Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [83]
11less-than Sllll yl lathcomyn ilfha tmension wa-, broken She walked less-than Sllly lll j11Il LGU-EA IlLGU aneai vdm. a mddaavaa in and sat down. "I've been talking to Admiral Paris. I know what happened to you with the Cardassians. And I wanted you to know how grateful I am that you put yourself in danger to save us."
Justin shrugged, deflecting gratitude in a way that seemed to her reflexive. "It was my job."
"Admiral Paris seemed to think it was more than that." He was silent, and she felt uncomfortable again. She had to fill the void. "Did you ever think-about what would happen if the Cardassians took you again?""
"Of course."
"But you cane anyway."
A long silence, some difcult inner decision on his part, a step considered and taken, and then he looked directly at her. "I just knew I wasn't going to let them hurt you," he said simply, and in that moment the chasm between them closed and she realized that what she had sensed between them, the wrongness, the awkwardness, was her futile resistance to the inevitable.
CHAPTER 17
HARRY AND KES SAT' IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROOM, WRINGING wet and gasping. The heat was now at a torturous level, and the walls were glowing a burnished red. They had exhausted themselves trying to find a way out, a control panel, some indication of technology-anything to stop this inexorable rise in temperature which now threatened to roast them to death. To no avail. Degree by degree, the heat had increased, until the point where breathing itself was difficult. Kes looked flushed but unafraid; Harry admired her indomitable spirit but feared it wasn't going to survive this present calamity.
He slumped to the floor, trying to make his mind function and tell him what to do in this strange and dangerous situation. He tried to concentrate on all the survival skills he'd been taught at the Academy, first and foremost staying calm and not yielding to the situation, no matter how dire.
There was no evidence that the people who had built these underground catacombs were aggressors or that the capture of prisoners had any place in their society. It didn't stand to reason that this unusual chamber existed merely for the slow destruction of interlopers. On the other hand, the universe didn't necessarily organize itself reasonably. People did strange things for strange reasons, and a slow, ritualistic death had had its place in many societies. Harry's mind wandered in spite of himself. He dreamed idly of Libby, and of his parents; he dissociated from the present and seemed to drift through space and time. Hallucinatory images swirled in his brain... his first clarinet lesson... Libby dressed in white... the melodious tinkling of a wind chime in his father's garden... his mother's eyes shining at his graduation from the Academy...
All of those people undoubtedly thought he was dead. And in a few minutes, they would be right. He felt no particular regret at that moment. Death seemed merely a curious phenomenon rather than a dreaded event. What lay there? were there answers to anything? The universe posed so many questions, and so few had been answered.
He reached over to Kes, who had also collapsed onto the floor. He took her hand and squeezed it and was comforted to feel a slight pressure in return. He was content to die like this, offering solace to. and receiving it from, a good friend, drifting through memories of those he loved; it would be a peaceful going.
He wasn't even aware of the cooling breeze for a few moments. His mind had taken him to the beach on a baking day, with gentle gusts from the ocean dancing over his skin. Presently he realized there was a breeze cooling him, and he opened his eyes; there, through sweat-encrusted eyelashes, he saw a figure looming above him, fanning him. No, not fanning-not exactly. Moving something... Harry rubbed the