by Dave Stern
But the instant he laid eyes on her, those thoughts went right out of his head. And a broad smile broke out on his face. She returned it.
“Neesa.”
“Trip.”
He went to her then, and they embraced.
“I wasn’t sure if I was going to see you.”
“I wasn’t sure if it would be a good idea.”
Trip became aware that Phlox was staring at them. He was also aware that he really didn’t care about that in the least.
Up until this instant, he hadn’t even thought about whether or not he should tell the captain about his relationship with Trant. Now he realized he would—moreover, he realized, there was no reason to hide that relationship. Not that he’d have a lot of time to spend with her over the next day or so, or however much longer they were here, but still…
He wanted to squeeze in whatever moments he could before good-bye.
She eyed him closely. “I miss the beard.”
“Not regulation, sorry.”
He held her at arm’s length, unable to wipe the smile off his face, barely able to keep from taking her in his arms and kissing her. Instead, he looked over her shoulder toward Ferik, who was now entirely inside the scanning chamber.
“What’s happening?”
Phlox, leaning over the chamber read-out screen, answered instead of Trant.
“I am running a detailed series of scans on Mister Reeve’s neurological functions,” he replied without looking up, sounding—to Trip’s ears, at least—somewhat peeved.
“Your doctor,” Trant said, “thinks he can cure Ferik.”
For a second, Trip was so stunned, he didn’t know what to say.
“Cure is perhaps the wrong word, Doctor,” Phlox said. “I can repair the underlying physical damage done to the higher brain structures. The degree to which that will actually “cure” Mister Reeve’s problems is entirely unknown at this point.”
“It’s a cure as far as I’m concerned,” Trant said. “Short-term memory formation has never been the problem—it’s the recall process itself that’s been disrupted. If we can get that operating again—”
“How much of Ferik’s previous memories remain intact is still a question,” Phlox said.
“I know they’re in there,” Trant said.
“Based on what evidence?”
“I’ve been with Ferik for fourteen years, Doctor. Those memories have surfaced from time to time.”
“And they may continue to do so. I only mean that a full recovery may not be possible.”
“I’ll work with him.”
“You cannot train memory recall, Doctor. As I’m sure you know.”
“But there is evidence—as you may or may not know—that the formation of neural signal paths can—”
“Hey, hold on.” Trip looked from Trant and to Phlox. “This is good news, any way you look at it. No need to argue.”
“I was not arguing,” Phlox said. “I was simply—”
“Doc,” Trip said, a note of warning in his voice. “Let it go.”
“Of course.”
“It is good news, and I am very grateful to you, Doctor, for agreeing to examine Ferik in the first place,” Trant said.
Something in her voice gave Trip pause. She didn’t sound entirely happy about this latest development. He wondered if he was the reason why.
He’d have to try and figure that out later. Right now, he had other business to attend to.
“Doctor,” he said, more formally. “I need to take you away for a minute. Captain Archer needs you.”
“Is it an emergency?” Phlox asked, hunched over the diagnostic screen.
“I guess you could say that.”
“It either is, or it isn’t. Is a life at stake? Permanent injury?”
“No, but the captain said—”
“It will have to wait,” Phlox said curtly. “Interrupting the treatment at this point will force me to start all over—an hour’s worth of work.”
“How much longer do you need?”
“Fifteen minutes, perhaps. Half an hour at most.”
“All right,” Trip said reluctantly. He didn’t like going back empty-handed, but he didn’t see as he had much choice. “But please, as fast as you can.”
“What’s the problem?” Neesa asked. “Maybe I can help.”
He was about to tell her she couldn’t when he remembered that Trant knew as much, if not more, than Phlox about this particular issue.
“Maybe you can,” he said to her. “Come on.”
Archer had that drink after all.
And then he sat Duvall down and made her listen to him.
It took a long time to convince her he was telling the truth. He thought in the end her decision to accept what he was saying might have had more to do with the way he was acting toward her—or rather, not acting—than the words he was saying.
“You are…different,” she said at last. “I can see that.”
The captain felt himself blush again under her scrutiny. He felt oddly inadequate, after hearing about the relationship the woman in front of him and his—doppelgänger, for lack of a better word—had enjoyed. Lovers for more than three years. On the verge of marriage until Daedalus. Planning to have a child together.
Duvall, in fact, had been pregnant when the ship had attempted to launch.
Now, at last, he had an explanation for her actions fifteen years ago. Stranded, defenseless, she’d done what she had to in order to save the child growing within her. By turning over Daedalus’s technology to Sadir, she had insinuated herself in the general’s good graces. And she had convinced him he had fathered the child she was carrying.
The Monique Duvall he’d known would never have been capable of doing all that implied.
But he had to remember what Trip said. This was not his Duvall, placed in different circumstances. This was another person, a complete stranger to him. He’d have to treat her that way, keep her at arm’s length until he found out where she stood on a number of things—most importantly, on the incipient war.
No time like the present to start finding out.
The two of them were seated on the couch in C-428. Archer stood now and began pacing the room.
“I have some questions,” he said brusquely. “I hope you don’t mind answering them.”
“No. Go ahead.”
“You’ve been in contact with General Elson,” he said. “You’re on your way to see him. Why?”
“Not my choice,” she responded instantly. “If you’d come here a day ago, you would have seen the guards on our door. Four of them.”
“Elson kidnapped you?”
“No, not exactly, though he certainly wasn’t going to let us—let Lee—wander about freely once Lyatt was dead.”
“So how did you get on board Enterprise?” he finally continued.
“When word first came to us, back on Denari, about the capture of a Starfleet vessel, I was contacted. Naturally.”
“Naturally.”
“Lyatt asked me to help look over the ship. The new technology, the weapons…he had it brought back to Denari, where Lee and I boarded.”
“And then you went to Kota?”
“That’s right. Where we were when the news came. Lyatt was dead, and we were suddenly prime targets. Elson wanted us with him on Denari.” She shrugged. “The rest you know.”
He did indeed. Elson’s goal was the same as Makandros’s—the Guild’s. Control Leeman Sadir, the heir to the throne.
Who wasn’t even his father’s son.
If word about that ever got out…
Archer wondered, suddenly, how strong the resemblance between him and the boy was.
“What are you thinking?” Duvall asked.
“I’m thinking this is a complicated situation. You know about what’s happening out there now,” the captain said, gesturing to the space visible through the cabin window.
“A little.”
The captain told her about Els
on’s attack on the DEF, Makandros’s subsequent alliance with the Guild, the terrible destruction on Denari.
She was silent a moment after he’d finished.
“I’m afraid the fighting has just begun.”
“I want to help stop it before it goes any further.” He looked at Duvall. “Makandros and Lind are looking for you too. For your son.”
“I have no doubt about that.”
“They want him to lead the Council.”
“Out of the goodness of their hearts?”
“Out of a desire for peace.”
“He’s thirteen years old, Captain. They don’t want him to lead. They want him to be their puppet.”
Archer managed a smile. “I suspect they’ll have a hard time doing that with you around.”
“I’m not so sure. When Lyatt was alive…perhaps. But by myself…I’m human, not Denari. Not one of them at all.”
She looked vulnerable then. For a second, Archer felt sorry for her.
Then he remembered what the Daedalus crew—Cooney, Brodesser, all the others—had gone through because of her actions, and his sympathy vanished.
“Your son’s human too,” he pointed out. “Who else knows about that?”
“No one.”
“Not Sadir?”
“No.”
Archer frowned. “He never suspected?”
“Not that I know of.” She smiled. “Lyatt kept his own counsel. From the day I told him I was pregnant, I can tell you that he never treated Leeman as anything but his own.”
Archer nodded. “What about anyone aboard Daedalus? Anyone here you confided in?”
Duvall shook her head. “No. Doctor D’Lay knew I was pregnant, but he died in the…when Lyatt took over the ship.”
“And the boy? Does he know?”
She smiled. “Leeman, Captain. His name is Leeman.”
“Leeman, then,” Archer said, and was about to repeat his question when a sudden noise from behind made him turn.
There was someone standing in the shadows, in the doorway between the two cabins.
“Lee?” Duvall called out. “Is that you?”
The figure stepped into the light.
Twenty-One
“PENNY FOR YOUR THOUGHTS?” Trip asked.
Neesa looked up at him. “What?”
“Another Earth saying, means tell me what you’re thinking.” The two of them were on D-deck, heading up the gangway to C-428/430. Since leaving sickbay, their conversation had been very subdued. Neesa hadn’t put together a complete sentence yet—just a series of monosyllabic answers to his questions. She had a lot on her mind, obviously.
“What I’m thinking? Nothing tremendously important.”
“Can I guess?”
She managed a half smile. “Sure.”
“You’re thinking about Ferik.”
“In a way.” She looked over at him. “I’m thinking about Ferik the way he used to be. Wondering if he’ll be that way again.”
“He won’t.”
“When did you get a medical degree?”
“You don’t need a medical degree to figure that one out. It’s been more than a decade. A lot has happened to him. There’s no way he can be the same person.”
“I suppose you’re right. I guess, more than that, I’m wondering if things will be the same between us.”
“You know the answer to that,” Trip said, more gently this time. “They can’t be.”
She paused a moment. “So what do I do?”
“What do you mean?”
“If he recovers—fully recovers—do we stay together?”
“Well, on Earth, that’s how a lot of people do it. Stay together no matter what. They make a vow—till death do them part, the saying goes.”
“Is that how you’re going to do it?”
He looked at her. “Sometimes, that’s what I think I’ll do. Sometimes…I have absolutely no idea.”
“Leave it till you meet the right person?”
“I think I will.”
She smiled. “I wonder what you’re like here—the Tucker in this universe.”
“I wonder what the Neesa in mine is like.”
They stopped walking. They kissed.
“Do you know where Negatta is?” she asked. “How far away?”
He frowned. “Negatta? What does Negatta have to do with anything?”
The com sounded.
“Reed to Commander Tucker.”
Trip walked to the nearest com panel.
“Tucker here. What’s up, Malcolm?”
“We’ve got a problem.”
“I hate it when you say that. Go on.”
“Carstairs took apart one of Peranda’s little booby traps. They’re on timers.”
“Say that again?”
“They’re on timers. Random timers. They switch on and off, automatically.”
“Oh. That’s great.” It was in fact, just the opposite. They’d swept the ship for those traps using sensors set to detect the ultraviolet beams the bombs used as a triggering device. If the beams weren’t active…
“Better sweep the ship again. Use sensors set to the bomb’s composition this time.”
“Going to take a lot longer that way.”
“I know. Better get to it. I’ll let the captain know. You inform the crew.”
“Will do.”
“How is Peranda?”
“Silent as the grave. Which is where I’d like to put him.”
“I’m with you on that. Stubborn bastard.”
“Sooner or later, we’re going to need that launch bay.”
“Sooner, probably.” Trip frowned. Enough’s enough, he thought. He wondered if Archer would authorize the use of a little…chemical persuasion. “Let me talk to the captain. See what I can do.”
“Right. Keep me posted.”
“Will do. Out.”
Trip turned back to Neesa.
She was smiling.
“What now?”
“I was thinking, you need a little sodium dipentothal. That would loosen his tongue a bit.”
He smiled back. “You’re a woman after my own heart.”
One thing the Archers had always been good at—taking pictures. Digital stills, home movies, old-fashioned photographs—there were boxes and boxes of them in the attic in his parents’ old house, waiting alongside the other boxes of their possessions, waiting for the captain to decide what to do with them.
Right before the Broken Bow incident, a few days before Enterprise’s launch, Archer had gone back to that house for the first time in more than a year. A sudden desire to see old friends, old places—he’d wondered, in retrospect, if part of him had known somehow that he wouldn’t be going back that way again for a long, long time.
It had been that same something, perhaps, that had led him up to the attic and into those boxes, where he’d spent a good hour looking at pictures from his childhood and, eventually, from his father’s. Pictures of Henry Archer as a baby, a boy on his first day of school, as a gangly, awkward teenager, and finally, as a young man, on the day of his marriage.
Those images had stayed with the captain. He’d brought some of them along, in fact, digital captures stored on the workstation in his quarters. They’d also remained in his memory for the last two years while Enterprise, powered by the engine his father helped design, made its way through the galaxy.
Looking at Leeman Sadir, standing in the doorway between cabins C-428 and 430, was like finding one of those photos—a picture of his father that he’d never seen before, Henry Archer at twelve, maybe thirteen, still gangly and awkward, not a boy any longer, not quite a teenager…
About the same age as the boy he looked at now, who, no matter what name he was going by, was most definitely an Archer.
“You should be in bed,” Duvall said, getting to her feet.
“I’m not dying.” The boy looked directly at Archer. “This is him?”
Duvall nodded. “That’s right. This is C
aptain Archer. Captain, this is my son Lee.”
Archer looked the boy over and, for the second time in less than an hour, had trouble finding his voice.
Seeing Lee was like seeing the road not taken—the road that he frankly wasn’t sure he’d ever take—in physical form before him. In some ways, as close to a son as the captain would ever have.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand.
The two of them shook.
“And you, sir,” the boy said, loosing his grip. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Really? Good things, I hope.”
“Oh yes.”
Both his grip and his voice were firm, confident, self-possessed beyond his years.
He was, however, a little green around the gills.
“Lee,” Duvall said, a note of warning in her voice. “Don’t overexert yourself. Please.”
“I’ll go back to bed in a minute.” He looked at the captain. “You’re here to take us to General Elson?”
“The situation has changed,” Duvall said. “We were just talking about it.”
“What’s happened?”
“Elson hasn’t been entirely truthful with us, apparently,” Duvall said, and repeated what Archer had told her, albeit in a somewhat abbreviated form. Lee listened with a seriousness that belied his age. Again, the captain was struck by his calm demeanor.
Whatever faults Sadir and Duvall possessed, his first impression was that they’d raised a fairly impressive kid.
“Makandros has allied himself with the Guild?” The boy frowned. “That doesn’t seem possible.”
“You can see for yourself shortly,” Archer said. “They want to meet with you.”
“The Guild?” The boy looked to his mother. “They’re…we can’t trust them.”
“Times have changed. And if Elson has really done the things he stands accused of—destroying the plant at Charest—he’s the one we can’t trust.”
“I can’t believe he’d do that. Father always said…” The boy, all at once, looked uncertain—a child again, not the young man he was striving to be. Archer did the math—thirteen years old. Lee still had a lot of growing to do.
