A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [83]
But as well as the veteran seemed to know him, he didn’t know him well enough. Such a bargain was unacceptable to the Klingon.
His cowardice was bad. It was a terrible, shameful thing.
Yet to participate in a combat empty of honor was worse. He would not fight for those who could do what the marshals had done.
Somewhere out there, past the courtyard and the walls, there had to be an alternative. Perhaps even an escape.
Despite the difficulty of surviving alone in the wilderness, despite the likelihood that a sky rider would find him and destroy him… he had to risk it.
At his first opportunity, he would desert.
“Will that be all?”
Data nodded. “Yes. Thank you. You may go now.”
The Klah’kimmbri left, shutting the door behind him. The android found himself alone, at a somewhat primitive keyboard-and-monitor setup, with access to the installation’s entire array of data.
“Well,” he told himself, “this is a pleasant development-if an unexpected one.”
From the beginning, no one had questioned his identity. What was more, as soon as he had voiced his purpose in being here, the ranking functionary-the Coordinator-had personally ushered him to this private workstation. He had even been offered assistance with the workings of the computer system-which he, of course, declined.
In the meantime, he had gotten an inkling of the reason for his preferred status. It was not that he had been mistaken for an individual, as he had first believed-but rather, that he had been associated with this world’s ruling class.
The crucial factor in all this was his hair-that gaudy shade of red that had characterized the locks of the Council members. Since the councillors were the only examples they had seen of Klah’kimmbri up close-and since none of them had had anything but red hair-the ship’s xenologists had assumed that it was a common trait.
He saw now that they had been wrong. Everyone at this installation had dark hair-more like Data’s natural color.
He couldn’t help but smile at the thought. Natural indeed. Could anything be natural in an artificial being like himself?
In any case, his hair color had set him apart as some sort of dignitary-perhaps even a member of the Council itself. Without question, a stroke of luck.
Still smiling, he set to work.
The Klah’kimmbri computer system was not all that difficult to decipher. It took the android but a few moments to familiarize himself with the ways in which it diverged from the Federation approach to information technology. Mostly, he decided, the Klah’kimmbri model was just less sophisticated.
He punched in a request: INFORMATION ON CONSCRIPT JEAN-LUC PICARD.
NO SUCH REFERENT.
Data hadn’t believed that there would be-but it had been worth a try.
All right, then. A different approach: GENERL INFORMATION ON CONSCRIPTS.
A menu came up on the screen. It offered Data a breakdown of available information according to ARRIVAL GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION, SKILL CATEGORY and something called CURRENT STATUS.
Out of curiosity more than anything else, the android called up CURRENT STATUS. It turned out to be a separation of the living and the dead. Each conscript was described by an eight-digit code; the last digit, apparently, indicated whether the conscript still survived.
The larger subfile, by far, was the one that listed the dead. Data recognized that some of his comrades might be included there. However, CURRENT STATUS would not be the logical place to begin his search.
Returning to the menu, he opted for ARRIVAL TIME.
There were three of them in the wagon now, each bound to a part of the vehicle. And a good deal more securely than before.
“For a moment there,” said the dark man, “I thought I was a goner.”
Picard managed a chuckle. “I know the feeling. The first time I woke in this wagon, I was glad of it-believe it or not. Even all trussed up, I was delighted just to be alive.” He scanned the lifeless, forbidding slopes of the valley through which