Part 18 (1/2)

”I claimed the right of vengeance.”

”And that was the excuse.” She swung her legs around so that they were dangling off the bed. ”Again, what was the purpose?”

”So that K'Ehleyr would be avenged,” he said with growing impatience. He was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, even angry, with the line of discussion.

Lwaxana shook her head. ”K'Ehleyr was dead, Worf. She was beyond Duras's ability to hurt or your ability to make her care.”

”He framed my father as a traitor... deprived me of honor ...”

”And with those offenses revealed, your father's name would have been cleared, your precious honor restored. So I ask again, what was the purpose of-”

Worf was on his feet with a roar that nearly shook the rafters, his hands balled into fists. ”Because I wanted him dead!”

A hand slammed down on Worf s shoulder and, to the Klingon's astonishment, he was shoved forcibly back down into the chair. He craned his neck around to see Mr. Homn standing behind him. Worf couldn't believe it; Homn had done it with no apparent effort whatsoever. Very slowly, Mr. Homn shook his head from side to side in mild rebuke.

”You wanted him dead,” Lwaxana said mildly, as if Worf hadn't blown his temper, ”because his murder of K'Ehleyr compromised your sense of maleness ... your ego, your pride. He had taken something away from you ...”

”And from Alexander,” Worf reminded her. Homn removed his hand from Worf s shoulder, apparently convinced that the Klingon had himself under control.

”If Alexander had never been bom, would you still have killed Duras?”

”Yes,” Worf admitted.

”So for his offenses... you had to take his life away from him. And it solved nothing. His sisters perpetuated the cycle of vengeance ... a cycle which ended in the destruction of the Enterprise through the efforts of Duras's sisters. Innocent people died in that crash, Worf. Not many, thank heavens, but some. Innocent people who never knew K'Ehleyr, or cared about Klingon honor. People who were just going about their business and then they died ... thanks to vengeance.”

”That is a gross distortion of the facts.”

”Is it?”

He rose, more carefully and unthreateningly this time. ”I do not wish to discuss these matters any further. And I do not wish you to mention K'Ehleyr's name again.”

For a long moment her dark eyes fixed on him, and then she lowered her gaze. ”Very well,” she said. ”I apologize if I overstepped myself. I will see you tomorrow, Worf.”

He nodded in acknowledgment and turned to leave. ”Worf...” she called to him. He turned and looked back at her.

She was holding out her empty hand, palm up. ”Would you like a flower?” she asked.

Worf sighed, shook his head, and walked out. Lwaxana raised her hand to her nose, inhaled deeply, saw the flower in her mind, and smiled in appreciation.

”So how did it go?” asked Deanna when Worf returned to the inn. He considered the fact that he had battled hand to hand with I IM Z A O I II.

Lwaxana, knocked her cold, had his entire system of honor brought into question, was manhandled with frightening ease by Mr. Homn, and offered a big handful of nothing as a parting gift.

”Actually,” he said thoughtfully, ”it went more or less as I expected.”

CHAPTER.

to Wffli iliam Riker hadn't realized that he was going to look in the mirror first thing that morning and that, in doing so, it was going to change his life. But that was what happened.

The investigation into the crash of the Enterprise 1701-D had gone about as well as it could have gone. Admiral Jellico was his usual charming self, leading the inquisition and asking most of the truly intense and combative questions. But Picard, doing most of the talking, managed to handle them with aplomb. After a day or so of deliberation, both Picard and Riker were cleared of any negligence and wrongdoing in the s.h.i.+p's demise.

After that had come the truly positive news. There was going to be a new Enterprise, designated the Enterprise-^.. There had been some discussion about the possibility of simply starting over with a new registry number, but the s.h.i.+p had too much of a history about it. Indeed, it had been Picard who had argued most strenuously against redesignating her. ”We owe it to the commanders of the earlier vessels ... including, most notably, James T. Kirk,” he had said, and he had spoken so forcefully about it that it was almost as if he were defending a personal friend. Consequently, the s.h.i.+p was indeed going to be designated ”E.”

Unfortunately, it was going to be a year before she was ready to go.

Picard was already guaranteed the captaincy, that much was a given. But then Picard had faced his toughest fight: keeping his command crew intact. There was any number of vessels and a.s.signments available that were long-term, and the Enterprise officers were considered a highly valuable commodity. Keeping all of the a.s.signments of Picard's key officers frozen so that they would be available for the new Enterprise when she was ready was considered by several key officials in Starfleet-including, most notably, Jellico once again-a tremendous waste of resources.

That had not daunted Picard, who had pulled every string he could and called in at least half a dozen favors accrued over the years. As a result, the a.s.signments handed out to Picard's command crew were all short-term, most of them well within range of Earth or even planetside.

The only sticking point had been Riker.

There was a push to promote him. Enough was enough, it was felt. He had more than adequately proven his value in a command capacity, and it was time to a.s.sume a captaincy of his own. But as he had before, Riker had resisted the concept, citing the same reasons as he always had: There was no s.h.i.+p like the Enterprise. Anything else was going to be a step down. He was comfortable serving with Picard. More than that, in fact. ”As long as there is an Enterprise, and Jean-Luc Picard is in the captain's seat,” Riker had told Picard, ”I would consider it an honor to serve as second-in-command.” On that basis, Picard had pushed for-and gotten-Riker instated as his Number One. There was no reason for him to disbelieve Riker's sentiments. After all, he'd been saying it for years.

But this morning, after Riker had gotten out of bed, stretched, and trudged to the bathroom, he'd looked in the mirror and-for the first time-started to wonder.

What caused him to wonder was his beard.

For the first time he noticed truly p.r.o.nounced gray hairs in it.

He frowned, tilting his head around, examining it from several different angles. Yup. Definitely, gray hairs. It was odd that he hadn't noticed them before. He reached up, plucked one out and winced as he did so. But there were more of them, scattered throughout.

He brushed back his hair at his temples and saw a few telltale gray strands there as well. He was barechested at that moment, clad only in pajama bottoms, so he studied his chest hair. No gray there, thank goodness. Wasn't a hopeless cause, not yet.

It was funny. He'd never thought of himself as particularly vain before. But something about the encroaching gray bothered him more than he could comprehend. He could get it touched up, of course. That would be easy enough. It went against the grain, though, hiding something like that. Besides, all that would do was hide it. But it wouldn't stop it.

Why did it bother him so? Why?

He dwelled on it as he prepared breakfast, going through the various files that he'd been studying over the previous several nights. He'd been a.s.signed a teaching slot at Starfleet Academy, lecturing in tactics and strategy. All things considered, it was a rather plum a.s.signment. He was being given the opportunity to shape young minds, perhaps even save lives. After all, things that he taught today might be used to prevent disaster tomorrow.

But he kept coming back to the mirror.

And to his lack of desire for command, his wish to stay aboard the Enterprise. It gnawed at him, it bothered the h.e.l.l out of him.

He tried to think of who he could talk to in order to try and get it all sorted out. His crewmates, his only real family, were scattered, busy with their own affairs. Besides, Riker wasn't really comfortable discussing his feelings and uncertainties with anyone ... not even Picard, even after all this time, particularly when it came to questions about advancement, since Picard usually took any opportunity to say, in essence, ”I will respect your wishes, Will, but d.a.m.n, you should have your own s.h.i.+p.”

There was only one person he could truly let down his guard with, of course, and that was Deanna.

Deanna, engaged to someone else.

Deanna, off to Betazed, with her fiance.

Her fiance ...

”Her fiance,” he said out loud to n.o.body in particular, and he abruptly realized that he'd stopped his cla.s.sroom preparation and had simply been staring across his living room for the last several minutes.

He pictured them, standing hand in hand. He wondered if she was showing him all the places that she had gone to with Riker. Places that had been Riker's and Troi's now would be Worf s and Troi's.