Selar ran as quickly as she could down the Excaliburcorridors. Twice she almost knocked over passing crewmen before she made it to sickbay. Upon seeing her return, Dr. Maxwell promptly proceeded to give her a quick precis on the status of the four dozen passengers from the Cambon.But before he could get out more than a sentence, she cut him off with a sharp gesture.
"Is there anything wrong, Doctor?" asked Maxwell, now clearly concerned about the condition of the chief medical officer. "Any problem that I can help with?"
"I am fine," she replied in a less-than-convincing manner.
"Are you sure? You seem rather flushed. Is there a—"
"Are you an expert on Vulcan physiology?" Selar demanded.
"No . . . no, not an expert per se, although I'm certainly well versed in—"
"Well, I am an expert, Doctor," she shot back. "I have been living inside my particuler vucan physi ology for quite some time now, and I assure you that I am in perfect health."
"With all due respect, Doctor, I don't know as I'dagree."
"With all due respect to you, Doctor, your agreement or lack thereof is of no relevance to me whatsoever." And with that she stalked quickly to her office, locking the door behind her to guarantee privacy.
She had no desire to subject herself to a medical scan in sickbay in full view of every one of her staff and technicians. She had no particular concern over the privacy of other crew members when it came to getting physicals or having problems attended to. But now that it was she herself who was in question, her right to privacy had assumed paramount importance. It was ironic, and yet an irony that she was not exactly in any condition to truly appreciate.
She opened an equipment compartment in the wall and extracted a medical tricorder. Adjusting it for herself, she began to take readings.
Pulse, heartbeat, respiration . . . everything was elevated. Moreover, she was having trouble focusing on anything.
Selar reached deep into herself. A calm, cool center of logic was drilled into Vulcans at such an early age that it became utterly ingrained into their nature. Yet Selar was having to relive that training, finding that cool center and tapping into it. Her body, her system, was entirely at the command of her mind and she would force it to obey her commands. Slowly she quieted her hurried breathing. She cleared away every noise, every distraction, until she could hear the accelerated beating of her own heart. She slowed it, bit by bit, replacing the dim red haze which seemed to have taken hold of her with a sedate, serene blue.
She thought back to her first days at the Academy, the first time that she had encountered the Academy pool. Such things were virtually unknown on Vulcan, an arid planet with a steady red sky and a sun so searing that Vulcans had even developed an inner eyelid to shield themselves against its effects. The pool might well have been an alien artifact; indeed, in many ways it was to her.
Clad in a bathing suit, she had stood on the edge of the pool, dipping a toe into it, unsure of what to do. Every logical bone in her body had told her that there was nothing to fear. That fear was besides the point, as it so often was. And yet she could not bring herself to ease herself into the water . . . until the decision had been taken out of her hands when a passing cadet named Finnegan had thought it the height of hilarity to shove her from behind into the pool. She had fallen feet-first into the deep end of the pool. . . and proceeded to drown, since naturally people who are born on a desert planet have absolutely no idea how to swim. The selfsame Finnegan, chagrined, had immediately leaped into the water and pulled out the sputtering Vulcan.
But Selar had taken that first unpleasant experience as a challenge, and every day found her at the pool until she was as good a swimmer as anyone at the Academy. Many was the time where she would simply float in the water, arms outstretched, bobbing with the gentle lapping of the water.
Now she was projecting herself back to that time. She imagined herself floating, floating ever so gently, buoyed as if by lapping waves. Bit by bit, she fashioned her recollections of the Academy pool into a place of escape. The rest of the world, her worries, her concerns, her uncharacteristic confusion, all melted away as she bobbed in the water with no distractions. She felt her composure returning to her, her ineffable logic controlling her actions once more. Whatever was happening to her, it was nothing that she couldn't control. Nothing that. . .
"Hi," said a voice. And there, swimming past her in a tight bathing suit that accentuated hish firm breasts, hish curvaceous hips, and also what seemed an impressive male endowment, was Burgoyne.
Selar snapped forward in her chair, the pool vanishing along with the Hermat intruder. She looked around and found herself, of course, still in her office. A quick scan with the medical tricorder told her that her bioreadings were back to normal. But the image of Burgoyne was solidly rooted in her mind.
She leaned forward toward her computer terminal and said, "Computer."
"Working."
"Personal medical log, Stardate 50926.2 . . ."
There was a pause, sufficiently long enough for the computer to prompt, "Waiting for entry."
Selar could only think of one thing to say, Fivewords that summarized her present situation with simple eloquence.
"I am in big trouble," she said.
KEBRON
IV.
"HOW MUCH TROUBLEwould you say we're in, precisely?" Si Cwan asked in a low, tense voice.
"A good deal," replied Zak Kebron.
Between them they had precisely one phaser, the sidearm that Kebron habitually carried whenever embarking on any sort of mission. They'd had no time to grab anything else off the shuttle before the unfortunate ship had blown up.
The science vessel was not terribly large—only eight decks deep—and it was one of the oldest models of such ships. Stairs or ladders between decks instead of turbolifts, and flooring made of grated metal that made a hellacious racket whenever Kebron, in particular, walked on it. Moreover the lighting was dim. Whether it was because they were on battery backup, or had deliberately made it that way just to throw off Kebron and Si Cwan, was impossible to say.
They hunched in a corner as best they could, considering Si Cwan's height and that Kebron wasn't exactly built for hunching. "This is insane," muttered Si Cwan. "Why did they shoot at us?"
"When you're trying to kill someone, that's usually a reliable method."
"But why were they trying to kill us?"
"Immaterial. The fact of it is all we need to deal with." From the shadows that surrounded them, he was surveying the area as thoroughly as he could,
"We need a plan," Si Cwan said urgently.
Kebron appeared to consider it a moment, and then he said simply, "Survival."
"That's obvious. Are you being deliberately obtuse, Kebron? Our lives are at stake . . ."
Kebron glared at him, and there was extreme danger in those eyes, glittering against the dusky brown skin. "Our lives are at stake because you insisted on trying to rescue your sister. Do not forget that."