Intellivore - Diane Duane [13]
Picard’s mouth quirked at the terminology. Lalairu counted an existence’s experience by how often one died, and their definition of death was one they found difficult to explain to other species: some form of regeneration often seemed to be involved. There had been problems about this until the Lalairu had been made to understand that in other species, death was almost always permanent.
“Well,” Picard said, “perhaps you’ll help us unravel this business. Who exactly were your attackers?”
“They were athwaen,” the Lalairu said. “I think your word is pirates. They came up with us at—” Elekk paused, studied the panel in front of him. “These coordinates, which I shall pass to you—and began firing. They were a force of approximately fifteen vessels; one large one of approximately lightcruiser size, and various others down to corvette size or smaller.”
“Did they communicate with you at all first?”
Elekk laughed softly, another hiss, with more of an edge to it. “No, they fired first; so we defended ourselves.”
“Against fifteen vessels—” Picard said, raising an eyebrow.
Elekk looked back at him. “Our armaments are something out of the ordinary. We spend a lot of our time out in the emptier spaces, far from other species’ protection … so we make sure we can protect ourselves. We are in the process of preparing a report on this incident. If it would help you, Captain Picard, we will gladly make available to you our recordings of the battle, and all associated data.”
“Please do,” Picard said. “Meantime, what came of the attack?”
Elekk folded himself down onto the large comfortable-looking sofa that seemed to serve as command chair. “Fourteen of the vessels we destroyed. One we could not account for—I think you would say it got lost in the shuffle. The largest one escaped. It was still warp-capable at low speeds, but had very little weapons capacity left to it.”
“Which way did they go?”
“To the galactic north,” said Elekk. “I would suspect that if you hurry, you can catch them … assuming you are interested in doing so.”
“Certainly. We would not care for those who commit piracy to be encouraged in the belief that it can be committed with impunity.”
“And when you catch them?”
Picard thought about that. “Well, naturally we would attempt to get them to surrender, board and secure their ship, and send them off with one of our task force to a starbase.”
“Captain,” Elekk said, “if I were in your position, I would blow them up and be done with them.”
Picard paused. “That is not a course Starfleet would approve our pursuing.”
The Lalairu nodded. “I know. But I fear that the beings involved in this kind of endeavor understand mercy as weakness. And they understand death as well.”
“With due respect,” Picard said, “death is not an unfamiliar concept to the Lalairu, either.”
“Captain, you’re quite right,” Elekk said. “But our people, who can regenerate a whole body from a fragment, or even from a coil of DNA, see death as just another kind of life experience. For other species …” The Lalairu looked thoughtful. “Well, I must say it took us a while to understand how you manage to die and not come back. But when we did understand that, we took to killing your kind with more restraint … to act otherwise would have been unacceptable.”
Picard smiled slightly, amused. Unacceptable indeed.
“Captain,” Elekk said, “perhaps, also with respect, I might say that Earth humans have a gift for prolonging their own problems. I hope that these pirates may, when you catch up with them, give you an opportunity to exercise your version of right behavior. My guess is that they will not; and I urge you to look to your shields.”
“Elekk,” Picard said, “thank you for the warning. If you’ll send those data on your attack over to us for analysis, we’d be grateful. Meanwhile, is there anything that we can assist you with?”
The Lalairu looked thoughtful, if Picard was reading his expression correctly. “Perhaps your quartermaster’s department