Nightshade - Laurell K. Hamilton [12]
‘What is this place?” Picard asked.
‘It is the room of lifeless children,” the guard said. This time there was no mistaking the catch in his voice. Troi did not need to feel it to hear the sadness.
Troi moved toward the right hand wall. Picard let her go, staying close by in case he was needed. Worf and the Orianian security team were being alert, searching for enemies.
The Orianian said, “No one will attack us here. It is a place of neutrality.”
Worf nodded, but his hand stayed near his phaser just the same.
Troi touched the cool metal of the walls. Liquid ran through two tubes, a rainbow of wires fed into the small rectangle. The whispering in her head was louder. It was like the sound of water running, or wind in leaves, continuous, monotonous, but.. There was meaning here, intelligence. It wasn’t just wind or water. There were thoughts captured behind these walls. Thoughts, like ragged bits of dream.
She laid her hands flat on one rectangle. The thoughts were stronger when she concentrated, but still made no sense. “I don’t understand. What are they saying?”
‘Who, lady?” one of the guards asked.
‘I don’t know. I…” Then suddenly, Troi knew what was behind all those rectangles. There were hundreds of them like boxes in a warehouse. Liquid slurped in and out of the tubes. The wires hummed, and there was the faintest smell of electricity, a sharp ozone smell.
Troi backed away from the wall, clutching her hands to her stomach. “Oh, my god,” she whispered.
‘Counselor, what is it?” Picard asked.
‘Babies…” she whirled to look at all the holding tanks, “babies.”
‘These are the lifeless children,” Breck said. “I told you that.”
‘But they’re not dead,” Troi said. She walked up to him, staring up into his face. “They’re alive inside there.”
He shook his head. “They are lifeless.”
‘No, I can feel them thinking, dreaming. I know they’re alive.”
‘You are mistaken, lady,” the guard said.
Troi shook her head, backing away from the guard. “Captain.”
‘I’m here, Troi,” Picard said, coming to stand beside her.
‘They are alive.”
‘I believe you, Counselor, but why would the guards lie?”
‘I don’t know.” She stared at the warehouse of dead children. It was impossible. They were keeping them alive. The tubes and wires were feeding them-why did they say the children were dead? It made no sense.
‘Is this what woke you, Counselor?”
‘No.” She started walking through the huge room toward a small door at the end. “Behind there.” Troi knew now that it was a woman whose terror she had shared. The woman was sleeping now, but whatever had started her terror and then her grief was still there. They could drug the woman, but when she woke, the emotions would still be there, raw and waiting to suck her down. Would they swallow Troi up again, as well? The counselor didn’t know. She could not remember when a stranger’s pain had so affected her.
The door at the far end of the room opened. An Orianian stepped through. She was barefaced, with the typical high-boned cheeks and huge luminous eyes. She was dressed in orange surgical dress. A doctor perhaps?
The woman did not see them at first. Her eyes were downcast, staring at something she carried. The orange wrapped bundle was the color of the surgical gown and so small that it would not have filled Troi’s two hands. The Orianian woman looked up at them, almost in slow motion. Her eyes were pale brown, large in her face, but filled with unutterable sorrow.
Troi looked away from that haggard face, but the emotion did not leave. It was not a matter of eye contact, but of the woman’s need.
Her despair reached out for Troi like a blanket, wet and gray and suffocating. Troi pushed the emotion away. She could not accept this woman’s pain. In any case, it wasn’t this one who had woken her.
‘Guards, who are these people, and how dare you bring them here?”
There should have been anger in her voice, but there was none left. It was as if the despair had eaten everything else.
The first guard went to one knee before the woman.
‘Dr. Zhir, this is the Federation