Star Trek The Next Generation - 62 - The Best and the Brightest by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780671015497
Publisher: Star Trek
Published: 1998-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

This volunteer stuff isn’t too bad, Titus thought to himself. He leaned back against the soft turf, his hands behind his head, waiting for his partner to get through the light-beam obstacle. He had walked across the wide river without a stumble, but Eto Mahs had fallen five times already.

According to the instructions posted at the crossing, if they fell off, they had to go back and do it again. It was your typical obstacle course as far as Titus could tell. The trick was, they weren’t allowed to speak to each other.

Lab technicians had implanted a speech inhibitor in his vocal cords, as well as those of Eto Mahs. Titus was surprised at how many times it had already stopped him from speaking. If he concentrated, he could override the inhibitor, otherwise it kept them from making involuntary statements.

“Yeiiahhh!!” Eto Mahs screamed as he fell, for the sixth time, into the river. He bobbed to the surface, his dark hair dripping with water. “Eeiihh!”

Titus grinned to himself. They might be in a holodeck, but that water was cold. Mahs screamed that way every time he fell off the light beam.

The inhibitor allowed them to make inarticulate noises, and they could signal simple directions with their hands. He wondered what the communications specialists could possibly be getting from this. The whole thing seemed absurd, but then again, he was on a private mission of his own to prove he was worthy of a juicy field assignment. Each to his own, he figured.

Meanwhile, he enjoyed the wooded environment, watching the leaves shift overhead in the wind. His colony world didn’t have trees, only patches of large types of grass, sort of like terrestrial bamboo. He wouldn’t admit it to anyone, but he thought a tree was a miraculous thing. So many odd shapes and designs, each one different yet perfect in itself.

He rolled over to watch Eto Mahs climb out of the river, shivering. Titus raised his hand to his mouth to yell, “Take your clothes off, you nitwit!” but the inhibitor beeped a warning.

Sheepishly, Titus smacked his forehead. The lab techs must be keeping record of every incident when they tried to speak. That could be the purpose of the course. On every obstacle, underneath the instructions, they were told they could quit the course at any time without consequences by simply saying, “End program.”

Mahs resolutely stepped onto the narrow light beam one more time, his teeth biting his lower lip. Titus shook his head at the poor guy. He probably hadn’t expected an obstacle course on a communications project. Mahs was a third-year Cadet majoring in exobiology, according to the summary at the beginning of the course. His mother was supposedly Japanese and his father was from—what planet was it?—wherever. Titus didn’t recall ever seeing him around the Academy, but Mahs had nodded in greeting as if he recognized Titus. They had never spoken a word to each other.

Eto Mahs wobbled, flailing his arms, his wet hair whipping around. “Yeiiahhh!!” he screamed again as he fell.

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