Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [67]
He gazed at them, troubled. “Odette Khanty is manipulating the people of Sindikash. The Federation has a right to countermanipulate.”
“Aren’t we using subterfuge to maneuver an outcome that should be a free choice?” Riker gestured toward the holodeck door. “So the British used cannons to do the same— what’s the difference? I wonder … are we playing the part of the British?”
Picard tucked his chin. “Will, we’re going after a criminal organization. That’s the difference. A very big one.” He looked at Grenadier Leonfeld, and his mind divided between worlds. “Find Alexander and have him come back here. I’d like to get on with this. We’ve got several hours before Worf arrives. I’d like to distract the boy.”
“Right away, sir,” Riker responded, and there was a clarity of purpose in his tone now, too. One final time he gazed at the pretty picture of the ship on Chesapeake Bay. “Was it a decisive battle, sir?”
“I think not,” Picard said. “Sadly, it seems to be one of the hundreds of unnoticed skirmishes that took many men’s lives and eventually contributed to a larger end. Odd, isn’t it, how many footnotes it takes to make up a past …” He shook his head and balled his fists, and felt himself bristling. “It’s a big galaxy, Mr. Riker. How do our problems get so finely concentrated?”
Riker glanced sidelong at the oldworld crew of the oldworld ship, with all their oldworld problems, and seemed, like Picard, to see a reflection of something much closer.
“Talent, sir,” he said.
Chapter Thirteen
“DO YOU KNOW where this Jeremiah Coverman lives?”
“A house beside a factory. He has a linen factory. He risked everything. His family rejected him when he came here. He was penniless. I sent him some silver to start his business.”
“Then he should be happy to see you,” Picard said as he crouched beside Sergeant Alexander Leonfeld. “Let’s go down there.”
“How shall we find the linen factory?” Midshipman Nightingale asked. “We’re in uniform. We can hardly ask about.”
“The town’s scarcely two kilometers in diameter. We’ll find it.”
Bennett and the other oarsman, an impressed cobbler named Wollard, shuffled forward in the trees. “Sir,” Bennett began, “me and Wollard ‘ere, we ought to volunteer to go an’ ‘ave a look before you an’ the young sirs go in there.”
Picard rewarded him with a thready smile. “That’s very gentlemanly, Mr. Bennett, but we’ll all go. Better we stay together for now.”
They’d walked half the night. More than that. And now they stood on a heavily treed ridge, looking down at a coastal village, where only a few candies glowed at this late hour. Just beyond the town, the small boatyard and the port could be identified by several masts sticking up into the moonlight.
“They must be asleep, sir,” Wollard guessed.
“No, they’re not asleep. Look,” Picard pointed out. “There are lanterns lit at the boatyard. There’s activity. I see people moving about.”
“Fortifying,” Leonfeld suggested. “In case we got through. Preparing to defend the yard.”
“Then they don’t know yet,” Nightingale added.
“That could work in our favor,” Picard said hopefully. “They’ll be distracted, and they don’t know anyone made it ashore. Let’s hurry. And, Sergeant, you should leave that headgear behind. It’ll be cumbersome and a little obvious.”
Leonfeld nodded, ditched his tall yellow headpiece, and they moved out. They hustled together through the trees, making use of the darkness, and found their way to the narrow dirt streets. Picard was gratified to be quite right about the size of the town. There were only a handful of streets to be checked, a few of which were cobbled with rounded stones from the size of melons to the size of eggs. He recalled that many streets in the old eastern United States were paved with stones carried as