Part 8 (1/2)

Data said, ”If by your responses you mean Rhonda Howe is an exceptionally beautiful woman, I agree with you.”

Picard looked at Data, eyebrows up in question.

Data said, ”I meant only that she bears an astonis.h.i.+ng resemblance to certain High Renaissance Madonnas.”

”Of course,” said Picard. ”The question is, should we take her case?”

Wesley said, ”Sounds as if she has Boogeyman trouble.”

”Wesley's right, sir. I believe your instincts were correct when you chose to get involved in this scenario. We must take her case and defeat the Boogeymen once and for all if we can.”

”If we can?” Wesley said.

”Just a figure of speech,” Data said.

”Very well,” Picard said. He tipped a key on a brown wooden box and said, ”Send in Miss Howe.”

Effie's voice came through the box, a tinny shadow of itself. ”Yes, sir.”

Miss Howe came back into the office and settled herself in the customer's chair. She was so completely s.e.xual a creature that sensuality shone through her most innocent movement like the sun behind a stained-gla.s.s window.

Picard said, ”We've decided to take your case.”

”How wonderful. Can you come to the mansion today?”

”I believe we have nothing else on the schedule.”

Miss Howe smiled, and Picard said, ”Freeze program.” It was a nice smile, Picard thought, worth looking at a little longer.

”If the computer will freeze the program, maybe we don't have to fight the Boogeymen,” Wesley said.

”We have been fooled before.”

”Exit,” said Picard.

A holodeck exit opened in a side wall. Beyond was an empty Enterprise corridor. Picard touched his insignia and called for Number One. No answer came. Data and Wesley called Riker with the same negative result. Picard said, ”Is it possible that all three of our communicators are inoperative?”

”Possible,” said Data, ”but unlikely in the extreme.”

”Then the question becomes: Do we want to escape from this particular scenario?”

”I think not, sir. I believe we should wait and see what the Boogeymen have planned.”

”I concur entirely. Computer.”

”Waiting,” the computer said.

”Continue scenario at the Howe mansion.”

Picard heard the computer's audio twinkle, and suddenly the four of them were standing in the two-story foyer of a magnificent twentieth-century home. The room was bigger than the bridge, smaller than Engineering, and rather old-fas.h.i.+oned, even for the time of Dixon Hill. The walls were highly polished wood panels between which hung tapestries depicting royal deer hunts. On the s.h.i.+ny floor were throw rugs the size of other people's rooms. At the far end wide stairways came down from a second-floor gallery on either side of a fireplace that was constructed from boulders.

Rhonda Howe said, ”It was so good of you to come all the way out here. My room is upstairs.”

”Your room?” Picard said.

”Where I was menaced by those awful men. I thought you might want to look for clues.”

With her large green eyes she watched him hopefully. Picard tried not to fall into them. He said, ”You thought right. Lead the way.”

Picard, Data, and Wesley followed her across the foyer, their shoes ticking against the tessellated floor, silent against the thick rugs. When Miss Howe had one foot on the bottom step, a very tall man entered the foyer through a side door. White hair was swept back above his ears like wings, and a wispy white beard grew from his chin. He was dressed in a cutaway coat and striped pants. He bowed no more than he had to and in a deep resonant voice said, ”Excuse me, Miss Rhonda, but your father would like to see Mr. Hill.”

As if really concerned, she said, ”Can it wait? Mr. Hill is busy right now.”

”Your father is most insistent.”

Picard said, ”You three go ahead. I trust my operatives implicitly, Miss Howe.” While she, Data, and Wesley continued up the stairs, Picard followed the butler back through the side door and along a pa.s.sage lined with heavily laden bookshelves. They went through an entrance that could only have been a primitive airlock, and into an enormous greenhouse. Picard immediately began to sweat.

The butler said, ”Watch your step, sir. Creepers.”

Aside from a sweat bath, this was the warmest room Picard had ever been in. He fanned himself with his hat as the butler led him along a winding brick path among the trees, bushes, and winding vines of a tropical forest. Fat drops of moisture fell from everything, including the butler and Picard. A sickly sweetness of too much perfume weighed down the air. Pale green light filtered through tentatively from the gla.s.s roof above.

In an open area a very old man sat in a wheelchair staring out through a gla.s.s wall at rolling gra.s.sy hills. Near him was a white iron table with a white telephone on it and a white iron chair next to it. A shawl was draped across the man's shoulders, and a rug was thrown across his knees. The man looked like the bitter end of a life that had not been easy. Hands like unbaked dough plucked at the rug. His face was no more than many pouches of sagging skin crossed with tiny red and blue veins. His lips were thin and nearly the same color as the skin. Only his eyes were alive. They were the same sea green as his daughter's, and they watched Picard, appraising him as if he were a head of beef.

”Mr. Howe, Mr. Hill,” the butler said, and went away. Somewhere beyond the jungle a door closed.

Mr. Howe invited Picard to sit down, and then he said, ”I suppose my daughter hired you to see about her boogeymen.”

The word shocked Picard. Was it possible the computer would speak with him through this holoman rather than using its own computer voice? Carefully, Picard said, ”Boogeymen?”

”Something wrong with the word? Ghost, then. Hobgoblin. Nightmare. Whatever.”

The computer was playing with him. It knew the creatures Wesley had created were called Boogeymen. Using the strange double-think that computers used so well, it had fabricated a man who not only did not know a computer problem existed but was unaware of his own computer origin. Picard wondered briefly if flesh-and-blood people were any more aware of their origins or the problems of their Maker.

”You don't seem concerned,” Picard said.

Mr. Howe made a noise of dismissal and said, ”Like her father, she has an active imagination. Sometimes it's overactive. That's all.”

”What do you expect me to do, then? Slug her upside the head and tiptoe out while she's unconscious?”

”I don't think the slugging will be necessary. Just tell her that we spoke and that you're leaving. You may keep any money she paid you.” He shook his head. ”It's not your fault she's a twit.”

Picard remembered something Dixon Hill had said in a book called Sweet Oblivion. He quoted it to Mr. Howe: ”'All I have is my good name. Imagine what my reputation would be like if I let people who weren't my clients run me off cases.' ”

”I'm her father.”

”She doesn't look like a child.” Picard stood up and said, ”If nothing else, she needs to be comforted. Even if that's all she buys, she's doing all right.”