FORTUNE'S LIGHT

by Michael Jan Friedman

Denyabe regarded him, looking not so much at him as into him.

  “All right,” he said finally. “I won’t swing at a curveball unless it’s right down Broadway. But you’d better be right.”

  “Trust me,” said Data. He fashioned a smile. “Unless you would rather trust the goddess.”

  The second baseman chuckled. “No,” he said, “never that.” And as the android retreated to the dugout, Denyabe approached the plate with renewed purpose.

  “Finished?” asked the pitching coach, once Data had returned.

  “Finished.”

  “Think it’ll help?”

  The android shook his head. “I hope so.”

  A moment later Castle went into his windup. And a moment after that, the ball was on its way to the plate.

  The pitch looked good. It appeared that it would find a piece of the strike zone. Denyabe tensed, as if every instinct was telling him to swing.

  But he didn’t.

  “Ball,” called the umpire.

  Data felt gratified. However, Denyabe still had two strikes on him.

  The next pitch was a ball as well. Again, Denyabe found the wherewithal to keep from swinging at it. Likewise, the pitch after that.

  And finally, with the count full, Castle missed a fourth time. Denyabe tossed his bat aside and trotted to first base.

  “Looks like you knew what you were talking about,” observed the pitching coach.

  Data nodded. “It does look that way, does it not?” And removing his bat from the rack, he advanced to the top step of the dugout.

  “What the hell did he tell him?” rasped Terwilliger. The android could hear his voice coming from the stairwell.

  “Beats me,” said the coach.

  As Sakahara took his place at the plate, Data hoped he would benefit from Denyabe’s example. As a veteran hitter, he would certainly have been watching the confrontation with great interest.

  However, Castle crossed him up on the first pitch. Instead of serving up another curveball, he tried to sneak by a fastball.

  Surprised, and therefore swinging a bit too late, Sakahara popped the ball up. The android watched as the ball landed in the shortstop’s mitt.

  And realized abruptly that it had to have been that way. After all, Denyabe had gotten on base. That meant that neither Sakahara nor the next batter could do so. Otherwise, Bobo would never have the opportunity to make the game’s last out, as history demanded.

  Simple mathematics. A formula worked out three hundred years before, on the field after which this holodeck simulation was modeled.

  No doubt, even Denyabe’s base on balls had been part of that pattern. As much as Data had wanted to believe it was his doing, he knew it must have been preordained.

  At the end of the dugout, hardly bothering to conceal himself anymore, Terwilliger looked miserable. And why not? He was watching his last chance at success slowly slip away from him.

  If he had been human, Data would have sighed.

  The android came out to the on-deck circle just as Galanti’s replacement—a squarish, stolid man named Houlihan—took his place at the plate. Castle started him off with a couple of curveballs, and he was patient enough to lay off them. But after working the count to two and one, he hit a high chopper to third base.

  It was too late to throw to second—Denyabe had been running on the pitch—so the third baseman fired the ball to first. But the throw was low and the first baseman couldn’t quite dig it out. What was more, as the ball dribbled away, Denyabe was able to scoot into third.

  The crowd roared its approval. There were runners on the corners, with only one out.

  And in the on-deck circle, Data stood as if rooted to the spot, rapidly trying to make sense of what had just transpired.

  “Stop program,” he called.

  Everyone and everything ground to a halt. It was strangely quiet in the cavernous stadium.

  “Computer,” he said, “describe the historical performances of Icebreakers Denyabe, Sakahara, and Houlihan in their ninth-inning at-bats.”

  The computer didn’t hesitate. “Noah Denyabe struck out swinging. Muri Sakahara popped up to the shortstop. Kevin Houlihan reached base on a throwing error by the third baseman.”

  Data considered the information. Apparently Sakahara and Houlihan had done exactly what history demanded of them.

  But Denyabe had not.

  Hundreds of years ago the second baseman had not had Data to advise him. He’d swung at Castle’s last pitch and missed it as he’d missed the others.

  Data shook his head. Without realizing it, he had changed history.

  It was a refreshing thought. A liberating thought.

  And what was even better, Denyabe was on third base. Now, when Data hit his long fly ball to center field, it would mean something. Denyabe would tag up on the play and tie the game, keeping the Icebreakers’ hopes alive.

  The notion was immensely satisfying.

  “Resume program,” said the android.

  The computer complied. Everything started up again.

  Data approached the plate. He took a few practice swings and dug in. The pitcher eyed him, perhaps a little shaken after the latest turn of events.

  The first pitch to Data was a fastball, but it was in the dirt. No chance to hit it.

  The next pitch was a curveball, but not one of those tantalizing Number Twos of the sort that Castle had thrown Denyabe. This one was right down the middle—right down Broadway, as Denyabe had said.

  A mistake. And maybe Bobo’s best opportunity to hit the ball deep.

  He waited, as Geordi had advised. Concentrated on the flight of the ball, trying to anticipate when it might break. And then he swung.

  As soon as he made contact, Data knew he had done his job. The ball fairly leapt off his bat. Making his way down the first base line, he watched it take to the air.

  It seemed that there was a hush in the big stadium. As if everyone was too preoccupied with the flight of the baseball to remember to breathe.

  Out of the corner of his eye, the android saw his teammates in the dugout. They were rising out of their seats. And Terwilliger was among them, his expression one of open-mouthed disbelief.

  Out in center field, the Sunset player named Clemmons started to backpedal. Then, realizing that the ball had been hit harder than he thought, he turned his back on it and gave chase.

  Data paid little attention to him. After all, history had decided that the ball would be caught. The real Clemmons had made the same mistake and corrected it the same way some three hundred years before.

  But he had changed history, hadn’t he? He had interrupted the sequence of events, opening up a world of new possibilities. . . .

  As he approached first base, pursuing this line of reasoning, he saw the ball sail over Clemmons’s head, unrelenting in its progress, and a moment later, clear the outfield wall with inches to spare.

  Data couldn’t believe it. He knew he had hit it hard—but not that hard. Directly in front of him, Houlihan was pumping his fist in the air, unable to contain his jubilation.

  The android rounded the bases behind him, feeling more mechanical than he had ever felt before—as if his body were moving of its own volition.

  All about him the stands were erupting with a mighty sound. People were throwing things in the air and hugging one another. The entire stadium seemed to be vibrating with the force of their exhilaration.

  By the time he rounded third and was heading for home, the whole team had come out to meet him. Denyabe, who had scored the tying run just seconds before, was foremost among them. Sakahara and Jackson and Cordoban stood behind him, and Galanti had limped out as well.

  Houlihan vanished into their midst, slapping hands and whooping for joy. And Data came next, absorbed into the artificial mass of humanity that was the Fairbanks Icebreakers. Arms were flung about his shoulders, words of praise and exultation shouted in his ears.

  Abruptly, without warning, the android found himself being
raised up off the ground—lifted onto the shoulders of his teammates. And only then was he able to discern the chant that the crowd had embraced: “Bo-bo! Bo-bo! Bo-bo!”

  But one face was missing from the celebration. One very important face.

  Data searched for it—and finally found it back at the dugout. Slipping down from his perch, slipping out of their midst entirely, he approached Terwilliger.

  The man was just standing on the dugout’s top step, tears welling in his eyes. He wasn’t quite smiling. He just looked dumbfounded.

  “Congratulations,” said the android, once he was close enough to be heard over the din.

  Terwilliger focused on him, as if seeing him for the first time. He nodded. “Thanks.” And then he seemed to come to terms with what had happened, for Data could see the fire ignite again in his eyes. “Good shot,” he said, “for a snot-nosed, loudmouthed wise ass of a rookie. Just don’t let it go to yer head.”

  The android smiled. “I will do my best,” he said.

  Lyneea opened the door. Obviously she hadn’t expected him to be the one behind it. But like a good retainer, she recovered quickly.

  “Riker,” she said. “And without your sling.”

  She looked different from the last time he’d seen her. For one thing, she was wearing a dress—a long green and white shift that accentuated the color of her eyes. For another, her hair was pulled back and braided with a thick silver chain.

  “I got tired of wearing it.”

  “Good for you.” She paused. “I thought you’d left.”

  “I thought you had, too,” he told her. “Until I learned that you live here in Besidia.”

  She shrugged. “Someone has to. And I like it better than most of the other places Criathis has posted me.”

  “I see.” He gestured past her. “Mind if I come in?”

  Her eyes searched his. After all, he hadn’t yet said what his visit was about. “Not at all,” she told him.

  Riker went inside. The quality of the furnishings surprised him.

  “Criathis pays its employees well,” he noted.

  “Skilled undercover people are hard to find. Though I don’t know how much good I’ll be to the madraga now that I’m so well known.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  “It was unavoidable. And not every retainer needs to operate undercover.”

  He nodded. “I’d hate to think I cost you your job.”

  She regarded him. “So. Why are you here?”

  Riker found the bar in the room. In a place this well appointed, there was always a bar.

  “Korsch?” he asked.

  “No. Dibdinagii brandy.”

  He looked at her. “Offworld refreshments?”

  “I’m off duty,” she explained.

  Riker filed away the distinction and located the brandy. He poured two glasses’ worth, put the pride of Dibdina back in its place, and delivered the libations.

  In the meantime she had found a seat on a chaise longue. He hadn’t noticed the slit in her dress before; he noticed it now.

  “Thank you,” she said, as he handed her a glass. The amber liquid sparkled with the day’s last light. “But you still haven’t told me why you’re here.”

  He knelt before her, clinked his glass softly against hers. “Because when you’ve saved someone’s life, and that person has saved yours, you don’t part company without saying good-bye.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “When did you save my life?”

  “When we were at Larrak’s house, remember? That guard was going to blast you, and I knocked your chair over.”

  She smiled skeptically. “Oh, come on, Riker. You knocked my chair over? I had already tipped it when you fell on me.”

  He felt the mood slipping away, and resolved not to let it happen. “I didn’t fall on you,” he said gently. “I knocked you over. There’s a difference.”

  “There certainly is. And you fell on me, probably trying to save your own skin.”

  This was getting annoying. “Hell,” he told her, “you even thanked me.”

  “Thanked you? I don’t recall.”

  Riker shook his head. “Forget it. Forget I even mentioned it. That isn’t the point anyway.”

  “Then what is the point?”

  He sighed. “When we were lying there on the floor, all trussed up on those damned chairs . . . I looked into your eyes. Just as I’m doing now. And I thought I saw something there.”

  “Of course you did. I was relieved. Nobody likes to be shot at while she’s all trussed up.”

  His hopes sank another notch. “And that’s all there was to it?”

  Lyneea seemed not to understand. “What did you expect?”

  Riker turned wistful. “I was hoping you’d say that, in some small way, you were attracted to me. But I guess I was mistaken.”

  She just looked at him. Suddenly he felt very uncomfortable. After all, he didn’t find himself in this position very often.

  He got to his feet, put the brandy down on an end table. “Listen,” he said, “I guess I jumped to the wrong conclusion. No harm done.” He put out his hand. “It was nice working with you.”

  She continued to look at him. He was about to take his hand back when she finally reached out and grasped it. Her grip was just as firm as he remembered it.

  “Nice working with you, too,” she told him.

  He gazed into those eyes one last time and shook his head. How could he have been so far off base? He’d never been wrong about this sort of thing before.

  “Right. Well, then . . . see you around.” He started for the door.

  His hand was on the old-fashioned doorknob before he heard Lyneea’s voice.

  “Chits and whispers, Riker! Can’t a girl have a little fun without you going all to pieces?”

  He turned. She was standing now, the light from the window tracing a silhouette within the delicate shift.

  “Don’t just stand there,” she told him. Her voice had softened to a purr, with just a hint of humor in it. “Tell me again how you looked into my eyes.”

  Riker smiled. “I’ll tell you more than that,” he said.

  Epilogue

  “HI. NAME’S TELLER CONLON. Guess I’ll be your roommate.”

  “Guess so. I’m Will Riker.”

  “Where you from, Will Riker?”

  “Alaska—on Earth. A town called Valdez. Ever heard of it?”

  “Can’t say I have.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Hardly anybody has.”

  “Nice there?”

  “Real nice. But don’t get me started. I’ll get all mush-mouthed and teary-eyed.”

  A shrug, a laugh. “Okay, then, I won’t.”

  “What about you? Where are you from?”

  “Anywhere and everywhere. My dad was a career diplomat for the Federation—while he was alive, that is. We traveled around a lot when I was a kid—Beta Sargonus, Gamma Trilesias, half a dozen starbases. Like that.”

  “Wow. Must have been incredible.”

  “Sure, incredible. Hey, listen, Will, do me a favor? If I even think of going into the diplomatic corps—I mean, if I wake up one morning and mumble something about wanting to be an ambassador—I want you to strangle me. Don’t ask any questions. Just do it—okay?”

  Now it was Will’s turn to laugh. “Maybe after I know you a little better. I don’t like to strangle people I hardly know. But tell me, just what is it about diplomacy that turns you off so much?”

  Teller looked at him. “Ever meet an ambassador? One who’s been at it for a while?”

  “I don’t believe so, no. We don’t get too many of them in Valdez; the Federation pretty much overlooks Alaska when it comes to diplomatic envoys.”

  “Trust me—if you bumped into one, you wouldn’t like him. They’re chameleons, Will—faint imitations of whatever race they’ve been kowtowing to most recently. Empty beakers: you pour out one alien culture and pour in another. And whatever was them—the unique commingling of nee
ds and desires that set out to be an ambassador in the first place—is gone somehow. Evaporated.”

  Silence. “Well, Teller, don’t beat around the bush. If you don’t want to be a diplomat, just say so.”

  “I’m saying so. And I’m not kidding about the strangling stuff.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “So now you’re wondering what I’m doing at the Academy. I mean, if I don’t want to get involved with alien cultures, why Starfleet?”

  “I hadn’t gotten quite that far. But okay—why Starfleet?”

  “Because we touch things when they’re new—when they’re bright and shiny and they’ve never been touched before. And then we leave them to the bureaucrats. That’s what life is all about, Will—getting in and getting out. Stealing a taste and putting the rest back. Take too big a bite out of anything—person or place—and it ends up taking a bigger bite out of you.”

  “Hmm. Dorm-room philosophy.”

  “Get used to it, Will. I’m chock full of such stuff.”

  “Hey, speaking of bites—it’s almost chow time.”

  “Right you are. Say, how’s your sharash-di?”

  “It could be better, I suppose. Why?”

  “There’s this redhead that I got friendly with on the way from Delta Ganymede. She’s some sort of expert at sharash-di, and she wanted to know if I played—which I don’t. But . . .”

  “But if I play her—say, after dinner—it’ll give you a chance to get to know her better.”

  “Something like that.”

  He chuckled. “Fine—on one condition. Just don’t laugh when she whips me.”

  “Absolutely not, Will. Absolutely not. Well, maybe a little.”

  “Come in,” said Riker.

  As the doors parted with a shussh, Data entered the first officer’s quarters. He found Riker sitting in the center of the room, elbows resting on his knees, leaning over the low wooden table he was reputed to have made with his own hands. In the center of the table’s glossy amber-colored surface there was a simple stoppered vase made of some gray-blue ceramic material. Riker seemed to be studying the vase, as if it held some special significance for him.

  “Commander?” The android spoke softly, not wishing to interrupt.