Gulliver's Fugitives Part 16

The death sentence gave her a feeling of freedom. She could do anything she wanted, because she was already dead. If she had been a Dissenter named Amoret, then her life was merely completing its proper trajectory. Although she would never remember most of that life, she knew what she could do to end it properly.

There was an electric van parked at the back entrance to the storage room. Her Marjorie programming told her that. There could still be a one-eye lurking in the room, but she'd have to make a dash for it. Delaying would get her nowhere.

She burst out of the tall cabinet and ran the few steps to the back entrance. The van was there. She opened the door and got in. She put the disk case under the seat and floored the pedal.

Ferris entered Crichton's office.

"Morning, sir."

"Morning, Major."

"Glad to see you're feeling better, sir."

"Thank you. Just the old injury. Facial nerve. You've been briefed yet on what we're doing with the captain of the Enterprise?"

"No, sir."

"He was completely blanked clean yesterday. But we're going to put back some parts of his original mind. Just facts about the Enterprise and his crew, his speech patterns, and so forth. Just what we will need to fool the Enterprise.

Crichton's laugh was short and mechanical.

"You wouldn't believe the amount of obscene garbage in that man's mind. The computer put it at ninety percent of total content. Fantasies about s.p.a.cebeings and all that. All gone now, though, thrown out except for what we need."

"What about the other captives, and the s.h.i.+p?"

"The s.h.i.+p will probably be destroyed by the one-eyes, even without the help we'll get from Picard. But we'll take extra protection wherever we can get it. The other captured man will be blanked today, and the robot is being taken apart as we speak. Don't worry about them, Major. I want you rested and ready when those Dissenters from the caves make their move."

Ferris didn't hide his surprise.

"Where'd the intelligence come from?"

"A super-stealth miniature one-eye got close to them after they left their stronghold. It's since lost them but it did find out about a plan. They're going to come out of the caves and attack CephCom. If they do, we'll let them, and arrest them right on the front steps."

Ferris didn't like it. He was a by-the-book military man, and this plan was not by-the-book. This was another of Crichton's video spectaculars that made the war harder for the soldiers who actually had to fight. But the Council of Truth thought Crichton was a born genius with video, and they'd shepherded him up through the ranks.

Still, Ferris was determined to voice his objection.

"Sir, that's tactically a bad plan. They should be arrested at a safe distance."

"I want to show the public how these criminals are a real threat, Major. The Council of Truth has approved my plan. They agree that this could be the best news video ever."

Chapter Twelve.

"TOO HIGH AND TOO FAST!" said Troi breathlessly. Rhiannon had promised her the ride would be short and conservative. But the haguya's gravity-pulling turns around the stalact.i.tes were like an old-fas.h.i.+oned thrill ride. The animal was a virtuoso aeronaut.

"Hold on to me," said Rhiannon.

Troi held on. Rhiannon seemed to have no fear of heights at all. Troi figured it was because of long acclimation.

Eventually the haguya slowed its flight, made a sharp turn, and headed back over the walking Dissenters.

"Did you tell it to turn around?" asked Troi.

"No! Saushulima knew."

Troi could feel Rhiannon's defensiveness. The girl wanted to believe the haguya was intelligent.

"What did you call him?" Troi asked.

"Saushulima. I named him after a being of sky and wind in a Zuni story. Chief of the zenith domain."

"Is the haguya a friend only with you?" asked Troi.

"No, he likes us all. So do the other haguya that live in these caves. Sometimes they sit around with us when we have storytelling time, and listen. They bring their babies to listen, too. When we're in dangerous places they watch out for us. Once Gunabibi almost fell off a cliff, and one of the haguya caught her."

Troi thought Rhiannon might be projecting her own wishes onto the haguya. Making it into a fantasy companion, like the mythical Rhiannon's light-footed horse.

"Do the haguya ever come out of the caves? Do they go up above ground?"

"Once in a while, but they stay away from the people. They go up to the mountains."

"Aren't they ever spotted?"

"Anyone sees a haguya up there, the memory will be cleansed right out, because the haguya aren't supposed to exist. But I don't know how people explain the weird guano lying about!"

Another haguya pulled up alongside and flew next to Saushulima. Troi watched closely, trying to see if any form of communication would occur between them. But nothing happened and the visitor parted company.

"Where are your people going?" asked Troi.

"A secret cave a couple of miles away. We have to wait for Odysseus to wake up."

Troi wondered what frame of mind he'd be in-would he cooperate and tell her how to get to CephCom? There was no Alastor secret left to protect, so why shouldn't he?

If she got the information she needed, she decided she'd leave without seeking anything else from the Dissenters. On her way there, she would try one more contact with the Other-worlders, one more attempt to understand what they were. She vowed to herself not to succ.u.mb to fear this time. She would let them communicate however they might.

She could still feel their presence. They lurked beneath the surface of the physical reality around her like serpents in a shadowy sea.

Troi's musings were interrupted by a sadness she felt coming from Rhiannon.

Troi hazarded a guess as to its cause.

"I'm sorry you lost some of your people back at Alastor."

"Well ... the way I see it," said Rhiannon, "they aren't really gone. No one can kill Caliban, or Maui, or Isis. Isis is already five thousand years old. See what I mean?"

Troi understood the literal meaning. But the words seemed to have a special significance Troi couldn't pinpoint.

"Do you like Odysseus?" asked the long-haired girl.

"Why do you ask?"

"I was hoping you did, so maybe you'd decide to stay with us. Like, if you married him."

Troi laughed.

"I like all of your people, especially you, Rhiannon, but I can't possibly stay."

Below, the Dissenters were entering a narrow cleft in a rock wall.

"We're here," said Rhiannon.

"Come in," said Gunabibi. Troi entered the little cave and sat against the wall.

Odysseus was lying on his back, his head on a crude pillow made from rags. Gunabibi was applying a wet cloth to his forehead.

Troi checked to see if he was near waking up. He seemed quite unconscious, but as Troi leaned over to peer at him closely, his eyes moved beneath their lids.

She studied his sleeping face. A very masculine face, weathered but handsome, framed by a gray -flecked beard. He looked like a man on a hegira, a penitent.

Sitting so close to his sleeping form, she had to acknowledge that she felt an attraction to him. Maybe it was just a bodily feeling, an instinct. She couldn't picture any kind of real-life intimacy between them.

Still, his tactics, and his Dissenter group, had been more effectual against the CS soldiers than she had expected. They'd saved her from the CS, just as he'd promised. She wasn't going to let that draw her into the conflict emotionally and derail her from her own mission, but as an outside observer she wished the Dissenters victory and freedom.

Gunabibi took the wet cloth away from Odysseus' forehead.

"He should be waking soon," she told Troi.

Troi wondered about the effects from the stun he'd received. When he awoke, would he be in any kind of shape to talk?

She put her hand on his cheek. It was warm but not feverish.

She decided to see if she could read his feelings while he dreamed.

Averting her gaze, Troi unshrouded her consciousness and let in his feelings. He was indeed dreaming. She expected to find that in his dream he would not be Odysseus, he would be that defeated, shamed man that hid underneath the fictional character.

But she was surprised, because he was still Odysseus, even in his dream. The fictional character he worked so hard to sustain had pervaded his mind even to the stratum of dreams. She let the feeling of his dream wash over her, the feeling of an odyssey across a vast place full of adventures, both dark and bright, across the limits of the known and the unknown, and how he survived it through his resourcefulness ...

She felt there was a woman in the dream, just out of his reach, and she felt his wanting- She quickly brought her gaze back to Odysseus' face. His eyes were open. He was looking at her. Her hand was still on his face; she had forgotten it was there. Withdrawing it with a jerk, she felt herself blush and silently cursed the involuntary response.

"Beautiful way to wake up," he said. He s.h.i.+fted his attention from Troi to Gunabibi.

"Welcome back," said Gunabibi, laughing with joy. She gave Odysseus a motherly hug and helped him sit up.

The sitting position was obviously painful for him. He held his head in his hands for several moments, breathing through clenched teeth.

"Where are the others?" he asked Gunabibi.

"Getting food."

"Did we lose anyone at Alastor?"

"Isis and Maui were arrested. Caliban is dead."

He said nothing. With his hands still covering his face, he slowly let himself sink back down to the rock floor. He put his head on the pillow and turned away from the two women.

Troi sensed quite clearly that he wanted to be alone. The Odysseus character was faltering, and, underneath, that other man, the old, failed one, was hurting.

She went outside.

The Dissenters had bedded down.

Troi had no way of knowing if it was night on the surface of Rampart, but she had fallen into the same circadian body clock as the rest of the Dissenters, and was ready for sleep too. But she wanted to question Odysseus first.

Most of the light-stones that the group had carried were covered with clothes or bundles of books. In the insufficient orange glow of the remaining few, the cave the group had chosen for a rest site looked like the stone-ribbed gut of a sinuous animal.

Troi picked her way around the stalagmites, pools, and rec.u.mbent forms of the Dissenters. She sensed clearly that some were joined in the act of love. She gave them a wide berth, but admitted to herself some curiosity about who was with whom. There were so many interesting possible pairings.

She found Odysseus sitting awake, apart from the others, on a ledge that gave him a view of the entrances and exits to the cave.

He acknowledged her with a nod, and offered her a cloak as she sat next to him. She accepted it gladly, since the cave air was mercilessly cold.

Troi immediately perceived that he had recovered from the losses in his group, and regained his confidence and strength. He was once again the much-enduring mythical Odysseus.

"I was hoping you could tell me how to get into CephCom from these caves," she said. "Or am I still a suspected CS spy?"

"No. We've decided you're no more CS than any of us."

"So you'll tell me?"

"You can't get in by yourself."

"I have to at least try."

"No, you don't. You can come in with us. We have a mission to accomplish while there are still enough left in our group: a last try at putting CephCom out of commission. We've been planning it for a while. You don't have to be part of it. You can just sneak in with us and go your own way."

"You're going to take on the entire facility?"

He nodded.

Troi was incredulous. This seemed too farfetched to be real. Had the recent battle pushed him off the deep end?

"Do you want to come with us?" he asked, watching her closely.