Nightshade - Laurell K. Hamilton [68]
‘Tell us,” Worf repeated gently.
Talanne blinked up at Worf, as if realizing that he was feeling some of her pain. Troi wondered for the first time, if that were literally true. Was Talanne projecting her emotions onto Worf?
Troi stared up at Worf. She would have to drop her barriers, and she did not dare. Talanne was in the middle of an emotional storm.
‘Most of us cannot even become pregnant,” Talanne said, her voice shaky with tears. “You know what happens with the babies that survive.” She would not look at either of them as she said, “The dead children. Most can be saved eventually, but they are never the same. Nothing could save my children.”
She turned in one smooth motion, drawing the cloak tight around her body. “The Greens become with child much more easily. And their children are healthy, strong.” She shook her head. “Much of the hatred of the Greens comes from seeing their smiling children. It is too painful a reminder.”
‘Why not share technology with them?” Troi asked. “Surely it’s clear that they are using some form of biotechnology to help their children.”
‘To admit that would be to admit that, perhaps, the Greens had been right all along. That we have been killing our own children. No one wanted to believe that. They wanted to go on hating each other and then they began to hate the Greens as well. We were accustomed to hating. It was easier than changing.”
‘You went to them to help you have a healthy baby,” Troi said.
‘I did,” she said. “And now I have Jeric. I don’t regret it, not in the least.”
‘Marit helped you?”
Talanne nodded. “And now I have let her die.”
What could Troi say to that? It was true, in a way. “Does Basha know?”
‘No, he is a true Green-hater.”
‘Audun was our only contact with the Greens. Can you take us to them?” Troi asked.
Suspicion was plain on her face. “Why?”
‘We have only one more day before Captain Picard is killed,” Worf said.
Talanne nodded. “Of course, you hope the Greens can tell you something of the biologically altered plant.”
‘Yes,” Worf said.
She stared from Worf to Troi as if trying to memorize their faces. “I have betrayed the woman who gave me my son. I would not betray the Greens again. If you play me false or play them false, I will kill you both, Federation ambassadors or not.” Her voice and face were very steady, utterly serious.
Worf gave a small nod. “Understood.”
‘Good,” she said. “It is good that you understand me. I wish I did.” She gave a soft smile. She got her mask from the floor and slid it into place, then lifted the cloak hood. She was hidden again, bland and safe. “I will take you to a Green encampment.
Perhaps there you will find your answers, as I found mine.”
‘Thank you, Colonel Talanne,” Troi said.
‘Do not thank me yet, mind-healer. Your captain is still going to be executed unless you can prove his innocence. You saw how much power I had to save Marit. I will be no help to you unless you find proof.”
‘We will find proof,” Worf said.
‘How can you be so sure?”
‘Because Captain Picard is innocent,” he said.
‘I knew that Klingons were violent and obsessed with a strange honor code, but I did not know that they were politically naive.”
There was the faintest trace of a smile in her voice.
Chapter Eighteen
Geordi stared at the smooth blinking panels. They were pretty. The soaring silver wall flowed upward to curve into the ceiling. It looked more like a graceful sculpture than a control panel. Geordi admired the beauty of it, but the more he studied it, the less he understood it. He felt like he was growing stupider the longer he stared at the thing.
He wanted to open a panel and look inside. Veleck had been horrified. You would have thought that Geordi had suggested cutting the chief engineer’s own body open. Barbaric had been the most polite term Veleck had used.
Geordi had never realized how much of his engineering skill relied on either a good diagnostic computer program, or a hands-on approach-take it apart and put it back together again. The computers here were tied into the engines, they wouldn’t talk to him