Day of Honor - Michael Jan Friedman [68]
Clearly, he hoped that they could. It showed in his eyes and in the way the muscles rippled in his temples.
Lumas shrugged. "Perhaps. But even then . .
His second-in-command looked at him. "Yes?"
"I need some time alone in my quarters," said Lumas. "I have a great deal to think about."
Sedrek seemed to understand. "And in the meantime?"
"If Voyager makes a move," Lumas told him, "let me know. Otherwise, simply maintain our position."
The other man nodded. "Understood."
Lumas clapped him on the shoulder. Then he left the bridge and retired to his cabin. After all, he did have a great deal to think about.
As the door to his cabin irised open and Lumas looked inside, he was struck by how small his quarters looked. How cramped and confined.
But then, his perspective had changed. Lumas was seeing the place with eyes that Janeway had opened to new vistas-new possibilities. And not just for him, but for his long-suffering people.
Certainly, the prospect of being able to generate thorium isotopes whenever necessary was an attractwe one. It would mean an end to poverty, an end to sickness and hunger. It would mean the Caatati could again devote their lives to something besides survival.
But Lumas had yet to see proof of Janeway's claims. He had yet to see her miracle machine with his own eyes.
And if she showed it to him? he asked himself. If she demonstrated it could do everything she had said it could?
Then what?
Was he to embrace it without reservation-and in doing so, embrace the insidious deal the human had
set before him? Was he to forget all the misery and devastation his people had endured and let the Borg witch go free?
Lumas shook his head. He couldn't do it. He couldn't forget what the Borg had done to him. Even if it meant the death of his people, even if it meant the extinction of the entire Caatati race, he couldn't let a chance for revenge slip through his fingers.
He would tell Janeway that he rejected her proposition. And if she remained steadfast in her refusal to turn over the Borg, he would carry out his threat. He would set his ships on her like a pack of sharp-toothed g'daggen on a fat-laden quarril.
Either way, the Borg would have occasion to regret what her race had done. Either way, she would"Father?" came a voice.
Astounded, Lumas turned to look back over his shoulder. He saw his daughter Finaea standing there. She looked concerned.
"You're unhappy, father. Do you want to talk about
For a moment or two, he didn't understand. Then his fingers climbed to the crown of his head and felt the cool, slender form of the realizer there.
"I don't remember-"
"Remember what?" asked Finaea, smiling gently at her father's confusion.
I don't remember putting on the realizer, he mused, finishing the thought. But he didn't tell his daughter that, because it would also have meant telling her she wasn't real-and she had endured enough pain.
Lumas smiled back at her. "I didn't remember seeing you come in. That's all." He reached for her
hand and held it. "Where are your mother and your sister? At the marketplace?"
Finaea seemed to look more deeply into his eyes than ever before. "They didn't come because ...
because they couldn't," she explained.
"Couldn't?" he echoed.
Lumas didn't understand. After all, his wife and daughters always came together, except on those rare occasions when he preferred the company of only one or two of them.
Finaea paused, as if searching for words. "You needed to talk," she said finally. "With me. Just with me."
He felt a chill climb the rungs of his spine. "How would you know that?" he asked softly.
She shrugged. "I'm part of you, Father. I always have been. And right now, I'm the part you need the most."
Lumas looked at her with dread in his heart. The way Finaea was speaking to him, it was almost as if she knew ...
No, he insisted. That was impossible. She wasn't real. She had no awareness except for his awareness, no reality except that which_that which he gave her.
Suddenly, Lumas figured out what must have happened. As he sat there pondering