The Best and The Brightest by SUSAN WRIGHT

Author:SUSAN WRIGHT
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: POCKET BOOKS
Published: 1998-08-29T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Third Year, 2370-71

“MOVE A LITTLE TO YOUR LEFT,” Starsa called out.

Louis Zimmerman, Director of Holographic Imaging and Programming at the Jupiter Research Station, inched slightly to his left.

“Now to the right—” Starsa started to say.

“That’s good enough,” Jayme interrupted, realizing from Starsa’s smirk that she was having a good time at the director’s expense. She had to put a stop to it before Dr. Zimmerman’s dissatisfied expression turned on them.

“Hold … three, two, one,” Jayme said. “That’s it. You can move again.”

“I appreciate that,” Dr. Zimmerman said dryly, returning to his computer.

Starsa ran the hololoop to make sure they had gotten a good feed. “If you hadn’t made yourself the template of the Emergency Medical Hologram, then we wouldn’t have to keep bothering you.”

“And who would you prefer the EMH to look like?” Zimmerman inquired, concentrating on his screen. “One of you?”

Starsa giggled and raised her hand. “Pick me, pick me!”

Zimmerman looked at them closely. “You aren’t my regular holotechnicians. Where are they? Well, speak up! Are the cadets the only warm bodies we can muster around here?”

“The others got sick,” Starsa said artlessly.

“They have a couple of emergencies down in the power station,” Jayme corrected, giving Starsa a hard look.

“I see,” he said, as if he doubted their sanity more than anything else.

Jayme kept smiling, trying to push Starsa out of the director’s lab. They couldn’t tell Dr. Zimmerman that the technicians had eagerly shoved the dozens of routine imaging checks that had to be run every few weeks onto the unsuspecting shoulders of the cadets on field assignment from the Academy. It only took a few days to figure out why—Dr. Zimmerman wasn’t the most pleasant man when he was interrupted, and that’s what they had to do in order to run imaging checks.

But Starsa was perversely drawn to the imaging devices sitting on the counters of the room, supporting half-completed holographic models.

“What’s this?” she asked, sticking her finger through an engineering schematic.

“That’s the interior of a matter-fusion assembly.” He glanced over and snapped, “Don’t touch it!”

“We’ll stay out of your way,” Jayme assured him, grabbing Starsa to make her come along.

“See that you do,” the director drawled, raising his eyes to the ceiling at the incompetence he had to put up with.

“Please state the nature of the medical emergency,” the EMH announced as it materialized.

“Okay, say I’ve got a double hernia and a severed spine,” Jayme suggested. “What would you do?”

The EMH turned, sweeping an arrogant look around the tiny holo-imaging workshop. There was a plasteel wall protecting the neural gel-packs, with only the emitters set up in the shop itself. “Where is the patient?” the EMH asked.

“This is a hypothetical situation,” Jayme told him.

The EMH drew himself up, remarkably resembling Director Zimmerman. “I do not deal in hypothetical situations.”

“Doctor, you are a hypothetical situation,” she informed him. At his wounded expression, she added, “Come on, I’m dying of boredom here, running these imaging loops. You might as well test out some of your knowledge.”

“Hypothetically speaking?” he asked, edging closer.

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