The Aftermath of Wolf 359

Chapter 9

Picard walked into Gleason's office, it was unusually spacious and bright for a medical office, having a great view of San Francisco Bay through a large glass wall. He could only see it out of one eye, as the light was blinding in his other eye, and worsened the stabbing pain he'd been feeling from that eye all day enough to make him dizzy and nauseous.

"Computer, tint windows 90%." Gleason said, and the room automatically became more tolerable for Picard.

"Thank you." He said hesitantly, remembering what Crusher said about Gleason being a Betazoid.

"Can you lie down and let me get a look at your eye?"

"Crusher mentioned you were a Betazoid, so you may already know what's wrong."

"Not only is it causing you a lot of pain, but your pupil isn't dilating. How long has it been a problem?"

"Since I woke up from surgery. Whenever the anesthetic wore off."

"What anesthetic?"

"Crusher has been giving me an anesthetic in my optic nerve since I got out of surgery the first time. She finished the last surgery that was supposed to fully restore my vision this morning."

Knowing Crusher was far too competent to ignore something like this, he asked "What did Crusher say about this?"

"I don't know. I haven't seen her since."

Gleason nodded, "Let me take a look. At a minimum I can block the pain for you."

"Won't that affect my vision?"

"No. Your vision won't be affected at all. The largest risk is that you won't feel pain from something else injuring your eye."

Picard paused, "How?"

"Neural pathway manipulation. Disconnect your optic nerve from the pain center of your brain."

"Can't you use neural pathway manipulation to change someone's thought process to force them to do or believe something?"

"That's illegal and highly unethical, but hypothetically possible, yes. Starfleet wants me to examine you to ensure no one else has done something like that to you. I am expert in the technique, it has lots of useful medical applications, curing some forms of paralysis and loss of function after a head injury, blocking pain signals, and repairing various other neurological disorders. Something as simple as blocking the pain signals from your eye is both safe and effective, I assure you. It can be done in minutes."

He didn't want anyone messing around inside his head, especially anyone other than Beverly, but the pain was bad enough to convince him to allow it. He nodded in agreement.

"Here, lie down." Gleason said. Picard did as he was asked, and Gleason placed an object on his head that quickly rendered him unconscious for the procedure.

Gleason called Crusher after scanning Picard and realizing the severity of the problem. While he had been wondering how she could miss something like this, the answer was obvious the moment she beamed down. He could sense she was exhausted, and shaken. There were deep bags under her eyes and her lab coat was spotted in blood and bodily fluids. "Are you alright?"

She looked at him for a moment realizing how pointless it would be to lie. "A group of patients we've been treating for radiation poisoning took a turn for the worse this morning. I lost two of them over the last few hours, including a four year old. Have you ever lost a patient to radiation poisoning?" Gleason shook his head, "Significant and distributed internal bleeding, and attempting tissue regeneration only makes things worse. I hate feeling that helpless."