"Calhoun," he said sharply as Calhoun, Rheela, and Moke walked out into the street. Two luukabs were tied to posts nearby, and that's where they were heading. Calhoun did not appear to hear him, or if he did, he didn't care. "Calhoun," he repeated, making it clear that he was not going to be ignored.
"He's my dad!" Moke said excitedly. He was holding Cal-houn's hand so tightly that he was cutting the circulation off. "Did you hear? Did you hear, Maester?"
"Yes, I heard," he said with an oily pleasantness. "Calhoun, we need to talk-"
"I disagree," Calhoun said coolly.
"I am on the council, you are Majister, and you will answer to me." And, in saying that, he grabbed Calhoun by the wrist.
He didn't remember much after that.
All he knew was that time had abruptly passed, and he heard his name being murmured very distantly. Everything was ex-tremely dark around him, and he wondered what had happened to the moonlight that had been flooding the town on this, a full moon night Then he started to be able to sort out one voice from an-other, recognizing them individually, and finally he realized the reason it was so dark was because his eyes were closed. Slowly, he opened them, and discovered the missing moonlight, right
where it was supposed to be. Concerned faces all around him were looking down.
"He's not dead!" said the Praestor, and there were relieved sighs from all around... except from Howzer the mortician, who seemed faintly disappointed. "Maester, we were very concerned about you! What happened?"
Several townspeople were already helping him off the ground. His legs were unsteady, and the world skewed around him at an odd angle as he tried to compose himself. "What... happened?" he echoed.
"We found you out here like this," said Spangler with great ex-citement, seeing a potential story for his newspaper. When one put out the news for a relatively small city such as Narrin, one tended to look for excitement wherever one could find it. "Who did this? Was it the new Majister?"
"Did what?" His thoughts were still swimming around... but then, slowly, they began to coalesce. What further sharpened his memory was the sudden stabbing pain originating from some-where around his right jaw. He touched it, and moaned as he felt the lump that was most likely accompanied by an impressive black and blue mark. That was when Tapinza realized that he wasn't exactly ecstatic about the notion of being totally candid. He had his pride, after all. As near as he could tell, Calhoun had dropped him with precisely one punch, and that was not some-thing Tapinza was especially anxious to broadcast. "Oh... this. No, no... this must have happened when I fell."
"Fell?" The people clustered around him in a small knot, looked collectively confused. "What caused you to fall, Maester?" asked Milos.
"I... don't know. A touch of illness, perhaps. I was feeling dizzy in the meeting hall. That's why I rushed out; I was hoping that some fresh air would do me good." He forced a ragged grin. "Apparently, not enough good. As for the Majister, why... I be-lieve he had already ridden off by the time I came out." The last words were painful to get out, his jaw swelling up all the more.
"At least you're not hurt worse because of your... accident," said the Maestress. But it was abundantly cleajr, from her tone of voice, that she knew really what had occurred. She simply chose not to comment on it. For that, she had his undying appreciation, although he wished that their other little conspiracy had gone bet-ter. The truly ironic thing was, they had been working at cross-purposes, and she hadn't even known it. It had been Tapinza who had suggested the creation of the Standards and Decency Act, knowing that the Maestress would leap at the idea. Granted, she'd had no idea that he was then going to endeavor to step in and pre-sent himself as Moke's father, but that was all right. If she was angry at him, well...
No one lived forever. Not even Maestress Cawfiel.
But the entire matter had been rendered moot. Just thinking about it caused his stomach to churn in fury, even as the towns-people standing around helped him up. He thanked them, dusted himself off, and then abruptly had to lean on a few of them as a wave of dizziness swept over him. Yes, Calhoun had definitely done quite a job on him. And it was not something that Tapinza had any intention of forgetting, ever. There was no question in his mind that he was going to pay back Mackenzie Calhoun for this insulting, abusive treatment. Pay him back a hundredfold, no mat-ter what it took. And if Rheela and Moke got in his way, well... they would have to pay as well.
GARBECK
"deuces and one-eyed jacks wild," said Garbeck. "A pair or better to open."
She glanced around the table with a grim look of satisfaction. As first officer, her influence over who was brought aboard the Exeter as part of the crew had been limited. She had, however, had sufficient influence to bring her favorite poker buddies along with her, and their weekly games had been the highlight of her term of service thus far.
Lieutenant Tim Lamb from geoscience made his customary face of disgust, the one he always made when Garbeck would an-nounce some sort of flourish to a hand. "My God," he moaned, "can you just play poker like a man?"
"Sure. Can you?" Garbeck teased back without heat. Lamb stuck his tongue out at her.
Engineer's Mate First Class Kate Clark, on Garbeck's behalf, stuck her own tongue out right back at Lamb. "What's the matter? Too many rules to keep straight in that receding-hairline head of yours?"
"I'm not losing hair," he said archly. "I'm gaining face."
"Like we haven't heard that line a hundred times before," mut-tered Ensign Charles Carroll from special services. Next to him,
weapons officer Kyle Jutkiewicz was studying his cards as if they contained clues to the whereabouts of the Holy Grail. "What's the matter, Lamb? Worried about being led to the slaughter?"
'Talk about lines heard a hundred times," Lamb riposted.
"Could we please remember why we're all here?" asked Garbeck.
'To enjoy the pleasure of each other's company?" Clark chirped in a cheerleaderish manner.
This drew guffaws and snorts of disbelief from the others. "I think the commander meant it was to play cards, not bicker," said Carroll.
"Right," said Jutkiewicz, still not taking his eyes off his cards. "If I wanted to bicker, I'd hang out with my girlfriend."
"That bodes well for that relationship," noted Lamb.
"Nobody asked you, Lambchop," retorted Jutkiewicz in a suffi-ciently cranky tone that Garbeck was led to believe Jutkiewicz hadn't been entirely kidding about the girlfriend reference.
Play proceeded briskly, with Garbeck raking in a fairly signifi-cant pot for the hand. In a few minutes, Lamb was shuffling the cards. "Okay," he said grimly. "Man's poker this time. None of this "Deuces wild" or "Jacks wild," or "All face cards painted in red except those with hearts on them are wild" stuff. Five card stud, straight up, down and dirty."
"Can something be both straight up and down and dirty?" won-dered Clark.
This drew snickering from the card players up until the moment that Shelby burst in without ringing the chime or even knocking. The others, except for Garbeck, looked up at her in surprise. Gar-beck's face remained impassive.
"Gentlemen, lady... if you'll excuse us," Shelby said tightly. "I'd like to have a few private words with Commander Garbeck."
The players didn't hesitate, since it was quite clear that Shelby was not in the mood to countenance any sort of back talk or ques-tions. Within thirty seconds, Shelby and Garbeck were alone in the lounge.
"Can I help you, Captain?" asked Garbeck.
"I believe you can," replied Shelby. She began a slow circle of
the room, her hands draped behind her. "You can explain to me the communique I received from Admiral Jellico today. Are you going to admit that you know what it's about? Or are we going to spend the next few minutes verbally fencing over it?"
"I was always taught in the Academy that one should not as-sume things," Garbeck said cautiously. "However, in this instance, I think it a safe assumption to conclude that it's in reference to th
e report I filed."
"That's exactly right. The report you filed." She stopped so that she was across the table from Garbeck, and she leaned forward, resting her knuckles on the tabletop. "There are a number of things I could say at the moment, Number One. One of them, ob-viously, would be that if you have a problem with me, then you come to me and we talk about it. Another would be that I would like to think you have some loyalty toward me as your command-ing officer, and that I consider it a personal betrayal that you opted to file an unflattering description of my activities with the Makku-sians with Admiral Jellico."
"My report was entirely within Starfleet protocol-" Garbeck began.
But Shelby raised a finger to her lips, silencing her. "But," she continued when Garbeck lapsed back into silence, "I'm not going to say any of those things. I don't have to. Because I can tell you exactly what happened. The Admiral brought you into his office. He told you how excellent you'd be for the post of first officer. He told you stories about Captain Calhoun, no doubt, and how unre-liable he'd been... and how he'd no doubt had a very negative in-fluence on me. That there was a danger I'd be unreliable as well, and, because of that, he'd want someone like you whom he could count on. Someone in the second chair who'd not only be able to keep me in line, but would be able to report back to him about everything that I had done that might be considered out of line with standard operating procedure.
"And if you were cooperative and helpful, then you could rest assured that Jellico would use his considerable influence to make
certain you were duly rewarded. Perhaps you'd even be given your own captaincy, because you're bright enough and ambitious enough, and you're exactly the type of officer that Starfleet wants to see in the captain's chair. How am I doing so far, Number One? Am I close?"
Garbeck was not able to keep the surprise from her face. "Very much, yes. May I ask-?"
"How I knew?" She laughed curtly. "Because I had a very sim-ilar meeting with him before I started on with Calhoun. I was in your exact position, Garbeck. And you know what? I told the Ad-miral to go screw himself." "Really. And how did he take to that?" "He took to it so well that he took it upon himself to undermine the loyalties of my first officer."
Garbeck looked down and shook her head. "My loyalties are not in question in any way, Captain."
"Really? Considering you filed a report that stated my deci-sions were undercutting the morale of the command staff-"
"Might I note, Captain," Garbeck said stiffly, "that I was not alone in that opinion. The command staff signed off on that report." "Yes, so I noticed. All of them... except Dr. Kosa." Garbeck laughed softly to herself. "Yes, well... Dr. Kosa de-murred. He just said something about 'no respect' and walked away." Then she looked back up at her commanding officer, standing there, her face a combination of rage, hurt, and annoy-ance. "Captain... my loyalty is to something bigger than any one person. It's to Starfleet. Look... to be honest-" "A refreshing change."
Garbeck ignored the jibe. "Admiral Jellico is not my favorite officer, either, all right? But he is an admiral. He does outrank me. He raised issues in regards to you, and I felt it was necessary to listen to what he was saying and act in accordance with his wishes."
"So you thought it appropriate to spy on me." Now Garbeck was starting to get angry. "I wasn't 'spying' on
you, Captain. It was nothing like that, and you know it. I di-vulged no personal confidences, betrayed no trusts. I did nothing except report what you did, freely and in front of other crewmembers, and put forward my own opinions that what you were doing was outside the parameters of our mission, and the regs. Why shouldn't I say that? You said it yourself. You admit-ted to it. You even seemed to take a sort of... of perverse pride in finding a way around them so that you could do what you wanted to do. Frankly, you seemed to back up, with your actions, every concern that the admiral voiced about you. What would you have had me do? Ignore it? There's a K-M if I ever heard one."
"A Kobayashi Maru, you mean? A no-win scenario?"
"Right, exactly. If I keep my silence, say less than what's on my mind, then I'm in direct violation of an admiral's wishes. If I am honest and forthcoming, then I'm going to upset my C.O. As I said, a no-win. Well, you know what, Captain?" she said, standing up. "If I'm going to err, it's going to be on the side of truth and in-tegrity. And if you feel that an accurate report of your actions puts you in a bad light, then perhaps you should consider questioning the actions rather than the person who reported them."
"What it makes me question, Number One, is how much of what we say gets pumped back to Admiral Jellico. How am I sup-posed to function if I feel that his proxy is in a room with me, questioning and second-guessing my every move?"
"There wouldn't be any second-guessing at all if the moves were solidly based in procedure and protocol," Garbeck reminded her. But then, in a slightly softer tone, she added, "However... I hope you do realize that anything you tell me in confidence re-mains that way. I wouldn't want you to think that I'm out to betray you or bring you down."
Shelby actually looked a bit regretful as she said, "Well, that's the problem, isn't it, Number One? It's rather impossible, isn't it, to control what someone thinks. Instead, you have to simply do what you feel is the best job you can, and deal with the conse-
quences." She hesitated, and then said, 'Tell me, Number One... do you feel any loyalty toward me at all?"
"You're my captain," Garbeck said immediately. "I have, and will continue to provide, all the loyalty and respect that the title entails."
"Alex," said Shelby, "don't you see that serving in Starfleet is about more than that? You shouldn't simply be loyal to titles. You have to be loyal to the people who hold those titles."
"As I said before, Captain... Starfleet is larger than any one person. It is that unity, that chain of command, that dedication to a single ideal, that makes us strong."
"Really." Shelby had turned and was heading for the door.
"Yes, Captain. Really."
Shelby paused in the now-open doorway, looked over her shoulder at Garbeck, and said sadly, "That's what the Borg say." And she walked out, leaving a thoughtful Garbeck behind.
RHEELA
the ride back to the farm had been, paradoxically, both quiet and noisy. Noisy, in that Moke was talking a mile a minute, and quiet, because neither Calhoun nor Rheela was speaking.
"And that was something, the way you hit Tapinza!" burbled Moke.
"Moke, must you mention it again?" Rheela was no longer making the slightest effort to hide her annoyance with the topic. Why should she? The boy was making her crazy, and she defi-nitely did not feel it an appropriate thing to talk about anyway. Unfortunately, Moke did not seem to agree.
"But it was one punch, Ma! One punch! One minute Tapinza was standing there, grabbing Calhoun's arm, and the next-"
"He could have simply told the Maester to release him," Rheela said primly, making sure to give a significant look of disapproval at Calhoun. Calhoun, riding his luukab, didn't appear to notice it, and instead looked resolutely forward.
But Moke wasn't having any of it. "Guys like dad don't tell people what to do! They make 'em do it-!"
"He's not your dad!" There. She'd said it. Moke wasn't going to be happy about it, but anything was preferable to allowing this... this charade to continue.
Upon being informed of this fact, Moke's entire response was to sniff disdainfully, as if the very notion that Calhoun wasn't who he said he was was inherently absurd. "That's silly. Why would he say it if it wasn't true?"
"You see?" Rheela said angrily to Calhoun. "You see what your interference has done?"
"It's enabled you to keep your home," Calhoun replied.
"It's led my son to believe that his mother lies to him! I don't want him to think such things! He's taking the word of a relative stranger over mine because he wants to believe so desperately-"
"Perhaps the reason he wants to believe," said Calhoun, "is be-cause you've given him nothing else to
believe in."
Frosting the air with her words, she said, "It's. None. Of. Your. Business."
Moke had no patience with any of the discussion back and forth. He had not taken his eyes off Calhoun, and now he said, "Are you my dad? Yes or no?"
At that simple, straightforward question, Calhoun reined up his luukab and looked, with a touch of sadness, at Moke. "Not to my knowledge... no."
At first there was no change at all in Moke's expression... and then his eyes started to tear up, and he looked with infinite tragedy at Calhoun. "Well, then... then why did you-?"
"Because I was trying to help."
"But we weren't asking for your help," said Rheela.
But before she could say more, to her astonishment, Moke turned on her. "Why didn't we?" he demanded, his childish voice rising in ire and timbre. "Why don't we? Why don't we ever ask for help?"
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