Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [49]
He looked at the stars again. His face, a portrait of a tortured soul, was reflected in the transparent barrier that separated them from the void. “I—I can’t. I just can’t.”
“You can,” she insisted. She sought his eyes, found them as he turned to her again. “I’ll help. You hear me, Chief? I can help you.”
For a brief moment it seemed Joseph was going to take the first step back. And then, with a pathos that tore at her inner being, he pounded on the tabletop. “No,” he got out between clenched teeth. “No. You don’t know what I—what it’s like. Just—damn it, just leave me alone. You can have your stinking lounge.”
Shooting to his feet, he glared at her one last time. Then, with all the dignity he could muster, he threaded his way among the tables and left.
Guinan was so busy watching him, she almost didn’t see Dunhill’s approach.
“Ma’am?” said the waiter.
“Yes, Dunhill?”
“Is everything all right?”
She sighed. “Not exactly.” She looked up at him. “But thanks for asking.”
The holodeck doors opened.
Morgen nodded approvingly. “I like it,” he said.
Worf grunted. “I thought you would.”
Before them loomed the remains of a ruined temple, neither distinctly Klingon nor distinctly anything else, but so barbaric-looking that only a Klingon could have invented them. The sky overhead was the color of molten lava; the ground was a dead gray, pocked with steaming, smoking holes.
God-statues stared at them, either from the heights to which they’d been erected or from out of the rubble into which they’d fallen. There were bird cries, savage and shrill, though the birds themselves—a carrion-eating variety—were not evident. Long snakelike things slithered over the crumbled stones, hissing as they went.
Worf indicated the weapons at their feet. Kneeling, the Daa’Vit picked up the one that was meant for him.
“A ka’yun,” said the Klingon.
Morgen inspected it appreciatively, testing its balance. He looked at Worf. “Very authentic.”
The Klingon shrugged. “There were descriptions of it in the library computer. I merely drew on the data.” He bent and picked up his own weapon, a long staff with a vicious hook at one end and a metal ball at the other.
“A laks’mar,” noted Morgen. He stiffened a little at the sight. “I am familiar with it. We are familiar with it.”
Worf decided it would be wise to change the subject. “This program has two levels of difficulty. I have chosen the second,” he said.
The Daa’Vit nodded his approval. “Let’s begin.”
O’Brien seldom took advantage of the holodecks. It wasn’t that he had an aversion to them—just that he liked other sorts of recreation, chief among them being a good, steamy poker game.
Of course, it had been different when he’d first come on board. The holodecks had been a novelty then, and he’d vented his imagination in them. Once he’d constructed a pub in old Dublin, where he’d tossed a few down with his favorite author—a fellow by the name of James Joyce. Another time he’d had dinner with the Wee Folk under the Hill, and let their pipes charm him to sleep.
But after a while the novelty had worn off. The final straw had come when he found himself constructing poker games in the holodecks—and enjoying them less than the live games he played with the ship’s officers.
When he visited Deck Eleven these days, it was strictly to visit a friend in his or her quarters, or to work up a sweat in the gym. And when he walked past the holodeck panels, it was usually without a second thought.
Except this time. On his way to Crewman Resnick’s apartment, he’d seen Worf and Captain Morgen entering holodeck one. And he knew from speaking to Commander La Forge that Klingons and Daa’Vit didn’t get along. Hell—Worf had been afraid it might come to blows. Or worse.
But if they didn’t see eye to eye…what in blazes were they doing in the holodeck together?
In the end, it was more than curiosity that drove O’Brien to find an answer to that question. It was genuine concern for the Daa’Vit’s welfare—not to mention