Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [13]
Troi was reminded of various brain pathologies she’d encountered in clinical training, but she had trouble classifying Crichton. She didn’t think his problem was organic—physical damage to the brain itself. But something was definitely wrong; some uncontrollable mainspring was pushing him and testing his self-control.
He had just stopped the tour near the holodeck to wash his hands for the fourth time when Picard lost his patience.
“We’ve been at this long enough,” the captain said. “Is your sensing device detecting any communicable diseases, or not?”
Ferris and Crichton were silent.
“You’ve already seen that our personnel transporter is programmed to filter out any organism,” Riker said pointedly.
Crichton answered with sudden bitterness. “My forefathers left Earth to escape a contagion. It has taken all the resources and manpower of Rampart to keep our planet free of that Allpox. I’m not about to rely on your equipment to do my job for me.”
The group passed one of the holodeck doors. A crewwoman emerged laughing. She nodded at the captain and started down the corridor. Troi saw the antennae on the one-eye twitch in the direction of the crewwoman.
The two men from Rampart stopped to listen to some information coming over their headsets.
Ferris turned suddenly toward Picard.
“What was behind that door?”
“A room where we experience complete sensory illusions for training or entertainment,” said the captain. “I myself have entered the imaginary worlds of Sherlock Holmes, Dixon Hill …”
As Picard went on, Crichton and Ferris suddenly tuned him out and listened instead to their headsets.
Troi sensed a tide of loathing building in the minds of Ferris and Crichton. She wondered what it was about the holodeck that the men from Rampart would find so odious.
Just then, the group was distracted by a crowd of adolescent students and their teacher, approaching along the corridor. In one child’s hand was a small holostatue, a three-dimensional color image of a Navaho sand painting. The teacher nodded to the captain but kept right on with her lesson as she passed.
“In Navaho mythology, the Rainbow Guardian represents the harmony of earth and cosmos, body and mind. He is a reward for those who follow hozho, the Path of Beauty, the way of unselfishness. In the holodeck I’m going to show you more Navaho sand paintings, some Tibetan Thang-ka scrolls, a Japanese rock garden …”
Troi sensed the two Rampartians’ revulsion abruptly click into another track, a track leading to action. They both stood quite still as the students passed. Troi was about to try to get the captain aside and warn him, but now Picard spoke directly to the two men.
“Since you haven’t found any diseases or contraband here, may we—”
“We have found it in abundance,” said Crichton.
“Found what?”
“The disease of myth, fiction, imagination, blasphemy, religious heresy, the many forms of the Allpox,” said Crichton.
Picard stood silently, absorbing these words as he watched the teacher and her students enter the holodeck. Then he turned back to Crichton.
“That is hardly what I would call a disease. We on this ship and in my Federation certainly seem to have gotten on in spite of our … infection. But if that’s what you’re afraid of, I assure you we’ll bring none of it to the surface of your planet. We are interested only in finding the crew of the Huxley.”
“Your story of the Huxley is a fiction,” Crichton replied tersely, a quivering lip the only movement in his frozen face. “You can’t help but spread the obscenity and filth of imagination wherever you go. It is in your schools, your speech, your actions, and your minds. Your children are brought up in a madhouse, taught by lunatics and devils.”
“Oh, I see, I see,” said Picard. “It’s a good thing for you that your people left Earth centuries ago,” he continued. “Your kind has phased itself out, thankfully, on that planet. And what they once banned, we have right here on the ship. Every piece of work by