Bashir seemed to draw himself up. “Actually, I’m excellent,” he said. “Maybe never better.”
“That’s good to hear,” Sisko said. “Is there some particular reason?”
Still standing beside Sisko, Richter attempted to cover her smile with one hand. Bashir saw the nurse’s expression, and then he motioned deeper into the infirmary. “Shall we go into my office?”
Sisko allowed the doctor to lead him out of the main room. Once in his office, Bashir asked, “Do you remember Sarina Douglas, Captain?”
Sisko thought for a moment. “The woman from the Institute,” he said at last. “The one with cognitive-sensory dissonance, who you treated.”
“That’s right,” Bashir said. “That was more than eight years ago. Since then, she’s become her own woman and a productive part of society. She’s actually in Starfleet now.”
“I suppose all of that’s a good thing,” Sisko said, “but I suspect you didn’t bring me in here to talk about this woman’s professional record.”
“No, sir,” Bashir said. “Last year, we reconnected, and she transferred to Deep Space Nine. She’s on Chief Blackmer’s security team.”
“And back in your life as well, I take it?” Sisko asked.
“Yes,” Bashir said. “Yes, she is.”
“I’m very happy for you, Julian,” Sisko said. “I know things haven’t always been easy for you here.”
“No,” Bashir agreed, “but that seems to have changed now. What about you? How are you and—”
“Doctor,” Sisko said, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but as I was just telling Lieutenant Richter, I’m afraid that I don’t have much time before I need to get back to the Robinson. I was hoping that I could see Captain Vaughn before I need to be back aboard.”
“Of course,” said Bashir, his feelings clearly hurt at being dismissed so quickly by a man—a friend—that he hadn’t seen in more than two years. “We’ve placed him in a secondary-care compartment. I don’t know if you’re aware, but he was removed from his respirator eight months ago.”
A sense of hope flickered across Sisko’s mind. “That sounds like good news.”
“No,” Bashir said. “I’m sorry, but it’s not. It simply means that the autonomic functions of Captain Vaughn’s brain remain unimpaired. Unfortunately, ever since his injury, there’s been no sign of higher brain function.”
“How is he even still alive then?” Sisko wanted to know.
“Since the accident, a feeding tube has provided him sustenance,” Bashir explained. “Without that and a hydration line, he would die within a matter of days.”
“There’s no chance for recovery?” Sisko asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
“But then why hasn’t his body been permitted to die?” Sisko said.
“That’s not my decision to make, Captain,” Bashir said, clearly implying that Vaughn’s daughter had chosen to keep her father—or the husk of what he once had been—from perishing.
Sisko nodded slowly. “I’d still like to see him, if I may,” he told the doctor.
“Of course,” Bashir said. “Lieutenant Tenmei is in there with him now.” When Sisko gave him an inquiring look, he said, “She visits him most mornings and nights.”
“Do you think she would mind if I stopped in?”
“Not at all,” Bashir said. “Truthfully, another face besides mine in there might do her some good.”
Sisko nodded again, and Bashir led him from his office back into the main room. From there, they entered the primary-care facility, which included a surgical table and half a dozen diagnostic beds, all of which stood empty. Bashir gestured to a doorway on the far side of the room. Sisko thanked him, and the doctor withdrew.
Sisko crossed the room and peered inside the smaller compartment. Elias Vaughn lay on a bed beneath a pale-blue sheet, his flesh ashen. His eyes closed but his mouth hanging open, he lacked any sign of the vitality that he had displayed even in the second century of his life. A pair of lines snaked from small devices hanging above him, down onto the bed and below the covers. Outlined beneath the sheet, the shape of his body attested to his condition, his once strong physique diminished by the injury he had borne in the service of his crew and a planetary population in danger. His life had ended heroically—but it clearly had ended.
Sitting in a chair beside her lost father, Prynn Tenmei had one arm outstretched in order to rest her hand on Vaughn’s lifeless fingers. A padd perched on her lap appeared filled with text, though she did not read it. Instead, her gaze seemed focused—or unfocused—on the middle distance. Her face appeared drawn, and dark crescents floated under eyes that seemed vacant.
Is it any wonder? Sisko thought. Beginning and ending most days by sitting beside the inert form of her effectively dead father, how had she even retained her sanity? He sympathized with her plight.
For the first time since Sisko’s own father had died, he considered that it might have been his good fortune not to make it to Earth before Joseph Sisko had succumbed to his many infirmities. How much more difficult would it have been for him to watch his father die? And how would Sisko have handled a situation similar to Tenmei’s? Would he have had the strength to allow the last remaining vestige of his father to pass from existence? Could he have given permission to remove from his father’s failing body the only things that continued to sustain it? He wanted to answer the question Yes, but in the end, he settled for the truth: I don’t know.
Not wanting to startle Tenmei, Sisko rapped lightly on the doorframe. She looked up at him and blinked, and for a moment, he didn’t think she recognized him. The last time he had communicated with her had been from Starbase 197, on the world of Alonis. After the Borg invasion ended, Sisko recorded and sent a message to Tenmei explaining her father’s fate aboard U.S.S. James T. Kirk.
Recalling that, Sisko feared for a moment that, when she realized his identity, he would see resentment or even hatred in her eyes. After all, in addition to delivering to her the news of her father’s devastating injury, he had survived the battle that, for all intents and purposes, Vaughn had not. Why shouldn’t she hate me?
But when recognition flashed across Tenmei’s eyes, she followed it with a smile. Her lips didn’t part, and the shallow expression didn’t light up her face, but it nevertheless seemed genuine. “Captain Sisko,” she said. “Please come in.”
Sisko did so, glancing down at Tenmei’s padd as he neared her. “Are you reading to your father?” he asked.
Tenmei peered down at the padd as well, almost as though she had forgotten it. “I was,” she said. “I like reading aloud to him. I know he can’t hear me, but it makes me feel … not better, but somehow still connected to him.” She let go of her father’s hand, picked up the padd, and touched a control. The text disappeared, replaced by two larger words above a third, presumably the title and author. “Have you read it?” Tenmei asked.
“The Iliad,” Sisko said, “by Homer.” He nodded. “Yes, but not since high school.” He thought he recalled that one of the book’s major themes involved the power of destiny, and how one cannot avoid one’s fate. He wondered if Tenmei had known that before selecting the epic, or if not, whether she had perceived it in her reading.
“It’s interesting,” Tenmei said. “I never read it, and I have no idea whether or not Dad did, but it seemed like his type of story.”
“I can see that,” Sisko said.
“I heard that you were here aboard the Robinson,” Tenmei said. “I thought about asking to come and see you.… I wanted to, but …” She looked down. “I’m sorry. It just seemed too hard.”
It shocked Sisko to hear Tenmei’s apology, and he realized that he had underestimated the depth of her despair. The guilt he managed to shunt aside in his daily life for having disregarded the warning of the Prophets suddenly threatened to overwhelm him. The idea that his decision to spend his life with Kasidy had somehow resulted in Vaughn’s injury seemed absurd on the surface of it, he knew
, but he had lived the reality of it. “Lieutenant,” he said, and then started again. “Prynn, you have nothing to be sorry for.” He wanted to throw himself down and beg for Tenmei’s mercy, plead for her forgiveness, but it would have caused her to think him insane. “I just wish that there was something I could do for you now to ease your burden.”
She peered up at him, and he saw tears in her eyes. “It’s not my burden,” she told him. “It’s just my life.”
The sentiment rocked Sisko, echoing as it did his attitude about the recent events of his own life. “Prynn, your father loved you,” he said. “Nothing pleased him more than that the two of you reconnected after all those years estranged from each other.” He paused, attempting to invite a response.
“I know,” she said at last. “I loved him, and I was so happy to have my father back again.” She peered over at the body that had once housed Elias Vaughn. “But now …”
“But now your father would not want you here,” Sisko said, gently but firmly. “It would satisfy him to know how much you loved him, but it would destroy him to see you sacrificing so much of your time, and experiencing so much misery, to sit vigil for him in a hopeless cause.” Sisko imagined stepping over to the head of Vaughn’s bed and tearing the feeding and hydration tubes from the machines that controlled them. But of course he could not do that. Instead, he simply said, “There comes a time to move on, Prynn.”
“I know,” Tenmei said, wiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “Really, I do know that. I’m just not there yet.”
“I understand,” Sisko said. “And I’m not trying to tell you what you should do, or when. I’m just saying that you have options. You can stay here as long as you want to, as long as you need to, but you can also have a life—a full life—on the other side of that door.” He pointed back to the entrance to the compartment. “When you’re ready, there will come a time when you can move on.”
Prynn regarded Sisko for a long time, her eyes seeming to study his. Finally, she inhaled deeply, as though trying to calm her fraying nerves. “Thank you, Captain,” she said.
Sisko waited a moment, then walked around Vaughn’s bed to stand beside him. Quietly, he reached his own hand out to rest it atop Vaughn’s. His skin felt smooth but fragile, warm but somehow empty. “I felt a special closeness with your father that I’ve never quite been able to put into words,” he said. “And I know he felt it too. He and I connected on a deep level that I don’t think either one of us quite understood, but it meant a great deal to both of us.”
“He held you in high regard, Captain.”
Sisko looked at Prynn, hoping that the gratitude he felt for her statement showed on his face. “Thank you,” he said. “Obviously, I had the highest esteem for your father.” Sisko leaned in toward Vaughn. He could see the stubble of his beard, which clearly had been shaved off at some point to facilitate keeping his face clean. He saw the slight movement beside Vaughn’s Adam’s apple that revealed his pulse, keeping time with his heart. He saw the rise and fall of his chest as his body, against all odds and for no real purpose, continued to breathe. At that moment, Sisko knew with absolute certainty that, in the next instant, his friend would open his eyes and return to the world of the living.
But Vaughn didn’t.
“Good-bye, Elias,” Sisko whispered. He stood back up and headed for the door. When he got there, he turned back toward Tenmei. “If you should ever need anything …” He let his sentence dangle unfinished, and Tenmei nodded.
“Thank you,” she said.
Sisko headed back through the primary ward and back into the infirmary’s outer compartment. According to Lieutenant Richter, Doctor Bashir had retired for the night. Grateful that he could make good a quick escape, Sisko thanked the nurse, congratulating her once more on her nuptials. Then he stepped back out onto the Promenade.
For just a fleeting moment, Sisko thought about escaping into an old baseball game in one of Quark’s holosuites, or even to Vic’s Las Vegas lounge. But he didn’t want to—at least not on Deep Space 9. He had spent so much time on the station, had lived through so much there, but the words he had said to Prynn Tenmei recurred to him: There comes a time to move on.
Sisko entered the lift and ordered it to take him back to his ship.
15
Accompanied by the security detachment assigned to protect the chairwoman, Sela boarded a Tal Shiar shuttle bound for orbit above Terix II. There, the shuttle would deliver her to En’Vahj, one of the personnel transports used by the intelligence agency. The Lanora-class vessel would carry Sela back to Romulus—but not before she completed one additional task, the primary reason she had traveled to Terix II.
Inside the shuttle, the chairwoman looked into the cockpit, confirming for herself the identities of the pilot and navigator, a pair of former military officers. Satisfied, she retreated to the rear of the main cabin, which could accommodate a dozen comfortably. She took a seat along the rear bulkhead, between the side wall and an open hatchway that led to an aft compartment housing a transporter pad, a refresher, and emergency equipment and supplies. Her guards knew enough to sit at the front of the main cabin, affording her whatever privacy they could.
As soon as the shuttle’s outer and cockpit hatches closed, the pilot’s voice emerged from the comm system. “Chairwoman Sela,” said Commander Retind, “we are prepared to depart as soon as you give the order.” His voice sounded even and professional, and implied a clear awareness that he understood the importance of his passenger.
“I’m ready right now,” Sela said, knowing that the comm system would automatically pick up her words and transmit them to the pilot. “Alert me once we’ve reached orbit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
As Sela felt the vibrations of the shuttle’s engines powering up, she reached beneath the hem of her gray Tal Shiar uniform tunic and retrieved a small data tablet attached to her belt. She keyed it on, entered a trio of access codes, then brought up a directory of the reports provided to her over the previous day by the intelligence field office on Terix II. She looked forward to returning to Romulus, but after her recent ordeal—first aboard IRW Stormcrow, and then with the Federation crew aboard Starfleet’s U.S.S Challenger—it pleased her simply to be back in the Empire.
When Sela had attended Praetor Kamemor on her state visit to Glintara, the chairwoman had welcomed the opportunity to break from the confines of her office in Ki Baratan, despite the diplomatic nature of the duty. She anticipated trouble beforehand, but underestimated the bond between her predecessor, Rehaek, and the head of the Tal Shiar’s Technical Directorate, Jano Vellil. After an act of sabotage set Stormcrow on an unstoppable collision course with a pulsar, Director Vellil delivered a simple message to Sela, claiming his part in avenging Rehaek.
Foolish arrogance, the chairwoman thought. After escaping the attempted assassination, she surely would have found him out anyway, but the director’s statement of vengeance had allowed her to deal with him quickly and efficiently upon her safe return to the Empire. A disciplinary hearing immediately removed him from the Tal Shiar, and a Senate trial just as swiftly sent him to prison. Only a day after his incarceration, and well before his scheduled execution, Vellil had taken his own life.
I need to be more careful, Sela told herself—a sentiment that she’d continued to repeat after narrowly averting her own death.
She looked up from her data tablet and through a port to her right. The shuttle had lifted off, she saw, and as it rose from the city of Vetruvis, it arced to starboard, bringing into view the magnificent extent of Galixori Canyon. Sela peered out at the vast chasm, at the brilliant greens and blues that climbed its walls, at the raging band of white water that tumbled through it. She recalled vividly when her father had brought her there as a girl, a reward for her academic performance in school. The three-day outing remained an important and powerful memory of her childhood.
Sela pulled her gaze away from the canyon, aware that she must compartmentali
ze such sentimentality and not permit it to interfere with her professional life. She could tell herself that she should have exercised more caution regarding Vellil, but in actuality, she’d had him under surveillance during the time he’d plotted to kill her. She would need to reevaluate some of her personnel, but she also recognized the simple fact that people such as Vellil often made formidable adversaries.
The director’s plan would have succeeded too, if not for the chance presence of the Starfleet vessel near the Neutral Zone. In the end, though, it had been the Romulan crew of Tomalak’s Fist who had rescued the Challenger crew. Sela had considered holding on to the Starfleet officers to interrogate them, and she also had given serious thought to executing them, but had judged the benefits of both actions as limited. Freeing them, she’d concluded, might have fostered some measure of goodwill with the Federation, but of far greater importance, it provided her cover with the praetor.
Returning her thoughts to her current undertaking, Sela read through the directory of reports she’d received on Terix II, then selected one with a touch. Rounded blocks of Romulan text filled the screen alongside a column of photographs. The chairwoman reviewed the list of operatives she’d sent beyond the confines of the Empire, searching for those who had recently communicated their status to their Tal Shiar handlers. She ran agents on Qo’noS and Earth, on Cardassia and Ferenginar, and on a dozen worlds besides those. Her people had gained access to manufacturing plants and government offices, public works and private industry, starbases and starships.
Working with both Commander Marius of the IRW Dekkona and the Breen Intelligence Directorate, Sela had helped install an operative, Kazren, at Starfleet’s Utopia Planitia Shipyards, from which he had stolen the schematics for the quantum slipstream drive. She had done so, and had seen Kazren safely retrieved, all without the knowledge of Gell Kamemor. Since the chairwoman perceived that the praetor’s avowed pursuit of peace would have spelled an end to such endeavors, she chose not to reveal her involvement in them. Indeed, assigned by Kamemor to assist in the efforts to unmask those responsible for planning the Utopia Planitia operation, Sela had pinned the blame foursquare on the previous praetor, Tal’Aura, and her Tal Shiar head, Rehaek—both of them since expired.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact 06: Plagues of Night Page 19
