The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [3]
For Thomas, it was painful to listen to the science secretary. The speech itself was not the problem; what it meant for him was. Hearing first Patterson and now Magodin talk about the ship’s mission was enough justification for him to continue on his intended course. After all, there was no point in having second thoughts this late in the game, and if he chose not to act now, he would forever regret it. He knew that much, at least.
Magodin continued with her passionate plea for further exploration of the universe, and while he could not find anything wrong with it, he also felt that it was meant for somebody else. Thomas Bhupender Halloway was not the ideal recipient.
Presently he felt Orfil staring at him, and when he looked to his left, his friend was peering back at him full of worry. “What is it?” Thomas whispered. Standing in the middle of a crowd of a thousand people was not conducive to private conversations, so he had to keep it short and quiet.
“Is something wrong?” asked Orfil.
“No. Should it be?”
“You tell me.”
“Nothing’s wrong. Now be quiet and listen!”
“We’ll talk later,” Orfil said, and it sounded not unlike a threat. It was just as well that they would have to have that talk much later, since there was to be a tour of the Enterprise’s most important interior features that Thomas himself would lead right after the speeches had concluded.
That tour would be the last official item on tonight’s agenda, but it would be final in other ways as well. It didn’t bother Thomas in the least; in fact, the only thing that did was the difficulty of describing adequately how he felt.
After the conclusion of Magodin’s lengthy speech and another by the Bolian representative to the Federation Council, it was time for the attendees to enjoy food and drink while sitting at the tables in the back of the observation hall—a time for a quiet conversation and a bite of something tasty, though not for Thomas, sadly.
Instead, he was touring the Enterprise with a group of dignitaries in tow, trying without much success to give himself the air of a man satisfied with himself and with life in general. He was presently standing in the center of the bridge, accompanied only by Secretary Magodin and three Starfleet admirals: Patterson, Gregory Quinn, and Norah Satie. Satie’s participation here was almost mandatory, considering her position as chief of Starfleet Operations, and even if he had wanted to do so, Thomas would not have been able to deny her this experience.
If people were in a generous mood, they might consider Gregory Quinn to be the uniformed equivalent of Svaath Magodin. He was in charge of Starfleet’s Exploratory Division, supervising the various nonmilitary endeavors, and so would be the one to whom the captains of the Galaxy-class explorers would be reporting. Quinn was an elderly man, easily over a hundred years old, though Thomas didn’t know his exact age. He had decades of experience, and he exuded a special kind of confidence that, unfortunately, did nothing to help Thomas at this time.
They all stood on the bridge, in front of the main viewer, listening to whatever informative morsels Thomas could dredge from his memory. He left out the technical details, since he knew nobody except himself and Patterson would be interested to find out about the interlaced microfoam duranium filament shell that, mounted on a tritanium truss frame network, formed the exterior layer of the bridge module. After all, he was a reasonable man, and so he knew better than to bore his listeners.
He answered a couple of perfunctory questions and realized that his audience had probably heard enough. “Now, Madam Secretary, Admirals, I suggest we continue our tour of the Enterprise and take a look at the main shuttlebay.”
“Ah, yes,” Patterson said, nodding knowingly, “we really need to go there next. It’s impressive, even for people