Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [13]
“Not strictly true,” Worf said. “They use tranquilizing darts.”
Riker nodded. “Short-range propulsion devices, just
enough to let the Tsorans gather a trophy from the animal. Actually harming any of them is forbidden.”
“Emphatically. Why do you think those shields are so complex?” La Forge said. “They don’t need that much technology to protect the people from the jungle. They use it to protect the jungle from off world poachers. And from what I understand, they need it. There’s quite an underground market for furs like the one that would come from this fellow.” He shook his head. “If you ask me, there’s plenty enough daleura to be earned just by surviving long enough in there to track anything down.”
“The Tsorans must feel the same, or they wouldn’t include security teams to take down unexpected attacks.” Riker stared up at the animal, taking in its eerily feline like gaze, and unaccountably reminded of the time—the one and only time—he’d played baby-sitter for Data’s cat, Spot. Not something he ever planned on doing again. “Nice kitty,” he murmured. “You can stay right where you are. I don’t have any intention of becoming your feline supplement.”
A cough sounded behind his elbow; it sounded suspiciously like amusement. Riker found Akarr there, escaped from the throng and all but incognito without his escort. Although he stood out from the Fandreans present —for as similar as they were, the Fandreans appeared to be an entirely different branch of the species, with gentler features and longer, silkier pelt hair—there were enough Tsorans, all dressed in stiff, naturally colored leather vests, for Akarr to hide among if he chose.
Apparently the opportunity to goad Riker was too much to ignore, for here he was. “I thought that might be your feeling,” Akarr said. “But don’t worry. We don’t expect you to come out of the shuttle. We each do what our courage allows of us.”
Riker narrowed his eyes, only half-aware of La Forge’s uneasy shifting and Worf’s sudden deadpan expression, the one that meant you didn’t want to know what he was thinking. “I have found,” Riker said carefully, “that there is a difference between having courage, and having courage and also the wisdom to know when to challenge it.”
Akarr didn’t seem the least affected. “Those are pretty Federation words,” he said. “But until one has proven the first, does the second matter?”
Riker stiffened, lifting one shoulder. Does it really get any easier? Thanks a lot, Guinan, for putting that thought in my head. Beside him, he heard La Forge murmur his name—just as a concerned question. It’s nothing I haven’t dealt with before. So he turned to Akarr, and looked down, and smiled a reasonably genuine smile. “Maybe someday you’ll have the chance to find out.”
Waves of pleasant heat from the morning sun washed against La Forge’s dark skin, reflecting from the paved staging area behind the museum. To the left sat the shuttles; several Fandreans loaded supplies into the back of the Rahjah. Soon enough Commander Riker would be on his way… and La Forge wished him luck. Plenty of it.
He also hoped that the kaphoora went slowly, given what he had to accomplish here.
He refocused his attention on the shield controls, a small station at the back of the museum, enclosed in its own environmentally controlled booth. Not room for two of them, but he was only here to watch, anyway-the guts of the system were on a lower