Only His Hairdresser Knows For Sure

[Cmdr JFarrington 0]

Second Officer's Log, Stardate 5003072.7

Cmdr Jami Farrington, MD

USS Manticore NCC 5852

 

Only His Hairdresser Knows For Sure

 

Was he . . . or wasn't he?  Did he . . . or didn't he?  Though the entire crew of Manticore had just witnessed the disintegration of the ice moon, and the apparent death -- again -- of former Consul General Melville, they still could not be certain of his demise.  

 

Some months before, Melville had killed himself and had done it so skillfully that the then Commodore Atragon had been indicted for murder.  An autopsy had been performed on Melville's body and it had been given to the family for disposition.  Still, in Atragon's words, "Research at the Lincoln Outpost [where Melville had been working many years before] seemed to be directly applicable to old Altered Carbon Project.  Melville took personal control of all research and accelerated the project as his own health problems increased."  In essence, Melville died, but was still alive in a new body/sleeve.  This lent credence to Atragon's conviction that Melville killed himself on Atragon's knife, if Melville had already done a needlecast download.  He had nothing to lose.  Because he was about to "rise" in a new sleeve he could "die" and leave Atragon to take the blame.

 

Had he done the same again?  But how?  It seemed impossible that anything could survive the explosion they had just witnessed.  Still, Jami could not be sure that they had seen the last of Melville.  Atragon had returned to the ship alive and well, and that was the most important thing.  They had escaped the explosion, albeit barely, once more due to the skill of their engineers.

 

Putting those thoughts aside, Jami turned her thoughts to the imploded moon, the Romulan phasing device, and the destruction it caused.  She had Spencer take a continuous data run so they could document everything.  The study could very well keep them busy into the next millennium, but the dangers of phasing and phase-cloaking had to be recorded and studied. For once, Jami was thankful that Manticore's phase cloak was inoperable.  During repairs they could implement anything science found from studying the phasing on the moon and hopefully prevent the same occurrence.