Dark Mirror - Diane Duane [97]
“Not going to be a quiet night, is it, sir,” Barclay said, stopping by the door and hitting its switch. It didn’t open.
“No,” Picard said wearily, “I can see that.”
Barclay hit the switch a couple of more times. “Damn machinery,” he said softly. “I never did like anything much more complicated than a knife to begin with. This place has gotten too automated.”
Picard shrugged. “The price of progress, I suppose. I’ll see you later, Mr. Barclay.”
“Not me, Captain. It’ll be Ramirez: it’s his shift. Even chiefs of security have to sleep sometimes.”
“Of course.” Picard smiled at him; he might not entirely trust the man, any more than he entirely trusted anyone else here, but so far Barclay had dealt straightforwardly with him. “Have a good rest.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Picard walked into his quarters. The door slid shut and he had to hit the internal control a couple of times before it would lock. The lights were dimmed, except for one over by the bed. Here too, he thought, resigned. I shouldn’t complain. It means that things are finally working.
He stopped still, staring. Something in the bed moved slightly. It appeared to be a person, sleeping.
Picard stood there a moment, simply flabbergasted, understanding what the Littlest Bear must have felt like. He moved forward softly. The shape in the bed stirred, turned over, looked at him. The long, dark hair fell softly from around the face as she shook her head a bit and blinked.
It was Beverly Crusher. Picard was too astonished to speak for a moment.
Finally, he managed to say—and it almost came out in a croak—”What are you doing here?”
She propped herself up on one elbow, looked at him with some slight confusion. “Oh. Wesley. I suppose you might be concerned. … No. What happened a long time ago was one thing. But this …” She paused and then said rather roughly, “Don’t think my son’s stupidity is going to make me throw away everything I’ve got left.”
He took a couple more steps forward, more uncertain of what to say than he had been in a long time. He had been shaken enough by Troi’s accusation—no, they weren’t accusations; for her they were simple statements of fact. “Beverly …” he said, then sat down in the chair by the bed, unable to look at her or anything else.
One Crusher dead, one Crusher as good as dead, Wesley had said.
She was looking at him curiously now. “You have been behaving very oddly today. Are you all right?”
He could give her no answer that would make any sense, so he merely shook his head.
She looked at him, then got up out of the bed and walked over to the replicator. “Brandy and soda,” she said, “and Armagnac straight up.” She waited while the drinks appeared, then came back, handing him the Armagnac and sitting down on the bed opposite him.
“Are the aftereffects of that stun still bothering you?”
“No, that’s not it.” He got up in great discomfort and walked away, wondering where else in the ship he could possibly go, his one place of safety suddenly betraying him again, as the books had earlier. “I don’t think you should be here.”
Beverly looked at him, her face briefly working back and forth between puzzlement and anger. “Where else should I be? You went through enough trouble to get me here.” It was what he had been afraid of, and the last thing he wanted to hear. It was not I who have done these things, he said to himself desperately. It was someone from a much different life, a different world. But there were parts of his brain that didn’t want to believe it, that were insisting that maybe he himself might do these things, might have done these things, if history in his own world had gone differently.
“Where am I supposed to go?” Beverly said, her voice showing the anger now. “I’m the captain’s woman. Who aboard this ship is going to have anything to do with me? They know you too well. Anyone here who touches me is going to end up like Gonzales all over again.”
“Gonzales?” he said, turning around.
She laughed bitterly. “Don’t pretend you’ve forgotten—not after the public way you killed him. It