|
"Sir . . .
somebody's here . . ."
Riker moved
a step closer, his shoulders drawing slightly inward as a shiver assaulted
his spine. "But there's no one there."
"They are
here, sir!"
Riker held
out one hand in a calming gesture that didn't work. "All
right...tell me what wavelengths you're tuned in to right now. Help me,
Geordi. I want to see them too."
Geordi moved
choppily backwards, bumping Riker, bumping his own chair, trying to
avoid the unseen entities as he moved toward the science station on the
upper bridge, but he never even got close. He bumped the bridge rail
with one shoulder and couldn't move anymore, but stayed there trying to
convince himself he wasn't going out of his mind.
"Geordi,
just describe it," Riker said, glancing at Picard for reassurance.
"What are you seeing?"
LaForge
trembled. "I don't know..."
"Lieutenant,"
Picard snapped from above him, "give me a report. Analyze what
you're seeing and report on it."
"Uh . . . they're . . . narrow-band
. . . low-resolution
pixels at several wavelengths...toward the blue in the invisible
spectrum . . . but some acoustical waves are giving me a visual of animated
pulses--"
Picard's
voice was laced with impatience, but also with awe. "Are you
telling me you can see what they sound like?"
"Yes,
sir--more or less. God, they're everywhere!"
"Data,"
Picard urged.
"I have
it, sir. One moment," Data said as he worked furiously on the
computer sensory adjustment, then struck a final pressure point and
looked up at the viewscreen.
The visual
of the bridge was chilling. Each saw himself, in place, as each was now.
All appeared normal, all things right. Their bridge monitors were
flickering the usual status displays, the beige carpeting, the bands of
color on Wesley's gray shirt, and the officer's red and black, or azure
and black uniforms showed that the colors were right and the picture
crisp--not very reassuring at the moment.
On the
starboard bridge, specters walked.
|
