Oblivion - Michael Jan Friedman [18]
And it wasn’t just the conversation in which he took pleasure. It was the people—regardless of which crewmen Emily Bender associated with on any given day. He liked them all. He liked being among them. He liked feeling as if he were part of them, and they a part of him.
Just then, the holoprojector conjured a miniature orchestra in black tuxedos. Iulus shushed everyone to silence. And a moment later, music began to issue forth.
The melody was as eerie as it was ethereal, a variety of stringed instruments and pipes evoking a desert with a harsh, unyielding wind racing through it. Ulelo saw now what Vandermeer meant by her reference to Vulcan’s Forge.
He looked about in the light thrown off by the holographic projections and saw enjoyment on the faces of his companions. Had he been able to see his own face, it would no doubt have looked the same.
Ulelo basked in the moment. He savored it. He savored everything about it.
He knew that such feelings could jeopardize the success of his mission. But he couldn’t help it. The company of others felt too good for him to give it up.
Even though he knew he couldn’t enjoy it forever.
Strange, Guinan thought, as she considered the slumbering specimen of humanity she had rescued from Steej’s detention facility. How very strange.
The first time she had encountered this “Dixon Hill” fellow, they were in a place called San Francisco at the tail end of Earth’s nineteenth century. She remembered him as a balding but distinguished-looking—and yes, unexpectedly charming—individual.
And she remembered also the way he had stared at her then, as if he already knew her.
As Guinan would find out a bit later, he did know her—knew her quite well, in fact. In the twenty-fourth century, they would serve together on a starship called Enterprise, along with people named Data, Riker, Troi, La Forge, and Crusher.
Apparently, “Hill” was the captain of that twenty-fourth-century vessel. However, he had gone back in time to oppose the Devidians, a time-traveling species that had infested San Francisco in order to steal neural energy from the city’s multitude of cholera victims.
And his name wasn’t Hill, no matter what he currently wanted her to believe. It was Picard.
He looked younger now than when she had seen him in San Francisco, and not just because he had a full head of hair. He seemed more energetic, more dynamic, more animated. But he also seemed more naïve in a way.
Guinan didn’t think the older Picard would have fallen into the trap in the plaza as easily as his younger version did. She felt confident that with the benefit of long experience, he would have sniffed the trap out somehow.
She wondered where he was in the course of his career. Her guess was that he had already joined the fleet to which his Enterprise belonged—or would belong, since Picard’s Enterprise probably hadn’t been built yet. However, he looked too fresh-faced to have been made a captain.
A subordinate, then, Guinan decided. A lieutenant or some such thing. And more than likely, he was here in Oblivion on official business, which had been rudely interrupted when the bomb went off in the plaza.
She took unexpected comfort in watching the fellow sleep. And these days, her comforts were few and far between.
But then, it was hard not to like him, hard not to care what happened to him. He was so earnest, so obviously intent on doing the right thing.
And he had been so grateful when she got him out of the detention facility, so amazed at her generosity. After all, who in her right mind would take that kind of risk for a complete and utter stranger?
Guinan sighed. Who indeed.
She wished she could tell Picard that he wasn’t a stranger—that the “tough spot” she had mentioned had taken place back in San Francisco, and that she had escaped it by virtue of his willingness to take a risk for her.
She closed her eyes and