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@BEGIN_FILE_ID.DIZ
=09=09=09=09=09Damage
=09=09=09=09=09=09Palindrome.
=09=09=09=09=09=09.emordnilaP
Chapter Three@END_FILE_ID.DIZ

     The second traveller left his cab half-way up Mount Royal, annou=
ncing he'd
walk up the gravel road.
     It was still early in October and the leaves were beginning to t=
urn colour
By the month's end the leaves would be rotting on the ground and the =
mountain
would be a mass of grey. Now, however, the mountain swelling in the c=
ity's
centre was a slipping border between living green and dying yellow. T=
he
traveller walked up the long road and was breathing deeply by the tim=
e he'd
made it to the top. Though it would be twenty years before the infern=
al
combustion engine would finally dominate the streets and choke the bl=
ue sky
grey, the city stunk. Sulphur from coal made the air peppery, but it =
blended
with the leafy mountain's scent deliciously.
     Montreal Island is more than 90 kilometers long and shaped like =
a crooked
smile. The mountain which gives the city its name sits low, in the mi=
ddle of
the grin. Looking south from the mountain top the traveller could see=
 over the
river ten kilometers away and despite the coal smoke, he could see we=
ll further,
over to Mount St. Bruno. At the century's turn, the city had a low pr=
ofile. The
only buildings that reached to the sky were churches, most notably th=
e double-
spired Notre Dame Cathedral as well as the portside grain elevators. =
Even now,
all seemed still half-buried under trees to the traveller's eyes. The=
 island
had 28 municipalities, many of which would need decades to reach the =
edges of
their borders. The City of Montreal had only begin building near the =
mountain
in the last twenty years, so the air seemed charged as it raced towar=
d him over
clots of forest and shrubbery.
     He adjusted his hat and plunged into the foliage.
     Immediately, his shoes became grimy with the dank muck between t=
he trees.
Like many who spent most time indoors the trees lulled and distracted=
 him. He
paused to take a bearing with a steel compass that wouldn't have been=
 out of
place in any man's pocket that day. It had been his grandfather's, an=
d the
traveller suspected the old man would have found something amusing ab=
out his
inheritor's present situation. He also had his grandpere's pocket-kni=
fe, a
handsome, manly tool that somehow felt right in his pocket in this er=
a. Soon
he saw the marks for which he'd been looking: splotches of paint alon=
g a maple
trunk. Meters away was another marked tree.
     The forest wore a mask. The air itself was painted. He stepped b=
etween the
living signposts and vanished into a hologram to speak to a woman who=
's eyes
had not seen Earth's sunlight until her fourteenth birthday.
     Within the gap between the trees was a large, white, bulbous boa=
t-like
thing that might have belonged on a Jules Verne book dust jacket exce=
pt that any
artist that day would have common-sensically put rows of rivets along=
 its hull
and coloured it like steel.
     Fortunately, its curves were sleek and gentle and its tiny, now
overstrained, powerplant was easily hidden. Unfortunately, its interi=
or was
cramped for three people on an extended mission.
     The traveller removed his hat and tapped his walking stick on th=
e shuttle
craft's black window. The hatch split open, wounding its lines to adm=
it the
traveller. The captain noticed the counsellor's holstered phaser had =
the safety
engaged. Experience told him weapons with their triggers locked were =
more
dangerous than ones primed, but he couldn't convince her or his other=
 travelling
companion of that.
     Jean-Luc Picard sweated gently. The counsellor kept the shuttle =
too
warm, like her quarters.
     'Counsellor, I suspect we've got them on the run.'
     Deanna Troi grinned and became conscious of her happiness. Any t=
ime she met
someone from her school days who'd gone into clinical or patient care=
 or civics,
she was always secretly pleased to say, 'I'm on the Enterprise.' Cert=
ainly,
community, patient or academic work was useful and had its own reward=
s, but it
certainly didn't have the kick of working on the front end of Star Fl=
eet. Too
bad she'd never be able to discuss this assignment with anyone.
     Beverly blundered through the bushes more than an hour later. Sh=
e had a box
of samples from steaming compost behind the base's kitchens. What had=
 drawn her
attention to the decaying vegetables was its lack of flies. Even in O=
ctober, the
heat from the putrefying food would have kept large insects alive thr=
ough the
cool nights.
     The shuttle was protected by a gaussing field which kept its ele=
ctronics
hidden from anything but a determined sensor sweep; however, any emis=
sion that
powerful would have broadcast the position of the searching ship. Her=
e she could
use her equipment without fear of detection, outside the shuttle she =
would have
had to erect a small tent that could diffuse her tri-corder's electro=
nic squawks
The visitors' fear of detection was so great that they even kept thei=
r
communicators disguised. The balled slag Beverly's kept under her hat=
 was broken
open and the medical scanner inside was dusted clean.
     Their quarry were also as secretive, though much more technologi=
cally
proficient at it. Their ship could cloak itself. Still, they needed c=
omplex
disguises for their leg work. Their ears would need rounding and eyeb=
rows re-
shaping. Also their skin would need thickening or dyeing to hide thei=
r
circulation systems: Vulcanoid veins were yellow and green, not purpl=
e and blue
If their disguises were really good a dye would be injected so their =
blood would
appear red when cut. This, Beverly said, could discolour their stools=
 and urine,
but no disguise was perfect.
     The doctor worked at the refuse until she got the answer for whi=
ch she'd
been hoping.
     'The delivery was really inefficient. The bacteria need to be ke=
pt in a
medium, I've explained this, to protect it. We use a similar compound=
, it's a
mixture of petroleum products and cellulose. It's stable stuff once y=
ou mix it
properly. This batch wasn't, the cellulose didn't bond and released i=
t's
contents early. This bacteria is designed to copy part of its host's =
RNA and
cause what appears to be spinal inflammation; this time it was releas=
ed into
their food, bound itself up with,' she shrugged, 'meat and potatoes, =
carrots and
celery and infected those who ate the food with dozens of blood poiso=
ning and
most prevalently, a bronchial infection. Which is why we've seen a sp=
read of
infection in this case, unlike all the other troop ships and bases.'
     Dr Beverly Crusher put one hand on her captain's shoulder for ba=
lance when
she hooked-off her high-laced shoes. She was taller than he and he st=
ill had to
look up to her after she was down to her stockings.
     'Can you eliminate, not cure, eliminate all these separate bacte=
ria?
Anything we do can have an effect on the future, including wiping our=
 own
histories out=D0I'd hate to return to the Enterprise to find we've ne=
ver been born
=D0there's nothing I can imagine as more serious than introducing sev=
eral new life
forms, however small, to the Earth's past. They must be eliminated an=
d not be=20
allowed to evolve.' The captain's face flushed as he considered the c=
omplication
and he tripped over his words.
     'I've already begun tracking-down the RNA sequence I sampled in =
the steam-
ship from Athens, and the British African possessions. They used diff=
erent
bacteria in the first three instances, but used the same ever since A=
ugust.'
     The captain nodded and turned. He hadn't said so, and didn't kno=
w for
certain, but it was more than likely he'd killed one of the two inter=
lopers.
None of the three had really articulated it, but the mission's tenor =
had changed
then, becoming more aggressive and dangerous. When Betazoid had disco=
vered that
one of the Romulan agents was making light of his mission by living l=
ife easily
in a luscious hotel, her captain tried burgling his suite. He'd retur=
ned to them
with his gate a shuffle. He was embarrassed by knowing the counsellor=
 was aware
of his shame. 'One of our two friends is gone,' was his euphemism. Wh=
en they
went back to the hotel room it had been emptied and the body spirited=
 away. The
next day he wrote a report in private and ate nothing but tea with bu=
ttered=20
toast and marmalade. The counsellor approached the captain cautiously=
 about the
hotel room fight and gave what balm she could until the mission was o=
ver. The
captain had brained the Romulan with the edge of a tea tray after scu=
ffling.=20
He'd left before the police came and didn't know if that Romulan had =
survived.
     The three hadn't discussed it, bit it was then their opponents' =
plan began
falling apart. This was when mistiming had weakened the potency of th=
e
infections.
     Their mission was to stop a pair of Romulans from interfering wi=
th Earth's
history. The Federation had found out about the plot from the Romulan=
 Government
itself who'd only found out about the conspiracy when an Imperial Rom=
ulan Navy
destroyer disappeared from service. Days later, a theft had occured a=
t a medical
institution. Eventually detective work and interrogations exposed the=
 plot. The
Romulan Imperial House hadn't taken well to the idea that someone wan=
ted to mess
about with distant history, more than likely because the path the Emp=
eror's
family took to its seat had depended so often on Shakespearian accide=
nt and=20
luck. Changing when a butterfly broke wind in centuries past might ha=
ve been
enough to topple that family from history, as Lt. Worf put it.
     Picard had been ordered to stop the interference with the Boer W=
ar which,
for some reason, had fascinated some small knot of conspirators in th=
e Romulan
war machine.
     When they had arrived three months ago, the troops in the summer=
 convoys to
Africa had been walloped by the unearthly illness, many before they c=
ould be
helped. Now some of the troops who would have been their replacements=
 were being
felled. Had the two Romulan agents succeeded Britain might not have r=
e-supplied
its armies for over eight months. Who knew what the effect would have=
 been.
Doubtless Romulan armchair admirals thought changing that war's out-c=
ome would
have greatly effected Earth's history. The Federation would never kno=
w how they
thought, for by the time the Romulan government had told the Federati=
on of the
time warriors' plans, the surviving conspirators had been executed.
     By one o'clock the anti-bacterial and anti-viral material was re=
ady. The
captain was plainly nervous of leaving the shuttle unguarded, but the=
 newly-born
diseases needed to be stopped as soon as possible.
     'Beverly, as soon as you've prepared the fluid, arrange to get o=
nto the
base again and distribute it everywhere. Use what ever excuse you nee=
d, lie
liberally. Counsellor, assist her. I'll cover the area, all the road,=
 between
Long Point and the customs inspection area. Our friend was seen there=
 two days
ago.'
     Beverly waited as long as possible to put on her boots again.

Chapter Four
     Their carriage horse broke wind incessantly throughout their rid=
e from Pine
Avenue to the base five kilometers to the south. The driver excused h=
imself for
feeding the gentle old chestnut only wet grass that morning, but it w=
as all his
livery had available.
     Deanna's mouth hung open as she tried to understand the world at=
 which she
was looking. Her life had been in cities far from country smells. Her=
 planet had
never developed the custom of domesticating animals, so the sight of =
a brute
with a bit in its mouth doing labour for her made her uncomfortable. =
Her Dada's
Louis Lamour western novels never mentioned how much horses smelled. =
Or how they
left the streets littered with piles of horse down and puddles of uri=
ne. Or how
they had an entourage of gnats about their ears. Or that carriage rid=
ers had to
look at their horse's swaying genitals as they rode. She could see wh=
y some
equines were called asses, for that was nearly all carriage riders co=
uld see.
     A gaggle of girls were playing with a jump rope and singing in t=
ime with
the skipping rope. _Six pretty ladies, glad to be alive. One met a ma=
n named
Jack and then there were five!_
     Beverly gaped happily when hearing the rhyme. 'I know that!' She=
 clapped
and laughed when the girls in their short dresses and knee-high boots=
 stopped
dancing over the skipping rope when one shouted 'Stand on the rope if=
 you're
plaaayiiing!'
     They passed a sleepy guard at the gate and drove to the Dr Penfi=
eld's=20
office. Beverly's doctorly fetish for cleanliness grated against her.=
 She wasn't
looking forward to revisiting the base's wretched sick house. With lu=
ck the men
would have been sponge-bathed, but Beverly doubted it. He was glad De=
anna was
with her to help with keeping straight the stories and lies that so o=
ften made
her head spin on this mission. How many things there were to remember=
: she
couldn't use simple words like zipper, computer and deoxyribonucleic.
     The headaches she was getting now reminded her of the kind she g=
ot when
talking with commander Data.
     Technically, Dr Crusher was responsible for the android officer'=
s
physicals. However, the ship's chief engineer was the one who declare=
d the
android science officer fit for duty. Her involvement in his quarterl=
y physical
should have been no more complicated than accepting the Geordi Laforg=
e's
testimonial that Commander Data was fine and well. Unfortunately, the=
 android
thought he was compelled to make her feel involved, and so he invaria=
bly
questioned her about the psyche and the soma, trying to ascertain his=
 non-
corporeal health. The last time it was sex.
     'Fundamentally, I am not a sexual being. This means, from a huma=
n and
humanoid standpoint, I a psychologically damaged.' She suggested he w=
as unique,
and no that wasn't a play on words, yet the android pressed on. 'It h=
as been
observed that becoming a sexual being is part of adulthood. If that i=
s so then
I will never mature.' Doctor Crusher suggested that perhaps his type =
of
reproduction, however codified and artificial, might be recognizable =
only with
difficulty, but would drive him in ways appropriate to him.
     He'd already thought of this, but wanted her to think of it hers=
elf, which
he hoped would make her happy by making him content.
=09=09=09=09=09*
     The surgeon was still amused by the idea of a woman doctor and k=
ept using
the phrase in conversation. Dr William Penfield was, however, plainly=
 scared.
He hadn't been sleeping at home, but in his part-time office in the M=
ontreal
General Hospital, which was still in old Montreal, not halfway up the=
 mountain
Nine troopers had died since Beverly's morning visit making the army =
doctor
vulnerable to suggestion.
     'If you tell me to wear a mask and grass skirt and dance a hotte=
ntot jig
to banish the evil spirits I'll do it.'
     If Beverly was fascinated by her colleague's infirmary, Deanna w=
as
revolted. His one tool seemed to be the razor. When the Betazoid firs=
t came to
Star Fleet she was put through six weeks of officer training. Besides=
 learning
how to hold a phaser pistol and not to go through doors before her su=
perior
officer, she'd gone on a manoeuvre. Her role in the full-scale action=
 was to
help a troop who'd just been shattered by a bomb. The wounds she and =
the medical
team saw were holo-deck-created but the people were real, if hypnotiz=
ed through
mind-melds, to believe they were injured. Deanna remembered nearly gi=
ggling when
nearly half of them were crying for their mothers. Seeing the blades =
and clamps
and silk threads and needles made Deanna sick. Despite the medical te=
chnology
of her era, the phony battlefield had been spattered with blood. How =
much worse
it would be without cauterizing lasers and protein gels. Beverly nudg=
ed her
ankle, making Deanna start. Beverly had been saying they had been in =
Egypt
together.
     'That's where I got my tan,' Deanna said, who could only tan ver=
y lightly
in Earth's sun without burning.
     'Your tan what?' he looked up and down, her clothes were purple =
and blue.
     'My sunburn. I've been sunburned to a tan.'
     'It makes your cheeks stand out, you look like a peach.'
     Beverly redirected his attention.
     'Do you have an atomizer?' Beverly nearly said 'atomic.' He stom=
ped from
behind his desk to pull some boxes from a cup board. The two women sa=
w he'd
removed his footware. William had three steel spray pumps he used for
sterilizing wounds with carbolic acid. 'Outside, in our cab you'll fi=
nd several
liter bottles, spray once every ten paces the length of the base. Als=
o, get
every person to inhale the mist once.'
     'What is it?'
     'You don't want to know. You should have enough to cover most of=
 the base
-be certain to do the kitchens, put extra in the latrines and compost=
s, hay
stacks. And make the animals inhale once as well.' Beverly shushed hi=
m again,
'Really, you don't want to know. It's quite disgusting.' Her mixture =
reproduced
only on the backs of cells containing the special genetic tag common =
to all the
manufactured diseases they'd encountered this mission. Without them, =
her
medicine starved and so would not create the problem they were hoping=
 to avoid,
leaving new life forms in the past.
     By sundown the army doctor wanted Beverly's mysterious ooze in v=
ats, but
all he managed to get was a few more atomizers to increase the speed =
of
distribution. Beverly would have to produce more of the antibiotic be=
cause the
soldiers had used up much more than they needed. They'd rubbed her mi=
xture in
their nostrils and on their gums and teeth, hoping to increase their =
doses. All
they'd needed was a touch, but their panic left little to inoculate t=
he base.
Beverly had gotten used Jean-Luc's efficiency. He'd slip aboard the t=
roop ships
to inoculate the occupants by wandering about in a sergeant's uniform=
, leaving a
mist behind him. She had him so well-trained that she threatened to a=
sk he be
transferred to the medical section.
     The jungle doctor and her travelling companion, a woman psychoan=
alyst from
the Mediterranean were invited to dinner at the officers's mess that =
night at
eight. It was too dangerous to actually attend of course, but the inv=
itation
gave them an excuse to leave quietly. Beverly would send some more of=
 her anti-
biotic by messenger.
     The women accepted a lift in the colonel's private wagon. They'd=
 rented a
room at the Saint James Hotel as part of their story. Dr. Penfield ma=
de
pleasant conversation all the way through financial district and into=
 the
centre of the city. Deanna sensed Beverly's alarm as the rode closer =
to the
hotel.
     Smoke boiled from windows on the top floor. The white masonry bu=
ilding
had a Georgian facade made the smoke look blacker than it was. The wo=
odsmoke
tumbled from the fifth floor onto the street. It cased a snaking shad=
ow on
the sun-lighted side of the building. The fumes settled onto the stre=
et and
crept through the stone gates and iron railing bordering the park nex=
t door.
A glance told the two women the hotel down the street where Jean-Luc'=
s alter
ego was registered, down the street, was as yet untouched.
=09=09=09=09=09*
     Hannah had almost run over Jean-Luc when he tried bluffing his w=
ay past a
revenue officer near the Poet of Montreal depot Long Point used. He s=
wung into
her wagon to avoid continuing a conversation that would have either e=
nded in
his arrest of being sent off with a poke in the kidneys.
     He'd been caught spraying the area between customs and Long Poin=
t. It was
on the third time he'd walked the distance, from a different route ea=
ch time,
that some officious blighter with a waxed mustache wanted to know wha=
t he was
doing poking about. At any rate, the port authority man, puffed-up wi=
th penny
dreadful fiction about European spies managed to give himself several=
 doses of
Beverly's anti-viral and anti-biotic medicine when examining Jean-Luc=
's
walking stick.
     Hannah took him to the base to get the documents she'd promised =
him. Jean-
Luc took advantage of this by leaving the end of his stick out the wa=
gon window
It was when she climbed in with him again to give him a ride to his l=
odgings
that he began protesting.
     He marvelled at how the pages had been written-out and typed by =
hand. The
ink in the page could actually be felt with his fingertips. All along=
 the way
she explained some of the intricacies of the figures. In spite of him=
self, he
found her perfume distracting and sweet.
     Jean-Luc tried to pretend he knew his way around and cast about =
the lobby
for the way up. His room was worse, he'd almost bent the key trying t=
o operate
the lock; moreover, there was nothing of his in the room. No clothes,=
 no shoes,
no briefcase. She didn't seem to notice.
     He ordered a snack as it seemed polite. His mind raced even at t=
his,
cultivating chain-link scenarios whereby the chef who made the breadr=
olls would
be late for his train, bump into a someone who would get angrier than=
 she
already was and snap at someone else who'd so-forth and so-on end up =
be the
causitive factor in the domination of the Earth by a Packlid Empire.
     She was married but her husband had not been back to Montreal fo=
r sixteen
years. Hannah never made the effort to find him. Sometimes she wonder=
ed where
he was, or if he found a woman who made him happy. He had been her on=
ly man,
and even then, in their last year together he'd not been able to touc=
h her.
She asked Jean-Luc if he were still planning on leaving to-day and wo=
ndered
what about Montreal had struck him the most.
     He began noting the fashions, commenting on the shape and cuts o=
f dresses
then realized that he only did so because the costumes were foreign t=
o him,
though as a contemporary they shouldn't have been. He noted how the t=
avernes and
cafe life was similar to that he'd experienced in his upbringing, and=
 had struck
him as out of place in a French-speaking city that flew the Red Ensig=
n and Union
Jack. Of course, he'd only seen a small portion of the island and not=
hing beyond
the seaway. One of the things that amazed him was the long streaks of=
 green that
dotted the centre of town. He'd assumed the island would have paved e=
very square
millimeter with cobbles and asphalt. She shook her head and remarked =
that
developers would soon take care of that for him. He'd also passed the=
 house
belonging to the Van Horne millionaires and the Bronfman House. She c=
orrected
him when he said he'd walked the lovely route in front of Montreal's =
new General
Hospital, near the Old Port; Parizeau Street, she reminded him, was a=
 cul-de-
sac. Soon he realized he was babbling but the smell of linen and bake=
d bread
aroused his senses. The sunlight was now dimming, it was past three, =
but the
glow of light from the sky and copper roofing below them lighted Hann=
ah's face
with a warm, gentle caress despite the chilly air.
     She leaned to him and pinched the back of his neck.
     Jean-Luc took her shoulders and slowly bent his face to her, gen=
tly
nuzzling her cheek before trying to kiss. She sucked on his jugular, =
it was
still a way to avoid eye contact. When he began sliding his right han=
d to her
breast she twisted sharply. Jean-Luc still gripped her other shoulder=
 but she
still skirted behind him. They looked like they were dancing. Because=
 he didn't
want to hurt her she managed to put him at arms length. Hannah presse=
d her right
side against his shoulder. She rolled her palms about his hips. Jean-=
Luc tried
remembering the name of the roll of the pelvis that differed between =
men and
women. He kept thinking of the word 'lilacs.' It had come up once dur=
ing one of
Wesley's birthday parties. Uncharacteristically sanguine, the Enterpr=
ise's Chief
Medical Officer had raised her backside from her chair, patted her hi=
ps and
said, 'Fifteen years ago today I was Goddamned sore.' That's it, the =
word was
ilac he remembered.
     Hannah unbuttoned Jean-Luc's pants.
     He felt a delightful coolness as his fly and waistband opened. S=
he wouldn't
let him turn but pushed him forward slightly and waited until she was=
 certain he
wouldn't face her, then she dragged two fingernails over the yellow b=
utter and
dabbed it onto him. He breathed deeply through his nose. The mixture =
of fresh
baking and starch poured into his chest, immobilizing him as though i=
t were
glue. Outside the blue sky was brilliant, many dozens of times bright=
er than the
room's interior. When his eyes began watering he tried focusing on th=
e glinting
roof over the street. The yellow metal reflected the yellowing sunlig=
ht like
lava. He tried turning but was lulled into concentrating on the hard =
points of
light. She suckled his nape to keep him from facing her and stroked h=
im until
he tensed and spurted. She pushed him until he sat on his bed. He tri=
ed pulling
her down with him but she stood stiffly until he let her elbows go. S=
ome of his
semen had fallen on the table. Hannah broke a croissant in two and sc=
oured the
table linen with it exaggeratedly to pick up the semen that had falle=
n then ate
the roll whole. She left slowly, knowing he wouldn't pursue.

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