“Officially, no,” Data said. “However, I assisted Lieutenant Duffy with the necessary changes to the probes, so I am ‘in the know.’ ”
“He’s gone ahead with it then.” Relief. It wouldn’t give them results as soon as they needed them—but in the end, more lives would be saved than if they waited for the Tsorans and never got the charts they’d been promised.
“The probe was launched several hours ago. They are performing up to expectations. But, Geordi, it will not give us results in time to save—”
“I know, I know,” La Forge said through a tired groan. “It won’t save them all. We can’t build even a rudimentary chart of those eddies in time to do that. Our current charts of this system are so old, and so seldom used . . . the areas with the eddies might as well be labeled like the ancient maps of Earth’s oceanic trouble spots. Here be monsters.”
A phrase that was pretty darn appropriate for the situation right here on Fandre.
Here be monsters.
Chapter Nine
NIGHT IN THE FANDREAN JUNGLE.
Deep in the tangle of night-blacked foliage, slick fur slid between thickly leafed branches, making no more than a whisper of sound beneath the clamor of myriad insects crying out for the company of their own kind.
A shriek ripped through the chorus, startling it to silence.
Bones crunched.
Tsoran bones.
Here be monsters.
* * *
Riker quickly lost track of time; he lost track of the fact that time had any meaning at all. The scavengers came after them in rounds of overlapping activity, always making sure someone in the camp had reason to be shouting, alarmed, scrabbling for a defensive position . . . or screaming. After the first major attack, Riker built a second fire on the other side of the cave entrance, hoping to create a more secure area in between the two, at the mouth of the cave. For a while it worked—until the beasts lost their initial respect for the flames, and learned to shoulder the humanoids away from the clear spots and into the fires—or nearly into the fires. Singed Tsoran fur, singed sculper fur, singed Starfleet uniform . . .
The bat’leth threw swooping firelight around the cleared zone, whirling with Riker’s fierce attacks, his twisting retreats; the club hit the ground early on, wrested from his grip by sculper jaws and then discarded. Around him, the Tsorans wielded their lances and clubs and trank guns, but the sculpers were too quick for the short-range tranks and only momentarily deterred by the hastily made weapons.
Somewhere in the middle of the night, the sculpers took a break—time for a little nap, Riker thought, a break in the entertainment. For that’s what this was—entertainment. Nothing about the sculpers, not their lolling tongues or their exuberant body language, led him to think that he and the Tsorans provided anything but amusement, and the moment the scavengers tired of the game, they’d barge past all defenses and take who they wanted.
Or eat them on the spot.
“If we can at least stun one of them,” Akarr said to Rakal, possibly unaware that Riker stood on the other side of the currently blazing second fire, feeding in another batch of now-dry logs, “I can take trophy. Trophy from the very animals attacking me!”
“Nothing Takarr does will be enough to elevate him beyond that in our people’s eyes,” Rakal agreed.
Takarr again. Who was Takarr?
Rakal added, “But I worry about Ketan, ReynTa. He was honorably injured. Even putting him in the cave with Gavare doesn’t seem likely to protect him from these sculpers if they quit playing with us and determine to take food.”
No doubt about that; the injured men needed protection.
Riker rounded the fire to join them uninvited, offering them glare for glare—a greeting he’d received so often he now responded in appropriate Tsoran body language without thinking about it. “We should pull in, and not attempt to protect anything but the cave mouth.” Not that it was much of a cave, but every little advantage . . .
“If we do that, they can come upon us several at a time, and take us all down,” Rakal said, pouching his lower lip in disapproval. “As we are, they might get one of us, but the others will survive.”
“But they aren’t coming in several at a time.” Riker cast a pointed glance out at the black and impenetrable foliage surrounding them; something rustled loudly and they all tensed, but nothing came of it, and after a moment he looked back at the Tsorans. “No reason to risk losing anyone else.”
“We will continue as we are,” Akarr said stiffly, the hair on his arms rising slightly.
Suddenly Riker understood. Akarr wasn’t making any attempt to keep the animals away from the cave, not at all. He approached each strafing run as an opportunity to stun or trank one of the sculpers long enough to harvest a trophy. And while defending the cave meant chasing them off in any fashion possible, going for the trophy meant letting them get close enough to take one down. If that meant standing aside while it went for the cave, then that’s just exactly what it meant—no matter the cost to Gavare and Ketan.
But nothing in Rakal’s attitude suggested that it was commonplace to leave their wounded to die, or even to fend for themselves.
Who is Takarr?
Why would he inspire such behavior?
Riker looked down at Akarr—bloodied from minor wounds, his fur sticking out in random cowlicks where he’d run into sap, his stiff leather vest scratched and scarred—and knew he looked no better himself. Never mind daleura, never mind the world outside this small, recently made clearing. “You’re making a mistake,” he said. “And your men will pay.”
Akarr lifted his lips, exposing his teeth, his eyes cold in the firelight. “It is you who err, Riker. We would duel this moment if it wouldn’t jeopardize the very men that worry you so.”
“If there’s one thing that doesn’t worry me, it’s the prospect of—”
“Sculper!” cried Takan from the other side of the fires, where he’d remained either ignorant or uncaring of the confrontation within the camp. “More than one!”
Careless movement in the brush came on the heels of his words, and Riker whirled away from the fire, grabbing the opportunity to scoop up his club—and finding himself suddenly eye to eye with the sculper. His breath exploded out in a startled shout of attack as he turned the scooping motion into a swing, right at the sculper’s head—
It was gone again, effortlessly bounding back out of reach—and, as Riker staggered ahead with his own momentum, leaping forward once more. Not to shoulder him out of the way, not this time—this time the creature came in all jaws and teeth, its hackles raised, its two short tails standing stiffly at attention, and Riker wrenched himself back into a ragged guard, bringing the bat’leth up, arms bent to take the shock of impact as the animal launched itself—one bound, two—and abruptly stopped, its nose in the air, and just as suddenly changed course, no less purposeful.
Riker, no longer between the sculper and the cave, threw himself after it, landing heavily in the damp, trampled ground growth—
Missing the creature entirely.
But the creature didn’t miss its intended prey. A harsh Tsoran scream filled the night as Riker scrambled to his feet, heading for the dark pocket of space in the shallow cave, driving himself at the braced hindquarters of the sculper—braced, like a dog playing tug-of-war—and then throwing himself to the side when it whirled to turn on him. Even then, he kept his forward movement, aiming the end of the bat’leth right down its throat.
It dodged, of course. But the blade dug into its neck at the shoulder, and it screamed just as throatily as its Tsoran victim as it broke away and bolted out of the cave.
Panting, somehow already smeared with sculper blood, Riker climbed to his feet and ran to the cave, where he found Ketan sprawled in a dazed and bloody state, his previously wounded arm now badly bitten as well. Gavare, a club discarded at his feet, knelt not by Ketan’s arm, but by his legs. As Riker frowned, trying to make sense of it, Akarr rushed into the ca
ve.
“It’s gone?” he demanded, looking around as though it might be lurking nearby.
“It’s gone,” Riker affirmed, and when Akarr reacted with an angry snort, Riker gave him an incredulous look and said, “That’s a good thing, Akarr.”
Akarr stalked to the entrance of cave, standing by the edge of dirt and rock and staring into the darkness, his nostrils flaring, his pouched lower lip working. “You might have delayed it until I arrived.”
So that’s what this was about. Again. “I meant to drive it off.” Actually, he’d meant to kill it. “If you want to gather a trophy, you’re just going to have to be faster.”
“Akarr?” Rakal called from beyond the fire, his voice anxious.
“Stay on watch! All is well,” Akarr shouted back.
Riker looked down at Ketan. “Not exactly well.” He crouched down, joining Gavare, finally able to see that Ketan’s leg had swollen to alarming proportions. “What happened?”
“This,” Gavare said, holding up a stout quill as long as Riker’s hand. “From the creature’s tail. When I attacked it . . . when it turned on me, Ketan was behind it. There’s just not enough room in here . . .”
Gavare. Clearly still dizzy and finding it hard to navigate, never mind to attack an animal as big as he was. Befuddled enough to answer Riker’s questions without posturing, without measuring daleura at every word. Riker eyed the quill, found the dark trickle of blood on Ketan’s leg where it had gone in. “Is it lethal?”
“It’s not supposed to be,” Gavare said, which told Riker more yet. The Tsorans didn’t have any close experience with the sculpers. They should never have been this deep in the Legacy, no matter what they said about being prepared.
Riker nodded at his backpack. “The med kit is on the top. See what you can do to make him comfortable, and to clean that arm up.”
Befuddled, all right. Gavare didn’t protest taking orders from the human, but did as he was bid. Riker climbed to his feet and moved up behind Akarr. “This didn’t have to happen,” he said. “We could be in the shuttle. We could pull your men in and cover the mouth of this cave, dammit!”
“It’s not necessary for you to understand the reasons behind my decisions,” Akarr said, coldly. Remaining remote, as if Riker weren’t even worth challenging. Not turning around.
“Oh, I understand the reasons behind your decisions, all right,” Riker said. “I just don’t agree with them. No leader—no good leader would.”
“And what do you know of leading?” Akarr said, with the short gurgling sound that passed for Tsoran laughter, although even Riker could tell there was no humor in it.
“Jean-Luc Picard is my captain. He’s the best, Akarr. I know it when I see it.”
Akarr still did not turn to look at him, although the hair on his neck and shoulders looked distinctly prickled. “You know nothing. You are not a captain; you lead no one.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Riker put a hand up to lean against the entrance of the cave, his arm just clearing Akarr’s head. “I command the Enterprise away missions. All of them. This is what I do, Akarr. I know how to do it right—and I know when I’m seeing it done wrong.” He leaned closer, speaking into Akarr’s cupped, snug-to-his-head ear. “Your men are counting on you— hell, they’re so loyal to you that they’ll follow you right into the jaws of a sholjagg—and you’re killing them.”
Akarr snorted loudly and left the cave, making a gesture that Riker didn’t recognize but that had a distinctly rude air about it.
So much for the diplomatic relations between the Federation and the Tsorans.
“Rakal!” Akarr shouted, as if the entire conversation had never happened. “Keep an eye out for more of them—they’ll probably be back.”
“Yes, ReynTa,” Rakal responded, hidden in the darkness on the other side of the first fire.
This one time, Akarr was right. After the sounds of struggle in the darkness—the wounded sculper, torn to pieces and consumed—the sculpers came back.
* * *
Picard tugged at his uniform, waiting while the transporter technician confirmed the beam-down coordinates. He’d barely been through an earlier-than-usual morning tea with Beverly Crusher when Nadann Jesson contacted him, pleased to extend Atann’s invitation to visit the kaphoora training facility. It was, she let him know, quite an honor.
Picard thought of Will Riker, stuck on Fandre for the real thing, and once more squelched the impulse to take the Enterprise right out of orbit and across the graviton-eddy-laden system to Tsora’s sister planet. The probe charting was under way, after all, and Atann and Tehra certainly didn’t seem interested in any discussion about the charts.
“Make them interested,” Crusher had said implacably, and in this case she’d been right. Besides, with any luck, Will and the others were sleeping through an uneventful night in the Legacy preserve, and within a few hours, when daylight arrived, Worf would find them and transport them out.
“They’re ready, sir,” Lieutenant B. G. Robinson told him from behind the transporter console; Picard had the sudden impression that she’d been shifting uneasily for some moments, trying to find some way to interrupt his thoughts.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said, and positioned himself on the transporter pad, preparing himself to step forward and greet Atann—
Except, when the moment of slight disorientation passed, he found himself facing Nadann Jesson. Nadann Jesson against a backdrop of burnt orange and deep pea green draperies, in a small receiving room that held nothing but a low couch facing a thick wall monitor. He winced at the cacophony of colors. “They must really find our own decor inexplicable.”
Nadann—a sturdy woman with short chestnut hair and richly brown eyes as framework for her pleasant expression—smiled. “I’ve almost gotten used to it.” And indeed, her own clothes had a bold red/orange theme. “Welcome to Tsora, Captain Picard. It’s nice to meet you in person.”
“Likewise, Ambassador. I’m intrigued by anyone who’s spent so much time with these people. I understand you were in place here before the current crisis arose?” He took a short turn around the room, discovered the monitor blank and not likely to be anything other, and ended up where he’d started, none the wiser.
“Shortly before. We’d had our eye on this system for some time, wondering if they might be ready to join the Federation. I volunteered to do a preliminary study here. And please, you should feel free to call me Nadann. Most of the Tsorans consider it throwing about unnecessary daleura to use titles constantly. They prefer to save that daleura up for a time when they can really nail you with it.”
“Sounds like a society in which no small grudge is ever forgotten.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps not, but they use hard feelings in a constructive way, rather than brawling them off in the streets.” She frowned, then, looking at the door as though by all rights it should be opening to admit someone. “I don’t know where Atann is. I’d understood that he’d be here. Though he won’t be, not at this point—arriving late under these circumstances would be an embarrassment. It’s just as well. I heard something this morning I gather the Tsorans have been very careful to keep from me; I was hoping for a chance to discuss it.”
Picard forgot all about the clashing decor. “Please do.”
“You can imagine that a rulership based on daleura— even one as entrenched as the ReynKa’s—does not tolerate dissent well. Even the apparent lack of support of key staff members has a far-reaching impact.” Nadann watched him closely, and when he nodded his understanding, assessed it as if to be sure she’d truly made her point. Then she said, “I don’t know who . . . but apparently there are some staff members who resent Atann’s interaction with the Federation.”
Picard waited a moment. “That’s it?”
“Put it within the context of what I just said, Captain. For there to be enough contention that any word of it reached me is of great significance.”
He tried, but ended up s
haking his head. “I think I would have to spend much more time here to truly understand,” he said. “But I’ll certainly take it under advisement.”
For an instant, he had the feeling he’d disappointed her. But then she smiled, and reached for the door. “We might as well meet Atann at the training center.” The heavily carved wooden door slid lightly into the wall at her guidance; an air current from the hallway rippled her garments.
“Sleeves,” Picard said.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re wearing sleeves. Counselor Troi told me about your experiment.”
“Ah, that. It got me nowhere—after a while it became obvious that no one had any intentions of saying anything, no matter how I ‘flaunted’ myself. I’m trying something new, now . . . it is utterly amazing the lengths to which these people will go to avoid exposing themselves to embarrassment.”
“Is that your job here? To embarrass them?”
She gave him a moment’s assessment, and might well have responded to his challenging question with irritation. Instead she met him with confidence-backed humor. “My job is to make an unfathomable people . . . fathomable. In order to do that, I need to learn their boundaries, to explore the scope of their reactions. How will we know how hard to push them on an issue unless we know the results? How will we know how to push them at all? Finding ways to embarrass them, to provoke them, to engender reaction other than the arrogant public face of the high daleura and the fawning responsiveness of the low daleura . . . yes, that’s all part of my job here.” She led him down the hallway—apparently deserted—and through a large events room, also deserted, aside from the few servents scuttling to collect glassware and linens. “It’s also the reason I was not suitable to enter into this charting matter as a negotiator.”
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