I stand up, shaking all over, my whole body slimy with sweat. There's a nasty rasping, whirring sound coming from somewhere. After a moment, I realise it's the sound of my own breathing.
I stagger down the corridor, away from the room. "Stiak's trying something," I manage to gasp.
Tylha's medical officer, a bosomy brunette with one of those cyber-monocle things apparently stapled permanently to her head, comes bustling up to me with a hypo in one hand and a tricorder in the other. I push her away. "Get back! Too close. You haven't got Borg insulation on your neurons - do you want to end up like them?"
I gesture at the library, where T'Nos and Silit and Vorruk are still sitting cross-legged on the floor. Sitting there, faintly smiling, and stone cold dead.
"Tylha's cortical activity is dropping hard," the medic says. "And what there is - I've never seen anything like it." She points the tricorder in my direction. "The readings I'm getting from you, too -"
"They're weird," I say. "They're always weird, don't sweat it. Too much Borg plumbing in my system, still."
"At least let me give you a shot of Tri-Ox -"
"No." I push her off again. Two of Twelve, inside my head, is chuntering through an interminable list of self-checks and consistency tests... I don't want anything messing her up. Right now, all that Borg plumbing is the only asset I've got.
"Let me know when Tylha's brain activity improves," I say. "Or, God forbid, gets worse.... If she dies, we're pulling the androids out of there with tractor beams, then tossing an antimatter charge in and letting God sort it out."
"Are you sure that's wise?" God, why do people keep asking me that? How the hell would I know? I lean against a wall, trying to catch my breath, sweating all over T'Nir's tasteful interior designs.
"Sir." Ahepkur has a tricorder in her hand, too, but she's keeping back, behind what we reckon is the safe limit for normal humanoids. "Sir, I'm worried about the machines."
"The machines?" It takes me a moment or two to cotton on to what she's talking about. "Ada and Amiga?"
Ahepkur nods. "The psi field is affecting them too, and in unpredictable ways. It may degrade the positronic matrices of their brains, perhaps to the point where their current personality and memory structures cannot be recovered." The Klingon's expression is uncharacteristically troubled. "In a way, the machines are risking their lives."
"Yes." I stand up straight. "We'd better make sure it's worth it, then."
Ahepkur glances at the open doorway. "A single shot from a phaser rifle might vaporize that thing -"
"Might kill Tylha, too," I say. "Or maybe an enormous influx of energy is just what Bresar needs." I shake my head, which turns out not to be a good move. "Antimatter charge is probably a bad idea too, in that case. Let's face it, we just don't know. And I'm not sure the Vulcan experts will know any better than us." I look towards the doorway, too. "Probably the closest thing we've got to experts on Bresar's artifact... are Stiak and T'Nir."
"That does not bode well, sir," says Ahepkur.
"Too right. At least Stiak might finally have woken up and smelled the coffee. I hope." I could really go for a cup of coffee round about now.
Tylha's medic comes back, looking cross. I suspect Tylha is one of those commanders who grumbles about taking physicals and so on, but lets the MO have her way in the end. Me? I'm fairly sure I have a medical officer. Somewhere. "Tylha's brain activity is returning to it previous levels," she says. "I can't say returning to normal, but -"
"Got the picture," I say. "Right. Time to Heath Robinson my nervous system again, then."
"Sir?" says Ahepkur. The medic looks blank, too. They just don't give these kids a classical education any more.
I turn towards the doorway - a little reluctantly, I admit. Inside, Tylha is lying sprawled on the floor in front of T'Nir and the katric ark. Her android science officer, Amiga, is lying down a little way inside the room, just close enough to wrap one outstretched hand round Tylha's foot. My plucky astromech droid Ada is holding onto Amiga's foot, and she's close enough that her legs stick out of the doorway. It looks ridiculous, like some sort of party game gone horribly wrong.
But it might be the only chance we have to find out what's happening with the katric ark. And I have a feeling we really, really need to know what Bresar is up to.
I kneel down, then lie down, on T'Nir's floor, and reach out for Ada's leg. I can feel the neural nanites stirring - a weird itching sensation.
*/*inadvisable---neural circuitry operating outside established parameters---withdraw---summon specialised units for reassessment---download data from main archives---reconnect---reconnect*/*
Stop whining, Two of Twelve. And cover me. I'm going in.
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