Needless to say, the experience had taken its toll. It had worn her down, cut her to the marrow of her soul.
Yet through it all she had remained the picture of composure. It was her job to remain calm in the face of adversity, to set an example for others, and she had done what was expected of her.
After all, she was the ship’s counselor. She was supposed to be able to handle this sort of thing.
But even a counselor had to vent feelings such as these, to let out the suffering she had taken in. Even a counselor had to have a breaking point.
A little more than halfway down to her quarters, the lift doors opened and a crewman stepped in. What was his name? She couldn’t remember.
“Counselor,” said the man, as the doors slid shut behind him. “Any news about Commander Riker?”
Will . . .
She nodded, doing her best to fashion a smile. “Dr. Crusher just sent word. Commander Riker will pull through.”
A grin spread over the crewman’s face. “That’s good news,” he told her. “Hell, that’s great news.”
“Yes,” she said. “It is, isn’t it?”
Two levels down, he departed and she was alone again. But not truly alone, for another crewman could walk in at any time.
Finally the lift came to a stop at her destination. A familiar sight greeted her: the corridor that led to her suite.
Normally it was a busy place at this time of day. As luck would have it, it was deserted now.
She was grateful.
The entrance to her residence was programmed to respond to her approach. It obeyed that programming and she breezed inside, hardly noticing when it sealed itself off in her wake.
Will . . .
She headed for her bedroom. Only after she’d reached it and another set of doors had closed behind her did she allow herself to crumble.
Slumping against the wall, she felt the sobs well up from deep within her. And she cried as she had seldom cried before.
Chapter Eleven
“YOU KNOW, Will m’ boy, it’s too bad.”
“What is?”
“That we couldn’t have brought some of that Dibdinagii joy juice back with us.”
Will smiled. “It packed a punch, didn’t it? Like some of the stuff we used to drink on a dare back home.”
“Nothing like this synthehol they’re producing now. The Ferengi are traders, not revelers. They wouldn’t know a fine liqueur if they drowned in one.”
“Maybe not. But when there’s no fine liqueur to be had, synthehol’s a damn sight better than . . . uh, Teller?”
“Yes?”
“Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?”
“I’m taking off my boot. What does it look like?”
“In the officers’ mess? Is this some custom you picked up from the Dibdinagii?”
“I picked up a custom, all right. But it has nothing to do with footwear.”
Teller turned his boot upside down, and a slim leather pouch fell into his lap. He tossed it in the air, caught it.
“Joy juice,” he announced. “Dried and sterilized, of course, so it wouldn’t set off the biofilter alarms.” He plunked the pouch down on the table.
“In your boot. I don’t believe it.”
“I keep all my valuables in my boots. An old Conlon family tradition, starting with me. Because no one ever thinks to look there.”
“But this is contraband, Teller. If they catch you with this, you’ll be drummed out of Starfleet.”
“True—if they catch me. Which they won’t.”
He walked over to an automated food unit and ordered two glasses of water. It took him a moment to mix in the powder. Then he came back to the table.
“Care to join me, Will?”
“You’re crazy. Out-and-out crazy.”
“One drink, then I toss the rest away. How’s that?”
“To prove what?”
Teller shrugged. “That all things are possible. That a man can do anything if he just sets his mind to it.”
“And you’d risk your career for that?”
Another shrug, a light in his eyes. “Of course, if you’re too frightened of getting caught . . .”
“Frightened isn’t the word. Try ‘petrified.’ ”
“Then I guess I’ll be drinking alone.”
There was something contagious about Teller’s particular madness. Riker had learned that a long time ago.
“All right.” He glanced over his shoulder at the entrance to the mess. “Do it. Just be quick about it.”
“Quick as you please. Here you go. Whoa—wait a second.”
“What now?”
“A toast, of course.” He raised his glass. “To the art of the possible.”
“Sure. To that.”
They drank.
“Ah. Now, you can’t say that didn’t hit the spot.”
“It hit all the spots. Now get rid of that pouch.”
“Hey, I keep my bargains, Ensign Riker. No one ever said a Conlon went back on his—”
“Teller! Someone’s coming!”
“You’ve got ears like a bat, Will, you know that?” Teller crossed the room. “Are you sure you’re not part Ferengi yourself?”
The sliding-aside of the door, a dour look. “Gentlemen.” A pause. “The two of you look like cats who’ve swallowed canaries.”
“Beg your pardon, sir?”
A slowly spreading frown. “Don’t beg, Mr. Conlon. It isn’t becoming. But as long as you’re wrestling with that food dispenser, you can get me a cup of coffee. Make that a strong cup—it’s been a long shore leave.”
“Aye, Captain. Three cups of coffee, coming right up.”
The smell of fresh-brewed coffee. Sunlight on his eyelids, a pinkish orange incandescence. He opened his eyes and saw the room.
The first thing he noticed was the fire in the hearth. But something was wrong. Wasn’t the hearth in the wrong place? He looked around. This wasn’t the room he’d been in before, the hotel room where he’d first met Lyneea. This was somewhere else.
A door opened behind him, and he tried to turn in response. He never quite got all the way around—a sharp pain in his shoulder stopped him.
That was when he realized he had a portable regenerator strapped to his shoulder. He looked at it stupidly.
“Ah. You’re awake.”
It wasn’t Lyneea’s voice, but he knew it all the same. No. That can’t be, he told himself. She’s up on the ship.
Then Dr. Crusher came around the couch he was lying on, and he had to admit that it could be. Hell, it was.
And that would explain where the regenerator had come from.
“How do you feel?” she asked, pulling a chair over to sit beside him. In one hand she held a cup of coffee.
The word “fine” started to come out of his mouth. Then he felt his shoulder, worked it in its socket, and suffered that darting pain again. “This hurts,” he told her. As he looked into her bewitching green eyes, he remembered why. “The knife, right?”
She nodded. “The knife.”
“Then Lyneea called the ship after all.” He grunted. “How about that?”
“But not without a lot of soul-searching,” Crusher pointed out. “She wasn’t too happy about using your communicator, what with that high-tech ban they have around here. And when I took out my tricorder . . . forget it. I thought she was going to bite right through her lip.”
Riker regarded her. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s too dangerous.”
“You should have thought of that before you went and got yourself skewered.”
“You can’t go back, you know. Not until the end of the carnival.”
The doctor rolled her eyes. “Believe me, I know. I’ve only been told half a dozen times, by everyone from the captain to Lyneea to those two strong-arm types who lugged you here in the middle of the night.”
Of course. They’d had to get him off the streets somehow, and there were no mechanical conveyances in B
esidia.
“This isn’t where we were staying before,” he noted.
“No. They thought it might not be safe there any longer. Also, this place was closer to the market. It was hard enough to carry you this far.”
Riker took it all in. “Where’s Lyneea now?” he asked.
Crusher shrugged. “Damned if I know. She muttered something about time running out—and then ran out herself.”
Time running out? He didn’t like the sound of that.
He sat halfway up—and winced at the searing pain that erupted in his shoulder. “Damn,” he breathed, easing himself back down onto the couch.
“Serves you right,” she told him.
“How long have I been lying here?” he asked.
The doctor set aside her coffee, leaned over and searched through a pack on the floor, finally extracting her tricorder. “Almost two days, thanks to the dimexidrine.”
“Two . . . days?” he echoed.
Crusher straightened, looked him in the eye. “Why? Did you think you’d have come this far in less time? Or without the aid of a sedative?” She placed a forefinger against his chest—and none too gently. “Listen to me, Will Riker. I know exactly what you’re thinking.”
“You do?”
“Yes. You think you’re going to leap up and go after Lyneea, as if you were fully recuperated, but you’re not. Forty-eight hours ago you were knocking at death’s door. There wasn’t enough blood left in you to sustain a good-sized rodent. Plus you had a nasty concussion.” She sighed. “I practice medicine, Commander, not magic. It’s going to take time for that shoulder to heal properly, even with the regenerator working nonstop. And then some more time for you to get your strength back. In sickbay it might have happened a little faster, but not much. You’re not made of duranium, Mister. Remember that.”
He smiled a little at the doctor’s speech. Of course she had a point. In this condition he wouldn’t be much help to Lyneea. And she had the strong-arm types if she really needed help.
Crusher set her tricorder and held it near his shoulder. Judging by her expression, his progress met with her approval.
“How am I doing?” he asked.
“Could be worse,” she told him.
What was it Lyneea had said to him in the beginning? Something about Imprimans taking care of their own problems?
Well, she’d finally gotten it her way. With Riker laid up, Lyneea could conduct the kind of investigation she preferred, without having to play nursemaid to an offworlder. Especially one who thought he knew her world because he’d been here once for a couple of months.
On the other hand, he had made some contributions. He’d saved her life when Bosch was about to draw a blaster on her in his room. And if it hadn’t been for his stubbornness, they might never have found Teller’s body.
But then, he’d also fallen for Norayan’s ruse, and he’d nearly lost his life to the Pandrilite in that alley. And wasn’t it Riker who’d blundered into Kobar, putting him on his guard—and maybe drawing the attention of his would-be assassin in the process?
“You look pensive,” observed Crusher. “Can it be I’ve actually drummed some sense into you?”
He looked up at her. “Did Lyneea find out anything about the knife thrower? Like whom he worked for?”
The doctor put the tricorder away and shook her head. “No.”
Good. Then he could continue to believe it wasn’t Norayan.
Apparently Lyneea believed it, too, or she wouldn’t have called for help from Madraga Criathis. Because if Norayan had hired the assassin, and if she knew Riker was convalescing here, relatively defenseless . . .
He eyed the door warily and wished he had a phaser close at hand instead of a regenerator.
“I heard about your friend,” said Crusher. “The captain told me.”
Riker frowned. The loss of Teller had subsided to a dull ache in his gut.
“Things happen,” he remarked. “You just never think they’ll happen to you or to the people you love.” He met her gaze. “Who else did the captain tell?”
“Only those who might have had to beam down at some point. Me. Worf.” She paused. “I guess that’s it. Oh, and Deanna probably knows, too—but then, that’s Deanna.”
Riker found the mere thought of Troi soothing. But he put it aside. He didn’t feel much like being soothed now.
“Listen,” he said, “I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t make too much of Teller’s death when we get back. Especially under the circumstances.”
The doctor nodded. “I understand.”
For a moment or two there was an awkward silence. Then Crusher spoke again.
“You know,” she said, “Wesley was afraid something would happen to you.”
Riker cracked a smile. “Was he?”
“Yup. It seems he was studying Impriman culture, particularly as it relates to Besidia and the Trade Carnival, and he decided that this was a pretty dangerous place.” Her eyes twinkled. “Actually he started out trying to figure out why Starfleet had sent you down here. And though he never quite came up with the answer, he did unearth some interesting items along the way—in addition, I mean, to his conclusions about it being dangerous.”
Riker’s smile widened. He couldn’t help it. “Such as?” “
Well, there was something about a parade on the last day of the carnival. All the locals dress up as clowns and serenade the officials of each madraga.”
“I’ve seen it,” said Riker. “It’s quite a show. And some of them do a little more than serenade—but that part wouldn’t be in the library files.”
“What else?” Crusher asked herself. “Oh, yes. The maze, up in the hills above the city? Wesley was telling me how all the tunnels are color-coded, so you can find your way in and out, and . . .”
Riker stopped hearing her. He’d fixed on the word “color-coded” and was unable to get past it.
Why? He knew about the color codes. Damn, he’d seen them only a couple of days ago.
And then it came to him. Like a hawk out of a gray Alaskan sky: The codes would have been useless to his friend. Teller was color-blind.
Which meant that if he’d been hiding in the maze and not just dumped there after he was killed, or if he’d had to stage a rendezvous there, or even if he’d just been using the place as a cache for Fortune’s Light, he must have had another way of getting in and out. And if the seal was hidden there, he would have needed a way to find it again after he concealed it.
Crusher waved a hand in front of his face. “You’ve got that faraway look again, Commander. Something I said?”
He took her hand in his. “Doctor, I’ve got to get back to the maze.”
Her mouth became a straight, hard line. “See?” she said. “I knew you’d try this. That’s why I kept you under for so long.”
“You don’t understand,” he told her. “I think I just figured out how to find the seal.”
“Good for you. When Lyneea returns, you can tell her all about it. I’m sure she’ll be only too glad to test out your theory.”
“But we don’t know when she’ll be back or, for that matter, even if she’ll be back. You heard her say that time is running out? Well, it is. Lyneea won’t call on us until she’s done everything she can to help Criathis. And even then she may decide we’re not worth the effort.”
For a moment the doctor seemed to waver in her resolve. Then she shook her head. “Forget it, Commander. You’re still weak. You can barely use that arm. And your assassin friend is still out there; maybe next time he’ll be more thorough.”
“I appreciate your concern,” he told her, “but this is something I have to do.” Taking a deep breath, he tried to sit up again. This time he made it. “For Teller.” Pivoting on the couch, he planted his feet on the floor.
Crusher was faster. She placed herself in his way.
“Use your head,” she told him. “What are you going to do? Resurrect your friend by risking your own life?”
&
nbsp; “No,” he agreed, gathering himself. He really was weak. “I can’t make his past go away, and I can’t bring him back from the dead. But I can make amends for him—by returning the seal to Madraga Criathis.”
“If you live long enough.”
Riker glanced out the open window at the snow-covered street below. Was the doctor right? Was there someone out there waiting for him?
Hell, hadn’t he wondered about that himself before she’d ever mentioned it?
“I’ll take my chances,” he told her. And with that, he got to his feet.
But Crusher wasn’t budging. “Don’t make me pull rank, Will. Don’t make me order you to stay here.”
Riker looked down at her, smiling gently. “It won’t matter if you do, Doctor. This isn’t about Starfleet. This isn’t even about Criathis. It’s about one man’s obligation to another man. I wasn’t a very good friend the last few years, or I would’ve seen how Teller was changing. But I’m going to be a good friend now.”
He put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s not just Teller I’m making amends for, Beverly. It’s me, too.”
Crusher frowned. “Silver-tongued Will Riker.”
“Not this time,” he assured her. “This time, it’s straight from the heart.”
She searched his face, came to a decision. “Yes, I suppose it is.” She grunted. “All right, Commander. You win. But if you’re going somewhere, I’m going with you.” And snatching up her pack, she began checking to make sure that everything was secure.
He hadn’t anticipated that. His first reaction was to assemble reasons she couldn’t go. But there were more reasons for him not to go, so he decided to keep his mouth shut.
Besides, he mused, she’d probably be as safe with him as she would be if she stayed in the suite alone. Which was to say, not very.
Her pack slung over her shoulder, Crusher straightened again. “Ready when you are,” she told him. “Back to the maze?”
He adjusted his sling to make it a little more comfortable. “Back to the maze,” he confirmed.
Stretching out on his bed, Picard took a deep breath. After a moment or two he felt himself start to relax.
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