Pathways - Jeri Taylor [84]
Her eyes flickered toward her console. She knew very well who was transmitting from Mexico, and the knowledge hung over her like a pall. She stared at the darkened monitor, knowing all she had to do was press a few controls and she could access the series of messages.
She lay like that for almost forty minutes, then rolled off the bed and moved toward the console and, with studied casualness—though for whom she was feigning indifference she wasn’t sure—she activated her comm system to play the messages she had been saving.
The man whose image appeared on the screen was in his late forties, hair dark and wavy, flashing eyes almost black, smile broad and warm. He was, in B’Elanna’s eyes, almost unbearably handsome, and she felt a wave of something foreign and ineffable rise in her. It wasn’t pleasant, turning her hands clammy and her stomach queasy. She drew several deep gulps of air.
“B’Elanna,” the man said, “I’ve been in deep space for over a year and I just learned you were at Starfleet Academy. I’m so proud of you . . . I’d love to visit you. Please let me know if that’s all right.”
That was message number one, which had come in months before. Each succeeding transmission—and there were seven in all—was increasingly urgent. She had replayed each one over and over, night after night, without responding. Tentatively, she tapped the control that would play the latest one.
“B’Elanna, it’s possible you’re out in the field, or sick, or on leave. But I’m reasonably sure those things aren’t true and that you’ve chosen not to answer me. I’m sorry for that . . . it hurts me . . . but I can understand it. I wish we could talk, so I could explain some things to you. I didn’t leave you and your mother because I didn’t care about you, I swear to you. Now that you’re grown, maybe I could put things in a context that would make what I did understandable. Maybe even forgivable.”
There was a pause as the intense black eyes stared at her. “I love you, B’Elanna. I’ve missed you every day of my life. I’d do anything if we could find each other again. Please— don’t shut me out.”
The screen went dark and B’Elanna deactivated the console. Her chest felt constricted, as though pressed by stones. Her stomach twisted like a loose eel, forcing gorge into her throat. Her fingers hovered over the controls that would allow her to reply to these messages, and she told herself that when she’d counted to ten, she would do it. She counted to ten seven times before she admitted she wasn’t going to be able to summon the courage.
She made her way on trembling legs to her bed, and fell on it in a dead weight. The room began to spin dizzyingly, and she closed her eyes, trying to draw air into her lungs. She felt fevered, ill. She turned on her stomach and pulled the pillow over her head, trying to insulate herself from this onslaught of feelings, and presently she fell into an unquiet sleep.
She waked a few hours later. A cool breeze was pouring through the window as the ubiquitous San Francisco fog gathered for the night. She felt calm once more, her head clear and focused. She realized she had made a decision in her sleep, and it had cleansed her of the anguish she was experiencing.
She was leaving the Academy. She was going somewhere far away, many sectors from here, maybe into another quadrant. Any place where she could be sure her father couldn’t find her.
“More power! More power! What are you doing down there? I need more power!”
B’Elanna sighed and brushed her hair out of her eyes, leaving a dark smudge on the ridges of her forehead. It was impossibly hot in the engine room, and sweat stung her eyes and dampened her shirt. “I’m doing the best I can, Mesler. It won’t help to yell at me.”
The Bolian’s voice on the comm was shrill and tinny. “I’m on a strict deadline!