McHenry let out a low sigh. "Ahhhhh… that feels good. Magic hands, Doc." Selar said nothing, and McHenry continued, "I have to tell you, that Burgoyne… s/he's a wild one."
"Mmm," Selar said noncommitally.
"I shouldn't. I mean, I really shouldn't. I know that. I'm kinda weak-willed when it comes to that department. Guess I don't have to tell you about what that's like, right, Doctor Selar?"
Selar was taken aback. She had been caught off-guard by McHenry's affect of inattention.
"Only problem is," admitted McHenry, "I feel like… like I'm taking advantage of hir, you know? Because I'm not what s/he wants, I know it. I'm not who s/he wants. But I think s/he's afraid of how much s/he wants who s/he wants, because s/he's never felt like that about anyone. I wish I were a strong-willed enough man to insist that s/he do what's right for hir, but I'm not 'cause I'm having too much fun. So I go along with it, even though I know that what s/he really wants is to be with… someone else. This… someone, hell, I figure she'll never admit that she wants to be with Burgoyne as much as Burgoyne wants to be with her. They're going to have a baby, for crying out loud! I mean, I'm a modern sort of guy. It's not as if my mind or morality is stuck in the twenty-second century. But these people have a bond, both emotional and familial. You'd think that would mean something. You'd think they'd want to work together, not be so petrified of intimacy or commitment that they'd give each other a wide berth." He sighed again, but this time it wasn't with pleasure. "I knew Christiano, y'know. We used to hang out. Decent enough guy considering he wound up as just a hand. If I learned anything from that, it's that life is just too short not to go for something that you really want."
Selar had absolutely no idea what to say. She had wanted to have a talk with McHenry, to ask about Burgoyne. She had heard about what had happened in Engineering, heard of Burgoyne's heroics in saving Ensign Beth. The entire experience had been a terrifying one overall, and although Selar was far too stoic to actually be terrified, she still felt a great deal of concern for Burgoyne. She had wanted to go down there, to ask personally if s/he was all right, to say something… try to make some sort of connection, even though she wasn't sure what to say and was even less sure whether Burgoyne wanted that connection.
And here she had wound up having a talk with McHenry, or a listen at least. Except she felt as if she were an eavesdropper. Selar was a highly moral individual, and this entire business now seemed sneaky and wrong to her. She stepped back and then saw Dr. Maxwell watching out of the corner of her eye. She gestured for Maxwell to come over, and handed him back the applicator and quickly slipped away. He watched her go, shaking his head, and then leaned over to finish the skin application on McHenry's back. Selar, for her part, retreated to her office.
"Everything okay back there?" asked McHenry.
"Certainly," Selar said. "But Dr. Maxwell will continue your treatment."
"So… so what did you talk about?" Maxwell asked, after Selar had left.
"Nothing," McHenry said easily. "Nothing important at all. Trust me, Maxie, it's nothing that you have to know."
* * *
"I have to know."
Robin Lefler had entered the brig and was now standing opposite her mother, leaning against a corner of the wall. Morgan wasn't even looking at her, though.
"Mother, did you hear me?"
"Yes, I heard you. You said you have to know."
"Mom…" She tried to find the right words. "The other day, when Engineering went haywire… we could have died then. All of us. Now, I'm not afraid of dying, Mom. I'm really not. It's not like I'm eager to, you understand. And it's not like, if someone tries to take me down, I won't go kicking and screaming. Believe me, given the choice, I'd rather be dancing on the dirt than lying under it, you know? But I … I don't want to die in ignorance. For years I thought that my life was simply unfair and tragic, but at least I was used to that. Now, though, I find that it makes no sense. I don't know why it makes no sense. I don't know why anything anymore. I backed you up when it came to talking to the captain. You have no idea how difficult that was for me. No idea at all. But I did it as a gesture, to show you that I was capable of trusting you. Now… now I need you to trust me, Mother. I need you to tell me what's really going on. The truth of everything. Will you do that for me, Mother? Will you please do whatever you can to try and help my life make sense again? I want… I want to go back to being the woman I was. I was happy once. I can't be happy, ever again, until I know and understand this. Please. Please do this for me. If you've ever done anything for me in your life. If you've ever really, truly believed you loved me: Be honest with me."
"You won't believe it," Morgan said quietly.
"I will."
"You won't." She looked up at her sadly. "Your father didn't believe. Not at first. At first he thought I was just crazy. And then, when I… when I proved it to him… he was afraid of me."
"Afraid of you?" Robin couldn't quite believe what she was hearing. "How could he be afraid of you? You were his wife! The mother of his daughter! He adored you, he—"
But Morgan was shaking her head vehemently. "I'm telling you that you will react in exactly the same way, Robin, and I just can't bring myself to risk doing that to you… and to me. Not again."
"Mother, I'm in Starfleet. My life is risk. I can handle it. I swear to you I can."
"You won't understand—"
"I'm not a child, dammit!'' Lefler fairly howled in frustration. "Don't you get that? Don't you understand that—"
And then Morgan was on her feet, and in a cold and deadly voice, she said, "And don't you understand that I'm not who, or what, you think."
"What are you saying, that you're not my mother?"
"No. No, I am. I have been many things over the decades, but you know, the fact that I'm your mother is probably the thing that I take greatest pride in."
"Over the decades. Mother, what are you talking about?"
Morgan took a deep breath. "I am … older than you think."
"Okay, fine," Robin said, throwing up her hands in frustration. "Fine, don't tell me. I don't know why I bothered. I don't—"
But then Morgan grabbed Lefler's arm and spun her around to face her, and there was fire in her eyes. "You wanted the truth, little girl?" she said in a voice so dark, so frightening, that it was barely recognizable as that of her own mother. She was speaking with an odd accent, one that Morgan couldn't even begin to place, although it sounded very faintly like a cross between Scot and British. "You wanted it? Here it is, and you will listen to every damned word. I was born centuries ago, reached maturity, and discovered that I did not age any further… and did not, could not, die."
"That's… that's impossible," said Lefler, trying to pull away. "No one can live that long."
"No human, but not no one. While I was raised on Earth by human parents, I soon realized that I was from somewhere else. I was very adept at creating identities for myself, living in them for a time, then faking my death and moving on. I even joined Starfleet for a time, at first hoping to find my people, then thinking that misadventure would do what the years would not.
"But it didn't work. I have an … an aura about me that protects me from mortal harm."
"An aura," said Lefler tonelessly.
Morgan nodded. "I tried a phaser at full disintegration; it didn't harm me. I thought of setting a transporter to disperse my molecules through space, but I'm afraid that, somehow, I'll retain consciousness in a demolecularized form, floating like a ghost—an even more terrifying state than my current one."
"I should think so."
And Morgan—Morgan, who did not lose her temper, Morgan who was the epitome of coolness and control—slid into a white hot fury and faced Lefler, shouting, "Stop it! Stop patronizing me!"
The sound of her voice was like a rifleshot as Lefler went down. A security guard was immediately at the door, prepared to go in and stun Morgan for the purpose of hauling Lefler out, but Robin put up a hand. "Stay
where you are!" she shouted. "I'm fine!"
"The hell you are, Ches'. The hell you are, you are light-years away from 'fine,' " retorted Morgan. "Don't you get it? I was tired! Tired of watching loved one after loved one die while I went on and on and on! You would think that after centuries of it I'd get used to it, but no. Every single loss was like a knife to my heart. I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted to end. And my body wouldn't let me … except in ways that would be so high risk that I was terrified to try them for fear that they'd leave me worse off than when I started. I wanted something safe, certain. Don't you get that?"
"I get it, I get it," said Robin. She watched her mother from as far away as she was able to get from her. "You're not human. You've been around forever."
Her immediate anger spent, Morgan sagged down onto the bench. "I wandered the galaxy for a time, slowly despairing," she said, sounding as much as if she were talking to herself as to Robin. "Then I returned home, met your father, and fell in love. And after we married, for the first time I knew enough love that I saw a future for myself. I had you. And as I watched you grow, my love, I realized I couldn't stand to watch you get older… grow up. I've lost so many people that I loved, but every day I watched you get older, it was… it was more than I could take. So I faked my death earlier than I would normally have and left. I left because I was selfish, and determined to find a way to put an end to my miserable existence. Are you happy that you know, now, Robin? Are you happy?"
"Mother," Robin was shaking her head. "Mother, look, I … I know what you said about Dad… and how he didn't believe… but I… This is so much to try and handle. This is … It's…"
"Preposterous?"
"Yes."
"Absurd?"
"Completely. I think… I think maybe you should see someone. There are people who can help you."
"Would you like to see something?" she asked.
"Uhm… sure. If you want me to."
"All right. I'm going to show you a trick."
She turned around away from Lefler's view, and there was a sound like a snap. When Morgan turned back, she was holding up a knife. The blade, three inches long but extremely sharp, glinted in the light.
"Mother, what—"
And very quickly, very efficiently, in one smooth move, Morgan held out her right wrist and drew the knife down it. She slid it lengthwise down her forearm, opening up the vein, and blood began to well out, thick and red.
"Oh my God!" shrieked Lefler. Immediately she sent an emergency call to sickbay.
"Don't worry," Morgan said calmly. "I've done it before."
"Mom, oh my God, Mom!" Lefler cried out as she leaped toward her mother, clasping her hands frantically around the fountaining forearm. She tried to apply pressure, to stop the bleeding, but the blood was leaking out between her fingers. "Mom, how could you? How could you?!"
"About five seconds," Morgan said calmly. "Four… three… two , . . one… let go. You can let go."
"I can't let go! You'll bleed to death! You'll—"
With an impatient noise, Morgan pushed her daughter aside. She called to the guard, who was still outside as he awaited backup from the sickbay medics. "Do you have a towel on you? A cloth?"
"A … a cloth?"
"Never mind," she said, utterly calm. She lifted up the cushion that they were sitting on and used it to wipe away the blood. "Just send for a new one of these, okay? This stuff stains."
"Where's the medical team!?" Lefler fairly shouted.
"Where the hell is the—?"
And then Morgan extended her arm, practically under Lefler's nose. Robin looked down , . . and couldn't believe what she was seeing.
The blood flow had completely stopped. Where there had been a vicious cut only moments ago, there was now simply a thin pink line standing out against the tan of her skin. And even that was already disappearing. Lefler looked in stupefaction as the pink skin of the freshly healed wound changed color and matched the tan of the rest of her arm.
At that moment the medical team came charging up. They saw the blood collected on the floor and staining the mattress, and they looked around in confusion to find the person who was apparently bleeding in such copious quantities.
"Thank you for coming by, gentlemen," Morgan said calmly, "but I'm afraid it was a bit of a false alarm. I was just showing my daughter here a magic trick—a rather sanguinary one, I'm afraid—and the dear guard here overreacted to what he was seeing. I'm terribly sorry to have wasted your time. Although if you gentlemen would be so kind as to send someone to clean that up"—and she pointed at the blood—"I would be most obliged. Robin," she said, taking Robin by the shoulders, "you look somewhat shaken. Perhaps you'd best go on about your business now. Don't you think that would be wise?"
"Yes," Robin said, clearly still in shock. "Yes, that would be … be wise."
The guard shut down the forcefield long enough for Lefler to leave and for a cleaning crew to come in and attend to the mess on the floor. And Lefler put as much distance between herself and the brig that was holding her mother as she possibly could. She paused only briefly to glance over her shoulder, and caught a glimpse of her mother, looking rather serene in her cell as if, all of a sudden, she didn't have a care in the world.
XIII
THEY'RE HERE.… THEY'RE HERE.…
Her lover cries the warning to her, and she strokes it for the confrontation that is to come.
* * *
"There's no one here."
Calhoun rose from the command chair and walked over to Zak Kebron's tactical station as the world of Ahmista turned beneath them. "What do you mean?"
"I mean preliminary sensor sweeps indicate no humanoid life-forms."
"None?" Calhoun asked incredulously. He turned to Soleta, who was already at work at her science station. "Soleta?"
"Scanning. At this point, confirming Mr. Kebron's analysis. Although the ecosystem is capable of supporting life, and there appears to be some minimal animal life, there are no humanoid organisms."
"It's the wrong planet," Shelby suggested.
"But it's right where Si Cwan said it was," McHenry pointed out from the conn.
"Could there have been some sort of… of war? They wiped each other out?" Calhoun said.
"There are no traces of lingering radiation, no burned areas, no pollutants from toxins or germ warfare; none of the usual indicators that a war sufficient for the annihilation of all life upon a world has occurred," said Soleta. "Furthermore, Si Cwan described the populace of this world as being fairly low on the technical scale. They very likely would not possess the type of armament necessary to do away with every man, woman, and child on the planet."
"Well, grozit, Lieutenant, where are they, then?"
"Unknown at this time, sir."
"Perhaps they're all hiding somewhere and waiting to pop out so they can say 'Surprise,' " Calhoun said humorlessly. "Soleta, I want you to scan every square foot of that planet if necessary. If there's so much as a campfire burning, I want to know about it. Bridge to Si Cwan."
"Si Cwan here," came back the ambassador's voice quickly.
"Mr. Cwan, kindly join us on the bridge. There's a question or two that could use your attention. Calhoun out." Without missing a beat, he turned to Kebron and said, "Have security escort Morgan Primus up here as well."
Robin Lefler turned at her position at Ops. "My mother?" she asked.
"Unless there's another Morgan Primus on the ship, Lieutenant, yes. Why, is that a problem for you?"
"No," Robin said quickly, suddenly becoming incredibly engrossed in her instruments. "No, that's no problem for me at all."
Moments later, both Si Cwan and Morgan had emerged from the turbolift onto the bridge. Calhoun noticed that Robin was carefully endeavoring not to meet her mother's gaze. Something had happened between the two of them, something since the time that Robin had appeared to be making inroads with her mother. He knew that there had been some sort of odd incident in the brig. The r
eport he had received had been extremely confused and confusing: An attempted suicide, except that, although there was blood everywhere, there was no sign of any sort of wound on either Lefler or Morgan, who had been the only occupants of the cell at the time. It made absolutely no sense at all. It was just one of a number of matters that needed addressing.
"We have a bit of a curiosity," Calhoun said, circling them. "You, Morgan, told us that the trail of the Prometheans indicated that this world was the place where you might be able to connect with them. I notice that you never told us how, precisely, you knew this. Would you be so kind as to enlighten us now?"
"Comments we heard in our investigations. Writings buried in assorted rare texts. A long process that—" Then she saw the way he was looking at her, and for the first time since he'd met her, Morgan actually seemd less than certain of herself. "Ultimately," she admitted, "what it came down to is that Tarella and I … we just . , . knew."
"You just knew."
"Yes."
"That's the best you can do. You just knew."
"It's not impossible, Captain," Soleta commented, never taking her eyes away from her scanner. "Remember my experience with the similar disk. There may be some sort of connection to a greater whole."
"You're saying they're like the Borg, but little disks?" Calhoun said skeptically.
"Well, that's certainly less threatening in any event," said Shelby.
"Ambassador," Calhoun turned to face Si Cwan,
"do you have an estimate as to the number of people in residence on Ahmista?"
"I couldn't say for sure, no," Si Cwan replied. "Five… maybe six billion, I suppose."
"Would you like to know how many there are now?"
"One."
The reply came from Soleta, which naturally captured the immediate attention of everyone else on the bridge. Calhoun crossed quickly to her station. "You found someone?"