The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [174]
Malfunctioning doors didn’t sound like a threat to Worf, but it was unusual. The unusual was more often a threat. “What kind of malfunctions?” Geordi asked.
“Jamming open, mainly.” Now Worf’s interest was piqued. Doors were made to close for many reasons—privacy, convenience, safety—but aboard any kind of spacegoing vessel, they were vital to maintaining atmosphere if there was a hull breach. For a moment, Worf thought about leaving it to engineering, but Geordi’s team would be taxed to the limit as it was, with testing all the new and newly repaired engine systems. Besides, he wanted to know first whether this really was an engineering problem. A thief would find jammed doors quite useful.
Ordinarily this sort of variation from the norm would be an XO matter, in Worf’s opinion. With no XO on board, most of the duties of the post had ended up in Worf’s lap, and he would not shirk any duties. If looking after Spot was a duty he had accepted, this was another one he should accept. “Show me these doors,” he said.
Spot had been enjoying herself in the crawl spaces. Some tunnels came out into Jefferies tubes, giving her access to different decks. She had free run of the ship now, and there were a lot more easily accessed gaps opening out of the crawl spaces than there had been allowing her in.
There were places to run, places to slink, and places to climb up or down. And there were so many places to hide, more than she had ever imagined.
The strange new scent was closer now, and there were sounds ahead too. There were always sounds in crawl spaces, of course: beeps and chirps and all sorts of very artificial sounds. This was an organic sound. There was something in here with her, ahead. It wasn’t one of the other cats on board, as she knew them all by sight and scent. It wasn’t a prey animal, either, or any other creature Spot had encountered before. This was entirely new and gave Spot pause.
Spot had met new creatures before, of course. There was a first time for every creature she had met, and she had always reacted the same way. She would sniff, and watch, and think. Then she would repeat those stages as often as she needed before approaching. If nothing else, she needed to know whether the creature was prey or a threat. If it was neither, then she could look at her other options. Suddenly, it came out of a side passage, a few body lengths in front of her. She stopped silently, not wanting to alert it if it hadn’t already noticed her.
It was leathery in patches, with short coarse hair and stubby protrusions of leather and bone. It seemed to be balanced on several protrusions and flexed them to move. Spot couldn’t see any ears or eyes, or any other sense organs, on the creature. It was dark in the crawl space, so Spot thought maybe she just wasn’t noticing them. Or perhaps it had something she wouldn’t recognize. There were several types of animal she had encountered in her travels who did not have normal eyes or ears.
It didn’t seem to be a threat. It wasn’t desirable.
It was prey, then.
Spot leaped, digging her claws into the creature. It thrashed around under her, and she belatedly realized that she didn’t know how to kill it. A rodent, or even another cat, she might kill with a neck bite that would crush the windpipe, but this thing didn’t seem to have a neck, let alone a windpipe. Spot dug in her claws and bit where she could. Belatedly, the creature extruded claws made of bone, but it was too little, too late.
Its struggles became weaker and weaker. Eventually it was still.
Spot hissed at the unfamiliar taste. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly, but she didn’t fancy eating the whole thing. Perhaps, she thought, it would make a good exchange for the favorite food the big Klingon companion had given her.
Deck 8, in a different quarter from Gregory’s cabin. Worf carefully eyed the edges of the sixth pair of doors, seeing no scuff marks or scratches that would suggest they had been jammed by manual force. He ran a quick diagnostic on the access