Текст книги "Deny Thy Father"

Автор книги: Jeff Mariotte

Соавторы: Jeff Mariotte
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“And miss your own medal ceremony?” Paul asked. “I can’t see it. Not you, Riker. Or should I say, golden boy?”

“Golden boy?” Will repeated. “We’ll both be lucky if we’re not expelled.”

“If I had died, you’d be expelled,” Paul ventured. “Since I didn’t, we’ll probably get by with a reprimand.”

“A reprimand?You broke their ship!”

“Wasn’t much of a ship,” Paul countered. “I think it was broken to begin with.”

“Well, yeah,” Will admitted. “It was. Good choice, Rice.”

“I was still winning, wasn’t I?” Paul asked. “Bum ship or no.”

“That’s true, you were ahead,” Will said. “I was going to pass you on the home stretch, though.”

Both cadets laughed then, and kept laughing most of the way back to the Flight Training Base.

* * *

“It was amazing, Will,” Felicia said when she saw him. She’d greeted him with a hug and a big kiss, which Will found pretty amazing in itself. “Ambassador Spock was brilliant, of course. And so nice!”

“You got to meet him?” Will asked her, full of envy. They were in her room, and she was beaming as if she had just now finished shaking the ambassador’s hand.

“Yes, at a reception afterward. He was warm and friendly and even a little bit funny.”

“Funny?” Will echoed. “We are talking about Spock the Vulcan, right? Not some other Spock?”

“Well, you know, not the kind of funny that you see in Estresor Fil’s cartoons, but wry.”

“I guess I can see wry,” Will said. “I’m glad you had such a good time.”

She hugged him again, and then sat him down on her bed, with one hand clutching his arm and the other resting across his thigh. “I did, Will, I really did. I just kept wishing you were there. You’ve got to watch the speech, though, even if you don’t get to meet him yourself.”

“Well, maybe one of these days,” Will said. “Assuming I don’t get kicked out of the Academy.”

Felicia’s beautiful lips made an O shape. “Kicked out? What do you mean?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard,” he said. “Bad news usually travels fast around here.”

“I haven’t heard anything, Will. What’s going on?”

He told her about the unauthorized race, the theft of the shuttles, and Paul’s misadventure on Phoebe. He didn’t leave out any details, and when he was finished she had a look of total shock on her face.

“Will, you stupid dumb idiot! I am so glad you’re okay. But how lame can you possibly be?”

“How many degrees of lameness are there?” he replied. “Because I guess I’m pretty far down the list.”

“And you don’t know yet what your punishment is going to be?”

“I’m supposed to report to the superintendent in ...” he looked at his chron. “Twenty-two minutes. With Paul. I guess we’ll both find out then.”

“Can I go with you?” she asked, stroking his arm solicitously.

“Better not,” he suggested. “Guilt by association, you know. Save your own career.”

“I’ll wait outside,” she said. “But I want to know what happens as soon as you get out.”

“Deal,” Will agreed. “If I get thrown out you can make me dinner to console me. If I don’t, you can make me dinner to celebrate.”

“There are ... various ways we could celebrate,” she said with a sidelong glance.

“If you’re suggesting what I hope you are,” Will said, “I don’t want to think about it until after I’m out of Superintendent Vyrek’s office. I swear that Vulcan can read minds. Even without a mind-meld.”

“Then I’m not going to tell you what I’m suggesting,” Felicia declared. “Until after.”

Twenty-seven minutes later, Will and Paul were standing at attention in the superintendent’s office as she paced in a circle around them, hands clasped behind her back. Captain Pendel, their flight instructor, and Admiral Paris were also in the room, but both men stood back and let the superintendent have the floor. “You are lucky that I am a Vulcan, gentlemen, and not a human. Because a human, at a time like this, would have a very difficult time controlling her anger. You are both, for the most part, excellent cadets, with admirable records. But you are both headstrong, impulsive, and apparently lacking in any kind of what you call common sense and what I call reason. You stole– stole—vehicles from the Academy’s Flight Training Base. One of those vehicles was in for repairs, but you somehow were not even aware of it. You, Mr. Rice, managed to crash that vehicle into one of Saturn’s moons without killing yourself. You, Mr. Riker, disobeyed a direct order and flew into an ion storm in order to rescue the foolhardy Mr. Rice. The fact that you are both standing here is an affront to the laws of probability, not to mention the regulations of Starfleet. Does that about sum it up?”

“It seems to, sir,” Will said, suitably chastened by her monologue.

“Yes, sir,” Paul agreed.

“You are both in your last year,” Superintendent Vyrek continued. “I should put you back a year. But Starfleet can use your skills sooner rather than later. And I would have to put up with you both for another year, and that aggravation, I assure you, is more than I can bear. Therefore, I will not punish myself and my instructors in such a fashion. Instead, I will put a strongly worded reprimand in each of your permanent files. And I will advise you not to be brought back to this office again, for any reason, during your final months at this Academy. If you are, I will not even take the time to talk to you, but will summarily expel you. Am I understood?”

“Loud and clear, sir,” Paul said.

“Mr. Riker?”

“Yes, sir,” Will answered. “Understood, sir.”

“The fish incident was bad,” Superintendent Vyrek said. “This is far, far worse. Do not let it happen again.”

“Yes, sir,” both cadets replied in unison.

“I have nothing more I care to say to either of you,” the superintendent said dismissively. “But I believe Admiral Paris does.”

Owen Paris stepped to the center of the room and stood in front of the cadets, looking them up and down as if on an inspection tour. “Gentlemen,” he said. “That was quite a stunt you pulled. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

“We are, sir,” Paul said.

“As Admiral Vyrek says, you are lucky you’re not both dead. You do realize that, right?”

“Yes, sir,” Will replied. “We do.”

“You went down on one of Saturn’s frozen moons, Rice. And you went after him, Riker, even though it meant flying with no shields in an ion storm, less than a kilometer from the surface.”

“That seems to be an accurate description, sir,” Will said.

“Stupid. Incredibly stupid.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I docked both your grades the last time we were here together, didn’t I? After what Admiral Vyrek so astutely refers to as ‘the fish incident’?”

“Yes, sir, you did,” Paul said. “And my squadron had to repeat the class.”

“The second time you took it, your grade improved, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, it just improved again. Both of you. Out of a possible one hundred points in my class, you both score one-fifty.”

“I’m sorry, sir?” Will said, not quite understanding.

“You were stupid, both of you,” Admiral Paris explained. “By all rights your frozen corpses should be up on Phoebe. But you survived. I teach a survival class. I haven’t had any students show me what you two have, ever.”

“Yes, sir,” Paul said. Will was still at attention, eyes front, but he could hear Paul’s smile in his voice.

“But, sir—” he began.

“Just say ‘yes, sir,’ ” Paul instructed him.

“Yes, sir,” Will repeated, catching on. “And thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me,” Admiral Paris said. “Just stay out of trouble. A few more months, okay? I think even you two can do that.”

“Yes, sir,” both cadets responded.

“You are dismissed,” Superintendent Vyrek said from her desk. Her voice was weary. Will suspected he’d be weary too if he had to deal with cadets like himself all the time.

Outside, Felicia waited for him. She ran to him when he exited the building, arms wide, and he caught her in his own and scooped her up. “A reprimand in my file,” he said. “And Paris raised my survival grade.”

“So it’s celebrating and not consoling?”

“That’s right,” he affirmed.

“Oh, goody,” Felicia said. She nuzzled against Will’s neck and nipped the flesh there with her teeth. “Then I can tell you what I was suggesting earlier.”

“I’m not sure we need to really talk about it,” Will said, his lips urgently seeking hers. “In fact,” he mumbled against her mouth, “talking may even be counterproductive.”

Felicia broke away from him and started to run. “Oh, we can talk,” she shouted back over her shoulder. “Until we get back to my room. After that, I think we’ll be much too busy.”

And she was right.

Chapter 26

The last couple of months, Will had learned, were definitely the hardest. He had heard about schools where students could basically skate through their last year, but Starfleet Academy was not one of those. Here, course work got progressively more difficult from the beginning to the end. When he was finished at the Academy, a cadet needed to be able to step from the campus onto a starship or starbase, where the lives of others might depend on his knowledge, experience, and reactions. There could be no slacking off.

So he saw Felicia when he could, but mostly he bore down and worked. He closed himself in his room when he wasn’t at classes, usually alone—because when Felicia was there, they found it hard to focus on their work—and studied. He had, for the time being, set aside most other activities. Outings with friends, athletics beyond a minimal daily workout ... those were important but not as important as making up the grade handicap that had been with him from his first year. He had made great progress, he knew. His grades had improved every year, and he’d become much more confident in his own abilities. But he still had those lousy first-year grades on his record, and if he was to be satisfied in his own performance he wanted to balance them out with exceptional grades this time.

He was in his room, as usual, the night Dennis Haynes knocked on his door in something like a panic. The rapid-fire pounding startled Will, who was deeply immersed in a text on the geological specifications of Class-G planets of the Ophiucus sector. He pushed himself away from the desk, still caught somewhere between two worlds, his eyes not wanting to leave the computer screen because he didn’t want to have to find his place again in the discussion of the effect of cooling magmas on crystallization processes. Finally he forced himself to abandon the screen because he knew the door was locked. Specifically so I wouldn’t be bothered,he thought, so how well did that work?

When he opened the door Dennis stood there, his face flushed as if he’d been running, his brow wrinkled, mouth turned down in a frown. “I can’t do this, Will,” Dennis said without preface. “I just can’t do it.”

Will, tempted to simply close the door and go back to his work, instead waved Dennis in. “Can’t do what?” he asked reflexively, thinking, Don’t ask, because he’ll only want to tell you and then you’re stuck.

“This. The work. The Academy. Any of it.” Dennis’s words gushed out of him like water from a broken pipe.

“Calm down, Dennis. Have a seat.” Will closed the door and ushered Dennis to the couch. He put his hands on Dennis’s shoulders and pushed his friend down, then pulled up the chair he’d been using at the computer, turned it around, and straddled the back of it, facing Dennis. “What’s the problem?”

“I am so far behind,” Dennis said. “I’m so stuck, and I just can’t seem to understand anything anymore. I can’t catch up with anything. I can’t grasp whatever it is we’re supposed to be learning, and the more I try the more I worry that I’m not getting it. And if I don’t get it, then I don’t belong here.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Will said with a smile, hoping to cajole Dennis back into making some kind of sense. “But it’s probably not as bad as you think. You’re just getting nervous.”

Dennis shook his head vigorously. “I’m beyond nervous, Will. Nervous was months ago. I’m way past that. I’m into terrified now. Petrified.”

“You need to relax, that’s all,” Will said. “When was the last time you went out and had some fun?”

“There’s no time for fun, Will,” Dennis insisted, shaking his head again. “I need to work every waking hour or I’m just not going to make it. And I can’t do that, because there are classes, and then if I forget to eat, then I get weak, and ...”

Will found himself saddened and appalled at the same time. “Dennis, you’ve got to eat. You’ve got to take care of yourself. You can’t possibly keep up with the work if you’re not in your best physical condition. You can’t skip meals.”

“I have to, Will,” Dennis said. “It’s easy for you—”

“No it’s not.”

“Easier, then. For you and the others. For Estresor Fil, the course work is a breeze. Even Felicia. But for me, I don’t know, it just doesn’t sink in. This stuff doesn’t come naturally. My dad’s a farmer, you know? Maybe I’ve got dirt in my veins.”

“You have blood, same as everyone else,” Will replied. Then, remembering some of the more alien types around, he amended himself. “Well, nearly everyone.”

“It doesn’t seem like I have much in common with anyone,” Dennis continued. Will didn’t think he was even listening anymore, just venting. “It’s so much harder for me than for anyone else. There’s so much of it that I just don’t get. I wish I did—I want to serve. I want to be out there, you know, exploring new worlds. I have so much curiosity about the galaxy—”

“Then you have what you need,” Will interrupted, his own work forgotten for now. “You can pick up the rest. You have the drive, the courage, the desire, Dennis. The learning and experience can be taught, but the things you have, that’ll make you an asset to Starfleet, are the things that can’t be taught. If you didn’t have those I’d agree that you’re a hopeless case, but you do.”

“ Youthink I do. I used to think so. Now I’m not so sure.”

Will threw up his hands. “I don’t know what you want, Dennis.” He rose and paced around the room. “You want me to tell you that you’re doomed? That you should just drop out now? Because I’d be lying if I did that. I don’t believe that.”

Dennis’s gaze followed Will as he walked, his face crestfallen. “I’m sorry, Will. I shouldn’t even have bothered you.” He glanced at the computer. “I know you’re busy too.”

“You’re my friend, Dennis,” Will said. “There’s no such thing as too busy for a friend.”

“Thanks, Will.”

“So is there any way I can help you?”

“Well, that’s the thing,” Dennis said. “I was hoping you could tutor me.”

“Tutor?” Will echoed. His first thought was just how time-intensive that would be, if Dennis was really as far behind as he claimed. “I don’t know if I’m the best guy for that.”

“You’re the only one I’d even ask, Will,” Dennis implored. “You’re my best friend here. You know me better than anyone, and you have a knack for explaining complicated stuff in ways that makes it all seem so simple.”

“But—”

“I know it’d take a lot of your time, Will. Too much, probably, to catch me up. You could tutor somebody smart in no time at all, but I’m a losing proposition.”

“That’s not what I said,” Will objected.

“I know. And I do have one other idea. Something that’d take less of your time. It’d hardly put you out at all.”

“What’s that?”

“You could let me cheat off you,” Dennis said.

Will didn’t even know how to answer that. Never mind that it was impractical. It could be done, he supposed, for some courses, though it’d be tricky and would require quite a bit of advance work. But it was so clearly unethical. ...

Dennis watched him like a dog waiting for a scrap of food from the dinner table.

“Dennis, that’s ...”

“I know it’s a lot to ask, Will. Believe me, I know it is. I wouldn’t if I had any other choice. I’m going to fail, Will. I’ve never failed before, really, not at anything important. But I will this time, I just know it. And I don’t know how to handle that. I don’t know how to deal with it.” He paused and angled his head toward the floor. “I’m afraid.”

Will would have liked to have made a snap decision, which he knew would be the right one. He felt like he owed Dennis a bit more consideration, though. They had been through a lot together. In large ways and small, Dennis had helped him get through the rigors of Starfleet Academy. Turning down a friend who had done all that for him just didn’t seem right.

But neither did the alternatives. Giving Dennis the kind of tutoring help he was asking for would mean sacrificing most of his own study time. Instead of finishing near the top of his class, and countering those bad early grades with strong late ones, he’d be lucky to pass everything. He would squeak by, but his record would not be nearly as impressive as he’d hoped, and it might actually affect his starship posting.

And helping Dennis cheat would be even worse. Starfleet stressed fairness and honesty, and cheating was neither. It ran against everything Starfleet stood for. And that was only a problem if they didn’t get caught. If they did, they’d both be booted out of the Academy, and any chance of ever serving in Starfleet would vanish. Will didn’t know what he’d do then. Go back to Alaska? Remain a civilian like his old man? Eventually marry, then abandon his family later in life to pursue a dream he’d abandoned years before?

No, it didn’t take much thought to dismiss the idea of cheating. But the tutoring thing, now, that was harder. Because that made a certain amount of sense, at least from Dennis’s perspective. Tutoring could actually help Dennis master the material. He would come out of the Academy more educated and a better asset to Starfleet. He would get passing grades, instead of flunking out. There was no downside.

For Dennis, that was. For Will, the downside was the time it would require. Way too much of it, he knew. If Dennis was as bad off as he said—and Will was pretty sure he wasn’t entirely exaggerating his position—then he would need massive amounts of work. Will could probably do it, but only at the expense of his own grades and his own future.

This was a situation, Will knew, in which there was no way to win. There were only bad options, and the problem he faced was, which option was the least bad of the bunch? He resented Dennis more than a little for even putting him in this position, though he understood that Dennis would not have done it if he’d seen any other way out.

As he paced around the room thinking about these things, he knew Dennis was watching him again. He looked out the bay window at the San Francisco skyline, a million lights glittering against the darkness, like the starry skies he yearned to travel. What he did, the decision he made in these next few moments, could determine whether or not he ever traveled those spaceways.

“Here’s the deal,” he said at last, turning back to Dennis. “I’ll tutor you.” Dennis broke into a grin, but Will cut him off before he could express gratitude, knowing that his good cheer would only last a moment. “But I can only afford the time to offer you very limited tutoring. I can help out in the classes that we’re in together, because helping you understand those will help me get a better grasp of the material. But for the others, for the older work ... I don’t know, maybe you can try Estresor Fil or something. I just ... Dennis, I really can’t spare the time. Not without killing my own chances.”

Dennis’s smile had vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I know, Will. Believe me. I’m so sorry I had to even ask you.” Will thought that would be the end of it, and was relieved that Dennis was taking the news with such good grace. But then Dennis dropped the anvil. “But I’m begging you, Will, to reconsider. Limited tutoring won’t help me. I’m too lost. I need major help. Or I need to cheat. I can get this stuff, I’m just not as smart as everyone else and I need more time, a lot more. Cheating is wrong, I know that. But it’ll buy me time to really understand everything. That’s what I need.”

“Dennis, don’t ask me for that,” Will said sadly. “I can’t. I just ... I can’t.”

Dennis stared at him with eyes that had gone cold. Will was surprised. It was like looking at someone he didn’t even know. “You could, Will,” he said, his voice glacial. “If you wanted to. To help a friend, you could.”

“What?” Will said, astonished at Dennis’s sudden sea change. “You’re saying I’m not your friend because I won’t help you cheat?”

“I’m just saying that if you really considered me a friend, you’d help me in some way.”

“I offered to tutor you—”

“In a very limited way,” Dennis reminded him. “An hour here, an hour there. And at the end of it, you feel good about yourself and I flunk out anyway. No, thanks. If you don’t care to offer some real help, then I guess we know what this friendship is.”

“What?” Will asked him, still bewildered by this turn.

“A lie,” Dennis said. “Nothing but a lie.” He lurched to his feet and stomped across Will’s room, headed for the door. “Thanks for nothing, Will,” he said. He let himself out.

In stunned silence, Will watched him go. Maybe it’s the stress,he told himself. It’s making Dennis act in ways he wouldn’t ordinarily. He’ll come hack and apologize in a few minutes. Or tomorrow, first thing, he’ll feel so bad he’ll beg me to forgive him.

But even as those thoughts bounced around in his head, Will knew that he was probably wrong. The hateful look in Dennis’s eyes, at the end, the set of his jaw ... maybe this Dennis was the real Dennis, and the one Will had thought he’d known was the imposter. Maybe Dennis Haynes was someone who would befriend you as long as he thought you could help him, and then cut you off as soon as you were no longer useful. He didn’t want to believe that, but he knew that it was possible. The way Dennis had glared at him brought that home.

Taking his place at the computer again, Will realized that he had probably lost a friend, for good.

But on the bright side, it gave him that much more time to study.