The Farther Shore

by Christie Golden

  She determined where he lived and began to shadow him. He was, not surprisingly, as predictable as clockwork. Every morning at 7:45 precisely, he left his small apartment carrying a briefcase and walked the three blocks to the official, public headquarters of SI. He worked until exactly noon, at which time he left and walked two blocks to a small outdoor café called The Stop Spot. It was a serve-yourself establishment with several replicators and small places to sit in the sun. A couple of human waiters kept the place tidy. He ordered the same thing every day—an egg salad sandwich on white bread with an apple and a large cup of coffee, heavy on the cream and sugar, and a single chocolate chip cookie for dessert.

  At 6:30, he left SI with the same briefcase and walked home. She didn’t know what he fixed himself for dinner, but she was willing to bet it was the same thing every night. At precisely ten o’clock, the lights went out.

  Very ordinary. Very predictable. Very boring, but also very convenient for Libby’s purposes. Which was why she was so exasperated that it wasn’t working.

  She’d prepared her props and her dialogue carefully, then put her plan into action. She had watched him walk to The Stop Spot, and five minutes later walked there herself. He was already sitting at a table, eating his sandwich. She instructed the replicator to produce an egg salad sandwich on rye bread, with an orange and a large coffee, heavy on the cream and sugar, making sure she spoke loudly enough so that Blake would overhear. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. He was intently reading a padd and didn’t appear to have noticed.

  She sat at a table a little distance away from him, facing him. Libby tried to catch his eye several times, and utterly failed. She finished her sandwich in silence, reflecting on how much she disliked egg salad, then rose. She took exactly four steps in his direction before she “dropped” a small padd. It hit the cement and she kept walking.

  She had almost turned the corner when she heard a voice behind her calling, “Excuse me! You dropped this!”

  Libby turned, putting on her sweetest smile, only to see the young waiter chasing after her. Inwardly she sighed; a whole day wasted.

  She put on a convincing show, though, as she took the padd from the young man, who smiled shyly at her. “Thank you so much!” she said graciously, then went home.

  She tried it again the next day. This time, the waiter didn’t see the dropped padd, but neither did Trevor Blake. She had to go back and pick it up off the ground herself an hour later. Libby waited a day, so it wouldn’t be too obvious. She was beginning to suspect, however, that she could beat Trevor Blake over the head with the padd and he wouldn’t notice.

  Today, she choked down yet another despised egg salad sandwich, finished her orange and coffee, and rose to leave. Again, the padd slipped out of her bag and fell to the ground. This time, however, it was close enough to Blake that he heard the sound. She saw his brown head move in the direction of the padd and quickened her pace. There was an automated transporter around the corner. She got to it just in time, for as she dematerialized, she saw him start toward her.

  Perfect.

  She rematerialized in her cabin and wondered how long the next step would take. The longer, the better; it would give him a chance to read the fake journal she’d compiled. And the more he read of that, the more he’d want to see her.

  It was late that afternoon when he finally contacted her. She had carefully applied makeup and tousled her hair just so before she sat down at the computer.

  “Hello?” she said, with just the right amount of warmth and caution.

  “Um…Miss Webber?”

  “Yes,” she said, looking confused. “May I ask who you are, sir?”

  He cleared his throat. “You don’t know me, but I found a padd that I think belongs to you. I think you dropped it at The Stop Spot earlier today.”

  “I’m certain you’re mistaken…. Wait a moment, will you?” She rose and pretended to fumble in her bag. “Oh my God…you found my journal? Please tell me you didn’t read it!”

  He flushed bright pink and lied, “No, of course not. I just wanted to see if there was any contact information.”

  Again, perfect. She collapsed into the chair and sighed deeply. “Thank you so much. You’re such a gentleman, Mr…?”

  “Uh…Blake. Trevor Blake.”

  She unleashed the full force of her smile upon him, and she could swear he quivered. “Trevor,” she said sweetly. “Thank you so much. You don’t know how devastated I would be if that had gotten lost. Clearly I’ll have to guard it more closely.”

  “Do you have lunch regularly at The Stop Spot? I can meet you there tomorrow and give it to you then.”

  “I really don’t think I want to wait that long,” she said. “But I’m certain you’ve got plans for tonight.”

  Again, he cleared his throat. “Ah, no…tonight I’m free, actually.”

  Of course you are. I knew that. “I’m surprised, but that’s my good luck. Please—let me take you out to dinner. It’s not enough to repay you for what you’ve done.”

  He hesitated, and for a bad moment she thought she’d lost him. Then, “Okay. If you’re sure.”

  “Oh, I’m quite sure.” She gave him another smile. “Shall we meet at The Stop Spot at seven?”

  • • •

  She chose her outfit with care. She wanted to be enticing, but not overly so; tasteful, yet with just the barest hint of eroticism. By the way his eyes widened and he swallowed, she thought she’d succeeded.

  Libby strode toward him, hand extended. “Thank you again for safeguarding it.”

  “You’re very welcome.” Again, he revealed himself by blushing. Libby wondered how far he’d gotten in the juicy, utterly fabricated “entries.” Far enough, she supposed.

  “What’s your pleasure?” she asked.

  His no-color eyes widened. “What?”

  “For dinner. What’s your pleasure? I know all kinds of great restaurants. Do you like Ethiopian, or maybe Thai?”

  “Um…I kind of like plain food.”

  Of course you do, she thought. His food preferences hadn’t been in his bio, but she couldn’t imagine this fellow being adventurous in any fashion.

  “I know just the place,” she said. In a few moments they were sitting at a restaurant called The Garden of Eatin’. It was a bit on the rundown side, its one redeeming feature that it was consistent in its mediocrity. She knew that the chef, for oddly enough there was actually a live human in the kitchen, varied his menu not a whit, and that it offered such uninspired choices as Cobb Salad, grilled cheese sandwiches, and hamburgers.

  She was not surprised when Trevor ordered a medium hamburger, no onions, extra pickles, and french fries. Libby had eaten meat before when she felt it was vital to her assignments, but she disliked to do so. She ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with a house salad and oil and vinegar dressing.

  By sheer will she kept the conversation alive, asking as many questions as she could, which he replied to with monosyllabic answers. At one point, though, when the conversation lagged severely, he took the initiative and asked her about what she did. Knowing that the truth was best whenever it could be applied, she told him she was a musician. He didn’t seem particularly interested.

  Even when the talk turned to his work, he didn’t have much to say. Libby found this quite odd. Usually people loved to talk about themselves and their work. She was beginning to despair of the evening working out as she had hoped when, after they had finished dessert, Trevor cleared his throat and asked, “Would you like to come over to my place for a nightcap?”

  She tried not to look as startled as she felt. Judging by his expression, he’d spent all evening working up his courage to ask her. For a brief moment, she felt sorry for him. He wasn’t unattractive, and the work he did was fascinating. He just needed to polish himself a little. She suspected this was his first date in a long time, and that was a shame.

  Libby immediately set his expectations by saying, “I’ve got to be u
p early for a rehearsal tomorrow, so I can’t stay too long, but yes—I’d love to have a nightcap with you.”

  His smile was sweet, sincere, and boyish, and again, she was sorry that he wasn’t out with someone who could really appreciate that smile.

  Trevor’s apartment was exactly as she had imagined it. It was tidy and organized and devoid of anything resembling imaginative furnishings. She’d stayed in hotel rooms with more character. But then, she wasn’t here to analyze his decor. Her experienced gaze swept the room with icy detachment, searching out what she had come for. There it was, on a table in the far end of the room. Trevor Blake’s computer.

  “What would you like?”

  She smiled at him. “Whatever you’re having,” she said.

  Trevor looked slightly distressed. “I’m not sure what I’m having,” he said. It was rather endearing.

  “Well,” she said, “do you have any wine?”

  “Red, white, or rosé?”

  At least he understood the differences. “Red,” she said.

  “Cabernet, merlot, shiraz—” Trevor was actually counting them off on his fingers.

  “A merlot sounds wonderful!”

  “Okay,” he said, and rewarded her with that sweet smile again. Clearly, he felt more comfortable in his own surroundings. He left and went into another room.

  She listened for a moment, then jumped to her task. Quickly she removed a small mechanical device, no bigger than her thumbnail, from her purse. She attached it to the back of Trevor’s computer and counted the seconds it would take to perform its task, then snatched it back. From the kitchen, she heard the sound of the cork popping and wine being poured. Libby had just dropped the device back into her purse and sat back on the sofa when Trevor reappeared with two glasses.

  He handed one to her and she noticed how wellshaped his hands were. A faint stab of guilt knifed through her. This was the part about her job that she hated—using the innocents. Trevor struck her as a decent, if boring, fellow. But she had to do this.

  He raised his glass. “A toast,” he said. “To fortunate coincidences.”

  She clinked her glass against his. “I’ll drink to that.” She looked into his eyes and saw that they weren’t a muddy, unnamable color after all. They were a lovely shade of olive green flecked with gold.

  The wine was excellent. They chatted for a while and then Libby exclaimed loudly at the time.

  “I’m so sorry to have kept you this late,” she said, rising. “I’ve got to be up very early tomorrow.” She extended her hand, and this time when he shook it, his grasp was strong and warm.

  “Libby,” he said, “I’ve—I had a wonderful time.” He seemed to be about to say something more, then apparently lost his nerve. Libby was profoundly grateful.

  She playfully waggled the padd he had returned to her. “I didn’t know that losing this would lead to such a pleasant evening.” It wasn’t entirely a lie. The last half hour had been quite pleasant. Before he could gather up his courage to say anything more, she had taken a few steps toward the door. She could almost see Trevor shrink back into his protective shell of ordinariness.

  He walked her to the transporter site. She kept expecting him to make an overture, but he seemed distracted, lost in thought, and when she said goodnight again he barely seemed to notice. Libby was vastly relieved.

  • • •

  Trevor watched the beautiful young woman dematerialize and began cursing himself the minute she was gone. Damn it! Why did he always…why did he never…

  Against his better instincts he had read a few entries in the journal she had dropped. He had blushed at the frankness displayed therein and when she had suggested going out with him, he had been stunned. Libby had seemed so nice and sweet. So beautiful. And he had done nothing, said nothing. By her attitude he could tell she, like everyone else, looked at him and dismissed him. He couldn’t blame her. There was nothing to set him apart, to make him someone anyone would want to really see.

  But they would see him soon enough. Everyone would see him and be unable to avert their eyes from what he had done.

  Everyone.

  • • •

  Libby lifted the hypospray to her throat and pressed. Instantly, she felt more alert. The pleasant haze of the wine and food departed, leaving a sharpness and focus in its stead. The drug wasn’t supposed to be used often, but she’d wrangled permission. Time was fleeing and if she was going to stop Montgomery, she needed something on him. Fast.

  She sat down at her computer and attached the small device. Instantly it began downloading its contents to her own computer. Libby didn’t utilize a lot of gadgets, but when she did, she always found them amusing and useful. The computer would be able to decrypt everything up to the second top-secret level clearance.

  “Complete,” said the computer.

  “Read names of files,” instructed Libby.

  “Experiment H247. Analysis of Parker’s Second Theorem.” On and on it went. Libby’s shoulders sagged. There was a lot of long, detailed, boring reading ahead of her tonight.

  “Memo from Admiral Kenneth Montgomery, star date—”

  “Stop.” Excitement rushed through Libby. Her hunch had been right. This guy did have something on Montgomery, or else why would he keep the memos?

  “Compile all documents that have any reference to Admiral Montgomery.”

  “Compiled.”

  “Display.” There were hundreds of them. “Jackpot,” she said softly. She read the first one:

  TO: All members of Section 9

  FROM: Admiral Kenneth Montgomery

  RE: Lieutenant Hegwood’s Party

  Friday is Lieutenant Hegwood’s 40th birthday. He thinks we don’t know, but we admirals have our sources. We’re planning a little surprise for him, so

  • • •

  “What the…”

  She went on to the next one. This one concerned Commander Grafton’s maternity leave. The next one was a reprimand concerning filched office supplies. The one after that urged all members of Section 9 to keep to the requested limit of fourteen teraquads of data for personal use on the computer.

  Slack-jawed, Libby plowed through a few more startlingly banal memos and then leaned back in her chair, thinking. These just couldn’t be what they seemed to be. Sudden inspiration struck—maybe these were fakes. Maybe they had hidden messages encrypted in them. She ran them through, but no luck. Hard as it was for her to comprehend, it appeared as though Trevor Blake had simply never gotten around to deleting commonplace office memos from four years ago.

  “No wonder you haven’t had a date in a while, Mr. Blake,” she murmured.

  There remained the possibility, however unlikely, that there was something of substance in the memos, so she continued reading. She read all 420 of them. She read a data comparison between Setoya’s Theory and Parker’s Fourth Theorem. She read about experiment F638-H. She read Trevor’s grocery lists from the last eight months and noticed without surprise that he almost always got the same thing.

  She had endured stoically, and then she got to Royal Protocol.

  “Oh, please God, no,” she moaned.

  The lengthy and ponderous Royal Protocol essay was the bane of everyone— everyone—in Starfleet Intelligence. It was a long-winded document that dealt with the various diplomatic nuances involved in dealing with royal families throughout the Federation.

  With little pleasure Libby recalled a few. In the Royal Family of Tarkulis, one first dropped to one’s knees in front of the youngest member of the family, then to each in succession. When greeting the Malshu of Verjuu, one covered one’s eyes until one was graciously given permission to look upon the Blessed One. There were about a million things to memorize and well over a million things one could to do give offense and quite possibly start a war. The Royal Protocol document was, among Starfleet Intelligence members, a symbol of everything that was exquisitely boring and yet required one’s full attention.

  She wondered why
he had it. It was more likely to be found in her computer than in Trevor Blake’s. And she wouldn’t have had the nasty thing in her house if she could have avoided it. Why would Trevor?

  He was not the most socially adroit person she’d ever met. Maybe he simply wanted to get a few “pointers.” Or maybe he was hoping to shift fields. Neither explanation seemed very likely. Probably what had happened was that Trevor had been issued a copy when he first started out in Section 9 and had just never bothered to delete it.

  Feeling slightly sick, Libby realized she was going to have to plow through the damn thing. No stone unturned and all that. Even though she knew full well that anything that might reveal a connection to Montgomery was not likely to be found in the single most boring document to grace Federation Intelligence records.

  Libby closed her eyes, gathering strength, and dove in.

  It was an enormous file, in alphabetical order. And it had been added to considerably since Libby had first joined SI. By the time Libby had waded through the Acamarians to the Gorn, she felt she’d rather face an old-fashioned firing squad, a cigarette clenched between her teeth and a blindfold over her eyes, than keep reading.

  The sentence she was reading turned to utter gibberish. For a moment, she thought that she was simply so exhausted that the words just weren’t making sense anymore. She rubbed her eyes, willing herself to stay awake.

  Then she realized that the rest of the document was encrypted. Suddenly wide-awake, Libby used her limited skills and after a grueling few hours was able to decipher a few words.

  “Oh my God,” Libby breathed. She glanced at the chronometer to see that she had worked clear through the night. Six thirteen was early, but not too early for something of this magnitude. She was just about to contact Covington when her computer chirped. Her nerves frayed, she jumped and squeaked. Recovering, she touched the button.

  Brenna Covington’s face appeared on the screen. Perfect timing, Libby thought.

  “Good morning, Agent Webber. I know it’s a bit early, but as I recall you tend to be an early riser.”