Chapter Nine
PICARD LEANED BACK IN HIS CHAIR, having told his first officer about his experience on the cargo hauler. “I know it sounds strange,” he concluded, “but I think Brakmaktin took Nikolas with him when he left the Iktoj’ni.”
Ben Zoma, who was facing the captain across the width of his desk, was silent for a moment. Then he asked, “Why would he do that? What could Nikolas do for Brakmaktin that Brakmaktin couldn’t do for himself?”
It was a fair question. Fortunately, Picard had already considered his answer.
“I’ve studied the actions of Gary Mitchell,” he said. “Gone over them in great detail, in fact. And one element jumps out at me more insistently each time I consider it—the more powerful Mitchell became, the more loneliness he endured.”
“Because he was so different from everyone around him…”
“Exactly right. So he reached out to those with whom he had even a tenuous form of identity. At first, it was Kirk, his oldest and most trusted friend. Then Kirk began to seem insignificant to him, an insect like all the others on the Enterprise, and Mitchell reached for Doctor Dehner instead.”
Ben Zoma grunted. “Nice coincidence for him that she was in the process of becoming a superbeing herself.”
The captain shook his head. “I am not convinced that it was a matter of coincidence.”
His friend looked at him. “Are you saying Dehner wouldn’t have been transformed if Mitchell hadn’t helped her along?”
“There is no way to know,” said Picard. “Not conclusively. But I would not be surprised if Dehner was like those who founded Magnia—affected by the barrier, yes, but not to the extent that she would have become a superbeing on her own.”
“Except Mitchell pushed her over the edge.”
“That is my theory—that he was so lonely, so miserable despite all his power, he needed the company of someone like himself. As for Brakmaktin, his urge to procreate will soon provide him with a plentitude of companions. But in the meantime…”
“He needs someone to hold his hand?”
“Is it that absurd, Gilaad? He may be powerful beyond reason, but he is still a social being. And let us not forget, he is undergoing a radical transformation. It must be rather frightening to look in a mirror and see someone so imposing looking back.”
Ben Zoma still looked unsatisfied. “Even if that’s all true…why did he choose Nikolas? Out of all the fifty-nine people on that ship, why him?”
Picard sighed. “That is the piece of the puzzle I have yet to figure out.”
It was difficult to contemplate it without considering the irony of Nikolas’s condition. The very sad irony.
The ensign had said he was miserable on the Stargazer after he lost Gerda Idun—that he couldn’t bear the thought of remaining on the ship without her. But if Picard’s theory was correct, Nikolas’s misery then was nothing compared to his misery now.
He had left what he considered to be a frying pan and been pushed by fate into the most hellish of fires. And despite Picard’s determination to rescue his former crewman, he was not optimistic about his prospects of doing so.
“I do not envy Nikolas,” he said out loud.
Ben Zoma didn’t answer. He seemed distracted.
“Gilaad?” he prompted.
The first officer snapped back into focus. “Sorry. It’s just that I keep thinking about something.”
“What is it?” the captain asked.
“What if by the time we find Brakmaktin, he has already become pregnant? What if he’s already carrying his brood of Nuyyad superbeings?”
The question had occurred to Picard as well. It was one thing to consider the destruction of an adult who had the power to enslave civilizations. That had to be an option, if not an especially satisfactory one.
But the idea of destroying the unborn went down with a good deal more difficulty. Even if each of those unborn would grow up to become as horrific a threat as their forebear.
Even then.
“Not an easy decision to make,” said Ben Zoma, “is it? Of course, we could always defer to Starfleet Command.”
But the captain had already opted to leave his superiors out of this. He could hardly invite their opinion about one aspect of the situation without accepting their authority over the rest of it.
Besides, turning the matter over to Command was the coward’s way out. He had undertaken this mission, with all its problems and pitfalls. It was up to him to find the right path.
“No,” said Picard. “Not an easy decision at all.”
Nikolas was sitting on the bridge at an undamaged control console, watching helplessly as the warship approached the planet Brakmaktin had chosen as their destination, when he realized there was someone behind him.
Turning in his seat, he saw the hulking form of his nemesis. The Nuyyad didn’t look as desolate as he had before. In fact, he looked very much at ease, as if a burden had been lifted from him.
Did that mean he had learned to cope with his status as an aberration? And as a result, no longer needed the help Nikolas had offered him?
Nikolas’s heart sank in his chest. For a little while, he had allowed himself to hope…
“I have decided,” Brakmaktin said, his voice again strident and free of pain, “to accept your offer. I will allow you to take me to your Federation.”
The human contained his surprise. “You won’t regret it,” he said, keeping his voice as even as he could. He indicated the control panel at which he was sitting. “I’ll need to bring us about. And to send a message to Starfleet.”
Brakmaktin shook his head. “There will be time to send a message.” And he turned to the viewscreen, where the image of the Ubarrak planet had been replaced by a display of sliding stars.
He’s doing it, Nikolas thought, hardly able to believe his eyes. He felt a wave of relief. Another few hours and they would have been close enough to establish an orbit.
Turning back to the alien, he opened his mouth to suggest a heading. However, Brakmaktin was already beginning to fade away, turning translucent and then all but transparent and then vanishing altogether.
But Nikolas knew where he could find him—in the armory-turned-cave. It wasn’t a guess. It was information the alien had planted in his mind before he departed.
Just one problem, he dared think, now that Brakmaktin was somewhere else. He was leading a superbeing of still-questionable intent into Federation space.
But he was also buying time. And if he could warn Starfleet, they might be able to defuse the threat posed by Brakmaktin—one way or another.
“So,” said Picard as he reached the end of his briefing report, “we are following the trail. But we have yet to determine the end of it.”
Dojjaron scowled. “Or, for that matter, confirm that it belongs to the ship Brakmaktin seized.”
“Quite true,” the captain conceded.
All around the table in the observation lounge, the others considered what they had heard. Ben Zoma and Wu, of course, had been apprised of the situation already. It was new information only to Serenity, Dojjaron, and Daniels.
“Assuming we find the right vessel,” said Serenity, “my people should be the ones to board her.”
“That will depend,” Picard told her.
“On what?” she asked.
“On the situation,” said the captain. “I see no point in engaging in hypotheticals.”
Serenity seemed to accept that, at least for the moment. Daniels remained silent as well.
Picard turned to Dojjaron, to take note of his reaction. It was then that he realized the Nuyyad was leering at him. Not merely regarding him, but leering. And not just at him, but at Serenity as well.
“Is something wrong?” Picard asked.
“You have mated,” said the foremost elder. He made a gesture that included Serenity as well. “The two of you. You have mated.”
The captain felt the blood rushing to his face. He was about to respond when Se
renity beat him to it.
“Why do you say that?” she asked Dojjaron, maintaining her composure quite admirably.
“I can see it in your postures,” he said. “In the way you look at each other. It’s unmistakable, even if you’re not Nuyyad.”
Then the captain did respond. “First, it would be none of your business if we had…mated. Second, it has no bearing on the problem at hand.”
“Why did I not see it before?” Dojjaron asked. Obviously, he found the notion amusing. “Where are your offspring?”
“We have no…” Picard bit his lip. “…offspring.”
“Not together,” said Serenity, her voice quavering just a bit.
The captain turned to her, trying to make sense of the remark. “I beg your pardon?”
Serenity looked into his eyes. “I have a daughter. Her name is Haven. She’s ten years old.”
Picard’s mouth went dry. After all that had transpired between the two of them…
The Nuyyad made a hissing noise and hit the table with his massive fist, making it shiver. “So you have mated!”
The captain frowned. “This discussion is not worthy of a child, much less the foremost elder of the Nuyyad.”
Dojjaron’s eyes screwed up beneath his brow. “How would you know what is worthy behavior? You are human.”
Picard tried to ignore the slight. “If there is nothing else, this meeting is adjourned.”
“Good idea,” said Ben Zoma, pushing his chair out for emphasis.
Wu didn’t hesitate to take the hint and leave the room, nor did Daniels. Dojjaron paused to leer a bit more but eventually made his exit as well, and Ben Zoma followed.
That left the captain and Serenity alone together in the observation lounge. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then she said, “I’m sorry.”
“You do not owe me an explanation,” Picard told her.
“Nonetheless,” said Serenity, “I should have said something.” She looked at her hands. “I was just afraid—”
“That I would think you less attractive if I knew you had borne a child?”
“Not just a child,” she said, meeting his gaze again. “A young lady. They grow up quickly in Magnia.”
“I have heard,” the captain said, “that they grow up quickly everywhere.”
“Maybe so,” Serenity allowed. She looked at him. “Was I wrong to think as I did?”
A good question, he conceded. “It would not have made any difference.”
“And now?” she asked.
Picard shook his head. “None. In fact, someday I would like to meet this daughter of yours.”
“It’s a promise,” Serenity said. “Provided that we stop Brakmaktin. And that you get back to Magnia someday. In both cases, pretty long odds…wouldn’t you say?”
He didn’t know how to respond to that.
“There are those,” she continued, “who would say that a man and a woman who have feelings for each other and a rather uncertain future should seize whatever opportunities they’re given.”
“Really,” said the captain.
Her brow furrowed. “Why aren’t we doing that?”
He smiled at her. “Because we place other considerations ahead of ourselves…and each other.”
Serenity smiled back. “If you didn’t, I probably wouldn’t want you so badly.”
He swallowed, trying to take in her beauty and resist it at the same time. “Nor I you.”
Nikolas had spent the minutes following Brakmaktin’s turnaround sitting quietly and watching the viewscreen, reluctant to do anything that might encourage the Nuyyad to change his mind. But hours later, all the battle cruiser’s surviving instruments still told him they were heading for Federation territory and leaving the Ubarrak mining world behind.
Though Nikolas hadn’t allowed himself to acknowledge it before, he was tired as hell. Sleeping on the same ship as Brakmaktin had been nerve-wracking from the beginning, and it had gotten worse the deeper they penetrated into Ubarrak space.
Now they were going in the opposite direction. For the time being, at least, the nightmare was over. In celebration, Nikolas was going to get some shut-eye.
Getting up from the console at which he had been sitting, he made his way through the obstacle course of mineral-deposit pillars and exited the bridge. Then he took a lift three decks down to the corridor where he would find his adopted quarters.
Like the armory, the bridge, and several other parts of the ship, it was growing a smooth, blue and orange skin, not to mention an army of stalactites and stalagmites. Nikolas paid no attention to them, no longer impressed by what he now thought of simply as Brakmaktin’s preferred decor.
He had placed his hand on the door-opening plate and was waiting for the metal slab to slide aside when he heard something—a sharp sound like a heel hitting the deck. Though he knew it had to be something else, he turned to satisfy his curiosity.
And felt his heart start hammering.
There was someone at the end of the corridor, barely discernible in the dim light. Not Brakmaktin. Someone human-looking—a female, Nikolas told himself.
How could that be? He had believed that he and the Nuyyad were the only intelligent life left on the ship. Had one of the Ubarrak crewmen regained her faculties somehow? Or at least the ability to move around?
Then Nikolas got a better look at her face and realized it wasn’t an Ubarrak after all, and found himself cursing under his breath. It was her again…
Gerda Idun.
She looked puzzled, disoriented, just like the last time Nikolas saw her, moments before Brakmaktin wished her away. And Nikolas was puzzled as well.
Why would Brakmaktin torture him again when he should have been grateful to the human for his help? Unless…it wasn’t torture after all. Was it possible that Gerda Idun was a reward this time? The Nuyyad’s way of saying thank you?
“Andreas?” said Gerda Idun, her voice sounding small and tentative in the transformed corridor.
“It’s me,” he assured her, and dodged mineral projections to get to her.
Before Nikolas knew it, he was holding Gerda Idun in his arms, crushing her to him. She’s real, he thought, every bit as amazed as before, as real as she can be.
She looked up at him. “Is this another dream?”
“Another?” he asked.
“Yes. I dreamed this before, the other night. I was on the bridge of a ship, and you were standing there with me. You touched my hand,” she said, and intertwined her fingers with his, “just like this. And then you brushed my cheek—”
He did it again, her skin soft to his touch. “Like this?”
Gerda Idun closed her eyes as if to feel it more deeply. “Yes. Like that.”
Nikolas didn’t want to let go of her, afraid that he would lose her again. So he stood there for a long time, holding her, clinging to a reality he didn’t understand.
But he didn’t have to understand it. He just had to embrace it, and feel it embrace him back.
Chapter Ten
PARIS HAD BEEN PRESSED into service in engineering, where Simenon was working on upgrades for their encounter with Brakmaktin, so the ensign didn’t have much time to eat.
He had just gotten his food from the replicator and pulled out a chair to wolf it all down when he heard a commotion behind him—some joking remarks and then some laughter, louder than what he usually heard in the mess hall. He glanced over his shoulder to see what it was about.
What he saw was a bunch of Magnians—four of them, to be exact—and one was Stave, the character Paris had met in Jiterica’s quarters. They looked sweaty, as if they had just come from a training session.
But if they were tired, they didn’t show it. In fact, they seemed chipper enough to endure a second session without any problem.
The ensign turned back to his food. The last person he wanted to see was Stave. If he hadn’t shown up, things would still have been perfect between Paris and Jiterica.
Not that the two of them were at odds. They were still speaking, still seeing each other as often as before.
But the effortless give-and-take they had enjoyed wasn’t that way anymore. Jiterica seemed hesitant to say or do things, as if she were wondering if Paris would approve.
What happened with Stave seemed always to be looming in the background, coloring everything that went on between them. Paris believed he knew now how Adam must have felt after the serpent showed up in the Garden.
As he thought that, he realized that someone was coming his way. And as luck would have it, it was his pal Stave.
Paris straightened, wondering what the Magnian wanted. Hadn’t he done enough already?
“Ensign Paris,” said Stave, smiling as he always did. “I was hoping I’d run into you.”
“What can I do for you?” Paris asked.
Stave put his hand on the table and spoke confidentially in the ensign’s ear. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I wasn’t trying to move in on your girlfriend.”
Paris didn’t know what to say to that. He looked around, concerned that someone might have overheard, but no one had.
Stave laughed softly. “Though it’s not as if I didn’t want to. There’s definitely something…sexy about her.”
The ensign’s jaw clenched. Still, he didn’t say anything.
“You’re a lucky guy,” said Stave, apparently in earnest. Then he withdrew and joined his comrades.
As Paris watched them go over to the replicator, he could hear Stave’s words echoing in his ear: “You’re a lucky guy.” The ensign had thought so too.
Until a few days ago.
As Nikolas woke in the hard Ubarrak bed, he reached for Gerda Idun. But she wasn’t in bed with him any longer.
With a pang of concern, he sat up—and saw her standing by the room’s only observation port, wearing only her shirt. Her arms were folded across her chest, though it wasn’t any colder by the port than it was elsewhere in the room.
For a while, Nikolas remained in bed, marveling at her beauty. Then he traversed the floor, came up behind her, and put his arms around her waist.
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