by Jeffrey Lang
Chapter 18
Three Years Earlier
Starfleet Penal Colony
“Tell me about the gerbil, Ben.”
“I’ve told you about the gerbil, Michael. I don’t want to have to tell you again.”
“Humor me,” Doctor Clark said.
Maxwell sighed and stared at the lampshade. He was fond of the lampshade. As often as not, when he was lying on the couch he closed his eyes, but, on the occasions when he kept his eyes open, well, there was his friend the lampshade. The ceiling above was painted an uninteresting beige, though it was broken up by an interesting topography of cracks and ripples. The tropical air was not kind to paint, even in the climate-controlled inner sanctum of the director’s office. Outside the office’s single window, Maxwell heard the regular cheet-cheet of a fantail. “It was a gerbil,” he murmured. “One of two.”
“What were their names?”
“I don’t remember,” Maxwell said. “They weren’t mine. They were classroom pets—my sixth-grade class. It was a very small school—a small town—so the whole class was maybe twenty-five kids. Most of us—the kids, our families—lived in the same town our whole lives up until that point. We went to school together for years, so they were more like my family. You know?”
“No,” Clark said. “Not really. My family moved a lot when I was young, and most of the schools were very large. It must have been pleasant.”
“It was,” Maxwell said. “Mostly. I didn’t know anything else, so I don’t really know how to compare it. Some good days, some bad.”
“The bad day?”
Maxwell nodded. He had grown accustomed to not looking at the doctor when they had these kinds of conversations even though he could have with the slightest turn of his head. He liked listening to Clark’s disembodied voice, sometimes even treating it like it was another voice inside his own head. “Yeah, I guess you could say that.” He paused. “It was all my own doing, though.”
“What was?”
“What happened to the gerbil. I was . . .” He hesitated, gathering his thoughts, then resumed. “I thought I knew a lot about gerbils. When the class got them, when our teacher brought them in, I got very excited about them, about gerbils. I thought they were neat. My mother didn’t really like to have pets in our house. It was too small, and she was away for days at a time sometimes. Sometimes cats would hang around for a few months—lots of fish, right?—but they were there for her, not me.”
“You never made friends with any of the cats?”
Maxwell considered. “Maybe? A couple? But they were usually mostly feral, so it wasn’t like they were sleeping on the foot of my bed. Outdoor cats.”
“Okay. The gerbils?”
“Right. I did what I always did when I got excited about something: I looked up all the information I could find and read everything. The day after the gerbils arrived, I had learned everything about them.” Smiling despite himself, Maxwell said, “Ask me about gerbils. Ask me anything.”
Clark chuckled. “All right. Binomial nomenclature?
“Ah,” Maxwell began. “That’s actually a more complicated question than you would expect. There are many, many species of gerbils. You probably mean the domesticated or Mongolian gerbil, which would be Meriones unguiculatus. Also sometimes called the Mongolian jird. Don’t ask me what a jird is. My knowledge is deep, but not quite that deep.”
“Understood.”
“Domesticated in the mid-twentieth century. Originally used as lab animals, until someone decided they were cute. Became quite popular for a while, though a large percentage of the world population died out in the Eugenics Wars due to the decimation of their homeland and general lack of pet stores.”
“Of course.”
“Interesting side note: gerbils are persona non grata in New Zealand. Or maybe that would be Rodentia non grata. My Latin isn’t that good.”
“Competition with native species?”
“Indeed.”
“Very impressive,” Clark said. “So you were an expert.”
“And enjoyed proclaiming it,” Maxwell replied. “And I was humored because, well, because they humored me.”
“You were popular,” Clark offered. “And respected. The other children recognized your qualities.”
Maxwell squirmed on the couch. “Sure,” he said. “Nothing to do with how unbelievably, obnoxiously self-assured I could be.”
“Of course not.” He leaned a bit closer. Maxwell heard Clark’s suit jacket rustle, and the doctor’s voice become just a bit louder and more insistent. “And you’re digressing, Ben. What happened?”
“Not digressing,” Maxwell said. “Very simple: I was careless.”
“How?”
Maxwell’s eyes felt itchy. There was something in the air, something the filters weren’t catching, so he rubbed his eyes in long, slow, satisfying arcs. When he was finished, the room was blurry and his eyes were warm. “We didn’t have a cage,” he explained. “But we had an aquarium. A big one. I’m not sure why. Maybe it belonged to my teacher? Anyway, it was big and gave the gerbils plenty of room. When they were awake, they’d bounce around inside it like . . . like gerbils. I loved watching them. But they were good jumpers and we worried—I worried—that they would jump out of the aquarium, so we decided we needed a lid.”
“That seems reasonable,” Clark said. “What kind of lid?” He asked the question in the tone he used when he knew Maxwell might require a little assistance, a little bit of lead-in.
“The only thing we had to hand was a piece of transparent aluminum. I’m not sure where it came from, but it was a little too small to comfortably cover the top of the tank. So we kind of angled it across the top.”
“Curious choice,” Clark said. “There must have been something better available.”
“Probably. But our teacher, he was a ‘you guys figure out how you want to do this’ sort of guy. Believed in leaving us to our own devices.”
“How did that work out?”
“Not well,” Maxwell admitted. He soldiered on with the tale. “It was my turn to feed them, and I was feeling all very full of myself, very knowledgeable.”
“You were knowledgeable.”
Maxwell shrugged. “Maybe. But sometimes being knowledgeable isn’t enough. I have a very clear picture in my mind of this moment: reaching over to pick up the cover and set it aside.”
“Okay. And then what happened?”
“I didn’t set it aside.”
“No?”
“No. I bumped it. It fell into the aquarium and landed on one of the gerbil’s backs. I recall that detail very distinctly. I could see it—the gerbil—through the aluminum and I could see his back. Flattened out.”
“What did you do?”
“I ran out of the room,” Maxwell said. “And hid in the boys’ lavatory.”
“Lavatory?”
“Rest room. The boys’ rest room.”
“And you stayed there?” Clark asked. “No one came to find you?”
“No, they did,” Maxwell said. He folded his arms across his chest, knowing he was probably telling the doctor all kinds of things with his body language. “Eventually. My friend Chuck. He found me.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What did he say?”
“He said the gerbil wasn’t dead, that they lifted the aluminum off him, and he started moving around.”
Clark must have uncrossed and then recrossed his legs, because Maxwell heard a lot of rustling. “Then I’m confused,” he said. “The gerbil didn’t die?”
“No,” Maxwell said. “Not right away. But the crack to the head or the spine or whatever must have done something bad. By the time I got back to the classroom, expecting him to be alive and, I don’t know—forgiving me?—he was jumping all around in the aquarium lik
e he couldn’t stop. My teacher took out the second one because he was so alarmed. The injured one just jumped around maniacally until he died. Or so I assume.”
“Why assume?”
“It was late in the day. It was a Friday. The bell rang and we all went home.”
“You couldn’t stay?”
“I don’t know,” Maxwell said, trying to recall how he felt that day. “Maybe. I don’t really recall much else about that day. I just know that when we came to school on Monday, there was only one gerbil. And a piece of wire mesh over the top of the aquarium.”
Clark was quiet for a minute, letting the story settle in. Finally, he asked, “Did you tell your mother about what happened?”
“No,” Maxwell said. “That time of year she would have been out to sea for two or three days at a time. I probably didn’t see her again until Sunday night or Monday. I don’t remember exactly. I know I never told her about it.”
“Anyone else?”
“You mean besides you?”
“Yes.”
Maxwell considered and then recalled, “Yes. My son. I told him a version of the story back when he was on the Rutledge with me. Well, the whole family. He kept asking for a pet, some kind of pet. ‘Something small,’ he used to say, believing, I think, that if it was small, it would be less trouble. Our quarters were small, even the captain’s quarters. Not like Galaxy-class quarters.”
“So, your son asked you for a pet and you told him the story of how you killed a gerbil when you were his age?” There was only a slight note of incredulity in Clark’s voice.
“No!” Maxwell said, exasperated. “I told him how there was a gerbil that I had known who was killed because his cage got jostled, and that aboard a starship, that kind of thing could happen all the time. It was too risky, I said.”
“And what did Carlo say?” Maxwell was always impressed how Clark could remember the names of people from his stories. Of course, he thought, that’s probably something they trained him to do.
“He said he understood,” Maxwell explained. “He said it probably would be better to wait until we were living planetside.”
“And did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Get him a pet.” Maxwell paused for a long time before answering, so long that Clark asked, “Ben?”
“What?” Maxwell replied, speaking in a low tone. “Oh. Sorry. Yes. We did. I was just trying to remember its name. His name. The dog. We got a dog. A little mutt. He was shaggy. Smelled kind of bad when he got wet. Adored Carlo. Sofia was a little scared of him because the dog would protect Carlo from any perceived threat, including his sister when she got mad at her brother.”
“That’s . . . well, strangely sweet,” Clark said softly.
“Yes,” Maxwell said, the word coming out more like a wet breath than a word. “It was. Worried Maria a little, but the dog didn’t have a mean bone in its body. I wish I could remember its name . . .”
“It’ll come back,” Clark began.
“We didn’t find its body,” Maxwell continued, unprompted. “I looked through the debris of the house, but never found it. I figure the bastard Cardassians probably vaporized it with their goddamned disruptors.” He felt his fists clenching and couldn’t stop himself. “Those . . .” He thought the word but didn’t say it. Years of training as a captain made it practically impossible for Maxwell to say certain words. “Killing a little dog . . . that . . .” He unclenched his hands and held them up to look at his palms. There were tiny, crescent-shaped wounds there, four on each hand.
“That?” Clark asked.
“That was probably trying to defend my son,” Maxwell continued. The next words surprised him, “Because I wasn’t there . . .”
“No,” Clark said. “You were doing your duty. You were following orders and also, not inconsequentially, keeping your crew alive. You were a man, Ben, with many responsibilities. Maybe too many.”
“Maybe,” Maxwell said. “But still. They died.” He continued to study the small crescent groves in his palms, his mouth tasting of ashes, and added, “Small things in my charge tend to do that.”
January 9, 2386
Central Core
Robert Hooke
Falling isn’t so bad, Nog thought, as long as you don’t obsess about the sudden stop. A distant portion of his brain was attempting to do the math, to calculate the relationship between mass and acceleration, even factoring in variables like the drag on the cable and possible fluctuations in the artificial gravity, but it was all too much.
He fell without knowing where the bottom was because math is not your friend in the dark. Nog felt the vibration of the spool in his belt unreeling and knew in his gut that the mechanism wasn’t engineered to take the kind of shock he was about to put it through. Still, they had to try and, after what seemed the appropriate number of seconds in free fall, he squeezed the brake. Legs and head snapped backward, and the pressure against his lower back made Nog want to curse, but the breath was squeezed out of his lungs, so the only sound that came out was a soft, high-pitched feeeeee.
It might work, he thought, and fixed his jaw so he didn’t accidentally bite off his tongue. But his engineer’s mind returned to calculations, and the answer he arrived at was that he had already fallen too far. The deck was coming up fast; gravity would win out over the paltry amount of friction he applied to the line. Probably just as well, he decided. The amount of force he would need to stop his fall would probably snap his spine anyway.
Contact.
Nog expected to hear a splat or a crack, but instead the din filling his head was more of a boooinnnggg! This sound was quickly replaced by a sharp thwack and a piercing screech, which, surprisingly, didn’t come from Nog.
His gut told him he was bouncing, even though his brain hadn’t quite accepted the idea. When the big bounces turned into little ones, Nog awkwardly groped the surface behind his back. Some kind of netting, he realized. A little sticky.
The screech was still going on, though it had slowed down and was lower in tone, like a teakettle removed from the flame.
Something was touching him, probing, checking his suit (and his body?) for lumps, tears, and contusions. Finding nothing, the probe withdrew. Nog lifted his arm off the netting, the sticky fibers pulling the fabric of his environmental suit taut, and flicked on his light. To his right and above, he saw the stairway that ran up the sides of the central core. He turned and found the chief, bunched up into a ball, his back against the bulkhead. He had his own light on and pointed at the opposite side of the chamber. Nog turned and there, as expected, was Ginger, her eyes glittering and mouthparts moving. She chittered expectantly. “I’m fine,” Nog said, sitting up. “Thank you.” He turned to O’Brien. “You okay, Chief?”
“Swell, thanks,” O’Brien said, keeping the light squarely on Ginger.
Nog decided he wouldn’t bring up the screeching noise he had heard. Tilting back his head (which was difficult in the bulky suit), he shone his light up to inspect the stairways. He was sure he saw movement: squirming tendrils and undead rats lying in wait. “Any ideas?”
“Not just yet,” the chief said. “Still processing the existential horror of finding myself in a web with a giant spider staring at me.”
“Okay,” Nog said. “Take a minute.” He tried to stand, but the web was too springy and there was nothing to brace against. Amazing stuff, he thought. Must be a million uses for it. He looked up again, had a thought, and then looked over at Ginger, who had backed away to the edge of the net and climbed the wall. “Could you,” he asked, “catch those rat things in a web and keep them out of our way?”
Ginger stared at him blankly. Probably she couldn’t hear him, since there was clearly almost no atmosphere in the core. He was amazed that the lack of air pressure didn’t seem to bother her, but who knew what Bharad had designed them to withstand? After a mi
nute of constant eye contact, Nog got the impression that it wasn’t so much that she didn’t understand him as she just thought his idea was pretty bad. “How about this? When we get to a level where we can’t get past them, you climb up the wall and drop a line?”
Ginger tilted her head to one side as if considering.
“I’m vetoing that one,” O’Brien said. “But I think you’ve got the right idea. Go around, not through.”
“Right.”
“There might be another way. Assuming your new best friend is willing to help.”
Nog looked into Ginger’s eyes and felt very sure she was more than willing.
Finch’s Lab
Maxwell gripped the front of Finch’s environmental suit with both hands and threw the man across the room, as far away from the Mother as he could. Despite his smaller stature, Maxwell had the advantages of martial-arts training, surprise, and Finch’s precarious sense of balance. The big man arced across the room, arms windmilling, to collide with the command console and crumple into an untidy heap. Maxwell bounded after him and landed with his leg straddling Finch’s chest. Leaning in, he struck his opponent’s helmet with the heel of his hand. Finch’s head bounced off the deck, the blow cushioned only by the insulation inside of his helmet. A moment later, he groaned, eyes half-shut.
“You told Sabih to do it, didn’t you?” Maxwell asked, grabbing the collar of Finch’s suit and shaking him. “The whole thing about him quitting was just a big ruse, some showmanship. You knew your customer was coming to take away your monster, and you weren’t sure you could build another, so you told Sabih to come back in here and remove a chunk. You told him there was no radiation blast, which was true enough, and you thought you told Sabih everything he needed to do to bypass your fail-safes. But he really wasn’t very good at this sort of thing, was he?” Maxwell banged Finch’s helmet against the deck one more time because he liked the sound. “He was just a kid, a guy who wanted to work in science, but couldn’t actually do science. Admit it or I’ll break open this helmet and throw you in that tank.”
Finch struggled, but was too disoriented and, considering the day he’d had, probably too tired. He flailed, but Maxwell slapped his hands aside and then gave him a half-hearted shake. Finch subsided, breathing hard, much harder than he should have been. Maxwell wondered if the big man was having some kind of seizure or a breakdown, but then the sputtering turned into words.