“We’re back to square one,” Maddox said. “Now, you’re in the fire with us, Doctor. If you want to live, you’re going to have to help us board the alien ship.”
Dana Rich lay in her cot in her former quarters. She wheezed with phlegm lodged in her lungs. She was sick with fever, but the robo-doctor had given her a seventy percent chance of recovery.
With red eyes, Dana chuckled throatily. “I’m sick of disappointment, Captain. I don’t like defeat either. Your sergeant broke something inside me when he used the stunner on its high setting. It makes me feel good watching you suffer with anxiety.”
“You have a fever,” he said. “Provided we survive the sentinel, you will recover.”
“I don’t think you’re hearing me. I don’t want to get better.”
“To spite me?” he asked.
“Maybe you are hearing me after all,” Dana said.
“Doctor, the sentinel is coming fast.” Maddox pointed at the holoimage.
The sentinel was big, and it generated powerful deflector shields. The alien starship had two broad disc-shaped areas and it bristled with weaponry. It had already blasted the Geronimo with harsh sensor sweeps.
“Do you have any final words, Captain?” Dana asked. “Our end is fast approaching.”
“You used to have fire, Doctor. Are the New Men that much better than you that you’re afraid to try to compete against them?”
She gave him a weary smile. “I enjoy watching you flail, seeking to find a way to unlock me. You have no idea. Maybe I should prolong your agony. Send your sergeant here. Let me stun him as many times as he stunned me. Then I’ll tell you what you must do.”
Maddox rose from his stool. Putting his hands behind his back, he began to pace. He didn’t know how to proceed. He wouldn’t sell out his people. He wouldn’t hand over his authority. Was his life over then?
Halting, he peered at Doctor Rich. She’d propped up onto one elbow with a smile on her face. She watched him with avid delight.
“I need your help,” he told her. “I’ve said that from the beginning.”
“You think that’s what I want to hear?”
They stared at each other. He saw pride. He saw a wounded person, a genius and someone incredibly bitter.
I’m about to die. The sentinel will swat us out of existence. What does such a lonely, bitter person want to hear? Does she hate me because Riker and I defeated her?
Maddox moved to the stool. Picking it up, he set it just before her cot. He sat and put a hand on her arm. She jerked away, scowling at him.
“I’m different,” Maddox said. “My mother escaped from the Beyond to the Oikumene. I have some of the qualities of the New Men. I fear that half of me belongs to them.”
The scowl eased from her features. She looked at him with interest. “You’re the spawn of a New Man?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible. I want to capture one of them and test his DNA, matching it against mine.”
“Do the others realize this about you?” Dana asked.
Maddox shook his head.
“You think knowing this about you will sway me?” she scoffed.
“I have no idea,” he said. “I felt like telling you, like telling someone.”
“Why?”
“If we succeed, think of the enjoyment you could gain by holding that over me.”
Dana Rich blinked several times. “I’m not your friend, Captain.”
“I don’t think you have any friends, Doctor.”
“You’re right!” she snarled. “I’m alone. We’re all alone.”
With the outburst, bitterness seemed to flow from her as if from a broken dam. Hate twisted her features. Her eyes radiated something profoundly troubling. She panted, and she worked her mouth with silent rage.
Maddox watched the performance. This woman had been deeply hurt. The amount of suffering awed him.
Finally, her features grew less rigid and twisted. The intensity pouring from her became normal anger. The pants turned to wheezing for air as her lungs bubbled with phlegm. She coughed for a long time before finally closing her eyes.
In time, her breathing evened out.
Maddox rose silently from the stool. He had no more ideas about what to do. With a leaden step, he moved toward the hatch.
“I’ll do it,” she said behind him.
Maddox turned, surprised at what he heard.
“It has nothing to do with you or your silly secret. This has everything to do with me. I’m Doctor Dana Rich, and I’m going to give humanity its fighting shot at your uncles.”
“What do you need?” Maddox said.
“Help me up to medical. I’ll dial the robo-doctor and give myself the needed shots. Then, you and I are going to the control room. Let us see if I have the magic you’re looking for.”
-31-
Captain Maddox didn’t like it.
In medical, Doctor Rich had injected herself with massive doses of stimulants. Her eyes burned with feverish intensity. Now, she sat in the control room, her fingers blurring across a computer console.
The woman didn’t talk. She hunched over her board, twitching instead of moving. Muttered comments drifted from her, but no one knew what she said.
This lasted for hours. During this time, the sentinel approached in what seemed like serene majesty. The starship didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Where could the scout go? Yet, how did the sentinel know they were trapped?
Maddox must have asked Valerie the question.
Doctor Rich quit tapping. She straightened and swiveled around. “What did you say?” she asked.
With a helpless gesture, Maddox said, “How does the sentinel know we can’t escape the star system?”
“It has no idea,” Dana said.
“Then why doesn’t it rush after us?” Maddox asked.
Dana’s eyelids flickered several times. It made it seem as if her brain flipped the question hundreds of times in several seconds, attempting to decipher the answer.
“Why are you bothering me with your nonsense?” Dana asked angrily. “I’m trying to work. Your chatter disrupts my thought process. Worse, your inane ideas clutter my mind with trivia. Leave, please. Let me work in peace.”
Maddox inclined his head. Without glancing at Valerie—the lieutenant would know what to do if the doctor went berserk—he left the control room, softly closing the hatch behind him. Under different circumstances, the doctor’s behavior might have bothered him. He recognized a genius at work, though. They could be inordinately touchy.
Riker and Keith slept, exhausted from days of effort. Noises came out of the engine room. Meta must be tinkering. On impulse, Maddox headed there.
Most of the journey, he’d avoid the Rouen Colony woman. She troubled him because he loved—er, liked—the sound of her voice too much. He enjoyed her face, the eyes especially, and he fully appreciated her womanly form. That did not change the troubling fact that she had stunned him several days ago.
Ducking his head, Maddox entered the large compartment. Meta wore coveralls with a Star Watch logo on the upper front pocket. She had a belt of jangling tools around her waist.
From where she worked, Meta gave him a half-glance. She wore a hat with a protruding bill. The long hair was tucked out of sight. The burn on her cheek had almost healed. Despite it, Maddox found it difficult to tear his eyes from her features.
With a magnetic wrench, she tightened a fitting. Lowering the tool, she faced him. “Is something wrong, Captain?”
He shook his head. Today, he felt different. He decided this once to act on his impulses.