Gulliver's Fugitives Part 26

They saw the same memorial video piece on Ferris that Troi saw outside Crichton's office-the same carven-oak face, the dates of birth and death.

Then an attractive newscaster's face appeared on the screen. She said that although the man who killed Ferris was dead, some of the criminals that partic.i.p.ated in the attack were in custody and would be executed today.

Her words became a voice-over for shots of the Dissenters being herded into their cells by the CS.

Coyote pa.s.sed close to the camera and Troi could see a gleam in his eye. He didn't seem defeated at all.

"Captain," said Troi, "I was with these people after I became separated from the away team. They protected me and got me into CephCom."

She wished she could do something for them. Maybe the captain wanted to as well. But there was no chance of helping them. The Prime Directive prohibited such meddling, and Troi had seen the wisdom of non-interference demonstrated over and over again. Any positive change on this planet would have to be made by the people themselves, not by the intrusion of a paternalistic hand.

Troi heard the conference room doors swish open. She looked up and saw two diminutive people enter. They looked like children but had the bearing of adult life-mates. She remembered them as Oleph and Una.

They came directly over to Troi.

"May we discuss a professional matter with you in front of others?" asked Una gravely.

"It seems to have involved your crewmates as well as you," added Oleph.

"Yes, please do," said Troi. "I've been wanting to talk to you, in fact. What did we do during those hours we spent together? I have the most stubborn amnesia."

"That's what we wanted to talk to you about," said Oleph. "We visited Earth not long ago, and as ethnographers we traveled all over that planet, recording fiction, myth, speculation, and all forms of creative imagination. We used our favored medium, something like your holography, except the images, sounds and so forth are played directly into the brain of the viewer. Virtual reality."

"Well, as a counselor you wanted to view our ethnographic movie. We told you that sometimes, rarely, a life-form has trouble with the medium after they experience it. They find the movie stays in their mind and plays back later, in fragmented flashbacks and dreams.

"You insisted on viewing our movie anyway. You watched the whole thing straight through, all four hours," Oleph concluded.

"And with the most enthusiasm afterward I'd ever seen," said Una. "You said you'd be doing further research, and I took it to mean that you were going to do it right away. You left our cabin, and that was the last we saw of you."

As they spoke, the memories of the meeting broke free and rose into Troi's conscious mind.

"I must have blocked it out because of some kind of shock, when the flashbacks occurred," said Troi. "A way of trying to suppress the trauma, I suppose. Was there something in your movie about a statue of a woman that comes to life?"

"More than one," said Una. "There was The Winter's Tale, Pygmalion, a Tlingit Indian story, and some others as well."

Troi could now remember seeing these in the movie, along with Sekhmet, Tezcatlipoca, and all the rest of the cast of Other-worlders.

She knew what the next question had to be. Possibly the key to it all.

"Did you ever show Crichton your ethnographic movies?"

Oleph and Una looked blankly at each other.

"Who is Crichton?" asked Una.

"The Director of Cephalic Security on Rampart."

"We've never met anyone on Rampart, have we?"

"No, my sweet."

Troi felt disappointed. It was as if she had opened a series of Chinese boxes, one within the other, but the final, smallest box, holding the kernel of the mystery, had remained stubbornly locked. While she sensed that she was closer than ever to finding the key to that last box, she knew she couldn't very well hold up the s.h.i.+p and the investigative machinery of Starfleet just so she alone could pursue a riddle.

Una and Oleph came closer to Troi, reached up with little pink toddler hands, and clasped her own hand.

"We just wanted to say, in case we don't see you again, Counselor, that we're sorry."

"You don't have to be," said Troi. "It seems I took the risk willingly."

A startling thought occurred to her, It came out of nowhere and had the crystalline elegance of truth.

She excused herself and hurried to her cabin to access the s.h.i.+p's computer.

"Why aren't they somewhere more comfortable?" asked Picard as he and Riker walked toward Engineering.

"Apparently they'd been awake since Crichton first came aboard the Enterprise, days ago," Riker replied. "But when everything was over, she still wanted to stand by in case her help was needed. She wouldn't leave Engineering, and Geordi wouldn't leave her."

Technicians were repairing the doors to Engineering as Picard and Riker entered. More technicians were quietly at work on the equipment inside.

Riker showed the captain over to a corner. There, Geordi sat propped against the wall, deep in slumber. His VISOR hid his eyes as always, but the lines of pain and exhaustion on his face were clear. He seemed to have aged years.

Beside him, Ensign Chops Taylor lay curled up on the floor, her head resting on her arm. Her visor was lying next to her, along with the ten burnt sensor pads that once capped her fingers. One of her hands moved and gestured as she dreamt.

Riker had never seen her without her visor. Her face was pure poetry.

"I don't believe I've met that ensign," Picard whispered.

"Her name is Chops Taylor," whispered Riker.

Geordi stirred slightly, and his hand came to rest on the ensign's shoulder, as if he were afraid someone would take her away.

Picard looked at them both for a long moment.

"Thank you for saving my s.h.i.+p," he said finally, in a voice too soft to wake them.

He turned and left, and Riker followed him out.

Picard took his seat on the bridge, with Riker to his right. Troi's chair was empty.

Data was at the Ops position. Wesley's Conn position was occupied by another ensign as Wesley took some much needed rest.

Worf had, of course, scorned rest as a decadent luxury. He stood at the tactical console and surveyed the readouts.

"The Rampartian s.h.i.+ps have backed off several thousand kilometers and are holding. n.o.body on the surface has answered our hails."

"Thank you, Worf. No more communications from Starfleet?"

"None, sir."

"What about the videocasts you've intercepted? Anything new?"

"The Dissenters are in captivity and will be executed soon by the CS."

Picard stared at the deck.

"I suspect this will be a major loss for Rampart," he said.

He lapsed into silence, despondent over the prospect of another hundred years, or maybe another thousand, of schizophrenic rule on this planet.

The bridge crew waited for the order the captain would normally give next-the order to engage the engines and leave this star system behind.

Picard prepared to speak, but before he got any words out, his communicator came to life with a familiar accented voice.

"Troi to Captain Picard."

"Picard here."

"Sir, I think I've found the missing piece to the puzzle."

Chapter Eighteen.

RHIANNON LAY ON the hard bed in her CephCom cell staring at the wall.

It was night outside, and the video screen in her room had been dimmed, but she had no desire to sleep on this, her last of all nights.

Crichton had decided that the Dissenters' bodies themselves would be destroyed. Blanking wasn't enough. They were the most devilish people in history, Crichton said. She had heard the same thing on the television before it had been dimmed. She had also seen a news report that showed Odysseus fighting with a CS man on a bridge, and then both of them lying dead.

She had cried a long time about that, and for the rest of the Dissenters, and for herself. She had cried until there was nothing left but a hollow feeling.

Rain had started to fall outside. She watched the dripping shadows on the walls. Then there was a larger shadow, as if something was moving around right outside her window.

Some guard probably.

The shadow remained, amorphous, wobbling this way and that. Something about the way it moved told her she should see what it was.

She had to stand on tiptoe on the bed.

A familiar face with large golden falcon-eyes looked back at her through the window.

"Saushulima!"

The haguya was perched on a narrow ledge outside. It couldn't hear her through the thick bulletproof gla.s.s, but seemed content just to look at her. It had to flap a wing occasionally to maintain balance.

Rhiannon put her hands on the gla.s.s, wanting very badly to touch the beast's familiar solid bulk and speak to it as she used to.

They exchanged a somber glance. Rhiannon was sure he knew this would be the last time they would see each other.

A hovercraft flew by outside, then swung around, its searchlight projecting a white disc that slid along the wet sides of the buildings.

The light swept closer and closer.

Suddenly the haguya moved its great wings and took flight, just before the searchlight hit the window.

Rhiannon stood by the window for the remainder of the night, but the haguya never returned.

As soon as the gray, drizzly dawn came, a troop of CS men led by Crichton marched down the corridors in highest alert mode. The hum of their hundred fully charged weapons filled the air. One-eyes kept pace with them, an integral part of the troop.

The troop had rolling along with them a special wave propagator; it would prevent anyone from using a transporter to escape. No chances were being taken.

One by one, the CS took the two dozen Dissenters from their cells. Rhiannon, Gunabibi, and Coyote were the last three to be inducted into the death march.

Coyote sang a song in an Indian dialect as he was hauled from his cell. The white-haired old man continued to sing as the troop pushed him forward. The push wasn't necessary; he walked proudly, with the gait of a young man.

Crichton called the group to a halt.

"What is he singing?" the director asked the officer next to him.

The officer was young Daley, survivor of the infamous cave ambush. In the absence of Ferris, Daley was now Crichton's right-hand man.

A one-eye moved in front of Coyote and began to scan his brain waves. Daley listened to his headphones to hear what the one-eye would be able to tell him about Coyote's singing.

"The one-eye doesn't know the language," he said finally. "Apparently this singing went on continuously all last night, and the one-eyes couldn't make a thing out of it."

Crichton went up to Coyote.

"Shut up, d.a.m.n it!" he yelled in Coyote's face. Coyote closed his eyes. He kept on singing. "Use the truth serum on him," said Crichton.

Daley produced his chemical warfare kit and prepared the squeeze bottles.

Coyote opened his eyes to narrow sight-slits and stole a look at Crichton's wrist.w.a.tch.

Then he stopped singing and smiled.

"The one-eye's picking something up now," said Daley, pausing as the information was relayed over his headset.

"He apparently ... inserted some criminal material, some pages, into the outgoing mail last night. He tricked an orderly into helping him. Proper postage and everything. A lot of different envelopes going to different places."

Crichton looked at his watch.

"Thank you, that's exactly right," said Coyote. "They will have been delivered by now, to random addresses. Pages from the stories of Gunabibi, Lomov, Rhiannon, Odysseus, of all of us."

Daley listened to his headphones. "The one-eyes are picking up more. They say he snuck the pages into CephCom on his person. Didn't even tell the other Dissenters about it. Thought about them only in an unknown language he calls Miwok."