“If we’re successful,” Simenon argued.
“Of course,” the Pandrilite conceded. “However, we can send out a subspace message either way, so the Federation will be warned about the Nuyyad even if the Stargazer is destroyed.”
“Well?” asked the second officer. “Do we go after the depot or not?”
Glances were exchanged as everyone present considered the question. It was Jomar who finally broke the silence.
“I am in favor of attacking the depot,” he said.
Vigo turned to Picard. “So am I.”
Ben Zoma shrugged. “I’m convinced.”
“Same here,” said Paxton, though without as much enthusiasm.
Simenon shook his head stubbornly. “I’ll grant you, the Magnians give us an edge in a fight—and so do Jomar’s vidrion-laced shields. But it’s not that big an edge.”
“I’m with Simenon,” said Cariello. “I was on the receiving end of a Nuyyad advantage once. I don’t look forward to being there again.”
That left Greyhorse.
As the others looked to him, he frowned at the scrutiny. “I’m no tactician, you understand. However, I too have to agree with Mr. Simenon. Enhanced shields, sensors, and tractor beams don’t inspire much confidence when stacked against an indeterminate number of enemy ships.”
Picard nodded. “Thank you for your input.” He swept the table with a glance. “All of you.”
“You’re welcome,” said the engineer, his ruby eyes gleaming. “But what are you going to do?”
The second officer looked at him. “I have not been swayed from my original inclination,” he noted. “We will break orbit and head for the depot as soon as I can coordinate the details with Mr. Williamson.”
Simenon snorted. “Captain Ruhalter was the same way.”
Picard turned to him, his eyes flashing with restrained emotion. “And what does that mean?”
The engineer returned his glare. “He had an opinion when he walked into a meeting, and he had an opinion when he walked out—and as I recall, they were always the same.”
The second officer seemed to take the remark in stride. “I had a great deal of respect for Captain Ruhalter, as you are no doubt aware. However, he and I are by no means the same. When I come into a meeting, Mr. Simenon, it is with an open mind.”
The Gnalish wasn’t the type to let a matter go if he felt strongly about it. But to Greyhorse’s surprise, he let this one go. “I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” he said.
Picard nodded, clearly satisfied with Simenon’s response. Then he turned to the others. “You are all dismissed,” he told them.
As the doctor pushed his chair back and got up, he couldn’t help wishing that the second officer had some secret weapon he hadn’t informed them of. He was still wishing that as he left the room and returned to sickbay.
As the doors to his quarters whispered closed behind him, Picard made his way to his workstation, sat down and established contact with a terminal elsewhere on the ship.
A moment later, Ben Zoma’s face appeared on the screen. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” he quipped.
“Well?” asked Picard, ignoring his friend’s remark. “What did you think of my performance?”
Ben Zoma shrugged. “I thought they bought it.”
“You don’t think any of them were suspicious?”
“Not at all. I think they believe that you’re determined to attack the supply depot.” Ben Zoma smiled. “For a moment, even I believed it, and I was in on the game from the start.”
The second officer nodded. “So far, so good. Now let’s hope the saboteur takes the bait.”
In truth, he had no intention of attacking the supply depot. The only reason he had announced his desire to do so was to encourage the saboteur to rig another command junction.
That was what he or she had done the last two times a confrontation with the Nuyyad was imminent. With luck, the saboteur would be moved to give a repeat performance.
Except this time, Picard would have Vigo monitoring every command junction in the ship, looking for anyone who might want to crawl into a Jefferies tube when no one was looking. And when they found that person, they would have their saboteur.
Or so the theory went.
“The question,” said Ben Zoma, “is how far are we willing to go with this charade? Halfway to the depot? Three quarters of the way?”
The second officer posed a question of his own. “And what will we do if no one has been tripped up by then?”
“You’re the acting captain,” his friend reminded him.
“So I am,” Picard acknowledged, his demeanor as grave as the situation demanded. “And as the acting captain, I think I’ll worry about it when the time comes.”
Greyhorse sat at his desk and tried to focus on the results of his psilosynine research. But try as he might, he couldn’t keep his mind on them. He was thinking about Gerda Asmund again.
The doctor wondered what she thought about the idea of their going into battle. Was the Klingon in her looking forward to the challenge? Or was she as concerned about the prospect of facing all those ships as Greyhorse himself was?
He wished he could come up with something to make it a more even battle—and not just for the positive affect it might have on the outcome of their mission. A contribution like that would make Gerda notice him. It might even earn him her respect.
The medical officer dismissed the notion with a deep-throated sound of disgust. Who am I kidding? he asked himself. He wasn’t an engineer, as so many others had been in his family. He didn’t have the expertise to add anything to the Stargazer’s arsenal.
He was just a doctor. He could treat the wounded as they were brought into sickbay, but he couldn’t do anything about the odds of their getting hurt in the first place.
The only battle he had ever won was on a chessboard, back in medical school. His first-year roommate, a gregarious and energetic man named Slattery, had taught him how to play the game—not the modern three-dimensional version, but the original.
At first, Slattery had beaten him every time. Then, little by little, Greyhorse had given him more of a run for his money. Finally, just before spring break, he managed to checkmate Slattery’s king.
He remembered the man’s reaction with crystal clarity. “Damn,” Slattery had said with undisguised wonder and admiration, “when did you turn into a mindreader?”
The doctor’s eyes were drawn to the series of chemical reactions represented on his computer screen, each of which played a part in the creation of psilosynine. If he had been born with such a neurotransmitter in his brain, he might have been a real mindreader.
Of course, back at the Academy, Greyhorse had never met a real mindreader. Now he could actually say he had treated one in his sickbay. What would Slattery have to say about . . .
He stopped himself, his brain suddenly ranging ahead of his recollection. He was making connections that he hadn’t made before, connections that seemed so obvious now that he felt mortified.
A real mind reader, he repeated inwardly.
The medical officer studied the screen again, staring at the complex chains of molecules that had figured in his re-creation of psilosynine. If he had been born with such a neurotransmitter . . .
Greyhorse’s heart was pounding. He had to speak with Commander Picard, he told himself, and he had to do it quickly.
Picard gazed across the captain’s desk at the hulking, stony-featured form of Carter Greyhorse. “You made it sound as if this were a matter of some urgency,” he told the doctor.
Greyhorse leaned forward in his chair. “It is. Or rather, it might be. All I need is a chance to find out.”
The second officer wasn’t in the mood for riddles. “Perhaps we should start at the beginning,” he suggested.
“Of course,” said the doctor. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ever since we left Earth, I’ve been attempting to duplicate the work of a Betazoid s
cientist named Relanios.”
Picard nodded. “I’ve heard of him.”
Greyhorse looked at him, surprised. “You have?”
The commander smiled. “I have other interests beside beating the tar out of hostile aliens, Doctor. As I recall, Turan Relanios was synthesizing the neurotransmitter that give Betazoids their—”
He stopped himself in midsentence, grasping the import of what Greyhorse must have done. “You’ve synthesized psilosynine?”
“Yes,” said the doctor, his dark eyes bright beneath his jutting brow. “Then you see the possibilities? You see how important this substance might be to us?”
Picard nodded. “Indeed.”
In a human being, the neurotransmitter might create a fleeting capacity for telepathic communication. But in a mind already developed along such lines . . . a mind like a Magnian’s . . .
Then something occurred to him.
“There’s a danger here,” said the second officer.
“That the psilosynine might trigger a reaction in the colonists’ brains,” Greyhorse acknowledged, dismissing the idea in the same breath. “That they might develop even greater powers . . . along with the personality aberrations experienced by Gary Mitchell.”
Picard regarded him. “You don’t seem especially concerned.”
“I am concerned,” said the doctor. “Deeply concerned. However, I made a study of Serenity Santana’s neurological profile before I came to see you. And on a preliminary basis, at least, I would have to say there isn’t anything to worry about.”
“But you cannot be certain?”
Greyhorse shook his massive head. “Not until I have had a chance to conduct clinical tests.”
“Which would have to be conducted under the most closely monitored conditions,” Picard maintained.
After all, he already had a faceless saboteur to contend with. He didn’t need a burgeoning superman prowling his ship in the bargain.
“You mean guards,” said the doctor. “In my sickbay.”
“Yes,” the second officer insisted, refusing to yield on this point. “Several of them. And all armed.”
Greyhorse obviously didn’t like the idea. But given what was at stake, he seemed willing to acquiesce. “All right,” he told the second officer. “But we need to begin as quickly as possible.”
“As quickly as we can find a Magnian who will agree to be your guinea pig,” said Picard.
The doctor looked unperturbed. “Leave that to me.”
The second officer knew that they were about to tread new ground in the field of biomedical research. They were about to go where no human scientist had gone before.
He just hoped they wouldn’t end up regretting it.
Chapter 16
Captain’s log, supplemental. I have discussed Dr. Greyhorse’s idea with Mr. Ben Zoma, the only other officer on this ship who knows every facet of my mind in these complicated times. Unfortunately,he is less sanguine about the doctor’s scheme than I am. Ben Zoma had come to think of our attack on the Nuyyad supply depot strictly as a ruse to bring our saboteur to the surface, in keeping with our original intention. Now that I am suggesting we actually go through with the assault—providing the doctor’s clinical studies pan out—Ben Zoma is like a man who thought he was playing Russian roulette with a toy phaser and has discovered his weapon is real. One thing is clear to me—if we are going to attack the depot, we need to put our saboteur problem behind us. I am not oblivious to the irony in this sort of thinking. Before, we pursued the depot strategy as a way of eliminating our saboteur. Now, in ef fect, we have to eliminate our saboteur in order to pursue our depot strategy.
As Picard walked down the corridor, he reflected on the charge Simenon had leveled against him: Captain Ruhalter was the same way.
As the second officer noted at the meeting, he had respected and admired Ruhalter. However, he realized now that he wasn’t completely comfortable with the man’s approach to command.
Ruhalter had indeed relied on his instincts, often to the exclusion of other potentially valuable information and opinions. For a long time, of course, that method had worked for him—but in the end it had produced a bloody disaster.
Picard wasn’t spurning the value of instinct—quite the contrary. He had gone with his gut more than once since his captain’s demise. But he preferred to poll his officers, to obtain their feedback and draw on their expertise before he made a decision on a major point of strategy.
And not just his officers. He was willing to solicit advice even from the most unlikely sources.
Like the one he was about to visit at that very moment.
Up ahead, the second officer saw the open entrance to the brig and caught a glimpse of Lieutenant Pierzynski, who was leaning against a bulkhead inside. The rangy, fair-haired Pierzynski was the security officer who had taken Pug Joseph’s place on guard duty.
As Picard got closer, Pierzynski must have caught sight of him, because he straightened up suddenly. If his behavior wasn’t enough of a clue, the ruddy color in his face gave away his embarrassment.
“Anything I can do for you, sir?” asked Pierzynski.
“There is indeed,” said the second officer. As he entered the brig area, he spotted Werber sitting on his cot behind the electromagnetic barrier. “You can repair to the hallway for a moment, Lieutenant. I would like to speak with the chief in private.”
The security officer hesitated, no doubt weighing the wisdom of leaving Picard alone with seven mutineers. In the end, however, Pierzynski must have thought it was all right, because he said, “Aye, sir. I’ll be right outside if you need me.”
“Thank you,” the second officer replied.
As Pierzynski left the room, Picard pressed some studs on a nearby bulkhead panel and altered the polarity of six of the seven barriers—Werber’s being the exception. The effect was to make those barriers impervious to sound as well as light. Then he pressed another stud and saw the doors to the corridor slide shut.
Finally, he turned to Werber and nodded. “Chief.”
The weapons officer shot him a dirty look. “Nice of you to visit” he declared, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I’d offer you a chair, but I don’t seem to have any lying around.”
The second officer didn’t take the bait. “This isn’t a social call,” he replied. “I’ve come on ship’s business.”
The prisoner laughed bitterly. “What do I care about your ship, Picard? If you’re in the center seat, she’ll be debris soon anyway.”
“That’s certainly a possibility,” the commander said.
Clearly, it wasn’t the comeback Werber had expected. “And what’s that supposed to mean?”
“Since I thwarted your mutiny attempt, the Stargazer has been the victim of sabotage,” Picard explained. “Not once, but twice now. The third time, it might prove our undoing.”
That seemed to get the prisoner’s attention. However, he resisted the temptation to inquire about it.
“I thought a veteran weapons officer might have some interest in identifying the saboteur,” Picard went on. “Especially when he’s someone who took his oath as seriously as you did.”
Werber scowled. “To hell with my oath. Look where it got me.”
Ah, the commander mused. Progress.
“I’ll be honest with you,” he told the prisoner. “I need your help. I need to pick your brain the way Captain Ruhalter did.”
Werber looked at him askance. “Is it my imagination, or are you telling me you want to cut a deal?”
Picard shook his head. “No deals.”
The weapons chief lifted his chin, which had grown a golden brown stubble during the time of his incarceration. “Then why should I even think about helping you?”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t,” the commander answered. “Think about helping me, that is. But you might want to help this ship, or the crewmen who served so ably under you. Or you might want to get involved purely for the sake of your own preservation.�
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Werber stared at him for what seemed like a very long time. Then he said, “All right. Tell me what you’ve got.”
Picard told him, holding nothing back.
He informed the prisoner of Vigo’s findings concerning the shuttle explosion. He described the way the ship’s shields had dropped without notice during the second battle for Magnia. And he spoke of Vigo’s second discovery, which only served to corroborate the first.
The prisoner considered the information, his eyes narrowing as he turned it over and over in his mind, inspecting it from different angles. But after a while, he shook his hairless head.
“I need more to go on,” he said.
The commander was disappointed, but he didn’t show it. “Right now, I’m afraid I haven’t got anything more. But if additional information turns up, you will have it as soon as I do.”
Werber grunted. “I can’t wait.”
“I will speak with you soon, I hope,” said Picard. “Until then, I hope you will keep what I’ve told you confidential—so as not to diminish our chances of catching the saboteur.” And he reached for the control panel that would open the doors to the corridor again.
But before he could press the padd, he heard the mutineer call his name. Turning again, he said, “Yes?”
Werber was on his feet, approaching the barrier. “I’m not surprised that the ship was sabotaged,” he remarked, “considering how trusting you are of people like Santana.”
The second officer allowed himself an ironic smile. “Interest ing that you should say that, Chief. Mr. Ben Zoma is of the opinion that I’m placing too much trust in you.”
And with that, Picard opened the doors and emerged from the brig, allowing Pierzynski to resume his lonely vigil.
Gerda Asmund entered the turbolift ahead of her sister and punched in her destination on the control panel. Then, as Idun joined her in the compartment, Gerda watched the doors begin to slide closed.
“The end of another shift,” her sister commented.
“And an uneventful one,” said Gerda, as the turbolift began to move.
THE VALIANT Page 21