Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [20]
Akarr couldn’t believe his ears. His prime kaphoora, ruined! “You’re supposed to be the best pilot the Enterprise has!”
Riker lifted an eyebrow at him. Cocky. “Then you’d better hope I’m good enough to keep you alive.”
“Whoa,” La Forge said, jerking his head away from the communications console as a blast of static burst through. “What was that?”
Yenan looked just as startled as La Forge felt. Deep in the building, where few people worked and even fewer made any noise while about it, only the constant hum of the shield generators in the background served as a reminder that this was indeed a crucial nexus of Legacy management. But a background hum was all it was, and it in no way ameliorated the brief, startling cacophony of the incoming transmission.
“I don’t know,” the Fandrean finally admitted. “We have no expected communication of that type coming in on this board.”
La Forge finished the job in which he’d been engaged^-installing a translator module into the Fandrean system so all its blinking displays appeared in Federation Standard at request—and stared thoughtfully at the resulting console. Getting the lay of the land. There were only so many logical ways to organize a communications board, after all, and the Fandrean sense of order suited human needs quite well. This entire complex—squared-off cubbies of spartan design, not quite large enough for human comfort; Worf or Riker would bounce their heads off the ceiling—could have been enlarged and fit neatly within a human facility. Of course, that somehow made it twice as disconcerting when he ran into something uniquely Fandrean…. Ah. There. “Looks like it came from within the Legacy,” he said. “Thought you couldn’t get anything through?”
“This is so,” Yenan admitted, bobbing his head with a strange twist that also exposed his throat. “On occasion we have received partial transmissions from within the preserve, but none more than a few seconds. As with
that one, A word, maybe half a word … and that is with special equipment built for use behind the forcefields.”
La Forge frowned at the console. “Is there anyone else in the preserve right now? Besides the shuttle that just left?”
“There are always Legacy rangers at work,” Yenan said. “We monitor the preserve very carefully.”
“But… they would be using the special equipment —the transmitters that provide clear signals if they get through.”
“Yes.”
La Forge tapped his way through a series of hesitant commands, still getting the feel for the Fandrean system and possessed of a foreboding that it would be a while before he was truly able to work on the actual problem he’d been sent to address. “There’s no way to tell just where the signal originates?”
“Not through the forcefields,” Yenan said, bobbing his head again. “Please don’t distress yourself over it, Lieutenant Commander La Forge.”
“You can call me Geordi,” La Forge said, pulling up the band the communication had used.
“It’s probably a random transmission, possibly caused by the energy surge you yourself witnessed.”
Not one band. All of them.
At least, all of the bands of communication—from sublight to obsolete radio waves—that were readily available to a Federation shuttle.
La Forge shook his head. “No,” he said. “I don’t think this was a simple noise burst. I don’t think that’s it at all.”
Thanks to Beverly’s foresight, Picard made his way through the reception with his taste buds intact and his stomach without need of heroic repair. He spoke to as
many of the Tsorans as possible, trying to build on Ambassador lesson’s reports and on Troi’s comments, and finally found himself in front of the ReynKa, in a position to mention the negotiations. “Just over to the right,” he said, pointing out at the starscape before them after he and Akarr had stood before the viewport for a moment of contemplation. The noise of the reception bubbled on behind them—somewhat more active than before, thanks to the addition of several theremin-like instruments and the Tsoran musicians who mastered them. There, to the right—the Ntignano system. A bright, perfectly normal-looking