Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [84]
“That’s what I’m saying. The communications are fine. It’s the force field we need to work on.” And fast. Worf had already missed two portal openings. There was something going on inside the Legacy, and until La Forge knew what it was, no one else could help.
“The shields are a delicate balance of interweaving frequencies,” Yenan said, putting down his padd to look straight at La Forge, speaking slowly and deliberately-as if to a child. “We are already having trouble with them. We should fix that problem before trying to change anything else.”
“That’s the beauty of this idea,” La Forge said. “We don’t really have to change anything. Just use it as it’s meant to be used … on a much, much smaller scale.”
Yenan squinted at him, a Fandrean expression of a profound struggle to understand. A plea for more information.
“Look at the portal,” La Forge said, gesturing not to the portal area, since they were underground, but to the area of the museum that housed its generator. “Your ability to use it is limited, because of the energy it
draws. But how much energy would it use to establish a pinhole portal? Not even that—practically a microscopic opening. Just enough for the signal to get through.” A hole in his head, Data had said, and he’d just about gotten it right. “You see?”
Yenan’s eyes widened again. “We’d need to create new portal settings … we might not be able to maintain the opening all the time, even at a microscopic level—”
“Yeah, but you could put it on a schedule, just like the portal openings. You’d end up opening the portal less often, and have more power to spare for the communications.”
“Yes!” Yenan stood, fumbled with the padd that had been on his lap, and ignored it as it clattered to the floor. “It is a good answer, Geordi La Forge! Let us descend upon the portal controls and solve the problem!”
La Forge grinned. This was the Fandrean version of being excited? “Good, I’m glad you agree. I know just the people to try to reach as a test. I imagine they’d welcome a friendly voice right now.”
For a moment there, Riker thought the kid had learned something. Just for a moment. There’d been a look on his face … an uncertainty, and a hesitation.
He’d apparently decided to come down on the side of the familiar and comfortable, to judge by his performance over the cartiga. At least in the end he’d decided not to skin the thing.
Riker wondered if he even knew how much an untanned skin of that size might weigh. Who had he thought would carry it? One of his wounded men?
They’d come quite a distance from that site, and with no further harassment by cartiga or anything else. The evanescent shimmer of the force field had been close the
last time Riker had spotted it, although Worf and Zefan seemed certain they needed to travel north along its perimeter in order to reach the portal—which, he said, was plainly marked from the interior.
Riker left the navigation up to them. Right now his entire being was centered simply on walking, on placing one foot in front of the other—not stumbling, tripping, or having the footing roll out from beneath his boot-and walking. Sweat trickling, face burning, arm fiercely aching … walking.
“Commander,” Worf said. Sometime in the last few moments he’d fallen back from point to speak with Riker, though it had escaped Riker’s notice at the time. “Are you—”
“No, Worf, I am not all right. Yes, the arm hurts like hell.” Whatever analgesic properties the med-kit spray held had worn off long ago. About the time he’d started wrestling cartigas. And the restorative stimulant… used up long before its next dose time. “But give me a hot shower—with real water—and a place to put my feet up, and I’ll be fine. Eventually.”
“How did you know what I was about to—” Worf started, and men broke off. “Ah. I have become predictable.”
“I’m afraid so.” Riker spared a glance from the terrain directly in front of his feet to assess the Klingon, and found very little sign of this day’s forced march—either of them—in evidence. “You’re still looking chipper. That