Three - Michael Jan Friedman [48]
Gerda Idun cast a glance back at Nikolas as well. Like the security chief, she seemed glad to see him.
[142] “We meet again,” the ensign told her.
“Quite a coincidence,” she noted.
Nikolas turned to Joseph, making a silent request for some time alone with Gerda Idun—or, rather, as alone as Joseph could let her get.
The security officer frowned. Then he said, “I think I need to speak with Mr. Paxton again.”
Neither Nikolas nor Gerda Idun pointed out that Paxton wasn’t there, or that Joseph hadn’t expressed any need to speak with the man before. They just let the remark go by.
As Joseph moved to the other side of the room and tapped his combadge, Nikolas took the seat opposite Gerda Idun’s. Then he said, “Everything all right?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure. I walked into the gym before and saw my counterparts sparring. Idun asked me if I wanted to take part, and before I knew it she and I were going at it.”
Nikolas grimaced. He had gone at it with Idun himself, and come out very much on the losing end.
“You don’t look battered,” he said.
“I wasn’t. But when we were done, Gerda seemed angry with us—and with me in particular, I think. But I didn’t go in there intending to interrupt them. It was Idun’s idea.”
The ensign considered the matter. “That doesn’t sound like Gerda. She’s usually pretty much in control.”
“Maybe I just hit a nerve,” said Gerda Idun. “Oh well. Idun didn’t seem to think it was anything irreparable.”
“And who would know better than she would?”
She smiled. “You always know the right thing to say, don’t you?”
[143] “Always,” he said. “I just have this habit of saying the wrong thing instead.”
“Which is why your career hasn’t been as sparkling as it might have been. Or so you claim.”
Nikolas leaned forward in his chair. “You’ve got a better explanation?”
“It sounds to me,” she said, “like you’ve been sabotaging yourself—like you’re a bit intimidated by the prospect of taking responsibility for people, so you’re making sure that possibility never materializes.”
He smiled back at her. “You told me you were an engineer, but it seems you’ve also got the makings of a counselor.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“That depends,” he said, “on what you think of counselors. Personally, I think every ship should have one.”
Gerda Idun looked skeptical. “You do?”
“Absolutely,” he told her, “if they’re all as easy on the eyes as you are.”
Not that the odds of that were very good. Every counselor Nikolas had ever met—including those who had counseled him at the Academy—was short, dumpy, and balding.
Gerda Idun laughed. “You just don’t stop, do you?”
She seemed to be enjoying his company every bit as much as he was enjoying hers. He found that surprising in light of the way Gerda and Idun looked at him.
Or didn’t look at him, to be more accurate about it.
Supposedly, Gerda Idun had the same genetic makeup they did. And yet, she had seemed to have a soft [144] spot for Nikolas ever since the moment she saw him in the corridor.
Funny how that worked. ...
And then it hit him: She was from another universe—one that seemed to parallel Nikolas’s pretty closely. And if there was a Gerda Idun Asmund in that universe ...
“Can I ask you a question?” he said.
“Sure. What is it?”
“Is there an Andreas Nikolas where you come from?”
The light in her eyes seemed to dim.
Not good, he thought. “What?” he asked softly.
“There is indeed an Andreas Nikolas in my universe,” Gerda Idun told him, looking down at her hands all of a sudden. “Or rather ... there was.”
The ensign got an eerie feeling hearing her say that. It was a little like attending his own funeral.
“What happened to him?” he asked. But it felt as if he were really asking, “What happened to me?”
“He died,” she said. “In an accident.”
He heard a catch in her voice as she imparted the information. It led him to believe that Gerda Idun and his counterpart were more than mere acquaintances.
Before he