Oblivion - Michael Jan Friedman [16]
“Don’t worry,” his companion told him. “As I said, I’ve been in trouble before.”
He believed her. Despite the mildness of her manners, she had made quick work of his guard, suggesting that it wasn’t the first time she had clunked someone over the head.
“How long do you propose we stay here?” the captain asked.
The woman shrugged. “Until I think of somewhere else to go, I suppose.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Are you in a hurry?”
“I have to find someone,” he explained. He weighed how much to tell her. “I was supposed to meet him in the plaza, and then that bomb went off.”
She frowned. “We can worry about that tomorrow, after we’ve gotten some rest.”
Picard didn’t like the idea of waiting that long, but he had to admit that it made sense to lie low. And he was in need of some sleep.
“As you say,” he told his companion.
“By the way,” she added, “I’ll be sleeping here. You’ll want to sleep over there.” She jerked her thumb at a spot on the other side of some containers.
The captain smiled at her sense of propriety. “Of course. I mean, I hope you don’t think—”
“Thinking’s got nothing to do with it,” she told him, clearly intending to terminate the conversation.
Picard chuckled to himself. Quite a character, this—
It was then that he realized he didn’t know his benefactor’s name. It was an oversight he felt compelled to correct.
But to find out her name, he would be obliged to offer his own—and as much as she deserved his trust, there was too much at stake for him to confide the truth in her.
“Incidentally,” he said, “my name’s Dixon Hill.”
The security guards already knew him that way. Why weave a more tangled web than he had to?
“Hill,” she echoed.
A smile seemed to play around the corners of her mouth. For a moment, Picard wondered if he’d had the bad luck to run into a scholar of twentieth-century detective fiction out here, past the bounds of Federation space—though the odds against that were absurdly long.
“You’ve heard the name before?” he asked innocently.
Abruptly, even that suggestion of a smile vanished. “No,” she told him. “It sounded familiar for a second, but…” Her voice trailed off and her eyes lost their focus again.
The captain said, “And you?”
The woman turned to him. “Guinan.”
“Guinan…?” he said, fishing for a last name.
She seemed to consider her response for a long time. Finally she said, in a thin and colorless voice, “Just Guinan.”
Chapter Five
LIEUTENANT ULELO, THE NEWCOMER in the Stargazer’s communications section, allowed himself to be ushered down the corridor that led to the ship’s observation lounge.
“Come on,” said Emily Bender. “It’s supposed to start any minute now.”
“Don’t worry,” Ulelo told her. “They’ll wait for us. They always do.”
When he and Emily Bender met, shortly after his arrival on the Stargazer, she claimed to have known Ulelo at Starfleet Academy. Ulelo had no recollection of such a thing. But then, he didn’t remember anything that far back.
In fact, the only thing Ulelo recalled with crystal clarity was his mission. His secret mission. And the only way he could carry it out was to avoid distractions like Emily Bender.
As a result, he had tried his best to do that. He had told her he didn’t remember her. He had rebuffed her less-than-subtle suggestion that they start an intimate relationship.
But then, through a series of circumstances Ulelo still didn’t quite understand, Emily Bender had become his friend—not his lover, as she had originally intended, but someone close to him nonetheless.
And mission or no mission, the com officer had become accustomed to that friendship—not to mention the circle of acquaintances it brought with it, most of whom were at that very moment waiting for him to join them.
As soon as Ulelo and his companion arrived at the door to the lounge, Emily Bender tapped the metal plate located beside it. Immediately, the door slid aside, revealing the half-dozen crew people seated around the room’s black oval table.
As Ulelo scanned