Spirit Walk_ Old Wounds (Book 1) - Christie Golden [56]
Chakotay ran for the ball, bringing his racket across his body for a good solid backhand.
“Captain Chakotay, please report to the bridge.”
Chakotay stumbled in midstride and missed the ball. Gasping for breath, he drew a hand over his forehead, grateful for the sweatbands on his wrists. He tapped his combadge.
“What’s going on, Harry?”
“Captain, there’s something here you should see.”
“We’re on our way.” Chakotay and his first officer exchanged glances as they left the holodeck.
Still clad in their tennis whites, they emerged on the bridge. The instant he glanced up at the viewscreen, Chakotay realized exactly why Harry had wanted him to see this.
On the long-range sensors was the wreckage of dozens of vessels.
Gradak was older than Jarem, but still in the prime of life. Slender, gray-haired, hollow-cheeked, he was talking rapidly; his mouth was moving, but Jarem heard nothing. The other Trill’s eyes were wild and blood-shot, and he punctuated his unheard speech with agitated gestures.
“Describe him to me,” asked Astall.
“He’s very upset,” Kaz said aloud. “Very angry. He’s wounded and bloody, and he’s shouting things at me, but I can’t hear him.”
“Jarem, this is your body,” Astall said. Her voice was calm, soothing. “You are in control of it at all times. I want you to imagine your memories as something physical, something you can hold in your hand.”
In his mind, Jarem looked down at his left hand. Cradled in his palm was a stone. It seemed to radiate and pulse, as if something was contained within it, and it changed colors as Jarem watched. Intellectually, he wondered at the image. He had certainly never thought of his memories as looking quite like that.
“I see them,” he said, amending at once, “It. The—the memory stone.”
“Now, look at Gradak. Does he have his memories in his hand too?”
Kaz didn’t want to look at Gradak, but he forced himself to do so. The blood-covered Trill seemed slightly less frantic. He, too, had a beautiful, radiant “stone” in his left hand. He held it out to Jarem, his weathered face imploring.
“Yes,” said Jarem. “He has his memories. He wants me to take them.”
“That’s exactly what you should do. Give him your memories, and take his.”
But Kaz couldn’t do it. He was afraid of having this man’s memories be uppermost in his mind. Jarem didn’t have to relive Gradak’s life—and death—in order to sense his outrage, grief, and burning need for revenge. They were written plainly on the dead man’s face. Gradak continued to hold out his hands, one holding his own memories, the other empty, ready to take Jarem’s memories.
“I don’t want them,” Kaz whispered.
“He will give them to you whether you want them or not,” came Astall’s voice. “He had been doing everything he can to give them to you through your dreams. If you willingly take on these memories, you will be in control. Otherwise, Gradak will be running the show, and he’s in too much pain to be doing that.”
Gradak was speaking again, or trying to; Jarem still couldn’t hear him. The Maquis gesticulated with the hand that held the memories.
Slowly, reluctantly, Jarem extended his hands. He saw that they trembled as his right hand closed over Gradak’s memory stone. His left hand felt oddly empty as Gradak folded his bloodstained hands around the stone and lifted Jarem’s memories.
Kaz’s eyes flew open.
The memories crashed upon him like a tidal wave. They came so swiftly, so powerfully, he had trouble breathing.
Vallia. In his arms again, her sweat-slicked skin against his, her mouth open to him, sweet—
Taken. Rounded up like beasts by the Cardassian monsters. Taken to who knew where. “You can leave. We only want the Bajorans.” And so, broken and weeping, he left, rather than throw his life away in a futile attempt to find her; left only to return, to kill as many Cardassians as he could—
“Jarem…?”
Safe here, on Tevlik’s moon. Brought here by the one man he really trusted—Arak Katal. The starlight caught Katal’s earring,