POWER HUNGRY

by Howard Weinstein

  “Did he?”

  She shook her head and raked a hand through her spikey hair. “He wanted to go, but Lessandra wouldn’t let him. She was right, too. They arrested her and took her to Kahdeen, the most notorious prison island on the planet.”

  “What did they do to her?”

  “Tortured her . . . beat her,” Mori whispered, a shiver in her voice. “For two weeks. Without medical treatment.”

  “What did they want to know—where your father was?”

  Mori nodded. “But she wouldn’t tell them anything. They executed friends of hers right in front of her. But she still wouldn’t talk. They broke both her legs, and when they finally let her go, they dumped her in the desert. By the time the Sojourners found her, one leg was so badly infected that it had to be amputated.”

  “What happened to your father?”

  “He sent me to live with his friends, and he stayed on the run for a few more months. But Stross’s men eventually found him. They tried him for treason, and of course they convicted him.”

  Riker’s eyes were gentle, his voice soft. “Did they . . .”

  “Execute him?” She shook her head. “They didn’t want to create a Sojourner martyr.” She told Riker the rest of the story—how the government sentenced Evain to life in Kahdeen Prison, how they said he had died of natural causes two years later, and how many prisoners insisted that Evain was still alive, being shunted from island to island in the penal system so that his survival could never be confirmed. “I know he’s alive,” Mori said. “I know it.”

  “So you don’t believe anything the government said after they imprisoned him.”

  “Why should I? Would you?”

  “No, I guess not.” He took a deep breath of the brisk night air. “And I can understand why Lessandra hates Stross and his government.”

  “The strangest part is that Stross blamed my father for starting the attacks on the Endrayan mining operations. But they didn’t start until after he went into hiding. Evain hated violence. Anybody who reads what he wrote about the Testaments would know that. Lessandra’s the one who ordered the attacks. But they blamed Evain anyway.”

  “Does anybody else think your father’s still alive?”

  Mori’s shoulders flexed in a resigned shrug. “Very few believe it, and nobody will come out and say it. They’re afraid it will encourage me, get my hopes up, make me do something crazy to try to get him freed. I think Lessandra believes he died sometime during the last twenty years, even if it wasn’t when the government says he died. Maybe Durren thinks he might be alive.”

  “It sounds pretty tenuous.”

  “I really want to know the truth.” She shook her head slowly. “And I thought we could use you to find out, but nobody thinks it’s important enough to include as part of any deal with your ship.”

  “Remember, there won’t be any deal. You people either let me go or you’re going to have a houseguest for a long time.”

  Mori shoved her hands deep into her pockets. “It’s time to go to sleep. I’ve been assigned to guard you.”

  Riker nodded toward the moonlit badlands stretching infinitely around Sanctuary Canyon. “Where could I possibly escape to?”

  “Nowhere,” Mori said grimly. “Don’t forget it. You’d die out there before you got anywhere.”

  “Fine—you’ve convinced me.”

  “I’m still going to have to tie you up. Let’s go.” She led him toward the lodge where her rooms were.

  “Tell me—where did the name ‘Sojourners’ come from?”

  “Our people believe we’re just passing through this place. Mother World lets us use her treasures, but we’re just borrowing, not taking. The land doesn’t belong to us; we belong to the land.”

  “Like caretakers?”

  “Right. Mother World lets us use what she has while we’re here. It’s our responsibility to leave the land in as good or better condition than we found it.”

  “A little different from the government’s attitude, eh?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sojourners’ beliefs,” Riker mused as they walked, “are not all that different from what my people believe in.”

  Most of the lodges they passed were dark, but a few windows glowed with candlelight. Furnishings were similar to those in Lessandra’s chambers, mostly blankets and pillows, with a few crude pieces made of wood or flat stones to serve as tables or seats. All the occupants he could see were adults, with occasional teens on the cusp of adulthood. It dawned on Riker that there didn’t seem to be any younger children here. He asked Mori about it.

  “Some wanted the little ones to live here, too, but Lessandra and some of the other leaders decided it was too dangerous and too rough for children who weren’t old enough to take care of themselves.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “They stay with families back in the villages and on the farms.”

  “From what I saw in Crossroads, that’s not an easy life, either.”

  “There is no easy life in this realm—not as long as we refuse to surrender to Fusion.”

  Mori’s quarters were two rooms on the ground floor of a sandstone dwelling considerably smaller than Lessandra’s. Riker glanced up at the daunting rock overhang rising high into the darkness, and he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling it gave him. Not that it was about to tumble down, but the way it vaulted overhead made him feel that he was in the belly of some impossibly huge beast. Primal dreads? he wondered.

  Mori pushed back the blanket draped over her entryway, then stopped short with a gasp.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Cave spider.” She cringed, her voice a dry whisper.

  Riker rolled his eyes in disbelief. “You shoot down hoverjets without so much as flinching and yet a little spider petrifies you?”

  She crept back as gingerly as if afraid of awakening some fetid, fanged monster slumbering inside. “It’s not little.”

  “How big can it be?”

  She stared at him peevishly. “You’re so brave, see for yourself.”

  Riker pushed past her and swept open the drape. His feet froze in midstride. “Well, well, that is a sizable spider.”

  And it was, with a leg-span nearly the width of a man’s forearm and a body the size of a melon coated with glistening brown fuzz. Three stalked eyes quivered as the creature clung to a thick web it had spun across the ceiling. “Uhh, do these things come to visit often?”

  “Now and then. They think the buildings are caves because they’re cool and dark. They don’t like light. If you leave a candle burning, that’s usually enough to keep them out.”

  “But you’ve got a candle burning,” Riker noted.

  “Yes, but you have to leave them near the doors and windows to keep the spiders from going inside.”

  “How do you get them out once they’re in . . . or do you just move to another town?”

  Mori giggled at Riker’s quip, in spite of her fear. “You scare them away with a light.”

  “You’ve done this before?”

  “Sure . . . lots of times. Do you want to try it?”

  He sidestepped out of her way. “No, no . . . I always defer to experience.”

  He did hold the blanket open for her as she scuttled in and ducked low, staying as far away from the spider as she could. She reached for the cut-stone candle holder, which was sitting on a slab, then held it high in outstretched hands. “I’d stand back if I were you.” As she edged the candle closer to the spider, it twitched nervously. Suddenly it dropped down on a sturdy strand of silk and launched itself toward the nearest escape route—right past Riker. It landed on its springy legs and scrabbled off into the darkness.

  “You can come in now.”

  Riker remained skeptical. “How do you know that was the only one?”

  “They’re very territorial. If two tried to come into a space this size, they would have fought till one was dead . . . or maybe both. So if there were two in here, one would be just ma
ngled pulp.”

  “That’s . . . that’s very comforting.” Still, he entered while Mori set up two piles of pillows and blankets for sleeping. He watched her arrange things and then reach into an animal-hide pouch and take out a wooden box. She opened it carefully and pushed aside a soft cloth covering, revealing an exquisitely crafted doll. It was about the size of Mori’s hand, made of ceramic with daintily painted Thiopan features and a colorful costume. Mori set the doll on the stone slab next to her. She seemed almost unaware that Riker was in the room.

  “It’s very pretty,” he said.

  She looked up with a start. “Oh . . . thank you.” Then she shrugged as if embarrassed. “I don’t know why I even keep it.”

  “It must be important to you.”

  “I guess.”

  “It looks old.”

  “It is.” She cradled it in her palms and handed it to him.

  Riker held it gently. “How long have you had it?”

  “As long as I can remember. My father gave it to me. It’s supposed to bring luck. I used to have a whole collection of them back when we lived in a town in a regular house.”

  “Is this the only one you have left?”

  She nodded. “Most of us had to give up most of what we had.” She didn’t sound happy about that sacrifice, as if she’d done it without question, but always wondered why. “I felt that I had to keep one, though.”

  “I know the feeling. I took some of my favorite things from home when I joined Starfleet.”

  She brightened with interest. “What kind of things?”

  He smiled sheepishly. “You don’t really want to know.”

  “I do.”

  “Well, I was born in a place called Alaska, one of the few places on Earth where we managed to preserve lots of original wilderness.”

  “What’s it like, this Alaska?”

  Riker sat down on the pillows. “Cold, and bigger than life—everything, the mountains, the valleys, icebergs and glaciers, plenty of wide-open spaces.”

  “Those favorite things of yours—they’re from Alaska?”

  “Yes. We’ve got these great animals that roam the oceans. They’re called whales. Lots of different kinds. Many of them were hunted to extinction, but some kinds were saved and over the years, they repopulated the seas. When I was growing up, there were as many of those whales as there had been hundreds of years before. You could stand on a cliff and watch them swim by for hours.” Riker paused in fond reflection, thinking how he would love to stand on that cliff again. “I had a favorite kind—called an orca. A beautiful animal. When I was a boy, I collected little sculptures of orcas. Some of them were really old.”

  “Do they remind you of home?”

  “Yes.” He handed the doll back to her and watched as she balanced it on the stone again, gazing at it as if it could somehow restore all the innocence stolen away by time and circumstance.

  “This is the oldest doll I had. My father said it was my mother’s when she was a girl. She died soon after I was born.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I never knew her, so when I miss her, I’m not really missing her . . . I’m missing the idea of having one mother.”

  “Who took care of you when you were a child?”

  “My father’s friends. Glin, Durren . . . I never felt unloved. It’s as if I had lots of mothers and fathers. Just sometimes . . .” She sighed. “Sometimes I wanted just one of each.” Mori stroked the doll’s cheek with her fingertip. “She’s been through a lot. Sometimes I think it would be easier to give her away, or leave her somewhere . . . or just break her.”

  “Keep her,” Riker said softly.

  The moonlight was bright enough to cast shadows, including a shadow of two figures embracing on a breezy bluff, high over the cleft in which the Stone City was cradled. Though more of comfort than passion, it was still an embrace of lovers, as Jaminaw tenderly stroked Glin’s cheek and whiskers. But his voice was apprehensive. “What should we do?”

  They sat on a flat rock, their heads together. “This could be the best chance we’ll ever have to come to reasonable terms with the government.”

  “But reason is not enough for Lessandra.”

  Glin scowled. “Lessandra is only one person—”

  “She still leads the biggest faction. Say by some miracle—by the Hidden Hand—we actually reached a compromise and then we couldn’t all agree . . . it could split the Sojourners. It could destroy us.”

  “Lessandra’s path is going to destroy us sooner or later anyway. Only her way will also kill us.”

  Jaminaw sighed. “Why can’t she and the others see that we don’t live in a world where absolutes apply anymore. They want to go back to the old times, but these aren’t the old times, and they can’t ever be that way—that innocent—again.”

  “Are you writing all this in your journal?”

  “Of course. You know I write everything in there. Maybe someday I’ll publish the story of the Sojourners.”

  Glin sat up straight and placed her hands on her hips. She frowned harshly at her companion. “Why is everything ‘maybe someday’ with you, Jaminaw?”

  Her sudden anger shocked him. “What do you mean?”

  “You know.”

  “I don’t.”

  “You talk—you don’t do.”

  Jaminaw spread his hands plaintively. “How many publishers do you see up here?”

  “You always twist what I say. I don’t mean this second on this mountain. For once in your life, commit yourself to something and work toward it.”

  “And set myself up for disappointment when I can’t make the impossible happen? You know what Mother World told us—it’s not the destination that counts, it’s the journey.”

  “I don’t know if I believe that anymore,” she stated. “If you don’t steer during the journey, you might never reach any destination. The destination does count for something. It must.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying if we want to even have a someday, we might have to do something about it today.”

  “What should we do?” he repeated. The pliancy in his voice made it clear he would do whatever she decided.

  Chapter Eleven

  “WESLEY, what should I do?” The petite fourteen-year-old girl with shaggy dark hair whispered through clenched teeth to Ensign Crusher, who stood three heads taller and three feet behind her. A brigade of Lilliputian Starfleet officers stood between them, complete with phasers, tricorders, and miniature uniforms. Including Wes and the girl fronting the group, there were eight youngsters ranging in age from ten to Wesley’s sixteen. Seven were human, one a Vulcan.

  “Wessssleeeeeee,” she hissed again.

  “Gina, you’re the captain,” he whispered back, trying his best to master Captain Picard’s trick of sounding both stern and reassuring at the same time. “You have to figure this out yourself—and you can do it.”

  Gina shifted her attention back to the slavering pack of canines blocking the forest path. Standing in dappled patches of sunlight on moist, moss-covered ground, the dozen animals looked almost cute. They were barely a foot tall at the shoulder, with stocky bodies, short legs, large triangular ears, and button-nosed snouts. Adorable—except for saber-teeth, eyes like green fire, and horns covered with blood as if the pack had just gored some poor beast to death. Add to that the deep snarls rumbling up from their throats, and they weren’t so cute after all.

  The Vulcan girl tapped Gina on the shoulder. “Would it be logical to offer them food?”

  Gina blinked as she tried to make some sense of the situation. “Food, food, food . . . Do we have any food? And what do these things like? What if we start a feeding frenzy? What if they want more and we don’t have more? Oh, why doesn’t my chief engineer get that damn transporter fixed?” She hammered her fist onto the emblem communicator pinned to her chest. “Enterprise? Enterprise! Come in or you’re all fired!”

  “Captain,” Wesle
y reminded her, “our communications system hasn’t worked for two days.”

  She turned her head slowly and glared at him. “Let’s feed Crusher to the dogs.”

  T’Jai, the Vulcan, bit her lip and pointed. “Captain, look out!”

  Gina faced front again just in time to see three vicious blurs of fur and fangs hurling themselves through the air directly at her throat. In a panic, she flung her arms up to protect her face and fell back, knocking everyone else down like a row of dominoes. At the same moment, the forest and the dog pack winked out of existence, and the children were left piled on the floor of the bare holodeck, with Wesley at the bottom.

  “Poetic justice,” Gina sneered at him as they untangled themselves and got to their feet. Then she felt something paw at her ankle. She glanced down, saw one of the little animals there, and let out a shriek that sent the dog skittering across the deck. It dropped down into play position, wriggled in glee, woofed twice, and then disappeared like the rest of its computer-generated pack mates and their forest home.

  The holodeck entrance slid open and the exercise programmer marched in, chortling to himself. Commander Data and Ambassador Undrun were right behind him. “That’s all for today,” he said. “Did you enjoy being the captain, Gina?”

  The girl pulled her hair in front of her face. “It wasn’t fair, Lieutenant Berga.”

  “Why not, Captain?”

  “Because Wesley didn’t provide me with the advice I needed on what to do about those awful little beasts.”

  “I couldn’t,” Wes protested. “I helped program the simulation.”

  “Then you were perfect for telling me what to do.”

  “That wasn’t the point of the simulation,” Wesley said defensively.

  “Ensign Crusher is right,” Berga said.

  “What was the point?” Gina wanted to know.

  “Perhaps I shall ask Commander Data to answer,” said Berga, “since he is an experienced away team member.”

  The children looked at the android for enlighten ment. “The purpose of the simulation is to train you to assimilate what you observe with what you know, as quickly as possible. I believe the expression is to ‘think with your feet.’ ” He looked dismayed when the human children burst into giggles.