Gateways 07_ What Lay Beyond - Diane Carey [109]
Picard’s offers of help were refused, so he sat back and spoke quietly with the children. They told him of their village, which was beyond the City, and how they loved traveling. Their innocence and resourcefulness charmed him.
One young boy seemed quite taken with Picard’s actions but didn’t act like he was a god, which he found refreshing. Instead, the boy asked questions about lifting the wagon, how his muscles felt, how he could manage to do such feats for himself. His named was Chanik, and he wedged himself between one of the women and Picard when they sat to eat the vegetable stew.
“I’ve been to the City once,” he proudly announced.
“Really?” asked Picard. “Tell me about it.”
“Well, it’s like no place you’ve ever seen,” he said between mouthfuls of food. “Tall huts, mostly broken, with weird-looking vines connecting some of them together. It’s as big as this forest, maybe bigger, and the animals all avoid it so it’s a good place to hide.”
Picard processed the information, trying to imagine the place, and wondered how much of it still functioned given how long-lived the Iconian technology was. “I’ll find out for myself soon, won’t I?”
“And I’m going to show you!”
Picard was alarmed by the pronouncement. He had already learned that Chanik had attached himself to this traveling party, and was from one of the villages nearby. The last thing he needed was to be responsible for someone’s life while he was rushing to save countless others.
“I can’t do that,” he declared. “I must move quickly and I won’t be able to properly look after you.”
Chanik put down his wooden bowl, wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand, and grinned. “I’ll be looking after you, Young God Picard. After all, I know how to get in there and you don’t.”
The captain, recognizing a universal tone in his young voice, sat quietly, suspecting he was going to have company, like it or not. He resolved to make the best of the situation, since the youth’s experience just might allow him to move through the City quicker.
The notion though, kept him awake as he lay on a bed of fern leaves, trying to sleep.
Chapter 3
The morning sun had Picard awake before the others. He could feel the excitement building in his chest as he checked to make sure his equipment was still where he had secured it the night before. The captain had decided to use the phaser and tricorder as little as possible, refusing to raise the notion that a god, young or otherwise, might need such devices.
He checked the campfire and saw there were still embers he could coax back to cooking heat and proceeded to busy himself with preparing the breakfast. It was the least he could do, he decided, since the others had been good enough to feed him the previous night. With a glance, he saw Chanik rolling over, still asleep. The youth was full of possibilities, the captain recognized, but also full of risk, and he still disliked the notion that he would be joining him. The captain shoved the thought from his mind and continued to build the fire and then find the remains of dinner to reheat into breakfast. There were some fruit trees nearby, so he went over and carefully judged which were the ripest. The branches grew tall, the fruit yellow and fat, and the captain had to reach quite a bit to snag the ones ready to eat. He grabbed enough, hoping to have extra to bring along with him since he doubted there’d be much in the way of food once they entered the City.
He heard the stirrings of his companions and was pleased since it meant they could eat and he could be on his way that much sooner. His goal was to reach the City quickly and then use the tricorder to track the Master Resonator. With it, he hoped to return to the portal he had emerged from or find another functioning gateway in the city. Geordi La Forge had shown him how they focused the portal’s reach, so he had high hopes of finding