Unification - Jeri Taylor [4]
Of course, there was always the possibility that the captain’s summons might signal the beginning of an adventure. His adventure. Something difficult and mysterious that would test his mettle, summon his talents and hone them in rarefied challenge.
There was a new spring to his walk as he left the holodeck and hurried toward the turbolift, contemplating these possibilities.
But the next hour with the captain was spent helping him trace through intelligence reports detail-ing Ambassador Spock’s last two decades of activity. Negotiations, mediations, arbitrations—there was a well-chronicled history of Spock’s ceaseless efforts as an architect of peace. If there were seeds in his public behavior of a defection to the Romulans, they were well buried.
Riker enjoyed these meetings with the captain. He respected the well-honed process that Picard brought to any endeavor: Picard would examine thoughts, tumbling them around in his mind like a gem polish-er, extracting something here, buffing something there, until he could put them all together into a codified whole. It was always stimulating, and always challenging, to interact with him.
But it was a demanding process. Riker stretched his legs and then looked at the captain, realizing that he had been at this for hours even before Riker arrived. Weariness hung over Picard like a veil. “We’ll be coming into orbit around Vulcan in less than an hour, sir,” Riker said. “You may want to get some rest.”
“Yes, yes, of course, you’re right.” But he didn’t move. Riker saw the captain’s eye caught by another padd on the table, and knew that, although Picard was tired, his mind was still churning.
“We should notify Sarek’s wife of our plans,” suggested Picard.
“All taken care of, sir. She’ll be waiting for your signal to transport on board.” Riker had talked with Perrin, Sarek’s human wife, by subspace. “And Sarek?”
“She says he is too ill to join her.”
“Not unexpected. The man is dying.” There was an undertone of sadness to the words. Riker recalled the meeting of those two several years ago, when Sarek, suffering from the rare affliction Bendii’s syndrome, came aboard the Enterprise and created havoc by inadvertently projecting his emotions onto the crew. Riker almost smiled as he remembered himself and the captain snapping and snarling at each other, and the patrons of Ten-Forward engaging in a barroom brawl. The outcome of that experience, of course, had been a mind meld between Sarek and Picard, which allowed the venerable ambassador to maintain control of his emotions long enough to complete an important negotiation. The mind meld had linked Sarek and Picard in extraordinary intimacy, and Riker had no doubt that the captain was carrying some residual effects of that liaison.
“And I have the… honor,” Picard continued, “to bring him the news that his son may have betrayed the Federation.”
Riker sensed, from instincts developed after long association, that the captain wanted to talk further. He needed a sounding board to reflect his thoughts and feelings. It was a role Riker played comfortably and well. “How well do you know Spock?” he asked.
He waited patiently as Picard rose from the table and paced toward the windows, gazing at the spectacular sweep of the stars as the Enterprise raced by them at warp speed. “I met him only once. What I know of him comes from history books and of course the mind meld with his father.”
“That must cover a lot of ground.” Riker couldn’t imagine what a mind meld would be like, but it had to have given the captain a source of insight into Spock.
But the captain smiled wryly, and said, “Not as much as you’d imagine. Sarek and Spock…”
He hesitated, and seemed reluctant to go further. Then he looked at Riker and said, simply, “Well, sometimes, fathers and sons…”
“Understood,” answered Riker. He knew Picard was aware of his own tortured history with his father. He had no difficulty imagining other strong-willed men having similar difficulties. But he couldn’t help but wonder what problems of Spock and Sarek the captain was privy to.
Picard