Kirk felt tears sting his own eyes. His relationship with Christine had been purely professional, but he had always liked her personally. And he knew how close she had been to McCoy. His tears were as much for the doctor as for Christine. To lose a crewmember was always bad, no matter how you looked at it. To lose someone like Chapel was devastating.
“I understand,” Jim said, so that McCoy would not have to say anything.
McCoy nodded, causing a tear to spill down his face. “I’ll be in sickbay if you need me.” The screen went dark.
Kirk made it to the bridge this time, though he was not in a particularly good mood by the time he got there. The crew deserved to know about Chapel’s death, but he hated the thought of making the announcement.
He stepped from the turbolift onto the bridge. Uhura swiveled in her chair from the communications console. “Good morning, Captain.” She greeted him with a musical lilt, a smile across her brown face. “I was just trying” She broke off at the sight of Kirk’s expression.
“Good morning,” Kirk said shortly. The question in Uhura’s dark eyes made him feel guilty about what he had to do. Sulu and Chekov, seated at the helm, turned to murmur greetings and looked curiously at him. Had they heard? Spock was already on the bridge with his face buried in his viewer. He did not look up when Kirk entered.
Jim stepped to the conn and sat down.
“You have a priority message waiting, Captain,” Uhura said behind him. Her tone had abruptly become somber.
Kirk swiveled to face her and lifted his eyebrows.
“From San Francisco, sir.”
“Starfleet Headquarters?”
“No, sir.” She sounded genuinely puzzled. “From a public comm. A civilian frequency.”
“A public” Kirk frowned. Who the hell would be calling from—Of course. Quince. The announcement about Chris Chapel would have to wait for a minute. If Quince were calling on a public channel, it meant there was trouble. Kirk tried to ignore his quickening pulse.
“It’s a written message, sir.”
Good, then he could take it on the bridge without anyone hearing. Not that he had the slightest doubt about any of the bridge crew; but the fewer who knew about this, the better. “Switch it over to my screen, Lieutenant.” He pulled the viewer closer to him and after a second’s pause as Uhura relayed the message, read:
JIMMY: WHERE THERE’S SMOKE, THERE’S FIRE. GETTING TOO HOT TO BREATHE ROUND HERE.
It was unsigned, but there was no question it was from Quince. For a moment, Jim stared at it, stunned. Good God, Adams was right. There was a conspiracy in the Fleet.… And now Quince was in trouble on Jim’s account. He felt a sudden chill, though the bridge was perfectly warm.
He repeated the message to himself silently, then erased it and stood up. “Uhura, relay a scrambled channel down to my quarters.”
“Yes, sir. Who can I raise for you, sir?”
“I’ll do it myself.” He rose and hesitated at the look in Uhura’s eyes. But what about Christine, Captain? Don’t we deserve to know? Or was it just his guilty imagination?
He went to his quarters, thinking of Quince the whole way. If it was getting too hot for him to breathe, it meant that Quince had uncovered something incriminating, something so incriminating that he felt unsafe using Fleet channels to contact Jim.
Good God, could it mean that Mendez is only one of many? The thought make him weak. And Quince is right in the middle of them.…
If anything happens to him, it’s your fault.
Don’t be ridiculous. Nothing’s going to happen to him. You know Quince has a great sense of drama. He probably found out Mendez cheated on his income taxes years ago and has already reported it to Admiral Farragut.
Uhura relayed the channel to his private terminal. He had to ask the computer for Quince’s home code, it’d been so long since he’d used it.
What if they’d found out that he was behind Quince’s snooping? Of course, Mendez would suspect Kirk’s involvement immediately, even if Quince said nothing. It was a scrambled channel, but surely someone with Mendez’s resources would be able to monitor it and decode what was said.
It didn’t matter. Let Mendez find out, then. He had to know what was going on with Quince.
It took several minutes’ delay before the terminal informed him that no one was answering the summons at Quince’s apartment. Had Jim misfigured the time back in San Francisco? He verified it with the computer: it was four A.M. in northern California.
Don’t jump to conclusions. Quince is unattached these days. He could be spending the night somewhere else.
Or maybe he had changed his duty shift. Kirk got his nerve up and called Starfleet HQ and asked for Admiral Waverleigh.
The signal came back, slightly broken up and two minutes after he had asked the question. Admiral Waverleigh was not expected on duty for another five hours.
Kirk closed the channel. There was nothing to do now but wait until Quince came on duty, and somehow let him know he had gotten the message and then hope that Quince would find some safe way to contact him again, and tell him what was going on.
Until then, he would try to be patient and not jump to conclusions about what might have happened to Waverleigh. The best thing was to stay busy.
Unfortunately, that included returning to the bridge and informing the crew about the death of Christine Chapel.
Earlier that morning, Stanger was having another dream. It was a bad one, of course, the only kind of dream he had these days. Lieutenant Ingrit Tomson was in it, towering over him like an evil ice queen while he hung his head like a naughty six-year-old. He was very impressed by the fact she was not in uniform: she wore a long, flowing cape. One long arm, draped in dark velvet, was extended, an alabaster finger peeking out and pointing straight at him.
Quite frankly, Mr. Stanger, I can’t trust you not to screw up.
He was so agitated that he dropped the bag he was holding. The contents spilled out: some rare Aldebaran statuettes he’d found down on shore leave, a scattering of local coins, a jacket he’d bought for Rosa. And a Klingon burning phaser. It slid across the floor, hit a table (Stanger suddenly realized he and Tomson were standing in the middle of the crowded officers’ mess) and fired, searing right through the bulkhead to expose the circuits underneath.
Stanger gaped.
Just as I suspected, Tomson said.
I—I don’t know where that came from, Stanger said. And then he closed his mouth and let his lips tighten. He knew exactly where it had come from.
I always knew you were a screw-up, Tomson said. The dark cape loomed over him. But I didn’t realize what a fool, too.
A fool. He was a fool. He only had to say one word, and be done with it.
Rosa.
Can I put something in your bag? I should have thought to bring one myself.
Bazaar shopping. Shore leave on God, he couldn’t even remember the name of the planet. Didn’t want to remember the name.
He had loved Rosa enough to cover up for her, enough to keep their relationship low-key so she wouldn’t be transferred. She was under his command, and it wouldn’t have been seemly.
He had loved Rosa enough not to say, That’s not mine. Rosa must have put it in there. It would have been his word against hers, and they would have believed him, because he was the superior officer.
Instead, he kept quiet, let them assign him the blame. And all the while, he kept waiting for Rosa to come up and say, It’s mine. I can’t let him take the blame. I put the weapon there. He didn’t know anything about it.
He waited till the very end for her to come, till the day he packed up his things and left the Columbia. When she didn’t, he had found it remarkably easy to stop loving her. He knew he should have turned her in at that point. Obviously, she was reselling black-market weapons at a high profit. He knew her well enough to know she was not a weapons collector.
He also knew her well enough to know that she was probably sending the money back home. Rosa came
from a large family.
Tomson was right. He was a fool.
Slowly, threateningly, Tomson moved closer in the cape until she loomed huge in his field of vision. Something cold and metal brushed against his face a necklace. Stanger blinked, and her face shimmered, changed. She became Jeffery Adams.
Stanger tried to struggle, tried to cry out but he felt drugged, unable to move. And then the dream faded to black.
He woke the next morning and decided he definitely had the flu. Or maybe it was the vaccine. He’d had one yesterday afternoon that was it. A mild reaction to the vaccine. At least that meant it was working. He sat on the edge of his bed for a long time, trying to gather the energy necessary to stand up. The energy never came, but he stood up anyway. With the search for Adams still going on, Tomson would never forgive him if he called in sick. She’d made it clear enough that no one could be spared.
Quite frankly, Mr. Stanger, I can’t trust you not to screw up.
The unpleasantness of last night’s dream came back to him all at once, but he forced the memory away. Bad enough he should dream about Rosa no point in dwelling on it while he was conscious.
Slowly, painfully, he forced himself to get dressed and head for the door.
He didn’t even notice that it wasn’t locked. But when it opened, he did notice the corridor lights, and squinted painfully. He hadn’t realized that he had dressed himself in the dark.
Somehow, he managed to make it to Security. The whole way, he felt as if he were waiting for his knees to give out, as if they had suddenly lost their ability to support him. He felt as though the air around him were thick as sludge, and he had to fight his way through it.
Maybe not the vaccine at all. The flu some strange new form of flu. Maybe he had caught it down on Star Base Nine. He wondered how Nguyen and Lamia were feeling.
It was a miracle that he reported for duty on time. Tomson scowled at him from behind her desk, as though displeased with him for not being late again.
She rose and came around the desk to talk to him. He stood at attention, listening very carefully, because listening had also become very difficult, demanding his whole concentration. He looked up at her pinched face and felt as if he were going to fall backward any second.
“I’ve talked to the captain,” Tomson said listlessly. She looked tired, though not as tired as Stanger felt. “He suggested that, since you have the most experience, it makes sense for you to be temporarily appointed my second-in-command. I’m taking his advice against my better judgment. I want you to be aware of that. The new assignment is effective immediately.”
“The captain,” Stanger said slowly. In some distant part of himself, he felt a deep sense of gratitude and wonder.
“Yes.” Tomson looked down at him, her scowl deepening. “Are you feeling quite all right, Ensign?”
“The captain,” Stanger repeated. He started to roll backward on his heels.
Tomson leaned forward and caught him, somewhat awkwardly because the only way she could do so was to hug him to her chest. She corrected the inappropriate embrace and scooped the unconscious man up in her arms.
Oh, hell, she thought. Now who am I going to get as my second-in-command?
Chapter Twelve
LAMIA’S UNIVERSE WAS collapsing in on her like a black hole. First, the loss of Tijra and the family, then the very different sort of loss in Nguyen. A wall of depression had erected itself around Lisa ever since Adams’ attack, and though she spoke to Lamia, and listened to her, she remained subtly withdrawn, as if in spirit, at least, she were already in Colorado. Lisa was talking openly about resigning and would be gone within a week or two. Lamia could no longer claim her as a friend.
Then the awful announcement about Nurse Chapel had come on the shipwide intercom, followed by the grapevine news of Stanger’s illness. Lamia knew she had already lost Stanger’s friendship, but to hear that he was sick and probably dying was no less painful. Oddly enough, Stanger—and the entire ship, for that matter—had been vaccinated as of yesterday afternoon. The rumors were flying fast and furious.
The vaccine doesn’t work. And here we are, looking for the man without our field suits.
Did you hear? He passed out right into Tomson’s arms.
She’s next.…
Lamia walked down the corridor and paused at the door to sickbay. She was still on duty for another three and a half hours or so, but sickbay was included in her assigned search area. Of course, she had already secured the area and should be proceeding down another level to continue the search, but she had sent Snarl on without her. Snarl rumbled about it a bit, but Lamia knew she could trust the feline. Snarl would say nothing, even if questioned. Tomson would never know.
She had to find out about Jon.
She drew a deep breath and walked in. At first she was confused; Stanger was not where she expected him to be, in one of the diagnostic beds used for less serious cases. An organ in her midsection fluttered as she realized where he must be: off to the left, in one of the isolation chambers.
She took a few steps to the left around the bulkhead and found McCoy and Tomson engaged in serious conversation in front of one of the chambers. The lieutenant had her arms folded over her chest and was hunching down so that she could better hear McCoy. The doctor was talking earnestly, face tilted up toward Tomson’s. He was saying something about cabin locks.
Lamia knew that Stanger was inside the chamber even before she walked up to see. There was no point in trying to leave; Tomson had already seen her.
So the rumors about the worthless vaccine were true. She felt like screaming with anger and disbelief. If Adams had stood in front of her now, she would have killed him with her bare hands. You can’t have him too, she wanted to cry. Not him and Lisa both. Not him.
But outwardly she remained as impassive as any Vulcan. She marched up next to the chamber, right next to Tomson. It took no courage. She was too grief-stricken to be afraid of anything so meaningless as a demerit.
The chamber was dimmed but not completely darkened, and inside Stanger appeared to be unconscious. His skin had changed from a warm, deep brown to a sallow grayish color, and there were tubes going into the crook of one elbow. He looked as if he were dying.
Tomson directed her gaze from the doctor to Lamia. For once, her tone was not imperious. She seemed chastened, shaken. “Ensign,” she acknowledged softly, as if Lamia had every right to be there. Perhaps she had forgotten Snarl’s call to say that sickbay had been secured.
McCoy stopped talking. He looked beaten.
“Lieutenant,” Lamia said. “Does Ensign Stanger have the—the sickness?”
“Yes,” McCoy answered. He did not ask her to be more specific.
She had known it the moment she’d seen him behind the glass, and so she was able to keep from crying out in despair. She glanced at him, then looked up at Tomson. “Request permission” She stopped. She was not exactly sure what she was requesting permission to do. “Ensign Stanger is my friend, sir. I’d like to stay with him for a minute or two, if I could.” Not military at all. She waited for Tomson’s face to start turning pink, as it always did when her sense of protocol was violated. She waited for the lecture on how every warm body was needed for the search—especially now that Stanger was out of action.
She didn’t get either. Something strange and fleeting crossed Tomson’s face. Compassion?
“Report back to your station at 1300 hours.” For some reason, the lieutenant did not meet her eyes.
In a half hour. Lamia consciously kept her mouth from dropping open. A half hour? She hadn’t dared hope that Tomson would let her stay a minute. In that instant, she radically altered her opinion of the lieutenant.
Tomson glanced quickly at McCoy. “We’ll continue this conversation at a later time.”
McCoy nodded back, and Tomson left.
“Not really such a bad sort, is she?” he said to Lamia. She did not answer him; she was too busy staring at Stanger.
&n
bsp; “How is he?”
McCoy did not answer for such a long time that she turned away from Stanger to look back at him. For an instant, his professional facade vanished and nothing but pure grief showed on his face. She knew then what he was going to tell her, and she was furious at him because she did not want to hear it. She clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palms, and raised them up as if she were going to strike McCoy. She was very close to killing him.
He saw it and did not flinch, but put his hands on her upraised arms and gently lowered them. She fell against him too grief-stricken to make a sound.
How could this happen? She wanted to scream again, but all she could choke out was the angry word, “How ?”
“From the level to which the infection had progressed, I would say he was infected the day before he was vaccinated. The vaccine only served to speed things up a bit.” McCoy paused, as if speaking was a great burden for him. “He’s in the chamber because at first we were afraid there was some problem with the vaccine. There wasn’t.”
“So everyone’s safe,” she said softly, her eyes on Jon’s still, gray form. Everyone else, that is. It wasn’t fair; but then, nothing seemed to be fair anymore. The universe had become a dark and unjust place.
It struck her that for the first time his face was relaxed and free of bitterness. She sensed very strongly that he had carried with him a secret that had distanced him from her, and she was sorry now that he had not known her well enough to trust her with it.
“I’m sorry,” McCoy said gently.
She straightened. She had been angry out of pure selfishness, out of concern for what would happen to her now that her family and friends were gone. It wasn’t fair to Jon. She stood very still watching him and thought about him instead of herself. What happened to her was no longer important. She held herself back from traditional mourning; the wailing sounds would probably bother McCoy, and she guessed that Jon would have found them embarrassing. He would have preferred that she act reserved, so she stood woodenly, staring at his body. Her knowledge of Terran beliefs about death was vague, but she hoped that wherever Jon’s human essence had gone, it was an easier place for him.
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