Picard nodded resolutely. "I understand perfectly, Admiral. We"ll be there in ten hours."
"The conference is taking place at the Polar Auditorium on Pargite. Bryant out."
Louise Drayton scoffed, "So the Enterprise is leaving in four hours? That just about shows the depth of your commitment."
Picard stiffened to attention and declared, "You are wrong, Doctor Drayton. We are committed to peace wherever we go, but the Enterprise is always a visitor, an outsider, and we cannot instill values that don"t exist. Everyone can think of reasons to hate and spill blood, but only a few can think of reasons to make peace. If you and those poor castaways want to kill each other, we can"t stop you. You have to be committed to ending the bloodshed."
"We understand perfectly," said Gregg Calvert, lifting his little girl in his brawny arms. "I"m only one person, but I swear I"m going to do everything I can to bring peace to my world."
Louise Drayton followed them onto the platform, averting her eyes from the gaze of Ensign Ro. The Bajoran was deeply disturbed about Drayton"s argument with the captain-the woman almost seemed determined to cause trouble. The ensign shook her head and joined the others on the platform, reluctant to be leaving the Enterprise. She had a premonition that something terrible was about to happen. All signs were pointing that way.
Worf finally heard the slow drumbeat throbbing in the forest. Then the voices, most of them angry. The procession wound slowly through the stark tree trunks, a single line of mourners led by the drummers and their hollow logs. In the center of the line walked six Klingons close together, holding Balak"s body over their head; they were followed by the last members of the tribe, who seemed to be arguing about something.
The big Klingon stared in amazement, along with Deanna Troi. He hadn"t expected a funeral procession, and he strained to see who was being carried in the upraised arms.
"It is Balak," said Data. "He appears to be dead."
The procession was headed their way, and they had already been spotted. Wary eyes darted in their direction, and Worf motioned his comrades off the mound to give them their holy place. Wolm and some of the older survivors were arguing at the rear, but they took on a respectful silence upon seeing Worf, Data, and Deanna. The crew members stood at the bottom of the mound as the youngsters struggled to carry Balak"s limp body up the incline. When they started to drop the heavy burden Worf sprinted up the hill and grabbed Balak by the shoulders. With the big Klingon"s aid they carried the dead sixteen-year-old to the top of the mound.
"Go now," Maltz snarled at Worf.
Worf looked at the youngster, unable to decide what to do or say that would help to express his feelings and close the gap between them.
"Go now!" yelled Maltz.
Then Wolm turned to him, and he saw that one side of her face was horribly bruised. She whispered under her breath, "Go, Worf. All will be well."
Worf nodded. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a handful of communicator badges, which he set reverently on the moist earth. "These are for you," he said. Wolm mustered a slight smile.
When Worf jogged down the hill to join Deanna and Data the android informed him, "Captain Picard has requested that we return to the Enterprise. This would appear to be a good time to leave them alone."
The lieutenant nodded and tapped his communicator badge. "Three to beam up."
Two minutes later the three members of the away team were standing in Captain Picard"s ready room. Also in attendance was Will Riker, who was being briefed on the new mission along with recent events on Selva. Like the others, Deanna listened quietly as Picard outlined the situation in the Aretian system. Then she listened as Data related in detail their activities since transporting back to the planet the night before. The account ended at the funeral procession for Balak, about whose death they knew nothing.
The captain sighed troubledly and asked the android, "How would you characterize your progress with the Klingons?"
"Satisfactory," answered Data. "Although unfortunate, the death of Balak will probably work to our advantage."
"I see," muttered Picard. "I still don"t feel right about leaving you on Selva while we"re surveying the Aretian system. President Oscaras will not guarantee your safety, and I don"t think he could even if he wanted to. Can you bid them farewell temporarily without endangering the mission?"
Deanna could tell that both Worf and Data were considering their responses, but she couldn"t help but to blurt out, "Captain, I believe the progress we have made needs continued reinforcement. To leave now would be a mistake unless there is a clear danger. And I don"t believe any of us feel threatened."
"Thank you, Counselor." Picard frowned. "That only complicates the situation. I"m saying that I don"t trust either of the parties down there, and that"s why I"m concerned. The Aretian system is six hours away, so the earliest we can return is in twelve hours. Unless you use the colonists" subs.p.a.ce radio system, you"ll be out of contact with the ship."
Worf replied, "We understand that, Captain. Still, we do not want to leave when we are so close to solving the problem."
The captain slapped the arms of his chair and declared, "Then you"ll remain on Selva. The Enterprise leaves...o...b..t at fifteen hundred for the Aretian system. Once there, I will propose leaving Commander Riker, La Forge, and several shuttlecraft to do the actual charting while we return here. That"s the only way we can possibly be in two places at once."
Deanna smiled at Worf and found the big Klingon smiling back.
"Won"t we need Counselor Troi on the diplomatic mission?" asked Riker.
"I think not," answered the captain. "The Pargites and Aretians are ready for peace, providing their solar system can be divided in a fair and equitable manner. Ensign Ro should stay as well." He looked squarely at the dispa.s.sionate android. "Data, I"m only leaving four crew members on Selva, but they aren"t four crew members I would care to lose. I"m counting on you to make the safety of the away team your prime consideration."
"Understood, Captain."
Ensign Ro sat stiffly in the guest chair in President Oscaras"s office while Gregg Calvert paced the cramped enclosure from the bookshelf to the tiny window. Outside the window a crew of construction workers was welding together another galvanized corrugated rabbit warren. Raul Oscaras was self-importantly directing the work while Gregg Calvert fumed. He had requested a meeting at least an hour ago and had been kept waiting ever since. Ensign Ro stayed with him because she wanted to see how Oscaras would respond to calls for peace from his own security chief.
Finally the president swaggered into his office, huffing and puffing and wiping sweat from the back of his neck with a rag. He collapsed into his overstuffed executive chair.
"Okay, Calvert, you have my undivided attention," he said with a sigh. "What"s so important?"
"Only two things," answered the tall blond man, fighting to keep his anger in check. "Today I found out we have a spy in our midst, someone who"s been secretly meeting with the Klingons and giving them information about our defenses and our movements."
Oscaras responded with a booming laugh. "That"s preposterous!" he said. "n.o.body would dare venture out there by himself. And what would be the point of it? He would be signing his own death certificate."
Gregg leaned across the bearded man"s desk. "As to the point of it, I don"t know," he admitted. "But the spy is not just taking a stroll out there-she is masquerading as a G.o.ddess, using a halogen lantern and some kind of Romulan whip. She had s.e.x with the leader of the Klingons."
"Please!" scoffed the president. "You"ve been reading too many Gothic romances. A person from this community-a woman, you say-goes out alone disguised as a Romulan G.o.ddess? She befriends the Klingons, has s.e.x with them, and tells them what we"re doing?"
"More than that," said Calvert. "According to an eyewitness from the Enterprise, she encouraged them to attack us."
"Again, to what purpose?" growled Oscaras, the humor fading from his chubby face. "How did she get outside, past the guards? And why would somebody arrange an attack on her own friends and neighbors?"
"I don"t know," muttered Gregg. "But take this morning as an example. We were beamed to a specific place on the beach, twenty kilometers from here, and we weren"t there fifteen minutes before we were attacked. We weren"t making any noise or doing anything to draw their attention. How did they know we were there? Don"t tell me they were just in the neighborhood!"
Oscaras glanced suspiciously at Ro. "Well, members of the Enterprise crew are with the Klingons, and we did send the coordinates to the Enterprise well in advance. That"s at least one other explanation."
"But the same thing has happened time and time again!" Gregg protested. "Before the Enterprise got here."
"Save your breath, Gregg," said Ro, standing. "President Oscaras isn"t interested in the roots of this problem or its solution. He wants to keep the hatred going so that he can maintain a dictatorship over a terrified community."
The burly man nearly jumped over his desk, he was so angry. He pointed a chubby finger at Ro and warned her, "I don"t need any advice from a Bajoran. You don"t even have a home to protect. I asked for help from Starfleet, and all I get are a bunch of nonhumans who want to make friends with the savages and camp out in the woods. Ask any member of this community, and he"ll tell you exactly what we need to solve this problem-a couple hundred armed men and the determination to hunt down every last one of those heathens!"
"I don"t believe that"s the solution anymore," said Gregg softly.
"Okay," growled Oscaras, "if you"ve got a better solution, I"d be willing to hear it. But if it"s a good idea, you should"ve told me months ago."
"It is a good idea," answered Gregg, "but we weren"t ready for it months ago. We should make friends with the Klingons, as the Enterprise is trying to do."
Oscaras looked as if he was going to turn purple with rage, and his eyes shifted accusingly from Gregg Calvert to Ensign Ro. "She turned your head, didn"t she?" he sneered. "Not a bad-looking woman, despite those things on her head. In some respects I don"t blame you, Calvert. You and Ro are free to do whatever you want, but you"re relieved of duty as security chief."
"No!" growled the blond man, slamming his palms on the president"s desk, causing Oscaras to flinch. "It has nothing to do with Ro-I saw with my own eyes! One of them-the same one we kept chained up in a shed-saved our lives this morning. He warned us about the attack. They"re not savages-they"re confused and acting more out of fear than rational thought, just like us!"
"You"re restricted to quarters!" ordered Oscaras, pointing to the door. "Soon we"ll be rid of the Enterprise, and we can go back to solving our own problems. I do make mistakes, and calling on Starfleet was one of them. I should"ve known they were too buddy-buddy with the Klingon High Command to help us. By the time the Enterprise returns, this problem is going to be over."
Gregg Calvert pounded the desk with frustration one last time, then stalked out the door. Ensign Ro lingered for a moment in the doorway.
"You"re wrong about Gregg and me," she told the president. "You"re wrong about everything. And if you don"t take that spy business seriously, it"s going to come back to haunt you."
For a moment Raul Oscaras looked weary and uncertain. Then he pumped up his chest and bellowed, "Get out!"
Ro looked for Gregg Calvert upon leaving Oscaras"s office, but he had evidently headed to his quarters in a great hurry. She didn"t blame him for wanting to get away from her; she wasn"t doing his case much good. She wandered aimlessly down a broad street with nothing left of the euphoric feeling she had had earlier in the day. All that remained was a hollow dread, a vague sense that matters were coming to a head-but not for the better. On this chilly gray day there was death in the air.
Thinking that she hadn"t eaten since breakfast and that it was midafternoon, Ro made her way to the dining hall. She had no sooner selected a small salad and sat down to eat her meager repast than one of the researchers from the science lab pa.s.sed her table.
"Oh, here you are," said the dark-skinned woman, who had scarcely spoken two words to Ro since her arrival. "I checked your seismograph a few minutes ago. You might want to take a look. There are some strange readings on the midzone chart."
The Bajoran bolted out of her chair. "Thank you," she muttered hastily, grabbing her salad and rushing toward the door.
With the day"s many events she had not set foot in the lab nor checked her readings once. As she dashed along the wide street Ro bawled herself out for negligence. Monitoring seismic activity was her primary mission on Selva, she told herself angrily-not outings to the beach, acting like a social worker, or tagging along with Gregg Calvert.
She charged into the lab past several startled workers and went straightaway to the instrument array she had a.s.sembled for her task. Jagged lines were streaking up and down the midzone screen, and she held her breath as she punched up the commands to a.n.a.lyze the data. The tectonic plates were shifting, registering between four and five on the Richter scale, and volcanic activity was up twenty percent. Whether that would turn into a major underwater eruption or temblor was still unknown. Data scrawled across a second screen, and Ro held her breath, waiting to see if the activity would jump to a higher level. It didn"t- the graphs went back to normal, and the temblors a thousand kilometers away gradually subsided.
Ro breathed again and slumped back in her chair. No one else in the room, or on the entire planet, knew how close they had been to cataclysm. Even now Ro wasn"t certain, because there was no historical data to tell her what effect an undersea eruption would have on the land ma.s.ses of Selva. Whatever it was, they had avoided it-for now.
Worf strolled through a gentler forest than the one on Selva. In this part of Ohio it was a bright day in early summer, and Klingon picnickers were spreading colorful tablecloths, throwing Frisbees, knocking around a softball, and performing other activities no real Klingon would ever do. Worf had to chuckle at the incongruity of the folksy Klingons, remembering how he had dropped them into the original holodeck simulation to make Turrok think that Klingons were ubiquitous. They were all over the Federation, it was true, but they would never be in this setting, doing these things.
He climbed the hill away from the picnic area toward the little dam overlooking the lake. Behind the dam, in the shallow pool, he saw a slim figure happily splashing away. Worf felt certain Turrok was catching and eating more than his share of crawdads. The boy didn"t see him until he had reached the edge of the pool.
"Worf!" he cried joyously. "We are here! They let me come back!"
The lieutenant smiled and pulled off his boots. "That is good," he said. "I"m glad you got to see this place again."
"I want to live here forever and ever!" proclaimed Turrok, dancing around the rocks in the crystalline pool. "I not bother anyone. I will eat crawdads and whatever I find. I will make friends with the other Klingons. Please tell them it is okay, Worf."
Worf sat on the edge of the pool and dangled his feet in the water. "You must go back to your own forest," he said. "We must both go back."
Turrok pouted. "No! I won"t go! For one thing, Balak will kill me."
"Balak is dead."
"Dead?" muttered the boy with disbelief. "The flat-heads?"
Worf shook his head. "We don"t know how he died."
Turrok suddenly grinned. "I think Wolm killed him. She is very brave. She hate him because he only want to kill."
Worf replied, "Klingons have a proverb that says, "A murder is not worthy unless it is earned.""
"I see," said Turrok, sitting beside Worf on the concrete bank. "Tell me about other Klingons. Are they like these below? Eating and throwing things to each other?"
"No," said Worf. "That"s the main reason you can"t stay here. This isn"t real. It"s an illusion-something that looks real but isn"t."
Turrok scoffed. "I not believe you. I feel this water! I taste the food and sc.r.a.pe my leg."
"All manipulation of forcefields, tractor beams, and replication technology," replied Worf. He got an uncomprehending stare in response. "Someday you"ll understand how it works, but let me show you that it is an illusion.
"Computer," he intoned, "remove the Klingons from this program. No people at all."
The hordes of laughing and playing Klingons that dotted the hillside and the picnic grounds vanished. They weren"t swallowed up in swirling columns of light-they just ceased to exist. Turrok stared in awe. Then he looked down at the water splashing over his feet and at the endless robin"s-egg blue above his head.
"Is all life like this?" he asked numbly. "All ... illusion?"
"The answer to that," said Worf, "is in the realm of philosophy and religion. Perhaps, with your experiences, you would make a good philosopher. In the days and weeks to come you will see many things that you may question. Always try to find what is real."
"O"Brien to Worf," came a voice over Worf"s comm badge.
The Klingon tapped it to answer. "Worf here."
"All ash.o.r.e that"s going ash.o.r.e," called the transporter chief. "We"re pulling out of orbit in ten minutes."
"Aye, Chief," answered Worf. He patted the boy on the back and pulled his feet out of the water.
Turrok looked miserable. "I not want to go back."
"You have responsibilities," said Worf sternly as he grabbed his boots. "Someday, when the history of Selva is written, you will be one of the founders of a great civilization."
"How do I do that?" asked Turrok, amazed.
Worf smiled. "Just by making friends."
O"Brien transported them to the coordinates of the sacred mound, and Worf fingered his phaser weapon until he got a good look at the surrounding scene. Nineteen young Klingons were eagerly devouring as much food as Deanna had managed to secure, and they scarcely paid any attention to the two new arrivals. Turrok"s eyes lit up, and he ran over to join the feast. Worf strode to the crest of the mound, where Data and Deanna stood watching their ravenous luncheon guests.
"The way to a Klingon"s stomach is still working," said Deanna, smiling.
Worf shrugged. "Until the food runs out."
"There is another replicator in the village," said Data. "We could ask for their cooperation."
"With your permission, sir," answered Worf, "I intend to walk in there tomorrow with all of them in tow. And they"ll have to feed us."
Deanna looked concerned when she said, "Balak may be gone, but they still aren"t prep students. We haven"t gotten the whole story, but apparently Wolm stabbed him to death as he lay wounded."
"He was a worthy opponent," said Worf, "but I didn"t think Balak would live to an old age."
"Picard to away team," chirped a voice.
Data was the first to respond. "Data here. Counselor Troi and Lieutenant Worf are with me. The Klingons are occupied with eating."
"We"re leaving now," said the captain. "We"ll be six hours away, so the earliest we can return is in twelve hours. If you can, get into the village to report by subs.p.a.ce-I don"t want to be out of contact for too long."
"We"ll make it into the village," replied Worf. "The mission is proceeding as planned."
"Don"t try to accomplish miracles," said Picard. "Just keep yourselves alive. Enterprise out."
Deanna and Worf looked instinctively at the sky, seeing nothing but glowering gray clouds and knowing the Enterprise would soon be far beyond them.