Kahless - Michael Jan Friedman [68]
The boy reacted in plenty of time, but held his battelh n position to stop a thrust, not a downward stroke. Only at the last second did he realize his mistake and bring his blade up over his head-just in time to ward off the attack.
Riker was impressed. Alexander was doing things it took him years to learn. But then, the boy was part Klingon. He had a warrior’s instincts imprinted in his genes.
Alexander grinned. “I did it!” he cried.
“You sure did,” said the first officer. “You can take off your blindfold now.”
Still grinning, the boy did as he was told. He got a kick out of seeing Riker just where he expected to see him.
But a moment later, his joy faded. Apparently, he had remembered whatever it was he had on his mind.
“Something wrong?” asked the first officer.
Alexander sighed. “You know there is. Otherwise, Counselor Troi wouldn’t have sent you to talk to me.”
Riker had to smile. “It was that obvious, was it?”
The boy nodded. Placing his back against a stalagmite, he slid down the side of it and came to a stop when he reached the ground.
The first officer sat, too. “So? Do you want to get it out in the open, or do I just mind my own business?”
Alexander pretended to inspect his battelh. “We can talk,” he said.
“Is it about the scrolls?” Riker asked. “The ones that suggest Kahless isn’t all he’s cracked up to be?”
The boy looked up at him. “You know I was reading them?” Then he must have realized how easy it would have been for the first officer to determine that. “Of course you do. You’re in charge of the ship. You’ve got access to everything.”
“Well?” the first officer prodded. “Is that it? You’re disillusioned by what you read?”
He fully expected Alexander to nod his head. Instead, the boy shook it slowly from side to side.
“Don’t tell my father, but I don’t care how many days Kahless wrestled his brother, or how hard it must have been to plow his father’s fields with his battelh, or how terrible a tyrant Molor was.” He shrugged. “They’re terrific stories, sure, and I love to listen to them-but they’re just stories.”
Alexander went back to inspecting his weapon. There was a discomfort in his features that Riker hated to see there.
“To me,” the boy went on, “being a Klingon isn’t about being like Kahless. I hardly know Kahless. It’s about being like my father.”
The first officer smiled. Funny thing about sons, he thought. No matter how different they may be from their fathers, they always want to idolize them.
But he still didn’t understand why Alexander was upset. “I don’t get it,” he said. “If what you read in the scrolls didn’t bother you-was
“It did.” Alexander’s brow creased. “But not because I was disappointed. It bothered me because I know how my father feels about those stories. I don’t want him to be disappointed.”
Riker grunted. Obviously, the boy had zeroed in on the truth.
First, he had seen Worf receive a subspace packet. Then his father had taken off on a secret mission in the Empire.
Coincidence, maybe. But coincidences were seldom what they seemed.
Alexander couldn’t have discovered any of the details of the venture, of course-couldn’t have guessed that the captain and Worf were investigating a conspiracy to overthrow Gowron and throw the quadrant inffdisarray.
But he seemed to understand the significance of the scroll. He had sensed that what was at stake was nothing less than the Klingon faith. And he knew how very much that faith meant to his father.
“You’re a very clever young man,” the first officer told his young companion.
The boy looked at him, his brow still heavy with concern. “Thanks.” He got up. “I think I’ve had enough training for today.”
Riker got up too. “Same here.” He looked at the ceiling of the cavern. “Computer, end program.”
A moment later, the cavern and everything in it-the wounded warrior, the blindfolds and the battelhmeygave way to the stark reality of the black-and-yellow hologrid. As they headed for