The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [159]
“And what’s your problem with that?”
“First off, have you actually read my log reports?”
Picard grimaced and considered his answer. “You do have an interesting way of attacking syntax.”
“Beyond how to say it, what do I say? How do I distill how I feel about Deanna into a few sentences? Sentences that I then have to read in front of everyone we both know.”
“I see your quandary, Will,” Picard said, then looked away, giving the matter some serious contemplation. He stood up and walked behind Riker, going over to his well-read volume of the complete works of Shakespeare, the one that had survived the destruction of the previous Enterprise on Veridian III. Although Picard denied belief in any sort of good-luck charm, Riker noted that he treated the book like a reservoir of strength, one to be dipped into sparingly. Riker turned to see Picard heave the book off its stand. He handed it to Riker.
“Well, Number One, you can never go wrong with Shakespeare.”
Will Riker sat on the low wall that surrounded a reflecting pool holding his tricorder up so that it would record his face and the pool in the background. He had wandered through several rooms in the medical center looking for just the right place. He settled on what he figured was a waiting room, because he liked the relative tranquillity of its reflecting pool. That seemed the appropriate venue to record a final message.
He wondered if the room was typical of Fabrini architecture. The materials were ornate. Marble, stones, and polished metals, all of which had the familiar triangular shape to them that the Fabrini seemed to favor. The blast door that had covered the entrance, although a functional device, was still made of an ornate, polished metal. Each surface was inlaid with Fabrini writing and more triangles. Even the pool was three sided.
He had left Beverly to her research and came here to collect his thoughts so that he could then record them. He imagined that quite a few people before him had come to this room to do the same thing: think, reflect, and wait.
Riker was lousy at waiting.
He put the tricorder down on the wall, stood up, and paced around the pool. The Lifesaver, as he and Beverly had taken to calling the alien device, seemed to provide some of his biological needs. He knew, looking at the murky, algae-covered water, that he should be thirsty, but he wasn’t. That was just as well, as the water had the same swampy, unappealing look as the ponds they’d seen just outside the facility on their way in.
“Besides,” he said to himself, “the water would probably just pour right out of my chest.” He smiled at that. He’d always wanted to laugh in the face of death.
Recording a message for his comrades hadn’t gone well. In the Enterprise’s first year, one of her crew, Tasha Yar, had died. Later, Tasha’s friends learned that she had prerecorded a good-bye message to all of them. Riker admired her foresight. He even tried recording his own message. After his first attempt, all he came up with was “Well, at least you won’t have to hear me play the sax anymore.” The next year, when he considered updating it, he just deleted it instead.
He always figured there would be time enough for final messages later. Until now. Now he had to record his message. It was his last opportunity. But the urgency of the situation didn’t make the task any easier.
He’d tried a couple times, the perfunctory “It’s been an honor and a privilege to serve with you” sort of thing, but it seemed hollow. It just wasn’t him. Riker had never gone in for the dramatic speeches and flourishes that Picard seemed to espouse so effortlessly. Instead, he kept things light. But there wasn’t a lot of lightness to be found now.
The problem, as usual, was Deanna.
No matter how many times he tried to record one of those damnable things, he stumbled when he got to her. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what he wanted to say to her. In fact, he always found himself saying too much.
Years earlier, when Riker had been stationed