CHAPTER 9
Malcolm entered the mess hall for breakfast and saw Hoshi sitting by herself at a table near one of the windows. He also saw Major Reed, greasy hair glistening under the mess hall lights, at another table across the room. The man was accompanied by two MACOs. After a long glare at Reed, Malcolm studiously avoided looking in that direction.
He picked out a plate of pancakes and, turning from the serving cabinet, sought out Hoshi again. She gave him a smile as his eyes met hers. Taking that as an invitation, he wended his way between the tables to join her. It was good to know that she wasn't going to avoid him while she was trying to make up her mind. He'd been a little worried about that after she'd left him in the hydroponics bay.
"Good morning," he said. He sat down and placed a napkin on his lap.
"Good morning," she replied brightly with shining eyes, her hands cradling a cup of tea.
He sliced off a bite-sized piece of pancake with his fork. She was still smiling when he looked up. "You're in a good mood," he noted.
She snorted into her cup. "I would think you would be, too, after last night," she said, raising one eyebrow suggestively.
Malcolm paused, the fork midway to his mouth, to stare at her. Last night, she'd seemed unready to start anything. But the way she was acting now... Perhaps she'd had enough time to think about it, although in his experience, most women who said they wanted more time meant a lot more than a few hours.
"You've decided?" he asked.
Hoshi frowned. "I'd thought I made that clear. I asked if I'd see you today."
Mentally replaying their brief conversation in hydroponics, he didn't recall her saying she wanted to see him today. "You did? I don't remember," he said around a piece of pancake in his mouth.
For a moment, she looked hurt and confused. Then a shifty gleam came into her eyes."Oh! I get it." She lowered her voice and leaned toward him across the table. "You don't want anyone to know. Tell you what -- you come by my cabin tonight after dinner. I can guarantee that you'll see a lot more of me than you did last night."
Malcolm watched in stunned fascination as she got to her feet. She gave him a wicked smile that sent a lance right to his groin. He managed to swallow his food without choking as he watched her hips swing as she left the mess hall.
Reed sniggered into his coffee cup as Hoshi left the mess hall.
He was seated at a table eating breakfast with his two escorts when his double had shown up. He had watched interestedly as Malcolm had made his way over to Hoshi's table. The next few moments had been tense as he waited for their mutual misunderstanding to come to light. He'd been the one with her last night, not him, after all, and if they figured that out...but to his surprise, his ruse had apparently gone undetected. He even noticed that Hoshi had appeared to be coming on to the other man. The dolt had been too surprised to respond other than to go slack-jawed when she got up and walked away with a provacative swing of those curvy hips. It really was too bad about the terrible uniforms they made the women on this ship wear, Reed thought in disgust.
He was glad when she left the mess hall, however. The longer those two were together, the greater the chance that his impersonation would be uncovered. He would rather not be around if that happened.
His mind turned to more important matters. Maybe he'd find something useful today. He still had the phase pistol that he had been given by one of his escorts the night before. He couldn't believe they hadn't missed it. But for the time being, that was a weapon of last resort, and he wouldn't use it unless he absolutely had to.
"Let's go," he told the two MACOs. He was eager to return to his quarters. In circumventing the comm panel in his cabin to eavesdrop on the corridor, he'd learned some things about the systems on this ship. He was anxious try out a few ideas on the computer on his desk.
Hoshi smiled to herself as she headed to the bridge for her shift. So Malcolm wanted to keep it quiet, did he? She was agreeable to that, at least for a while. There was something about a secret affair that no one else knew about that was especially titilating.
She was glad her first impression -- when Malcolm had acted like he didn't know what she'd been talking about -- had been wrong. Upon reflection, she'd realized acting in public like nothing was going on between them was simply his way of keeping it low-profile. That was so like Malcolm. Now if she could just do the same, she thought as she summoned the turbolift. A moment later, the door slid open to reveal there was already a passenger in the 'lift car.
"What happened to you last night?" Trip asked as she stepped in. "I turned around about halfway through the movie and you were gone. I let you pick that movie out to cheer you up, and then you cut out."
Hoshi grinned. "I was being cheered up someplace else."
"Oh?" asked Trip with a slow grin of his own as she continued to smile at nothing in particular. "Anybody I know?"
Hoshi demurely lowered her eyes. "I'm not telling," she said. "Why are you going to the bridge?"
"T'Pol's been working in the command center for something like two days straight. I figure she's got to be frustrated by now, trying to find out how Major Reed got here. She probably needs some distraction."
Hoshi laughed. "Good for you."
A slight blush rose in Trip's cheeks. "Yeah," he agreed.
The turbolift door slid open. Hoshi stepped out, a spring in her step as she headed for her station. Behind her, Trip grinned again as he headed for the command center.
Malcolm was distracted. He'd been that way a lot recently, being preoccupied with the presence of Major Reed and trying to figure out how he'd gotten here and, more importantly, how to send him back. Right now, however, his distraction was much more enjoyable. His thoughts kept returning to that naughty expression on Hoshi's face right before she'd left the mess hall this morning. Needless to say, he wasn't getting very far going over the transporter shield enhancement specs at his work station in the armory
A prickle of doubt would occasionally surface to send unsettling ripples through his pleasant daydreaming. Malcolm wasn't entirely certain he'd understood Hoshi correctly this morning, although her comments about seeing him tonight implied otherwise. He could only conclude that she'd thought about what he'd proposed and had decided in his favor -- very much in his favor. He knew he had a silly grin on his face, but at the moment, he didn't care.
As he called up another simulation T'Pol had devised, his thoughts strayed off in another direction. He shouldn't show up empty-handed tonight. Too bad he'd already given Hoshi that red rose. A token that was beautiful in its simplicity, it would be hard to top. Perhaps a bouquet, he thought. No, that was too much, but perhaps another single rose in bloom.
"Bloom," he said out loud. In his mind, he kept hearing the word over and over. Bloom. What--?
He'd been staring at a graphic of one of the simulations Trip and T'Pol had run on the shield-enhanced transporter particle stream while he'd been thinking about the rose he'd given Hoshi. This particular simulation showed a burst of energy from a storm such as Major Reed had said was taking place on the planet where he'd been. When it intersected with the transporter stream, it resembled the petals of a flower suddenly opening and spreading outward before collapsing back in on itself. A bloom!
Could a tremendous surge of energy, coupled with the properties of the shield enhancement, be enough to open a passageway between two universes? The enhancement might even have served to magnify the energy, causing the "bloom" which had led to Reed's being dragged into this universe.
Malcolm ran the simulation again, all thoughts of Hoshi gone as he realized he may have stumbled onto the answer. This wasn't his area of expertise, however. He reached over to open a comm link to T'Pol in the command center.
Reed hadn't gotten very far tampering with the computer console in his cabin before he was interrupted. He sneered derisively as the Vulcan first officer's voice came over the comm. "Major Reed, report to the command center."
He backed out of the program he hacked into and shut off the console. He hadn't been making much progress anyway. The only useful information he'd come across so far was that this Enterprise appeared to be in the analogous sector of space where his ship had been at the time he'd been yanked here. There was even a planet with the same name as the one he'd been on. At least they'd remained in the area since he'd come here and hadn't gone warping off somewhere. That, at least, showed some higher intelligence on their part.
He went to the door and, with a bland smile for his escort, stepped out. He'd gotten tired of baiting them and didn't bother to talk to them any more. He was willing to bet they were happy to have something to break the tedium of standing outside his cabin for eight hours. They no doubt had heard the comm announcement telling him to report to the command center since they didn't ask where he was going. They fell in behind him without a word.
Arriving on the bridge, he tried to catch Hoshi's eye as he went across the upper level to the command center entrance. She was busy working on something at her console, however, and, other than a cursory glance at him, she paid him no mind. Just as well, he mused as he sauntered by behind her. He might let something slip -- on purpose, because he was perverse that way -- about last night. He was tempted to do it just to see what her reaction would be. Sometimes anger could be turned to passion. And even if it didn't, he enjoyed a challenge. Only the knowledge that there could be repercussions if anyone found out he'd been impersonating one of the ship's senior officers stopped him. He might need that disguise again, and he'd be foolish to throw away such an advantage.
His double in this universe, along with the irksomely folksy engineer and the ice-cold Vulcan, were in the command center. All three looked up as he walked in.
"I'm here," he announced, adding condescendingly, "You may start now."
Just as he'd expected, his counterpart bristled. The engineer rolled his eyes. The Vulcan bitch remained impassive. She was much more controlled in this universe, he'd give her that. He wondered briefly if this Tucker was enamored of this T'Pol. Back home, Tucker couldn't keep his filthy hands off her. It was rather entertaining to observe her efforts to elude him.
"We have found something that may explain your presence here," T'Pol stated.
That caught Reed's attention, and he immediately stood straighter. "Yes?" he asked cautiously.
She nodded toward Malcolm, indicating he should present the information. He picked up a data padd, looked from its screen to one in the command center showing a representation of the transporter particle stream, and said, "Watch." He keyed in a command. Two thin red lines running parallel on either side of the stream appeared. "That's the shield enhancement," Malcolm explained. He pressed another key, and the transporter stream intersected with a swirling pattern. The pattern suddenly expanded, filling most of the screen, before falling back in on itself.
"The storm," Reed breathed softly, his gaze riveted on the simulation. "But what has that got to do with me? I wasn't near it."
"You were close enough," T'Pol said. She switched to another view of the simulation. "The storm had enough energy to affect the planet's electromagnetic field. Since you were on the planet, you were within that EM field. When we utilized the shield enhancement on the transporter, that attracted the storm's energy -- how, we don't understand yet -- and the two universes 'touched' for a brief moment in one small location. A corresponding surge in our power usage was noted at the same time, and may have contributed to the sudden growth of the storm's energy."
Reed frowned. "If I hadn't been in transport at the time, would the crossover have happened?"
"Highly unlikely," T'Pol responded.
"It might be that it wasn't the storm that attracted our enhanced transporter particle stream, or vice versa," Trip put in, one hand rubbing his chin. "Maybe it was the conjunction of the two particle streams -- one with the shield enhancement and one without. Sort of like a positive attracting a negative."
"And the storm provided the necessary energy to make the two universes touch," Reed added, nodding his understanding. "That explains how I got here. But how are we going to duplicate that to send me back?"
There was a silence as the three Enterprise officers looked at each other. Trip shrugged and Malcolm pursed his lips. T'Pol turned to Reed and said, "We don't know."
Reed's thoughts were in a whirl. Maybe he ought to tell them that the planet he'd been had a counterpart in this universe. But then they'd want to know how he knew. He bit the edge of his lip, thinking of a way to present the information without giving away that he'd accessed data through the computer in his cabin.
"May I see a star chart of this sector?" he asked. "I have an idea."
His double looked like he was about to protest, but the Vulcan's steady gaze keep him in check. T'Pol took a step over to another console and put the chart on the main screen in the command center. Reed gazed at it for a few moments, then said, "It's just as I thought. This is your universe, correct?" In a softer voice as if to himself, he said, "Of course it is. You don't know what my universe is like." Then, more loudly, "Enlarge quadrant four-A."
T'Pol complied, and a closer view of a solar system with a solitary planet appeared on the screen. "That wouldn't happen to be Colandin, would it?" Reed asked.
"How do you know?" Malcolm asked suspiciously.
Reed, keeping his eyes on the screen, prepared to deliver the coup de grace of his act. "Because that's the planet in my universe that I was transporting from when you grabbed me." Turning to face the officers, he said with a straight face, "It seems our universes are more alike than we realized."
Any chance to speculate about that coincidence was forestalled by a page over the comm. "T'Pol," came the captain's voice. "You're needed on the bridge. Lieutenant Reed also, if he's there with you."
T'Pol looked at Malcolm, and they made for the door. Trip indicated with a jerk of his head that Reed should leave as well. By the time they stepped out of the command center, T'Pol and Malcolm were already at their stations on the bridge. When Trip stopped on the upper level to gaze at the viewscreen, Reed stopped next to him. The major quirked an eyebrow at the sight displayed there. A Klingon bird of prey hung suspended in space, the only sign of life its dim running lights.
"Their life support is out," T'Pol reported from her station.
From the communications console, Hoshi put in, "They aren't responding to our hails. But the ship is the source of that coded signal we picked up last night. I'm sure of it."
Jon, seated in his chair in the command well, leaned forward. Putting an elbow on one knee, he rubbed his chin. "Any life signs?" he asked.
"Four," T'Pol responded promptly. "Weak, but stable."
Jon grimaced. "Looks like we'll have to send a party over to see what the problem is."
"The Klingons aren't going to want our assistance," Malcolm put in from the seat at his station.
"What else is new?" Jon said with a rueful smile as he turned his chair to face his tactical officer. "Let's get a team together and go over in a shuttlepod." Getting to his feet, he added, "T'Pol, you have the bridge."
Reed, who had stepped back to stand unobtrusively at the rear of the bridge, wasn't overlooked. Malcolm paused on his way to the turbolift and gestured for the MACOs to escort his double off the bridge.
It was too much to hope they'd forgotten about him, Reed realized. Much as he wished to stay and observe the command structure and its interactions on this ship, as long as his counterpart was around, that wasn't going to be possible. The man didn't trust him. Reed didn't blame him in the least.
