Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [65]
Sure enough, Wentz called from the bridge.
“Sir, the Rampartian ships are backing off.”
That didn’t do much to assure Geordi. The Enterprise was still vulnerable. And the communicator-jamming had continued on the surface.
“Keep the shields up, Lieutenant.”
Before he switched the channel back to Picard’s, he took one more moment to think it all out. There had to be one test, just the right one …
“Captain, I need to ask you a question to verify you are who you appear to be.”
“You can ask one of the standard code questions.”
“No, I had something else in mind, something to suit the occasion. What is the book you sometimes keep in your ready room, from which you most often quote? The book that was in your ready room before we got to Rampart?”
“Lieutenant, this is no time for improvisation. Use standard procedure please.”
“What is the book, and who wrote it?”
“I can’t remember. Lieutenant, this isn’t a recognized procedure.”
“Who wrote it?—your favorite, Captain.”
“I say, and this is an order, Lieutenant—”
“Can’t you give me a phrase from it? It doesn’t have to be a fictional phrase. Just one of the titles. A type of storm, for instance. Or, you know, that certain small wild animal that has to be tamed.”
“No. There is no such book! You’re babbling nonsense.”
Geordi could see that Picard really meant it.
“I can’t accept that you’re Captain Picard,” he said, “unless you can give me something from that book.”
“Lieutenant, I’m going to have to relieve you from duty,” Picard said darkly.
Geordi cut the channel.
For a moment he stood there, appalled. Something abominable had been done to the captain’s mind.
He called Wentz on the bridge.
No answer.
“Wentz, are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. We … oh, God.”
“Talk to me!”
“We just lost someone. Someone from Security. They were trying to stop the one-eyes.”
Geordi had to lean on the console to stop his shaking. Nightmare without end.
“The one-eyes have broken into impulse,” said Wentz.
“Lies, disgusting myths, obscene stories. They’re all over the place in there. Don’t give me some garbage about not finding them.”
Crichton sat in a treatment chair, while a rotund, middle-aged mind-cleanse doctor stood over him with a probe. It was a hand-held device with a shiny gold pod on the end. It could electronically search and destroy fiction in the brain, clean it out and replace it with inert filling, as one would treat a dental carie. This was known as “cleansing,” and Rampartians had to do it all the time. The filling might consist of the number “six” repeated a million times, or a report on the history and technique of sandblasting.
The doctor moved the pod around the top of Crichton’s head, searching.
“But I really can’t find them, Director Crichton. It is possible that they’re present but just not active at the moment.”
“You’d better look harder. I’ve suffered spells of near-insanity because of these hallucinations. I’ve just been lucky that a one-eye didn’t pick them up. We can’t just wait for them to happen again. They’re getting out of control.”
“I could call in another doctor—”
“No, out of the question. You’re the only one I trust to keep this in confidence, Henry. Of course, I have voluntarily sought help, and that would be a matter of record, so my guilt would be small. But think of the consequences to the CS. The Director of Cephalic Security, himself a carrier of the Allpox!”
“I do understand the problem, sir.”
The doctor moved the probe around the top of Crichton’s skull, while his eyes peered over their fat-pouches at an oscilloscope on the table.
Crichton looked at his watch. Then he grabbed his handset phone from his jacket pocket, dialed a number, cleared through CS voice-check, and got his office.
“Are the Dissenters … just outside the sub-basement? … No, don’t let them in. I want them forced to the designated zone in front of CephCom. Where’s Ferris? … Not like him, but let him finish. Just