By the Book (3 page)

Caution was not one of Captain Archer's favorite words-and that was one reason Cutler liked serving under his command.

But as bad as the mission had gone for Cutler, it had gone even worse for Novakovich. He was still recovering physically from his emergency beam-out in the middle of a sandstorm.

Novakovich had materialized with plants and sticks and sand phased into his skin. The very thought of that experience made Cutler shudder. She'd been giving the transporter a wide berth from the beginning, but that berth was even wider now.

Dr. Phlox had removed all of the larger items, and from what Cutler could tell, the sores were healing well, almost without scars. But, as Novakovich had told her, the sand was causing him the most problems. It had been phased into most of his exposed skin by the transporter, and the only thing Dr. Phlox had been able to do was say that the sand would take care of itself.

"Skin has a way of healing itself," Novakovich had told Culter when she'd expressed surprise at his appearance.

The problem with the sand was that the skin was healing itself by forming pimples around the sand particles and expelling them as whiteheads. (Sand heads? She didn't dare ask, even as a joke.) In all her years, Cutler had never seen such a bad case of acne as Novakovich had. She figured he could use an escape. And he had happily agreed to join the game.

Mayweather came back from dumping his dinner dishes and sat down. "So when do we get this adventure under way?"

For a moment, Cutler thought he was referring to the real planet and the adventure that awaited them. Then he grabbed his padd and sat in his spot at the table. He meant the Martian adventure, of course.

Anderson left the window and walked back to the table. Novakovich was already seated, studying the weapons information that Anderson had given him during dinner.

"We've got to get Novakovich here a character, first," Cutler said.

Anderson sat down. "I hope yours is less mediocre than mine," he said to Novakovich.

"How come Alex can't use Hoshi's character?" Mayweather asked.

"She might want to rejoin the game at some point," Cutler said. "Besides, it's RPG protocol to roll your own characters."

Mayweather sighed. He clearly wanted to start doing something-inside the adventure game or outside on the planet.

"So," Cutler said to Novakovich, "what's your character's name?"

"Rust," Novakovich said.

"Short for Rusty?" Anderson asked.

"Nope," Novakovich said. "Just Rust. Used to have a dog by that name."

"You might not want an emotional attachment to your character," Cutler said as she handed him the bolts.

"Why not?" Novakovich asked.

"Sometimes characters don't survive adventures."

"I was wondering why we didn't roll a resurrection number," Mayweather said. He was clearly joking.

"In some games you do roll for a number of lives or resurrections," Cutler said. "But those are fantasy role-playing games."

"Yeah," Anderson said, grinning, "and our game is so clearly based in reality."

Cutler smiled. "Let's see who Rust is."

Novakovich dumped the bolts on the table. This time the clatter was muffled by the towel. Cutler was pleased. She wasn't sure she'd be able to handle the sound of metal bolts rolling on a hard tabletop, roll after roll.

Novakovich rolled six red bolts for strength, and nine for intelligence. His charisma came out a dismal three, his dexterity a nine, and his luck a whopping two.

"I don't know who has the worse character, me or you," Anderson said. "Mine is stunningly mediocre, but yours is either bad or good at what he has."

"I think he's typical," Mayweather said. "A smart guy who can't get a girl to save his life."

"Some women like smart men," Cutler said, glancing at Anderson, then looking away. But not before Mayweather caught the look.

"I'm crushed," he said softly, so that only she could hear.

"You're a smart guy," Novakovich said, oblivious of the undertones.

"Oh?" Mayweather said, turning his teasing tone on Novakovich. "Are you saying I can't get a girl either?"

Novakovich shook his head. "Are we ready to play yet or not?"

"Ready," Cutler said. She decided to refresh them all, since she couldn't remember what she'd told Novakovich. "Here's what you are facing. You have to get a Universal Translator part from a building in the center of the old ruined city. You have landed on the edge of a Martian canal. There are dangerous creatures in the canal, a small boat tied to the shore, or an old bridge."

"Are we working together on this mission?" Novakovich asked.

Cutler shrugged. "Your choice."

She had figured they would, but it wouldn't matter. They could split up if they wanted to. She had asked them to bring padds so they could keep track of where they'd been. If they decided to split up, she wouldn't let them look at each other's padds even though they'd heard the adventure. She would have to modify things slightly if they took a path someone else had walked first.

"I'd like a companion or two," Mayweather said.

"Me, too," Anderson said.

"Who am I to argue?" Novakovich said.

Since they reacted the way the game required, Cutler said nothing. If the other two had disagreed with Mayweather, though, she would have pointed out that he had the highest charisma score now that Hoshi was gone and he would be their leader.

"I vote for the bridge," Anderson said.

"I think I'm with him," Novakovich said.

Mayweather just shrugged, sitting back and smiling. "Why not? I'll go along for the meantime."

"So now we're trudging to the bridge over the sand," Mayweather said. "Right?"

"You've already reached the bridge," Cutler said. She hadn't thought of putting any problems right outside the landing area of the ship. She should have, though. She remembered playing on computer. The best games started with a crisis right up front.

"So what's this bridge like?" Anderson asked.

Cutler glanced at her notes to make sure she was remembering all the details she had worked up right. "The first part of the bridge looks sturdy. But once you get a third of the way across you see a large hole. The hole is too big to jump and the bridge is crumbling away under you."

"So," Anderson said, "let's get a plank long enough to span the hole to make a way across."

"Okay," Cutler said. She glanced at her notes again. She had prepared for this idea. "Where does the plank come from?"

"How should I know?" Anderson said.

"The crumbling part of the bridge," Novakovich said.

"That makes the hole bigger," Cutler said.

"Well, we can't very well take it from the other end," Mayweather said.

She rolled bolts to see if they could dislodge the plank without hurting themselves. They did. She had made this part purposefully easy. Once they set the plank down, she said, "You have a seventy percent chance of making it across."

"I'll go across first," Anderson said.

Cutler handed him the cup of bolts. "Anything more than two red bolts and Mr. Doom makes it."

Anderson nodded and shook the cup, causing a few nearby diners to glance their way. Then he tipped the cup upside down on the towel.

One red bolt.

Mayweather and Novakovich both burst into laughter.

"Mr. Doom has fallen off the plank and into the water below," Cutler said, also laughing. She glanced at her notes. "Since he has a strength quotient of five, he survived the fall. Now what are you going to do?"

"Swim for shore," Anderson said, not happy with the situation. "And fast."

"Roll the bolts to see if Mr. Doom made it," Cutler said, gathering them up and putting them in the cup. "With a strength quotient of five, Mr. Doom needs a seven or more to make it."

Anderson again shook the cup of bolts and tipped it over the towel.

Three red bolts.

"A mutated Martian canal trout over fifty feet long has seen Mr. Doom swimming, came up and bit him in half," Cutler said. "Mr. Doom is dead."

"Dead?" Anderson asked. He sounded shocked.

"Dead," Cutler said.

Mayweather and Novakovich almost fell off their chairs with laughter.

Anderson kept staring at the three red bolts. "That's not fair. You just wanted Doom out of the game."

"No," Cutler said. "I gave you the odds before you rolled."

"But my character can't die."

"She said he could," Mayweather said, his laughter gone except for that twinkle in his eye. "She said we all could just a few minutes ago."

"I thought she was kidding."

"I don't kid about the rules," Cutler said. "I warned you this was a dangerous mission."

"Just like in real life," Novakovich said. "And I got the pimpled face and sand under my skin to prove it."

That sobered them all, and as a group, they looked at the reddish blue planet taunting them outside the windows.

"Sometimes," Mayweather said, "the risk is worth it."

"Well, the risk isn't worth it to cross a dang bridge on a planet that's wrong for a device that's impossible," Anderson said.

"Your character is just as imaginary as the planet and the bridge," Novakovich said, turning back to the game.

"Yeah," Mayweather said. "Unlike life, you can just roll another one. Right, Elizabeth?"

"Right," she said. "As long as Mayweather and Novakovich don't mind."

"Do it," Mayweather said, waving his hand. "But just don't name him Doom again."

"Fine by me as well," Novakovich said.

Anderson smiled. "All right, how about Dr. Mean?"

As all of them laughed as Cutler rounded up the bolts, put them in the cup, and handed it to Anderson. This was working out better than she had hoped.

"Strength role first," she said.

Anderson's second character, Dr. Mean, had a strength of six, a dexterity of six, a luck of four, a charisma of five, and an intelligence level of four.

"Dumber than the last one," Mayweather said.

"Yeah," Anderson said, "but I can swim faster."

With that laughter, the game returned to the bridge over the Martian canal, and this time, all three of the adventurers made it across just fine.

Captain's log.

For the past half day we have held our position orbiting the planet we are now calling Fazi, for the name of the race of humanoids that inhabits it. To be honest, this waiting is driving me crazy. But at the moment I see no other option. Ensign Hoshi is still not convinced she had a handle on the Fazi language. She's tried to explain it to me twice, but for the moment I'll just let the records of her research speak for themselves. But there's clearly something different about the language.

The Fazi are at an almost identical point in their development as humanity was when the Vulcans stopped by. The only difference that I can see on the surface is that the Fazi did not have to survive any war. That's a good thing, although there seems to be no logical reason for the uneven technological development.

We've also done a number of scans of the other civilization inhabiting the small southern continent of the planet. There is clearly some sort of mutual respect, or treaty, between the two races, since there are no Fazi roads or structures at all on the entire continent.

This other race, which has no sign of any advanced technology beyond basic building of structures, seems to live both on the shore and in the water. We're going to have to get closer before we get clear pictures of them. T'Pol is warning us away from doing just that with either race. So far I have agreed with her, mostly because of Hoshi's problems with the language of the Fazi. But I have to be honest, I'm excited about making this first contact. More excited than I have been in some time.

The bridge smelled of beef stew and Archer didn't much care. He'd decided that he wanted to eat lunch right in his chair while studying readouts coming in from the planet scans, so he did just that. Captain's prerogative. Besides, when things got interesting, he hated taking the time for a meal and he had learned years ago that if he ate and worked, he would at least stay nourished.

On the big screen in front of him, the Fazi major continent was passing, its greens and reds stark contrasts to the deep blues and white clouds.

Porthos lay on the floor beside the captain's chair, sleeping, his leg twitching as he chased something in a dream. Archer wished that he could sleep as soundly as his dog sometimes. But that wasn't going to happen any time soon, not as long as they held off first contact with this planet.

Around the bridge everyone worked pretty much in silence. Chief Engineer Charles "Trip" Tucker even had his head stuck under a panel near Hoshi's station, doing adjustments.

"I must say, Captain, I am quite surprised that they haven't seen us up here yet," Lieutenant Reed said, also staring at the screen.

He seemed as fascinated by the planet as Archer was, although his fascination was couched in statements like that one instead of overt enthusiasm. T'Pol seemed to handle Reed's restraint a lot better than Archer's clear excitement.

"However," Reed said, "every bandwidth I check I find nothing mentioning any ship in orbit or referring to a threat from above."

"Societies of this level often do not look to their sky for visitors," T'Pol said. "It is not logical to look when you have no expectation of finding anything."

"Doesn't that assume that they think they're the center of the universe?" Trip asked from underneath the console. "I mean that's not a universal constant, is it? I remember reading about some Earth tribe from a couple hundred years ago that had no word for 'I.' "

"That's right," Hoshi said. "Their language was one of the most fascinating discoveries of its day."

"How can you have conversation if you have no word for 'I'?" Reed asked.

"It's unbelievably difficult," Hoshi said. "Even trying to converse about where you're standing becomes next to impossible. The anthropologists who studied these guys-"

"I'm sure that's fascinating and may even be relevant," Archer said, "but don't you have enough of a linguistic puzzle without explaining an ancient Earth one?"