Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [60]
“Sit down, Grant,” Worf instructed. “You’ll have no feet left if you continue to pace. It hardly serves you to be walking around on stumps.”
“I can’t sit,” Grant shuddered, his whole body shaking as he twisted like a wind sock. His shoulder was bandaged and he rubbed his arm fitfully. “She killed him. She killed her own husband! I told you she didn’t like him! That’s what always happens to people who get in her way. It was all because that freighter didn’t go the way she wanted it to. She couldn’t frame the lieutenant governor, and she needed public opinion to go her way. This was the one thing she had to do herself. She’s trying to get that public sympathy back.”
“I know.”
Grant paused. “Then you believe me?”
Shifting his injured leg, Worf offered a nod and wished the two of them had taken a day off to reminisce before embarking on this mission.
“Yes, of course I believe you. However, I did not see her enter the governor’s suite.”
He settled back into the big overstuffed buffalohide chair and tried to get Grant to relax by example.
Oblivious to Worf’s effort, Grant hugged his own body tightly and swung about, pacing in front of the flagstone fireplace. “I should’ve stopped her the second I knew she was in there. I just froze. She didn’t see me, and I just couldn’t make myself move. I let her kill him.”
“Nonsense,” Worf told him evenly. His voice was like a deep drum beneath the frantic tight-throated choke of Grant’s panic, and he clung to the sound of his own words. “The governor might’ve died anyway.”
“But he didn’t just die. He was stable! The blood is on her hands this time. Her own, personal hands. Grant, please try to avoid obsessing.”
“I can’t believe this fell into our laps!” Grant blustered on. “We’re turning ourselves inside out to get proof of her activities, and she does this right in front of me! But if it’s just me saying it …”
Suddenly his entire expression changed. He swung around, his legs braced.
“Worf! You believe me, right?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“You know she killed the governor to make sure the independence referendum takes place on schedule, right? She must know the Federation’s got a stake in postponing it, right?”
Uneasily, Worf nodded. “Yes, both also right.”
Grant rushed to Worf’s chair and knelt beside it, gripping the thick buffalo fur on the chair’s arm with both hands.
“According to Sindikash law, they need two witnesses for a capital crime! You haven’t made your statement yet!” He pounded the buffalo hide and leveled a finger at Worf. “You gotta back me up! You gotta say you were in there, too! You gotta say you saw her in there at the same time I did!”
Worf sat up straight, his legs and arms suddenly tight. Had he heard right?
“You want me to lie under oath?”
“Oh, what lie? You know she did it!”
“Yes … I know she did it.”
“If there aren’t two witnesses, then she can’t even be charged or held in custody pending an investigation. She’ll be free to do—” Grant stopped, his throat knotting again, and made a gesture with one hand toward the other arm—a ripping gesture.
Shoving to his feet, Worf put a few steps between them, as if to stride away from the whole idea of what Grant was asking of him. A sudden jolt of hope—one stretch of the truth. That was all, to free Grant and bring down this corrupt organization before it became interstellar.
“We can get you off the planet,” he attempted. “The captain will make sure—”
“No!” Grant stood up and braced his legs. “Forget it. I’m not leaving. This is our chance to stop this woman from all these things she’s been doing. And it’s a chance to save a lot of lives she’s got in her sights. The whole planet’ll go down the sink if we don’t hold our ground.” He put his hands on his chest and grimaced. “I can’t be the one to let that happen. I couldn’t live with myself, y’know?”
After a moment Grant held out a beseeching hand as the small fire crackled behind him.
A friend … a fellow warrior despite his oddities … and as close to a godfather as his son possessed… .
Grant’s voice was a crackle of strain.