Will and Deanna, dressed in simple tunics and trousers to be inconspicuous among the locals and visitors planetside, walked along a dusty road into the city. The sun was just setting over the desert behind them, and painted the sky in glorious color.
"Are you sure we should be asking about him so close to where we found him?" Deanna asked.
"All of the other nearby settlements are too small for us to blend in. At least here we have a chance of remaining inconspicuous."
"I don't know, Will," she answered, "I'm sensing a great deal of anger and suspicion." She glanced, apparently casually, along the side of the road at a set of tumble-down dwellings; they both caught glimpses of someone or several someones watching them from the shadows. "Let's walk a little faster," she murmured.
Approaching the more populated areas of the city, groups of armed men swaggered down the wider streets; unarmed civilians walked quickly about their business, not lingering. There were noticeably fewer non-humans in evidence than the last time they had walked this area of town. Several of the armed men were eyeing them speculatively.
"Let's get off the street," Deanna suggested.
"I'm with you," Will agreed. "That tavern?"
Deanna nodded, and together they crossed the street and stepped inside the dingy interior.
Beings crowded the main room - mostly men. The few women looked particularly dangerous. Will put an arm around Deanna, earning a wry glance from her, and they pressed their way slowly to the bar, arriving in time to claim the seats of a pair of silvery-skinned natives just leaving. For all the overcrowding and air of tension, the tavern was remarkably quiet. The air buzzed with low-toned conversations. In imitation of the man beside them, Will ordered two 'lums', paying with some local coin replicated from a sampling of money they had acquired on an earlier trip.
"Recent arrivals?" the bartender asked as he placed two heavy mugs before them. He was perhaps sixty and quite stout, as bartenders often seemed to be: a brown-skinned human, wrinkled from years of sun.
Will nodded. "What's going on?"
"Well, now, how much would you say you know about local politics?"
"Not much, but we've been here for trade a few times before, trade in goods," he emphasized, "so not nothing either."
"Ah," the man nodded sagely. He refilled a mug from farther down the table, then slid toward them once more, continuing as if never interrupted. "A large faction of the local Mozelle tribes just decided that Starways has outworn its welcome."
"Why now?" Deanna asked.
"They've been itching for an excuse for a while now, at least the elders and more traditional clansmen have been. Too many violations of the bonder laws, and everyone's sure now there's more evasions of the law that goes on in the resorts - law-breaking that's covered up, that never comes to light."
"What laws in particular?"
Here again they had to wait, as the man left them to serve a new party of Mozelle that had just come in. Will sipped his drink - a bitter alcohol that reminded him of ale, but with an unusual tang - and watched the crowd over the rim of his mug. Deanna kept her eyes carefully vague, looking toward her mug, which she had barely touched - Will got the feeling she was concentrating intently on "feeling out" the crowd empathically.
There's tension here, she spoke in his mind, but it's controlled. Will glanced at her sharply, then covered up with another drink from his mug. It had been a long while since she spoke to him that way.
"Laws of fair taking, laws of use, codes of conduct, abuse laws, mandatory end of the bonder's term -" the bartender had sidled down to their end of the counter once more, and he continued with only a brief glance at Will, busy as he was with cleaning glasses and replacing them on the shelves behind him. "Name the law, offworlders have broken it."
"They have no honor," said a tall human male, perhaps forty, broad in the shoulders and looking like he could crack ribs with one swipe of his thick arm. He eyed the two Starfleet officers with open interest.
"Now Viden, these are goods traders, not slave traders. They want the news. I imagine they won't get much trading done in this climate. Viden is a trainer of bondsmen; he was there when the fighting started," the bartender said, looking full now at Will, and at Deanna when she looked up at him.
"The fighting?" she asked, and turned her attention on burly Viden.
"At the Palace," he began without preamble. He leaned against the bar, looking frankly at Deanna. She met his gaze squarely. "I was in the arena backstage, cleaning my equipment, when Sitaris came down the lift looking half-dead. Sitaris is no pushover," he added at Deanna's raised brows, "he's one of the best trainers of fighting bonders we have. Used to be one of the best fighting bonders, before he was freed. But he came down from his client's rooms, nearly dead, and told us a tale that roused our ire at last: his client had lied about the origin and status of his bonder, had abused his bonder, and attacked Sitaris when the man confronted him. So we attacked, and we asked for the support of the tribal elders, and received it."
"How did Sitaris discover the offworlder was lying?" the bartender asked, though he had been gone to the other end of the counter for most of Viden's speech. "That's what I haven't heard."
"He was having some suspicions anyway," Viden answered. "We all were. The boy performed brilliantly in the arena, but out of it he looked worn down, his spirit all broken down. None of us could fathom how he could be so successful." At that point, the bartender was called away again, and Viden paused for a swallow from his glass.
"What boy is this?" Will asked, wondering if he might mean Ben.
"They called him 'Golden Boy' in the arena. Youngest competitor ever - he was well on track to taking first position, when it all blew up. Beautiful to watch - as good as Sitaris ever was. You can see archives of his games on the 'net."
"So Sitaris was suspicious," the bartender prompted, returning.
"Right. And then a human went to Sitaris, and said the boy had been stolen from him."
"Would that be the boy's father?" Deanna asked.
"Bonders don't have parents," answered Viden. "All humans born on Lansar are born into bondage."
"But-"
"They're taken from their mothers very young," said the bartender quietly. "But you forget, Viden, even within the past year the further tribes have found and broken several Lansarite enclaves."
"Could the boy have parents from such an enclave?" Will asked.
"Mozelle don't leave survivors over the age of twelve," said Viden in an empty voice. "They consider the Lansar to be godless, and cursed. Only children will they take, as bonders."
"I'm sorry," said Deanna quietly.
They lapsed into silence. The bartender left, to refill more mugs. When he returned, he asked, "so this man was the boy's master?"
"So it would seem," answered Viden.
"Hmph," said the bartender thoughtfully.
"Has anyone seen the man since?" asked Deanna. "If he could be asked, or the boy -"
"The council of Elders would pay to have either of them found," said Viden. "A description of the man has been posted on the 'net. But both of them have disappeared, perhaps together, perhaps not. Regardless, I think the situation here is too far gone for a reasoned investigation to be much help. And Sitaris," he added at the bartender's questioning look, "has disappeared into the desert, with a group of followers, all sworn to end Starways. And now I must go," Viden said, putting down his empty glass. "Honor to you, Sammus."
"Good night Viden, and thank you for the news."
Will and Deanna gave their good-nights as well, pushing aside their mugs: Will's empty, and Deanna's nearly full. The maneuvered their way to the door, out to the empty street, brightly lit by a trio of small moons.
"Let's see these vids," said Will, looking around for a news kiosk.
"He's probably not Ben," said Deanna.
"Maybe."
They found a small news store just down the street, with viewing stations available for rental. With some difficulty they learned how to extract and view archived files: a task not helped by the poor condition of the viewers. But finally they found some tapes of 'Golden Boy', only a week old. They watched in silence. Then Will copied out all the relevant files to a small player he bought, and they left town, walking to a deserted hill from which they could safely beam up to the shuttle that had brought them from Enterprise.
"Will -" said Deanna as they walked.
"I can hardly believe it," said Will.
"He was acting under duress," she answered.
Will didn't answer. It was true that Ben had never looked to be enjoying the violent games. His expression was dead, blank. But Viden was right: he moved beautifully, gracefully. Dangerously. Ruthlessly. Will shuddered. In the last game they watched, Ben's opponent had nearly been killed. The camera had zoomed close to see the man's look of rage and terror as he fell, his chin a bloody mess. Did Ben see that face in his dreams?
"You can't go back to that boy feeling... repulsed by him. He'll know, he'll feel it."
"I know it's not his fault, Deanna."
"Do you? Try to put yourself in his position. A child, torn from your family, and you don't know if they're alive or dead. Forced to do the bidding of a cruel man who uses you for his own profit, and beats you if you disobey or fail him. Given that choice, between winning a dangerous contest or being beaten or killed, what would you choose? And how would you behave?"
Will sighed, feeling sorry now for his involuntary blame of the boy. "I would do my best, short of killing my opponent, and I would hate every minute."
They walked on in silence.
"This man who was asking after Ben -" said Deanna.
"If it was yet another master, Ben is better off without him."
"We don't know who he is."
"No. We should try to find him, to find out. If this Sitaris recovers enough to talk -"
"Dangerous. If we let on that we have the boy, the people here will want to take him back. We won't be able to stay inconspicuous."
"I don't see any other leads."
"There's Ben himself," Deanna reminded him.
"Yes, there's Ben. Maybe he can give us more clues." Will was quiet a moment, thinking. "I woke up this morning to find him performing some sort of routine in the living room. Something like T'ai Chi, an exercise for balance and coordination. He is astonishingly graceful."
"Do you think he would enjoy Worf's martial arts class tonight?"
Will looked at the counselor in surprise. "Do you think that's wise?"
"I think it may help him make something positive out of a talent that he's had to use negatively."
Will nodded slowly. "I'll ask him."
Neither of them noticed the figure watching from the shadows as they beamed back to the ship, transporter energies bright in the desert night.