Picard suppressed the urge to scoff as he and Troi stepped onto the pads. He looked over at Lieutenant Kociemba. “You did excellent work today,” he said. “Energize.”
Kociemba smiled, then moved her fingers up the controls and sent Picard and Troi on their way. A few seconds later, they stood in front of a small, nondescript square building covered in vines heavy with pink and yellow blossoms. Isszon Temple rose off in the distance, its spired roof sparkling in the lemony sunlight.
“I suppose I should get this over with,” Picard said, smoothing his dress uniform.
“You’ll do wonderfully, Captain.”
Picard felt the grim lock of inevitability clamp down on him. It’s only three days, he told himself.
He took one step toward the building and immediately the door slid open and out swept Lwaxana Troi, her ball gown glittering in much the same way as the temple. “Jean-Luc!” she exclaimed. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for you. I am thrilled you’ll be joining us!” She bustled over the lawn, both hands gathering up the fabric of her gown. “Deanna! Tell me you won’t be wearing that to the ceremony, I hope?”
Troi sighed. “It’s my uniform, Mother.”
“Oh, I know.” Lwaxana drew her into an embrace. I’ve missed you, Little One. I requested the Enterprise especially for delivering guests. I had to make sure you wouldn’t miss the ceremony!
Thank you, Troi thought.
Ambassador Troi clucked her tongue and turned toward Picard. She gave him another one of her brilliant smiles. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am that you’ve accepted the invitation,” she said. “You’ll be simply marvelous. Sildar and Sulel are dying to meet you.” She looped her arm in Picard’s and pulled him forward, and the captain felt himself slacken. No use in swimming against this current.
As serene as the building looked on the outside, Picard expected its interior to have the cool emptiness of a museum. Instead, when Lwaxana flung open the door, he was met with an onslaught of sheer chaos. The small room was cramped with tables and desks of various origins, all crammed up next to each other and piled high with fabrics, serving dishes, padds, statuary, ancient paper books, and, in the center of it all, a silent hologram of a Betazoid woman in ancient dress swinging around a large silver spoon.
Weaving between these desks were harried-looking Betazoids, most in what Picard could only call partial formal wear—a floor-length skirt with a baggy tunic, a crisp suit with bare feet. They were shouting tasks at each other, an elaborate call and response of things to be done and tasks completed that Picard couldn’t follow.
Lwaxana plunged headfirst into the maelstrom and was immediately swallowed in a whirlwind of discordant glamour.
“What,” said Picard softly, “is happening?”
Beside him, Troi murmured, “Organized chaos. Be grateful you only have to command a starship, and not plan a Betazoid event.”
“Where are the House placards?!” someone screamed from the center of the room, only to be immediately met with, “Amalia has it! Concentrate!”
“No one is controlling their thoughts,” wailed someone else. “If we would all just calm down, this would be so much easier—”
Picard edged closer to the door. Troi stopped him before he got trampled.
And then Lwaxana reemerged. Picard had never been so grateful to see her. This time, she was trailing two companions: an older Betazoid man dressed in a rather elaborate cape-centric ensemble and the Federation’s ambassador to Betazed.
“Is this him?” asked the Betazoid man.
“It is.” Lwaxana beamed. “Jean-Luc Picard, Deanna, I’m pleased to introduce you to Sildar Syn, the Ceremony Director—”
Sildar gave a quick bow.
“And this is, of course, Ambassador Sulel of Vulcan.”
The Vulcan woman nodded briefly.
Sildar stepped forward, his eyes narrowed and his gaze sweeping up and down Picard’s frame. Picard shot a glance at Troi, who offered the captain an apologetic smile.
“He’s too small for E’kan’s costume,” Sildar said. “I’ll have Seabert replicate a new one. Seabert!” he hollered, spinning off into the vortex of ceremony preparations.
“Costume?” Picard said weakly.
“Of course. You’ll be dressed in the traditional wear of the Lakryn era, when Betazed first achieved space flight,” Lwaxana said. “And you’ll look very handsome in those pantaloons. Won’t he, Sulel?”
Sulel gazed implacably at Picard. “It is not my place to say.”
Picard felt his face getting hot. “Is there a Seal of Invitation you need to present me, or—”
“Of course!” Lwaxana clapped her hands and a gaunt, gray man materialized, startling Picard. “Homn, do you have the Seal?”
He nodded and produced it from a side pocket in his tunic: a rolled parchment tied with pink ribbon. He handed it to Lwaxana and she immediately turned to Picard and intoned, “In my role as representative of Betazed and daughter of the Fifth House, holder of the Sacred Chalice of Rixx and heir to the Holy Rings of Betazed, I, Lwaxana Troi, formally invite you to attend the Unveiling of the Three Treasures of Xiomara as a High Guest, a shining example of those arts we hold in glorious esteem: Dreams! Do you accept, Jean-Luc Picard?”
She had sunk down in a curtsy as she spoke, her dress pooling across the floor. Behind her, the ceremony team was still in a whirlwind, voices clattering for instructions and pleas to use your thoughts. The Vulcan seemed like she wanted to laugh—and that had to be his imagination.
He gave one last desperate look at Troi, and she only shook her head.
“I accept,” he sighed.
Lwaxana pushed the scroll toward him. He took it out of her hands.
“Marvelous!” Lwaxana said. “Shall I accompany you to the reception in the temple? I’m sure it’s still—”
“I can take him.” Troi stepped forward. “I don’t suppose there’s a liaison for him, is there? I can show him to the guest quarters.”
“Oh, don’t be silly,” Lwaxana said, pressing up to Picard’s side. “It’s no trouble.”
“Mother, I insist. I’m sure you’re needed here to help with the last-minute preparations.”
“Nonsense. I can—”
“I believe your daughter may be correct, Ambassador Troi.” Sulel lifted her chin, her dark eyes bright and mischievous. “It would be far more logical for us to stay and oversee the general preparations, particularly as we may be needed by Sildar.”
Picard hadn’t expected the ambassador to intervene on his behalf, but he certainly appreciated it.
“Ambassador Sulel is right, Mother,” Troi said. “I can help Captain Picard get settled. You stay here, where you’re needed.”
“Very well.” Lwaxana dismissively waved a hand. “It’s just one more night before the opening ceremonies. And then we’ll have plenty of opportunity for quality time.”
Just what Picard had been hoping to avoid.
“Then it is decided,” Sulel said. “Captain Picard, Commander Troi, I am sure we will be seeing each other. Come, Lwaxana. I believe the stage production team needs your help in deciding upon a drapery for the unveiling.”
Picard stood very still as Sulel led Lwaxana back into the frenzy. Then he sagged, turned, and bolted outside. Troi followed him up, laughing.
“Now, that wasn’t too bad, was it?” she said as they stepped back into the sunlight and the sweet-scented air.
Despite Deanna being the ship’s counselor, Picard didn’t want to talk about it any further.
5
Josefina Rikkilä squinted down at her tricorder. “Oh, wow,” she said.
“What’s that?” Doctor Crusher didn’t lift her gaze from her own work.
“Kota wasn’t always uninhabited, was it?” Rikkilä was examining a rock specimen, a chip off the wall of a nearby cave that had been collected a couple of weeks ago, according to the computer. “The scanners are picking up on a fossilized life-form in the rock.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, the planet is absolutely scattered with those fossils.”
Rikkilä jumped and whirled around to find one of the station officers—Lieutenant Amanda Malisson… or Malifoy? She was having trouble remembering everyone’s names. The away team had immediately dived into the backlog. That was how she wound up with this rock/fossil.
“There’s actually dozens of fossils in the rock,” Malisson went on. “They’re microscopic, though.”
Rikkilä returned to her sample. It didn’t look anything like her idea of a fossil: it was an utterly ordinary-seeming rock. Dark and smooth, the sides flattened and angular from where it had been splintered.
“We’ve been keeping track of how many we’ve managed to find,” Malisson added.
“We’re currently up in the five hundreds, I think.” A flash of cerulean popped up from behind a stack of storage cubes. It was Junipero Talma, a Bolian with dark stripes running across the crown of his head; like Ensign Muñoz, he was a xenobotanist.
“Got it,” Rikkilä said.
“Make sure you enter it into the database. Give it the next number.” Malisson turned to Crusher. “How about you, Doctor? What are you seeing?”
Crusher turned back to her station. She was running through a set of water samples taken from the beach. “The water’s filled with microscopic organisms—every sample shows evidence of them. We’ll need to run these all through the neutron processor, won’t we?”
Malisson frowned. “Where’s that sample from?”
Crusher checked her padd. “Location 2F.” She shook her head, laughing apologetically. “I’m afraid that doesn’t mean much to me.”
Malisson’s frown deepened. “2F,” she murmured. “Computer, where is 2F?”
The computer’s voice lilted through the cramped lab space. “Coordinates 34890 by 20980,” it said. “Known colloquially as Bluster Beach.”
“Bluster Beach?” Talma’s head popped back up. “That’s where we brought back the sand samples from, isn’t it?”
By now everyone else had stopped their work to listen in. Rikkilä snuck a glance over at Muñoz. He’d been cataloguing plant samples and was surrounded by small floating spheres, each with a preserved snip of a grass or a flower or a few tree leaves. He was not paying any attention to the samples now.
“Yeah, it was.” Malisson’s brow furrowed. “But there wouldn’t have been any organisms in the sand samples.”
“No.” Solanko’s voice boomed across the room. “I tested those myself. No sign of biological life, but the samples didn’t line up, remember?”
“That’s right.” Malisson’s whole face lit up. “I knew there was something off about those sand samples, but we’ve tested so much the last two days—”
“Understandable,” Solanko said. He stood up, towering over the station he’d been sitting at. “Doctor Crusher, do you mind if I have a look?”
“Not at all.” She slid away from the microscope and stepped up beside Rikkilä. The two of them pressed together between a lab table and Riker’s station. It really was a tight squeeze having seven people in the lab, but they had the converter running in the second lab, making the room far too noisy to get any work done.
Solanko peered down through the microscope. “Huh,” he said, after a moment.
“What are you seeing?” Talma picked his way through the maze of tables and equipment. “Do you want me to run a scan?”
“I can do it.” Solanko plucked up the slide and held it to the light. From where Rikkilä stood, it didn’t look like much, just a square of glass.
“What’s the significance of Bluster Beach?” Crusher asked.
Neither Malisson nor Talma answered; instead they both trailed behind Solanko as he slid the sample into one of the scanners. Blue light flared out through the lab. “Computer,” Solanko barked, “is there a match?”
Rikkilä peered across the room. Muñoz and Lieutenant Commander Data were both watching the blue lights rippling across the outer shell of the scanner.
“Sample contains standard organisms for—”
The computer was drowned out by all three of the Kota scientists letting out loud, disappointed groans.
“I do not understand,” Data said, eyes flicking between the scanner and the scientists. “Is that not the expected outcome for a sample of ocean water?”
“Exactly,” Solanko said. “Perfectly normal. Unlike the last batch from Bluster Beach.”
The lab filled with silence.
“These are the irregular testing results that were mentioned in the briefing,” Doctor Crusher said. “I remember a mention of several tests needing to be redone.”
Lieutenant Talma nodded. “The sand samples. We have a list of the five known microscopic organisms that live in the ocean. But in, maybe, one out of every hundred scans, they react oddly to our equipment.”
“Oddly?” Muñoz tilted his head. “In what way?”
“They register as rock,” Malisson sighed. “It reads to me like an error in the scanners, but I haven’t been able to determine the actual problem.”
“I thought it might be a new organism,” Talma said, “but I couldn’t find any evidence to support that.”
“I don’t think it is,” Malisson said. “I’m telling you, we need more samples of that sand. There’s something to it.”
“The water’s fine,” Lieutenant Talma said. “We’ve tested dozens of sand samples—”
“Yes, but that’s not water from the shore,” Malisson shot back. “The computer gave the coordinates 34890 by 20980. That’s farther out.”
Malisson gestured at the scanner. “We need to go pull those original sand samples out of storage, and collect some water right at the shore and—”
“I’m starting to see why they’re backlogged,” Commander Riker said quietly. Rikkilä whipped her head over at him, surprised, and he gave her a wink.
“Will, stop,” Crusher said.
The Kota science team had devolved into a full-on argument, their raised voices blending into one another. Across the room, Data and Muñoz exchanged confused glances.
“Perhaps we should remind them that there are refugees waiting for a place to call home?” Crusher asked Riker.
Before the commander could speak, Solanko roared out, “Enough!” His voice thundered through the lab and struck Talma and Malisson silent. “We have extra hands,” he said. “We’ll go down to the beach and collect more samples. I’ll take a big team, spread out.” He looked across the room. “Commander, with your approval?”
“Yes.” Riker nodded at the ensign. “Rikkilä, you and Muñoz will join them.”
“Absolutely, sir,” Rikkilä replied.
“Sir, with your permission, I’d like to accompany them as well.” Data stood up from his station. “I’m curious about these irregularities and might be able to offer assistance in identifying their cause.”
Riker grinned. “Guess it’s just me and you,” he said to Doctor Crusher.
“All right, team,” called out Solanko. “Grab your supplies. No time to waste.”
Rikkilä grabbed her tricorder and gave a final wave to Doctor Crusher. Solanko had thrown open the doors to a supply closet and was passing out sampling kits, reusable polysilk containers filled with all the tubes, stoppers, and biodegradable safety masks for each of the team.
Muñoz chuckled beside Rikkilä. “Burned through a ton of these back in the Academy.”
Rikkilä gave him a quick sideways glance. “Yeah,” she said, her tongue feeling heavy. “Me too.”
“The beach is about a twenty-minute walk from here,” Solanko said, looking over at Data, who had his sampling pack slung over his shoulder.
“Acceptable,” Data said.
There was no clear-cut path to the beach, and the six of them waded into the tall, silvery grass that rolled out endlessly from the station. It came up to Rikkilä’s hips and tickled against her hands, soft and feathery. She pulled out her tricorder and started scanning.
“The area is safe,” Data said.
Rikkilä looked up at him. “Sir?”
He pointed at the tricorder.
Rikkilä blushed. “I just wanted to see what the readings were.” She glanced over the results; they were the same as when she had first scanned the area, although the salinity in the air was increasing. “This is my first away mission,” she added after a pause.
“I see.” Data nodded. “You are excited.”
Rikkilä smiled at him. This was the first time she got to interact with the commander. “Exactly,” she said.
The wind picked up, blowing in a scent of salt and metal. The ensign turned back to her tricorder and watched the salinity and humidity levels go up and the barometric pressure go down.
They continued on, the wind sweeping around them. Eventually, Rikkilä heard a soft roaring, then a rustling noise that her friend Lorelei had once told her was the sound the stars made on long-range scans.
“Watch your step!” called out Solanko as the grass gave way to rolling sand dunes that dropped abruptly down to the beach.
Rikkilä drew in a deep breath; the beaches she had seen were nothing in comparison to this place. The water glittered a rich indigo underneath the violet sky, the waves glinting purple as they crested and broke against the shore. The sand appeared to be ground-up limestone and stretched out in either direction. Near the water was an outcropping of black rocks dotted with small, lavender tide pools that looked like jewels on a necklace.
“Wow,” breathed Muñoz. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
The ensign shook her head, the wind whipping the hair out of her regulation bun, flinging it into her eyes.
Data gazed out at the water, his expression implacable and calm.
The Kota team wasn’t impressed. Lieutenants Malisson and Talma were already sliding down the gentle slope of the dunes, arms out for balance.
“That’s the only way down,” Solanko said. “Be careful. First time Talma took a stab at it, he went tumbling straight into the water. It was high tide.”
And then Solanko took a running start at the dune slope, crouching a little as he surfed down to the waterline.
Shadows Have Offended Page 3
