Star Trek: TNG Indstinguishable From Magic (10 page)

“I asked them not to.” Another punch in the gut. Did she think that he would have let her presence distract him from his duty, or indeed try to distract her?

“I didn’t come here deliberately—That is to say, I just got a little confused, I guess. My homing instinct isn’t up to much, and I guess it led me here to the chief engineer’s quarters instead of to—”

“Your quarters?”

“My quarters. Which I associate with being Data’s quarters . . .
I guess my legs think they’re back on the
Enterprise
-D.”

“Don’t worry about it! Actually, I’ve been kind of looking forward to chatting with you.”

“Kind of?”

“Half looking forward to, and half dreading.”

La Forge nodded slowly. “I know exactly what you mean.” It was exactly how he was feeling right now.

“This isn’t the best place for us to catch up,” she said pointedly. “Maybe we should meet in Nelson’s.”

“I could use some dinner, and a stiff drink,” he admitted. The icy ball in the pit of his stomach was now hatching butterflies.

“Me too.”

“Give me an hour?”

Leah kept her expression frustratingly neutral. “I’ll be waiting.”

Nelson’s was in the forward section of deck ten, and roughly the same size and layout as the old Ten Forward of La Forge’s fond memories, though the décor was a little different. There were 3D images and artworks of various historical engineering projects on the walls, from the Great Pyramid to the
Vesta
-class starship. Other mementoes included a rivet from the Forth Bridge, a cog from the Skybridge of Vanalis, an access panel from Zephram Cochrane’s
Phoenix,
and various other engineering milestones.

Guinan already had a table with some drinks set up when Geordi arrived. He wasn’t sure whether Leah had primed her, or whether she had just known or figured out the right thing to do. She gave him that Cheshire cat look as he approached, but flitted back to the bar without speaking. Her look had said all she needed to, and Leah was already there too.

“I should probably apologize for not meeting you when you boarded, but I thought it might be a little . . .”

“Awkward?”

“Distracting. You came here to work, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” He wasn’t sure what to say next, mainly because he wasn’t sure what she wanted to hear.

“You seem to be of two minds.”

“Not about that. It’s just the ship, and the faces. Not just you, but Reg and Alyssa . . .”

“You spent a long time on the
Enterprise
-D.”

“And they were good times. Being here is like being back in those days, and not. And I don’t know whether I’ve taken a step forward or back.”

“Forward, believe me. The
Challenger
is all about moving forward.”

“To the twenty-second century?”

“We have new techniques to try on the
Intrepid.
Archaeological techniques, forensics techniques, data and energy recovery . . .”

La Forge nodded. “Sounds fun. Maybe my luck’s changing after all.”

“For the better, I hope.”

“I’m still not sure yet. Leaving the
Enterprise,
even for a little while, feels like bad luck, especially with some of the other things that have happened lately.”

“Such as?” Geordi opened his mouth to answer, but then thought better of it. She didn’t want to hear about Tamala. Leah’s eyes narrowed at his hesitation. “All right, at least tell me her name.”

“Tamala,” Geordi said resignedly. “She was transferred to the
Lexington
a few weeks ago. Just when things looked like they might be getting interesting.”

“Tamale?”

“Tamala. Tamala Harstad.”

“Oh.”

“She was an intern on the medical staff.”

“Serious?”

“Maybe heading that way, but . . .”

“But . . . she got transferred?”

“No. I mean, yes, but even before that . . .”

“It didn’t last?”

“I wouldn’t say it wasn’t lasting, but I think that, given time, it would have . . . stopped lasting.”

Leah nodded. “It’s your confidence.”

“My confidence?”

“Or lack of it. You never quite found that balance between being confident and not counting your chickens before they’re hatched.”

“Okay . . . And that would mean . . . ?”

“You were saying you already thought the relationship wouldn’t last. If you were afraid Tamala—Dr. Harstad—was going to lose interest—”

“No, that’s not what I meant at all. Actually I just think that with her being transferred, and then me being transferred . . . that maybe it all worked out for the best after all.”

Leah frowned. “Wait a minute . . . You mean you were going to lose interest in her?”

“Not exactly. We could have been happy, we were good together. It’s just that there’s always the thought at the back of my head that . . .”

“That . . . ? Come on, Geordi, what was the downside. What was she not?”

“She wasn’t Leah Brahms.”

“Oh.” The mask came down again, hiding her thoughts.

“Yeah.” All things considered, he’d rather not have said as much straight out.

“Well, I guess that shows something.”

“Yeah,” Geordi sighed, “I guess it shows you were right. I can’t get that balance between confidence and—Well, anyway. I’m sorry.”

“For what? I was going to say I guess it shows commitment. Or stubborn denial.”

“Why don’t we just call it a compliment.” He raised his glass. “To Doctor Brahms.”

She raised her glass in return. “To
Intrepid.
And the mission to revive her.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Geordi agreed.

L
a Forge felt weird sitting at the ops console, watching the
Challenger
’s main viewer. When he had first joined the crew of the
Enterprise,
he had been the conn officer, despite his already established proficiency in starship engineering, because that was the only slot available for him at the time, and because of his fervent desire to serve on the
Enterprise.

Now here he was, back on a
Galaxy
-class ship, and almost but not quite back in the past. The only difference was that he was in the left-hand seat instead of the right-hand one. Maybe looking into the past was just like looking into a mirror.

A note came up on his console, and he turned to face the center seats. Scotty was in the captain’s chair, with Hunt and Dr. Brahms on either side. “The
Agamemnon
is moving into formation with us.”

Scotty perked up. “About bloody time too. Kat, drop us out of warp. Transporter room, are you ready to bring aboard our final team member?”

“Ready,” a woman’s voice replied.

“Geordi, Leah, would you like to accompany me down to transporter room one and greet our latest guest? Mister Hunt, you have the bridge.”

La Forge and Brahms immediately rose and made for the turbolift with Scotty. Geordi couldn’t help but wonder who the
Agamemnon
had brought, and what specialty he or she would bring with them. He found himself hoping it might be Miles O’Brien, who was the best practical engineer he could think of other than Scotty himself.

In the turbolift, Scotty glanced at them both. “I hear from Guinan that you two were catching up in Nelson’s.”

“I’ve found a few familiar faces aboard,” La Forge said. “It’s nice to catch up with friends I haven’t seen for a while.”

Scotty nodded, in mock-thought. “I’m glad to hear it. A crew needs to be a family, if you know what I mean. The best starship crews always are.”

The turbolift doors opened, just short of the transporter room door. A female chief of medium height with graying hair was waiting at the console. “Have
Agamemnon
signaled their readiness to transport, Carolan?” Scotty asked.

“Just a second ago.”

“Right you are then, go ahead and energize.”

Carolan deftly brushed the controls, and a figure shimmered into being on the shining transporter pad. The new arrival was tall and lanky, with a wide, angular face and spiky gray hair that was cropped short. He wore loose clothing and a rather irritating smug expression.

La Forge was horrified. “Rasmussen?! Berlinghoff Rasmussen is on this team?”

Brahms nodded, looking surprised at his reaction. “Yes, do you know—Oh, of course you do, he was apprehended by the
Enterprise,
wasn’t he?”

“‘Apprehended’ isn’t quite the word I’d use. Caught red-handed is more like it.”

Rasmussen stepped down from the platform, shaking hands with Scotty, then caught sight of Geordi. “Wait, wait, I remember you! Lieutenant La Forge.”

“It’s Commander La Forge now.”

“Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to keep you belowdecks, so to speak.”

La Forge tapped the pips on his collar. “Three pips, Rasmussen. I don’t know what a Commander’s insignia was in your time, but—”

“Same, actually, but they were more sort of . . .” He patted the right side of his chest, just below the collarbone. “Here.”

“I must apologize for the welcome, “Leah interrupted. “Commander La Forge is—”

“Oh, think nothing of it, Doctor Brahms,” Rasmussen said with a beatific, and slightly contrite, smile. “The Commander’s reaction is perfectly understandable, under the circumstances. I doubt any of his shipmates from the
Enterprise
would have really been happy to see me again. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

“You made quite an impression,” La Forge said pointedly.

“An unfortunate and unpleasant one, I know. And I regret it, and offer my unreserved apologies. I know that any of you from whom I tried to steal would be unhappy to see me again. Well, apart from Mister Data, of course, who isn’t really capable of unhappiness. He might understand, actually.”

“I doubt it.”

“Really? He seemed quite—”

“Data’s dead.” Geordi didn’t even realize until the
words had escaped his lips that he wasn’t hesitating over whether to say dead or deactivated.

“Dead?” Rasmussen looked genuinely surprised. More incredibly, he looked genuinely dismayed as well. The smile faded from his face. “I’m sorry to hear that. He was quite an incredible . . .”

“Piece of merchandise?”

“Creation.” Rasmussen looked lost for a moment. “He was an incredible creation.” That was an opinion with which Geordi couldn’t disagree.

Rasmussen couldn’t blame Geordi La Forge for being unsociable. His reaction to the offer of a drink in the ship’s lounge was a bit
more
than unsociable, but Rasmussen couldn’t really blame him for that either. After all, he had tried to steal his stuff, his shipmates’ stuff, and kidnap his friend.

Frankly,
Rasmussen thought,
if I was one of the
Enterprise
crew, I’d have slugged me on the spot.
He hoped that thought didn’t belatedly occur to La Forge, or anyone else now on this ship, who had been on the
Enterprise
back then.

Back then.
The phrase was a sick joke. Even back then was two hundred years in his own future.

He looked around the cabin they had given him, and was vaguely reminded of his trip to the
Enterprise
nearly fifteen years ago. It probably wasn’t exactly the same as the accommodation there, even though this was the same class of ship, but he wasn’t familiar enough with it to notice the differences. He did, however, notice the differences between it and in the penal colony in New Zealand.

Actually, now that he came to think of it, the penal colony gave him a bigger room. And an outdoors. He suspected, though, that the extra room was so that there would be space for the endless parade of historians and the like
who had come to gawk at him like some kind of resurrected Neanderthal. Not that they had treated him badly, but he knew he was an attraction to them, like a zoo animal.

That some of those historians had been rather pretty mitigated his capitivity, though. He couldn’t fault the twenty-fourth century for its women. They were among the few things that didn’t depress him these days.

When he first came to this century he thought it would be wondrous and magical, with advanced technology he could take back, “invent,” and amaze people with. After so many years eating mostly replicated food, he found he wished he’d never heard of that particular device. And he was amazed that they still used transporters, in spite of all the horror stories that the free press had been disseminating back in the 2150s when they were invented.

The novelty, basically, had worn off, but that wasn’t the worst of it. The worst was that, even though he was a scientist, and an engineer of sorts, he didn’t understand a word of the technical journals to which he had subscribed. When he met a few schoolchildren who knew more about warp theory than he did, he knew he didn’t have what it took to get up to speed.

Then came the offer of this trip, and he knew it was his calling. A ship from his own time. A ship and a technology he knew and could understand. How could he refuse the chance to be useful again?

How could he refuse the chance to meet more lovely ladies of Starfleet?

As Nog left the bridge at the end of his shift, Tyler Hunt ran to catch the same turbolift. “Hold up, Nog!”

Nog stuck a leg between the doors to prevent them closing. It was his heavier leg, the biosynthetic prosthesis that he had been stuck with since the Battle of AR-558 during
the Dominion War. “What can I do for you, Commander?”

As the doors snapped shut, Hunt called out, “Elevator halt.” Then he turned to Nog. “That Rasmussen bloke worries me.”

“Me too. He reminds me of the kind of people my uncle always used to do business with.”

“You know what I mean. He’s not just a guy who made a mistake once and got himself in too deep. More like it’s in his blood, you know?”

Nog knew exactly what he meant. “I think so. I’ve known quite a few like that. Before I joined Starfleet.”

Hunt canted his head. “If my formative years were filled with people like that, I think I’d have seen the service as the quiet life.”

“You didn’t join Starfleet for the ‘quiet life,’ then?”

“Nah. Joined up to see the galaxy, really. Belong to a family, of sorts.”