Tooth And Claw Part 10

"Do not presume to mock our ways," Akarr snarled, and this time all the Tsorans turned their challenge-gazes on him-all but Ketan, who was simply too miserable. Even Gavare, the only Tsoran who had offered Riker any small degree of respect-in fact, Gavare most of all, his gaze not only hard but his lip lifted in a gesture of snarl.

Riker took a deep breath. "My intent is not to mock your ways." Well, maybe it was, but at least it got your attention. "Just because you don't push your courage to the obvious limit doesn't mean you don't have it, Akarr. Courage can mean facing that of which you're most afraid. It looks to me like you're afraid of returning to the museum in a manner in which it looks like you've been rescued."

"He doesn't need to be rescued," Gavare snapped. "None of us do."

"Rescuing you is not why Worf is here," Riker said. Word games. How he hated them. "He's here to replace the faulty transportation."

Word games ... but it got then-attention.

"You've already done more than any before you-even those on their tenth kaphoora," Takan said thoughtfully to Akarr. "It should be enough."

Enough for what?

"Not without a trophy," Akarr responded. But he looked over at Ketan.

"There's still time for that," Rakal said, giving Riker a hard look, one that said stay out of this.

Riker was glad to, although he couldn't help an inner observation that there was bound to be plenty of opportunity for further contact with trophy beasts on a walk back to the shuttle, given their experience so far. As if to reinforce the thought, the clattering cry from the day before echoed above them, starting out in one place, ending in another entirely. They'd never identified that cry, Riker recalled uneasily.

Gavare gestured at Ketan. "Ketan needs a litter; he cannot walk on that leg. Once we have made that, we can act on the decision you make."

"Attend to it." Akarr's echoing gesture seemed casual, but he caught each of his guards in a hard stare, holding them that way until each twisted his head to bare a flash of throat.

The Tsorans dispersed, leaving Riker to watch Ketan against any morning activity. Gavare left last, giving Riker a parting look that would have been hard to interpret had it been coming from a familiar human face; Riker couldn't make much of it from a Tsoran.

Until he realized that Gavare had accomplished just exactly what Riker had hoped for-a delay. And Akarr's dignity, still intact. Gavare hadn't abandoned him, hadn't turned on him. He'd gone at the problem from a Tsoran direction.

Fine by Riker. Whatever it took to get the job done. If he had to play the role of the bad guy ... why, he'd find some way to relish it.

With this bunch, that wouldn't be hard.

"JeanLuc, what are you and your people up to?" The admiral's tone was slightly suspicious, her face impatient, even in miniature on the screen in Picard's ready room. "We don't have time for shuttle malfunctions, we don't have time for diplomatic tap-dancing with the Tsorans. Haven't you read your own chief medical officer's report on the projected Ntignano fatalities? This is a serious situation!"

"And I can a.s.sure you, Admiral Gromek, I'm taking it quite seriously. I have personnel down and missing in an intensely dangerous environment, and I take that seriously, as well." No real news from La Forge at last contact, either-Worf was still gone, and the communications problem still unresolved. "I'm acquainted with Dr. Crusher's report, and I receive constant updates on the status of the Ntignano sun. But the Tsorans are... difficult. We're doing our best to draw them out, but frankly ..."

"Don't mince words-you're only wasting my time."

Picard shrugged. So be it. "They don't want to come out and play, Admiral."

Admiral Gromek stared at him, her face gone stiff with disbelief. "Did I hear you correctly, Captain? They don't want to come out and play? "

"That's the gist of it," Picard confirmed. "They're stonewalling our attempts even to open conversation about the charts. Their excuse is the situation on Fandre, but frankly, I think that's all it is-an excuse. They like being in the position of having something we want. They'd like to prolong that situation as long as possible."

"We don't have time to stroke their egos over this," Gromek said. "Figure out how to get their attention, Captain Picard, and then get those charts."

"Understood," Picard said, and nodded, holding position until the screen blanked out. Then he pivoted away from the desk to go look at the rippling stars. Understood, by d.a.m.n. Better than either the admiral or Atann would be pleased with, no doubt-thanks to Ekenn and the tour, and the chance to absorb a great deal of daleura in action.

But first... the web-probe project. He'd expected a report from Barclay and Duffy before this. And since he hadn't gotten one ... this was one project he wanted to check out in person.

Picard found Barclay hunched over a schematic on deck nine, occupying a cartography work alcove, frowning deeply and utterly unaware of his entrance. As he hesitated, searching for the right moment to speak without sending the skittish diagnostics engineer across the room, Duffy came charging in from the direction of the torpedo launch bays.

"The launch log shows everything went-" he said, and faltered to a stop. "Captain!"

Barclay jolted upright. "Captain!"

"Lieutenant Duffy, Lieutenant Barclay," Picard said evenly. "You were saying?"

Duffy completed his entrance in a much more restrained manner. "I was just checking the launch logs. Didn't want to check them through the system, because that would be traceable, and we're trying to keep a low profile."

"I appreciate that. Is there some problem?"

Duffy looked at Barclay, and Barclay looked at Duffy, and finally Barclay said, "Well, you see, Captain, we're trying to-that is, we need to... well, yes."

"Yes, there's a problem," Picard confirmed in question, never quite sure when Barclay started to ramble.

"I'm sure we can handle it," Duffy said. "Lieutenant Commander La Forge's new program is a work of art, Captain. It's just that-"

"I'm sure," Barclay interrupted firmly-and then stopped short, as though he'd startled himself, "I'm fairly certain, I mean, that, uh, given time-"

"Time," Picard said, "is the one thing we don't have. If I didn't make that plain enough before, let me do so now. Whatever the problem, gentlemen, I suggest you address it."

"Just a minor adjustment in the probe synch tracking," Duffy said. "I still think it happened in the launch. We'll take care of it, Captain. Right away."

"See that you do," Picard said, giving them each a hard look. And, turning to stride out of engineering, reminding himself that Geordi La Forge had placed his trust in these two men. He would have to do the same.

And move on to other problems. "Picard to Data."

"Yes, Captain?"

"Mr. Data, please contact Atann's estate. Don't waste time trying to raise Atann himself, but see if you can determine if he's within earshot."

Moments after Data's acknowledgment, Picard sat at his desk to face one of Atann's many social secretaries.

"Captain," the Tsoran started, before Picard was even fully seated. "It is always a pleasure to speak with you. The ReynKa, however, is unavailable-"

"It doesn't matter," Picard said, interrupting with startling rudeness. Startling to aTsoran of this one's daleura, in any event, which got just the results Picard wanted-a moment of stunned silence, which he wasted no time filling. "We need to talk to the ReynKa. The ReynKa has made himself unavailable to us despite a stated commitment to the negotiations that brought us here, and our own good-faith efforts to fulfill the favors we offered to his son. Our patience is at an end. Therefore, we will make the ReynKa available to us in our own way."

"I-I don't understand-"

"No, you wouldn't. Let me explain. Each time we beam someone up with our transporters, as we have done with your ReynKa, our transporter system makes a record of that individual's molecular pattern. With that molecular pattern, we can search for, find, and beam up anyone who's been aboard the Enterprise." Picard didn't elaborate on the time involved in carrying out such a procedure with a population the size of Aksanna's. Need to know information, and the Tsorans definitely didn't. "We have every intention of prevailing upon the ReynKa in just this manner. However..." and he let the word trail off most thoughtfully.

"However... ?" the secretary obligingly repeated, a bit of a squeak in his under-purr.

"We are not unmindful of the undignified position in which this would place your ReynKa. The purpose of this communication is to offer him the choice to make the beam-up arrangements himself."

Silence. The Tsoran simply stared at him, his under purr filling the silence as its squeaky quality intensified, until his gaze darted off to the side and he said, suddenly and so quickly his words spilled out over one another, "Please stand by."

The viewscreen filled with the official Tsoran seal of orange, red, and purple, a complex thing full of glyphs and images. Picard blinked and looked away, but a smile lurked around the corners of his mouth, and he didn't expect to wait long.

He didn't.

The Tsoran returned, cleared his throat, glanced off-screen once, and said, "As it happens, ReynKa Atann has just contacted me with a request to arrange boarding. He considers it convenient that this seems to be a good time for you."

"It is indeed convenient," Picard said, keeping his expression neutral. "I have great expectations for our next conversation."

If only the ReynKa knew.

"Tktktktktktktk!"

Now, there was a sound to brighten anyone's day. Whatever it was.

Whatever it was, Riker didn't like it. And it was getting closer.

"Doesn't anything ever sleep in this place?" he muttered.

Akarr heard him, and offered a grim smile-his teeth covered, but a mocking look in his eye. "If it were easy, it wouldn't earn so much daleura," he said. "The harder it is, the better for me."

Riker eyed him a moment. "And just why is that?"

Startled out of his posturing, Akarr fumbled around like any teenager caught off his guard. "It's just the way it is," he managed, after a moment of looking for words.

A simple enough answer, if it had been simple for Akarr to come up with. But that he'd had to search so hard to find those words that said so little ... "I don't think so," Riker said. "The prime kaphoora is meant to be hard ... not impossible. It's meant to challenge you, not kill you."

"As if you'd know anything about it." Akarr watched as Rakal and Takan returned to the clearing, moving warily and dragging two long and reasonably straight lengths of flexible vine.

Not, Riker noted, vine with thorns or sticky sap, though he had to wonder what this particular plant might have in store for them. "I know enough." He tried to keep his voice neutral, to dampen his naturally a.s.sertive manner -a manner this environment had done nothing but reinforce. "I can read. Do you really think I'd be a party to this expedition, even just as pilot, without knowing some details? I've seen enough data to know that fatalities are unheard of, and serious injuries are rare-your minimal med kit speaks to those facts. It seems everyone else has had better luck using the tranks than we have."

"There is always one," Akarr said in a low voice, words which didn't quite make sense on their own.

Riker didn't try to clarify them. He waited.

"One person that historians remember, one person whose deeds can't be surpa.s.sed. We had one such on Tsora, before we hunted out our kaphoora species there. An ancestor of mine. My father, Atann, is named for him. There are others-those who excelled in dueling before it was outlawed, those in the past who led their warriors to victory against the face of great odds. They made their names stand out against all the others ... they secured their places in society. And in history."

"I've got news for you," Riker said, still of the feeling that something had gone unsaid. "Plenty of times, the historians write history how it suits them."

Akarr looked away from his men to give Riker a hard stare. "You mock us again."

"No." Riker drew his tired frame up, an emphasis for his words as he looked into the cave; Takan shifted restlessly, the dark purple of his blood seeping to the surface of the bandages around the sculper bites. "I think you hunt for impossible honors, and your men are paying the price. In my world's history, we do not honor leaders who earn their..."-well, why not use the word-"daleura this way."

"Words that might matter to me if you had any true concept of what daleura is." Akarr gave a dismissive sniff. Through talking to the outcast, apparently.

Didn't matter. Riker walked away from the cave with more information than he'd had a moment earlier. He knew that something drove Akarr beyond normal expectations for a kaphoora, and he knew it probably had something to do with a Tsoran named Takarr, whoever that was. He knew-Akarr's own men knew-that it was affecting Akarr's judgment, and that it would continue to do so.

And that they had no true recourse. They wanted to survive -but they had to do so in a way that allowed them to live afterward, as well, and Tsoran discipline for mutiny and insurgence was harsher than any Federation penalty.

"Tktktktktktktk!"

So close that Riker instinctively ducked this time, though he saw nothing. It was overhead... that meant not a , not a sculper... presumably not the snake-thing he'd run into earlier. And fast-moving, too fast-looking up, he snapped his head around to follow the sound. Still seeing nothing.

And then there they were. Black, darting between the trees, coming down for a quick strafing run on the newly created miniature clearing. Akarr stood in the cave mouth, staring ... squinting up at them with no sign of recognition on his face. Riker took a step forward and then stopped, having no idea what to do in response to the flock. It moved like a school offish, changing direction as one ent.i.ty, swift and agile and hard to follow as it flashed behind high leaves at one alt.i.tude and reappeared only a short distance later at a totally different alt.i.tude. "What... ?" Riker said, confusion finding its way out of his mouth, and his grip tightened on the bat'leth-almost a part of his hand at this point-but he didn't know what it could do against anything so small and quick as the members of this flock. Reptilian? Avian? They reminded him of streamlined miniature pterodactyls.

And then the flock was upon them, in a rush of air over leathery wings, no longer tk-tk-tk'ing, but making horrible hacking sounds that immediately brought Spot's unfortunate hairball incident to Riker's mind. And just as quickly, Rakal and Takan were down, writhing in the depleted woodpiles; Takan screamed and babbled, clearly more seriously affected as they both batted and clawed at themselves, as if trying to brush off Spitting The things were spitting.

Spitting something as nasty as it gets, and the trailing members of the flock drew up short and reversed course in what might have made a perfect hammerhead stall in an aircraft.

Coming back for another run. Riker started a run of his own, dashing for the giant rubbery leaves still intact at the edge of their clearing; the bat'leth sliced a handful of them in one stroke, and he grabbed them as they fell, sprinting for the men Gavare was now trying to haul to the safety of the cave. "Here!" he bellowed, throwing the leaves-leaves almost as big as the average Tsoran torso, and thick enough Maybe they'd work. Maybe not.

"Tktktktktktktk!"

Gavare had to drop Takan in order to s.n.a.t.c.h the leaves, so Riker went for the fallen Tsoran, shoving the flexible shelter over him, trying to shield himself with another, crouched protectively over the writhing being-and here they came, shooting over the clearing in a flattening dive That noise again, the hairball noise; a gooey substance splashed to the earth beside him, and Riker grunted with surprise and shock as some landed on the back of his exposed arm. In an instant it turned to liquid fire, soaking through his uniform, eating at his skin; he jerked in reaction as a splatter worked into his shoulder blade. Beneath him, Takan's struggles slackened; above him, the flock sounded off again, coming around for another run.

Riker grabbed the trank gun from its holster within Takan's stiff hunting vest, and, digging his fingers into the leaf midvein to wield it before himself like a literal shield, he twisted around to meet them, firing the tranks point blank and close enough to see one of the creatures jerk back from the blow; several of them wheeled away from the flock.

And then the trank-gun chamber was empty and Riker was down to the bat'leth and a scored, floppy leaf, his arm burning so hot he thought he'd feel it forever-burning right through his skin and into his brain, scattering any useful thoughts far and wide. That the attack would return meant nothing to him-that was a concept, and agony was the only concept for which he had room.

He threw himself against the nearest tree like a bear with an itch, mindlessly trying to rub the pain away; when two Fandreans grabbed him, one on either side, he didn't know or care who they were or how they got there, he just fought them. When a Klingon roar filled the air, he didn't care who'd made it; he'd already flung one Fandrean into a bush and was close to dislodging the other, all so he could throw himself back against that tree and rub the fire off, and keep rubbing even if he had to go all the way to the bone.

They shouted back and forth at one another, the first Fandrean charging back in to rejoin the second, and this time they pushed his back up against the ma.s.sively wide trunk of the very tree he so savagely sought, trying to hold him there-why? wondered the still rational corner of mind, why and who and how had they gotten here-but it was a tiny spot indeed, and quickly chased away by the agony of the burning.

Still, for that moment, for that single instant, they kept him shoved tightly against the tree and in relative safety, even as the flock-no longer moving as one, but fractured and crisscrossing the clearing in random patterns -continued the attack. As several swooped past at Riker's head level, dark blurs of leathery movement, the Klingon roar sounded again, followed instantly by the thunk of heavy metal sinking into wood.

The impaled flyer drooped around a Klingon knife next to his head-close enough to brush his cheek-was finally enough to get Riker's attention, to create a break in his struggle. Enough of a break that the clever Fandreans somehow levered him around so his face pressed into smooth, lichen-covered wood as they took his very own shield, broke the leaf at the mid-rib, and glopped the sap all over his back.

Relief.

Instant relief.

And what an incredible ... smell.

Riker closed his eyes and slowly unclenched his fingers from the tree, becoming aware of the wood jammed under his fingertips, sorting out the tingling pain of the burns from the actual process of the burning-now that that process had ceased. In the background, he heard the discharge of several trank guns, and then ... quiet.

When he opened his eyes, it was to see Worf's face, much closer than he was accustomed to viewing those dark, craggily sculptured features. Worf jerked his knife from the tree and let the flyer slide to the ground as if it were inconsequential-as if just anyone could have pinned the thing in mid flight and had the confidence to do it centimeters from his ranking officer's face. "Are you all right, Commander?"

"All right," Riker said slowly, "is a relative thing." Slowly, he straightened, pushing himself away from the tree. "Compared to a few moments ago, I'm outstanding." Compared to the day before he'd first spoken to Akarr... Carefully, he settled his shoulders back, rotating the injured arm. Perfectly functional, even if it didn't want to be, even if his body wanted to stagger away somewhere in shock. Then he eyed the scene around him-the discarded leaf, milked of all its pungent juices, and the two Fandreans, still straightening themselves out, wiping their hands off against the ground. Takan lay just exactly where Riker had left him, while Gavare and Akarr worked over Rakal at the mouth of the cave, a pile of flaccid, milked leaves beside them.

Of the flyers, there was little sign. The dead one at the base of this tree ... the two flopped limply on either side of Takan. Tranked, Riker saw. He straightened his uniform and cleared his throat. "I wasn't expecting to see you quite this soon, Mr. Worf."

"We hurried," Worf said.

Riker took the statement in, mulled it over, and nodded. "I commend you for your hurry, Mr. Worf. In fact, I will downright worship your hurry if you still have a functioning shuttle to go along with it."

"The Collins is running low-tech and heavily shielded, sir, but it is running."

One of the Fandreans plucked the tranks from the two downed flyers and gently tossed the creatures into the woods.

"Giving them a chance to come back for another try?" Riker asked, easing over to join them at Takan's body-for there had been no mistake, not even as Riker fought the flyers away over the Tsoran, that Takan had died during the battle. Riker winced now to see him-his fur was patchy and matted, and the exposed skin beneath peeled back to muscle. Did his arm look like-? He brought it around, trying to see, and couldn't.

"We stopped the digestion in your arm, but it will need treatment," the Fandrean said. "And yes, we will give the ski ks every chance to live. They have done nothing wrong here; this is their home, and they only hunt it as is their nature."