POWER HUNGRY

by Howard Weinstein

  “Yes. I did say I would discuss it with you once it was properly researched. I was somewhat surprised to find you in your lab this late in the evening.”

  “Night, Data. When it’s this late, it’s night,” she said with a laugh. “But I don’t need much sleep, and I like it here when there’s nobody else around. It’s nice and quiet, and I do my best thinking here alone. Have a seat and tell me what you’ve come up with.”

  He repeated the presentation he’d given to Captain Picard, weaving in an even more detailed roster of statistical evidence to support his premise. Kael listened without revealing the slightest chink in her composure, despite the mounting testimony to impending planetary doom. When he finished his recitation, he looked at her, cocking his head in perplexity.

  Kael’s dark eyes widened, incising arched creases across her forehead. “You look confused.”

  “I am.”

  “About what?”

  “Your reaction,” he said.

  “What did you expect?”

  “Anxiety, astonishment, shock—”

  “Why?”

  “Because my findings do not augur a bright future for Thiopa.”

  “No, that’s certainly apparent.”

  “Query: is it common for Thiopans to react in this dispassionate way to news of the near certain collapse of their civilization?”

  “No—but it’s not news.”

  It was Data’s turn to be surprised, and he was. “It is not?”

  “Not to me.”

  The android gaped at her. Silently.

  “I didn’t know androids could be struck speechless,” Kael said.

  “Neither did I,” he finally replied. “I do not understand.”

  “Specifically, what don’t you understand?”

  With great care, Data tried to make some sense of what seemed to make no sense. “You are a scientist who has demonstrated a thorough grasp of the problems facing Thiopa. You have begun to restructure your world’s scientific establishment so it may pursue empirical truth and be less susceptible to political manipulations.”

  “Accurate so far.”

  “Yet you respond to my report of the critical nature of the environmental changes Thiopa is undergoing—and the critical need for corrective strategies—by telling me this is not new information.”

  “Right.”

  “Which means you already knew all this.”

  “Right again.”

  “Yet your government has not implemented measures to counteract these detrimental conditions. What I do not understand is how they could ignore such overwhelming evidence when you presented it to them.”

  “Simple.”

  “It is?”

  “I didn’t tell them.”

  Despite his vast positronic memory, his total familiarity with dozens of languages, and a computational capacity that rivaled that of any computer in the Federation, Data found himself—for the second time in short order—at a loss for words.

  Kael Keat seemed amused. “You’re finding me quite a source of consternation tonight, aren’t you?”

  “Indubitably.” He hesitated. “Would it surprise you to hear that I have also concluded that your proposed weather control satellite network is far beyond Thiopa’s level of technology—for that matter, beyond the technological reach of the most advanced civilizations in the Federation?”

  “No.”

  “You knew that, too?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Although his yellow eyes reflected all of his puzzlement, Data was by now past being dumbfounded. His pace of inquisition quickened. “Then why did you make the proposal to begin with? Did you know all along it would not accomplish its specified goal, or did you discover this as you followed through on your research?”

  “Second question first. I always knew it couldn’t possibly work. So why did I convince Stross and the government that it would?”

  “I do not know—that is why I asked you.”

  “After I studied off-world and came back here, I saw what a muddle our scientists had made of things. Here we had a leader—”

  “Stross?”

  She nodded. “He practically worshiped science and technology, as if they were the saviors of Thiopa. But the man is barely literate and doesn’t understand science at all. To him, it might as well be magic. Our Science Council could have built an empire. Instead, they were happy to be servants—and poorly funded ones at that.”

  Data gestured around the room. “This is your empire?”

  “The beginning of one. I’m young, Data. I plan to be around a long time. And I knew right away that I wouldn’t get unlimited money for research by telling leaders things they don’t want to hear.”

  “Even if you are telling the truth?”

  “Truth has nothing to do with it,” she said dismissively. “Even Stross had to admit we had big problems, thanks to letting the Nuarans teach us how to ruin a planet in a couple of decades. But nobody could tell him, ‘Hey, this is all your fault.’ So Stross blames the Nuarans and tells them to get lost. Then I give him the means to become a planet-saving hero.”

  “The weather-control proposal? But you just admitted it will not work.”

  “You’re being too logical.” Kael took a deep breath.

  “Look, I could’ve told Stross we needed to eliminate acidic rain and industrial pollution, needed to clean up our fresh water, stop dumping toxic wastes in the oceans, stop cutting down forests, start using self-renewing sources of energy—”

  “But you did not. Why?”

  “Because those things aren’t magic, Data,” she said, thumping her fist on her computer console. “I needed to roll all those realistic, mundane objectives into something that would get people excited. I did that, and now I’ve got all the money I need to do all that boring but necessary research . . . pure research that really could lead to breakthroughs that’ll save this planet. As long as they think I’m working on that impossible weather control network, I’ll get all the money I want, and I’ll get to spend it any way I want, and nobody will ask any questions.”

  “So your work is based on an elaborate deception.”

  She looked mildly offended. “I can’t say I like that word, but I guess you could call it that.”

  “Have you thought about the consequences of failure? What if your research never does reach any important breakthroughs?”

  “Then we’re no worse off than we were before. If I didn’t cook up this deception, as you call it, Thiopan science would’ve limped along with a fraction of the support we’ve got now. And while lots of money doesn’t guarantee success, lack of money does guarantee failure.”

  “But science is based on a search for truth.”

  “Maybe so. But I’d rather see our money wasted on science—where there’s always a chance for that miracle this world needs—than spent on other things, like buying new weapons from immoral opportunists like the Nuarans.”

  “How can you hope to find truth through deceptive means?”

  “Data, sometimes that’s the only way.”

  With a blink of wonder, Data tried to reconcile all the contradictions he’d encountered in this one brief conversation. It only took a moment for him to realize he couldn’t do it. Not now. Probably not ever, he told himself.

  Chapter Twelve

  THE STONE CITY SLEPT. The only Sojourners normally awake in the hours past midnight and before dawn were the night watch lookouts on the cliffs guarding the only entry into the canyon fortress.

  Tonight, though, two others were up, sneaking between buildings, then hiding behind rocks near the lodge housing Mori and the hostage, Riker.

  “This will never work,” said Jaminaw in a worried whisper.

  “It’s two against one.” Glin tried to sound confident.

  “What about Riker?”

  “He’ll be tied up. He won’t be able to do anything. We both go after Mori. When she’s out, then we get Riker.”

  “What if he yells for
help?”

  “If we’re fast enough and quiet enough, he won’t have time.” Glin took a small spray gun from her pocket. “This solution is maximum concentration. Even if Mori wakes up, she’ll be down again before she can do anything.”

  “What if Riker’s not tied up?”

  Glin rolled her eyes. “Mori is very thorough when it comes to security procedures. He’ll be tied up.”

  “Look,” Jaminaw whispered, pointing through a notch in the top boulder.

  They saw Mori come out of her lodge and walk away from it, heading down the trail along the canyon rim.

  “Where’s she going?” he muttered.

  “How should I know? Let’s do it now, while she’s gone. We can have Riker out before she gets back.”

  Glin started forward. Jaminaw hesitated, so she reached back and pulled him along. Moving quickly and quietly, they reached the lodge and ducked inside, their sandals barely whispering as they hurried across the tile floor. They found Riker sleeping on a nest of blankets in the main room. Glin leaned over him and squeezed her sprayer in his face. He shivered momentarily, and his eyelids struggled to open. But after a few ragged breaths, the paralyzing agent won out and he fell back into a calm, artificially enforced sleep—one from which he would not awaken for at least two hours. Jaminaw visibly relaxed. He unfolded a blanket from his backpack and threaded two support poles through hemmed loops, converting the blanket into a sling. They rolled Riker into it, lifted him up and left as quickly and quietly as they’d come in.

  They carried Riker through one of the natural chutes worn through the canyon wall by aeons of rushing water. The rock tunnel took them up to a plateau above and behind the Stone City, a place seldom visited, and certainly not at this hour. From here, they picked up a narrow, roundabout trail that flirted dangerously with a steep drop. This was a longer route, but it met with the main trail farther around the canyon rim, and it was the best way to avoid running into Mori, wherever she might have gone.

  They reached the bottom of the bowl, where the ealixes spent their leisure time. Most of the animals were asleep on their sides, nestled close to one another, but a half-dozen adults were contentedly munching the bark off thorny-bush branches. Glin and Jaminaw put Riker down on the ground, then grabbed the reins of three ealixes and pulled them away from their nocturnal snack. The animals responded with mild snorts of protest, but followed placidly.

  The two Sojourners draped Riker’s limp body across one animal. Glin secured him with ropes wound around the ealix’s neck and belly. Then she and Jaminaw climbed astride the other two animals and spurred them into the arroyo leading out of the canyon.

  To Glin, the rock walls rising high on either side looked like the dark flanks of sleeping mythical beasts as she and Jaminaw slipped past like thieves with a treasure in hand. Even if Mori returned to her rooms, they had enough of a head start to make it unlikely she could catch up with them. Once out of the Sojourners’ Abraian Mountain stronghold, they would goad their ealixes across the Sa’drit at best speed. Their destination: an abandoned communications station near the depleted ore mines to the west, in the Sternian Foothills. The relay station had been used to contact Nuaran spacecraft in planet orbit when they came to pick up shipments of raw materials from that area. Now Glin and Jaminaw planned to use it to contact Captain Picard on the Enterprise, bypassing Lessandra and starting the process of making a deal that might finally give the Sojourners what Lessandra’s opponents wanted most—to be left alone in peace. If Riker was right, and Picard could help by providing Federation mediation, then Glin knew she and Jaminaw would be hailed as heroes. She thought Evain would have approved.

  But if Picard could do nothing, if the Federation was powerless to help, if Stross and his ruling protectorate refused to retreat from his quest for a monolithic world united by forcible Fusion, then Glin still believed she and Jaminaw would not be condemned for this action. She hoped the rest would accept what she knew in her heart—that this was something which had to be tried because of the promise it held.

  The ealixes moved carefully over and around loose rocks scattered along the trail by occasional slides from the walls of the dry gulch. Jaminaw fought the urge to turn back. Glin had challenged him to act rather than talk, and here he was, doing something bordering on madness. The Sojourners were a fractious group, prone to heated arguments about tactics and strategies. But they were bound together by a solid core of faith in the teachings of their Mother World, faith in Evain’s modern evangelizing, faith in the circle of life.

  For all her autocratic tendencies, Lessandra believed in those basic principles as strongly as Glin or Jaminaw or anyone did. And the Testaments had always provided enough common ground for at least a modicum of agreement and compromise among all of the Sojourners. There had never been any discord so serious that it couldn’t be dealt with. Sometimes quiet words were enough; sometimes it took the violent hammer of authority. But the Sojourners’ internal divisions had never driven groups of members to splinter from the whole. Until now. If they failed, would he and Glin be accepted back into the Sa’drit circle? Or had they embarked on a trail that led in only one direction? He couldn’t help wondering if he and his companion had committed the same sin of which they accused Stross—breaking the circle and galloping down a route that could lead only to oblivion.

  The ealixes knew where they were going. They needed no prodding or steering. Their reliable steps rarely faltered. So Glin and Jaminaw rode toward the final exit from the canyon with their attention turned inward, sorting through private fears and wishes.

  Neither one noticed the figure peeking around a boulder just off the path worn by uncounted footsteps. In its dark cloak, with a hood over its head and a scarf covering most of its face, the figure would have been hard to spot even by someone looking directly at it. To people whose concentration lay elsewhere, it was as invisible as a still breeze.

  When the first animal in line, with Glin riding on it, reached the boulder, the figure stepped out quickly, blocking the way. It was aiming two blaster rifles, one in either hand. “Stop.”

  Glin tugged on her reins and squinted at the cloaked figure. “Mori . . .?”

  “Dismount, both of you,” Mori said in a flat voice that told Glin she meant business.

  “Mori, what are you doing?” Glin pressed.

  “Dismount—now!”

  Both did as she ordered. She approached them warily, her steps precise.

  Glin watched her with a probing eye. “Mori, you don’t have any idea—”

  “Down on your knees, both of you. Hands on your heads. Do it.”

  They did, and she backpedaled over to Riker’s inert form on the third ealix. Then she came back to Glin and Jaminaw.

  “What are you going to do to us?” Jaminaw asked timidly.

  “What you did to him.” Mori let one blaster hang by its shoulder strap and took a spray pistol from her pocket. “Someone will find you in the morning.”

  Glin’s hands twitched on top of her head, as if she was contemplating a preemptive grab for Mori’s paralyzer spray. But the quick upturn of a blaster muzzle quashed the idea. “Mori, just so you know, we were trying to take the chance for peace before Lessandra let it slip away.”

  “Me, too. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to do this my way.”

  Before Glin could say anything else, Mori triggered the sprayer. It enveloped Glin and Jaminaw in a fine mist, and they both fell over. Mori shoved each one with her foot to make sure they were unconscious. Then she tied their hands and feet behind them with practiced efficiency. She knew that if they struggled, they could probably free themselves before anyone found them. But the time before they would wake up, added to the time it would take them to wriggle out of the ropes, meant that Mori would be too far from the canyon for anyone to catch her, even though they would know her destination—the same communications relay station to which Glin and Jaminaw had been heading.

  She snatched the loose reins of the eal
ix hauling Riker and led it the rest of the way through the narrow ravine. At the mouth of the pass, she reached two other ealixes she’d left tethered to a bush. She no longer needed both, so she turned one around with a slap on its broad rump. Eventually it would shamble back to the herd. Mori tied a long lead between Riker’s ealix and her own, then climbed on and rode out.

  She stayed close to the foot of the cliffs. She’d been assigned to the lookout posts on top of this ridge often enough to know the sentinels couldn’t see her tiny caravan if she hugged the contours of the steep rock wall. Besides, lookouts were more concerned about what might be approaching from a distance than they were about who might be leaving through the pass.

  Mori knew her landmarks, and she knew her route. She continued around the outside of the Abraian formation. There had once been five separate peaks in this small range. But they’d been whittled by wind-blown sand and coursing water, driven by seismic jolts, and shaped by the slow shifting of tectonic plates until it was hard to tell where one ended and another began. The Sojourners’ canyon was actually encircled by what remained of a mountain, now remolded into an artful jumble of forbidding walls and ridges, tapered arroyos, hunched hills, and of course the canyon itself. The other Abraian Mountains stood above and behind the Stone City.

  At the base of the second mountain, to the west, a natural arch jutted out like a sculpted buttress. When she reached it, Mori knew she was out of sight of the lookout perches above the canyon. She grasped her reins and slapped her ealix’s shoulders. With a snort of displeasure, the beast broke into a trot. The second one followed, and they headed out into the barren stillness of the Sa’drit.

  It could have been the sharp jab into his gut. Or the pungent odor of animal sweat right under his nose. Or the chill in his bones. But something made Will Riker awaken. And he found himself apparently hanging upside down, his cheek resting on the fuzzy hide of an ealix. Which explained the odor flaring his nostrils. His awkward riding position—slung like a rolled rug over the ealix’s back, belly down and not on the animal’s cushioned part—accounted for the jabbing of ealix backbone into his abdomen. He managed to lift his head enough to see the dark desert night around him, and understood why his teeth were chattering with cold.