to speculate one hell of a lot."
"No question," said Riker.
Picard, in the meantime, remained in
sickbay. He gave up pacing after a short
time, because it brought to mind the cliche image of the
expectant father waiting for some sort of word about his
wife in labor.
After what seemed an interminable time, Bev
Crusher emerged from the examining room. If she was
surprised to see Picard there, she didn't say
so. Instead, she simply folded her arms and
announced, "She's fine."
Picard had finally seated himself but now he
stood, shoulders squared, posture correct as
always, ramrod-perfect. He smoothed his
jacket and said, "What was wrong with her?"
"You don't understand, Captain. When I say
she's fine, I mean she's fine. I mean I
can't find anything wrong with her. I have
absolutely no idea why she passed out, and
Deanna's empathic scan doesn't pick up
anything."
"Does Guinan know what happened?"
"If she does, she's not telling me."
"She'll tell me," Picard said firmly,
and headed for the examining room.
He entered and saw Guinan standing next to the
table, looking calm and self-contained. She was just
adjusting her headgear. Nearby sat Deanna
Troi, looking quite distracted, and Picard
noticed it immediately. But first he turned his
attention to his Ten-Forward hostess as he said,
"How are you feeling?"
"Fit," she said. There was something in her voice
--a hint of that distractedness that Riker had
indicated typified her mood before she had passed
out. But it didn't seem especially drastic.
"Fit and well. I'm probably just overworked."
"You do seem to spend every waking hour in
Ten-Forward, Guinan," allowed Picard.
"Even for one of your ... special gifts ...
that seems a bit extreme. Still ... do you have
any other explanation for your sudden faintness?"
"Nothing comes to mind," she said.
For the briefest of moments he thought Guinan was
keeping something from him. But that would mean she was lying,
and there was no way in this cosmos that he was going
to accept the notion that Guinan would lie to him. He
would just as readily believe that the Federation was
actually a front set up by the Romulans.
Or that all of space travel was actually a
huge case of collective mass hysteria on
the part of the human race, and mankind was
still mucking around on the planet Earth.
Still ...
"Does the word Vendor mean anything to you?"
She appeared to give it some thought, and then she
s hook her head. "No special significance
other than the obvious."
He regarded her with a feeling that was alien when it
came to Guinan--suspicion. Not suspicion
that she was keeping something from him, but that--bizarre as
it sounded--she was keeping something from herself.
Picard was far from satisfied. "Guinan, do you
have any idea at all what could have caused that
sudden weakness? It's so unlike you."
She frowned. "The only thing I can think of,"
and she slid off the examining table as she spoke,
"is that it has something to do with others of my race.
We are sensitive to each others' moods. If
there was something happening, something that affected us ..."
"I thought your people had been scattered after the
Borg attack," said Troi.
Guinan afforded her a brief glance.
"Scattered, Counselor. Never separated."
She turned back to Picard. "An overwhelming
feeling, Captain. I can't be more specific
than that, if that's what it is, in fact. As
soon as I know more, you will too."
She started for the door, and then Picard stopped
her with a simple question "Is it the Borg?"
She looked back at him over her shoulder, and
Picard might have been imagining it, but he thought a
brief shudder passed through her.
"Bet on it," she said.
The four Ferengi materialized in the main
corridor of the center Borg ship. There had been
nothing really to distinguish one ship from the other. Just
an arbitrary decision on Turane's part.
The landing party was puzzled by what they saw.
Corridors that seemed to go on forever, an
incredible labyrinth that didn't seem to have been
designed so much as having organically grown
somehow, in all directions and yet with a ruthless,
systematic efficiency. Whereas Ferengi ships
had aspects to their layout that contributed, in a
variety of ways, to add personality to their
surroundings, the Borg ship was quite the opposite.
The Ferengi began to explore, and wherever they
looked, wherever they searched, they found that the Borg
personality seemed defined by their utter absence
of personality.
Darr was studying the readings from his medical
instruments. "I'm not detecting any individual
life readings, Daimon," he said after a long
moment.
"Then what do you call those?" said Turane
immediately, having taken a step back in forcefully
controlled alarm. He had his blaster out immediately.
Coming his way, with slow, measured, ominous tread,
was a Borg soldier.
"Halt!" shouted Turane, for the Borg was
bearing down on him, his gaze unwavering, his right
arm encased in an ominous sheath of metal.
"Guards! Stop him! He's going to attack
me!"
The guards were standing directly in between the
oncoming Borg and the alarmed Daimon. And then a
clanking alerted them to the approach of a second
Borg soldier from behind. They spun and faced him,
the face on the second one as deadpan as the first.
"Stop them, you idiots!" shouted Daimon
Turane. "What are you waiting for?!"
The guards looked at each other, an
unspoken decision passing between them. Then, as one,
they lowered their weapons and stepped back, flat
against the wall, leaving a clear path to their commanding
officer.
The blood drained from Daimon Turane's
face, and his heart raced. He looked in front
of and behind him, the Borg soldiers closing in, and a
fearful curse emerged from his thick lips. "This
is treason!" he howled. "This is mutiny!
Darr, do something!"
But Darr was an old man, and he merely
cowered behind the nearest security officer.
Daimon Turane brought his blaster up,
aimed at the nearest Borg, and squeezed the
trigger.
Nothing.
He howled in fury. The energy indicator
read a full charge, but obviously someone had
tampered with it. Perhaps one of these guards. Perhaps
someone else back on the ship. Perhaps even
Martok himself. In the final analysis, it made
no difference. He was dead, that was all. Dead a
nd
gone.
The Borg were upon him, their heavy clanging
echoing around them. They passed in front of each
other, in front of him ...
And kept on going in opposite directions.
Daimon Turane watched in utter
confusion as the Borg totally ignored him and went
off about their business as if his presence didn't
matter at all. Within moments they were gone, the
only thing left behind them being that inexorable
clanging. Shortly thereafter, that was gone too.
What remained was the steady humming and throbbing and
pulsing of electronic life that seemed to fill
the walls, the floors, the very air around them.
Turane, however, did not have the time or the
inclination to dwell on it. Instead, his fury was
focussed on his guards as he turned on them with the
full measure of it and said, icily, "What was the
meaning of that outrageous behavior?"
"This was the meaning," said the guard, and he swung
his heavy blaster up and fired.
Turane would have been dead right there, had not
medical officer Darr hurled himself right into the path
of the assault. Darr hadn't even known he was
going to do it, until he did. If he'd given
it a moments thought, or even had it to do over again,
As it happened, he didn't have the chance to do
anything ever again, because he died before he could even
get out a single word to reprimand the guards for their
attack.
Turane stood paralyzed for a moment, staring at
the smoldering body of his medical officer. Then his
gaze returned to the guards, who were standing there with
singularly stupid expressions on their faces.
"Oh hell," muttered the nearest of them, staring
down at their handiwork.
Turane realized at that point that he had two
choices To stay and try and regain control of the
situation by asserting his authority over the security
guards who were clearly out to murder him, or to get
the hell out of there.
Daimon Turane was nothing, if not a
realist. Without a second's further consideration,
he spun on his heel and bolted.
The movement snapped the two Ferengi guards
from their momentary paralysis. They immediately started
firing, but by that time the fleet-footed Daimon had
rounded a corner and vanished, their blaster bolts
exploding harmlessly behind him. The guards cursed
loudly and started off after him.
Turane tore through the Borg ship, his arms
pumping furiously, his blood pounding in his
temples. Turane wasn't in bad shape for a
Ferengi, but he was far from fit. Fear for his
life, though, lent him some extra
strength and endurance. His legs churned up distance
quickly, and he ran with no heed to direction other
than simply away from his pursuers. His
pursuers didn't make it difficult to keep
track of them, for they raised a hellish racket
behind them as they followed.
The frantic Daimon turned another corner
and ran headlong into a Borg soldier. They went
down in a tumble of arms and legs, Turane
shrieking, the soldier eerily silent. Turane
grabbed the Borg soldier by the front of his
clothing and practically screamed in his face,
"Help me! They're trying to kill me!
Help me and I'll help you!"
The Borg said nothing. The Borg didn't
even appear to notice that Turane was there.
Instead he sat up, brushing Turane aside in
an offhand manner. It wasn't even a gesture
acknowledging Turane's presence as a living being
so much as it was just pushing aside an obstacle, as
one would a gnat. The soldier got to its feet and
kept on walking.
"You call yourselves soldiers!" bellowed
Turane in frustration. "You won't even fight!
I have to do everything!"
The guards suddenly appeared at the far end of the
corridor. "There!" shouted the nearer one, and they
opened fire.
Turane leaped frantically to the left, and the
blaster bolts exploded over his head. They
blew out some sort of glowing power units, blasting
them into fragments, and Turane tripped, knocked
off his feet by the concussion. He hit the floor
hard, landing wrong, and it tore up his knees and
elbows. He skidded and smashed into a nearby
wall, and then rolled onto his back,
crabwalking and shoving himself backwards. His back
slammed up against a corner, his arms up over his
head, protecting himself as best he could. Daimon
Turane stamped his feet in childlike
frustration, howling his fury. "I am the
Daimon, damn you!" he shouted. "I order you
to stop!"
The guards paused, and for one brief glorious
moment, the Daimon thought they were about to obey him.
Then he realized that they were merely stopping
to chortle, to enjoy the pathetic state that he had
been brought down to.
"Please," whispered Turane, staring down the
barrel of their weapons. "Please ..."
It was at that moment that three Borg soldiers
converged on the area.
They ignored Turane, for he was lying
inoffensively on the floor. For that matter, the
guards simply assumed that the semi-mechanical
beings were just going to bypass them as well. So it
Borg soldier reached out and grabbed the nearest of the
guards with the clawed grabbing end of its mechanical
appendage.
The Ferengi guard tried to bring his blaster up
to defend himself but he was too slow. A bolt of
blue electricity ripped from the Borg's arm,
lancing through the Ferengi's, causing him to quiver and
shake in the creature's grasp. His skin charred
and he opened his mouth, but no scream managed
to escape from him. His eyes widened, and the
corridor filled with the unpleasant odor of
burning flesh.
With perfect precision the Borg dropped the
Ferengi the moment the guard had become a lifeless
sack of flesh instead of a living being, and turned
towards the second guard, trapping him between the
other two oncoming Borg. The Ferengi whirled
and fired, and his blast caught one of the other two
Borg square in the chest. The Borg went down
without a sound and, hop es momentarily buoyed, the
Ferengi fired on the second one. This time,
though, the blaster bolt cascaded harmlessly off a
personal shield.
The Ferengi tried to readjust, kicking the power
level up, but was too slow. One of the Borg
swung its metal arm with incredible force and, with one
blow, crushed the delicate cartilage of the
Ferengi skull. The guard went down, blood
trickling from his nose and large ears, moaning
softly fo
r a moment before his voice became a
rattle in his throat.
Daimon Turane looked from one dead guard
to the other and wondered bleakly how long it would be
before he followed them into oblivion. The standing
Borg soldiers turned and Turane braced
himself, waiting for some sort of attack, for those
awful metal appendages to reach out and destroy
him.
And the Borg ignored him.
For one insane moment he wasn't sure whether
to be relieved or insulted. After all, they'd
spent time and energy dispatching lowly guards. Was
he, the Daimon, worthy of less
consideration than that? Then he realized that such thinking
might indeed be indicative of someone who had lost
his mind.
The Borg, for their part, set about their work, and
Daimon Turane realized that they were repairing
the shattered power units that the guards had
destroyed. It was then that he realized what had
happened. The Borg hadn't shown up for the
purpose of protecting him, or even just
attacking potential threats. Instead, they had
eliminated the aggressive guards for the simple
reason that they were disrupting the smooth functioning of the
Borg ship. Once the disruption was gone, there was
no need--as far as they were concerned--to pursue any
further action.
"Listen to me," said Turane quickly, trying not
to stumble over the words. "Listen. I am Daimon
Turane of the Ferengi. I want to speak to your
leader. I ... I believe that we can do some
business together."
One of the Borg soldiers had picked up the
fallen one and walked over to some sort of
horizontal wall receptacle. The insensate
Borg soldier was placed into the receptacle, which
slid noiselessly shut. The Borg soldier then
paused, its clawed appendage clicking for a
moment, the servos on its head swivelling, as if
in thought.
"I have a great deal to offer you," said Turane.
By now he had pulled himself to his feet, trying
to assemble some measure of his shattered confidence.
He was aware that he was in an extremely bad
bargaining position, which was never a good way for a
Ferengi to begin a deal. He couldn't very well
return to his ship, considering the reception that he
would probably get. The last thing that one ever
wanted to admit to a potential customer, though,
was that the customer had the upper hand in any way.
"A great deal," he said again. He cleared his
throat and said, rather pompously, "I am a