The light faded. Worf strained his arms and snapped the cord around his wrists. He raised his face to the sky and howled at the dying glare, warning all in the afterlife to beware; the souls of warriors were coming. Carda.s.sian warriors, he thought. My son lives. I feel it! Enterprise was not destroyed. Alexander must live!

His eyesight blurred by the glare, Worf pushed toward the man who had his equipment. The blinded soldier clutched a tree, paralyzed by fear. Worf searched him, flinging aside a knife and worthless baubles until he found his communicator badge. "Worf to Enterprise,"; he bellowed. "Answer, you tribble-loving taHgeg!"; "Good to hear you, too, Mr. Worf" Radiation static roughened Picard's voice, but the captain sounded amused. Filled with relief, Worf did not feel bothered by Picard's tone. "Report your status."

Worf regained his composure. He took his phaser from the soldier. "I have captured the Vo Gatyn and her soldiers," he said. "Medical a.s.sistance will be required."

"We'll have a medical team on the way shortly," Picard said. "Enterprise is undamaged, but the Carda.s.sian and Ferengi ships have been destroyed. Survivors may have beamed into your area."

"I shall capture any I see," Worf promised. He smiled at the sky. My son lives, he thought.

Picard closed the channel, and Worf walked over to Anit. "Now both eyes I have lost," he said bleakly, as Worf untied his one hand from his waist.

"You will see again," Worf said. He gave the man's shoulder a rea.s.suring squeeze. "Have no fear."

Radiation flooded the base's sensors, but enough data filtered through to reveal the extent of the disaster. Fatal Arrow was destroyed, along with the Ferengi ship-and the Federation vessel was unscathed. It would not be long before the humans came to Gatyn's castle and probed its secrets. That might give them the means to defeat the plan, if they had not done so already.

Verden sat in the intelligence room and studied his orders. The men who had devised this project had known that Federation interference was a possibility, and they had taken that into account. The orders filed in his electronic book suggested ways to salvage the plan even now. The orders were imaginative and filled the leader with admiration. It could be done. He summoned his team.

"We have not lost," Verden told his men as they joined him. "Not while we live. We are superior to our enemies. We shall defeat them."

"You have a plan?" Ubinew asked.

"I do," Verden said. "Prepare to evacuate. We will go to our outpost in Metari Leeg."

"The shipyard," Ubinew noted. He hesitated. "Sir, we have fifteen shipyards on Megara. Would it not be better to occupy a more distant yard?"

"Yes," Verden said. "Unfortunately, the teleport limits our choices. The farther we transport, the more power we must use, and the greater the chance that we will be detected. Metari Leeg is closest to us, and minimizes that chance. Now set the coordinates for Metari Leeg."

"I obey," Ubinew said, and sat down at a control station.

Verden and the rest of his unit went to the a.r.s.enal, where they strapped on weapons belts. A moment later Ubinew joined them and armed himself. "The coordinates are set," he told Verden as he wrapped himself in an alt-robe. "I have found a cave outside Metari Leeg. We can transport into it without attracting the attention of the Enterprise's sensors, or of the natives. I have already transported emergency supplies into the cave."

"Excellent," Verden said. He felt proud to have such a follower. "You obey orders with imagination. I have one more order. If the Federation captures the Vo Gatyn, she will keep no secrets from them."

"She does not know the plan," Ubinew said.

"True, but she is observant. You must find her and kill her."

"I obey," Ubinew said at once. Then he looked thoughtful. "She and her troops will still be in the forest. Finding them may not be easy, especially if they scatter. I will require two men to aid me."

Verden nodded. "Choose your men. Do not allow yourself to be captured."

"I obey," Ubinew said without hesitation. He gestured to two men and took them away. A moment later Verden heard the transporter hum.

Verden led the rest of his men to the transporter. Before he stepped onto the stage he paused to arm the base's self-destruct unit. It was far smaller than the one that had taken care of the Fatal Arrow, but it was powerful enough for its job. The humans would find nothing here but a glowing crater.

A pity I cannot leave it as a b.o.o.by trap, he thought as he crowded onto the transporter stage with his men. It would have pleased him to kill a few humans as they entered the base ... but b.o.o.by traps were unreliable, and humans might have defused such a device. No, it was better to make sure that the base and its secrets were destroyed.

The transporter surged and placed the Carda.s.sians inside a dank, reeking cave. A native carnivore snarled to life as it sensed intruders in its home. Almost offhandedly, Verden shot it as it jumped at him. The creature tumbled to the cave's muddy floor and lay still, its lips still pulled back to bare its fangs.

Verden looked at his men. "We will split into small groups and enter Metari Leeg separately. We will meet at the s.p.a.ceport."

"What are we to do there?" Hrakin asked.

"Regroup and blend in," Verden said. "There are several ships in Metari Leeg which are ready for flight. We shall see to it that the natives use them as we planned. They are a c.o.c.ked pistol with a hair trigger; it will not take much to set them off."

"And strike the Federation in the heart," Bwolst said.

Hrakin saw further than the hope of victory. "The Federation will interfere," he said.

"That is possible," Verden agreed. "But if they send agents to Metari Leeg, we will kill them."

The Carda.s.sian leader a.s.sured himself that the plan could still succeed. The chances were poor that the Federation would turn its back on Megara-but their bizarre concept of morality would keep them from destroying Megara to protect themselves. And while they dithered, he could launch the Megarans onto the proper course. Give these people one taste of the easy wealth piracy could bring, and there would be no stopping them.

Verden found himself looking at the cave beast he had killed. It had been a solitary creature, proud and independent, in many ways like a Carda.s.sian. Yet not too much like us, he thought. It had attacked without thought, and it had died for that. It had not known how to make combat serve its needs, to create by destroying.

Light glared in the cave's mouth as the castle blew up.

Chapter Fourteen.

A FEW SECONDS at warp eight had flicked the Enterprise halfway across the Megaran system, and the starship was still maneuvering back toward a standard orbit around the planet. Wesley had gone to the science officer's station to scan the planet. There was a lot of radiation from the Carda.s.sian ship's explosion, but the readings looked good. "Megara is all right, Captain," he reported. "There's no damage to the atmosphere, and the magnetosphere has stabilized. The radiation levels are high throughout the inner system, but they're dropping."

"Excellent," Picard said. Wesley saw him smile slightly, but he could not tell if the captain was happy or relieved that his gamble had succeeded. "When will it be safe to use the transporter?"

"Not for another hour, sir," Wesley said.

"That could be a problem," Riker said to Picard. "There are a lot of Ferengi down there, not to mention the Carda.s.sians. I don't like leaving Worf alone in a spot like that."

"I'm certain that Mr. Worf won't hurt them too badly," Picard said thoughtfully. "Mr. Crusher, can you locate any Ferengi or Carda.s.sians near Lieutenant Worf's position?"

Wesley shook his head over the display. "No, sir. There's too much radiation for a high-resolution scan. We'll have to get closer to Megara-" He stopped as the readings surged on his instruments. "Captain, there's been an explosion at the Vo Gatyn's castle."

"That's where the Carda.s.sians had their base," Riker said. "How big was the explosion?"

"Less than a kiloton, sir," Wesley said. The numbers on the display made the situation obvious. "It's a simple antimatter explosion. There's no residual radiation or fallout."

"We can be grateful for small favors," Riker said. Unlike fission and fusion bombs, antimatter weapons did not leave any lingering radiation. There would have been a swift pulse of heat and gamma radiation, and then nothing but a charred crater.

"I cannot imagine a smaller favor," Picard said. "Mr. Crusher, scan the area around the castle for survivors. There are bound to be injuries; inform the chief medical officer when you find them, so she can plan relief activities."

The radiation from the destroyed ships still fogged the sensors, but as the Enterprise drew closer to Megara Wesley began to get some reliable data. He barely noticed when Amba.s.sador Offenhouse called the captain away from the bridge; he was too wrapped up in the intricate problem of winnowing data from the haze of radiation surrounding Megara. Wesley located fifty or so Megarans within a five-kilometer radius of the castle, although the data wasn't good enough to tell him if they had been injured in the blast. He spotted several cl.u.s.ters of Ferengi, and as he widened the search area he found Worf's distinctive trace in the readings.

A certain absence struck him at once. "No Carda.s.sians," he said quietly.

"How's that, Mr. Crusher?" Riker asked.

"I can't find any Carda.s.sians, sir," Wesley said, looking up from the display. "Even with all the interference, they should stick out like a sore thumb, but they don't show."

"Perhaps they were all in their base when it blew up," Counselor Troi suggested. "Suicide would let them avoid capture."

"And keep us from interrogating them," Riker said. He shook his head. "I don't believe it. It's too unlikely that all of them would be in the base when it blew up. Besides, Carda.s.sians are warriors. They'd go down fighting."

"If I may comment," Shrev said quietly, "they could have a hiding place down there, a second base."

"My thoughts exactly," Riker said. "Keep searching."

Data had been in the conference room during the battle, and in his own way he was glad to have missed the engagement. This had given him the chance to observe the amba.s.sador and Odovil Pardi. The Megaran woman had seemed distressed by the dramatic changes in artificial gravity and lighting, but not unduly so; considering that this was her first experience with s.p.a.ceflight, much less s.p.a.ce combat, Data found her poise quite impressive.

Ralph Offenhouse's reaction perplexed him. The man had looked annoyed by the battle, as if it were a mere nuisance. He had studied the reports made by the away teams, and while phaser blasts rocked the ship he had asked Data to expand upon his observations of the counterfeit money. All in all, the most appropriate word for his behavior might have been "monomaniacal."

Offenhouse summoned Picard to the conference room a half-hour after the battle. "Pull up a chair, Picard," Offenhouse said as he entered the room. "Are you done slamming us around?"

"For the moment," Picard said, sitting down at the table. His tone suggested that he found the amba.s.sador's att.i.tude inoffensive, perhaps even amusing. "Incidentally, we won."

"That would explain why we're still alive," Offenhouse said. "But I've got a hunch that our problems are just starting on Megara. Our tourists dug up a real mystery down there."

"This sounds promising," Picard said. He idly rubbed at a soiled spot on his uniform sleeve. The captain was a fastidious man, and Data believed he was unhappy that he had not had the chance to clean up after last night. "What's the mystery?"

"It's just that nothing makes sense," Offenhouse said. "At first glance, it looks like the Carda.s.sians hired the Ferengi to turn Megara into an industrial world with a lot of shipyards."

"To build ships for the Carda.s.sian fleet," Picard concluded. "I see. For a fifty-billion-credit investment, the Carda.s.sians get a fleet and base worth trillions. And Megara would make an excellent jumping-off point for an a.s.sault into the Federation. Our border is lightly defended here. All the Carda.s.sians have to do is to bring in people to fly the ships ... no."

"You see the difficulty with that theory, Captain," Data said. "The Carda.s.sians would have to bring tens of thousands of personnel to Megara. It is improbable that they could hide the movement of such a large number of soldiers."

"Perhaps to their world the ships they would take," Odovil suggested.

"Perhaps-no," Picard said, shaking his head. "We would spot such ship movements. Furthermore, that does not explain why they're building them so close to the Federation."

Offenhouse nodded. "Megara's strategic location must be the key to what's happening here. But there're other mysteries. One is the way the Ferengi have bungled with Megaran society. You'd think they want an efficient industrial organization here, but everything they've done undercuts that. Take the poverty. No matter how hard a Megaran works, he can't get ahead. That kills initiative and encourages corruption."

"Because people see that honest work is inadequate to their survival?" Data asked. Corruption was a human failing that had always eluded his understanding, and he was glad for any insight into it. "Perhaps this explains the widespread occurrence of counterfeiting."

"Printing funny money is easier than earning the real thing," Offenhouse agreed. "And poverty gives people a good reason to take bribes-"

"Lucky for you that is," Odovil said. "A corporal I bribed, so that you to me he would bring. If he the bribe had refused, you to the rateyes he would have given. Dead you would be."

The amba.s.sador nodded as though her twisted syntax made perfect sense to him. "And that corporal knifed a man to earn his bribe," he said. "Life doesn't mean much on Megara-"

"Much it means," Odovil said uneasily. As she tapped her fingers on the tabletop, Data noted that her nails appeared ragged, as though she chewed them. This suggested a nervous personality. "But many lives the rateyes destroy," Odovil continued.

"The Ferengi have been doing something clever here," Offenhouse told Picard. "A Megaran can't get a job without a work permit. When a Megaran displeases the little monsters, they make his boss take away his permit. That's nastier than an execution, because it forces the victims to turn to crime or take degrading jobs, and it forces the boss to partic.i.p.ate in the brutality, and it shows other people the prolonged suffering of anyone who crosses the Ferengi."

"That seems excessive, even for the Ferengi," Picard said. "What's more, it's wasteful. These outcasts become a drag on society. Such waste is not typical of the Ferengi."

"There is an error in your logic, sir," Data said in a regretful tone. "While the Ferengi have carried our these actions, they are done at the behest of the Carda.s.sians. We must a.s.sume that the Carda.s.sians find these actions productive."

"It's hard to see a purpose," Picard said.

"I agree, sir," Data said. "Cadet Crusher remarked that the Ferengi appeared to be destroying the Megaran culture. It does seem a pointless act."

"As pointless as the Prophet," Offenhouse said to Picard. "Someone has been using a holographic projector. A device that creates images out of pure light," he explained to Odovil.

"About holographs I know, Ral'feh," she said mildly. "And one of these the Prophet Against the Dark is?"

"That is correct," Data said.

"So a rat-eye fraud the Prophet is," Odovil said to herself. "Surprised I am not. Always wrong her words are."

"It is not surprising that the Prophet's operators would have trouble with the grammar of the Ulathic language," Data said. "While pleasing to the ear, the correct placement of words is difficult for non-native speakers."

Odovil looked impatient. "Of jumbled words I do not speak," she said. "Evil the Prophet is. To her once I listened, and hate she praised. In such a way no true priestess would speak-yet people to her listen, when to hate outworlders she commands. All outworlders," she added, in a wondering tone which told Data she had just noticed something odd, "not just rateyes."

"Teaching the Megarans to hate aliens seems insane," Picard said. "How could anyone expect them to supply starships to their enemies? The situation on Megara would be so unstable that they wouldn't make a reliable source."

"There's more," Offenhouse said. "The Ferengi pay the Megarans in scrip, paper money that isn't backed up by any intrinsic value. You can buy food and clothing with it, but it has nothing to do with the industrial economy. Just the same, the Ferengi take a lot of it back as taxes."

"Taxes?" Picard looked thoughtful. "As I recall from history, heavy taxes often helped to provoke revolutions. That would only add to the instability here."

Data listened to the discussion with less than one percent of his information-processing capacity. He devoted the rest of his attention to an intriguing perspective: destruction could be the first step in a process of replacement. The process on Megara seemed baffling only because it was incomplete. Given the parameters, could he define the process and predict its outcome?

He could. "Captain," he said, "I have arrived at a hypothesis which I desire to explore."

Odovil looked puzzled. "Always like this he speaks, Ral'feh?" she asked Offenhouse.

"He needs subt.i.tles." Offenhouse rested an elbow on the conference table and cupped his chin in his palm. "What have you got, Data?"

"I require the answer to one question," Data said. "Miss Pardi, do you know if the Ferengi planned to train any Mogarans to fly in s.p.a.ce?"

"Of this a rumor I heard," Odovil said. Data noted that her pulse and respiration increased, while both hands clenched into fists. He found it curious that she would appear more frightened now than she had during the battle. "A school they have built in Metari Leeg, about starships people to teach."

"This fits my hypothesis," Data said, looking to Picard. "Captain, the Carda.s.sians would find it useful to have a hostile, s.p.a.cefaring world here, to threaten the Federation. To that end, I believe they are creating such a society on Megara."

"You're calling this an example of social engineering?" Picard asked.

"Yes, sir," Data said. "The first step was to destroy the old culture, which cleared the ground for the construction of a new society. As with individuals, societies are shaped by what they see and experience, and conditions have been arranged so that Megarans know nothing but the law of the jungle. It is a well-established principle that constant exposure to violence and brutality causes most people to become brutal and violent.

"I believe the most important piece of evidence in favor of my hypothesis is the holographic prophet. This ent.i.ty serves no function except to sanction hatred of aliens. In addition, someone has been supplying Megaran children with p.o.r.nographic novels which glorify war and robbery. This is useful only if one a.s.sumes the Carda.s.sians wish to instill xenophobia in the Mogarans. Xenophobia is useful only in a warlike society.

"The precise aim remains unclear," Data continued. "Perhaps the Megarans are meant to become conquerors. A more limited goal of piracy would be equally useful to the Carda.s.sians. In either case, it would be necessary to give the Megarans the ability to construct and fly their own starships. This has now been done."

For a long moment the only sound in the conference room was the hiss of the ventilators. The silence of the three humans made Data wonder if his suggestion was foolish. His theory depended on an a.n.a.lysis of emotional factors and responses, and he knew he had only a sketchy understanding of such matters.

"I dunno," Offenhouse said at last. "If the Carda.s.sians are trying to make the Megarans hate all aliens, how could the Carda.s.sians use them as allies?"