Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [127]
“Good. I want to have a look at the log entries for the period of my absence.”
“On your screen in the ready room, Captain.”
Picard went in there and sat down in his chair with profound relief, touching the screen to bring up the log extracts. Riker had come quietly in behind him; the door shut.
Picard looked up and smiled briefly. “Nervous, Number One? You’ve got the right one, never fear.”
Riker grinned briefly as well, but his eyes were somber. “You were very lucky, Captain,” he said quietly.
Picard shrugged at him. “Now what was I supposed to have done? I did what was required of me. As you did; as we’ve both done a thousand times before and will keep doing. But when we get home”—he touched the screen again to page down—”Troi and La Forge are due for a couple of more commendations. They both comported themselves with great courage and panache. Mr. La Forge in particular suffered a great deal to obtain the information we’re now processing.”
“There’s a problem with that, Captain.” Picard looked at Riker sharply. “It’s the “when” in “when we get home.” Do you know that that vessel has all our threat routines?”
“I had assumed it. You’ll have been preparing countermeasures, I know.”
“Yes, Captain. But there’s always the off chance that we will not make it home. Or that we will and will be destroyed on our side of things. In that case, we have an overriding responsibility to make sure that this information gets back to Starfleet Command, one way or another.”
“I agree, Number One. Though I very much hope these people will not be so foolish as to destroy us here. Since it would in the long run doom this whole area of space.” Picard frowned. “Though I would not lay great odds, I grant you, on them caring much about the long run.”
“Neither would I. There’s also a question of power requirements for that device. As presently installing, we may not be able to successfully support it. Eight hundred terawatts is a big fraction of our power output … and it may not be possible to get the thing to work without draining power from every nonessential system in the ship, and some essential ones. We might find that we simply can’t get out. In which case something else must.”
Picard nodded. “Go on.”
“Commander Hwiii tells me that he thinks the device can be used at much lower power to push something from our ship—a probe, for example—back home into our own universe. I think we should load all the information we have about what’s happened, this device, and the threat these people pose, into a probe and have it ready to send ahead of us if we can’t get home. Starfleet has to be warned.”
It was a problem that Picard had been turning over in his mind; he was glad to hear that there was at least this much of a solution to it. “Very well, make it so. It will, of course, then be our duty—should it come to that—to fight enough of a holding action so that probe can get away. Destroying ourselves, if necessary, to guarantee its escape.”
“And the other ship?”
Picard looked up at Riker thoughtfully. “I confess to curiosity, about what would happen if one Galaxy-class starship rammed another broadside.”
“The other ship is closer to Dreadnought-class. Not a close comparison.”
“Pedant,” Picard said mildly, and went on reading his logs. “But it can’t be allowed to follow the probe over … can it, Number One?”
Riker shook his head.
“Better have Mr. Data get started on the probe,” Picard said. “And get a projection from Mr. La Forge on when he’ll have the inclusion device ready for testing.”
“Yes, sir.” But Riker still stood there. Picard looked up again.
“Something else?”
A long pause. “What was he like?”
Picard sighed and stretched. “My counterpart was, by all accounts, a murderer many times over, probably an abuser of his partner, a man who sent his best friend to die: someone sly, treacherous, brutal, cold, calculating … the conscienceless butcher of a great number of worlds.” He looked up at Riker. “Now shall I tell you about your counterpart?”
Riker swallowed. “I’ll just go see Mr. Data,” he said, and hurriedly