The Eyes of the Beholders - A. C. Crispin [59]
LengwI’ snuffled, not knowing, of course, that he was the only Targ on this backwater of the empire, the planet named Khitomer. Worf’s small face drew into a scowl even more pronounced than usual. At least his family had let him bring his pet along to the small Klingon settlement—he couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be here without LengwI’ to take hunting and provide company.
Worf sighed. He didn’t like being stuck here on this remote, underpopulated colony world while Mogh, his father, worked on setting up the planetary communications system. They’d already been here half a season longer than Mogh had thought they would be when they’d first come.
Absently, Worf scuffed his big toe into the hole LengwI’ had dug, pushing the clods back around the roots of the tree. If only Mogh would take Worf, LengwI’, Mother, and Worf’s nurse, Kahlest, back home, then everything would be fine again. Back home there would be other children to practice battle strategies and unarmed combat with. There were few children anywhere near Worf’s age on this colony world, and most of them were females.
Not that there was anything wrong with females, basically, Worf thought. Some of them were very good fighters indeed, making up for their smaller size and lesser strength with quicker reflexes, greater cunning, and, when in battle frenzy, ferocious savagery. But females weren’t the same as having boys his own age as friends.
The boy sighed, and LengwI’, catching his mood, grunted inquiringly and thrust a bristly muzzle into Worf’s hand. When the boy looked down at his pet, he saw the Targ eyeing him with a certain glint in its small eyes that the boy recognized. “You just ate, “he pointed out. “Are you hungry already?” LengwI’ snuffled agreement. “Well, it’s not time for you to be fed yet, so if you’re hungry, you’ll just have to catch something else. So hunt, boy. Kill!”
The Targ’s bristly, moist snout quivered as it scented the air, then it began jogging purposefully toward another tree. Worf watched proudly as the Targ promptly dug up, dispatched, disemboweled, then devoured another burrower, even larger than the first. “Good boy!” he praised.
Worf glanced at the sky, seeing that the small, reddish sun was nearly down to the horizon. His own stomach churned with hunger. Soon it would be time for dinner, and Mama was making Rokeg blood pie tonight!
The boy’s stomach grumbled eagerly at the thought. Waving to the Targ to abandon the last few juicy scraps of burrower, Worf turned around and headed back. Behind him he heard the Targ’s hooves crunching the dry ground cover, and, with a shouted challenge—”This time you won’t catch me!”—he broke into a run for home.
Worf’s eyes opened, and he sat up, glancing around him at the solid familiarity of his own quarters. The dream had been so real! The smell of Khitomer’s dust and vegetation seemed to linger in his nostrils. His stomach was rumbling hungrily, and his mouth watered at the thought of eating real Rokeg blood pie, hot and slippery and salty in his mouth. The Enterprise’s food synthesizers, accurate as they were, just couldn’t manage to reproduce that raw, fresh-killed flavor.
He rose from his narrow, austere bunk. Worf’s quarters were stark, almost monastic in their simplicity and sparseness.
Quickly Worf dressed in his uniform. He draped his sash over his powerful shoulders, checked its placement in his mirror, and checked the charge in his phaser. He smoothed back his hair—not as long as most Klingons wore theirs, but Worf strove to balance his appearance between that expected of a Starfleet officer and that of a Klingon warrior.
Then the security chief walked toward the door, but suddenly he stopped halfway there, his body stiffening. That dream … it hadn’t been just a dream. It had been a memory. That day had actually happened. He remembered now—
—remembered being roused in the middle of that