Yet Another Transporter Malfunction

by Carl Chr. K. Mikkelsen


Reviews

Authors note. The following story takes place at the Department of Mathematics at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. This is not terribly important, but the regular attendee should immediately recognize the setting and receive additional stimulation. Try to identify the students, the lecturers and of course the author himself.

I materialized in a large room. A few humanoids were around, but oddly enough nobody seemed to notice my appearance. One individual was standing in front of what looked like an old fashioned turbolift. For some unknown reason, he prefered to stare at his feet instead of entering the lift. Right next to me I found what I thought was some life support units. One of them emitted a soft comforting light and a low throbbing sound. My tricorder scans indicated that they were in fact some kind of primitive foodreplicators - with a limited number of choices. I turned around and discovered that the area was under surveillance of a small scanning device. No security guards had yet appeared but I disliked taking risks so I moved out of the area and down a wide corridor. Suddenly I heard a soft but quite distinctive sound - as if hundreds of people had suddenly decided to stand up all at once. Doors banged open and the corridor filled with young people. They almost ran me over, but I pressed against the wall as they eagerly swarmed towards the replicators. The females where quite outnumbered by the males of the species and regretfully their clothing wasn't particularly revealing. These humanoids could really learn something from the Ferengi. Following a large group I went down a staircase and into a room similar to the one I just left behind. Most of the people lined up in a queue and I followed their example. Slowly we moved into some kind of can tine. I was horrified when I took an environmental reading. I am sure that our chief medical officer would immediately have sealed off the entire section due to health hazards - even in violation of the noninterference directive. I hastily broke the queue and started back tracing my steps. I almost ran into a strange individual who calmly gave me the Vulcan salute before moving on. I was quite excited with this encounter. For quite a long time it had been rumored that the Vulcans had been engaged in interstellar space flight prior to their entry into the Federation. But due to our founding articles they were not required to disclose any information regarding their prehistory and so the rumour remained a rumour. This was the first evidence I had ever seen. I moved on passing through a long and spacious room. I saw a few middle aged individuals who barely registered on my tricorder. They seemed lost in thought and where wandering aimlessly about, while everybody else took care not to bump into them. I judged it was time to contact my ship. I found a place where I could disappear without being noticed and they locked on and beamed me away from this strange place.


The authors hailing frequency is : spock@stauning.dfi.aau.dk

(ed. note. the authors new hailing frequency is : tjalfe@tokra.dk)

This article appeared in Mads Føk nr. 6, 23. årgang, 22. Marts 1996.