Текст книги "Deny Thy Father"

Автор книги: Jeff Mariotte

Соавторы: Jeff Mariotte
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Aronson ignored the taunt and touched his combadge. “Pegasus,”he said, “five to beam aboard.”

As Will dematerialized, to arrive a moment later in the transporter room of the Pegasus,he thought he heard the terrible mob break through the prison walls. He hoped Luwadis could calm the mob before he and his guards had all been killed.

Chapter 33

There was little security in the psychiatric facility. Carson Cook wasn’t considered a danger to himself or anyone else. One had to have some kind of mental process to be dangerous. Carson was just a blank slate, and no one had written menace onto it. And psychiatric science was such that very few people needed to be confined. So Tanguy Messina was alone in the building with Carson Cook, and once Tanguy was dead, there was no one standing in his way.

Carson walked away from the building rapidly, partly in order to put distance between himself and Messina’s body, but mainly to find and kill his next victim. There was menace in him now, certainly. He personified danger. He didn’t have a conscience—had he been asked, he wouldn’t have been able to define the word. He didn’t have a moral code or a set of ethical standards. All those things had been left behind in the man he had once been, but was no longer.

Now, he was a targeted missile.

At uneven intervals he received new information, helping him lock onto his target. As he walked, some people stared at him, he noticed. Eventually he figured out that it was his robe. He was naked underneath, and it wasn’t what they were wearing. When he came to that conclusion, his mind told him that he should do something about it. He needed to blend in if he was to reach his goal. He watched a man about his size enter a house, and as the man was just passing through the doorway, Carson rushed up the walk and hurled himself at the man. His momentum carried them both inside. The man cried out but Carson slammed a fist into the man’s throat, effectively silencing him. The man flailed at him. He was no soldier, though; he was weak, and soft. Carson smashed his head against the wall a few times, and it left a thick red smear when the man sank to the floor.

The man’s clothes were torn and bloody now, but Carson understood that he was inside the man’s home. He went upstairs, found a closet full of similar suits, and put one on. With a tunic and pants of the same color, a pleasant royal blue, and a pair of actual boots, Carson figured he would look enough like anyone else on the street to withstand casual scrutiny. He looked around for a few more minutes, to see if there was anything else here that might be useful to him. He didn’t find anything, but so attired, he went back out into the city and waited for more instructions.

A night passed, and a day, and then, as if he had always known it, he knew the location of his target. He knew what his target looked like, how he might be dressed, what the sound of his voice was. He went to his target’s approximate location, and he waited.

And finally, his target showed.

As promised, Kyle reported his new address to Owen Paris as soon as he’d secured an apartment. And as Owen had promised, he relayed the information to Starfleet Security, to personnel, to records—to virtually every department he could think of, short of writing it on the walls of Starfleet Headquarters in giant red letters. If there were going to be more attacks against Kyle, they would happen soon.

They’d have to. Kyle had been feeling low-grade anxiety ever since he’d entered Earth’s orbit. He wanted to get this over with, once and for all, so he could go back to living his life.

He spent the next day trying as best he could to put his affairs back into some kind of order. He retrieved his abandoned belongings from storage—his books, his maps, his clothing, some artwork, some sentimental items that reminded him of Annie, or Kate. To these, in his new home, he added the holoimage of Michelle. The three women he hadn’t proved worthy of. But maybe it wasn’t too late to try.

His new apartment had a food replicator, but he was back in San Francisco, which was still one of the best places in the galaxy to get a fine meal. So that evening, instead of eating by himself in his apartment, he went out. He had his heart set on Italian—some capellini pomodoro, maybe, with a nice bottle of Saint Emilion, a favorite wine he’d introduced Owen Paris to over dinner a few years earlier.

Notwithstanding his generalized anxiety and the grief that still clawed at his heart, Kyle felt better overall than he had since before the attack on Starbase 311. Even with all the horror he experienced there, the time on Hazimot had been healing and restful. He felt sharp, alert, and clearheaded. The hard manual labor he had done there had left him strong, with stamina he hadn’t enjoyed since he was much younger. And being back in San Francisco helped, too. He loved the city; always had. Its cool breezes, crazily diverse architecture, and almost uniquely polyglot population sang to him. As he walked down the street, confident that whatever Italian restaurant he came to first could provide an excellent meal, he felt almost happy again. He felt, at least, the possibility of happiness; no, the inevitability of it.

Inevitability. He liked the sound of that. He even tried saying it out loud. He repeated it, almost like a mantra, inside his head as he approached a small storefront restaurant called Paolo’s, its sign glowing golden and inviting in the twilight.

But before he reached Paolo’s, he saw a man coming toward him in an ill-fitting blue suit, a glazed expression on his face. This, he was pretty sure, was it. Maybe the first of many, but definitely an attack. You should have armed yourself,he thought bitterly. A phaser would make short work of this guy.He hadn’t wanted to be overly impulsive, though. Maybe the man was just lost, a stranger in town, confused and looking for a hand. The way Kyle had been feeling lately, he might have fired first, leaving San Francisco with one less tourist and himself with an even bigger problem.

His muscles tensed, his heartbeat and respiration quickened. Still the man came toward him, not deviating from his path. His hands were clenching and releasing, and Kyle knew then that he was not wrong. He glanced around himself, rapidly, trying to determine whether or not this person was alone. It appeared that he was, so Kyle froze in position and let the man come to him.

As he neared, steel flashed in his hands. The man carried a Ligonian knife, its blade wickedly curved, in his right hand. Kyle barely had time to register that when the man in blue sprang at him.

Kyle dropped to a partial crouch, minimizing his target area and bringing his arms in front of himself for defense. Now Kyle recognized him: Carson Cook, the supposedly comatose security officer; Owen had sent over an image of him last night. Cook moved in fast, blade slashing wildly toward him. Kyle blocked the first attack with a blow to Cook’s forearm. Cook almost dropped the knife, but he recovered it and brought it down below Kyle’s waist level, then stabbed up, aiming for the ribs. Kyle caught Cook’s wrist, the knife’s point just nicking his own forearm as he did. With his other hand he reached for Cook’s throat. Cook dodged the arm, so Kyle, still gripping the wrist, kicked at Cook’s knee instead. The kick connected, hard, and Cook lost his footing. He fell to one knee and Kyle jerked his arm skyward, twisting as he did. Cook’s hand spasmed and the Ligonian knife went flying, landing on the street with a clatter.

As soon as Kyle released his wrist, Cook lunged forward again, this time from his kneeling position. His mouth opened and he snapped at Kyle’s stomach. Kyle brought a knee up, smashing it into Cook’s jaw. Cook’s teeth crunched sickeningly and he swayed backward. Blood appeared at the corners of his mouth and he spat bits of tooth into the street, but he didn’t go down.

Rather than wait for the next attack, Kyle doubled his fists together and swung them like a baseball bat, catching the side of Cook’s face. Cook’s head snapped sideways and the fight went out of him. He slumped to the street.

Before Kyle could catch his breath, two Starfleet security officers ran up to him, phasers out and pointed at Cook. “You’re a little late,” Kyle said. “I thought you were supposed to protect me, not just clean up the mess afterward.”

“Sorry, sir,” one of the security team said. Her hair was a mass of tight blond coils and her uniform sleeves bulged at the biceps. “We were trying to stay out of sight, to draw out your attacker. And then, well, it looked like you had things under control.”

The other officer, a male with dark hair and a somber face, knelt down next to the body in the street. “It’s Carson Cook,” he said.

The blonde nodded. “He escaped yesterday from the mental care facility he’s been living in,” she explained to Kyle. “Nobody thought he could so much as open a door.”

“Apparently he’s better.”

“Doesn’t look like it from here,” the male officer said. He held up Carson Cook’s head. Cook’s eyes were open but there was no spark of life in them. His mouth was slack, a mixture of blood and saliva running down his chin. The officer waved his hand in front of Cook’s eyes but they didn’t track, didn’t even blink. “He looks just the same as ever.”

“But you saw him attack me,” Kyle insisted.

“Yes, we saw it,” the blonde said. “Doesn’t make sense, does it?”

“Not a bit,” Kyle agreed. “But then, a lot of things about this whole situation haven’t made sense for a long time. That’s the only consistency, in fact.”

“Well, maybe this will put an end to it,” the blonde officer suggested.

Kyle shook his head. “No, it won’t. Cook’s just one man. He’s a tool, somehow, but he’s not what this is all about.”

The officer shrugged. “One thing at a time, I guess. We’ll get him picked up and put back into custody. In a more secure facility, this time—he’s a murderer, now. And we’ll stick a little closer from now on.”

“Sounds good,” Kyle said. “I was just going to Paolo’s there for some dinner. That shook up my appetite a bit but I think I can still eat.”

“Let me have a look inside first, sir,” she said. “Just in case.”

“Fine,” Kyle said. “Go ahead.”

He glanced back at the male officer, who had just used his combadge to call for “help removing Cook’s comatose body. But as Kyle watched, Cook—his eyes animated again—snatched the phaser from the officer’s holster and triggered it. The beam caught the male officer full in the torso. He screamed once and then fell onto the sidewalk, his uniform shirt smoldering.

Cook turned the phaser toward Kyle, who dropped flat on the sidewalk just in time to miss the beam that shot over his head. Cook tracked him down and fired again. Kyle rolled to the side and the beam missed again, but not by much. Before Cook could aim again, a phaser blast caught him in the head. Cook twitched once, dropped the stolen phaser, and was still.

“Damn!” the blonde said as she rushed to her partner’s side. “How do you keep up with that? One second he’s basically an empty shell, and the next he’s alert and deadly.”

“I wish I knew,” Kyle admitted.

She held two fingers against her partner’s neck. “He’s gone,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Mack’s a great guy. Nice wife, terrific kids, the whole package, you know?”

“I’m very sorry,” Kyle said. He wanted to be sympathetic, but at the same time he didn’t take his eyes off Cook, just in case.

When the female officer spoke again, there was a new edge in her voice, of anger, even rage. “I don’t know what you’re mixed up in, sir, but it’s getting pretty expensive. First the attendant at the care facility, and now Mack.”

Kyle put a hand on her shoulder, but kept an eye on Cook. He had hoped to be able to question his attacker—whoever it turned out to be. But even if Cook had survived the phaser blast, wherever his mind was, he was beyond interrogation. “I know it is,” he said softly. “It’s been expensive for a long time: If there’s a way to finish it, I’m going to find it, though. You can count on that.”

Chapter 34

Will was exhausted.

The away party had taken more energy out of him than he’d anticipated. He hadn’t had to do much of anything, but the level of tension had been draining, and now that his shift was over all he wanted to do was hit the rack and sleep until he had to report for duty the next morning. The last hour or so on the bridge, flying out of the Candelar system, he’d barely been able to stifle his yawns. Captain Pressman, though, looked alert and crisp as ever, and Will hadn’t wanted to let on how tired he was.

It was funny, he thought, how different the pace of life onboard was compared to the Academy. At the Academy, the day was broken up more—different classes, different faces, and different activities—so there was always variety. When he was on duty he was on the bridge most of the time, with the same crew and the same responsibilities, and at the end of the day he was almost always beat. He guessed he’d get used to it, and once he had a chance to start an exercise regime he’d have more energy. So far, though, that hadn’t happened, and it wouldn’t tonight.

As he made his way down the corridor to his quarters, nodding to crew members whose names he was trying to keep straight in his head, he was stopped by a hand gripping his shoulder. “Will,” a voice said, “I just wanted to thank you.”

Will turned to see Marden Zaffos looking intently at him. The security guard, a couple of years older than Will, had a thick mass of dark curly hair, and around his eyes there were dark smudged rings that reminded Will of a raccoon.

“No problem,” Will replied. “I don’t know if you heard, but Luwadis was able to quell the riot before too many were hurt. The mob is probably still mad at him for calling us in, but my impression is they’re even madder at us.”

Marden nodded, his hands folded across his chest. “Can’t really blame them,” he said. “But I know I should never have gone out onto that balcony. That was a stupid mistake. I just wanted to see ... to get a glimpse of Candelar.”

“We all make mistakes,” Will said, biting back another yawn.

“Some are worse than others.” Marden eyed the ceiling for a moment, and cleared his throat. “Can I talk to you, Will? Someplace more private?”

Will hoped this wouldn’t take long. He could almost hear his bed calling to him. “Sure,” he agreed, not wanting to turn away a fellow crew member, and potential friend, who clearly had something important on his mind. “I’m just around the corner, if that’s okay.”

“That would be great,” Marden said. “If you have something else you need to do, we could talk another time ...”

“No, now’s fine,” Will said. “I don’t have any plans except for sleeping.” He led the way to his quarters and opened the door. Marden followed him in. Once inside, Will lowered the bed and sat on it, his back up against the bulkhead. He offered Marden the desk chair.

“I should never have gone on that mission,” Marden said. “My mother’s father was from Handihar.”

“In the Candelar system,” Will observed.

“That’s right. Her mother, my grandmother, was human, and my father’s family is all human. So I just have that little bit of Handiharian in me. But my grandfather always told me these great stories about his homeworld, when I was a boy. I never thought I’d see the place. Candelar IV isn’t exactly the same thing, but I figured it was the closest I’d ever get, and I just couldn’t resist taking a look. I didn’t think it would be a problem, but I guess I wasn’t really thinking it through. I put us all in danger, and I’m sorry.”

“We were never really in danger,” Will pointed out. “We always had the option of beaming out before there was trouble.”

“That’s true,” Marden agreed. “But still—it was a stupid thing to do.”

“I won’t argue with that.”

“But at the same time,” Marden went on, “I couldn’t help sympathizing with them.”

“With the mob?” Will asked, slightly surprised. “They wanted to lynch Plure.”

Marden nodded. “And Handihar is one of the worlds he plundered,” he reminded Will. “A hundred thousand dead, there, more or less. Basically so he could extort a payment from them to make him go away. And the payment has almost utterly destroyed their economy. Handihar is a backward place, Will. Tribal, low-tech. Not wealthy. And not able to stand up to a heavily armed madman like Endyk Plure on their own.”

“Well, he’s in Starfleet hands now. A Federation trial will be fair, and he’ll be appropriately dealt with when it’s over.”

“Luwadis was right about that,” Marden argued. “There’s no fair way to deal with such a person. The best he should be able to hope for is a slow, agonizing death.”

“I understand how you feel, Marden,” Will assured him.

“I don’t think you do, Will. Those were my people. Distantly related, but still. Endyk Plure has to die for what he did, and I’m afraid that Federation justice won’t do the job.”

“So what do you propose?” Will asked. He wasn’t at all sure what Marden was driving at.

“I’ve got full access to the brig,” Marden said. “And I know the shift schedule. I can take care of it tonight, before we reach the transfer point.”

“No!” Will was shocked that Marden would even suggest something like that. “Marden, you can’t. You’re Starfleet. We have rules. Principles. You can’t just abandon those.”

“Yes, we have principles,” Marden said, leaning forward in the chair now. “But don’t you agree that some principles outweigh others? The idea that Endyk Plure’s life might be spared, in spite of all the deaths he’s caused—I just can’t take that. It’s repugnant to me.”

“But to take it all into your own hands ... how is that better?”

“It’s better because I would be killing one man, the killer of thousands. It’s just simple math, Will. One for many.”

“It’s more than math,” Will countered. “It’s what’s right and wrong. You can’t just decide for yourself that he’s guilty and decide his punishment.”

Marden stood up and paced around Will’s small room. “His punishment seems obvious to me. How could it be otherwise? Someone who is responsible for so many deaths ...”

“I’m just saying, there’s a system to determine that. When you put on the uniform of Starfleet, you agreed to enforce that system.”

“But, Will ... he ...” Marden looked down at Will, still sitting back on his own bed, and his face was full of anguish. Will felt bad for the man, but not so bad that he could agree with his plan. As tired as he was, he realized that if he could just keep Marden here, talking, maybe they’d get to the point where they were to transfer Endyk Plure to another vessel before Marden could throw away his own career. He could almost kick himself for the inspiration, but he felt he had to try.

“Tell me about Handihar, Marden. What did your grandfather tell you about it?”

Marden smiled for the first time, a little wistfully, as if remembering pleasant times with his grandfather. He drifted back over to the chair and sat down again. “Like I said, it’s mostly a tribal society,” he began. “Close to the land. It’s a big planet, huge, I guess, according to him, and his part of it is densely forested. Junglelike. They live in wooden structures, not much more than huts, I think. The air is so humid that the buildings have to be replaced on a pretty regular basis. My grandfather left there when he was a young man, but from what he has told me it’s still mostly that way.”

“Sounds pleasant,” Will said, just to keep Marden talking.

“I’ve always wanted to visit,” Marden told him, smiling a little as he thought about it. “He makes it sound kind of like paradise. But ... there’s one story he told me, Will. I think maybe it especially applies, in this case.”

Will had just wanted him to reminisce about the planet, trying to keep him away from the subject of Endyk Plure. But he guessed that sitting here talking was still better than seeking the guy out in the brig and killing him. “What story?” he asked.

Marden took a deep breath. Apparently it’s going to be a long one,Will thought. He hoped he could stay awake for it.

“Have you ever heard of a gralipha?”Marden asked by way of beginning.

Will racked his brain but couldn’t recall that he had.

“It’s a huge, wild beast,” Marden explained. “Many legged, and with a massive, heavy skull, horned on the top. Almost like some kind of Earth dinosaur, I think. Anyway, this story that my father’s family passed down, for generations, was about the time a graliphaattacked his family’s village. Just came in out of the jungle and ran around in a blind rage, berserk, smashing huts, killing with abandon. The people were taken by surprise—they lived with graliphasin the jungle all the time, but none had ever charged the village like this. They couldn’t do much to fight back—it was all they could do to try to stay out of its way. It cut a swath through the village and then left, back into the jungle it had come from.”

“Sounds kind of like those stories of rogue elephants,” Will suggested. “How they’d sometimes attack Indian villages.”

Marden nodded. “Very much like that. Except this thing was at least twice the size of any elephant. Or, that’s how my grandfather tells the story, anyway.”

“What did they do? The villagers.”

“They picked up after the attack. They buried their dead, they tended to the wounded, they rebuilt their homes and fortified the log wall around the village. Then they went into their culturally prescribed mourning period. For days, they mourned the dead, weeping and laying offerings at their graves. This was, grandfather said, how his people honored their dead.

“What they didn’t do was go after the gralipha.And six days later, it came back. It tore through the brand new fence like it was paper, and ran amuck again. More homes fell, more people died. Children and the elderly and those hurt in the first attack, especially, because they couldn’t dodge it in time.”

“That’s terrible,” Will said.

“It was. My grandfather can barely hold back the tears when he tells the story. Some of his ancestors—mine too, I guess—died in these attacks.

“But this time, the villagers reacted differently. They left the rebuilding and the mourning for later. They organized into hunting parties and they followed the path the beast made when it left the village. They tracked it. When they caught up to it, there was a terrible battle. More lives were lost. The thing swung its head and its horns gouged and tore at the villagers. Their weapons were just primitive spears and arrows and slings—they could barely penetrate its tough hide.

“They didn’t give up, though. They continued the fight. Eventually, their weapons found tender spots—the eyes, the roof of the mouth, the base of the neck. They brought the mad graliphadown, and they killed it, even though the cost was high. Because this was the only way they could guarantee that it would not return to their village later.”

Will understood. He shifted his position, sitting cross-legged on the bed with his spine straight. “So Endyk Plure is your gralipha,” he said.

Marden nodded. “He’s rampaged through the village once too often. If he’s not stopped at the first opportunity—that means now, tonight—there’s still the chance that he’ll escape and come back. His forces might be closing in on the Pegasuseven now. The authorities on Candelar IV said they wanted the Federation to take him so he’d get a fair trial, and so the mobs wouldn’t storm the prison, but I’m convinced that they were just as worried about Plure’s troops coming to his rescue.”

“You could be right,” Will admitted. “Although I doubt that Plure’s forces would want to risk an attack on Starfleet. Against the Candelar system—and I don’t mean to be dismissive, just realistic—they were tough guys. But that’s a pretty backward system. Against Starfleet, they’d be schoolyard bullies facing down real adults with real firepower. They wouldn’t have a chance. And the thing about bullies is, they only like to fight the weak. They usually leave the strong well enough alone.”

“Possibly,” Marden said. “But even if they don’t come for him, I won’t be convinced that he’ll never escape until I see him dead with my own eyes. And it wasn’t just ancient ancestors that he killed on Handihar, but family. My grandfather’s two sisters, and their entire families. There are just too many reasons for him to die, and none that I can see to let him live.”

“Except your career, and the oath you swore to uphold Federation law,” Will pointed out.

“That’s one argument, Will,” Marden said. “I’m just not sure it’s a good enough argument.”

Will had felt something nagging at him while Marden told his story, and now he remembered what it was. A story of his own, from his younger days, that might also be applicable. He closed his eyes for a minute, knowing that to do so was to risk falling right to sleep, but wanting to get the story straight in his mind before he started telling it. And when he did, it all came rushing back to him, as clear as if it had been yesterday.

It had been his fourteenth summer, he recalled. Valdez, still a small town, sat at the edge of one of the greatest wilderness areas in North America, but even so, he was beginning to feel constricted, limited, and impatient to see more of the world. But halfway through the summer, there was an event that promised diversion, and he welcomed it.

A campsite in the nearby wilderness had been attacked by a grizzly—a rogue, one of the campers said, enormous and vicious. The bear had torn though the tents, upending food lockers, and maiming one of the campers. The remaining campers—there had been, Will recalled, eight in all-had survived, and determined that someone needed to kill the bear before someone else was hurt. Some of the local people in Valdez volunteered to find the animal, agreeing that a rogue grizzly could be bad for their community and needed to be put down.

Will’s father was one of the volunteers. Will insisted that he should be allowed to go along. His father argued, but not very energetically, and he changed his mind more easily than Will had even anticipated. So they each got a phaser rifle and they joined the hunting party leaving from the campground early on the morning after the attack.

As they walked through the forests and meadows of the wilderness area, weapons at the ready, alert for any signs of the bear, Kyle Riker was more talkative than usual. “This is nice,” he had said. “I mean, not the idea that we have to kill a grizzly before it kills one of us. But being out here in the sunshine and the trees, with a blue sky over our heads, a father and son together ... we don’t do this sort of thing often enough, Will. We never have. My fault, I guess, and I’m sorry.”

He had stopped in the middle of the trail then, and laid a hand softly on Will’s shoulder—the kind of physical contact that was rare between this father and son. “I’m sorry for a lot of things,” he had said. “More than you can imagine. I hope one day you’ll understand why I’ve done things the way I have. I hope I’ve made some good choices, even when they haven’t seemed like it. A day like this, being out here with you—Will, you’re a man, look at you! I’m sure there are still things you need to learn, but I’m not so sure that I can teach them.”

He had gone quiet then, more like the father that Will was used to, the one who kept his feelings bottled up inside as if they were poison, and they had continued tracking the bear. When they’d lost the trail for a while, Will had found it by scouting in ever-wider circles until he cut across it, and Kyle had clapped him on the back. “You’ll be fine, Will. You’ll be just fine,” he had said. Will hadn’t realized then—hadn’t realized until just this moment, sitting in his quarters on the starship Pegasuswith Marden Zaffos, what Kyle had meant by that. He had known then that he was going to leave, going to abandon Will to his fate. The way Will handled a gun, the way he cut bear track—those were pretty meaningless skills, in the greater scheme of things, but somehow Kyle Riker had decided that they meant Will was mature enough to make his own way in the world.

They had, later that day, found the bear. She had a den, and when the hunting party approached she had growled ferociously and lunged at them. But several of the hunters fired at once, and the bear fell without any human casualties.

Inside the den, though, they found something that cast a different light on things. There were three cubs inside the den—dead cubs, bearing wounds that could only have been made with phasers. None of the campers had claimed to be hunters, and indeed none of them had joined this hunt. But they’d been the only ones out in this area that any of the townspeople knew about.

The hunting party returned to the campground and ransacked the tents until they found the hidden phaser rifles. The campers protested, denied, and then finally, faced with the evidence, admitted their guilt. They had tracked the bear for sport, finding her den and killing her cubs just because they could. It hadn’t occurred to them that the animals were an endangered species, that they had done something stupid and shameful, until it was too late. And when the bear came to their campsite, she was only seeking revenge for her loss.

Will told Marden the story in as much detail as he could remember, and when it was over Marden looked puzzled.

“Are you saying revenge is never legitimate?” he asked.

“Not at all, Marden. I’m just saying it’s something you have to be careful with. It’s more complicated than it looks, sometimes. If you kill Plure, are you the hunters? Or are you the bear?”

Marden shook his head. “Will, that story doesn’t even make any sense.”

“Who said life has to make sense?” Will shot back. “It’s just something that happened. Whatever you want to take away from it is up to you.”

“Well, what do you get from it?”

Will considered for a moment. “Something really unexpected,” he said. He described what his father had said, and what he now thought it meant. “It was my father’s good-bye speech,” he said. “It wasn’t much of one, but it was the best one he could bring himself to give.”