Chapter
Two
"That's pretty weird..."
"You
got that right, doctor." Kline said, suppressing a yawn. "But it was
real; I would bet my limbs on it..."
"As
the physician in charge of your health I won't accept that bet...yet..."
Tarses smiled while he passed his tricorder over the captain. "Looks like
you're pretty tired..."
"And
you need a tricorder to find that out?" Kline grinned. "I should put
in a request to Starfleet for a more competent CMO."
The
doors to sickbay hissed open and lt. commander Sutter stepped in, a look of
concern on her face. She approached the Captain and the doctor.
"Commander,"
Kline let his yawn pass this time. "What have you got?"
"A
little less than nothing, I'm afraid." She said. "Stevenson turned
the holodeck systems inside out and he hasn't found anything..."
"Well
I can't say I've done better than Mister Stevenson..." Tarses said as he
dropped the tricorder in his pocket. "I can't find any evidence that
something is going wrong in the captain's body...He's in perfect health aside
from some tiredness..."
"So
what the hell did I hear down there?" Kline demanded, although he knew no
one was able to answer such a question. "I was hoping not to go senile
before I reached at least a hundred years old..."
"I'm
afraid we don't know..." Tarses said with a sigh. "...for now. The
only thing I can tell you to do right now is try to get some rest, I'll give
you something to help you sleep if you'd like...This still could be a symptom
of fatigue so let's see if this simple cure works, for now..."
"Understood,"
Kline nodded, standing up from the bio-bed. "Good night, everyone...I'll
see you all tomorrow..."
* * *
Everybody
seemed to be moving in slow motion...People running seemed to be floating
between steps and their words would be unintelligible when spoken...But one
could still feel that something big was going on, there was a coolant leak
somewhere on the core and engineering was being evacuated...
Captain
Kline tried to concentrate on the people's faces but when he focused to look at
someone their faces would only get blurrier and become masks of smooth
skin...Forbidding him to see what they looked like.
Lazily,
he wandered through the corridors, people ran in all directions...Screaming,
falling...Some of them were dead, sprawled on the deck and others were dying...
Suddenly,
he found himself on the bridge...He didn't seem to remember how he got there
but it was unimportant to him at this time...The bridge was also very
active...The faceless officers shouted and pointed at the viewscreen, but the
only thing Kline could see on the viewscreen was a black void. What was scaring
them so?
There
was a high-pitched scream...Perhaps it was human, perhaps it was not, Kline
couldn't tell. And suddenly the officer in the captain's chair stood up...He
was holding a medieval sword with his two hands; mechanically, he began slicing
through his fellow officers with precise, robot-like movements...Soon the walls
and floor of the bridge were covered in blood and Kline stood alone with the
captain of this ship...
Kline
approached the unmoving Captain without fear, oblivious to the bloody blade
which the officer held. He bent down to examine the face of the Captain...
At
first it was blurred, like the others...But soon the features re-formed and
became a real face...A beautiful face...
The
woman had black hair and brown eyes, she didn't move.
She
was familiar to Kline, he felt as if she was his best friend and he had known
her for decades...
Suddenly
her mouth began moving but no sound emerged from between her lips.
Kline
bent down closer to her and said: "What?"
"Please
help us..." She whispered.
Kline's
eyes opened suddenly...
He
sat up in his bed and took a deep breath...It had been the same voice. The
woman on that bridge...She was asking for help. But what kind
of help?
He
massaged his eyes...He needed to be cautious...If this was indeed a fantasy he
wasn't supposed to let it take a hold of him.
He
lay back down and closed his eyes...But sleep did not come. The voice and the
face of that woman haunted him for the next half-hour...And he decided to go to
sickbay.
* * *
"It
was like I was in some kind of trance..." He told lt. Davies as she
pressed a hypospray to his right arm. "Really weird..."
"Most
dreams are," She said with a small smile.
"And
then that woman...She's the same one who spoke to me in the holodeck."
"Hmm..."
She frowned.
He
looked up at her with a raised eyebrow: "What?"
"It
looks to me like you're getting pretty sucked into this whole story..."
"Me?
Nonsense..." He said hesitantly. "I'm just...fascinated, that's
all."
"Mmm..." She passed the tricorder over him, taking a
few scans. "I still think it's nothing..."
"Why
would she appear in the two places if this didn't mean something?"
"After
hearing that voice in the holodeck the moment was probably imprinted on your
subconscious...Your dream was built from this strong memory, it's obvious. You
told me the woman was familiar, that's probably because you've already seen her
in real life, you just don't remember her...Your mind is associating random
thoughts from your subconscious and transmitting this information through your
dreams."
The
captain blinked, then smiled in surprised amusement: "Well...Looks like
you took a course in psychology at the academy, lieutenant."
She
smiled: "Quite a few, actually..."
"Well...I'll
think about it." He yawned. "Thanks for the hypospray; I'll just have
a cup of tea before going to bed."
"Okay...But
if you feel the sedative starting to affect you then you'd better go straight
back to your quarters..."
"Understood,"
He smiled. "Don't worry about me..."
"I'll
try not to," She smiled back.
* * *
"Up
late, captain?" Cryptologist Lieutenant Yasmin Reeves approached Kline's
table and asked permission to sit down before doing so.
"Yeah...I've
been having some trouble sleeping." He said.
"I
heard that..." She nodded. "I'd be surprised no one on the ship knows
about it."
"'It'?" He glanced around the mess hall
with a mixed look of annoyance and amusement. "What do you mean...?"
"You
know..." She stirred her coffee. "The...voices
in the holodeck."
He
sighed: "I bet everyone thinks I'm a crackpot too, right?"
"Hmm..."
She smiled. "Possibly,"
He
stared into his cold tea for a moment, his eyes unfocused.
"You
know..." He said after a few moments of silence. "I've always been
scared of that..."
"Of what?" Reeves asked.
"Becoming--you
know--crazy..."
"Oh, yeah."
"When
I was eight years old my uncle--who was in Starfleet--came back home from a
mission on some distant planet...He said he had caught a nasty bug that was
causing slow damage to his brain...And after that, slowly, day after day he
started growing less and less like himself...More like a stranger. He'd forget
our names, mistake us for other people and tell us stories about himself which
were actually stories from books he read...It was..."
Reeves
waited in silence, listening with interest.
"It
was pretty goddamned horrible..." He said with a bitter expression.
"And then he began losing his mind...He heard voices, had
hallucinations...We needed to send him to the hospital after one day he
attacked my mom with a pair of scissors...We just couldn't take care of him
anymore...He died when I was ten after one year with us and one in the
hospital..."
"Was
it hard for you?"
"Yeah..."
He nodded. "My uncle had always been more of a father to me than even my own
father..."
"Really?" Reeves blinked.
Kline
nodded: "My father and I didn't really get along...He was always
controlling me, you know? Always choosing everything for me...He would always
check all available information on my friends as he could...To make sure 'I
wouldn't get any bad influence'...I hated him for that."
"Is
your relationship still like that?" She asked.
Kline
shook his head: "No...He died when I was fifteen, in the line of
duty."
"Oh,
sorry..."
Another
moment of silence passed, Kline found it comforting to speak with someone.
"How about you?" He asked. "How were your
parents?"
"I'd
say we had a pretty good relationship...They were archeologists and I often
went with them on digs and similar expeditions."
"Must've been fun, going around like that."
"Yeah,"
She smiled at the memories. "It was always a big adventure..."
Kline
brought the cup to his lips but noticed that it was empty...He had drunk
everything already, without noticing.
"Well..."
He said. "It's been nice talking to you, lieutenant. I'd stay but the good
doctor would like me to get some rest..."
"I
understand him," She smiled. "Good night, sir."
"Good
night..."