Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [71]
“You humans use a great number of words to say simple things.”
“Exactly!” Picard smiled broadly at him, letting some tooth show—but not so much that Atann could discern between human error and deliberate insult. “We’re having trouble communicating. Therefore, I thought we should allow our eyes, our experiences, to help us understand one another better. That’s why I wanted to see your training center this morning. And now, here, I want to reciprocate.”
Atann glanced at the holodeck’s exterior computer interface; Picard already had a program up and running. “You still don’t make yourself understood.”
“Then perhaps it’s time for actions to speak louder than words. On this holodeck, we can re-create many things—a favorite planet, a scene from a play or book … or we can create something entirely new. This particular program is more or less analogous to your kaphoora training center. It’s an exercise program for
the crew. When you step inside, it will be as if you stepped onto another world.”
“More Federation technology.”
“Some of it, yes.”
“Federation technology lost my son in the Fandrean Legacy.”
Glitchy Fandrean technology lost your son in the Fandrean Legacy. But Picard shrugged. “If you’re concerned, of course, I can understand why you’d rather not—”
Atann’s arm hair fluffed slightly. “I did not say that.”
Of course not. “Then shall we?” Picard said. “To start with, I’ve programmed it to present you with a brief demonstration of the actual training exercise.”
Atann looked at the holodeck doors, and then at his men. “Wait out here,” he said, and gestured stiffly for Picard to precede him.
Picard did so.
Right into Worf’s calisthenics program.
Despite Picard’s comments, Atann was startled by the sudden new environment; he stood stock-still, his low set nostrils flaring with the scents of the place—the mist-carried odor of a nearby swamp, the old wood from the decaying structures around them, the musky smell of the brushy foliage and sparsely graceful trees. The sunlight held a cast different from both Sol and the brighter Tsoran sun, though Picard had never quite put his finger on what that difference was. Something mat reflected strangely off the rugged, jutting rock features around the old buildings, and seemed to energize the shifting mist. Haunting cries—some bird, some animal—punctuated the mist with syncopated regularity.
Then a hologram sparkled into place, an average human woman wearing generic gray workout clothing —formfitting but un restrictive “The exercises start
unarmed,” Picard said, his voice low even though the hologram wouldn’t care; it wasn’t programmed to. Besides, it had plenty to deal with—for Picard hod programmed the demonstration to start with three opponents at once. Three hulking humanoid creatures with the kind of breath that could knock you down all on its own, two of them with spiky long feathers as collars, all of them with skull-like features vacant of any expression it only served to make their ferocity of attack more startling.
Atann watched with intent interest, practically quivering, as the beings rushed in on the crew woman—and as, one by one, she put them on the ground, grunting with realistic effort and taking on a few quickly coloring bruises. “This is not a real human?” he said, watching intently as the creatures got up and went after the woman again.
“No. She is basically an image with substance, programmed to behave as a real woman—and to respond with appropriate injuries when she is hit.”
“If she were real?” Atann said, as the woman rolled from a throw, miscalculated, and took several hard kicks before tangling the creature’s feet and bringing it down. “This exercise program