Encounter at Farpoint (7 page)

“There should be many ways we can be tested,” Picard pointed out. “We have a long mission ahead of us. . . .”

“Yes . . . yes!”
Q
said, an idea forming in his head. “Another brilliant suggestion, Captain. But your test hardly requires a long mission.”
Q
laughed sardonically, seeming to savor a special bit of knowledge. “Your immediate destination offers more challenge than you can possibly imagine.” He smiled even more broadly, nodding his head in satisfaction. “Yes, yes. Farpoint Station will be an excellent test.”

Picard glanced at the others. Data wore a slight frown, and the women were even more concerned.
Q
knew exactly where they were bound—moreover, he somehow knew exactly what awaited them there. Now the mystery Starfleet had given Picard to solve took on even greater import—and danger. But there was no point in asking
Q
to enlighten them. It was all part of the game he was playing—by his rules, on his ground. The
Enterprise
and even Farpoint Station were merely the game pieces. Picard and
Q
were the opposing players. Humanity’s continuing presence on the board of space was the prize.

The Mandarin-Bailiff stood as
Q
nodded in signal to him. “Stand respectfully!” he shouted. “All present, respectfully stand!” The spectators promptly stood. Picard jerked his head, and the others rose to join him.

Q
maneuvered his floating bench into position in front of the prisoners and addressed the spectators. “This trial is adjourned to allow the criminals to be tested.”

The Mandarin-Bailiff signaled to the functionary, who promptly rang the Oriental bell twice. The bailiff’s voice resounded over the clanging. “This honorable court is adjourned!”

Picard looked around, surprised to see the soldiers shoulder their weapons and start to march out with the milling spectators. Apparently they were free.
Q
turned toward them, the sardonic smile twisting his mouth again.

“You are a clever human, Captain, but you may find you are not nearly clever enough to deal with what lies ahead for you. It may have been better to accept sentence here.”

“Sentence from you? On your terms? Sorry. If we’re going to be tested, we prefer it to be on even terms.”

“I’m sure you would. How do you know it will be?” Laughing,
Q
waved his hand toward them.

Picard turned his head away from the fiercely blinding light. As it died away, and he blinked his eyes to clear them of the dancing dots left by the abrupt flash, he became aware of the familiar hum and murmur of computers and bridge instruments. Focusing, he realized he was back on the battle bridge, seated in his command chair. Troi, Data and Tasha were also at their correct stations, all of them blinking and rubbing their eyes, disoriented by the abrupt change. The rest of the battle bridge complement did not seem to have noticed either the stunningly bright flash or the fact that Picard and the others had reappeared at their stations.

Data turned to the Ops officer beside him at the forward console and ventured a question. “What is the present course, Conn?”

The other officer stared at him in surprise. “Exactly what the captain ordered, sir. Direct heading to Farpoint Station.” The man was distinctly puzzled by the question, and even more puzzled when Data ran a quick review of his own console and turned to Picard.

“Confirm we
are
on that heading, sir.”

“Of course we are,” Conn said. “I told you.”

Picard cleared his throat. “Any sign of the hostile?”

Conn shot him another puzzled look, clearly wondering what was going on. “Not since they cleared off at top speed ten minutes ago. No explanation, no offensive action after that chase they put us through. I don’t understand what it was all about, do you, sir?”

“Never mind, Lieutenant,” Picard said. “I’m sure it’ll straighten itself out at Farpoint Station.” He speculated that the “time” they had spent in
Q
’s court had been subjective, and perhaps had never occurred anywhere but in their own minds. He, Tasha, Troi and Data had all been under the same influence—something so strong even Troi had felt it was real. But no one on the bridge had missed them, implying they had never been gone. The only other alternative explanation was that while they were physically removed from the bridge for some time, the crew had been under an illusion they were still there and functioning normally. Whatever the answer, it was obvious that
Q
had even more powerful abilities than previously suspected. The alien had implied the “test” waiting for them at Farpoint might be controlled by him. But was it—or was that, too, another carefully calculated trick?

Conn idly turned to Data and asked, “Know anything about Farpoint Station? It sounds like a pretty dull place . . . hasn’t even been broken in by Starfleet yet.”

Picard leaned forward in his chair before Data could reply. “Actually, Conn,” he said quietly, “We’ve heard we may find it rather exciting.”

T
HE FIRST TIME
Commander William T. Riker saw Deneb IV was on the U.S.S.
Hood
’s viewscreens. It was a yellowish ball of a planet with shreds of cloud layer flat against it like tatters of pressed lace. Up close, its surface was harsh and forbidding, covered with mountains and huge patches of desert and subject to fierce storms that swept its surface like a scouring pad.

The single inhabited city lay attached to the gleaming sprawl of the modern spaceport which had been dubbed Farpoint Station. Riker had seen holograms of some of the other cities the Bandi had built and subsequently abandoned. The older cities seemed to have been worn down by the elements, some to mere ridges in the land; but the one attached to Farpoint was far more interesting, far more advanced in its technology. Riker had not been able to determine whether the Bandi had outgrown the cities they built and moved on to construct newer, better ones or whether there had been a consolidation of the Bandi population from the older cities into the newest and best one.

When Riker had beamed down from the
Hood
, he had noticed immediately the superiority of Farpoint Station’s equipment, its appointments, and its eager personnel. It was the largest, most ambitious, and most elaborate station he had ever been on.

He was mulling these facts over while he shaved, squinting at his reflection in the mirror that dominated a wall of one of the gleaming bathrooms in his suite of rooms on the station. The man looking back at him was tall, lanky but well muscled, and in good physical shape from frequent workouts in the ship’s gymnasium. Shrewd intelligence and humor shone out from behind his lively blue eyes. Riker personally felt his appearance was acceptable in polite company and left it at that.

Of course, if a number of very attractive women in several different solar systems felt there was far more to him than that, who was he to argue.

He heard a sound in the living room and scraped the last of the soap off his throat before he walked out of the bathroom. A tall, graceful Bandi woman was collecting his breakfast tray. She glanced up at him and smiled. Riker returned the grin—and then remembered he was wearing only a casually wrapped towel around his waist. He grabbed for the overlapping edges that held it together to anchor it securely.

“I didn’t expect anyone to be in for that tray so soon,” he said.

“An hour is surely sufficient to ingest your food.”

“Yes, it usually is,” Riker agreed mildly.

The woman studied the plate with its almost untouched eggs, bacon and toast. The eggs were green—possibly some aberrant factor in the chickens the Bandi raised. “It is unhealthful to leave food waste exposed to the air,” she commented.

“That’s a good point,” Riker agreed. “If you’ll excuse me. . . .”

“You did not eat your eggs, Commander Riker. Were they unsatisfactory?”

“No, no,” he said quickly, not wishing to give offense. “To be truthful, after the night I had, eggs just didn’t appeal to me.” Green eggs in particular, he thought. The going-away party his fellow senior officers on the
Hood
had thrown for him had been a rather boisterous affair that had gone on far into the night, and he’d consumed a generous amount of the food and libations available. His stomach quivered again at the thought.

The Bandi were apparently not aware of that sort of human digestive frailty. The woman studied the eggs critically. “I see.
Not
satisfactory. You wish something else.”

“No. No food at all. Don’t worry about it.” He apologetically indicated his state of undress. “If you’ll excuse me . . . ?” he said again and ducked back into the bathroom. When he heard the woman exit, he slipped into the spacious bedroom and changed into his standard duty uniform. The new Starfleet design (black form-fitting jumpsuit, with a cranberry inset to designate command officer) was so comfortable he almost preferred it to civilian clothes. In fact, everything about his stay at Farpoint Station had been more than comfortable, to date.

When he first saw the luxury apartment he’d been given, with its two bedrooms, two baths, large living room and dining area, he had asked for something smaller and less ostentatious. To his surprise, Zorn, the
groppler
or administrator of the station, had assured him there was nothing smaller.

Many things puzzled him about the station and its personnel. He had offhandedly remarked to the Bandi woman who seemed to attend the apartment that he preferred classic oil spacescapes to the contemporary abstract holo presentations that hung on the walls. He had gone out to sightsee for a few hours and returned to find the suite walls decorated with classic Chesley Bonestell and Robert McCall paintings. They appeared to be originals, and yet he knew the genuine originals were owned almost exclusively by museums and art galleries, most of them on the planets of Sol’s system. Then there had been the plants. His mother had been an avid gardener and passed her love of green and blooming things along to him. The day before, he had noticed that an Earth-like garden in the mall was inefficiently planted. The plants that needed more sun to prosper were too much in the shade, and he had mentioned the fact in passing to the
groppler
. An hour later, he had gone by the garden again and seen that the plants had all been rotated to take best advantage of the sun. Small things—but they had been changed so
quickly
.

Riker knew Starfleet was asking questions about the Bandi and Farpoint Station, questions that needed answering. He had a hunch that the
Hood
’s rendezvous with
Enterprise
, ostensibly for the transfer of personnel, was an elaborate excuse to probe for some of those answers.

Captain Jean-Luc Picard was a man he knew only by reputation, but it was a reputation for perspicacity, clear logic, and decisive action. Riker had a hunch that the captain wouldn’t mind his new first officer doing a little detective work on his own. He decided to go looking for anything that might provide Picard with insight or information about Farpoint and the Bandi.

The small, comfortable lounge off the main shopping concourse had a viewscreen that could tie into Farpoint Station’s sophisticated perimeter satellite system (designed to alert the control center to the approach of any space vessel). The lounge also boasted an entrance into an attractively terraced garden that led to an Olympic-sized swimming pool, but the two young Starfleet officers in the lounge were far more interested in the viewscreen.

“Come on, come on,” Ensign Hughes said impatiently, “where is she?” Mark Hughes was a likable redhead, twenty-one and fresh out of the Academy. He was enthusiastic, energetic, and still inclined to talk first and consider it afterward.

His companion was a few years older, and the extra layer of experience was evident in the way he moved and spoke. “Give it some space, Mark,” he chuckled. “She’s practically still on her shakedown cruise.”

“Geordi, they say she’s never late—not since the old burrhog took over the captain’s chair.”

“You wouldn’t be talking about the
Enterprise
, would you, Ensign Hughes?” Riker’s voice had just the slightest edge as it came from behind them.

The two young officers whipped around, startled. As soon as they realized a senior officer was addressing them, they snapped to attention. “Sir. Yes, sir,” Hughes barked.

Riker smiled at the automatic and traditional response of the recent Academy graduate. “You can stand at ease, gentlemen,” he said. “We’re not aboard yet.”

“You know we’re assigned to her, sir?” Hughes was nonplussed.

“Of course.” The commander extended his hand. “Riker. First officer.” He sized them both up as they shook hands. Hughes was tall and thin, oddly attractive in a homely way. The black officer, Geordi LaForge, was shorter, stockier, his warm smile offsetting the strangeness of the device he wore over his eyes. Riker knew LaForge had been born blind, his optical nerve endings dead. Sympathetic surgeons had installed implants when he was a baby and given him better than twenty-twenty vision using a prosthesis called a VISOR—Visual Instrument and Sight Organ Replacement.

The VISOR was actually more than just a replacement for his eyes. It allowed him to see telescopically and microscopically, as well as view the entire spectrum of light from X-ray to infrared. LaForge had also been serving on the
Hood
as conn officer; but his duty shifts had not often coincided with Riker’s, and the older man knew him primarily by reputation.

“I read the service records on all new personnel on the trip out,” Riker said. “Excellent academic record at Starfleet Academy, Mr. Hughes.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I noticed you were also the leading scorer on the null-G ball team.”

Hughes smiled and shrugged it away. “You don’t play alone. I had terrific support from my teammates.”