Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [70]
“What is it?” Data asked. He must have stood, because Spot made an aggrieved noise and padded away; almost immediately, La Forge heard the crunching of feline supplement. Number 221, if he remembered correctly.
“My idea is the hole in my head,” Geordi said, up on
his knees and disappearing into the comm panel, going to set everything back to rights, to the way it was before he started poking around. “Gotta go, Data—I’ll let you know if this works!”
“Good-bye, Geordi. If I see Captain Picard, I will inform him that you are up to something.”
La Forge grinned into the dark recesses of the comm panel innards. Up to something. That he was, and he hoped it was something big.
Picard stood outside a deck eleven turbolift, down the corridor and around the corner from the holodeck where Atann waited for him, putting on a display of impatience and disgust at this new interruption. Picard himself was not eager to delay the impending confrontation, but when requested in stellar cartography—only two decks and a few corridor turns away—he’d deemed it worth the trouble.
“Be quick about it,” he said shortly, sweeping into the same work alcove where he’d earlier found Duffy and Barclay at work. Startled, they looked up from the console as one—and their expressions put him right on alert. Triumph. Even on Barclay’s face, totally overwhelming his usual hesitation. “Good news?”
“We figured it out, sir,” Duffy said. “We were right about the launch problems—these Class Five probes have a history of minor physical damage at launch, it’s just usually not an issue.”
“But with this job, we had to be so precise, so perfect —” Barclay brought his thumb and index finger together to indicate an infinitesimal amount of leeway, and in doing so caught a glimpse of Picard’s impatient expression; abruptly, he dropped his hand. “Well, that is, it made a difference. Once we found
the sensor displacement and compensated for it—”
Picard felt a surge of hope; how much easier it would be if the Ntignanos’ fate didn’t rest in his next hour with Atann. He searched their faces. “The probes are functioning?”
Neither of them showed any reticence; Barclay nodded emphatically—over emphatically—and Duffy said, “Yes, sir!”
“And will we have the results in time to resolve the evacuation problems?”
Duffy looked momentarily confused; he exchanged a glance with Barclay and said, “Well, sir, we’ll certainly have the results before that sun goes nova.”
Engineers. Buried in their projects with blinders on. Sooner or later they’d realize that before that sun goes nova would almost certainly be too late, but for now they might as well ride their success. “Very good, gentlemen,” he said, feeling the weight of responsibility settle back down on his shoulders. “Keep things moving along as quickly as possible, and keep me apprised of the results. Written report will do.”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused, already talking to his back as he used swift strides to reach and reclaim the turbolift he’d commanded to wait—there were, after all, perks to being a captain—and returned to deck eleven.
And Atann, who might do well to be edgy, after facing Picard’s threat to snatch him from his own home by the very people who had been plying aught but diplomatic wiles up until this point.
Diplomacy. Picard made a disgusted noise in the privacy of his own mind. It had its uses, of course, and in its purest sense, it was the Federation’s strongest tool.
But so often diplomacy got the diplomats so tangled up in the very process of being diplomatic that they Well They forgot about the holodeck.
“I don’t understand why we’re here,” Atann said, somewhat warily, not even giving Picard time to reach him by the holodeck door. Behind him were arranged three personal guards, whom Picard had ignored since they’d arrived. He’d also ignored the fact that he himself was alone despite