Intellivore - Diane Duane [47]
“Well,” Picard said finally, when everyone was settled, “I’m open to discussion. We have a problem.”
They looked at the image of the planet, sailing away through the night, starlit. Ileen had augmented the image so that the contours of the warpfield around the planet were visible. It was huge, and of tremendous power: a great globe surrounding the planet, slightly compressed on the forward edge, narrowing to a whiplike tail behind, where the field sealed itself.
“You wouldn’t want to blunder through that,” she said absently, but with some relish. “If you hit the rear of it, it would cut you in half. Look at that symmetry! It’s bizarre.”
“It certainly doesn’t match anything our science would accept as normal for a functioning warpfield,” said Riker. “These people could teach us something.”
“That’s what I’ve been thinking,” Captain Maisel said. “Captain, we should start a more aggressive series of sensor runs. This one seems to have been fairly successful, but the amount of equipment the probe could carry was limited. I think it’s time a science vessel sees what it can find out, with all its eyes and ears peeled.”
Picard had been waiting for this. He nodded, looked thoughtful, and said, “Clif?”
The Trill shook his head. “I have to disagree. We might have things to learn from that technology, but we’re in danger of learning them the way the boy learned how rocks fall, by having one fall on his head. Hostile or not, even if it has the best of intentions—which some of us will question—that thing could possibly destroy us even in the act of doing something so seemingly innocent as trying to probe us in return. I think we need to sit tight for the moment, following it as distantly as possible. Be very careful not to attract its attention, and call for backup.”
Picard blinked at that. “What kind of backup?” he said. “You know as well as I that we’re supposed to be the front line in this situation. Three starships of the line: we’re meant to handle this.”
“We’re going to lose time, Clif,” Captain Maisel said. “And our opportunity, if we don’t move quickly. Suppose that while we’re being overcautious, this thing takes fright and runs off somewhere faster than we can follow. If we let this planet, or creature, or creatures, just waltz away from us now because some of us are too cautious to move when the happy opportunity presents itself, Starfleet is not going to be pleased!”
Cliff compressed his lips, then replied slowly. “There are twenty-five hundred Starfleet personnel out here, not to mention the two hundred casualties from Boreal, to whom we have a responsibility to get them back safely to where they can be properly cared for.”
“If we don’t move pretty fast now,” Ileen said, “there are going to be a whole lot more people who need to be ‘properly cared for’! At least that’s the way I read how things are going. You look at Mr. Data’s figures!” She got up and started to pace. “We need to do something now, and the something is going to have to take one of two forms. Either figure out a way to communicate with the planet, and explain to it or them the error of their ways, so to speak—or kill it. But one way or another, we’re going to need more information to do that—and lying low is not going to solve the problem.”
“I think Captain Maisel is right in this,” Picard said. He looked at Clif. “I don’t really see any virtue in calling for assistance. We were sent here to handle this ourselves. We’re not in any immediate danger, as I judge it. Obviously, we’ll give Starfleet as much information as we can about what’s going on here. But for the time being, I think our best course is to continue doing what we’re doing at the moment. We’ll continue to tail the planet, close enough not to lose the trail. But I will assure myself of our own task force’s safety before we go any further in actually engaging the creature or creatures.”
There was a longish silence. “Captain,” Clif said, “I wish you would think again about this.”
Maisel let out a long breath of exasperation. “Your problem,” she said, “is that you