Gulliver's Fugitives Part 12

"Let him stay a moment," said Crichton. He still looked at the papers on his desk. Sweat trickled down the scars on his mask-like face.

Finally Crichton looked up partway, at the level of Picard's chest. Picard had the impression Crichton was hiding something, which eye contact might make him betray.

If I provoke him, thought Picard, perhaps I can make him reveal something, or entrap him. If fiction is a capital crime here, then Crichton can't actually lie to me.

Crichton began to speak. The words emerged from his mouth like hard, dry pellets.

"We deal only in facts here," he said. "Irrefutable facts. For what, then, do we need trials, lawyers, or judges? A person either committed a crime or they did not. There are no ambiguities for argument. All crimes are clearly doc.u.mented on this planet; that is what Cephalic Security is for. If you were to commit a crime right now, as you can see," he said, pointing in an arc at all the lenses and antennae, "your crime would be a matter of record. In fact, your crimes were a matter of record as soon as our one-eyes first intercepted your brain waves, on your ship. This sentencing is merely a completion of the file."

"Then sentence me," said Picard, "and let my crewmembers and my ship go. I'm the captain, I'm responsible for their actions. They were just following my orders. You have no cause to prosecute them."

"You are all guilty of high crimes," said Crichton. "It's a matter of record."

"And exactly what are these high crimes?"

"You already know."

"Maybe I just want you to look at me and say it. The crime of having an imagination and using it? The crime of speculating, of creating, of thinking at all, is that it?"

"We manage to think quite a bit. Enough to get along without the help of anyone from Earth, which was in a pretty sorry state when my ancestors left."

"What you do is not thinking any more than the p.r.o.nouncements of a mynah bird. And I'll tell you something else, Crichton. Earth is in fine shape, and we got there by doing exactly the opposite of all this. Crichton! Aren't you going to look me in the eye just once?"

Picard advanced a step. The CS men grabbed him roughly. One of them raised his hand to strike.

"No," said Crichton. "Don't harm his body."

As if unable to resist some inner temptation, Crichton lifted his eyes to meet Picard's.

It was just a quick glance, and then he returned his attention to his paperwork. He immediately went pale, and then grabbed his head with both hands, pressing as if to keep it from exploding. Through clenched teeth he groaned, "Get him out of here."

As the CS roughly shoved Picard out of the office, he heard someone from inside say, "Call the medical staff!"

"No!" he heard Crichton reply. "I'm going to see my own doctor."

Picard was taken under heavy guard back to the little white cell. On the way he tried to make sense out of his interview with Crichton-but couldn't. He didn't believe all persons who used their imaginations on this planet could be executed without trial. Eventually there would be too few people to keep the machines running. Eventually there would be no people at all.

By the time he was locked back in his room, he thought he might have hit upon the answer. It wasn't simple capital punishment, it was worse.

Riker awoke in a small white room. He had a devastating headache. Gradually the memory of the fight at the ore factory came back to him. He figured that the radiation gun Ferris shot him with was responsible for the pain. It was so bad he couldn't move a muscle.

He lay for a long time, watching news reports on the video screen. He was in one of them; it was a piece on his capture at the ore factory. And there was Ferris and the CS.

The funny thing was, the report had been edited in such a way as to distort what had happened. Riker saw how he was shown unfavorably while Ferris was presented as a hero.

Riker thought perhaps he should complain about it. The idea made him laugh in a gallows-humor sort of way. Laughing made his head hurt worse and he had to stop.

The pain was still very bad when the CS came and took him. He was led past Crichton's office to a smaller door inscribed with Major Ferris' name.

Inside, Major Ferris, helmeted and in white dress uniform with twinkling medals, sat behind his desk.

Riker gritted his teeth and tried to speak.

"Where-" he began, but stopped as the pain flared like a welding torch burning into his head.

"Keep your mouth shut," said Ferris. "The prisoner isn't allowed to speak until sentence is read."

Ferris then sentenced Riker to death, using the same words Crichton had used with Picard.

"And my friends?" asked Riker slowly, with great effort.

"I'm not required to speak to you about them, or anything else," Ferris said stiffly.

Riker pictured Picard, Troi, and Data in small white rooms awaiting execution. He thought how disappointed poor Data must be at the behavior of the humans on this planet. But then he thought, Data'll throw these fools a curve or two.

Ferris listened to his headset for a moment.

"I am informed," he said, "that you just committed another crime of fiction-making. You just thought of your android as a person, when he is merely a device."

"No, he is a person, and that person, and all the rest of my friends and crew, will defeat you," said Riker. "You can't imagine how because you can't imagine anything, but they will."

Ferris almost replied but stopped himself. Riker could see the hate on his face. Ferris still hadn't fought him one-on-one and drawn the primal blood he wanted so badly.

"Return the prisoner to his cell," said Ferris, thick-voiced.

After Riker had been taken away, a CS officer entered and saluted.

"Major Ferris, sir. The Director of Cephalic security is on his way back to his office."

"Is his health better, Lieutenant?"

"Yes, sir. I talked to him myself. He requests you carry out the executions immediately, starting with the prisoner Picard. The android is already being dismantled."

In the type of lab known as a "clean room," with controlled atmosphere to filter out even the smallest dust particles, several men in lab coats and mouth-masks prepared to permanently disa.s.semble Data and learn all of his mechanical secrets.

The technicians were unarmed but wore CS helmets to filter out fiction or blasphemy the android might try to utter. A trio of one-eyes hovered in the background as guards.

Data was lying at an angle, held onto a tilting lab table by several steel restraints. Above him cl.u.s.tered cameras and other recording devices. The dismantling would be well doc.u.mented.

The CS already knew a lot about Data by what they stole from the minds of the Enterprise crew. But they didn't know as much as they might. Many of the theories behind Data's design and construction had been censored by the one-eyes and were never input into the central CS computers. Such theories were unverifiable given current Rampartian knowledge, and had to be cla.s.sified as criminal science fiction until they could be proven true by actual dismantling of "the Data unit itself."

The supposed account of Data's genesis, of the inventor Soong and Data's "brother" android Lore, and of Data's entire personal history also had to be censored out of the Rampartian information-pool. The story had the qualities of a fairy tale, especially of a certain abominable children's story about a wooden puppet who wanted to be human.

"Press its switch," said one of the technicians. "We'll take some measurements with the unit powered up. Our schedule allows for some observation before disa.s.sembly."

A white-gloved hand slid under Data's back and pressed the switch.

Data's eyes jerked open. He looked about.

Some of the technicians watched him, while others peered at dials and meters on their equipment.

"Excuse me," said Data. "May I inquire where I am?"

"Great voice emulator system," said a tech, looking at an oscilloscope.

"Where are my friends?" Data asked. "May I communicate with them, or with my ship?"

The techs ignored his requests, which he repeated in various forms as they performed tests on him. By their comments to each other, uttered as though Data were not even there, he understood that they were preparing to dismantle him.

An idea occurred to him-a weapon he might use against them. He didn't have enough information to know for certain what effect the weapon would have, but its theoretical base was sound.

In a voice that would have carried out to the last row of a theater, he said: "Cries of carbuncle ecstasy when you perfume her with Chyme de Voltaire; Mary Queen of Callipygian Beetles rubbed against gallstone-pattern wallpaper scream scream; Monkey milkshake squirting from her tear ducts in the quiet dawn so fun-sized; Podiatrists smell like wet dog resonators, so they called him Bob Crowned With Savory Carbon Atoms."

The techs looked at each other, baffled. One of them t.i.ttered, then put his hand over his mouth.

"You hear all that?"

"Some of it. My headphones cut out some parts but let me hear others."

"Mine, too. Something's mixed up."

"Hey, Jack, look at the one-eyes. I just gave one a thought order and it didn't respond."

"Looks like they're frozen up."

Data saw that the one-eyes were hovering immobile, as he had postulated. Intriguing.

He strained with all his strength against the solid steel bars that held him against the table; he was able to flex them a bit, but they were too strong even for him to break.

Maybe under different circ.u.mstances, he thought, the strategy could have been used for escape.

The techs were momentarily cl.u.s.tered around the trio of motionless one-eyes.

"There. Back on line. Just a little glitch."

"All right, let's keep to the schedule and start the disa.s.sembly. Shut the unit off."

Data felt a hand reach behind his back.

In the s.p.a.ce of a microsecond, Data thought of each living being he'd ever known and said a silent good-bye to them all.

Chapter Ten.

THE SMALL CAVE-ROOM wreathed Troi in its cold dampness. She sat leaning back against the wall, the stone drawing the warmth from her flesh, making the flesh feel like stone, too.

Since she had found no escape option, she had decided to use her time in these caves as best she could. She was going to invite contact with the alien Other-worlders and try to unlock their secret, which she hoped would unlock Crichton's secret as well.

She had considered what had happened during her previous contacts with the Other-worlders, and concluded that since only her mind, not her body, had been transported into their universe or state of being, she should be in no physical danger.

Still, the thought of confronting them was terrifying. The fear was causing waves of nausea to wash through her. She told herself that she didn't have to lose control of the encounter; she had broken it off voluntarily the first time, and she could do it again.

Troi shut her eyes and opened her empathic sense. The Other-worlders were all around her. She sent out a mental invitation to them. A moment pa.s.sed and nothing happened, so she opened her eyes.

The walls and roof of the cave were gone. She was in the midst of an oceanic mult.i.tude of Other-worlders. Under a sky filled by a huge spiral galaxy they covered the ground from horizon to horizon.

Those near enough to show their detail were greatly variegated-some humanoid, others of inconceivable shape and dimension. Among them Troi recognized the Mirror Man and the Lioness, but they were only two faces in the infinite horde. This was not the situation she had expected and she didn't know how to initiate any kind of dialogue.

She noticed that she was up on a raised platform. The horde was scrutinizing her with such intensity she had to look down at her body. She found she was nude. Her skin felt strange. It was changing, hardening as she watched, developing small sparkling flecks.

Then she became aware that the inside of her body was changing as well. She felt heavy. Her body temperature began to drop.

She tried in vain to move or speak. They were trying to put her through that same bodily metamorphosis they had attempted during her earlier contacts. Now it was going further. It felt like freezing or dying. In spite of her earlier determination to stay in control and not panic, her fear was too great and she couldn't help but try to break the contact in an effort to return to her familiar world. But this time she couldn't. She tried to cry out but her mouth and throat were no longer capable of it. Troi had the feeling that some hidden piece of fearsome knowledge was about to be revealed to her.

Someone spoke her name. She felt herself being rocked like a heavy object, as though she were a boulder.

Then she suddenly unfroze and found herself sitting in the cave, back in her proper universe.

Rhiannon was squeezing her arms.

"Hey! Hey! Deanna!"

Troi was covered in a film of sweat, yet shivering.

"Felt sick."

"I can see that. I thought you were dying or something."

Troi wiped her forehead on her sleeve, then rubbed her eyes. Rhiannon watched her with concern.

Troi knew, with a feeling of dread, that if the vision had continued, the metamorphosis would have been completed. Yet she knew she would have to let it complete if she were going to discover the hidden knowledge of the Other-worlders. It seemed they would not communicate with her in any other way.

"Do you want me to get you anything?" asked the girl.

"No. I'm okay now. It was just a dream."

Rhiannon glanced at Troi's wrists, which still bore the metal bands from the CS' cuffs.

"I can get Nikitushka Lomov to cut those off."

"Maybe later."

Rhiannon smiled at her with a mouthful of crooked teeth.