Dark Mirror (12 page)

“I think I can do better than that,” Worf said, and began instructing the computer to retrieve the hard-video storage of the 28844 production of
X and Y
, in which the soprano had declared her family in a blood feud with the tenor’s due to a salary dispute and had killed k’Kharis onstage,
before
his aria was finished (etiquette usually mandated letting the performance end first).

“Sounds like a good one,” Riker said.

“There were three days of street fighting, and the government fell,” Worf said with some relish. “And
then—”

“Data to Commander Riker.”

Riker looked at Worf with a resigned expression and shrugged. “Riker here, Mr. Data.”

“
Our probe is within range of the other
Enterprise,” Data said,
“and we are receiving signal leakage per Mr. La Forge’s prediction. I think you will want to see this.”

“We’re on our way.”

When they came onto the bridge, everyone else on it who could possibly spare an eye from his or her duty was gazing at the main viewscreen with expressions ranging from horror through frightened fascination. Riker swung down to where Data sat at his console, working carefully over the controls. “You’re recording all this, of course.”

Data nodded, glanced up at the screen again. It had been showing a corridor, empty when Riker came in, looking no different from one of their own corridors. Now the view shifted to show a different hallway, with some crewmen in it, going about their business. Their uniforms were odd—one-piece uniforms, more or less duplicating the look of the familiar two-piecers, but the collars were cut uncomfortably high for Riker’s tastes, and the uniforms’ colors were extremely somber, the maroon gone a dark blood-russet, the green gone green-brown. Some few crewmen wore sashes of some silver or gold material around their
waists, an odd and barbaric splash of brilliance against the darkness. But odder, and more ominous to Riker, he noticed that every one of the passing crewmen was armed. Phasers mostly, particularly large and threatening-looking ones. But there were a few knives, as well, and one crewman, a gray-skinned hominid from some species Riker didn’t immediately recognize, went by wearing at his waist, unsheathed, something that most closely resembled a machete.

“Naturally we cannot read directly from ship’s optical-fiber communications with the present equipment,” Data said to Riker as he worked, “but the comms system RF backups are running concurrently, and even quite marginal leakage from them can be read without too much trouble—though that will change if the ship’s shields go up.”

“That they’re not up now,” Riker said with some relief, “would seem to imply that they feel themselves to be safe and undetected… so far, anyway.”

“I would concur,” Data said. “I am currently ‘piggybacking’ an active internal scan presently being conducted aboard the other ship. Unfortunately, since this surveillance is passive, we are unable to choose what location in the other ship we view. But I am logging RF-transition frequencies and optical output and input data for each view we get. With random factors operating in our favor, we should be able to return to a given established view later, at least while the eavesdropping probe remains in range and undetected.”

I hate it when even Data admits we need luck on our side
, Riker thought. “If they show any signs of detecting it,” he said, “I want it out of there on the double. I don’t want them getting their hands on any of
our
technology. Destroy it if necessary.”

“Understood,” Data said. For a few seconds, the screen was again empty of crewmen, showing an empty corridor.
Then it changed view again, to a different hallway this time, looking down toward a turbolift.

“I am uncertain whether the scan we are seeing is being directed by someone aboard the ship or is an automatic function,” Data said. “But one thing is certain: this
Enterprise
has many more internal visual pickups than our own does. There are the usual video pickups associated with personal viewscreens and data readout locations, as well as the basic security surveillance system in high-security areas like engineering and the computer cores… but also many more, spread throughout the ship, even in crew quarters. Moreover, those appear not to be under the control of the occupants. The implications are… distressing.”

“No kidding,” Riker said softly as the view changed again, engineering this time. Crewmen moved about their work with what seemed to him more intensity than necessary. No one he had so far seen on this ship seemed able to move with any kind of ease.
But why should they?
Riker thought then.
When anyone might be looking at you, anytime, to see if you’re doing your job—and if you’re not
… He shook his head, thinking about the fear of punishment that Deanna had reported in “Stewart.”

“You’re keeping tabs of the names and ranks of anyone who shows up in this scan, of course,” Riker said.

“Of course. So far we have seen forty-four crewmen whose presence is duplicated aboard our own ship, and only five who are unknown. This would closely approximate—”

The view changed, and Data broke off in midsentence, staring along with everyone else. It was the bridge. At least, the shape was the same, and the general structure of it. But there were differences.

It was darker.
Their night?
Riker thought, then shook his head, doubting it. Paneling and furnishings were in the same sort of gunmetal gray as the exterior of the ship, with
lines of paler gray being used more as highlighting than anything else. The computer installations around the upper tier, too, were different. The engineering station was about as it should have been, but mission Ops and the science stations were much reduced, and combined with engineering. Every other station in the upper tier, from the starboard lifts to the main viewer, was now part of a long sweep of weapons-control consoles, with crewmen standing at them, unnervingly vigilant. Riker stared at those consoles, with tree upon tree of power-level readings and weapons status readouts; he thought of the kind of phaser power and photon torpedo loads this vessel must be carrying… and he felt like shuddering.

It was not just the emphasis on weaponry: it was that combined with the general look of the bridge, for though dark, it was also much more luxurious than his own
Enterprise’s
. The three center seats, empty at the moment, had a plush, easy-chair look about them, and the centermost of them, the captain’s chair, looked more like a throne than anything else. You were plainly meant to enjoy sitting in them, at the heart of all this deadly power. Just as plainly to Riker, you were meant to enjoy using it.

The broad back of one crewman had been turned to them until now, while he studied one of the science consoles. Now he turned toward them, back to the security console—also much enlarged, so that the curve of it ran much higher and farther along the back of the center seats than in Riker’s own ship. Now he drew in breath at the sight of the man, for he hadn’t recognized him without the characteristic sash. It was Worf. He looked the same as always.
Except
, Riker thought. That face wore even more frown than usual, and it was graven deep, a settled look.
Pain
, Riker thought.

He glanced over at his own Worf, who was looking at his counterpart with an expression of which Riker could make nothing.

“Discommoded?” Riker said softly. Worf shook his head, not answering. “Data, can we get sound?”

“Not without losing vision,” Data said. “This mode of surveillance will permit us only one sort of bandwidth at a time—sound is carried on another channel. I would have to switch.”

Riker opened his mouth to tell him to try it—then shut it again as the captain’s ready room door opened.

The shock that went through him, even though he had been expecting to see this man since Deanna’s report, was still horribly unsettling. I
don’t walk like that!
was his first thought. Well, possibly he himself didn’t—though now he had doubts—but this other Riker plainly did. The man who had come out of the ready room now stood for a moment looking at the main viewer, then turned to one of the crewmen at the weapons-control boards and snapped some question or order.

The crewman turned and answered quickly. Riker looked at the other Riker’s face, and now he
did
shudder, he couldn’t help it. Their faces were identical: this was the face he saw when he trimmed his beard in the morning. And regardless, he hoped no one ever saw
this
face on him. There was a curl to the lip, another of those worn-in frowns, that made this other Riker look like a thug. He remembered his mother, a long time ago, saying,
Don’t make those faces, your face will get stuck that way
, and one of his command-psych instructors at Academy saying, I
don’t have to ask you how you are: I can tell just by looking at you. Do you really believe that twenty years or more of your emotions and basic outlook telling your facial muscles how to behave, eighteen hours or so a day, doesn’t leave any traces? It takes time… but it’s just like water on stone, and just as impossible to erase once it’s done… except by changing the mind inside the face. And sometimes not even then
.

Riker looked at his counterpart’s face and tried to
imagine what could make a man’s face,
his
face, into something like this… then shied away from the prospect. Instead he shifted his attention to the man’s uniform. It was different, again, but in a new way: it was sleeveless, the black vee yoke that normally ran over the shoulders cut off to leave the muscular arms bare, and the short tunic was belted at the waist with another of those woven-gold sashes, supporting a big nasty-looking phaser on one side, and a ceremonial-looking dagger on the other. The knife seemed to be a recurring motif: in uniforms, and—Riker noticed with shock—even on the doors to the turbolift, where the Starfleet parabola was etched into the paneling—with a square-handled dagger neatly impaling it.

That other Riker sat down in the center seat and looked thoughtfully at the front viewscreen, said something else to the single form minding the conn console: Wesley Crusher. Riker couldn’t clearly see Wes’s face from this angle, but the ensign turned slightly and made some answer. Apparently the other Riker was satisfied: he sat back in that thronelike chair, pulling at his lower lip.

“No Data,” Worf said from behind Will.

Riker shook his head. “Not aboard, you think? Or just somewhere else?”

“We have no way of telling as yet,” Data said. “I am trying to devise a way to get at the other
Enterprise’s
crew roster, but frankly, I doubt I will be able to manage it by this means. I suspect Mr. La Forge will have to help us with that when the away team goes over.”

Riker shook his head. “Any way to tell where this particular scan is being run from?”

Data shook his head again. “If I were reading this signal from the optical comms network, it would have the usual packet-header information on origin and so forth. But the RF network is usually used for emergencies only and does not employ the headers.”

Data stopped again as the turbolift doors opened, and
someone came in. Riker’s jaw dropped, and he stood up in astonishment.

“My God,” he whispered.

Deanna Troi stood there, a little behind Worf, coolly looking the bridge over.
It’s not just faces that change
, Riker found himself thinking, as much in horror as in wonder. The Deanna Troi he knew, true to her training, tended to be nonthreatening, held her body and her vocal and mental attitudes in neutral ways that invited others to reach out. But
this
woman—she stood there erect and dangerous-looking, not trying in the slightest to minimize the effect. She carried herself like a banner, like a weapon.
Like an unsheathed knife
.

“Not the usual uniform,” Worf said, managing to sound both disturbed and impressed.

“You’re right about that,” Riker said. The only thing this woman’s uniform had in common with Deanna’s usual uniforms was that it was blue. The harness—there was almost too little of it to call it a top, or even a bodice—seemed to be made of woven gold, like the ornamental sashes. More woven metal, blue this time, bordered it, and the bordering met and gathered up at the left shoulder to support the parabola-and-knife insignia. From the gather, over the shoulder, fell several folds of the blue fabric, the gold interwoven with it, down to about waist height. The right shoulder was bare, as was this Troi’s midriff. Then, quite low on the hips, the skirt began—that blue metallic fabric again, gracefully flowing down just past the tops of the above-the-knee boots this Troi wore, but cut right up to the weapons belt at the hip on the right side, leaving a handspan’s space bare between its attachment to the belt at front and back. A phaser hung holstered there, and in a neat sleeve down on the outside of the right-hand boot lived the dagger, which Riker was now beginning to think was standard wear for officers.

Ensign Redpath was staring at all this wide-eyed. Riker
could hardly blame him. As they watched, the other Troi made her way down to the command level, looked at the main viewer for a moment, then turned to Riker and simply gazed at him, the kind of look, Riker thought, that a barbarian queen might turn on some jumped-up commoner who dared to sit in her chair.

The other Riker simply leaned back for a moment, looked at her lazily, and smiled slightly. The thought that seemed to live behind that smile actually made Riker go hot with embarrassment: he was irrationally glad that Deanna wasn’t on the bridge. After a moment, the other Riker said something, then tilted his head to one side to watch Troi’s reaction.

She made none: that lovely face seemed frozen. But Riker’s face changed abruptly. He got up out of the center seat in a way that suggested he was trying not to make it look as if he were in a hurry—though he desperately
was
. Troi watched him get up, let him stand for a moment, just watching him. Their eyes locked again, and once again, the other Riker was the first to look away.