by Diane Duane
He touched the panel again, casually bringing up a schematic of the various power conduits and feeds into and out of the engineering section. There appeared to be three major pathways: one for distribution of power to ship’s systems; another, bifurcated farther down the line, for the warp nacelles; and a third. This went to some large unlabeled apparatus in the engine room.
Picard swallowed and turned away. What is that? he thought. From his memory of their last briefing, he remembered Data’s voice saying, A considerable amount of power would be required, and there is no planet or other fixed facility in this neighborhood to produce such an effect From the look of it, that installation, whatever it was, seemed to be absorbing fully a third of the output of these massive engines.
He strolled away from the panel, looking thoughtfully at the forward viewscreen and the slow passage of stars upon it. Wait here a little while more, he thought. Then as soon as it seems natural, I’ll go down to engineering and get a look at that—whatever it is.
Behind him, the ’lift doors slid open, and from around the bridge came the soft sound of people rising to their feet and saluting. For a calculated moment, Picard didn’t turn.
“Well, good morning, Captain,” said the soft voice from behind him.
Calmly he looked her way, seeing in the background that even Riker had risen. Deanna Troi was standing behind him, arms behind her back, eyeing him with a slight smile.
He felt it, then—the brush across his mind, light but in no way tentative, like a veil blown across the skin of his face. There and gone again. He blinked, surprised, and immediately smothered the surprise under an anger that was not entirely generated on purpose. “Counselor,” he said, frowning at her to help the effect.
She raised her eyebrows at him, genially enough, it seemed. “A little nervous this morning, are we?” she said.
He had always hated the medical we when it was used on him, and he liked it no better in this form. “You may be able to overhear them, Counselor,” he said, “but my emotions are not joint property. When I want your help with analyzing them, I’ll ask for it. Meanwhile”—Toujours l’audace, he thought, any move not an attack is ground lost!—“I should think you would be the one who should be nervous. One of your staff missing without a trace…” He had had only a few minutes to study the original’s attitude toward Troi, earlier, but it was better than nothing, and the content might as well be used, too. “This is a poor time for your department to start having trouble, considering how heavy its responsibilities are. But then these things will happen, I suppose. Personality conflicts. Perhaps Kowalski’s last promotion came a little too quickly for someone?” He did his best to smile like a man who had a secret. “Or some cause more sensitive… more private. Someone who might have been indiscreet—and someone willing to prevent it, for a price.”
“And if it was?” Troi smiled and turned away from him, utterly unconcerned. “What’s the point of rank if it doesn’t have its occasional perquisites?” She looked sideways at him, enjoying the game. “You haven’t been entirely behindhand in that regard yourself, Captain. Though it has been a matter of comment occasionally that you haven’t taken more. Some people would wonder about that. They’d take it as a sign you’re getting soft.”
“Personal preference,” Picard said, sounding aloof, and wondering what the devil she was talking about. “But never mind that. What efforts have you made to find our missing crewman?”
“Routine investigations are being made. I’ll let you know when we have results.”
It was a dismissal: of him. He didn’t care for it. “And what have you to report on the status of”—he waved at the screen—“our quarry?”
She was moving slowly toward his seat. In just as leisurely a manner, Picard slipped past her and sat down, looking up at her in the manner of a superior expecting a report from a standing subordinate. Troi made an expression of amusement and surprise and sat down beside him as if she had intended nothing else.
“Since our last contact,” she said, “nothing concrete. A general unfocused sense of low-level anxiety. Not, I must admit, what we would expect from the crew of a ship in the other one’s predicament.” She frowned slightly. “It might indicate that they didn’t understand the predicament they’re in.”
“Surely they will have worked it out by now,” Picard said dryly. “I think you underestimate them, Counselor. Such tendencies are dangerous.”
“If they have worked it out,” she said confidently, “then their behavior is exactly what we would have hoped from these people, at the very best, and closely conforms to the old reports.” The scorn in her voice was considerable. “They’re busily running away, doing their best to avoid us. Whether they know we have both the strategic and tactical advantage of them is hard to say. There’s some indication that their sensors may be better than ours. It hardly matters if they are. Our agent aboard got us the necessary information about their weaponry before his”—she smiled slightly—“unfortunate demise. We’ll be ready for the next phase shortly: within a matter of a couple of hours.”
“Very well,” Picard said then, getting up. “Until then, there are some matters I wish to attend to. Feel free to call me if I’m needed.”
He moved toward the turbolift doors. Barclay, standing there, waved the doors open for him and started to go in ahead of him. Picard let him look the ’lift over, but then shook his head minutely and gestured with his head toward Troi. “Keep an eye on her,” he said softly.
Barclay looked alarmed. “Sir—”
“It’ll be all right. I want to know what she does.”
“Yes, sir.” Barclay dropped his voice to a whisper so slight that Picard could barely hear it and said, “I’ll send someone after you. Be careful, sir—she has eyes everywhere.”
Picard nodded and stepped into the ’lift. The doors closed.
“Deck thirty-eight,” he said. One thing had to be done, and he thought it was safe to do it here, since Barclay hadn’t been afraid to speak to him about Riker. Quickly Picard touched his badge, bent his head right over it so that his lip movement couldn’t be seen in case someone was scanning this area visually, and whispered, “Mr. La Forge—don’t answer. Add the terms switchback and inclusion to your search: it’s important. Out.”
He leaned against the ’lift wall and breathed out hard, letting it all go just for a second. He still had trouble thinking of it without shuddering, that sensation of something trailing across his mind—not so much the feeling itself, but what it implied. This Troi definitely was differently equipped than his own counselor. Or could Troi do such things? He much doubted it. At any rate, there had been no pressure behind that touch, but he had caught, dimly, the implication that there could have been, if she had wished. That this Troi had wanted him to realize that, or more likely to be reminded of it. There was also something uncomfortably sexual about the touch, like being fondled without permission or desire. This Troi’s manner suggested that such minor harassments were a pleasure to her, one she indulged whenever she liked. And from the fear the other crewmen seemed to evince in her presence, no one was safe. Not even Riker, Picard thought, remembering the look of reluctant, sullen rage as he moved out of the center seat to let her sit there. Here was a danger as concrete as any of the obscenities down in the holds of this ship, the planet-killing weapons, the atomics….
The ’lift stopped. Picard stepped out slowly, looking carefully around him. In this universe, at least, it seemed safer to stay with the paranoid tendencies in order to keep himself functional. The corridor was empty: there were no salutes to return. He went down it with care, trying not to look hurried, though all his senses were shouting at him that nothing was safe here. He thought of Geordi and his own Troi, cramped into that tiny storage area, waiting for him.
Behind him he heard the soft sound of the turbolift doors opening. He half-turned, feeling ashamed even as he did it that he should so exhibit his jumpiness—
And that was all that saved h
im from taking the phaser stun in the worst place, the spine and the back of the head, where it would have infallibly incapacitated him completely. Instead he caught it sideways, his turned body minimizing the target, giving the phaser less area to affect. Nonetheless he crashed to the floor with all his nerves on fire, unable even to put his hands out to break his fall, and the shock of the impact all up and down his body was almost as bad as the stun itself. He heard the sound of running footsteps, but couldn’t do the least thing about them, lying there, blind, his limbs refusing to answer him. Folly, said a severe voice back in his head, to venture out on your own in a place where captains need personal guards.
The footsteps stopped. Someone thumped down beside him. He couldn’t see, but he could hear breathing, hoarse, right above his head. He partly felt someone fumbling at his waist—and then the prick of something sharp between his chin and the soft part of his throat.
“Finally,” the voice whispered hoarsely. “Finally. It had to happen: even you had to get careless eventually. I’ve been waiting years for this. Ever since I could understand…”
After stun, said the cool voice in the back of his head, you only get one chance. Rest: conserve yourself. Pick the moment: choose your target correctly. Then give it everything you’ve got, because what you’ve got probably isn’t much at that point. In fact, all you’ve really got is surprise, because no one expects a stunned body to do anything.
The whispering voice, so close to his face that he could actually feel the breath of it now, told him where the throat was. He was on his back: he could tell that much. He could also feel that point, jabbed into his throat, sinking in a bit deeper. “I’ll probably make lieutenant now,” whispered the voice. “Not that I care. This is for my father—”
Picard rolled and swung, crashing his left forearm as hard as he could sidewise into the neck of the person leaning over him. The sharpness scored away from his throat as he rolled to pin the other’s body under him, finding its throat again with the now-free hand, pushing the left forearm down over it. There was a clatter. My knife, he thought, and it sounded as if it was out of range and out of reach. He leaned on that forearm, hearing horribly satisfying choking noises.
His eyesight started to clear. He found himself looking down into Wesley Crusher’s face, which was turning an interesting shade of puce. Picard let up the pressure—but not by much. “Mr. Crusher,” he growled, “you had better explain yourself.”
The young man choked and coughed and glared up into Picard’s eyes. “Just kill me and be done with it,” he sneered. “Don’t pretend the idea hasn’t crossed your mind before.”
Picard refrained from comment, electing to play the innocent for the moment. “Now why should I want to kill you?”
Ensign Crusher laughed bitterly. “For neatness’s sake, maybe. Wouldn’t it be so much tidier? To make a clean sweep? Two Crushers dead, and one who might as well be.”
Picard stared at him in horror. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach and wasn’t sure whether it was the stun or the awful suspicion that was rising in him. At least he was starting to feel strong enough to get up.
He did, hauling Wesley to his feet with him. “What are you doing away from your post?” he said, pinning the ensign against the wall by his throat and unholstering his phaser.
Wesley laughed again, that horrible, bitter, lost sound, and actually turned his head and spat on the floor at Picard’s feet, glaring defiance. “As if Riker and Troi wouldn’t let me go! They knew what I had in mind. It’s been everybody’s little joke for a long time. But you gave me the opening—and the commander let me leave. After all… there was a chance it might have worked. If it had…” He shrugged. “Everyone moves up. No one would mind. The counselor isn’t very pleased with you, neither is Riker, for a while now. If it didn’t work—then their hands are clean. They didn’t know what was going to happen, they’ll say. I’m the one who gets it in the neck.” He spat again. “It was worth the chance just to see you with your own knife at your throat, mister high-and-mighty captain with all those years of experience—sweating it for a moment like anybody else who made a dumb move. It was worth it—even if it’s the only thing I’ll have left.”
The ’lift doors opened again. Two security people came running down toward them. Picard, watching them come, saw them fix their eyes on him, with their phasers in their hands, and had a moment of panic. My bodyguard? he thought. And some nasty suspicious thought said to him, How many of them do you think Commander Riker might have made an offer to? Or possibly Counselor Troi? How many of them are really committed to you—or this you? Will you ever be able to turn your back on anybody while you’re here?
“Are you all right, sir?” one of the men said, coming to him quickly. It was Ryder, or the equivalent of him. His hair was shorter than Picard’s own Ryder’s, and he was missing the mustache.
Picard nodded, putting a hand to his head for a moment as he had one of those transient pains you get sometimes after you’ve been stunned. “I’m well enough. But Mr. Crusher here seems to have a problem.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said the second guard; it was Detaith. He grabbed Ensign Crusher and yanked his arms behind him. “Go on, Brendan, give him a taste. Let him see what happens to people who dare to touch the captain.”
Ryder reached out to Wesley’s badge, slowly, smiling a little. Crusher’s face worked through rage and fear, fear winning as the hand got closer. It touched the badge. There was a soft humming sound.
And Crusher’s body bent half-double backward while Detaith held him. His face convulsed with pain, and he began to scream. Picard held himself rigidly still, not daring to react for fear of what it would betray. He remembered, now, in a flash, the look of fear on Stewart’s face as he had reached tentatively for the man’s badge. This, too, had been in Kirk’s report. He had thought, had hoped, that perhaps it had gone away, since he hadn’t seen the devices of which Kirk had spoken hanging at people’s belts. Now, though, he saw the hope was in vain. These people would never throw away such a useful device. Refine it, make it smaller, more convenient, more effective.
Picard held himself still. Wesley screamed and screamed again and lost breath for screaming, and a kind of broken sobbing came out of him instead of breath. He began going blue: hypoxia, the lung muscles seized up in the terrible spasms of pain. Ryder drew his hand back from the badge. “That’ll do for the moment,” he said. “Wouldn’t want him to die right off like that. He’s due a long tour in the Agony Booth, I should think.”
That, too, was a name Picard remembered from the report. “Not until I’m ready,” he said, and added, as cover, “not until I can enjoy it. Confine him to quarters under guard.”
“Yes, sir,” Detaith said, and half-carried, half-dragged the sobbing, helpless Crusher away.
Ryder watched them go and said, “Sir, Mr. Barclay sent us as soon as he could, but you shouldn’t wander around the ship alone like this. There are all kinds of people who wouldn’t mind a shift in the status quo at the moment. Nerves are a little on edge.” Ryder shook his head, watching Detaith and Crusher vanish into the turbolift. “What was that about?”
Picard rubbed the cut place on his throat. “Something about his father.”
Ryder smiled knowingly, then let the look go as he realized Picard was staring at him. “Well, sir, you’d know more about that than I would,” he said hurriedly. But was that the slightest sound of satisfaction in his voice? “You’re bleeding, sir.”
Picard looked at his fingers. “So I am. It’s not very serious, I’ll stop by sickbay later. In the meantime, you had better accompany me to engineering.”
Picard headed off down the hall, with Ryder close behind him, uncomfortable thought running in the back of his mind, like the trickle of blood, hot and persistent. Toujours l’audace, he thought, somewhat bitterly, as he went. He longed for his own universe, though it should be infested with Romulans and every kind of unknown danger. Better than this dark mirror of his own
, where one’s worst fears kept threatening to come true.
CHAPTER 8
Elsewhere, in the darkness, another island of light floated, swept along a wildly varying path; alone in the darkness, trying to stay that way.
Will Riker sat at Picard’s desk in his ready room, staring at the reports coming up on his screen. He hardly saw them; he was afraid. Not for himself: paradoxically, that was something he usually felt most acutely after a crisis. Occasionally, more than occasionally, he had had cause to bless that fact. But there had been no communication from the landing party for an hour now. Not that any had been planned—but the silence was as racking as communication might have been. He didn’t know which to prefer. The thought of his friend, his commander, and Deanna, enduring who knew what over there, all at once, out of help, out of range, was almost more than he could bear.
“Riker to Chief O’Brien.”
“O’Brien here.”
“Any change?”
“No change, Commander. Their life-sign telemetry is coming back just fine.”
There was that to be grateful for, at least. “Very well, Chief. You’ll let me know if there’s any change…”
“Right away, sir. Count on it.” O’Brien’s voice was gentle.
“Thank you, Miles. Out.” Riker made a grim face at his own uneasiness and turned his attention back to the screen. He had had a bad hour with two sets of data: the first information that Geordi had sent back from the other Enterprise, and Geordi’s own list of the files that Stewart had managed to transfer to that ship. To Riker’s horror, the latter were not only information about the Enterprise’s weapons array, engine capacity, and power, but also almost all of her threat-response files—the computer-managed programs that helped the helm officer and weapons officer “fight” the ship, taking most of the work off them and leaving them free to orchestrate new and different moves that would specifically address an enemy’s weaknesses in the heat of combat. With this information, that other Enterprise’s computers could predict, preempt, almost all the defensive moves and many of the aggressive moves that his own Enterprise might make in a battle situation. To discover that their enemies had this data was, to put it mildly, not good news.
