One Small Step by Susan Wright

Author:Susan Wright [Wright, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2012-07-13T17:36:22+00:00

Reinhart uncertainly held his position near the door. As security, Reinhart had taken the first line of defense.

Spock kept watching the entryway, his communicator in front of him with the channel to the Enterprise open.

Sulu waited a few moments, but he was keyed up from the adrenaline rush of facing an all-out invasion that hadn't occurred. Finally he said, "Sir, request permission to resume searching the Kalandan living quarters."

Spock lifted one brow at him, then glanced at Reinhart, who came forward a couple of steps. "Very well, Mr. Sulu," Spock said. "You and Reinhart may proceed. Maintain communicator contact. If there is any disturbance, you will return here immediately."

"Understood," Sulu acknowledged. He jerked his head for Reinhart to come along.

Sulu was relieved to not have to stay in the entrance chamber, on constant alert against an attack. But when he was again confronted by the dozens of corridors and hundreds of chambers, he was daunted by the task ahead. Most of the things they had discovered were of no immediate value. Spock had theorized that while the

colony itself appeared to be ten thousand years old, the civilization itself was much older and showed signs of millennia of development.

Sulu stayed near the quarters closest to the doorway to the botany labs. "Why not start here?" he suggested. "That way we're closer to the entrance chamber."

Reinhart looked as if, on second thought, he wasn't relishing looking through more private effects of long-dead Kalandans. "It's almost not right," he protested, stepping into the next chamber.

Sulu wanted to agree when he saw this one. Unlike the others, this chamber was not stripped and packed neatly into clear containers. It looked as if the scientist living here had stumbled up from sleep and staggered out the door, never to return again.

He stepped carefully over the threshold. There were several white containers of petrified substance on the ledge next to the door. It looked like a science experiment gone bad, or ten-thousand-year-old leftovers. Clothing was strewn on the floor and draped across the sofa-bench—mostly narrow strips of material edged with metallic thread.

Other stuff had been left where it was thrown, styluses, measuring devices, and stacks of magnetic film that had apparently been used for taking notes. Now they were blank, and none recorded a mark when Sulu tried to press a stylus against them.

"Maybe the components have failed," Sulu ventured a guess.

"What's this?" Reinhart asked, holding up a round flat disc about three centimeters across. It was split into quarters colored yellow and red.

Sulu shrugged, his eyes widening. "Who knows?

Look at all this stuff! There's got to be a station map or something in here."

But after thoroughly riffling through the contents of the room, they found lots of things they didn't recognize but nothing that looked like a map. They did gather up dozens more of the round plastic computer interfaces. But there were no appropriate slots on any of the devices they found.

Frustrated, Sulu sat down on the bed. 'This is impossible."

Reinhart shifted uneasily, putting down some of the loose bits of stuff they had found.

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