"Fine. We"ve moved most of the Bajoran silk, but I"m not sure how much our captain is going to get for it. The crops are very impressive down here."
"If you"re inquiring about our friends," said La Forge, "they"re still hanging around. It must be a slow day for them."
Picard tried to hide his disappointment. It was hard to imagine that a Galor-cla.s.s warship and a Jem"Hadar battle cruiser had nothing better to do than observe one tiny merchant ship, but that seemed to be the case. "Keep me posted if the situation changes. Out."
He turned away from his self-absorbed conversation and b.u.mped into a Carda.s.sian woman who was strolling down the path. She sprang back, cradling her basket of fruit to her chest, and stared at him as if he were a bandit.
"Pardon me," said Picard with concern. "I"m so sorry. Did I injure you?"
He instantly regretted his feeble words, because this was a fit woman in excellent health who was much more offended than injured. He couldn"t be too certain of her age, because their leathery skin didn"t show much wear, but she was a handsome Carda.s.sian.
"Who are you?" she asked accusingly.
He pointed lamely to the sky. "We"re merchants-we came to trade. Our ship is in orbit."
"Bajorans?" she asked doubtfully.
"Yes," answered Picard. "Have you met our people before?"
"Yes, in prison." The woman scowled, as if she had said too much. She brushed past him and hurried down the path.
But Picard now was intrigued, and he charged after the woman. "Madam, can I give you something for your inconvenience?"
"Give me something?" the woman asked, peering strangely at him as if she had never gotten a break in her life. Just as well, Picard thought sadly. There wasn"t enough latinum in the Alpha quadrant to compensate this woman for the unhappiness evident in her vivid green eyes.
"Have they sent you?"
"Who?"
"Don"t be coy. Are you telling me that you don"t know what this place is?"
"I don"t know much about this place," admitted Picard. "It was just a name on a chart to us until a while ago."
She snorted a laugh. "Well, somebody in your party must have a sense of humor. This colony, this communal farm, is an indoctrination center. Despite the lack of guards and fences, it"s a glorified workcamp."
Picard nodded gravely, thinking that explained the absence of off-world transportation and modern technology. "What crimes have you committed."
"Things like this," answered the woman snidely. "Talking to the wrong people, saying the wrong things. I can"t help myself."
"You"re dissidents," said Picard, realizing that they had indeed picked the wrong colony to call upon. Instead of throwing off suspicions, coming here might have aroused them more.
"Ah, but we"re toothless, powerless dissidents," whispered the woman. "We"ve been spared, but we can"t leave here. We"ve been genetically altered-if we try to eat anything but the food we grow on this planet, we"ll die."
She offered him a shiny yellow fruit. "Want some?"
Picard shook his head, feeling terribly sorry for the woman and her fellow political prisoners. He wanted to tell her that Dr. Crusher could reverse the genetic engineering, but Beverly wasn"t with him. He reminded himself of his conversation with Ro; they couldn"t save the prisoners, only the Federation, if they were lucky. No doubt this was one of the colonies that the Carda.s.sians had insisted they had the right to build in the Demilitarized Zone, and the Federation had let them. What appeared to be idyllic farmland was just another prison camp for the most forgotten of Carda.s.sia"s victims, her own people.
"How long have you been here?" he asked.
She gave him a sidelong glance. "Are you sure you"re not a spy?"
"No," lied Picard, wondering which side she thought he was on. "How do I know you"re not a spy?"
"You don"t. However, it was you who ran into me, and you are the stranger here. Plus, you are the only one of us who is allowed to leave."
"I wish that were so," muttered Picard, "but we"re under observation by two warships."
The woman smiled. "We are always under observation. As they tell us when we complain, if you"re innocent, why should it matter that we"re watching you?"
"I"m called Boothby," said Picard, appreciating her sarcastic wit. Her eyes narrowed, perhaps in response to the odd nickname, Picard thought.
"Letharna," she said, apparently deciding not to comment as she sauntered down the path in the direction of the bazaar. "If you were to get away from these warships, where would you go?"
The captain knew he should be careful. But this was a fact-finding mission, and he couldn"t overlook any possible source of information, especially a dissident Carda.s.sian. Still, Picard had made a career of judging character, and he decided that Letharna was on his side.
But he was guarded as he replied, "We may never be in Carda.s.sian s.p.a.ce again, so we would want to see the biggest, most important sight there is."
"Hmmm. There is a dust cloud called the Badlands which is very unusual."
"Yes, we need to go there." Picard gazed at her, hoping that his trust wasn"t misplaced.
"But those ships won"t let you go there. That is, unless they were called away to other duty."
"Yes," said Picard, gazing benignly at the fields. "That would be ideal, if they were called away."
As some of her neighbors strolled past, Letharna held out a plump piece of fruit to Picard, and this time he took it. "This planet doesn"t have just farms," she whispered. "There is also a subs.p.a.ce relay station on the southern continent. From there, it might be possible to fake a general alert that would bring them back to their base. It might only distract them for a short time, but that could be enough to get a jump."
Deep in thought, Picard stared at the fruit in his hand, and she finally smiled at him. "You can eat it. It"s safe."
He nodded, thinking that he had already decided to trust Letharna. With a grateful smile, he bit into the fruit. "Are you sure you can"t leave here?"
"Yes. We lack the enzymes required to digest food grown anywhere but the soil of this planet. It"s a rather ingenious punishment, isn"t it? We require little security, and we"re tucked safely out of the way. Yet we"re available to be displayed when visitors want to see a nonmilitary colony. And if we don"t work hard, we starve."
Picard wanted to say that Carda.s.sians were masters of torture and imprisonment, in all their myriad forms, but his hostess already knew that.
"Your help will not be forgotten," he a.s.sured her.
"I have only begun to help you," said Letharna.
Ro Laren stared at him, aghast. "You want to take one of these people aboard our ship, show them what we"re doing, and use them to take out a subs.p.a.ce relay station?"
"Not take it out," said Picard. "We just want to send a fake message, a general alert. Those ships are close enough to get their relays from this station, and it might throw them off long enough for us to get away."
Ro shook her head vigorously but kept her voice low. "I believe you-that these people could be dissidents-but that doesn"t mean we can trust them. Some of these farmers are sure to be government plants, and the others could be crazy. What if she"s just looking for a way to escape, or to hijack our vessel?"
"She can"t leave the planet," said Picard. "Those two warships are sitting at the edge of the solar system, watching us. If you know a better way to get rid of them, I"m listening."
Ro scowled, and he knew that she didn"t have a better solution. Picard pressed his point: "In three days, we"re expected to go to Carda.s.sia Prime, a trip which could land us in a Carda.s.sian prison. Maybe they"re hoping we"ll just head back to Bajor, and that will be the end of it. But we can"t do that. We can"t shoot our way out, and we can"t talk our way out. As you say-we need to use stealth and guile."
Ro nodded politely to a clutch of Carda.s.sians as they walked by; then she strolled farther away from the bazaar. "What kind of garrison are we looking at?" she asked.
"According to Letharna, maybe ten. I believe she"s thought this out fairly well."
"I wish we had a backup plan," muttered Ro. "When do we go?"
"To allay suspicion, I would like to leave you and the others here. You seem to have quite a few crates of vegetables to inventory, and Letharna thinks that with our transporters, we can be there and back in less than an hour. We won"t even have to change our orbit."
Picard motioned toward the sky, which was turning a salmon color with traces of vibrant orange. "It"s already dark on the southern continent."
Before Ro could reply, the head man of the village strode up to them, a concerned look on his face. "You look unhappy. Is everything all right?" asked the gangly Carda.s.sian.
"Yes," answered Ro, mustering a smile. "My shipmate here doesn"t like the price we got for the silk, but I overruled him."
"It"s simply vegetables I don"t like," said Picard with a friendly smile. "I"ll return to the ship and make room for them in the hold."
"A gift for you then," said the Carda.s.sian, "for accepting an uneven trade."
He handed Picard a small scroll, which the captain politely took. It wasn"t until his hand closed around the object that Picard realized it was solid, not paper-the scroll was wrapped around another cylindrical object. The intense look on the Carda.s.sian"s face told Picard that he had better accept the gift with no questions asked, and no examination until later.
"Thank you," said the captain solemnly. He tapped his comm badge. "One to beam up."
A few moments later, Picard materialized in the stylish but small transporter room of the Orb of Peace. La Forge was at the controls, looking quite dashing with his dangling earring, nose ridges, and pilot"s goggles, which hid his ocular implants.
"Captain," said Geordi. "Anyone else?"
"One more person," said Picard, jumping off the transporter platform. "But first, help me unwrap this gift."
He carefully removed the scroll to find a copper-colored cylinder with magentic strips along its length and a blue label at the top.
"Hmm," said the engineer with appreciation, "an isolinear rod, Carda.s.sian design. What does it control?"
"I think we"ll find out soon." Picard leaned over the transporter console and entered prearranged coordinates into the computer. "Beam up one, from that location."
"Yes, sir." La Forge completed the procedure, and another figure began to materialize in a column of sparkling light. Even wearing goggles, it was evident that the engineer"s eyes widened considerably when he got a good look at the newest arrival.
Letharna stepped down from the transporter platform and glanced around at her ornate surroundings. "I can"t believe I"m in s.p.a.ce again ... on a Bajoran vessel."
"Unfortunately, there"s no time to show you around," said Picard. "Are you ready?"
She pointed to the object in his hand. "Good, you have the isolinear rod. That will help."
Picard was having second thoughts, realizing that he had jeopardized their entire mission on a hunch. If he was wrong about Letharna-if she was well meaning but unstable-they could very well doom themselves to capture and torture. For his own satisfaction, he had to ask, "Why are you doing this?"
Letharna glared at him. "I"m no traitor if that"s what you"re getting at. The Dominion is exactly what we have always feared. While our military leaders strut and preen, they let an outside force take over our civilization. Wasn"t it a terran who said, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely"? The absolute power of the military made us weak and corrupt, unable to resist the lure of the Dominion. This is why I help you, whoever you are."
Picard glanced at La Forge, and the two old comrades exchanged a shrug. It wasn"t the first time they had gambled.
"Stay here, Geordi," said the captain. "We"re going to need an experienced hand on the transporter."
Chapter Seven.
ON BOARD THE Tag Garwal, Sam Lavelle took personal control of the conn, deciding to pilot the antimatter tanker himself on their first test flight. Taurik sat nearby on ops, monitoring ship"s systems. The towering Deltan, Tamla Horik, was on tactical, manning the tractor beam in lieu of weapons. Grof, the two material handlers, and the transporter chief were also available, but Sam knew that he and Taurik were basically the bridge crew. In fact, the others weren"t even on the bridge but below, fussing over the transporter, mining probe, and recombination storage chamber.
He was glad this wasn"t a Jem"Hadar ship, because he didn"t think he"d have time to get used to an eyepiece for visual input instead of the more traditional viewscreen. Carda.s.sian technology was roughly equivalent to Federation technology, and they had all studied Miles...o...b..ien"s compendium of Carda.s.sian technology.
It helped that today"s mission wasn"t very difficult. They were to disengage from the docking sphere and take a short spin five thousand kilometers into s.p.a.ce, where they would grab a dummy cargo bin with the tractor beam and bring it back. Sam presumed all of this would take place under the watchful eye of the military vessels docked around them.
He tapped the comm panel on the arm of his chair. "Lavelle to crew. We"ve run through our checklist, and the bridge systems are ready for launch. Does anyone need a delay?"
"No, get moving," grumbled the voice of Enrak Grof. "We"re ready."
"Affirmative," said Sam, pressing another b.u.t.ton. "This is tanker Tag Garwal to station control, seeking permission to launch on test flight zero-zero-one."
On his screen came the familiar face of Joulesh, the Vorta, looking delighted with his charges. "Tag Garwal, you are clear to launch. We"ve rerouted incoming traffic for you. Good luck."
Sam didn"t know whether to thank Joulesh for his precautions or not. All of them had flown more difficult flights than this as second-year cadets, and he antic.i.p.ated no problems. He supposed that Grof was right about one thing: they were constantly forced to prove themselves to their captors.
"Retracting airlock and disengaging," said Sam. He wiped Joulesh"s grinning face off the viewscreen and put up the view from the nose of the tanker. Sam felt as if he should be nervous, but it was such a relief to be back at the conn of a ship, doing what he had been trained to do. Without hesitation, he fired thrusters and slowly piloted the bulky tanker away from the s.p.a.cedock.
Once they were cruising at full impulse power through s.p.a.ce, Sam couldn"t help but to look at Taurik and smile. The Vulcan, of course, gave him only a blank stare, and he was forced to look at the Deltan to convey his pleasure. The bald female beamed back at him, sharing his joy at this momentary taste of freedom.
Sam set his course and put the ship on automatic pilot to insure it was working properly. Once they got to the black hole, they would be depending a great deal on the automatic settings, and there would be no room for error, human or machine. He carefully monitored their progress, and they covered the five thousand kilometers in what seemed like seconds.
Looking like a trash bin floating in s.p.a.ce, a large rectangular object loomed ahead of them, and Sam slowed to one-third impulse.
"Ready tractor beam," he ordered.
"This is too easy," grumbled the Deltan. "Graviton levels steady, tractor beam ready."
Sam brought the ship to a full stop and used his thrusters to reverse her heading. "All right, latch on."
The Deltan plied her controls as Sam watched the invisible bonds twist their cargo around and draw it closer to the tail of their ship. "Tractor beam holding," reported the Deltan. "Levels steady."
"I would love to take it to warp," said Sam, "but I think that would surprise our trainers too much. I"m setting course back to the dock."
Reluctantly, Sam piloted the craft and its dummy cargo back to the sphere they had left about ten minutes earlier. The successful but rapid conclusion of their test flight left him feeling oddly disappointed, and he didn"t want the mission to end.
In some respects, this was the cruelest punishment of all, he decided, waving a tantalizing glimpse of freedom and normality under their noses before forcing them back into their cage. He began to understand how Enrak Grof had evolved into a collaborator. It would be hard to give up feeling useful and responsible-to go back to being a prisoner awaiting death.
"We"re docked," he announced to no one in particular. "Mission complete."