Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [100]
“To put it mildly,” he answered.
When she turned, she looked a little surprised. But only a little.
“You lied to me,” he continued. “Worse, you used me.”
She nodded. “I had to—or at least I thought so at the time. There didn’t seem to be any other way …”
“To expose Kobar,” be offered, “without making public your relationship with Teller.”
She smiled sadly. “I was so sure it was Kobar who had killed him. He hated offworlders, and Teller in particular. Certainly they’d had their share of run-ins, and not all on a political level, nor was it a secret that Kobar had feelings for me—I imagine Lyneea told you about that. Perhaps he sensed that I was involved with Teller … I don’t know.” She shook her head. “From the beginning, I suspected that Rhurig was connected to the theft of the seal. When I found Teller’s body in the maze, it all seemed to come together. Kelnae had hired Teller, I decided, to do Rhurig’s dirty work. Then, once Teller had obtained Fortune’s Light, Kobar saw an opportunity—a chance to have his political and personal ambitions furthered at the same time. All he had to do was stab poor Teller in the back.”
Silence for a moment. A wind came up, chilled them, and was gone.
“And the patch?”
“Just after I returned from the maze, shaken with grief, Kobar came calling on me. As before, he professed his love for me, asked me to retire from my position with Criathis and marry him. It was too much of a coincidence; I became certain that he’d murdered Teller. When he moved to touch me, to embrace me, I ripped the patch off his shoulder and threw him out.”
More silence. This time there wasn’t even a wind.
Norayan hung her head. “I’m so ashamed, Will. I thought I was doing the right thing—giving justice a helping hand. Now I see how I stood in its way—and almost got you killed in the process.”
A tear ran down her cheek. A tear from an official of Madraga Criathis!
Riker had stood about all he could stand. He took Norayan in his arms, sling and all.
“It’s all right,” he said. “It is. You said it yourself—you did what you thought was right. That’s all any of us can do.”
She looked up at him. “That’s the kind of thing Teller would have told me.”
He smiled. “Is it?” He tried to remember. “I guess maybe it is.”
“You know,” she said, “there is one thing I can’t understand. In that moment when Teller had finished burying the seal and was about to leave—the moment when he noticed the Ferengi in Larrak’s house—why didn’t he just go? Was it simple curiosity that made him inch closer to the window, and ultimately get caught? Or was it something else?”
Riker thought about it for the first time. “A sense of duty, you mean? To the Federation?”
“I didn’t know him when he served on those starships, Will. I don’t know what he was like in those days. But is it possible that, in the end, he put your Federation first? That he would have come out of hiding, no matter what the penalty, to expose Larrak’s scheme?”
Riker shook his head. “I don’t know, Norayan. But I’d sure as hell like to think so.”
With matters settled in Besidia and Commander Riker’s mission accomplished, Data returned to Holodeck One. It was time to finish the game.
He had left in the eighth inning, with Sunset runners on second and third and two outs. The android recorded the last out himself, cutting off a sharply hit grounder between third and shortstop. His throw to first beat the runner by two strides.
The Icebreakers’ half of the inning was nothing to boast of. Augustyn hit a line drive right at the Phoenix shortstop. Jackson walked, but Cherry struck out swinging and Maggin hit a little nubber to first.
In the top of the ninth, the Sunsets mounted another threat. Their first two batters reached base safely before the Fairbanks pitching coach, managing in Terwilliger’s place, called for another pitcher.
The new man shut the door on the Phoenix team. There were two pop-ups and a meek ground ball, and suddenly it was the Icebreakers’ last chance.
The Sunset pitcher had been effective until this point,