“Well, I’m not looking to interrupt,” Desai said, glancing at M’Benga a moment before returning her gaze to Fisher.
After a moment in silence, the younger physician nodded. “I ought to excuse myself, anyway,” he said. Looking to Fisher, he added, “I’d be very interested in hearing about any…developments, Doctor.”
“I’ll keep you posted,” Fisher replied, waiting until his colleague had left the morgue before turning to Desai and offering a sly smile. “I’m beginning to think you like hanging out in the basement.”
Desai shrugged in mock defensiveness. “Okay, so the occasional investigation happens to bring me down here once in a while, but maybe it’s not the morgue that I like so much as your charming company.”
“Uh-huh,” Fisher said, feeling more than a little unconvinced. “Well, if you’re down here, I’m guessing the Endeavourincident’s still on the fast track.”
“In a fashion, yes,” the captain said, pulling a chair closer to Fisher’s workstation and settling herself into it. “We’ve gotten some preliminary reports from those who survived the attack. Everyone’s accounts line up. The whole thing amounts to an expedition and a landing party that ran into something unanticipated and overwhelming. Based on their interviews, there’s just nothing that anyone could have done differently. This all seems…well, routine, for lack of a better word.” She released a tired sigh before adding, “Damn, I know that makes me sound cold, but how else do I say it?”
“How about ‘Accidental in the line of duty’?” Fisher offered. “You’re saying no one’s to blame.”
“Not every investigation in our office is launched with the hope of being able to turn up a mistake or a scapegoat,” Desai said, her defensiveness this time sounding genuine.
“You don’t need to tell me that, Rana,” Fisher said.
“Well, I have to tell Diego,” she shot back. “Every time.”
A tone from the computer terminal echoed in the morgue, and the doctor smiled. “Well, I guess you’ll have some good news for the commodore today.” Indicating for Desai to join him, he turned the monitor so that she could see the information displayed upon it.
“What are we looking at?” Desai asked.
Fisher did not reply at first, his attention instead riveted on the results generated by his computer model. “Oh, my,” he finally said, trying to absorb as much of the detailed report as he could at once.
“Oh, my, what?” Desai said, reminding him that he had an audience.
“I don’t rightly know,” he answered, ignoring the twinge of excitement he felt in his gut and the sensation of feeling his pulse increase. He even felt goose bumps rising along his arms. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
He stared at the whirling virtual representation of a DNA strand from Bohanon’s compromised cells—realizing as he did so that “strand” seemed a wholly insufficient term to describe what he was seeing. It was a genome, yes, but wondrously complex, encoded with far more raw biological data than he ever had seen in one place…more than he even imagined might be possible.
“Fish, talk to me.”
The physician let Desai’s plea hang unanswered, so intent was he on what he was seeing. The genetic structure dwarfed a typical human DNA strand and—according to the computer’s own messages, at least—appeared to baffle even the vast storehouse of knowledge available to him via Starfleet Medical. He entered a rapid-fire string of search requests, each one coming back unanswered or not understood by computer or the massive database with which it was communicating.
This is incredible.
Somewhere in the middle of that convoluted web of genetic code, Fisher imagined he saw the keys to uncounted medical and scientific advances, be they cures for disease, repairs to genetic defects, even enhancements to the human genome itself. There was no end to the speculation of what this might signify for the future of all known races in the universe.
Assuming somebody can figure the damn thing out.
“Doctor,” Desai said, more forcefully this time, “does this have anything to do with what happened on Erilon?”
Without looking up from his viewer, Fisher said, “I wish I could tell you.”
That the strange biochemical residue in Bohanon’s corpse was capable of crystallizing tissue was one thing, but to detect within that substance and the affected cells a genomic structure on the scale he was seeing—Fisher knew the implications were staggering.
And to think I could have retired before seeing something like this.
“Fish,” Desai said, her expression now one of concern, “what the hell is this about?”
Stroking his silvered goatee, the doctor replied, “Well, it looks like we’ll both have something to share with our friend the commodore.”
“Well, then, my timing is perfect.”
Reyes’s voice rang through the morgue, loudly enough that it startled Fisher and visibly shook Desai. The doctor looked up to see the station’s commander striding their way. “But here I am without an invitation to the party—again.”
Fisher crossed his arms, smiled wryly at Reyes. “And as usual, you don’t have a problem assuming that it wasn’t intentional.”
Desai quickly chimed in. “It’s not as much fun down here as you might think.”
“It never is,” said Reyes, letting the words hang in the air for several seconds before turning to Fisher. “Zeke, we need to talk.”
“Yes, we do,” the doctor replied, instinct telling him that the commodore’s timely arrival was more than simple coincidence.
“Is this about the Erilon incident?” Desai asked. “If so, then my team’s finished their preliminary report, and…”
“I’m sorry, Captain,” Reyes said, cutting her off. Fisher noted the almost apologetic look in his friend’s eyes as he regarded Desai. “But I’m afraid this is a security matter. Stop by my office in an hour, and I’ll take your report then. That’ll be all for now.”
Desai’s eyes went wide, and the doctor noted the tightening of her jaw, but she only nodded in response to the sudden turn of the situation. “Aye, sir,” she said, glancing toward Fisher before turning and making her way out of the morgue, leaving a grim-faced and even tired-looking Reyes standing before him.
“Something tells me this is going to be pretty interesting,” Fisher said.
25
“I’ve seen ships after they’ve suffered massive combat damage,” Commander Jon Cooper said as he stood next to Reyes on the observation platform overlooking docking bay four, “and I’ve seen them after they’ve had all but the stuffing beaten out of them by an ion storm. Hell, I was once on a recovery operation for a starship after it crashed into a moon.” For emphasis, he pointed through the transparasteel window that protected those inside the observation area from the vacuum currently engulfing the docking bay. “Commodore, not a one of them ever looked as bad as that heap of junk.”
Reyes said nothing to his executive officer, offering only a tired yet still amused smile as he and Cooper watched the U.S.S. Lovellcross the threshold of the massive space doors that separated the ravages of open space from the protective embrace of Vanguard’s docking bay. He felt a rumbling in the deck beneath his boots as the generators powering the space-dock’s tractor beams guided the Daedalus-class vessel into its parking slip.
Maintenance lights played across the battered and beaten hull of the aged vessel as it was maneuvered into position by the station’s navigational control systems. The harsh illumination served only to highlight the numerous flaws in the Lovell’s exterior. Reyes shook his head as he once again beheld pockmarked and dented hull plates—many of them only bare duranium, while others sported paint that contrasted with the ship’s overall gunmetal gray paint scheme. Visible weld lines joined a few of the plates, evidence of repair work conducted without the comfort and features of a well-equipped ship-maintenance facility.