No Limits

by Peter David

  Jamey was the first one to say hi and we’ve gotten closer with time. She’s from Deneb and her parents are actually in a support position so they move a lot less often. She’s been here four years and I’ve actually heard her call this rock home. Wonder if I’ll do that if we stay.

  LEFLER’S LOG, Stardate 38548.3

  Giancarlo kissed me. Kissed me!

  We were in the lab doing a chem project when he just leaned over and planted one on me. His lips were soft, a little salty. I’ve kind of liked him and even thought about asking him to the dance next month. But this came from nowhere.

  I think I kissed back. It happened so fast.

  I’m not sure what all this means. We’re lab partners and I’ve known him five months, ever since he arrived. It’s odd not being the newest one somewhere and I’m starting to feel like a veteran. He likes parrises squares and is good at archery but struggles with literature. He hates poetry, like me; but also hates the music I like.

  Anyway, when I pulled back, he smiled and I wanted to melt. It was a sweet smile, one I haven’t seen on him before, and I like it. A lot. I took a good long look at him, his soft brown hair coming just over his ears and the piece that drops in front of his right eye. The small scar on the left earlobe. His eyes are deep brown, like dark chocolate, and I just stared at them for a while.

  He looked back at me, smiling, and we were quiet. It went on like that for a bit until finally he looked at the experiment and got back to work. And he never said a word. I was left wondering what that was all about and, as time passed, and he still didn’t say anything, I started to get mad at him.

  When class ended, we went into the hall and he looked ready to say something. And I just kept on going. When I got to my next class, one without him, I hated myself for not talking to him. He’s cute and I do like him. But why didn’t he say something? Why’d he kiss me today?

  I wish Jamey were here. But no, she stayed on 212 and I got to move to another rock. Haven’t heard from her since my fifteenth birthday. Been here awhile and still have no one close. So, I decided to wait until I got home and figured I’d try and talk to Mother about it. We don’t talk about guys and stuff; I’m usually busy trying to cheer her up so I keep my problems to myself. Sometimes I can talk to Dad about things, but I doubt he’d want to hear about Giancarlo kissing me.

  Sure enough, I got home and the apartment was empty. Typically despite Mother’s work hours being over the same as school. She said she did this so we could be together but she almost immediately started working late, taking on extra assignments. Not even a note on the net. I made a snack and got to my work, hoping she’d turn up for dinner.

  I did try and work but couldn’t focus on the Andorian poets. It just made me think of Whis. History was about Federation founding worlds, usually interesting, but all I kept thinking about was the kiss. It was soft. I dreamt about kissing him in the rain. At a park, under a tree. In the rain. It sounds so romantic. I wondered about touching him and him touching me and how far I’d let him get. Other couples have formed this year and one couple already had their wedding. I know, it sounds weird, but that’s how they do things on Gemaris V. They were thirteen and had been betrothed shortly after birth. It was kind of sweet—even though they looked too young to me.

  I didn’t think I’d be coupled this year. Guess I haven’t thought much about it. I read about romance a lot in my books but it’s not something Mother talks about. When she talks at all, it’s about plans and the future, my future. She makes it sound like she’ll be a plasma specialist until she dies. If she loves it, I guess that works. Dad has talked about retiring and doing a lot of sailing. We haven’t really sailed since that camping trip and I know he misses it. Especially on a rock like this, without a lot of good lakes for boats. Anyway, I think about Dad wanting to retire and sail and Mother wanting to still work. I can’t imagine how they’d be happy doing different things. They spend so much time apart; I also can’t imagine why they’re still together.

  It’s past midnight and Mother is just getting home. I should be asleep but I’ve been so pumped, so full of excitement and with no one to share it with it feels like I could go nova. Dad could tell I was fidgety but I deflected his questions and just went on about the experiment, not mentioning Giancarlo at all. It’s like I’m keeping him to myself. I can’t really sleep, since I keep thinking about him, his lips, and wanting to tell Mother. She should look in on me and we can chat, even though it’s late.

  Wait, she’s going straight to her room, not even looking in on me. Why tonight of all nights? What’s happening to her? Is she going to leave Dad?

  LEFLER’S LOG, Stardate 40777.4

  We haven’t camped in years and I think it’s great Mom and Dad were making an effort. We even went back to the New Jersey shore and stayed at the same campground. It’s perfect late-summer weather and I got to do some water-skiing, haven’t done that in ages. Most of our postings have been on worlds with precious little water so this is heaven!

  Dad said we deserved this time together. Mother seems more alert and lively than usual but it’s Dad who is not being responsive. Sure, he likes the sailing, but he doesn’t seem…connected to Mother. Something is going on and of course I have no idea what it is and when I think about it, it drives me to nova.

  LEFLER’S LOG, Stardate 40778.4

  Something’s weird.

  I feel hungover, which is crazy. All I’ve drunk tonight is lemonade and that was hours ago. I’m in my tent, in my sleeping bag, and still, I feel exhausted, my tongue thick, my head fuzzy.

  “Oh, baby,” I hear Mother’s voice in my head. It’s like she said it moments ago, but she’s nowhere in sight.

  My heart’s been thumping at warp speed since I woke up, a tendril of panic in my mind. There are echoes of a dream and I close my eyes. Me and Mom, somewhere bright, somewhere wrong. I don’t know where.

  I slowly got out of my bag and left the tent, finding Mom and Dad in their tent. Exactly where they should be. But it feels wrong. The world started to tilt on me so I went back to my tent and tried to go back to sleep.

  Just as I began to drift off, my dream returned.

  “Oh, my poor mother. Mom, I love you, and nothing you’ve done is so terrible that I’ll stop loving you for a single instant, ever, and you can’t make me hate you or wish I’d never been born, you can’t ma…”

  Where did that come from?

  LEFLER’S LOG, Stardate 40879.4

  It must have been our fight.

  That’s all I keep thinking about. I have no idea what we fought about, but it was something huge and I can’t remember. But it must have affected Mother as much as me.

  I’m to blame.

  Dad and I were approached by the park ranger and he had that certain look on his face. Dad stopped moving and stood like a statue as the ranger said sensors showed Mom’s shuttle having crashed into the Atlantic.

  Earlier, we came back from the boardwalk and Mom said she had to take care of something, but neither of us imagined it meant leaving the campsite. And then word came that the shuttle crashed. It was found but Mother was not.

  “No body,” Dad repeated to himself, almost like a mantra.

  He thinks she disappeared again. Normally, her absences have been timed to clean break points in her work. Dad caught on to that about four years ago so he’s been checking and the pattern has fit each and every period of vanishing. Except now.

  When we returned home tonight there was a holo on my desk. Without even touching it, I knew it was from Mom. Sure enough, it was a portrait of Mom. She’s leaning against one huge rock, wet from the surf, all grays and browns. It makes a stunning backdrop for her as she leans on it in a white shirt with a high collar, so it frames her face. I have the computer zoom and I study her eyes. I can’t remember the last time they weren’t filled with sadness. But here, they’re clear. There’s life in them, also a rare sight. I continue to study them as I sit on my bed, putting some distance between me a
nd the screen.

  And there was a message, her tone fairly matter-of-fact. She said she had to see relatives, but not why. Then she added something odd. “There’s a doctor named Pointer. When you’re ready, you may want to pay him a visit. Just to talk. He’s very good and comes with my highest recommendation.”

  I checked the details and he’s a psychiatrist. Why on Earth would Mother have needed a psychiatrist? A marriage counselor perhaps, but when did this all start? I realize I’m the Cheshire cat, the mysterious one, but it’s Mother who had all the family secrets. Have I ever really known her?

  It’s the same sort of distance I’ve been feeling for a while. Mom and Dad stopped even pretending to be together after we got home. They may both be plasma specialists, but work on different projects, in different complexes, on different parts of the planet. They cross paths in the apartment and share the same room but that’s kind of it. We’ll all shuffle through the kitchen but Mom will just replicate some coffee and head out the door. Dad at least has breakfast with me, but we seem to run out of things to talk about fast.

  He seems sad, but in a different way than Mom. If I wanted to be a writer, I certainly have lots of degrees of depression, sadness, and misery to work with. However, I don’t want to write, I want to be an engineer. They get to solve problems…and fix things. Lots of opportunities for engineers on starships so I’m applying to Starfleet Academy. It’ll be tough, but worth it.

  LEFLER’S LOG, Stardate 40910.6

  Dad’s a mess. I’ve been trying to help him with things like shopping. He doesn’t seem to eat when I’m not around, and I’m scared about what’ll happen when I start at the Academy. Starfleet has been really good about his leave of absence and leaving him alone.

  I know, it’s been ages since I made a log entry, I’m sorry. But, talking to my trusty tricorder just doesn’t seem a priority when your family is falling apart.

  The local authorities don’t think Mom is alive. There’s no evidence of her body. I’ve been talking to them, since Dad keeps to himself. Mom’s listed as missing but they presume she’s dead so the lab is reassigning her work and have terminated her access codes and passwords. I asked for her personal belongings and two days later they said they couldn’t find any to send back.

  Dad’s been dreading this day, and anticipating it. When he used to tell me she was kidnapped, I imagined her putting up quite a fight with her nails leaving deep scars on her captors. She’d scheme and plot her escape, desperate to come home to me. But every time she returned, she just seemed sad. Withdrawn more than happy and I’d work my butt off to make her happy with me. I didn’t want to ever give her reason to leave me.

  I’ve been playing back some of my log entries, trying to see what I might have done to drive her away—or what the fight was about. I always got sad when we left postings since it meant leaving behind friends time and again, but that doesn’t seem like the cause. She and Dad seemed happy enough, at first. We did stuff together and I can’t recall her ever really getting mad at me. Disappointed a lot, I guess, but I probably deserved it, too.

  I still can’t help but think that being part of the family contributed to Mom’s leaving. It could be why she never wanted to bring me, except maybe that one time. Still haven’t figured that one out. But she continued to come and go, driving me crazy and making Dad an unhappy man.

  And never again will she want me. Forty-five laws were created to amuse her, keep her interested in me. And now she’s gone and it looks to be for good. Alive? Dead? Will we ever know? I think she’s dead and gone for good. Suicide is as likely a possibility as anything given her bouts of depression.

  “Life isn’t always fair.” There, my final law.

  LEFLER’S LOG, Stardate 41153.7

  I’ve been lax again, I know. I’m a lousy dangib and should be a better correspondent. If for nothing else, it’s because they all keep logs in Starfleet. If I intend to be an officer and an engineer I need to get back into the habit.

  Here I am, ready to leave home for good, ready for the Academy. I couldn’t have made it this far without you, tricorder. You’re an out-of-date model but have been with me from the beginning and know me better than anyone does, even Dad. I learned how to analyze and interpret the readings from this, thanks to Mother and Dad. You let me double-check the scans when Mom vanished.

  Dad’s back to work but not happy with it and I can’t blame him. He’s been a real solid support during all this. Not once did he let me stop trying for the Academy even though it meant he’d be on his own. He says I deserve my chance at happiness, and I have to admit, I agree. Dad has been my home, not a planet or posting but him. He’s never once left me, never once gave me reason to believe Mom left because of anything I said and did. He even credited me for her staying with us for as long as she did.

  Like that helps.

  That’s my final log entry for now. Maybe for good. I’ll probably need to start recording on Academy equipment, but you’re coming along. You know too much to fall into someone else’s hands.

  Lefler’s Logs…end recording.

  MORGAN PRIMUS

  Alice, on the Edge of Night

  Ilsa J. Bick

  Robin Lefler believed that her mother Morgan died when she was a teenager, before the U.S.S. Excalibur discovered her alive and well on the world of Ahmista some ten years later. “Alice, on the Edge of Night” brings us back to the days prior to Robin losing her mother and what led Morgan to her fateful decision.

  Ilsa J. Bick

  Ilsa J. Bick is a child, adolescent, and forensic psychiatrist, and a latecomer to fiction. Still, she’s done okay. Her story “A Ribbon for Rosie” won Grand Prize in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds II, and “Shadows, in the Dark” took Second Prize in Strange New Worlds IV. Her novelette “The Quality of Wetness” (Second Prize) appeared in Writers of the Future, Vol. XVI. Her work has appeared, among other places, in SCIFI.COM, Challenging Destiny, and Talebones. Her short story “Strawberry Fields” was recently published in Beyond the Last Star(edited by Sherwood Smith). Her Star Trek The Lost Era novel Well of Souls, the first full-length adventure of Captain Rachel Garrett and the U.S.S. Enterprise-C, will be out very shortly from Pocket Books. She lives in Wisconsin, with her husband, two children, three cats, and other assorted vermin.

  Now: Labor Day—Monday, September 2, 2363

  There’s a Klingon saying: Today is a good day to die. Morgan Primus has seen a lot of good days and tried a lot of good ways. She stopped trying for about five years. Then, a couple of months ago, she tried with an antique plasma pistol, but all she got was a visit to the emergency room—care of the police—and a nosy psychiatrist.

  Still, today’s another damn fine day to die.

  The shuttle’s cabin smells like warm cotton candy. Morgan’s skin still tingles from the September sun, and she scratches the right side of her neck where the seawater’s dried, leaving a crust of itchy salt. Her muscles are rubbery from running in sand, and there’s grit on her tongue. The end of summer and Robin’s childhood: It’s been good, this last day.

  But nothing good lasts. I should never have told Charles because now he thinks I’m a freak, a monster. Morgan’s eyes burn, and her instruments waver as if she peers through a window into the rain. Dr. Pointer’s wrong. Love isn’t enough. And as for Pointer, the look on his face when she used the phaser—her sharp nails bite into her palms; her flesh rips and there’s a brief flicker of pain—even he’s repelled.

  I’m like Alice, only I can’t get out of the mirror.

  Morgan looks at her hands and sees that her cells have begun their tireless ritual of mending together. In another minute—or maybe three, she stopped counting centuries ago—there won’t even be a scar. She carries nothing except memories that fade and blur. Even Robin, her little Cheshire cat, will grow up and move away, and then Morgan will be alone again.

  Not if I can help it. Her hand moves to her console. Go to warp, and they’ll rocket past Venus and Mercury before
hurtling into the sun. A bright flash, a flare of unbearable heat—and then nothing but cold, black, merciful oblivion. Robin never has to know.

  Morgan looks into space, and because the cabin lights are dim and they’re approaching Venus’s dark side, Morgan sees herself reflected in a black void. For a wild, insane moment, it looks to Morgan as if someone’s scissored the fabric of space in a perfect circle, cutting away the stars to reveal nothing but the utter darkness on the far side beyond space, a limbo she’s inhabited all the long days of her life: Alice, in the mirror, on the knife edge of night.

  “Alice, and her Cheshire cat,” she says, out loud, and laughs. “I’m mad, you’re mad, we’re all mad here.”

  Then she hears a small soft sigh like the formless cry of a young child, and her blood freezes. No, she can’t be awake, I gave her the drugs, she isn’t supposed to know….

  “Mom?” Robin’s voice is dreamy with sleep, and Morgan’s throat constricts in a sharp pang of tenderness and despair. “Mom, what…what are you doing?”

  Dr. Kevin Pointer stands at one end of a long hotel corridor that smells of recycled Wyndham air and oranges. (In his dreams—green nightmares that spit him from sleep—the corridor is thick with the sickly sweet stench of bloated, decayed bodies, and he moves in slow motion, the nightmares cutting off as if hacked by a guillotine, just as he wraps his hands around Ellen’s throat.) The hall is so quiet he hears the tiny pops and crackles in his knees as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. At both ends of the corridor, there are identical rectangular mirrors trimmed with gold scrollwork, and Pointer sees himself—his wheat brown hair and the white oval of his face peppered with black stubble—hemmed by an endless cascade of smaller worlds, staggering off into infinity.

  Like Morgan Primus: I’m Alice, in that mirror, and I can’t get out….

  Ellen’s in Room 421. Third down from the left. Pointer’s head feels as huge and empty as it did when the investigator showed him the surveillance tape, and Pointer saw how Ellen laughed with that other, nameless man, and touched his arm in an intimate way that made the feeling leak out of Pointer’s body like runny chalk on a wet sidewalk. When the investigator handed him the passkey crystal and beam-in coordinates, Pointer realized that he really hadn’t wanted to know at all. Best, maybe, for Ellen simply to have stayed gone, a missing period at the end of the last sentence.