Death in Winter - Michael Jan Friedman [82]
“Can’t we wait a little while?” Beverly asked. “Until I’m stronger?”
“I’m afraid not. The ship will not linger-and I cannot remain here with Commander Sela combing the city for me. So rather than let my chance slip away, I’ll get on the ship myself.”
The doctor had no objection to that.
“Unfortunately,” the centurion continued, “I will have to make certain before I leave that Sela doesn’t get an opportunity to interrogate you.”
“You don’t want to kill me,” Beverly said. “I’m the only one who can cure you of your disease.”
“It is not my preference,” he said. “But if I must, I will. I assure you, I have killed a great many others.” He stepped to one side and showed her a pair of Kevratan coats lying on the black marble floor. “Including the two who wore these coats until less than an hour ago.”
Beverly swallowed back her dismay and thought, Bastard.
The centurion used the barrel of his disruptor to indicate the door and said, “Now, let’s go.”
Obviously, she had pushed her luck as far as she could. With an effort, she got to her feet and allowed her captor to drape one of the coats over her shoulders.
As he fastened it in front, she wondered what it was like on Romulus. All she had to go by were the descriptions Jean-Luc had given her.
“What are the chances,” she asked only half-seriously, “of your praetor sending me home after I’ve helped you?”
The centurion didn’t answer. He just moved to the door, opened it, and led the way outside.
13
FOR WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN THE TENTH TIME SINCE Picard finished his meager, tasteless breakfast, he felt the urge to look in on Greyhorse. And as on those other occasions, he resisted it.
True, Greyhorse had given indications that he might not be as stable as his therapists believed. And on top of that, he was working long hours under perilous conditions-a combination that could have cracked even the sanest physician.
But the last thing Greyhorse needed was an unnecessary distraction. And that was exactly what the captain would have been-a distraction.
For a while, Decalon had maintained a silent vigil in the doctor’s company, for reasons only he understood. But after a while, even he had seen the need to leave Greyhorse alone.
It wasn’t as if Picard didn’t already have enough on his plate. When he wasn’t planning the distribution of the vaccine with Hanafaejas, he was taking his turn standing guard in one of the corridors. He didn’t even have a moment to sit with Pug and reminisce.
But the entire time, he was thinking about one of two things. One was how quickly Greyhorse could come up with the Kevrata’s vaccine. The other was how he would go about rescuing Beverly.
Picard was as certain as ever that she was alive. The question was where she was being kept. In a prison he and his Kevratan comrades could break into? Or some more secret place, of which even Hanafaejas might not be aware?
He wished he knew.
And he wished also that he could tell Beverly he was on Kevratas, moving closer to the moment when he could help her. It wasn’t easy biding his time when he wanted to get out of the rebels’ warren and find her.
As she, years ago, had managed to find him.
It was a time in his life he had tried hard to forget, though it still woke him in a cold sweat every now and then. For the first time, a Borg cube had invaded Federation space and Picard had been dispatched in the hope that he could stop it.
In the midst of an encounter with the cube, the captain was kidnapped off the bridge of the EnterpriseD and taken to a surgical alcove, where long, spidery probes planted mechanical prostheses in his flesh-the first step in his assimilation into the Borg collective.
Riker, who was left in command, beamed an away team over to the cube in an attempt to retrieve Picard. When the Borg recognized the team as a danger, a wave of drones was sent to deal with it. Picard was one of them.
Beverly was part of