Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [74]
“Further, it is essential that none of you watch me until I give you further notice. Stay in the van, shut the windows, and completely forget about me.”
Riker drew his head back into the van and shut the back gate. He and Picard looked at each other and nodded in silent assent.
“Is he usually this strange?” asked Amoret.
“Please do what he asked,” said Picard. “Why don’t you tell us what you can about possible escape routes from this room?”
She began to tell all she knew about the layout of CephCom. Picard listened carefully. He had no time for actual embarrassment or squeamishness, but, still, he found he was more comfortable when he wasn’t looking at her face. In spite of the gratitude he felt toward her for saving his mind, the idea of her sifting through his most private thoughts took some getting used to.
Outside the van, in a corner of the room, Data sat on a fifty-gallon drum. His attention was occupied by a small object on his lap.
“What do you mean the transmitter just went down!”
Crichton cradled his head in his hands and massaged his temples.
“That’s impossible!” he said. “That’s a triple fail-safe system!”
“I know, sir,” said the voice on his headset. “But some teenage girl climbed way up the transmitter tower and crossed a bunch of wires, and now it’s off-line. She’s still up there. Do you want us to shoot her down?”
“This is all wrong,” said Crichton. “The Dissenters were to be forced into the quadrangle. Ferris is already there, the one-eyes are already there …”
“Ferris is still there, sir, and so are the one-eyes, but as you know, all of the one-eyes on the CephCom grounds have to use the transmitter, and can’t relay information or coordinate their fire until the transmitter is back up. Some of the Dissenters have entered the building. I’m getting damage reports.”
“Look,” said Crichton, “I want all of the Dissenters forced out of the building now, including the girl. Don’t wait for the one-eyes, don’t worry about coordinating fire, just do it. These people should be no problem—they aren’t even armed! Since we don’t have the one-eyes, we’ll have to use cameras in the hovercraft to get our video. Make sure they get plenty of close-ups of Ferris firing at the Dissenters. And I want a hand-to-hand scene as well—Ferris one-on-one with a Dissenter, no guns. Make sure he takes his helmet off.”
“What about the criminals we’ve trapped in the shelter behind the clean room? The three from the Enterprise?”
“Just leave them there with guards posted outside. They can’t go anywhere from in there. We’ll arrest them after we finish with the rest of the operation.”
“Yes, sir.”
Crichton looked up at the lenses and antennae that pointed to the interrogation platform in his office. He rose from his chair and went into his private bathroom. There were no antennae or cameras in there.
He washed his hands compulsively, for the twentieth time this day. As always, he didn’t know why he had to do it. The compulsion was irresistible and it made him feel much better to just go along with it.
At least it gave him time to think. A moment ago he had only barely suppressed the insane fictions in his mind. But he was sure that by now some antenna somewhere must have picked up a bit of them. And it could only be his value to the CS and the Council of Truth, his peculiar talent for creating video images the public wanted, that was keeping him from arrest. Who could they get to replace him?
He blamed the Enterprise people and the Dissenters for the fictions. The blasphemous tales had started surfacing in his head the moment the Enterprise had arrived, and, clearly, the Enterprise had come to help the Dissenters. The ship was full of the Allpox.
At the foot of the steps in front of CephCom’s grand main entrance, Ferris waited. He knew the one-eyes were out of commission; still, he didn’t anticipate major problems. There were several hundred CS soldiers crouched behind jeeps and personnel carriers, weapons at the ready. Ferris held his own service weapon at his side.
Two white