STAR TREK - TNG - 11 - Gulliver's Fugitives

For Jane and Shelly

With thanks to Paul Fontana

for designing the artificial intelligence

that helped create Data’s poetry,

and for lifting with extreme precaution

the cuticle of a grand piano

Chapter One

THEEND OF EVERYTHINGheralded itself as a metallic hum near Montoya’s left ear.

He kept his eyes on the stairs under his feet and marched upward—one short, brown-skinned,

gray-haired, slightly overweight man in a crowd of workers at the end of their munitions factory shift.

No need to turn around and look. The hum had to come from a one-eye: a lead-colored object, about

the size of a human torso, with a single staring camera eye and a bristling, spiky penumbra of antennae. It

was gliding behind Montoya’s head, intercepting and reading his thoughts.

Montoya knew his only chance for survival was to keep from thinking about . . .

The small case rested lightly in his hand. He ignored it, shut his eyes to it, hummed a tuneless tune to

forget about it.

What the case held was of no monetary worth yet was valuable beyond reckoning. To possess it here,

on the planet of Rampart, was a crime punishable by death.

Montoya’s anxiety made him short of breath. His legs felt rubbery as he trudged. The one-eye hummed

behind him like a giant chrome mosquito.

He was near the top of the stairs. He could see cold light from the sun, rho Ophiuchi, slanting through the

dusty panes of the factory’s outer wall, silhouetting the vacant-eyed men and women who waited in line

at the timeclock.

Montoya took sanctuary in the thought of his wife by enfolding himself in her smooth brown arms,

replaying the last time they had made love. He sought the most vivid, tactile moments. He involved his

entire mind and body, trying to confuse the one-eye hovering behind him.

In spite of his efforts, fugitive thoughts that lurked in the shadows of his mind tried to interrupt the

imagined scene.

He heard the one-eye come closer.

He switched his thoughts to the sound and movement around him, the clang and hum of the machines,

the tired clunk-steps of the workers above and below him on the stairs, industrious but lost little people

like . . .

In the right temporal lobe of Montoya’s brain, an evanescent web of electrochemical impulses danced

for a scant second, expending only a millionth of a volt, as a certain image formed in his mind.

It was an image of the very thing in his case. An entire society of tiny humans, scuttling around in there,

waiting for a very large revelation.

The thought died away, but Montoya knew the one-eye must have picked it up. It swung from behind

his head, hummed to a position in front of his face, and stopped. Montoya was forced to halt his steps at

the top of the stairs to avoid collision. The workers below him had to halt as well. A pool of silence

widened around him as he looked directly into the camera lens and antennae of the one-eye.

Two broad-shouldered figures, their white uniforms bearing the blue Cephalic Security logo, walked

with smartly clicking steps as they threaded their way along the upper floor to the top of the stairs, where

they confronted Montoya.

Montoya would not look at them. He didn’t want to indulge himself in contempt now. There had to be

something better to do as one’s last act.

They were saying something to him about arrest, clamping handcuffs on him.

One of the CS men pulled at the case in Montoya’s hand. Montoya let it slip out. They guided him along

the wall to a cage-like elevator. Their one-eye floated along behind Montoya’s head. He saw the

service-issue radiation guns the CS men carried on their belts. That might be a better way to go, he

supposed, than what they had planned for him.

As the lift ascended toward the helipad on the roof, Montoya stared at the grating under his feet. He

allowed himself to be overcome with sadness by thinking about the tragic course of his life, and rubbing

salt on it. He smote himself for the momentary lapse—just one stray thought!—that would mean the

arrest of friends and family. He started to weep.

The lift emerged onto the roof. A strong hand gripped him and pushed him out onto the tarmac. The

white tilt-rotor hovercraft ahead of them started its engines and chopped at the air.

Montoya let the sobs shudder through him, tears streaming down his face. The CS men led him within a

few meters of the roof’s edge as they approached the door of the hovercraft.

Suddenly Montoya flailed out with his cuffed hands, causing the surprised CS man to lose his grip. With

all his strength Montoya grabbed at his case, ripping it out of the other CS man’s hands. He whirled

toward the edge of the roof and flicked the catch on the case. Both CS men scrambled to hold on to him

and the case, but Montoya was too fast. With a triumphant yell he flung the case outward; it opened as it

fell toward the ground far below. Yellowed old pages fluttered free and scattered in widening gyres on

the wind.

The CS men regained control of Montoya. The small man let them push him into the hovercraft. As it

took off he leaned toward the window and saw the pages being borne in all directions.

He smiled to himself. His trick, his sadness, had worked, a sop for the one-eye so the device wouldn’t

guess at his spontaneous last act and kill him to prevent it. He kept his eyes on the pages as they grew

smaller and smaller.

For several minutes after the hovercraft took Montoya away, the pages from his case floated and drifted

down, coming to rest on the streets of the metropolis called Verity.

A hundred CS officers and special agents converged on the area where the pages had fallen. They all

wore protective helmets with electronic visors that turned printed words into gibberish for their eyes.

They quickly set up roadblocks and evacuated residents, then set to work finding the scattered pages

and burning them in portable mini-incinerators.

When the clean-up was complete, the streets were reopened. But one-eyes remained; they floated

among the pedestrians and traffic, their antennae hunting for the mind-echoes of the pages that were now

ash.

One page had floated far; it alone had escaped the CS and their incinerators. It lay nakedly on a small

patch of grass behind an elementary school.

At noon recess, a red-haired girl from the third-grade class chased a ball and came upon the page. She

had never seen such an old and discolored piece of paper. She picked it up, and with big green

inquisitive eyes, looked at an illustration on the page.

It appeared to be of a man tied onto a kind of sled and surrounded by a busy swarm of people no

bigger than his finger.

She read the words on the page.

About four Hours after we began our Journey, I awaked by a very ridiculous Accident; for the

Carriage being stopt awhile to adjust something that was out of Order, two or three of the

young Natives had the Curiosity to see how I looked when I was asleep; they climbed up into

the Engine, and advancing very softly to my Face, one of them, an Officer in the Guards, put

the sharp End of His Half-Pike a good way up into my left Nostril, which tickled my Nose like a

Straw, and made me sneeze violently . . .

The green-eyed girl laughed.

She looked at the top of the page and saw a title line:

“GULLIVER’S TRAVELS—A VOYAGE TO LILLIPUT.”

She sensed that the page was something forbidden, something the grown-ups told you to never ever

touch or look at, or you’d get a disease. But looking at it now she found that she didn’t believe all that.

They always told you not to do the things that were fun. Besides, how could you catch a disease from a

piece of paper?

Her fascination with the page overcame her caution. She hid the page in her dress, hoping to take it

home that day.

Chapter Two

COUNSELORDEANNATROIsat in her cabin on theEnterprise , her fathomless, dark Betazoid eyes

gazing at her computer, her black hair cascading over her shoulders. She was about to fulfill, in her own

way, the primary mission of the starship U.S.S.Enterprise —exploration of new worlds and discovery of

alien life.

She was about to peer into a boundless new universe, a separate realm, teeming with infinite life-forms.

To open the “door,” all she had to do was utter a single word to the computer. She wouldn’t even have

to leave her comfortable private cabin. The new universe could be observed via the small screen before

her.

But, as though she were going on a long journey, she found herself wondering if there was anything left

undone on her agenda. She punched up her schedule.

It was a testament to the complexity of her day-to-day job as Ship’s Counselor, engineer of emotions,

maintenance mechanic to a thousand minds.

But today’s appointments had all been fulfilled. There remained only a note that she wanted to talk with

the captain about his habit of suppressing too many feelings.

Hardly an urgent problem. He’d been like that as long as she’d known him. It could wait. She cleared

the list from the screen.

Now it was time for her to begin her observations.

“Computer . . .”

Troi found herself hesitating. She felt unaccountably jittery about saying the word out loud.

She sounded it in her mind. Tukurpa. Tu-kur-pa.

Then, before she spoke the word, she began to feel vertigo, as though something were wrong with her

inner ears, her balance center. The feeling intensified. It was as if she were spinning, as if the cabin were

at the axis of a centrifuge, going faster and faster.

She tried to bring her hand up to touch her communicator, to call for help, but the vertigo made it

impossible.

Now the spinning feeling was so overwhelming, the revolutions so rapid and violent, Troi couldn’t focus

her eyes. The walls of the cabin were disintegrating. She felt herself thrown out of her chair, tumbling

through air or space.

Then she hit the ground facedown.

It was definitely the ground—sand or dirt, not a ship or a man-made surface. For several moments she

lay still, getting her equilibrium back. Then she realized that the sand was hot enough to burn her skin, and

she got to her feet in a hurry.

What Troi saw gave her a devastating shock. She was in the middle of a wasteland, a desert—an

endless expanse of white and tan sands and tortured cracked outcroppings of rock under a blinding sun.

She instinctively felt for her communicator pin. It wasn’t there. She had no way to contact theEnterprise

.

Before Troi had time to consider how she had gotten here, the heat demanded her undivided attention. It

came up through the soles of her thin shoes and in through her nostrils, stinging her rhinal cavities. It

penetrated right through her one-piece jump-suit. She was already sweating like a marathon runner.

The nearest shade appeared to be a distant blue mountain ridge. How far was hard to judge, but she

thought it might be fifty kilometers. Maybe too far. She doubted she would make it without collapsing.

Troi was no athlete, but she had been trained at Starfleet Academy and knew how to avoid panic no

matter what the situation.

She started to walk, and think about her predicament. How had this happened? It had been a normal

day, she had been in her cabin . . . but for some unknown reason she couldn’t remember what she had

been doing there. Only that she had suddenly been transported away to this desert by means unknown. .

. . Some kind of amnesia was blocking the rest.

The heat took its inexorable toll. Troi was dehydrating fast, and her body temperature was getting too

high. Still she kept walking. To stop on the burning sand was unthinkable. She had to get to the

mountains.

After two hours of walking, she became dizzy and disoriented. She had stopped sweating and her lips

were puffing up. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

She looked around and saw she had entered a shallow dry wash. She collapsed to her knees and

stared, forlorn, at the yellow dust.

She knew she wasn’t going to make it; she wasn’t going to get out of this trap. Her body wouldn’t carry

her much further. She was going to die of dehydration.

“Why,why can’t I remember how I got here?” she croaked at the sand.

“How you got here?” said a voice in reply. “I don’t know. You wanted to come, so you came. ‘How’

doesn’t matter. ‘Why’ matters.”

“Great,” Troi told herself. “I’m hearing voices. I guess that means I’m starting to die.”

But when she concentrated with her empathic sense, her ability to sense others’ emotions which came

from the Betazoid half of her heritage, she picked up a living presence. Not in the sand exactly, but in the

ground, deeper. It felt big; it had a majestic old personality to fit its colossal size. It could have been as

big as the whole planet.

Troi felt some of her strength come back. She wasn’t alone here after all. Whatever this being was, it

could only improve matters.

“What is this place? Who are you?” she asked evenly.

“You know all that already, if you’re here.”

“But I don’t. I can’t remember.”

“Before I’ll tell you who I am, you’ll have to at least remember your purpose in coming here.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m old, I’ve seen a great deal, and I know what’s best.”

“Can you tell me how I can get back to my ship?”

“No. That I can never do. I might help you accomplish whatever it is you came here for, if you can

remember what that was, but how you come and go is your own affair.”

Troi concentrated on the voice. She suspected that it belonged to a female. It was an unyielding voice,

but not unkind—the voice of a matriarch.

Troi felt something wet on her knees. Liquid had started to well up through the sand in the arroyo. It

looked like water. She hoped it was water and not something poisonous like trichloroethylene, because

her body was going to make her drink it no matter what it was.

She leaned over and tasted it. Water. She drank greedily.

“Slowly, slowly,” said the voice.

Troi sipped the water until she felt sated.

“Oh,” she breathed afterward, “that was lovely. Thank you.”

“I’m going to help you get to the mountains,” said the voice. “I’ll give you the water you’ll need. If you

make it to the mountains I’ll give you shade there.”

“I guess that means you aren’t going to tell me anything else.”

“Not now. And you’re welcome, for the water.”

Troi nodded to herself. She guessed she’d just have to play by the rules of this strange world, at least

until an alternative plan came along.

The Matriarch did live up to her promise. She provided Troi with water, making it well up from the dry

sand, but only at those times when Troi was too thirsty to go on, and then she provided it silently, without

comment.

When the mountains were closer, Troi became aware of another presence besides the Matriarch. It was

the unmistakable vigilance of a predatory animal. She could sometimes hear the predator’s feet crumbling

the sand-crusts behind her, and catch fleeting impressions of it in her peripheral vision. Troi finally saw it

when she stopped near a small mesa to request water from the Matriarch.

At first she looked right at the predator without being aware of it, because though it was only a few

meters away and very large, it blended in with the stone and stood absolutely still. Then she saw through

the camouflage. She felt her whole body stiffen in fright.

The creature moved. It opened its mouth and let out a long coarse howl.

It was perhaps ten feet tall. There was a carcass of some kind at its feet, and other carcasses, bones,

and its own droppings nearby.

It had the head of a lioness and a body shaped like a baboon’s. From its mind Troi received an

impression of predatory blood lust so powerful she was transfixed, like a rabbit before a snake. But

within the impression was a clear, cogent message. I am a First Cause, it said to her. I determine the life

and death of all in this desert. Your will means nothing here.

It seemed to be true, as Troi couldn’t even move her feet.

But something in her rebelled, broke the inertia, and she found herself running. The sand seemed to suck

at her feet as she heard the cat-exhalations of the Lioness close behind her. She tried to dodge to the

side, but the Lioness’ paw swatted at her legs and she tripped, landing on her back on the sand. Troi

could smell the beast’s carrion-stink breath on her face as its head leaned close and eclipsed the sun, and

its awesome dripping jaws opened. In the last instant, she managed to roll away, and was back up and

running again. She realized the Lioness was merely playing with her. A feline with its prey.

But as Troi ran she sensed the Lioness dropping far behind. When exhaustion made her stop running,

she looked around and couldn’t see the Lioness anywhere on the shimmering sands. In front, the ground

sloped sharply up. She’d reached the foothills of the mountains.

The scene was cool and inviting. She walked wearily up the center of a wooded valley until the sun went

down and then stopped by a creek to rest.

Troi looked up at a sky full of unfamiliar stars, then down at the mossy ground.

“Are you still here?” she asked the Matriarch.

The Matriarch laughed.

“Where would I go?”

“Why didn’t you tell me about that animal?” Troi asked.

“This place is full of living beings. You must have known that, or you wouldn’t have come.”

“I still can’t remember. Why don’t you stop playing games with me? Why are you keeping me alive by

giving me little tidbits? Am I here just to amuse you?”

Troi felt something rumbling underneath the ground. More than that, she perceived the Matriarch’s

anger.

Then she heard cracking and sliding sounds from the mountain slopes nearest her. Rockslide. She took

cover behind a tree and watched the rocks and dirt tumble past her.

When it was over the Matriarch spoke in a grim voice.

“That’s just a small sample.”

“I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Your questions are foolish. You should already know all about me. It’s not my fault that you cannot

remember. Anyway, I know all about you. I know that you’re not married. You don’t have time for men

because you devote yourself to your work. Your mother is also single and very much in need of a man.

You could end up permanently single like her. Do you want to hear more?”

Troi was too stunned to speak. How could the Matriarch know so much about her private life? She felt

mushrooming anger at the intrusion, but put it aside.

The Matriarch went on.

“Look for the road that begins up the valley a ways. Follow it to its source, and there you might find

some answers about why you came here. It’ll be up to you. Start now; don’t wait for dawn. And be

careful, there is a danger on that road.”

Troi was about to ask more questions but decided not to risk offending the Matriarch again.

“Before you go I want you to see my mate,” said the Matriarch.

Troi sensed an unspoken admonition: “Everyone should have a mate.”

“Look up,” said the Matriarch.

Troi looked at the trees.

“No, all the way up.”

Troi looked at the stars. The night was magnificently clear and beautiful.

“I don’t see anyone,” she said.

Then something slowly rippled the night sky the way a breeze stirs the undulant surface of a pond. Troi

felt another vast old intelligence. The Matriarch’s husband.

“Now go find the road,” said the Matriarch.

The road was a dirt causeway, wide and flat, winding up the valley. The trees around it were dense, and

getting denser as the road climbed.

At one point she heard a sound like someone chopping wood. She stopped to listen, then remembered

the Matriarch’s warning, and hurried onwards in the darkness.

The chopping noise continued, following her, turning into something that sounded more like breaking

branches.

Then a shape leapt in front of her. She yelled reflexively.

He had the shape of a man, but larger. Larger even than the Lioness. He was covered with a hard,

mirror- like surface on which foreboding crimson, purple, and black reflections danced like flames. His

left foot was missing; he balanced on his right.

His eyes were maddening: two shifting mirrors, flashing hot fission-fire, dark smoke, and reflections of

herself back at her.

The Mirror Man advanced toward her. She could sense a cold evil, different than the Lioness’ predatory

urge—more insidious and calculated, more intellectually cunning.

Troi tried to back away but found she was rooted to the spot; her whole body had become cold, numb,

and heavy. It felt as though it were being transmuted into another substance, like ice or iron.

She wanted to cry out—for the Matriarch, for anybody, but she was immobilized. The huge Mirror Man

stopped and stood still right in front of her, his burnished surfaces reflecting her own paralyzed form back

at her.

Then she became empathically aware of many other beings around her, the Matriarch and her

sky-dwelling mate and countless others in the darkness. They were watching to see what happened to

her, as though this were some kind of test.

But there were friends present, too. Much further away. Their minds were like a distant cluster of

candles, glowing and familiar. TheEnterprise .

As she became aware of her distant crewmates, they seemed to draw nearer in response. Their distance

was connected to her will.

She suddenly realized she could go back. Some part of her had never even left the ship.

She concentrated on theEnterprise , focused all her will on it and her friends within it. After a desperate,

agonizing effort, her surroundings seemed to fade. For a moment she was in two places at once—frozen

before the Mirror Man on the dark causeway and sitting in her cabin on theEnterprise .

It took all the strength she could muster to bring herself all the way back into her familiar universe.

When it was over, she was exhausted, bedraggled, and covered with a film of sweat. And she was back

in her chair in front of her computer.

Chapter Three

CAPTAINJEAN-LUCPICARDlistened to the counselor conclude her account.

Her dark eyes seemed to stare right past him. A rebellious lock of black hair snaked away from its

companions. Her skin, normally a light tan, seemed translucently pale. To Picard, her appearance

increased the phantasmal effect of her story.

“They’re real,” she said. “I still feel their presence close to the ship—but it’s as if they’re in a universe or

dimension different than ours. It’s hard to describe the feeling.”

“There has been no further contact?”

“No. But I can feel them waiting. They want something of me. They want to put me through that

transformation they started, that sort of . . . death or petrification.”

“Have you seen Dr. Crusher yet?”

“Captain, I didn’t hallucinate them. They aren’t a delusion.”

“I don’t say they’re delusory. You would know what they are as well as anyone on this ship. Or better. I

just want to make sure you’re not injured.”

“I haven’t seen her, but I will as soon as I leave here.”

“Good,” said Picard. He ran his hand over the smooth top of his head and down through the short gray

hair that ringed it.

“Have you any ideas about why you were singled out for contact by these beings?”

He noticed that she relaxed a notch. Good, he thought, she sees I’m accepting her account on her own

terms.

“Actually, one of them—I call them the Other-worlders—implied I initiated the contact. And I sense that

they are waiting for me to do it again, but I don’t know what it was I did! I can’t remember anything

about it, so how can I keep from repeating it? My amnesia seems to obscure everything I did today,

leading up to the moment of contact. There may be some special connection between us, though. They

already know a lot about my personal life.”

“Have you checked for any records of your activities just before the contact?”

“I’m planning to check the computer.”

“Excellent place to start. You have a question?”

“Well, I don’t think I can do much counseling until I feel safe from these beings, these Other-worlders.

I’m sorry to ask to be excused like this.”

“Counselor, you have nothing to apologize for. Contacting new forms of life is our mission. It is why you

and I are here on theEnterprise . We are stopping the ship right here, and we aren’t going to budge until

I know who and what these beings are. I’ll be with you whenever you need me. And I’ll have the ship’s

computer keep track of your vital signs. If you’re under stress or feel threatened, the computer will tell us

and we’ll find you, even if you can’t call for help yourself.”

Some of the warmth returned to Troi’s eyes. “Thank you, Captain,” she said softly.

“I’ll tell the doctor you’re coming,” he said, looking away. His hazel eyes found the window and the

starfield beyond it.

Troi got up and left, and Picard was alone in his ready room. He realized he could have been a bit less

distant at the end. Maybe he really did need to work with Troi on learning to feel more emotion, or show

it more often, or whatever it was she wanted.

STAR TREK - TNG - 11 - Gulliver's Fugitives

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