Guinan, who had been standing off to the side and watching, tilted her head appraisingly. But, ominously, she didn’t see fit to say anything.
The captain reached for the top of his head. Somehow, it wasn’t quite where he had expected it to be. But then, a significant part of what he usually found there was conspicuous by its absence.
And when he finally did find something, it was disquietingly smooth.
The next thing he knew, a mirror had been placed in front of him. “What do you think?” asked the same husky, feminine voice, with what struck Picard as excessive enthusiasm.
He couldn’t help wincing a little. The complete and utter lack of hair above his eyebrows made him look a great deal like his father—and at the age of twenty-eight, he wasn’t at all ready for that.
Thanks to the mirror, the captain could see the female who had depilated his head standing behind him. Like all Dranoon, she had pale green skin, a squarish head on a massive frame, and a thick mane of blue-black hair.
At that particular moment, he envied her the mane.
“It’s…different,” he told her.
“Actually,” said Guinan, “it’s a good look for you.”
Picard wished he could agree with her.
The Dranoon, whose name was Dahlen, put the mirror down. Then she opened a drawer and took out something that looked like an old-fashioned, Starfleet-issue hypospray. Holding it up to the light of an overhead fixture, she pressed the tiny white buttons in its side in what appeared to be a familiar sequence.
“What are you doing?” the captain asked.
The Dranoon shrugged. “You want to change your appearance, don’t you?”
He eyed the device in her powerful green hand. “I thought I already had.”
“You still look human,” she told him. “I thought you might want to address that.”
“And become…what?” Picard wondered.
“A Cataxxan,” Guinan replied.
“Exactly,” said Dahlen. Then she pressed the device against the captain’s neck and released something into him.
He looked at his hand. Something was happening to his skin there. It was slowly but surely becoming darker—and changing color as well.
“Purple suits you,” the Dranoon noted, and held up the mirror for him again.
In a matter of moments, the captain saw a Cataxxan looking back at him from the surface of the mirror. He had to admit that the disguise was an effective one. His own mother would have had trouble recognizing him.
“All right,” said Dahlen, “you’re done.” She turned to Guinan. “Your turn now.”
Picard took consolation in one thing: no matter how bizarre he felt with his head shaved, Guinan was bound to feel a good deal more so.
He was still thinking that when his benefactor removed her great, gray hat…and showed him a pate every bit as hairless as his own!
“Something wrong?” she asked.
The captain shook his head. “No. Nothing at all.”
“Except my head.”
He indicated his indifference with a shrug. “Lots of humanoid species are hairless.”
“But you didn’t expect me to be that way.”
Picard’s first impulse was to protest to the contrary. Then he realized that it would be better if he simply came out with the truth.
“I didn’t,” he admitted.
“Well,” Guinan said, “as it happens, I’m not naturally bald. I’ve just been through some…interesting times lately.”
As she said it, her eyes took on that faraway look again. And this time, there was more pain in them than usual.
Interesting times indeed, the captain thought. And once more, he found himself wondering about the details.
Unfortunately, they were Guinan’s business and no one else’s. If she wanted to keep them to herself, he had no choice but to accept her decision.
“You don’t owe me any explanations,” Picard told her.
“Nonetheless,” Guinan said as she emerged from her funk, “I thought I’d tell you. You never know what kind of information might prove valuable someday.”
“Ready?” asked the Dranoon, wielding her hypospray device a second time.
Guinan smiled a thin, sad smile. “Sure,” she said, “go ahead. Turn me purple.”
In the next few seconds, that was what her friend did. As the dye spread throughout her body, she and the captain became a matched pair.
“Not bad,” Guinan said, inspecting herself in the mirror.
“I agree,” Dahlen remarked. “You might want to think about making it permanent.”
“I might at that,” Guinan told her. Then she turned to Picard. “What do you think?”
“What I think,” he said, acutely aware of his need to find Demmix, “is that we have a bit of a search ahead of us. And according to an old Earth proverb—”
Guinan held up her hand. “A thousand miles, a single step. I’ve heard it.”
With a word of thanks to her large green friend, she led the way out of the storage room.
Chapter Eight
IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME Picard had been altered to resemble another humanoid species.
As an ensign, he had undergone superficial surgeries on three separate occasions in order to conduct clandestine surveys of pre-spaceflight civilizations. It wasn’t anything unusual. It was simply part of serving in Starfleet.
But this was different, Picard thought, as he made his way through a bazaar of exotic goods located in the hold of an old Anjottu freighter.
He wasn’t walking among people who had no reason to look beyond his appearance, no reason to suspect he was anything but what he seemed. Instead, he was rubbing shoulders with keen-eyed merchants, every one of whom knew that a bomb had gone off recently in their vicinity.
He could see it in their eyes. They were on the lookout for the human accused of the crime.
So it wasn’t just Steej’s security officers the captain and his companion had to worry about. It was everyone.
As he thought that, Guinan leaned closer to him and whispered, “For pity sake, relax. Stop thinking like a fugitive and you won’t look like one.”
It was good advice. Picard did his best to follow it.
Not that it was easy. And it became considerably more difficult when he caught sight of a couple of security officers in their blue-and-black uniforms, heading right for the captain and his companion.
But the security officers veered off before they could get too close, apparently to question an Orion beverage merchant. Careful to look straight ahead, Picard walked right past them.
“Breathe,” said Guinan.
He couldn’t help smiling at the remark—which, he imagined, could only add to the efficacy of his disguise. “I will continue to try,” he said.
Suddenly, he saw what they were looking for—a cylindrical black kiosk with the binary-sun symbol of Oblivion’s largest passenger line. A Tellarite was standing in front of the kiosk’s convex screen, booking passage on one vessel or another.
Picard frowned. “I suppose we will have to be patient.”
“Come on,” said Guinan. “We’ll pretend to be interested in some open-toed sandals until he’s done.” And she guided her companion over to a shopwindow displaying an eclectic assortment of footwear.
As luck would have it, the Tellarite wasn’t long in completing his transaction. As soon as the “Cataxxans” noted his departure, they left the shopwindow and took the Tellarite’s place in front of the kiosk.
Its screen showed them the next several flights, their prices, and what accommodations were still available. The topmost flight, which was all but full, left in just under eighteen hours.
Guinan touched the flight number on the pressure-sensitive screen and its itinerary popped up. It included several planets where Demmix could have hidden himself.
None of them were in Federation space. But that wouldn’t be a problem as far as Demmix was concerned. All that would matter was
his getting out of Oblivion.
It wasn’t that the Zartani would be happy to leave the city. After all, he had failed to pass on what he knew about the Ubarrak, and thereby achieve a measure of revenge.
However, his life would soon be forfeit if the Ubarrak found out what he was up to. With rendezvous no longer an option, Demmix would be forced to think of only one thing: survival.
Guinan looked at him. “You’re certain your friend would be on this flight?”
Picard nodded. “Reasonably certain.”
His companion shrugged. “Then why not just intercept him at the docking port?”
He had already considered the possibility. “I can do that,” he said, “if it becomes my only option. However, after what happened in the plaza, the authorities should be paying close attention to departing flights.”
Guinan didn’t know the whole of the problem, but she seemed to know enough of it. “You’re worried that you’ll draw their attention,” she surmised.
“Yes. Especially since it might take my friend a moment to recognize me.”
Also, whoever had set off the bomb in the plaza could arrange to be at the docking port as well. Picard didn’t want to invite a second such incident.
Guinan frowned. “Then you’ve got eighteen hours to get hold of your friend.”
“So it would seem,” the captain said.
And if he couldn’t, the Federation would lose the strategically critical information Demmix was carrying.
Picard was determined not to let that happen. He hadn’t undertaken this mission to let it slip through his fingers without a fight.
The question was where to start looking for Demmix. Oblivion was a big place, with lots of nooks and crannies, and the Zartani would be doing his best to stay out of sight.
Picard regretted now that he hadn’t insisted on a fall-back plan. However, Demmix had resisted the idea, saying that he didn’t want anyone to know his intentions in the event that the rendezvous went sour.
That way, he couldn’t be intercepted even if the captain were caught and interrogated. It had seemed to Picard to be an overly cautious position at the time.
But then, he hadn’t really believed that their scheme would go sour, much less that he would wind up in a detention facility.
Obviously, he had been wrong.
But now he had no way to contact Demmix, no way to let him know that his escape could still take place. It was unfortunate, to say the least.
Still, the captain had the gall to believe that he could salvage the situation.
By then, a Vobilite seemed to be waiting for the kiosk, so Picard and Guinan moved off. But as they did this, the captain was thinking.
All right, he told himself. Perhaps I cannot communicate with Demmix. But I know him—his likes, his dislikes, his needs. If I know those things, I should also be able to determine his whereabouts, shouldn’t I?
The first idea that came to him was the most obvious. “He’s a Zartani,” he said out loud. “They have unique needs with regard to respiration.”
It was an understatement.
The Zartani homeworld had an atmosphere that was much lower in oxygen and higher in carbon dioxide than that of Earth—and, for that matter, most other worlds that had given rise to sentient humanoids.
Guinan nodded. “I’ve seen those things they wear on their noses—some of kind of gas-supplement devices.”
“Indeed,” said Picard. “They cannot survive for more than a few minutes without them. And the devices hold only a limited supply—less than enough to see Demmix through the night.”
“So he would have to keep waking up and inserting refills,” Guinan noted.
He nodded. “Precisely.”
Fortunately, there were hotels in Oblivion that catered to species with special needs. The captain would have been surprised if at least a few didn’t cater to Zartani.
“I wonder,” Picard said, “how many hotels in this part of Oblivion have Zartani clienteles?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I can find out.”
The hotel registry—another kiosk arrangement—was two old hulks away. When they got to it, Guinan called up the information they were looking for.
“There are three of them,” she announced. She moved aside so Picard could see the list on the monitor screen. “Which one do you want to start with?”
Picard pointed to the name at the top of the list. “How about this one?”
Ben Zoma frowned as he sat in the center seat before a viewscreen full of static stars, one of them the brilliant, young sun around which Oblivion and its mother planet revolved. It had been several hours since Picard’s scheduled rendezvous with Nuadra Demmix, and they still hadn’t heard from him.
“I wonder,” said a familiar voice, “if what they say about a watched pot is true of a watched star.”
Ben Zoma turned and saw Wu. She hadn’t been on the bridge a minute ago. But now she was standing at the first officer’s side the way he sometimes stood at the captain’s.
“It never boils?” he ventured.
The second officer smiled. “In literal terms, it doesn’t work very well. But I think you get the idea.”
“I suppose I do,” he said.
Wu glanced at the screen. “What do you think happened?”
Ben Zoma shrugged. “Maybe somebody recognized the captain and decided he’d bring a good ransom. Maybe he ran into trouble with some thieves. It could have been any of a hundred things.”
The second officer nodded. “Do you still want to wait?”
He could feel his teeth grinding together. Not for a minute, he thought. But what he told Wu was “There’s more at stake here than the captain’s life. I’ve got to give him a chance to finish what he started.”
Even if it means arriving too late to rescue him? Ben Zoma asked himself.
Even then, he answered grudgingly.
“By my count,” he said out loud, “he’s still got almost sixteen hours.” He glanced at Wu. “But you might want to think about putting a team together—in case sixteen hours goes by and we still haven’t heard from him.”
She nodded. “No sooner said than done.” And she left the bridge to carry out his order.
As Picard emerged from a long, unusually narrow airlock into a space that looked as if it had once been a hangar for small vessels, he saw an electronic sign suspended from the high, rounded ceiling.
It communicated something in bold, red Zartani characters. Unfortunately, the captain couldn’t read Zartani.
He looked back at Guinan, who had followed him in. “Any idea what that says?” he asked.
She studied the sign for a moment. “The Heavenly Meadow. It’s where an ancient teacher earned his divinity by wrestling with an immense, talking worm.”
The captain looked at her. “How do you know that?”
She shrugged. “I get around.”
By then, they had reached the hotel’s front desk, which was situated just beyond the sign. It was smooth, rounded in the front, and fabricated from a ruddy alloy that clashed with the pale silver of the walls.
The fellow sitting behind it was a Zartani. But then, that made sense. After all, he was running an establishment that specialized in Zartani accommodations.
As Picard and Guinan approached the hotel manager, he regarded them with a discernible wariness in his shiny black eyes. But he had to have guessed that neither of them was there to secure a room.
“Can I help you?” he asked, his breath laced with a sharp scent—the product of a seed his people liked to chew.
“I hope so,” said Picard. “We’re looking for a friend—a Zartani, as it happens. We think he may have spent the night in your establishment.”
The Zartani let out a laugh. It was an ugly sound by anyone’s standards. “You think I have time to stand here and answer idle questions?” he asked.
He thrust a long, bronze thumb over his shoulder. Following it, Picard saw the corridor full of doors t
hat started just behind the front desk.
“In case you haven’t noticed,” the Zartani said self-importantly, “I have a hotel to run.”
Picard could feel the ripple of muscles in his jaw. There were lives at stake here, his own not the least of them. He would be damned if he was going to let this chortling buffoon withhold the information they needed.
“Now listen here,” he said, his voice clipped with frustration. “We haven’t come this far to be—”
But before he could finish, Guinan held a hand up in front of him. “What my companion here means,” she said in a surprisingly pleasant voice, “is that we’re in a bind—and you’re the only one in a position to help us out of it.”
The hotel manager still looked annoyed, but not quite as much as when he had spoken to Picard. “Didn’t you hear me?” he snapped. “I’m too busy.”
“I can see how busy you are,” said Guinan. “A lot busier than any of the other hoteliers we’ve spoken with. But then, they weren’t like you.”
That seemed to get the Zartani’s attention. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“They didn’t even know who was staying in their establishment. Can you imagine that?”
The Zartani made a sound of disdain. “I always know who’s in my hotel. I make it my business to know.”
“That doesn’t surprise me in the least,” said Guinan. “I knew you were a cut above the other hotel managers as soon as I walked in here.”
“You did?” the Zartani asked. It seemed to Picard that the fellow’s cynicism was starting to slip away.
Guinan smiled a cryptic smile. “Sure. But you must hear that all the time.”
“Uh…right,” said the Zartani, pushing a strand of white hair back from his bronze forehead. “Of course.” But it was clear from his tone that he didn’t hear it at all.
“I bet that’s the reason you’re so busy,” Guinan said. “And so successful. Because you don’t just put in the minimum effort. You go the extra mile.”
“I do,” the Zartani agreed, hanging on Guinan’s words as if they were drops of cool water in the midst of an otherwise parched desert.
“It’s the way you were brought up—to work harder than the next guy.”
Stargazer Oblivion Page 8