Section 31_ Rogue - Andy Mangels [20]
“To understand the people we seek to bring into the Federation,” Tabor said, “we must understand the world that produced them.”
Raising a small remote-control device before him, he summoned a holographic representation of a planet, which began slowly turning above the conference table. Half of the planet was engulfed in inky, impenetrable darkness. The other hemisphere was brightly lit, colored with a pallet of inhospitable rust reds and sulfuric yellows. It reminded Picard of something out of Milton.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Chiaros IV,” Tabor continued. “Because its rotational period precisely matches its sidereal year, this planet presents the same face to its sun at all times. In other words, half the planet exists in perpetual, broiling daylight. The opposite side is consigned to an endless night. This leaves only a narrow swath of habitable area-the so-called ‘twilight meridian’- girdling the planet from pole to pole and back again. As you can see, Chiaros IV is a place of remarkable contrasts.”
“Remarkable indeed,” Troi said. “The very existence of this planet seems to defy all the odds.”
“Actually,” Data said, “such orbital configurations are not uncommon. For example, Earth has a single natural satellite that orbits in exactly the same fashion.”
Smiling indulgently at the android, Tabor said, “Actually, Mr. Data, I believe the counselor’s words were quite well-chosen.” He then resumed addressing the rest of the room: “Besides the ferocious weather systems caused by the planet’s tide-locked orbit, one must consider the Chiarosan star’s prodigious output of hard radiation. Without the protection of the planet’s immense magnetic field, no life of any sort could exist here. The solar bombardment long ago boiled away most of Dayside’s surface water, leaving the Chiarosans with the unenviable options of either pumping it out from dozens of kilometers beneath the nutrient-poor ground, or collecting Nightside ice-the latter alternative being extraordinarily difficult and risky, given the permanently frozen conditions there. On Chiaros IV, life itself is very much against the odds, let alone the Chiarosans’ warp-capable civilization. But the Chiarosans are inveterate survivors; they are a people long accustomed to ‘beating the odds.’”
“It’s hard to understand,” Crusher said with a slight shake of her head, “how a warp-capable society can have so much trouble just keeping its people fed.”
“Not really, Doctor,” Batanides said. “These people don’t have any trading partners within ten parsecs in any direction. On top of that, they only discovered faster-than-light travel about a generation ago. Zefram Cochrane’s first warp experiments didn’t bring us asteroid mines and food replicators overnight. Until the start of the twenty-second century, after the first Oort cloud resource-extraction operations had gotten under way, Earth was still in pretty rough shape economically.”
Tabor nodded toward the admiral before continuing. “As I’m sure you’re all aware by now, the Chiarosans are about to make a choice that could be as critical as their discovery of superluminal travel. In a little less than five days, they will decide whether to become a provisional member of the Federation, or yet another vassal of the Romulan Star Empire.”
“And if the Chiarosans enter a pact with the Romulans,” Batanides said, “then they also gain effective control of the entire Geminus Gulf.”
Picard looked at the impassive faces of each of his senior officers, none of whom looked overly impressed by the point Batanides had just made. Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge, the Enterprise’s chief engineer, was the first to give voice to what they all must have been thinking.
“I’ve seen the reports about what’s in the Gulf. Or rather about what’s not there, at least in terms of resources. To put it delicately… why are we so concerned about whether or not the Romulans annex the place?”
“Other than simple altruism,” Riker said, “the best reason I can think of is because the Romulans seem to be very concerned about