Oblivion - Michael Jan Friedman [31]
Unfortunately, they were Guinan’s business and no one else’s. If she wanted to keep them to herself, he had no choice but to accept her decision.
“You don’t owe me any explanations,” Picard told her.
“Nonetheless,” Guinan said as she emerged from her funk, “I thought I’d tell you. You never know what kind of information might prove valuable someday.”
“Ready?” asked the Dranoon, wielding her hypospray device a second time.
Guinan smiled a thin, sad smile. “Sure,” she said, “go ahead. Turn me purple.”
In the next few seconds, that was what her friend did. As the dye spread throughout her body, she and the captain became a matched pair.
“Not bad,” Guinan said, inspecting herself in the mirror.
“I agree,” Dahlen remarked. “You might want to think about making it permanent.”
“I might at that,” Guinan told her. Then she turned to Picard. “What do you think?”
“What I think,” he said, acutely aware of his need to find Demmix, “is that we have a bit of a search ahead of us. And according to an old Earth proverb—”
Guinan held up her hand. “A thousand miles, a single step. I’ve heard it.”
With a word of thanks to her large green friend, she led the way out of the storage room.
Chapter Eight
IT WASN’T THE FIRST TIME Picard had been altered to resemble another humanoid species.
As an ensign, he had undergone superficial surgeries on three separate occasions in order to conduct clandestine surveys of pre-spaceflight civilizations. It wasn’t anything unusual. It was simply part of serving in Starfleet.
But this was different, Picard thought, as he made his way through a bazaar of exotic goods located in the hold of an old Anjottu freighter.
He wasn’t walking among people who had no reason to look beyond his appearance, no reason to suspect he was anything but what he seemed. Instead, he was rubbing shoulders with keen-eyed merchants, every one of whom knew that a bomb had gone off recently in their vicinity.
He could see it in their eyes. They were on the lookout for the human accused of the crime.
So it wasn’t just Steej’s security officers the captain and his companion had to worry about. It was everyone.
As he thought that, Guinan leaned closer to him and whispered, “For pity sake, relax. Stop thinking like a fugitive and you won’t look like one.”
It was good advice. Picard did his best to follow it.
Not that it was easy. And it became considerably more difficult when he caught sight of a couple of security officers in their blue-and-black uniforms, heading right for the captain and his companion.
But the security officers veered off before they could get too close, apparently to question an Orion beverage merchant. Careful to look straight ahead, Picard walked right past them.
“Breathe,” said Guinan.
He couldn’t help smiling at the remark—which, he imagined, could only add to the efficacy of his disguise. “I will continue to try,” he said.
Suddenly, he saw what they were looking for—a cylindrical black kiosk with the binary-sun symbol of Oblivion’s largest passenger line. A Tellarite was standing in front of the kiosk’s convex screen, booking passage on one vessel or another.
Picard frowned. “I suppose we will have to be patient.”
“Come on,” said Guinan. “We’ll pretend to be interested in some open-toed sandals until he’s done.” And she guided her companion over to a shopwindow displaying an eclectic assortment of footwear.
As luck would have it, the Tellarite wasn’t long in completing his transaction. As soon as the “Cataxxans” noted his departure, they left the shopwindow and took the Tellarite’s place in front of the kiosk.
Its screen showed them the next several flights, their prices, and what accommodations were still available. The topmost flight, which was all but full, left in just under eighteen hours.
Guinan touched the flight number on the pressure-sensitive screen and its itinerary popped up. It included several planets where Demmix could have hidden himself.
None of them were in Federation space. But that wouldn’t be a problem as far as Demmix was concerned. All