Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [83]
“They will kill you if you go among them!”
Tichelon warned. “We are peaceful people, Captain Picard, but the Konor are an abomination upon the face of the galaxy. There is nothing to do but destroy them!” Picard shook his head. “First, we must seek a peaceful resolution of the problem. Have you any pictures of the Konor, their ships, their weapons?”
“Why … no. To approach closely enough to obtain pictures is to be killed.”
“Captain-was Troi interrupted softly.
Picard cut the voice transmission. “What do you sense, Counselor?” “Tichelon is telling the truth about the destruction, and the refusal of the Konor to respond to negotiation or surrender. He is truly terrified of them. However, his anxiety level peaked when you asked for pictures. I think it is true that they kill anyone who attempts to 230 record them, and yet … I do not think it is true that there are no visuals.”
“He did say some people escaped,” Riker pointed out. “They’ve seen the Konor. If no recordings, there must be descriptions, drawings.”
“Which Tichelon does not want us to see?” Picard walked forward toward the viewscreen, as was his habit when dealing with people he did not trust. Data wondered if he thought closer inspection would reveal details unobservable from the command chair.
“Open frequency.” Picard told Tichelon, “We will reach orbit in one point three hours.
We will contact you when we have investigated these Konor for ourselves. Picard out.”
The captain turned to Data, who was back in his customary place at Ops. “Mr. Data, prepare for a detailed scan of the area of the planet the Konor have conquered.”
“Yes, sir,” Data replied, and moved to the science station. “Mr. Worf,” the captain continued, “full sensor scan of space around Dacket. I want to know about any vessels in orbit-even if they’re cloaked-was “Aye, Captain.”
Data, made his preparations while listening to the talk going on about him-and suddenly realized that he had regained the ability to do two things at once, if one of them was as routine as setting up a sensor scan of a planetary surface. He smiled to himself. Dr. Pulaski was wrong: he would develop human reflexes. If only he could do it without further lessons as painful as the one this morning.
Worf was soon growling at his equipment and his assistants, for sensors could detect no ships in orbit around Dacket. Eventually he said, “If there’s a cloaked ship in orbit, it’s using technology we don’t know. But I’m sure there is no ship, Captain. I’ve even done a gravity scan. The power required to maintain a cloaking device for so long would be an unacceptable drain on a ship’s power. Either the Konor arrived in ships that they landed on the planet, or a mother ship left them there and departed.”
“Sensor scans will show any ships on the planet,” Data said, and began providing orbit coordinates to put them directly over the southern section of the continent which the Konor were taking.
In the far south, the terrain was typical of an inhabited class-M planet: cities and farms, crops in the fields, electrical power in operation, numerous humanoid lifeform readings.
“But something … is missing,” said Data, unable to determine what it was.
“Ships, for one thing,” Riker observed. “The only deep-space vessels grounded there are Samdian sublight trading ships. If the attacks began at the southern end of the continent, the Konor ships should have landed there. Your theory of a mother ship may be correct, Mr. Worf.”
But Data still felt something was missing. As the scan continued northward, the cities were not in such good condition; many buildings lay in rubble, although roads were clear. Here, too, the farmland was being cultivated. As