“You’re the only one I’d even ask, Will,” Dennis implored. “You’re my best friend here. You know me better than anyone, and you have a knack for explaining complicated stuff in ways that makes it all seem so simple.”
“But—”
“I know it’d take a lot of your time, Will. Too much, probably, to catch me up. You could tutor somebody smart in no time at all, but I’m a losing proposition.”
“That’s not what I said,” Will objected.
“I know. And I do have one other idea. Something that’d take less of your time. It’d hardly put you out at all.”
“What’s that?”
“You could let me cheat off you,” Dennis said.
Will didn’t even know how to answer that. Never mind that it was impractical. It could be done, he supposed, for some courses, though it’d be tricky and would require quite a bit of advance work. But it was so clearly unethical. ...
Dennis watched him like a dog waiting for a scrap of food from the dinner table.
“Dennis, that’s ...”
“I know it’s a lot to ask, Will. Believe me, I know it is. I wouldn’t if I had any other choice. I’m going to fail, Will. I’ve never failed before, really, not at anything important. But I will this time, I just know it. And I don’t know how to handle that. I don’t know how to deal with it.” He paused and angled his head toward the floor. “I’m afraid.”
Will would have liked to have made a snap decision, which he knew would be the right one. He felt like he owed Dennis a bit more consideration, though. They had been through a lot together. In large ways and small, Dennis had helped him get through the rigors of Starfleet Academy. Turning down a friend who had done all that for him just didn’t seem right.
But neither did the alternatives. Giving Dennis the kind of tutoring help he was asking for would mean sacrificing most of his own study time. Instead of finishing near the top of his class, and countering those bad early grades with strong late ones, he’d be lucky to pass everything. He would squeak by, but his record would not be nearly as impressive as he’d hoped, and it might actually affect his starship posting.
And helping Dennis cheat would be even worse. Starfleet stressed fairness and honesty, and cheating was neither. It ran against everything Starfleet stood for. And that was only a problem if they didn’t get caught. If they did, they’d both be booted out of the Academy, and any chance of ever serving in Starfleet would vanish. Will didn’t know what he’d do then. Go back to Alaska? Remain a civilian like his old man? Eventually marry, then abandon his family later in life to pursue a dream he’d abandoned years before?
No, it didn’t take much thought to dismiss the idea of cheating. But the tutoring thing, now, that was harder. Because that made a certain amount of sense, at least from Dennis’s perspective. Tutoring could actually help Dennis master the material. He would come out of the Academy more educated and a better asset to Starfleet. He would get passing grades, instead of flunking out. There was no downside.
For Dennis, that was. For Will, the downside was the time it would require. Way too much of it, he knew. If Dennis was as bad off as he said—and Will was pretty sure he wasn’t entirely exaggerating his position—then he would need massive amounts of work. Will could probably do it, but only at the expense of his own grades and his own future.
This was a situation, Will knew, in which there was no way to win. There were only bad options, and the problem he faced was, which option was the least bad of the bunch? He resented Dennis more than a little for even putting him in this position, though he understood that Dennis would not have done it if he’d seen any other way out.
As he paced around the room thinking about these things, he knew Dennis was watching him again. He looked out the bay window at the San Francisco skyline, a million lights glittering against the darkness, like the starry skies he yearned to travel. What he did, the decision he made in these next few moments, could determine whether or not he ever traveled those spaceways.
“Here’s the deal,” he said at last, turning back to Dennis. “I’ll tutor you.” Dennis broke into a grin, but Will cut him off before he could express gratitude, knowing that his good cheer would only last a moment. “But I can only afford the time to offer you very limited tutoring. I can help out in the classes that we’re in together, because helping you understand those will help me get a better grasp of the material. But for the others, for the older work ... I don’t know, maybe you can try Estresor Fil or something. I just ... Dennis, I really can’t spare the time. Not without killing my own chances.”
Dennis’s smile had vanished as quickly as it appeared. “I know, Will. Believe me. I’m so sorry I had to even ask you.” Will thought that would be the end of it, and was relieved that Dennis was taking the news with such good grace. But then Dennis dropped the anvil. “But I’m begging you, Will, to reconsider. Limited tutoring won’t help me. I’m too lost. I need major help. Or I need to cheat. I can get this stuff, I’m just not as smart as everyone else and I need more time, a lot more. Cheating is wrong, I know that. But it’ll buy me time to really understand everything. That’s what I need.”
“Dennis, don’t ask me for that,” Will said sadly. “I can’t. I just ... I can’t.”
Dennis stared at him with eyes that had gone cold. Will was surprised. It was like looking at someone he didn’t even know. “You could, Will,” he said, his voice glacial. “If you wanted to. To help a friend, you could.”
“What?” Will said, astonished at Dennis’s sudden sea change. “You’re saying I’m not your friend because I won’t help you cheat?”
“I’m just saying that if you really considered me a friend, you’d help me in some way.”
“I offered to tutor you—”
“In a very limited way,” Dennis reminded him. “An hour here, an hour there. And at the end of it, you feel good about yourself and I flunk out anyway. No, thanks. If you don’t care to offer some real help, then I guess we know what this friendship is.”
“What?” Will asked him, still bewildered by this turn.
“A lie,” Dennis said. “Nothing but a lie.” He lurched to his feet and stomped across Will’s room, headed for the door. “Thanks for nothing, Will,” he said. He let himself out.
In stunned silence, Will watched him go. Maybe it’s the stress,he told himself. It’s making Dennis act in ways he wouldn’t ordinarily. He’ll come hack and apologize in a few minutes. Or tomorrow, first thing, he’ll feel so bad he’ll beg me to forgive him.
But even as those thoughts bounced around in his head, Will knew that he was probably wrong. The hateful look in Dennis’s eyes, at the end, the set of his jaw ... maybe this Dennis was the real Dennis, and the one Will had thought he’d known was the imposter. Maybe Dennis Haynes was someone who would befriend you as long as he thought you could help him, and then cut you off as soon as you were no longer useful. He didn’t want to believe that, but he knew that it was possible. The way Dennis had glared at him brought that home.
Taking his place at the computer again, Will realized that he had probably lost a friend, for good.
But on the bright side, it gave him that much more time to study.
Chapter 27
The next day dawned clear and warm over San Francisco. This was the kind of day that, before the advent of climate control technology, had been so rare here that it brought the residents outside in droves. Even now, when everyone knew that the weather could be manipulated to a large extent, there was something about such a lovely late spring day that people were tempted to skip their responsibilities and lounge about in the sun.
Will Riker was not one of those people. He appreciated nice weather as much as anyone—growing up in Alaska made one particularly appreciative of warm, sunny days—but at this point in his Academy career nothing could tempt him away from the tasks he had set for himself. He had lunch with Felicia, and their concession to the weather was to eat at an outside table. The table was in a kind of alcove sheltered by a stand of bamboo which rustled in the gentle breeze, with a winding brook on the other side. Felicia had told him that this was one of her favorite spots on campus.