“So you thought it appropriate to spy on me.”
Now Garbeck was starting to get angry. “I wasn’t ‘spying’ on you, Captain. It was nothing like that, and you know it. I divulged no personal confidences, betrayed no trusts. I did nothing except report what you did, freely and in front of other crewmembers, and put forward my own opinions that what you were doing was outside the parameters of our mission, and the regs. Why shouldn’t I say that? You said it yourself. You admitted to it. You even seemed to take a sort of … of perverse pride in finding a way around them so that you could do what you wanted to do. Frankly, you seemed to back up, with your actions, every concern that the admiral voiced about you. What would you have had me do? Ignore it? There’s a K-M if I ever heard one.”
“A Kobayashi Maru, you mean? A no-win scenario?”
“Right, exactly. If I keep my silence, say less than what’s on my mind, then I’m in direct violation of an admiral’s wishes. If I am honest and forthcoming, then I’m going to upset my C.O. As I said, a no-win. Well, you know what, Captain?” she said, standing up. “If I’m going to err, it’s going to be on the side of truth and integrity. And if you feel that an accurate report of your actions puts you in a bad light, then perhaps you should consider questioning the actions rather than the person who reported them.”
“What it makes me question, Number One, is how much of what we say gets pumped back to Admiral Jellico. How am I supposed to function if I feel that his proxy is in a room with me, questioning and second-guessing my every move?”
“There wouldn’t be any second-guessing at all if the moves were solidly based in procedure and protocol,” Garbeck reminded her. But then, in a slightly softer tone, she added, “However … I hope you do realize that anything you tell me in confidence remains that way. I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m out to betray you or bring you down.”
Shelby actually looked a bit regretful as she said, “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it, Number One? It’s rather impossible, isn’t it, to control what someone thinks. Instead, you have to simply do what you feel is the best job you can, and deal with the consequences.” She hesitated, and then said, “Tell me, Number One … do you feel any loyalty toward me at all?”
“You’re my captain,” Garbeck said immediately. “I have, and will continue to provide, all the loyalty and respect that the title entails.”
“Alex,” said Shelby, “don’t you see that serving in Starfleet is about more than that? You shouldn’t simply be loyal to titles. You have to be loyal to the people who hold those titles.”
“As I said before, Captain … Starfleet is larger than any one person. It is that unity, that chain of command, that dedication to a single ideal, that makes us strong.”
“Really.” Shelby had turned and was heading for the door.
“Yes, Captain. Really.”
Shelby paused in the now-open doorway, looked over her shoulder at Garbeck, and said sadly, “That’s what the Borg say.” And she walked out, leaving a thoughtful Garbeck behind.
RHEELA
THE RIDE BACK TO THE FARM had been, paradoxically, both quiet and noisy. Noisy, in that Moke was talking a mile a minute, and quiet, because neither Calhoun nor Rheela was speaking.
“And that was something, the way you hit Tapinza!” burbled Moke.
“Moke, must you mention it again?” Rheela was no longer making the slightest effort to hide her annoyance with the topic. Why should she? The boy was making her crazy, and she definitely did not feel it an appropriate thing to talk about anyway. Unfortunately, Moke did not seem to agree.
“But it was one punch, Ma! One punch! One minute Tapinza was standing there, grabbing Calhoun’s arm, and the next—”
“He could have simply told the Maester to release him,” Rheela said primly, making sure to give a significant look of disapproval at Calhoun. Calhoun, riding his luukab, didn’t appear to notice it, and instead looked resolutely forward.
But Moke wasn’t having any of it. “Guys like dad don’t tell people what to do! They make ’em do it—!”
“He’s not your dad!” There. She’d said it. Moke wasn’t going to be happy about it, but anything was preferable to allowing this … this charade to continue.
Upon being informed of this fact, Moke’s entire response was to sniff disdainfully, as if the very notion that Calhoun wasn’t who he said he was was inherently absurd. “That’s silly. Why would he say it if it wasn’t true?”
“You see?” Rheela said angrily to Calhoun. “You see what your interference has done?”
“It’s enabled you to keep your home,” Calhoun replied.
“It’s led my son to believe that his mother lies to him! I don’t want him to think such things! He’s taking the word of a relative stranger over mine because he wants to believe so desperately—”
“Perhaps the reason he wants to believe,” said Calhoun, “is because you’ve given him nothing else to believe in.”
Frosting the air with her words, she said, “It’s. None. Of. Your. Business.”
Moke had no patience with any of the discussion back and forth. He had not taken his eyes off Calhoun, and now he said, “Are you my dad? Yes or no?”
At that simple, straightforward question, Calhoun reined up his luukab and looked, with a touch of sadness, at Moke. “Not to my knowledge … no.”
At first there was no change at all in Moke’s expression … and then his eyes started to tear up, and he looked with infinite tragedy at Calhoun. “Well, then … then why did you—?”
“Because I was trying to help.”
“But we weren’t asking for your help,” said Rheela.
But before she could say more, to her astonishment, Moke turned on her. “Why didn’t we?” he demanded, his childish voice rising in ire and timbre. “Why don’t we? Why don’t we ever ask for help?”
“Moke, that’s not the poi—”
He acted as if she hadn’t even spoken. “We help people! You keep telling me, we’re here because you want to help! Because you gotta help! Because the whole reason you make rain is that you have to help other people! A whole town of people! And when one guy tries to help us, you get all mean at him and tell him not to! Why does everybody get help except us!”
“Moke … please … it’s … it’s difficult to understand, I know …”
“Lots of stuff is, Ma! But you can always explain it to me! So explain this! Please! I wanna understand, I really wanna. Can you explain it?”
Rheela, feeling utterly helpless, looked from Moke to Calhoun and back again. The three of them had come to a halt there on the plain, with the moon high in the sky. The farmhouse was not far off, and Rheela seemed to consider the situation for a long moment. Then, very quietly, she said, “Moke … the Majister and I need to talk. In private. Why don’t you,” and she slid off the luukab, “ride the rest of the way? When you get home, get into bed, and I’ll come in and talk with you.”
“Will Calhoun come and talk with me, too?”
She licked her lips, which suddenly felt quite dry. “I’m not sure. We’ll see.”
“I hate ‘we’ll see,’ ” he said stubbornly, but he did as his mother told him. Once she had dismounted, he dug his heels into the luukab’s side, shouting, “Yah! Yah!” in that high, childish voice. His urging had zero impact on the luukab, which continued its slow, measured tread toward the homestead.
“He’s a good kid,” said Calhoun. “He deserves—”
“Don’t start,” Rheela said sharply, waving a finger at Calhoun. Then she hesitated, gathering her thoughts. She began to walk in a small circle, her arms draped behind her. Calhoun, who might have been carved from stone for all the emotion he was displaying, simply sat and watched her. “Don’t act as if it had anything at all to do with Moke.”
“It didn’t?” He sounded politely confused. Apparently she had broached a concept that was utterly foreign to him.
“No. It didn’t. This was entirely, and only,
about you.”
“It was?”
“Yes. You wanted to show how in control of the situation you were. Or that you could be in control if you wanted to. So you just shoved yourself into the middle of everything, and you only made it worse—”
“How did I make it worse?”
“You confused Moke!”
“He’s a child. Life is confusing when you’re a child,” said Calhoun. Then he added, with a hint of a smile, “Of course, it’s just as confusing when you’re an adult. The problem is, as a child you can look to adults for answers. As an adult—”
“You can look to the gods,” Rheela pointed out.
“That’s something of a one-way conversation, I’ve found,” Calhoun said.
“We’re getting offtrack. You decided to stand up and thrust yourself into this situation out of a sense of self-aggrandizement. That’s all.”
“Why do you assume that?” he asked. “You don’t know me well enough, I think, to decide on my motives.”
“I do know you well enough. I know your type.”
“Do you?” Amusement sparkled in his eyes. She noticed, not for the first time, that he actually looked slightly attractive when he regarded her that way. But then she quickly brushed the thought from her mind.
“Yes. I do. Swaggering would-be heroes who think they’re capable of running people’s lives for them. Never listening to what the people themselves have to say.”
“I’m listening right now. You don’t seem to be talking, beyond scolding me. That’s all right, though. Believe it or not, I’m used to it.”
“Don’t you get it?” she demanded, her fists balled. “It’s not fair!”
He appeared genuinely puzzled. “What’s not?”
“You said it yourself! There you were, having barely gotten through telling me that you’re just passing through … and suddenly you turn around and attach yourself to our lives!”
“I’m not attached,” Calhoun said. For the first time he actually sounded a bit defensive. “Nothing I said has changed. I am just passing through. But when I do move on, at least the people of the town will ‘know’ who Moke’s father is, and you’ll—”
“Have respectability?”
“Yes.”
“Wonderful. Respectability for something that isn’t true! Don’t you see, Calhoun? I’ve been here for years, helping these people, and I haven’t earned an iota of the respect abruptly accorded me when you—a stranger—suddenly insert yourself into my life!”
“So it would appear that, to you, it’s not about your son either. It’s about your own ego.”
“No! You’re twisting it!” She waved her hands about in flustered motions. “You’re taking everything that I say and turning it around!”
He sighed. “I hear that a lot. I think I know a woman you’d get along with quite well.”
“If she can stand to be around you for more than five minutes, she’s a very impressive woman.”
“I tend to agree.”
She rubbed her eyes tiredly. “This is getting us nowhere. You refuse to acknowledge that you did anything wrong—”
“And you refuse to say ‘thank you,’ ” he replied.
“I should thank you?”
“I think so, yes.”
“Even though I feel what you did was completely wrong.”
“Absolutely.”
At that, she actually had to laugh. “Tell me, Calhoun … what color is the sky in your world?”
He got that far-distant look in his eyes again. “Depends. Red, most times. But it has been known to change, depending on atmospheric conditions.”
They stood there, facing each other across a greater gulf than either of them could possibly cross with words. Then, with a weary shake of her head, she said, “Do you have anyplace else to stay?”
“There’s a small room in the gaol.”
“And you stay there to keep an eye on your prisoners?”
“The Praestor was good enough to appoint rotating guards to the gaol, so I wouldn’t have to do it single-handedly. Actually, I …” he shrugged slightly, “somewhat insisted that he do so.”
“But otherwise, you have nothing.”
“No. Nothing.” He didn’t sound especially sorry for himself. It was simply a statement of fact.
She shook her head. “I’m going to regret this, I know it … but no one should have to call a gaol home. We have a spare room in the house. I use it mostly for storage, but we can clean some of it out, make space for you.”
“Thank you.”
For some reason, she was annoyed by the fact that that was all he said. “Aren’t you going to ask why?”
He shrugged. “No. Is that a problem?”
“Aren’t you wondering?”
“I would question,” he said thoughtfully, “why an enemy would do something for me. I would not wonder about the motivations of someone that I considered a friend. I don’t quite see the point.”
“And that’s how you think I should view you.”
“How you view me is your choice.” He paused, and then added, “I wouldn’t want you to have another chance to think I was controlling.”
They had been walking toward the homestead, but she stopped and turned to face him. He waited patiently. There was something about him that seemed to say that, given the circumstances, he could wait forever for something to happen. For just a moment—the briefest of moments—she had a sudden mental picture of Calhoun, wild and free and savage in aspect, crouched and waiting in hiding for some animal to come near him. An animal that he was going to leap upon and bring down with his bare hands, teeth and possibly a knife, if he required it. And she could see him just waiting, for however long it took. Even when he was motionless, even when he was simply waiting for her to speak, he seemed to crackle with energy and a faint menace.
Which, for some utterly perverse reason, she found somewhat attractive.
She shook that last thought from her mind and said, “Tell me one thing, Calhoun. What’s going to happen to Moke … when you leave?”
“Happen?” He frowned, not understanding.
“You’ve told him you’re not his father. But that’s not going to stop him from attaching himself to you. And when you leave, how difficult do you think it’s going to be for him?”
“If that’s what you’re concerned about, why are you inviting me to stay with you?”
“Because if I don’t, all he’s going to do is ask about you. You’ve set things in motion, Calhoun, that neither of us can stop. In the end, all we can do is make the best decisions we can and pray we’re making the right ones.”
“You see?” he said. “We have something in common after all.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
She lay in her bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Moke had been fairly bubbling over with excitement when she told him that Calhoun would be staying there. He had done as she told him and gone to bed, but upon learning the news he started bouncing around with such enthusiasm that she was worried he was going to break the bed. She tried to calm him, to no avail, and in involuntary desperation, she glanced at Calhoun.
“Lie down, Moke,” Calhoun said in a voice of command.
Moke promptly lay down. She couldn’t quite believe it. Rheela didn’t know whether to feel relieved or angry, and decided to opt for the former, because it was going to make her life a lot easier at this time of night.
Calhoun had spent a few minutes helping her clear out the back room, and had thanked her for her efforts. In many ways, she still couldn’t quite believe she was taking the risk. This man had once tried to strangle her while she was wide-awake. Who knew what he would do to her when she was asleep? You’re crazy, you’re crazy, she kept telling herself, but she knew that it was too late. She’d made the choice, and now she was going to have to live with it. At least, she hoped she was going to live with it.
You know nothing about him. Her inner voice kept saying that, and y
et she felt as if—when she looked him in the eyes—she knew everything about him. Everything … and nothing. She saw pain in those eyes, pain as endless as the skies, but also the strength to endure the circumstances that had inflicted that pain on him. His face was a literal roadmap of all that he had endured. The places he had been were not clear, but the paths getting there were certainly evident enough.
He could kill you in your sleep … kill Moke … kill …
She saw a shadow on the wall and sat up abruptly, the bed-clothes falling away from her naked body. Quickly, she covered herself, squinting in the dim candlelight from the hall. He was standing there, in the open doorway. She cursed herself inwardly, having gotten into the habit of leaving the door open. It made for a more pleasant breeze, and it also meant that she could hear Moke if he cried out in the night.
Calhoun was standing there. He was barechested and barefoot, and the thin blanket that had been on his bed was wrapped around his middle. Rheela was positive that her heart had stopped.
She tried to whisper, “What do you want?” but her throat was constricted. She had never felt such fear.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,” Calhoun said softly. He hadn’t moved from the door, had made no effort to enter the room. “There may be … an element of truth in it. But it really was about the boy. I … saw a child in pain. I had to help. I couldn’t …” He shook his head. “I couldn’t … not help.”
“Let me guess,” she said, fright edging sarcasm into her voice. “You had your own son, and you were never there for him. You feel guilty over him. And now you’re trying to make up for it by being there for my son when you weren’t for your own.”
There was a long silence, and then, very softly, he said, “Something like that.”
She felt instant remorse. Here she had made what was basically a flip remark, intended as no more than a cutting jibe … and had inadvertently zeroed in on what was apparently a very sore point with him. For one moment she wondered if he was fabricating his response in order to gain sympathy, or something like that. Even in the dim light, though, she could see a brief slip of an expression, which masked a world of hurt. And then, just like that, it was gone.