Fire On High (11 page)

"Of course," agreed Morgan neutrally.

"In fact, if I were to use my imagination—which would be a problem since, as you know, I am most unimaginative—I would almost think that it would bear a passing resemblance to your own . . . were you ever to smile."

She didn't turn back to look at him for a long moment. She was trying to figure out what to say, or even if she should simply say nothing at all. Finally, though, she turned to face him . . .

But he was gone.

She looked down and saw the slight trail of slime on the floor that always seemed to be left in the wake of Momidiums. It tended to evaporate very quickly, however, and so presented minimal risk of slipping.

Still, it was unusual for Kurdwurble to simply disappear that way. Perhaps he wanted to make a dramatic exit; or perhaps, she realized, he felt she simply wanted to be alone with her message.

She stared at the chip in her hand and considered grinding it into dust. But finally she realized that it would only prolong the inevitable. So she placed the chip back into the player and stepped back.

How could she not have known the face immediately? Granted it had been ten years, and granted
85

Peter David

she'd been barely a slip of a girl at the time, but even so, the face was almost entirely unchanged. A bit rounder, a bit more mature, but that was all.

What was she going to do now? What the hell was she going to do?

Steeling herself, she activated the message chip and the face of Roblin Lefler appeared on the screen once more.

"Hello, Morgan," it said just as it had before. "It's me, Cheshire. I imagine you're surprised to see me.

Imagine how surprised I am to see you. Imagine my amazement upon seeing that my dear mother, who died ten years ago, is hale and hardy and in one piece on the planet Momidium, deep in the heart of Thai-Ionian space."

Morgan wanted to look away, but she wasn't able to. She was fixated by the stare of her daughter: a bizarre combination of cold fury stoked with flames of anger.

"Well," continued Robin, "I'm sure you're curious as to everything that has happened since your . . . departure. Dad died, a little piece at a time, and finally all of him died. And I joined Starfleet, as you can see, living under the assumption that I was an orphan."

She paused a moment, appearing to give the matter a good deal more thought, and then she shrugged.

"That is more or less it, I guess. The
Excalibur
is on her way to pick you up, and then we'll take the opportunity to get reacquainted. I'm sure you're looking forward to that almost as much as I am. I don't know about you, but I . . . right now . . ." For a moment it seemed as if she were gong to lose her composure, but she kept her chin rock steady and maintained it. "I . . . right now . . . knowing that you
86

Star Trek
New
Frontier
disappeared . . . knowing that you abandoned Daddy and me, and that I mourned you when it was just a joke, and that the last ten years of my life have been a complete lie . . . Right now, mother, I wish I were dead. And I hope you're feeling the same way." And the screen blinked out.

Morgan slowly sank into a nearby chair, staring at the screen even though it was blank. Her fingers strayed over her chest as if she were trying to massage a stopped heart back to life, and as she did so she felt the coolness of the medallion she wore pressed against her. For the umpteenth time she wondered if it had all been worth it.

And then she leaned forward, still in the chair, and replayed the message, over and over again. And it was, of course, the last words that struck most closely to her heart.

I wish I were dead. And I hope you're feeling the
same way.

"Darling," she said to the screen, "for what it's worth, I do. And I just wish to God that it were that simple."

87

VI.

DR. SELAR STRETCHED ON HER BED in a manner similar to a cat, starting at her toes and slowly elongating her spine, her hands over her head and her fingers outstretched to the utmost. Then she let out a low sigh and shook herself slightly.

She simply lay there, the hissing of the shower in the next room only faintly making an impression on her as she gazed out the window of her quarters at the stars as they passed by. Not for the first time, she wished for some other view. The peaceful deserts of Vulcan would have gone down fairly well about then, or that glorious red sky. For that matter, although she had long ago become accustomed to the carefully maintained atmosphere aboard starships, there was part of her that missed the arid air of home.

She wondered if this was all part of
Pon Farr.

88

Star Trek New Frontier

Whether there would be some sort of internal drive that would try to get her to go home, now that she was . . .

Pregnant.

She felt a strange sensation on her face, muscles stretching that didn't ordinarily move, and there was a faint pressing together of her teeth. It took her a moment to fully understand what was happening to her, and she had to reach up to touch her face to verify the fact for herself.

Yes, there it was, big as life: a smile. A broad, beaming, totally unhidden smile wide across her face.

There was no logical reason for it, but there it was all the same. She was smiling so widely she felt as if it would split her face in half. She was relieved that no one was watching her, because it was extremely embarrassing. She fought the smile, commanding the muscles in her face to relax and smooth out, but it was there all the same. This was ridiculous. This wasn't her.

She heard the shower stop, and that immediately wiped the grin off her face. Furthermore, she suddenly felt a degree of modesty sweep over her. She had not felt that way for several days, particularly not whenever Burgoyne was around. Selar had been rather demonstrative with her lusts; in fact, to some extent she couldn't even remember everything that had happened. She could recall skin against skin, and Burgoyne looking down at her with a look of determined exhaustion on hir face, her fingernails digging into Burgoyne's back, and a lot of sweat—which was most unusual since Selar didn't customarily sweat—and heat like exploding suns that seemed to blast out of every pore of their bodies . . . and laughter. Her
89

Peter David

laughter, which was something she never heard. She realized how odd it was not to know what one's own laughter sounded like. She had no basis for comparison, really, and had no idea at all whether she had a good laugh, or a stupid laugh, or what.

But she had made love for days, having taken time off from her duties as CMO for medical reasons. That had certainly been a legitimate enough claim; the demands of
Pon Farr
had been overwhelming and a medical necessity: she would have died had she not satisfied them. She had felt almost hedonistic during that time. She had wanted Burgoyne constantly, and not just on a physical level. She had bonded with hir on an emotional level as well as physical, had felt a closeness to hir that she never would have thought possible. She felt complete trust in hir, that there was nothing she couldn't tell hir, that s/he . . .

But . . . but if Selar truly did feel that way, she wondered, then why had she pulled the blanket up under her chin? Why did she now feel a certain degree of dread that any moment Burgoyne would emerge from the bathroom? Why did she suddenly not have the faintest idea of what to say?

Something about readouts of the phase generators as they interfaced with the coils. Selar didn't care, or want to listen to it. In her state of urgency, it was simply unimportant. Burgoyne had been trying to tell her about it, but Selar had been too busy pulling off Burgoyne's clothes to pay all that much attention.

In any event, Burgoyne had been essentially doing double duty over the preceding days. S/he'd been with Selar, doing hir level best to satisfy the Vulcan's seemingly insatiable needs, and when Selar had fallen into exhausted sleep, Burgoyne had somehow man-90

Star Trek New Frontier

aged to haul hirself out and attend to engineering responsibilities. In a way, Selar couldn't help but admire hir stamina. Indeed, there was much that was admirable about Burgoyne. She'd heard about how Burgoyne, seized with righteous indignation, had gone after the individual who had been responsible for badly injuring Selar down on the surface of Zondar. It had been an amazing display of stamina, daring, bravery, and utter moral outrage. In the subsequent word-of-mouth retelling, Burgoyne's feat had only become more and more impressive. It had been the last element that had broken down Selar's resistance to Burgoyne's "charms." Selar had origi-nally thought to have the captain serve as her sexual partner, and he had been willing if not overly enthused. But Burgoyne had been making overtures to Selar since they had first met, and between Burgoyne's incredible display of devotion and her own hormones driving her to make a choice, well. . . Burgoyne had won out.

Yes, there were a lot of positive things to say about Burgoyne 172, the Hermat engineer of the
Excalibur.

The only thing was . . .

Selar wasn't sure if she was the one to say them. She wasn't sure how to phrase it, she wasn't sure how to put across the emotions that she was feeling because her old training, her old personality were starting to take hold and the concept of emotions were, once again, anathema to her.

If her mate had been a Vulcan, this would have been understood between the two of them. Indeed, he'd probably be feeling exactly the same way. But Burgoyne . . . Burgoyne was a Hermat. Burgoyne was someone who rejoiced in emotion and displays of
91

Peter David

affection, tendencies that had been so overwhelming to Selar at first that she had tried to do everything she could to distance herself from hir. Now she had gone in the other direction, becoming so intimate with hir that there was nowhere she could hide any part of herself. She felt . . . she didn't know what she felt.

She only knew that she wanted that emotional distance that would be automatically conferred upon her by a Vulcan partner. With Burgoyne, she had no idea where she stood.

At that moment, Burgoyne emerged from the bathroom. S/he was adjusting the top of hir uniform, and s/he was shaking hir head in puzzlement. S/he caught Selar looking at hir and smiled, displaying just a hint of hir fangs. "Feeling rested?"

Selar nodded, not taking her gaze from Burgoyne, her mind still racing as she tried to sort out the unwanted feelings tumbling through her mind.

"By the way, Selar . . . damnedest thing, I think I forgot to mention it . . . at least, I was going to mention it when I came by earlier, but we got a bit distracted . . ." S/he smiled at the memory, but then noticed that Selar didn't seem to be reacting one way or the other, so s/he continued. "That problem in Engineering? The one I was telling you about, with the energy wave that we couldn't figure out? It stopped. Just like that, no warning. We still hadn't quite figured out what it was, although I had some pretty far-fetched theories. And then for no reason at all, we couldn't detect it anymore. I've had my people working on it, but I—"

"I am pregnant," she interrupted.

That left Burgoyne speechless for a moment before
92

Star Trek New Frontier

s/he had a chance to compose hirself. "Are you . . .

are you certain?" s/he finally managed to get out.

She nodded slowly. "It is curious. My mother told me that she was aware of my existence from the moment I was fully conceived and gestation was under way. She claimed many Vulcan females were capable of that. I was . . . skeptical. It seemed most illogical to me, and I did not see how it was possible to have awareness of a being so ... so small. But she was correct. I sense it. I am aware of it as an extension of my being: separate, yet as one. It is a most
compelling
sensation."

Burgoyne couldn't take hir eyes off her. S/he strode to Selar's side, knelt down and said, "Can I . . . feel?"

"There is nothing to feel," Selar said matter-of-factly. "The infant will not be detectable to the touch for seven point five weeks. There is no logical reason for you to place your hand on my stomach."

"Maybe. I just wanted to anyway," Burgoyne said tonelessly.

Selar looked at hir with curiosity. "Burgoyne, we need to speak. There is much that we—"

"No, we don't need to," Burgoyne said. S/he rose, finishing fastening the top of hir uniform jacket.

"Because I know exactly what you're going to say, because it's what I was going to say."

"I do not quite comprehend," Selar told hir.

"Well, then, I'll make it clear to you. We've had our fun, Selar. Both done what we wanted and needed to do. And now it's time to move on. So we just end it clean. Go back to being crewmates, and that's all."

"Are you . . ." Selar couldn't quite believe she was hearing what she was hearing. "Are you saying that
93

Peter David

you are not interested in pursuing any further relationship?"