Yenan looked away from his padd to give Geordi pouch-mouthed uncertainty. “Because it is the communications we cannot get to function?”
“That’s what I’m saying. The communications are fine. It’s the forcefield we need to work on.” And fast. Worf had already missed two portal openings. There was something going on inside the Legacy, and until La Forge knew what it was, no one else could help.
“The shields are a delicate balance of interweaving frequencies,” Yenan said, putting down his padd to look straight at La Forge, speaking slowly and deliberately— as if to a child. “We are already having trouble with them. We should fix that problem before trying to change anything else.”
“That’s the beauty of this idea,” La Forge said. “We don’t really have to change anything. Just use it as it’s meant to be used . . . on a much, much smaller scale.”
Yenan squinted at him, a Fandrean expression of a profound struggle to understand. A plea for more information.
“Look at the portal,” La Forge said, gesturing not to the portal area, since they were underground, but to the area of the museum that housed its generator. “Your ability to use it is limited, because of the energy it draws. But how much energy would it use to establish a pinhole portal? Not even that—practically a microscopic opening. Just enough for the signal to get through.” A hole in his head, Data had said, and he’d just about gotten it right. “You see?”
Yenan’s eyes widened again. “We’d need to create new portal settings . . . we might not be able to maintain the opening all the time, even at a microscopic level—”
“Yeah, but you could put it on a schedule, just like the portal openings. You’d end up opening the portal less often, and have more power to spare for the communications.”
“Yes!” Yenan stood, fumbled with the padd that had been on his lap, and ignored it as it clattered to the floor. “It is a good answer, Geordi La Forge! Let us descend upon the portal controls and solve the problem!”
La Forge grinned. This was the Fandrean version of being excited? “Good, I’m glad you agree. I know just the people to try to reach as a test. I imagine they’d welcome a friendly voice right now.”
* * *
For a moment there, Riker thought the kid had learned something. Just for a moment. There’d been a look on his face . . . an uncertainty, and a hesitation.
He’d apparently decided to come down on the side of the familiar and comfortable, to judge by his performance over the cartiga. At least in the end he’d decided not to skin the thing.
Riker wondered if he even knew how much an un-tanned skin of that size might weigh. Who had he thought would carry it? One of his wounded men?
They’d come quite a distance from that site, and with no further harassment by cartiga or anything else. The evanescent shimmer of the forcefield had been close the last time Riker had spotted it, although Worf and Zefan seemed certain they needed to travel north along its perimeter in order to reach the portal—which, he said, was plainly marked from the interior.
Riker left the navigation up to them. Right now his entire being was centered simply on walking, on placing one foot in front of the other—not stumbling, tripping, or having the footing roll out from beneath his boot— and walking. Sweat trickling, face burning, arm fiercely aching . . . walking.
“Commander,” Worf said. Sometime in the last few moments he’d fallen back from point to speak with Riker, though it had escaped Riker’s notice at the time. “Are you—”
“No, Worf, I am not all right. Yes, the arm hurts like hell.” Whatever analgesic properties the med-kit spray held had worn off long ago. About the time he’d started wrestling cartigas. And the restorative stimulant . . . used up long before its next dose time. “But give me a hot shower—with real water—and a place to put my feet up, and I’ll be fine. Eventually.”
“How did you know what I was about to—” Worf started, and then broke off. “Ah. I have become predictable.”
“I’m afraid so.” Riker spared a glance from the terrain directly in front of his feet to assess the Klingon, and found very little sign of this day’s forced march—either of them—in evidence. “You’re still looking chipper. That’s bad form, Mr. Worf. Making a superior officer appear—”
“Weak?” Worf suggested. “Unfit?”
Riker gave him a superior officer’s scowl. “Not the words I was hunting for.”
“Of course not,” Worf said, a little too hastily. “If you prefer, I will stay out in the jungle an additional day and night, fighting off sculpers, sholjaggs, and skiks. I would then assume your appearance would compare, if not favorably, at least equitably.”
Riker almost stopped walking altogether. He did manage to draw himself up, “Worf, you’re patronizing me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, stop it. You’re bad at it.”
“Yes, sir.”
On point, Zefan gave a delighted shout and gestured at a quick shimmy of sparkles ahead of them.
“Mighty sybyls,” breathed one of the Tsorans—an expression of relief, as far as Riker could tell. Zefan altered their course northward so it ran along one of what Riker had considered floodplain paths, indications of faster current where the vegetation was sparse or nonexistent.
The going immediately became a little easier, although he quickly realized it was a trade-off—he wasn’t tripping over roots, but here, the gritty sand shifted beneath his feet, making each step unpredictable. Rakal stumbled a number of times in quick succession, and Worf moved as if to help—and then stopped himself even as Riker put out a hand to do the same. Not only was there the question of the size mismatch—hard to throw a shoulder under someone who only came up to your chest—but the Tsorans had made it clear that they did not want assistance from anyone outside their group. Worf shrugged and fell back in next to Riker.
“We’re making good time. It is perhaps a kilometer away,” he said. “Maybe this is a good spot for a rest.”
Riker shook his head. “I’d rather be next to the portal, waiting for it to open. We don’t have that much buffer.”
“We have very little buffer,” Worf told him.
Shefen drifted back through the group; he picked up a reasonably straight length of thick, dried vine, and shoved it into Rakal’s hand on the way by. Rakal, clearly startled, made as if to return it, but Shefen had moved on, and Rakal wasted no more time in employing his new walking staff.
“Good thinking,” Riker said, blowing a drop of sweat from the end of his nose. “I’ll have to keep my eye out for one of those.”
“I’m not sure you’ll find one in your size,” Shefen said, ducking his head in Fandrean apology.
Riker shrugged. “It’s not that far. Though I’d thought it would be easier walking in these flood paths—”
“These what?” Shefen said, looking around them.
Riker and Worf exchanged a glance; Worf seemed to have made the same assumption. “These paths for the floodwaters,” Worf said. “This is a floodplain for the river we saw, is it not?”
Shefen flicked his lightly tufted ears. “The river is already nearing flood stage. It does not get much wider than what you saw. The rains have been heavy of late.”
Riker felt a subtle rumbling in his diaphragm—or was it in his legs?—as if the rain in question had grumbled in far-off thunder. “If this area isn’t kept down by floods, what makes these paths?”
Shefen smiled, his teeth and their remarkable overbite completely covered. “I take it you didn’t make it into the secondary museum displays. Most of our visitors do concentrate on the predators.”
“No,” said Worf, looking around the lightly clouded sky as another, more apparent rumble reached audible levels. Not thunder. “We did not make it into the secondary displays. What might we have seen in those areas?”
Shefen, too, seemed to have felt the rumbles—but his reaction was entirely different. Instead of answering Worf, he dropped to the ground, holding his hand ligh
tly above it, then lowering his ear to listen to the sand. After a moment, he called “Zefan!” but didn’t move from his unexpected position.
Zefan turned, and upon seeing his fellow ranger, instantly emulated his behavior. Riker traded another glance with Worf, a longer and more concerned exchange; Worf frowned. Riker crouched beside Shefen, winced—that was a mistake, now he’d only have to get up again—and said, “What’s the problem?”
Shefen lifted his head. “Those secondary displays describe the considerable number of prey animals available to the predators. As you might imagine, creatures as big as the cartiga require a significant food source.” He gestured at the terrain around them. “Ictaya made these paths—grazing paths. They keep the vegetation down. We’ve been lucky we haven’t seen any—they’re stupid animals, who panic at nothing and stampede with frequency. What one of them does, the next does as well—if one of them trips or jumps over nothing, every ictaya behind it will do the same. They regularly run into the Legacy forcefield. And they will mow down anything in their path.”
The rumble came more distinctly now—Riker felt it in the balls of his feet, his flexed knees, his chest. It no longer sounded like thunder. Now it came through as an ominous, continuous grumble of earth. “Let me guess,” he said, oh-so-dryly. “You think we’re in their path.”
Shefen gave a short affirmative gesture.
“Then how do we get out of their path?” There had to be some way . . . some pattern the animals usually followed that they could counter.
“Run.”
Riker felt like laughing . . . perhaps hysterically. Instead he said dryly, “In any particular direction?”
“There’s no predicting what they’ll do or where or when they’ll turn. They’re coming this way—they might stop short a kilometer from here, they might follow in our path simply because something else has recently gone that way.” Shefen stood. “Our best chance is to reach the portal.” He looked at them as they hesitated. “Now.”
“Even if we reach the portal, it will not open until the scheduled time,” Worf said, as Shefen explained the situation to the Tsorans and got them started, jogging off toward Zefan.
“You have a fine gift for stating the obvious, Mr. Worf,” Riker said, slowly climbing to his feet and brushing the sand from his sweat-damp uniform. “Let’s go.”
And they commenced to run. A run best described as a straggling jog, until they were widely spread out—one of the rangers on point and leading the way, and Worf and Riker taking up the rear. Worf jogged easily, holding himself back to maintain position, the modified Tsoran pack looking like a child’s accessory as it bounced lightly against his shoulders. Riker . . . Riker didn’t kid himself. He promised himself that hot shower, and then he promised himself more hours of conditioning, but mostly he just promised his lungs he’d keep dragging in that all-important next breath. Breathing, the jar from heel to knee to hip that meant he’d made the next step, and an occasional swipe to take care of the sweat gathering to run into his eyes . . . nothing so complex as a thought to be had.
And still some part of him noticed that the rumbling grew. That it grew significantly. On the heels of Riker’s dawning realization, Worf turned for a quick glance behind them—and his eyes widened.
Riker turned to look, chancing his footing to dead-tired legs.
He wished he hadn’t.
The ictaya were on their trail, all right, running blindly along in the scent of those to pass most recently before them. Elephant-huge, all of them the same dirty brown, faded-at-the-edges color, with short necks that came off their bodies even with their shoulders and large heads that nodded with their short-legged loping pace, they came on relentlessly, a tumble of moving bodies plowing through anything in their path.
He hadn’t thought he’d be able to move any faster. He couldn’t believe there was any adrenaline left in his body.
He’d been wrong on both counts.
“Run!” he shouted ahead, picking up speed and coming up on the heels of the lagging, injured Tsorans.
“Run!” Worf bellowed, surging ahead to where Rakal, flagging and at the end of his endurance, stumbled and started to go down. Worf scooped him up, ignoring the being’s screams of pain, and tossed him over his shoulder. Riker wanted to do the same for Ketan but knew better; he settled for grabbing Ketan’s vest belt and hauling him along, while Gavare supported him from the other side.
They ran. Riker fixed his gaze on Worf’s back, on Rakal’s bouncing head, and ran. His own harsh and ragged breath overflowed his ears, but his body could hear the immense creatures on its own, and it told him the ictaya closed on them. But it couldn’t be much further, it couldn’t—even running, even with his vision blurred and jarring, he could see the scintillation of the perimeter ahead of them—even spot the widely set, square stone pillars on either side of the portal.
One of the ictaya loped by on his left, outflanking them . . . then another, and another, and the main body of the herd snorted on their heels. A deep, surprised grunt of surprise heralded the first of them to run into the perimeter; the impact staggered one and all. Lurching, Riker lost his grip on Ketan’s belt; Rakal flailed in Worf’s grip, suddenly slipping down along the backpack. Worf hauled him back into place and ran on, but the dust of the stampede had filled the air and none of them were quite sure of the portal’s location—
Riker’s combadge beeped; he barely heard it. He couldn’t begin to hear the words that came through, but he caught the timbre of Geordi’s voice. Geordi!
“Geordi! Open the portal! Open the portal now!” he bellowed in response, not at all certain Geordi would be able to pick his words out of the din, or even through the distortion of his own harsh breathing. Given time he’d filter out the words but none of them had time—
An ictaya ran by, close enough to brush against Riker and leave him sprawling; the startled beast leapt to the side, and all those in its wake blindly followed suit. Riker clawed his way upward, lifting his head in time to see the dark, spreading breach of the portal before them, clogged with vegetation at ground level but as sweet a sight as he had ever seen. The Fandreans entered it; Akarr threw himself after them. Worf heaved Rakal through and dove to the side as an ictaya, screaming its fear but unable to turn aside, blundered into civilization, trampling what remained of the foliage. Behind came the body of the herd, ready to follow—and Ketan tripped and fell beside Riker.
Riker stopped short as Gavare reversed course and came back for his friend; they yanked the injured Tsoran to his feet and propelled him through the portal. Something musky hit Riker in the back, knocking what precious little breath he had out of his lungs and lifting him off his feet. When he landed and stumbled forward, he found himself knee-deep in crumpled vines just outside the museum scooterpod hangar.
The portal snapped shut behind him.
“Wait—Gavare—!”
But the portal had become an opaque gray forcefield. The ground still shook beneath them, recoiling against the impact of the icataya against the forcefield, and against the ground itself, but the sound was gone, replaced by silence.
Or what seemed like silence in comparison, as his assaulted ears adjusted to the relative calm of Tsoran groans, the efficient orders of arriving medical personnel, the security officers surrounding Worf with questions, and his own harsh breathing. He stood there a moment, taking in the scene—the ictaya, down on its side only meters from the museum; Zefan, issuing orders and accepting a rehydrating drink bottle even as he directed the attending Fandrean ranger to the rest of the group with more of the same; the Legacy dust settling around him . . . and La Forge, standing with a phaser, watching him.
Riker’s knees gave out. He looked back at La Forge from there.
La Forge glanced from Riker to the giant beast stretched out beside the hangar, shook his head. “Lions and tigers and bears, all right.”
Riker gave a sloppy, exhausted grin and said in a most heartfelt voice, “There’s no place like home.
”
Chapter Fourteen
THEY ARE NOT TO BE TRUSTED.
The ReynSa’s words echoed in Picard’s thoughts as Troi shot him a questioning glance—wondering what he’d decided about the probe charting, no doubt, since he’d told no one outside of the project engineers and Data. Picard, too, suspected that they’d been found out, and that the Tsoran reaction would be just as Troi had predicted. They’d withdraw in a huff, leaving the Enterprise with her probes to finish the job on their own. And they could . . . but the Tsoran charts would save more lives.
Damn. The Ntignanos had been so close to safety. After days of delay and posturing and rudeness, he’d found the key to dealing with Atann. He’d all but had those charts in his posession.
Data entered the conference room, but—not entirely deaf to the strained nuances of the room—hesitated by the door. “Incoming call from Lieutenant Commander La Forge, sir,” he said. “I thought you’d want to take it, since this will interest the ReynTa as well. There is news of the away team.”
Good news, or bad? Data was utterly inscrutable when it came to such things—although Picard couldn’t be sure if that was because of his desire to be so, or his inability to be anything else.
Picard glanced at Atann, who’d gone stiff and silent—and, as far as Picard could tell, baffled—since his ReynSa’s final words. But not now—now, he came to unfettered attention. Whatever else was going on, it wasn’t anywhere near as important as the fate of his son. Picard gestured at the screen at the head of the conference table. “By all means, put it on screen.”
La Forge appeared, grinning widely—Data’s complement in that regard. “I’ve got good news for you, Captain. We’ve got them back!”
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