with the occasional “Uh huh” so that Crais would think he had an audience.
Out of the corner of his eye, while Crais stood blocking him and chatting away, Harry saw the small light come on over at Ops. He was clear across the bridge at the science station. He mentally swore vigorously, even as he kept his eyes on Crais and started nodding. How to get past this guy and over to the incoming message without Crais noticing?
He thought quickly. “Damn,” he said, in his best tone of annoyance, “is that thing malfunctioning again? I thought I’d just fixed that. Excuse me,” and he went back over to Ops, grumbling loudly.
Crais went to the captain’s chair and sat down. It galled Harry to see anyone other than Janeway there, but he swallowed his annoyance and began downloading the message to a padd. He didn’t have the chance to read it yet. With any luck, that chance would come soon.
“Hey, Harry,” said Crais, “open a channel to Starfleet for. me.”
[157] “What?” To Harry, his voice sounded like a yelp. He hoped it didn’t sound that way to Crais.
“You heard me, you’re over at Ops, go ahead and open it. Please,” he added, as if he just remembered that they were of equal rank. “Got to do the morning check-in. You know the drill.”
“Sure,” said Kim easily, though he was sweating profusely. His fingers flew deftly over the controls and for a moment, he was suddenly back as the rightful operator of this station, on board a ship he had grown to love.
He cleared his throat. This would be tricky, opening the channel at just the right time so that Crais could have whatever conversation he was going to have while still giving Kim enough time to duck out of sight. Crais had recognized him; it was likely that someone else would, too.
Here goes ...
He pressed a padd and the instant before a face materialized on the screen, he dropped down behind Ops. Even as he did so, another thought struck him. It was all well and good for Crais to have to check in with someone, but what if this Starfleet official wanted