Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [51]
Riker nodded at his backpack. “The med kit is on the top. See what you can do to make him comfortable, and to clean that arm up.”
Befuddled, all right. Gavare didn’t protest taking orders from the human, but did as he was bid. Riker climbed to his feet and moved up behind Akarr. “This didn’t have to happen,” he said. “We could be in the shuttle. We could pull your men in and cover the mouth of this cave, dammit!”
“It’s not necessary for you to understand the reasons behind my decisions,” Akarr said, coldly. Remaining remote, as if Riker weren’t even worth challenging. Not turning around.
“Oh, I understand the reasons behind your decisions, all right,” Riker said. “I just don’t agree with them. No leader—no good leader would.”
“And what do you know of leading?” Akarr said, with the short gurgling sound that passed for Tsoran laughter, although even Riker could tell there was no humor in it.
“JeanLuc Picard is my captain. He’s the best, Akarr. I know it when I see it.”
Akarr still did not turn to look at him, although the hair on his neck and shoulders looked distinctly prickled. “You know nothing. You are not a captain; you lead no one.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Riker put a hand up to lean against the entrance of the cave, his arm just clearing Akarr’s head. “I command the Enterprise away missions. All of them. This is what I do, Akarr. I know how to do it right—and I know when I’m seeing it done wrong.” He leaned closer, speaking into Akarr’s cupped, snug-to-his-head ear. “Your men are counting on you-hell, they’re so loyal to you that they’ll follow you right into the jaws of a sholjagg—and you’re killing them.”
Akarr snorted loudly and left the cave, making a gesture that Riker didn’t recognize but that had a distinctly rude air about it.
So much for the diplomatic relations between the Federation and the Tsorans.
“Rakal!” Akarr shouted, as if the entire conversation had never happened. “Keep an eye out for more of them—they’ll probably be back.”
“Yes, ReynTa,” Rakal responded, hidden in the darkness on the other side of the first fire.
This one time, Akarr was right. After the sounds of struggle in the darkness—the wounded sculper, torn to pieces and consumed—the sculpers came back.
Picard tugged at his uniform, waiting while the transporter technician confirmed the beam-down coordinates. He’d barely been through an earlier-than-usual morning tea with Beverly Crusher when Nadann lesson contacted him, pleased to extend Atann’s invitation to visit the kaphoora training facility. It was, she let him know, quite an honor.
Picard thought of Will Riker, stuck on Fandre for the real thing, and once more squelched the impulse to take the Enterprise right out of orbit and across the graviton eddy-laden system to Tsora’s sister planet. The probe charting was under way, after all, and Atann and Tehra certainly didn’t seem interested in any discussion about the charts.
“Make them interested,” Crusher had said implacably, and in this case she’d been right. Besides, with any luck, Will and the others were sleeping through an uneventful night in the Legacy preserve, and within a few hours, when daylight arrived, Worf would find them and transport them out.
“They’re ready, sir,” Lieutenant B. G. Robinson told him from behind the transporter console; Picard had the sudden impression that she’d been shifting uneasily for some moments, trying to find some way to interrupt his thoughts.
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said, and positioned himself on the transporter pad, preparing himself to step forward and greet AtannExcept, when the moment of slight disorientation passed, he found himself facing Nadann Jesson. Nadann
Jesson against a backdrop of burnt orange and deep pea green draperies, in a small receiving room that held nothing but a low couch facing a thick wall monitor. He winced at the cacophony of colors. “They must really find our own decor inexplicable.”
Nadann—a sturdy woman with short chestnut hair and richly brown eyes as framework for her