Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [28]
“By Setebos, what a dark-eyed beauty. The master will want a look at you.”
He commenced a detailed inspection of her person. Troi stood very still, sensing no malice or intent to harm, as he felt the material of her uniform between his fingers and tested it with his teeth, sniffed and gently tugged at her hair, and peered into her eyes as though he were a doctor.
When he was finished he stood back and said, with pride in his cracking voice, “My name is Caliban.”
A Shakespearean name. Could he be a Dissenter? she wondered. If he was, the rebellion tottered.
“Mine is Deanna. I am pleased to meet you.”
“Down,” said Caliban, pointing to the ground.
“Beg your pardon?”
“Affix your hands to the earth.”
She didn’t comply until she felt a sense of what he wanted to do. He wanted to help her, which probably meant breaking her handcuffs.
Troi sat, and put her hands on the ground behind her. Caliban put a rock under the chain between the handcuffs, then picked up another rock and began smiting the chain.
“Are there others like you here?” Troi asked.
“Other people with different stories. But they’re all Dissenters like me.”
Troi began to think that she could use help finding her way to CephCom. Caliban didn’t seem capable of providing it, but Troi began to wonder if there were other Dissenters, like Amoret, who might. She could only guess at the size of the insurgency, but from what Crichton had said it was a serious threat to his CS.
Troi still felt the Other-worlder aliens, not the Dissenters, were the essential factor for solving her crisis, but she’d take help where she found it.
“Can you take me to the Dissenters?”
“Let me think about it. Why don’t you tell me your story first?”
“Well, I can’t tell you everything. Is one of your Dissenters named Amoret?”
“Yes. You know her?”
“Sort of.”
At that moment he broke the chain of the handcuffs.
The metal bands remained on her wrists, but her hands were free. She stood and stretched her arms stiffly.
The beating of wings on air reached her ears. Troi looked up. At first all she saw was a small salmon-colored globule of light, circling near the roof of the cave. As it descended toward her, she made out the shape of a large flying creature, on whose back rode an adolescent girl with long dark hair. In one hand she held one of the light-stones.
The creature skimmed over the pool in circles. Troi realized she was probably seeing the same species of animal she had encountered near the cave entrance. It felt the same empathically. Again, Troi could feel nothing beyond simple animal awareness.
The beast was bigger than a horse. It took no notice of Troi, apparently content to let the long-haired girl guide it with a hand on its leathery neck. The girl glanced at Troi with curiosity.
“Crazy Rhiannon,” Caliban said to Troi, “and her haguya-beast. Never happy unless she’s flying with it. I like to keep my feet on the gruntworm-infested earth. What about you?”
“I think I know what you mean.”
The haguya alighted on a rock near them. Troi noticed that its wings were jointed like a bat’s. Its head and beak were reminiscent of a hawk’s, but on a grand scale befitting the size of the body. Its eyes were shaped like a falcon’s, but large and gold-hued.
Troi turned her attention to the girl called Rhiannon. The rider of the haguya seemed to be about twelve, with skin as pale as milk and a mouthful of crooked teeth.
Quite possibly both of them live in these caves, thought Troi. That would explain her paleness and lack of dental attention, and his smell.
Troi wondered if the girl led a life of loneliness and neglect. She peered into Rhiannon’s emotions and found no such isolation, but instead, a warm family-feeling of shared adventures, and at the moment, a breathless exhilaration. The latter feeling had to do with riding the animal, Troi guessed.
Rhiannon seemed to have a special relationship with the haguya. Troi watched her bend close to its ear and whisper, while petting its great