Three - Michael Jan Friedman [21]
[58] But until they got there, the Ekhonarid would be all that stood between Balduk territory and the rest of the universe. And Wutor prayed to the gods of blood and fire that the rest of the universe showed up with their weapons blazing.
Refsland and Joseph were right, Picard thought, as he peered through an electromagnetic barrier in the brig. The woman who had materialized in the transporter room looked exactly like Gerda and Idun.
En route there, the captain had checked with Refsland to make sure their visitor hadn’t brought any serious diseases on board. Refsland, in turn, had inspected the logs of the transporter’s biofilter, which was designed to detect and eliminate dozens of harmful organisms.
Fortunately, nothing had shown up. But that didn’t mean the woman herself didn’t present a danger of some sort.
“Drop the barrier,” he told Joseph. “Then raise it again after I’m inside.”
The security officer nodded. “Aye, sir.”
A moment later, the barrier vanished and Picard entered the enclosure. The woman regarded him, but didn’t say anything. Obviously, she expected him to do the talking.
Which he did. “My name is Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of this vessel.” He heard a subtle buzz behind him that meant the barrier had sprung back to life. “As you might expect, I have a few questions to ask of you.”
She nodded.
“Number one,” he said reasonably, “how did you [59] come to materialize on our transporter pad, considering the fact that there’s no vessel even close to being in transporter range? And number two, why do you so closely resemble my helm and navigation officers?”
The woman seemed as perplexed as he was. “I’m not sure myself,” she answered in a voice that was remarkably like Gerda’s and Idun’s. “But I’ll tell you what I know.”
Gerda was certain that she looked as focused on her work as ever, her eyes moving purposefully from one of her navigation monitors to another. But then, she was working as hard as she could to give that impression.
On the inside, she was anything but purposeful and focused. She was a stormy sea of curiosity, as anyone would have been if they had just learned—if only through someone else’s intercom conversation—that a woman who looked exactly like her had arrived on the ship unannounced.
At the helm console, Idun seemed purposeful and focused too. But Gerda knew that her sister was every bit as unsettled as she was, every bit as consumed with curiosity.
Until a minute ago, they had known their places in the universe. They were women, officers, Klingons by temperament if not by blood. And twins, identical to each other in almost every aspect of their being.
Now it seemed possible that at least one fact of their existence—one very important fact—might be in need of reassessment. If the woman in the brig looked the way Refsland and Joseph had described her, Gerda and Idun were no longer the only two of their kind.
[60] Somehow, there was a third.
But despite what she had heard, Gerda wasn’t ready to believe it—at least, not yet. First, she wanted to see the evidence with her own eyes.
Picard ignored the subtle buzz of the brig barrier and waited for the woman to respond.
“First off,” she said, “my name is Asmund. I hold the rank of lieutenant on a ship called Stargazer.”
Stranger and stranger, the captain thought. “This vessel is called Stargazer. And I’ve got two Lieutenant Asmunds serving on my bridge—but you’re not either one of them.”
The woman absorbed the information. “And one of your officers is Pug Joseph, but not the Pug Joseph I know.”
Picard frowned. “Go on.”
“As to how I got here ... I can only tell you I was beaming onto a ship called the Crazy Horse, with which we had arranged a rendezvous so I could return to Earth on personal business. The transport procedure seemed to go as it always does—except I wound up here instead of on the Crazy Horse.”
Picard mulled what the woman