Brave and the Bold 1 (c), The by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek [Star Trek]
Language: deu
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2011-02-06T10:07:11.854000+00:00

“So this is it, huh?”

Guillermo Masada stood outside the Shuttlecraft Galileo with Spock and Leonard McCoy. They were preparing to bring the Malkus Artifact—currently cradled in Masada’s arms—into orbit. The Enterprise’s next port of call was Starbase 10, whereas the Constellation was going straight to the Crellis Cluster, so the former ship would drop the artifact off at the starbase, for its ultimate transfer to the Rector Institute on Earth. Spock and Masada had contacted the institute directly, and the director was champing at the bit to get his hands on it, as was a team of human and Vulcan anthropologists. T’Ramir herself was catching the next shuttle from Vulcan to Earth.

Meanwhile, a day and a half after Tomasina Laubenthal took her own life, most of the infected population had been given the serum to cure them of the virus, the senior staffs of both ships had attended a general memorial service led by Chief Bronstein and the new Acting Chief Representative, and life on Proxima was starting to return to a semblance of normal.

And all this because of a ninety-thousand-year-old artifact. Masada wondered if the folks at the Rector Institute would react the same way McCoy did upon seeing the thing.

The doctor continued: “It’s just a box.”

Spock did his eyebrow thing again. “I believe, Dr. McCoy, that there is a human saying about judging a book by its cover. Sometimes the outer form gives no indication of inner capabilities.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Spock. Looking at you, one would expect a cold, emotionless Vulcan—and they’d be absolutely right.”

“And looking at you, they would see an overly emotional human,” Spock said, “which is why I used the adverb ‘sometimes.’”

Masada chuckled. “There you go again. You really do crack me up.”

Before either Enterprise officer could reply to that, the artifact—which had been glowing a slightly greenish color—suddenly let loose a quick burst of bright green light.

So surprised by this action was Masada, that he dropped the box—right onto his right foot. “Yeow!” he screamed as the metal corner of the artifact slammed into his boot.

As he pulled his foot out from under it, he noticed that the artifact’s green glow had disappeared altogether.

Both Masada and Spock took out their tricorders. To Masada’s surprise, he was now getting a reading from the thing—whatever interference it had been running before was gone—though the reading he got was, in essence, nothing.

“The artifact has gone inert,” Spock said, his words matching what Masada’s own tricorder was telling him. “Fascinating.”

“Maybe it’s shutting down,” Masada said. “According to the records, it was attuned to Malkus. If it became similarly attuned to that Laubenthal woman, her death may have caused it to go inactive again.”

McCoy said, “She died almost two days ago.” He had taken out his Feinberger, and was now running it over the three of them.

Masada shrugged. “So it’s not a perfect hypothesis.”

“Well,” McCoy said, “that discharge doesn’t seem to’ve done any harm. Low-level radiation, only about half a rad. No damage to any of us that I can find.

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