Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [68]
The ‘lift doors opened again. Two security people came running down toward them. Picard, watching them come, saw them fix their eyes on him, with their phasers in their hands, and had a moment of panic. My bodyguard? he thought. And some nasty suspicious thought said to him, How many of them do you think Commander Riker might have made an offer to? Or possibly Counselor Troi? How many of them are really committed to you—or this you? Will you ever be able to turn your back on anybody while you’re here?
“Are you all right, sir?” one of the men said, coming to him quickly. It was Ryder, or the equivalent of him. His hair was shorter than Picard’s own Ryder’s, and he was missing the mustache.
Picard nodded, putting a hand to his head for a moment as he had one of those transient pains you get sometimes after you’ve been stunned. “I’m well enough. But Mr. Crusher here seems to have a problem.”
“I don’t doubt it,” said the second guard; it was Detaith. He grabbed Ensign Crusher and yanked his arms behind him. “Go on, Brendan, give him a taste. Let him see what happens to people who dare to touch the captain.”
Ryder reached out to Wesley’s badge, slowly, smiling a little. Crusher’s face worked through rage and fear, fear winning as the hand got closer. It touched the badge. There was a soft humming sound.
And Crusher’s body bent half-double backward while Detaith held him. His face convulsed with pain, and he began to scream. Picard held himself rigidly still, not daring to react for fear of what it would betray. He remembered, now, in a flash, the look of fear on Stewart’s face as he had reached tentatively for the man’s badge. This, too, had been in Kirk’s report. He had thought, had hoped, that perhaps it had gone away, since he hadn’t seen the devices of which Kirk had spoken hanging at people’s belts. Now, though, he saw the hope was in vain. These people would never throw away such a useful device. Refine it, make it smaller, more convenient, more effective.
Picard held himself still. Wesley screamed and screamed again and lost breath for screaming, and a kind of broken sobbing came out of him instead of breath. He began going blue: hypoxia, the lung muscles seized up in the terrible spasms of pain. Ryder drew his hand back from the badge. “That’ll do for the moment,” he said. “Wouldn’t want him to die right off like that. He’s due a long tour in the Agony Booth, I should think.”
That, too, was a name Picard remembered from the report. “Not until I’m ready,” he said, and added, as cover, “not until I can enjoy it. Confine him to quarters under guard.”
“Yes, sir,” Detaith said, and half-carried, half-dragged the sobbing, helpless Crusher away.
Ryder watched them go and said, “Sir, Mr. Barclay sent us as soon as he could, but you shouldn’t wander around the ship alone like this. There are all kinds of people who wouldn’t mind a shift in the status quo at the moment. Nerves are a little on edge.” Ryder shook his head, watching Detaith and Crusher vanish into the turbolift. “What was that about?”
Picard rubbed the cut place on his throat. “Something about his father.”
Ryder smiled knowingly, then let the look go as he realized Picard was staring at him. “Well, sir, you’d know more about that than I would,” he said hurriedly. But was that the slightest sound