If the Reman had been a Klingon, the battle would have been over in seconds.
But the Reman had been born on a high-gravity world. The Reman had been raised tearing ore from rock with no tools but bare hands.
Once the surprise of the attack was over, two puny humans did not present a challenge.
From flat on his back, Doctor threw a single closed-fist punch upward at La Forge, knocking the engineer backward into a medical cart. Then, even as Picard, astride him, tried to close his hands around the Reman’s throat, Doctor swung up his knee to strike Picard’s back, sending him flying forward.
The Reman was on his feet in a single, fluid movement, growling, spittle dripping from his fangs.
With a console for leverage, Picard struggled against gravity and pulled himself up to see La Forge slowly getting to his feet a few meters behind the Reman.
The two of them moved as if they shared the same idea: Their only hope was to renew the attack, keeping it constant from two sides. This time they would not miscalculate their foe’s strength and fighting prowess.
As if reading their minds, the Reman abruptly spun and darted between two medical beds to the far side of the infirmary, forcing his pursuers to press their attack together.
Picard and La Forge immediately gave chase, but then Picard called out for La Forge to hold back—the Reman was heading for an equipment cabinet. They had no way of knowing what kind of medical instruments might suddenly be turned against them.
La Forge immediately lifted a tray by its wheeled stand, turned the stand sideways for use as a quarterstaff.
The Reman hissed, his large, pointed ears seeming to crinkle closed, as the tray and its contents clattered to the floor. Testing what he took to be a sign of possible Reman weakness, Picard grabbed a narrow cylinder from a workbench. A mouthpiece dangled from it—emergency oxygen, he guessed. The cylinder became his club as he approached the doctor warily, banging his weapon noisily against whatever hard surface was at hand.
But the Reman was not deterred by noise.
He whirled around from the cabinet with a small disruptor in hand.
“Get back!” he snarled.
La Forge and Picard slowed their advance, but neither of them stopped. In Picard’s experience, it was one thing for a noncombatant to draw a weapon, quite another to fire it at another living being. All it would take was a moment’s hesitation, and together he and La Forge could subdue their adversary.
His warning disregarded, the Reman quickly made an adjustment to his weapon, took aim at a workbench between Picard and La Forge, and fired.
Picard and La Forge ducked for cover as the workbench split in two, lab equipment shattering and flying in shards.
“Consider carefully, humans,” the Reman spat at them. “After I destroy you, honor demands I will have to destroy your companions, as well.”
After all the opportunities there had been to kill the crew of the Calypso, someone was finally making a death threat.
Picard motioned to La Forge not to advance again. Picard knew that neither he nor the engineer was willing to risk the safety of their friends. After the workbench demonstration, the Reman’s weapon was clearly set to kill.
Picard took a chance that even an alien doctor would be reluctant to cause harm if it were not absolutely necessary. He dropped the cylinder, held his hands up and open.
“No one needs to get hurt,” Picard said.
The doctor swung his disruptor at La Forge.
Picard nodded and La Forge tossed his tray stand away, then also raised his hands.
“But we need to see our companions,” Picard said. He wondered if his analysis of their situation was correct. Were they being kept alive to guarantee there would be further complications? Or were Reman motives simply too alien to predict?
“They are being treated.”
“We can help.”
“You are not medical personnel.”
Picard considered his options. If the doctor was not part of whatever conspiracy brought them here, then perhaps he could be an unwitting source of information. At least we have a dialogue going, he thought. “We are concerned that we and our companions are being held prisoner,” Picard said, hoping that the doctor might confirm or deny that supposition.
Instead, the doctor looked at him with an expression of confusion so strong that it easily crossed the divide between their species. “You are on Remus. Everyone is a prisoner here.”
“But we’re Federation citizens,” La Forge said, picking up on what Picard had started. “When we’ve been treated, won’t we be allowed to return to our ship?”
The doctor shook his head, as if he couldn’t understand what La Forge had said. “You are on Remus,” he repeated.
Picard tried again. “But can we leave?”
“No one leaves.”
Picard couldn’t decide if the doctor was referring to some decree concerning the kidnapped crew of the Calypso or if he were simply incapable of understanding that not everyone on Remus had to remain there.
Yet among the Remans, the legend of Shinzon was grounded in the almost religious belief that someday freedom would be obtained for all Reman slaves. Picard essayed a new approach.
“Can we leave once the new Shinzon comes to Remus?”
The doctor’s stern expression became beatific, the change accompanied by a slight shift in his body, as it relaxed.
Picard exchanged a glance with La Forge, recalling Kirk’s mention of the reverential attitude that had come over the Romulan Assessors as they discussed what seemed to be their religion—the Jolan Movement.
“When Shinzon comes,” the doctor murmured, “all Remans shall have freedom.”
“Doctor,” La Forge said suddenly, “what is ‘freedom’?”
The engineer had noticed something in the doctor’s answer. Something important. Something I missed, Picard thought.
The Reman’s bliss faded. “It is what we will have when Shinzon comes.”
“But what is it?” La Forge pressed him. “What will your life be like when you have freedom?”
The doctor took a long time to answer, and even then all he said was “Better.”
Picard was suddenly overcome with sorrow, then anger, because this alien being, so long a slave, so long crushed beneath Romulan oppression, was unable to even grasp the concept of freedom. How could any so-called intelligent species force another into such abject servitude?
For a moment, he wondered if a deliberately manipulated civil war might actually be what the Romulan Star Empire needed, and for just that moment, Picard’s thoughts matched his emotions. If so, let them reap the destruction that they’ve sown here. Let the Romulans suffer as they have made their Reman brothers suffer.
But the rational side of Picard knew better.
A Romulan civil war would not remain the problem of the empire alone.
Another way had to be found.
“Doctor,” Picard said calmly, remaining absolutely still and nonthreatening. “My companion and I apologize for attacking you. I thought you were trying to hurt us.”
The doctor regained his troubled expression. Picard guessed there was no Reman equivalent for the concept of “apology.” And on second thought, Picard decided that it was likely the doctor had intended to harm them in some way with whatever had been in the spray hypos.
“Will you resist the medication?” the doctor asked.
“Let us see our companions, and then…we will accept the medication.”
The doctor carefully readjusted his disruptor, taking it down to a lesser setting. “Conditions are resistance.”
Picard saw that the doctor was determined to follow his orders. He and La Forge would be stunned, and then the medication would be administered without need of their cooperation.
