Three - Michael Jan Friedman [26]
Humility was represented by a figure with his eyes downcast and his fists pressed together. Selflessness was offering food from a basket he was carrying. And Stoicism was indifferent to the flame that burned in the cup of his joined palms.
Ejanix was standing in the center of the room, beside a holoprojection of a starship engine’s reaction chamber. “Matter,” he said, considering the hologram, “and antimatter. What happens when they come together?”
Vigo raised his hand. “They annihilate each other.”
“Exactly,” said Ejanix, speaking loudly enough for his voice to reverberate majestically from wall to wall. “They annihilate each other—releasing an enormous amount of energy in the process. And it is this energy that propels our starships through the void of space.”
The void of space. Vigo loved the phrase. And he especially loved it when it was spoken so passionately.
“Imagine,” said Ejanix, “two substances so different [74] from each other that mere contact between them unleashes that kind of power. How can one hope to control such volatility?”
Vigo had read ahead. He knew that the matter and antimatter that made up starship fuel were stored in magnetic containment vessels until the time came for them to be mixed through the medium of a synthetic dilithium crystal.
Raising his hand again, he offered to share his knowledge—an act of selflessness, and therefore a virtuous act. But at the same time, he felt a certain amount of pride in knowing what others did not, and pride was as much at odds with the virtue of humility as matter was with antimatter.
The virtuous path, Vigo reflected, was not always an easy one to follow.
“Ah,” said Ejanix, extending his hand in Vigo’s direction, “here’s someone who can shed light on the question for us.”
The other students turned to look at him. He could feel their scrutiny as if it had weight and substance.
“Tell us, then,” Ejanix continued, “how is all this power held at bay?”
Suddenly, Vigo noticed that his instructor’s hand wasn’t empty. It held a phaser—a type that Vigo had never seen before—and it was trained directly at Vigo’s forehead.
“Get up,” Ejanix told him.
Vigo didn’t understand. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“Get up,” his instructor said again.
[75] But this time his voice was considerably deeper, considerably harsher. Much more so, in fact, than Vigo would ever have imagined possible.
He was about to ask if there was something wrong with his instructor’s throat when something happened—something shockingly and devastatingly painful.
Vigo cried out—or thought he did—and found himself on a carpeted surface in a dimly lit room. There was a twisted length of blanket on the floor beside him, one corner of which was wrapped around his thigh. Other than that, he was dressed in just his sleeping pants.
And his jaw hurt. It hurt terribly—as if someone had struck it with a hunk of metal as hard as he could.
That’s when Vigo realized that he wasn’t in a lecture hall after all. He wasn’t even on Pandril. He was in the modest quarters assigned to him at the development facility on Wayland Prime.
Nor did he have to look far to explain why his jaw hurt, or how he had fallen out of bed. The explanation was hovering over him in the form of a figure too big and blue and hairless to be anything but another Pandrilite.
But it wasn’t Ejanix, the weapons officer noted. It was someone else, dressed in civilian clothing and armed with a phaser pistol, which—as in Vigo’s dream—was pointed right at his forehead.
It didn’t make sense, he insisted inwardly. This was a secure Starfleet installation. There shouldn’t have been any civilians in it, armed or otherwise.
And yet ...
Vigo peered at the intruder as he got to his feet. “Who are you?” he asked. “What do you want?”
[76] The fellow didn’t answer either question. He just used his phaser to gesture toward the door, momentarily removing Vigo from its line of fire.
It was as big a window of opportunity as the weapons officer could reasonably have expected—which was to say it wasn’t big at