by David
English make any deliberate efforts
to hasten the spread of their language?"
"It is generally accepted," the computer said,
"that the spread of the language was a natural and
inevitable result of English economic
dominance."
"And their culture spread similarly with the
language?"
"Modes of dress, mores, methods of
education and socialization, and most other
cultural characteristics were based on an English
standard all over Earth by the end of the twentieth
century. It is generally accepted that popular
entertainment had an enormous impact,
particularly after the invention of television."
"But it took centuries," Marcus said,
thinking aloud.
"Correct," the computer said.
Marcus gave the terminal an annoyed
glance. His mind returned to the pr oblem, but this
time he kept his thoughts to himself. It took the
English centuries on Earth, but I only have
weeks.
"During the early days, when the spread of
English was due to economic and military
power, not popular education, didn't the various
native peoples resent this invasion of an
alien culture and try to indoctrinate their young
against it?"
"On the contrary," the computer replied. "The
English people were able to convince others of the
superiority and prestige of an education
obtained in an English-speaking country, and so
the native populations eagerly sent their young
to school in English institutions, where they
absorbed both language and culture. The
students then returned home to spread what they
had learned."
Marcus sat back, drumming his
fingers on the desktop. Conquest was not an
option, in the words of his cousin.
But there was conquest as the warrior Sejanus
understood it ... and then again, there was conquest of
an altogether different kind.
A kind of conquest that Marcus himself might be
better qualified to undertake than Lucius
Sejanus--or Jean-Luc Picard.
The Centurion briefing room the following
morning was crowded. Unlike the banquet
hall where Sejanus had first greeted the
officers from the Enterprise, this room was
organized with function rather than form in mind.
Instead of purple curtains, the viewscreen
was set into the naked wall; instead of Roman
artwork, holographic charts and maps lined the
walls.
Sejanus and Picard were seated at
opposite ends of the long table in the center of the
room, the senior officers from both ships between
them. As everyone found a seat, Sejanus
gestured sharply, and the view of Tenara that had
filled the viewscreen was replaced with a lengthy
organizational chart. All the officers had before
them small personal viewers, which showed the
same chart.
"I assume you have all been briefed?"
Sejanus asked the Enterprise personnel.
Jenny de Luz joined in the general sounds
of assent. Thanks to the extensive preparation
she'd received from Lieutenant Worf, she
felt she now knew more about Tenara than about her
homeworld of Meramar.
"Then let us proceed to the business at
hand," Sejanus said. "On your viewers is
a governmental organization chart given to me
by Melkinat, their planetary chairman. Now,
as I'm sure you're all aware, the Tenaran
government is notably decentralized. Their
system of saavtas is quite primitive, and
is actually a descendant of the council of
tribal elders found in almost all
precivilized societies. Unfortunately,
their attempt to apply this system on a
planetary scale has led not only to the lack
of any strong central government but also to a very
complex system of interlocking obligations and
levels of authority."
But not more complex than Meramar,
Jenny thought, studying the chart. On her
feudal homeworld, her father had owed varying
degrees of allegiance to three separate men,
all of whom had had their own obligations to many
others--one of whom had been one of her father's
vassals! The hierarchy of Tenaran saavtas
was relatively simple by contrast, with each
saavta electing some of its members to the
next most important saavta--all the
way from the village saavta up to the
planetary Great Saavta.
"But I stress," Sejanus continued, "that
this is the framework within which we must operate. As
I understand it, Starfleet has chosen us for a
twofold mission in the short term, to defend
the Tenarans against future attack, and in the
long term, to strengthen them so that they will be able
to defend themselves in the future. Am I
correct, Captain Picard?"
Picard nodded. "Absolutely.
Starfleet Command has ordered both the
Centurion and the Enterprise to assist the
Tenarans--in whatever way possible. We must
begin work immediately, to help them strengthen their
economic and agricultural base, to bring
them advanced medical care. We'll
contribute all forms of training and resources
at our disposal."
"What about their more immediate need, sir?"
Gaius Aldus asked. "That of military
assistance?"
Jenny nodded in agreement. It seemed
clear to her that unless they could provide the
Tenarans with some basic degree of security,
all the other assistance would be meaningless.
Sejanus smiled. "We will begin training the
Tenarans at once in basic combat
techniques--"
"Excuse me, Captain Sejanus, but
haven't the Tenarans been opposed to such
training in the past?" Riker asked.
Jenny frowned. That piece of information
hadn't been in the records she'd been
studying.
"They have, Commander, but their leaders have
requested it nevertheless," Sejanus said. "And
it is something we must be prepared to provide,
given the brutal nature of the M'dok
attacks."
Captain Picard shifted
uncomfortably in his chair. "I must admit that
I am troubled by this whole situation, Captain
Sejanus," he said. "If we only knew
why the M'dok were attacking now--"
Marcus Julius Volcinius, who was
leaning against the entranceway to the briefing room,
snorted in disgust.
"They are animals, Captain Picard.
Why bother trying to understand their motivations?"
"They are sentient beings," Picard said
firmly, glaring at the Centurion's
cultural attache. "And there are reasons
behind their actions, I'm sure. Mr. Data,
have you been able to obtain any other information about
what's happening within the M'dok Empire?"
The
android shook his head. "Nothing
definitive, sir. One rather obscure trade
journal indicates that over the last few
months there has been a marked increase in the
importation of several drugs within the
empire--"
"Drugs?" Picard asked. "What kind of
drugs?"
"Mainly certain growth hormones, and their
chemical analogues, sir."
"What possible significance could that have?"
Marcus asked contemptuously, drawing out every
syllable.
"I do not have sufficient information to conjecture
at this point, Lieutenant," Data said.
"However, I am expecting further information from
Starfleet Command."
"We await that information," Sejanus said.
"In the meantime, we must begin organizing the
defense of Tenara."
Picard sighed heavily and exchanged a
look of concern with his first officer. "I would
prefer not to take such action without speaking to the
planet's chairman first, Captain."
"His wishes seem quite clear to me,
Captain, but ..." Sejanus shrugged. "As
you wish. We are scheduled to meet with
Chairman Melkinat in two hours." The
Centurion's captain pressed his hands
flat on the conference table and rose from his chair.
"I will see you on the planet's surface,
Captain."
Chapter Three
Melkinat, Chairman of the Central
Council of the Great Saavta, Most
Honorable and Democratic Among the People of
Tenara, and the nominal leader of that planet, was
in no way prepared to meet with Captain
Picard and Captain Sejanus, or to do much
of anything else.
He was scared. Nothing in his comparatively
uneventful life had prepared him to deal with such
fear as he felt now.
The story Quillen had just told him ...
Melkinat shook his head, trying to brush those
horrible memories away. He had devoted
his life to the people of Tenara, to the saavtas. As
chairman of the Central Council, he stood
for something honorable and decent, for individual
freedom and dignity, for the principle that no
man should rule over other men, and the idea that
all people should make their own decisions so long as
they did not interfere with the rights of others.
But against these things that are attacking us, these
cat-monsters that call themselves M'dok, such
noble principles mean nothing.
Tenarans had fought, he knew that.
Centuries before, his people had been lifted from a
world which, it was fairly certain now, had been
Earth, but well before anyone on that planet had
achieved the crudest aircraft, much less
space travel.
From there they had been placed on Tenara, which
was largely fertile prairie and glittering
sea from pole to pole. With no enemies, no
one to fight, they had exploded across the
planetary surface. Plentiful territory
and resources had made fighting practically
unnecessary.
From their common cultural heritage and spirit of
peaceful coexistence, the Tenarans had
developed the basis of their present
governmental system. When would-be conquerors
had arisen, they had found the task of tearing apart
the social fabric of the planet too great for
even the most power-mad among them.
All this Melkinat knew, as a man knows
his own name. He looked to the opposite wall
of his small office, where a great ax hung on
sturdy pegs. Perhaps it had been intended for
chopping down trees, but notches along
the edge and a few dark stains in those notches
showed that it had once been used for a grimmer
purpose.
It's an effort to find weapons like that on
Tenara, Melkinat thought angrily, not like
on other worlds. We've had few wars, but never
on a large scale. We want only peace
and freedom. Why can't others respect that?
He didn't know the answer to that, nor did
he know the reason for the horrible attacks by the
M'dok.
Which was why Tenara had requested help from the
Federation.
Part of him wished the starships and their
captains would go away. He saw their
technology, their wonders, and felt that if he
even allowed them to beam down to the planet with their
weapons, it would somehow change his world
irrevocably from the paradise it had been for so
long.
Yet what choice did he have?
To be honest, a part of him was excited at the
prospect of receiving help from the Federation, at
tapping the shared knowledge of a thousand worlds.
What must it be like, he wondered, to have
done what both of these starship captains have
done, to have seen so much, t o have done so much? And
what do they think of me, a man who has spent
his whole life on one small world, who has
accomplished so little?
"Father?"
He looked up to see his daughter
Gretna, who stood waiting in the doorway,
hands on hips. She was dressed in sandals,
shorts, and a colorful blouse, and he was
struck again by how quickly she had grown--and how
beautiful she had become.
"One of the starship captains has arrived
already," she said.
"Thank you, daughter," he said, rising.
At least he had one substantial
accomplishment to his credit Gretna, who
showed every sign of succeeding him once his days as
chairman were done. Surely neither starship
captain could boast of offspring such as his.
"We don't want to keep the Federation
waiting, do we?"
"That's ground we've been over before, Father,"
Gretna said. "At this point, the answer is
no."
Melkinat sighed. His daughter, though she
understood why they needed the Federation's help, was
even more reluctant than he to allow their
weapons on Tenara.
He took her arm and strode out to meet the
starship captain.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard tugged at his
dress uniform to smooth out a minuscule
wrinkle. Appearances were important in his
work, and this would be his and Sejanus' first
face-to-face meeting with the Tenaran
leadership, but even so there was a limit to how far
Picard was willing to go with all of this. He
looked at himself in his mirror and decided that enough
was enough.
He slapped his communicator.
"Bridge."
"Lieutenant Commander Data here."
"Mr. Data, please inform Captain
Sejanus that I'm ready to beam down, and then
contact the Central Council of the Great
Saavta and confirm that I'm on my way to the
meeting."
Data replied, "Sir, we've just had a
communication from Captain Sejanus. He's
&n
bsp; already on the planet surface. He sounded
... troubled."
Picard felt the hair prickle along the
back of his neck. "An emergency?"
The android hesitated. "He did not so
specify, sir. Certainly we have detected
no sign of any further attacks against
Tenara."
"Hmm. All right, Data. Contact
Captain Sejanus and tell him I'm on
my way to the transporter room."
Picard closed that channel and opened
another.
"Number One."
"Here, sir."
"Captain Sejanus has already beamed
down, and it sounds like there are added complications.
Can you join me in the transporter room?"
"I'm on my way, sir."
Picard's first officer was true to his word,
arriving just as the captain was stepping up onto the
transporter platform. Riker followed
suit, and the captain nodded his readiness to Chief
O'Brien. Picard was frowning, and the
frown was still there when they reformed on the surface
of Tenara.
They materialized in an airy,
many-columned chamber. Two people, a
middle-aged man and a much younger woman, were there
waiting for them.
"Captain Picard," the man said, stepping
forward and extending his hand. "I'm Melkinat,
Chairman of the Central Council. And this"--
he indicated the young woman, who moved to his
side--"is my daughter Gretna."
"It's an honor, sir," Captain
Picard said. "May I present my first
officer, Commander William Riker."
Riker shook hands, his eyes lingering for a
moment on the young woman.
"I understand there is a further problem,
Chairman," Picard said.
Melkinat nodded. "A young man from one of
our more remote villages has just come to us with a
terrible story. Captain Sejanus is with him
now."
"Lead on, Chairman," Picard said.
"A moment, Commander," Melkinat said,
holding up his hand. "The young man seems
uncomfortable with more than two or three people at
once at this time. If you could--"
"I understand, sir," Riker said. "I'll
wait out here."
"Perhaps you'll let me show you some of our
planet, Commander," Gretna said.
Riker looked questioningly at his captain.
"It's all right, Number One," Picard
said. "I'll brief you later."
"Aye, sir." Riker turned to Gretna
and smiled. "Then I'll be happy to take a
tour."
The two disappeared down one passageway,
while Picard followed Melkinat down