A Call to Darkness - Michael Jan Friedman [88]
It was all coming back now. She just needed a few minutes to sort it out.
The one with the ax didn’t linger, however. He went to one of the wagons, the one farthest from her, and ripped off the tarpaulin that still half covered it.
One of the strangers came over to her and put his arm about her shoulders. “Pulaski, are you all right?”
Pulaski. That was her name, wasn’t it? And she was a doctor-a medical officer on… on a ship of some kind. The… damn, it was on the tip of her tongue…
Someone else came over and applied something cool and wet to her face. It stung for a moment, then it felt good. She leaned back against the wagon behind her, letting the pain of her burned skin leech away.
Abruptly, there was a name in her head. Enterprise. Of course-that was the name of the ship. And that other place she’d recalled, the cabin-that was on another ship, the Gregor Mendel.
Faces and events spilled over one another as the dam inside her broke. Picard, Geordi, Riker… she’d called Riker after Badnajian disappeared. Worf…
Worf!
Tearing away the dressing that covered her face, Pulaski looked around for the Klingon. But he was nowhere to be seen. At the last wagon, there were people working to put the tarpaulin back into place.
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“Who?” asked one of those tending to her. “The warrior?”
“Yes,” she insisted, “the warrior. Where did he go?”
The stranger pointed to the path above them. “That way,” she said. And then, misinterpreting the reason for Pulaski’s question, “You need not worry about him. He spared us.”
Pulaski frowned. There was no evidence of Worf on the trail either. Being a Klingon, he could move quickly on treacherous terrain.
What had happened to him, that he didn’t know her-that he could leave her here like this, as if she were just another stranger in a crowd of strangers? Indeed, what had happened to her that she hadn’t recognized him?
Had all of them who’d been on the Mendel had their memories tampered with this way? But why-for what purpose?
And how was it that she’d gotten hers back?
More to the point, now that she was starting to remember, what was she going to do about it? Stay with the line of wagons and bide her time-or follow Worf, knowing all the time that she might not be able to help him once she found him? If she found him.
Pulaski made her decision, moved past those who had been helping her. They watched her skirt the wagon, then head for the steep slope that separated them from the upper trail.
“Pulaski? What are you doing?”
“I’m going after him,” she called back.
“You can’t,” someone said. “He’s a warrior. He’ll kill you.”
Certainly, there was a chance of that. She didn’t discount the seriousness of the warning.
But she didn’t turn back either.
“Sorry, sir,” said Radzic. “It was just a false alarm.”
Riker looked at him and nodded. “Of course. Keep at it, crewman.”
On his way past the science stations, he had an urge to strike something. He curbed it.
Damn. For a moment, he thought that they’d actually gotten somewhere. That they’d located one of the crew on the Mendel-a Tetracite named Seedirk. No question-it was a Tetracite all right. Two of them, in fact. Only, upon closer inspection, neither one had turned out to be the right Tetracite.
The first officer was beginning to see why Data had opted to find their people on his own. Even after they had discovered the Tetracites, it had taken hours to check their physical particulars against Seedirk’s profile.
At a closer distance, they’d have accomplished it in much less time. But they didn’t dare linger at a closer distance-a fact that twisted in him more and more with each passing minute.
It was increasingly clear that their hopes rested with the android. Though Riker still didn’t know what Data’s plan was-and nearly half of his allotted time had come and gone.
Riker had barely reached the command center when the turbo doors opened and Burtin strode onto the bridge. The first officer saw him out of the corner of his eye, bit his lip and met the doctor halfway.
He should have checked