Part 4 (1/2)
”How dare you!” Straun cried. ”Isn't it enough that you've shamed me in front of my daughter by forcing me to stoop to-violence? Isn't it enough that you've sown the seeds of doubt in her, so that she can no longer face the end gracefully, with quiet stoicism and pride?”
”Captain,” said the young girl, ”I demand-I don't know, political asylum!”
”I didn't mean to-I was telling her about some of Earth's ancient history-the Cold War, people defecting, that kind of thing,” said the young man forlornly. ”I didn't realize that-”
”Mr. Ta.r.s.es, we will discuss this later in my ready room. Dismissed.” The young upstart left. Straun silently promised himself that he too would have words with Ta.r.s.es. Later.
Captain Picard put his hand on the girl's shoulder. She continued to stare defiantly at her father, but Amba.s.sador Straun was not inclined to back down.
Gently, the captain said, ”Kio, your father is an amba.s.sador, and we are in the process of establis.h.i.+ng diplomatic relations with your world; perhaps now isn't quite the time to-”
”A world that is about to be destroyed. You're never going to succeed in blowing up the comet,” said the girl. ”My father is a fanatic. He'll sabotage your plan. He'll subvert even the High s.h.i.+vantak himself-”
”Heresy!” shouted the amba.s.sador with all his might.
”Heresy, he says,” said his daughter. ”Well, then ... if not political asylum ... I claim religious persecution. I don't believe in the inevitability of the end of the world ... and my father is trying to force me to die for my beliefs.”
”Kio,” Picard said softly, ”you must go with your father. I cannot interfere with the traditions of your people.”
”Cannot?” she said, as slowly she moved toward Straun, looking away when he tried to embrace her. ”You already have. I wish, oh, by the Panvivlion, I wish you had never come.”
For the first time that day, Amba.s.sador Straun agreed with his daughter. Change had come at the eleventh hour, bourne by this mighty s.h.i.+p.
Change!
Nothing had ever changed on Thanet.
The universe is a dance. The cycles follow each other with the regularity of-no! Nothing has ever changed on Thanet, Straun found himself saying over and over in his mind, as though the repet.i.tion of that axiom were enough to counter the clear evidence that change had finally come.
And Straun was afraid.
Part Two
The Machine That Was Mortal Do not resist The one who shall come For the one who shall come Is father and mother to you And son and daughter as well; You are all part of the chain of being As the dailong, engendered deep beneath the sea, Rises from the mists to serve you And retreats beneath the waves When his time is come; You are all as the dailong, Called by G.o.d, Sent back by G.o.d At the proper time.
-From the Seventh Book of the Holy Panvivlion.
CAPTAIN PICARD, once more, was alone with the report. Halliday had the unerring knack of putting his finger on that which was most troubling to the Federation, that which the Federation most wanted to avoid coming to grips with.
For the Prime Directive, beautiful as it was, was an idea, not a law of nature.
It had taken millennia for this idea to be shaped, and yet it was still as fragile now as it had been when first formulated. So many things worked against it: avarice, human desire, megalomania, even love.
Picard read on: CONFIDENTIAL REPORT:.
Dr. Robert Halliday's field notes Dr. Halliday's report resumes with more translations from the Panvivlion, and his commentary: As far as I've been able to figure out, the Thanetians have seventeen basic castes, each of which is divided into hundreds of subcastes, and the amazing thing is they keep it all straight. Every caste has its own ritual greetings, its own respect language, and its own dietary restrictions. The dietary restrictions, in particular, are spelled out with astonis.h.i.+ng strictness in the Book of the Forbidden, the lengthiest section of the Panvivlion. I have been working on one such segment, and this gives the general flavor: ”Of the flesh of the he-klariot, no part shall be partaken of that lieth betwixt the organs of digestion and the organs of breath; for such tissues are the exclusive right of the priestly clans. But of the she-klariot, such flesh may be freely eaten, provided that four ceremonial sips of peftifesht wine are taken between each bite, and that the she-klariot hath not been known to have had carnal congress with any male of a species other than its own.”
The klariot is small mammal, about the size of a Denebian possum. By the way, its flesh is very delicate, and it's not perhaps that surprising to an aesthete such as myself that the various bits would be so jealously argued over in a religious text; imagine, if you will, a really fine filet mignon with a hint of caviar and a sort of musky aftertaste.
The truth of the matter is that it is so hard to ascertain the correctness of the diet, and the stigma attached to making a mistake is so severe, that there have developed special restaurants and grocery depots for each caste, and even the large hypermarket chains that cater to all have separate exits and entrances for the seventeen major groups. It would seem to me that replicator technology would make a lot of sense in this culture, since the entire Book of the Forbidden could be programmed into it. However, there is a section of the Book of the Forbidden that implies that the use of replicators might not be religiously acceptable.
The Thanetians attach great importance to their laws, their hierarchy; ceremonial forms of address are used even in the home, among close relatives; and the first question asked of a stranger is often ”Where do you sit?” a way of finding out what level to a.s.sign to the person and what forms of address to use. Indeed, a formal living room is designed more like a very wide staircase than the flat floors we are used to; and those of higher caste automatically gravitate to the highest step.
I have tried to find out the origins of this tradition, and have been told only that it is lost in the mists of time.
However, we have already determined that ”time” on Thanet only goes back five thousand years; those mists are more in the nature of an iron curtain, completely separating this present civilization from its past.
I do not feel that such a sophisticated hierarchy could just have sprung from nowhere; I welcome the arrival of Federation savants who would help in gathering material. I particularly welcome the suggestion that Commander Data might join my efforts for a while. For while his physical form is human enough that the natives would not fear to give him information, his powers of deductive reasoning would undoubtedly be more than human. ...
”Computer,” Picard sighed, ”inform Dr. Halliday on Thanet that an away team will be there very shortly. Including, as he requested, Commander Data.”
Chapter Nine.
Thanet ADAM HALLIDAY WAS ONE of the only humans on Thanet, and certainly the only human child. That should have made him very precious, but in practice it made him a loner. His father was often so wrapped up in his research that they barely spoke for days at a time; sometimes Adam wished he hadn't come along, that he had stayed at the inst.i.tute with the other kids. At least there would have been people his own age. Well, sort of. They weren't kids exactly at the inst.i.tute. They had special talents, which made them bad company.
Adam too had a special talent. More than one. For one thing, he had a Betazoid great-grandmother, which, he was often told, accounted for his occasional flash of intuition. For another, he was a genius.
The best thing about Thanet was the fact that Adam was special. He wasn't a member of any caste-his off-world status made him acceptable everywhere. He could literally go anywhere in the city, walk into any shop, speak to anyone at all. And everyone wanted to be nice to him, pet him, stare at his unwebbed hands, run their fingers through his reddish hair.
Being special was the worst thing about Thanet too. He wished he could have a friend. Perhaps, today, he finally would; the Federation was sending down a team to look over his father's research.
They were arriving right now. They had just beamed into the courtyard. It was night, but the Moon That Sings flooded the stone walls, making the silvery flecks-a mica-like mineral-sparkle. They materialized next to a small shrine of Yarut, the love G.o.d, the epaulets glistening on their uniforms. Adam hid behind the well as his father emerged from the dilapidated hostel the Federation had acquired as its research headquarters.
Dr. Robert Halliday waddled out and greeted the guests with a wave. ”Welcome, welcome,” he said, ”it's not often we get visitors here at the End of the World.”
”But Dr. Halliday,” said the one with the strangely rubbery skin and funny eyes, ”this is not the End of the World at all; indeed, the Enterprise has come here to prevent that very thing.”
”Irony, Mr. Data,” said Adam's dad, ”a little gallows humor.”
”I see, Dr. Halliday,” said the man.
Adam couldn't help giggling a little. This man was very literal-minded. Halliday shuffled over to the well and pulled out the boy. ”My son,” he said. ”I asked him to help greet the new guests, but he prefers to play the spy.”
”Ah, the famous Adam Halliday,” said the man his father had called Mr. Data.
”I'm famous?” said Adam.
”It is rumored,” said Data, ”that an eight-year-old boy by that name at the Metadevelopmental Inst.i.tute once scribbled out an astonis.h.i.+ng proof of Fermat's Theorem on a piece of rice paper. ...”
”And,” his dad added, ”in fit of pique at being denied his favorite pudding, swallowed the paper! Oh yes, that's my son all right. A genius manque, but a genius nonetheless.”
”Well, since you know so much,” Adam sniffed, ”I've figured out who you are, too-you're that famous android. And you're even smarter than me.”
”That is very perceptive of you, Adam Halliday,” said Commander Data, taking the backhanded compliment in his stride. ”Allow me to introduce the rest of this away team. Lieutenant Lisa Martinez is a science officer on temporary a.s.signment, an archaeologist and philologist-”