After the Fall Read online

  “By doing the opposite of what he would have done?” deadpanned Kat.

  Shelby laughed at that. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “But more often than not, thinking what he would do and then emulating him helps me. So in a way…it’s like having him here.”

  “In a spiritual, philosophical way.”

  “Yes.”

  “And as far as sex goes…?”

  Shelby moaned softly, pulled her fingers apart, and thumped her chin on the desk several times. “Torture. I have dreams that melt my brain cells.”

  “Well, you know, Elizabeth,” Kat said slyly, “we’re all modern thinkers. Adults. Even married couples have the option of taking ‘companions’ during times of lengthy separation. For release. It’s just good sense from a health point of view. Hell, worse comes to worst, there are very convincing holodeck programs that…”

  “Ohhhh no,” Shelby said immediately and shaking her head with as much vehemence as she could muster. “Programming holos for sexual entertainment? It’s barely one step above self-gratification.”

  “Spoken like someone who hasn’t tried it.”

  “Why, have you?” She fixed her stare upon Mueller, who—to her shock—looked away with a half-smile. “You have?”

  “I didn’t think it appropriate for a captain to become involved with a subordinate,” Mueller told her. “So I found myself some…creative outlets. All very discreet.”

  “Well—not intending to sound judgmental—but I couldn’t do that. Neither could Mac. Nor do either of us expect more from the other than we can provide.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning,” Shelby told her patiently, “that if Mac engages in some recreational…encounters…”

  “He knows that you would still be his wife at the end of the day.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And likewise,” continued Mueller, “if you should feel the need for—oh, let’s call it ‘release’—with, say, some appropriate, attractive fellow who is ideally just passing through and not looking for any sort of long-term attachment, why, Mac would likewise not carry any resentment over your actions.”

  “You’ve described the situation perfectly,” said Shelby, nodding in approval.

  “I see.” Mueller considered that and then asked, “So…have you been involved with some appropriate, attractive fellow?”

  “Oh God, no.”

  “And do you intend to be?”

  “Oh God, no.”

  “And if Mac became involved with some woman…?”

  “I’ll kill him. And her. Maybe together, maybe separately.”

  “So when you were speaking just now about being understanding and a modern thinker and all that? That was…?”

  “A lie. Complete and total.”

  “I appreciate your candor in regards to your lack of candor, Admiral,” said Kat Mueller. “It’s very refreshing.”

  “Thank you. I’ve worked hard to refine it.”

  “It shows.”

  She turned and headed out the door. Shelby called after her, just before the doors shut, “Oh, if you run into Mac and try to have an affair with him, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill you, too.”

  “Understood,” Mueller called as the doors slid shut. Shelby, for her part, leaned back in her chair, thought about Mac for a good long while, and then prepared to send him a communiqué just for the purpose of letting him know she was thinking of him. The fortunate thing was that she’d just gotten a similar communiqué from him saying much the same. So a response would seem the most natural thing in the world, which was good.

  She wouldn’t want to come across as being too possessive.

  New Thallon

  i.

  “I cannot believe you put me into that situation!”

  Si Cwan was stalking the inside of Robin Lefler’s office, the edges of his robes whisking about the floor. Robin, for her part, was making a point of paying him no mind. She was reading over recent dispatches from Starfleet, wanting to keep up on the latest regulations. Even when she spoke, she didn’t glance up at him. “I didn’t put you into any situation.”

  “You brought a half-dozen Priatians into the middle of the council!”

  “It was three Priatians, they came looking for me, and I chose to escort them in and make certain they received a fair hearing,” she said patiently. “In my position as liaison for the Office of Interplanetary Affairs…”

  “In that position,” he interrupted her fiercely, “you are entitled to listen to what is transpiring and perhaps maybe, just maybe, do what you’re told to on occasion.”

  That drew her attention away from the computer as she looked up at him. “Well, excuse the hell out of me for not playing the good and dutiful wife, rather than the Starfleet officer who has her own concerns.”

  He threw up his arms in exasperation. “That is not what I was saying at all! You’re twisting it…!”

  “That is exactly what you were saying, and I’m getting it perfectly accurate,” she retorted.

  “When I…” He took a deep breath, and Robin could see him mentally counting to seven, a habit she had drilled into him in order to make encounters such as this more palatable. She’d actually wanted him to count to ten; he’d preferred five. As with so many things in their life, the result had been a compromise. “When I asked you to escort them out of the chamber, I was doing so not as husband to wife, but as prime minister to a representative of the Federation.”

  “And yet you looked so damned much like my husband, I couldn’t help but confuse the two.”

  “Robin—!”

  Robin slapped the desk with her palm. “Why did you refuse to listen to them, Cwan? Do you have any idea how humiliating that was for me? You just dismissing them like that? Them and me?”

  “Yes, I have some idea of how humiliating it was,” he shot back. “Almost as humiliating as having one’s wife show up with—”

  “You said it wasn’t about my being your wife. That it was all about you as prime minister and me as the Federation representative.”

  He balled his hands into fists and shook them impotently. “I didn’t say that!”

  “Yes, you did! Barely thirty seconds ago!”

  “You’re twisting it again!”

  “Which me is twisting it? The wife me or the rep me?”

  “Robin!”

  “Cwan!”

  He turned and slammed a fist into the wall. Fortunately the wall was reasonably solid. Otherwise she had no doubt that he could’ve punched right through it.

  “Feel better now?” she asked, batting her eyes at him.

  “No,” he growled.

  She leaned back in her chair and sighed deeply. “Cwan, what would have been the harm of hearing them out?”

  “Because I’ve heard it all before!” he told her, shaking out his fist to restore some feeling to it. “They weren’t going to say anything new. The Priatians have been lobbying for redress for as far back as I can remember. They came to me when I was head of the ruling house, they came to my father before me and his before him. They keep saying the same damned thing: Restore to us the worlds you took.”

  “Did you take them?”

  “Yes, but that’s not the point.”

  She blinked. “Actually, I’m kind of thinking that is the point.”

  He dropped down into the chair opposite her. “First, it’s not as if there’s just one race of Priatians. The representatives you saw are from the group that refers to itself as the True Bloods. The ones who believe themselves direct descendants of their so-called founders.”

  “The Wanderers.”

  “Yes, exactly. But on other worlds in the area that you call Sector 221-G, there were offshoots of the True Bloods, many developed through inbreeding and such. Offshoot races that, by this day and age, have as much in common with the so-called True Bloods as you would have in common with…”

  “My husband?”

  He made a grimacing face. “The comedy of Robin Lefler, my f
riends,” he said to an imaginary audience. “Look, Robin…yes, it’s true that my ancestors drove the True Bloods off many worlds in which they were in residence. But only because they resisted and refused Thallonian rule, something that others on those selfsame worlds had no problem with.”

  “No problem once they were conquered, you mean.”

  “Well…yes,” he admitted. “But we cannot turn back the hands of time, cannot undo what’s been done. Let us say—just for the sake of argument—”

  “Good, because I just never get tired of argument.”

  “—that I acceded to their request. Even if I could do so unilaterally. Let us say I waved my hand and said, ‘All former Priatian worlds are restored to you.’ What then? The worlds which the Priatians demand we ‘return’ to them are populated by races that have little knowledge or concern about who was there before they were. They are their own peoples now. Most of them have representatives sitting in council. Do you think they’re about to hand control over their worlds to a people who haven’t set foot on the respective planets for centuries? Realistically, Robin, do you believe that?”

  She looked down. “I suppose not,” she admitted.

  “You suppose correctly. It’s a dead-end discussion, Robin, and one I chose not to get into yet again. We have far too many things to worry about that actually can come to some sort of successful resolution, and the Priatian demands are simply not one of them. I didn’t want to waste my time, the council’s time. All it would have done is make the Priatian representatives feel foolish.”

  “They felt foolish when they were turned away.”

  “Perhaps, but at least it was quick,” he told her. “If I’d given them what they wanted, they would have been verbally abused for half an hour by the council and then sent on their way, no closer to accomplishing their mission than before. This way, I saved them that half-hour of humiliation.”

  “My husband, the humanitarian.”

  “Thank you,” he said archly, “but truthfully, I aspire to more greatness than most of humanity can reach.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Am I sadly mistaken, or did you just insult my entire race?”

  “Not entire, no. I said ‘most of.’ It goes without saying that you were not included in that grouping.”

  “Well that’s very generous of you,” she said sarcastically.

  He extended a hand toward her, but she pulled away. “Dammit, Robin!” he snapped. “Now you’re just being stubborn.”

  “You’d be the expert on that.”

  “Stubborn and petulant as well, because you fully know that I’m right about this. I’m right and you’re wrong and that’s what galls you.”

  “You’re what galls me, Cwan.”

  He waved off her response dismissively. “No. You know as well as I that the glory days of the Priatians belong to the past. You feel badly for them because you’re a compassionate woman—which is one of the many reasons that I love you—and because you perceive the Priatians to be poor, downtrodden-but-noble individuals who have suffered over the centuries and deserve some sort of recompense. And perhaps they have and perhaps they do. But it’s not going to happen because it’s impossible, and you know it. You know it. Thallonian space has simply moved on without them, moved away from them.”

  “Is that a fact,” she said humorlessly. “I seem to recall…”

  “Oh, gods, here we go,” he moaned.

  “…that Thallonian space had moved on without you,” continued Lefler without relenting. “Moved away from you and your whole royal family, so much so that your homeworld was reduced to floating bits of rock. I even seem to recall saying you couldn’t turn the clock back at a time when you were on the Excalibur hoping that somehow, in some way, you could restore the Thallonian Empire. And now look where you are.”

  “Yes, look. Look at the Prime Minister overseeing a ruling council that is a mere shadow of the efficiency and glory that characterized the Thallonian Empire.”

  “But it’s a start.”

  “Yes,” he agreed reluctantly, “it’s a start.” He leaned forward, running his fingers across his bald pate. “Blood and thunder, woman, what do you want from me?”

  “Give the Priatians a start. Offer them a seat on the council.”

  “I did. Ages ago. They refused.”

  “Do it again.”

  “They’ll refuse again.”

  “Then let me offer it,” she insisted.

  “Fine! And when they turn you down, will that put an end to this discussion?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank the—”

  “At least for the time being.”

  She said it with a teasing smile. Nevertheless, his fingers moved down to the bridge of his nose and rubbed it with evident pain. “You know, Robin,” he said, “once upon a time, the job of a woman in Thallonian society was very straightforward. Would you like to know what it was?”

  “Not especially.”

  “It was to make the lives of men as simple and unperturbed as possible. Any woman who failed in that task was taken out into the town square, stripped, and made to run around the square five hundred times while chanting, ‘I apologize for my ineptitude.’ ”

  “I would call that barbaric.”

  “See, whereas my ancestors would have called that the ‘good old days.’ And between you inserting yourself into interplanetary affairs, and my beloved sister Kalinda forming a romantic relationship that’s giving me no end of grief in the council, I’m starting to think there’s something to be said for those ‘good old days.’ ”

  “You would, my love,” she sighed. “You would.”

  ii.

  Tiraud of the House of Fhermus was lying on his back, one arm outstretched, enjoying the gentle breeze that fluttered across the grassland. What made the moment particularly attractive to him was that his fiancée was lying next to him, her head tucked in the crook of his elbow. She was holding strands of grass in her hand and blowing upon them idly.

  His bronze skin glittering in the broad sunlight of the afternoon, Tiraud bore something of a resemblance to his father. His face was rounder, though, his eyes set closer together, his lips thin but twitching at the edges as if he were perpetually on the verge of a smile, but never quite finding life amusing enough to fully provoke it.

  “What are you thinking about, Lind?” he asked his fiancée. These were the first words he’d spoken in close to half an hour.

  “About how pleased I am to be here with you,” Kalinda replied. To her, smiles came easily. That hadn’t always been the case, but ever since she’d met Tiraud, she was just too happy not to smile. It almost frightened her, the effect he had upon her. She didn’t know how anyone could know quite this much joy. In the back of her mind she was always concerned she’d discover that no one could, or should, be quite this content. “About how happy you make me. About our wedding.”

  “No regrets?”

  She sat partly upright. “Why should I have regrets?” asked Kalinda. “Why? Are you having regrets?”

  “No.”

  “Hesitations?”

  “Absolutely not,” he said firmly.

  “Then why ask?” She eyed him suspiciously. “Usually when people ask questions that seem out of the blue, it’s because they themselves have concerns they’re reluctant to bring up. Is that what’s happening here?”

  He laughed at that. “Lind, it’s nothing like that at all.”

  “Then what…?”

  “It’s just that…I’m almost afraid of my good fortune. I feel as if I’m so lucky that a capricious god or gods will look down and say, ‘Hey! You! You’re not supposed to know this degree of bliss. We’re going to take it away from you, right now.’ ”

  “Oh, Tiraud,” she moaned, and lay down next to him, cuddling up against him. “You’re being ridiculous. No one is going to take me away from you. Honestly, I have to wonder what you could possibly have done to the gods to make you think they’d…they’d…”

 
Her voice trailed off. At first it didn’t dawn on Tiraud that there was a problem, but then he realized she’d stopped talking altogether. He sat up, staring at her in bewilderment. “Lind? Is something wrong? What’s wrong…?”

  Finally it occurred to him that the best course of action would be to look not at Kalinda herself, but in the direction she was staring. He followed her gaze and saw what appeared to be a humanoid male approaching. Tiraud wasn’t entirely sure how old the newcomer was because, truthfully, most humanoids looked alike to him.

  Nevertheless, there was something about this new arrival that Tiraud found deeply troubling, and it wasn’t just because of Kalinda’s response to him. There was an air of menace about him. His flinty eyes were focused on Kalinda in such a way as to suggest that the rest of the world didn’t matter to him. That, indeed, if the rest of the world tried to get between him and her, it would not go well for the rest of the world.

  “Who is that?” Tiraud asked Kalinda softly.

  Kalinda jumped slightly, as if she hadn’t expected Tiraud to speak. Her gaze darted back and forth nervously as she whispered, “You…you see him?”

  “What?”

  “You see him?” Her voice was a bit louder.

  “Of course I do. I’m not blind. Why would you see him and I wouldn’t…?”

  “Because…” She licked her lips as if they’d suddenly gone bone dry. “Dead people. Sometimes they’re visible to me. Haunt me. I told you about it.”

  “Well, yes,” said Tiraud with uncertainty. “But I simply assumed you were speaking metaphorically. And I’m not sure what that has to do with this fellow, because he’s clearly not dead….”