After the Fall

by Peter David

  “Xyon!”

  He looked toward where Kalinda’s voice came from, and although his vision was still blurred, he was able to make out what was happening. He just didn’t understand it or believe it.

  Some sort of light grid had appeared atop Kalinda as if someone had drawn carefully detailed squares all over her body. Frantically she shoved at them, as if she could push them off herself. She twisted and turned and they followed her. “Xyon!” she cried out again, and suddenly she began to disappear. But it wasn’t with the explosive force that had blown Lyla apart. Instead it was eerily similar to the effects of a transporter. There was no sound, though. All of it was transpiring in eerie silence broken only by her plaintive pleas for help.

  “It’s not possible!” he shouted even as he lunged toward her. “Transporter beams can’t go through shields!” At that moment, he didn’t consider the fact that he couldn’t stop whatever was being instigated from the other end. All he knew was that, if Kalinda was being taken away, he was going to go with her.

  That, as it turned out, was not an option. The instant he came in contact with the energy field that had enveloped Kalinda and was stealing her away, he was blasted back with a jolt more violent than anything he’d ever felt. He hurtled backward and slammed into the far wall of the main cabin with sickening force. He heard a distant crunch and realized it was the sound of his own skull striking the hard surface. Then the floor was under him and he didn’t even remember sliding down to it.

  He lay there helpless, frantically commanding his body to get up, to do something. Instead his arms and legs were immobile. He had no more chance of convincing them to do anything than if they’d belonged to someone else. Kalinda, terror etched on her face, reached for him across what seemed a vast distance and then, in a shower of particles, she was gone.

  Get up! Get up! Do something! Xyon’s mind screamed at him. It was useless. He wasn’t budging. Distantly he became aware that his ship was no longer moving. The other ship passed over him. He couldn’t see it, but he could sense it, like a great black angel of death, and he even fancied that in the distance recesses of his mind, Kalinda was still shrieking his name.

  Then the darkness reached out toward him, and he did nothing to resist it.

  ii.

  The first thing Xyon became aware of was pain.

  He realized in a detached manner that someone was hitting him in the face. And they were shouting something at him, but his mind was so scrambled that he couldn’t quite make out what it was. He also realized that there was some sort of pressure on his chest, but didn’t know at first what was causing it.

  As the world swam back into existence around him, he realized that it was someone’s knee. Someone had their knee on his chest and was leaning over him, slapping him fiercely.

  He managed to open his eyes and regain enough command of his senses to say “I’m awake!” just before another blow took him. It snapped his face to one side, and with a grunt, he tried to force his way up to sitting. But he had only partial command of his body back, and suddenly he was choking. He realized why almost immediately: He’d swallowed some of his own blood. The side of his face was already swelling and his lips were bleeding, presumably from cuts thanks to the fact that his assailant was wearing heavy metal gloves with serrated edges.

  The face glaring down at him was not a pleasant one. At first Xyon thought it was Tiraud, but then realized that it was likely another member of Tiraud’s race. Nelkarites…that was it. He was a Nelkarite. So the good thing was that it wasn’t Tiraud himself. The bad thing was that it probably wasn’t going to make that much difference. There were several other Nelkarites visible behind him. Obviously they had invaded his ship. Equally obviously, he was in deep trouble.

  “Where is she?” snarled the Nelkarite. That was actually an impressive feat, considering the general singsong melodiousness of the typical Nelkarite. “Where’s the Lady Kalinda?”

  “They took her,” Xyon managed to get out.

  “Who did?”

  “I don’t know. But we have to go after them.”

  The Nelkarite looked at one of his associates, who shook his head grimly. “Sensor sweeps indicate the presence of no other vessel in this area.”

  “That’s impossible. Lyla!” Xyon called out. “Replay visual record of the ship that was after us.”

  Lyla did not materialize, but her voice said calmly, “What visual record of what ship, Xyon?”

  “The visual record! Of the ship! The huge one!”

  “I have no record of any such pursuit, Xyon.”

  Xyon was thunderstruck. “It…they must have erased your memory somehow, Lyla. That’s the only answer, Lyla.”

  “Actually, there’s a far simpler one: You’re lying!” the Nelkarite inquisitor informed him, and smashed him across the face again.

  “Okay,” Xyon said abruptly, trying to stop the world from spinning around him. “I’m lying. But I’ll only tell the truth to Si Cwan.”

  “You are in no position to bargain, you bastard! If you don’t tell me what we want to know, I’ll…”

  “Kill me?” Xyon’s voice sounded thick to him between the blood trickling into his lungs and the swelling of his mouth. “Then no one will ever know.”

  The Nelkarite considered that a moment, and then the pressure of his knee was gone from Xyon’s chest. Instead he was being hauled to his feet by other Nelkarites, gripping him firmly by the arms and keeping him immobilized. “All right,” the Nelkarite said to him, his face mere inches from Xyon’s own. “You seem just stupid enough to refuse to cooperate. We’ll bring you back to New Thallon. And you will tell everything you know there or by the gods, you’ll regret the day you were born.”

  “Not a day goes by when I don’t,” Xyon said.

  U.S.S. Excalibur

  i.

  Moke, the adopted son of Mackenzie Calhoun, sauntered through the corridors of the Excalibur. At approximately fourteen years of age, he had developed into an impressive, strapping young lad. On occasion Calhoun would introduce him to newcomers simply as “my son,” and it amused Moke tremendously when people would invariably say, “Oh, yes! He looks just like you!”

  At that moment he was walking back to his quarters from his day’s worth of lessons. His teacher was quite pleased with him, and had told him he would be getting high marks on just about all his subjects. This was a relief, since his studies had taken a downturn the previous month, and Mac had been all over him about buckling down and getting the job done. He was having dinner that evening with Calhoun and was looking forward to imparting some good news about his academics for a change.

  As he rounded a corner, someone moving very quickly in the other direction nearly slammed into him. The impact was avoided at the last second by a quick, graceful movement on the part of the other person. Nevertheless Moke was irritated by the closeness of the collision and started to snap off an annoyed comment.

  It died in his throat as he looked up and saw who it was that had nearly collided with him.

  “Moke!” said Xy, looking genuinely pleased to see him.

  “Oh. Hi,” Moke said.

  “It’s…been a while.”

  “Yeah.” Moke suddenly found the tops of his shoes to be of great interest. “Well…it’s a big ship.”

  “Not that big.” Xy paused, studying Moke thoughtfully. “Have you been avoiding me?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Well, look,” said Xy, pointing in front of him, “I was just heading down to the team room. I thought maybe…”

  “Can’t.”

  “We could catch up…”

  “Later,” Moke said, and was heading off down the hall, calling over his shoulder, “Now is really a lousy time. Later. We’ll make it later.”

  “All right,” Xy called after him softly.

  ii.

  Mackenzie Calhoun did not have psychic powers…at least, not in the traditional sense.

  He did have an instinct for dange
r that bordered on the psychic, if not the supernatural. He preferred to ascribe it to a long and proud tradition of being able to pick up on danger signals that others might have noticed but didn’t.

  Nevertheless, as he sat at the dining table opposite Moke, he considered the fact that it didn’t require supernatural powers of any sort to realize that something was bothering the teen. Granted, the fact alone that he was a teenager was more than enough to warrant a desultory manner. But Calhoun had happened to run into Moke’s teacher, who had spoken expansively and enthusiastically of the lad’s work in recent days, and also mentioned that he’d praised Moke that very day.

  So he’d expected something akin to jubilance from his adopted son this evening. Instead Moke had been cordial but distant. Calhoun even gave him the opportunity by saying, “So how have your studies been going lately?” Moke’s response: an indifferent “Fine,” and that had been that.

  “Is the steak not to your taste?” Calhoun asked after a bit.

  “It’s fine. Why?”

  “Because you’ve hardly eaten it.”

  “Hmm?” He looked down at the sizable remains on his plate. “Oh. Okay, sorry.” He proceeded to make more of an effort to down the portion.

  Then Calhoun reached over with his knife and laid it atop Moke’s. Moke looked up at him with mild confusion. “Is this, you know…some sort of Xenexian challenge to a duel?”

  “No. It’s my challenge to you to tell me what’s on your mind.”

  Moke shrugged. Calhoun moaned softly. “Are we back to shrugging?”

  “Back to—?”

  “When you were younger, I’d have entire conversations with you that consisted of me asking questions and you shrugging. I was hoping those days were long gone. I would have liked to think that you’d hoped that as well.”

  Reflexively, Moke began to shrug, but stopped himself. As a result it looked like he had just smothered a cough. This prompted Calhoun to smile slightly, but he managed to hide it. “Seriously, Moke…”

  “Seriously, there’s nothing…” He took a deep breath. “It’s not important. It’s stupid.”

  “Never, ever consider your feelings about anything to be stupid. I don’t want to hear that word in connection with you ever again. Do you hear?” Calhoun said firmly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I didn’t quite hear that.”

  “Yes, sir,” Moke repeated, not mumbling it this time.

  “Good. So…what happened?”

  “I bumped into Xy in the hallway and sort of just ignored him.”

  Calhoun “harrumphed.” “Well…that was stupid.”

  “Mac!”

  “An action can be stupid without the person being stupid.”

  “You’re a big help.”

  “Why did you just ignore him?”

  “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “Have you considered not just ignoring him?”

  Moke had been twiddling with his fork all during that time. Finally he put the fork down. “Nobody needs me,” he said in exasperation.

  Calhoun leaned back in his chair. “Now what kind of self-pitying—?”

  “It’s not self-pitying. It’s the truth! I mean…Xy used to be this…” He held his hand about a foot or so off the floor. “I used to carry him around, for God’s sake! On my shoulders! And he looked up to me and smiled! Now he looks down on me and…and smirks! I mean, I have to struggle and work so hard to pull my studies up to a level you’re satisfied with, and Xy…”

  “Has already graduated medical school.”

  “Right! I feel like an idiot compared to him!”

  “Compared to him, just about everyone on this ship is an idiot,” Calhoun reminded him. “You can’t beat yourself up just because of that.”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But…”

  “But what?”

  “But how am I supposed to…I don’t know…relate to him? I feel like it was practically yesterday that he was a baby.”

  “Practically yesterday, he was a baby. And practically tomorrow…”

  Calhoun hesitated, and Moke fixed a level gaze on him. “Practically tomorrow he’ll be dead? Is that what you were going to say?”

  “More or less.”

  “And…and how am I supposed to feel about that?”

  Calhoun smiled sadly. “I can’t tell you how to feel, Moke. It’s not right that I should dictate to you what your feelings are. Still…for all your frustration that you’re feeling right now…your embarrassment that Xy has developed beyond anything that you’re capable of keeping pace with…I think it’s wise to remember that he’s paying a terrible price for that. He could probably use every friend he can get…even the ones who used to be taller than him and are now shorter.”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess?”

  “It’s just…” He was clearly trying to find the best way to say it, and Calhoun quietly waited, letting the lad take his time. “It’s just…it probably will sound stupid and selfish and self-centered and completely unreasonable…but I feel like everyone leaves me behind. That’s what I mean when I say that nobody needs me.”

  “Leaves you behind? Who’s left you behind?”

  “My father. My mother. Now Xy…”

  “Oh, Moke. That’s just…”

  “I said it was stupid.”

  “It’s not stupid,” Calhoun told him, “but it is…I’d say ‘unreasonable.’ Your father, he was…well, he was what he was. And your mother passed away, Moke. You think she didn’t want to stay with you? You think she wouldn’t have given everything she had to be with you? To watch you grow up, to grow strong and healthy? And Xy didn’t ask for the cards that fate dealt him.”

  “I know there’s reasons. Good reasons. Reasons that it would be just…just ridiculous to think that…but…” All the thoughts tumbled about and he felt strangled trying to express himself. “All the reasons, as good as they are, as…as reasonable as they are, ’cause I know my mom and Xy didn’t ask for what happened…but after all the reasons are given, it still comes down to that I’m left behind. That they…moved on.”

  “And have I left you behind? Hmm?” demanded Calhoun. “Have I done anything to make you feel as if you’re no longer of consequence to me? That you’re not a part of my life?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Because it hasn’t been easy, Moke. Don’t think it has. It hasn’t been easy to balance the demands of being a starship captain with my loyalty to you and wanting to be there for you. Not easy at all.”

  “I’m sorry, Mac,” Moke said honestly. “I didn’t mean to make you feel guilty.”

  “Don’t worry, you haven’t. My conscience is clear,” Mackenzie Calhoun told him with utter confidence. “Moke…I think maybe you want to spend some time with the ship’s counselor.”

  “Whyyy?” Moke moaned.

  “Because you have some serious emotional and abandonment issues, and I think it would help you to speak directly to someone more experienced in such matters than I am. The one thing I can do,” and he raised his voice slightly to get over Moke’s continued moaning, “is assure you that I will never ‘abandon’ you. I will always give you my attention—as much as is possible in any given circumstance—and make sure that no one can…”

  His combadge suddenly beeped. He tapped it with obvious reluctance. “Calhoun, go.”

  “Bridge here, Captain,” came Burgoyne’s voice. “We’re receiving a transmission from Thallonian space.”

  “Thallonian space?” He looked up at that, his attention suddenly engaged. “Point of origin?”

  “It’s a live uplink from New Thallon. Lieutenant Commander Robin Lefler. She stated it was of the utmost urgency.”

  “Robin! All right,” he said after a brief hesitation, “send it down here.”

  “Aye, Captain.”

  Seconds later, the screen wavered out to be replaced by the grim expression of Robin Lefler.

  “Greetings, Lieutenant Commander Lefler,”
Calhoun greeted her. “You’re looking well.”

  “I appreciate that, Captain, but I can’t say I’m feeling well,” Robin said. “At least you’re close enough that I could get a real-time message to you.”

  “If you’re contacting me to tell me about Xyon…I already know.”

  “Oh really. What do you know?”

  “Well, that he apparently absconded with Kalinda, and that everyone and their brother is out looking for him. We’re on our way…”

  “Yes, well, I suggest that whatever means you might be able to utilize to speed up ‘your way,’ you employ them.”

  He was immediately all business. “What happened? Tell me everything. Leave nothing out.”

  Robin told him, beginning with what had happened when Xyon had been brought before Si Cwan. Half an hour later the heartsick Calhoun, in absorbing everything that Xyon had gone through, looked around and realized that Moke had walked out of the room without saying a word…and Calhoun hadn’t even noticed that he had left.

  Calhoun tapped his combadge. “Calhoun to Moke.” No response came. “Morgan, Moke’s location, please?”

  Morgan’s voice replied readily over the combadge, “Moke is in his room.”

  Calhoun got up and headed over to Moke’s quarters, where the first several pushes of the door chime were ignored. “Moke,” he said in annoyance. “Open up.”

  “I’m sleeping. I can’t hear you,” Moke replied.

  “Moke…”

  Several crewmen walked past, glancing at the odd sight of their captain standing in a corridor and having to beg repeatedly for someone to obey a direct order. He forced a half smile and waited until they were gone, at which point the smile faded. “Moke,” he said, with something very nasty lurking about in the lower reaches of his voice, “let me in, or I will instruct Morgan to release the door lock, I’ll come in anyway, and you will come to regret every single second you left me standing in this hallway.”