Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [32]
“Wait. Odysseus didn’t imprison anybody,” she said. “Why can you?”
“He trapped, in his own house, those who plotted against him,” said Odysseus. “Anyway, even if I let you leave, you’d stand no chance on your own. No chance without our help, and for that you’d have to become a Dissenter.”
He started to walk into the crowd of stone figures.
He looked back and saw that she hadn’t moved.
“Are you going to stand there all night?” he laughed.
She followed, wondering if he ever let this mask of self-confidence fall, and if he did, would the man beneath be any more manageable?
They proceeded up a little stair and left the great chamber of statues. Neither of them noticed the lens staring from the small hole in the ceiling of the stairwell.
The one-eye had homed in on the infrared warmth from Alastor, and found its way from the main cave passage to this vantage point. It had hovered near the hole like a bee, the rocks around it blocking its hum but also its ability to intercept brain waves. Still, its lens and shotgun-microphone had gathered a lot of good data.
Now it floated away from the hole, back to the main passage outside Alastor. There, in the shadows of the mighty stalactites, it reported back by radio transmission to the waiting CS squad.
Odysseus showed Troi into a private little cave-room and left her there to rest. After a few minutes she snuck out, and, finding no guard, wandered along a narrow passage, looking for an escape option. Instead, she found Odysseus’ own cave-room.
He wasn’t aware she was peering in at him. He was standing in front of a wall papered with old torn illustrations and book covers, images from the story of Odysseus: the Cyclops Polyphemus, the Trojan Horse, a Bronze Age many-oared ship in a dark sea.
Near him, on a stone table, was a bowl of water. He broke his gaze away from the pictures, dipped his hands in the water, and splashed the water on his face. Then he stared some more at the picture of the Bronze Age ship.
Troi perceived his feelings. She understood that he was nourishing his Odysseus character. The sensation of the water on his face helped him to imagine himself on the many-oared ship.
So this is how he sustains the Odysseus persona, she thought. He uses all these accoutrements as artificial memory-props. She’d once read about method actors doing much the same thing.
He picked up a large rock and hefted it repeatedly over his head. A sort of strength-exercise, Troi assumed. She realized he would have to work constantly to maintain his heroic musculature.
Suddenly Troi heard the low voices of Dissenters coming up the passage. She stole unobserved back to her room.
Chapter Eight
“SHIP’S LOG, Lieutenant Geordi La Forge recording. We have lost contact with all members of the away team, because of electronic jamming on the planet.
“I’m not prepared to send any more people to the planet’s surface until we have an idea where the original team is, and we can guarantee countermeasures against the jamming. Hard to know how much the Rampartians stole from the minds of the Enterprise’s crewmembers, and maybe the minds of the Huxley’s too, but as commanding officer I’m making a worst-case assumption. So any countermeasures we already have may be anticipated by the Rampartians. My Engineering staff is therefore working on new modifications to away team equipment.
“We have no recourse in using the Enterprise’s main weaponry. Crichton contacted me and said that if we fired on any of his ships or anything on his planet, he would harm the captain.
“Meanwhile, the one-eyes on the ship have escaped from Security containment and are spreading out. I’m working with my staff to find a way to counter them.”
Geordi rubbed his forehead. The prosthetic VISOR that covered his blind eyes and gave him visual perception—but not normal human sight—was making his head throb. The omnipresent pain seemed worse than usual.
Looking around at good old Engineering seemed a comfort, although Geordi’s VISOR-acquired view of his environment