With that, he leaped over the side of the dish, laughing as he whizzed down feetfirst.
Jayme watched him quickly dwindle, falling nearly two thousand feet. But this time Bobbie Ray jogged over to position himself in Titus’s path, leaving plenty of space between him and the hole. As the big Rex grabbed hold of the cadet, Titus’s momentum carried them spinning the last few meters. Starsa tried to help by getting between them and the hole, but she nearly got knocked in.
They were all jabbering at once, so that Jayme couldn’t tell what was happening down there. But everyone seemed to be all right. She didn’t need a spotting loop to tell when all three faces expectantly turned up in her direction.
She almost called for them to wait for her while she took the truss‑lift down like a normal human being. But it would take forever for her to climb all the way up the tower and walk to the middle of the truss. Their presence must have already been recorded by the deformation of the enormous dish, supported by sensitive antigrav nodes, and surely there was an alarm going off somewhere that the dish needed adjustment.
Jayme swung her legs over the side. For a moment she hung there, facing a near‑vertical drop, her instincts crying danger. But a good officer knew how to roll with the punches.
“Ex astris, scientia!”Jayme cried out as she jumped off the edge.
The first part was the worst, when it felt like she was actually falling with hardly any contact between her and the wall. Then the drag of the slope caught her, redirecting her and making it feel like she was going even faster and out of control. Instinctively her hands tried to grab hold of the smooth surface and she flipped over on her stomach. All she could see was the sharp, white edge of the dish far overhead, cutting into the night sky.
Then something caught her ankle and jerked her in a big circle. Jayme cried out as her leg was practically pulled from her hip joint.
When she was convinced she was fully stopped, she checked to make sure the hole was safely far away. Then she finally rolled into a sitting position.
“Did you have to pull so hard?” she asked Bobbie Ray, digging into her pocket for the portable biogenerator that came in standard cadet first aid kits. Between the shoulder injury from the monorail and now this, she was beginning to realize why doctors were routinely assigned to away teams.
Bobbie Ray showed his teeth–his way of laughing. “Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. Why doesn’t anyone ever thank me?”
Starsa was rubbing her head, mussing her thick curly ponytail as she glared at the Rex. “Can I have that when you’re done?” she asked Jayme.
Jayme handed it over and went to the access port. The tertiary mirror was positioned inside and down a few meters on its own steerable truss. A catwalk ran along the inner edge, with an antigrav lift right next to the cable that carried the amplified radio signal down into the receiving station.
“Well, we’re halfway there,” Jayme said, trying to think positively. “Let’s get going.”
Moll Enor woke from a deep sleep as the beeping got louder and more insistent. For a moment, the tonal quality reminded her of the wake‑up chime at the Symbiosis Institute and she thought she was back on Trill, awaiting notification that a symbiont had been selected for her.
As she struggled to sit up, still mostly asleep, she realized she was in the Academy Quad. The beeping was the sensor on Starsa’s pulmonary support unit and physiostimulator pack, warning that her activity was exceeding recommended limits. In the four weeks Moll Enor had known Starsa, the girl had exceeded her recommended physical limits thirty‑one times. The beeping was so routine that Moll had become accustomed to it and ignored it, knowing that the relay would buzz uncomfortably on Starsa’s implant, warning her to slow down.
But when she glanced at the time, she realized that T’Rees was still out, giving a workshop on extended meditation techniques. Usually Starsa’s Vulcan roommate took it upon himself to monitor Starsa’s habits and scold her when she was thoughtless.
Moll couldn’t understand what could be causing a medical alert at this time of night, when Starsa was usually in bed asleep. She quickly got up, noticing that Nev Reoh was still sleeping soundly in his bed, his mouth open and his face pressed against a pillow, with the blanket twisted impossibly around his body. One bare foot jutted over the edge. He didn’t even shift as the beeping escalated.
Moll Enor ran the few steps down the circular hallway and knocked on Starsa’s door. She could hear the beeping more loudly, and she knocked more insistently. When there was no answer, she went inside. But both the beds were empty, and a quick check in the refresher reassured her that Starsa wasn’t lying on the floor in distress.
With a sinking feeling, Moll checked the other two rooms in their Quad and found both empty. All four of the first‑year cadets were probably together–they had seemed to bond fairly quickly. But Elma’s absence surprised her. Elma was a year ahead of Moll, but until they were assigned to the same Quad, she had never seen the Holt woman. And Moll made it a point to notice everything. As the first host for the Enor symbiont, it was her duty to provide a solid foundation of experiences, as well as a wide‑ranging understanding of the numerous alien races that inhabited the Alpha Quadrant.
But Elma was a nonexistent presence in the Quad, and Moll was at a loss as to why she would be gone so late. She had never even seen a friend of hers come to the Quad.
Returning to Starsa’s room, Moll glanced around, but Starsa’s pulmonary support unit and physiostimulator pack were not immediately identifiable among the wreckage on the girl’s side of the partition. The room looked schizophrenic, with the Vulcan half painfully neat and bare while Starsa had almost covered her walls with pictures and holoscreens that ran loops of her favorite shows and family members performing odd customs. Moll had thought it was bad living with Nev Reoh, but at least the former Vedek maintained order on his side of their room. It was his verbal messiness that wore on her. He would ramble cheerfully for hours while she tried to concentrate on her studies, but he was so awkwardly eager to please that she never censored him, resolving that the experience must be good for her symbiont in someway.
Moll tapped the wall comm. “Computer, location of Cadet Starsa Taran.”
“Cadet Taran is not on Academy grounds.”
Moll could hardly think of the implications of that as the maddening beeping chose that moment to escalate to its highest level.
“What are you doing?” Nev Reoh suddenly asked behind her.
Moll Enor started, feeling guilty in spite of herself. “I’m looking for Starsa.”
Reoh sleepily rubbed his face, glancing from the empty beds to Moll Enor. Starsa noted the way even his pajamas bunched in odd places, just like his computer‑fitted cadet uniform somehow never seemed to hang right. He was wincing at the sound of the medical alarm.
“Did the first‑year cadets say what they were doing tonight?” She had to raise her voice.
“I don’t know.” His mouth hung open as he thought about it. “I don’t remember anything–”
The door whirred electronically and swung open. Moll Enor felt a leap of relief, but it was T’Rees, not Starsa. The Vulcan pulled back in surprise to see them.
“Hi,” Nev Reoh said innocently.
T’Rees tightened his lips, vexed at his slight display of emotion. “What are you two doing in my room?” Moll Enor gestured, but he had already noted the sound of the physiostimulator pack. “Where is Starsa?”