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.