Possession - J.M. Dillard [64]
“Your mother—?” Worf asked.
“She was still alive, but he’d beaten her pretty badly. She was never the same after that, always fearful, worried when I’d go out by myself. I guess I was never the same either.”
“That explains many things about your behavior,” Worf said. “You keep yourself at least an arm’s length from most people. You seem more wary than most humans. And, of course, it explains your training.”
“I—I always felt I should’ve stayed and helped her, fought him, something.” Kyla shook her head. “But all I could do was run.”
“It was the only sensible thing to do,” Worf assured her. “You were but an untrained child. You used your only weapon—speed—to go for aid. Had you stayed, you would have been harmed, perhaps killed. And your mother would have had to live with that as well.”
“That’s what she says, but—well, afterward, I just made sure nothing like that could ever happen to me again. Then—it happened to me again. And with all my training, ultimately—I still had to run for it.”
“Still, you warded off your opponent and defended yourself well. You drew blood, but he drew none from you. I only wish I could apprehend this coward.”
Kyla found herself pulling inward, tighter and tighter, until she realized she’d folded her arms snuggly against her body and sat tense and expectant. “I’m not going back there,” she announced, as if declaring her intentions would give her back some control over her situation.
Worf looked troubled. “Normally, it would be a simple matter to find you vacant quarters, but with all the scientists on board, that could be difficult. I can ask one of the junior officers to switch quarters for you for tonight, if that is acceptable.”
“No, not acceptable at all. With my luck, I’ll be switching quarters with the person who jumped me. Quite frankly, there’s only one person on this ship that I trust that much—and that’s you. I’m staying here.”
Worf’s eyebrows nearly climbed past his skull plate. “Kyla!” he said softly.
“Don’t give yourself so much credit,” she warned, grinning. “I’m sleeping right on this couch. I wouldn’t dream of scandalizing Alexander. And, besides, I hate getting up in the morning. It’s the only way I’ll ever be on time for breakfast. As far as the rest of the evening is concerned …” She sidled closer to him on the couch. “You don’t play poker, do you?”
Slowly, Worf’s face eased into a smile.
Picard nodded at the doctor and nurses on duty as he moved through the quiet sickbay; it was a peaceful place this late into the night shift. When no patients were being held overnight, lights were reduced and everything was still.
He moved through the shadow-draped facility until he came to the quarantine room; there he paused before the closed doors to collect himself, then finally stepped forward. The doors slid open, allowing him passage.
In quarantine, the lights were also dimmed; a single spotlight shone down upon the artifacts behind their shields, making them the brightest spots in the room. Making them look, Picard reflected, like a museum display of the ancient artifacts they in fact were. Beneath the spotlight, they glittered like subtle works of art, pleasing to the eye—and quite deadly to the mind and body.
Picard approached them slowly, deliberately, as one might approach a charmed cobra, then acquired a tricorder from a nearby counter and checked the fail-safes, the alarms, the entire setup. All sound. Beverly had left behind the diagnostic readouts from her last check: All was exactly as it should be.
Perhaps he was being overly cautious, but given Troi’s reaction to the creatures, he would not rest easy until they were transferred to the Vulcan ship.
The thought made him study them again; they looked innocuous, benign, actually beautiful lying there behind the fields. What was in them that could so disturb Deanna, make her so vehement about their destruction?
And what kind of a people