Oblivion - Michael Jan Friedman [8]
“Don’t leave me,” she told him, clutching at his arm in fear and desperation.
Picard placed his hand over hers, feeling the roughness of her alien skin. “I won’t,” he assured her.
Without medical instruments or expertise, there wasn’t much he could do for her. But he remained at her side, her hand in his, until security arrived in its black-and-blue uniforms and began tending to the woman’s injuries.
At that point, the captain began to consider his next move. He looked around the plaza and saw no sign of Demmix. But then, he hadn’t expected to.
As Pug Joseph, the Stargazer’s acting security chief, would have said, that horse had already left the barn.
Like Picard, Demmix would have suspected the timing of the explosion, which took place almost exactly at the moment the two of them were scheduled to rendezvous. It seemed unlikely that it was a coincidence.
And Demmix had been skittish to begin with. He would be even more so now.
Picard would have loved to investigate the facts surrounding the explosion—who had set it, for instance, and for what arcane reason. But he didn’t have the luxury of the time that analysis would require. He had to focus on finding Demmix and getting him safely aboard the Stargazer.
All other considerations would have to wait. With that in mind, Picard got up and headed for the hatch of the Lurassin ship, reckoning it was as good a starting point as any.
But he had barely taken a step when he heard a guttural voice crack like thunder over the plaza: “Him! He’s the one who set off the bomb!”
Picard turned to see who had cried out—and, more important, to whom he was referring. What he saw was a tall, slope-shouldered Yridian, his tiny eyes ablaze with excitement in his long-eared, wrinkle-ridden face.
And to the captain’s surprise, the Yridian’s long, accusatory finger was pointing in a most uncomfortable direction.
At Picard himself.
“I beg your pardon?” he managed to retort—rather lamely, he was afraid.
But before he could finish, a couple of security officers—a ruddy, long-tusked Vobilite and a purple-skinned Cataxxan—converged on him with their weapons drawn. Picard thought about making a run for it, but the approach of two additional officers convinced him that he would never make it.
The Yridian’s lower lip curled with disgust. “The stinking human probably thought he would get away with it. But I saw him. I saw everything.”
“You’ve got the wrong man,” Picard protested evenly. “I’m not the one responsible for what happened here.”
“We’ll see about that,” the Vobilite rasped skeptically around his tusks.
The Cataxxan jerked his hairless head to indicate a direction. “The detention facility is this way. And don’t try anything—my weapon’s not set on stun.”
The captain noticed the gathering crowd of onlookers and cursed under his breath. He had hoped to avoid drawing attention to himself. Now, through no fault of his own, he had done a lot more than just draw attention.
He had become an object of intense curiosity—the human suspected of setting off an explosive device in the middle of Six Corners Plaza.
With a quartet of directed-energy weapons trained on him, Picard had no choice but to proceed in the direction the Cataxxan had indicated. As he did so, he saw the expressions on the faces of the merchants on either side of him.
Hatred burned in their eyes, no matter the shape or color or number of them—hatred and a desire for retribution. Nor could the captain blame them. He wanted to know who had set off the explosion as much as they did.
Perhaps even more.
His jaw muscles working furiously, Picard allowed himself to be escorted through a hatch and into another airlock—his mission suddenly very much in jeopardy.
Chapter Three
“ANOTHER CUP?” Wu asked.
Ben Zoma, who—through an enormous act of self-control—was still sitting on the other side of the desk in the captain’s ready room, shook his head. “No, thanks. Two’s my limit.” He picked up the white ceramic mug the second officer had given him and peered into it, swishing around its contents. “Besides, I didn’t