FORTUNE'S LIGHT

by Michael Jan Friedman

  “No,” he told her. Not that he didn’t agree he needed help. Only the help he had in mind was orbiting hundreds of kilometers above them.

  Digging into his tunic with his left hand—he had lost feeling in his right—he scrabbled about for his communicator. The pain was getting unbearable, but he clenched his teeth and forced his fingers to close about the device. As he withdrew it, he slid down along the wall to his knees, despite Lyneea’s efforts to hold him up.

  Will activated the communicator with thumb pressure and got as far as “Riker to Enterprise” before the damned thing squirted out of his grasp. He tried to pick it up out of the slush, but he was cold, so cold suddenly, and his fingers wouldn’t do what he wanted them to.

  He looked up at Lyneea for help, saw her narrowed eyes, and knew what she was thinking: a violation of the high-tech ban, a breach of her vows as a retainer. Technically she was wrong, but he had neither the strength nor the time to explain it now.

  “Please,” he rasped. There was a blackness at the edges of his vision that was beginning to eat its way inward. “Please . . . Captain Picard on . . . on the ship.”

  Lyneea’s mouth was set in a straight, hard line. The kind of help he wanted went against everything she believed in. It meant defiling, for the sake of an offworlder, what her people held sacred.

  But there was no way to get any other kind of help in time to save his life. If she’d doubted that before, she had to see it now.

  “Please,” he whispered again, reaching for the communicator with useless fingers. The pain was sheer agony now; it was closing down on him like a vise. And still Lyneea stood there, looking for all the world like a beast caught in a trap.

  The moment seemed to stretch out forever. Before it ended, Riker lost consciousness.

  Chapter Ten

  FORTUNATELY, Beverly Crusher had been in sickbay when the call came from the bridge. In a matter of seconds, she’d scraped together everything she needed and headed for the turbolift.

  It wasn’t until the lift doors closed and the compartment was headed for Deck Six that she began to gather her thoughts as well. And to replay her conversation with the captain, picking out the bits of information she thought she might need, skirting her personal feelings of hope and dread as best she could.

  “You’ll be taking a chance, Doctor, you know that?” Picard had said. “Whoever made Will a target may make you his next one. And we won’t be able to beam you back until . . .”

  Then the lift stopped and the doors opened and she was rushing down the corridor to Transporter Room 1. Crewmen hugged the bulkheads on either side of her, careful not to get in her way. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who’d been informed of the emergency.

  The transporter room doors parted without a sound. Inside, Chief O’Brien was waiting for her. Also Worf—with a bundle in his hand.

  “I thought I was going alone,” she told him.

  “You are,” he snarled, obviously none too pleased about the fact. He unfurled the bundle with a flick of his wrist, showing her the heavy dun-colored tunic she’d have to wear over her medical garb.

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s right. Don’t want to attract too much attention, do we?”

  The wardrobe change seemed to her a waste of time—one they could hardly afford now, if Riker’s wound was half as bad as reported. After all, if someone had bothered to stab him, wasn’t the Federation’s presence in Besidia probably known already?

  Nonetheless, she put down her supply pack long enough to pull the tunic on over her head. Then she recovered her pack, bounded up onto the transporter platform, and gave the order: “Energize.”

  Chief O’Brien complied. Her last shipboard sight was that of Worf, his body unnaturally rigid as he resisted the impulse to leap onto the platform beside her. His eyes flashed black fire, and she had no trouble understanding their message: Do not let him die.

  Then the transporter effect took over.

  Picard paced in front of the command center, trying to hope for the best. The Impriman’s message had made it sound bad for Riker. Very bad.

  Hell, the mere fact that it was she who’d had to use the communicator, and not Riker himself, had been enough to indicate the gravity of the situation. Her report had only underscored what he’d already known in his bones.

  He thanked God he’d gotten advance clearance for additional beam-downs. Otherwise Dr. Crusher would still be waiting in the transporter room while some Besidian bureaucrat waded through red tape. As it was, all it took was a brief message, and the teleportation barrier was lifted long enough to allow the doctor to beam down to Riker’s side.

  Not that Picard felt at all good about sending Crusher down there. Apparently someone was on to Riker’s mission, someone who wouldn’t hesitate to use deadly force in opposing it. And if they could cut down someone as resourceful as Will Riker, what chance would a mere doctor have against them? Granted, she had a Criathan retainer to watch over her, but that kind of protection had already proved insufficient.

  As the captain pondered these things, the lift doors opened and Lieutenant Worf came out onto the bridge. Without so much as a glance to either side of him, the Klingon assumed his regular position at Tactical, relieving the officer who’d manned the post in his absence.

  Normally Picard would have dispatched someone else to give Crusher the tunic they’d been holding for her in ship’s stores against just such an emergency. Certainly there were personnel more convenient to the task.

  But Worf had requested that he be allowed to do it, and Picard had allowed it. How could he not? Riker was one of the few real friends the Klingon had, not just on the ship, but anywhere. If he wanted to feel that he was helping in some small way, who was the captain to deny him that?

  Picard gazed at the main viewscreen and the curved sweep of Impriman planetscape that dominated it. By now Dr. Crusher would have set to work on Riker. By now she would have a good idea if she’d arrived in time.

  And so might Troi, if she was monitoring the doctor’s emotions. Picard turned to his counselor, queried her with a glance.

  Was it his imagination, or was Troi looking a little haggard? Perhaps a trifle paler than usual? If so, it was understandable. The Impriman’s message had hit them all like a point-blank phaser blast.

  “Nothing to report,” said the Betazoid, answering his silent question. “Dr. Crusher is still uncertain of the outcome.”

  Her voice was even, untainted by the emotions that must be echoing inside her. Picard admired her for that.

  “Thank you, Counselor.”

  So they were truly in the dark. They would get the news, good or bad, only when the doctor completed her ministrations.

  Damn. Why couldn’t the Imprimans have let him beam Riker up—instead of Crusher down? Or should he have disregarded their cultural taboo and beamed his first officer up anyway, thereby affording him the resources of a state-of-the-art sickbay instead of those few items that Crusher could fit in her pack?

  No. That would have been a serious violation of Impriman law, perhaps serious enough to end their economic alliance. And though Picard himself might have cared a good deal more about Riker than about relations with the Imprimans, the Federation wouldn’t have seen things quite that way.

  So we wait. And hope.

  Data was thoughtful as he made his way to engineering. But his mind was not on the engine enhancement program to which he and Geordi had been assigned.

  He was still thinking about curveballs.

  Unfortunately his research had failed to turn up anything conclusive. Over the years numerous authorities, ranging from physicists to mathematicians to philosophers, had tried to explain the behavior of the curveball. And none of them had posited a more credible theory than those put forth by Geordi.

  Just after the end of the twentieth century a Californian by the name of Ray Sparrow, who identified himself as a priest in the Church of the Center Field Bleachers, speculated that the pitch performed as it d
id because the ball’s spin approximated that of the free electrons in the Mind of God.

  While original, that theory didn’t help the android much. It was difficult enough, sometimes, for him to interpret the intentions of the captain, without trying to understand the thinking of a divine being.

  As the doors to engineering slid aside at his approach, Data gave up his ruminations, or at least assigned them a lower priority in the positronic heirarchy of his intellectual functions. After all, duty came first, and the captain himself had asked him to work on the engines.

  Engineering was unusually quiet, he noticed. Normally it was one of the more affable sections on the ship—no doubt a reflection of Geordi’s personality, just as the security section was shaped by Worf’s intensity, and sickbay by Dr. Crusher’s dedication.

  Just now, however, the only sound here was the drone of the engines. Hardly anyone looked up to see him enter. And those who did looked distracted, almost grim.

  Nearing Geordi’s office, he saw that its doors were open and that the engineering chief was inside, hunched over his personal work station.

  Geordi did not appear to be working. His screen was alive with power-transfer schematics, but he was paying no attention to them.

  Data knocked on the door frame as an alternative to catching his fellow officer by surprise. It was something he’d seen done by Commander Riker on more than one occasion.

  Geordi turned partway in his seat and looked at him. “Hi, Data. I guess you’ve heard, huh?”

  The android regarded him. “Can you be more specific?”

  Swiveling around the rest of the way, Geordi cursed under his breath. “Of course. How would you know? You haven’t been on duty.” He got to his feet, crossed the open space between them, and put a hand on Data’s shoulder.

  “Commander Riker’s been hurt,” he said.

  The android cocked his head. “Hurt?”

  “Knifed. I didn’t get all the details, but apparently it’s bad. Very bad.”

  Data absorbed the information instantaneously, but it took a while for the implications to strike home.

  “Do you think he will die?” ventured the android.

  Geordi looked as if he had a bad taste in his mouth. “I don’t know. I don’t think anyone does—not even Dr. Crusher, and she’s with him.” His Adam’s apple moved up and down. “I called the bridge a couple of minutes ago. That’s when I got the news.”

  Data nodded slowly. “I see.” He paused. “That is, I comprehend.”

  He wanted to say more. He wanted to be able to say he was worried or fearful or anguished—and mean it.

  But he couldn’t. He was only an android.

  “Wesley was right,” said the chief engineer. “He was telling us how dangerous that place can be. Besidia, I mean.” He shook his head. “And the worst part is that I made fun of Wesley’s concerns. I told him Commander Riker could get through anything.”

  The android observed the emotion in Geordi’s face. Was that sorrow? Or guilt? Or a combination of both, perhaps?

  “He still may,” suggested Data. “You did say he was alive, did you not?”

  Geordi sighed. “That’s what I said, all right.”

  The android didn’t know quite what to do next. But he knew what he didn’t want to do, and that was leave.

  “May I remain here,” he asked, “until we learn the outcome of Commander Riker’s situation?”

  The engineering chief smiled. “Sure. In fact, I wish you would.”

  “Thank you,” said Data. He took a seat on the opposite side of the room.

  And in shared silence they waited.

  * * *

  It was cold in the narrow street, but Crusher barely felt it. She was too intent on nurturing the spark of life that still burned in her patient.

  She looked up at Lyneea. “The knife,” she said, “is going to have to come out.”

  The Impriman nodded soberly. “You hold him,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

  Crusher put her tricorder down and took Riker by the shoulders. His head lolled; his face was ashen.

  The doctor thanked God he wouldn’t feel the procedure. Introducing Riker to a hefty dose of painkillers was the second thing she’d attended to. The first had been to give him something for the shock.

  “I’ve got him,” she told Lyneea. With more strength than Crusher would have given her credit for, she slipped the blade out in one motion.

  Blood gushed, but not as badly as the doctor had expected. Apparently the weapon had missed the major blood vessels. Lucky.

  Sure. Real lucky.

  Working as quickly as she could, Crusher applied the dermaplast she’d brought in her pack. First to Riker’s back, where the wound gaped larger. Then to his chest.

  That would stop the flow of blood. Judging by his pressure and by the pool of crimson slush in which they were kneeling, he had little enough to spare.

  Next she brought out the equipment that would actually heal the wound. Not that she expected to be able to do it here in the street, but if she could get the process off to a good start, there would be less chance of infection.

  After a few minutes she noticed Lyneea’s expression. The Impriman looked angry. At her?

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  Lyneea frowned and looked away. “These instruments are forbidden here,” she said. “This is carnival time.”

  “Would you rather I let him die?” said the doctor. She understood the reference, thanks to her discussions with Wesley about Besidia. “It was you who called for help,” she reminded Lyneea, glancing at the communicator that lay beside her tricorder. “With a device, I might add, that is no less technologically advanced.”

  Lyneea swarlowed.

  Riker moaned softly. Crusher brushed aside the matted hair on his forehead and got another look from Lyneea—but this one, she realized, had nothing to do with technology. And she suddenly knew why the Impriman had broken her people’s law to aid the human.

  “We’ve got to get him out of here,” said Lyneea, ignoring the penetrating quality of Crusher’s scrutiny. “It’s a miracle someone hasn’t come down the street and seen us already.”

  The doctor nodded. “But we can’t carry him very far by ourselves.” She would have preferred not to move him at all, but she recognized the danger in remaining out in the open.

  Lyneea took a quick look around. Her search seemed to end at a boarded-up door between two shops. Rising to her feet, she took a couple of quick steps and slammed shoulder-first into the door. There was a cracking sound as it yielded partway. When Lyneea followed with a sharp kick, the door swung inward, revealing a shadowy interior.

  “We can hide the two of you in here,” she told Crusher, “at least until I can get some help from my madraga. Then we can find a better place.”

  There didn’t seem to be any other options. “Agreed,” said the doctor.

  As gently as they could, they picked Riker up and carried him through the open doorway.

  Beverly Crusher’s words were like cool water to a man dying of thirst: “He’s going to be all right.”

  A cheer went up from those on the bridge, a wave of gladness that swelled and broke, washing away the fear that had tainted their spirits.

  At one of the aft stations a crew member murmured thanks to her deity. Up at the conn, Wesley thrust a fist into the air.

  Troi looked at the captain, seated beside her. He looked back, his eyes hard with pride—in Will Riker’s penchant for survival, in his chief medical officer’s ability to perform miracles, indeed in everyone and everything that had contributed to this happy result.

  “You look tired,” observed Picard.

  “I am,” she said. “A little.”

  “And this was not your shift. Why don’t you get some rest? I think we’ll be all right without you for a while.”

  Troi nodded. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

  The captain was beginning to extract details from the docto
r as Troi rose and headed for the turbolift. On the way, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Worf. For a moment, as their eyes met, she could have sworn she saw a smile on his face. But before the counselor could be certain, he returned his attention to his instruments.

  Stepping into the lift, Troi called for the level where her quarters were located. The doors closed and she was alone. The lift began to move.

  Will . . .

  Normally it took her quite some time to pick out a single presence from the midst of a large population, even if that presence was a familiar one.

  But not this time. From the moment she had received word of Will’s injury, she’d been with him.

  Was it because of the relationship they’d once had? Or the different kind of closeness they’d come to enjoy here on the Enterprise? Or perhaps something else entirely?

  She would probably never know. After all, empathy was not a science; it could not be reduced to terms and equations.

  And once she had linked up with the first officer and felt his agony and his terror—yes, even Will Riker could feel terror—she could not bring herself to break the contact. She had endured what he endured, suffered what he suffered, been racked by the same dark miseries, fought the same desperate fight.

  In her life she had touched greater pain, but never as openly or as willingly. She had glimpsed deeper despair, but never had she embraced it as she embraced his.

  And even now, with the first officer reportedly out of danger, she still could not break the link. For beneath the mantle of sedation, the agony was still with him, balanced against the force of his desire to survive. And it would be that way for some time.

  Why had she exposed herself? Why had she made herself so vulnerable?

  Certainly it didn’t help him that she shared his pain. There was no way he could know or, knowing, be aided by the knowledge.

  But that was not the point, was it? The point was that he not be alone, that he not endure this all by himself.

  The point was that she show the universe someone cared about this being. In some inexplicable way that was very, very important to her.