by Diane Duane
He nodded. “The concept of such a group existing bothers me as it is, but the point is well taken. It appears, from what that one said”—he motioned with his head at the other Picard—“that your counterpart has a guard of her own. If you can get any sense of their movements, and let me know as need arises.”
“I’ll do my best,” Troi said. “There’s this at least: there are a lot fewer people on this ship to be kept track of. I haven’t sensed any children’s minds, and very few couples.”
Geordi looked up. “Come on, Counselor, Chief O’Brien’s got the coordinates.”
Reluctantly, Troi moved over to join him. “Energize,” Geordi said. And she and he and the alternate Picard were lost in shimmer and vanished away.
CHAPTER 7
Picard stood there in the silence for a moment, watching them go. He looked around the room and found it physically much the same. It was only small details that were changed, such as the uniforms hanging in the closet.
One thing was the same: the covered easel off to one side. He stepped over to it softly, tossed the cover back from it. The wood in the Luberon: the beams of sunlight strung on the woodland dimness like harpstrings; the tiny scrap of light, the wavering wings caught, frozen in a golden moment under the trees, among the honeysuckle. Picard shook his head. How can that man—he was carefully avoiding using the word I, for that would be a fallacy, possibly a fatal one—how can that man do this and still be what he is? Or be what he is—and do this? He thought of Data looking over his shoulder. That at least could never happen here. Data’s creator had been killed in a purge of scientists on his home planet: a great genius, shot out of hand for injudiciously expressing the wrong political opinions—that was to say, anything that didn’t support the Empire. It was not a universe that tended to treat kindly any dissidence, difference, or any novelty that didn’t immediately throw itself at the Empire’s feet.
He shook his head. There was no time for this now: he had business. He needed, first of all, to set up some situation that would make it natural for the ship’s security officer to release the computer core to Geordi’s ministrations. There was no way to tell exactly how he could do that as yet. But he would find out soon enough.
He paused by the mirror near the closet to look himself over. The uniform was indecently tight, but fortunately quite comfortable. It turned out he didn’t have to worry about bending over after all—he did a couple of experimental deep knee bends, pulled down the tunic to straighten it, and found, rather to his distress, that it didn’t need pulling down, that it was down as far as it was going to go, despite his movement. It annoyed him that these people had managed a solution to this particular problem that his own universe never had.
Meanwhile, it was time to get out there. His mouth was dry. He got a drink of water from the replicator—at least that worked the same here—and headed for the door.
He stepped out into the hall, and the man standing there saluted him—an odd gesture: a thump of the right chest, the hand then extended flat outward. Picard returned the salute as easily as he could while keeping his face as calm as possible, for the man standing guard outside his quarters was Barclay, wearing lieutenant commander’s insignia over the more or less normal-looking uniform of the junior officers.
“Any problem, Captain?” Barclay said, falling in with Picard as he walked down the hall. Another man, stationed farther down the hall, dropped into step behind them, maintaining a respectful distance.
Picard studied Barclay briefly from the corner of one eye as they walked. This was not the innocent, sometimes bemused young crewman he knew. That bemusement had an edge to it now, the slightly crazed creativity of the man, his quirkiness, seemed to have been redirected. His face had a calculating look about it, like that of someone who spends his life anticipating trouble and isn’t entirely disappointed when it finally arrives.
“No,” Picard said, “no, Mr. Barclay, no problems.”
“I had wondered,” Barclay said thoughtfully. “It’s not a time of day when you usually bother with your quarters.”
“I wanted to check something, that’s all.”
They came to the turbolift: it opened for them. Picard started to step into it and was briefly surprised when Barclay brushed past him as if he hadn’t been there. At first he was ready to write it off to discourtesy, then Picard saw Barclay alertly looking around the ’lift, checking it for—who knew what?—devices, people, lying in wait. Picard kept his mouth shut and waited. Finally Barclay glanced up at him and said, “Bridge, sir?”
“Bridge,” Picard said, and got in. The ’lift started moving. They stood in a silence that, for the lack of tension in it, at the moment felt almost amiable.
“Captain,” Barclay said. “Possibly I shouldn’t be telling you this…”
Picard put his eyebrows up and waited.
“The day before yesterday, Commander Riker made me an offer for my services.”
Picard kept his face as still as he could and finally fell back on Counselor Troi’s technique. “How did you feel about that?”
Barclay looked uncomfortable. “Captain, it’s not as if you haven’t always treated me well. A cut of the booty.” Booty! Picard thought. “Jumps in rank, better quarters. It’s just that—” It was his turn for his eyes to slide sideways. “It’s not always safe to say no to Commander Riker. People have a tendency to, uh—” He took a moment to find the right phrase. “Come to grief.” He swallowed. “And even chief bodyguards sometimes have accidents.”
Picard nodded slowly. “What were you planning to do about it?”
“Sir—I want to refuse him. But afterwards, I’m going to need your protection. For the moment, though, I can stall.”
“You’ll need my protection.” Picard smiled thinly. “A reversal of roles, is that it? Do you need to be taken off duty for a while?”
“If you think that’s the right idea, Captain,” Barclay said, sounding doubtful. He sounded very afraid, as well. Picard would have liked to say something to reassure him, but didn’t dare: he thought it might be out of character. “I’ll do what I can, Mr. Barclay. It’s the least return I can make for loyalty.” But he wondered what in heaven’s name he could do. “Meantime…” He allowed himself a slight smile. “As far as Commander Riker is concerned, this conversation never happened.”
“Yes, sir,” Barclay said, sounding grateful. “Thank you, sir.”
The doors opened. There were guards on either side of them; as Picard came out, they snapped to attention and saluted. He returned the salute, trying to seem idle about it, and glanced around him, trying to keep the look casual.
The bridge was as he had seen it in the recorded scan. It seemed smaller than his own because of the darker colors, but somehow plusher at the same time. The sense of luxury was more pronounced in the softer carpeting on the floor, the gleam of polished metal here and there, the somber colors. And down there in the center seat—
The other Will Riker stood up and saluted him, smiling a crooked smile. The gesture, which looked too formal, too respectful on everyone else, this Riker somehow made appear sloppy and insulting. The expression in his eyes was chilly, but amused. Picard found himself wishing very much that he had even a smattering of the counselor’s ability to directly sense emotion. For the time being, he had to make do with his own aptitude in that area—not inconsiderable. On any other man’s face, he would have read the expressions there as meaning insolence, insubordination simmering below the surface, treachery waiting for a chance. The problem was that this was Will Riker’s face as well, and Picard had never caught so much as a hint of any of those emotions in Will. This led him toward a tendency of unbelief. But forcefully Picard reminded himself that in this situation particularly, he must not allow that unbelief to affect him by reflex.
“Report,” he said as he swung down toward the three center seats. “Ship’s status?”
“Unchanged,” Riker said. “Still no sensor contact with the target. We’re sure
they’re avoiding us: we’re continuing our search pattern.”
“Very well,” Picard said, and made for his chair. Riker did not immediately move away from it, so that for a moment he and Picard were almost nose to nose, and Riker looked down at him with an expression that bordered on amused pleasure at making Picard wait. Insolence again. What was the man waiting for? Picard remembered quite clearly Kirk’s report, and how officers in this universe routinely moved up in rank via assassination. Did they duel as well? Picard found himself wondering. Was this Riker trying to provoke a confrontation? Had he been trying for a while? No way to tell now.
“Mr. Riker,” Picard said as pleasantly as he could, “kindly take yourself away from my seat before I am forced to request my chief bodyguard to put his phaser up one of those unlovely nostrils of yours and give your brainpan, such as it is, a much-overdue cleaning.”
There were muted snickers around the bridge, just as there had been long ago in the Academy when one of Picard’s cadet martial-arts instructors made the same comment to him. Riker backed away—but only just, with a smile that suggested he thought Picard’s chief bodyguard might not do what he was told. Or am I reading too much into this? Picard thought. He doubted it, though. It seemed unwise to take anything for granted at the moment, and in this milieu, it seemed to him that paranoia might be the most logical approach to staying alive and getting his job done.
He sat down in that center seat, astonished to feel the soft give of it under him: a seat that tempted a man to feel comfortable. He disliked the feeling intensely. On his own bridge, Picard wanted to feel alert, not to be tempted to drowse off—especially not around here.
Picard turned his attention to the main viewer. It showed empty space, the stars flowing slowly by, just as on his own ship. For a moment, despite the short time he had been here, he felt a dreadful sense of homesickness. He wanted his own bridge back, and crewmen whom he could trust. But there was no use wishing.
“Anything else to report?” he said to Riker.
“We’re still searching for Ensign Kowalski,” Riker said, frowning now.
“I should have thought there would be some sign. Does anyone have any new thoughts on why he should have gone missing?”
“Well, there may have been a matter of advancement involved.” Riker’s eyes flicked briefly up toward the ’lift doors, where Barclay still stood at ease, his eyes on Picard.
“Kowalski’s, or someone else’s?”
“Difficult to say, Captain. There were crewmen underneath him who didn’t like his style—who may have waited for him to get a rotation that would put him out of plain sight and give someone an opportunity to hit him. We’re questioning the few who might have had motive.”
“Very good,” Picard said, as if none of it mattered. But he had his own ideas about what that questioning probably involved. And knowing the cause of Kowalski’s disappearance, he felt unhappy about it. Under no circumstance, though, could that be allowed to show. “Carry on, then, and make sure all systems remain in readiness. Otherwise you’ll have a little less cause to smile.”
He had the satisfaction of seeing some of that smirk fall away from Riker, and to cover his own annoyance at having to treat a fellow officer that way, even in a place like this, he leaned back and said, “Get me Mr. La Forge.”
With a sullen look, Riker leaned over toward the center seat, touched one of the controls on its arm. “Engineering,” he said. “La Forge.”
“La Forge here, Commander,” said Geordi’s voice. It sounded annoyed. “Is old Shiny still having his nap?”
Riker grinned like a schoolboy hearing another one get caught in a wicked act.
“I stopped needing afternoon naps after kindergarten, Mr. La Forge,” Picard said softly. “The refulgence of my head is unabated, and as for you, you are asking for trouble.”
“Uh, just a joke, Captain,” said the voice from engineering, rather desperately. “You and Commander Riker both know I have the highest respect—”
“Spare me the platitudes,” Picard said, resigning himself to the fact that he was going to have to conduct himself like an Academy instructor with a crowd of rude, raw, obstreperous one-week’s cadets, all jockeying for position to see who could be the boldest, all continually needing to be slapped down. “Status report!”
“Engines are nominal, Captain.”
“When I say ‘report,’” Picard said, trying to keep his voice soft, and he much hoped dangerous, “I mean a full report, Mr. La Forge, not these sullen half-answers you seem to find so amusing. Must I come down there myself and apply a little encouragement toward more detail?”
“Uh, no sir,” La Forge said, somewhat hurriedly, a slightly cringing tone to his voice now. “But really, there’s nothing else to report. The switchback equipment is on standby for the moment. We’re checking it over as per routine to make sure it took no damage during the inclusion.”
“See to it,” Picard said, “and make quite sure. I may well be down for a visit myself later on. It would be rather annoying to come all this way and then have a malfunction. Certain people would not be amused.”
This was a stab in the dark, but he could guess that this ship would not have been sent out this far, and had the results it had had, and be expected to fail. The interest at Starfleet, this Starfleet, must be tremendous—and he suspected the penalties for failure, right up and down the line, would be dreadful.
“Uh, no sir,” Geordi said. Not Geordi, Picard reminded himself with pain. This La Forge.
“Very well. Out.” Picard hit the control that Riker had touched and saw a look of faint scorn on Riker’s face. “You have something to contribute, Number One? Feel free.”
“You’re too easy on him. One of these days he’s going to get the wrong idea and try something smart.”
“For him?” Picard said softly. “Or for you?”
The stroke went home. Riker looked very briefly taken aback, then smoothed his face over with that smile again and said, “Captain, you know I support you completely.”
The lie was so total and transparent that Picard couldn’t hold his face still, much less keep the look of incredulous-ness off it. Then again, neither could anyone else on the bridge. He glanced swiftly around at their actions. O’Brien was in the seat that was usually Data’s: Picard found himself wondering who was transporter chief here, whether there even was such a function. He rather thought that someone from security probably managed the transporter. Beside him sat Ensign Crusher—an Ensign Crusher. For a moment he fought the urge to lean forward and get a look at that young face, to see what changes were in it here. But Wesley looked fixedly ahead, giving all his attention to the screen.
Behind Picard, Worf stood, without his Klingon sash of rank, as he had appeared in the recording earlier. It would have been unwise to spare him more than a glance, but somehow Picard got the odd feeling that this Worf might be more like the one he was familiar with than the rest of these people. His face seemed little changed. It’s not necessarily an indication, Picard reminded himself. Judging alien expression, even in a species as humanoid as the Klingons, could be a business full of pitfalls.
He leaned back in his seat again. “Of course you do, Number One,” Picard said as smoothly as he could. “And I trust you implicitly.” The two or three meters I can throw you!
“So there’s our ration of humor for today,” Picard said mildly. He got up as casually as he could and began to stroll around the bridge, doing his best to master his responses once again. It was a sobering walk, and one that filled him with distress. The ship’s bridge was at best a parody of his own. He walked quietly past the bank after bank of weaponry control and status readouts. The controls for photon torpedoes, and the master status boards for the phaser banks, he understood. There were other panels new to him, giving status in numbers of “disassociation packages,” “sterilizers,” “nova devices.” The first he guessed was the derivative from the old Romulan weapon. He shuddered again at the thought
of the dust of a dead world traveling companionably in the orbit of another, so that falling stars would seem to rain down constantly through a sky toward which no eye turned anymore in the evening…. But these other weapons—he would have to do some quiet research work, and as quickly as he could.
He passed behind Worf, watching the Klingon’s eyes shift to follow him. Not a nervous look, but speculative. Casually Picard leaned up against a bulkhead and studied a ship’s schematic, trying to look preoccupied. What on earth, he thought, are those great empty bays down in engineering? And what’s happened to all the personnel quarters in the primary hull? There were large spaces showing down there, areas that were formerly subdivided into family quarters, entertainment areas, gyms, libraries: even the arboretum was gone. He leaned in closely enough to pretend to be wiping at a smudge on one of the viewing panels and saw several of those large areas labeled Primary, Secondary, Tertiary Disassociator Storage; Mass Weapons Transporter One, Two; Razor Field Generation; Terra-forming Equipment: Atomics. Atomics in several different flavors.
Dégueulasse, he thought, thoroughly disgusted. He moved casually away and stopped by the engineering panel, gazed at it, still trying to look lost in thought. His revulsion at the weapons load the ship was carrying was briefly replaced by astonishment at the power readings he saw—especially the graph for available power from the warp engines. He made a mental note not to bother trying to outrun this craft, if it came to that. This one could hold high warp speeds, to judge by the engine ratings here, for three or four times as long as his own Enterprise. It could also feed much larger reserves of power to the phasers and the photon torpedoes than his own could. He had already been upset by the photon torpedo complement, six times what his own ship had on board. Now he understood the profligacy: he understood where all that power came from. He touched the panel idly, brought up the schematic of the engineering hull, and gazed at it for a moment, thinking that Geordi might have a better chance of getting his counterpart away undetected than they had previously thought—for this engine room was like a barn. It was at least four times the size of the one on his Enterprise.
