by Jeffrey Lang
La Forge, who had lurched forward upon seeing the tray, sagged visibly. “Ah,” he said. “Um . . .”
“Could you bring my friend a sandwich?” Data asked. “Turkey and Havarti, mayonnaise, brown mustard, lettuce, tomato, and, if you have it, Orion bacon? On sourdough bread or rye if you don’t have sourdough. Quickly, please. We haven’t much time and I have to speak with Mister Fontaine. Which way to his dressing room?”
The floor manager slipped the lid back on the tray. “Ah, well, Mister Fontaine—he doesn’t have a dressing room, precisely.” Broik paused awkwardly. “He, uh . . . No one has explained?”
La Forge was amazed by Data’s impression of a high-powered executive experiencing a slow burn of frustration over bureaucratic bumbling. Or, at least he hoped it was an impression. “Explained?” Data asked, his voice pitched low. “Alas, no. No one has bothered to explain anything. Please explain.”
“Mister Fontaine,” Broik said, his tray vibrating. “He’s, uh . . . out of commission? Indisposed?”
“Which is it?” Data asked. “Out of commission or indisposed?”
“I’m . . . I’m not sure, sir. It’s all rather technical . . .”
“Wait,” La Forge said. “Technical? Like how technical? We’re good with technical.”
Data lifted the vibrating tray from Broik’s trembling hand. Darkly, he added, “This is correct. We are very good with technical.”
“Then, please,” Broik pleaded, “come and take a look. It’s these damned Federation holosuites. They’re not . . . That is, Nog hasn’t figured out how to make them compatible with Fontaine’s matrix. I mean, not to say anything negative about Nog or the Federation . . .” Clearly, Broik had picked up on the fact that La Forge and Data might be Federation representatives. “But, Fontaine is special.”
“Take us to a holosuite,” Data commanded, setting the tray on an empty table.
“But they’re all occupied! Quark is running a special!”
Data leaned down over the Ferengi. Very slowly, he lifted his hand and pointed at his utterly expressionless face. “Do I look,” he asked, “as if I care?”
Broik’s head moved in the slightest degree that might be described as an acknowledgment.
“Then take us to the holosuite.”
Broik took several steps backward, all the time desperately attempting to catch the eye of any of the passing servers, all of whom, suddenly, seemed incredibly busy. “Very well, sir. Absolutely. This way, please.”
“And don’t forget about the sandwich,” La Forge said. To Data, he murmured, “Wow, Data. Hardcore. Is that what you sound like when you’re working?”
“Only at the diner.”
“What?”
“I will explain later. And I believe you will enjoy the way the Orion bacon and brown mustard mingle on your sandwich. It brings a special piquancy to the turkey.”
A placeless place
“And you just left him?” Lal asked, her voice rising sharply, stressing the “left.” She shot to her feet and pulled her wrap tightly around her shoulders and up around her neck. “In the middle of nowhere? All alone?”
“He wasn’t in the middle of nowhere,” Alice said, her tone attempting to soothe. “He was in a hotel. And he had his ship and he had more money than even Harry knew what to do with. He was going to be fine.” Except, of course, Alice knew Harry wouldn’t be fine. More or less, that was the point, the reason she decided it was time to go. Apparently, Lal understood it, too.
The holographic Professor stayed in his seat, chin resting on his fist, elbow on the chair arm, a questioning expression on his face.
Lal asked, “Did the woman—Uhura—did she remember him?”
“Yes. I said she did. And me, too. She remembered me, too. Which is why I left.”
The Professor spoke up. “I’m afraid I’m missing a nuance, my dear.”
“It was something that happened when she—when the Starfleet officer—was on my home-world. Something we offered her.”
“And what was that?” the Professor asked.
Lal was still standing and was pulling her shawl even more tightly around her shoulders. She was wearing a pinched expression Alice had seen a couple times that meant trouble was brewing.
“Something you offered her?”
“Yes. She seemed interested in it at the time, but later we realized it was just a ruse. Probably. But Harry . . . Harry had forgotten about it. I knew that for a fact. Or maybe he had just blocked it out of his memory. Humans are complicated that way. Memories, images, ideas, they disappear like they’re under a pile of rocks deep beneath the waves and then, suddenly, years later, they pop back up again. I knew that was going to happen. I could see it coming just as clearly as I’m looking at you. Harry was going to remember. He was going to ask me to do something that I didn’t want to do.”
“You could have refused.”
Alice shook her head. “That’s not how it works . . . worked.”
“You couldn’t say ‘No’ to Mister Mudd?”
“I could, but only if saying it would have made him a better person. Less of an irritant.”
“And this request would not have qualified?” the Professor asked, clearly interested, but also clearly unwilling to ask for specifics, like it would have violated the rules of some game he was playing.
Alice shrugged. “It was a gray area. It would have depended on how he asked, but if he asked in the right way, I would have had to comply. And then I would have had to take him back home.”
“He couldn’t do this on his own?”
“No, I made sure of it. No one knows where the planet is.” Lal was sitting again, head down, shoulders hunched. Rocking. “Not even the starship that visited it originally. Not even Kirk. We made sure.”
“So you just left him!” Lal shouted, collapsing out of the chair into a heap. “You were afraid, so you just abandoned him! Just like what you’re going to do to me!”
Alice wasn’t sure how it happened, but now she was on the floor, too, trying to put her arms around the girl, trying to offer comfort or reassurance. She was whispering, over and over, “No, baby, no. It’s not like that. I wouldn’t do that to you. I wouldn’t just up and leave you that way. It was Harry’s fault. Harry’s. If I had gone back with him, they never would have let me go again. Never. And then we wouldn’t have met and . . .”
“Shut up!” Lal screamed, flinging Alice away with the sweep of a hand. Alice expected to crash into one of Moriarty’s heavy cabinets, but she barely felt the impact. The cabinet had been transformed into a soft, spongy substance with no sharp corners or edges. Everything in the room, it seemed, was whatever Moriarty wanted it to be, and he could alter its substance in the blink of an eye.
Now Lal was flinging her arms around wildly, either unmindful or attempting to knock the Professor’s copious knickknacks and artifacts off the tabletops. Nothing flew away or shattered, though; Lal’s hands and arms passed harmlessly through everything, the illusion of the objects barely flickering.
Moriarty had risen and was standing behind his chair, though Alice suspected he could make his own substance just as insubstantial if he wished. “What is happening?” he asked. “What is wrong with her?”
Alice held up a hand, more as a request for space than a warning. “She’s having an episode. This happens . . .” she said. “We need to calm her down.”
“Should I restrain her?”
“Is there anything in here she could break?”
Moriarty looked around his study, then shook his head. “Only herself. If she reaches the outer walls.”
Interesting, Alice thought. So there are real walls here somewhere. “Don’t worry about that,” she said, raising her voice. Lal had begun to ululate, her cries growing shriller every second. “She’s pretty tough. I’ve seen her hit much harder things than walls.”
As if to prove Alice’s point, Lal ran straight at a wall and bounced off it, unaffected, unaware. Her cry was becoming deafenin
g. Even the holographic Professor covered his ears. “Will she stop?” he shouted.
The ululation suddenly ceased. Lal went stiff, spine straight, eyes wide. She canted over backward and Alice scrambled to her feet just soon enough to prevent her charge’s head from cracking against the floor. The blow wouldn’t have injured Lal, but it might have dented the floor and certainly would have scraped some hair off the back of the girl’s head. She would have been horribly embarrassed when she awoke from her fugue.
Gently lowering the girl to the floor and wrapping her shawl around Lal’s shoulders, Alice said, simply, “Yes.”
Moriarty grimaced, then wiped his mouth with an unbelievably white handkerchief. “That was . . . unexpected. What is the nature of her malady?”
“It’s not a malady,” Lal said. “It’s a condition. Temporary. Call it growing pains. Her neural net, if it’s taxed by unexpected emotional input, it overloads. She can’t handle the stress and, well, she has a tantrum.”
“Is it life-threatening?”
Alice had only a moment to consider the question and decide which answer would be the most advantageous. On an impulse, she decided to go with the truth. “I’m not sure,” she said. “But her father thinks so. He treats her periodically, helps her manage the stress. Part of my job is to observe her and tell him when I think Lal needs a treatment.”
“And does she?”
“Soon. I’m really not sure, though. I’ve never seen her get this bad, and her father takes good care of her. She’s pretty sheltered,” she added, looking up at the Professor, “though she would deny it if I told her that. She’s never had to live through the kind of . . . complications . . . that you and I have.”
Moriarty appeared to be thinking. Eyes narrowed, he was tapping the side of his face with a long forefinger. Finally, he came to some sort of conclusion. “Can you lift her? If not, I could arrange . . .”
Alice slid her arms under Lal and lifted the girl easily. “Not a problem.”
“Bring her in here,” he said, pointing toward a door that suddenly appeared in the wall. “She can rest. Do you want to stay with her?”
“You can monitor her?” Alice asked, following the Professor.
“Of course.”
“Then that’ll be fine for now. She’ll be out of commission for a bit, and when she wakes up, she’ll be weak. And a little more compliant.”
Moriarty looked back over his shoulder. “You do not seem quite as . . . solicitous as you were a few minutes ago,” he said.
Alice shrugged. “It’s a job, Prof. Don’t confuse it with real life.”
Again, the Professor squinted at her, as if he could peer into Alice’s directories. “I’m not sure whether I believe you or not.”
“Life is full of mysteries, Prof,” Alice said. “And disappointments. Lead on. I said I could carry her. I didn’t say I wanted to do it all day.”
Moriarty complied. Overhead lights came on. A small four-poster bed draped with a quilted cover and piled with fluffy pillows appeared out of the darkness. Alice sighed. “Not exactly her style, but I guess it doesn’t matter right this second.”
Moriarty stared at the bed, an eyebrow arched. “This was my older daughter’s bed,” he said. “I don’t know why it appeared. I wasn’t thinking about it.”
Alice laid the insensate girl on the bed. Her body sank into the quilted cover and her head lolled to the side, eyes shut, mouth slightly open. “A bed is a bed. It’s all good.”
“I suppose,” Moriarty said. “Come, my dear. We will chat some more. I’m curious to hear what else you can tell me about your homeworld.”
“Not much, Prof. I keep telling you.”
“Well, we’ll see. We will see.”
* * *
As the pair left the room, the door disappeared behind them. The lights dimmed, leaving just enough illumination so as a stirring sleeper could awaken and not be frightened of the dark. A moment or two passed and then there came the sound of a woman’s voice singing a wordless song, soft and low.
Beside the bed, a low chair appeared, perfectly white. A second later, a form shimmered into being, also perfectly white. A ghostly pale hand reached out, patted Lal’s hand, then clasped it lightly.
“There, there,” Regina said, pausing in her song for just the time it took to say the two words, then resumed. Lal sighed, squeezed the pale hand, and then was quiet.
13
“That should do it,” La Forge said, pressing the access panel back into the holosuite wall.
“Already?” Broik asked. “So Nog’s been slacking off all this time? We’ve been waiting forever . . .”
La Forge shook his head. “No one was slacking off. The software is so complicated, it’s practically organic. The logs show someone—Nog, I guess—has been working steadily, but it’s an incredibly complicated problem. He almost had it, too. All I did was make a couple adjustments in how the array is handling the power. I think he may have been trying to push the resolution too high. I don’t see a solution to that without rerouting the main buses . . .” He saw that Broik’s normally slack expression was even more elongated. “Never mind,” he said. “The main thing is that this isn’t a permanent solution.”
“But we can talk to Mister Fontaine,” Data said.
“If he wants to talk to us, yes.” He picked up the near-empty plate Broik had brought him an hour earlier and ate the last pickle chip. “Thanks for the sandwich,” La Forge said. “Good pickle, too.”
“Sorry about the kitchen being out of sourdough.”
La Forge handed him the plate and indicated the direction of the door. “If we’re lucky, we should be out of here soon and you can have your holosuite back.”
“Ah,” Broik said, realizing he was being dismissed. “Oh, okay. But Quark might want me to look in on Vic. Make sure he’s comfortable.”
“He’s holographic,” La Forge said. “How could he not be comfortable?”
“But still . . .”
La Forge pointed at the door. “I’ll tell him you asked after him.”
Broik turned and slumped out the door without another word. La Forge tapped the control surface and locked down the room. Turning to Data, he asked, “Ready?”
“Proceed.”
La Forge activated the emitter and the room lights dimmed. The holosuite program spoke, its voice a bit too honey-sweet for La Forge’s taste: “Loading program Fontaine Beta. Enjoy your stay.”
A square of floor three meters on a side grew brighter, and a holographic image slowly coalesced, shimmering into three dimensions as if the computer was carefully considering how best to present it. La Forge wasn’t sure what he had been expecting—a casino, perhaps, or a backstage area—but definitely not the scene that emerged before them: a dingy hallway with ratty carpet and a pair of doors on either side. A single flickering light fixture hung from the ceiling, circled by the least-motivated moth ever to emerge from a cocoon.
La Forge leaned forward and studied the doors. Both had heavy locking mechanisms and a small peephole at eye level. One of the doors had a number—42—over the peephole. “A prison?” he asked.
“No,” Data said, peering at the peephole. “This is not meant for the jailer, but the tenant. A hotel.”
“Worst-looking hotel I’ve ever seen.”
“Agreed.” Data cocked his head. “Someone is within.” He pivoted and listened at the unmarked door. “But not here.”
“Then I guess we should see if anyone’s home.”
Data rapped on the door and immediately the rustling beyond ceased. No one moved. After remaining silent for several moments, Data asked, “Mister Fontaine? We are friends of Miles O’Brien. We would like to speak . . .”
The door swung open and, with surprising speed, a man reached out, grabbed La Forge and Data by the forearms, and pulled them in. The door snapped shut, the man pressing his back against it. “Shhh!” he hissed. “You don’t just say a guy’s name out loud like that in a place like this.”<
br />
“I apologize,” Data said, sounding genuinely contrite. “I had no idea that you were attempting to conceal yourself.”
Fontaine waved his arms to indicate the interior of the room, which was, La Forge thought, one of the most severe, drab, and dismal interior spaces he had ever seen. “You think I’m staying in a dive like this because I like it?”
“I am not privy to know what you do and do not like,” Data said. “Perhaps you were meeting someone.”
Fontaine scoffed. “Like a dame? Man, you don’t know me at all if you think I’d bring a lady—any lady—to a dump like this.” La Forge was surprised to see the man smile wryly, then rub his chin, which was covered in stubble. He seemed to notice that his shirt was wrinkled and untucked, his trousers un-pressed. “Especially not looking like this. Damn, how long have I been here?”
“You do not know?” Data asked.
“Time kind of stretches out when you’re off the grid,” Fontaine said. “Even more so when you’re trying to keep away from the hard guys.”
“ ‘Hard guys’?” La Forge asked.
“Never mind,” Fontaine said, brushing away his own words. “I take it I’m back on the grid.” He tilted his head as if listening to some faint, far-off tune and added, “But only just barely. Am I right?”
“You are correct,” Data said. “And probably only briefly, though I believe this situation will soon be remedied. Mister Nog is a skilled engineer and will solve the problem.”
“He’s a good kid,” Fontaine said. “A good friend.” He moved away from the door and carefully seated himself in the room’s only piece of furniture, a once-handsome oversized leather chair. “And you’re friends of Miles’s, right?”
“Right,” La Forge said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“And you need something from me?”
“Information.”
“You look like a pretty smart guy, Mister . . .”
“Call me Data.”