CHAPTER 12
"There's increasing activity in their brainwaves," Phlox said, alternating his attention between his med scanner and the motionless bodies of Hoshi and Jon a short distance away.
"Are they switchin' back to the right bodies?" Trip asked.
"No way to tell," the doctor said. "But I'm not reading any undue signs of stress in either of them."
Trip traded a glance with a worried Malcolm, then both turned their attention back to the tableau under the archway.
T'Pol, her attention on her scanner, said, "The power reading has dropped off and disappeared."
Phlox thought for a moment. "The captain's and the ensign's condition no doubt was caused by something to do with the energy reading. It's triggered something within them." He paused, studying his scanner, and shrugged. "The best I can tell, their subconsciousnesses are hallucinating."
Hoshi felt as if her arm was being yanked out of its socket. She might be in Jon's bigger body, but trying to haul a dead weight straight up wasn't easy.
She'd wedged the toe of one boot in a crack between two of the paving stones that made up the floor. It was the only thing that kept her from sliding over the lip of the hole when Jon had jumped and grabbed her hand.
Pushing back against the stone floor with her free hand as Jon clung to her other with both of his, she was able to slowly inch her way backward.
"Quit wiggling around!" she yelled at him.
"I'm slipping!" he called back.
She grunted with strain as he moved one of his hands up farther, latching onto her wrist with a vise-like grip and pulling her again toward the hole's opening in the process. The knee of her uniform ripped open as she was dragged forward and her skin scraped on the rough stone.
"Argh!" she yelled, straining backward.
She felt his other hand loosen its hold on her hand, only to see it appear at the edge of the hole, scrabbling for purchase. She didn't dare try to reach for it for fear she'd be drawn over the edge.
"A little more!" he said. "If I can get my elbow up there--"
With one last Herculean effort, she tugged backward, and a slender arm appeared, the elbow angled to catch on the edge. She felt a slight lessening of pressure and grabbed the protruding arm with her free hand and yanked.
A dark-haired head appeared and she yanked again, pulling Jon up far enough that his upper body was leaning onto the stone floor. She hastily shifted one of her hands to grab the back of his uniform and pulled him the rest of the way out of the hole.
"Thanks," Jon gasped out, breathing heavily. "I knew you could do it."
Hoshi smiled faintly, too winded to speak.
They lay sprawled on the floor for a few moments, gasping from their exertions, before Jon got to his feet, carefully moving away from the hole.
"Where are we?" he asked as he moved toward the door.
"I don't know," she said, getting to her feet. "Some big building. It's like a maze."
He listened attentively as she gave a summary of her activities before finding him.
"It might be a test of some sort," Jon said when she finished.
"Isn't being in the wrong bodies enough of a test?"
Jon shook his head. "Let's just try to find a way out of here."
Hoshi followed him out into the corridor, the lipstick tube again in her hand.
"Since you've already started exploring the maze, why don't you lead?" he suggested. "Surely there can't be too much more to it."
Walking down the corridor, Hoshi couldn't help but feel better, despite the aching muscles she'd earned pulling Jon out of the hole. At least she'd found him and she wasn't alone any more.
After pulling Jon in her body out of the hole, she had a new respect for Jon's physical strength. But she still wanted back in her own body.
They walked on, Hoshi methodically marking their way at each intersection.
"Where is the light coming from?" Jon mused out loud as she carefully drew an arrow with the lipstick.
Hoshi shrugged. She'd wondered that, too. There were no windows and no obvious sources of artificial lighting, yet there was a diffuse illumination that was enough to see by. She hadn't dwelled on it, other than to be grateful for it, while she'd been looking for Jon.
She shivered to think what it would have been like stumbling around these cold, blank corridors without any light at all.
They turned yet another corner to find a corridor like so many before, but with one difference. There was an obvious door at the opposite end. It was an archway similar in design to the one they'd stood under on the planet. Unfortunately, the opening was walled up with stones just as precisely as the corridor walls.
"Maybe this is the way out," Jon said, hurrying toward the door.
"There's no handle," Hoshi said.
They examined the door, if that's what it really was. It was made of the same stone as the walls, floor and ceiling. A thin line denoting where the door was fitted in place could be seen, but there were no hinges and no indication of how it could be opened.
"Sir!" Hoshi said as she looked off to one side.
Jon moved over to join her in studying a slim crack in the wall.
"This looks like it can be removed," he said, running his hands over the stone next to the crack and sliding his hand into the opening. "There's a catch or something in here."
He moved his fingers around trying to pull at the lever. They both heard a scratching sound as something gave and one of the stone blocks next to the lever moved outward.
They traded hopeful smiles and then Hoshi grasped the stone as best she could, pulling on it until it tumbled out of place to land at their feet.
They pulled out more stones, and soon they had an opening large enough for a child or a small person to crawl through. The opening was about a meter deep and through it in the dim light they could see another corridor stretching off in the distance.
"None of the other stones are coming loose," Jon said, huffing from the effort of moving stones out of the way. "I think I can fit through this."
"But I can't," Hoshi said glumly, for once at a disadvantage having Jon's broader shoulders.
"Maybe there's something on the other side that will let me open the door."
She watched anxiously as he squeezed into the opening barely big enough for Jon's shoulders -- my shoulders, she told herself absently -- to go through. Halfway through, he began to struggle.
"I think I'm hung up on something," his muffled voice came to her.
"I told you not to eat so much chocolate," she replied as she put a hand on his rump and pushed.
"Hey!" he squealed. "That's really my hand you have your--"
The added pressure was enough to push Jon through and he tumbled to the floor on the opposite side.
"Well?" Hoshi called through the opening.
"Give me a second," he said.
She heard him stand and move toward the door. Her hopes fell at his next words.
"There's no handle on this side either," he called to her.
Then she heard him smack his hand in frustration against the stone, and the slightest of movements caught her eye. On her side, the stone door had moved the barest fraction of a centimeter.
"Something happened!" she yelled excitedly. "Hit it again!"
Again he hit the door, and again it moved almost imperceptibly.
"I think it's moving," he said. "I'm going to push on it."
Hoshi was glad she'd been standing to the side because, without warning, the massive stone door shot out of place, revealing an opening to the other side.
"Wow!" she said softly. "I must be stronger than I thought if you could move that."
Jon's delight animated his face as he peered out at her. "Hate to disillusion you, but I barely pushed at all. The door must be carefully balanced to move so easily."
"But only from that side," she pointed out.
He shrugged and motioned for her to come through. Then they set off down the corridor before them, Hoshi clasping the lipstick tube firmly in her hand.
Several twists and turns brought them to a door similar to the one they'd just passed through. There was one major difference, however. There were two large panels with engraved inscriptions, one on either side of the stone door.
"Figures," Hoshi said. "I haven't been able to translate the language yet."
"Do you think it's instructions how to open the door?" Jon asked, studying the panel on the left.
"I don't know what else they could be for. Access panels of some kind, maybe."
"You may be right," Jon said with excitement.
"Why do you say that?"
"Look at the individual engravings on the panels. They're made so that they're set into the bigger panels. I'm willing to bet they can be depressed like buttons on our access panels onboard Enterprise."
Sure enough, on close inspection, Hoshi could see how the individual engraved blocks fit into the panels. Tentatively, she gently pushed on one of the four engravings on the panel to the right of the door and felt it give.
Withdrawing her hand, she said, "Careful, sir. We may only get one try at this, and if we push the wrong engraving, it might not work."
Hoshi stared at the symbols before her. She'd seen these symbols before, of course. She'd been studying the language for more than two days now. But there was something about these particular symbols that nagged at her. "I wish I had my scanner with me. I might be able to..."
"What is it?" Jon asked as her voice trailed off.
"These symbols... They're the same ones we saw on the outside of the buildings today. It's part of the numerical system," she said.
"That's great!" Jon said happily, but then his lips fell into a frown. "We don't know the code, so even if we did know the language and numbers, it wouldn't help."
Hoshi wasn't paying attention to him. She was too intent on studying the engravings. "That's odd."
"What?"
"I think I can put the symbols in numerical sequence, but they jump back and forth from one panel to the other...all the odd numbers on one and all the even numbers on the other is the easiest way to describe it."
"Do you think they are supposed to be pushed in numerical order?" he asked.
"We can try," she said. "What have we got to lose?"
Jon nodded. "OK. Go for it. I'm getting tired of being in your body."
Hoshi began pushing the engravings, one on the right one panel, then walked over to push one on the left, and back to push another on the right and so on until she finished the sequence.
Nothing happened.
"Hmmm. That obviously wasn't it," she said.
"You're sure you got the numbers in the right order?" Jon asked, only to hold up a hand placatingly when she glared down at him. "Of course you got them right. ... What about reverse order?"
So Hoshi tried the sequence in reverse. It still didn't work.
"You know, it feels like there's a catch or a latching mechanism that's not engaging when I push them," she said as she stared at one of the panels. "There are a few keys on my communications panel that have to be held down while other buttons are pushed. Maybe that's the case here."
She gazed at the other panel. "You're going to have to help me, though. I can't reach that far and still hold down the ones over here."
They tried it again, Hoshi telling Jon which engravings to push. She had no trouble holding down two engravings with one hand, but she could see Jon struggling to use her smaller hands to do the same job.
"If you have to, use your arm to hold down two engravings at once," Hoshi suggested.
They were now holding down seven of the eight engravings with one more to be pushed on Jon's panel. "Here goes nothing," Jon said and stretched his fingers to reach the last engraving.
"I'm getting a power reading," T'Pol said.
Malcolm turned from watching the pair under the archway to look at her, only to switch his gaze to the doctor, who was studying the med scanner.
"They're showing increased brainwave activity," Phlox reported.
"What's goin' on?" Trip asked worriedly. "Are they OK?"
Phlox shook his head. "I don't know."