THE CHILDREN OF HAMLIN

by Carmen Carter

  The practical aspects of that argument could not be denied, even by someone as irrational as Dolora, but she easily found another focus for criticism. “I’d feel much better if he were a girl. Boys are too susceptible to the false attractions of the nonliving environment.”

  “If he were a girl, then Krn wouldn’t have a brother,” pointed out Patrisha.

  “About Krn, began Dolora with an ominous look. She had lost all interest in the packing.

  The fight would have escalated on the next round if not for the arrival of Dnnys. Patrisha tried to send the boy back out of the room with a warning glare, but he saved them both from a direct attack from Dolora.

  “Captain Picard is here to see you, Mother.”

  Patrisha rose from her seat and Dolora quickly announced she had left her best sweater in the other room. She scurried away to retrieve it. Patrisha knew better than to expect her to return while the captain was present.

  “Well met, Farmer Patrisha,” said the officer upon entering. He carried himself with all the confidence she had noted in their first meeting but none of the impatience.

  “After too long, Captain Picard.” Patrisha decided to come to the point immediately, which was not a Farmer custom, but she clouded the source of her information in a way typical of her people. “A very disturbing rumor has arisen in our community. Some among us believe the Enterprise is no longer journeying toward New Oregon.”

  Picard looked immediately to her son. “You’ve become good friends with Wesley Crusher, haven’t you?” His demeanor was calculated to inspire terror in the heart of a young boy.

  “He didn’t tell me, if that’s what you mean,” said Dnnys with a scowl. “I may be a Farmer, but I’m smart enough to notice a major course change. All I have to do is look out a port window.”

  “Yes, quite so,” admitted Picard. He turned back to Patrisha. “Your son is to be commended on his powers of observation.”

  The compliment did not distract her. “Then it’s true we’re no longer heading for New Oregon.”

  “The diversion is minor,” said Picard. “Starbase Ten has requested that we rendezvous with another ship in this sector to exchange some necessary trade goods. As you can see, the Enterprise has many functions besides exploration; we serve as a passenger transport, merchant ship, and rescue vessel.”

  His litany was a subtle reminder of their own imposition on his command. The captain of their last transport had been less restrained. A four-month voyage with the Farmers had tasked the last of Bucher’s patience. She had dropped the entire community off at the nearest Federation starbase and no amount of pleading could win a way back on board the Forox freighter. Remembering the shame of that abandonment weakened Patrisha’s resolve. “Thank you for taking the time to explain.”

  “Not at all,” he said genially. “That’s what captains are for.”

  After Picard had left, and before Dolora could creep back in, Patrisha asked her son, “Was he telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know,” Dnnys answered sullenly. “And Wesley won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  Riker and Data crowded in on either side of Lieutenant Yar, peering intently at the sensor readout on her bridge monitor.

  “Got it!” cried Yar in triumph. “Heading thirty-four mark twelve.”

  Data nodded a confirmation to the first officer. “The residue can be traced fairly easily now that the element profile has been determined.”

  Picard stepped off the turbolift and saw the cluster of officers. “What’s all the excitement?”

  “The chase is afoot, sir!” announced Data with great enthusiasm. “We have found a trail of blood.”

  “Blood? On my ship?”

  Riker grinned at the captain’s confusion. “Data was speaking metaphorically, Captain. We’ve determined a way to track the Choraii ship.”

  “Excellent,” said Picard, heading down to the captain’s chair.

  “Actually, the use of the word blood was not strictly metaphorical.” Data followed after the captain. “An examination of fragments gathered from the battle site shows that the Choraii ship is constructed of an extraordinary blend of both organic and inorganic matter. By destroying several of its spheres, we actually wounded the ship. Our sensors have now been calibrated to detect the particular combination of elements released from the site of the injury.”

  Riker had come down the ramp on the far side of the bridge. He met the captain at the command center. “We’ve tied the data input directly to navigation. Geordi will follow the signal feed rather than compute a straight trajectory that could miss the trail.”

  La Forge flexed his fingers with a theatrical flourish. “I’m ready whenever you are.” Flying free, without computer controls or a set course, was a pilot’s dream. Everything else was filler to be endured until the next chance to take over the helm.

  “Proceed at warp six,” ordered the captain.

  “What’s wrong with you?” asked Beverly Crusher when her son drooped into sickbay. “Are you feeling sick?”

  “I’m okay,” he protested, but she laid a hand against his forehead anyway.

  “No fever,” she said. “So why do you look as if you’ve lost your best friend?”

  “Because I have.”

  The doctor dropped her hand from his face and gave him a quick hug. Wesley didn’t even squirm away.

  “Dnnys knows there’s something strange going on and he wants to know what. It’s not just curiosity, he’s worried for his family’s sake. And I can’t tell him anything because of the security restriction on talking about Hamlin.”

  His mother sighed. A fever would be easier to deal with than this problem. “Wesley, if you’re serious about a Starfleet career,”—she waved down his automatic protest—“then you’ll have to find a balance between the demands of duty and the demands of your personal life. They can’t always be reconciled.”

  In just the few months they had spent aboard the Enterprise, Dr. Crusher had seen her son mature in mind and body, yet he was still too young to fully understand how painful the conflict of those two commitments would be. He wouldn’t appreciate hearing that from his mother, though, so she kept silent.

  “I took an oath,” said Wesley with great seriousness. “I have to stand by it, no matter what.”

  People often remarked that Wesley favored her in looks, but at this moment Crusher saw how much he resembled his father. The comparison brought equal measures of pride and fear. Her husband’s devotion to Starfleet had been too great a part of his character to be regretted, but she did regret his early death.

  She reached a hand out to ruffle Wesley’s hair, but this time he ducked away from the caress, which meant he was feeling better already. Glancing through the glass partition behind his back, the doctor saw Andrew Deelor entering sickbay.

  “Speaking of oaths,” she sighed as the ambassador approached, “it’s time for me to concentrate on the Hippocratic. I’ve got an appointment scheduled, so get out of here, Ensign Crusher, on the double, or I’ll run a few tests on you, too.” She was relieved to see her son grin as he raced away. Wesley was too even-tempered to brood for long.

  Pushing aside the concerns of her personal life, the doctor turned all attention to her patient. Deelor had been released from sickbay a few days before, but the severity of his phaser wound warranted daily inspection.

  “Excellent. The burn is nearly healed,” noted Dr. Crusher as Deelor stripped off his uniform, revealing the synthetic skin covering his wound. The artificial material was almost wholly absorbed by new cell growth. She lifted the top of the med scanner and motioned him onto the table. The instrument results confirmed her first prognosis.

  “Your body has remarkable recuperative powers.” Peering more closely at the scanner readout, she focused on a ghostly image below the epidermal layer. A touch to the probe controls magnified the area. “Which is quite fortunate considering the number of injuries you seem to have sustained in the past. Deep-tissue scars near
the heart and liver”—she moved the scope again—“closed puncture wound to the left lung, and numerous break lines on the ribs.”

  Her scan at an end, she swung the hinged panel up off the man’s chest. “I had no idea the diplomatic service was so dangerous.”

  “I’m accident prone,” was Deelor’s only reply as he rolled off the bed.

  “Like falling in front of a stray phaser blast?”

  Deelor eased his way back into his clothes. He was beyond the stage at which dressing was painful, but some stiffness remained.

  Dr. Crusher spoke again. “Why aren’t those old injuries listed on your medical profile?”

  “Aren’t they?” he asked with raised eyebrows. The feigned surprise was ordinarily very convincing, but this doctor was on her guard.

  “Perhaps you’re absentminded as well as clumsy. I’m missing current medical records on the Hamlin survivors.”

  “All in due time, Dr. Crusher.” He closed the front seam of the uniform as if sealing in a secret. “All in due time.”

  Artificial gravity and inertia dampers maintained the illusion of level flight for the thousand people who lived aboard the Enterprise. Walking serenely through its long corridors, at ease in dining rooms or soundly asleep in their cabins, they were oblivious to the starship’s looping and swerving flight as Geordi La Forge followed the trail of discarded particles that marked the passage of the Choraii. However, any port window revealed the true path of the Enterprise, and people quickly learned to avert their gaze from the reeling cosmos. On the bridge, the prolonged pitch and yaw of stars on the main viewer frame was harder to avoid, and more than one of the bridge crew had staggered off to sickbay. The rest kept their eyes trained on their duty station.

  This was difficult for Captain Picard because Lieutenant Data was delivering his report while standing squarely in front of the viewer. Again and again the captain’s gaze drifted away from a neutral spot to Data’s face. And behind his face the stars whirled. Picard ignored the faint sensation of nausea for as long as possible, willing it to go away, but the feeling only grew stronger.

  “Enough.” Picard stopped for an involuntary swallow. The last few sentences of Data’s report had left no impression. “Let’s meet in the Ready Room.”

  “Good idea, sir,” said Riker.

  “Will, you’re as pale as Data,” observed the captain when they had reached the safety of the enclosed office.

  Riker smiled weakly. He positioned his chair so that the one window in the room was at his back.

  The android, however, seemed unaffected by the dissonance between visual motion and the inner ear’s perception of a stable physical world. He continued his report without a break. “Unfortunately, most of our sensor scans were compromised by the disruptive effects of the energy net. Ambassador Deelor provided a record of the encounter with the Ferrel, but those instrument readings were similarly affected.”

  Picard frowned at the implications. “Does that mean we can’t construct an effective defense to the Choraii weaponry?”

  “No, sir,” said Data. “The task is difficult, but not impossible. Given sufficient time for study, a solution can be reached.” He anticipated the captain’s next question. “But I cannot specify how much longer the process will take.”

  “The shorter the better, Mr. Data,” sighed Picard. “I would prefer to meet the Choraii with a greater advantage than last time.”

  “Understood.” Data laid a small metal cylinder down on the desk. As an afterthought, he added, “Interesting. This particular vocoder technology is quite advanced, unlike any I’ve seen in general use by Starfleet personnel. Actually, I would consider it more appropriate for certain intelligence-gathering operations.”

  “Is that opinion or fact, Mr. Data?” asked Riker.

  “Opinion, sir,” admitted Data. “But in my case, the two are often very closely allied.”

  “Well, keep your opinion to yourself, my friend. You’re traveling on quicksand.”

  After a startled look at the deck beneath his feet, Data nodded in understanding. “Oh, I see. You are using a metaphor that connotes danger. Perhaps that would explain the gaps in the tape: security censorship. Should I keep that to myself as well?”

  “You can tell us,” said Picard, leaning forward. His body’s discomfort was forgotten the moment his mind seized hold of a puzzle.

  “The vocoder record covers only the latter part of the encounter, after the Choraii ship caught the Ferrel in its energy matrix. Several earlier tracks have been erased from the file, but I was able to recover a few bytes of the missing data.”

  “And what did you find?”

  “A single frame detailing the ship’s power status just before the energy net was cast. It seems the Ferrel’s power reserves were unusually low, making them especially vulnerable to the contracting field.”

  “Data, does the record explain how the Ferrel’s power was drained?” asked the captain.

  “No, sir, it does not. If that information was ever present, it has been successfully deleted.”

  “So the ambassador is still playing his little security games.” Picard rubbed thoughtfully at his chin. From out of nowhere, he recalled D’Amelio’s last warning. Don’t waste your luck on us, Captain Picard. You’ll need it more than we will. Did the danger lie with the Choraii or with Andrew Deelor?

  Wesley’s footsteps echoed down the length of the narrow access tunnel and disappeared into the deep shadows ahead. The shadows remained just out of reach no matter how far the boy walked. Every ten steps forward a recessed wall light sprang to life in front of him just as another died behind him. His pace accelerated as his imagination called up half-forgotten horror tales to draw forms in the darkness.

  A sudden hiss wrung a yelp of fright from his throat, even as his mind recognized the sound of doors parting. Laughing at his self-induced terror, Wesley sprinted through the opening into the cavernous room beyond. Dnnys had showed him this way to the cargo bay, and it had rapidly turned into a favorite shortcut.

  Before the Farmers’ arrival, Wesley had never explored the cargo sections of the Enterprise. He was naturally drawn to the more intricate technology of the warp-drive engine and the bridge control systems. Only a chance comment from one of the engineers had alerted Wesley to the stasis system the colonists had brought on board. Curiosity led to a visit and the meeting with the Farmer boy in charge of the equipment led to friendship.

  Wesley sighed as he remembered that the friendship might be over now. He threaded his way between the towering stacks of faceted shipping containers, automatically counting the left and right turns. Even before he reached the final corner, he could hear the bubbling rush of the cryo-liquid as it cycled through its tubing.

  “Dnnys?” Wesley could usually find the Farmer somewhere nearby during the ship’s day cycle. This was the only area outside the passenger quarter where Dnnys was allowed and he spent as much time in the cargo hold, as possible.

  A tousled head popped out from behind the honeycombed structure of the stasis chambers, then ducked back out of sight. Wesley had dreaded this confrontation, and now his fears were confirmed by the silent rebuff. He stood, undecided as to his next move.

  “Well, hurry up!” cried Dnnys, his voice muffled inside the bank of equipment. “It’s about time you came. I’ve got a problem.”

  “You could have called,” said Wesley as he bent down on hands and knees and scrambled into the control niche. The space was just big enough for the two of them to hunch side by side.

  Dnnys ignored this statement. “There’s something wrong.” He tapped the face of a dial. The indicator needle quivered in place. “All the readings are normal, but something is wrong.”

  Wesley accepted his friend’s assessment without surprise. The stasis machinery was antiquated, a cast-off relic that only a poor planet like Grzydc would have kept; a strict regimen of daily maintenance was necessary to insure its continued operation. Drawing on Wesley’s theoretical knowled
ge and his own familiarity with the mechanics involved, Dnnys finally tracked the source of the problem. Flat on his back, squeezed into a space made for alien technicians of a different size and shape, he stretched a hand deep into the entrails of a control box and pulled out a darkened chip of metal.

  “Fused solid,” said Wesley, examining the square circuit. “It must have been shorted out when we were caught in the energy net.” The fail-safe checks of the Enterprise computers had pinpointed all such failures on the starship, but the stasis machinery was too old for such sophisticated damage control. He slipped Dnnys a replacement chip and watched as the readings on the wall panels fluttered to new settings.

  One section on a cluttered board drew their immediate attention. The two boys stared at the chronometer. The numbers on its face were ticking off, one by one, higher and higher.

  “The decant cycle has started,” cried Dnnys. “It’s only a few days from the first unloading.” The boy wriggled out of the niche and pressed his face against the nearest stasis window. A dim red glow barely revealed the tiny curled form of an embryo floating inside; it had grown since his last inspection. He moved to the next chamber and inspected the image behind the ruby-colored glass. This embryo was larger, its features more distinct. A tiny hoof moved.

  “Can’t you stop the cycle again?” asked Wesley.

  “Not without a high fatality rate,” said Dnnys. “Wes, I’ve got to know. Is there any chance we’ll reach New Oregon before we start decanting?”

  Wesley shook his head. He couldn’t explain the cause for the detour, but the schedule delay would be obvious to the colonists soon enough.

  “Well,” said the Farmer. “You’re going to be hip-deep in pigs and sheep, not to mention dogs and chickens. I hope your captain likes animals.”

  “I think I’d better call the bridge,” answered Wesley. With luck, he could explain the problem to Commander Riker first.