Gulliver's Fugitives Part 28

He typed a command into the computer: Search for the last images of the Huxley.

And there they were. He saw himself crawling around inside the ship. It had crash landed. It was burning. CS men pulled him out, only him. His face was on fire. They rolled him in the dirt to put it out. He tried to go back in, because all his crew were inside, but the CS held him back, and then the ship exploded.

His eyes shifted focus and he looked at his own reflection on the monitor. He, Bowles, had never seen that face before. It was keloid-scarred, and the features were so strange-as if his face were pressed against a clear membrane.

Bowles suddenly looked away from the screen. Had he heard someone outside the door? Suddenly aware that he hadn't listened to his headset for several minutes, he turned it back on. He heard the comm officer telling patrols to find the Director of Cephalic Security and report back, because the director was not answering his page.

There was no more time to look at the disk. He left it where it was and fled.

As he hurried toward the evidence repository he saw several CS personnel looking at him and speaking into their headsets, reporting that they saw him.

The clerk at the repository looked startled at the director's demand for one of the Enterprise communicators, but relinquished it without question.

Bowles then rushed to the electronic warfare room, and ordered the Electronic Warfare Officer to turn off the jamming for the Enterprise communicators.

The EWO, a thick-necked young man with crew-cut hair, just stared at him and listened to the voices on his headset.

"Something wrong with your hearing?" Bowles asked.

The EWO's face started to shine with sweat.

"Instructions have just been issued. Your orders are to be ignored by all personnel, sir."

"No one except the Council itself can override me, Lieutenant."

"The order came from the Council, sir, with all the proper verifications."

The EWO listened to his headset some more, then steeled himself to do his duty.

"A squad is waiting on the other side of that door to arrest you, sir. Would you please unlock it and step outside?"

"It's a fiction, Lieutenant. The Council hasn't ordered any such thing. Dissenters have been at work here. Didn't they just yesterday compromise our communications system with their blasphemies?"

The EWO hesitated.

"But sir, they say you helped the Dissenters ..."

"You actually believe that?"

The EWO rose, a gun in his hand.

"Lieutenant," said Bowles, "I'll have you arrested for disobeying the Director of Cephalic Security. I'll have you blanked!"

The EWO cupped his hand over his headset, trying to listen.

Bowles reached over and ripped his hand away.

"Look at me. I'm Crichton. Your eyes tell the truth. Those voices are giving you fiction!"

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Picard sat in his command chair and waited as his crew continued to attempt contact with Crichton/Bowles.

Troi and Riker sat on either side, both evincing more anxiousness than their commanding officer.

Worf looked up from his console.

"No answers to our hails. No sign of our man in any video signal."

"Sir," said Data, "the time allotted by Starfleet for our continued reconnaissance has elapsed."

"Noted," said Picard. "Continue to scan, Worf."

"Shall I prepare to warp out of orbit, sir?" asked Wesley.

"No, Mr. Crusher," said Picard, with a slight edge to his voice. "Rest a.s.sured I will advise you when I want you to do that."

Data turned around in his chair. He wanted to see the appearance of a human doing something deliberately independent from the forces which had due authority over him. Such a thing was so typically human, so eminently useful to an android in the adolescent stage of his social development.

Picard smiled at him.

"I wish to give the counselor's hypothesis a full test," said the captain. "We won't be leaving until I'm sure we've done so."

"Sir," said Troi tentatively, "I don't want the ship to be endangered more than necessary. I could be wrong."

"You could be."

"Captain," said Worf, "the Rampartian ships are moving ... they've now got us within the radius of their weapons."

"Increase power to the shields."

The bridge speakers vibrated roughly. It was the sound of someone clearing their throat.

Then, "Come in, Enterprise."

Picard stood up.

"It's coming from the surface sir," said Worf. "From one of our own communicators."

"This is Captain Picard. To whom am I speaking?"

"To Captain Alfred Bowles. Permission to beam aboard your ship, Captain."

"Are there others with you?"

"No. There are no other survivors from the Huxley. I'll explain when you get me aboard. I suggest you hurry sir, before I'm arrested by my own soldiers."

"Worf-have the man beamed up. Wesley, lay in a course for Starbase Eighty-one, Warp Factor Four."

"Aye, sir. Course laid in. All systems answer ready."

"Beaming complete," said Worf.

"Engage," said Picard.

On the viewscreen, the stars and the clouds of blue nebula dust changed shape, stretching into an illusion of linearity as the ship shot away from Rampart at one hundred times the speed of light.

Chapter Nineteen.

TROI SAT INTROSPECTIVELY in Picard's ready room while Picard and Riker talked about their experiences on Rampart.

Riker held open Picard's copy of the complete works of William Shakespeare.

"I was lucky to remember anything at all, given the circ.u.mstances," said Riker. "My commanding officer was brainwashed, the CS were trying to break down the door, and I hadn't read Hamlet since ... longer than I care to mention."

"I think I see a cautionary tale here," said Picard.

Riker laughed, closed the book and put it on Picard's desk.

" 'To hold, as 'twere, a mirror up to nature' ... Maybe if the man were alive now, in the age of non-linear s.p.a.cetime, he'd make the mirror curved; his plays would be a curving mirror for a curving universe."

As the two men talked, Troi could feel how relieved they were to have gotten each other through their ordeal unscathed. But she sensed more than that: inside, they really did feel a lot like father and son. Perhaps they could fulfill for each other those needs which the courses of their lives had left unmet.

She wondered if Picard would let down his reserve and show his feelings just a bit. Riker already had-one didn't have to be an empath to see it.

Bowles arrived at that moment and received cordial greetings. He wore a new Starfleet uniform. He seemed a bit tentative about his surroundings, but relaxed. His scarred face had a new mobility-he wasn't exactly smiling, but his mouth did have a hint of upturn.

"How are you feeling, Al?" asked Picard.

"Not bad, actually. I guess when you've been asleep for ten years, at least you're fairly well rested. There are huge areas of my memory missing, though. My childhood and teens don't exist. I have never been young. My personal life doesn't exist, either. My Starfleet training is still with me; I have the knowledge itself, but I can't remember going to Starfleet Academy. Were you and I there at the same time?"

"Yes. And, yes, I did know you."

"Oh." Bowles seemed almost afraid to ask for more information. "I guess I must have done all right. I made Captain."

"You were brilliant," said Picard. "Actually, you were torn between two pursuits, Starfleet and holography. You were a holographic artist. I expect when you get back you'll be able to visit galleries and see plenty of your work."

Bowles was stunned. He had to sit down.

"That explains so much."

He stared at his hands.

"When I was Crichton and I started having ... 'hallucinations,' one of them was of myself making a holostatue of a talking thousand-year-old tree. Crichton had a great deal of trouble with that one. It had everything-aliens, art ..."

"Why do you think you-or rather, Crichton-were chosen to become Director of Cephalic Security?" asked Picard. "Wouldn't he have been a bad risk?"

"Not at all. It didn't matter what a person had been before blanking. One became a clean slate. Crichton was given someone else's past. But he had a special apt.i.tude for creating images the public needed, and rose through the ranks. He was the best they'd ever had in the Director job. It wasn't until your arrival that the Bowles memories started emerging."

"Sort of like pentimento," said Troi, "when a painter paints over his original work, but then years later the original shows through."

"Yes." He continued to stare at his hands. "But I guess the Rampartians were using my innate abilities all along. Or misusing them."

"Al," said Picard, "I highly recommend that you talk some of these things out with the counselor. She is the best Starfleet has to offers."

"Let me second the invitation," said Troi, "while disclaiming the flattery."

"Appreciate the offer," said Bowles. "I was just remembering that Crichton had a compulsion to wash his hands. I think he was really trying to wash off my art."

"Yes," said Troi. "The hand-washing was a clue for me. I eventually remembered that Captain Bowles had been an artist. Everything fell into place then. I saw how I'd been wrong and at the same time right all along ... how I had first felt Crichton was secretly remembering aliens ... then how I felt he was hallucinating fictions. In fact, he was remembering aliens-those he'd seen in Starfleet-but he mistakenly believed them to be fictions."

Bowles looked away from his hands and gazed out the porthole.

"What do you think Starfleet will do about Rampart?" he asked, directing his question to all of them.

"They'll want to know all they can about the Huxley," said Picard. "They'll gather any further evidence, and give the Rampartians a warning about attacking other ships. And that's probably it. We had to evolve our own way out of our age of horror, and the Rampartians will have to do likewise. If they don't, they'll be stuck on their isolated little rock forever."

"They've already discovered," said Bowles, "that alien life exists on their own planet. They saw science fiction become real. You know why the Council kept the Huxley incident so secret? Why they blanked it out of the minds on Rampart? They were afraid the mere idea of s.p.a.ce voyaging would spread the scourge of science fiction on their own planet and people would imagine a universe full of alien life waiting to be discovered, and clamor for useless exploration. Now, maybe in a few generations, Rampart actually will begin exploration."

He rose.

"Anyway, thanks to you all."

"It's the counselor you should thank," said Picard. "We would have left Rampart knowing nothing about you and the fate of the Huxley if it weren't for her."

"Then, thank you especially, Counselor Troi."

Now he really was smiling.

"I hope I can be of further help," she said.

"One favor," said Bowles. "Don't tell me too much about my past. My childhood and teens and all that. I was in your Ten-Forward lounge earlier, talking with your alien hostess-philosopher. She said I was in an enviable position, because I get to do all that all over again. Anyway, I think I'm going to go have some more of her tea and advice."

He left and the doors swished shut behind him.

"Why don't you take the bridge for a moment, Number One," Picard said to Riker. "I need to speak with the counselor. Afterward, I have something in mind for us."

"Aye, sir."

When Riker had gone, Troi and Picard sat silently. She watched the stars outside the porthole, and Picard watched her.

"Still having regrets about your choice?"

"What choice?" she asked.