opportunity to knock. And filling the doorway
was a figure that momentarily surprised Riker
by its appearance ... and then, he wondered why he
had been at all startled. Of course he would be
here. Where else would he be?
"Mr. Homn," said Riker, bending slightly
and formally at the waist.
Wesley Crusher looked up in surprise.
He had fleetingly seen Homn from time to time,
back in his days on the Enterprise. His
memory had been that Homn was incredibly tall
... and yet, in later years, he had wondered
how much of that recollection was shaped by the fact that
young Ensign Crusher had been that much smaller.
Now, as an adult, he found himself no less
impressed by Homn's towering presence than he
had ever been.
Wendy had never seen the towering manservant
before. She just gaped.
And then, Homn did something totally
unexpected ... something that, to Riker's knowledge, he
had only done once before.
His voice was low and surprisingly soft for so
large a man--and there was even a faint hint of a
lisp--z he uttered two simple ^ws:
"She's waiting."
The response echoed in Riker's mind--
Waiting for what? Waiting for me? Or waiting
to die? Or are the two connected?
Mr. Homn stepped aside, and Riker
entered, Wendy and Crusher following him.
The house, in contrast to its elegant
exterior, still smacked of being overdone to Riker,
even after all this time. He knew why that was, of
course. Lwaxana's late husband had
designed the outside and left the actual
furnishing to his wife. And furnish it she had
... with a vengeance.
Every corner, every available bit of space, was
crammed with ... stuff. Everywhere Riker looked
there was furniture or mementos: portraits,
trophies, souvenirs, objects of art that
ranged from the acceptable to the ghastly. The taste at
casa Troi was, to put it mildly,
eclectic.
Mr. Homn stood at the bottom of the
central stairway and gestured. He
remained immobile, like a monument. A living
link to days gone by.
Riker started up the stairs. They seemed
to stretch on forever. Once, once a very long time
ago, he could have charged up these steps, taking them
two, even three at a time. And a woman would have
been waiting for him up there, her arms outstretched,
her face mirthful and loving, her curly black
hair cascading about her shoulders.
Back in the old days. Back when he was
another person entirely, and the only thing he had
in common with the old man who now trudged heavily
up the stairs was the name.
He held on to the banister, pulling himself up
as he went. He paused for a few moments on a
landing to catch his breath before he continued upward.
He knew that Crusher and Wendy were directly
behind him, but they offered him no support or aid.
Nor would he have wanted it.
The stairway opened up onto the
second-floor corridor, which seemed to stretch
almost to infinity. This effect was aided by the fact that
the corridor was illuminated only by flickering
lamplight, and also because full-size mirrors were
at either end.
Appearances. Once again, appearances. They
had always been so important to her ... and now,
it would seem that appearances were all she had left.
At first he didn't know which door she was behind
... but then he realized. It was partly open, and from
within he could hear slow, labored breathing. It
sounded as if she was just barely hanging on.
Hell, she might die any minute.
If he walked slowly enough, if he took enough
time ...
He saw the look in Wesley Crusher's
eyes as the captain of the Hood stood next
to him. He had a feeling that Crusher knew
precisely what was going through Riker's mind.
Dammit, Riker, he scolded himself.
; a man. For crying out loud, get it right!
His hands curled into fists, andwitha stride that
indicated a confidence he did not feel, he
walked toward the sound of the breathing.
When he was just outside the door ... it
stopped.
The cessation was abrupt; right in the middle of a
breath, so it was very noticeable. Riker looked at
Crusher as if for confirmation, and it was clear that
Crusher had heard it, too. Wendy,
feeling tired and labored, had just made it to the
top of the stairs and so wasn't there yet.
For just the briefest of moments, relief
flooded through Riker. And then it was immediately
replaced by anger at his hesitation ...
cowardice, even. Quickly he entered the room.
He was stunned.
He had expected the most ornate of
surroundings for this, the master bedroom. But such was not
the case. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Only a bed occupied the room. A canopied
bed with black drapes hanging down. There
wasn't a stick of furniture anywhere else.
It only took a moment for Riker to realize
what had happened. All the furniture had been
removed--the different sheen on various parts of the
floor indicated that. He did not understand, though,
why it had been done.
As if reading his mind, Wendy now said softly
from behind him, "Betazed tradition. Some feel that you
come into the world with virtually nothing. So when you
leave, you try not to surround yourself with the things you've
acquired. It's ... excess baggage, for
want of a better term."
"Oh."
He walked slowly toward the bed, but now there
seemed to be no hurry. There was no doubt in his
mind that she was gone. There was still that anger, bordering
on contempt, that he felt for himself. This is
what you wanted. This is why you dragged your
heels. So why aren't you happy about it? The
reason was, of course, that he also felt
tremendously guilty.
Look at her. You owe her that much.
Slowly he parted the black drapery around the
bed.
Lwaxana Troi lay there, unmoving. Her
skin was taut, conforming uncomfortably closely
to the outlines of her skull. Her lips and,
incredibly, her hair, were the same parched color
as her skin. Her arms and shoulders were bare--she was
probably naked, just as was customary for a Betazed
wedding, but a sheet was pulled up to just under her
arms.
Her eyes were closed. Her chest was not moving.
Riker took a slow breath that seemed
incredibly loud to him. The stink of death was heavy
in the air, but it didn't stop him from sitting on
the edge of the bed. Crusher and Wendy stood a
respectful distance.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to her, and he
meant it. He really, truly meant it. He
knew now that she had really wanted finally
to settle things with him. To bury the dead and put the
ghosts to rest. And through his trepidation, through the fears
and insecurities of an old man, he had
allowed that moment to slip away forever.
He leaned over to kiss her on the forehead.
Her withered, clawlike hand shot upward and
grabbed him by the throat.
Riker gasped, and the noise was partly cut off
by the hand that was closing on his vocal cords with
shocking strength. Lwaxana's eyes were open and
blazing with pure, unbridled hatred.
"Admiral!" shouted Crusher, acting immediately
and instinctively to protect the safety of the
senior officer. He ran to Riker's side and was
momentarily taken aback by the aura of undiluted
fury that radiated from every pore of Lwaxana
Troi.
From her ancient lips, as if ripped from the
pits of her soul, Lwaxana Troi spat out a
condemnation as if it were a curse: "It's your
fault!" The voice was cracked and aged, not at
all like the boisterous, sweeping tones that had once
been the woman's staple. But there was still a
vitality that would not be daunted by such
trivialities as death.
"It's your fault!" she repeated, and the wrath
of the woman shook her voice, shook her entire
withered body. "You should have saved her! She asked
you! She begged you! You were Imzadi, and you let
her die!"
Riker tried to get out a reply, but the
pressure was too much on his throat. Wesley
tried to yank Lwaxana's hands away from Riker
but they dug in. The long fingernails drew thin
streams of blood.
"ally let her die!" croaked Lwaxana.
"It's not right! She was too young ... too
beautiful! And you let it happen, and I hope
you burn in hell ... it's your fault!"
Crusher tore her hands loose from Riker's
throat and pulled the admiral away. Riker was
gagging, but through the pain and mortification he still
managed to gasp out, "It wasn't! I did
everything I could! You have to understand!"
"Admiral--" began Wesley.
But Riker was shouting, "Please! It wasn't
my fault! Lwaxana, I tried
everything ... it happened too fa/! I--"
But Wendy laid a gentle hand on his.
"It's too late, W."
And she was right. Lwaxana's head had slumped
back onto her pillow. Her eyes were still wide
open, but there was no light in them. Her hand was still in
its clawlike grip, frozen in its final
gesture.
Wesley Crusher reached over, passing his hand
over her eyes and closing them.
And Riker whispered to her, one final time, "It
wasn't my fault."
But he didn't believe it any more than she
had.
CHAPTER 6
The funeral had been surprisingly simple.
Surprisingly so because, considering the
larger-than-life manner in which Lwaxana had
lived her life, Riker had somehow expected a
death that was ... well ... larger than death.
Instead, Lwaxana's instructions had been very,
very specific. She had wanted only a handful of
people there. Only the closest of friends, the one or
two most highly placed politicians ...
... and Riker.
Long after the others had left, Riker was left
standing there, staring at Lwaxana's body in its
clear, sealed entombment.
He kept trying to develop ways to ascribe
to Lwaxana more pure motives than those of
vengeance or hatred. After all, she hadn't been
like that when he first met her. Strong willed, yes.
Stubborn and meddlesome and--ag--bigger than
life. But anger? Vituperation? That hadn't been
part of her makeup. Or so, at least, it had
seemed.
Then again ... the years have a way of changing people.
Years, and unpleasant experiences that can harden the
heart and blacken the soul.
Perhaps ... perhaps she had wanted him there because she
was genuinely trying to heal the rifts. Perhaps she
had wanted him at her side in her final moments
because she really did want to make amends--and it was
only in the last, momentary panic, with icy death
upon her, that hidden resentments had boiled over.
Perhaps she had wanted him at her funeral not because
she wanted to rub his nose in the notion of
See? See how your shortcomings have
deprived me of happiness in life? but rather because,
ultimately, she wanted some sort of connection
to her daughter to be present at her last rites.
And he was, after all, Imzadi to her daughter.
Riker stood there in the chill air of the Troi
mausoleum. They were somewhat rare items on
Betazed--the more frequent modern method of
disposal was cremation and then to be scattered on the
winds; the northern cliffso in the Valley of
Song were a popular point of such activity.
But the older families--and few were older than
that of the Fifth House of Betazed--clung to the
traditional method. The method was dictated by the
notion that the best way to have a sense of who one's
ancestors were was to have a perpetual reminder at
hand.
Which was why Riker was now standing alone in the
mausoleum, staring at Lwaxana's shrouded
body, but being even more painfully aware of who was
lying in the next room.
What, dammit. Not who. She hasn't
been a who since ...
... since you let her ...
Riker tried to force away that line of thought.
Blast it, he hadn't let it happen. It had
just happened.
He couldn't go in and look at her.
He turned to head for the door, and that was when the
uncommonly slow storm front chose finally
to act. There had been a few passing drizzles
earlier, and he had hoped that that would be the end of it.
But now the full fury of the storm cut loose.
Lightning ribboned across the sky, and rain began
to fall in blinding cascades. Far in the distance,
the Troi mansion was silhouetted against the stormy
sky, something out of an ancient horror movie.
Riker stepped back into the mausoleum,
turned and looked at Lwaxana.
"You arranged this, didn't you," he said with just the
faintest hint of irony. "You're up there less
than twelve hours, and already you're telling them
how to run things."
Lwaxana made no reply. She didn't have
to. The thunder did it for her.
Riker sighed. "All right."
He walked past Lwaxana and even rapped a
quick knuckle on the clear encasement with just a
flash of the old irreverence. He walked into the
next room ...
And there she was.
He approached her slowly, andforthe millionth
time in as ma
ny imaginings of this scene, he envisioned
removing the clear covering over her body.
Envisioned leaning over, kissing her, and her large,
luminous eyes would flutter and open.
He placed his hands on the covering. He was
amazed at his ability to remember things, for
Deanna was even more beautiful than his
recollection had been able to retain.
She was as her mother presently lay--nude but
heavily swathed in pure, white shrouds. But
unlike Lwaxana, the ravages of time had been
spared her. Spared at a hideous price, but
spared.
She was perfectly preserved. The black
hair still thick and full, the perfect lips formed
into a small, round O shape. Her chiseled
features were immaculate--perfectly formed,
perfectly preserved. Cut down in the prime of
life, she had at least retained the look of that
primacy.
He wanted to remove the spherical cover
over her, to take her in his arms. But that would have
been the worst move he could have made. The
preservative atmosphere within the clear coffin
would be compromised--her body would be subjected
to the ravages of time. Besides, it wouldn't be holding
her ... no amount of preservation could put the
warmth back into the soft skin, breathe the life
back into her, open the eyes and put the soul back
into place.
She could not be made whole. She could not open
those eyes and drink in his presence. She could not
open that lovely mouth and say--
"Will?"
Riker jumped at least three feet in the
air, letting out a yell of shock. He twisted
around and slammed his back into Deanna's coffin,
turning to face an equally startled Capt.
Wesley Crusher, who was holding his chest and
seemed to have developed trouble breathing. When he
found the air, he gasped out, "I'm sorry ...
did I startle you?"
Riker paused a moment to allow his heartbeat
to approach somewhere near its normal rate. "Where
in hell did you come from?"
Crusher was soaked to the skin. He pointed.
"Out there. Beamed down. You said you hadn't wanted
me at the funeral, and I respected that ... but
I thought now that it's over and all ..."
"That I'd be ready to come back."
Crusher nodded, sending droplets of water
spattering to the floor. Riker looked at him with
mild amusement. "You look completely
waterlogged. How long were you out in the rain?"
"About two seconds. It just seemed
disrespectful somehow to beam directly into a--"
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