by Diane Duane
“I hate having to rush things this way,” she said an eternity later when the pain lessened a little. “It’s so slapdash—not to do things in neat stages, but to have to chop and change.” He felt, then, the first fingers touching his mind—almost casually. The effect was horrific, like being touched on an open wound by someone slowly, delicately drawing a finger over the ragged edge, the place where the hypersensitive tissue was beginning to crust and dry. He sobbed.
“I suppose I can just be resigned to it. Unless you change your mind very quickly and start telling me what you know. It’s so draining to have to go through someone’s mind the hard way… but I will if I must. I may be tired of it at the end, a little, but I’ll be better in an hour or so. But dead.” She smiled more broadly. “Not without feeling what will feel to you like several years of this pain.”
He moaned. Oh, yes, I can prolong it, she said from inside him again, and it was as if his own mind spoke to him, having turned traitor, punishing him for all the secret wrongs of a lifetime. Time sense is one of the most easily altered of all the interior senses. I can’t spend a long while with you myself—I’ve got a lot of other things to do—but the little while I spend with you will feel like months of this. I know where to touch the mind to make it happen. See?—
—and something happened, so that the moment froze with the pain increased to a point so shocking that he was no longer even able to scream, but had to merely hang there and feel it, burning him up as if he were a stick in a fire. When time started running again, and his consciousness emerged enough to get behind his eyes and look at her…
“See?” she was saying. “How simple. See how long the time between one breath and the next can be?” She laughed. “What was it they used to say about relativity? A second with a pretty girl—a second on a hot stove.” She smiled at him charmingly. “See, now you’ve got both. And you’ll have both for a good long while. Now, tell me”—the pain increased once again, though time kept running—“who came with you?”
The field wrung another scream out of him, and the mind touched him, just there, and he cried, helpless, “Counselor!”
“No use begging me for mercy,” she said softly. “I have very little of that to spare today.”
He gulped, desperate, realizing how close he had come to doing real damage. Tell her! his mind screamed. Start telling her, control it!
Don’t! shrieked another part. Do anything, but don’t tell her you’ve got to slow her down, do anything to slow her that you can, don’t, don’t!
The pain whited him out again. Desperate, he clawed at the edges of his mind, trying to keep from falling back into that burning whirlpool.
“Who came with you?” said the voice. And the fingers came down and gently pried loose the hand that held him on the edge of the pain.
He fell, screaming, burnt alive—and the image of Picard came and went before he could do anything about it.
The pain from that was worst of all.
Not very far away, someone else heard the screams, and the tears rolled down her face, and there was nothing she could do. Anguish of that sort was eminently traceable. Deanna, waiting in Geordi’s quarters, knew that they had caught him, knew where he had been when they caught him, knew that the other Troi was involved somehow. They were coming here and would be here very shortly to rescue the other La Forge.
In fact they were quite close: she could feel them approaching. Horrible indecision and fear descended on her. She could feel what Geordi was going through, though, even if only at a remove; the pain of it frayed at her nerves like an old acid burn on the skin. She had to get him out of there.
This is how to start, said part of her mind, and got her up and wiped her face hastily dry.
The door opened, and the security detail came in. She looked at them and pointed at the wall. “In there. I can feel his mind. He’s asleep, but otherwise he’s all right. Get him out.”
“Counselor,” one of them said in surprise. “We weren’t expecting to see you down here so fast.”
Her heart rose. It was plain enough that these people, at least, didn’t know there was a double of their mistress aboard. Logical enough, the thought went through Deanna’s mind. She wouldn’t tell them any more than they absolutely needed to know.
“At a time like this,” she snapped at them, “what do you expect?” They cringed, and she found herself enjoying it and didn’t even bother to feel guilty about it. “Get him out of there. I have other business to attend to.” They ducked their heads to her and went about opening the compartment.
She headed straight out the door and into those halls, moving fast. People got out of her way as they saw her coming, and she was grateful for that. At least communications aren’t functioning here, she thought. Odds aren’t very good that anyone would figure out there are two of us, until… At least she hoped the odds weren’t very good. But how is one to tell at this point?
She strode down the corridor into the turbolift and headed for Geordi’s last location—that shaft where he had been working. She got there to find a crowd of engineering people just now descending into the shaft, Eileen Hessan among them. They looked at her in some surprise. “Did you forget something, Counselor?” one of them said.
“Yes,” Troi said, and brushed through them as if they were so many chickens. “Here—give me that.” She gestured one of them off the floater he was standing on, got on it herself, and keyed in the commands that would take it down the shaft. It floated down gently. There, half in, half out of the open panel, was Geordi’s tricorder, and one chip, with the scratch he had shown her on the corner. She bundled the things under one arm and floated back up again.
“There,” she said to the nervously waiting engineering staff. “Now do what you were doing and hurry. We don’t have all day here.”
“Yes, ma’am,” some of them said, and people started descending into the shaft again.
Sweating, Troi walked out briskly, her head high, and made her way without stopping straight back to La Forge’s quarters. There, clutching the tricorder and chip, she sat down, then laid them aside, folded her hands, and tried to center herself enough to at least get control over the stress. It was very hard.
That wasn’t too bad, she thought, but I’m going to have to do it again almost right away. First, though…
When she was adequately centered, Deanna did what she had not yet dared to do—felt around her with her mind and reached directly toward that other mind that so closely matched her own in structure. She got quite close, in that directionless, distanceless way that minds have of drawing near or apart from one another. She waited for it to notice her.
It didn’t. It was very busy on some matter of its own, lost in cool enjoyment that rose and fell in time with the screams in Geordi’s mind. Deanna shuddered, but she could understand the rationale for the torture perfectly well. Even powerful telepaths preferred exterior circumstances to do as much of their work for them as possible. Why bother breaking a mind’s barriers yourself, and wearing yourself out, when good old-fashioned pain could do the job as well?—leaving you to go over the remains unwearied. All loathsome—but it might serve her yet.
She leaned up closer yet against that mind and actually put some pressure on it. There was no one else, Deanna knew, that she could do this with; but this was her mind. She could influence it.
And it noticed nothing…. She leaned there a good few moments, but it was so busy with its own nasty delights that it never noticed her. Deanna wanted to shudder again—how could anyone luxuriate in someone’s pain this way?—but she repressed the urge, afraid it would attract notice. Indeed she must keep her own reactions very much to herself for the next little while, and she choked the revulsion moving in her down to almost nothing. It was horrible to see this “her”: it indicated all too clearly what, if things had gone wrong in the past—or did go wrong in the future—she could become. She didn’t let it distract her, though.
She slipped softly closer in m
ind, until she could actually start hearing some thoughts. It was eerie, and bitterly frustrating, that the only time she should approach anything like a Betazed’s proper abilities should be while en rapport with this creature. But she kept herself calm and listened and opened her mind to the thoughts and the images. Who came with you? she heard the counselor demand—felt Geordi try desperately to resist and saw her own image flicker across his mind. Counselor.
Her counterpart mistook his meaning, pressed him harder. Deanna swallowed; by so little had her position been protected.
Then the next image came up out of the haze of pain. Picard. Down the link, she could hear her counterpart thinking, The captain! Her mind suddenly was aflame with conjecture, instantly satisfied. She realized that the man to whom she had spoken, who had seemed so gentle and noncommittal, was not at all the man she thought she had been speaking to.
The counselor opened her eyes and turned away from the suffering, screaming man, toward her guards. “You and you, come with me. You,” she said to the third, “stay here. Leave him on this setting for about ten minutes, then lower it again—not long enough to let him recover completely. And make sure you keep an eye on the refresh rate.”
“Yes, Counselor.”
“I’ll be back in a few minutes… then I’ll let you know what’s to be done with him next.” And off she went, her guards in tow.
Deanna felt her do it. Immediately she got up from the bed, careful to sever the link at her end, as indetectably as she knew how. Then she touched her communicator. There was no more time for care or secrecy: speed was going to be everything. “Captain, my counterpart knows. She’s on her way to find your double. There’s still time to salvage something from this, though. If you get there first.”
The communicator under her fingertips buzzed. She read him the coordinates of the storage area quickly and said, “I’ll let you know as soon as anything else happens. Out.”
She went quickly out and headed down the hall toward the turbolift, making for deck fourteen, where Geordi was. The timing on this is going to be very close, she thought. But she kept the fear out of her face and strode down the corridor with that proud, fierce look she had seen on the other’s face, thinking, in her mother’s best tone of voice, I am a daughter of the Fifth House. Who dares stand in my way?
No one did. Again she watched the looks on their faces, the fear, the concern, and felt a little sweet-sharp prickle of excitement, enjoyment, at it. Respect she had in plenty, back home, but not like this.
Deanna smiled ruefully at herself. The price was too high to pay: the temptations inherent in the enjoyment of others’ pain were too great. What does it matter how much you enjoy this kind of thing, if you lose your soul your humanity? And it’s all too enjoyable.
She got into the ’lift. “Deck fourteen,” she said, and waited for the doors to open.
Coming out, she heard the sounds almost immediately: sobs, a man’s voice weeping, that cheerful voice always full of such good humor. She set her face, set her tone of mind, and strolled down to the Booth, saying to the guard there, “Very well—that other matter’s in hand. Lower the setting on that—I’m going to take him out for a visit. The captain wants to see him.”
“Uh-oh,” the guard said, and started working over the panel.
“Take it slowly,” Deanna said, though everything inside her screamed, Hurry! She could feel what his nerves felt and was concerned that stopping this torment too abruptly might throw him into shock. “Good,” she said as the field cut out fully, and he collapsed finally to the floor of the platform like a puppet with its strings cut.
She unholstered her phaser. “Give me a hand up with him. He’ll get his legs back in a moment.”
The guard helped him up roughly. Geordi half-leaned, half-slumped against Troi, and she dug the phaser meaningfully into his ribs. “The captain wants to see you, mister,” she said, putting into the words all the ferocity she felt toward the people who had done this to him. “Let’s go.
“Do you want some help with him, Counselor? He might—”
She turned cool eyes on the guard. “He’ll do nothing… but I thank you for your concern, Harrison.” She turned her back on him.
Together she and Geordi started down the hall, he lurching, she half-dragging him, trying not to make it show in her urgency. “Come on, Geordi,” she whispered in his ear, “we’ve got work to finish!”
Under the twitching, squeezed-shut eyelids, there was a moment’s convulsive movement of surprise, confirming the great wash of desperate joy and fear that went through him. The walking began to strengthen a little; the breathing became less labored. Deanna straightened, too, slowing her pace, conscious of the guard’s eyes on her from behind. It did not befit a daughter of the Fifth House to hurry through the halls, even on a matter of life and death. She walked on down the hall, haughty as a queen, and people she passed looked at Geordi and tsked at each other and grinned small grins—their emotions saying plainly that they knew Geordi was doomed. She ignored them. She would get him back to his quarters and do what she could to get him back in shape, and after that…
Heaven only knew. Or maybe the captain.
CHAPTER 14
Picard took his phaser, checked the charge on it, and went out in a rush.
He had never liked being out of control in a situation. He liked it less now than ever before in his life. The truth was that his officers were to be trusted, that they knew what they were doing, and that, as usual, the amount of time that he who commands spends standing and waiting was always worthwhile. If he could keep himself from meddling in areas where he shouldn’t be.
“Come on, Barclay,” he said to the constant presence outside his door, and went off down the hall. Then he stopped. “I thought you were going to get some sleep.”
Barclay shrugged as he came after him. “I couldn’t. Captain, what is it? Do we need more people?”
“No. You and I will do just fine.”
“Where are we going, sir?” Picard cheerfully enough quoted him the coordinates. Barclay wrinkled his brow. “Storage? What’s down there?”
The ’lift arrived; Barclay checked it, and they stepped in. “Mr. Barclay,” Picard said when they were under way, “what do you know about our present mission?”
“Not too much,” Barclay said equably enough. “But then we’re used to that.” An uninformed crew, Picard thought; tyranny’s best defense. “Something to do with… another Enterprise, another starship. From some other universe.” He shook his head. “It sounded like a fairy tale when most of us heard it. But here we are, and everything seems dead serious.”
“Well, what does another Enterprise suggest to you?”
“Another crew, I guess,” Barclay said, and looked at him sideways then, alarmed. “The same crew?—but different. Another—” He looked at Picard and wouldn’t say it.
“Another Barclay? Yes. But more to the point… another Captain Picard.”
Barclay’s eyes went briefly wide, and Picard could just this once as clearly read the thought behind them as if he were a full Betazed. The thought was, Isn’t one enough? “Another Picard,” said Jean-Luc. “We’re going to go catch him.”
Twain had been in his mind all evening since his meeting with the counselor. Now he was there again, but not in verse mode: he was thinking more of The Prince and the Pauper. Troi had been right. When he got out of this, her quick thought was going to be worth a great deal of commendation… assuming they made it home to a universe where such works were considered worthy to be commended.
They went hurriedly through the halls together. “Mr. Barclay, it’s very likely that when we get where we’re going, and while I’m busy having a talk with my… carbon copy”—he gave Barclay a droll look—“Counselor Troi will arrive. She’s going to want to get her claws into him, too.”
“I can see that, sir.”
“It is vital that she be kept away from that little tête-à-tête as long as possible. I need to talk
to that man, undisturbed. If you need to call extra people, do it.”
“Calling is a problem, Captain… comms are still down.”
“You’re quite right, of course. Do it any way you can. Commandeer someone to act as a messenger… but get the help you need. Just keep her off my case.”
“Yes, sir.” They were quiet together in the ’lift for a few moments.
Finally Barclay said, “Captain…”
Picard nodded at him.
“About my promotion.”
Picard had to laugh out loud. “You know how to strike when the iron’s hot, don’t you?”
“We have been rather busy the past day or so. And I think without me…”
“Yes. Without you…” Picard looked gravely at the man, and after a few moments Barclay looked away. Picard hoped it wasn’t because he had frightened him in any way. “I will look into it. If your general service record until now accords with your behavior of the last few days…” He nodded.
Barclay, astonishingly, blushed and looked away. “Thank you, sir.”
The ’lift stopped. They came out together on deck fifty-four, far down in the engineering hull, a quiet place, no need for anyone much to be down there. Without much trouble they found the room. Barclay had stopped someone they passed as they got out of the ’lift, sending a message along. For the time being, he posted himself by the door to the storage area.
Picard looked at him. “Will you be all right?”
Barclay looked back at him with the kindly look that bodyguards reserve for their slightly insane charges. “Captain, I’m supposed to be asking you that.”
“You stay here,” Picard said, thumping him gently on the biceps. “I know who’s in there.” He smiled grimly. “No one better. Don’t interrupt us. We’ll be fine. And remember—don’t leave the spot. If the counselor should come…”
