Текст книги "Deny Thy Father"

Автор книги: Jeff Mariotte

Соавторы: Jeff Mariotte
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Chapter 19

There was, Will had always believed, some kind of mystical connection between the night sky and romance. And because he had romance on his mind, he found himself looking forward to a scheduled trip to the moon with more eagerness than he had previously expected. Various squadrons would be going to stay for a few days in Tycho City there and to work on some flying exercises. He was going, which was great, and Felicia was going, which was even better. He figured there would be a chance to get her out under the starry lunar sky and really find out what he meant to her. And to let her know what she had come to mean to him, which seemed to become, with every passing day, all the more urgent. Besides, it was a chance to get off-world, and that in itself was reason to celebrate.

Probably because he was so excited about the trip, the days before it seemed to drag along interminably. He went to classes, he did homework, he played strategema and racquetball and poker and parrises squares. From time to time he went out with friends, but much as he wanted to be alone with Felicia he really wanted to save that until the Tycho trip. It all seemed so numbingly routine. During quiet moments, when he was eating or lying in bed waiting for sleep to claim him, he ran through different scenarios in his head, but they all included him and Felicia.

Tycho City, Will knew, was a populous place—so big that it could be seen from Earth on a very clear night. But he’d been there once before and he knew there were some spots on its outskirts—not far away from the Starfleet base they’d be staying in—that were still within its atmospheric and gravity fields but were otherwise traditional lunar landscape, as it had existed even before Neil Armstrong had left the first human footprint there. He would take Felicia out there, alone, and they’d sit close together, looking out at the Earth and the stars. He would take her hand in his and look into her warm brown eyes and say something like, “Felicia, I’ve really enjoyed spending this time with you.” Then she would melt into his arms.

Except there were some occasions in his mental motion picture when she would simply laugh, or even shake off his touch and storm away. He wasn’t sure what he would do if those came true, but he knew his heart would stop beating. Maybe he’d simply walk outside of Tycho’s atmosphere and see how long it took him to suffocate or freeze to death.

When he got to thinking that way he would shake his head and tell himself that he was being stupid. That’s not you,he thought. That’s some lovesick puppy. Will Riker’s a lot of things, but he’s not a guy who’d commit suicide for anyone.

Then again, love changes you,he guessed. If it doesn’t, maybe it was never really there at all.

Tycho City was everything Will had remembered it being—big, sprawling, bustling, full of bright lights and loud noise and riots of color, as if to chase away the deadly silence of the moon’s surface. Everyone who lived there seemed to speak louder than was necessary, and tried to pack more activity into each day than Will did in a week. The pace of life was furious.

For the cadets, the pace was also fast. They woke early each morning, bathed and ate and then went straight to the field for flight practice. Breaking into their squadrons, they flew an assortment of shuttlecraft, mostly ships that would have been mothballed if not for the educational opportunity they offered. On the morning of their last day, Will was at the helm of a twenty-year-old executive shuttle. It was a sleek ship that seated ten, though on this one there were only the four cadets and their flight instructor, a Vulcan named Satek.

Will felt nervous as he eased the ship out of the dock under Satek’s watchful eye. He had done this enough times in flight sims and training runs, but he wanted everything to be perfect this time. The ship responded like a dream to his commands, though, despite its age—it was actually pretty lush, compared to what he was used to, since it had been the private shuttle of a highly placed Federation diplomat, and all its systems were in top working order. The shuttle hangar opening looked awfully small as they approached it, and the nose of the ship awfully large. And despite the low speed Will knew they were holding at, he felt like the ship was accelerating much too fast.

“You’re doing great,” Paul Rice whispered to him as they cleared the hangar bay. “No problems. Give it some power now.”

With the last structure safely behind them, Will knew that it was okay to give it some juice. They would fly out to a series of buoys, perform a few maneuvers around them, then return. The only tricky part yet to come would be landing again, which would also be Will’s job.

Once at the buoys, each of the cadets in the squadron took their turn putting the shuttle through its paces. They worked on accelerated banked turns, figure eights, hard stops, and other aerial maneuvers. As usual, Paul had the surest hand and best control—he was born to fly, Will was convinced. Dennis Haynes, still in Will’s squadron, was uncertain and hesitant, and that showed in his flying. Estresor Fil was workmanlike and by the book, but every move she made felt just a little stiff. She got the job done, though, and Satek seemed pleased with her performance. Jenna Garcia was nearly as smooth as Paul was, impressing Will with her technical acuity and her command of the conn.

Finally, once they had all made a couple of turns, Satek turned to Will. “Very well done, gentlemen. Cadet Riker, please take us back to Tycho City.”

“Yes, sir,” Will said. Jenna slipped from the helmsman’s chair and Will sat down. He glanced over the instrument display. Everything looked shipshape. “Set course for Tycho City, Starfleet hangar bay,” he instructed the computer. A quick look at the navigational reference display told him when the course had been confirmed.

A short while later the hangar bay loomed in the front viewscreen as the ship’s navigational systems homed in on it. Will kept track of all his displays, and everything looked good for a landing when Satek spoke up. “Computer off, Instructor Satek’s command.”

Instantly the onboard computer obeyed, switching itself off, and the shuttle was under Will’s manual control. “You’re in control, Mr. Riker,” Satek said. “Bring us in.”

“But ... yes, sir,” Will replied. He fought back the sudden wave of panic. He could do this manually, he felt sure, even without a computer. Any pilot worth the name had to know this procedure inside and out. He’d practiced it, run through the steps, simulated it ... that hangar was rushing up at them fast, though, as they entered Tycho’s gravitational field.

“Bring up the nose,” Paul said, reading the situation.

“I know, Paul!” Will snapped, already reaching for the manual flight operations control. He brought up the nose a few degrees and slowed the shuttle’s descent. Next he powered down the impulse engine and brought the manual thrusters to a half-reverse, slowing the shuttle more and making the descent smoother still. “Landing gear down,” he said as he tapped that control pad, more verbally ticking through the checklist than because he expected a computer to do it for him. A slight correction to the X-Y translation control veered the ship to starboard four degrees, and Will continued his steady descent, regulating forward motion through his pressure on the center pad. His breathing was returning to normal now, as he knew he would pull off a smooth landing.

Three minutes later they were docked, with only the slightest bump on contact. “Well done, Cadet,” Satek said, stone-faced in his Vulcan way. Even Paul Rice congratulated him, once they were out of the shuttle and safely on the floor of the hangar. “I could have brought it down without that huge bump,” Paul added. “But I doubt that you did too much damage.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Dennis said. “You did fine.”

“I was nervous,” Will said, “when Satek shut off the computer. Even though I knew I could do it.”

“Anyone who can’t perform a simple manual landing has no business at the conn,” Paul said.

“That’s true,” Dennis countered. “But usually you know more than a few kilometers from your landing site whether it’ll be manual or not.”

“You can’t count on that, though,” Will put in. “Satek was right to test me. I’m just glad I passed.”

“With flying colors,” Jenna said, clapping him on the shoulder. “We’re all still here, aren’t we?”

At least there’s that,Will thought. We’re all still here. And finished with the day’s activity in plenty of time for tonight.

If Will had felt anxious about performing a manual landing in front of his instructor and peers, he was far more nervous about his plans for the evening. He knew he’d be able to grab Felicia after dinner—all the cadets were having a group dinner with some of the officers from the Tycho City Starfleet base—and he planned to invite her out for a walk at the city’s edge, where the lights weren’t so bright and the starscape would be vibrant and alive.

It was what would happen at that point that tied his stomach up in knots. Either he would be able to give voice to his feelings, or he wouldn’t. If he couldn’t then she would probably think him a complete idiot, of course, but that was a chance he had to take. Then the other consideration was whether or not she would return his affections or spurn them. He tried to brace himself for that, but it was like trying to get ready for a kick in the groin—all the mental preparation in the world would be worthless when the foot finally made contact.

During dinner—he barely knew what he was eating, and he was sure he didn’t get much of it in him—he kept looking at Felicia, who sat at a different table, across the room from him. Fortunately, she was in front of him, because it would have been even more awkward if he’d had to turn around in his chair to see her, especially since he’d tried to keep his feelings a secret from even his best friends, lest she get wind of his plans. She was just wearing her usual uniform, but her hair was neatly” brushed and piled on top of her head, and she was smiling and chatting with the officer seated next to her, and Will was certain he’d never seen a more beautiful sight. When the dinner dishes had been cleared away, an admiral got up to speak to the assembly. As far as Will was concerned, the man’s mouth was moving but nothing was coming out, as his attention was fully riveted on Felicia at this point.

Finally, the speech ended, and the cadets were excused. As they began to file out, Will headed for Felicia, who had already been intercepted by Estresor Fil. Before Will could reach them, though, Dennis Haynes cut him off. “Hey, Will. That was a great speech, wasn’t it?”

“Hi, Dennis,” Will replied off-handedly. “I guess so.” He started to move around Dennis, but his friend blocked his way. “Dennis, I need to see Felicia.”

Dennis moved closer to him and spoke in low tones. “Not tonight, buddy. Estresor Fil has big plans for her tonight.”

Will felt the floor tilt and drop out from under him. “What?”

“She’s—I’m not supposed to say anything, but I guess by tomorrow it’ll be settled one way or the other—Estresor Fil has a gigantic crush on Felicia. She’s going to tell her tonight.”

“You’re kidding,” was all Will could manage to say.

“No. Pretty sweet, isn’t it?” Dennis beamed like a proud father. “Estresor Fil has been coming to me for advice. Not that I’m some great expert or anything. But I think it’ll go well for them. At least, I hope so.”

“You?” Will demanded, aware that he was reacting too harshly but unable to restrain himself. “You did this? Good move.” He stormed away from his friend and out of the banquet room, pushing his way past Starfleet officers who, in other circumstances, he would have been thrilled to meet. Maybe the Riker men are just cursed,he thought.

“It’s so beautiful here,” Felicia said. She still wasn’t sure why Estresor Fil had brought her out to Tycho’s lunar plain, away from the party and all their friends. But she was awed by the sight of the moon’s surface as it had been for so many millions of years, before humanity swept over it, and even more so by the vast array of stars visible once you got beyond Tycho’s brilliant lights. She could see the Earth, hanging in the sky like a blue marble, and a dizzying display of white dots representing billions of other stars and planets.

“I hoped you would like it,” Estresor Fil said. “I’m not sure why but walking at night seems popular with some humans.”

“I think it’s just the natural beauty of the night sky,” Felicia told her. “Pregnant with possibility, always different and amazing. I never get tired of it.”

“I am pleased,” Estresor Fil said. She never sounded completely comfortable speaking English, and tonight she seemed even a little more on edge than usual. Felicia wondered if it had something to do with whatever reason they were out here. Estresor Fil obviously had something on her strange alien mind. Felicia hoped she’d get to the point soon. They flew home tomorrow and she had planned to be in the rack early.

“How did your flight go today?” Estresor Fil asked her. Without waiting for an answer she continued. “Ours was uneventful. I wish I were still in a squadron with you.”

“I miss you sometimes too,” Felicia told her.

“You do?” Estresor Fil sounded surprised, and the smile on her face was so rare and unnatural that Felicia thought for a moment the Zimonian was choking on something.

“Of course I do,” Felicia said. “I thought we became pretty good friends last year, and we work together well.”

“I agree,” Estresor Fil replied. They had reached the first row of warning signs posted by Tycho City officials. There were three sets of signs, and anyone who went beyond the third set was taking their life into their hands. “Very much so.”

Estresor Fil stopped near one of the signs, and Felicia came up next to her. Estresor Fil glanced at Felicia, as if measuring the distance between them, and then stepped to the side, halving it. “Are you comfortable?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Felicia assured her.

“I am sorry, I’m so bad at this,” Estresor Fil said. When Felicia looked at her again, the smile was gone and she was afraid the other girl might cry.

“Bad at what? Estresor Fil, what’s going on?”

Estresor Fil took a big, wet breath. “I think I love you, Felicia,” she said. “I am quite sure, in fact. But I don’t know how these things work, among humans, and I so wanted to do it right. But now I’ve made it all stupid and wrong!”

Felicia felt her heart go out to Estresor Fil, who she had always thought of as a kind of younger sister, even though the Zimonian was actually a little older than she was. She certainly hadn’t expected anything like this—well, she had, to be honest with herself, but judging from the way Will Riker had been oh-so-subtly checking her out all evening, she had thought it would be coming from him. But definitely not from Estresor Fil. She supposed, as Zimonians went, she was probably quite attractive. But that didn’t necessarily make her appealing to Felicia’s eye.

On the other hand, there was a kind of exotic beauty in her finely sculpted features. She was not someone to whom Felicia would be instantly drawn, but she wasn’t repulsive, either. And she had a good heart—she was kind and intensely loyal, and she’d been able to summon up the courage to pull this off. That was something a lot of people—again, Will came to mind—never seemed able to do.

“You haven’t messed anything up, Estresor Fil,” Felicia said gently.

“I haven’t?”

“Not at all. You’ve done just fine. Even humans find this sort of thing difficult with other humans.”

“That’s what Dennis told me,” Estresor Fil said.

“Dennis Haynes?”

“Yes. I went to him for advice on human pairing rituals.”

“I see,” Felicia said. Dennis wouldn’t have been the one to whom she’d have turned, but apparently his advice hadn’t been so bad after all.

“He suggested that I put my arm around your shoulders,” Estresor Fil went on. “But ... I can barely reach them. It might be awkward.”

“It might be,” Felicia agreed. “Why not just put it here, around my waist? Then I can rest mine across your shoulders, like this.” When they were in position, Felicia sighed and looked at the Earth. Boy, were things going to be complicated when they got back down there.

Chapter 20

It wouldn’t be quite so bad, Will thought, if only I didn’t have to look at them.

On the ship that took them home from the moon, Felicia and Estresor Fil were together virtually every minute. He couldn’t tell if they had become romantically involved or if their friendship had just taken a more intimate turn. They laughed together, they sat close and chatted, now and again they seemed to be holding hands or touching one another’s faces. But that might have been an illusion, just normal touching magnified in Will’s mind by his own dark mood.

By the time they disembarked at the Academy in San Francisco, Will had come to an understanding with himself. It was stupid to even think that he should get involved with a woman in the first place. He had his Academy career to worry about, and after that his Starfleet career. Maybe once that was on track he could start to think about women, maybe getting married and starting a family at some point. But not until then. A girlfriend now would just set him back, cost him time and energy he needed to spend studying and working. There was no room in an active, ambitious career for romance, and thinking that there was had been simply delusional.

When he saw Estresor Fil and Felicia walking to their dorm together, Felicia’s head bowed so she wouldn’t miss a word of whatever the little Zimonian was saying, he didn’t begrudge them their happiness at all. He didn’t, he decided, feel a thing.

Chapter 21

Roog seemed unhealthy at the best of times, and one misshapen foot in the grave at the rest. Kyle had ascertained that she was a female because Michelle referred to her as “her,” but that was all he knew about her beyond her political beliefs, which were strident, and her patience for fools, which was virtually nonexistent.

He and Michelle stood at the back of a large room in the labyrinthine bowels of The End, a room that might once have been a banquet hall or a ballroom. Today, it contained maybe two hundred people, mostly residents of The End and other impoverished neighborhoods, individuals of every race and description. On a raised dais made from construction scraps that afternoon, Roog, Cetra ski Toram, and Melinka sat. They had taken turns addressing the crowd, alternating between describing detailed political and economic scenarios and doing some pure rabble-rousing, trying to direct the audience’s anger at the Cyrian government. When Kyle had suggested that Michelle should also be on the dais, she had colored and waggled her hand in the Cyrian gesture of negativity. He was getting used to conversing with her in English with touches of Cyrian thrown in, like that or the back and forth hand wobble that indicated assent or agreement. “I’m just a foot soldier,” she protested. “Not a general.”

“I know a little bit about strategy,” he admitted. “And I know that generals aren’t worth much if they don’t have foot-soldiers they can count on.”

“I get the feeling you know about a lot of things, Joe Brady,” she replied. Then she hushed him, because Roog was talking and those near them were shooting them dirty looks.

“No plutocracy can survive indefinitely,” Roog was saying, “because, by definition, the majority of its citizens are shut out of power. And when a majority understands that it’s being used and abused by the powerful for the sole benefit of the powerful, then that majority rises up and takes back its proper role.”

This pronouncement was met by cheers and warm applause from the audience. Roog waited for it to finish and went on. “The Cyrian plutocracy is at that point now. They are willing to kill us—kill the majority—because we are inconvenient to them. That’s always—always—a sure sign of a plutocracy that has lost its way, with a leadership that has lost its collective mind. Individual members of government may still be sane, but the government itself is insane. Unsound. Mad. The time has come to stop fighting back with words—words can only influence those sane enough to hear and understand them. The time has come for action!”

A much louder roar of applause went up this time, and Kyle found himself hoping the government didn’t have spies in the neighborhood. This room was deep inside a large building that might have been a luxury hotel, in its prime, but to have contained the noise this bunch was making, he hoped it was still well soundproofed.

“I can’t promise you that victory will be easy,” Roog said when the applause had abated. “It won’t be. I can’t promise you that it will come without sacrifice—and you, of everyone in this nation, have already sacrificed plenty. It will not. I can’t promise that you will all be here to taste the fruits of your efforts—the fresh taste of freedom, of self-governance, of economic possibility. You won’t be.

“We are talking about a struggle, and in a struggle there are casualties, and some will die, and others will be injured, and along the way there will be dark days when you wonder if it’s worth the pain and the loss and the heartbreak. So I say to you today, look at yourselves. Look at those next to you, behind you, all around you. Look at your families, your young. It’s for them that we must fight. For yourself, of course. But also for your neighbors, your loved ones, and your offspring. For everyone that you know, and everyone you are ever likely to know. Because we fight for justice, and there is no justice if justice is selective. Justice must stand for all if it is to stand for any!”

When the crowd broke into more sustained cheers, Kyle turned to Michelle. “She’s good,” he said.

“She knows how to work a crowd,” Michelle agreed. “If she could address thousands, or tens of thousands, all at once, we’d have a revolution today and economic justice tomorrow. But she would be killed before she could get a word out, if the government knew she was doing this. As long as the struggle has to remain secret, it’ll be a hard road. As it is we need to rely on these people spreading the word to friends and neighbors, but doing so discreetly.”

“And that’s really what you think will happen? Revolution?” They had talked about this several times in the weeks since the police attack, but he kept pressing her on the point. He knew the success of such a movement was a long shot, and the more he got to know her the more he didn’t want to see her hurt or killed.

The rally over, the audience began to stream from the building, out into the glare of midday suns. Michelle and Kyle went with the flow, but as the crowd dispersed, they found themselves alone on one of the winding streets. “Of course it is,” she replied as if he had just asked the question. “We’re both from Earth, Joe, and we’re both from the United States. We know that revolution can succeed when the cause is just and the people are behind it.”

“We also know how rare it is to have both of those elements in the right balance,” he countered.

She took his hand and squeezed it. “That’s why we need the right people in the right positions, Joe. Like you said, you know something about strategy. I haven’t asked you any questions about your background, your history, and you haven’t asked me any. I appreciate that about you, and I respect your privacy. But I think it’s time we came clean. If we’re going to succeed—and I mean the revolution, but I also mean us, you and me—then we need to know each other. We need to understand what we can each contribute.”

She stopped walking and turned to face him, taking his other hand and holding them both in hers. “My name really is Michelle. Last name Culhane. I ... broke some laws. Not on Earth, I only lived there for a few years, as a girl. My parents were rovers, wanderers, and I lived on a dozen worlds by the time I was twenty. After that, I struck out on my own and did pretty much the same. But I didn’t always run with the most reputable company. There was an incident, on Blue Horizon. Lovely place, but bad things can still happen in nice surroundings. I killed a person—two people, actually. It was justified, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t illegal. I ran. I can tell you more about it if you want to know.”

“No,” Kyle said, somewhat taken aback by the unexpected confession. “I mean, maybe someday, if you want to talk about it. If it’ll help you. But I trust you, I don’t need the details.”

She kissed him tenderly on the cheek, and then on the lips. “Thanks,” she said, drawing away. “For the trust. I like that.”

“You taught it to me,” he replied.

“So what’s your story, Joe? That’s not your name, is it? It doesn’t quite fit you, it’s like you’re wearing someone else’s shirt.”

Kyle shook his head. “No, no, it’s not my name.” He felt a moment’s hesitation, but then, emboldened by her confession and by his own growing feelings for her, he decided to tell her the truth. “My name is Kyle Riker,” he revealed. “I work—or used to, anyway, for Starfleet. I’m a civilian but I serve as a military strategist for them.”

“That’s perfect!” Michelle blurted out. “I mean, a trained military strategist. You could do wonders for the revolution.” She looked at him, a smile on her face. “Sorry, I interrupted, didn’t I? I do that.”

“That’s perfectly okay,” Kyle said. “That’s pretty much the story.”

“You’re here for a reason,” she prodded. A wind blasted down the street, flaying them both with her hair, and she laughed. Over their heads, a purple skray winged by, shrieking at them. They were, as far as he could tell, the local version of pigeons, and every bit as unappetizing.

“Someone was trying to kill me—well, either ruin my career or kill me, I guess. Someone associated, in some way, with Starfleet. I’ve had some pretty traumatic experiences in recent years, and I guess that one was the topper. I more or less flipped out and ran. I still intend to go back, but before I do I want to figure out who I’m up against, and why. So far I keep coming up blank, which is why I’m still here.”

“Maybe it’s not something you can find out from a distance,” Michelle suggested. She squeezed his hands again. “Maybe you just need to be there. Not that I want you to leave, of course. Especially not now.”

“I understand, Michelle. And you could be right. You probably are. But now ... now you’re here. I’ve screwed up before, and it’s like some kind of second chance. Fourth or fifth chance, maybe.”

She smiled once more. “I’m glad that matters to you, Joe. Or should I say, Kyle?”

“Stick with Joe,” he urged. “It’s safer that way.”

“I like Kyle better,” she told him. “That is a name that fits you. It’s stronger. Joe is nondescript, and you’re anything but. I’ll call you Joe, but in my heart you’ll be Kyle. Is that okay?”

He couldn’t help feeling glad that events had conspired to send him to Hazimot, where he could meet such an exceptional woman. That made three amazing women—Annie, Katherine Pulaski, and now Michelle Culhane—who had opened their hearts to him. How did a man get to be so lucky?

At the same time, he recognized that, while illness had claimed Annie, he alone had been responsible for the fact that he wasn’t still with Kate. He’d have to take care not to make the same mistakes again, because Michelle seemed like the kind of woman he could spend a lifetime with.

“That’ll be fine,” he said finally. “Just fine.”

“And will you help us?” she pressed. “You don’t have to fight if you don’t want to, but will you advise us? Help with strategy?”

“Let’s keep talking about that,” he suggested. “Give me time to come around. From what I’ve seen so far, you have more passion on your side than you do prospects.”

“That may be true,” she said. “But passion counts for a lot too. And we have some good minds working on it. Native Hazimotian minds, and others. With you, several good human ones as well.”

“Who else is human among the leadership?” Kyle asked. “Jackdaw? Alan?”

“They are, but they’re not really leadership,” Michelle suggested. “But I am, and of course Roog—”

“Roog’s human?” he interrupted. He pictured her indistinct, amorphous form with what seemed like other beings moving about beneath semi-translucent skin, her lumpish head and barely functional limbs. “How ... what happened to her?”

“Cyre happened,” Michelle said, an explanation that didn’t explain much. When Kyle just stared at her, she elaborated. “You might have noticed that body modification is kind of a hobby, or a fetish, of many of the locals. Especially here in The End, where it’s the only kind of art one can expect to keep when one is forced to move from one hovel to another.”

“But I thought that was just among the Hazimotians,” Kyle said.

“For the most part, but not completely,” Michelle replied. “Roog has been here for a long time, and she’s gone native in most ways. Including that one. She’s had a lot of work done, not all of which turned out exactly as she’d hoped. But she’s still human inside, where it counts. She still has the experience of revolution in her genetic memory. And she’s as dedicated as you’ll ever find, on our home world or this one.”

“I guess you just can’t trust appearances,” Kyle offered.

“You never have been able to,” Michelle agreed. “Why start now? You can only trust hard facts, like this one. When I tell you that I love you, Kyle Joe Brady Riker, I mean it. That, you can trust.”

What is the report on Kyle Riker?

The report is that there is no report. Still no news, no information. He cannot be found.

How is this possible? We have at our disposal the most far-reaching information gathering technology in the history of the galaxy. We have fingers everywhere. And one simple man can elude all of this? It simply isn’t possible.

It may not be possible, but it seems to be the case. There has been no sign of Riker since the day he vanished. We may need to accept a potential scenario that we have not wanted to...