CHAPTER THREE
Doctor Phlox had been around dead bodies before. It was unavoidable in his line of work. Like any good doctor, he tried to maintain a professional, detached demeanor when death was involved. There had been times when he'd felt regret for a life cut short, or in rare cases, rage that a person's life had been ended under circumstances that could have been prevented if not for someone else's negligence. But on the whole, he prided himself in being able to not let death affect him so much that it interfered with his duties or his own mental well-being.
For some reason, however, this latest dead body made him uneasy. He had finished the autopsy this afternoon and had put the body in a morgue locker until arrangements for its disposal could be made. Now, near midnight, Phlox was sitting alone in sickbay going over reports. For the last hour or so, however, he had felt compelled to make sure the body was where he'd left it. He likened the feeling to an itch that needed to be scratched.
Phlox put down the stylus he'd been using to initial the reports. He knew he wouldn't get any work done until he satisfied his curiosity, no matter how irrational it seemed. He'd go to the morgue compartment, check on its only occupant, and get this nagging suspicion out of his mind. He should be able to concentrate on his reports after that.
As he walked along through corridors dimmed in keeping with the diurnal rhythm of the human crew, he told himself that sometimes the mind acted in ways that were unfathomable to logic. Perhaps it was the crew's preoccupation with the Wayfarer's Rest causing his own inexplicable behavior right now. He knew it was silly to be doing this -- the man had been dead for more than fifty years and wasn't likely to go anywhere on his own at this point -- but the sooner he satisfied whatever fragment of his subconscious that was clamoring at him to check, the sooner he could get back to work.
Phlox input his access code at the entrance to the morgue compartment and walked inside. He reached for the drawer where the body was stored. His hand on the handle, the Denobulan knew what he would see when he pulled the drawer open: Human male, age forty-two, in good health until the accident that had robbed him of life. Robert Watson's death had been tragic, to be sure, but no more so than that of many other unfortunate beings. The universe could be cruel. No one knew that better than Phlox, whose unflagging optimism helped him cope with the reality of the dangers of living and working in space.
He chided himself for his maudlin thoughts as he started to slide open the drawer. It wasn't even close to his time of hiberation, so that couldn't be the cause of his uncharacteristic gloominess. Maybe he should take a cue from the rest of the crew during this charting mission and add some recreational activities to his routine. Crewman Rostov from Engineering was getting together two teams to play basketball, and he'd been approached about participating in that peculiar sport. Word of his prowess when the senior officers had played a pick-up game must have gotten around, although he was still trying to figure out why it was called "pick-up." As far as Phlox knew, that term was used to describe a common premating ritual among--
Phlox blinked as the shroud-covered body came into view. For a moment as he was pulling out the drawer, he thought he'd detected movement on the slab. Resisting the urge to step back, he slowly reached out and took hold of the edge of the covering. With a quick flick of his wrist, he pulled back the covering to reveal just what he'd expected to see -- the face of a person who had been dead for quite some time.
With an uneasy chuckle at his nervousness, Phlox replaced the covering. It must have been a shadow he'd seen. He hadn't bothered to increase the lighting when he'd entered the morgue compartment since he was only going to be here a few minutes at most and he could see well enough despite the dimness. With a more confident chuckle, he closed the drawer. He couldn't wait to tell Travis Mayweather about this experience. Maybe the helmsman could make up another ghost story that he so delighted in telling, Phlox thought as he turned away and left the compartment.
Behind him in the morgue, a shadow moved.on one of the walls.
The sound of low growling penetrated Jon's sleep-fogged brain. He rolled on to his stomach to look at the clock on the shelf at the head of his bed, and groaned. The glowing light indicated it was shortly after midnight.
"Porthos!" he said sternly and then let his head flop face-down on his pillow. He had started to drift off to sleep again when he realized the growling hadn't stopped. If anything, it had gotten louder.
Jon lifted his head and forced his eyes open once more. "Porthos! Bad dog!" he said.
As the growling continued, Jon peered around his dark quarters but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary in the weak starlight coming through the viewport. He reached up and flicked on the reading light over his bed.
Porthos wasn't in his dog bed at the foot of his bunk. The beagle was halfway across the cabin, legs splayed to hold him up stiffly, the hackles standing up on the back of his neck. Jon had no idea why Porthos was carrying on like this in the middle of the night. From what he could tell, Porthos was staring at an empty space in the center of the cabin.
"Porthos! Stop it!"
The beagle gave no indication that he'd heard the command. As the growling went on, Jon sighed in resignation. He threw off his blanket and sat up. As he swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, Porthos suddenly yelped and ran to Jon's bunk, jumping up onto the mattress to cower next to him.
Jon ran a hand down Porthos back and was surprised to find the dog was trembling. "It's okay, Porthos," he said. "You were probably having a bad dream."
Porthos whimpered and snuggled closer. Not once did the dog look up at him or bump his snout against his arm to demand more petting. Instead, Porthos was staring fixedly across the cabin.
Jon murmured soft words as he continued to pet Porthos. Eventually, the little dog calmed, snuffling several times before relaxing completely, and put his head down on his front paws. When Jon made to lift the dog down to the deck, Porthos immediately scooted toward the center of the bed and whimpered.
"All right," Jon said. "Just this once. But you're not going to make a habit of it."
Jon reached over and turned off the light. He slipped under the blanket. A few seconds later, he felt Porthos move to the end of the bed and curl up on his feet.
T'Pol required less sleep than her human shipmates. Often she would utilize the quiet of the night shift to aid her meditation. There were no extraneous noises to distract her as she sat cross-legged, eyes closed, on the deck in her cabin, and she always closed the ventilation grill for the duration of her meditation so that no unpleasant smells would disturb her. The only light was that of a candle flame in front of her.
A sudden unaccustomed chill made her shiver. She must have forgotten to raise the temperature setting in her cabin when she'd returned from dinner this evening. The possibility that she had actually forgotten to do something that was a part of her daily routine was enough to send a small ripple of concern through the serenity of her contemplation. She opened her eyes to gaze at the flame to refocus her concentration.
The flame wavered wildly, then resumed its steady burning.
T'Pol stared at the candle as she came to the only logical conclusion. She hadn't forgotten to reset the temperature control. Rather, there must be a glitch in the environmental system affecting both heat and ventilation. The flickering flame was evidence of the latter.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes, and began her meditation anew, but not before she told herself to inform Commander Tucker in the morning that a diagnostic should be run on B deck's environmental controls.
Hoshi had dozed off and on since she'd gone to bed, but she hadn't really slept. When she found herself looking at the clock next to her bed for the fourth time, she sat up, only to hear her stomach rumble. No wonder she couldn't sleep. She was hungry.
She hadn't eaten much for dinner. When Trip, Malcolm and Travis had started in on what promised to be an in-depth discussion of the supernatural, there was a distinct possibility that they'd end up in a shouting match. Such discussions between Trip and Malcolm often did. Travis' presence wouldn't have deterred them, because he would only have egged them on. She hadn't wished to referee an argument on a topic that didn't particularly interest her, and so she had left. She'd forgotten that, in anticipation of Chef's cheesecake for dessert, she'd taken small portions for dinner. Unfortunately, she'd also forgotten about dessert.
Breakfast was still four hours away. She couldn't wait that long. There was no way she was going to be able to go back to sleep without getting something to eat. She got out of bed and padded to her closet. As she changed into blue jeans and a tank top, she hoped there would be a piece of cheesecake left when she got to the mess hall. Otherwise, not only was she going to be sleep-deprived, but grumpy as well. She slipped on some canvas sneakers, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and headed out of her cabin.
Hoshi had always found the hours before alpha shift to be quiet in a peaceful sort of way. This time was no different. The lighting was dimmed for the night cycle. Even the normal noises sounded muted, as if the ship itself was trying not to wake the off-shift crewmen who were sleeping. When she strolled down the deserted corridor outside her cabin, she didn't expect to see anyone.
She was somewhat surprised, then, to see someone at the far end of the corridor when she turned the corner nearest to the turbolift. The person had his back to her as he walked away. Just as she reached the turbolift, the man looked over his shoulder at her, but she didn't recognize him. She blinked, trying to clear her sleepy eyes. They'd taken on a few new crewmen the last time they'd been at Earth, and she hadn't met all of them yet. He must be one of them. He probably couldn't sleep either, she mused.
She turned her gaze to the call panel and pressed the button to summon the 'lift. When she glanced back toward the end of the corridor, the man was no longer there. That was strange, she thought. She had no idea where he'd gone. She was sure it had been a man -- he'd been fairly tall with a dark mass of hair. And he'd been wearing a jacket of a style that was long out of date. But that wasn't unusual; many people liked vintage fashions.
The door to the turbolift slid open and she stepped in. As she reached for the control panel, she hesitated. She'd clearly heard the sound of her own footfalls on the deck as she'd walked down the corridor, but she'd heard not a sound from the person she'd seen. He'd been wearing boots, for she had noticed the thick heels, and they should have made even more noise than her rubber-soled sneakers. How he could have disappeared so quickly without her hearing him walk away, she didn't know.
Hoshi shrugged mentally. She must not be all the way awake. All the better, she thought. She'd get her cheesecake and then go back to bed, and maybe she'd get a few hours' sleep before it was time to get ready for her shift.
No one was in the launch bay during the night shift. The large compartment was quiet, its work lights turned off. Enterprise's two shuttlepods were nestled side by side, their polished metal skins gleaming in the glow of standby lights from equipment in the bay.
Across the bay sat the Wayfarer's Rest. As it had been for decades, the little ship was dark and cold.
In the cockpit, the pilot's chair that had been the final resting place of Robert Watson was empty. It had been empty all day. Out of respect for the deceased pilot, or maybe perhaps from superstition, the men tending to the ship hadn't sat in it.
If there had been anyone in the launch bay, and they'd happened to look at the chair at that moment, they might have seen the seat cushion slowly compress, as if someone who had had a tiring day was slowly sitting down and taking his ease.
But there was no one there. No one living, that is.