Boogeymen Part 19

"I don't have-" He looked down and saw that a pair of six-shooters was holstered at his waist. "Historical weapons," he said. He nodded and smiled grimly as he stepped forward.

The Boogeyman came forward to meet him. They faced each other with half the clearing between them.

The Boogeyman said, "You still got a chance, Riker. Leave Baldwin be."

While watching the Boogeyman, Riker whispered over his shoulder at Picard, "We must still have a good chance to find Baldwin if the Boogeymen are trying this hard to dissuade us from searching." Riker turned to the Boogeyman, and called, "Did you come to draw or to talk?"

The Boogeyman smiled, showing one gold tooth in his rotten mouth. Picard did not see him draw, but suddenly a pistol was in his hand, smoking from a single shot. Riker cried out and fell, gripping his leg. Blood flowed between his fingers.

Picard pulled Riker behind the boulder, hoping that the Boogeyman would not follow. He knelt beside Riker, feeling helpless. He touched his insignia and said, "Dr. Crusher to holodeck three. Emergency."

Nothing came over the comlink but the hiss of rushing air.

Riker's face, which had been screwed up in pain, suddenly smoothed. Astonished, Riker smiled with relief. He took his hands away from his leg, and no wound was there. No blood, no ragged hole. He said, "I wonder if they can't hurt us because they don't want to or because they can't entirely surmount the holodeck safeguards."

"Distraction is the name of the game, Number One. I am confident that they will hurt us badly if they feel the need."

While Picard knelt there thinking about the Boogeymen's talent for creating chaos and destruction, another Boogeyman swung through on a vine and dropped in front of them. He wore bell-bottomed leather breeches over thick buckled boots, and a leather vest. A saber hung at his side and a knife was clutched between his rotten teeth. His hair was long, curly, and black, and he wore a gold ring through one of his horns.

They stood up. Riker stepped a little in front of Picard.

The Boogeyman took the knife from his teeth and flipped it as he talked, always catching it by the bone handle. In his harsh voice he said, "Avast there, mates."

"I am Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the Federation starship Enterprise."

"Aye," said the pirate. "I know who you be."

"s.p.a.ce pirates?" Riker said wonderingly.

"Aye," said the Boogeyman. Suddenly he menaced them with the knife. "I be Captain Pilgrim from the Orion Nebula. And you be my prisoners."

Picard remembered such romantic creatures from when he was much younger and had an interest in popular culture. His favorite holoshow had been called "Rim Runners." This Boogeyman would have fit right in.

"A scenario based on a preoccupation of my childhood, Number One. I haven't run it in years."

"A holodeck never forgets," Riker said grimly. He grabbed the wrist of the hand that wielded the knife and tried a little karate, but Captain Pilgrim didn't even waver. He stood there, steady as a statue, and smiled a terrible smile. He said, "Things be different here on the holodeck."

"Perhaps we'd better go with him," Picard said.

"Baldwin is getting away."

"Not very far, I think," said Picard.

"Arrhh," said Captain Pilgrim. "We win. We always win."

He prodded them through the jungle until they came to a s.p.a.ceship. Though not exactly like the ones on "Rim Runners," this ship had much the same flamboyance and unlikely style. It was as big as a small house and splashed with bright primary colors. The warp engines were festooned with useless but jaunty filigree. Painted on the fin that rose off the back of the elliptical ship was a skull and crossbones.

A door dropped outward on a hinge, and Captain Pilgrim encouraged Picard and Riker up the stairway made by the inside of the door. Inside, the ship was a mad mixture of styles. Bra.s.s eighteenth-century orreries, extants, and telescopes ab.u.t.ted twentieth-century binnacles and Starfleet-issue tricorders. The walls were paneled with wood, and the furniture consisted of couches and overstuffed easy chairs; the couches before the control board might have come off the Enterprise herself. Strung from wall to wall were sails and colored flags.

Captain Pilgrim said, "Here you be and here you stay till Professor Baldwin makes his escape."

"We want to help Professor Baldwin," Riker said.

Captain Pilgrim gave a gruff laugh and forced them down a narrow stairway to a small room lit by a single lantern. When Pilgrim lowered the hatch, the room became moist and nearly airless. They could hear Pilgrim clumping around on the deck above.

Picard got comfortable on one of the big sacks stacked against the bulkhead, and said, "You might as well sit down, Number One. I would say we've been captured good and proper."

"Excuse me, sir," said Riker, "but you seem peculiarly relaxed about this situation."

With sudden intensity, Picard said, "Number One, we've already guessed that the d'Ort'd want new pushers for their ship. It's my guess that Baldwin's their first choice. But in order for him to be their pusher, he's going to have to get down to Tantamon Four. And in order to do that-"

"The d'Ort'd are eventually going to have to come to you."

Riker smiled and nodded. He sat down next to Picard, folded his hands, and together they waited.

Worf stood at ease in front of the holodeck doors while Ensign Perry sat against the wall opposite him. Perry ran a finger around inside her collar and said, "Don't you ever sweat?"

"Yes," said Worf.

After a long silence Ensign Perry said, "You're not sweating now."

Worf made a sigh that sounded like a growl and said, "I am comfortable at the moment, thank you. Generally I am much too cold."

"Doesn't that bother you?"

"I am a warrior."

Perry nodded and said, "I wish I had some water."

Worf just stiffened and ground his teeth.

Perry smiled and said, "Don't you wish you had some water?"

"No."

Perry did her best to look hurt.

A moment later three things happened at once: the holodeck doors slid open, Baldwin leapt through the opening, and Worf turned and caught him. Baldwin struggled hard, but like a child.

"I do not want to have to sit on you," Worf said.

Baldwin's fighting subsided, but Worf still held him. Worf looked around and said, "What's that smell?"

"Skunk," said Perry with surprise.

"Skunk?" said Worf.

"A small Earth animal that smells bad to protect itself. Lot of them near Grangeville, where I grew up. But what's that smell doing on the Enterprise?"

"Boogeymen," Worf said.

"What?"

"Come along. We will take Professor Baldwin to the brig for safekeeping."

"No," cried Baldwin. "You must not."

Picard sat on the steps below the hatch listening and waiting. Riker was watching him from across the room. They hadn't heard noise from above for a long time. Without warning the pirate ship disappeared, leaving Picard and Riker standing on a blank holodeck. Blank but for Captain Pilgrim. At the other side of the big room the doors were open, and through them Picard could see Worf clutching Baldwin, who was struggling. Ensign Perry stood nearby, wanting to help but not knowing how.

Captain Pilgrim walked toward them; it was almost a stroll, not the swagger that he'd used before. He spoke in the Boogeyman voice, but it had changed. It was no longer arrogant and evil, but softer, more reasonable. Pilgrim said, "Captain Picard, you must allow Baldwin to beam down to Tantamon Four."

"Whom do I have the honor of addressing?" Picard said.

"We have no individual names. You may call us Pilgrim."

Riker, always quick to get to the point, folded his arms and said, "Who are you, exactly?"

"We are the d'Ort'd."

Picard did not know what the others were doing at that moment. He was too busy dealing with his own astonishment. The d'Ort'd were obviously as alien as the sensors had shown them to be, and someday soon that alienness would be a pretty problem for a specialist like Shubunkin. Anger grew in Picard, and it overwhelmed his astonishment. He said, "Release control of my ship and we can discuss Baldwin."

"Another controls your ship. Not us. We have tried to restrain them."

"The Boogeymen?" Riker asked.

"So you call them."

"Why didn't you communicate with us before?"

"No one came on the holodeck before. Baldwin was not detained before."

Riker gave a short, humorless laugh.

"I was on the holodeck before. With two other crew members."

"For a long time we were in shock. Being installed in an alien computer is stimulating but difficult."

"Not so easy from this side of the terminal either," Riker said. He smiled, but he wasn't joking.

"Can we have a few chairs?" Picard said.

The air wavered and four armchairs off the pirate ship appeared. They faced each other across a small campfire. Picard could smell smoke, hear the wood crackling. Was the fire a trick, a calculated ploy to relax them, or just a nice touch? These chairs, this fire, in the middle of the blank holodeck gave Picard the impression of camping in the middle of a technological wilderness. Perhaps, with the Boogeymen in command, that's all Enterprise itself was at the moment. He and Riker sat down. Pilgrim sat across from Picard.

Riker said, "Where are the real d'Ort'd, the creatures who wrote your program?"

"Creatures? Like Baldwin?"

This was taking a very strange turn, Picard thought. He said, "Yes, like Baldwin."

"There are no creatures. We are the d'Ort'd."

Eagerly Picard said, "Number One, if what they say is true, it would explain why we could not find the location of the other set of aliens our sensors detected aboard the original Omega Triangulae teardrop. They have no bodies. They are a computer program."

"Computer programs don't spontaneously generate. Somebody has to write them."

Pilgrim said, "No one wrote us. Our planet has a highly organized crystalline structure. The heat from the molten core is converted to electrical energy. Over millennia, the energy became organized, too. No one wrote us. We evolved."

Contemplatively, almost as if speaking to himself, Picard said, "You were part of the information Baldwin took from the teardrop ship on Tantamon Four. You were on the infowafer he brought aboard."

"We were happy to help Baldwin delete himself from Federation records."

"Why?" Riker said.

Pilgrim said, "We want Baldwin. We need him." A little of the old Boogeyman barbed inflection returned to his voice momentarily.

"To be your pusher?" Picard said.

"Yes. Our organic units died on Tantamon Four. We need Baldwin to be our pusher so that we can go home."

"Only Baldwin?" Riker said.

"Yes. Enterprise has no focusing mechanism. Many minds were needed to push your ship back to Tantamon Four. Our ship has the focusing mechanism. We need only Baldwin to push the ship into warp."

Picard nodded and said, "Knowing that should please Baldwin and Shubunkin." As he had guessed, the d'Ort'd were indeed the key to Enterprise's problems, or at the center of them, anyway. If they were telling the truth about not being able to control the Boogeymen, knowing the d'Ort'd were a living race only made things more complicated.

Riker said, "Baldwin was aboard your ship for months, poking around, doing tests. If you needed him, why did you allow him to leave?"

"We didn't know he was there. We were asleep, awaiting rescue."

"A rescue mission is on its way?"

"Perhaps."

"Enough of this," Picard said. "Before we can discuss Baldwin, I must have control of the Enterprise."

"The Boogeymen are in control. We can restrain them, but we cannot stop them. When we decided to help Baldwin erase himself from your records, we let him modify our basic structure for his purposes. That modification allowed your Boogeymen to attach themselves to us."

"So you can't get rid of them either," Riker said.

"That is correct," the d'Ort'd replied. "Nor can we stop spreading through your computer. It is our nature to grow. The Boogeymen grow with us."

Picard wondered again if the d'Ort'd were telling the truth about their powerlessness against the Boogeymen. He decided there was no way to know and therefore it was not worth worrying about till circ.u.mstances forced him to do so. He had enough to worry about as it was-and clearly, their first concern was stopping the Boogeymen.

Picard called out, "Mr. Worf, please have Professor Baldwin join us."

Baldwin fought Worf briefly and then went limp. Ensign Perry followed and stood between Picard and Riker. "Sir?" she said.