The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [92]
Lakanta wandered away and Mika walked into her house alone.
The smell of warming oatcakes met her and she was instantly hungry. A pot of tea steamed gently on the kitchen table, and her mug waited for her, a spoon resting beside it. For a moment, the simple gesture wiped away her darker musings.
A hand snaked around her waist and Mika felt the bristles of an unshaven chin tickle her neck as her husband kissed her there. “Hey,” he said.
Mika turned in his embrace and took up the thread of their little ritual. “Good morning, Mister Crusher,” she told him.
“Good morning, Missus Crusher,” he replied and kissed her again. “Breakfast’s ready.”
She slipped from his grasp, and the casual warmth in his expression faded. The question hung in the air between them.
“Wes,” she began, but he turned away and went to the stove.
“I said I would think about it,” he replied. “I’m doing it. I’m thinking about it.”
She felt a knot of tension in her chest. A moment ago she had been ready to take his side to Lakanta and the others, defend her husband’s right to his privacy, and now she found herself on the other face of the argument. Wesley had come to live with Mika’s clan on Dorvan V because he had walked away from that life, and now she was asking him—they were all asking him—to return to it again for the good of the colony.
Finally she spoke. “I hate this. I hate that you’re being asked this.” Mika sighed. “You should refuse.”
“I want to.” Wes brought her breakfast and poured her tea. “More than anything, I want to.”
“Then say no,” she said in a rush. “Tell the elders to take the weight of this themselves, just as they should. You’re not a councilman. It’s wrong to make these demands of you, you’re just a—”
“A what?” He eyed her. “An ordinary man?”
“Wesley Crusher.” Mika touched his hand. “You have never been ordinary.”
The knock at the door broke the moment. She pulled it aside and found Lakanta there, breathless from running.
“Wes,” he called, looking past her. “There’s word from the lodge. The Federation ship has made orbit. They’re sending a delegation down by transporter to the square.” He swallowed hard.
Mika saw the flicker of emotion when her husband said the next word, there and then gone. “Enterprise?”
Lakanta nodded.
Wesley studied the tea in his cup for a moment, then took a sip of it. He put it down and touched Mika’s wrist. “I won’t be long,” he told her and followed the other man out into the brightening morning air.
There were five of them: old Anthwara; Sinta and Otakay, the more senior of the elders; Lakanta; and Crusher himself. Sinta’s leathery face had a cast of genuine gratitude upon it as Wes walked up to them, the woman looking at him as if she thought he would save them all. She’ll be disappointed, he thought.
Otakay looked like he was on the verge of saying something acid, as he always did, but the noise of splitting air molecules silenced him before he could speak. All of them were drawn to the spot by the fountain where five dashes of blue-white scintillation appeared in midair, elongating in moments to resolve into columns of light and then into the solidity of humanoid forms. Wes found his gaze falling on the chest of the man materializing at the head of the landing party, on the oval-and-arrowhead sigil that rested on his left breast. The deep crimson of the uniform stood out against the muted earth tones of the clothes favored by the colonists.
The transporter cycle ended and the man in the burgundy tunic scanned them with a severe and uncompromising gaze that cut through Wes as if he were just empty air.
“My name is Edward Jellico,” said the officer. “I’m captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise.” Jellico made no move toward introducing the rest of his party, two watchful security men with holstered phasers at their belts and a slim Cygnian female in a mustard-colored uniform who kept her attention on a tricorder. The fifth and final member of the group wore a sky-blue overcoat that accented the plume of terra-cotta hair falling