Suspicions
	by Zlanna
	
	"Will, pass me some more chicken please?" Deanna Troi polished off
her second helping of Tumarian egg casserole. "There's just one thing
that bothers me."

	Riker sat across the table from Troi in the ten-forward lounge as he
took another helping of the roasted chicken, then handed it to her.
"What's that?"

	"How does a Borg spy fall off a cliff?"

	Riker thought about it a minute. Deanna had a point. A Borg would be
as sure-footed as anyone. "Maybe Kramer jumped off the cliff to free
himself from the Borg."

	"No, I don't believe so. I worked with Captain Picard during his
recovery after his assimilation. A Borg drone wouldn't have been able to
have the self awareness to harm himself, even to escape the Borg." Troi
insisted.

	Originally Riker had assumed Kramer was climbing just to get a
better view. His orders had been to guard the east side of the building
that was the headquarters of the House of Ministers. Riker had put the
youth's accident down to a lack of discipline and a desire to explore. A
Borg would have no inclination to climb out of pleasure. He would have
had a reason for climbing the cliff. A very good reason. A strategic
reason. "Why was Kramer climbing the cliff to start with?" Riker asked
out loud.

	Setting her fork down, Troi considered the question. "Perhaps there
was something at the top of the cliff that interested him."

	"There's nothing that I know of," Riker tried to recall the barren
terrain at the top of the stone plateau that overlooked the valley where
the Sinomian capital lay.

	"Maybe he was meeting someone on top of the cliff."

	"Another Borg spy?" Riker thought about the possibility for a
moment. "If that were true, maybe he lured someone up there to
assimilate them. Maybe there was a fight and his victim threw him off
the cliff."

	"You'd have to be very strong to throw a Borg off a cliff," Troi
picked up the fork and attacked her chocolate cake spearing off a large
piece.

	"If there were a fight, he might have lunged at someone and
accidentally fallen off the cliff."

	Riker pushed his plate away from him and leaned back from the table,
"Maybe he needed the height to aid a transmission he was sending to the
Borg."

	"Unlikely. Wouldn't the Sinomian communications system detect such a
transmission?" Troi popped another piece of cake in her mouth.

	"Well, for that matter, the Enterprise would probably have picked up
the transmission." Riker's face went pale, "Unless of course, the
transmission was for someone on the Enterprise."

	"Another Borg spy?"

	"Exactly. The vantage point from the cliff would give someone an
eagle eye line of sight to the Ministerial Palace." Riker said thinking
out loud.

	"Blasting a palace is not the Borg's style." 

	"Neither is planting a spy."  Running his hand along his bearded
jaw, Riker gave voice to a vague doubt that had stubbornly haunted him
since the meeting in the morgue. "You know, Kramer's last words to me
were - 'No.' then he stopped and said, 'accident'. At the time I thought
he meant 'no don't transport me to the Enterprise'. It's a common last
request - no one wants to die while locked in a transporter beam. I
didn't think about it before, but," Riker had a flash of insight,
"suppose he meant 'no accident'."

	"If it wasn't an accident, what do you think happened?"

	Sighing Riker crossed his arms and sat back in his chair, "Maybe he
was killed."

	"Murdered?" Deanna asked. "By who? And why? If a member of our crew
knew he was a Borg they would have reported their suspicion to one of
us."

	"I don't know." Riker said in frustration. "Crime on Sinomia is
unheard of. No one on the planet knew Kramer or knew that he was a Borg,
so it would probably have been someone on the away team."

	"Ensign Klimati?"

	"No, I had just seen him a few moments before Kramer fell. It
couldn't have been him."

	"Ensign Walters?"

	"Doubtful, Seldonian's are afraid of heights."

	"Ensign Idit'iat? Cenax?"

	"I don't know." Riker felt he was close, he was sure of it, but he
couldn't quite put it together. "Let me see, Idit'iat was at the far
gate of the Ministerial Palace. She originally came down on the first
day and stayed last night to finish preparations for the conference. I
suppose she could have had time to get to Kramer's location." Deanna sat
staring at Riker as if he were a three headed Xenobite. "What's wrong?"

	"In sickbay you said Kramer said something just before he died. What
did he say again?"

	"I. Did it. He was probably referring to the fact that he found a
way to free himself from the Borg collective."

	"Will!" Troi gasped slightly and raised her hand over her mouth,
"Don't you see?" 

He thought about Kramer's last words for a moment, then
admitted, "No, I don't." 

"I. Did it. Ensign Idit'iat." Deanna shuddered
slightly. "Kramer wasn't bragging he had outwitted the Borg, Kramer was
naming his killer!" 

***

To be Continued...

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