by Peter David
“True enough, but I don’t think that’s going to happen in this instance, sir. Everyone is just so relieved that the Sindareen are willing to put an end to decades of warfare.”
“I’m not surprised. I was just updating myself on the conflict, Number One.” Picard tapped the computer screen. “Truly amazing. The warlike attitude of the Sindareen is certainly on par with anything the Klingons or the Kreel ever had to offer. What is amazing is not only the aggressiveness with which they fought, and the zealousness with which they pursued every dispute, no matter how trivial…all of that, Number One, is secondary to the fact that they were able to keep it going for so long.”
“From everything I read of them,” said Riker, “they paid no attention to the fact that their economy was falling apart around their ears.”
“Quite right. They kept telling themselves that whatever difficulties they had would disappear once they had conquered their enemies. Except even when they did achieve victories, the results were so devastating that there was nothing left to gain from the conquest—not riches, not any useful goods…nothing.”
“A series of Pyrrhic victories.”
“Precisely. Until the Sindareen reached a point in their war efforts at which they—to use the old-style vernacular—ran out of gas.”
“Suing for peace was the first smart thing that the Sindareen have done in close to a century,” said Riker. “They’re just damned lucky that their closest enemies—the Cordians, the Byfrexians, and the Luss—were willing to listen. They could have put the screws to them.”
“Yes. They could. Hopefully it’s a lesson in tolerance and acceptance from which the Sindareen will learn. Nothing would better suit interstellar harmony than to have the Sindareen act in a civilized manner. At the same time, Will”—Picard leaned forward, steepling his fingers—“we have to make sure that whatever resentment the Sindareen might feel with the situation doesn’t feed whatever fires of self-satisfaction the ambassadors might have burning in them. They are accomplished, intelligent individuals—but at the same time, in a situation like this, there can be a tendency towards smugness. We’ll have to watch that.
“By the same token,” Picard continued, “we’ll have to keep a wary eye on the Sindareen. Yes, they’ve sued for peace. But we’ll have to make sure they’re sincere.”
“That certainly sounds like it’s right up the counselor’s alley.”
“I’ve already spoken with Counselor Troi,” said Picard. “She had said that the Sindareen were not always easy to read; that their natural aggression could screen her empathic abilities to some degree.”
“I know. But on the other hand, if she’s with specific members of the Sindareen long enough, she can ‘punch through’ that resistance and get a very clear feeling for them.”
Picard did not attempt to hide his surprise. “That’s right. That’s exactly what she said.”
His captain’s expression informed Riker that an explanation was anticipated. Riker simply shrugged. “Deanna had some experience with the Sindareen some time ago.”
“And she told you about it?”
“Something like that.”
“Is there something that’s preventing you from volunteering more information about the counselor’s Sindareen experience than you are currently doing?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And that would be…?”
Riker smiled. “My innate modesty, sir.”
“I see,” said Picard, and he harrumphed slightly. “Very well, Commander. Far be it from me to compromise your sense of modesty.”
“Thank you, sir. Will there be anything else?”
Picard hesitated a moment and then said, “Let’s watch ourselves on this one, Will. I agree that everything would appear to be going smoothly. On the other hand, we haven’t reached Sindar yet. Once they get here, things could change very drastically. And we have to keep alert for anything vaguely out of the ordinary.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, Captain, it’s always to watch out for anything out of the ordinary.”
“So have we both, Number One. And we’ve learned it through trial and error…sometimes costly error. And whenever possible—I’d like to avoid more costliness.”
“Sometimes, sir, no matter how cautious we are…things happen.”
Slowly Picard nodded. “That, Number One, is also something that we must both, reluctantly, agree upon.”
Eight
After touching base with Worf to make sure that all security requirements were met, Riker headed down to Deanna Troi’s quarters. It was, he felt, a reasonable thing to do—he had already spoken to her about her feelings vis-à-vis the state of mind of the various ambassadors, and because of her report, he had told the captain all was well. Still, it couldn’t hurt to confer with her once more and see whether she had picked up on any second thoughts, hidden hostilities—anything that could conceivably interfere with the successful completion of the mission.
He walked up to the door of her quarters and rang the chime. “Deanna?”
At first there was no sound from within and Riker thought that he might have missed her. He tapped his communicator and said, “Computer, locate Counselor Troi.”
“Counselor Troi is in her quarters,” the computer calmly informed him.
This confused the hell out of Riker, and small alarms began to sound in his head. Was there a problem? Was she in danger? Why wasn’t she answering?
More insistently now, he rang the door chime and said, “Deanna? Are you all right? It’s Will.”
The door slid open and Deanna was standing there, wrapped in a gold dressing gown that hung half off her bare shoulder. A naked leg was also visible through the folds, which she pulled shut as an afterthought. She appeared slightly out of breath, and her visible skin was slick and glistening, as if from perspiration—or perhaps some sort of skin moisturizing oil.
“I know it’s you, Will.”
“Is everything okay? I wanted to talk to you about—”
And then he saw him.
A man—a member of the Luss delegation, if Riker was remembering correctly—was seated on the bed. He was clearly naked and was self-consciously holding a pillow on his lap. Riker noted that the sheet was on the floor, out of reach.
The man’s orange skin was likewise tinted with some sort of moisture, and his ears—normally elegantly pointed—were drooping somewhat, as if in disappointment or letdown.
Riker waited for the sixteen-ton weight that he was sure would momentarily show up to land squarely on his head.
“You’re busy,” he said lamely.
“I was,” was Troi’s pointed reply.
Riker was trying to get himself to move, but his feet had apparently turned into large blocks of granite. Blowing air impatiently out between her lips, Deanna took him by the arm and yanked him into her cabin. The door hissed mercifully shut behind him.
Deanna brushed stray strands out of her face and said, with something remotely approaching civility, “Will Riker, this is Dann Lendann—aide to the ambassador of the Luss. Dann is an old…friend. Dann, this is Commander Riker.”
“I know.” Dann shifted his legs in a vain attempt to look casual. “He welcomed us when we came aboard.”
“Yes, although…not as enthusiastically as you apparently did, Counselor,” said Riker.
Deanna’s dark eyes shot him a look that could have dented the deflector screens. And to Riker’s surprise—since she did it so infrequently—her voice sounded in his head: That was a cheap shot, Commander.
“It was just a joke, Counselor,” Riker said. “Just…to leaven the moment.”
Dann looked from one to the other, sensing that something had just passed between them but unable to discern what it was.
“I think, Commander,” said Deanna, readjusting the robe around herself as she held it shut, “that the moment would be sufficiently leavened if you left my cabin.”
“Of course. Yes, I’ll…I’ll just be going.”
Riker backed up, feeling completely lost inside his own body. “Good seeing you, Dann…I mean, not that I expected to see this much of you—”
Deanna stared at him witheringly. Riker chucked a thumb in the direction of the door and she nodded. He turned, and mustering what few shreds of dignity he had left—which weren’t much—he went back out into the hallway. The door closed with a very decisive hiss.
He leaned against a wall of the corridor. “Perfect.”
Riker sat at his customary table in Ten-Forward, nursing his customary drink. A couple of times, crewmen started to wander in his direction. But when they got close enough to him to pick up on the unspoken body language that said Leave me alone, they would invariably back off.
Everyone, of course, except Guinan.
The Ten-Forward hostess glided up to the table and simply stood there until Riker looked up.
“The problem is the weather,” she said succinctly.
He stared at her. “I beg your pardon?”
“A traditional entrée into conversation has always been to discuss something utterly inconsequential; something that no one can do anything about. The weather has always filled the bill. Saying things like ‘I think it’s clouding up’ was always a good way to ease yourself into talking about something a bit more uncomfortable.” Guinan inclined her head slightly toward the viewport. “But look at that. Not much to say, is there? ‘Hmm…looks like a vacuum today. And they predict more of the same for tomorrow.’ You see the difficulty.”
“It’s a formidable obstacle to casual chitchat,” said Riker gravely.
She remained standing opposite him. “So is sending out waves of frustration.”
“Have I been doing that?”
“Look around you, Riker. There were twice as many people in here when you came in. Half of them left to do something more fun than be near you—like shoot themselves out the photon torpedo tube.”
“Bad as all that, am I?”
She waggled her head slightly. “Not that bad. People overreact sometimes. If you were an ensign on custodial detail, that would be one thing. But when the second-in-command looks like he lost his best friend, well…crewmen get a little unnerved by that.”
“I’ll try to be more sensitive to people’s needs.”
“Have you?”
“Been more sensitive?”
“No. Lost your best friend.”
He stared into the contents of the glass. “I don’t know. I acted like an idiot with her.”
“I see. And were your actions unforgivable? Did you hit her?”
Riker looked shocked. “Of course not!”
“Rough her up a little?”
“No!”
“Call her obscene names?”
“Of course not, Guinan. I’d never do that, and she’d never tolerate it.”
“How about beating up one of her friends? Would she tolerate that?”
“No. She wouldn’t.”
“Well, then,” said Guinan, “how do you think she’d react to your beating up on yourself?”
Riker opened his mouth to reply and then closed it again without doing so.
“Uh-huh,” said Guinan.
Then she looked behind her in that way she had, reacting to something before she’d even seen it. Riker craned his neck to see around her, already suspecting what would be there.
Sure enough, there was Deanna. She had entered Ten-Forward and was simply standing there, her arms folded across the top of her gray uniform with the purple V-neck. She was looking at Riker with an arched eyebrow. Her face was unreadable.
Guinan drifted over to her and Deanna glanced at her. “He’s all yours,” Guinan said. “If you want him, that is.”
“I don’t know,” said Deanna with just the faintest hint of amused tolerance in her voice. “He looks pretty pathetic.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” said Guinan sagely. Then she looked to Riker, and back to Troi. “On the other hand, sometimes looks can be right on target.”
“Thank you, Guinan.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Deanna walked across the Ten-Forward with her usual purposeful stride. And then, in deliberate emulation of Riker, she spun the chair around on the opposite side of the table from him and straddled it.
“I am…” Riker tried to find the words, and nothing better than the obvious occurred to him. “So sorry.”
He waited for Deanna to say something. All she did was stare at him before finally saying simply, “And…?”
He looked at the drink again. “I handled it very badly. It was an embarrassing situation under any circumstances. Walking in on someone when they’re…involved with someone…can be very disconcerting. And it’s even more disconcerting when that person is someone you have…had…”
“Have and had?”
“Feelings for,” he finished. “Feelings that you always think you’ve sorted out, but then every time you think you have a handle on them, something happens.”
Again he paused, and again she simply said, “And…?”
Now he was starting to get just a bit annoyed. “Well, I mean, Deanna—you’re the counselor, after all…the one who’s spent years getting in touch with her feelings. Can you say to me that you wouldn’t feel the least little bit thrown off if you walked in on…I don’t know…”
“Ensign Ro?” she said helpfully.
His face fell. “Bad example.” But then he brightened slightly. “Actually…you know, I had this odd feeling of reverse déjà vu when I walked in on you, because if you remember, you didn’t handle it particularly well on Betazed when—”
She waved it off quickly, saying, “Youth excuses a great deal,” but Riker knew that he’d hit home with that reminder of times past. And she knew it, too. When she looked up at him again, it was with an expression that he’d come to know extremely well—understanding.
“Will,” she said slowly, “we have a lot of history between us. A lot of reasons why our relationship is precisely where it is. Partly because we’re serving on the same ship. Partly because…well, partly a lot of things. One thing that we both agree on, though, is that neither of us is interested in leading a celibate life.”
“I know, Deanna. I don’t deny that. I don’t deny your right to be involved with whomever you want. In fact, I’m happy for you.” He smiled sincerely, which wasn’t difficult because he really was sincere. “You’re entitled to every happiness that life has to offer you. And I understand that, since we’ve decided that our relationship is best served by remaining simply close friends—”
“There’s nothing ‘simple’ about our relationship, Will,” she said with her usual sparkle.
“Granted. What I’m saying is that I understand…hell, I know… that relationships of a more—physical—nature than we’re pursuing with each other are natural. Expected.”
Guinan appeared without saying a word, placed a drink at Deanna’s right, and moved away as silent as a ghost. Deanna picked up the drink almost unconsciously, dropped in a small stirrer, and mixed it absently. “We’ve made no claims on each other otherwise,” she pointed out.
“Right. And naturally we’re going to be involved with other people.”
“You keep saying that, Will. Do you repeat it because you want to emphasize it…or because you want to convince yourself of it?”
He smiled lopsidedly. “A little of both, I guess. What I’m saying is that I understand it intellectually. In the abstract. But being put face-to-face, unexpectedly, with the reality of it…it just caught me a little off guard, that’s all. I felt surprise, and maybe…just maybe”—he brought his thumb and forefinger together to measure out a minuscule amount of space—“just a smidgen of jealousy.”
“Just a smidgen.”
“Nothing significant. I mean, after all, Deanna”—he spread his hands helplessly—“I’m only human.”
“I’ve tried never to hold that against you,” she said somberly.
And they clinked glasses.
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Nine
In a time-honored tradition for getting attention, Captain Picard clinked his knife several times against his glass.
All around the banquet table, the delegates ceased their amiable chatter, putting down their utensils or drinks and giving their full attention to the captain.
Around the table were grouped the ambassadors from the Cordians, the Byfrexians, and the Luss. Also seated there were Data, Worf, Riker, and Troi.
Riker was not seated next to Deanna but instead several spaces down. That had not been the original seating arrangement, but when Deanna had arrived, she had been mildly surprised to find Dann next to her.
“Commander Riker insisted,” said Dann, sounding just a bit puzzled. “I thought I was supposed to be sitting with my delegation, but…” And he shrugged.
Deanna had turned and looked at Riker, who was sitting next to the Lussian ambassador and speaking with him animatedly. The Luss was nodding his bald head thoughtfully, and giving that enigmatic half-smile that was so typical of the elders of his race.
As if sensing Deanna’s gaze on him, Riker continued to talk to the ambassador but glanced in Deanna’s direction. Her smile said it all —The seating rearrangement wasn’t necessary, but it’s a sweet gesture. Thank you. He cocked his head slightly in unspoken response and then turned his full attention back to the ambassador.
The evening had progressed quite smoothly as the Enterprise continued in its stately orbit around Sindar, the home planet of the Sindareen. Their arrival had been uneventful, which in and of itself was unusual. Once upon a time, anyone getting within a parsec of Sindareen space, much less the home world of Sindar, was met with challenges and hostilities…even if they were expected.
But the Enterprise had sailed through with nary a whisper from the Sindareen and had settled into orbit around Sindar while attracting nothing more than a muted greeting from the planetary government and an assurance that delegates would shortly be prepared to beam up to the Enterprise to begin the hammering out of a peace settlement between the Sindareen and their longtime opponents.