Unification - Jeri Taylor [13]
She nodded toward him and the transmission ended. Have a safe journey, Jean-Luc. I wouM miss you terribly if you did not return.
Picard’s spirits lifted as soon as he entered the small, private room just off the bridge that served as his office. He knew there were many on board who were uncomfortable here; it could be a bit claustro-phobic, especially when the captain’s will (or the captain’s ire) was at its most potent. It had been described to him by Will Riker as an experience in which all the available oxygen in the room seemed to have been absorbed by the captain’s forcefulhess, leaving the recipient literally struggling to breathe. Picard had smiled at this, not displeased.
To him, the ready room was sanctuary. It reminded him of his mother’s closet at home in France, near the village of Labarre. He had discovered that room as a very young boy; it was large for a closet, and for some reason possessed a window high on one wall. It provided enough light for reading, and young Jean-Luc would spend hours in there, safely nestled behind the rack of clothing, reading books and fantasizing about his future.
Often, as he hid there, he would hear his father or his older brother, Robert, calling for him. They wanted him to help in the vineyards, of course, but Jean-Luc’s dreams were not of earth but of the stars. He would be up there one day, he was sure of it, riding the heavens in a spaceship. What purpose would it serve now to tend the grapes?
His father had plenty of answers to that question, and whenever Jean-Luc reappeared his father would be irate, demanding to know where he had been. But he never told. He would no longer have had his sanctuary if he had.
I asked him where he had gone… he refused to answer. I insisted he tell me… but he would not. And always, he returned to the mountains.
Sarek’s words flashed into his mind and Picard drew an involuntary gulp of air as he realized the parallel. Spock and Sarek, he and his father… fathers and sons…
The door chimed and Picard was drawn out of his reverie. “Come,” he said.
Lieutenant Commander Data entered. “You wanted to see me, sir?” he asked, waiting patiently for the captain’s orders.
Picard turned to his second officer. The pale android gazed calmly at him through his golden eyes; Picard realized he had been in a momentary reverie and had quite forgotten that he had requested Data’s presence. That wasn’t like him. He worked to clear his mind, address the matters at hand.
“I’d like your help, Mr. Data, in preparing for my journey to Romulus.” “I would be happy to be of assistance, sir.” Picard could do all of this himself, of course. But he enjoyed sharing sessions of information retrieval. He often summoned Will Riker for that purpose, and as frequently turned to Data. He found the android officer an ideal backboard off which to bounce ideas, theories, hypotheses. The fact that Data was a synthetic rather than a biological being meant that his responses came uncluttered with human emotion. That gave them a purity of reason that was usually helpful and, on occasion, stunningly insightful.
“I’d like you to access Starfleet records on Romulan legislators.”
“Yes, sir. Anyone in particular?”
“His name is Pardek. He’s a senator.”
“Sir, I believe I know why our messages are not being answered.”
Picard frowned slightly at this statement from his Klingon chief of security, Lieutenant Worf, standing now at his tactical station on the bridge. Picard had come to an aft station to review the material Data had accumulated.
For three days now, as they had been warping toward the Klingon home world—the first phase of his plan to get to Romulus—they had been trying to reach Gowron, head of the High Council. In that Picard and his crew were directly responsible for Gowron’s coming to power, he doubted that the Klingon chief was ignoring him. He had his hands full, no doubt, since seizing