Part 18 (2/2)
”Where've you been?” Riker demanded. Then LaForge's appearance registered-little electrical burns on his sleeves, his dark features glossy with sweat, and even behind the visor anger showing clearly in his face. Riker paused and redesigned his question. ”What happened to you?”
”Data locked me in the AR decontamination stall and shorted out the safety s.h.i.+eld. It took me this long to tear the wall apart and get out,” LaForge panted. ”Mr. Riker, he's gone.”
”Gone?” Riker blurted. ”Where?”
”He took a shuttlecraft and headed out to find the creature. And it's your fault, sir.”
”He took-are you sure?”
”I was just down at the flight deck. The autolog in the deck control loft says he left over half an hour ago.”
”Worf! Check that!”
”Won't do any good,” LaForge said. ”He bypa.s.sed all the relays that would've notified the bridge. He knows all the tricks, sir. You know he does.”
”Worf, try to track him,” Riker amended as he climbed the ramp in three long steps and confronted LaForge. ”You got any idea what his thinking is on this?”
LaForge said, ”He's hoping to be able to communicate with that thing if he can get closer to it.”
”And?”
”Why would there be anything else, Mr. Riker?”
”Come on, LaForge, I see it in your face. What else?”
”Just a little thing, sir. Because you've been so nice to him, he's gone to find out if he's alive enough for the creature to suck the life out of him.”
The bridge shrank away. Riker's eyes tightened until they were aching. He brought a hand to them and leaned the other palm on the bridge rail. ”Oh, no,” he groaned. ”Oh, d.a.m.n ... who knew he'd be that sensitive?”
”Did he have to be?” LaForge shot back.
”d.a.m.n,” he murmured again, this time a whisper. ”Worf, anything on that shuttlecraft?”
”Sensors on pa.s.sive aren't picking up anything at all, sir. I don't understand. Even pa.s.sive read should pick up something the size of a shuttlecraft.”
Riker gestured toward Worf, but looked at LaForge and asked, ”Got an explanation for that?”
LaForge shrugged. ”Data's not stupid, sir. He probably rigged a sensor s.h.i.+eld of some kind to give him time to get away before we could beam him back or hit him with a tractor beam. We could pick him up right away on active sensors, but pa.s.sives aren't powerful enough and Data knows we don't dare use them.”
”Does he have a plan?”
”Not that he told me. He intends to attract its attention, that's all I know.”
”Worf, can he do it in a shuttlecraft?”
The Klingon paused, then said, ”No problem, sir. All he'd have to do is use the weapons on board.”
Pacing away from them, Riker folded his arms tightly, gathering to deal with a problem he himself had caused. ”He didn't have to do this....”
”Thanks to you, he thought he did,” LaForge said.
Riker struck him with a glare and snapped, ”That's enough from you. I know what I did. Have you got something constructive to say?”
LaForge straightened-almost to attention, but not quite-and got suddenly formal. ”Yes, sir. Request permission to take another shuttlecraft and go after him. I believe that would put only the two of us at risk and not attract attention to the Enterprise.”
”And do what when you find him? Dock up and slap his wrist?”
”I could relay coordinates, and you could beam us both back simultaneously.”
Riker paused, and the sarcasm protecting him from his own mistake suddenly flooded away. ”That's a good idea,” he heard himself say, even though he hadn't meant to say it aloud. He strode back to LaForge and said, ”But you shouldn't be the one to go. I'm the cause of this. I'm the reason he's risking his life, and I'm going after him.”
”You, sir? You said he was just a machine. That he doesn't have a life to risk.”
Stifling the desire to reach out and crush those words out of the air, Riker gazed at LaForge so intently he could almost see through the ribbed silver visor and through the dead eyes to the very core of LaForge's concern for Data. He took a step closer to the navigator and said, ”Geordi, n.o.body needs to be that wrong more than once.”
Stiffly LaForge insisted, ”How do you know you were wrong?”
But the answer to the challenge was already there on Riker's face, and he even had the words for it. ”Machines don't go beyond their programming. No machine has ever sacrificed itself to save others,” he said. ”Data just did both.”
LaForge's stiff posture slackened as he heard Riker's whole-hearted belief and saw the subtle physiological changes that showed him the first officer was sincere. Even through his anger, he couldn't doubt his own vision. ”Sir, I don't know if he'll listen to you. You know what I mean.”
Softly Riker responded, ”I'll make him listen.” He started toward the turbolift, then whirled and snapped his fingers. ”Notify Dr. Crusher to get the captain out of isolation, stabilize him, and fill him in on this. But give me time to get clear of the s.h.i.+p first.”
LaForge took a tentative step toward him. ”Sir, could I-”
”No,” Riker said. ”You stay here. In fact,” he added with a gesture that took in the bridge, ”take over.”
The bad memories were piling one on top of the other like an avalanche and there was nothing to stop them. Nothing to distract his mind from them or give him something, anything to cling to. Not an itch, not a blink, nothing. He could no longer focus his thoughts voluntarily. His mind moved of its own accord. The more he tried not to think of certain things, the quicker his mind shot to them and lingered there. There was no longer any way to avoid thoughts or deflect the process. After the good memories had been relived, his mind went deeper and deeper into the past he had long ago learned to control; all the terrible things from childhood and even from his adult past came plunging back at him and there was no stopping it. His mind was a wide field on which all these things were wild birds pecking.
Why was he being left in here so long? Why had he been forgotten here?
If only he could wiggle his toes. His fingers. Anything. To feel his own presence would be something, at least-at the very least. To hear himself breathe ... it was all gone. His sense of time was utterly gone, no matter how he tried to keep control, to keep track. The mind worked at something like twenty-four thousand words per minute, so it probably seemed longer than it had been-but how long? If he could blink, he could begin to judge time again. If he could draw a breath or move a finger, he would have some point of reference. If there was only something, some sense of time or life ... breathing, heartbeat, anything. It was difficult now to tell if he was awake or asleep, or even to know the difference. No matter how he kept reminding himself of where he was and why he was here, any sense of purpose slid away almost instantly now. Thoughts could no longer take hold in his mind. Then the distortion set in. Doomed to the redundancy of his own thoughts, he felt the horror of the future. Even pain would be welcome.
They've forgotten me. They've forgotten I'm here. But where is here? I'm not sure anymore. Do they know they've left me behind? Have they stopped monitoring? Did they forget having a captain named Picard? Wasn't there an ent.i.ty?
Riker wanted to leave the area, not attack the creature ... Has he used this opportunity to do that?
Ridiculous.
But what other explanation?
That thing's out there. It must have attacked again. It's taken all of us and this is eternity for me now. My G.o.d, we must all be inside that thing! There's no other explanation. Why else would I be in here for so many days? How can there be such solitude? Man wasn't meant for this. I wasn't meant for this. I don't want it.
My arms. They're falling off. I have no shoulders to hold them on. My elbows are growing ... my knees ... how can I still be alive this way? I can't hear myself breathe. I can't swallow. Listen ... nothing. Nothing. Where is everything? Everyone?
Death isn't supposed to feel unnatural like this. But I'm not dead. I'm not dead. But life isn't like this, and how can there be anything other than death and life? Beverly? Are you checking? They've left me behind. They thought I died and they left my body in s.p.a.ce and somehow my mind is awake. This is monstrous ... unforgivable. I can't touch myself. A human being should at least have himself for company. Where am I? Let me out! Don't leave me in s.p.a.ce! It's so cold here....
<script>