Maker - Michael Jan Friedman [73]
“I didn’t like the way he treated you,” he said.
“You didn’t like him,” she insisted, in a tone he had never heard her use before. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and searching. “So how can you help me mourn his death?”
Paris wasn’t often ruled by his emotions. But when he heard the pique in Jiterica’s voice, something stiffened inside him.
“Maybe I can’t,” he said.
Even before Paris saw the deepening of her dismay, he knew he had made a mistake. Jiterica wanted him to be supportive, to see Stave as she had seen him. She wanted him to say soothing things like He was a great guy and I wish I had known him better and I know you’re going to miss him.
And instead, he had closed himself off from her.
Come on, Paris told himself. This isn’t about you and Stave. It’s about Jiterica. And if you feel about her the way you say, you’ll put your jealousy aside and help her get past this.
“No,” he said, “that’s wrong. I can help. I…”
The ensign wanted to say the right things. He really did. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Yes?” said Jiterica.
Stave was dead. Whatever jealousy or resentment Paris had felt should have ended with the Magnian’s demise.
Should have. But when he looked at Jiterica and saw how badly Stave’s death was affecting her, he couldn’t help feeling jealous and resentful all over again.
After a while, she turned away from him. And he knew that this time, she wasn’t turning back.
“Sorry,” Paris mumbled.
Jiterica didn’t answer him.
It was clear that she didn’t want him there, so he told her he would see her later and left her quarters the way he had come in. As her door whispered closed behind him, Paris felt terrible.
He had let Jiterica down when she needed him. He had failed her. And he wasn’t sure she would ever forget it.
Stave was dead, unable to compete anymore for Jiterica’s affection. And yet somehow, even in absentia, he had won.
Captain’s Log, Supplemental. Nikolas was badly burned from his proximity to the lava. However, thanks to the skill of Doctor Greyhorse, Nikolas will not only survive, but will hardly have a scar to show for his ordeal.
Picard looked down at Nikolas, who was still asleep on a biobed in Greyhorse’s sickbay. The entire left side of the man’s face looked red and raw. But then, the skin there was newly regenerated, and therefore still tender.
The captain tried to imagine what had gone through Nikolas’s mind as he charged Brakmaktin. No doubt, he had seen terrible things in the Nuyyad’s company, the deaths of his crewmates on the Iktoj’ni not the least of them. But to sacrifice his life so readily, with such determination…
“Captain,” said a familiar voice.
Picard turned to Greyhorse, who had emerged from his office. “Shouldn’t we be quiet so your patient can rest?”
“He’s rested enough for one morning,” said the doctor. “It’s time for him to rejoin the ranks of the living.”
Reaching into the pocket of his lab coat, he fished out a hypospray. Adjusting the formulation, he applied the device to Nikolas’s neck and released the contents.
Nothing happened at first. Then the patient’s eyelids began to flutter and he looked around.
For a moment, the look in his eyes was vacant, hollow. It was as if he were still bearing witness to an unnameable horror. Then his eyes focused on the captain’s face.
“Sir,” he said, making an attempt to sit up.
Picard gently pressed him back down again. “Don’t,” he said, “or the doctor will eject me from sickbay.”
Nikolas frowned a little, limited by the constraints of his new skin. “I don’t doubt it.”
“How are you feeling?” Picard asked.
“A lot better, sir.”
And yet, Picard thought, you still bear the scars of what you experienced—not on your face, perhaps, but elsewhere.
But what he said was, “You certainly look better. I am pleased to see you are making such exemplary progress.”
Nikolas gave Greyhorse a sidelong glance. “Thanks to the doctor.”
Picard glanced at Greyhorse too. “Yes, it is always good to acknowledge