The Devil's Heart - Carmen Carter [111]
Mesmerized by Picard’s words, Crusher saw the Heart as if for the first time. How could she have missed the aura of strangeness that surrounded its rough form?
She reached out to touch the stone.
The captain pulled away with a possessive gesture. Mine! he seemed to say as he clutched the Heart to his chest. “Are you finished with your medical exam, Doctor?”
“Yes, Captain.” Crusher rose to her feet and backed away. Just those few steps broke the Heart’s uncanny spell. Once more, the captain was holding just a rock.
Picard leaned back against the cushions of the sofa and crossed one leg over the other.
In an amiable, conversational tone, he said, “I promise to take better care of myself from now on.”
“That’s all I ask,” said Crusher with a smile that was stretched thin over her apprehension.
She left the captain sitting alone in the shadows of the ready room.
Troi had suggested her counseling room as the most comfortable and convenient meeting place, but the unspoken understanding among the three senior officers was that it also offered more privacy than the CMO’S office. Unfortunately, this need for privacy imbued their actions with an unpleasantly furtive nature, and the empath could sense a general discomfiture when they gathered. Although the cushioned furniture was designed to encourage relaxation, Will was perched on the edge of his chair, and Beverly was pacing back and forth as she described her encounter with the captain.
“There was no opportunity to take the Heart from him”—Crusher shuddered at some unpleasant aspect of the memory—”and I’m just as glad I didn’t even touch it.”
“Why not?” asked Troi curiously.
Beverly shrugged away the question as if not really sure herself. “One moment he seemed himself, then the next he was like a man possessed.”
“Are you qualified to perform an exorcism, Doctor?” asked Riker. The grim expression on his face robbed the question of any humor.
“I don’t believe an outside agent is the problem, Commander,” said Troi. After her talk with Guinan, the counselor had reached a new understanding of the captain’s behavior. “Even if the Heart is sentient, I don’t sense that it has taken control of Captain Picard. It acts more like an amplifier of all his emotions, and it has transformed his fascination with the stone’s legend into an obsession.”
“There’s more to it than that, Deanna,” said Crusher. “It’s no secret that our captain strives for perfection, that he dislikes making mistakes or losing. And after his abduction by the Borg …”
“Ah, yes,” said the counselor, pleased by the additional insight Beverly provided. “After his abduction he felt very vulnerable. So now he has what he believes to be the key to preventing failure of any sort.”
Riker frowned at the exchange. “You mean the Heart has made him an offer he can’t refuse?”
“Yes,” said Troi. “Yes, perhaps it has.”
“Engineering to Captain Picard.”
Picard woke with a start to find he was still sitting upright on the ready room sofa, and he wondered if he had been pulled out of sleep or into a dream.
“Engineering to Captain Picard,” repeated La Forge patiently.
“Picard here.”
“The engine core is back on-line, Captain. We’ll have warp speed in ten minutes.”
“Acknowledged, Lieutenant.”
Geordi’s voice was familiar, and there was no sense of the disorientation that had accompanied Jack Crusher’s presence, so Picard decided he was truly awake.
Tapping his comm insignia, he said, “Picard to Riker. Prepare for an immediate departure from this sector.”
“Aye, Captain!” came the first officer’s enthusiastic response. Riker was obviously eager for a return to Federation territory; the demand for yet another diversion would be difficult for him to accept.
Tucking the Heart securely into the crook of his arm, Picard whispered, “You have shown me where you need to go, but I still don’t know what to do when we get there.”
If only there