Tooth and Claw Page 8

  Time. Time was one thing of which he had too little. The desperate Ntignanos, trying to flee their planet, could not afford to wait on intransigent Tsorans, or even to afford the distraction of the Enterprise captain. The Ntignanos needed help now.

  Maybe it was time to think about La Forge’s request for probe-assisted, high-speed charting.

  Chapter Six

  RIKER PEERED OUT the front viewport, glad to see that the Legacy inhabitants didn’t seem to have recovered from the crash; there was no sign of movement in the dark green foliage surrounding the shuttle.

  Which didn’t mean there wasn’t danger. As far as Riker could tell, the place was teaming with carnivorous life just waiting for juicy, defenseless humanoid morsels to expose themselves. He could well understand how a hunter could take six men to watch his back and still gain prestige from the kaphoora. From what he’d seen at the museum, even the Fandrean rangers avoided exposure—for as much time as they spent within the preserve, most of it was in the air, or behind the scooterpod shields . . . making observations, charting changes, and collecting data for Legacy management. Only occasionally did they venture into the jungle on foot, and any adjustments to the preserve—culling a species that was beginning to unbalance the managed ecosystem, seeding more prey species, thinning the forest to allow for the growth of certain plants to feed the prey species— were carefully planned, always involving just as many rangers on watch as those who did the actual work.

  And now Akarr wanted to go out there with only two guards. Well, plus two wounded guards, one addled guard . . . and Riker. Three days of walking, by Riker’s calculation, to get them back to the forcefield portal. Four, perhaps, if Akarr insisted on hunting along the way.

  On second thought, that probably wouldn’t slow them down. No doubt the hunted would assume the role of the hunter, closing in on them often enough for Akarr to gather all the trophies he wanted.

  Think of the Ntignanos, Riker told himself. He was doing this for the Ntignanos, in the hope that Akarr’s father would then negotiate use of the charted space. A bribe, they might have called it, in another day. Maybe that was still the best term for it in this one. Just trying to get your attention, Atann, so we can save an entire sentient species. Staring out into the dimly lit forest— no light to speak of came down through these thick trees, although the shields were calibrated to let sunlight through despite their opacity from the other side—Riker grinned wryly to himself and shook his head. It would get Atann’s attention, all right, when he learned his son had gone down in the Legacy.

  If any part of that transmission had made it out past the forcefield . . .

  If Geordi had then noticed the nonsensical burst of noise . . .

  If Atann learned his son had gone down in the Legacy.

  “Riker!”

  Somewhere along the way, Akarr had ceased to use Riker’s rank. Riker had no qualms about returning the favor. He straightened, stretched a bruised kink in his back, and responded to the overloud hail in a more moderate voice that knew it only had to go from one end of the shuttle to the other. “Akarr.”

  “We are done here.” Patching, bandaging, wrapping . . . licking their wounds. “It is time to go outside and honor Pavar.”

  Riker moved to the center of the twisted shuttle to take in the triage area in the back. Rakal and Takan had done most of the initial sorting, tossing aside those goods damaged beyond reason and keeping close tally of those things that could yet serve them well. Riker had been right in there with them to start, working with the wounded. Suture glue and a protective patch took care of Gavare’s head wound, but the blow he’d taken had left him dazed, wandering in thought and likely to wander in body. After Regen’s broken arm had been set, Akarr assigned him to stay by Gavare’s side, for Gavare had taken to heading for the shuttle door at every befuddled opportunity.

  Not that he was likely to get it open, not when it required a manual release and manipulation, and not in his condition. But no point in taking chances; there was plenty of reason for Gavare to want out, what with the blood of his fellow guard drying to deepest violet along the shuttlecraft walls.

  Ketan remained the most miserable of them. Whatever injury he had taken to his shoulder and upper arm, it was not obvious. In a human, Riker would have called the joint dislocated, but none of the Tsorans seemed to recognize what he was talking about; either the Universal Translator was glitching again or their anatomy differed too significantly for the analogy. The best they could do was bind the arm tightly to Ketan’s body. They dared not use the painkillers—who knew how the human medicines would affect the Tsoran’s system— and the minimal Tsoran med kit did not include them. Whatever the kaphoora generally presented in terms of challenge, the Tsorans clearly had not expected significant injuries.

  Or else they knew better—one either avoided close encounters, or one died . . . that, too, would alleviate the need for medical care.

  Akarr had not gone unscathed in the crash—his nose was swollen and still leaking blood. But he made no complaint—only stood impatiently by the door, waiting for Riker to tackle the manual release.

  With no little effort, Riker did just that. The door did not open easily—definitely stressed by the landing—but eventually it cranked open far enough that Rakal and Takan could carry Pavar’s body, sheeted by the rich maroon fabric from several denuded seats, out in search of a place to bury it.

  Fresh air flooded the shuttle—or what passed for fresh air on Legacy. Hot and humid—thickly humid—it was ripe with humus, the odors of rich foliage and exotic flowers, even a strange musk. A large, bold insect flew in, bounced stupidly off the back wall, and came to rest, unfazed, on the dead navigation console. The first of many, no doubt. Riker left it there and stepped out of the shuttle onto a ground spongy with thick mosses and fallen leaves. Big ones—for the brush here at ground level consisted of huge leaves to catch the heavily filtered light, some of them rubbery, all of them gleaming with dampness that spoke of recent rain. Daily thunderstorms, Riker recalled suddenly, and unimpeded by the forcefields in any way.

  In the humid air, he smelled again the blood on his lip, and that which had trickled into his beard; he swiped a hand across the damp foliage and scrubbed it across his face several times. “You might want to do the same,” he told Akarr, who was gazing about himself as if he’d just entered the largest of cathedrals.

  “Blood is honorably worn,” Akarr told him, barely taking his attention from the preserve. He crouched and ran his claws through the ground matter down to the dirt, and stood even as he contemplated the substance on his fingertips, rolling it between fingers and thumbs. “Ah,” he said. “Deep-jungle scent—the promise of rich hunting. There is no other smell like this.”

  “There’s blood,” Riker suggested. “Which, if you don’t wash it off, will make you all the more tempting to any number of the creatures who live here.”

  “I’m not concerned about that. I want them to come to me.”

  “Then think about Gavare—right now, he probably doesn’t even know where he is, or the danger he’s in. Even if we wash him off ”—no small effort, the way that head wound had bled——“he’ll still be with you, and you’ll still be drawing them in.”

  “ReynTa,” Rakal said, steadfastly looking away from Akarr and tilting his head to expose the side of his throat, “maybe you should pick and choose your own time for the hunt, and maintain control over it—not bring it here where our honorably wounded have no ability to protect themselves.”

  Maintain control over it. There was no controlling this place, or anything in it. But Riker stayed silent, suspecting that any single thing he could say at this point would cause trouble—especially given the glare that Akarr had tossed his way as Rakal spoke.

  “It is true that a leader must protect his men,” Takan said, in the most offhand of manners, also looking away from Akarr. He, like Rakal, looked some years older than Akarr, and seemed to have a relationship of long standing with the
ReynTa.

  Akarr stared hard at them both, examining their postures, mulling their words. Finally he said, “Then you two may see to cleaning up Gavare. When you’re done, scout for a place for Pavar.”

  The two guards briefly tilted their heads aside, and then set about their task with alacrity that poor addled Gavare couldn’t understand or appreciate.

  Rather than take any part of a chance that Akarr would interpret his watching as gloating, Riker set off to walk around the shuttle, wincing at the damage— who would have thought that duranium would twist and bend like that—and more grateful than ever that his aches and pains were only that. They were lucky to have lost only one.

  But that didn’t mean the others were capable of walking out through this. The ground foliage grabbed at his ankles, and hidden roots snagged his toes. Within a short distance, the damp leaves had soaked his pants from the knees down; he squinted up at the all-enveloping treetop canopy and considered the strength of the rain that could get past it. An image of the steaming, heavily puddled landing pad outside the museum hangar came to mind.

  At this rate of going, even if they traveled right through whatever rain fell, it would take days longer than his original estimate to walk out of here. Even as he thought it, Riker stumbled, grabbing a vine to keep himself from going down—and then jerked to a stop when he couldn’t unwrap his hand. With a concerted effort and the ticky-tacky noises of something coming unglued, he pulled his fingers away from the vine. A closer look showed it coated with sap—already fresh liquid oozed to fill the gap he’d created—and covered thickly with insects.

  Not your basic Alaskan taiga. Remember that.

  The shuttle’s flight path left a scar of loamy brown against the green undergrowth—a darker green than seemed natural to Riker’s eyes. He followed it a short distance. Easy going, this, and directional as well. If he couldn’t talk Akarr out of walking out, this was the place to start. And ahh . . . he remembered this bounce, the biggest during their final plunging descent. He stood at the edge of a particularly deep gouge, well through the thin soil and into light, chunky clay-and-rock layers, and contemplated their almost-fate . . . how if he’d come in at a slightly steeper angle . . .

  None of them would have survived that one.

  Something flittered above him; of the creatures they’d scared off, apparently some were bolder in returning than others. The silent jungle had begun to rustle and chirp again. Riker felt the weight of the knife at his calf, and wished for the weight of a phaser in his hand. Time to return for the bat’leth.

  He met Takan and Rakal at the back of the shuttle; already they panted slightly in the heat, their short, cupped ears blushing a bruised color and fanning thin to distribute heat. “Be careful,” he said. “Whatever we scared off is coming back.”

  “It was expected,” Rakal said. In Akarr’s presence he had taken no special note of Riker; now he raked him up and down with a dark and scornful gaze. Riker had not paid much attention before, but he suddenly recognized the cinnamon cast to Rakal’s coat, the pattern of his vest . . . this was the Tsoran who’d scuffled with Dougherty on the shuttle. Wonderful. Of the two uninjured guards, one of them bore Riker a grudge simply for being embarrassed in his presence.

  “We’ve gone beyond expected.” Riker looked into the trees as something let loose a raucous cry. “We’re running headlong into now.”

  Takan lifted his weapon—a short-barreled, extremely short range dart-propulsion gun. “We are prepared to deal with them. If you are not, then you should return to the shuttle.”

  I’m about to get prepared to deal with them. But of course he didn’t say it. He returned the Tsoran’s stare and said, “No, Guinan, you win. It doesn’t get any easier.” That baffled them completely, which was almost as good as shedding his good-guy Federation Officer face and taking these Tsorans down a peg or two. Never mind that those teeth jutted out for slashing in a fight, just like a boar’s. And never mind that they had stout, sharp claws on all four fingers and both thumbs of each hand.

  Stop it. Survival, that was the goal here. And to do it in such a manner that the Tsorans weren’t alienated beyond allowing the Ntignano evacuation to traverse the edges of their space. So, trying to take the belligerence out of his posture, he added, “Looks like a good spot to bury Pavar back there, if that’s what you want to do with him. We dug it out on the way in.”

  They didn’t reply. But they did start down the crash path. Riker returned to the shuttle door the way he’d left, and tried not to smile at the sight of Tsoran fur running the length of the sticky vine.

  Akarr sat at the shuttle entrance, sitting on the ground and shoving darts into the chamber of his own tranquilizer gun. Gavare, damply clean, seemed to have ceased wandering, but Regen kept a close eye on him anyway. Ketan simply sat at the side of the shuttle looking miserable. Akarr looked up at Riker, closing the chamber on his little weapon by feel. Like the other Tsorans, he also had a knife at his side, and unlike the other two, he wore a highly decorated, ceremonial trophy knife jammed slantwise in the front of his vest. “No other Tsoran has hunted so deeply in the preserve.”

  “You’re not hunting yet,” Riker said.

  “Soon.” Akarr seated the gun into the holster in front of his knife. Far overhead, something screeched; Riker couldn’t tell if it was in warning or dismay. “Takan, Rakal, and I have assessed our status. We have food enough. We have tranquilizer guns for all who are uninjured plus one; the others were damaged. You, of course, were planning to stay in the shuttle, so I doubt you have any weapons of note—”

  “Don’t worry about me,” Riker said. “I’ve got what I need.”

  “As soon as Pavar is honored, we will begin our journey to the portal.”

  Riker shook his head. “We’re better off staying here. We don’t have to worry about how much food we can carry, and we’ll have shelter at night.” Behind him, Rakal and Takan quietly returned; Riker glanced back to see that they’d hunkered down in the flattened foliage, and were listening with great interest. “I got a signal off; Geordi will make sure we get help.”

  Akarr made a face. “Your Lieutenant Commander La Forge wouldn’t even be on Fandre if it were possible to communicate through the forcefield.”

  “I didn’t say I’d communicated. I said I got a signal off.” He hoped. “Geordi will know it’s from me. They’ll send someone in after us.”

  Akarr stared at him a moment, in astonishment rather than his usual challenge. “What makes you think we want to be rescued at all, never mind by your Federation? We will rescue ourselves.”

  “By offering yourselves up to every predator that lives here? Akarr, a hunt is one thing. Prolonged exposure to the dangers of this place is another thing entirely. Are you determined to die here?”

  Akarr smiled at him—not the socially appropriate smile of covered teeth, but a curl of the lip that left nothing to the imagination. The Ferengi would envy such teeth. “There is much daleura in such a death, if it must be. But no, none of us have any intention of dying.”

  “Have any of you been here before? Had experience with this place?”

  As one, they glanced at Gavare.

  “Wonderful,” Riker said, not caring if they understood the sarcasm. Too much courage, not near enough wisdom.

  Akarr stood. “Your opinion is not important here, Riker. You got us into this situation, but we will decide how to get ourselves out. For now, we care for Pavar— you will wait here, as it is a private matter. When we return, be ready to leave. Or stay here alone, as you please.”

  There was nothing that Riker could come up with in reply . . . nothing, that is, that it would do for him to say. As Akarr led the Tsorans away, with Pavar suspended between Rakal and Takan and the injured guards more or less staggering along behind, the creature above them screeched again, circling lower, rustling in the foliage just overhead.

  Something splatted to the ground; Riker couldn’t see it, but he could smell it well enough. He coul
dn’t help but offer a sardonic smile. “I couldn’t agree more,” he said, and went into the shuttle to gather up his supplies.

  * * *

  Picard paced from the viewport to the food replicator, decided against taking supper until the tingle of afternoon heessla faded from his tongue, and returned to the viewport. The ready room seemed smaller with every passing moment. Give them time, Troi had said. Well, he was giving them time. Time during which, despite the padd-pushing, he could do nothing but think of the Rahjah, bent and twisted on the jungle floor—along with all its occupants. And of Geordi La Forge, working without support from the Enterprise, trying to suborn Fandrean technology to effect a rescue.

  If the Enterprise were there, surely her sensors would be able to tell them something. Surely Geordi’s finely honed engineering staff would brainstorm quick answers to the shielding and communications problems. Surely they’d all make short work of finding Will . . . of finding the ReynTa and therefore successfully completing their mission to expedite the Ntignano evacuation. . . .

  If the Enterprise were there—instead of sitting in orbit above Aksanna, Atann’s sprawling capital city, waiting for Atann to comprehend how many people would die if he didn’t put himself in the mood to chat— a development which was by no means assured.

  Picard turned away from the viewport, an abrupt move. “Picard to Data—would you join me a moment, Mr. Data?”

  “Certainly, sir,” Data said; almost immediately, the door chimed.

  “Come,” Picard said, just shy of impatience, and when Data entered, gave him no chance to inquire. “Mr. Data, given the Enterprise’s superior scanning ability, how long would it take us to reach Fandre?”

  Data didn’t hesitate, didn’t blink the way a human might have, tripping over the implications of the question. “As compared to a shuttle? What time we save with our scanners, we would lose to our size and the need for precision manuevering. Sir, may I ask—”

  “No,” Picard said.