Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [85]
Data did not know what any of them had expected comsome kind of brutal monsters, surely. Instead, they saw humanoids with serene faces: men, women, and children going about their business like the most peaceful people in the galaxy. There were no soldiers in evidence, no weapons, and no rushing or pushing among the people moving efficiently but politely across the screen. The Konor looked superficially like the Samdians, except that their skins were golden-green, their hair lavender. They were also more slender and willowy, and none wore beards.
Not only were they unclothed, they were also unadorned. There was no jewelry, no makeup, not so much as a flower in anyone’s hair. They had no need of such enhancements, for all had the attractive quality of good health. “These are the brutal killers Tichelon is so terrified of?”
Riker asked, astonished.
“We haven’t seen them in contact with the Samdians,” Picard reminded him. “Thralen, can you make out how these people communicate? I don’t see any gestures.”
“No,” the sociologist replied, “and also no speech. They hardly look at one another. Scent is not probable; they do not sniff at one another, either. I’ve never encountered scent as the primary method of communication among humanoids, and these people are too well organized not to have long-distance communication. Scent will not communicate in crowds or over distances.” “Or through the vacuum of space,” Geordi put in. “I think we must hypothesize that they are telepathic,” Thralen said.
“Telepathic!” Riker exclaimed. “Thralen, telepaths are rarely aggressive unless they’re psychotic-to harm or kill someone forces a telepath to experience the other person’s pain, fear, death.”
“Then you tell me how they communicate,” Thralen said. “Perhaps they are psychotic,” Geordi said. “Data, can you call up what’s happening in Eskatus?”
“What was happening there approximately an hour ago,” Data agreed, and switched the image to one of the last ones their scan had recorded.
The city of Eskatus lay smoking in the aftermath of battle. There were bombed-out buildings, overturned vehicles, and bodies both Samdian and Konor-but Samdian corpses far outnumbered Konor ones. Some of the Konor wore shielding clothing, heavily padded suits with helmets hanging at their belts. They were heaving Samdian bodies onto trucks-and as the Enterprise officers watched, horrified, one of them discovered a Samdian alive, calmly slit her throat, and with the help of another Konor soldier slung the body on top of the others. “Earlier reports said they took slaves,” Picard said. “This looks as if they kill everybody.”
“There are only adults among the dead,” Thralen pointed out. “The people of Eskatus may have sent their children to cities farther north at the approach of the Konor. Among societies which practice slavery, though, children are often separated from adults.
If we scan further, we may find that the Konor have the Samdian children in a secure area.”
“We saw no Samdians in the earlier scene,” Data recalled. “Neither adults nor children.”
“We don’t know how they treat their slaves, if indeed the reports of slavery are true,” Thralen replied. “People may cling to the hope that missing friends and relatives are alive, by assuming those unaccounted for have been captured. We have only the Samdians’ word for what the Konor are like-and those reports are hardly comprehensive.”
“Hardly,” Riker agreed grimly. “You’d think they’d have reported that they can’t communicate with the Konor because the Konor don’t have a spoken language!”
“But slavery is inconsistent with telepathy,” Geordi pointed out. “Thralen, are you sure the Konor are telepaths?”
“No. It is simply the only means of communication I can hypothesize without going down among them.”
“No one is going down there,” Picard stated.
“Not until we know a great deal more. What we see here confirms the reports by the