Stargazer Oblivion

by Michael Jan Friedman

Fortunately, he had a way to examine the Cataxxans that went deeper than how they looked. Reaching into his tunic, he found it—a flat device about the size of his palm, which he extracted and cupped in his hand. When he pressed a stud on its side, a tiny readout screen lit up.

  The device was a sensor, designed to detect enemy life signs in combat situations. Tain had never been in combat but he carried it anyway, as it was useful in his line of work to know one’s friend from one’s foe.

  Pointing the sensor at the Cataxxans, he studied the screen. For a moment or two, what he saw was confused by the presence of passersby. Then the thoroughfare cleared and he was able to take an unobstructed reading.

  It gave the Cardassian reason to applaud his instincts.

  One of the Cataxxans was actually a human—Picard, no doubt, with a skillfully altered appearance. The other was a member of a species Tain’s device couldn’t readily identify.

  But, clearly, neither of them was Cataxxan.

  “Stay here,” the glinn told Varitis. “Ask the store owner about his conversation with those two.”

  Varitis nodded. “Certainly, Glinn.”

  In the meantime, Tain and his other two underlings would follow Picard and his companion at a distance. And with a little luck, they would discover that the human was further along in the search for Demmix than they were.

  Tain smiled to himself. Maybe the “Cataxxans” had obtained the last bit of information they needed in that footwear shop and were going to meet Demmix at that very moment. Wouldn’t that be a pleasant development?

  For him, at least. For everyone else involved, it could turn out most un pleasant.

  Tain was still waiting for the right moment to start following Picard and his companion when he saw something that made his gut clench. It wasn’t much—just a nuance of movement in the crowd that someone else would likely have missed.

  It forced a curse from him.

  “Glinn?” one of his men said.

  “Quiet!” he snapped.

  There—he saw it again. Tain was dead certain of it now.

  The place was crawling with plainclothes security personnel. And they were homing in on Picard and his companion as if they were aware of the fugitives’ true identities.

  Tain shook his head in disgust. This is bad, he thought. This is very bad.

  If the authorities nabbed Picard and the female, they wouldn’t be able to lead the Cardassians to Demmix. All Tain’s work to this point would be for nothing.

  But what could he do about it? Set up a diversion so the captain could escape?

  Too risky, the glinn decided. And besides, even if Picard did elude security, there was no guarantee that Tain would find him again before he located Demmix.

  The Cardassian’s teeth ground together. No diversion, then. No intervention at all.

  As much as it galled him, he had no choice but to accept the situation—and hope he would eventually find a way to turn it to his advantage.

  Guinan was still reeling from her experience in the footwear emporium, or she would have noticed it moments earlier.

  Crowds had a certain sound to them—raucous, subdued, or any of a hundred flavors in between. And not every part of a crowd sounded like every other.

  When she and Picard walked into the shop, the crowd of merchants on both sides of the thoroughfare had sounded exactly as she would have expected—a mix of purposefulness and pleasure, with accents of happiness or remorse over deals that had either been cut or abandoned.

  But it sounded different now. There were dead spots in the crowd, places where people were simply watching and not speaking. And no sooner had Guinan realized this than the dead spots began to migrate.

  Not randomly, either. They were converging on a single point. And the point they were converging on was Guinan herself.

  Security officers, she told herself, feeling ice water trickle down her spine. She and her companion had been discovered somehow, despite their disguises.

  “Picard,” she breathed.

  He looked at her. “Yes?”

  “Don’t look now, but we’re surrounded.”

  His brow lowered. “By whom?”

  “Security,” she said. Then she added, “I think,” because she couldn’t be completely sure, and because her talents weren’t as sharp as they used to be.

  “Just keep walking,” Picard told her.

  Guinan could almost hear him add: I’ll think of something.

  And despite the severity of their circumstances, despite the odds stacked against them, Guinan had a feeling that Picard would think of something.

  After all, he was the man who had saved her life more than four hundred years ago. If he could get the better of those time-traveling snakes in San Francisco, he could get them out of this mess as well.

  Guinan looked to him, wondering what her companion was going to do next—wondering what kind of rabbit he was going to pull out of his hat.

  But Picard didn’t produce any rabbits. All he did, suddenly and without warning, was take off like one—cutting a path among the assembled merchants without so much as a backward look.

  Guinan didn’t understand. It looked to her as if her friend was abandoning her.

  No, she thought. That can’t be it. It was just a ruse, designed to fool the security officers.

  But she was too smart to believe in it. She knew Picard. She knew he wouldn’t let her down.

  Then a couple of figures closed in on her, phasers in their fists. Even if they weren’t in uniform, it was obvious that they were security officers.

  “Don’t move!” one of them barked.

  Okay, Guinan thought, it’s time, Picard. Show these guys what you’ve got.

  But her companion wasn’t stopping. As she watched, he became more and more a part of the crowd. By the time the ripples of what was happening to her began to spread through the shopping area, Picard was gone altogether.

  Guinan swallowed back her shock and disappointment. It hadn’t been a ruse after all. Picard had really run away, leaving her there to face the music by herself.

  A couple of other armed figures joined the first two, blocking Guinan’s escape on all sides. “Hands up!” one of them snapped at her. “Stay where you are!”

  It wasn’t necessary. She wasn’t going anywhere.

  Chapter Fourteen

  PICARD LOOKED BACK OVER his shoulder to see if anyone was pushing through the crowd to come after him.

  No one was—at least, as far as he could tell. The authorities seemed to be focusing all their attention on Guinan, the proverbial bird in the hand.

  The captain frowned as he headed for the hatch that would let him out of the shopping enclosure. Obviously, Steej had caught on to them. Having heard reports of a couple of nosy Cataxxans, he must have eventually put two and two together.

  And now he had snared one of them.

  If Picard was to keep Steej from snaring the other, he had to adopt a different approach. It was no longer enough for him to pose as a Cataxxan. Now he had to conceal that identity every bit as zealously as his own, or find himself sharing a detention cell with Guinan.

  As for locating Demmix…the difficulty factor had been raised considerably. After all, the captain would be looking over his shoulder the whole time. There were only so many Cataxxans in the city, and Steej’s officers would be seeking one who fit the captain’s general description.

  Picard’s only logical course of action was to abandon his mission and ask Ben Zoma to beam him out. But he wasn’t going to give Demmix up so easily.

  And he wasn’t going to give Guinan up at all.

  It didn’t matter what it cost him to free her. She had risked her life to break him out of his cell. He would be damned if he wasn’t going to return the favor.

  As Picard thought that, he emerged from the hatch into the next hull—one of the seedier-looking ones he had seen in Oblivion. It housed a multitude of tiny shops, quite a few of them empty—the result of business failures, ap
parently, since they showed evidence of having been occupied once.

  More important, there was no sign of Steej’s men—at least, not in uniform. But the captain couldn’t rule out the possibility of undercover officers like the ones who had come after him and his companion.

  Pulling his collar up around his ears and looking down as much as possible, he made his way through the maze. Fortunately for him, it was a lot less populated than the adjoining hull, so there were fewer people around to identify him.

  This place also appeared less reputable than the shopping area. Picard got the feeling that the people he passed here didn’t care whether he was a fugitive or not, and might even have been fugitives themselves once.

  He hoped that was the case. Obviously, that sort of atmosphere would work in his favor.

  Still, Picard hadn’t gotten more than halfway through the maze when he sensed that someone was following him. His first impulse was to run again, but he contained it.

  After all, no one had accused him of anything, or ordered him to stop. For all he knew, it wasn’t even the authorities behind him. It might have been someone else entirely, with an agenda he hadn’t even considered.

  In any case, the captain didn’t think it would hurt to take a look.

  Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw a quartet of Cardassians. Normally, they wouldn’t have represented any particular danger to him.

  But he had learned that there were Cardassians on Demmix’s trail, searching for the Zartani just as Picard was. And if he had heard about them, they could as easily have heard about him.

  His expression must have betrayed his thoughts, because one of the Cardassians chose that moment to reach into his tunic and pull out a hand weapon.

  Picard was still armed, but he didn’t want to get into a phaser battle—not with the numbers game quite clearly in his adversaries’ favor. And even if he emerged the winner, it would only attract attention to him.

  So he took the only other course open to him. He made a run for it, as he had in the shopping area.

  There was a moment when the captain was certain he was going to be hit with a disruptor beam squarely in the back. Then the moment passed and he was tearing around a corner, following the idiosyncrasies of the maze.

  With a chorus of muffled curses, the Cardassians came after him. But Picard had been a fair runner at one time, and the maze assisted him by keeping his pursuers from getting a clear shot at him.

  He was thinking he could get out of this bind, embracing the possibility that he could reach the next hatch and lose the Cardassians somewhere down the line. Then he turned a corner and ran into something that changed his mind for him—something not only unexpected, but hard and unyielding.

  It took the captain a moment to realize that it was another Cardassian. That’s when it occurred to him that he had been caught in a vise.

  And for all he knew, there might be more Cardassians on their way. With that thought spurring him on, he drove his fist into his enemy’s face, sending him staggering.

  But by then, the Cardassian quartet had caught up with him, as evidenced by a hard-driven shoulder in the small of his back. It propelled him forward, slamming him face-first into the wall of an empty shop.

  Picard tasted blood, but didn’t let it slow him down. Swinging his elbow back as hard as he could, he struck his attacker in the mouth. And as the Cardassian let go of him, he reached into his tunic for his phaser.

  But as he pulled it out, another adversary sent him spinning with a blow to the jaw. By the time the captain regained his equilibrium, his weapon was gone. And there wasn’t any time to look for it, because the Cardassian who had hit him was coming at him again.

  But Picard had no intention of becoming the fellow’s punching bag. Rocking back on one foot, he lashed out with his other one and caught his attacker in the throat.

  Uttering a strangled cry, the Cardassian collapsed, giving Picard some hope of escape. But it was dashed when another Cardassian crashed into him and bore him to the deck.

  Twisting in his assailant’s grasp, Picard struck him in the face. Unfortunately, it didn’t make the Cardassian let go. If anything, it made him hold on to the captain more tenaciously. And a moment later, another Cardassian grabbed the wrist that had launched the blow.

  Picard did his best to defend himself with the single hand left to him, but it didn’t work very well. Before too long, someone shot a bolt of pain into his ribs with a well-placed kick, and then another and another.

  Then he was dragged across the floor. Into one of the empty storefronts, no doubt.

  By then he was on the verge of losing consciousness. But just as he began to sink into a swirling darkness, he felt himself lifted by the front of his tunic.

  “Look at me,” someone growled, and shook him.

  Opening his eyes, Picard saw a face swimming in front of him. There was no question in his mind that this was the Cardassians’ leader. The captain could see it in the angle of his jaw, in his bearing, in every aspect of his appearance.

  He was clearly an individual to be reckoned with. And at the moment, with a trio of armed subordinates standing behind him, he held all the cards.

  “Your name is Picard,” he said.

  The captain neither confirmed it nor denied it. But inwardly, he acknowledged the efficacy of his adversary’s intelligence systems.

  “Where is Demmix?” the Cardassian asked, in a surprisingly reasonable tone of voice.

  Picard’s jaw clenched. “I wish I knew.”

  The Cardassian considered him for a moment, as if Picard were some new species of fauna. Then he struck the human with his fist, snapping Picard’s head back.

  “I’ll ask again,” he said. “Where is Demmix?”

  The captain spat out the blood he felt welling in his mouth. “I don’t know. And your striking me is not going to make me any more knowledgeable.”

  The Cardassian eyed him. “Maybe not. Maybe this is an exercise in futility.”

  Then he bludgeoned Picard again, driving bone into bone with agonizing results.

  “On the other hand,” the Cardassian added, “I have nothing to lose by continuing it…do I?”

  Once more, he pulled his fist back. But before he could make use of it to punish Picard, the captain thought of a more desirable alternative.

  “Wait!” he cried out.

  The Cardassian held back, his eyes narrowing. “You have something to say after all?”

  The captain drew a deep, shuddering breath. “Hear me out—please. I honestly do not know where Demmix is hiding.”

  His interrogator sighed and struck him again, opening a fiery cut beneath his eye.

  “But,” Picard continued, knowing full well the significance of what he was about to say, “my companion knows.”

  “Your companion?” Tain echoed. “You mean the one the authorities caught a moment ago?”

  The captain nodded. “Yes. Her name is…Guinan.”

  For maybe the fiftieth time that night, Nikolas turned over in his bed and offered himself up to sleep. Unfortunately, sleep refused to cooperate.

  It wasn’t bad enough that he kept torturing himself with thoughts of Gerda Idun. Now he had a nemesis in the form of Lieutenant Hanta to worry about.

  The Bolian was strong, too. Stronger than most any human. If Nikolas was going to avoid getting his butt kicked, he was going to have to put Hanta back on his heels. That meant being quicker, more aggressive—establishing who was boss right from the get-go.

  And the ensign would do those things. In fact, it would be his pleasure.

  Just then, the doors to his quarters slid apart, and something moved through the darkness. It didn’t stop until it reached the room’s other bed.

  It was Paris, of course. But Nikolas wasn’t used to seeing him get in so late. He wondered what could have kept a straight arrow like Paris from going to bed at his regular time.

  A late-night warp-propulsion seminar? A monograph on thruster response
times?

  Paris wasn’t exactly a live wire, which was why their relationship had only been a cordial one. Not that Nikolas had anything against the guy. It was just that he liked things with a little more edge to them.

  Or had. Now nothing got him going—nothing except the memory of Gerda Idun disappearing in front of his eyes.

  Though unaware of Nikolas’s pain, Paris pulled his covers aside slowly and carefully. Obviously, he was trying to get into bed without making any noise.

  But he had probably grown up in a family where people were considerate about letting each other sleep. When Nikolas was growing up, there had been no chance of that. If a person got some peace and quiet in the morning, it could only mean the rest of the family was gone for the weekend.

  Suddenly, Nikolas heard a thump, followed by a half-stifled cry of pain. Under different circumstances, he would have found some humor in the fact.

  But not now. Nothing seemed funny to him these days.

  “It’s all right,” he said, letting his roommate off the hook. “I’m awake.”

  Paris let out a sigh of relief. “Well, that’s good. Maybe I can get into bed with one shin still intact.”

  Sarcasm, thought Nikolas. Paris hadn’t been capable of it when he first moved in. Obviously, Nikolas had an influence on him after all, even if it often seemed that the guy was barely listening to him.

  He waited for Paris to get into bed and get comfortable. Then he turned to the wall, dragged his covers around him, and tried again to get some sleep.

  But for what seemed like a long time, it continued to elude him. And Nikolas cringed at the prospect of reciting the periodic table again.

  Just as he was about to give up the struggle and get dressed to stalk the corridors, he heard something—a whisper. And it seemed to be coming from Paris.

  No, Nikolas thought. It can’t be. Paris never said anything after he got into bed. Never. Hell, as far as Nikolas could tell, the guy never made small talk at all.

  Then Nikolas heard it again.

  Looking back over his shoulder, he saw Paris’s silhouette in the darkness. The guy was propped up on one elbow, looking a lot like somebody who wanted to talk.