Now her eyes sought Tyvan’s. Held. “Just like the captain and me. She argued, and then she got behind me, and I did what I thought was right. Kodell told me I had to make a decision, and I did. It was my decision, not his. Mine. If I made a mistake, there wouldn’t be anyone to blame but me. Oh, the captain might blame herself for putting me in charge, but she had faith that I’d make the right decisions. I just had to have faith in me.”
Tyvan gave her a frank look. “There’s only one thing I take issue with. You said Joshua made the wrongdecision, but it’s like I’ve always said. We have choices, but sometimes we don’t like the ones we have. So Joshua made adecision, Darya. You’ll never know if it was the wrong one because you’ll never know the alternative. Perhaps, in the end, his choice was best for you.”
Bat-Levi was silent. What could she say when she knew he was right? In the quiet, she heard the tick-tock of the pendulum clock, and she suddenly realized something.
“It’s been five sessions,” she said. “You’re supposed to make a recommendation now, aren’t you? About my being on probation?”
“I already have. In fact, I’ve given it to the captain, though I doubt she’s had much time to read it.”
She felt an unpleasant jolt of surprise and then wariness. My God, she’d been absolutely awfulto the man for the majority of their time together: a basket case, she thought grimly, and then considered that would be an expression she ought to quiz Glemoor about, if she got the chance. She watched as Tyvan twisted around in his chair, rummaged around a pile of datadisks, and then tweezed out one between his thumb and forefinger.
He offered it to Bat-Levi. “Would you like to read it?”
Her anxiety fluttered in her throat, like a trapped bird. “Why don’t you just tell me?”
“All right. I’ve recommended no further treatment or evaluation, and I’ve recommended that you stay on.”
Shock made Bat-Levi’s mouth drop. “But, but I missed sessions, I yelled…”
Tyvan held up a hand. “First of all, we’ve been kind of busy. Second, you made a choice. You took responsibility, and you told me where to get off. Good for you. I don’t need you to agree with me, Darya. I’m glad you feel better, but I don’t needyou to feel better, nor do I need you to have an operation, fix your scars, get a new face, pony up for the latest prostheses, or do anything you don’t want to do. All I want is for you to know whatyou’re doing, and why,and the rest is up to you, because it’s your life, Darya, not mine.”
She sat a moment, absorbing this. “So I don’t have to come back?”
“Not unless you want to.”
“Well,” she said. “I might, from time to time. Things come up. But you know something?”
“What?”
“Sometimes, I talk to you. In my head,” she added hastily. “I mean, I’m not nuts, I don’t hear voices. But sometimes, lately, I hear you making comments and, sometimes,” she gave him a lopsided smile, “I just tell you where to go.”
“Does this bother you?”
“It should, but it doesn’t. I’ve been arguing so much with myself for so long, it’s kind of nice to have someone new in there.”
Tyvan gave a delighted laugh. “I’ll probably go away eventually, when my opinion stops mattering so much.”
“Probably.” She paused, head cocked. “Does becoming obsolete bother you?”
“No. I’m not a crutch. My job is to become obsolete.”
They shared a brief moment of comfortable silence. Then Bat-Levi smiled, rose, and moved for the door.
“Okay then, thanks. But I’d better get dressed. The captain will have our hides if we’re late.” She hesitated then said, “By the way, you haven’t said anything.”
Tyvan’s brow furrowed. “About?”
In reply, Bat-Levi extended and flexed her left arm. Did it again, twice. Then she saw the confusion on Tyvan’s face clear.
“Wait,” he said. “Your servos. There’s no noise.”
Bat-Levi laughed hugely. “The ship’s not the only thing that needed repairs.”
“My God,” McCoy complained peevishly, “you’re as twitchy as a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rockers.”
“Mac,” Stern flung over her shoulder as she palmed open her closet, “I told you before. I have to get moving, or I’m going to be late.”
“Making me dizzy, what you flitting back and forth like a bumblebee.”
“Then use audio next time, you don’t like the view,” said Stern, pawing first through her collection of uniforms, and then an array of more casual slacks and a few skirts. She made disgusted sounds. “Now where I did put that thing?”
“You could be better organized.”
“I’m a doctor,” she grumbled, “not a chambermaid. I could’ve sworn I put…ah!” Stern yanked out her dress tunic then dove back for her dress slacks. “Now if I can just find my boots…”
“My God, woman.” McCoy craned his neck as if he could see around the corner of the viewscreen, which he couldn’t. “Are you getting disrobed?”
“Listen to you.” Stern’s fingers fumbled with her belt buckle. “It’s not as if you haven’t seen this sort of thing before.”
“Only in an official capacity. But if you’re offering, come over here where…”
Stern stripped off her uniform tunic. “Watch it, Mac.”
“I’m not the one doing a striptease. Anyway, I thought you’d be interested.”
“I am.You just pick the damnedest times, that’s all.”
“Then why not hop on over, and we can visit? You owe me bourbon.”
“Mac, I’m at a starbase about a gazillion light years away. It’s not as if I’m next door. I’ll get back to Earth soon enough and then we can visit, have a couple drinks.”
“Don’t forget, you owe me an R and R. I aim to collect.”
“I haven’t, and you will.”
“Promises, promises.” McCoy still sounded miffed. “When are you shipping out?”
“Tomorrow.” Stern stepped first her right then her left foot into her dress uniform trousers and pulled. “Repairs are just about done. All we’re waiting on is that transfer shuttle.”
McCoy mmmed. “By the way, I heard a rumor that someone on your ship slipped a subcu transponder into that Halak fellow.”
Now it was Stern’s turn to mmm.She did so as she pulled her hair free of her standard ponytail and began pulling a brush through. Her hair crackled with static electricity and she made a mental note to talk to environmental engineering about adjusting the humidity in her quarters. Too damn dry. “That’s what they say.”
“You wouldn’t happen…”
“Mac,” Stern paused, brush in hand, “open channel.”
“Ah. Well, I hope our little talk about vitamins was helpful.”
Stern grinned at her mirror image. “Very. So what were you so hot to tell me?”
“Oh, nothing much. Only that the data your captain forwarded on to the folks here at Command? From that old tomb site? Looks mighty old. More than ancient: We’re talking thousands of years.”
“Wait a minute.” Stern turned until she was looking at McCoy, properly. “You’re a doctor, not a xenoarchaeologist. Why are you even involved with this?”
McCoy held up a hand. “Hold your horses; it’ll all come clear. Like I said, this place was old. We’re talking either pre-Hebitian, or the Hebitians are a hell of a lot older than even the Cardassians know.”
“Or claim.” Turning back to her holomirror, Stern touched the controls. The mirror shimmered, and then she was looking at the back of her head. She gathered her hair together in her left hand while her right stirred through an array of elastics. “They’re not exactly forthcoming. So you’re saying that the natives were Hebitians?”
“No, and we’re not entirely sure we’re talking Hebitian either, but that’s the working hypothesis. Anyway, this is where it gets pretty interesting. It looks like the natives were an entirely different species. Tomb drawings show two distinct types of people: the ones that were descendents of those Night Kings, and everybody else. So probably there was an indigenous population on the planet, but one that was very primitive by Hebitian standards. Now there’s always been a suspicion that at least some of the Hebitians were telepaths. Even the Cardassian legends talk about that a little. But I don’t think that, on the basis of what you and your captain saw, we can say that every Hebitian telepath was all sweetness and light.”