Well of Souls

by Ilsa J. Bick

  At Bat-Levi’s left elbow, Bulast inhaled and blinked, as if his mind had been a million kilometers away. “I don’t know that I have an opinion,” he said.

  That was a first. Bat-Levi turned in surprise. Bulast always had something to say. Come to think of it, this was the first complete sentence he’d uttered for the entire meal.

  “An opinion on Halak?” she prodded. “Or SI?”

  Bulast spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “On anything. I don’t know about the rest of you, but this is probably the worst thing I can ever remember happening on any ship I’ve served on. Oh, sure, people do shoot at us, and they think they have good reasons: territorial disputes, self-defense. But I can’t get past the fact that one of our friends is dead, and another person, a man I might not think of as my closest friend but our XO, might be nothing more than a cold-blooded killer. And none of us caught it. Not the captain, not anyone.”

  Kodell said, “Bulast, who can know what’s true, what we should have caught and didn’t? Maybe there was nothing to catch. All we have is SI’s word. That’s it.”

  “And evidence,” said Castillo.

  “Yes, with SI providing it all. But I’m not talking about that.” Clearly frustrated, Kodell clamped his lips together. “I guess I’m just not making myself clear. Isn’t it funny that each of us can understand the impulse to kill for revenge or self-defense, but that none of us is willing, for one second, to put ourselves in the shoes of someone who feels cornered, or that he has nothing to lose? Maybe Halak did kill those two crewmen. I, for one, don’t know. But I am willing to try to put myself in his place and try to understand why his reasons felt like good ones.”

  “That’s because murder’s murder,” said Castillo.

  “No,” said Bat-Levi. Instinctively, she understood what Kodell was saying. “Sometimes you kill because you don’t have a choice. Or because you don’t think there’s a choice—a no-win scenario. You think you’re in the classic Kobayashi Maru. But there’s always a choice. It’s simply that you don’t like the choices you have.”

  Kodell stared at her for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Precisely.”

  After a few moments, Kodell excused himself. Bat-Levi and Glemoor left a short while later. Castillo lingered a moment with Bulast who sat, chin in hands.

  “Hell.” Castillo blew out. “You ever hear such crap? Pretty black and white, you ask me.”

  Bulast’s shoulders hunched, fell. “I can understand the point.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “What Kodell said,” the Atrean’s eyes slid toward Castillo, “about secrets.”

  Castillo’s lips moved in a quizzical smile. “Secrets?”

  “Yes. He’s right. Everyone’s got secrets.” Bulast paused then added, “Even you, Richard.”

  Castillo’s lips parted, and he felt a wave of cold dread flood his chest. Oh, no. “Me? What are you talking about, Darco?”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about…no,” said the Atrean as Castillo opened his mouth. “Don’t say it. Don’t say anything.”

  Bulast stood then and slid his tray, the plastic loudly scouring the tabletop. “I know your secret, Richard. I know, exactly, what you did with Ani.”

  He shouldn’t have talked so much. What had gotten into him? Kodell hurried along what seemed to be the interminably long corridor curling from the mess hall to the turbolift. The corridor was more crowded than usual, or so it seemed to Kodell, who spent most of his time in Jefferies tubes, fussing with the warp core, or doing systems’ checks in engineering. He preferred machines. Machines didn’t talk back. (All right, the computer did, but it never started a conversation. Well, a warning, maybe. That didn’t count.) But he had talked. What was more, he’d actually enjoyed it.

  This won’t do. Sweat crawled down his back. This simply won’t do.

  He was a Trill, with secrets. And was it simply that fact alone that accounted for his reluctance to mingle? True, the Trill had their secrets, in more ways than one. A lucky point-one-percent of the population carried a secret in their bodies. But then there was everybody else, and then there were Trill like him.

  It’s eating you up, Anjad. Your jealousy, your hurt, and you say you love me, but I know the truth, I know you really want me dead.

  Th’leila, how can you say that? I love you.

  No, Anjad. You don’t know what you love more: me, or what’s inside…

  No. Kodell forced these thoughts back into the black box in his mind where he kept them. Stop this. He wouldn’t think about Th’leila, and he wouldn’t think about Bok, nor would he think of Th’leila Bok: as they were, together, closer than lovers, and how much he loved and hated them both because Th’leila had been lucky, and he had not, and how Bok—Kodell’s heart twisted with grief and longing—how Bok had been his, his for a brief, precious moment, joining in the conductance fluid medium of the tank, their thoughts entwining, and Bok had been his symbiont, before there ever was a Th’leila.

  Th’leila’s body, her skin slicked with sweat from their love-making, the long golden river of her hair curling around her breasts, and the way she cried out, arching, reaching for him. “Love me, Anjad, show me how you love me…”

  Just ahead, Kodell spied three enlisted straddling the entire width of the corridor. Kodell dodged left while clearing his throat, loudly. The enlisted on the far left jumped as if he’d been shot with a phaser. He flinched aside, crowding his two companions who bunched to the right, along the bulkhead.

  “Sorry, sir. I didn’t see…”

  “Fine, fine.” Kodell just waved a hand and shot past. “Carry on.”

  Bat-Levi. Kodell strode purposefully for the turbolift. Bat-Levi had gotten him started. But she didn’t look anything like Th’leila Bok, a woman with hair as golden as liquid sunlight and deep brown eyes and lips so full he never could resist catching the lower one between his teeth when they kissed. So what was it? Why now? Kodell clenched his fists, tight, tight. Why was he plagued by thoughts of Th’leila—and Bok—now?

  Kodell saw a gaggle of crewmen waiting at the turbolift and suppressed an urge to curse. Take a Jefferies, get some exercise. Cooped up in a ship all day, crawling around the Jefferies tubes was a relief. Maybe a little like one of those blind, naked Draken mole rats, but still a relief.

  Then he heard a woman calling his name, and his stomach did a little leap of dismay. For one brief instant, petty as the impulse was, Kodell debated. He could pretend he hadn’t heard then dart right down the near corridor, jog to a Jefferies tube that would take him all the way to Deck 22, and then jump on a turbolift there.

  Ahead, he saw a crewman turn his head and then look at Kodell, who’d hesitated one millisecond too long. “I think she’s calling you, sir,” the crewman said, helpfully.

  “Yes,” said Kodell, knowing he couldn’t avoid Bat-Levi now. He gave the crewman a tight smile. “Thank you so much, crewman.”

  He turned, and watched as Bat-Levi approached. He noticed, as if for the first time, that she was fairly skilled in compensating for her prostheses. Her movements weren’t clumsy, though she lurched a little to the left. Probably the right knee joint needed readjusting; nothing five minutes with a tefloflex spanner wouldn’t solve. And she had to do something about the noise. Those servos sounded like the high-pitched chirping of a flock of Meprean grackles. Strange she hadn’t upgraded. Most people cared about those things. On the other hand—his eyes took in her scar, the way her once-pretty face twisted to one side, that streak of white skittering through her black hair like an errant lightening bolt—Darya Bat-Levi clearly wasn’t most people.

  “Commander,” he said as she came to stand before him. Kodell put his hands behind his back, as if coming to attention but really giving himself a warning not to get too comfortable. He noticed then that when she stood, she kept her left hand—the artificial one—tucked, out of sight, at the small of her back.

 
; “Commander,” she said, her tone betraying some surprise at the use of her rank. She gave a tentative smile, and he saw how the right side of her mouth was so tight, smiling pulled her lip down in a grimace. He thought it must be painful.

  “I just…you left so quickly, I didn’t have a chance to tell you.” She seemed to flounder for what she wanted to say, and he let her. “I just wanted to let you know that I liked what you said. I don’t remember ever hearing you talk so much before and…sorry, that didn’t come out right.”

  “No,” said Kodell, her obvious chagrin making him warm to her despite his internal admonitions. “But, if I were insecure, I’d wonder if you were keeping score.”

  “Well, it’s just that I wanted to say that I understand.”

  Kodell kept his voice neutral. “Understand what?”

  “What you said. About passion, and things like that.”

  “I was just talking.” Kodell lifted one shoulder, an offhanded gesture. It was cruel of him; he knew that right away because he saw her surprise, and the way color flooded her cheeks. The scar on her face was so red it looked boiled.

  “Oh,” she said, her voice small, embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I guess I thought…well, in the mess, you…” She broke off then made a move to back away. “I just thought….”

  Instantly, he was ashamed. There was something touching about her, and she was reaching out, making an effort, and he knew, instinctively, that she did this only rarely. Why hurt her?

  Because you’re frightened. Not Th’leila’s voice this time, but the very special voice that was no voice at all but the thoughts of the symbiont Bok resonating in his soul. Because she’s wounded, she’s incomplete, and you know precisely how that feels, but she’s brave, and you’re a coward.

  “No, please,” he said, almost blurting it out. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair. Please, finish what you were saying.”

  He saw her indecision. Then she said, “Oh, hell.”

  “Pardon?”

  She shook her head, exhaled a short false laugh. “I never was very good at this.”

  “Good at what?”

  “This,” she waved her right hand in the space between them, “small talk. Breaking the ice. I’m horrible, always have been. I do better if I cut to the chase.”

  “Cut to the…?”

  “Yes, it means get to the point. It’s an Earth saying, back from the days when they made films.”

  “Films.”

  “Yes, like holos, only they were pictures on celluloid, and the way to keep an audience’s attention was to cut from a scene that was all talk to one that was all action, and…” At the expression on his face, she laughed outright.

  This pleased him. “Something’s funny.”

  Her black eyes sparkled. “You sound like Glemoor. You know, the way he always wants people to explain their idioms.”

  “I’ve noticed that. You think he doesn’t understand?”

  Bat-Levi cocked her head to one side. “No, he knows what he’s doing. Remember, he’s tactical. I’ve noticed he always does it when things are really delicate. It’s hard to explain, but I think it’s a sophisticated kind of negotiation. Idioms imply a shared culture, and so when Glemoor asks someone like Castillo to explain, or for help, he’s giving Castillo something. Validation, an advantage that really isn’t one.”

  “So you think he appeals to ego.”

  “Right. It’s a way of giving something to someone that doesn’t cost you a thing.”

  “A good tactic,” said Kodell, and they exchanged smiles. She was a head shorter, and the fact that he had to look down moved him, made him feel protective.

  What is it about this woman? Aloud, he said, “Well, then, cut to the chase, Commander.”

  Her face grew serious, and they were so close he saw her eyes flick back and forth, searching his.

  “Yes. I just wanted to say that I understand. Completely. What you said about someone being angry enough to want to kill, or feel that murder is the only way. I understand all about that. I understand about passion.”

  “And pain,” said Kodell, and then wondered why he’d said that.

  “And pain.” She paused. “I think maybe you know about pain, too. Loss.”

  “And why is that?” He tried to keep his voice light, and didn’t know if he succeeded. A high thin whine sounded in his ears, almost like an alarm.

  “I just know. If that makes sense.”

  He was very still, though his mind was not. Uncanny, how did she know? For some reason, he was acutely aware of the way his heart thudded in his chest: almost as if his heart had stopped beating and just now remembered to come back to life.

  Oh, Th’leila Bok, how much of my life have you stolen? How much did I let you steal?

  He cleared his throat. “All this talk about emotion, we’ll think you’ve spent too much time with our ship’s psychiatrist.” He’d meant it as a joke, but instantly he saw her embarrassment, and he knew he’d stumbled into something. “Commander Bat-Levi, I didn’t mean…”

  “It’s okay,” she said. She made a move to go. “Anyway, I should…”

  “No, don’t.” He almost reached out a hand to stop her but restrained himself at the last instant. “I’m the one who should apologize. Not many people to talk to in engineering, just machines,” he was aware that he was starting to babble but plunged on, “and, anyhow I’m out of practice, I made a bad joke. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she said, her voice tight with mortification. “I forgot. It’s a small ship and, of course, everyone must know.”

  Now he was confused. “Know? Know what?”

  “Well, that,” and just as quickly she stopped herself. Kodell knew at once he shouldn’t pursue the matter. “Nothing. Oh, hell,” she sighed, “I always put my foot in it.”

  “I know this idiom. On Trill, we say, Uncork week-old fermented klah.” Kodell pulled his features into a comical grimace. “Very unpleasant.”

  Despite herself, Bat-Levi chucked. “Sounds gruesome.”

  “Smells. Yes. By the way, congratulations; I hear you’re going to be our new first officer.”

  “Just acting. Until the captain decides what she wants to do.” Bat-Levi gave an inverted smile, something that seemed to come naturally. “I’m not sure it’s the way I wanted to make XO, though. Not even sure I want to be first officer, but, sometimes, opportunity chooses you.” She pulled herself up. “I should go; I didn’t mean to keep you. But, maybe, we could, I don’t know, catch a cup of coffee, or something? Sometime?”

  Kodell hesitated for what seemed like a long time but was, really, a fraction of a second. “Yes. Coffee. I’d like that,” and he meant it.

  And then he did something that was, for him, totally out of character, almost insane. “Do you mind if I make a little suggestion?”

  Coffee, and then offering to help with her servos—“I couldn’t help noticing that they need adjusting. Why don’t you stop by engineering when you’ve got time?”—like it was no big deal. Bat-Levi hummed as the turbolift shot up to Deck 12, and the doors sighed open. So, why did it feel like such a big deal?

  Because it is, honey. It is.

  Just you wait, Tyvan. Just you wait. She stumped toward her quarters. She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when she told him. She was even more surprised that the thought—her wanting to tell Tyvan anything—didn’t make her angry. Not one bit.

  Bat-Levi burst out laughing. And that felt good, too.

  Chapter 23

  Marta Batanides stopped speaking, and for a good ten seconds, the bridge was so quiet the staccato bleeps of the ship’s systems cracked like pistol shots. Even Stern, who stood to the left of Garrett’s command chair, was speechless.

  Although Batanides had come through on audio, Garrett stood before her chair, hands clasped behind her back, her stance formal. “I want to lodge a formal protest.”

  “Certainly.” Batanides’s voice was just as formal. “I’ll see that Admiral Stout is i
nformed. Anything else?”

  “You mean besides the fact that I don’t want you taking Commander Halak off the ship without representation, and unaccompanied? That regulations demand a command-level inquiry with his captain in attendance? That I protest your authorizing the removal of one of my officers from my ship, yet you haven’t filed a single charge?” Garrett shook her head even though Batanides couldn’t see her. “No.”

  “Objections noted,” said Batanides.

  “What about Starfleet Command? My personal report to Admiral Stout?”

  “Admiral Stout has authorized me to inform you that he is aware of your objections and they’ve been duly noted.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. Facts are facts, Captain. You are hereby ordered to remand Commander Halak to Lieutenant Burke. Your former first officer,” Batanides paused as if to underscore Halak’s status, “will not be un accompanied. Lieutenant Burke and a representative of the Vulcan V’Shar, certainly an impartial agency…”

  “Logic isn’t synonymous with impartiality.”

  Batanides talked over Garrett. “Will accompany him. If after a more formal inquiry, charges are brought, Commander Halak will be afforded representation.”

  “I want to be there,” said Garrett, knowing her demand would fall on deaf ears. But for the same reason that she’d chosen to take the call on the bridge, she wanted her objections on record. No more cloak-and-dagger routine on her ship. “The regulations are clear, Commander. They demand the presence of Halak’s commanding officer.”

  “Captain Garrett, those same regulations also stipulate that should said commanding officer’s duties interfere, a formal statement will suffice. If it’s any comfort, we’ve contacted Barker and Captain Connors is en route.”

  “No, I’m not comforted. Surely my testimony isn’t irrelevant.”

  “No one’s suggesting that. But we are reopening our investigation into the Ryn mission. That mission was and is none of your concern.”