hadn't had the opportunities that I did.
Same mind. Same abilities. But
no VISOR'-ENHANCED vision. I think of a world
that's defined by counting the number of steps it would
take me to get to the bathroom or kitchen or
wherever, and I give thanks every night that next
morning I'll be able to cheat what nature did
to my eyes and rejoin the real world. And that woman
down there--that handicapped woman--deserves the
same chances that I had. The exact same ones."
There was dead silence.
"And she will have them, Mr. La Forge," said
Picard finally, with surprising softness. "I tend
to trust Counselor Troi's assessment of the
situation. However ... I have been in the same--shall
we say, predicament--as Miss
Bonaventure. I owe my presence here to the
fact," and he sur veyed the room slowly, "that
my crew risked their lives to save me, that they
did not give up. We would be hypocritical
to say that Miss Bonaventure did not deserve
the same consideration and effort."
"I'll start her on a re-education program
immediately," said Crusher.
"You'll need more than that," said Troi
briskly. "That's only effective when
rudimentary learning abilities are present.
I'm not convinced she even has that."
"She needs sensory exposure," said
Geordi. "Someone talking to her. Someone working with
her."
"Are you volunteering your off-duty hours,
Mr. La Forge?" asked Picard.
"I'm willing to put my time where my mouth
is," said Geordi.
"Very well. Make it so. You'll work in tandem
with Dr. Crusher to set up a schedule amenable
to both of you. That's all."
As the others left, Picard stood and said
softly, "Counselor, a moment, please." They
waited until the conference room doors hissed
shut, and then the captain turned and faced her,
arms folded. "If I might observe,
Counselor, you seem rather tense."
She shrugged. "It's probably that picture,
Captain."
"She does bear a passing resemblance to you,"
admitted Picard.
"It just makes me imagine being in her
situation," she said, "wondering what would happen
if the Borg captured me, the way they--"
"The way they did me?" he said
gently. "You know what I went through. The scars it
left."
"Hideous. Just hideous." Her fingers brushed
across the screen. "They're anti-life,
Captain. They have no heart. They have no soul.
They just exist to take and take and take. I'm
someone whose entire existence is hinged on
experiencing the emotions of others. An entire
race that lives to eradicate the souls of others
... it's just horrifying."
"Yes, it's ..."
And his voice trailed off.
His eyes narrowed in thought, and Deanna turned
and stared at him in curiosity. "Captain ...?"
"Soulless ones," he whispered.
"Captain, what are you--?"
"Soulless ones. Oh, my God," he said, and
then louder, "Oh my dear God. How could I not
have realized? How could I have been so stupid?
How?!"
"Captain, I sense you're very upset ..."
"I'm not upset!" said Picard, turning
toward her, his every movement suddenly galvanized with
emotion. "I'm furious at my own stupidity!
I'm as blind as Geordi! Someone tried to hand me
a VISOR to see, and I brushed it away. But
it was so long ago, so many years ago ..."
"Captain, you're not making any sense."
He leaned against a table, shaking his head. "It
had taken on the quality of a dream. I'd always
wondered whether overwork had made me delusional
for a brief time. But there it was, plain as the
nose on my face, and I didn't see it. And
they're coming, and now she's coming. She's connected
somehow. I know it. I feel it."
"Who?"
"I don't know," he said fiercely, and with
unexpected fury he slammed his fist against the
viewing port. "I don't know her name. I
don't know who she is, or what she is.
Guinan!" On the last word, on that name, his mood
shifted again, bordering on shock.
"Guinan?" Troi was beginning to feel
completely hopeless.
"Not "vendor." That's not what she said.
That's not what she was muttering. That's not it! It's
the proof! It has to be her!"
"Captain, you're not making any sense at
all!"
"Vendetta!"
Troi's breath caught in her throat.
"What?" she managed to whisper.
He sank into a chair, as if uttering the word
had taken his strength from him. For a long moment he
was silent, lost in another time, another world,
another person ... the person that he had been so
many years ago.
"I was in the Academy," he said slowly.
"And there was a woman who came to me one night
... except maybe she was not a woman. I
don't know what she was. An apparition, perhaps,
or that's what I thought. It was the day that we
discussed a device that the original Enterprise
fought. A robot, called the planet-killer.
The doomsday machine. It was disabled by Matthew
Decker. And I had put forward a hypothesis
that, for various reasons, the doomsday machine could
not have come from very far outside our own galaxy. And
she came to me that night, and she said things ...
things I don't even remember, because I was in such
a fog. Everything was confused. But she said one thing,
over and over. I never knew whether it was her name
or her purpose, or both. And what she said
was, Vendetta."
"Vendetta." Troi took a breath.
"Captain ... last night ... I had a
dream. And I don't remember what it was.
I don't remember anything that happened in it, which
is infuriating, because usually I remember my
dreams as clearly as I remember my waking
hours. But there was one thing I do remember, a word
..."
"Vendetta."
She nodded her head.
Picard stood.
"I think we'd better talk to Guinan."
Geordi entered the small room off to the side
of the main sickbay area, the room where Reannon
Bonaventure was being sequestered. Bev Crusher
was already there. And seated on the edge of a chair, as
if she were an errant schoolgirl, was
Reannon.
She seemed much smaller without the Borg
implements affixed to her. She was still bald, nor
did she have so much as eyebrows. She was wearing a
simple gray jumpsuit, similar to the one
Wesley had frequently sported before his field
promotion.
She was staring forward at nothing in
particular. Geordi crouched in front of her and
waited for some sign of acknowledgment, some fli
cker
of ... anything. "Reannon?" he said.
"Reannon Bonaventure?"
There was nothing. He might as well have been
speaking in a vacuum.
"Hi," he continued gamely, "I'm
Geordi La Forge." He stuck a hand out,
hoping that some sort of automatic response would
take over.
Again, nothing.
He looked up at Crusher. "Has she said
anything at all since you removed the
implants?"
"Not a syllable," said Crusher. "Not even a
grunt. I even started preliminary teaching
structures, but nothing's taking. It's as if she
simply refuses to acknowledge our existence."
Geordi got down on one knee and took her
hand. The coldness of it was jolting to him, even though
his VISOR told him her body temperature was
low. It was like talking to a statue. "Reannon,"
he said slowly, "listen to me. You are Reannon
Bonaventure. You are aboard the starship
Enterprise. My name is Geordi La
Forge. I'm the chief engineer. We have rescued
you from the Borg influence. You're free to live a
normal life. You just have to let us know you're in
there. Give us some sign, some indication.
Something."
Nothing.
He stood and said to her, "Come on. Let's go
for a walk."
"I wouldn't advise that," said Crusher quickly.
He looked at her with curiosity. "Is there
a medical reason why she can't?"
"No," admitted Beverly. "No, not really.
I just want to be cautious. Doctor's
prerogative."
"I'd like a little leeway, Doc, if that's
okay," Geordi said after a moment. "She has
to experience the world. She's not going to be able to do it
here."
"All right," Crusher said, once she'd given
it some thought. "But I want you to stay in constant
contact with me. If there's any problem
whatsoever, you let me know immediately. Get it?"
"Got it," he said.
"Good."
"All right, Reannon," he said.
"Let's go."
She continued to sit there, as if he had not even
spoken.
He took her by the arm, wrapping his forearm around
hers, and gently pulled her to her feet. She
did nothing to resist and nothing to help, but
Geordi had her standing. He wrapped his fingers
around her. They were cold and limp as the rest of
her.
"Come on," he said. "Left foot, right
foot, that's it."
She walked next to him with steady steps, stiff
as the rest of her. Clearly her motor functions
were in perfectly good shape. The only thing was,
she couldn't tell them to do anything. She needed a
guide if she was going to move at all. It was that
inability to think for herself that Geordi was going to have
to overcome somehow.
For some reason the phrase the blind leading the
blind came into Geordi's mind. The door of the
exam room hissed open and they stepped out into the
main area.
The Penzatti that they were treating did not glance
up at first, as Geordi and the woman who was once
Reannon Bonaventure stepped out of the side
examining room. And then one woman, who was
covered from head to toe in a healing bio-wrap,
saw what the Enterprise officer was walking
alongside. She saw the telltale skin that was the
color of chalk, and the fixed, inhuman stare. She
saw, and even though the armor was gone, she
understood.
And she began to scream.
The others saw as well, their antennae
twitching furiously, and then they came to cry out
or scream or howl in mourning once more. The
medtechs looked around in confusion. Mere seconds
ago there had been quiet, punctuated only
by low moaning and the occasional sob. Now, though, the
entire ward had gone berserk.
Geordi froze, looking around in confusion, not
realizing at first what was happening and what had
triggered them. Then suddenly there was someone standing in
front of him, and he recognized him instantly
as Dantar, the Penzatti they'd rescued from the
rubble.
Beverly Crusher bolted out from the adjoining
room and started shouting for quiet, but her voice was
drowned out by the howling.
The Penzatti man was shoving his face
directly into Reannon's, and there was a low
snarl ripped from his throat as he said, "This is the
one! I know that face! I know it! It's the one
who killed my family!"
Reannon gave no indication that she heard, and
Geordi tried to push Dantar away. "She
wasn't in control then. She's better now.
We've healed her."
"You healed her?!" shrieked Dantar. "It
murdered my family! My children! Its kind
destroyed my people!"
"She's a woman, not an it, and she's not
responsible."
"It's a monster from the pits, and I'll not
suffer it to live!" And with that, Dantar lunged
forward and grabbed Reannon by the neck.
"No!" yelled Geordi, and he grabbed at
the Penzatti's arms. All around the Penzatti
were yelling and shouting and encouraging Dantar. Some were
trying to rise from their beds and help him, but they were
too severely injured.
With remarkable strength, Dantar shoved
Geordi aside, sending him smashing against a bed.
continued to squeeze, shaking her furiously.
Her face remained impassive. She made
no defense whatsoever. Her breath was being forced from
her, but she did nothing to stop the attack.
"Leave her alone!" yelled Geordi, and
he came up on one side and Crusher
approached from the other, a hypo in her hand, ready
to sedate him. Dantar suddenly hurled
Reannon to the ground, turned and grabbed the charging
engineer by the forearm, spun and hurled Geordi
directly into Doctor Crusher.
Geordi felt something press against him and
heard a faint hiss of air. "Oh hell," he
said, and was asleep before he hit the ground.
Fortunately for him, Doctor Crusher
broke his fall. But she lay pinned under the
engineer's body and tried to shove him off. He was
small, but solidly muscled.
Dantar dropped down and started to throttle
Reannon once again. And now others of the
Penzatti were forcing their way out of their beds,
obstructing the medtechs. Within seconds Beverly
Crusher's orderly sickbay was being turned into a
madhouse.
Crusher shoved Geordi's insensate body
off herself and hit her communicator.
"Security!" she shouted. "Security
to sickbay!"
Dantar's fingers worked deep into the folds of
Reannon's neck. His antennae were fully
extended, and she was putting up absolutely no
fight
at all. ...
And a steely hand clamped onto Dantar's
shoulder.
His head snapped around, but it was purely a
reflex action, because he was unconscious even as
it did so. His body sagged, and he slumped to the
floor, hitting it heavily.
Another Penzatti now charged, still limping
furiously, and Doctor Selar stood from where she
had just dropped Dantar. It was a Penzatti
woman, and she was even more physically imposing
than Dantar as she aimed a punch at the
Vulcan physician. It didn't slow Selar
down at all. With her left hand she brushed
aside the blow, and her right hand snagged the
Penzatti's shoulder. The Vulcan nerve pinch
immediately claimed another victim.
Upon seeing what had just happened, the other
patients who had managed to get to their feet
froze. Selar turned and fixed them with a steady
stare.
"Further violence," she said in measured
tones, "would be illogical."
At that moment Worf, with the ever-present Meyer
and Boyajian, burst into sickbay. He entered
just in time to hear the last of what Selar had said, and
immediately discerned what had occurred. He exchanged
glances with the Vulcan doctor and gave a quick
nod of approval. In general, he was not
especially wild about Vulcans. A race as
hot-blooded as Klingons generally had little understanding
of, or patience for, a people whose raison
d'etre was practicing non-emotionalism. But
there was something about Selar--something he could not quite put
his finger on--that made her far more tolerable to him
than the typical Vulcan.
His voice was all business, he rumbled in no
uncertain terms, "All of you, back to your beds.
Now."
The Penzatti did as they were told, none of
them having any desire to cross swords either with the
Klingon or the formidable Vulcan once more.
Selar had gone straight over to Crusher and
helped her to her feet. "You appear uninjured,
Doctor."
"I think my authority is a bit damaged,
but that's about all. Lieutenant," she addressed
Worf, with a voice a bit more loud than she
needed, "I appreciate your quick response.
Our patients seem to be under the impression this
is a gymnasium, or perhaps the Roman
Coliseum, rather than a sickbay."
"Shall I have them all secured to their beds ... with
heavy chains?" Worf said gravely.
Crusher tossed a quick glance at her patients
and saw their petrified expressions. "I don't
think that will be necessary, for the moment. But if I should