THE BEST AND THE BRIGHTEST Read online

  “My idea?” Jayme repeated incredulously. “I wanted to use an antiproton chain. Didn’t I, Titus?”

  “We both did.”

  Starsa rubbed her eyes sleepily. “I thought using a proton chain would be safer. I guess I was wrong.”

  No one could chastise Starsa when she looked so strung-out. Reoh was quick to assure her, “We all worked on the project. Who knows why it failed? You can’t blame yourself.”

  Starsa still looked worried, an unusual sight. “Maybe we could get B’Elanna to look at it. She’s just down two floors.”

  “You mean Torres?” Bobbie Ray asked incredulously. “Great! Do you want to make things worse?”

  “Torres is a great engineer,” Starsa insisted. “Better than any of us.”

  Jayme silently agreed, having watched, mouth hanging open along with the rest of the first-year engineering students, as Torres argued with Professor Chapman over material stress levels and Starfleet safety protocols.

  “It’s no use, even Torres couldn’t fix this,” Jayme told Starsa. “You should go to bed before you fall down.” Jayme helped her quadmate back to her room and into bed, leaving Titus and Bobbie Ray to mull over the mess they were in, with Nev Reoh hovering in the background offering useless suggestions with infinite hope, as always.

  Jayme didn’t go back to her room after Starsa had lain down. First she made sure T’Rees would keep one eye on his roommate, then she went down to the transporter room to check the logs. There was no record in the short-term memory of Moll Enor beaming out of the Quad tower. She checked the gardens around the Quad, asking other cadets if they had seen Moll, until she realized that she had been busy with Starsa and the medics for over an hour during the beta treatment. She rushed back to the transporter and found a record of Moll’s transport in the long-term log. The Trill had gone to the Academy Database.

  When Jayme reached the Database, the cadet staffing the entrance confirmed that Moll Enor had arrived a couple of hours ago, acting focused and preoccupied, as usual. Jayme felt a little better, but she searched through the mostly empty rooms of the Database, too worried to give up and go back to the Quad, but not so upset that she wanted to make the situation worse by notifying security.

  Jayme placed a message on the network, but Moll didn’t respond. She checked the transporter logs of the Academy Database when she was certain Moll was no longer there, but there was no record of the Trill beaming out. She wandered along the cobblestone walkways between the Quads for a while longer before she finally gave up.

  As she slipped back into their Quad, trying not to wake everyone, Titus, Bobbie Ray, and Nev Reoh were waiting in her room.

  “Well?” Nev Reoh asked eagerly. “What did you find out?”

  “I couldn’t find her,” Jayme admitted. “She went to the Database and then disappeared.”

  “What?” Bobbie Ray exclaimed. “You’ve been looking for Moll all this time? What about our Quad project?”

  “What about it?” Jayme countered. “It blew up.”

  “But why?” Titus insisted, stepping closer. “We have to tell them something—”

  “How am I supposed to know why it blew up? That would take weeks of reductive analysis!”

  Bobbie Ray shrugged helplessly, turning away. “Well, I guess that’s it. Might as well get a few hours rest before the review board.”

  “You’re going to sleep again?” Titus demanded.

  “I’ll stay up,” Nev Reoh offered.

  “For what?” Jayme asked. “There’s nothing we can do now. Even if I did figure out what went wrong—that the velociter malfunctioned or the gas streams were mixed at too high a temperature—what does that give us? Nothing! We’ll have to take the bits and pieces in to show the review board that we tried. Then our careers are in their hands.”

  When Titus rolled out of bed the next morning, having never really gone to sleep, Bobbie Ray was briskly snoring on the other side of the room. That guy could fall asleep anywhere, anytime.

  “Get up!” Titus ordered, roughly prodding the large mound beneath the blankets. “Doesn’t anything ever get to you?”

  “You do,” Bobbie Ray assured him, raising his head and peering through sleep-heavy eyes. “I’m rooming with Starsa or Jayme next year.”

  “How can you lie there and act so blasé about being left back?”

  Bobbie Ray sat up and stretched, seeming to isolate every muscle in his body through the most incredible contortions Titus had ever seen. Of course, after eight months of watching the Rex do exactly the same maneuvers, he could have mimicked every one. That is, if he cared to look like that.

  Finally Bobbie Ray grinned down at him, still blinking sleepily. “It’s only a year. I bet I ace mechanical engineering next time around.”

  Titus just stared at him. “How stupid of me. What a fantastic reason for the six of us to repeat an entire year—so you can get a better grade. I feel so much better, now.”

  Titus left his roomie laughing behind him, but it wasn’t much better when he ran into T’Rees in the hall.

  “We have twenty-four minutes before we must report to the review board,” the Vulcan told him. “We should not compound matters by being late.”

  “Hey, you’re talking to the wrong guy,” Titus defended himself. “I’m here, I’m ready to face the plunge.”

  T’Rees cocked one brow. “What ‘plunge’ are you referring to?”

  “Never mind,” Titus told him. “I’ll get the others.”

  When he went into Jayme’s room, she was stuffing the pieces of their proton chain-maker into a carryall. “This looks carbonized,” she told him, holding up one piece of metal with a blackened edge.

  “Is that all you discovered?” Titus asked.

  Jayme shrugged. “If I had a week and a lab, we could probably put some of the pieces together and figure out what went wrong. Do you want to tell that to the review board? That we need another week?”

  Titus grimaced as he shook his head. “Very poor planning. But we put it through all those tests a couple of weeks ago, and nothing happened then.”

  “Maybe something went wrong when we were working the bugs out, those last calibrations of the velociter, maybe. Or one of the structural components failed.” At Titus’s glare, she added, “It happens! It happens all the time. That’s what engineers are for—fixing malfunctions.”

  “Well, it’s time to face the review board,” Titus told her, realizing that he had to ease off. The others didn’t know how difficult it was for his family to have him away from Antaranan. Or how important it was that he succeeded, so he could send back the supplies and equipment they needed to bring life to the barren soil of the colony.

  Everyone was in the hall except for Moll Enor. Jayme was instantly panicked. “Where is she? Did she come back last night? We have to call the medics—”

  “Calm down,” Titus told her, grabbing hold of Nev Reoh’s wrist to show everyone that he held a disc in his hand.

  “Moll sent me a message,” Reoh told them, finally able to speak when the rest of them shut up. “She’ll meet us at the review board.”

  “Then shall we proceed?” T’Rees suggested, ignoring Jayme’s relief.

  “Proceed away,” Titus told him with a sigh. At least T’Rees wouldn’t be held back a year along with them. Titus had been angry after their spelunking disaster that Moll, Reoh, and Starsa had gotten a Quad reprimand when all they had done was save Bobbie Ray and Jayme. T’Rees hadn’t done a thing and he didn’t get punished.

  Titus had petitioned Admiral Brand to review the matter, thinking it wasn’t fair, but she had denied his request to remove the Quad reprimand from the academic records of Moll Enor, Nev Reoh, and Starsa Taran. Not for the first time, Titus was grateful T’Rees hadn’t been involved. Even having to repeat the year wouldn’t be so bad without that Vulcan in their Quad.

  Moll was starting to think her quadmates wouldn’t arrive by the time the review board convened. But they tramped in together
at the last minute, looking as glum as any set of cadets she’d ever seen.

  Only Jayme seemed happy to see her, anxiously asking, “Are you all right? Where were you last night? I looked all over the Database.”

  “Oh,” Moll said softly, wanting to hit herself when she realized what she had done. She had run off alone again instead of working with the group like they were supposed to. No wonder they were all looking at her like she was a freak.

  Before Moll could tell them what she had discovered, Admiral Leyton’s aid was standing at the door of the conference room. “Quad #64C. Are you ready to present your project?”

  “Yes, sir,” T’Rees said for them.

  They filed in and stood at attention in front of the review board: Superintendent Brand, Admiral Leyton, and Professor Chapman, since they had submitted their preliminary designs and requested an engineering specialist on their board.

  “Quad #64C, at ease.” There was a hint of warm humor in Brand’s voice. “How nice to see you all together under more auspicious circumstances.”

  The other cadets shuffled and murmured, while Jayme held up the carryall in her hand. “Umm . . . we had a little trouble with our Quad project—”

  T’Rees interrupted, acting as their spokesman as they had agreed, “Quad #64C attempted to create a proton chain-maker. I believe you have the specs we submitted.”

  “We have gone over your proposal,” Admiral Brand agreed. “An intriguing idea.”

  Jayme shook the bag, letting the sound of broken components tinkle out. Chapman and Leyton began to look concerned.

  Moll realized she would have to present her material first in order to get the most impact out of it. The others could add whatever they had discovered afterward. It wasn’t the right way to do it, but her mistaken approach made it necessary.

  “That is the waste material,” Moll said, pointing toward Jayme, who obligingly held the bulging bag a little higher. “These are the components that tell us what happened.”

  Moll set the cracked spin velociter and part of the lead-chamber with the gas indicators down on the table in front of the review board.

  “You have the proposal containing the original intent of our Quad project,” Moll reminded the review board. “However, we discovered a new process, whereby a controlled, deflagrating explosion can be chemically created using a pure proton chain.”

  Bobbie Ray’s mouth was hanging open, a sure sign he knew nothing whatsoever about their Quad project. But then again, last year, one of Moll’s quadmates had questioned their project as if he was part of the review board—and they had still managed to pass.

  Professor Chapman had his chin cupped in his hand, and Moll wasn’t familiar enough with him to know if that was a good sign or bad. But Brand was looking interested.

  “Usually molecular chains are used in detection chambers,” Moll explained, “for studying the deflection and dispersal properties of various molecules. With our proton chain, we were able to do the same thing on a subatomic level.”

  “But what about the uncertainty principle—” Starsa started to say, but was nudged into silence on both sides by Titus and Jayme.

  Professor Chapman glanced at Starsa. “I agree with Cadet Starsa Taran—what about the uncertainty principle? It is impossible to specify or determine simultaneously both the position and momentum of a particle.”

  “That’s nullified by the deflagration, the explosion, which freezes a microsecond in the sample mass.” Moll gestured to the pieces in front of them. “Unfortunately, we weren’t expecting to create the potassium nitrate that caused the explosion, but four things came together in our experiment: the potassium hydroxide in the base gas with protons effused from sulfur atoms, along with the nitric acid in the lemin stalk that was catalyzed by the carbon of the cut edge.”

  In the pause, Nev Reoh added helpfully, “There are unusually high levels of nitrogen in lemin stalks.”

  Jayme started rummaging in the bag. “I have a piece of the carbonized metal where the proton-chain made contact. If you want to see it.”

  Professor Chapman held out his hand. “Yes, please.”

  Moll Enor waited until Jayme had handed over the bit of metal. “If the same combination could be used in strictly controlled levels of chemicals under a stasis field, then a detection chamber could be created that offers a new window into the nature of subatomic particles.”

  The members of the review board were nodding, fairly impressed. Even Professor Chapman spoke as if to a colleague. “Brendenson has been working on something similar on Maxum V, but it’s a highly theoretical and innovative approach.”

  “It’s way out of our field,” Moll Enor agreed. “We discovered this purely by accident. And, now, if my quadmates would like to add anything.”

  As a group, the other cadets pulled back slightly, shaking their heads, trying to deflect the attention of the review board.

  T’Rees must have realized the flustered picture they made, because he smoothly interjected, “Thank you, Cadet Enor, I believe you have adequately summed up our project.”

  “That was beautiful,” Jayme agreed fervently.

  “I must agree,” Brand said, smiling as she stood up and came around the review table. “I think there’s a certain irony in the fact that your Quad project failed, and yet you generated useful and insightful information from that failure.”

  “Yes,” Professor Chapman agreed. “I recommend you send your research to Maxum V. It’s a fine thing for cadets at the Academy to be able to contribute to cutting-edge science.”

  Brand shook Moll Enor’s hand, since she was the closest. “I’m glad to see your Quad has learned to triumph in the face of adversity. Your Quad project has passed.”

  “Congratulations,” Admiral Leyton said, and for the first time there was a slight easing of his normally stern expression. “May your next year at Starfleet Academy be as successful.”

  Moll Enor smiled along with the rest, shaking hands next with the Admiral, then the professor. But she couldn’t help hoping that next year she would do better than she had this year.

  The next day, Jayme still hadn’t gotten over the miracle Moll Enor had accomplished with a tricorder and one night’s work. The rest of the Quad had jumped on Moll the moment they were outside, with everyone asking questions at once. Moll had explained that her eidetic memory had allowed her to instantly make associations and connections across the engineering disciplines. Jayme confirmed that it would have taken her a week of computer analysis to reach the same facts, and even then, she might not have seen the new use for the proton-chain that Moll had discovered.

  It was beyond genius, and Jayme even defended Moll when she meekly agreed with T’Rees’s chastisement of her for not including the rest of the Quad in the analysis. Jayme would have loved being involved in the research, but she knew they would have slowed Moll down by questioning her and following false leads.

  Jayme kept sighing with envy at Moll’s accomplishment—and the Trill wasn’t even interested in engineering!—while she packed her transport containers for the break. She couldn’t decide what should stay in storage over the break and what she should take with her. Since it was her vacation, she included all of her body paints and every one of her tights, figuring she might find use for everything while she was observing the Starfleet crew of the Endeavor.

  Starsa suddenly called through the halls, “Everyone, you have to see this!” She poked her head around Jayme’s door. “Have you seen it yet? The class standings were released.”

  Jayme took the padd from Starsa and quickly ran through the first class as Starsa chattered, “We’re all in the top half. I barely made it! But it’s the second-year cadets you have to see.”

  Jayme scrolled past the names until Starsa impatiently pressed the key that took them to the top. “There,” she said, as if it were her own name listed at the head of the sophomore class. “Moll Enor is first!”

  “Moll . . .” Jayme breathed, feeling a rush of pr
ide at having known it all along, having seen the brilliance of the Trill before anyone else. “I should have expected it.”

  “Really?” Starsa asked, giving her a curious smile. “I knew she studied a lot, but I didn’t think she was that brainy.”

  “Look what she did with our Quad project,” Jayme reminded her.

  “Moll saved our butts,” Starsa cheerfully admitted. “Look, everyone,” she told the cadets coming down the hall. “Moll Enor is first in her class!”

  The others had just heard as well, and soon there were more cadets in their Quad than Jayme had ever seen, all looking for Moll to celebrate her success. The Trill came into the Quad in the midst of it, and the gracious, humble way she accepted everyone’s congratulations impressed Jayme like nothing else had.

  She was struck silent by the sheer number of Moll’s friends. It seemed like everyone at the Academy was here, with more coming in, a steady stream of cadets shaking Moll’s hand and patting her on the back. Her dark face was flushed to the spots as she ducked her head slightly, abashed by all the attention.

  Jayme felt all choked up, and as Moll passed by, she reached out to grasp her hands, trying to convey her feeling through more than words. “I bet you get all kinds of assignment offers now. You can go anywhere for the break.” At the leap of surprise and realization in Moll’s eyes, at her sudden yearning, Jayme added, “Even to the wormhole.”

  Moll Enor was quickly guarded again, in spite of her pleasure. “How did you know I wanted to see the wormhole?”

  “I heard what you said to Bobbie Ray,” Jayme said sheepishly. “I could tell how much it means to you.”

  “Maybe I will go to Bajor,” Moll agreed with a rare smile, as others moved in to shake her hand and pull her along, all of them wanting to touch her, as if she were a talisman of good luck.

  Jayme was jostled to one side, watching Moll’s dark, glossy hair clinging close to her head as she moved gracefully among the crowd. Suddenly a year’s effort to push away her feelings collapsed in ruins. She had always been fascinated by Moll Enor, and lately, it seemed as if everything the Trill did was designed to enchant in the most subtle and perfect ways. Jayme’s admiration for her had grown with every moment, snowballing since their Quad project review. Now, watching her proudest moment, Jayme realized she was helplessly, hopelessly in love with Moll.