Though the contention between them had until this point been limited to verbal jousts, Zett had taken things to a new level. Despite that, neither of them would take their squabble to Ganz, to preserve their pride if nothing else. Quinn knew that the situation between him and the Nalori was far from over, and would likely remain unresolved until one of them was dead.

Maybe I can find someplace nice and peaceful to settle down and hide,Quinn thought. Like the Klingon homeworld.

43

“Do you people think I’m a physician or a geologist?”

On the all-too-frequent occasions throughout his career when he found himself faced with an autopsy, Ezekiel Fisher always harbored a single question: How had death come to claim the unfortunate soul whose remains were placed in his care?

Standing once more in the station’s morgue—his second time in as many weeks—and as he looked upon the body of yet another being whose life had ended amid the frozen wastes of Erilon, Fisher was confronted not only with the challenge of understanding how his latest patient had died, but also how it had lived, as well as what it had been in the first place.

“Well, I’msure not the geologist,” Xiong said, glancing up and offering a supportive smile to his newest colleague as they both regarded the body lying atop the examination table that was as much mineral as it was flesh.

This isn’t some kind of joke, is it?

Unlike the cold, polished metal of the table itself, the body’s dark shell—that was how Fisher thought of it, anyway—seemed to absorb the room’s ambient light. His attention once more was drawn to the head and face, which were devoid of features, and the conical limbs, which tapered to points rather than digits.

Xiong finally spoke. “What did the commodore tell you about this?”

“Just the basics,” Fisher replied, recounting in broad strokes the information Reyes had provided to him about the creature’s presence on Erilon and how it was believed to have been the same assailant that had decimated the original research team as well as Captain Zhao and his landing party from the Endeavour. His first look at the thing upon entering the morgue was enough to tell the doctor that it or its apparent twin—whatever the hell it might be—had killed the Denobulan, Bohanon, whose body he had examined the previous week.

Initial scans of the lifeless form lying atop the table also had proved interesting, revealing a startling absence of internal organs. Instead, the thing’s crystalline structure appeared more as an endoskeleton of some kind, sheathed in the obsidian dermal layer, which, according to the reports from the Erilon landing parties, had resisted even the most intensive phaser fire.

“Anything you want to tell me?” he asked, knowing that Xiong was probably under orders to provide only that information which was relevant to Fisher’s current needs as a medical examiner.

“We think it somehow telepathically communicated with various equipment across the planet,” the lieutenant replied, “including the weapons used against the Endeavour. I also saw it directly interfacing with computer consoles we found in ruins beneath the surface, something we’ve not been able to do.”

Stroking his beard as he listened, Fisher asked, “Any ideas how it might have done that?”

“Well, I have a thought,” Xiong said, “but it’s somewhat radical.”

“I have a high tolerance for ‘radical,’ son,” Fisher replied, offering a paternal smile. “Humor an old man, why don’t you?”

Drawing what the doctor presumed was a bolstering breath, Xiong said, “In short, I want to know whether this creature is able to establish a physical and mental connection with a crystalline lattice.”

“Oh,” Fisher replied, his eyebrows rising. “Is that all?”

Unfazed by the comment, the young officer continued, “Obviously we can’t learn that here, but if we can verify that this thing’s physiological structure lends itself to the controlled sending and receipt of electrical pulses beyond its body, then I’ll have something to work with.”

Considering that for a moment, Fisher nodded. “That’s a pretty tall order, but I suppose we can poke around and see what we see.”

At least I don’t have to worry about triggering any security alarms this time around, or worry about saying the wrong thing to the wrong people.

Unlike Dr. M’Benga, whom Reyes had not permitted to be briefed into the project, Xiong was certain to provide a storehouse of knowledge Fisher would find useful during his examination.

“Okay, then,” Xiong said. “What do we do now?”

Fisher shrugged as he turned to the instrument tray which he had positioned next to the examination table. “For starters, let’s see what it takes to get a look inside our friend here.”

Retrieving a laser scalpel from the instrument tray and adjusting it to its highest setting, Fisher trained the tool’s beam in a tight focus on the surface of the corpse’s torso. An immediate trail of thin smoke wafted from the site of incision as the beam bored without resistance into the dark, inflexible surface. The smoke held a bitter, metallic smell that lodged within his nostrils.

“Watch out,” he warned, jerking his head to the right to avoid the stream of viscous, dark gray fluid that sprayed from the opening he had created. The first spurt arced over the table and splattered onto the floor, though the flow’s pressure eased the next moment, finally ebbing to a slow but steady trickle that continued to ooze from the wound. Reaching to the tray for an emesis basin, the doctor placed it next to the wound and began collecting a sample of the fluid, which did not appear to be caustic—at least not immediately so.

“I don’t understand,” Xiong said, his brow creased in confusion. “This thing withstood phaser rifles set to maximum. Why is it so fragile now?” Taking the tray from Fisher, the lieutenant picked up a hand scanner from the nearby tray and waved it over the specimen. “It’s saturated with lyotropic nanostructures,” he said a moment later. “This stuff is liquid crystal.”

“Is it safe?” Fisher asked.

Xiong nodded. “It appears to be.”

“Fabulous,” the doctor said as he retrieved a grafting laser from the tray and used it to suture the wound he had created. “Interesting if this thing used it for blood.”

Waving the scanner over the prostrate form, Xiong nodded. “The liquid flows between the different components of its internal crystalline structure.” Looking up from the scanner, his expression was one of confusion. “Could the organs have decomposed into liquid form after death?”

Fisher retrieved the basin from Xiong, ever mindful not to spill any of the charcoal-colored liquid as he crossed the room to the computer workstation. Taking a sample of the fluid and placing it in a specimen tube, the doctor inserted it into a port at the base of the dynoscanner and activated the unit. He tapped a series of commands into the computer interface. Thanks to the work he already had performed on samples taken from the Denobulan, it did not take the computer long to complete its first, rudimentary scan.

“And there you are,” he said as the results he anticipated were displayed on the computer screen, “you crafty little meta-genome, you.”

Leaning closer, Xiong smiled. “Amazing, isn’t it? I never get tired of looking at it. It’s mesmerizing.” Clearing his throat, he stepped back from the workstation. “I guess that sounds rather foolish to you, Doctor.”

“Not at all, Lieutenant,” Fisher replied, smiling again. “Now, while the scanner is chewing on what we fed it, let’s take a look at getting an answer to your question.” He toggled a control on the computer interface and the viewer’s image shifted to that of a spectroscopic view of the fluid.