Star Trek The Next Generation - 16 - Fortune's Light by Star Trek

Author:Star Trek
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780671708368
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1991-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

Riker tried to sit up, found it harder than he would have thought. The ringing in his ears wasn’t getting any better, and he could still taste the blood in his mouth. But he’d be damned if he was going to lie there on the hard, cold ground any longer. With an effort, he rolled over and got up on all fours. Then, slowly, he pushed himself to his feet.

“Riker. Are you all right?”

He turned. “Lyneea,” he said dully.

She held his head steady, looked into his eyes. “I think you’ve got a concussion,” she told him.

“Great.” It sounded as if someone else had said it.

She took his arm. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.” She pointed to a narrow street that led off the market square. “Can you walk by yourself?”

He nodded. They walked. And what was left of the crowd let them through.

At one point Riker took note of the petmonger they’d seen before, the one whose isak had gotten loose and caused all the furor. Ironically, his was one of the few booths left untouched by the uproar. And by the looks of things, he’d even managed to recover the vicious little beast.

A moment later they were in the street that Lyneea had pointed out. There were a couple of shops here, but neither seemed to be open. The street itself was deserted—unusual, Riker decided, considering its proximity to the marketplace.

Lyneea turned him toward her, looked into his eyes again. She frowned, nodded. “Definitely a concussion.”

“Feels like someone packed my head with mud,” he admitted. Then a memory cut through the fog. “Where were you?”

“Watching. And hoping I wouldn’t have to intervene. After all, that would have neutralized my usefulness.”

He felt something like anger crawl up his gullet. “Neutralized your . . . I could’ve been killed.”

Lyneea shook her head. “Not a chance. I’m too good a shot—remember the isak pit?” She turned Riker’s face to one side, looked at it critically. “You look terrible,” she decided. “We should get you to a doctor.”

He took her hands away. “No doctor,” he told her. “There’s too much to do.”

“Is there?” she asked. “What, for instance? Kobar will be on his guard now. He’ll never lead us to the seal.”

Riker thought about that, or tried to. It wasn’t easy. The ringing in his ears was starting to abate, but he still felt as if his brain had grown a size too large for his skull. And now there was a new pain, in the area of his temple—no doubt the point of impact of the knife handle, or whatever had hit him.

Then it came to him: it was something Kobar had said. Something about . . .

“He didn’t do it,” blurted Riker.

Lyneea looked at him. “I beg your pardon?”

“Kobar. He didn’t murder Teller.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“For one thing, he could have killed me just now if he’d really wanted to. He could have eliminated someone who was almost certainly on to his crimes. But he didn’t. What does that tell you?”

Lyneea shrugged.

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