Survivors - Jean Lorrah [17]
She felt sick.
The Prime Directive balanced against the lives of sentient, sapient beings—
Which was worse, interfering in the development of an entire culture, or allowing some members of that culture to be carried off into slavery? Starfleet wisdom claimed that historically every attempt to interfere with undeveloped races had resulted in disaster-hence the Prime Directive in the first place.
What if her benign interference led to the Priamites developing a dependence on other races? What if discovering how they had been betrayed by people who seemed just like themselves led to war among a people who heretofore had had no reason to invent it? What if, once the Prime Directive was breached, business interests moved in and began exploiting Priam IV’s natural resources?
Furthermore, Yar’s wide-spectrum inoculations had not prevented her from becoming ill on Priam IV. The Federation scientists had undergone total decontamination before landing here, but she had not. What if she carried bacteria and viruses deadly to the Priamites? What if in trying to save them, she ended up killing them?
All of those tragic scenarios had happened, more than once, in the history of the Federation.
But if she saved only herself, hundreds, maybe thousands, of peaceful people could be carried into slavery before the Federation even had a chance to know and stop the Orions—
Better to stop one definite horror now than worry about possible horrors in the future.
And if as a result Priam IV was exploited, its native culture destroyed? If the natives died of some disease benign to humans? Through her interference?
But the Orions were interfering.
Two wrongs didn’t make a right-and the slavers were carefully not spreading their influence, so the tribes farther from the landing site would not be forewarned.
Deep in the forest, Tasha Yar sat in misery, her wounded wrist aching, her mind in turmoil, wondering why she had ever wanted to join Starfleet.
In front of her weary eyes, the jungle shimmered into an odd pattern of small colored squares. That, in turn, dissolved into two large metal doors which pulled back to reveal a corridor and three people: a Vulcan woman and a human man in the garb of Starfleet medical personnel-and the Orion slave trader!
Yar stared in numb disbelief. This could not be happening!
“Tasha,” the Vulcan woman said, “it is over. Come out of it now. The word is ‘exercise,’ Tasha. You are now awake and aware of reality.”
Around Yar, the jungle of Priam IV dissolved into an empty holodeck.
She was sitting on the floor in her cadet fatigues, uninjured, merely sweating, heart pounding from exertion and emotional stress.
Slowly, rubbing her actually uninjured wrist, Yar remembered that it was all a test, and had taken place in an Academy holodeck. The human doctor kneeling beside her, running a scanner over her, was Dr. Forbus. The Vulcan healer was T’Pelak. Through hypnosis they had created in Yar the absolute belief that everything was really happening, making her incapable of thinking, “Oh, this is just a training exercise that seems real because of the holodeck.” The doctor and the healer had eased her into the illusion, appearing in it as her fellow cadets, killed in the crash of the escape pod.
But-the Orion? There were no Orions in Starfleet. Orion was not a member of the Federation, and never would be unless its people changed their entire way of life.
Yar flinched as the Orion squatted down beside her, saying, “You’ve really followed your dream, kitten.”
That voice!
It stopped her reflex to attack, for it was not the sibilant voice of the Orion trader from her test. It was a voice from the past—
He stripped off the reptilian mask to reveal laughing brown eyes, an unmistakable large, straight nose, and a sensuous mouth quirking with delight at her surprise.
“Dare!” Yar exclaimed, surging onto her knees to throw her arms about him. “Darryl Adin! Why didn’t you tell me you were here?