Star Trek: The Original Series - 114 - The Janus Gate 1 - Present Tense by L. A. GRAF

Author:L. A. GRAF [Graf, L. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Adventure, Space Opera
ISBN: 9780743445931
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2002-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

“You’ve got ice in your hair.”

Chekov combed a hand back through his hair without actually looking up from the map he had wedged against the conduit wall. Bits of half-frozen water spattered the surface of his notebook, deflating on impact into regular liquid drops, only to begin freezing again almost immediately. He’d given up being irritated by [130] them. Swiping them off his workspace with the side of his hand, he then had to pull his glove off with his teeth to keep from smearing wet nano-weave all over the map. At least he knew the glove would dry. It had managed to do so the dozen other times he’d paused with it suspended in his mouth while he finished updating his measurements.

By now the ice was everywhere. It had coated the travertine flowstone like poured polyurethane, sharpening the delicate oranges, greens and reds of the original mineral salts into a crystalline riot of color. The omnipresent shush and drip of water that had accompanied their descent into the caves was now silenced. In its place, expanding ice ticked an irregular rhythm, sometimes firing off a deep-voiced cannon shot to catch everyone by surprise and make them jump. It reminded Chekov of how the lake at the heart of Gorky Park grudgingly gave itself over to autumn’s advance every year. You could hear the battle raging several blocks away for weeks at a time, until winter finally swept in one long bitter night and put an end to all of it. The next morning, the lake lay still and silent, as smooth and tame as if it had been paved over by glass.

Tlaoli’s caves were not so simple a matter. Chekov had long ago given up trying to represent the true shape of their passages on his map. Ice had reduced them all to narrowed, glass tubes, with less floor exposed every meter they traveled, and only faint hints of the surfaces beneath. If the landing party somehow passed from these artificially straight and regular conduits into more wild and undirected natural cave at this point, Chekov almost doubted any of them would be able to tell until [131] they caught themselves straddling another abyss. Which made the compass readings and measurements he recorded on this new map even more important than the ones he’d had to recall from his memory of the trip in. At least up top they would have the fallback of the spot markers they’d left propped on little ledges and piles of stones, pointing back the way they’d come in. Down here, they had only Jaeger’s memory and Chekov’s maps to tell them where they stood in relation to the surface world. A discrepancy of five or ten meters could mean the difference between finding the topside entrance, or wandering about down here until their carbide ran out.

A little laugh from the other end of his old-fashioned tape measure brought part of his attention back to the security guard Kirk had assigned to assist him. “I don’t know how you can work in this cold without gloves.

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