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  Obviously she felt the truth of what he was saying, but nevertheless his comments about Xyon obviously rankled. “All right. Fine. And I…suppose I shouldn’t have acted that way about the executive officer person. But really, Cwan, how you could have missed the obvious choice in your own life…”

  “What obvious choice?” he asked.

  “Robin Lefler, of course.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She stared at him with unrestrained incredulity. “What do I mean? Si Cwan, the woman’s in love with you.”

  He outright laughed at that. “Kally, don’t be absurd….”

  “It’s not absurd! I can see it! In the way she talks to you, looks at you. For as long as I’ve been with you on Excalibur, I could tell she had the deepest of feelings for you. I always just assumed that you knew, but didn’t reciprocate. It never occurred to me that you were just oblivious to it.”

  “Kalinda…” The very notion was so ridiculous that he didn’t even know where to begin. “Kalinda, Robin was assigned to work with me as my aide, that’s all. Now I suppose it’s natural that, when two people work together, deeper feelings can emerge, but it’s artificial. It’s not real. It’s just a result of proximity.”

  “I know the difference between artifice and reality, Cwan. I…”

  Abruptly she stopped talking, seeming short of breath. He swiveled his chair to face her, took her by the arm, called her name. His lungs were starting to feel heavy, his head lighter than before. Everything suddenly seemed very amusing for some reason, but he couldn’t for the life of him imagine why. He realized distantly that this wasn’t something that had occurred all of a sudden. It had gradually been building toward this point, and he was simply becoming aware of it.

  He visualized his willpower as a sword, hacking through the fog that was hanging over his ability to concentrate. There was a tight squeezing on his hand and he realized it was Kalinda. Odd. He’d forgotten she was there for a moment. “Don’t say anything,” he told her.

  She ignored him. “Robin loves you, Cwan,” she said, fighting to enunciate each word. “It’s real. And pure. And genuine.”

  “Kally…she doesn’t even like me.”

  Kalinda smiled at that. “You don’t have to like someone to love them, Cwan. That’s…the funny thing about love…”

  He nodded, supposing that she was right. He wanted to ask her about things that she might have regretted, might have done differently. It seemed only fair. He called her name, softly first and then more loudly, but she wasn’t responding. She looked exhausted. Or maybe…

  He shook her. She responded, but very limply, her hand trying to brush away his in annoyance. He had a dim sense that a good deal of time had passed since she’d last spoken, but he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure of anything, except that he was actually starting to hear the pounding of his own heart.

  I wonder how things could possibly get worse, he said, except he wasn’t certain whether he’d uttered the words aloud or just thought them.

  Si Cwan became convinced that he was starting to hallucinate, because it seemed as if space itself was wavering in front of him. Then he leaned forward, blinking his eyes furiously, rubbing at them. He wasn’t wrong; something was occurring dead ahead.

  Except it had nothing to do with space itself. Something was materializing in front of them. A vessel of some kind, with great flared wings and some type of extended “neck,” but it was like none he’d seen before, and yet the markings of it were familiar as well. He fought with his floating mind to focus on what was happening, sift through the knowledge there and pull up an answer to what he was witnessing.

  The ship was slowly coming toward them, and he pushed away random images of Robin Lefler—he couldn’t even recall why he was thinking of her—to arrive at a realization that did not exactly fill him with cheer.

  “Romulans,” he whispered. “You know…the ‘how can it get worse’ thing…that was intended to be rhetorical…”

  And as the oncoming Romulan ship bore down on him, he slipped away into blackness.

  Excalibur

  i.

  ONE OF THE ADVANTAGES Mackenzie Calhoun had found to being captain was that people and situations tended to come to him. Whether he was seated in his command chair, gathering senior crew in his ready room, or summoning pertinent advisors into a conference lounge, he was the one around whom others gathered. There was a certain elegance to that status.

  So it was an unusual sensation for Calhoun to be pounding down the corridors of the Excalibur in response to an urgent summons from Holodeck A. Soleta had summarized the situation for him, and it barely made any sense to him. But he knew that he had to see it for himself. As a result, crewmen were greeted with the unaccustomed sight of their captain running fast past them. Some of them seemed compelled to say “Hello, sir,” or something similarly innocuous. Calhoun ignored them all, hoping that he wasn’t going to be putting people’s noses out of joint, and promising himself he wouldn’t worry about it too much.

  He skidded slightly as he rounded one corner, righted himself before he could take an undignified tumble, ran halfway down another corridor, and arrived at Holodeck A. The doors slid open and he entered without having any real idea what he was going to be witnessing.

  Robin Lefler was there, looking as if she’d just been whacked in the face with a tree branch. Soleta was endeavoring to maintain her customary inscrutability, but she was a bit easier to read than Selar was when it came to Vulcan dispassion, and so Calhoun could see that she was quite shaken. Also there was Burgoyne, who must have come as a result of being summoned by either Lefler or Soleta—the latter, most likely—since hir status as the most knowledgeable engineer on the ship might well be of use.

  And, as advertised, Morgan was standing there as well, her arms folded, looking extremely impatient. The holodeck appeared shut down, its crisscrossing yellow lines along the floor and ceiling as always. Yet there was Morgan, big as life…or, in this case, a semblance of life.

  The moment Calhoun entered, she turned her full attention to him. “You jettisoned my body?” she said with open incredulity. “You authorized that, Captain? Did it never occur to you that I might not be finished with it?”

  Calhoun stared at her for a long moment and then, without looking away from her, addressed everyone else standing there. “If this is a joke, it’s in exceptionally poor taste.”

  “It’s no joke, Captain,” Soleta informed him. “She’s in the computer system.”

  “She is the computer system,” Burgoyne amended. “Her engrams are imprinted throughout the database of the Excalibur.”

  “Can we purge the system and reboot?” asked Calhoun.

  The question appeared to jolt Lefler from her stupor. “No! You can’t!” she said, turning to Calhoun.

  “I think I can,” he countered. “I think I have that right, what with being captain and all….”

  “What a staggeringly disheartening lack of curiosity on your part, Captain,” said “Morgan.” “Somehow I expected more of you. You disappoint me.”

  It was a disconcerting sensation for Calhoun. He’d never been scolded by a hologram before. “Number one, I can live with disappointment. Number two, I haven’t made any decisions yet as to how I’ll handle this. And number three,” and he looked to Burgoyne, “what exactly is this…this? It’s not really her…is it?”

  “That’s open to debate,” Morgan said, and before Calhoun could cut her off, she spoke right over him. He was so taken aback that he said nothing, just listened. “Remember we were hooked up to those devices during the time that the saucer section was separated from the main hull. The things that enabled us to have holographic bodies on the battle bridge while we were connected to them, via relays, from the saucer section bridge.”

  “Of course I remember,” he said, taking care not to address it by name. Doing so gave it a status and hold on reality that he wasn’t at all prepared to provide.

  “Well,
when my body got hit by the energy surge blasting out of McHenry’s station, my mind was still literally in two places at once. So I became sort of,” and she shrugged, “stuck. I’m in permanent limbo here.”

  “We have to do something,” Robin said urgently. “Can’t we do something? We can…we can go try and find her body…”

  Morgan took a step toward her and Robin reflexively moved back, obviously still spooked about the entire matter. The simulacrum of her mother stopped in its place and smiled understandingly. “Honey…the forces that combined to put me in this position were a one-in-a-million combination. I doubt they could be duplicated. And truthfully, even if my body could be found—which I doubt—it’s beyond the ability of medical science to revive.”

  “We could clone it! Or…or re-create her body somehow using the patterns stored in the memory buffers of the transporter! We could—!”

  “Robin, I prefer things remain this way!”

  Her statement clearly floored Robin Lefler, who visibly staggered from her mother’s words. Calhoun and Burgoyne exchanged surprised looks, and Calhoun stepped forward. He extended an arm toward Lefler, who was looking as if she was having trouble keeping her feet. She wasn’t to be faulted. Granted, she was a Starfleet officer, trained to handle just about everything. But this was really a bit much. “What are you saying, Morgan?” asked Calhoun.

  “Captain,” she sighed, “in case you’d forgotten, when you first met me, I was trying to find ways to end my too-long life. I was bored. Bored beyond imagining. The only thing that’s made my existence bearable in the past months was my being with Robin. Truly, sweetie, you’ve been a rock.”

  Robin was just shaking her head. Perhaps she thought that, if she did so sufficient times, this entire insane situation would simply go away.

  “Still, the boredom, the day-to-day routine…it’s weighed heavily on me,” said Morgan. She was strolling around the interior of the holodeck, hands draped behind her back, and if Calhoun hadn’t known otherwise he would have sworn that Morgan Primus was right there with them in the flesh. She spread her arms wide, as if to encompass the entirety of the ship. “But this! This is…this is amazing! I’m everywhere in the ship, all at once! I have a storehouse of knowledge and information at my fingertips…virtually speaking. The engines are a part of me, and so is the navigation system, and the weapons and defensive capabilities, and the sensors, and…it’s…I can feel the vacuum of space against me, and I move through it like a swimmer through water. I…” She stopped, searching for words. “For all I thought I knew, for all the understanding I thought I had of the universe…it’s been nothing. Nothing! It’s like I’ve been living my entire life with a sack over my head. And now that sack is removed, and even though technically I’m dead, I’m more alive than I’ve ever been. I’m…”

  She stopped in front of Robin, and Calhoun could have sworn there were actually tears welling up in Morgan’s eyes. “It’s like I’m in heaven and still with you, all at the same time. This is…this is a miracle, honey. It’s a miracle. Can’t you celebrate it with me?”

  “How?” The word was torn from Robin’s throat, and Morgan stepped back, clearly surprised. “It’s…perverse! What am I supposed to do, huh?”

  “What are you supposed to do?” Morgan looked perplexed. “Well, for starters, you can be happy for me….”

  “Happy for you?! You’re dead! I mean,” and her hands flapped about helplessly, “I mean…you say you aren’t! But you don’t really know that! Not really! You could be a…a glitch! A weird computer glitch of some sort, that thinks it’s really my mother, but you’re no more her than…than…than something really innocuous that I can’t think of right now!”

  Morgan made a loud huffing noise, which was an impressive achievement to Calhoun considering he knew she didn’t need to breathe. “Robin, your mother is not a glitch.”

  “And what am I supposed to do?!”

  “You said that.”

  “I know I did, but I don’t have an answer!” Her voice began to crack, and it seemed as if the stressed lieutenant was speaking as much to herself as she was to the image of Morgan that stood before her. “Don’t you get it? First I mourned you when I was a kid, thinking you were dead. Then I find out you’re not dead, that you’re some sort of eternal being…except then you die, and I mourn you a second time! Except, y’know, ta daa! You’re back a third time, maybe, we think maybe you are, or at least a part of you is, and you have no idea what this is doing to me! It’s tearing me apart, Mother! This isn’t how it’s supposed to work! Someone dies, you mourn them, you move on! That’s how it works! That’s how nature set it up!” And her desperate frustration spilled over into anger. “Oh, but not you, no, no! Not Morgan Primus Lefler Whatever-the-hell-your-name-is-this-week! The laws of nature aren’t laws for you, no! They’re like…like suggested guidelines that you just get to ignore!”

  “Robin,” Calhoun said gently, trying to rein her in. “This isn’t the best—”

  For the first time in her life, Robin Lefler completely ignored her captain, so focused was she on the subject of her rage and confusion. “I mean, is this just some sort of big game to you? See how many times and how many ways little Robin can mourn your passing so you can show up again! How am I ever supposed to have any sort of closure? Ever get on with my life? Your loss is this…this huge, gaping wound in my soul, and you just never get tired of opening it!”

  “How dare you!” bellowed Morgan…

  …at which point, every single system in the Excalibur went dead.

  The holodeck plunged into darkness, and from the startled shouts and exclamations on the other side of the holodeck door, it was evident that the lights had gone out in the corridors as well—and, quite possibly, throughout the ship. All the constant hums of machinery which had become second nature to life on the starship now ceased, and suddenly the ground went out from under Calhoun’s feet. In the darkness he heard outcries or gasps of annoyance from the others in the holodeck. Everyone was floating. The artificial gravity was gone along with everything else, and he realized it was only a matter of time before general life support became a problem.

  And then, before Calhoun could even bark an order—although, truthfully, he didn’t have the faintest idea what to say given the circumstances—the gravity and all the other systems snapped back on. Calhoun thudded to the floor, as did everyone else around him. He was grateful that the lights were the last things to be restored, so that no one else saw the utterly undignified manner in which he had hit the ground.

  An instant later, Morgan snapped back into existence as well, looking utterly chagrined. “Captain, I am so sorry,” she said. “I had no idea the ship was that keyed into my moods. I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone, honestly. I would never do that.”

  “I believe you,” said Calhoun, dusting himself off as he got back to his feet. “Still, you see the hazard that the current status quo represents.”

  “Yes,” Morgan said slowly. “I…I do. Perhaps you should try to find a way to purge me from the computer system. Reboot everything. It…” She cast a glance at Robin, but couldn’t sustain eye contact. “It would probably be best for all concerned. I won’t trouble you again.”

  Obviously she was waiting for Robin to raise a protest, as she had when the possibility of her mother’s erasure had first been brought up. This time, however, Robin remained stonily silent, staring fixedly at the floor in front of her.

  “Morgan, wait!” Calhoun abruptly said. “There’s…something I need to ask you.”

  She raised an eyebrow and remained where she was. “Yes?”

  He took a deep breath. “The other day, Moke claimed that he…saw…Artemis standing over McHenry’s body. That she was talking to him in some manner.”

  Soleta’s head whipped around upon hearing this. “I was unaware of that, Captain.”

  “It wasn’t a science matter, Soleta, and it was inconclusive at best,” he said, looking at her oddly. “Dr. Selar brought it
to my attention. It didn’t occur to me that you needed to be informed.”

  “Nevertheless, Captain, it would have been preferable if you—”

  “Lieutenant,” Calhoun said sharply, “can this discussion of interdepartmental communication wait until after I’m finished talking to the dead woman?”

  Immediately abashed, Soleta said, “Yes, sir. Of course.”

  “Thank you. So…Morgan,” and he turned back to her, “I suppose what I’m asking is—”

  “Is McHenry in here with me?” she asked.

  “Basically, yes.”

  She shook her head. That simple gesture struck Calhoun as intriguing, because a computer’s impulse would have been to verbalize a negative response. But Morgan was still thinking like a human…possibly because she was still human? It was all a bit much for Calhoun to take. “His consciousness wasn’t ‘in transit’ as mine was, Captain.”

  “Then why would Moke have seen Artemis speaking to McHenry’s body?” Soleta demanded.

  Morgan shrugged. Calhoun couldn’t quite believe it. Yet another human gesture. What the hell had happened here? “There are several possibilities. In no particular order of likelihood, the first is that somehow, in some way, McHenry is trapped in his own sort of ‘twilight’ area. The second is that Moke imagined it somehow. Am I correct in assuming, from the way you phrased the question, that no one beside Moke claimed to see the Being?”

  “No one else,” confirmed Calhoun.

  “Why would Moke be able to see Artemis at all?” Burgoyne spoke up, scratching hir chin thoughtfully. “It doesn’t make sense, Captain.”

  “No. No, it doesn’t. Then again, nothing in this entire damned thing has since Artemis first set foot aboard this ship,” Calhoun said in annoyance. “Morgan…”

  She was gone.

  “Morgan!” Calhoun called out, his voice echoing through the room. Still no response. Slowly Calhoun looked at Soleta. “Do you think she…?”

  “Did away with herself in some manner?” asked Soleta. “I do not know, sir.”