After a few minutes, the woman appeared to run out of things to mention. She regarded Simenon hopefully. “Is that enough for you to go on?”
Of course, he had something else to go on as well—the influence of the anomaly. But the captain had asked him not to mention that to Gerda Idun.
Apparently, he still didn’t trust her completely—a necessary stance, no doubt, for someone in Picard’s position. But Simenon had a feeling their guest’s being there was every bit the accident she claimed.
“It’ll have to be,” he told her. Then he turned to Picard. “If there’s nothing else, I have work to do.”
[112] “You’re dismissed,” the captain said.
Simenon nodded his head in Gerda Idun’s direction and then in Joseph’s. Then he got up and left the briefing room, determined to send the woman home.
Vigo sat with his back against a wall, imprisoned with a collection of metal containers in what looked like one of the installation’s storage rooms, and considered his mentor in a tawdry new light.
Obviously, Ejanix had turned traitor. For reasons Vigo desperately wished he understood, his friend had helped Kovajo and his Pandrilites seize a Starfleet installation.
Now Vigo knew why the intruders’ approach hadn’t been detected until it was too late. Ejanix had been working for them on the inside, tampering with sensors and door locks and maybe even using the installation’s computer to jam the weapons of its security force.
He knew also why Ejanix’s mood had seemed so dark. He had known what was coming and had to remain silent about it. The easiest course for him, under the circumstances, was simply to keep to himself as much as possible.
Vigo and anyone else who saw Ejanix thought he was being surly, a result of the pressure under which he’d been forced to work. But all the while, he was pursuing a separate agenda.
Vigo glanced in the direction of the open doorway, where the intruders had set up a transparent, electromagnetic barrier like the one Starfleet used in its brigs.
Like any weapons officer, he had an intimate knowledge of the way a Federation ship was constructed. Had [113] his captors simply closed the door, he might have gained access to an EPS relay in the wall and disabled part of the installation.
But the transparent barrier prevented that. With the intruders watching him at any given time, he couldn’t even consider pursuing a sabotage effort.
The weapons officer bowed his head. How foolish he had been. He should have known that something was wrong when he saw his friend acting so out of character.
But he had accepted the situation at face value, and now the entire installation was paying for his oversight.
Vigo was still berating himself when he heard his guards say something out in the corridor. A moment later, the electromagnetic barrier dropped and one of the other weapons officers went skidding into the room.
It was Sebring. And Kovajo had kept his word about punishing Vigo’s colleagues. The human had taken a hard beating, if the bruises on his face were any indication.
As Vigo moved to help his comrade, the intruders put the energy barrier back up again. Sebring waved away the possibility of assistance as he got to his feet.
“Are you all right?” Vigo asked.
Sebring winced as he explored an angry welt under his eye. “I’ll live.”
“Did they ask you about the shuttle?”
“Uh-huh. But I didn’t know what you did to it, so it was easy not to say. Have you seen Runj?”
Vigo shook his head. “No doubt, they’re giving him the same kind of treatment they gave you.”
“For his sake,” said the human, “I hope not.” He glanced through the barrier at their guards, who were [114] monitoring their conversation. “So who are those guys?”
Vigo shrugged. “I don’t know.”
But that wasn’t true. He knew one of them—and he knew also that he needed to say so. The information might prove useful to Sebring at some point.
“Actually,” he amended, “Ejanix seems to be one of them. I believe he’s been working with them all along.”
Sebring looked at him. “Ejanix ... ?” He made a sound of disgust. “That must be how they got in here so easily.”
Vigo nodded. “So it would appear.” He sighed. “He was my friend ... or so I thought.”
“Some friend,” said Sebring.
Vigo wanted to disagree with his colleague’s tone. However, Ejanix had made it clear where his loyalties lay, and it wasn’t with his former student.
The question was ... why? What could possibly have compelled Ejanix to align himself with the likes of Kovajo?
The question burned in Vigo like fire.
Chapter Nine
AS JOSEPH AND GERDA IDUN made their way to the mess hall, she fell silent for a moment. Then she said, “Your engineer seems to be a most thorough individual.”
“He’s thorough, all right,” the security officer agreed. “He also happens to be one of the smartest and most resourceful people in his field.”
“That’s good to hear,” said Gerda Idun, “considering my fate is in his hands.”
Joseph looked at her, remembering her remark about the Gnalish in her universe. “So there’s no Simenon on your Stargazer?”
“Unfortunately, no. But I wish there was. I’m sure he would be a help to us in any number of ways.”
“He’s certainly a help to us,” said Joseph. “Even if he isn’t the easiest guy to get along with sometimes.”
Gerda Idun laughed. “I won’t tell him you said that.”
[116] “Thanks,” he said. “The last thing you want to do is tick off your ship’s engineer. The next thing you know, the temperature in your quarters drops sixty degrees and the intercom is piping in Vulcan love poetry.”
Gerda Idun laughed again. “I’ve never heard any Vulcan poetry myself, but it doesn’t sound appealing.”
“Believe me,” said Joseph, “that’s an understatement.”
As they continued down the corridor, he was reminded that he had been meaning to ask her something. This seemed like as good a time as any.
“Tell me,” Joseph said, “is there a me on your ship?”
Gerda Idun looked at him. “A Pug Joseph? I’ll say there is. He’s the second officer, a man known for his efficiency, his resourcefulness, and his courage.”
“Really?” he said. “I mean ... wow. That’s great.” Efficiency, resourcefulness, and courage. He liked the sound of that. “I mean really great.”
He smiled the rest of the way to the mess hall.
Nikolas hadn’t been forced to look very hard for the newest Asmund on the ship.
It was true that she didn’t have a communicator badge, so the computer couldn’t readily identify her whereabouts. But Joseph had been assigned to keep the woman constant company, and he very definitely had a badge.
Which was why Nikolas had decided to visit the mess hall at a time when he would normally have been getting some sleep for his next shift.
Catching sight of Joseph and his charge, the ensign [117] waited for his chance. He saw it when Gerda Idun left the replicator slot with her food, leaving Joseph to punch in his order.
Moving quickly and unobtrusively to the security chief’s side, Nikolas said, “Lieutenant?”
Joseph turned to him. “Mr. Nikolas. How’s it going?”
“Just fine,” said the ensign. “But it would be going better if you could do me a favor.”
The security officer looked at him askance. “What kind of favor are we talking about?”
Nikolas put his hand on Joseph’s shoulder and leaned closer to him. “I would really like to get to know our transporter guest a little better.”
“Gerda Idun?” Joseph chuckled. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up, if I were you. If everything works out the way the captain’s hoping, she won’t be with us much longer.”
“Even so,” said Nikolas, “I’d love the chance to talk with her. What do you think?”
J
oseph frowned. “I don’t know. I’m not supposed to let her out of my sight.”
“Then don’t. Just tell her you need to speak to someone for a moment and sit down at the next table or something. It would really mean a lot to me.”
The security officer shrugged. “I guess it would be all right. Just don’t discuss the ship, all right? Or anything that might be considered strategic information?”
“You’ve got my word,” Nikolas assured him.
Joseph seemed to weigh the matter a moment longer. Then he said, “Okay. You’ve got five minutes with her.”
[118] Nikolas saw the security officer go over to Gerda Idun and say something. Then Joseph gestured for the ensign to join them, which he did with unabashed eagerness.
“Mr. Joseph tells me you’re curious about the place I come from,” said Gerda Idun. “He asked me if I wouldn’t mind speaking with you while he went over something with Mr. Paxton.”
“And she said she wouldn’t mind at all,” Joseph added. “Anyway, I’ll be right back.”
Nikolas nodded. “Thanks.” He looked at Gerda Idun as he sat down opposite her. “And thank you.”
“For what?” she asked. “I haven’t told you anything yet.”
“For that smile you gave me in the corridor,” he said. “It was the nicest one I’ve seen in a long time.”
Gerda Idun’s eyes narrowed with mock suspicion. “In my universe, that’s not the kind of line that would kick off a scientific discussion.”
“Well,” he said, “maybe my interest in where you come from isn’t entirely scientific.”
“We aren’t exactly shy, are we?”
“Am I offending you?”
She shook her head. “No. I like a man who’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind.”
“That’s me,” he told her. “Full speed ahead and damn the photon torpedoes.”
“And have you ever had occasion to regret that approach?”
“Plenty of times,” Nikolas admitted. “But I’m also not the kind of person who learns from his mistakes.”
Gerda Idun favored him with another smile. “We [119] have a saying in my universe. ‘Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.’ ”
“We have a similar saying at the Academy,” he told her. “ ‘Those who fail History are doomed to repeat it.’ ”
She winced. “You know, that might have been the worst joke I’ve ever heard.”
He shrugged. “They can’t all be gems.”
“With that kind of attitude, you’ll never make captain.”
“If I were the captain,” he said, “I’d be up on the bridge right now, making decisions that could affect the lives of the entire crew. I’m much happier right where I am.”
Gerda Idun laughed. “You’re a very silly man.”
“Who’s not afraid to say what’s on his mind. And you like that, remember?”
She laughed again. “Yes, I like that.”
They talked a little while longer—about Nikolas mostly, as it turned out—but it wasn’t all silliness. He told her about Earth, how and where he grew up, and the trouble he’d had fitting in at the Academy.
Every so often, when the conversation got a little too serious, he made her laugh again. After all, it was her smile that had drawn him to her in the first place.
Finally, after considerably more than five minutes, the most generous Pug Joseph came over and told Nikolas his business with Paxton had been resolved.
The ensign nodded, however reluctantly. As he got up, he turned to Gerda Idun. “It was great talking with you. We’ll have to do it again sometime.”
Her eyes seemed to lose their focus for a second, as if she had just remembered something important. Then [120] she met his gaze again and said, “You know where to find me.” He did indeed.
The Stargazer’s weapons officer had paced his prison perhaps a hundred times before the guards finally lowered the barrier and threw Runj inside.
Vigo and Sebring moved to the Vobilite’s side. Like his colleagues before him, Runj had been worked over thoroughly, his face a mask of dark red bruises.
“They asked me about the shuttle,” he rasped, a swollen lip joining his tusks as an impediment to speech.
“I know,” said Vigo, regretting what Runj had gone through. “They asked Sebring and me as well.”
“Whatever you did to it,” Sebring told the Pandrilite, “it must be driving them crazy.”
Their captors couldn’t even transmit any classified data to their mother ship—not with the magnetic-storm layer raging above them. It gave Vigo a small measure of satisfaction that they had stymied the intruders, but it didn’t make up for the pain Sebring and Runj had endured.
The human cast a glance at their guards. “What do you think they’re going to do next?”
Vigo knew what he meant. The intruders had gone through all three of them and failed to get what they needed. They would have to step up their efforts.
And as the one who had carried out the sabotage, he was the one on whom they would most likely focus their attentions.
[121] “I don’t know,” he said, in answer to Sebring’s question. But he had a feeling he would find out.
Nikolas was on his way to the bridge to take his turn at Vigo’s weapons console when he heard a familiar voice call his name.
Turning, he saw Obal hustling to catch up with him. “Hey, buddy,” the ensign said, slowing his pace, “what’s the good word?”
He was surprised at how cheerful he sounded. But then, he had reason to be that way.
“Nikolas,” said Obal, as he finally pulled up alongside his friend, “I’ve been looking for you.”
“How come?”
“I wanted to speak with you about Lieutenant Asmund. That is, the Lieutenant Asmund who beamed aboard.”
Nikolas shrugged. “What about her?”
“I stopped by the mess hall earlier on my way to security and saw you talking to her. She was laughing—apparently, at something you had just said.”
“Is there a regulation against laughing?” the ensign asked good-naturedly. “Because if there is, I think even the captain might have violated it.”
Obal sighed. “You know there’s no such regulation. And it isn’t the laughter itself that makes me concerned. It’s what it could lead to.”
Nikolas was touched that his pal was looking out for him. But as usual, Obal was going a little overboard.
“My friend,” said the security officer, “are you certain that it’s wise to become friendly with this woman?”
Nikolas laughed. “Obal, I just talked to her.”
[122] “Yes,” the Binderian conceded. “And Romeo merely talked to Juliet.”
Nikolas looked at him. “How do you know about Romeo and Juliet?”
“Lieutenant Kastiigan recommended the play to me. He saw it in San Francisco, when he was at the Academy.”
Nikolas chuckled. “Really.”
“He told me it was a most engaging drama, one of the best he had ever seen performed. He especially admired the ending, in which the lovers perish.”
“Sounds like Kastiigan,” said Nikolas, stopping at a turbolift station and tapping the metal plate beside it.
Obal stopped too. “But it is not Lieutenant Kastiigan I am worried about. It is you.”
The ensign dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “There’s no reason to worry, pal. She’s not Gerda or Idun. She’s from another universe, for godsakes.”
“Which is exactly my point,” Obal said. “You do not know her very well. Your attraction to her cannot be anything but a physical one.”
Nikolas was about to ask his friend what was wrong with that. But before he could get the words out, he realized Obal was wrong. It wasn’t just a physical attraction.
Sure, it might have started out that way. But somewhere in those few short minutes they’d had in the mess hall, it had become something more than that.
“Listen,” he said, “I
appreciate your concern. But don’t worry. I’ve got everything under control.”
“I don’t think—” Obal started to protest.
But before he could finish, the turbolift doors opened, revealing a compartment full of ship’s personnel.
[123] “Sorry,” said Nikolas, backing into the lift. “Gotta run.” And with a wave of apology, he watched the sliding doors cut off his view of a very frustrated-looking Binderian.
Gerda circled to her left, her open hands moving in front of her, her legs spread shoulder-wide for balance—while directly in front of her, Idun did precisely the same thing.
It wasn’t unusual for them to opt for the same stance in their sparring sessions there in the gym. In fact, Gerda would have been surprised if they had not occasionally opted for the same stance.
After all, they had been trained by the same man—their adopted father, who over a lifetime had made himself an expert at a variety of Klingon martial arts. As a result, their strategies were the same, their execution was the same—even their weaknesses tended to be the same.
That was what made their sparring sessions so intriguing for Gerda. It wasn’t like fighting an enemy so much as it was like fighting herself.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t enjoy the exercise as much as she usually did. She still had Gerda Idun on her mind, and she couldn’t seem to stop thinking about the woman no matter how hard she tried.
“W’heiya!” Idun snarled suddenly, and launched a fist at her sister’s face.
It wasn’t Idun’s best move—far from it—and yet Gerda only narrowly avoided it. And when she tried to strike back with a series of kicks, Idun danced out of the way almost effortlessly.
[124] Gerda bit her lip and resolved to do better.
Moving into a dafokh’rit posture—her adopted father’s favorite—she came at Idun with one hand held high and the other low. When she got within striking range, she kicked at her sister’s chin and followed with a long high-hand jab.
But Idun took a step back at just the right moment and both blows fell short of their target. Obviously, she had seen the sequence coming.
Again, Gerda executed the maneuver, attempting to put more snap into it. But again, her sister had no trouble slipping out of harm’s way.
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