by Gene DeWeese
So Khozak had pulled a dozen off-duty security officers together and sent them, grumbling, to the airlock. One of them, weaponless and out of uniform, had gone to the outer door. The others had remained inside.
And now six of the officers, along with Zalkan and the technician and the Koralus impostor and two of the “aliens,” were on their way here. The weapons had not even been necessary, if the “aliens” were to be believed, which was something Khozak was far from ready to grant. They had been more than willing to accompany the officers, although one of them, according to Alkred, had decided at the last minute to stay with one of the “ships,” and there had been nothing he could do about it. Nor had he been able to stop the second “ship” from leaving. Khozak was tempted to order the six who had remained at the airlock to go outside and take the remaining one over and find out what it really was, but that could wait until he learned more from its occupants. He would find the truth, one way or another—if not from them, then from Zalkan or his technician.
Abruptly the door to the corridor opened. An angry Zalkan, preceded by two of the security officers, stalked into the room, followed by his technician, three strangers, and the remainder of the guards. It was immediately obvious which of the three strangers were supposed to be the aliens, though physically they looked almost as human as the woman Denbahr. Both wore formfitting, one-piece uniforms that did not look at all utilitarian. In addition, one not only had a short growth of hair over much of the lower part of his face but had skin of a darker shade than had been seen on Krantin since the Plague had stolen the sun from the sky. The other, aside from oddly colored eyes, looked far less exotic, and Khozak wondered why, if they had gone to such trouble with the bearded one, they had not bothered to similarly darken the exposed features of the other.
“Welcome,” Khozak said into the silence. “I am Khozak, president of the Council of Jalkor.”
“Thank you,” the bearded one said, or at least seemed to say. His lips moved, but the movements did not match the oddly accented Krantinese words. “I am Commander William Riker of the Federation Starship Enterprise, and this”—a glance at the less exotic alien—“is Lieutenant Commander Data.”
“And you are Ahl Denbahr,” Khozak said, turning to the woman, “the technician? You were the first to speak with these . . . beings?”
She nodded brusquely, taking no pains to hide either her impatience or her annoyance with his tone. “Their ship approached me as I was leaving the power plant.”
“I see.” His eyes settled on the third stranger, a conventional-appearing male, at least in his fifties. “And you, I am given to understand, are the Deserter Koralus.”
The man grimaced at the obviously intentional slur, but when he spoke, his voice reflected no anger or injury, only a modicum of sarcasm. “I am given to understand I have been called that, yes.”
“You look remarkably well for a man nearly a hundred and fifty years old,” Khozak said, smiling faintly.
“As would you, if you had spent more than eighty of them in cryogenic hibernation.”
“President Khozak,” Ahl Denbahr broke in, “I think we can all save some time if you’ll allow a little demonstration.”
“Demonstration?” Khozak looked more irritated than puzzled. “I don’t understand.”
“You obviously think this is a trick of some kind, am I right?”
“I did not say that. I merely—”
“You don’t have to say it in so many words. And I can’t say that I wouldn’t feel the same, were I in your position. To be honest, I thought I was losing my mind when I first encountered these people, so I anticipated some level of skepticism on your part.” She turned to the one called Data. “You don’t mind? The little demonstration we discussed on the way in here?”
“Of course not, if it will facilitate our mission.”
She smiled, turning toward the darker, bearded alien. “Too bad you left your Klingon outside, Commander. He would be all the demonstration we would need. Commander Riker?”
The one called Riker nodded and raised his hands to the back of the other alien’s head—and carefully peeled up a wide strip of hair.
“What nonsense is this?” Khozak protested angrily.
“Just watch,” Denbahr said, still smiling. “Lieutenant Commander Data, though he looks like a normal human on the outside, is actually an android, an artificially created life-form with a positronic brain.”
Even as she spoke, a section of the alien’s skull—or just scalp?—came loose under the bearded one’s fingers and was raised up like a small door. Inside, where skull or brain should be, was a mass of tiny blinking lights and circuits.
Khozak’s mouth gaped open. Zalkan looked startled but recovered quickly. Koralus smiled, his eyes meeting Denbahr’s.
“Would you care to inspect it more closely, President Khozak?” Denbahr asked with exaggerated graciousness.
Steeling himself, Khozak stepped forward and looked closely.
And was convinced.
It was obvious to Riker as he resealed the access plate in Data’s head that Khozak had been converted from skeptic to believer. Gone were the defiant posture and the patronizing tone that the Universal Translator had done nothing to disguise. In the first moments after Data’s cranial circuitry had been exposed, the president’s eyes had widened in confusion, perhaps even fear, but then, when he stood back from his inspection of the lights and circuits beneath the access plate, his expression had turned to something else, perhaps determination, though what the object of that determination was, Riker couldn’t tell. It would be helpful if Deanna were here, he thought, but they would have to do without her, at least for the time being.
Dismissing all but one of the guards, Khozak motioned the group to seats around the long council table. Riker, after some necessarily imprecise answers to Khozak’s frowning questions about the nature, size, and location of the Federation, explained briefly how they had discovered the Hope and had come to bring Koralus back to Krantin. Koralus remained silent except to lay out the fate of his own ship. “Do you know what happened to the other ships, President Khozak?” he asked when he had finished.
Khozak, looking as if he resented even being addressed by a Deserter, shook his head curtly. Denbahr, however, who Riker had noticed seemed to be forming a wordless alliance with Koralus, perhaps because of their shared and open dislike of Khozak, gave Koralus a brief, apologetic summary of what little she could remember.
“Your arrival,” she finished, “is the first real news of any of the ships since the years immediately after their launch.”
“And proof,” Khozak said with a scowl, “if any were ever needed, that the Desertion was a criminal waste of valuable resources on a massive scale. If those same resources had been devoted to saving Krantin rather than attempting to escape from it—”
“I don’t mean to sound impatient, President Khozak,” Denbahr broke in with obvious impatience, “but who was right or wrong a hundred years ago doesn’t matter now. What matters is that these people from the stars have offered to help us. And now that you’re convinced they’re genuine, I’d like to get on with it. In particular, I’d like to get that laser unit delivered to them, the laser unit that was supposed to be waiting for us at the airlock.”
Khozak turned on her with a frown. “Let me understand this, Technician Denbahr. According to your reports to Zalkan, it will soon be impossible for us to produce certain units needed to keep the power plant running.”
“The laser confinement units and a number of other items,” Denbahr said, “but the laser units, with their hard vacuums, are the most pressing need.”
“And these people,” Khozak persisted, “have offered to produce a new and perhaps even better version of these items, but they will need one of ours to use as a model. Is that correct?”
“Essentially, yes.”
He turned to Riker and Data. “Is this true? Can you indeed produce these units?”
“I believe we
can,” Riker said, “but I can’t guarantee it.”
“And how long will this take, once you’ve determined it’s possible? Months? Years?”
Riker shook his head. “Hours, assuming it can be done at all.”
Khozak’s eyes widened. For a moment, he looked as if he were going to protest, or even scoff, but after a thoughtful glance at Data, he nodded. “Very well,” he said, turning to Zalkan. “Have the unit brought up immediately. Technician Denbahr and I will accompany it.”
“There’s no need for you to—” Denbahr began to protest but was cut off by Khozak.
“As president, it is my responsibility. In addition,” Khozak went on, turning to Riker, “it would be advisable for me to speak directly with your leader. Picard, I believe you said he was called. Is that acceptable to you?”
“Of course, Mr. President,” Riker said in his best diplomatic voice. “I’m sure the captain will be more than pleased to speak with you.” With the conversation being monitored by Counselor Troi, he added mentally.
Zalkan, despite a scowl that vanished as quickly as it appeared, did not protest. Instead, he joined Khozak in making the call that would get the confiscated laser unit once again on its way to the airlock. As he released the button on the wall-mounted communication unit, Denbahr heaved a sigh of obvious relief. Riker couldn’t help but notice, however, that her eyes went to Koralus rather than to the scientist, and that a surreptitious smile softened her features as their eyes met.
Only a trace of the smile remained as she turned to Khozak. “Your suspicions are all wrong, by the way, Mr. President.”
Riker was not surprised when Khozak’s frown returned. “Suspicions? What are you talking about?”
She almost laughed. “Armed guards waiting for us at the airlock? I wouldn’t call that being particularly trusting.”
“There’s little to inspire trust these days,” Khozak said, “in anyone, let alone in beings who claim the things these do.”
“You’re right, of course,” Denbahr admitted briskly. “But now that you realize they’re real, you’re thinking they might be the ones responsible for the Plague.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! That is—”
“That is one of the commonest of the fantasies the computer puts out,” she interrupted, “the fantasy that we somehow discover who caused the Plague and then turn the tables on them. I should know. I lived in those fantasies for two years.”
“I don’t have time for such indulgences, Technician!”
“I didn’t say you did, but you’re obviously aware of them. But what I wanted to make clear was, these people are not the ones responsible for the Plague—but they may have stumbled across the ones who are.”
As both Khozak and Zalkan gaped at her, she hurried through an account of the disappearing ships and the rest. As he listened, Riker’s estimate of her intelligence and adaptability escalated yet another notch. She had obviously understood his and Data’s explanations, and now she produced an abbreviated and simplified account of the basics of the transporter system that would have done credit to an Academy instructor, followed by an account of how similar energies had been detected throughout what they called the Plague, particularly in the atmosphere of Krantin itself. Khozak, however, seemed to remain skeptical until Koralus recounted his own experience of being snatched literally from the middle of the Hope and deposited a moment later in the Enterprise.
When Denbahr and Koralus fell silent, Zalkan sat stony-faced, saying nothing. Khozak, too, was silent for several seconds before turning to Riker. “You’re saying, then, that the Plague could be the result of these ships ‘transporting’ it here from somewhere else? From another star system?” He frowned suddenly. “From your Federation?”
Riker shook his head. “Not from the Federation, for a number of reasons. But, yes, it’s possible that the matter that’s been appearing in here in your solar system has been—and is still being—transported here from somewhere else. And if it is, then these ships are very probably involved in some way. It would be too much to think it was all just a coincidence.”
“Then if you can destroy these ships—”
“Being ‘involved’ doesn’t necessarily mean being ‘responsible,’ ” Riker said quickly. “Before anyone starts shooting, it would be nice to find out where the ships and the rest of the matter are being transported from. And how it’s being done.”
Khozak’s frown deepened. “Whoever is controlling these ships, then—you’re saying their science is beyond even your understanding?”
“Not at all,” Riker said. “The ships themselves were comparatively primitive. And our analysis of the transporter energy associated with them indicates that the technology that produced it is less advanced than our own. It’s just that it’s . . . different in some way we don’t yet understand.”
“It is only a matter of time, then, until you do understand it?” Khozak persisted.
“In all probability, yes, although we on the Enterprise may not be able to do it alone. We may need to bring in a team of specialists from the Federation.”
“But when you do understand it, you will be able to devise a defense against it? To reverse it?”
“It’s impossible to say at this point. All we can promise to do is gather as much information as we can and report back to the Federation.”
“And what about the disappearing ships themselves?” Khozak asked. “If they are, as you say, primitive compared to your own ship, it should be easy enough for you to capture one and question the occupants.”
“It hasn’t been easy so far,” Riker said ruefully. “We tried to restrain one with a tractor beam, and it vanished as quickly as the others.”
“But what of your weapons? Surely you have weapons.”
“We do.”
“If you object to destroying these ships, could you not at least disable them? Prevent them from escaping and capture them?”
“Again, I don’t know. It hasn’t gotten to that point yet, and it won’t until we know considerably more than we know now. In any event, as I understand it, the immediate priority is to save your reactor. Is the laser unit—”
Riker broke off as Worf’s voice erupted from his comm unit. “Commander, there have been two more bursts of the transporter-like energy. They were—”
Riker suppressed a frown as he cut Worf off. Two more bursts were hardly news after the hundreds they had already detected. “Thank you, Lieutenant. We can discuss it when we return to—”
“This time the sources of the energy were not in space,” Worf broke in. “Both were somewhere on or below the surface of this world.”
Riker grimaced mentally at his own slip. He should have realized that Worf would not have contacted him if the information were not important.
“Can you be more specific, Lieutenant?” he asked, darting a glance at the Council president. He was relieved to see that Khozak looked genuinely startled, but he still wished Deanna were here. She would have to be given a chance at Khozak and the others before any final decisions were made.
“The first burst was in an easterly direction from our present location, sir,” Worf was reporting. “It very probably originated well below ground. The distance is likely less than one hundred kilometers. The second, less than a minute later, was southerly and probably much more distant.”
“Keep watch for any more,” Riker said unnecessarily. “Enterprise, can you—”
“Commander!” Khozak broke in. “Does this mean these ships you found in space are now here on Krantin?”
“At this point, I don’t know what it means.”
“Can your ship—your ‘shuttlecraft’ go to where these energy bursts originated?”
“To the general areas, yes,” Riker said impatiently, suppressing another frown as he wondered what Khozak was driving at.
“Then I suggest you send them there immediately. If there are more bursts, you would then be better able to pinpoint the location of the ships responsible for th
em. Am I not right?”
So that was it. “Possibly,” Riker said, “if they were caused by ships. And if there are more bursts, and if they come from the same areas as the first. Do you have any reason to expect the bursts to continue?”
Khozak blinked, seemingly startled at the question. “Only what you have already told us—that each time you detected one in space, it was followed by several more. If the same is true here—”
“You are wasting time, Khozak,” Zalkan broke in, his voice touched with anger despite its weakness. “If these ships and their ‘energy bursts’ do indeed have something to do with the Plague, they have most likely been here for hundreds of years and will just as likely continue to be for hundreds more. There is no need to rush out instantly to try to trap them or destroy them or whatever it is you want to do with them. On the other hand, our need for fully operational laser units could become critical at any moment. I insist that that be dealt with first, as quickly as possible. Do you understand?”
“Of course I understand!” Khozak snapped. “Do you think me a fool? In any case, the one need not interfere with the other. Am I right, Commander?” he asked, turning toward Riker. “A second of your ships is already on its way back down to pick up the laser unit, is it not?”
“It is. And I believe you and Technician Denbahr were planning to accompany it to the Enterprise?”
Khozak shook his head. “She was right when she protested. My presence would be purely ceremonial. She knows how the units operate and can answer any questions better than I. I will accompany you in your search for—”
“For the moment, President Khozak,” Riker said firmly, “there will be no search. Before we do anything else, I suggest both you and Zalkan come with us to the Enterprise. You can speak directly with Captain Picard, and you can give us as much information on the Plague as you can. Then we can discuss the best course of action to take.”
And Deanna can perhaps tell us who, if anyone, is telling the truth around here, he added to himself, remembering the weapons that had been leveled at him by Khozak’s men little more than an hour earlier.