STAR TREK - TNG - 33 - Balance Of Power

Star Trek - TNG 033 - Balance Of Power

By DAFYDD AB HUGH

LIEUTENANT COMMANDER Geordi La Forge strode quickly out of his temporary quarters aboard

the klingon scoutship Strange Legendary Klingon Fish That Hides in Rocks and Spies on Enemies of the

Warrior Gods--Geordi could not pronounce the actual klingon name.

As he rounded a corner into the main, peak-roofed corridor, heading toward the bridge, a meaty hand

clamped on his shoulder: It was Lieutenant Worf. The pair were temporarily assigned to the klingon ship,

commanded by Worf's brother Kurn, until they finished retrofitting the Hiding Fish's sensor to detect the

subspace damage done by traveling faster than warp five.

"Commander," said the klingon in his best approximation of a sympathetic tone of voice, "I sorrow for

your loss. I know what it is like to lose a comrade. It is sad that he could not have died in battle as a true

warrior."

Geordi stared. "Worf, what are you talking about?"

Now the Klingon was puzzled. "Did you not read the message traffic from Starfleet this morning?"

"Whoops. No, I was running late and I skipped it. Did somebody die?"

Worf took a deep, sympathetic breath. "Yes, sir, your mentor from the Starfleet Academy has died. I

sorrow for your loss. I understand that humans consider death a great tragedy. I know what it is like to

lose."

La Forge massaged his temples; his visor hurt even more than usual this day. "Worf, I didn't have any

mentor at the Academy. Whom are you talking about?"

"Why, Doctor Zorka, of course. He died two days ago, but nobody discovered the body until

yesterday."

Geordi shrugged. "Thanks for the concern, but I barely knew Doctor Zorka. I took a couple of classes

from him, but that's about it."

Worf nodded. "I, too, have suffered the pain of seeing one of my instructors from the Academy die in

bed like a shopkeeper. I understand how you must feel."

Helplessly, Geordi tried to clarify. "Worf, believe me; I didn't care one way or the other about the guy.

He was a crank at the Academy, and he's even more of a crank now--well, was a crank. Come on,

we're supposed to meet Captain Kurn on the bridge."

They marched into the lift, and Worf called out "bridge" in Klingon. As they passed deck after deck, then

headed out the long neck of the scoutship toward the bubble section, Geordi could actually feel the

waves of sympathy emanating from Worf, discomforting the young lieutenant commander.

The doors slid open with a whoosh. Kurn lounged in his command chair, legs crossed, staring at a

tactical display of the historical battle of Gamma Amar IV, in which the Klingons soundly routed the

Federation forces seventy-five years before.

"Captain," said Geordi, "we're a few hours ahead of schedule on the retrofit. So far, we've syncbed the

Doppler on your sensors to the tachyon emission belt frequencies of the new cloaking field; but we still

need to modulate your shield and disruptor projection points to match the hole in the spectral..." La

Forge paused, noticing that Kurn stared blankly, not understanding a word Geordi had said.

"You said you are ahead of schedule, human?"

"Yes. Three hours."

"Fine. That is your report. Now leave me alone; I have important duties to attend."

Worf leaned close to Geordi and whispered, "Kurn has a commodore examination to take in a few days.

He will not be disposed to listen to details about anything."

The executive officer of the Hiding Fish, Commander Kurak, cleared her throat. When Kurn did not

respond, she did so again.

"Oh, yes," Kurn said at last, "the Enterprise first officer is waiting to speak to you."

"Shall I put it on screen?" suggested Kurak. Kurn glared furiously at her, then savagely gestured at the

viewport. The tactical map vanished, replaced by a view of the Enterprise bridge.

Geordi felt peculiar, standing on the deck of a strange Klingon ship, watching a communication from the

Enterprise; he had so often seen the reverse.

Commander Will Riker, first officer of the Enterprise, sat in the command chair, Dr. Beverly Crusher

stood behind, leaning on the rail. Commander Data noticed the transmission and turned back toward

Riker.

"Sir, Commander La Forge has reached the bridge on the tlhlngan blQDepHey Huj So'bogh naghmey 'ej

yes qa"a' jaghpu' ghoqbogh 'oH." Geordi was absurdly annoyed that Data, programmed with every

known language, pronounced the Klingon name perfectly.

Riker looked up. "Geordi, have you heard the news yet?"

"Which news?"

"The news about Doctor Zorka."

"Oh. Yes, sir. Would you like a report on our progress so far?"

Riker raised his brows, somewhat surprised. "No, that's all right. If you need some time off to deal with

the loss, just let us know. The captain is resting right now, but he said if you needed to talk to someone..

2'

"No, sir," said Geordi, trying not to look annoyed. "It's really all right. I barely even knew--"

Beverly interrupted, looking into the viewscreen with a face that would have broken the Devil's heart.

"Geordi, I... I lost my residency advisor just a year ago. I know how much it hurts."

"It doesn't hurt, Commander. Really. I only took three classes from Zorka, and he even gave me a B in

one of them."

On the screen, Data did his best to make his face show concern. "Geordi, you said much the same things

when your mother vanished. Most therapists agree that it helps ease the pain to talk about it. I do not

think it a good idea to hold your grief inside."

"This time I'm not holding anything in!" exclaimed Geordi, becoming seriously annoyed. Why does

everyone keep offering me tea and sympathy? Captain Kurn and Commander Kurak snickered, and La

Forge felt his face flush. "I really don't care whether Doctor Zorka died. I didn't wish him in--well, maybe

when I saw that B--but he was not my mentor! He was a lunatic."

"But..." began Riker, "but you always said you hated him."

Embarrassed, Geordi realized the commander was right.

"All right, I did say I hated him."

"You mean you really didn't like him?" Riker turned to Beverly as if to ask how could this be?

"Yes!" admitted Geordi, exasperated into the honest truth. "I confess! I hated everything about him,' the

old fraud. I hated having to rewrite papers to support his idiotic obsessions, and I hated answering

questions wrong just to get a good grade on his tests. If it hadn't been for tenure, the real engineers at

Starfleet would have fired him before I even arrived!"

Beverly answered, confused. "I thought... well, you joked about him so much, about how crazy he was,

that we all thought you really loved him."

Data cocked his head quizzically. "Were you not being gruffly humorous when you spoke of Doctor

Zorka's mental imbalances?"

"No, Data, I was not being gruffly humorous. I would have been perfectly happy if he had, well, retired

or something years ago. I didn't want him to die, but he had no business instructing at the Academy or

receiving Federation grants.

"He was always in the news, each time with some grand new invention he was supposedly perfecting that

he never quite finished, of course. I kept asking, 'Why does the Federation keep funding this doddering,

old mental patient?"

"But that wasn't my subtle way of saying, 'Gee, I sure wish I were back in his Engines 313 class, slaving

away over a hot warp coil and pulling Bs again!'"

Kurn interrupted. "The Klingon Empire does not have time to waste on such frivolous banter!"

"But you chose him as your dissertation advisor," countered Data.

"No--he chose me. I wanted Crystal Estes. I worked my whole senior year at the Academy on that

dissertation, and Zorka rejected it! I didn't take into account his new theory on mystical subspace

nonsense. He made me rewrite it over the next five months."

Kurn leapt to his feet. "Enough! I have important tactics to consider for the exammfor the greater good of

the Klingon battle fleet! I shall not tolerate this foolishness any further!"

"Guys, please," said Geordi, "I'm not fooling. I'm not broken up; I'm not hiding any pain; I don't care! His

papers were garbage, his discoveries nonexistent, and he was an irritating son of a... son of a bachelor.

Now will you please let me get back to work on the retrofit?"

Riker looked at Beverly, then Data; Dr. Crusher pursed her lips; and Data deliberately raised both

eyebrows. "Sorry, Geordi," said Commander Riker, sounding distinctly miffed.

"I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean it that way. It was really nice of you all to worry about me... but I'm fine.

Really."

"Yes, right, fine!" snarled Kurn. "Good-bye, good-bye; Commander, terminate communication." The

screen went blank; after a moment, it was replaced by the tactical map again. "Now get off the bridge,

human, and take that... take my brother with you back to the engine room. Get busy with that cloak

detector!" Kurn turned back to the map, staring at it with such intensity that Geordi would not have been

surprised to see it burst into flames.

"Um, maybe we'd better head back down to the engineering section, Worf."

"I think that is a good plan."

As soon as the doors closed behind them and they started back along the neck of the Hiding Fish, Worf

added, "After all, we would not want to cause my brother's second attempt at the examination to go as

badly as his first."

When they arrived back in the bee-hive-like catacombs of the Klingon engineering "department,"

Lieutenant Dakvas pointed at a small screen. "Message for Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge

from the Enterprise."

"Again?" Frustrated, Geordi jabbed the comm link button, activating the screen.

Commander Deanna Troi, the ship's counselor, stared at him from the viewscreen, her face dripping

concern and understanding. "Geordi," she said, "I understand how you feel. I can sense your stress. We

all feel stress and apprehension when someone near and dear to us passes on. Would you like to talk to

someone about it?"

IT TOOK GEORDI A WHILE to shoo Counselor Troi off the comm link. No, Doctor Zorka was not

my mentor; yes, I'm fine; yes, I know I'm agitated; no, it's not because of Zorka's death, it's because of

all the sympathy I don't need. At last, Deanna seemed eighty-five percent convinced and signed off.

He shook his head in amazement. "I never realized how much I must have mentioned Zorka," he said to

Worf.

"You brought him up more than you think, Commander."

"Did you think I really liked the guy?"

Worfgrunted, considering. "I thought it was some strange human custom, speaking in of absent comrades

to ward off evil. Some Klingon families have taboos against excessive praise."

They had barely resumed working on the retrofit when Geordi received a third transmission from the

Enterprise.

This time, it was Captain Picard himself.

"I'm very sorry for your loss," said Picard. "Doctor Zorka was a fine man."

"Thank you, sir," said Geordi, striving not to allow a tone of exasperation to enter his voice.

"I would like to speak with you, Mister La Forge, in private. Please contact me at your convenience."

"Urn, sir, if this is about Zorka, I'm fine. I really am. I don't need to talk it out, sir. But thank you for your

"I'm afraid you don't understand, Commander. I need to speak to you about Doctor Zorka. When would

be convenient?"

"Let me check, sir."

Geordi turned to Worf and spoke too quietly for Picard to hear over the comm link. "Did the captain

sound urgent to you, or is it just me?"

Worf spoke quietly. "All transmissions to and from Klingon ships are monitored. I believe the captain

wants you to return to your quarters and reestablish contact on a private channel."

"That's what I thought. Can you take over, Worf?"

Worf nodded. "I can finish remodulating the shields, but you will need to return and help me tune the

disruptors."

Geordi turned back to the viewscreen. "Captain, I'm on my way back to my quarters. I'll contact you as

soon as I get there."

"Thank you," said Picard.

"La Forge out."

Geordi looked around, trying to find the engineering watch-stander to tell him he was leaving. But the

Klingon had vanished.

"Worf, what happened to Dakvas?"

"He hurried away abruptly as soon as Captain Picard said he needed to speak to you privately. He has

probably gone around the corner to call Kurn."

Geordi hurried back to his quarters, reluctant to leave the retrofit project at such a critical phase.

However, the hardness in Picard's voice had told Geordi more than the words themselves: The captain,

and probably the Enterprise, had some serious problem related to Zorka's death; and Picard needed to

pick Geordi's brain about the enigmatic instructor and inventor.

Geordi and Worf's temporary quarters were decorated in old, "High Klingon" style with various bladed

weapons hanging from the walls amid harshly representational paintings of socially useful activities.

Geordi quickly popped open the communications viewer. He took several moments to figure out the

innards, then disconnected a particular fiber and plugged it directly into his data-reader. He connected

the data-reader output back into the viewscreen.

He sent the initial search string unencrypted to establish the link with the Enterprise computer. Then he

shifted to scramble mode, encrypting the transmission by a specific pair of 900-digit numbers. After a

moment, Captain Pi-card's face appeared onscreen.

The captain's normally spotless desk was piled high with data clips labeled "Zorka--moment trans beam,"

"Zorka --phasr I'll screen," and so forth... all inventions that Geordi remembered seeing announced in

engineering and physics journals at one time or another over the past ten years--and not a one of which

he recalled ever being actually demonstrated.

Captain Picard did not look up; he contemplated the pile of data clips on his desk. "Commander La

Forge," he began at last, "I'm glad to hear back from you so soon."

"This line is secure, sir."

"Good. Geordi, Will has given me a brief report on the discussion of a few minutes ago."

"I'm sorry, sir; I didn't mean to be rude. I know they were all trying to be helpful."

"That's not what worries me. I need your unbiased judgment about a matter related to Doctor Zorka, and

I'm concerned you may have such strongly negative feelings about the man that you cannot be impartial."

"Well... I can try, sir. But I can't guarantee anything. I really didn't like that old crank."

Picard finally looked up, fixing Geordi with his eyes. "Are you aware of what Zorka's son has done upon

his father's death?"

"ImI didn't even know he had a son."

"You'll see it in tomorrow's message traffic. Doctor Zorka's son is a middle-aged artist who has never

achieved the level of success to which he believes himself entitled. He has received three grants from the

Federation Arts Council, but the last one was on stardate" Picard glanced at his screent2358."

"Twelve years ago."

Picard nodded. "In short, he's broke."

"Why is Starfleet so interested in Zorka's son?"

"That, Geordi, is what I want you to tell me. You told Will that Zorka was a complete fraud... I think that

was the word you used. However, in reading his file, I find no doubts expressed by any Subcommittee

members or fellows of the Federation Association for the Advancement of Science about Zorka's

bonafides. I cannot quite reconcile these two views of the same man."

"Is there a particular reason you have to, sir?"

Picard nodded. "Zorka's son, urn, Bradford Zorka, Jun-iort"

"Doctor Zorka's name was Bradford? I thought it was Jaymi."

"It was Jaymi. I don't know why his son calls himself 'junior,' but he does. Now Bradford Zorka, the son,

has decided to raise funds for a new art project by holding an auction of all of his father's notes,

inventions, and lab equipment. Starfleet has instructed us to attend this auction and bid on behalf of the

Federation."

Geordi stared. After a moment, he realized his mouth was open and shut it quickly. "Sir, I hope they

didn't send us a list of things we must bid on!"

The captain plucked another data clip from his desk and held it aloft. "A complete list of lots that we must

obtain, along with maximum prices we're allowed to bid."

Geordi sighed, tilting his head and shaking it. As he looked back at his screen, he saw peculiar flickering

around the edges. He recognized the particular interference pattern.

"Sir, the Klingons are running the transmission through a pattern-search subroutine, trying to break the

encryption.

Why are we keeping this secret in any case?"

"Let me know if you think it's been decrypted. Commander La Forge, one of the items we're particularly

interested in is a photonic pulse cannon. Zorka claims to have developed it quite recently, about three

years ago. His paper in the Journal of Plasma Extrusions claimed that it would punch right through our

best shields... or anyone else's. Now, I haven't actually seen this demonstrated--"

"Neither has anybody else. It's 'vaporware,' another fantastic invention he announced but never released."

"Nevertheless," continued the captain, undaunted, "there are still... unresolved problems relating to the

succession of Emperor Kahless, and Starfleet is concerned that such a weapon not fall into the hands of

some of the more, ah, exuberant members of the Klingon High Council who are having trouble accepting

the new emperor."

"Well, you don't have anything to worry about, sir. The photonic pulse weapon is about as real as

Rumpelstiltskin!"

"Geordi, if you can prove that, or if you can show good evidence that Doctor Zorka was actually

mentally disturbed or delusional, you would make a lot of Federation scientists and Starfleet admirals

sleep easier."

Helplessly, Geordi spread his hands. "I don't have any specific evidence, if that's what you mean. I had

many discussionstwell, I guess you'd call them argumentst with Zorka when I was in his class. Every

week, he had a new master plan to save the universe: One time, he wanted Starfleet disbanded, since it

only encouraged violence. He said the only solution to violence was for all the good people, and he really

used the term 'good people,' to unilaterally disarm themselves so the bad people wouldn't feel threatened

anymore.

"Another day, he suggested we build an army ofandroids to do all our fighting for us; then he proposed to

the Starfleet Academic Council that we no longer teach basic warp-field engineering principles because

they had all been developed from the phase-space equations of Professor Vinge."

"Vinge?"

"The mathematician and philosopher who spent the last eleven years of his life trying to prove that the

universe is actually a hollow sphere and you can get across the galaxy by moving in the opposite

direction. Zorka hated him for some reason. Personally, I loved Vinge's classes; he was crazy, but good

crazy."

Picard raised his brows. "Geordi, I hope your opinion isn't mere ivory-tower political intrigue."

"You know me better than that, sir. It's not that Zorka had weird ideas; the problem is that he supported

them with crackpot arguments, like the disarmament theory. He claimed there was secret, unpublished

research that showed that the Cardassian Empire was a peace-loving utopia until they discovered

us--and then they turned into a military dictatorship in response! He claimed there was a secret,

Federation warehouse on Deep Space Five, at the Car-dassian border, where Starfleet had the remains

of the first Cardassian ship we encountered: a peaceful trading mission that we supposedly blew out of

orbit for no reason."

The captain could not resist a smile. "So, have you actually been to Deep Space Five?"

"Yes, sir. I surveyed their engineering systems on a ship's tour before I joined the Enterprise. There isn't

room on Deep Space Five for a warehouse to store a Cardassian ship!

It's a tiny outpost, nowhere near as big as the other deep-space stations; about the size of the

Enterprise's saucer section."

Picard looked back at his monitor and flipped through several screens. "I don't find mention in Zorka's

file of any adverse psychiatric evaluation."

"You probably don't find any normal ones, either," predicted Geordi.

Picard nodded. "You're right. There are no medical records at all. I suspect they have been withheld in

consideration of his son Bradford's privacy."

"Captain," said La Forge, "Doctor Zorka may have been a crackpot, but he was brilliant, at least when

he was young.

He practically invented modern phasers, or at least the solid-state phase amplification, and he cut his

teeth developing half the modern medical equipment that we use.

"It's just that when he got older, he couldn't distinguish between a correct brilliant theory and a brilliantly

worked out crank theory... and frankly, neither can most of Starfleet, myself included.

"All the stuff that Zorka wrote about in the journals sounds workable, until you actually start working with

it. His inventions are like ingenious perpetual-motion machines... the flaws are subtle, but profound. I

can't prove he was delusional, certainly not at a sanity hearing. He probably wasn't, in the medical sense:

He didn't crack eggs on his head or think he was a potted plant, or anything like that. Sir, I think we've

only got another minute or so before the Kilngens either decrypt the transmission or give up and have a

sudden equipment failure."

Picard considered, glancing from Geordi to the screen and back again. "Commander, you still leave me

with my original problem: If I can't prove that Zorka didn't invent a photonic pulse cannon, then I have no

choice but to head directly toward the auction and begin bidding. "Because of the dangerous nature of

some of his experiments, Zorka's laboratory is located outside Federation space. And Bradford junior

has made it very clear that we are not to be the only parties invited to the auction. We expect to see

Klingons, Bajorans, Cardassians, Ferengi... **skip**in fact, everybody but the Borg."

"I'm sorry, sir. I can't tell you any more than I already said. You've trusted my gut feelings before; my gut

feeling is that Zorka is a zilch. There's no photonic pulse cannon, no momentum-transfer beam, and no

psi-directed transporter.

It's like antigravity paint or Vinge's hollow sphere... makes a great story, but there's no such thing."

"Very well, Commander. I have no choice. You and Commander Worf shall return to the Enterprise as

soon as you finish the retrofit. When will that be?"

"Another day should do it, sir."

"Make it so. Picard out."

Geordi reached for the comm switch; but just then, a burst of static swamped the picture and sound,

turning the viewscreen into nothing but snow and white noise. Geordi chuckled and turned it off. I guess

Kurn got tired of ttying to crack the code, he thought.

He rose and returned to Worf in the engineering section, but the Enterprise's security officer stood stiffly

near the shields console with his arms crossed, two beefy, Klingon "liaisons" at his sides.

"It seems that our retrofiting project has been terminated," growled Worf.

"Temporarily," added the gorgeous Commander Kurak, stepping from the shadows. Geordi consciously

noticed her for the first time: She looked like she could bench-press Worf, if necessary. Geordi sighed;

what was the chance that a beautiful Klingon warrior and commander of a scoutship would be attracted

to a short, human engineer with a peculiar VISOR? He decided the odds hovered somewhere between

"Earth's moon is actually made out of ice" and "every air molecule in the engineering deck simultaneously

decides to crowd into one corner of the room": slim and quite a bit slimmer.

Kurak explained. "We received emergency orders to journey to a particular spot at maximum speed. We

cannot afford to shut down the power grid while you two work on the shields and disruptors."

"How did you know we were going to have to shut down the power grid in a few hours?"

She smiled, looking deadly and amused at the same time.

"I began in the engines section myself. I have followed your project from the beginning."

Mmm... Geordi sighed for the second time in ten seconds. "All right. We have to return to the Enterprise

anyway. How soon can you rendezvous with our ship so we can beam over?"

Worf snorted; "I already made that request, Commander.

It seems that a rendezvous is impossible."

"Ah," said Geordi, nodding. "Did your navigational computer suddenly break down? How inconvenient

and coincidental."

"Of course it did not break down," said Kurak, "we are not stupid, and we do not think you are stupid

either. We simply do not have the time to travel halfway across the sector to beam you back. We have

urgent orders to report, and 'urgent' means no time for passenger service or sightseeing."

"But we have to get back to our ship urgently, too!"

"Geordi--may I call you by your familiar?--let us not play games. We are both going to the same place:

the auction of the estate of that Federation scientist who just died. Does it matter whether you go there in

our ship or yours? We will beam you down with our negotiation team and you can find your captain and

join up with him then."

She stepped closer to the Enterprise engineer. "Besides ú.. is it really that harsh a penalty to have to

spend a few more days with me? It is so rare that I meet anyone, human or Klingon, who knows enough

about engines to have an intelligent conversation."

Geordi gulped, glancing from Kurak to Worf. His Klingon friend and colleague stared in fascination at a

piece of shield equipment that he had taken apart and put back together a dozen times in different spots

along the hull.

Kurak grabbed Geordi's arm, dragging him next to her.

"Let me show you a little something in my quarters," she breathed. "It is a holomorphic model of an

antique warp coil. I made it myself."

"I... I..." Geordi tried to lick dry lips. "I--"

"Sir," barked Worf, "I need your help briefly before you depart. Perhaps the commander can return to

her quarters and you join her there in a few minutes?"

She gazed speculatively at Worf. "By all means," she said, "I would not want anything to break because

of a lack of preparation." She left them.

"Worf, what are you doing?" demanded Geordi. "I think I really have a chance with her!"

"Do you know what her job is on this ship?"

"Um, first officer?"

"No, Commander. Kurak is the political officer. She watches the rest of the crew, including Kurn, and

reports on any deviations from the political orthodoxy of the homeworld. She is most certainly a member

of the security service and a trained killer."

"I won't hold it against her that she's a state torturer," said Geordi, trying for lighthearted banter.

"Klingons do not torture!" snapped Worf. "It is not honorable."

"Sorry, I apologize. Worf, I'll... I'll see you back at the quarters in a couple of hours."

He could not quite catch Worf's response, but he could swear the Klingon muttered "not likely." Then the

STAR TREK - TNG - 33 - Balance Of Power

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: