After the Fall

by Peter David

  Kalinda looked down and saw to her horror that a huge tentacle—much larger than a Priatian tentacle—had wrapped itself around her waist. She shrieked, all of her poise and confidence gone, and she tried to shove it away from her. Then a second wrapped itself around her torso, and a third snagged her legs, and then they were all over her. Her cries were muffled by yet another tentacle that wrapped around her mouth, and then she was lifted off her feet, helpless as an infant.

  She heard Keesala’s voice with that same apologetic air. “I would very much like to tell you that what’s going to happen to you now isn’t going to hurt. But I try to be honest in all things.”

  Kalinda screamed, but no one was able to hear it.

  U.S.S. Excalibur

  Moke shifted uncomfortably in his chair as the ship’s counselor leaned forward in his, the two chairs facing each other.

  “Left behind?” asked the counselor. “That’s most intriguing that you would feel that way.”

  “Thanks,” Moke said uncertainly.

  “It wasn’t intended as a compliment per se. Merely an observation.” The counselor tapped his note padd thoughtfully. “Is that what you truly believe? That all these people in your life have left you ‘behind’ somehow?”

  “It’s not as if I’m imagining it,” Moke said. “I mean, they really did leave.”

  “So you would perceive it to be. But I’m not entirely sure that’s truly what you mean.”

  Moke shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

  “Moke…do you really mean that you’re upset because people leave you behind? Or is it that you feel that somehow you become…well…less important to them?”

  “Less important?” Moke echoed.

  “Take your mother. Once upon a time, you were the center of her world. But then she developed other interests, including a romantic one in Captain Calhoun himself, as I recall. And, in a way, that interest wound up costing her her life.”

  “I don’t blame Mac for what happened to my mom!”

  “Don’t you?” asked the counselor gently.

  “No.” He paused. “Well…not that much, I guess.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, that’s the sound of rapidly wilting conviction,” the counselor said. “And then there’s Xy. I know you took him under your wing when he was small. That was very decent, very generous of you.”

  “Yeah,” Moke said ruefully, “and look where it got me. I bet he’s got girlfriends and everything. I don’t. I got nothing.”

  “Other things took priority.”

  “And it’s happening again!”

  “How so?”

  “Mac’s son!” Moke pointed out. “His real son. The one he thought was dead. Now it turns out he’s back, and he’s in trouble, and that’s what Mac’s worried about. Not me. Not in the least. Leaving me behind, like I said. I don’t get how that’s any different from what you were saying, about priorities changing and stuff.”

  “The difference is this, Moke: When looking at matters in the way that you do, you take it personally. You see it as a failure of some sort on your part. You figure that if you were only better or smarter, more clever or more lovable…that the status quo wouldn’t change. But life isn’t like that, Moke. Life is change. There’s always something new and different going on somewhere. You may not always like it. You may oftentimes wish that it was not the case. But it is, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

  “Well, thanks,” Moke said sarcastically. “You’re making me feel lots better now.”

  “I’m not out to make you ‘feel lots better,’ Moke.”

  “Good thing, too.”

  “I’m out to be honest with you. To get you to view the world outside of the prism of your own concerns, and instead realize that things happen to people that they weren’t expecting, and they have to deal with it. When they do so, it’s not a referendum on you or your worth as a person. It’s just all a part of change. Things can change very, very dramatically, and you can make yourself insane if you try to control them. Instead you simply have to be willing to go with those changes. Have you ever been to a beach? Gone swimming in an ocean?”

  Moke shook his head. “I grew up on a desert planet. Mac once tried to take me to a re-created beach on the holodeck, but I couldn’t swim. He said he used to have the same problem but overcame it. I didn’t want to overcome it. I just wanted to avoid drowning. Anyway, no, I didn’t go in the ocean. It was too loud and it made me nervous.”

  “Putting aside that you never could have drowned inside a holodeck re-creation…if you’d allow yourself to do it, you would have found that the waves, as they washed over you, would have lifted you up. If you’d fought this lift, you would likely have gone under and gotten a chestful of water for your trouble. If, on the other hand, you went loose and allowed the water to carry you, you would have had a very enjoyable ride, and it would have deposited you somewhere else without doing you the slightest harm. Life,” and the counselor rested a hand very, very carefully on Moke’s shoulder, taking care not to crush it, “is very much like that. Fight like mad and you can go under. Allow yourself to experience it, to see where it takes you, and you can have some pleasant surprises.”

  “That’s all well and good, but…”

  At that moment, the counselor’s combadge beeped. He tapped it. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “The captain wants you to report immediately to transporter room one,” came the voice of Burgoyne. “We’re in orbit around New Thallon. Time for you to do your other job around here.”

  “Transporter room one, aye. I’ll be right there.”

  The counselor stood up from his chair and, as was usually the case with him, seemed to go on and on forever in the standing. “You’re going to have to excuse me, Moke. And I certainly hope that not for an instant will you take this departure as yet another example of someone walking out on you. The truth is, I would much prefer to remain here, discussing the delicate aspects of relationships and interpersonal dynamics. Tragically, I’m afraid I have to accompany your father and, quite possibly, smash a few heads in the process.”

  “That’s okay, Zak. I think I talked about this as much as I wanted to today, anyway. Although…”

  Moke remembered when he first met Zak Kebron. The massive Kebron, member of a race called the Brikar, was the single most intimidating individual Moke had ever encountered, both physically and in his brusque, monosyllabic manner.

  “Although what?” Kebron prompted. “Finish the thought, Moke.”

  “Well, I was just wondering…when you were talking about change, were you talking about yourself?” Moke asked him.

  The Brikar stared down at him. His thick, nighimpenetrable hide had become a darker hue of bronze since he had undergone the developmental process that had caused him to shed his skin like a heavy-gravity snake several years earlier. Not only had his physical appearance changed, but even more striking was the alteration in his very nature. Si Cwan had once remarked that Kebron had gone overnight from a typically surly teenager to a feelings-obsessed adult. Moke hadn’t been thrilled with the characterization of teenagers as typically surly, but had been too annoyed and crabby to take issue with it.

  “Myself?” Kebron said thoughtfully. “I hadn’t consciously been thinking about it, but, you know, I might well have been thinking about it unconsciously. I shall have to ponder that further. In the meantime, be of good cheer.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Try?”

  “I’ll do it.”

  Kebron pointed one of his three huge, thick fingers at him. “That’s the boy.” And he walked out of the room, looking as always like a surging land mass.

  And Moke, his lower lip sticking out, sank back in his chair and muttered, “Knew he’d leave. Mac’s real son is involved, so that’s much more important than me.”

  New Thallon

  i.

  Si Cwan wasn’t unaccustomed to having Robin mad at him about something or other. She was an opinionated
woman. Indeed, that was one of the things that attracted him to her in the first place. So he had anticipated that the recent business with Xyon was going to result in some very unpleasant consequences insofar as his relationship with Robin was concerned.

  But her reaction had been unlike any that he’d previously encountered. He’d expected a barrage of arguments, of condemnation, of scolding, for he’d seen the way she’d been reacting to his actions and he knew she hadn’t been pleased.

  Instead she said nothing. Nothing at all. She said nothing to him. And it wasn’t as if she was giving him “the silent treatment,” smoldering in mute indignation. Instead, if she looked at him, it was with a sort of vague sadness, as if he had monumentally disappointed her somehow.

  He had tried not to respond to it. He’d kept waiting for her to say something. Instead the silence from her side of the bed was deafening, and if he did try to engage her in conversation about anything at all, the only replies he got were monosyllabic and disinterested.

  It was the middle of the afternoon when he went to her office himself to inform her that the Excalibur was in orbit and Calhoun would be down shortly. To his surprise, she wasn’t there. Lately she’d practically been living in the place. He turned around and saw that she was coming down the corridor behind him. “I was looking for you.”

  “Yes?” she said.

  “I came here to tell you that Captain Calhoun is on his way.”

  “You came to tell me this yourself.” She smiled ever so slightly. “How generous. I’d have thought you would send your aide…oh. Wait. That’s right. He’s otherwise engaged.”

  It was the most she had said to him since Xyon had been dragged away. “We need to talk, Robin.”

  “I actually knew he was coming, Cwan,” she informed him. “Word is out. I believe the representatives are gathering in the main reception hall. Again. Perhaps we should just roll out cots or sleeping bags.”

  “I did what I had to do, Robin.”

  The smile now became a passionless, fixed thing on her face. “Yes, and you certainly enjoyed doing it, didn’t you.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Then you disguised your true feelings admirably.”

  “Don’t you see that I may have saved his life, and also the Protectorate?”

  “All from beating up a single bound prisoner.” She tapped a finger on his chest. “Tough guy. Hope you’re proud.”

  She turned and started to walk away from him, but he grabbed her by the upper arm and swung her back around. “Let go of me!” she said angrily, dropping her air of detachment.

  “I had to be strong!” he told her, not releasing her. She tried to pull her arm away from him. Not only did his grip never slacken, but she didn’t even manage to budge his arm. “You have to understand that. I had to take a definitive stand, and that stand was that he was not telling the truth. I could not allow for any gray areas, or even the slightest whiff of uncertainty. It would have made me look weak in the eyes of the members of the Protectorate. They will only follow someone who is strong.”

  She eased her struggling for a moment to say angrily, “And if he had been telling the truth? What then? What if you’d chosen to take the firm and unrelenting stand that he was speaking truly and had no idea at all where Kalinda was?”

  Si Cwan yanked her toward him so they were practically nose to nose. “Let go, Cwan!” she practically shouted.

  In a voice so low that she was the only one who could possibly have heard him, Si Cwan said, “If he was telling the truth, then he was dead. When I say I saved his life, I wasn’t joking. He was dead. You understand why.” Abruptly he released his hold on her, but she did not back away. “Tell me you understand why.”

  “Because…of Fhermus,” she said slowly.

  “Damned right, because of Fhermus. In case you’ve overlooked it, Xyon assaulted the heir of the House of Fhermus. Nelkarite law has special considerations for those in higher authority…which should not be all that surprising considering those in higher authority write the laws in the first place. An assault on a noble leader of a house, or his immediate family, is punishable by death. Frankly, it’s an attitude with which I can sympathize, because if I could get my hands on whoever has Kalinda right now, I’d want their heads in a bag. So Fhermus would have a superb excuse to take charge of Xyon, what with him being the offended party, and execute him. And I would be in no position, nor have any excuse, to stop him.

  “But Fhermus and Tiraud think that Xyon knows where Kalinda is. They believe he’s lying. All that’s keeping him alive is that belief.”

  “So…this was all a trick,” Robin said slowly.

  “I had to be convincing.”

  “And what about sending him down to be tortured. That was all part of trying to be convincing?”

  “Of course it was.”

  “And you’re…not really having him tortured?”

  “Oh, no,” Si Cwan said, shaking his head, “he’s really being tortured. The little bastard tried to treat me with disrespect in front of the entirety of the Protectorate. Actions must have consequences.”

  Her lips pursed, Robin turned on her heel and walked stiffly away from him.

  Si Cwan threw his arms up and allowed them to slap loosely on the sides of his body in exasperation. “Women,” he sighed.

  ii.

  It hadn’t seemed possible that the main reception hall would, or even could, be more crowded than before, but such was apparently the case. Robin had certainly been right when she’d said that word about Calhoun’s arrival had gotten around. Apparently everyone who was part of the New Thallonian Protectorate was anxious to catch a glimpse of he whom some did indeed refer to as Calhoun the God.

  Si Cwan had just taken his place in the main hall when he heard the familiar humming of activated transporter beams. Moments later, two even more familiar forms shimmered into existence ten feet away from him.

  Mackenzie Calhoun and Zak Kebron stood in the middle of the hall and looked around. Calhoun appeared to take great interest in the arched ceilings, while Kebron was fascinated by the various works of art. It was Kebron, interestingly enough, who spoke first: “I love what you’ve done with the place.”

  It was all Si Cwan could do to suppress a chuckle. The old Kebron had openly and actively despised Si Cwan. The new Kebron was a very different animal.

  “Thank you, Kebron,” Si Cwan said with forced politeness. “I take that as a great compliment, since the high quality of your taste is legendary.”

  Kebron bowed slightly in response, or at least as much of a bow as his inflexible body joints allowed him. Once upon a time, Si Cwan would have seen it as a mocking gesture. Now, though, he knew it was performed in all sincerity.

  “And Captain Calhoun,” Si Cwan turned his attention to the Excalibur’s commander. “You look well. I’m pleased to see your shoulders are square.”

  Calhoun raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Pardon?”

  “Well, I would have thought your wife’s promotion over you would have weighed heavily upon you.”

  If he was hoping to unsettle Calhoun with the jibe, the plan was a major bust. Instead all Calhoun did was chuckle. “Of all the things that weigh upon me, Lord Cwan, my wife’s rank does not even register.” Then the chuckle evaporated, as did any approximation of humor in Calhoun’s expression. “The situation involving my son, on the other hand…”

  “Ah yes,” said Si Cwan. “Tragic, that.”

  “Indeed. I sympathize with your difficulties and the sense of loss you must be enduring, Lord Cwan…”

  “Difficulties and loss that had its genesis in your son’s actions.”

  “That is a point well taken. However…”

  “There is no ‘however,’ Captain,” Si Cwan told him politely but firmly. “You must understand, Calhoun…he did bring it upon himself.”

  Calhoun’s expression and tone of voice never wavered. Si Cwan had the feeling that if he measured Calhoun’s heartbeat and respiration
right about then, there would be no change. He was just that cool in the clutch. “What I understand, Cwan, is that you’re having your people torture him. Is that correct?”

  “That also, Captain, he brings upon himself. Were he to cooperate, tell us of Kalinda’s whereabouts, things would be very different.”

  “How would they be different? What if he knew of Kalinda’s whereabouts, and even told you where she was and how to go and get her right back?” asked Calhoun.

  At this, Fhermus spoke up. He took several steps forward and said defiantly, “Then we would execute him for the crimes against my House.”

  Si Cwan fired a glance toward Robin that said See? She wasn’t looking at him, though. She was gazing at Calhoun with what appeared to be fond nostalgia. All that she gave up for you, and look how you’re repaying her, he thought, but said nothing aloud.

  “A bit of a no-win scenario you have him in there, Cwan,” Calhoun observed.

  Si Cwan considered a moment, tapping his fingers on the edge of his chair. The entirety of the hall was silent, waiting for what he was to say next. He liked it that way, that all were waiting. He felt that was how it should be.

  “Perhaps something could be arranged,” he said after due consideration.

  This prompted an annoyed look from Fhermus. “What ‘something’ would that be, Prime Minister?”

  “We must be willing to negotiate these matters, Lord Fhermus.”

  “Oh, must we? The insult and assaults that his son,” and he stabbed a finger at Calhoun, who gave him only the blandest of looks, “inflicted upon me and mine—”

  “Are secondary, I should think, to the concern of recovering your son’s true love, wouldn’t you say?”

  Tiraud was about to respond to that, but Fhermus didn’t provide him the opportunity. “My son’s true love wouldn’t be in this fix if not for Calhoun’s spawn.”