Excalibur #3: Restoration Page 4

  I started to lunge for him, but he slid the door shut and, instinctively, I yanked my hands back before the closing portal could sever my fingers. The last view I had of him, just before the door closed him off from view, was Mac, mouthing two words to me.

  I threw myself against the door of the lifepod, trying to will it open, trying to get back to him. I look back upon my behavior and can only feel relief that no one else saw it. It was not remotely appropriate for a Starfleet officer. I should have handled it far better. I have been in life and death situations, after all. I am not anxious to die, I do not embrace it . . . but I am not terrified of it, either. It’s simply something that happens, sooner or later.

  But, at that moment, if I was going to die, I wanted to die with him. And if one of us was going to live, I wanted it to be him. I had placed his welfare above mine. On some level, I can argue that that was exactly the right attitude to have, because part of a first officer’s job is to protect the captain under any and all circumstances. But there was more to it than that, and I can admit it to myself now that he’s gone. He has to be gone, because there was no doubt that the ship was destroyed. I know, because I saw that momentary flash of white, and then came the impact of the shock waves. Odd. They taught us that shock waves don’t travel in space. Well, these certainly did, sending my pod tumbling end over end.

  At that moment, though, I didn’t care whether I survived. In retrospect, of course, I’m glad I did, but right then, it mattered very little to me.

  Because I had come to a self-realization, you see.

  I loved him. It was something that I had tried to ignore, tried to fight against during all our time together. But I had a good, long time to come to terms with it. Floating there in the lifepod, waiting for the rescue beacon that was sent out to Starfleet to bring a ship to retrieve us from the depths of space.

  And who should it be but, naturally—naturally—the Enterprise. It took some time for the great flagship of the fleet to arrive, but when it did, it brought us all aboard with its usual efficiency. I debriefed Captain Picard on what had happened—the first of many times that I would tell the tale of the Excalibur’s final moments.

  Picard looked tremendously saddened. He kept it in, of course, with that customary reserve that he has perfected. But I could tell that he was upset. And why shouldn’t he have been? After all, he was the one who had first discovered a young warrior named M’k’n’zy of Calhoun and convinced him that he had a place in Starfleet. For that matter, it was Picard who had tracked down Mac and convinced him to return to Starfleet after he had resigned years earlier over the Grissom incident.

  “I am sorry for your loss, Commander,” Picard told me after I had lapsed into silence.

  “And I, for yours,” I replied, acknowledging his long-standing bond with Calhoun.

  I had mentioned to Picard that Mac had mouthed something to me just before the door closed. It was a fact that I would never mention to anyone else, because Picard asked me about it specifically, and I realized that others would do the same. So I didn’t repeat it to anyone else, because it wasn’t germane to the ship’s destruction . . . but I told Picard, because he asked.

  “He said, ‘I love you,’ ” I told him.

  “Indeed.” Despite the seriousness of the moment, Picard nevertheless smiled slightly at that. “Well, that’s typical of Mac, isn’t it? Master of the well-timed bon mot.”

  “I suppose he didn’t want to risk hearing my not saying it back,” I said.

  Picard considered that for a moment, and then suggested, “Or else . . . he wanted to give himself incentive to come back and hear you say it.”

  I decided I liked Picard’s interpretation better than mine.

  Shelby listened to the entire entry once through, and then a second time. It was the second time that she lost it, the tears streaming down her face, sobs racking her body. She was furious with herself for what she perceived as weakness, and furious with Calhoun for going off and getting himself killed and leaving her behind.

  She reached under the bed. She hadn’t been able to bring herself to keep it out on open display in her cabin. She didn’t want to have to explain it to anyone who might ask. But now, from its secure place beneath her bunk, she pulled out the short sword that was the last remaining artifact—aside from her heart—that marked the passage through the world of Mackenzie Calhoun. Tears fell on the blade, intermingling with the slight discoloration of dried blood that still remained, no matter how many times he had polished it.

  “Damn you,” she muttered, although it wasn’t clear—even to herself—just who she was cursing. Herself . . . or the deceased captain known as Mackenzie Calhoun.

  MOKE

  MOKE WAS FEELING RATHER PROUD of himself. He had managed to slip out of the house yet again without his mother noticing, and considered that to be nothing short of a personal triumph. There were days when the boy felt as if he was suffocating under his mother’s watchful eye. It was more than watchful; it was practically omnipresent. It seemed that she was obsessed with being protective of him, and that was fine, as far as it went. But certainly he should be entitled to some latitude. He was getting bigger, after all, not smaller; older, not younger. It just wasn’t fair that his ma kept such close tabs on him. It wasn’t as if they lived somewhere with wild beasts waiting to assault him around every turn.

  Moke had a most impressive sense of direction. He could walk and keep on walking until his home was little more than a speck in the distance, and still find his way back with absolutely certainty. He was embarking on just such an excursion now, his hands tucked serenely in his pockets, his lips puckered in an aimless whistle. The sun was beating down on him, just as it did everyone else, but Moke wasn’t remotely as bothered by it as others were. From the boy’s attitude and generally relaxed demeanor, it was clear that he was feeling utterly at ease in the infernally dry and overheated afternoon.

  A few days ago, he’d been watching his mother speaking with the sailskipper man . . . what had his name been? Oh, yes. Tapinza. He seemed nice enough, but Moke’s mother didn’t seem to like him. Moke couldn’t help but wonder why. He had asked his mother about it. First, she had scolded him gently for spying on her, and then she had simply said, “Sometimes adults just don’t get on well with one another.” Clearly she expected that to be the end of the discussion, and Moke had not been able to find a good way to get her to continue it. So he had let it drop, albeit reluctantly.

  Was Tapinza his father? Moke didn’t think so. There was something about the way that his mother looked at him that made it seem as if they were strangers somehow. Moke was still a bit fuzzy on where babies came from, or how mothers and fathers produced them, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that—at the very least—they had to be familiar with each other on some level. Tapinza came across to Moke like someone that his mother had kept at arm’s length for—well, forever.

  He had recurring dreams about having a father. In those dreams, his dad was always tall and straight and proud, and he had eyes like storms and a smile as gleaming as the morning sun. When he laughed, it was deep and from the belly, like thunder rolling across the plains. Moke liked him instantly, and knew that they would always, always be together. It would be Moke and his ma and dad, and everyone would like them. They’d go into town whenever they wanted, and people would not give him those odd looks that people always did.

  There was an oasis nearby, although, from an actual water point of view, it wasn’t much of an oasis. Most of the plant life was brown and unappealing. However, there were a few rock formations that Moke enjoyed climbing, so it was one of his favorite places to go. One of his secret places, which he never even told his mother about, because a guy is entitled to keep some things private.

  He got to the oasis and, even as he started to clamber up one of the rock formations, he wondered why it was that people always seemed to be muttering about his mother and him. What had they ever done to anybody? His mom made water for them, after all. Or at least she encouraged it to rain, and the clouds seemed to listen, for the most part, although sometimes she was luckier than other times. The problem was that she usually could only make it rain for a short while, and the effort cost her mightily. She would take long naps, although she showed an almost supernatural ability to rouse herself to wakefulness any time that Moke made the slightest attempt to depart the domicile. But this most recent endeavor appeared to have taken more out of her than usual, perhaps because there had been so little raw weather material to work with. Because she had been sleeping so soundly, Moke had been able to follow his own instincts and set off on his own little adventure.

  He had toyed with the notion of going into town and asking people directly why they had a problem with his mom and him. Whenever he showed an interest in doing so, his mother would tell him not to try and start trouble. Except that he didn’t see it as trying to start it so much as he was trying to forestall future problems. He couldn’t get his mother to see it that way, though. He had mentioned that frustration to Maester Tapinza during their time together, clinging to the sailskipper as the wind carried them across the plains. The Maester had told him that his mother was simply a woman, and all women were flawed, but that eventually the Maester would make it better. He didn’t say how or when; he just said he would. Moke just wished that it would be sooner rather than later.

  And that was when Moke let out an alarmed scream.

  A firm hand had grabbed him by the back of his shirt and hauled him off the rock he had been climbing so fiercely that he had scraped himself up as he went. Moke’s feet pinwheeled in midair, and then he was whirled around, still in the air, and slammed up against the nearest rock. He let out a choked sob and looked into a twisted and furious face that was the single mo
st frightening he’d ever seen.

  The man had a scar, the way Tapinza did, except it ran down the right side of his face. It was partly obscured by beard stubble, but it was still quite evident. His face was dark-skinned, blistered and red and bruised, and his hair was black and matted with dirt. His lower lip looked swollen, and the upper lip had dried blood on it . . . perhaps from a nosebleed. It was his eyes that were the most striking to Moke. They were deep purple, and there was a crazed anger in them. But the anger was diluted slightly by confusion, and even a touch of fright. Immediately the fear began to ebb from Moke, to be replaced by pity. This man now seemed more scared than scary to him.

  “Where . . . am I . . . ?” the man growled. His voice was barely above a whisper. He sounded very thirsty, as if he hadn’t had anything to drink for days.

  Moke didn’t know what to say. “H-here,” he managed to get out.

  “What . . . planet is this . . . ?”

  The question made no sense to Moke at all. “This one . . .”

  The man was starting to tremble. For a moment, it seemed as if his legs were going to buckle, but then he found new strength and kept his firm grip on Moke. “Stop . . . playing games . . .”

  Moke was still having trouble mentally processing the man’s presence. He was like no one else Moke had ever seen in this world. Possibly like no one else that anyone had ever seen.

  Was it . . . possible . . . ?

  “Dad?” whispered Moke.

  The man froze, his face right up against Moke’s, and his gaze darted furiously about before his eyes remembered to focus on Moke once more. “Xyon . . . ?” he whispered.

  Moke shook his head. “Moke,” he said.

  But the man didn’t seem to hear him. Instead, he let out a yelp of joy and croaked, “You’re alive!” Instantly all the anger, all the fury that had been seizing the man seemed to evaporate, and he embraced Moke with every bit of strength he could muster . . . which Moke quickly realized was not a lot. Nevertheless, he returned the embrace.

  “You’re alive! You’re alive!” Over and over he repeated it, and Moke had the distinct impression that the man thought Moke was someone else. His son, presumably, who had apparently perished. Clearly the man was very upset about it. And if it gave him pleasure and comfort to think that Moke was his son, why . . . Moke didn’t really see anything wrong with that. Besides, who knew? Maybe the man was right. Maybe Moke really was his son. The only one who would know for sure was his mother.

  “Let me take you home to Mom,” suggested Moke. “She’ll want to see you.”

  The man gaped at him. “Your . . . your mother’s here, too? Alive? Am I . . .” Then confusion passed through his eyes. “Am I . . . dead? That’s it, isn’t it? I’m dead. That’s why you’re here . . . and her . . . I’m dead . . .”

  “You’re not dead,” Moke said with certainty. He was not a terribly learned young man, and didn’t profess to know much, but he certainly had an idea of what was alive and what was dead. And he was quite positive that he and his mother fell into the former category. “You’re just . . .” He paused, and then decided. “You’re just confused.”

  “Confused . . . ?” He licked his cracked lips with his thickening tongue. “Confused?”

  “Let me take you to Mom,” he suggested again.

  This time the words seemed to get through. The man relaxed his grip on Moke’s shirtfront, and the boy slid to the ground easily enough. He stepped to one side and stared up at the man. He was a very strange individual. He wore clothes such as Moke had never seen. They seemed very fancy, extremely well-made, although a bit torn-up. Moke reached up and fingered the fabric with curiosity. The man didn’t even seem to be aware of it.

  “To Mom,” he said a third time.

  “I’m . . . tired, Xyon. So very tired,” the man said. “Everyone . . . clear? Did everyone get clear? I think . . . but it’s hard to know.”

  Deciding to guess at a response that would probably make him happy, Moke said firmly, “Yeah . . . everyone got clear. It’s all okay.”

  The man sagged with obvious relief. “It’s okay . . . they got clear,” he said, with a tone of voice that made it sound as if he was informing Moke of that which Moke had just told him. “They got clear . . . thought they might . . . hoped they might . . . grozit . . . they must think I’m dead by now. Got to get back . . . tell them I’m okay . . . that you’re okay . . . Xyon . . .”

  “Lemme take you home.”

  “Do you have . . . subspace transmitter . . . or beacon . . . at home?” asked the man. He seemed to be making a tremendous effort to focus on what he was saying.

  Moke thought about the large illuminating lamp that his mother kept in one of the kitchen cupboards for emergencies. She referred to that as a beacon. “Yeah. We do,” he said firmly.

  “Okay . . . good . . . good boy, Xyon . . .” Whatever menace there had been about the man was gone now. But his eyes still looked glazed, and sweat was pouring down his face in rivulets. He was hot to Moke’s touch, and Moke was no longer wondering whether the man was in bad shape, but instead just how bad a shape he was in.

  The man took a deep breath and pushed himself away from the rocks, trying to walk. Then his legs started to buckle once more, and Moke ran over to him to lend him support. It was not an easy matter, because the man was, naturally, much taller than Moke, and his weight caused the boy to grunt rather loudly. For a moment it seemed as if both of them were going to fall, and then the man managed to haul himself to standing again. He took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his eyes, blinked furiously against the stinging of the perspiration, and then took several tentative steps. His legs were still wobbling, and Moke was ready to catch him should he start to stumble once more. But the man did not fall. Instead, each step seemed a bit stronger than the one before. It was as if, now that he had a genuine purpose, nothing was going to stop him from getting where he wanted to go.

  Moke came up next to him, and the man steadied himself by putting a hand on Moke’s shoulder. This time, though, he wasn’t resting the entirety of his weight on the boy, and Moke was able to support him with no trouble.

  “How . . . far . . . ?” the man rasped out.

  Moke decided that this was a case where a lie might serve better than the truth. “Not far at all,” he said, and hoped that the man would not be keeping track of the ground they were covering. The man simply nodded upon hearing this, and they started to move across the plains.

  It took a horrifically long time. Despite the fact that he was moving on his own, he was still going rather slowly. One foot slowly, deliberately, in front of the other, and it seemed to Moke that the man was gradually getting hotter as they went. But the man wasn’t complaining, so that was a benefit, at least. Every so often he would pat Moke on the shoulder and call him “Xyon” again, which Moke didn’t even begin to understand. And he would mutter things; incoherent babbling that Moke couldn’t follow no matter how hard he tried. Stuff about “the ship” and “blowing up” and “pods” and “Eppy.” None of it made the least bit of sense. But at least the man was moving, and that was all that mattered.

  Moke wondered what his mother would say. Would she demand to know why her son had brought this stranger home? Or would she take one look at him and blurt out his name in surprise, before admitting to Moke that this was indeed his dad, returned home ill and feverish from some great adventure and needing help? He had no idea what to expect, really, but there was some excitement to that in and of itself. For a little while, at least, Moke could fantasize what it would be like to be with his dad. And that was the greatest adventure of all.

  Deciding that it would be better to bring his mom to the man rather than the man to his mom, Moke brought the man to the small shed where they kept an assortment of their supplies . . . including the luukab, which was actually an animal. But they didn’t have a real barn, and so the luukab stayed in the shed. They used the luukab when they were going to be riding long distances. Not much more than a large, hairy, four-legged thing, with rocklike skin beneath the hair and a large tusk that was handy for a rider to hold on to, the luukab required little in the way of nourishment, and seemed to thrive on the cacti that grew on and around their property. The one disadvantage was that the luukab wasn’t much for hot days—which Yakaba had in abundance—and preferred to stay inside during the hotter periods. Consequently, if Rheela was going to go anywhere that was not within easy walking distance, and intended to ride the luukab there, she either had to go early in the morning or late in the day, because otherwise the stupid creature was going to leave her stranded.