Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [76]
“He’s letting Uncle Ross down. And his life is in danger! You can’t pretend it’s not, because I know what’s been happening on Sindikash.”
“Are you worried that your father has lost his honor?” Picard asked. “It’s his sense of honor that prevents him from lying, you know.”
“What honor? If he knows Mrs. Khanty did bad things, why would he throw away a chance to lock her up? If he knows she’s guilty, why can’t he use what he knows to keep her from hurting more people? Maybe the person she hurts next will be Grant!”
Picard drew a troubled breath, balking at the boy’s relentless logic. “Things are complex,” he attempted. “Adult things.”
Like a prosecutor in court, Alexander shot back, “If he saw her do these things, he’d use his phaser, wouldn’t he?”
Taken by surprise, Picard admitted, “Well … I would hope so, yes.”
Alexander fanned his arms. “Then I don’t understand this! He won’t lie, but he wouldn’t really be lying, because he’d be making the truth happen. Instead, he’s making Uncle Ross look like a liar. It’s not fair.”
“Unfortunately,” Picard sighed, “‘fairness’ isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
“He should come up with a way to support Grant,” Alexander went on. “He should make it work. It’s not honorable to just say you’re honorable. I don’t like my father very much right now.”
The boy half-turned away from Picard, and fell starkly silent. That mouths-of-babes thing rose again as Alexander made perfect sense. What good was it to stand on thin honor while the platform of justice collapses beneath? None at all.
But how could he explain to Alexander the dishonor of perjury, even to bring in a criminal? He already knew that simply explaining rarely did the trick for a child.
As Picard watched, Worf’s image as a parent, a warrior, and a starship officer tarnished in his son’s eyes.
Picard frowned. Perhaps he should have better minded the boy’s sensitivities, protected him from what was happening on the planet. Alexander shouldn’t have to bear the fallout of Worf’s mission and its personal repercussions.
This was one of the difficulties of shipboard life. Alexander’s friendship with Grant could compromise events. Yet, throughout history—from the first rowed boats, to sails, to starships—no one had found a way for a crew, however dapper, to keep from becoming a family. Nor had any but the stiffest Blighs expected otherwise.
These lessons were getting awfully big for one young boy to absorb. Even more troubling was his own rising doubt. He’d always found it easy to look down his nose at the simpler past, but he was finding that these times were not so simple at all. These were the times in which the laws he took for granted had been forged by fire, and he luxuriated in his loft built of others’ great trials. They had stood the test, and he reaped the rewards.
Now Worf was going through the same thing—looking down from the platform of his honor, for which Ross Grant would pay the price.
Picard started wondering just who was getting the biggest lesson out of all this.
“You know what the colonies eventually became, don’t you?” Picard asked, framing his question carefully.
“The United States of America,” Alexander grumbled back, refusing to look up. “I know, I know. And later they brought the whole world together and started exploring and the Vulcans met ‘em and they became the Federation.” Now he did look up. “So what? How does that change the fact that he went back on his promise?”
He pointed fiercely at Jeremiah Coverman, which seemed somehow cruel, since Jeremiah was down to slow motion and couldn’t speak for himself. Fostering a clear case of hero worship, Alexander went to stand beside his favorite relative—Sandy Leonfeid.
Together, spanning centuries, the two Alexanders made quite a figure as Picard gazed at them. Somehow the boy was less a boy now.
“I’m sorry about this,” the captain said slowly. “I’ve failed to help you understand that honor is not so simple a thing. That was my mission.”
“I’m tired of missions,” Alexander rebuffed him, folding his arms. He stepped elbow to elbow with the