Death in Winter

by Michael Jan Freidman

  Geordi felt as if a weight had been placed on his shoulders—or rather re placed. “Right.”

  Ever since the captain told them about the doctor’s disappearance, the engineer had done his grudging best to put his concerns about his friend aside. After all, he had a duty to make sure the ship was outfitted correctly. A single oversight could cost a crewman his life some day.

  He couldn’t do anything about Doctor Crusher. However, he could make sure the Enterprise-E was everything it needed to be.

  Worf, on the other hand, wasn’t an engineer. He didn’t have as many critical decisions on his hands, which left his mind free to dwell on Beverly’s plight.

  “The captain should never have gone after her without us,” the Klingon insisted, his voice echoing raucously throughout the mess hall.

  “He didn’t have a say in the matter,” Geordi noted calmly. “Apparently, Starfleet Command was pretty clear about that.”

  Worf’s lip curled in disgust. “Every last official at Starfleet Command should be dipped in honey and spread-eagled naked on a mound of fire ants.”

  Geordi was tempted to agree. He and his colleagues from the Enterprise-E were still a family, no matter what anyone thought. Data might be gone and the rest of them might have been dispersed to the four corners of the galaxy, but that didn’t mean they cared any less about each other.

  If Beverly had gone incommunicado in the midst of a clandestine mission, it wasn’t the captain’s business alone. Geordi and Worf should have been brought in on the matter, and their friends on the Starship Titan as well.

  Worf made a sound of exasperation. “We do not even know the nature of Doctor Crusher’s mission.”

  In recent years, Captain Picard had shared everything with them. But all he said this time was that Beverly was missing in action, and that he had been asked to lend a hand. Then he boarded a shuttle for parts unknown.

  “What if the captain goes missing as well?” Worf asked. “Will they send us then?”

  Geordi turned to an observation port and peered out at the stars. “I’d feel better if I just knew where she was.”

  “You would not feel better,” Worf shot back. “Because if you knew her whereabouts, you would be tempted to join the captain and provide assistance.”

  “Me?” said the engineer, turning to look back over his shoulder. “What about you?”

  Worf lifted his bearded chin. “I learned much in serving as a diplomat. Restraint, for example.”

  Geordi looked at his friend askance. “So if you knew where Doctor Crusher and the captain were, you wouldn’t go charging in after them?”

  Worf’s eyes smoldered. “I said that I had learned restraint, not cowardice. Knowing what I know now, I would take a moment to learn about the situation at hand—to immerse myself in its complexities, to appreciate the motivations of all involved. Then I would go charging in.”

  Geordi couldn’t help smiling a little. His friend really had learned something in his stint as a diplomat.

  “The question,” said Worf, “is whether you would follow your impulses and accompany me.”

  The engineer felt an unexpected chill climb his spine. “We’re still talking about the hypothetical here, aren’t we?”

  Worf’s brow furrowed. “I do not know. Are we?”

  Geordi looked askance at his friend. “You mean you’d go after the captain? For real?”

  The Klingon hesitated for a moment—but just a moment. “Given the opportunity, yes.”

  “Come on,” said Geordi, trying to inject some reason into the conversation. “Going after Captain Picard without official sanction—it could get us court-martialed.”

  “Without question,” said Worf. “But,” he continued in a softer yet more emotionally charged tone, “there are more important things than one’s rank.”

  Geordi couldn’t argue with that. Beverly wasn’t just another reported missing-in-action. She was his friend, his comrade, someone in whom he had confided things he would have told no one else. She had given him strength when he needed it, stood by him through his greatest trials.

  Hell—she had saved his life.

  What if she’s really dead? asked a voice inside him.

  No, he insisted stubbornly. The captain hadn’t believed it and neither would he. Beverly might have been gentle and caring, but she was tougher than most people might believe.

  Not dead, he told himself firmly. Alive. But clearly, operating in perilous conditions, or the report wouldn’t have gone out in the first place. And if that’s so, the captain may need a hand getting her back.

  Geordi looked around. There was still the question of the retrofit, which had a long way to go. “I’d hate to leave the rehab crew by itself.”

  Worf rolled his eyes. “Do you think everything would grind to a halt without you?”

  The engineer started to protest that it might.

  “The truth is,” Worf said peremptorily, “you could be gone for days before anyone realized it.”

  “Maybe not days…”

  “You understand my point.”

  Geordi realized he couldn’t argue that either. The retrofit could go on without him. All he had to do was leave someone in charge to answer any questions that came up.

  “Well?” said Worf.

  Geordi whistled softly. It was a crazy idea, no doubt about it. Maybe the craziest he had ever considered.

  But for Beverly, he would do it.

  “I’m in,” he said. “But first, we’ve got to find out where the captain went.”

  The Klingon nodded. “Any ideas?”

  Geordi had a few of them. After a couple of decades in Starfleet, a lot of people owed him favors. It seemed like a good time to cash in on them.

  4

  AS PICARD’S SHUTTLE SOARED OVER A SURF-WREATHED beach, he got a better look at the lush expanse of forest that stretched beyond it. Nestled within the greenery was a low, clay-colored compound.

  “That’s it?” he asked.

  “That’s it,” his pilot confirmed.

  She headed for the compound, found an open patch of relatively level ground, and gently set their craft down on the grass. Then she turned to the captain and said, “Go ahead, sir.”

  It would have been quicker and easier for Picard to simply beam down from Pug Joseph’s cargo vessel. But like many high-security installations in the Federation, the penal settlement was protected by a transparent but highly active energy field that made site-to-site transport impossible.

  Picard moved aft through the shuttle, pressed the hatch control on the bulkhead, and watched the door slide open. It admitted a warm, pine-scented breeze and an unexpectedly raucous chorus of bird cries. Stepping outside, the captain shaded his eyes against the afternoon sun and looked around.

  A stocky, dark-haired officer was walking out to greet him, the buildings behind her barely visible through the trees. Her smile was so big she seemed to squint.

  “Good to meet you,” the officer said when she got close enough to be heard over the birdsong. She extended her hand. “I’m Monica Esperanza.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” said Picard.

  “Please,” said Esperanza, “follow me.”

  The captain allowed her to lead him up a path that meandered among the trees. It was cool there, shaded as it was from the sun, and the fragrance of pine was even stronger.

  “How is Doctor Greyhorse?” Picard asked.

  “Eager to see you,” said Esperanza.

  “Yes,” said Picard, “I imagine he would be. But that is not what I am wondering about.”

  The woman turned to him. “You want to know if it’s wise for him to participate in a mission of this magnitude. Or for that matter, any mission at all.”

  The captain nodded. “That is correct.”

  “Well,” said Esperanza, “I’m the one who cleared Doctor Greyhorse for Admiral Edrich, so that should tell you something. The doctor has come a long way, Captain. He’s no longer the man who tried
to kill those people on your ship.”

  “I am pleased to hear that,” said Picard. “After all, Greyhorse was my friend and a great talent as a physician. What’s more, there is no mission without him. But we will be in constant peril on Kevratas. If Doctor Greyhorse is likely to buckle under the strain, I need to know that in advance.”

  “I understand your concern,” said Esperanza. “However, in my professional opinion, Doctor Greyhorse is no more likely to do that now than when he served on the Stargazer.”

  It made Picard feel better to hear that.

  “Have you ever had occasion to visit a penal settlement?” Esperanza asked.

  “I have not,” said the captain. It was something he supposed he should be thankful for. “It is more pleasant here than I would have imagined.”

  Indeed, it was the sort of place he might have chosen for a picnic, had he been inclined to have one, and if there were someone to join him. An idyllic locale, he thought, without question. But it was still a prison.

  And Greyhorse had spent the last fourteen years of his life there, enjoying only those limited freedoms he could earn by cooperating with his therapists. A man who had traveled the vast, majestic distances between stars, confined to such a small and unchanging place…

  It was difficult for Picard to imagine. Almost as difficult to imagine as what the doctor had done to compel the Federation to put him there.

  “When the compound was originally built,” said Esperanza, “more than a century ago, it wasn’t nearly this pleasant. Prisoners—as they were called then—lived in small, stark cells instead of freestanding cottages. Security systems were much more visible. The overall atmosphere was one of mistrust.”

  As she said that, she and the captain emerged from the embrace of the forest and gained an unrestricted view of the compound. He could see now that it was actually a collection of unconnected buildings with smooth, silicon-composite walls and large, airy windows.

  “Things have changed,” Picard observed.

  “Indeed they have,” said his guide.

  Walking up to the first building in their path, Esperanza ascended a series of steps and went through an arched entranceway. Picard followed her into an anteroom furnished with exotic flowers, leathery-looking furniture, and evidence of the tribal culture that had originated in this part of the world.

  There was a security officer stationed at a desk to one side of the entrance. At a sign from Esperanza, he tapped a command into the panel in front of him. Then he looked up at Picard and said, “He’ll be right out, sir.”

  “Thank you,” said the captain.

  As a student of archaeology, he had some interest in the Maori artifacts on the walls, and under other circumstances would have inspected them more closely. But at the moment, he was too eager to see Greyhorse.

  After what seemed like a very long time, an interior door slid aside and two men walked into the room. One was a security officer whom Picard had never seen before. The other had once been his chief medical officer on the Stargazer.

  Picard didn’t know what he had expected to see. Greyhorse had been incarcerated for so long, it wouldn’t have surprised the captain if the doctor had been diminished in some way.

  However, Greyhorse was every bit as impressive as Picard remembered, his shoulders jutting like boulders from a mountainside, his features as proud as if they had been chiseled from stone. And despite all he had done and tried to do, the captain was still glad to see him.

  “Doctor Greyhorse,” he said.

  Greyhorse didn’t smile. But then, he never had, not in all the time Picard had known him.

  “You look well,” the doctor observed in his deep, cultured voice.

  Truthfully, the captain wouldn’t feel well until he had found Beverly. But he accepted the remark without objection.

  “Is Mister Joseph with you?” asked Greyhorse.

  “No,” said the captain. “Mister Joseph—Pug—is in orbit, awaiting our arrival. It appears we will all three be working together again.”

  Greyhorse nodded. “Just like old times. An unlikely prospect, I grant you, and yet one I eagerly embrace.”

  Picard couldn’t help smiling a little at the doctor’s enthusiasm. “Come on then. Let’s not keep Pug waiting.”

  Decalon gazed out the observation port, mesmerized by what he saw there. Stars, he thought. So many stars…

  One of them, too far off to discern with the naked eye, bathed Romulus in its warmth. Decalon remembered watching that star diminish behind him as he made his way to a new life in the Federation, certain that he was seeing it for the last time. And yet, in a few days he would be watching it wax larger again, welcoming its native son to its embrace as if he had never left.

  As if nothing had changed.

  It was a disconcerting thought. I have changed, Decalon insisted. I am not the man who left the Empire more than a decade ago. I am calmer now, more contemplative.

  I am at peace.

  In truth, he was more like a Vulcan now, though he had mixed feelings about that association. One could reject the Empire and all it represented without aligning oneself with the particular principles of Vulcan logic. Surak, wise as he was, did not have a monopoly on serenity.

  Ignoring the stars for a moment, Decalon focused on his reflection in the observation port. As far as he could tell, he didn’t look any different from the day he had left Romulus. The crow’s-feet at the limits of his eyes were no deeper, the loose skin at the corners of his mouth no looser.

  Appearances, he thought, quoting a Romulan adage, are the glimmer of sun on water. It was one of the few bits of homeworld wisdom to which Decalon still clung.

  I am different, he insisted. I must be. Otherwise, what was the point of leaving?

  As he thought that, he saw someone else’s reflection loom behind him. It was that of Captain Momosaki, the commanding officer of the Starship Zodiac.

  “This must be difficult for you,” Momosaki observed, smiling in apparent sympathy.

  Decalon shrugged his shoulders. “A small adjustment.”

  “It’s understandable,” said Momosaki. “You risked your life in order to leave Romulus.”

  “Others risked their lives as well,” the Romulan noted.

  Indeed, dozens of his people had died helping to set up the network that would smuggle Decalon and others like him out of the Empire. And it wasn’t just Romulans who had given their lives. Starfleet officers had done so as well.

  Decalon had thought many times about their sacrifices, their courage. They never knew the identities of those whose lives they were saving, and yet they were willing to put everything on the line for them.

  It was the reason Decalon had agreed to assist in the mission at hand. If those others could place themselves in deadly jeopardy for a stranger, how could he fail to return the favor? Especially when the Starfleet admiral who approached him had asked so nicely?

  To that point, Decalon had been quite content living in the enclave established for his people on Santora Prime. He had become a senator, albeit in a very small and humble imitation of the homeworld Senate. He had grown a summer squash garden that was the envy of his neighbors.

  Then Edrich had come to him and described the circumstances. Captain Picard, he said, needed Decalon’s help. And Picard, along with his Betazoid counselor, had been instrumental in delivering that first trio of Romulan defectors to freedom nearly fifteen years earlier, paving the way for dozens of other defections.

  Including that of Decalon himself.

  “Are you familiar,” he asked, “with the writings of a human named Thomas Wolfe?”

  Momosaki thought for a moment. “You Can’t Go Home Again? That Thomas Wolfe?”

  “One of my neighbors on Santora Prime brought his work to my attention. I found it most eloquent when I read it—and even more so now, considering the circumstances in which I find myself.”

  “Don’t think of it as home,” said Momosaki. “It’s just where your mi
ssion happens to be taking you.”

  It was an interesting approach, Decalon had to admit. But he doubted that it would work. Romulans were not transient by nature. They became attached to their domiciles in a way it was difficult for non-Romulans to understand.

  Nonetheless, to be polite to Momosaki, Decalon said, “I will remember that.”

  Eborion entered the stone chamber beneath his family’s palace early enough not to be late, but late enough not to be confused with someone who was concerned about what others thought of him.

  Faces turned in the soft, artificial light, all of them familiar. But then, each of them bore at least a passing resemblance to Eborion—not surprising, perhaps, considering they were all aunts, uncles, and close cousins.

  The nobleman did a quick count. Apparently, he was the last of the sixteen in the family council to have arrived. Only fitting, he thought, for one who has the ear of the praetor.

  Clabaros, the eldest of Eborion’s three long-faced uncles, second in age only to Eborion’s long-deceased father, cast a vaguely reproachful glance at his nephew. It was Clabaros who had, in his brother’s stead, taken it upon himself to tutor young Eborion in the ways of Romulan society.

  “Thank you for coming,” Clabaros grumbled in his courtly but understated way, his voice echoing slightly among the stones. “If you will be seated, we can begin.”

  Eborion’s uncles, aunts, and cousins took their places around the long, crimson-and-cream-colored marble table that had served their family for hundreds of years. Though a stranger might not have noticed, each seat represented a different level of importance in the family hierarchy.

  Claboros, for instance, sat at the head of the table, at its northern extremity. His brothers Rijanus and Obrix sat on one side of him and his sister Cly’rana sat on the other.

  Cly’rana, a great beauty by all accounts, alone seemed to bear no resemblance to the rest of the family. She was either a throwback to some recessive set of genes or the product of an extramarital dalliance, as was rumored about the capital. Even if the latter explanation was based in fact, it had not diminished her standing in the family’s stone chamber.