CHAPTER 7
Hoshi wasn't listening. She was wrapped up in her own thoughts, wondering what Malcolm had found with the scans, as Travis chattered away during lunch. Then the helmsman started talking about the lights going out when he and Trip had been working on the Wayfarer's Rest that morning.
"There was no reason for the lights to do that. The power connection to the portable lights was good." Travis lowered his voice and leaned toward her across the table. "I think it was the ghost of Robert Watson."
Hoshi stared at him. She hadn't told him about her encounter with the ghost of Robert Watson because she knew what his response would be. He'd be so excited that he'd tell everyone he met. Half the ship would know about it by dinner, and the rest by breakfast tomorrow. She didn't want the crew to think she was crazy, or hear the inevitable jokes about having been in space for too long. Malcolm had been skeptical, of course, but that was different. She expected him to doubt her claim. That was why she'd told him about it in the first place. Just in case it wasn't a ghost but an intruder of some sort, Malcolm needed to know. Yet she couldn't bring herself to tell the captain. Jon would smile in that patronizing manner he had sometimes and send her off to sickbay to be checked by Phlox.
She hoped Malcolm came up with some answers soon. She wished that he would find something concrete to prove her wrong, even though she was certain she'd seen a ghost. She wasn't sure she wanted to work and live on a ship that was haunted. That would be worse than her crewmates questioning her sanity.
She glanced across the table at Travis. He probably wouldn't make fun of her experience, especially after the incident with the lights going off and on while he'd been working with Trip. At the very least, he'd be sympathetic. She weighed her need to tell someone besides Malcolm about what had happened. Maybe she could swear Travis to secrecy.
Before she could decide whether to tell him, Trip and Malcolm walked in. The tactical officer saw her and gave her a slight nod, then followed Trip to the serving line. Travis, his monologue of his morning's activities still going strong as Trip and Malcolm joined them at the table a few minutes later, was telling her about the missing microcaliper.
"Malcolm found it," Trip said as he sat down. "It was under the instrument panel in the cockpit."
Travis laughed. "Finally! Now we can get back to work on that ship. You must have left it in there, Commander."
Trip picked up his sandwich. "I've already been through this with Malcolm, so I'm only gonna say it once. I did not take the microcaliper into the cockpit." His expression stubborn, he paused with his sandwich halfway to his mouth. "Something else did." He took a big bite of his sandwich.
Hoshi, who'd been wondering how she was going to get a word alone with Malcolm to hear the results of the scans, sat up straighter. Trip had said "something," not "someone."
"Like a ghost?" Travis asked.
Trip was chewing and couldn't answer. Malcolm, with an apologetic glance at Hoshi, said, "I told Trip, because I need his help tracking this thing down. And Travis is our resident ghost expert. We have to tell him." He turned toward the helmsman. "Last night, Hoshi saw a...person...who matches the description of Robert Watson."
"Really?" Travis exclaimed excitedly.
Malcolm shushed him as Hoshi looked anxiously at nearby diners whose attention had been drawn by Travis' outburst.
"This is not for public knowledge until we do some investigation," Malcolm warned him. He looked at Hoshi. "I didn't find anything out of the ordinary when I ran the scans for life signs, but that doesn't mean it was a ghost. There could be something else responsible."
Hoshi frowned and said, "But you're starting to think it might be possible, aren't you?"
She knew she was right when Malcolm steadily held her gaze.
"Something else happened after Malcolm found the microcaliper," Trip said. He told them about the commotion they'd heard in the cockpit and how they'd found the old toolbox with the initials of Robert Watson.
Travis was practically squirming with excitement in his seat. "This has all the classic signs of a haunting," he said. "Objects being moved, loud noises, and didn't you say you felt a cold spot?"
The question was addressed to Trip, who nodded.
With obvious reluctance, Malcolm said, "Something similar happened to me after I found the microcaliper."
"What?" Travis asked breathlessly.
"I'd just picked up the microcaliper from the deck," Malcolm said, "when I felt a cold sensation on the back of my neck. I thought someone had come up behind me, even though I didn't hear anything."
"And there was no one there!" Travis said.
Malcolm shook his head. "Not a soul."
Hoshi winced at his choice of words. She'd expected Malcolm to be the most resistant to the notion that there was a ghost on board Enterprise. But if he, of all people, thought it was possible that the ghost of Robert Watson was walking the corridors of the ship--
"What about you, Hoshi?" Travis asked. "What did you see?"
Hoshi related her encounter on C deck the previous night, and that she hadn't identified the person as Robert Watson until she was looking at the logs from the Wayfarer's Rest this morning. When she finished, she said, "But why was he away from his ship when I saw him? All the other things that you think he's responsible for have happened on or around the Wayfarer's Rest."
"Not all," Travis said with a shake of his head. "Remember this morning when Doctor Phlox was saying that he'd been scared in the morgue? He thought he'd seen the body move."
"Yeah," Trip said, "and the captain told me that Porthos was growling in the middle of the night at something he couldn't see."
All four officers fell silent. Hoshi pushed the food around on her plate with her fork. She knew what she had seen, but she was still having a hard time believing that other people could so easily believe it as well. She should have felt vindicated. Instead, she was vaguely disturbed. She supposed it was possible that they were all so bored with their current mission that they were going stir-crazy and imagining these things. She glanced at the others from under her eyelashes. Maybe it was some form of mass hysteria and they were all having hallucinations. Oh, great! she thought. Now she was not only questioning her own sanity, but that of some of the most stable people she knew.
That didn't change her conviction that she'd seen a person who could only have been Robert Watson. Since the man was dead, his body in the morgue, it had to have been his ghost. There was no other explanation, rational or otherwise, that she could think of. With a start, she realized she'd been the only one to actually see the ghost.
As if he'd picked up on what she'd been thinking, Trip said, "It could be that, with the decreased activity during the night shift, the ghost started wandering around. Maybe he was trying to find out where he's at. Hoshi just happened to be in the right place at the right time."
Hoshi cocked an eyebrow at him. "Or the wrong time."
"Hoshi, I don't think there's anything to worry about," Trip said reassuringly. "He hasn't done anything except make some noise, run off with one of my tools, and play with the lights. It's not like he's done any real harm or is a threat." Trip's brow furrowed. He looked worriedly across the table at Malcolm. "He's not a threat, is he?"
Malcolm shrugged. "I have no idea. But there's the incident with the portable lights. What if it was some other system, like environmental controls for the whole ship?"
Hoshi hadn't thought of that. She stared at Malcolm as they all fell quiet again, each considering all the things that could go fatally wrong on a starship. It was just like Malcolm to think the worst, but he was right to be concerned. An unknown entity -- and a ghost certainly qualified as some type of entity -- could cause serious problems aboard the ship.
But the ghost wasn't really unknown, she reasoned. They knew who he'd been in life, and they knew how he'd died. They also knew the circumstances surrounding his death. He'd been on his way home when tragedy had befallen him. It must have been terrible to be alone on his little ship, not knowing whether his wife and child were still sick and realizing that even if they recovered, he was going to die and would never see them again.
"What?" Malcolm asked her.
Hoshi blinked, brought back from her musings by his question. "I was just thinking how sad Robert Watson's death was. He never found out what happened to his family. And they probably never found out what happened to him."
Travis put down his fork. "That may be why he's haunting us. There are cases where a spirit can't leave this plane of existence because there are unresolved issues."
"Death seems like it would resolve an issue one way or the other," Trip remarked and took another bite of his sandwich.
"No," Travis said. "You're missing the point. Robert Watson was upset, worried about his wife and child, when he died. He didn't know if they were okay. There also probably was some guilt involved, since he was away from their home on Vega when they got sick and he wasn't going to be able to make it back after his ship was damaged."
"Dabbling in amateur psychology, Travis?" Malcolm asked.
Other than to frown, Travis ignored the comment. "The point is: Robert Watson didn't have a peaceful death. It wasn't violent, but it wasn't peaceful, either. There were too many strong emotions -- worry, guilt, frustration -- all tied in to him trying to get to home."
Trip looked thoughtful. "If the emotional state at the time of death is responsible for the existence of ghosts, that explains something T'Pol said this morning." At the inquisitive looks from the others, he said, "She said there are no ghosts on Vulcan." His eyes widened. "That reminds me. T'Pol said she was having trouble with her cabin's environmental controls last night. I had one of my staff check it out today, but there wasn't anything wrong."
Hoshi cleared her throat. "It seems like we've all accepted that there may be a ghost on Enterprise," she said. Trip and Travis immediately nodded. After a moment's hesitation, Malcolm also dipped his head in agreement. "The question is," she continued, "what do we do about it?"
The four officers spent the rest of their lunch break considering their options. None of them had any personal experience with paranormal activities. They relied heavily on Travis' somewhat questionable knowledge on the subject, as well as Malcolm's brief foray into the ship's database which, not surprisingly, contained little useful information. They all agreed that they should concentrate their efforts concerning Robert Watson's spirit during the night shift. Not only had Hoshi seen his ghost at night, but there would be fewer other crewmen around to interfere or get in the way.
They also decided, after quite some discussion, that for the time being, the matter was to be kept between the four of them. They didn't need the rest of the crew wondering if they were space happy; they were having enough trouble believing what they were doing themselves. But Malcolm insisted, and Trip concurred, that if Robert Watson became a threat to the ship, they'd inform the captain immediately.
