Star Trek - TOS - 53 - Ghost Walker by Barbara Hambly

Author:Barbara Hambly [Barbara Hambly ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-06T16:31:58.136000+00:00

"Two generators," Mr. Spock said, "should

adequately establish a disruption field on

one deck of the ship, allowing for both the

curvature of the primary hull and the length of the

Engineering hull. According to what little research has

been done in the field, my estimate is that ten

minutes should be sufficient time to disperse an

electrostatic life-form, though I have no data

on the possibility of such a life-form

reassembling itself. Perhaps you have an opinion on the

subject?" And he regarded the captain, left

eyebrow slightly raised, curious as to what his

reply would be.

Kirk passed a hand over the lower portion of his

face, a nervous gesture he had picked up in

the last twenty-four hours or so, as if to vent

some of the feverish restlessness which seemed, these days,

to be consuming him. "Ten minutes ..." he said

softly, and for an illogical moment Spock had

the impression that he was trying to call to mind

precisely how long ten minutes actually was.

"It can--it might be able to--re-form itself ..."

The blinking amber lights of the Yellow Alert, still

flickering on and off above the door of the small

ion-study lab, increased the illusion of a

strange animal heat in his eyes, as well as the

way he held himself, with his head drawn down a

little to his shoulders, as if for protection. "The

nialigs of Rigel Five could re-form ...

Twenty minutes, the reports said." Then, with a

visible effort, he drew a deep breath and made

his shoulders relax. "What ... what is your

opinion, Mr. Spock?"

"I think that thirty minutes would be a

guarantee of safety," he replied, a little

surprised that the captain would have dug out that

obscure report from the library section

of the computer and consulted it, even as he himself had.

"Thirty, then," the captain said, with a sharp little

nod that made him look again like himself. "We can't

take chances, Mr. Spock. You were able

to assemble two proton generators, then?"

"I was able, by cannibalizing the spare ion-

frequency accelerators, to assemble three,"

Spock replied, worriedly observing how

Kirk's hand stretched out to caress the gray housing

of the laser cannon in which one of the generators had

been constructed, and which now rested on the lab table

before him. The other two generators stood near the

door, clothed in the round, br ushed-steel casings

of the accelerators from which they had been constructed,

barnacled with sprawling incrustations of the equipment

welded to them to complete the transformation, the fruit

of a long night's labors which had left the ion

lab--and the physics workshops next door--

strewn with gutted transformers and opened

modulator housings like clamshells around a

village midden. Even after he had completed work

on them at close to 0400 hours, Spock had

neither left the lab nor gone to sleep, half

fearing they would play the same vanishing tricks as

his tools had in the earlier part of the evening, or

suffer the same inexplicable malfunctions that

recording machines seemed to in the presence of the

intruder's halo of poltergeist effect. When

he had reported to the bridge at 0800 hours,

he had left a security officer on guard over

them--the woman was still waiting discreetly outside

the door.

"Three?" Kirk's eyebrows pulled together

slightly, questioning--then he nodded, though Spock

had the momentary impression his agreement was pro

forma, not because he understood the strategy.

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