Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [121]
I’m Dr. Pulaski. Will you tell us your name?”
Konor have no need of names. We identify one another by the essence of our souls.
Troi stepped forward. “Let me see what I can do.” Data could see her concentrating, but he couldn’t receive any thoughts she might be transmitting.
He glanced at Riker, saw him smile proudly at Troi. Captain Picard looked surprised, then pleased. Pulaskismiled. Worf almost allowed a smile, then caught himself and took up his most military stance.
Obviously Counselor Troi had managed to communicate with all of them. But there was no response from the Konor.
After a long attempt, Troj turned away, pale and trembling from her efforts. Dr.
Pulaski’s tests of the Konor’s responses showed that he understood what was spoken aloud, but did not receive the Counselor’s efforts to reach him, any more than Data did.
So Troi tried a different approach, speaking aloud. “How can you claim we have no souls if we can understand you?”
The soulless recognize our state. It is their own they refuse to accept.
Commander Riker asked, “What would prove to you that we are as much people as you are?”
Any among you who can respond soul to soul are recognized as Konor. We have rescued many from among the 1konor.
“That is what was happening with those children we saw in the scans,” Data realized. “They were separating out any telepaths among the Dacket children, and making slaves of the others.”
Troi asked, “If we can find someone who can communicate with you, “soul to soul’ as you put it, would you deal with that person as an equal?”
Certainly. Providence may have created Konor among other races than the Samdians. We would welcome contact with them. So they began trying everyone aboard the Enterprise with a high ESP rating, but none could reach the Konor.
The Konor stared defiantly. This is nonsense. No one is both Konor and Ikonorcom We have proof of who 337 and what we are. Providence provides.
Dacket is ours by right, as (okarn was and Gellesen will be.
At that, Captain Picard called a halt.
“We’re wasting our time. Prepare that man to be returned to his home planet.”
“Captain,” said Data, as what he had stored up over the past several hours as raw data suddenly took on a significant pattern.
“Please do not send him back yet.
“Why not?” Picard asked. “We’re not going to persuade him that he and his kind are not masters of the universe by divine right. Our only hope, and it is a slim one, is to scour the galaxy for telepaths who somehow might succeed where the ones aboard this ship have failed. In the meantime-was “That will not work,” Data said. “What the Konor have developed is not telepathy.”
Everyone in the crowded sickbay stared at him.
Pulaski frowned. “Data, we all heard everything this man said to us, although he did not speak aloud. He is a broadcast telepath.”
“That is how I know, Doctor,” Data said.
“I should have realized it the moment we beamed down to Dacket. I could not perceive Counselor Troi’s attempts today, for an android can receive only emanations that have a physical component detectable to his sensors. The Konor’s means of communication cannot be telepathy-because I hear everything they project just as clearly as the rest of you.”
CAPTAIN PICARD and Commander Riker adjourned with Data to the nearest briefing room. Data called in Chief Engineer La Forge to help with his plan. “What the Konor must do is transmit their thoughts on a frequency common to both your sense organs and my sensors,” he explained. “If we can trace that frequency, Geordi and I can build a transmitter-and we shall all be able to communicate with the Konor.”
“As will the Samdians,” Riker said with a pleased grin. “Data, I don’t know what we’d do without you! We’d never have guessed what the Konor have isn’t ordinary telepathy.”
Picard’s mouth thinned in a moment’s pain at the thought. “We might have been forced to abandon them to their fate-and the tender mercies of the sharks drawn here by the bloodbath. Thank God you are what you are, Mr.
Data. You and Mr. La