Fire On High

  She'd been wrong. And eventually she'd come to accept her imprisonment, although she had never resigned herself to it.

  She heard a familiar noise coming toward her. There were four different primary jailers, and she'd come to recognize each of them by the individual shlupping sound their lower halves made when they moved across the floor. "Hail, Kurdwurble," she called before he even came around the corner.

  Kurdwurble came around the corner and did that odd facial tic that passed for a Momidium smile. "Hail, Morgan," he replied. "This day finds you well?"

  "This day finds me here. Therefore I'm as well as can be expected."

  Kurdwurble laughed at that. Momidiums weren't in the habit of laughing outwardly—it was considered to be rather bad manners. Instead his chest simply shook in silent amusement. "Every day we say the same thing to each other, Morgan. You would think we would find something new."

  "Well, Kurdwurble," she said, shifting in the recliner that she had presently sprawled upon, "if I am boring you, you always have the option of letting me go. But since it seems to be your intention to keep me here for the rest of my natural life, then I'm afraid that I'm going to have to just keep right on boring you. It's your decision, really."

  He shook his head. "Not mine, I'm afraid. I am merely one of your hosts, Morgan. A humble civil servant. I'm not permitted such lofty pursuits as deciding the fate of others. Tell me, does the prospect of spending the rest of your natural life here disturb you? You have not been ill-treated, after all. Your stay has been quite comfortable, in fact."

  "It's an enforced stay, nonetheless, Kurdwurble. Whether a gilded cage or no, it's still a cage. I miss my freedom."

  "Freedom is an intangible. You have all the tangible considerations and needs you could possibly desire right here," and he made a wide gesture encompassing the whole of the room. "I find myself wondering what more a reasonable person could want."

  "If you want to consider me an unreasonable person, you go right ahead." Her lips thinned slightly as she tilted her head to one side. "I've certainly been called worse things in my life than that. You are a very—excuse the expression—down-to-earth people, you Momidiums. You're not among the more spiritual races I've ever encountered, and you don't have much use for ephemera. My people are built a bit differently. I'm not entirely certain why; we just are. We need something else to occupy our minds besides physical objects and creature comforts. We need spiritual matters to comfort us or guide us, we need freedom with which to move, to grow, and thrive. We need the ability to think about that which does not matter at all."

  "But why? That makes no sense, Morgan," he said, and he now angled his head in imitation of hers so he could continue to look at her in the same manner. "Why would you care about that which does not matter at all?"

  "Because it's only in caring about what does not matter that we are able to discover what does matter, Kurdwurble. Does that clarify for you?"

  "Yes, I suppose, somewhat. I…well, no," he admitted.

  "And in answer to your question: Yes, I'm daunted by the prospect of spending the rest of my life here, for reasons I can't even begin to go into."

  "I see." He sighed, which, for him, was an odd, warbling sort of noise. "Morgan, I have never been very much of a thinker. But I have always been able to appreciate people who are, and I'm going to miss our discussions very much."

  Morgan was instantly alert. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

  "You're going to be free of this place, Morgan."

  Slowly she rose from her chair. "You wouldn't lie to your old friend Morgan, would you, Kurdwurble?"

  "Lie to you?" He sounded truly stricken, and he put a hand to his chest looking somewhat aghast. "Morgan, after all this time, do you think I would lie to you? I have been many things, but dishonest has never been one of them. I have never been anything other than truthful with you, and now—as our relationship draws to a close—I certainly have no intention of changing that. Do you remember some time ago when I told you that the Thallonian Empire had fallen into disarray?"

  "Yes," she said. "You made it sound somewhat routine, though. A temporary situation at best."

  He shook his head. "Anything but routine, as it turned out. The very planet, Thallon, is gone. The Thallonian Empire has crumbled completely, Morgan, and it's a new galaxy that we face. And we Momidiums are seeking our place in it. We have always been willing allies of the Thallonians. Now there are new powers, new forces astride our little section of space. We would ally ourselves with them, and you, my dear Morgan, represent one of the ways that we can do so."

  Her eyes narrowed into suspicious slits. "Wait a minute. You… you said I was going to be free."

  He shook his head. "Free of this place, Morgan. Not free simply to walk away, however. But be of good cheer; for we are turning you over to your own kind."

  "My own kind? What do you mean?"

  "There is a starship in the sector now, representing the United Federation of Planets. We have contacted the vessel, informed them of your presence here, and have stated that we are willing to turn you over to them in exchange for several fairly reasonable considerations. They have agreed to our terms and, so I am given to understand, are on their way here even as we speak."

  "A starship. After all this time." She shook her head in amazement. "Well, that is the equivalent of being free, I suppose. If it's a Federation vessel…" She stopped. "Which one. What's her name?"

  "I believe it is called the Excalibur, which, I am told, is named for an Earth weapon. Rather odd name for a vessel if you ask me, but then, no one did."

  "The Excalibur. All right, that's a relief."

  "A relief?" He looked at her askance. "Should it make a difference which vessel it is?"

  "No, no, not really. I just… didn't want it to be the Enterprise, that's all. I have some difficult memories attached to that one. It doesn't matter, though. If it's a starship from the UFP, then I'm as good as free," she said, clapping her hands together briskly in undisguised glee. "I'm going free, Kurdwurble. I'm going free!"

  "It would appear so. I have a message for you, actually." He held up a small recording chip. "It came in through our comm center not twenty minutes ago. Two messages, actually. One was to our government, accepting our terms. The other was a personal message directed to you." He gestured to a playback unit along her wall and she turned to face it as he undulated over to it and slid the chip in. "It is from the assistant to the official ambassador."

  "How very bureaucratic. I'm honored."

  A picture appeared on the screen. It was a young woman, with a serious expression and her hair pulled back. Morgan sat forward, her interest piqued. The young woman looked familiar. That was very unlikely, of course. This girl appeared to be in her mid-twenties, and Morgan hadn't run into any Starfleet personnel in nearly a decade.

  "Hello, Morgan," said the young woman. "It's me. Cheshire."

  Morgan was across the room as if she'd been spring-loaded. She punched the machine, popping out the chip and catching it in her hand. She turned to face a remarkably startled Kurdwurble, who stared at her in open surprise. "Morgan—?"

  "I want another ship."

  Kurdwurble couldn't quite believe he'd heard her properly. "You want—?"

  "Another ship, yes."

  He shook his head. "Impossible."

  "Why?"

  "That is the only Starfleet vessel in the area, Morgan!"

  ''Fine, then if you're of a mind to turn me loose, let me go and I'll find my own transportation off this rock."

  "It's not that simple, Morgan," he said, unable to comprehend what her problem could possibly be.

  "Then make it that simple, Kurdwurble. You can do it. I know you can. You have friends, you have influence, you have—"

  "Morgan, perhaps I haven't made myself sufficiently clear, although I thought I had. I have no say in the matter. Your release is part of a much larger picture. The Excalibur has offered us help and aid in exchange for your release." r />
  "They'll help you anyway!" she told him flatly, pacing the room. "That's what they do! Starships go around helping people! Just tell them that I escaped, but ask for their humanitarian assistance. They'll aid you; you have my word."

  He put his hands on his hips and looked at her in a slightly scolding fashion. "First of all, Morgan, you're asking us to take the word of someone who, if she has her way, won't be around to make good on that word should it prove to be unsupported. And second, we are people of our word. We have told the star vessel that you will be here to be turned over to them. You wouldn't wish to make liars of us, would you?"

  "What I wish is…" But then she reined herself in, putting her fingers to the bridge of her nose and endeavoring to compose herself. "I just… do not wish to board that particular vessel."

  "That young woman… she seemed to know you. What was her name? Cheshire? You seemed to react quite strongly to it."

  Morgan said nothing, and Kurdwurble studied her closely. "Is Cheshire a particularly emotional name? A very rare one, perhaps, among humans?"

  "It's…not common, no. Not as common as John or Bill or…" She repressed a smile, which was something she did by habit since she was not particularly inclined to display amusement. "Or Kurdwurble."

  He looked at her skeptically. "Kurdwurble is a common human name?"

  "Absolutely, yes," she said in such a no-nonsense tone that for a moment he almost believed it.

  But then he shook his head and said, "I think you are attempting to confuse me. Yes, most certainly. I shall miss that, Morgan, as I've said. You have made my time with you… most interesting."

  She bowed slightly in a rather gracious pose, and he returned it. He then made it clear that he was not easily distracted as he asked again, "So, 'Cheshire.' Again, your reaction was excessive. You are a very reserved individual, Morgan. You do not display emotions easily; indeed, you seem to consider them rather distasteful on the whole. I would be most curious to know what provoked your response. You know that I have found your race to be intriguing, based on your descriptions of humanity. Is there something about Cheshire that is—?"

  "It simply brought back memories," she said stiffly, turning away from him. "There was a creature called the Cheshire Cat… in a work of fiction entitled Alice in Wonderland. The Cheshire Cat would speak in tantalizing ways and then would slowly vanish, one part of his body at a time, until only his smile remained."

  "His smile? I do not think such a thing is possible."

  "Well, it is supposed to be a work of fiction."

  Kurdwurble looked at the blank screen where, only minutes before, the young woman's face had been. "I am not an especially knowledgeable judge of human expressions, Morgan, since I have only had yours to study. But it is my purely amateur opinion that the young woman in the message would have a rather attractive smile if she was so disposed. 'Attractive' by human standards, of course."

  "Of course," agreed Morgan neutrally.

  "In fact, if I were to use my imagination—which would be a problem since, as you know, I am most unimaginative—I would almost think that it would bear a passing resemblance to your own… were you ever to smile."

  She didn't turn back to look at him for a long moment. She was trying to figure out what to say, or even if she should simply say nothing at all. Finally, though, she turned to face him…

  But he was gone.

  She looked down and saw the slight trail of slime on the floor that always seemed to be left in the wake of Momidiums. It tended to evaporate very quickly, however, and so presented minimal risk of slipping. Still, it was unusual for Kurdwurble to simply disappear that way. Perhaps he wanted to make a dramatic exit; or perhaps, she realized, he felt she simply wanted to be alone with her message.

  She stared at the chip in her hand and considered grinding it into dust. But finally she realized that it would only prolong the inevitable. So she placed the chip back into the player and stepped back.

  How could she not have known the face immediately? Granted it had been ten years, and granted she'd been barely a slip of a girl at the time, but even so, the face was almost entirely unchanged. A bit rounder, a bit more mature, but that was all.

  What was she going to do now? What the hell was she going to do?

  Steeling herself, she activated the message chip and the face of Roblin Lefler appeared on the screen once more.

  "Hello, Morgan," it said just as it had before. "It's me, Cheshire. I imagine you're surprised to see me. Imagine how surprised I am to see you. Imagine my amazement upon seeing that my dear mother, who died ten years ago, is hale and hardy and in one piece on the planet Momidium, deep in the heart of Thallonian space."

  Morgan wanted to look away, but she wasn't able to. She was fixated by the stare of her daughter: a bizarre combination of cold fury stoked with flames of anger.

  "Well," continued Robin, "I'm sure you're curious as to everything that has happened since your…departure. Dad died, a little piece at a time, and finally all of him died. And I joined Starfleet, as you can see, living under the assumption that I was an orphan." She paused a moment, appearing to give the matter a good deal more thought, and then she shrugged. "That is more or less it, I guess. The Excalibur is on her way to pick you up, and then we'll take the opportunity to get reacquainted. I'm sure you're looking forward to that almost as much as I am. I don't know about you, but I… right now…" For a moment it seemed as if she were gong to lose her composure, but she kept her chin rock steady and maintained it. "I … right now… knowing that you disappeared…knowing that you abandoned Daddy and me, and that I mourned you when it was just a joke, and that the last ten years of my life have been a complete lie … Right now, mother, I wish I were dead. And I hope you're feeling the same way." And the screen blinked out.

  Morgan slowly sank into a nearby chair, staring at the screen even though it was blank. Her fingers strayed over her chest as if she were trying to massage a stopped heart back to life, and as she did so she felt the coolness of the medallion she wore pressed against her. For the umpteenth time she wondered if it had all been worth it.

  And then she leaned forward, still in the chair, and replayed the message, over and over again. And it was, of course, the last words that struck most closely to her heart.

  I wish I were dead. And I hope you're feeling thesame way.

  "Darling," she said to the screen, "for what it's worth, I do. And I just wish to God that it were that simple."

  VI

  DR. SELAR STRETCHED ON HER BED in a manner similar to a cat, starting at her toes and slowly elongating her spine, her hands over her head and her fingers outstretched to the utmost. Then she let out a low sigh and shook herself slightly.

  She simply lay there, the hissing of the shower in the next room only faintly making an impression on her as she gazed out the window of her quarters at the stars as they passed by. Not for the first time, she wished for some other view. The peaceful deserts of Vulcan would have gone down fairly well about then, or that glorious red sky. For that matter, although she had long ago become accustomed to the carefully maintained atmosphere aboard starships, there was part of her that missed the arid air of home.

  She wondered if this was all part of Pon Farr. Whether there would be some sort of internal drive that would try to get her to go home, now that she was…

  Pregnant.

  She felt a strange sensation on her face, muscles stretching that didn't ordinarily move, and there was a faint pressing together of her teeth. It took her a moment to fully understand what was happening to her, and she had to reach up to touch her face to verify the fact for herself.

  Yes, there it was, big as life: a smile. A broad, beaming, totally unhidden smile wide across her face.

  There was no logical reason for it, but there it was all the same. She was smiling so widely she felt as if it would split her face in half. She was relieved that no one was watching her, because it was extremely embarrassing. She fought the smile, comm
anding the muscles in her face to relax and smooth out, but it was there all the same. This was ridiculous. This wasn't her.

  She heard the shower stop, and that immediately wiped the grin off her face. Furthermore, she suddenly felt a degree of modesty sweep over her. She had not felt that way for several days, particularly not whenever Burgoyne was around. Selar had been rather demonstrative with her lusts; in fact, to some extent she couldn't even remember everything that had happened. She could recall skin against skin, and Burgoyne looking down at her with a look of determined exhaustion on hir face, her fingernails digging into Burgoyne's back, and a lot of sweat—which was most unusual since Selar didn't customarily sweat—and heat like exploding suns that seemed to blast out of every pore of their bodies… and laughter. Her laughter, which was something she never heard. She realized how odd it was not to know what one's own laughter sounded like. She had no basis for comparison, really, and had no idea at all whether she had a good laugh, or a stupid laugh, or what.

  But she had made love for days, having taken time off from her duties as CMO for medical reasons. That had certainly been a legitimate enough claim; the demands of Pon Farr had been overwhelming and a medical necessity: she would have died had she not satisfied them. She had felt almost hedonistic during that time. She had wanted Burgoyne constantly, and not just on a physical level. She had bonded with hir on an emotional level as well as physical, had felt a closeness to hir that she never would have thought possible. She felt complete trust in hir, that there was nothing she couldn't tell hir, that s/he…

  But… but if Selar truly did feel that way, she wondered, then why had she pulled the blanket up under her chin? Why did she now feel a certain degree of dread that any moment Burgoyne would emerge from the bathroom? Why did she suddenly not have the faintest idea of what to say?