"Eject it!" Beka shouted back over the intercom from the Eureka Maru flight deck. "Now!"
The Doctor dropped the recalibrated Geiger counter, and he and Rev Bem heaved the dense jewel into the ejection hatch. The Doctor pounded on the jettison control as Rev dogged the hatch; then they both turned to the forward view on the compartment screen.
Polaris grew on the screen till the star filled it - then its left edge slowly traveled from the left side of the screen to the right.
"We're free," Beka announced. "I have engine control again."
The Doctor and Rev exhaled in relief. "Well," said Rev, "that's one curse that won't endanger anyone ever again."
"Curse? What curse?" the Doctor snorted. "It was the radiation we didn't detect that was inhibiting the engine reaction, not the supposed curse."
"I will never understand the disbeliever belief," said Rev as they walked to the flight deck, "that the presence of a natural phenomenon disproves the existence of a supernatural phenomenon, as if they were mutually exclusive. Nothing precludes both."
"Except that there are no supernatural phenomena."
"I have experienced them."
"Prove it."
"Prove that I haven't."
The Doctor shook his head. "You know the methodology of scientific inquiry can't disprove a negative."
"Perhaps," mused Rev, "that's what's wrong with it."