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“Computer,” he said, “end program.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

“AND NEVER COME WITHIN A BOATHOOK’s length of the captain unless you have a good reason. Remember that, Number One.”

“Oh, I will, sir. How long a boathook?”

Picard led Will Riker into the ready room off the bridge and headed for his desk, but never got a chance to sit down.

The door slid open without the courtesy of an entry request, and a gargantuan fit of fury plowed in.

“My son has been wounded in the Revolutionary War!”

The walls rattled. The desk buzzed. Riker backed off a good four feet.

“Yes,” Picard responded, and continued getting behind his desk. He didn’t sit down. No sense dying in a chair. “Yes, Mr. Worf, I know. I’m very sorry about that. I understand I was supposed to protect him, and you left him on the Enterprise for safety—”

Worfs brow came down. “I am proud of his wound!”

With a blink, Picard asked, “You are? Oh—of course you are.”

Stepping closer, Worf demanded, “Captain, I must know if the scar will be an honorable one.”

“Oh, yes,” Picard assured him. “He fought valiantly to protect our ship. I was hard-pressed to tell him from the actual soldiers.”

Worf fell silent for a moment, absorbing all this, all the parental worries about a wounded child crashing up against the Klingon sensibilities about where this fit on the honor scale of injuries.

Yet there were other things playing in those nut-dark eyes, things more complicated, more tortuous.

Before either spoke again, the door opened a second time without a chime for permission, and Alexander charged in at full tilt, almost slamming into the captain’s desk.

“Father!” the boy blurted.

Worf worked to control himself, and did about as well as any overheating steam engine. “The Captain has informed me that your wound was an honorable one.”

“Mr. Worf,” Picard broke in, “I’m glad you came. I’m logging a commendation for you—or, rather, I would be, if your ‘mission’ had been authorized. On a more pratical note, I have blocked the reprimand that will no doubt be forthcoming from Commissioner Toledano—”

“Captain,” Worf interrupted, “I cannot accept any commendations, or any other consideration, for this particular mission.

Picard eyed him. “Because of…”

“Yes, sir.” Worf lowered his voice a little. “I do not suffer about my decision, Captain, but I must not gain from it. To honor me in any way would be an insult… to Grant’s memory.”

Startled, Alexander looked up at his father. “What does that mean? What are you talking about?”

A chilly tension blanketed the ready room as both Picard and Riker realized just then that Alexander hadn’t been told what had happened on the planet. Worf did not shirk the moment. He looked at his son and said, “Alexander … I was not strong enough or fast enough to rescue Grant.”

Father and son stood barely beyond arms’ length from each other. Between them the terrible meaning of Worfs words festered and cried.

“He’s dead?” Alexander’s voice was thin, tiny.

Picard buried a shuddering desire to interfere. His custodial feelings toward the boy were supposed to be released now, yet he couldn’t retire them. He wanted somehow to soothe Alexander, and hold the program long enough to explain how such things could happen.

But life was no holoprogram, and there would be no pauses to think things out. There would be no scrolling back to save Grant’s life.

“He died,” Worf said slowly, “before I could get to him. I failed him, Alexander … I failed you.”

Grief twisted Alexander’s face. He averted his eyes from everyone for a long minute, working valiantly to keep control. Alexander kept staring at the carpet, nodded at some thought or other with which he grappled, then finally looked up. He couldn’t look in his father’s eyes, but stared instead at his father’s uniform.

“Some things are worth dying for,” he rasped.

At the boy’s generous words, Worf twitched, squinted, and fixed a perplexed look on his son. His lips parted, but nothing came out. What his son said was something all Klingons knew, but until now Worf had never known if his child believed