Lost Era 05_ Deny thy Father - Jeff Mariotte [15]
Now, though, he didn’t think himself capable of simply sitting calmly in the infirmary. His mind was racing. The bomb, combined with all the other stressors of the past couple of days, had brought back the flashbacks. Kyle knew this was a danger signal. But it wasn’t something he wanted to talk about with a strange doctor, someone he didn’t know. Especially given the threat to his career from whatever trumped-up charges he might be facing on the starbase attack-if his credibility was to be questioned, the idea that he was seeing perfectly innocent medics as Tholian killers wouldn’t be advantageous.
He didn’t want to sit around the infirmary, and he couldn’t help thinking of himself as a target there anyway. A bomb had been transported into his apartment. Certainly, there were transporters in civilian hands, and in the hands of enemy alien races. But the majority of transporter technology in and around San Francisco belonged to Starfleet. Add to that the fact that the assassin who had visited his home the other night had been from Starfleet, and he had to be concerned about his safety, even right here in the middle of the Starfleet Headquarters complex.
Maybe especially here.
With the friendly doctor examining another patient, Kyle finished dressing and hurried from the room. The hallways carried the same slightly sweet, antiseptic odor as infirmaries everywhere-and Kyle had been in enough over the past couple of years to become very accustomed to it. Doctors and nurses strolled through the hallways, talking and laughing, but there didn’t seem to be much sense of urgency. This time of night, Kyle figured, most people-with the exception of cases like his, of course-were either sound asleep at home or in their biobeds, and emergencies were rare.
He turned a corner, hoping to put more distance between himself and Dr. Trbovich, when he saw a familiar figure virtually blocking the entire hallway. The man was large, with broad shoulders and a muscular neck. Close-cropped, wiry hair clung to his head. He wore the gold uniform of engineering, and even from behind, Kyle could recognize Benjamin Sisko.
“Ben?” he asked, incredulous at seeing the man here. Ben Sisko had just graduated from the Academy a year ago. Ben was a protégé of Curzon Dax; the ambassador had introduced him to Kyle on the Livingston a few months back.
The man turned and, in fact, it was Ben Sisko, who wore an ensign’s single gold collar pip. But he looked terrible-his face drawn and sallow. If he hadn’t had rich brown skin, Kyle thought he’d have looked positively green.
“Mr. Riker,” Ben said. His voice sounded as shaky as Kyle’s legs felt. “What are you doing here?” He indicated a bandage over Kyle’s left eye. “Are you okay?”
“A little misunderstanding with an explosive device,” Kyle explained. “Nothing too serious. What about you? Aren’t you still posted to the Livingston?”
“Yes,” Ben said, tugging at his uniform collar. He flashed white teeth in a quick smile. “But they let me come back for this. Jennifer just had our baby.”
“You’re kidding,” Kyle said, sharing Ben’s grin. He put out a hand, which Ben enveloped with his own, and they shook hard. “Congratulations, Ben, that’s great!”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “It’s a boy. We’re calling him Jake.”
“That’s a fine name.”
“Thanks. I can’t sleep, though-Jennifer was in labor for almost twenty hours, and now she’s snoozing but I’m just too excited.”
“I don’t blame you a bit,” Kyle said.
Ben looked at the floor. “Do you-do you want to see him?” He spoke almost shyly, though with his deep voice the effect was a little odd.
Kyle realized that this was the first time since the bomb went off that he’d stopped thinking about his own problems, and was glad to continue that trend for a while longer. “Sure,” he said gladly. “I’d love to.”
Ben started down the hall. “They’re right in here,” he said, stopping at the door to a private room. He said “Open,” and the door obeyed. Inside,