Spirit Walk_ Enemy of My Enemy (Book 2) - Christie Golden [21]
“Sorry. I guess I’m not much help after all.”
“Sekky, look at me.” She did so and saw her brother gazing at her with love in his eyes. “You’re my sister and I love you. I’m sorry you’re in this situation, but not sorry for your company.”
She forced a smile past the fear in her heart. A noise in the corridor brought that fear back full force. Then the sound that chilled her, that had haunted her nightmares for years, filled her ears and turned her blood to ice:
Pretty little maiden, why do you weep
When delight and joy surrounds you?
Fear not, fear not, for the Lord of the Keep
Has wonders to astound you,
Has wonders to astound you.
Chapter 7
ONCE, when Tom Paris was very, very young, he had been permitted to attend an important social function. An ambassador from a planet whose name he tried to block from waking memory even now had specifically extended the invitation to Tom. It seemed that the presence of sons, particularly those who had not yet reached puberty, were considered quite a blessing among this species. Clearly, the son of one of Starfleet’s most famous admirals would bestow much good energy upon the gathering.
Tom remembered his mother fussing over him as he dressed, trying to get a recalcitrant cowlick to stay in place, running after him so that he wouldn’t spill something on his formal suit, going over manners and etiquette until he rolled his eyes. He remembered transporting into a room that seemed bigger than his whole house. Columns of blue lusarite held up incredibly high ceilings that seemed to stretch for meters. The carpeting was so thick that he sank about a centimeter in it. Mirrors, gold trim, statuary, burbling fountains of the pink celebratory liquor, an alien version of champagne, all served to dazzle the young Paris’s senses and make him feel tiny and lost.
He hated feeling tiny and lost. So he did what he normally did when he felt that way.
He misbehaved.
Tom quickly detached himself from his parents and hooked up with a bored-looking Andorian kid about his own age. Before Tom really quite knew what was happening, he, the Andorian kid, and a human girl whose name Tom never learned but whose fragile beauty hid a wild interior, were splashing in the fountain of the pink liquor, having consumed sufficient quantities of the stuff so that this seemed like the logical thing to do.
His father went through the roof, but when Tom and his parents transported home, Tom was so sick from the alien alcohol (“Sorry, Dad, it tasted like raspberry ice cream”) that Owen Paris decided that the crime was its own punishment.
Tom had since learned to enjoy alien alcohol. Sometimes quite a lot. But he’d always stayed away from anything pink.
The memory of that ignominious incident flashed in his mind as he, Janeway and Tuvok, all clad in their dress uniforms, materialized inside a room that was, if not a clone of that long-ago and faraway embassy, at least a kissing cousin of it.
“My,” said Janeway as she looked around admiringly. “Starfleet is pulling out all the stops.”
She barely got the words out before a server with a tray of champagne appeared at her elbow. She and Tom took one, Tuvok politely declined. Paris took a sip of the beverage and raised an eyebrow approvingly. Starfleet was indeed pulling out all the stops.
“So, Mr. Paris,” Janeway said quietly, “tell me about our cast of characters.”
There was a wild butterfly of panic in his stomach. Janeway clearly expected him to point out all the people he’d read up on during the flight. Fortunately, Tom was a people person and he had a good head for names and faces.
“That’s Ambassador Mnok, from Ysa,” he said, his gaze falling on a humanoid female who would have seemed quite attractive to him except for the tusks poking out of her mouth. “They’ve been among the most outspoken of the secessionists. In fact, Mnok has been credited—or accused, depending on your opinion—of spearheading the movement.”
“Very good. Who