“Leave them, Picard,” I told him firmly. “There’s no point.”
“But—but—” Then he said nothing, realizing the truth of my words.
We pushed our way through the car to the far end, and once again Data worked his “magic.” Fortunately when one is working with a being such as Data, concerns about his fatigue don’t really factor in.
The next car was much like the last.
As was the next.
And the one after that, and the one after that.
Picard, his quixotic impulses in full bloom, every so often indulged them along with his budding messianic complex. He would make grand efforts to get the people worked up, to encourage them to take the situation into their own hands. But after a while even he gave up.
We continued on. Smash, step, “Excuse me.” Smash, step, “Pardon me.” From one car to the next. I began the search of the boxcars with high hopes that I would find my family, but that was not to be. The further we went, the more convinced I became that there was some grand purpose behind all this that required I go through a series of challenges before achieving my goal . . . the thought wasn’t very original, but I had precious little else to hold on to.
As we passed through yet another car filled with people in different states of denial, Data announced, “It would appear that this is the second-to-last car.”
Picard and I gave him that “Are you sure?” look, upon which Data poked his fist through the wall and we all climbed out onto the coupling. It was no small feat to get our heads round the corner of the boxcar so as to have a look for ourselves. He was right (surprise, surprise). We were almost at the end of the train.
On the one hand, this was good news. It meant that our immediate quest would be over. The good news, however, was quickly followed by the bad news. If the Lady Q and q were not in the next car, then I had absolutely no idea where to look for them. We might simply have to remain on the train, I thought, and ride it out to its ultimate destination.
But that was not someplace I wanted to go. My every instinct told me that the train’s final destination was, literally, final. I had nothing upon which to base this conclusion beyond whatever vestiges of my omniscience remained. There just seemed to be such an air of . . . of doom. And to see this nightmare through to the end, I felt, would mean just that.
I looked to Picard, and I recognized he was thinking the same thoughts as I. The notion that Picard and I were of one mind was, I must admit, a bit horrifying.
“Let’s get on with it, Data,” he said firmly. “Let’s see what’s in the last car.”
Data moved with the same confidence and surefootedness he’d displayed during this entire procedure. As I leaned out of the boxcar, I noticed mountains far in the distance. There was a rumbling of thunder, and every so often a flash of lightning. “Wonderful,” I thought. “Rain. Just what we needed to make the adventure complete.”
We quickly jumped the coupling. By that point, Picard and I had become nearly as adept as Data in crossing from one car to the other. The coupling still shook furiously beneath our feet, but we had become accustomed to “riding” the vibrations, like surfers making minute adjustments for changes in waves. I wasn’t even glancing at the ground anymore, and the possibility of my tumbling off the train felt remote. Indeed, would that I had been a bit more hesitant in the final crossing, because when we climbed into the last car . . . it was bedlam.
I had no idea what prompted it, no clue as to why this car was significantly different from the others. The simple fact is: it was very different. It was borderline insanity. No, I take that back. It was south-of-the-border insanity—way south!
All around us, people were screaming at the top of their lungs: “This isn’t happening! Make it stop! They can’t want me! They must want someone else! You! They want you, but not me! It’s not time for me yet! It’s not time!”
The distasteful smell of alien body odor had been replaced by a uniform stench of panic, and I can assure you it made me nostalgic for the earlier fragrance. We tried to shout above the din, but we couldn’t even begin to make ourselves heard. It seemed as if the people in this car believed that if they shouted their protests loudly enough and frequently enough, they might make the problem go away. Now, to their credit, I have tried that technique in the past, just as a child might scream repeatedly, “It’s not time to go to bed.” And, while it might work for omnipotent beings, lesser creatures usually learn that it’s a behavior that gets you nowhere.
Finally—and I have to credit him for it—Picard managed to get his voice above the howling and called out, “Stop it! Stop it! This is accomplishing nothing! If you want to turn your energies to rectifying your situation, join us! Fight against those who are oppressing you! Stand up and be counted. All is not lost.” It was the first time in quite a few cars that he had trotted out his rhetoric, and I found it quite stirring. I had a hint of “Crispin Crispian,” “Once more into the breech” and all that rousing stuff.
And this time he certainly got a reaction. Not like in those other cars where they simply looked at us with vacant stares. Oh no. This time they took one good look at us and . . . attacked!
Several centuries ago, . . .
Several centuries ago, I was passing by a far-flung world and came upon a man steeped in misery. He was seated at the base of a cliff, staring off into space, and although he seemed lost in thought, it was clear that something quite tragic had happened to him.
He didn’t see me or sense me, for I was hiding behind a bush. To my amusement, this man began to pray.
“Dear one,” he moaned. “I am a dead man. I have committed an awful sin. My brother and I came to a disagreement over a female, and I struck him a fearsome blow. I did not mean to kill him, dear one, but I did. In our land, there is only one punishment for the slaying of another, and that is death. And so, I am a dead man. I am dead.”
Deciding that I might provide some mild amusement for myself, I presented myself as a shaft of light from on high, and spoke to him. “No,” I intoned. “You are not a dead man.”
He gasped and tried to clamber to his feet, but the strength had gone out of his legs. He put his hand to his chest. “I’m . . . I’m not?”
“No. You are not. Do you believe in me?”
His head bobbed so vigorously that I thought it might topple off his shoulders.
“Very well. Then I tell you that you are not a dead man, but you have done wrong. Do you see the fearsome cliff high above you? You must climb to its very summit and stand upon the edge.”
“Your will . . . is my command, dear one.” He could barely get the words out, so breathless and stunned was he by this unexpected visitation. How many times, I wondered, had the poor sap poured out his heart to some alleged deity and received only silence for an answer. But now . . . now, god was speaking to him. Hope swelled in his heart as he verily flew up the side of the cliff. So quickly did he climb that he cut his hands against the sharp rocks and tore his clothes, but he did not care. All he knew was that he had been given a divine mission, and he had no intention of failing.
Finally he reached the top. The cliff extended to a narrow point in front of him. He steadied himself and made visible efforts to calm the racing of his heart. When he was finally able to control himself, he took a deep breath and walked with confidence to the very edge of the cliff, just as he had been instructed. There was not so much as the slightest bit of wind, nor the faintest sound from even the smallest of animals. Utter silence prevailed. He stood there, wondering what to do next.
Suddenly, the piece of ground he was standing on gave way. Which is not surprising, since it is rather stupid to stand at the very edge of a cliff. He waved his arms frantically, trying to defy gravity, but to no avail.
As he plummeted to the ground, my voice boomed from on high again, “Now you are a dead man.” He landed with a splat, but I had already lost interest and was heading off to new worlds to accomplish more good deeds.
I know y
ou think I was naughty, but in truth, I had done the man a favor. You don’t believe me? You know as well as I that once his fellow beings had caught up with him, they would have dispatched him in a far more painful fashion. The quality of mercy is not strained, but falls—like those who commit fratricide—from the heavens above.
The reason that any of the foregoing is remotely relevant is that, as the lunatics attacked us from all sides, I had an inkling of what that man must have felt in his final moments. The only difference was, I didn’t have a supreme being to whom to turn and complain, because I was the closest thing I knew to a supreme being, and my presence wasn’t doing me a damned bit of good.
I’m going to take this moment to admit that punch-ups are not exactly my strong suit. Willing an entire invading armada into the midst of an asteroid storm because I don’t like how they’ve got their ships decorated . . . that I can do. But going mano a mano with crazed lunatics is outside of my field. The last time I attempted such a thing was when I endeavored to box with the commander of a space station. It had, I must admit, gone badly for me. He did not seem intimidated by my status. I got back at him, of course. But that is another story entirely, and one we need not pursue at this moment.
In this instance, however, crushed in as I was in the boxcar, I had no choice but to resort to fisticuffs. The madmen, voicing denial with a fervency and aggressiveness that would have given even the most steadfast lunatic pause, were tearing at me, pounding at me as if they hoped they could pummel me into the floor. I fought back as best I could. Picard was in the same situation, and having only marginally more success.
Data, on the other hand, had options open to him that we did not.
He leapt from the floor of the boxcar straight up to the ceiling, caught an overhead rafter, and punched through the roof. The wood splintered easily on impact, and without hesitation Data dropped back down into the morass of pushing and shoving bodies. He knocked people aside, tossing them this way and that, and the entire time his expression never changed. Indeed, he remained insufferably polite during the whole ordeal, murmuring, “Excuse me,” “I am sorry,” “Step to one side,” “I hope I did not break your nose,” and similar comments. It would have been almost enough to make me laugh, had I not been fighting for my life.
Data snagged Picard and threw him like a sack of potatoes onto the roof of the boxcar.
I then felt Data’s hands grabbing me by the scruff of my neck. “I’d rather do it myself!” I started to say, but Data didn’t care about my pride. In retrospect, considering that the people in the car were trying to bash my brains in, it was probably better that he acted in the manner he did. The next thing I knew I was airborne, and within seconds I was next to Picard on the roof of the boxcar. Data followed suit moments later, hauling himself up with alacrity.
If I had thought that our situation was precarious when we were gallivanting between cars, it was definitely worse now. The blasting of the wind was unbelievable, and we crouched low to avoid being blown off altogether.
I studied our options and realized that they were exceptionally limited. It was Data who observed, “I believe that we have made a tactical error.”
“In what way?” asked Picard.
“We were previously at the front of the train. Instead of working our way towards the back, we might have made our way forward, initiating an attack on the locomotive. If we had managed to overwhelm the engine’s personnel and bring the train to a halt, the task of inspecting the boxcars would have been far simpler and accomplished in a more leisurely fashion.”
Picard and I stared at Data for a long moment, and then at each other, and then back to Data once more. “Now is when you bring this up?! Why didn’t you say something earlier?!” I said.
“My imperatives do not involve strategy. My skills instead lie in the analysis of scientific . . .”
“Oh, shut up, Data!” I shouted.
“Don’t tell him to shut up! He’s right! It should have occurred to me!” Picard snapped. “But it didn’t. I don’t know why.”
“I can tell you why!” I shot back. “It’s because it would have meant going head to head with Locutus!”
“That’s not true!”
“Now who’s in denial, Picard?”
Picard looked as if he were going to haul off and strike me. Instead he said to Data, “It’s a plan we can still follow. On the roofs of the cars, if we watch our step, we should be able to make our way back to the front of the train.”
I looked forward to the engine. It seemed to be several miles away. It was likely that the perception was an optical illusion, but it was an extremely convincing illusion. The alternative was either jumping off the train or making our way back through the boxcars—neither of which held much appeal.
Picard looked at me, and I nodded, indicating that I was along for the ride, no matter how harebrained the scheme sounded. Staying low, we began to make our way forward. The wind was overpowering and made progress slow.
Of course, I’m only describing how Picard and I were faring. Data, the mountain goat, took to the task as if he had been to the “manner” born. His positronic brain made a thousand tiny adjustments in his body movements to accommodate whatever was thrown his way, and as a result he didn’t even need to crouch. He walked upright with a slow, steady swing of his arms. He was a one-android parade.
There was no small talk or chitchat between us as we made our way toward the locomotive. There didn’t seem to be that much to say. We did, however, make significantly better time than if we had been crashing through the boxcars. And indeed, there may have been an optical illusion at play, because as we approached the locomotive, it continued to seem far, far off . . . and then, abruptly, it was only a few cars away. We were congratulating ourselves on our safe arrival when . . .
Locutus of Borg rose up from between two cars ahead of us. I’m not quite sure how he managed it. It was as if he were standing on some sort of elevator platform.
He simply stood there looking at us, his weaponed arm dangling at his side. Picard froze in his tracks. The color drained from Picard’s face as he pondered the sight of his gone-but-not-forgotten alter ego. “Do not worry, Captain,” Data said. “I shall attend to him.”
“No.” Picard’s response was abrupt and harsh. “No, Data. I’ll handle this.”
“Captain, perhaps now is not the time—”
“Not the time for what, Data?” The edge in Picard’s voice did not abate. As for Locutus, he had not moved. He was simply watching the exchange and calculating.
“This is not the time for a confrontation, Captain, that will assuage a deep-rooted psychological need to triumph over an inner turmoil, incarnated in a persona that you find daunting,” Data said smoothly.
Heavens, I thought. Not only was he a walking calculator, he was a psychiatrist as well! What a bargain!
“Data,” Picard replied slowly, “the End of the universe is approaching. Not only is this the right time . . . indeed, perhaps the perfect time . . . but it is becoming evident that it may very well be the only time. Step to one side, please.”
“This is ridiculous,” I said with obvious irritation. “If Data can dispatch Locutus, then he should do so. This is no time for you to make a grandstand play just to overcome a personal trauma.”
“There’s no personal trauma, dammit! I’m simply the best qualified to handle him!”
“More denial?”
He fired me a look that spoke volumes. Then he looked back to Data and said once more, “Stand aside, I said.”
Data, of course, had no choice. Above all, he was obliged to obey his commanding officer.
It was quite a contrast. Locutus stood there, upright and arrogantly confident. Picard, on the other hand, approached with caution, in a semi-crouch. The mountains which had been so far in the distance earlier now seemed to be looming, and it became evident that we were heading toward a large valley.
Picard came within a few feet of Locutus and then stoppe
d. They faced one another, each a distorted mirror image of the other. Every aspect of Picard’s body language signaled that he was truly intimidated by the opposition. But then, to his credit, he squared his shoulders and faced Locutus unflinchingly.
“Get out of our way,” Picard told him.
“No,” replied Locutus.
“So much for negotiations,” I said to Data.
Both Locutus and Picard said, “Quiet, Q.” It was rather off-putting for an all-powerful being to be scolded by the same voice twice, simultaneously.
“I’m not afraid of you,” Picard told him.
“Your fear is irrelevant.”
There was that word again, “irrelevant.” Didn’t this guy know any other words?
“I want you to move.”
“What you want is—”
“Irrelevant, yes, I know.” Picard shook his head. “I can practically hear every response of yours before you even say it.”
“If you know me so well . . . then you know how this engagement will end,” Locutus said.
“I know how you think it will end. But you may be surprised.”
“You cannot surprise me, Picard. You are me . . . only an early version.” He actually smiled, but on his face it seemed a horrific thing, an obscenity. “You can no more stop me than an infant can stop an adult. You and your desires are irrelevant.”
I knew if Locutus and I ever became friends, the first gift I’d give him would be a thesaurus.
I watched Picard lose his footing ever so slightly, but he kept talking. “Freedom is irrelevant, individuality is irrelevant; have you considered, Locutus, what will happen when you yourself become irrelevant?”
“Such considerations are likewise irrelevant,” Locutus said calmly. And then he took a step toward Picard.
I was beginning to think they were going to talk each other to death.
“The universe is collapsing around us, Locutus. Your precious Borg collective is going to go the way of all flesh, unless we find a way to stop it. It is in your own interest to help. Why would you be in opposition to that? Who do you serve? Who is behind all of this?”
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