Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [21]
“Then maybe I can make it worth your while as well. I know about Betazeds—it’s one of the problems, isn’t it? There just sort of isn’t— enough—at certain times. There are some of us, though, who might surprise you. A little less easy to wear out than”—the man’s eyes darted around nervously—”Number One. He’s been so busy lately, anyway, what with—” And now Stewart glanced, ever so briefly, at Picard, who had sat back down again in Crusher’s office and was trying very hard indeed not to watch them.
“Commander Riker’s duty load can be considerable,” Deanna said neutrally.
Stewart burst out in a great laugh of anger and amusement. “If we’re going to make a deal, let’s make it. Let me go back to my duties—let me out of this test or drill or whatever it is—I’m a good crewman. I’m a loyal crewman. I back my principals. I’ve never turned my coat on any of them. I’d be good as one of your men, too. You could buy me off my principal easily enough—or take me.” His tone was wheedling, now, but under the wheedling the fear remained, and the confusion. There was also a feeling of growing boldness, though: he seemed to think he had achieved something, possibly just by still being alive. “A word, a favor—you have the power on this ship. Everybody knows that. Even he.” And his glance slid to Picard again, and away. “You know,” he said more softly, “even the captain can’t act without the security officer’s approval.”
Troi had to swallow at that. “Just one more thing. Tell me again what you were told. They said you were to beam over to a ship like the Enterprise—but it’s not the Enterprise.”
“That’s what they said. Did they get the phrasing wrong? Is someone else going to be punished?” And under the question rose a terrible glee and relief. There was still great uncertainty in him, but now he thought that someone else was in trouble, not him, and this trap was a trap for another crewman.
“That was all?” Troi desperately wanted to add, Nothing about another space, a parallel universe? But she would not lead him; that wouldn’t help.
Stewart nodded and breathed out, then looked at her sidewise. “I had to wonder. It’s rare enough an officer is more interested in one of us than in our agonizers.” His hand crept involuntarily to the spot where his badge would have been. “And as for you …” The man’s fury and fear were so balanced in him that Stewart might have said anything, and Troi would have welcomed such an outburst, probably more revealing than all this terrified fencing. Come on, she willed him, tell me what you think of me, let it go.
Stewart sealed over again, turned away in a roil of frustration, cupidity, confusion, and fright. Troi sighed. “Keep him here for the moment,” she said to Ryder and Detaith. “I may want him again later.” Then she simply looked at Stewart—and that wave of fear ran through him so vehemently now that he wouldn’t meet her eyes. Hopelessness, the fear again of imminent death, the feeling that he would welcome death rather than what she would now do.
The emotions were so intense that they almost sorted themselves into thought. As it was, she heardstfelt something that she felt sure would have turned into a cry of monster, murderer, horrible—and the image of her face, set into a cold, cold smile.
Deanna stepped away, back into Dr. Crusher’s office, where the others watched her, uncomprehending. When the door had closed, she sat down quite suddenly in the nearest chair, as if someone had removed the pins from her knee joints. Certainly they felt about as useless, and she sat and shook with Stewart’s emotions, and her own.
“A moment or two,” she said to the three who waited, “if you don’t mind.” It took her longer than that—calming her breathing, getting her heart to slow down, doing the exercises common to her people for the management of one’s emotions when another’s became too much.
“Counselor,” Picard said after a moment, “are you all right?”
She shook her head. “Emphatically not, Captain, though functional enough.