Three - Michael Jan Friedman [57]
But he imagined that he could hear them—every last groan and gurgle and unanswered plea for mercy.
How had it come to this? All Ejanix had wanted to do was improve the lives of his people, and perhaps bring a little justice to Pandril. At the outset, it had seemed like such a golden ambition.
But somewhere along the way, the gold veneer had worn off, and the base, dark metal underneath had begun to show through. Ejanix saw now that the rebel movement wasn’t quite as pure as he had first believed.
They weren’t above resorting to violence—and not just of the kind that put them and their fellow Pandrilites on opposite sides of a phaser battle.
There was a worse kind of violence, Ejanix had realized. And it was going on now in Kovajo’s interrogation room, for the sole reason of forcing Vigo to tell them what he knew.
Finally, Ejanix couldn’t take it anymore. Bolting from the room in which he had sequestered himself, he made his way down one corridor and then another.
Finally, he came to the interrogation room. The door, he saw, was open. There weren’t even any guards outside it.
Sensing that something was wrong, the engineer swung inside—and saw some of the rebels, Kovajo included, gathered in a knot at the center of the room. At first, Ejanix [170] didn’t see any sign of Riyyen. Then he realized that the Dedderac was sitting at the center of the knot.
“How did this happen?” Kovajo demanded of Ferrak.
Ferrak held his hands out. “I don’t know. I didn’t hit him that hard, I swear it.”
Ejanix felt his throat constrict. With legs that felt like someone else’s, he moved closer to get a better look at Riyyen. The Dedderac’s head was tilted back, his mouth was open, and his eyes were staring at the ceiling.
“By the Virtues ...” Ejanix said softly.
Riyyen was dead.
Having heard him speak, Kovajo and the others turned to look at him. They looked like children who had gotten caught with their hands full of sweets.
“He was a Dedderac,” Ejanix said. “His physiology is different from ours.”
He knew then that he should have said something to that effect earlier, but he hadn’t. Like Riyyen’s murderers, he hadn’t expected the differences to be that significant.
But apparently, they were.
Suddenly, Kovajo was in front of Ejanix, cutting off his view of Riyyen. “You can thank your friend for this,” he said. “Had Vigo cooperated with us, we would never have resorted to anything of this nature.”
Ejanix nodded. “Of course.”
But in the shelter of his own mind, he was thinking again of something Vigo had told him. And will it be a bloodless revolution, Ejanix?
The engineer swallowed. What have I done?
Chapter Fourteen
THE BALDUK WERE REKNOWNED as a savage-looking breed. Their leader was no exception.
He had pitted, pitch-black skin with scars denoting his rank, mere holes for ears, and eyes that were like tiny, pale green fish darting between jutting brow ridges and painfully prominent cheekbones. His thick, white hair was gathered into a cascade at the back of his head, giving him a vulpine appearance, and as he spoke his long, narrow tongue slithered across an abundance of short, sharp teeth.
“I’m here,” said the Balduk.
Picard nodded approvingly. It had taken hours of patient work on Paxton’s part, but the com officer had finally gotten their adversary to respond.
“I’m Jean-Luc Picard,” he said, “captain of the Stargazer. Thank you for answering our hails.”
[172] The Balduk leader didn’t identify himself. He just said, “What do you want?”
“A cessation of hostilities,” said the captain. “We need to return—briefly—to the anomaly we were studying and we don’t wish to have to fight you for that privilege.”
The Balduk’s pale green eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why do you need this?”
“Because when we were in the vicinity of the anomaly earlier, we inadvertently took on board a being who doesn’t belong in our universe. We believe the only way to send her home is to re-create the conditions that brought her to us—including the proximity of the