Текст книги "The Best and the Brightest"

Автор книги: Susan Wright

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 14 страниц)

They were all jabbering at once, so that Jayme couldn’t tell what was happening down there. But everyone seemed to be all right. She didn’t need a spotting loop to tell when all three faces expectantly turned up in her direction.

She almost called for them to wait for her while she took the truss‑lift down like a normal human being. But it would take forever for her to climb all the way up the tower and walk to the middle of the truss. Their presence must have already been recorded by the deformation of the enormous dish, supported by sensitive antigrav nodes, and surely there was an alarm going off somewhere that the dish needed adjustment.

Jayme swung her legs over the side. For a moment she hung there, facing a near‑vertical drop, her instincts crying danger. But a good officer knew how to roll with the punches.

“Ex astris, scientia!”Jayme cried out as she jumped off the edge.

The first part was the worst, when it felt like she was actually falling with hardly any contact between her and the wall. Then the drag of the slope caught her, redirecting her and making it feel like she was going even faster and out of control. Instinctively her hands tried to grab hold of the smooth surface and she flipped over on her stomach. All she could see was the sharp, white edge of the dish far overhead, cutting into the night sky.

Then something caught her ankle and jerked her in a big circle. Jayme cried out as her leg was practically pulled from her hip joint.

When she was convinced she was fully stopped, she checked to make sure the hole was safely far away. Then she finally rolled into a sitting position.

“Did you have to pull so hard?” she asked Bobbie Ray, digging into her pocket for the portable biogenerator that came in standard cadet first aid kits. Between the shoulder injury from the monorail and now this, she was beginning to realize why doctors were routinely assigned to away teams.

Bobbie Ray showed his teeth–his way of laughing. “Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch. Why doesn’t anyone ever thank me?”

Starsa was rubbing her head, mussing her thick curly ponytail as she glared at the Rex. “Can I have that when you’re done?” she asked Jayme.

Jayme handed it over and went to the access port. The tertiary mirror was positioned inside and down a few meters on its own steerable truss. A catwalk ran along the inner edge, with an antigrav lift right next to the cable that carried the amplified radio signal down into the receiving station.

“Well, we’re halfway there,” Jayme said, trying to think positively. “Let’s get going.”

Moll Enor woke from a deep sleep as the beeping got louder and more insistent. For a moment, the tonal quality reminded her of the wake‑up chime at the Symbiosis Institute and she thought she was back on Trill, awaiting notification that a symbiont had been selected for her.

As she struggled to sit up, still mostly asleep, she realized she was in the Academy Quad. The beeping was the sensor on Starsa’s pulmonary support unit and physiostimulator pack, warning that her activity was exceeding recommended limits. In the four weeks Moll Enor had known Starsa, the girl had exceeded her recommended physical limits thirty‑one times. The beeping was so routine that Moll had become accustomed to it and ignored it, knowing that the relay would buzz uncomfortably on Starsa’s implant, warning her to slow down.

But when she glanced at the time, she realized that T’Rees was still out, giving a workshop on extended meditation techniques. Usually Starsa’s Vulcan roommate took it upon himself to monitor Starsa’s habits and scold her when she was thoughtless.

Moll couldn’t understand what could be causing a medical alert at this time of night, when Starsa was usually in bed asleep. She quickly got up, noticing that Nev Reoh was still sleeping soundly in his bed, his mouth open and his face pressed against a pillow, with the blanket twisted impossibly around his body. One bare foot jutted over the edge. He didn’t even shift as the beeping escalated.

Moll Enor ran the few steps down the circular hallway and knocked on Starsa’s door. She could hear the beeping more loudly, and she knocked more insistently. When there was no answer, she went inside. But both the beds were empty, and a quick check in the refresher reassured her that Starsa wasn’t lying on the floor in distress.

With a sinking feeling, Moll checked the other two rooms in their Quad and found both empty. All four of the first‑year cadets were probably together–they had seemed to bond fairly quickly. But Elma’s absence surprised her. Elma was a year ahead of Moll, but until they were assigned to the same Quad, she had never seen the Holt woman. And Moll made it a point to notice everything. As the first host for the Enor symbiont, it was her duty to provide a solid foundation of experiences, as well as a wide‑ranging understanding of the numerous alien races that inhabited the Alpha Quadrant.

But Elma was a nonexistent presence in the Quad, and Moll was at a loss as to why she would be gone so late. She had never even seen a friend of hers come to the Quad.

Returning to Starsa’s room, Moll glanced around, but Starsa’s pulmonary support unit and physiostimulator pack were not immediately identifiable among the wreckage on the girl’s side of the partition. The room looked schizophrenic, with the Vulcan half painfully neat and bare while Starsa had almost covered her walls with pictures and holoscreens that ran loops of her favorite shows and family members performing odd customs. Moll had thought it was bad living with Nev Reoh, but at least the former Vedek maintained order on his side of their room. It was his verbal messiness that wore on her. He would ramble cheerfully for hours while she tried to concentrate on her studies, but he was so awkwardly eager to please that she never censored him, resolving that the experience must be good for her symbiont in someway.

Moll tapped the wall comm. “Computer, location of Cadet Starsa Taran.”

“Cadet Taran is not on Academy grounds.”

Moll could hardly think of the implications of that as the maddening beeping chose that moment to escalate to its highest level.

“What are you doing?” Nev Reoh suddenly asked behind her.

Moll Enor started, feeling guilty in spite of herself. “I’m looking for Starsa.”

Reoh sleepily rubbed his face, glancing from the empty beds to Moll Enor. Starsa noted the way even his pajamas bunched in odd places, just like his computer‑fitted cadet uniform somehow never seemed to hang right. He was wincing at the sound of the medical alarm.

“Did the first‑year cadets say what they were doing tonight?” She had to raise her voice.

“I don’t know.” His mouth hung open as he thought about it. “I don’t remember anything–”

The door whirred electronically and swung open. Moll Enor felt a leap of relief, but it was T’Rees, not Starsa. The Vulcan pulled back in surprise to see them.

“Hi,” Nev Reoh said innocently.

T’Rees tightened his lips, vexed at his slight display of emotion. “What are you two doing in my room?” Moll Enor gestured, but he had already noted the sound of the physiostimulator pack. “Where is Starsa?”

“We don’t know,” Reoh said. “The others are gone, too.”

T’Rees lifted one brow. “Everyone?”

“Yes.”

“Did you report this?” T’Rees asked, turning to the comm.

Moll crossed her arms defensively. “We were just about to.”

T’Rees pressed the emergency sequence. “Then we shall delay no longer.”

At the Deng Observatory, the four cadets stood on the circular platform of the antigrav lift as it gently descended into the receiving station. Bobbie Ray and Starsa gazed over the side, but Jayme never wanted to see another drop like that.

From the maintenance tubes at the base of the well it wasn’t far to reach the computer rooms. In the darkened, vaulted chambers, the radio signals were displayed on screens in colored patterns moving across the recording graphs. Numerous digital sequencers flashed the numbers of incoming data streams.

This was the part Jayme had been waiting for, sneaking up on Elma and catching her red‑handed. Her tricorder was out, recording the activity in the room; it indicated there was a human female on the opposite side.

Jayme tried to stay in the lead, but her team had other ideas. They fanned out among the terminals, making much more noise than she had anticipated. “Psst!”she hissed at them, trying to get them to fall into position. But Titus didn’t even glance her way, trying to take the lead as always, while Starsa was apparently mesmerized by the shifting abstract images on a large colorful display. Bobbie Ray had disappeared. Jayme forged on, clenching her teeth but determined to make it work out in spite of her team.

Suddenly the lights came on and Elma stepped onto an elevated platform. The cadets froze, absurdly caught in their stalking positions.

But Elma was clutching the rail, her knuckles white as her gaze shifted desperately from one to the other, as if shewas one who was caught.

“What are you doing here?” Titus demanded, pointing an accusing finger up at Elma.

“I was working . . .”

Bobbie Ray hitched one leg over a console, leaning casually back against the monitor. “Most people work when the observatory is open.”

“Yeah,” Titus said, inching closer to her. “What are you doing that you have to sneak in here at night?”

Elma swallowed, unable to let go of the rail.

“You might as well tell us,” Bobbie Ray advised her, examining a long, curved nail before chewing gently on it to smooth out a snag. “Or would you rather tell security?”

“Stop it!” Jayme ordered, shoving Titus out of the way so she could look up at Elma. “We’re not here to make trouble for you. We want to help.”

Before she could coax Elma into revealing the truth, they were rudely interrupted by the arrival of the observatory personnel. Doors banged open on all sides of the computer room, and at least ten technicians and scientists poured into the control room in various states of undress, rushing to the various monitors.

“What happened to the dish?” one of them blurted out, hanging onto the keyboard as he tried to make sense of the data. “There couldn’t have been an earthquake–”

“Who are you?” another one demanded, torn between the distressing numbers on their equipment and the strangers in the control room. Exclamations rang out over lost data and destroyed projects.

Jayme’s quadmates were inadvertently herded closer together by the frantic technicians. Then one older scientist pulled her robe tighter around herself, twisting up the side of her mouth as she realized what they were dealing with.

“Cadets!” she snarled, as if that one word said it all.

The cadets were at attention in a line in front of Superintendent Admiral Brand’s desk. Jayme noted that the room was perfectly proportioned to allow all eight members of a Quad to stand shoulder to shoulder. The fact that this was probably a common occurrence didn’t make her feel any better.

Admiral Brand sat with her back to the windows, where the dawn’s first rays tinted the sky, casting her face into shadow. Only her silver‑white hair caught the light, swept high off her forehead, while her hands were calmly folded on her desk.

“Then I saw the alarm from the subsidiary arrays,” Elma was explaining. “So I knew something was occluding the focus. From the variance of the interference fringes, it had to be a deformation of the main dish. I’d seen something like it before when the plates were being cleaned, so I was afraid the staff was working the night shift. I hid until my Quadmates showed up.”

Brand turned to the three other senior cadets. “Cadet First Class T’Rees, when was the first time you knew something was happening?”

“When I returned to my room and saw that Cadet Starsa Taran’s medical relay was on alert,” T’Rees replied, the epitome of attention. “I signaled the Academy medical unit immediately.”

Jayme couldn’t help rolling her eyes. Of course T’Rees had ratted on them.

Brand noticed and turned her attention to Jayme. “You were fortunate the observatory personnel handed you over to Academy security without pressing charges of trespassing. However, they may still claim compensatory damages for the loss of data and injury to the parabolic dish.”

“That was my fault,” Starsa freely admitted. “I slipped off the walkway and slid down the side. Cadet Jefferson jumped over to save me.” She gave the tall Rex a surprisingly sweet smile.

Bobbie Ray gave her a deadpan look, obviously remembering her indignant wailing.

Admiral Brand wasn’t distracted. “That doesn’t explain why you were attempting to break into the observatory in the first place.”

The other three cadets looked at Jayme, deferring responsibility to her. Jayme haltingly explained the sequence of events, from the first few nights when Elma had taken her tricorder, to her realization that she was going into the Deng Observatory after it was closed. She left out the part about falling off the monorail, figuring it would only confuse things.

Brand turned back to Elma. “Why did you take Cadet Miranda’s tricorder?”

“Because it has a security override I could use to get inside the observatory.” Elma kept her head down, her voice so low it was hard to hear her. “I had to. I couldn’t work during the regular lab hours. All those cadets talking and moving around . . . I can’t concentrate, so I’ve been doing my summaries when everyone’s gone.”

“Oh, we thought you were a Bajoran resistance fighter,” Starsa said artlessly.

“ Whatdid you think?” Admiral Brand asked, her voice strained with incredulity.

“Jayme–I mean,” Starsa quickly corrected herself, “Cadet Miranda said Elma was tapping communiquйs with the telescope and relaying them to the resistance fighters.”

Jayme wanted to kick Starsa, but it was too late. “Uh, you know, because she’s from Holt . . . and I thought, it seemed to make sense at the time, why she was being so secretive . . .”

Elma actually raised her head, blinking rapidly as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. All of Jayme’s fantasy scenarios crumpled under Elma’s blank, uncomprehending stare.

T’Rees sniffed in disdain. “You should have informed the senior cadets in your Quad.”

“Well, since you bring it up, I tried!” Jayme shot back. “Remember when I came into your room last week? But you wouldn’t even listen when I told you it was about Elma. You said she had seniority since she was a last‑year cadet, and that I had to work my problems out with her!”

“That’s enough,” Brand ordered. The cadets immediately stiffened, facing the window again. “I believe this incident reflects a failure of your entire Quad. You are responsible for each other, and I hope that before the end of the year you will have learned that.” She paused, letting her words sink in. “A formal reprimand will be placed in each of your academic records, and you are all hereby placed on probation for sixty days.”

Jayme flushed at the sentence. Her family was going to have a fit when they heard she was already in serious trouble after barely arriving at the Academy.

But the worst was yet to come as Brand walked around her desk to stand directly in front of Jayme. “Cadet Miranda, I expected more from you. Henceforth, you will refrain from letting your . . . fancies interfere with your duty to Starfleet. If you do detect a spy in our midst, we would all be better served if you alert your commanding officer.”

“Yes, sir!” Jayme agreed. “It won’t happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” Elma suddenly agreed. The cadet broke ranks, stepping forward. “Superintendent Brand, I would like to resign my commission to the Academy.”

“No!” Jayme blurted out.

Brand waved a hand at Jayme, silencing her. “What is your reason?”

“I’m not suited to Starfleet. I can’t stand being around people who don’t act right–” Elma stopped herself. “I mean, act like we do on Holt. I belong there, and I’ve been delaying the inevitable by sneaking around, trying to avoid everyone.”

Brand considered her for a moment, then her expression softened as she gently clasped Elma’s shoulder. “I’ve been impressed with your persistence, and I had hoped you would become accustomed to the different culture.”

Elma stiffly shook her head, unable to speak.

Brand nodded. “Very well, remain here, cadet. The rest of you are dismissed. You will be notified if the Deng Observatory pursues compensation.”

The others practically ran out of the superintendent’s office, but Jayme dragged her feet. She would have protested again, but Brand silently shook her head and motioned to the door. Jayme’s last look at Elma caught the older cadet staring down at her fingers, twisting them together painfully, unable to return Brand’s reassuring smile.

All day Jayme kept thinking about the way Elma always twined her fingers together, pulling and bending them as if to distract herself from some outer torment. Why hadn’t she been able to see what was happening?

When Jayme returned to the Quad from her classes, Elma’s half of the room was empty. The cabinets were cracked open and the desk under the other square window had been cleared off.

Jayme sat down on the bare mattress, feeling like she should be shot. “What have I done?” she moaned out loud. “This is awful! What can I do?”

The door slowly swung open and Nev Reoh stuck his head cautiously around. “Uh . . . is there something wrong?”

With tears starting to form in her eyes, Jayme wordlessly held out her arms to the empty room.

“She’s gone?”

Even in her sorrow, Jayme was exasperated. “What do you think? I’m surprised they didn’t expel me, too.”

“But Elma quit. She didn’t get expelled.”

“I’m talking about Locarno!” Jayme buried her head in her hands, thinking of the last self‑styled hero who had hit the Academy. Who was she to think she could save the universe, much less one frightened woman from Holt?

“Nick Locarno?” Nev Reoh’s brow creased in confusion, making him look even older. “You mean the leader of Nova Squadron?”

“Who else?” Jayme sighed, letting her hands fall into her lap. “I don’t expect you to understand, but I . . . I haven’t been doing as well in my classes as everyone seems to expect. I thought this was a way I could prove myself. . . .”

“But you’re getting B’s, Jayme! That’s not failure. Believe me, I know what it means to fail–”

“I know, I know. You were such a terrible Vedek; you’ve told everyone that.”

Abashed, Reoh bent his head. “I admire what Elma did. It’s hard to make a big change. To give up everything you’ve planned on. I bet that’s why she didn’t say good‑bye to us.”

“Because she was ashamed,” Jayme agreed.

Surprisingly, Reoh shook his head. “No, because we didn’t matter anymore. She knew this part of her life was over. So she could walk away.”

“That’s pretty heartless,” Jayme protested. “She’s been here almost four years. She was practically ready to graduate.”

Nev Reoh shrugged. “You can only struggle for so long. If something’s not working, then you have to try something else.” He glanced shyly up at her. “You know, Iwas in the Bajoran resistance.”

“You!” Jayme exclaimed.

Nev Reoh nodded, unhurt by her obvious shock.

“You were?” she asked, unable to stop herself from looking harder at his wrinkled Bajoran nose. “Really?”

“I was very young and wanted to help like everyone else. But I don’t like to fight. I can’t even hold a disrupter‑rifle, much less point it at anyone,” he confessed. “So I thought that meant I should be a Vedek. Nonviolent resistance, but you know the rest . . . that wasn’t right for me, either. I’m better suited to geological studies.”

Jayme stared at his honest, open face. “I didn’t know you fought Cardassians.”

Even when Reoh grinned, he looked vaguely worried. “Everything works out the way it’s supposed to, Jayme. Even Nick Locarno got what he wanted.”

“You don’t mean he wantedto be expelled.”

“No, not exactly. But he wanted everyone to remember him. So he tried to take a shortcut, and now no one will ever forget him.”

“Yeah, you’d think he was still around, as much as everyone whispers his name when something goes wrong,” Jayme agreed ruefully.

“That’s good, because that means Joshua Albert didn’t die for nothing. Everything’s tightened up, shipshape. It should be. Too many people were killed fighting the Borg last year. We’re the only ones who can take their place. Even if we aren’t perfect.”

“Right,” Jayme agreed, straightening her shoulders. Maybe she wasn’t as good at engineering as she should be, but she could only keep trying. Besides, shenever claimed she was as brilliant as her mother or her older sister. “I guess you’re saying I’ll have to do it the hard way, right?”

“I never found any other way,” Nev Reoh earnestly assured her.

Chapter Two

TITUS COULD FEEL THE SWEAT on his palms making his grip on the antaraslip as he swung it around again, trying to hamstring Bobbie Ray. The big orange Rex took advantage of his hesitation and began pummeling his antara, trying to break through the back stave. Titus went down on one knee, very much aware that they were fighting without the protective face shield and arm guards usually worn during antaracompetitions. But this match was for real.

Bobbie Ray’s face bent over him, his long teeth bared in a grin as he kept pressing his advantage. His heavy breathing was the only sound.

“You know you snore at night,” Titus told him between blows, managing to summon up a defiant grin of his own. “Maybe you should get that checked–”

“Grrgh!”Bobbie Ray rumbled as his antaraflashed down, then jerked up–a move Titus didn’t know the Rex was aware of. A move that had no proper defense when an opponent was down.

The long, jagged blade seemed to slow as it came toward his face. The point buried under his chin and ripped through his head, coming out the top. Blood spurted everywhere, darkening the white padded floor and walls, while a universal groan of disgust rose from the cadets who were watching.

As Titus’s body crumpled, Bobbie Ray took up position over him, bowing slightly to the scattered applause. Victoriously, he raised one foot to place it on his prostrate opponent.

Titus’s image flickered and disappeared. “Don’t you dare put your dirty paw on me!” Titus exclaimed as he dropped the handles of the hologame.

Bobbie Ray’s image also disappeared as the Rex stood up, stretching. He had an unbearably smug look on his face. “Something wrong, roomie? It was a fair match.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Titus muttered, handing over the holocontrols.

“Excuse me?” Bobbie Ray drawled. “You picked the weapons. Though I don’t know how your people accomplish anything with a toy like an antara.”

Titus smothered his anger in the face of the laughter from the other cadets who had crowded into their room to watch the match.

“That’s a great hologame,” Jayme told Bobbie Ray. “Did your parents gave it to you during the midyear break?”

“Yeah, they got it from a environmental designer they work with.” Bobbie Ray carefully put the holocontrols in a foam contoured box. “It’s a prototype that won’t be on the market until the end of this year.”

Starsa was sitting cross‑legged on Titus’s bed. “Is there any kind of game you don’thave?”

“I doubt it.” Bobbie Ray was looking unbearably conceited again. Their friends started to drift out of the room, saying good‑bye.

Jayme sidled up to Titus. “You aren’t exactly the poster boy for good losers.”

“It’s hisgame,” Titus retorted. “How can anyone beat him at it?”

Jayme shrugged, grinning. “You were the one who challenged him to an antaramatch.”

Titus turned away. “I’m not used to those controls.”

“Hey, everyone, look!” Starsa called out, “Comm, sound on.”

The small screen over the door routinely ran the Federation news service, along with information that was pertinent to the Academy, like announcements from professors or the superintendent herself. This time it was breaking news from the San Francisco local media station. The announcer had a fashionably shaved head with a blue forehead‑cockade, and she seemed unusually shaken.

“We take you live to the site,” she was saying as the sound came up. The image switched to a view of workers wearing the orange uniforms of the city maintenance department climbing out of an underground tunnel.

“Starsa, who cares–” Titus started to say.

“Look at that?” Jayme exclaimed as the image switched again.

It was a head, like the severed head of a mannequin lying in the dirt. As the camera swung around to view the face, it revealed the blank, golden stare of Lieutenant Commander Data.

The announcer was saying, “Work crews excavating beneath the city of San Francisco today discovered artifacts suggesting an extraterrestrial presence on Earth sometime during the late nineteenth century. Among the artifacts discovered is an object identified as the head of Lieutenant Commander Data of Starfleet. According to isotope readings, it has decayed from having been buried for some 500 years.”

“That’s impossible!” Starsa blurted out, and was shushed by the others.

“Starfleet Command reports that their flagship, the Enterprise‑D, has been recalled to Earth to investigate this anomaly.” The blue cockade bobbed impressively. “Now we take you to the tunnels near the Presidio, home of Starfleet Academy, to view the remains.”

“Remains!” Starsa exclaimed again.

“Will you pleaseshut up?” Bobbie Ray asked with exaggerated politeness, shouldering some of the remaining cadets aside to get a better view.

Titus sat down at his desk, staring out the window at the Golden Gate Bridge. He was just as pleased to have their minds so quickly diverted from the antaramatch. He listened with only half an ear as the announcer described how the workers had discovered the severed head while installing additional seismic regulators in subterranean caverns to control earth movements that were typical along the San Andreas fault.

“Subterranean caverns,” Titus repeated under his breath, realizing what that implied. Impatiently, he waited for the broadcast to end and the last of the cadets to depart to spread the bizarre news.

Finally only Bobbie Ray and Jayme were left, and Titus knew Jayme would probably linger in their room all evening unless he asked her to leave. He had noticed she didn’t like spending much time in her half‑empty room, ever since Elma had resigned from the Academy. Jayme had more than once voiced her hope that a new cadet would fill the space after the half‑year break, but her room was still empty.

“I have an idea,” Titus told them both. “That is, if you want to have some real fun instead of holofakery.”

Bobbie Ray curled one lip at the intended slight. “What’s your bright idea this time?”

“You’ve never had a real thrill until you’ve descended a hundred meter fissure into an underground cavern.”

“You want to go down to the caves?” Bobbie Ray asked in disbelief. “Are you crazy? You know how many security teams they must have posted?”

“We can’t disturb the excavation site,” Jayme agreed. “It could interfere with the Enterprise’s investigation.”

Titus raised his eyes to the heavens. “I’m not stupid. We can explore the caverns without going near the Presidio.” He directly challenged Bobbie Ray. “Unless, that is, you’re too scared.”

Bobbie Ray hesitated, then shrugged, willing to go along with anything, as usual. Jayme briefly considered it before shaking her head. “You don’t know these caverns. They’re dangerous; that’s why they were sealed off ages ago.”

“We’re not worried,” Titus assured her. “It’s better to have three people on an underground exploratory team, but we’ll go duo without you if we have to.”

“Even if I did agree to go, you’d never find a way to get inside.”

“Just leave that to me,” Titus told them, feeling much better now. “I’ll get us below ground. Or I’m not an Antaranan.”

Titus had grown up in the human colony of Antaranan, more in the caves than on the surface, so he figured there was nobody better to find their way through these puny San Franciscan caverns than himself. His mother was a biospeleologist, and had often taken him into the unexplored caverns and passageways that riddled the crust of Antaranan, far beyond the familiar chambers used by the colony to grow the essential fungal‑meats and fragile vegetable matter away from the harmful solar rays.

It wasn’t difficult to access the maintenance records of the seismic regulators under San Francisco, as well as the original surveys of the caverns performed hundreds of years ago. Most of the main access ports were in the heart of the city–the financial district, in Union Square, even the ancient yards of the Southern Pacific Railroad.

When he showed Jayme the map, she shook her head at all of the access ports he suggested. As she liked to tell the other cadets, she knew the city inside out.

“This is where we should go down,” she insisted, pointing to a small auxiliary porthole near the Cable Car Barn Museum.

Bobbie Ray squinted at the print over that area. “Chinatown?”

“I was looking for a more out‑of‑the‑way place,” Titus protested. “That’s one of the most crowded areas in the city.”

“Exactly!” Jayme exclaimed. “Everyone’s too busy and there’s too much going on for anyone to pay much attention to a few people going down the access port.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Bobbie Ray agreed. “Maybe we should get some orange coveralls. After all the media attention with the arrival of the Enterprise‑D, no one will think it’s unusual for workers to access old tunnels.”

“Fine,” Titus said, resuming control of the expedition. “Then you’ll be ready to go on the next free day?”

“Sure; should we tell Starsa?” Jayme asked.

“The last thing we need is her medical alert going off,” Titus protested. “This isn’t some joyride we’re going on. It’s serious. Both of you should make sure you really want to do this.”

Jayme nodded. “If you go, then I should go, too. I checked, and it is safer with three people.”

Bobbie Ray yawned, reclining back on the cushions of his bed. “I think you’re blowing this whole thing out of proportion. We saw those caves. Looks like an afternoon stroll to me.”

“Just you wait and see.” Titus tried to sound ominous, but Bobbie Ray ruined it by laughing.