Tooth And Claw Part 2

True enough, Worf had been placed in the front port seat, opposite the ReynTa's extra-roomy accommodations. Three of his security crew sat behind him, and one sat copilot with Riker, spelling him regularly over the long and tricky journey-and for those unexpected moments when the ranking officer felt compelled to bolt from his seat and stop the brawling in the back.

The roomy cargo shuttle allowed more s.p.a.ce in the aisles between the seats than the medium-range personnel shuttle, and had an additional two seats in the back, along with a reasonably s.p.a.cious head-not to mention Akarr's special seating. Eight pa.s.sengers on a long journey Riker had hoped the extra s.p.a.ce would keep the inevitable tensions low.

Apparently not.

"Mighty sybyls! This is little honor, to travel with such an escort. Can you not keep your people in line?"

"We still don't know what happened," Riker said, and eyed the now shamefaced ensign before him. Her long blonde hair had come loose from its restricting clip; tendrils of it hung askew along the side of her cheek. "Dougherty?"

"I... I'm not sure, sir," she said, sneaking a glance at her opponent, trying to tuck her hair back. "I was just sitting there ... I wasn't doing anything in particular. I guess ... sir, you could say my mind wandered."

"It's a long trip, Ensign," Riker said. "But that doesn't explain what happened." He turned her head aside to confirm that she did indeed bear the light marks of two claws near the back of her jaw, oozing but not dripping blood.

Akarr snapped something, too fast for the universal translator to decipher, and the Tsoran beside Riker-taller than most of them, and with an unusual cinnamon cast to his coat-shifted, looking away from Akarr. Finally, his words more difficult to understand than Akarr's, he said, "She was staring at me at an improper time. It was a great rudeness. She would not look away."

Riker glanced at Dougherty, who still didn't seem anything more than puzzled. "Did you," he said carefully, "ask her to look away?"

"I did," the Tsoran said with great dignity.

"I couldn't understand him," Dougherty said. "So I looked at him to ask him to repeat what he'd said-"

Ah. One Tsoran, in some private moment that happened to fall under the gaze of a human whose mind had wandered off and didn't even know she appeared to be staring. And then, in misunderstanding, she really had stared.... Riker was suddenly reminded of childhood territory disputes. He put his finger on my side of the shuttle! Wonderful. "It appears that both parties bear equal blame," he said, to Akarr as much as anyone else. "Ensign, didn't you read the contact protocol?"

"Yes, sir, but-"

"No buts," he said sharply. "You clearly didn't read it closely enough. Go wait for me up front, and I'll provide you with another copy." To Akarr and his security force-all males, as far as he could tell-he said, "I apologize for the misunderstanding. I hope in the future you'll understand that we have little experience with your species, and that any error in manners is an inadvertent one." He looked at Akarr in particular and said, "As far as we're concerned, nothing has changed; this was merely an unfortunate incident that no one else needs to know about. We'll disembark on Fandre as your formal honor escort, as planned." Whatever the h.e.l.l a "formal honor escort" was... but it sounded good.

Akarr must have thought so as well. Although his lower mouth was pouched up in the same distinct but hard-to-read expression he'd worn in Ten-Forward, he made a motion with his hand-and then, as an afterthought, nodded in the equivalent human gesture.

Good. And only a few more hours to go before their "full formal honor escort" arrived at Fandre, after which Riker alone would pilot Akarr into the preserve, and happily wait in the shuttle for the Tsoran to complete his prime kaphoora, snag his trophy, and present himself for a triumphant return.

Worf stood in the narrow entrance to the shuttle conn, and Riker hesitated there, murmuring, "Do you have any idea what that was about, Mr. Worf?"

Worf's murmur was more like a ba.s.s hum; Riker tilted his head to catch it. "I am afraid not, sir. However..."

"Share, Mr. Worf. Don't keep it to yourself."

"Shortly before the ... incident, I noted an annoying noise. I believe it was one of the Tsorans scratching. From the far back seats," he added, in case Riker hadn't caught the significance.

But Riker had. "Probably not something they prefer to do in public," he said. "But there's nowhere else to go." He sighed. And then some wicked little spirit made him lean conspiratorially close to Worf as he said, "You know what this means, don't you?"

Worf hesitated. "Do not stare at them if they are scratching?"

"Watch where you're scratching," Riker said, and raised a meaningful eyebrow at Worf before slipping past and into the front cabin.

There. At least his tactical officer had something to think about for the rest of the trip. And as for Dougherty ... she waited next to the pilot's seat, stiffly at attention. "At ease," he said, sorting through the modest stowage for... ah, yes, the padd. He extracted it and put it in her hand. "The contact protocol for the Tsorans," he said, ignoring the ill-concealed dismay on her face. "Don't bother reading it; there's not a thing about staring when they're scratching. However, I do believe there are several of the captain's Dixon Hill novels in the padd's library, and you might apply yourself to them. Whatever you choose to do, try to look appropriately studious while you're at it, will you?"

She stared at the padd an instant, and then quite obviously decided not to question her good fate. "Yes, sir. Studious, sir!"

"And get cleaned up-have those cuts taken care of, too. See if there's anything that'll hide them. I suspect that Akarr would prefer us to look undamaged."

"I'll do my best, sir." She was doing her best to hide her relief, too, but without much success. Riker couldn't help a grin at her retreating back.

And now ... maybe he could get back to the comparatively easy job of guiding them through the rippling graviton eddies that could easily tear this shuttle apart, luxuriously modified appointments and all.

It seemed the shuttle's occupants were willing to do that all on their own.

They did somehow manage to make the rest of the flight with no more excitement than one close brush with graviton forces, which left Riker's copilot-one of Worf's men, security with a pilot rating pulling double duty this time around-white around the lips and Riker grinning at him, more exhilarated than anything else. Give him a good piloting challenge any day ... it was diplomatic a.s.signments that turned him pale.

Fandre presented itself as a much greener planet than Tsora, with smaller continents mostly concealed by thick banks of clouds-and, over the ocean, several swirling storm systems. Riker and La Forge brought the shuttles down through a thick and turbulent atmosphere, breaking through the clouds to land the shuttles in a precision lineup on the wet and puddled Legacy preserve tarmac, a s.p.a.ce lit to startling brightness by large banks of lights looming at the edges.

Before them sat the Legacy museum, the headquarters for all preserve activity-of which there was plenty of evidence. A hangar, open along its entire front length, grew off the east side of the museum; at the moment, it held only a few small personal transport devices and the beings responsible for maintaining them. Short and stout like the Tsorans but with more of a waddle to their movement, the two at the closest end of the hangar barely glanced away from their energetic argument to look up at the descending shuttles.

Riker sat in the pilot's seat for a moment after landing, staring at the great gray arc of the force field rising to the left of the shuttle. The artificial light slid smoothly off the field perimeter, but nothing about the force field seemed to discourage the jungle-like growth climbing the sides several stories high, heavy and healthy and still reaching upward.

The Fandreans might not be able to sort out their field problems, but they certainly had green thumbs.

Well, there was no putting this off. Riker stood and had the shuttle occupants arrange themselves as dictated for the ReynTa's entrance at the Legacy museum, where a reception, attended by Tsorans and Fandreans alike and rife with media and newscasters despite the late evening hour, waited only on Akarr's presence. Akarr, flanked by Riker and followed by his six personal escorts -who were in turn followed by Worf and his six security officers, moving with as much precision as possible given the differences in the Tsoran and human stride length-led the way, under the scrutiny of innumerable data recorders pointed in their direction.

Riker, much as he hated to admit it, was impressed. Whatever his diplomatic deficiencies, Akarr had not exaggerated the importance of this event. When the museum doors opened, a crowd surged around Akarr-and so did his escort. At Riker's nod, the Federation escort closed the distance.

It was a losing proposition, but Akarr didn't seem to mind; he also seemed to consider Starfleet's job completed, and after some moments of being jostled and ignored, Riker drifted aside. The noise in the crowded museum made it impossible to engage the interactive displays, but there were plenty of stills and ho los to look at. Life-size ho los It was quite a big museum.

Riker studied the gliding arborata hologram, finding it even more impressive than the viewscreen image in the conference room-its size truly apparent, matching his own torso even without the span of the thick skin between its bat-like forearms and heavily clawed back legs, and its teeth gleaming in an opossum-shaped muzzle. He took special note of the action of its barbed tails; most of the animals highlighted here had two tails in some configuration-like the sholjagg, a broad-chested, barrel-legged ground-hunter that had a long primary tail with a shorter secondary tail riding the spine of the first. Looking at its wide, copiously toothed mouth, Riker couldn't imagine it ever had occasion to employ the tail barbs. What, after all, would be so foolish as to chase that? Skiks, maybe. He circled around a holo of ski ks in action, a large, darting flock that attacked in strafing runs, spitting digestive poison as they flashed overhead.

He found Worf eyeing the cartiga display. Its shoulders came to Worf's midsection, and at intervals in the display, the animal's rocky territory phased into sight, proving the worth of its patterned, rippling fur; the creature all but disappeared.

Worf seemed not to notice. It was the cartiga's teeth he looked at, and the ma.s.sive, semi retractable claws.

"Mr. Worf," Riker said, "you look like a man with a certain gleam in his eye."

"I only regret that I am not to join this hunt," Worf said, seeming almost mesmerized as he added, "The honor of combating such an animal..."

"Aside from the fact that there's no room in the shuttle" -for the ReynTa, his six men, and their supplies in case the hunt should last a number of days filled the shuttle to bursting-"I'm sure that's exactly why you're not coming."

Worf tore his eyes away from the cartiga for the first time. "Commander?"

Riker leaned in, not that discretion was necessary in this noisy celebration. "The compet.i.tion, Worf. He doesn't need the compet.i.tion. He wants all the glory for himself this time out." And probably the next time out, for that matter, for Riker understood that any time a ranking politician on Tsora lost popularity, he'd stage a kaphoora to earn daleura ... and approval.

Hmmm. Not a bad idea, come to think of it. He could think of a few Starfleet admirals ... La Forge squeezed through one last set of Fandreans into the relatively open area around the cartiga. "Finally!" he said, straightening his uniform. "I'm all for getting to work on those forcefields, but to discuss the fine points of harmonics in this? No, thank you!" Then he seemed to realize he was all but between the paws of the leaping cartiga, and moved aside. "Nice kitty."

"Mr. Worf shares your opinion," Riker said. "I think he's considering stowing away on the Rahjah to join us tomorrow."

"I would do no such thing," Worf a.s.serted, frowning with much disapproval.

Riker sighed. "It's a joke, Mr. Worf."

"Well, you sure wouldn't get me inside that preserve, not without a pretty powerful projectile weapon," La Forge said. "Phasers aren't any good in there, you know. Nothing is. These people may have some trouble with their forcefields, but the technology dampers they're tied to are something else again. Limited engine function under heavy shields, no energy-based weaponry no tricorders, for that matter. The shuttle will run, but only with its own shields at full capacity-and, of course, there's no way to communicate through the fields. Once you're inside that preserve, it's man against..." He glanced up, and up higher yet, to the leaping cartiga's snarling mouth. "... that."

"Not strictly true," Worf said. "They use tranquilizing darts."

Riker nodded. "Short-range propulsion devices, just enough to let the Tsorans gather a trophy from the animal. Actually harming any of them is forbidden."

"Emphatically. Why do you think those shields are so complex?" La Forge said. "They don't need that much technology to protect the people from the jungle. They use it to protect the jungle from off world poachers. And from what I understand, they need it. There's quite an underground market for furs like the one that would come from this fellow." He shook his head. "If you ask me, there's plenty enough daleura to be earned just by surviving long enough in there to track anything down."

"The Tsorans must feel the same, or they wouldn't include security teams to take down unexpected attacks." Riker stared up at the animal, taking in its eerily feline like gaze, and unaccountably reminded of the time-the one and only time-he'd played baby-sitter for Data's cat, Spot. Not something he ever planned on doing again. "Nice kitty," he murmured. "You can stay right where you are. I don't have any intention of becoming your feline supplement."

A cough sounded behind his elbow; it sounded suspiciously like amus.e.m.e.nt. Riker found Akarr there, escaped from the throng and all but incognito without his escort. Although he stood out from the Fandreans present -for as similar as they were, the Fandreans appeared to be an entirely different branch of the species, with gentler features and longer, silkier pelt hair-there were enough Tsorans, all dressed in stiff, naturally colored leather vests, for Akarr to hide among if he chose.

Apparently the opportunity to goad Riker was too much to ignore, for here he was. "I thought that might be your feeling," Akarr said. "But don't worry. We don't expect you to come out of the shuttle. We each do what our courage allows of us."

Riker narrowed his eyes, only half-aware of La Forge's uneasy shifting and Worf's sudden deadpan expression, the one that meant you didn't want to know what he was thinking. "I have found," Riker said carefully, "that there is a difference between having courage, and having courage and also the wisdom to know when to challenge it."

Akarr didn't seem the least affected. "Those are pretty Federation words," he said. "But until one has proven the first, does the second matter?"

Riker stiffened, lifting one shoulder. Does it really get any easier? Thanks a lot, Guinan, for putting that thought in my head. Beside him, he heard La Forge murmur his name-just as a concerned question. It's nothing I haven't dealt with before. So he turned to Akarr, and looked down, and smiled a reasonably genuine smile. "Maybe someday you'll have the chance to find out."

Waves of pleasant heat from the morning sun washed against La Forge's dark skin, reflecting from the paved staging area behind the museum. To the left sat the shuttles; several Fandreans loaded supplies into the back of the Rahjah. Soon enough Commander Riker would be on his way... and La Forge wished him luck. Plenty of it.

He also hoped that the kaphoora went slowly, given what he had to accomplish here.

He refocused his attention on the shield controls, a small station at the back of the museum, enclosed in its own environmentally controlled booth. Not room for two of them, but he was only here to watch, anyway-the guts of the system were on a lower museum level. Soon enough, that's where he'd be, out of this beautiful day and into the exacting work of finding a way to get communication signals through the shields. Two layers of interlocking shielding with fluctuating frequencies, meant to foil any poacher, no matter how sophisticated.

La Forge wasn't sure but that it would foil him.

He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. Just to make things interesting, the Fandreans admitted that for the past several days, they'd been experiencing unpredictable surges in the technology damper; they thought it was interacting with the shields, but weren't sure how. They wondered if La Forge might possibly take a look at that little problem, while he was at it. "Sure," La Forge muttered to himself, looking out at the opaque force field dome arcing up and away from the edge of the staging area. "Why not?"

"Did you say something, Lieutenant Commander La Forge?" His Fandrean liaison, Yenan-La Forge had the feeling he was of middling rank, but the Fandreans didn't seem to go for tides-pulled himself out of the shield booth. Like most of the Fandreans, he came only to La Forge's chest, but given the muscle on that stout form-and Yenan was stouter than most-La Forge wouldn't want to get into a wrestling match with him. He'd stick to wrestling with the shields.

"Just talking to myself," La Forge said. "And call me Geordi."

"Geordi." The Fandrean ... well, La Forge supposed that was a smile; he drew his mobile upper lip down to completely cover his normally exposed teeth. And whether it was meant to be a smile or not, a smile was certainly the reaction it invoked in La Forge.

"So you're telling me," La Forge said, picking up on the conversation they'd been having before Yenan ducked into the booth, "that out in the shield perimeter somewhere, there's a device that will generate a fixed dimensional portal within your shields."

The Fandrean nodded. "It nullifies the shields, in effect. Only because for that moment, we a.s.sign a stable frequency to the shields-which we change every time, so none of the poachers take advantage of that moment." Yenan had an under-purr with a less gravelly tone, and it made him much easier to understand than Akarr-a fact for which La Forge had been instantly thankful. "But the procedure uses an enormous amount of power, and we can only trigger it a few times before we must recharge the system." He gave La Forge a flutter-fingered gesture chagrin? A shrug? "You can see why we have such need of communications. We cannot see through the shielding to know when someone needs to come out; we can only arrange intervals at which we open the portal. This often leaves our Legacy specialists out in the field much longer than we'd like them exposed."

"Yeah, I can see that would be a problem," La Forge said. He scanned the shield along the perimeter line, looking for variations in the neat energy patterns his VISOR showed him. "There," he said, pointing. "Is that the portal?"

"That is where it will be," Yenan said, surprised. He gave La Forge a curious look, and then smiled again. "That is an impressive device. If we have time, you will have to tell me more about its function."

"If we have the time," La Forge said, not expecting to have any such thing. Right now, he wished Akarr would get a move on. He couldn't start work until after the portal had been invoked and closed again, and he needed There finally. Akarr came strutting out of the museum. Unlike several hours earlier, this was a private moment, and one without excessive data recorders. La Forge saw only one, wielded by one of the museum officials. Riker walked just behind him, and the personal escort followed them, in formation. But once they reached the shuttle, the escort broke formation and entered first to see that all was to their satisfaction. Riker angled over to La Forge. After a hesitation, Akarr followed him.

"Any progress?" Riker asked La Forge, nodding a greeting to Yenan.

"We're ready to get started, as soon as you're under way," La Forge said. "This is a pretty severe shielding arrangement-it has to be, to protect these animals-so you'll be flying a lot of seat-of-the-pants. None of your sensors will work; you're going to have to navigate by speed and course. I've got it logged in for you. And don't shut the power down completely upon landing-keep some trickle of energy to the shields, so you can go live again."

"Much advice," Akarr said. "Maybe we should have had Picard pilot the shuttle after all."

Beside La Forge, Yenan made his fluttery hand gesture again. Definitely some kind of chagrin, Geordi thought. "No, you've made the best choice," he said. "Commander Riker is the best shuttle pilot we've got. Even Captain Jellico had to admit that."

"Admiral, now," Riker said, somewhat darkly.

"This Jellico is no one to me," Akarr said.

"Let's just say he doesn't offer praise lightly." La Forge nodded at the Rahjah, where Akarr's men were now cl.u.s.tered around the shuttle door. "And I think you're about to have an opportunity to find out for yourself."

Akarr rested a hand on his much-decorated trophy knife, and pondered Riker for another moment longer. "Of course," he said, "flying in is not the hard part. The hunt... you are, Commander, welcome to join us on the hunt. But, given our conversation yesterday, I expect that you'll choose to stay with the shuttle."

"I would happily join you on your hunt," Riker said, s.n.a.t.c.hing the challenge before the words even had time to settle.

"Uh, Commander-" La Forge said. "The shuttle... someone really needs to be there to monitor-"

Riker glanced sharply at him, and La Forge fell silent. His point had been heard, no need for more words. The ReynTa glanced between the two of them and gave a short laugh, a strange noise of which La Forge hadn't been able to discern the origin. "As I thought," Akarr said. '^ shame. We would have liked a Federation witness to the kaphoora. So be it. Commander, shall we depart?"

And Riker, giving La Forge one of those looks, chin at its most contentious angle, turned on his heel and stalked for the shuttle, overtaking Akarr on the way.

Yenan seemed to come out of hiding. "I wouldn't want to be on that shuttle," he said, smoothing down the fur of his arms. "You and me both," La Forge responded under his breath. "Now, how about we look at those shields? I don't want to miss my chance to see them in operation."

Yenan straightened. Unlike Akarr, he didn't strut; his gait was more of a lurching waddle. But it took him where he needed to go, into the booth with La Forge looking over his shoulder, trying to keep an eye on Yenan's activities with the controls and the portal area at the same time. As the shuttle lifted, hovered, and then moved smoothly forward, Yenan made a few lightning adjustments to the frequency inputs, and then thumbed a sickly green switch that would have said don't press me unless you mean it in any language.

With a painful whine of power, the portal opened-starting at the ground in a semicircle, and expanding evenly outward until it was large enough for the modified cargo shuttle. The shuttle slid through with remarkably little fanfare, and the portal snapped shut behind it.

La Forge transferred his attention back to the controls, where Yenan made a series of quick adjustments, then pointed at a timing indicator on the display. "There, you see? The countdown for the scheduled openings starts automatically. If the shield booth is not manned shortly before, the console will contact me, and I'll make sure someone is here."

"Good system," La Forge said. "But what's this?" He pointed to one of the normally static readouts, and the glut of Fandrean number icons tumbling past. Just as quickly, it was over; the Fandrean didn't even glance up in time to see them.

"I'll recall them," Yenan muttered, jabbing at the controls. "Probably another one of the strange surges we've mentioned-ah, yes. Just that. Lucky we are, that you were right here for one. When we go back inside, we'll call up the data and compare it to the previous surges. Maybe your outsider's perspective will give us the answers we need."

La Forge shook his head. "That may well be, but I think we'd better let your people continue to work on that while I tackle the communications challenge. That is the one you want given priority, isn't it?"

Yenan made a face with his lower lip, similar to the one La Forge had seen on Akarr, but less extreme. "You are right," he said. "Come, let us go inside." And he suited action to words, nudging past La Forge to leave the booth.

La Forge hesitated, looking at the spot in the gray, coruscating shield through which the Rahjoh had vanished, shaking his head. "Good luck, Commander."

Chapter Four.

The tsorans certainly did like their receptions. And Atann, who couldn't pa.s.s up either the opportunity to attend a reception on the Enterprise or the daleura of playing host, was no exception. Once Nadann lesson explained the situation, Picard offered the only possible solution: a request that Atann share with the Enterprise a sampling of Tsoran delicacies. Under Alarm's guidance the occasion quickly turned into a full-fledged social affair, for which Picard provided only a token supply of Federation favorites on a small, plain table set to the side. The two spoke briefly with one another-in person for the first time-as Atann commenced preparations in one of the larger function rooms; Picard could get no feel for the ReynKa's character whatsoever.

Shortly before the late-afternoon reception-and from all reports, Chief Brossmer had performed heroically at the transporter console during the preparation, both in dealing with the Tsorans and in the number of direct precision transports performed in the course of a single shift-Picard beckoned Troi into his ready room.

"Any words of advice?" he asked, seating himself behind his gleaming black desk and gesturing for her to sit.