Three - Michael Jan Friedman [58]
Picard didn’t see any need to mention that the being in question was human, or that she was from a mirror universe, or that Starfleet personnel had had contact with another mirror universe seventy years earlier. He simply laid out the essential facts and waited for a response.
The Balduk’s tongue insinuated itself among his teeth. The captain recognized it as an indication that his adversary was considering the situation.
Finally, the Balduk spoke again. “Home is important. We understand the being’s need to return. But the anomaly, as you call it, is in my people’s space.”
Picard wanted to tell the fellow that he had a most convenient grasp of stellar geography. But under the circumstances, he bit his tongue.
“I am not disputing your right to that part of space,” he said. “I am simply asking for access to the anomaly for a short period of time.”
The Balduk’s tongue slithered some more. Then he [173] shook his head from side to side. “If your ship violates our borders, we will destroy it.”
“But,” Picard argued, “it would not be a violation if you granted us free—”
Before he could finish, the Balduk’s image vanished from the viewscreen. The captain found himself talking to a vast, unbroken field of stars.
Not that it mattered. Obviously, he would sooner get help from the unheeding stars than he would from the Balduk.
Nonetheless, he had been right to ask. Had he succeeded in his request, it might have saved lives on both sides.
“You know,” said Ben Zoma, leaning close to him, “Simenon is almost ready.”
“But it won’t do any good,” Picard noted in response, “unless we can get near the anomaly.”
“So what are you going to do?”
The captain eyed the viewscreen. “Whatever it takes to get Gerda Idun home.”
Ben Zoma nodded. “That’s what I thought you’d say.”
Nikolas touched the metal plate next to Gerda Idun’s door and waited for it to slide open. When it did, he smiled at her and said. “Surprise.”
She smiled back, though she looked a little weary. “Come on in.”
“I looked for you in sickbay,” he explained as he entered Gerda Idun’s quarters, “but Greyhorse told me he had already released you.”
“Yes,” she said, depositing herself in a chair on one [174] side of the room and leaving Nikolas its counterpart on the other side. “I wasn’t hurt as bad as I might have been.”
He nodded. “I’m glad.”
Gerda Idun must have seen something in his eyes then, because her smile faded. “It’s sweet of you to check on me,” she said, “but I was just about to go to bed. I guess I’m still feeling the effects of the medications the doctor gave me.”
“Nonsense,” Nikolas told her. “Nobody walks out of sickbay still feeling the effects of medication. You’re just trying to get rid of me.”
She chuckled—nervously, he thought. “And why would I do that?”
“Because you don’t want to hear what I’ve got to say.”
“And that is?”
“That I’m falling in love with you,” he told her, the words sounding perfectly natural to him. “And that I want to be with you, in this universe or any other.”
Gerda Idun stared at him. “That’s ... that’s very flattering,” she said, uncharacteristically caught off guard. “But you don’t know what you’re saying.”
The ensign laughed. “You may be right about that. This probably isn’t the most well-thought-out decision I’ve ever made. But it doesn’t matter. I’m determined to spend the rest of my life with you.”
“It’s impossible,” Gerda Idun told him. “You can’t go where I’m going.”
“We don’t know that,” he insisted. “If you can be sent back there, maybe I can too.”
She shook her head. “We’ll be lucky if the circuits [175] hold together long enough to transport one person. Two would be out of the question.”
“Simenon hasn’t said that,” said Nikolas. “If there’s even a chance—”
Suddenly, a tear ran down her cheek.
It was so unexpected, so unlike her, that it drew him to her the way a lump of iron was drawn to a magnet. He crossed the room and joined her on the other side, knelt in front of her and took her hands in his.
“The rest of my life,” Nikolas told her.
Gerda Idun shook her head. “No.”
He started to