Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [40]
With a sick feeling in his gut, Picard got as close to the screen as he could, straining to see detail.
One of the bodies was Riker. The heads of the other two were hidden by several walking CS men, but Picard knew by the uniform and shape of one that it was surely Data. The third wore dark clothes, not Starfleet issue, and appeared to be female.
Medium angle: Ferris climbed into the copilot’s seat of one of the hovercraft.
Dramatic long shot: The two white craft were aloft, their red running lights blinking as they flew toward the dark horizon.
Back to the anchorman: His face clearly showed that he was moved by what he had just witnessed. He paused, as if the sight of such heroism had put a lump in his throat and he needed to compose himself. After an appropriate wait, he moved on to his next piece.
“The CS has developed a new-generation truth-inducing drug which will be used in the field when factual information is being withheld by criminals. Deployment will come within the next day. Our Tom Martin was at CephCom today and has the details …”
Picard sat slowly down at the foot of the bed.
So Riker and Data had come, presumably to search for him. The sight of their limp bodies was devastating. They were his family, or the closest thing he had to one.
He swallowed his emotions. He reminded himself that the announcer had said “captured,” not “killed.” He himself had been captured even though he could have been killed. Wouldn’t all of them be most useful alive, as hostages?
He looked up at the antennae again. Strange feeling—he could think about his crew, his ship, his own imprisonment, and even about trying to escape, and the CS could listen in to all of it.
The single windowless door opened noiselessly. Picard tensed. He felt an animal reflex for escape poise him for action.
An armed and helmeted CS orderly, followed by an armed guard, came in with a tray of food. Their eyes, partially visible behind the glowing twin rasters on their visors, watched Picard warily, and the guard kept a gun trained on him.
“I wish to communicate with my ship,” said Picard. “Tell Crichton that. And tell him if he and I talk we can settle our misunderstanding and the Enterprise won’t have to retaliate.”
The orderly set the tray down, and the two of them backed out, without a word, and shut the door.
Picard had to begin considering escape as an option. He feared that if he couldn’t reason with Crichton and he was forced to remain here, then the Rampartians, with their brain wave technology, might be able to alter his thoughts and actions. He could be forced against his will to betray his own ship.
He looked again at the camera and brain wave antennae. Planning an escape was impossible; the antennae would pick up the plan. The only feasible options would have to occur as spontaneous inspirations. He would have to act on them without deliberation.
“Deal with that,” he said to the antennae.
Picard watched the screen for another hour but there was nothing more about Riker or Data, and though he half expected to see it, there was nothing about himself.
As he watched more news images of Ferris and other CS officers in their exploits, he reflected that here on Rampart, where fiction was a capital crime, the people were forced to twist their own psychological needs and cast real-life public figures as pseudo-mythical heroes. Ferris was not, in reality, a hero, he was a monkey who did what he was told, but because the people of Rampart had no other outlet for their minds’ unconscious needs, they made Ferris a hero (after all, he looked like one) and the Dissenters an evil force for the hero to vanquish.
On Earth, in the present twenty-fourth century, a man like Ferris would be an object of ridicule, thought Picard. He had been satirized there for three thousand years; even in classical Greek comedy the goose-stepping soldier had been made into a buffoon.
Picard’s door opened again. Three CS men and a one-eye entered.
The CS men all had weapons drawn.
“Time for your sentencing,” said one of them.