The Brave and the Bold Book Two - Keith R. A. DeCandido [55]
Bowing to the inevitable, Worf allowed Lwaxana to catch up. I might as well get this over with, he thought glumly. Like most Betazoids, Lwaxana was a telepath, so she probably picked up that thought, but Worf found himself unable to be too concerned with that. His negative thoughts had never even slowed her down in the past.
“What a pleasant surprise to see you here.” Lwaxana hooked her arm into Worf’s and led him onward down the corridor.
“Thank you,” Worf said, not meaning it, and looking at the arm as if it were a poisonous snake.
“So, Woof, you’re an ambassador now. I guess we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other at diplomatic functions like this conference on Khitomer.”
“It would appear so,” Worf said neutrally, long since having given up correcting Lwaxana’s perpetual mispronunciation of his name. For lack of anything better to say, he asked, “How is your son?”
“Doing as well as possible, under the circumstances,” Lwaxana said, with a notable dimming of enthusiasm. Betazed had been conquered by the Dominion during the war. In fact, both Lwaxana and Worf had both been involved in the planet’s liberation a little over a year ago—Worf had commanded the U.S.S. Defiant, one of the Starfleet ships involved in the mission, and Lwaxana had led the Betazoid resistance movement—though they did not encounter each other then.
“How is the rebuilding progressing?” he asked.
“Slowly. I just came from Earth, actually, and had a talk with the Federation Council about it. I spent two days wrangling with Minister al-Rashan and a tiresome little Cardassian who’s trying to get the Federation to commit more resources to Cardassia than to Betazed! Can you believe it?”
“No,” Worf said truthfully. Cardassia was the enemy. Betazed was part of the Federation, and deserved consideration before a foe.
“Neither did I. But this Eli Gark person, or whatever his name is, he’s a sneaky one,” Lwaxana said, not concealing her annoyance.
Worf started. “You mean Elim Garak?”
“Don’t tell me you know the little toad?”
Hiding a small smile, Worf said, “Oh yes.”And, he thought, if ever two people deserved each other, it is Garak and Lwaxana.
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Mr. Woof,” Lwaxana said testily.
Worf suppressed a growl.
There was an uncomfortable silence as they continued down the corridor. Worf was not looking forward to the next few hours. He doubted he would be able to contrive an excuse to use the St. Lawrence’ s aft compartment to grab a quick nap—not with Lwaxana accompanying him.
“Worf—” Lwaxana started.
This got Worf’s attention, both because she pronounced his name properly and because she was hesitant. He had known Lwaxana Troi for twelve years, and he would never have used that word to describe her before.
Against his better judgment, Worf prompted, “Yes?”
“You saw Odo before he—before he went home?”
Suddenly, Worf understood. Odo was the security chief on Deep Space 9; both he and Worf had ended their tenures serving there at the same time. For reasons Worf could never comprehend, the changeling and Lwaxana had formed a close friendship. In fact, they had even temporarily married—something involving the custody of her then-unborn son.
“Yes,” Worf said simply.
“I know what happened. He wrote me a very nice letter before he left explaining that he was returning to the Founders’ homeworld to be with his people. I know that that’s what he always wanted, but I need to know from someone who saw him. Was he—was he happy?”
Worf would no sooner have used happy to describe Odo than he would have used hesitant to describe Lwaxana. But Worf had come to respect Odo during their time serving together, and while they were hardly friends, Worf felt