Captain's Table_ Dujonian's Hoard Part 22

"Come on," Abby taunted me. "Where's your sense of adventure, Picard?"

Obviously, she knew how to get to me.

"All right," I responded, getting to my feet. "I'll beam down with you if only to satisfy my curiosity."

Abby turned to Thadoc. "Take the helm," she said, "and establish a synchronous...o...b..t. We may be gone a few hours. And don't worry about the Orion. It won't give us any trouble."

"Aye," Thadoc replied. If he was the least bit skeptical, he managed not to show it.

Worf was another story. He was scowling as only a Klingon could scowl, not at all thrilled with the idea of exposing me to the unknown.

"I will go as well," he resolved.

"That won't be necessary," Abby responded. She was looking at me as she said it, requesting a favor with her eyes.

I decided to trust her. "Remain here, Lieutenant. I'll contact you if I need you."

Worf made a sound of disgust. "As you wish, sir."

Madigoor "BUT WHAT WAS it Abby saw on her monitor?" Bo'Tex wanted to know. "And who was it from?"

Flenarrh grunted. "Now who's the impatient one?"

The Caxtonian looked at him indignantly. "I'm just asking, is all."

"Just as I said," Flenarrh countered, "you're being impatient."

"It never hurts to ask a question," Robinson conceded, pacifying Bo'tex before he could emit an odor the others would come to regret. "However, I sense our friend Picard was about to answer your question and perhaps a number of others in the bargain."

The gecko turned to Picard as if it knew what was going on.

The captain smiled. "True enough," he said.

The Tale ABBY AND I exited the Romulans' bridge and repaired to their transporter room. Once there, we took our places on a hexagonal transporter grid, under the Romulan symbol of the birdlike predator with the globes in its claws. a.s.sad did us the favor of beaming us down.

We materialized in a sunny, ochre-colored valley beneath a vast, blue-green sky. But we weren't alone. Not by a long shot.

There were several white, domelike enclosures scattered about. Among them stood a wide variety of humanoids, none of whom looked the least bit familiar to me. What's more, every one of them was armed and at least half had leveled their weapons at us.

"I hope you know what you're doing," I told Abby, eyeing our hosts.

"So do I," she said.

Abby didn't make a move to go anywhere, so neither did I. The two of us just stood there, waiting for something to happen. I dearly wished I knew what it was.

Suddenly, someone else emerged from one of the domes. He was wearing a worn, brown coat made of some leatherlike material. And though he appeared somewhat scruffier than his Starfleet file image, it didn't take me long to determine his ident.i.ty.

It was Richard Brant.

Abby, it seemed, had recognized him a moment before I did. She was making her way to him through the alien crowd, ignoring the weapons trained on her as if they presented no danger at all ... looking to her brother with mingled joy and relief.

Richard was pus.h.i.+ng his way toward her, as well, just as eager to embrace his sister as she was to embrace him. And a moment later, both of them got their wish.

"Richard," she said, hugging him as hard as she could.

"Abby," he replied. He rested his head against hers.

Though I'd missed it before, I began to see the resemblance between them. The eyes, the nose, the light sprinkling of freckles ... there was no doubt in my mind they were brother and sister.

"I was afraid you were dead," Abby told him.

"But I'm not," Brant chuckled. "As you can see, I'm very much alive." He held her away from him so he could look at her. "You look pretty hearty yourself for a women who's gone through Hel's Gate."

"It wasn't as bad as you made it out to be," she said.

He laughed. "Only you would say that."

Abby turned to me. "Picard, I want you to meet my brother. Richard, this is Jean-Luc Picard. He's"

"The captain of the Enterprise," Brant finished. "I recognize the name." He extended his hand. "Good to meet you, Captain."

He seemed untroubled by my presence there. But then, he must have suspected that Starfleet would take an interest in his disappearance.

"Likewise," I said, grasping the fellow's hand. "I'm glad to see you're in one piece, Mr. Brant. For a while there, we weren't so certain that would be the case."

"For a while there," Brant echoed, "neither was I."

I had some questions for him. I said so.

"About my friends here?" he asked.

With a sweep of his arm, Brant indicated the aliens a.s.sembled around us. Of course, they had put away their weapons by then, though a few of them still eyed me warily.

I shrugged. "If that's where you would like to start."

Brant dug his hands into the pockets of his coat. "Several months ago," he said, "I was on a one-man science vessel running medical supplies to the Badlands when I found myself pursued by a Federation stars.h.i.+p. As I recall, it was the Trieste ..."

"Hold on a second," I said. "You were smuggling for the Maquis?"

"Just medical supplies." Despite his admission, he seemed very much at ease with himself. "Does that shock you?"

"Yes," I said, "it does. On the other hand, you wouldn't be the first officer of my acquaintance to be drawn into the Maquis web."

Brant smiled tightly. "I wasn't drawn into anything, Captain. I was simply trying to make a living and the exotic expedition business wasn't as lucrative as I had hoped."

"You could have returned to Starfleet," I pointed out.

He shook his head. "Trust me, it was no longer an option."

I remembered what Abby had told me on that count. "Go on."

"The Trieste was about to overtake me," he said. "I was in the vicinity of Hel's Gate and I couldn't think of any other way to elude pursuit, so I ducked inside the phenomenon. As I had hoped, the Trieste embraced the better part of valor and decided not to follow."

Abby looked at her brother askance. "You went into the Gate with your engines active?"

"I did," he told her. "But before the Gate could really work me over, my engines went off-line warp as well as impulse. That saved me. It forced me to coast on momentum."

"And that was how you learned to make it through," I deduced.

Brant nodded. "When I emerged, my s.h.i.+p was damaged but not as badly as it could have been. Unfortunately, I didn't know where the h.e.l.l I was. None of the stars around me looked the least bit familiar."

"Tell me about it," said Abby.

Her brother continued. "With no other course of action open to me, I began to effect repairs. At some point, my s.h.i.+p turned up on someone's sensors. That someone came by to have a look at me."

I looked about. "One of these people?"

"She was," Brant explained soberly. "She's dead now, but that's another story. The important thing is she brought me to a planet very much like this one and introduced me to her comrades."

"Comrades ... in what?" I wondered.

Brant glanced at them with an air of pride. "These people are rebels," he told me. "Not unlike the Maquis, though the a.n.a.logy may not appeal to you. And that planet like this one was their base of operations, where they fought the good fight against an oppressive interstellar regime."

"An oppressive regime," I echoed, making a connection in my mind. "It wouldn't, by any chance, refer to itself as the Abinarri?"

His eyes hardened. "You've met them, then."

"We've sampled their hospitality," I replied.

"And taken down three of their s.h.i.+ps," Abby added.

Brant seemed impressed. "I'm glad to hear it. In any case, they told me about their cause and before I knew it, I was hooked. Their rebellion stirred something in me in a way I can't explain."

Still, he searched for words to describe it. Not for my sake, I'm certain, but for his sister's.

"It seemed to me," he said, "that this was what I'd been looking for all my life something so right, so pure and untainted, I could put my entire being into it and never look back."

Abby didn't say anything. She just nodded.

"But," I said, "at some point you came back to our universe. What were you doing there if your fight was here?"

"Good question," said Brant. "One I would have expected from a Starfleet captain, in uniform or out."

"It's my duty to inquire," I told him stiffly.

"So it is," Brant agreed. "And believe me, Captain, I've got nothing to hide in that regard. I was just doing some recruiting on my old turf. That is, trying to gather people to our banner."

"People?" I asked.

"Yes," he said. "Adventurous sorts who might be attracted to a good cause, even if it was in unfamiliar territory." He scowled. "Unfortunately, it seems my efforts backfired."

"In what way?" asked Abby.

Her brother looked at her. "The mercenaries? The ones who kidnapped me, hoping I'd lead them to the h.o.a.rd of Dujonian?"

"Yes?" she said.

"That's how they got wind of me," Brant explained. "Through someone I tried to recruit for the rebellion. The next time I saw that person, it was a trap. The mercenaries showed up in their Orion s.h.i.+p and spirited me off forced me to show them the way through Hel's Gate."

"But they didn't know what they were getting into," I ventured.

"That's correct," said Brant. "My comrades didn't take long to realize a s.h.i.+p had come through the gate or that I was on it. In short order, they got me back and gave the mercenaries what they deserved."

I absorbed all the man had said which was quite a lot. Then I asked the Question of Questions.

"And what about the h.o.a.rd?"

Brant looked at me uneasily. "Ah yes. The h.o.a.rd."

I pressed on. "Did you unearth it somewhere in this universe, as the mercenaries seemed to believe? Or was it, say, an enticement you dangled as part of your recruitment drive?"

Abby regarded him. "Is it here, Richard?"

Her brother smiled. "It is indeed. Just a couple of star systems from where old Dujonian left it two hundred years ago." He turned to me. "You'd like to see it, I suppose?"

I confess I felt a thrill of antic.i.p.ation. "I would," I told him.

Abby's brother pulled a small device from its place beneath his tunic. Then he spoke into it.

"This is Brant. I need you to transport our visitors and myself into the vault."

There was a pause. "As you wish," came the response.

Brant eyed his sister, then me. "Brace yourself," he told us.

A moment later, I found myself in another place entirely a large but low-ceilinged cavern full of stalagmites and stalact.i.tes, illuminated by blue lamps set up on tripods. Abby and her brother were there, as well, and by the ghostly light of the lamps, we laid eyes on the splendor of Dujonian's h.o.a.rd.

It stretched luxuriously into the farthest recesses of the cave, an alien terrain of glor'ya-bearing goblets and armbands, necklaces and serving platters, statuettes and tiaras.

It was breathtaking, to say the least and not only for the regal brilliance with which its every artifact flashed and glimmered, exhibiting the deep, rich colors of the spectrum.

To me, it was also a window into the minds and sensibilities of the ancient Hebitians, of whom not even their Carda.s.sian ancestors had accurate records. On that count, it was priceless beyond any mercantile measure.

"Incredible," said Abby, the light reflected in the h.o.a.rd reflected a second time in her eyes.