Reunion - Michael Jan Friedman [75]
Pug, Cad, and Greyhorse. And four is the minimum required by law.” He cleared his throat, which must have been scoured raw by his outburst. “Blazes-anyone who hasn’t got four friends in the whole universe isn’t fit to rule.”
The Daa’Vit began to pace again. But he seemed under control, contemplative. Almost calculating, in contrast to the fit of unbridled emotion Picard had just witnessed. Preferring this Morgen to the other—comat least for now-the captain didn’t interrupt. “Of course,” the Daa’Vit said after a little while, “the size of my escort is one thing-and the circumstances in which it was diminished is another. If the true story gets. out on Daa’Very, it could be embarrassing. Most embarrassing.”
The captain shrugged. “Then no one on Daa’Very need know the circumstances.”
Morgen nodded. “Good.” His eyes narrowed. “Now all we have to do is get there. What about this idea that Simenon’s had?” Picard shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it-except that Commander La Forge seemed to think it was promising.”
“Perhaps we should find out, then.” A hint of irony had crept back into his voice. Of amusement, almost. The captain saw it as a good sign. “Perhaps we should,” he agreed.
A Worf negotiated the corridor that led to the brig, he asked himself exactly why he’d come.
Initially, he had decided it made sense for the chief of security to check up on a prisoner like Asmund-one who had proved both so brutal and so resourceful. But by the time he was descending in the turbolift, he had been honest enough to admit-if only to himself— that there was more to it than that.
He was curious about this female—and had been since the beginning. After all, she had been raised on the Klingon homeworld. She had been exposed early on to the customs and traditions he had missed-that is, until he sought them out as a teenager. But he was also repelled by her. She was an anomaly comnei human nor Klingon, but a strange admixture of the two. Just as Worf himself was-and that was what made him so uncomfortable. Up until now, his repulsion had dominated his curiosity. He hadn’t exactly avoided her-he was too busy avoiding Morgen—comb he had managed to keep busy enough with his duties to prevent any chance meetings.
Then there had been the incident in the holodeck, and he had had a more compelling reason for shunning the woman. As long as she was a suspect in the murder attempts, he could not afford to have his vision clouded with emotion. What if he carne to respect her? To like or even admire her? It could only have been an encum-brance in the discharge of his duty.
And of course, once he realized it was she who had made the attempts on Morgen and the others, personal contact had been out of the question. She had become an adversary, and a deadly one. But now, with Asmund sequestered in the brig, his curiosity had come to the forefront.
Why? Because she had committed a violent crime-more than one, in fact. And because of the possibility that her Klingon upbringing, in some way-twisted or otherwise-had had something to do with it. Hadn’t there been a fear deep inside him, since the day he arrived at the Academy, that the Klingon in him would rise up at the wrong time-with grisly results? That a superior would confront him in the heat of an armed conflict and pay the price? Or that a crewmate would simply surprise him in the gym-and regret it for days afterward?
Gradually, on a purely rational level, he’d discovered that his fear was unfounded. He’d learned that he was sufficiently in control to subdue his instincts, dysfunc-tional as they sometimes were in the context of accepted Starfleet behavior. That had driven his anxiety into a dark corner of his psyche. But it hadn’t kept it from gnawing at him. Now he could