Chapter Thirteen

“A little suffering is good for the soul.”

—The Corbomite Maneuver

SICKBAY WAS A ZOO. Several doctors, nurses, and orderlies had beamed over from the three ships escort-ing us and were preparing to beam back to their own ships with groups of our ill crewpeople. All four sickbays were hard at work trying to ease the aftereffects of the heavy drugging. Some people were on their feet. Others were still unconscious. Many still hovered in between. Sarda was here already, apparently for the same reason that brought me here before following the captain’s suggestion to rest.

Scanner was one of those in-betweens: still in bed, but the light had returned to his eyes and the whip to his tongue.

“Piper! You daughter of a snake. How are yawl?”

I tweeked the forefinger that waggled at me and said, “You don’t want to know. Are you all fight?”

“Naw, I died. I’m just here as an example of what not to do.”

Sarda offered a straighter answer. “Merete estimates he will be duty-fit in a day.” The sentence sounded awkward until I realized I’d never heard him call Merete anything but “Doctor.” Sarda had changed. Not for the human, but for the better.

Scanner tugged at the lapel of my flight suit. “So how’s it gonna feel carryin’ a rank of full Commander?”

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I backed off a step. “Oh, no, not again! Not a chance, not a prayer! Maybe they’ll promote you, but they’re not going to do that to me again, not for a long, long, long time! I’ll resign first!”

“Okay, okay… forget I mentioned it.”

“You’d better forget you mentioned it, because ff Star Fleet gets any bright ideas I’ll know where they came from.”

“Hey, this is me forgettin’.” He held his hands up in surrender.

Luckily for him, a roll of laughter from a group of recovering crewpeople distracted me from my reaction to that unsavory idea. “What’s going on over there?”

“Oh, nothin’,” Scanner said. “Really nothin’.”

I looked at Sarda. A Vulcan version of a shrug tightened his shoulders. “Judd has evidently rigged some holographs into the patients’ lounge, to entertain the crew as they recuperate. I have not as yet seen them, but they seem to be efficacious.”

“Are you telling me,” I began, “that we actually have a visual record of Scanner’s idea of entertain-ment? What is it, Scanner? Old Laurel and Hardy tapes? Films of test flight crashes? What?”

“Ain’t teHin’ 2’ Whether he wanted to tell or not, his cheeks grew rosy.

“This I’ve got to see.”

“Piper, it’s dull, I’m telling you!”

“Sure. I know a setup when I see one. Come on, Sarda.”

We elbowed our way through the lump of crewpeople—easy, because most of them were still weak. Laughter is the best medicine, Confucius or somebody once said, and it showed in the blanched faces around us as health slowly returned. When we got through to the specially rigged holo platform, I saw why. I also remembered that a certain Tyrannosaurus Rex lover had been armed with a tricorder during a particularly opportune moment.

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The group rippled with laughter again, in time for me to see a small holographic version of myself, engaged in a vigorous dance. Veils whipped in and out of the image periphery, as did a grasping Klingon hand from below. Veils!

Sarda’s voice was fuel on the fire. “Piper, I had no idea you were so… athletic.”

“Scanner!”

It took three strong orderlies, but eventually peace reigned again and I was forced to accept my share of it. In a ship still empty of most of its crew, I discovered what quiet really meant. It was nice, for a change; soothing. My quarters were the same as I had left them: Merete’s bunk pleated and pin straight, mine a little rumpled. I never could make a bed.

That didn’t matter now anyway. I planned to add to the rumples. I ordered all the lights off except the one tiny courtesy bulb in the head. Darkness folded around me, welcome as a warm cloak, and my head felt like an iron ball when it hit the pillow.

One deep breath to usher me into sleep–and the door buzzer sounded. Ease off, guys, I’m under orders to sleep. My voice triggered the door. “Come.”

The doorway was dark, and as the panel opened, bland corridor light molded around a stock authority. “Commander Piper…”

I struggled into a sitting position. “Oh–Mr. Scott. Come in, please.”

Still silhouetted, he moved into my lightless quarters. “Lassie… I’d like a worrrd wi’ you.”