by Peter David
"Father, we are discussing a decision that relates to the entirety of one's life. It should come from both sources, should it not?"
"I just..."
"Father," and he folded his arms in what could best be described as a defensive posture. "I love Deanna. If I did not, I would not marry her, despite all the other 'logical' reasons to do so. I did not come here seeking your blessing. However, I would be most appreciative if I received it."
Sergey looked into the eyes of his adopted son. So many times, he had found those cold eyes unreadable. Life among humans had never been easy, and Worf had been hurt time and . . first by the natural cruelty of children, and then by
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the far more insidious cruelty of adults who feared the burly Klingon as if he were a walking pile of explosives in their midst. But Worf would have considered it the height of humiliation to let any of that pain show through, and he became very adept at hiding it.
This time, though, Worf had let his guard down ever so slightly. It was all there in his eyes, the need for his father's approval. When Worf had taken on the formidable challenge of being the first Klingon in Starfleet, he had done so partly to emulate Sergey. In taking on a wife, and endeavoring to do right by his child, Sergey realized that Worf was once more following Sergey's example, albeit perhaps unconsciously.
Sergey had reservations, serious reservations. It was Worf s life, however, and Worf wasn't asking for his opinion on Deanna (a lovely girl) or on how it would affect Alexander (he clearly was happy with her) or ...
The more Sergey thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense. His instinct, upon which he had operated for so many years, told him that it was a mistake. That they were simply too different. But Sergey was hardly the expert on affairs of the heart. After all, he hadn't had to make decisions regarding a mate in nearly half a century, so it wasn't as if he were in practice.
His son needed him. That was the bottom line. His son needed the approval of his father, and he had no earthly reason to withhold it.
"Of course you have my blessing, Worf," he said. "You know that. Mine, and your mother's. I didn't want you think that I..."
"It is all right, Father." And then, to Sergey's surprise, the edges of Worf s mouth began to twitch. Slowly they pulled taut and then up, and Worf presented that rarest of phenomena: his smile. Not the feral cross between a grin and snarl that sometimes adorned his face when combat beckoned. This was a sincere, almost human smile. "I know that we are an unusual match, and I know that you have my best interests at heart."
"I'm relieved that you understand, Worf." He shivered
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slightly in the cold air. "Come, son. Getting a little cold for these old bones. How about if we go inside and I make you some warm milk, the way I used to."
"Father .. . you never made me warm milk."
"Never?"
Worf cast his thoughts back. "You did, however, give me vodka from time to time."
"Well, then . . ." He clapped his son on the shoulder. "Let's see what we can do to accommodate you. You have the vodka, I'll have the milk. Somehow, I think, that's appropriate."
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CHAPTER
6
Kill
him."
The first syllable was barely out of the female Romulan's mouth when Tom Riker moved.
As tired as he was, as exhausted as he was, it didn't slow him in the slightest as he lunged before any of the Romulan guards could fire at him. The one thing he had going for him was that they were in relatively confined quarters. They couldn't all simply start shooting, since they would be as likely to hit one another as him. It was the only advantage he had going for him, and it really wasn't all that much of one. That alone was discouraging enough, but he wasn't about to let it slow him down.
It was a valiant effort. His initial charge took him into the midsection of the nearest Romulan, who let out a gasp of air as he staggered back, carried by Riker's weight and sheer manic energy. The woman blinked in surprise, as if amazed over the pure bravado and yet utter futility in which Riker indulged during what were certain to be his last moments. Riker shoved the Romulan guard away and lashed out with one foot to the crotch of the nearest standing Romulan. The guard doubled over, and for just the slightest of moments Riker actually
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seemed as if he might have a chance. A chance of what, exactly, he wasn't completely sure. He had no idea where to run, no clue to whom he could turn to garner an ally. But first thing was most definitely first: If he didn't get out of there and survive, he didn't have a hope in hell.
A sudden movement from one guard caught his eye. He turned to deal with the immediate threat, and as a consequence didn't see the butt of the Romulan disruptor that was being brought down with customary Romulan fierceness on his skull. Stars exploded behind his eyes, and Riker sank to one knee. He reached out as if trying to find an invisible support on which he could haul himself up. A second blow to the head finished off any hope of that avenue as Riker slid to the floor. He felt a wave of nausea gripping him. He now had a new plan: He wanted to live long enough to vomit onto someone's boots. That seemed all that he was capable of at that moment, but at least it had the merit of making a political statement.
That was when a loud, stern voice said, "Leave him alone!"
Riker couldn't quite believe the origin of the voice. In fighting through the haze that descended around his skull, he was able to see that the female Romulan was likewise surprised. She was looking at Saket, who had been about to leave when the scuffle in the transporter room broke out.
"Leave him alone," Saket repeated, every word clearly an effort. "He . . . saved my life, Sela. I owe him. So do you. If not for him, your rescue would have been in vain."
"But. . ."
"Don't 'but' me, Sela. I've known you too long. I knew your mother and she . .."
Then Saket's knees began to buckle under him completely. The Romulans who were supporting him were frozen in place, clearly uncertain of what to do. "Get him out of here, now!" the woman whom he had called "Sela" ordered. Saket was promptly hauled away, faint protests still audible from his lips.
Riker didn't see any of it, because he was on his hands and
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knees, the world still whirling around him. A pair of booted feet slowly stepped into his narrow view of his environment, and he wondered if these were going to be the lucky boots onto which he was going to be heaving.
"What are you doing here, Riker?"
The angry and contemptuous question cut straight through him.
She knows me? Riker thought wonderingly, and then instantly it became clear to him. She knew Will Riker, his counterpart and identical twin. From the tone of voice, she'd had dealings with him that had not gone especially well for her. The logical thing to do would be to tell her that he was, in fact, not Will Riker at all, but rather Tom Riker. Tom Riker ...
.. . Will Riker's identical and genetically impossible-to-differentiate twin created by a one-in-a-miUion transporter accident.
Oh yeah. That was going to fly.
That was exactly the thing to do when surrounded by a hostile enemy-put forward a preposterous story that would very likely be greeted with utter contempt. He could hear the reaction in his mind: You expect us to believe that? Are you insane? What sort of fools do you take us for? And that would immediately be followed by more kicking, more beatings, his head caved in and him, Riker, reduced to a state where he was either too pathetic to bother keeping alive, or such a mess that death would be preferable and they wouldn't oblige him just to be bastards.
But he didn't know what else to say.
So he said nothing. He just crouched there on the floor, trying to battle through the wave of nausea sweeping over him without succumbing to it.
"The strong, silent type. How very typical," said Sela. She hesitated a moment, weighing his fate, and then said briskly, "Lock him up. We'll deal with him later."
Well, tha
t was certainly an improvement over "Kill him." He hadn't vomited, and he was about to be held prisoner by
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the Romulans, whose treatment of prisoners was legendary for its cruelty. It looked like this was turning out to be his lucky day.
Sela stood by Saket's side, holding his hand tightly as the older Romulan lay on the table in medical. The Romulan medical facilities were not terrific to start with; the basic philosophy of the Romulans was survival of the fittest, and those who were too injured to survive were generally allowed to die as a matter of course. But Saket's was a very different situation, at least as far as Sela was concerned. She looked to the medical officer, who simply shook his head. There wasn't a damned thing that he could do. The damage was too extensive. By rights, Saket truly had no business being alive in the first place.
"I saw you flying that fighter," Saket whispered. Despite her keen hearing, Sela still had to lean forward to hear everything he was saying. "It was you, wasn't it."
"I wouldn't let anyone else handle it," Sela said. "My people all said I was crazy."
"You are. I have always known that about you. Sometimes I think that was my main contribution to your teachings." He coughed more and more violently, and then seemed to pull himself together through sheer force of will.
"Lie still, Saket. . ."
"And die ... quietly . . . ? No . . ." He shook his head.
"Saket. .. where did you hide it?" she asked. "Tell me where. Do you have it on you? Is it back on Lazon Two?"
Saket didn't seem to hear her. Instead his mind was elsewhere. "Riker ... he is a good man... to have on your side ... I was . . . cultivating him for you . . . knew you'd come for me ... he is ... my final legacy ... to you . . ."
"Use him how?" demanded Sela. "For the plan? We needed .. . need . . . you. We don't need him. . . ."
"No ... we don't. .. but think how much . . . more effective . .."
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Slowly the truth of what he was saying began to dawn on her. "Yes . . . yes, it would be, wouldn't it. .."
"You begin to see ... always were ... a quick pupil... you and Riker .. . good . . . good team . . . good couple .. ."
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Sela had to stifle an urge to laugh. "Good couple? Little late in your life to start a new career as matchmaker, wouldn't you say, Saket?"
Saket said nothing.
She called his name again, shook him slightly. Even as she did, though, she knew. Knew beyond any question that he was gone.
Sentiment began to wash over her, like a tide choked with pollutants. She shoved the feelings away. They were anathema to her, she had no time for them.
"He didn't tell us where it was," said the medical officer, a heavyset Romulan named Tok. "He was in too much pain ... he could not focus on what was important."
"Either that," Sela said thoughtfully, "or he was certain we could find it without his help, and wanted to use his remaining strength to deal with other matters . .."
"Such as Riker?"
"Such as, yes." She turned on her heel and headed for the exit.
"What about Saket?" asked Tok.
"Run a complete sensor sweep over him. Take him apart organ by organ, if you have to. If the sample is on him ... I want it."
With that, Sela took her leave of the medical facility, leaving Tok to his work.
As she headed down the corridor, she walked rigidly, looking neither left nor right, as if she had no care for anyone around her. Outwardly she exuded complete calm and control. Inwardly she was a raging torrent. Saket was gone. The sample was still missing. And she had Will Riker in her possession.
What was she going to do with him?
That was something she was going to have to determine, and
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the little chat she was about to have with him would help her decide one way or the other.
Three times Riker had endeavored to sit up and each time the nausea had hit him. But the fourth time he had actually managed to pull himself together sufficiently to sit up without any ill effects. "And now, for my next trick.. ." he had muttered before steeling himself sufficiently to stand up. This he managed to do, leaning against the stark metal wall, drawing in a few deep breaths, and finally walking slowly around the perimeter of the Romulan lockup. It didn't take long to get the feeling for his surroundings: Six steps in any direction pretty much covered it. There was a hard-surfaced, horizontal board which served as the only piece of furniture in the place-couch and bed, all rolled into one. If he needed to relieve himself, or vomit up some of the unpalatable food they gave him, he was escorted under armed guard to a facility down the hall and then promptly brought back. That was the entirety of his existence.
There was a forcefield, naturally, barring his exit, and a guard firmly in place. The guard wasn't even deigning to look in Riker's direction, which was more or less fine with Riker. It wasn't as if he was feeling particularly chatty at that moment anyway.
He heard brisk footsteps coming his way, and wondered whether this was going to be the Romulan execution squad or whoever it was that was going to be sent to finish him off. Or perhaps they would torture him first for information. Now, wouldn't that be a little slice of heaven.
Tom reasoned that the window of opportunity had closed for him to inform his captors of who he truly was .. . although he still had serious doubts that such an endeavor would have met with the slightest bit of success. The Romulans were a prickly people, and they were just as likely to think that he was trying to make fools of them as anything else. Besides, the one chance he might have for survival was if they thought he knew more than he did, or was of more value than he truly was.
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There was also the question of ransom. It was entirely possible that they might try to barter something in exchange for him, operating under the belief that they had in their possession the legendary Commander William Riker. Will Riker might indeed be a useful bargaining chip. Tom Riker, on the other hand, was useless.
That was a hard fact for Tom to deal with, but there it was. Tom Riker was someone whose capture and possible death in captivity was of no weight to anyone. He was already a disgraced traitor. Who in Starfleet would possibly put themselves on the line for him? He was a freak of nature, a transporter malfunction with a soul. . . someone else's soul. He had nothing. No freedom, no honor, not even the single most fundamental property possessed by every living being, sentient or otherwise, in the known galaxy: uniqueness. Out there, roaming free in the galaxy, was someone who was in every way identical, except when it came to career and regard by his peers; in those matters, he was far superior.
And Tom Riker, in trying to carve out his own niche in the galaxy, had paid for it dearly. Life in a Cardassian labor camp, and that was under a sentence that had been commuted.
Better that they had killed me, he thought bleakly.
It was while he was in this dark mood that Sela came to him.
She stood on the other side of the forcefield, regarding him for a moment as he sat on his uncomfortable piece of furniture. Then she nodded to the guard, who deactivated the forcefield. She stepped through, stood there with her arms folded, and waited.
Tom said nothing.
Nor did Sela.
They stood there in that way, in silence, for ten minutes. Then Sela turned on her heel and walked out without so much as a word having been exchanged.
The same thing happened the next day, the exact same thing happened, except this time it was for twenty minutes.
The day after that, thirty.
Still there was not a word spoken between the two of them. It
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had become an almost perverse test of will. She would stand there, and he would sit on the bed/seat, and that would be the extent of their interaction. If they had been telepaths, it might have made some sense. As it was, even the guard seemed mystified. Every time Sela departed the cell, he would look at her questioning^, but she didn't even return his g
lance.
During the third visit, as Sela was preparing to leave, Tom decided to amuse himself. Just as she began to turn away, Riker winked at her. She looked back at him, but his face was impassive once more. Not so much as a crack in the stone-faced facade that he had carefully crafted for himself. She hesitated ever so briefly, and then walked out once more.
When she came back the fourth time, it was with a proposal.
"We found it."
Truthfully, it had not taken Tok all that long. He had found it within twelve hours after beginning the autopsy, and he was mentally kicking himself for it having taken as long as it did.
Pieces of Saket lay scattered about the autopsy room, but Sola's attention was upon the eye that stared up (unblinkingly, of course) at her. "His left eye, to be precise," said Tok proudly. "It was a phenomenal construct, fabricated from actual living tissue. Designed to elude detection by even the most advanced of techniques. Fully functional, and indistinguishable from his living eye. You'd never know which one was the fake."
"In his eye," Sela said wonderingly.
Tok nodded eagerly and, using his medical tools, gently turned the eye over. Using a scalpel, he set the harmonics within to vibrate at a certain frequency that was apparently encoded into the eye's microcircuitry. Within moments there was a very soft, barely audible "click" and then the back of the eye opened. Ever so delicately, Tok removed a chip which glistened silver, except for one area which was dark blue.
"Is that it?" asked Sela. She tried to keep her voice calm and neutral, but there was clear excitement in her tone.
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"I believe so. Yes . .. definitely. The circuitry of the chip keeps the chemical sample in a sort of stasis: inert and harmless."
"He did it." There was envy and awe in her voice. She looked in the direction of his heart, which sat by itself on a silver tray. "Saket, you old bastard, you actually did it. You found it. I didn't think it was possible . . . but if anyone could do it, you could." She considered eating the heart out of a sense of respect to Saket, but decided that it probably wasn't the appropriate time for such actions.
