Since transporters were therefore ineffectual on Lazon II,
16
r
entrances to and exits from the facility were made entirely via shuttles and assorted small craft, which were housed at a landing field not far away. But the field was heavily guarded .. .
... although lately Riker noticed that there were fewer guards than usual. It seemed to him that there had been cutbacks on Lazon II, as if Cardassian forces were being stretched to deal with situations elsewhere. He might have been imagining it, but he didn't think so. Still, with all the protections that the facility carried, what difference did a few less men make?
The small, shabby hut that Riker and Saket shared with five other inmates-all of whom were on work detail at that moment-barely provided any sort of shelter. There were cracks in it that allowed the cold wind to blast through when the jailors were of a mind to torment them with harsh winds. When it was hot, the hut managed somehow to contain all the heat, turning the place into the equivalent of a blast furnace. All the huts were like that.
Today happened to be one of the cold days, although Riker wasn't sure how much of it was the air and how much was simply his lessened resistance to harsh climate at that particular moment.
"How long do you think they'll leave us alone in here?" Riker asked grimly.
"Long enough to catch our breath, get our bearings," Saket replied. He regarded Tom Riker thoughtfully. "Tell me, Riker . . . when you first came here, you seemed rather pleased with your situation. You stole a Federation ship, am I right?"
"The Defiant." He nodded. "I intended to use it against the Cardassians."
"Because you had joined the Maquis. Correct?"
Once more Riker nodded.
"And when your plan did not pan out, the Cardassians intended to execute you, but instead you caught a stroke of luck and wound up"-and he gestured widely-"at this lovely facility instead."
"It seemed a lucky break at the time," Riker said ruefully.
17
He was rubbing his thighs, trying to make sure that normal circulation had been fully restored.
Saket chuckled, or at least made what passed for a Romulan chuckle. Romulans were not particularly renowned for being the most mirthful of people. "Better, Riker, that they had killed you then and there. Better by far."
"I'm going to get off of here." Riker nodded firmly, although whether it was because he truly believed it or was simply trying to convince himself of it was difficult to tell. "Believe me, Saket, I am not going to end my life on this ball of rock. That much I know. I was meant for better things."
"And those things would be ... ?"
"Better." He regarded Saket with open curiosity for a long moment. He had found it most odd that he had developed a close relationship with the Romulan. Riker had always been of the opinion that Romulans were largely duplicitous, fundamentally cowardly, and nonconfrontational except in those instances where the odds were so skewed on their side that there was no possibility of failure.
Saket, however, seemed a different story altogether. There was a dignity about him, a self-possession, even a nobility. Perhaps the thing that Riker found most refreshing was Saket's honesty. Saket seemed to have little to no patience for many of the Romulans in the modern empire. He told Riker with all earnestness that he felt as if the Romulan Empire had taken a wrong turn somewhere in its development. He particularly seemed to blame the Klingons for the modern-day situation.
"Our alliance had an effect on both our races," Saket once told Riker. "We learned from each other; unfortunately the mutual education was not an equitable one. We were a better, stronger, more decent race before we allied with the Klingons. An entire generation of our leadership grew up during the alliance, and learned from the Klingons their thieving ways, their duplicity and fundamental lack of trustworthiness. The Klingons, on the other hand, saw the way in which other races regarded us. Saw how our honor, our strategy and breeding elevated us in the eyes of others. And so they mimicked those
18
attributes in order to raise themselves up to other races, discarding us once they had stripped us of our weaponry and our very character. They are parasites, Riker, parasites, and mark my words: They will destroy your Federation in the same way that they brought us down. If you trust them, then you are fools. I should know, because we trusted them and were no less foolish."
Riker wasn't entirely sure how much of Saket's argument he bought, but he certainly found him intriguing enough to listen to. Saket, for his part, seemed to appreciate the audience.
Most of the numbness seemed to be gone from Riker's legs. As he rose, he looked at Saket curiously and said, not for the first time, "How do you do it?"
"Do what?" Saket asked with raised eyebrow.
"Why are you an untouchable? I've seen it, we've all seen it. The guards never lay a hand on you, much less a prod. You tell them exactly what you think without any concern about your personal safety. They glower at you, they resent you .. . but they do nothing against you. How do you do it? What's your secret?"
"I am beloved," Saket told him.
"No one is that beloved, particularly to the Cardassians."
Saket appeared to contemplate Riker for a time. Then he looked right and left, as if wanting to make sure that no one was nearby, overhearing their discussion. Then he leaned forward and said very softly, "I know things."
"You know things?" This was not exactly the clear answer that Riker was hoping for. "What sort of things?"
"Things that they wish to know. Things about the rulers of the Romulan Empire. Things, for that matter, about key people in the Cardassian Empire as well." He smiled thinly. "I am a spy, Riker. I have been much of my life, and I know a great many things. That makes me a bit of a resource to them."
"Really. Well, I don't know if I know a great many things ... but one of the things I do know is that the Cardassians are fabled for their ability to extract information. They're rather accomplished at it; some might even say they revel in it."
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"That is very true. Their reputation is earned, not exaggerated."
"Then why," Riker asked reasonably, "have they not done so to you?"
"We have ... an understanding, the Cardassians and I. Every so often, I will answer questions for them, give them key bits of information .. . most of it having to do with their own people. They are very suspicious of one another, you see. That will be the key to their eventual downfall, I should like to think. In exchange for that, I still do not have my freedom . .. but my captivity is-by Cardassian standards-not a particular hardship. Notice I do none of the truly difficult or undesirable tasks on Lazon Two. That, I fear, is left to the less gifted individuals such as yourself."
Riker shook his head. "I still don't understand, though. Why aren't they trying to force out of your head every scrap of knowledge you have?"
"Because, Riker, I have traveled many places and learned some intriguing things in my life. And one of those . .." He smiled, which always looked odd on Romulans due to their distinctively Vulcanesque appearance. ".. . One of those is how to die."
"You mean with honor?" Riker clearly didn't get it.
"I mean"-and Saket leaned forward, his fingers interlaced- "I can end my life . .. with a thought."
Riker didn't quite know how to take that. "Well, we can all of us do that, Saket."
"No, you do not understand. Even within your own, human race, there are techniques, meditative skills, in which the practitioner can place himself into such a deeply meditative state that his heart slows down to near-undetectability."
"Yes, I know."
"In my case," continued Saket, "I can stop my heart. . . shut myself down . . . and die, if I so choose. My captors are quite aware of this, particularly when I demonstrated it for them."
"You .. . died . .. ?"
20
"Almost. I allowed myself to be resuscitated. It was an object lesson for them. The Cardassians can sometimes be reason
able, you see, Riker. Dead, I would be of no use to them. If they endeavor to torture me, I will simply end my life by sheer will alone. So I aid them in small ways that do no disservice to the Romulan Empire, and I wait patiently in the meantime for my day of liberation."
"But then why are you still here? You could threaten to kill yourself if they don't let you go."
Saket looked at him with slight pity, as if surprised that Riker should have to ask such an obvious question. "If I am free, then I am of no use to them. Indeed, I might even be a harm. They would rather have me alive than dead, but they would also rather have me dead than liberated. I am a prisoner of my own talent."
"I see. So you have a sort of detente worked out."
"In a manner of speaking, yes. How long it will last, it is difficult to say. It is possible that some day the Cardassians might lose their patience, or a change in the power structure might-"
The door to the hut banged open and Mudak was standing there, his lower lip curled into an impatient snarl. "Your legs will have recovered by now," he said sharply. "Why are you still in here?"
"No particular reason," Saket said. "We will be with you right away, Mudak."
"Right away. How charming." Mudak's face tightened a moment, and then he turned away and closed the door behind him.
"You're pushing him, Saket," Riker said worriedly. "Sooner or later .. ."
"Sooner or later, he will break," Saket said, the irony clearly not lost on him. "That, Riker, is my fondest hope."
"Why, Saket?"
"Why is that my fondest hope?" But from Riker"s tone of voice, he sensed that wasn't what Riker was asking about.
"No. Why me. Sometimes I feel as if you've made me your
21
personal project. You approached me ... befriended me, if the term 'friend' can be applied . . ."
"And you wish to know why." Saket shrugged. "I've wondered that myself, Riker. I'm not entirely sure. I get feelings about people sometimes. A sense that they will be important somehow in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it's because you are the only Federation man here. That alone is enough to make you stand out. And if Starfleet abandoned you to the degree that you're on your own, here in the heart of darkness . . . that alone is enough to recommend you to me as a possible ally."
"Starfleet didn't abandon me," Riker said sharply. "I abandoned the Fleet. I..."
"Why? You've never truly spoken of it in detail, and I did not wish to push. But why . . . ?"
Riker stared at nothing and shivered at the chill air blowing more harshly through the crack in the structure. "I'm the road not taken."
"Pardon?" He arched a confused eyebrow.
"There's a religion on Kanubus Three," said Riker after a moment, "that advocates total hedonism."
"Doesn't sound so terrible to me," Saket said, smiling, not pretending to understand where Riker was going with it.
"They do whatever they wish," Riker told him, "whenever they wish, and attach no importance to anything, because they have embraced the concept of the multiverse. They believe that nothing matters, because whatever decision you may make that takes you in one direction, in another universe you decide something that takes you in another direction entirely. Well... I'm sort of a self-contained alternate universe. In one aspect of this reality, I went in one direction. I became the ideal Starfleet officer, dedicated and unwavering. And since I already did that... I felt as if, to make my own way in life, I had to become something else. I couldn't let my existence simply be a rehash." He looked at Saket's blank expression and couldn't keep a smile off his face. "You have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, do you?"
22
I M Z A D
II
"About yourself? No. Not a clue," Saket admitted. "But I do know of alternate universes. I know all too well. I know of a woman, in fact, whose very existence hinges on an alternate universe. She was ... is, I should say ... very dear to me."
"Now / have no idea what you're talking about," said Riker. "How could someone owe their existence to an alternate universe?"
"It's rather . .. complicated. A tale for another time. Come. Even I don't desire to push Mudak's mood too far at this point." Riker nodded and followed Saket out.
And it was not too long after that that all hell broke loose, Saket died, and Tom Riker found himself staring down the barrel of a phaser with only a twitchy trigger finger between him and instant death. . ..
23
CHAPTER
lice landing."
The first million times or so-and that was only the mildest of exaggerations, as far as she was concerned-that Deanna Troi had heard that comment, she had felt more than a little annoyed. She had never purported to be helm material even under the best of circumstances, and having as her first experience an Enterprise that was crippled and already on a spiraling collision course with the surface of Veridian III was not exactly a fair test of a novice's abilities. Given some time, a stable situation, and ample practice, the ship's counselor had no doubt that she could easily have whipped herself into shape as a credible conn officer. Instead she'd been thrust into a situation where even the most experienced hand on the helm would have been unable to prevent the Enterprise 1701 -D from tumbling to her doom.
As the battered and beleagured crew set up temporary stations on Veridian III, awaiting rescue, Deanna had walked among them, trying to allay their worries, assuring them that help would be on the way, and helping many of the civilians-particularly the younger children-deal with the fact that their home, the only home that many of them had
24
ever known, had just tumbled from the sky like a wounded sparrow after an assault by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey. The bulk of the ship had exploded thanks to a warp-core breach, and the saucer section had plummeted through the atmosphere of Veridian III, Troi's decidedly unsteady hand at the helm, skipping across the planet's surface like a huge discus hurled by a gigantic Greek Olympian. The seemingly endless crash landing had, in fact, ended, and Troi felt it her job to see to the mental health of the crew members as best she could.
They seemed remarkably resilient. . . particularly considering the number of them that kept saying the same thing to her:
"Nice landing."
This time it was Lieutenant Sheligo. Tall and gaunt, with some burn marks on his face from the crash that had not yet been attended to, Sheligo had practically bent his lanky frame in half to scrunch up on the ground with his wife and child. At that moment, he was idly stroking the hair of his still-trembling three-year-old, and he glanced up at Troi with a wan expression as he said it.
Troi had long since stopped taking it personally, or as some sort of criticism or commentary on her "inadequacy." She had come to realize that, rather than a critique, it was a method of irreverent congratulations. The shaken crewmen still couldn't quite believe that they had managed to survive the last fiery moments of the great starship's demise. Commenting on her piloting skills was a way of laughing off the nearness of their deaths. They weren't attacking her. They were thanking her.
At least, that was what she chose to believe.
And she said to Sheligo the same thing she'd started saying to everyone else who felt obliged to comment on the narrowness of their escape: "We walked away from it."
"That we did," agreed Sheligo, and gave her a thumbs-up gesture. It was, after all, a sensible philosophy that had existed
25
since, very likely, the Wright brothers had their first crash. Any landing that one could walk away from was a good one.
She noticed Geordi La Forge approaching, and she smiled to him, nodding in greeting. La Forge asked her jauntily, "Get a souvenir?"
Deanna paused in her steps. "Pardon?"
"A souvenir." He reached behind him and held up a piece of metal. It was blackened and scuffed; she thought it was from the ship's hull, but she couldn't be sure. "Everyone's getting them. There's certainly enough to go around. Lost a huge section of the underbelly in the
skid. Pieces scattered all over the trench we left behind us."
"Got any spares, Commander?" inquired Sheligo.
"Sure," said Geordi. He reached into a satchel that he had slung around his shoulder and extracted a rounded piece. He flipped it to Sheligo, who caught it easily on the fly.
"It seems a bit... morbid," allowed Troi. "Don't you think?"
Sheligo turned the metal over in his hand, studying it. His little daughter stopped her trembling momentarily as her attention was caught by the sun's reflection off the shard. He didn't even appear to hear Deanna's questions.
"Morbid?" said Geordi. "Why?"
"Well. . . what happened here, it was . . . most unfortunate," she pointed out, picking the words as delicately as she could. "It was somewhat traumatic for all concerned. Aren't you at all worried, Lieutenant," she said to Sheligo, "that your daughter might find it a distressing reminder of what happened? And Geordi. .. you were the chief engineer. Won't you find it upsetting to have a piece of the vessel that is no more?"
"Counselor," Geordi replied easily, "are you kidding? This"-and he held up the piece of metal-"this is a good-luck charm. This is a reminder of a ship that held together and saved us all. A ship that I'm going to have fond memories of, no matter what her fate was. And a reminder, I guess, that-