Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [59]
“All humans?”
“I’m not sure, sir. I receive impressions of others, but it may be that only the humans can empathize closely enough with me to communicate. But … I know who they are now.”
Picard sat behind his glossy black desk and nodded. He tried, tried hard, not to appear impatient, and though there was no fooling her, at least she might appreciate the effort. But there was a definite “I’m waiting” in his posture. “Arkady Reykov and the members of his crew,” he said, quite flatly and with a touch of anticlimax.
Troi blinked. “How did you know?”
Picard flopped his hand on the desktop and casually said, “One needn’t be telepathic.”
She faltered, frowning into the black shine of his desk, and said, “Yes, I suppose it is obvious. But there’s more, sir. Or shall I say, there are more. Many more. Millions more, in fact. Their level of communication is much higher than anything verbal, as though they’ve forgotten over the years how to use simple words and pictures. We may be the first outside contact they’ve had-“
“Since 1995,” she supplied steadily.
“Yes,” she murmured. “For a while, what they wanted was very confusing. There were so many minds shouting at me, some rational, some not … only the strongest of those can still maintain a single self-image, but only for limited amounts of time.”
“Like the appearance Riker witnessed in the corridor.”
“I believe so,” she told him, not ready to commit herself to that with a blind yes.
“And now it’s clearer?” Picard prompted. “What they want? You have some idea?”
Troi bent her elegant head, lashes like black whisk brooms dropping to shade her eyes. Then she looked up. “Captain, I haven’t told you everything.”
Jean-Luc Picard leaned forward, his elbows rubbing across the desk’s smooth surface and reflected that she of all people was not one whom he counted on for courteous lies. Courteous silence, perhaps. But deception, no. The first reaction was anger, but that flared and died more quickly than a match in wind. Yet such confessions on a starship could cost lives, and always provoked him.
But something had driven her to this, and Picard’s curiosity was plenty bigger than his ego at this point.
“Then tell me everything now,” he said.
Troi raised her chin as though to walk into the word. “About the confusion. It’s true that there are millions of minds pressing upon me, but there is … an absolute unanimity in what they want-“
The door buzzed.
“Yes, who is it?” Picard barked impatiently.
“Riker reporting, Captain.”
Picard started to admit him, but Troi grasped the rim of his desk and pulled forward in her chair. “No, sir, please don’t. Don’t let him in.”
The curiosity burned. “Not even Riker?” Picard said.
“Please, sir … “
He gazed at her for a moment, then spoke aloud to the intercom. “Just a few more minutes, Mr. Riker.”
There was a thunderous pause. Picard could imagine the glances running the main bridge.
“Yes, sir … I’ll be out here.”
Picard indulged in a little grunt and muttered, “Sounds a bit wounded, doesn’t he? Now, what’s this all about, Counselor? These people want us to do something for them?”
“You have a decision to make that no single person should have to make. I thought you shouldn’t also have to live with the opinions of the entire crew. That’s why I’m speaking to you privately.”
“I appreciate that, but please-“
“Most religions describe a kind of hell, Captain,” she said carefully. Her shoulders shuddered with the effort. “Now … I know what that is.”
“No doubt, but what’s that got to do with these beings?”
Troi’s lovely eyes took on a bitter anger. “I can’t make it clear enough, sir, that these people are still alive. They’re not supernatural. They’re living creatures, many of whom are-or were-human as much as you are human. They have truly achieved immortality. They are still conscious and self-aware.”
“All right,” Picard told her, “I understand that. What do they want?”
She clamped her hands into two tight balls, the skin thinning over her knuckles and turning icy white.