Reunion - Michael Jan Friedman [28]
Joseph grunted. “Give me a break, all right? I can hold my liquor.” “No doubt,” she answered, though she had lots of doubts. “The question is why you would want to.” His mouth twisted into something mean. “I love people like you,” he told her. “Crusaders. They always think they know you—know all about you.” His voice became menacing. “You don’t know anything about me.”
Guinan stood her ground. “I just might know more than you think.” “Like what?”
“Like you’re bubbling over with hate. For others, to an extent– but most of all, for yourself. Because you don’t like what you’ve become. Because you think it could’ve been different. And because you believe, in the secret center of yourself, that somehow it’s all your fault.” Seeing him shrink a little from her, she softened her voice. “And the alcohol is the only way you can keep the hate in check. It’s the only way you can smile at people and not snarl at them, because if you let them see what’s inside you, you know you’re going to lose what precious little you do have.”
Suddenly, Joseph’s face was flushed. It took him a few seconds to respond, and when he did, his voice was little more than a rasp.
“You’re crazy,” he said.
She shook her head. “No. I just come from a very old race.” Gradually, Joseph’s confusion dissipated. But it wasn’t replaced by anger. Rather, the man seemed on the verge of tears. “1’m as good as they are,” he said. “I’m as good as anyone.” “Of course you are,” Guinan assured him. “But now you’ve got more than a couple-of bad breaks to deal with. The alcohol has gotten in your way. Can’t: you see? It’s like a jealous lover. It doesn’t just console you—it makes sure you stay just where you are. Beaten. Bitter. If you really want to become the kind of person you can be, you’re going to have to face this—and take care of it.” 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 dispounded 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 slith-ered 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, was 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