Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [34]
“You’ll still be alive,” Kellein told him, “if you know what’s good for you.”
The Modern Age Alexander couldn’t sleep. He stared at the ceiling, imagining fleecy sheep leaping over fences in a land of rolling, green hills. They leaped one at a time, making long, lazy jumps.
It didn’t work. It had never worked. And it didn’t make it any easier that he had never seen an actual sheep in his whole, entire life.
The only reason Alexander even tried counting sheep was that his mother had suggested it to him. He clung to things he remembered about her a little more than was absolutely necessary.
Like the way she used to sneak up on him and hug him when he wasn’t expecting it. Or the way she would recite nursery rhymes to him, which she claimed were from Earth but sounded more Klingon than human.
Little Red Riding Hood, for instance. Didn’t that one end with a woodchopper slicing a wolf into bloody bits?
Then there was Snow White, where an evil stepmother poisoned the heroine of the tale with a piece of fruit.
K’mpec, who led the High Council before Gowron, died after being poisoned.
And what about the Three Billygoats GruPeople Unless Alexander was mistaken, that was about an animal who butted his enemy off a bridge and saw him drown in the waters below. If that wasn’t Klingon, what was?
The boy sighed. He missed his mother.
And now, at least for a while, he missed his father as well. He wished Worf had been able to tell him something more about his mission. It would’ve made the darkness a little less dark if he knew something. Anything.
Suddenly, he remembered. His father had received a subspace message recently. Alexander hadn’t thought to ask about it at the time, assuming it was something official or Worf would have discussed it with him.
But now he wondered. Could it have had something to do with the mission his father was on now? If that was the case, there would be some evidence of it in the ship’s computer system.
Swiveling in bed, Alexander lowered his feet to the floor, got up, and padded over to the computer terminal in the next room. At the same time, he called for some illumination.
As the lights went on, the boy deposited himself on the chair in front of the computer screen. Then he accessed the log for this particular terminal. It showed him a long list of communications, the vast majority of them from other sites on the Enterprise.
There was only one from off-ship. And its origin was the Klingon Empire!
Alexander’s hands clenched into fists. His instincts had been right on target so far. Now it was a matter of bringing the message up on the screen.
If it was classified information, he would be out of luck.
No one could get into those files without Starfleet priority clearance. And even if he could somehow hack his way around that fact, he wouldn’t. He liked the officers on this ship too much to get in trouble with them.
With a few touches of his padd, the boy established that the message wasn’t classified after all. But it was restricted to this terminal and one other-the captain’s.
And Captain Picard had gone with Alexander’s father on the mysterious mission. The pieces were starting to fall into place, thought Alexander. Whatever was in the message, it had something to do with Worf’s being called away.
Of course, he could tear the cover off this mystery right now. Tapping again at his padd, he called up the file.
What he saw came as a surprise to him. There was no call for help. In fact, it wasn’t really a message at all. It was a history of some kind.
Curious, he read a few lines. And then a few more. It talked about Kahless and the kinds of things he did when he was young, but it didn’t seem to jibe too well with what Alexander knew of him. In fact, it seemed to be talking about someone else altogether.
Intrigued, the boy propped his elbows on his desk.
Resting his face in his hands, he read on.
Picard couldn’t help frowning a little as he followed Kahless and Worf into the dining hall in Tolar’tu. After all, his hood