PRECHANCE TO DREAM Page 7

  “She may not be running for long,” Naladi said, as if reading the first officer’s mind. “The reactor chamber fields are getting fuzzy around the edges. If they don’t hold—”

  “I know, I know. Can you do anything?”

  “You know me. We’re already doing it. We’ll manage.”

  “I do know you, Naladi,” Jevlin said with a grin. “You’re always whining about the end being near—and it never is.”

  “Not yet anyway. Leaving so soon? You’ve been no fun at all since you divorced the bottle.”

  “I’ve got an important appointment. Keep me posted.”

  The engineer gave him a dismissive wave. “Yeah, sure, sure, limp off and leave me with my problems. What do you care.”

  “You shouldn’t have done all this yourself,” Jevlin scolded, waggling his finger at little Keela.

  She perched kneeling on a chair at the small oblong table in her family quarters, upon which she’d arranged place-settings for two—tarnished utensils, chipped mugs and the one pristine piece on the table, an elegant ceramic urn with steam rising from its long spout. A platter filled with a dozen small, neatly arranged finger biscuits sat in the center of the table.

  “But I always do it myself. Mother doesn’t have time. She says if I want to have tea with her every afternoon, I’m the one who has to make it. Now sit down,” she said, her tiny hand pointing impatiently at the opposite chair.

  Jevlin joined her at the table. “Didn’t your mother worry—I mean, doesn’t she worry about you burning yourself?”

  “Really, Jevlin,” Keela said with a roll of her eyes, “only children burn themselves.”

  “Ahh. Of course. How foolish of me.” He reached for the urn.

  “No,” she squawked.

  He yanked his hand back as if he’d been burned. “I was just going to pour it, Keela.”

  “We have to say our quiet thank-yous and hopes first, silly. Mother taught me that was why tea time was invented.”

  “And your mother was absolutely right, Keela. So let’s close our eyes and look to the stars.” He watched as the little girl tipped her head back and her eyelids fluttered shut. He knew she’d be imagining a perfect night sky, just as he’d done when he was a child, just as all Teniran children were taught to do—imagining the deepest black, strewn with the glitter of starlight. Her lips moved just slightly as she silently whispered her own list. Then her eyes opened.

  “Did you peek, Jevlin?”

  He stiffened in mock indignity. “I would never do that. Might keep your hopes from coming true. I do know that much. I may be old, but I still remember things, Keela.”

  “Just checking. You can pour the tea now.”

  “Thank you, your ladyship.” He tipped the urn and filled her cup first, then watched as she held it in both her hands and sniffed the sweet-scented steam curling up toward her face. Pouring his own cupful, he handed her a biscuit and took one for himself.

  “Thank you, Jevlin.”

  “You’re welcome. And thank you for inviting me. I hope your mother is having her own tea time now, wherever she is.”

  “Me too,” Keela said with a solemn nod. “She gets very grumpy if she doesn’t.”

  Beverly Crusher sat alone in Ten-Forward, tucked in a corner booth facing the big observation windows, as far off the natural path of traffic as possible. She really didn’t want company, but she did want a snack. And she also wanted a change of scenery from sickbay and her quarters. So she risked the inevitable—friends and crewmates certain to approach her with well-meaning sympathy and encouragement.

  Guinan was the first. Of course, greeting and serving patrons of the starship’s lounge was her job, so her arrival in Beverly’s corner was more or less expected. Once she brought over Bev’s apple pie à la mode and the accompanying cup of herbal tea, perhaps she’d take the nonverbal hint and move off to more chatty clientele. Beverly fervently hoped so.

  But Guinan didn’t go. Business was slow, and she sat. “How are you doing?”

  Crusher managed a wan fraction of a smile. “Fine.”

  She dug up a forkful of pie and got mostly dry crust. But she felt Guinan’s inscrutable gaze on her. Not staring—no, Guinan was a being of impeccable manners and never stared the way humans might. It was just a gentle, never-wavering look that wordlessly invited its subject to loosen up, and speak up. And it usually worked. But this time, Beverly fought it.

  “Look,” Guinan finally said, “I’m the last one to pry. And I know you and Counselor Troi are like this . . .” She raised her hand with two fingers held tightly side-by-side. “. . . but I’m here if you just feel like talking.”

  “Thanks, Guinan. But right now, I just feel like eating.”

  Guinan stood. “Say no more.” She backed away, pointing a thumb toward the bar across the room. “I’m right over there.”

  Cloaked again in her preferred solitude, Dr. Crusher nibbled on her pie. Guinan was right. Deanna would be the first one she’d go to if she wanted to air her fears about Wesley’s safety. But Deanna was missing, too—and Beverly was worried about her friend as well as her son.

  Then there was Jean-Luc. Her relationship with the captain was considerably more complicated than her friendship with Troi. Troi was like a sister and best buddy all rolled into one, as close to her now as the best friends with whom she’d shared slumber parties and college dorm rooms when she was growing up.

  Not that Jean-Luc wasn’t also her friend. But there was more. She’d long since absolved Picard of any responsibility for her husband’s death. Long since sorted out nasty feelings of ambivalence, which had understandably grown from the circumstances of Jack’s death while under Picard’s command. Once she got her assignment to the Enterprise, it would have been impossible for her to not have had mixed feelings about serving with the captain who’d brought her husband’s body home.

  But that was then. Now, it was a question of how she and Jean-Luc really felt about each other. Here. Today. Perhaps they’d never be certain. Lord knows, they’d tiptoed around it on enough occasions. Perhaps the requirements of their professional responsibilities precluded any relationship other than friendship. Never mind the emotional baggage related to their past—the truth was, she wouldn’t hesitate to come to Picard if she needed a supportive word.

  But dammit—he was missing too. And maybe she didn’t want to talk to anyone about Wesley’s being lost out there, on this unknown planet—

  “Looks good,” said a warm masculine voice, interrupting her musings. “The pie, I mean. Mind if I join you?”

  Beverly found herself looking up at Will Riker, his eyes crinkling as he smiled. Her expression remained blank for the long moment it took her to shift her brain back into a conversation mode. “Actually—”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t take this personally, Will, but I’d rather be by myself.”

  “Oh.” Riker looked crestfallen. “Well. Umm . . . I just thought you might want somebody to talk to about—”

  “I don’t. Really. I’m fine. Thanks.”

  Nodding as he retreated, but looking thoroughly unconvinced, Riker headed for the bar.

  And Dr. Crusher stared out the windows—past the planet, toward the distant stars—and whittled away at her ice cream and pie.

  Until she felt another presence behind her. Oh, Lord . . . not again . . .

  “Hi, Geordi,” she said, trying to sound mildly appreciative but not too inviting.

  “Hi, Doc. Checking out the planet?”

  “Actually, no. I was looking at the stars.”

  Geordi’s brow wrinkled above his VISOR as her answer caught him off-guard. “Oh. I figured because of Wes . . . Uhh . . . y’know, what with the shuttle and all . . .” He licked his lips. “Uhh, he’s a good kid, Doc . . . he’ll be okay. He’s with Data, and Data always comes back.”

  “Thanks, Geordi. Really. Thanks. But I just kind of wanted to be by myself.” The chief engineer seemed to take the gentle brush-off wit
h great relief and he too headed for the bar.

  Beverly smiled to herself as she washed down a bite of pie with a sip of tea. They’re all so sweet to care about how I feel . . . but I just don’t want to talk about it. How can I explain that? And why should I have to explain it? She felt the worries welling up again, the ones she’d hoped she’d swallowed with the ice cream and pie.

  And, again, she sensed someone over her shoulder. She turned slightly to see the looming bulk of Lieutenant Worf. She sighed out loud, wondering if all one-thousand people living aboard the Enterprise were going to pay sympathy calls.

  Worf sidled around the table so he could face her. “Doctor, I—”

  Suddenly, her emotional dam broke and the flood of fears rushed out of her. Though she spoke softly, the words came so fast that she almost didn’t know what she was saying. And at the same time, she knew every syllable before it passed her lips. They spelled out all the cares and concerns of a lifetime of motherhood, all crystallized by the inescapable reality right now that she might have to deal with the death of her son.

  They were right on target, all of her friends—Guinan and Will and Geordi. She did need to talk, to share her mortal dreads with someone. And then, just as abruptly as the torrent of feelings and fears had begun, it stopped. And one shocked thought roamed around inside her head: Why did I dump this on Worf, of all people?!

  As she caught her breath, she looked up at him standing stiffly, looking like he wanted to be somewhere else, anywhere else—and she suddenly knew why. Like Crusher, and unlike those other good friends, Worf had a son. Little Alexander, Worf’s child with Ambassador K’eylahr—a secret K’eylahr had only recently revealed to him, just before her murder by a Klingon traitor.

  Worf had probably been the last person Crusher expected to harbor even a shred of parental instinct. But it had come to him as it came to any human parent—mystically, instantly. Love . . . And it had led him, without a second thought, to exalt his young son’s best interests above his own.

  Worf had sent the child to live on Earth, with his own human foster parents. And though the Enterprise’s Klingon warrior never spoke of his feelings, Beverly somehow knew from that one selfless act that Worf knew exactly how she felt at this moment.

  “I’m sorry, Worf,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “I didn’t mean to hit you with all that.”

  Unable to look her quite in the eye, he took a measured breath and spoke like a man afraid to crack the very thin ice on which he stood. “I . . . I came to ask you if I could postpone my scheduled physical until next week.”

  Beverly felt herself blush. “Oh,” she said in a tiny, mortified voice. She felt as if she’d been glimpsed naked. But there was no cover-up close at hand. “Yes, uhh . . . of course . . . that would be fine . . . no problem at all.”

  Then she looked away. And Worf scuttled out of Ten-Forward.

  * * *

  Though he was due back on duty in a little while, and had in fact been headed back to the bridge to begin his shift early, Worf left the ship’s lounge and detoured back to his cabin. He sat at his communications console.

  “Computer . . . I would like to record a star-mail message . . . to be sent to Earth. To Sergey and Helena Rozhenko . . . and Alexander. Address on file.” Worf took a deep breath and set himself in front of the recorder. “Hello, Mother and Father . . . and Alexander. How have you been? I had some free time, so I thought I would send you a message. And I have not forgotten . . . happy birthday, Father . . .”

  Chapter Six

  CERTAINLY, AT OTHER TIMES and in other places, Jean-Luc Picard had dined more elegantly. But he could not recall the last time he’d had a meal as satisfying as this one.

  Between catching the damned fish, cleaning and preparing them with utensils improvised from rock and wood, then starting a fire with the most primitive techniques, dinner on Domarus wound up taking considerably more effort than sliding a tray out of a starship food synthesizer.

  But I did it. He smiled to himself as he watched one of the day’s catch sizzling on a stick propped above the campfire on a cross-brace made of tree branches. Then he leaned closer and squeezed a plum-sized piece of yellow fruit over the fish, letting the pulpy juice dribble down onto it.

  Picard knew his own ancestry well, and he was aware that the French love affair with fine cuisine went back through recorded history, and probably predated that. As he savored the last bites of the fish he’d already cooked, Picard wondered about the origins of such regional characteristics. Was it all based on cultural indoctrination, or was it—as generations of Frenchmen had insisted—simply in the blood?

  No matter. Nothing could prevent him from taking great pleasure in his ability to rise above the rudimentary needs of survival and turn this meal into something tasty. I just hope there’s nothing latently poisonous about all this . . .

  “Smells good.”

  The voice startled Picard and he nearly fumbled the fish in his hands. Then he spotted Captain Arit, out in the darkness across the campfire, hanging back on the fringe of the woods. Damn—she’s sneaky. “Are you hungry?”

  She circled part of the way around, but kept the fire between them. “No.”

  “Have you eaten?” He made an extra effort to sound friendly, even though he didn’t really trust her, or her motivations.

  “Some fruit,” she said.

  “There’s plenty here for both of us.”

  “I’m a light eater.”

  Arit’s arrival distracted him from his cooking long enough for the pleasing aroma of roasting fish to turn acrid as it began to burn. Just in time, Picard snatched it away from the flame. Though a bit more charred than he liked, it still looked edible. The damned fish had taken too much effort to catch—he was most certainly not going to discard any that were remotely edible. He sat back on the ground—and realized the Teniran woman had moved silently closer, now crouching not more than three meters away.

  “I didn’t help you catch them,” she said. “In fact, I laughed at you.”

  “So?”

  “So why are you so willing to share?” The reflection of the fire glinted in her pale green eyes.

  “I caught more than I can eat. No point in wasting any of it.” He held out the freshly cooked fish. She reached forward and took the stick from him, then immediately retreated again to her three-meter perimeter.

  Her fangs flashed in the firelight as she tore into the crispy fish. Picard guessed she was a lot more hungry than she would admit.

  “You surprise me, Picard,” Arit said between bites.

  “Oh? In what way?”

  “Your survival skills didn’t look especially sharp earlier today.”

  His mouth curled into a subtle smile. “Ah. Well . . . let’s just call it trial and error.”

  “How did you get this to taste so good?”

  “Nothing magical. Where I come from, on Earth, a place called France, cooking is almost a religion. Great chefs are like high priests protecting sacred mysteries,” he said as he skewered another fish. As he continued, he seasoned it with fruit juice and pulp. “But satisfactory cooking isn’t really mysterious at all. Care to try it for yourself?”

  She frowned in abrupt annoyance. “Cooking isn’t one of my skills. I was bred to be a ship captain.”

  “One doesn’t necessarily preclude the other, Arit.”

  “It does where I come from. We Tenirans don’t have the luxury of dabbling in hobbies as you humans do.”

  “We really don’t know much about each other’s societies,” Picard said, hoping he could gingerly steer the conversation toward the point where they could actually exchange something more meaningful than small talk about fish.

  It didn’t work. Arit tensed and stood up, as if ready to fight—or flee. “If you think that a little food means I’ll reveal all our secrets—”

  “On the contrary,” Picard said, “accepting food implies no obligation.”

  “That’s what the powerful always
tell the weak.”

  “Powerful? What makes you think we’re powerful?”

  “We know all about your Federation and your starships, Picard,” Arit sneered.

  Picard turned the fish over the fire, checking to assure it was cooking evenly. “You seemed to have no fear of my ship when you were threatening our shuttlecraft.”

  “Your presence here threatens us,” said Arit sharply.

  “You have no need to consider us a threat, Arit—though you may not believe me.”

  “I don’t.”

  Deciding to try a more direct approach, Picard straightened up. “Allow me to remind you that we did not respond with force even though our shuttle was in mortal danger. Why do you want this planet so badly?” But she reacted by tossing the skewer to the ground and backing away, and he immediately regretted his direct inquiry. “Whatever your problem is, perhaps we can help—”

  “Help? Help leads to betrayal,” she said with a certainty Picard found both tragic and chilling. “We don’t want your help.”

  “Captain Arit,” he called. But she ignored him and slipped back into the dark woods beyond the campsite.

  Neither captain noticed the single twinkling mote of crimson light quivering high over the campsite.

  After hours of repair work that had proven mostly futile, dinnertime aboard the shuttlecraft Onizuka was understandably subdued. Wesley and Gina ate together at the front of the aft cabin, but seemed lost in private thoughts as they nibbled unenthusiastically on packaged rations. Data and Troi sat in the rearmost seats, though the android of course had no need for food. He occupied himself with a thorough analysis of the sensor information gathered earlier.