All Good Things__ - Michael Jan Friedman [30]
“I don’t believe that!” snapped the older man. “May-be their long-range scanners are flawed. We have to go there, see for ourselves!”
The admiral looked reluctant to turn Picard down flat. He eyed Data. “Professor, what do you make of all this?”
The android seemed to hesitate for a moment, considering his answer carefully. Data had come a long way, it seemed to Geordi. He no longer made decisions based purely on logic; now, he appeared to take people’s feelings into account.
“I am not certain,” the android said at last. “However, I cannot disprove what the captain is saying. And he seems to be convinced he is traveling back and forth through time.”
Riker frowned. “Right.” Clearly, Data was siding with Picard—and that made it harder for him to dismiss the matter. “Look,” he said, “I’ve got the Yorktown out near the border. I’ll have Captain Shelby run some long-range scans of the Devron system. If she finds anything, I’ll let you know.”
The captain shook his head. “No. That’s not good enough.”
“It’ll have to be,” responded the admiral. “I’m sorry, Jean-Luc. That’s all I can do. Riker out.”
CHAPTER
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As his monitor went dark, Riker sat back in his chair and sighed. He hated to be so brusque with a man who had done for him what Jean-Luc Picard had done.
Still, what choice did he have? The captain might as well have asked for a pet mugato as request permission to enter Klingon territory. Neither one was likely to ensure him a long life.
Though, judging by the looks of him, Picard wasn’t going to enjoy a very long life anyway. And what was left to him was going to be full of misery and humiliation, thanks to his disease.
Was that it? the admiral wondered. Was this the captain’s way of going out in a blaze of glory—instead of slowly and painfully deteriorating over time?
Riker thought about it—and ultimately rejected the idea. It would be one thing for Picard to sacrifice his own life. But Data and Geordi had been willing to go with him, and the captain would never have sacrificed their lives as well.
Speaking of Data… what was it with his hair? It looked like he’d used his head to erase one of those blackboards still in use at Cambridge.
The monitor beeped. “Riker here,” he responded mechanically.
An instant later, he saw the clean-cut visage of Captain Sam Lavelie. The man smiled, genuinely glad to see the officer who had been so hard on him when he’d joined the Enterprise.
“Admiral Riker. You’re looking well, sir. But then, we Canadians are an enduring breed.”
It was a joke, of course. Lavelle had once made the mistake of thinking Riker was from Canada. Actually, he was born and bred in Alaska.
“So we are,” said the admiral, acknowledging the attempt at humor. Unfortunately, he didn’t much feel like laughing right now.
Lavelle’s demeanor became more serious as he noticed his superior’s lack of enthusiasm. “Something wrong, sir?”
Riker shrugged. “Make me a promise, Sam. If I come to you when I’m ninety years old and ask you to ferry me somewhere in the Enterprise… somewhere crazy, where I’m likely to get myself and the rest of the crew killed… let me down easy, all right?”
Lavelie looked at him, obviously unable to divine the reason for the request. However, he must have sensed it wasn’t really a topic the admiral wanted to discuss.
“First off,” he replied, “I don’t think you’d ask for something like that… not at any age. And second, it’ll be someone else’s problem—or have you forgotten what day this is?”
Abruptly, Riker remembered. “That’s right. You’re retiring today, aren’t you?”
“You sound so glum,” the younger man observed, deriving pleasure from the fact. “Does that mean you’re having second thoughts?”
Another old joke. The admiral reacted as Lavelle would have expected.
“No, Sam. I still think you make lousy o~cer material. It’s just that I’ve gotten used to you. You know what they say about old dogs and new tricks.”
Lavelle smiled. “Then you’re not sorry you listened to—” He stopped himself, realizing