Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [9]
For a moment he and Picard held a tense stare.
“I’m grateful for the information,” Picard said finally. “And to your government for its cooperation—I’m sure the mission in the nebula will be short, and we’ll have you back on your itinerary in no time.”
“We don’t mind at all, Captain,” said Una. “We are enjoying your ship—and the scintillating company of your security chief.”
Worf gave a short, deep grunt of acknowledgment, his eyes looking over everyone’s head toward the opposite wall. Una squeezed his huge hand. Actually she was able to squeeze only two fingers.
Picard and Riker looked at Worf, both wondering what this fiercely loyal, taciturn security chief was finding in common with the two tiny ethnographers. This was clearly a friendship of a kind uncommon for Worf. As the only member of his warrior species permanently stationed on the Enterprise, he tended to keep to himself.
“Is there any other way we can help you?” asked Oleph with unmistakable impatience.
“No, and I’m sorry we interrupted,” said Picard. “Good night.”
“Captain, Commander Riker,” Worf said to his two superior officers in his resonant bass voice.
Riker added his own good night and he and Picard continued walking down the corridor.
They heard Oleph, Una, and Worf speak in muted tones behind them, then Worf’s door hissed shut. Riker glanced rearward. The incongruous trio had gone back into Worf’s cabin.
“I’ve often thought, and still do,” said Picard, “that we know little of all there is to Worf. But he’s more than proven his trustworthiness, and I’m sure he’d report to me anything he knew of contact with new life-forms. I’m just as sure that Oleph and Una are hiding something. Professional people from their world have a code of confidentiality with colleagues; it’s a sanctified relationship. That’s got to be why they’re holding back about what they did with Counselor Troi. Will, I want you to have a talk with Worf before he retires for the night. Tell him he has to be the one to keep an eye on Oleph and Una. Tell him they may have something to do with the Other-worlders.”
“I’ll watch them all the captain wants,” Worf told himself as he sat in front of his computer terminal later that night, after Riker had spoken with him, “but I’ll be one with the dead before I’m forced to tell anyone else about …”
He thought of the portentous secret he shared with Oleph and Una. He looked at the keypad of his terminal. Would he make the call now?
He growled like a wolf and took a sip of tranya left him by Oleph and Una before they’d returned to their cabin. Their ceremonial beverage had gotten him quite drunk.
The possibility of glory, of vertiginous triumph undreamt just days before, swirled around his cortex, overwhelmed him with unfamiliar joys and terrors.
After an endless adrenal moment, he managed to order his thoughts.
He entered his personal code into the computer, then he opened up a secured and scrambled channel to a place thousands of light-years across the lonely void.
But the tranya caught up with him and he passed out before he was able to make his call.
Chapter Four
SEATED IN HER SPOT to the captain’s left, Troi watched the planet grow larger on the bridge viewscreen. Behind the planet its mother sun, rho Ophiuchi, illuminated a nebula that surrounded star, planet, and now the Enterprise like a candescent blue fog.
Again Troi found herself feeling that this hidden star system was some kind of trap for her. She sensed the Other-worlders around her, sensed their intention to send her through that awful paralyzing transformation they’d attempted once before, and feared that this star system would be the stage for the transformation. She couldn’t tell if this was a purely irrational fear on her part or if she had picked up some real intention from the Other-worlders.
Suddenly wary of attracting another contact with them, she shifted her awareness away from the Other-worlders. She focused on the minds of Picard and Riker beside her.
So cool and remote these men were—emotions suppressed, the