“Is that possible?”
“With those people, who the hell knows,” Fisher said. “But M’Benga hasn’t offered that theory yet to anyone but me, so treat that one as off the record.”
I laughed a little. “Right.”
“So, am I close?”
I mulled my words a bit before speaking. “My mind keeps returning to her breakdown. The pain I saw on her face. I thought seeing her in a state of calm and peace would help me rationalize that her pain is over, and push that image out of my mind.”
“Maybe you can push that image out of your mind by helping in some way,” he said, “if not her then definitely yourself. If you have been hanging on to your anger at her, if you have been feeling spiteful or hoping for retribution, what might be anchoring her pain in your mind is a good dose of guilt.”
“Oh, there’s plenty of that to go around, believe me,” I said. “With Reyes in the brig, T’Prynn in a coma, Quinn caught in the crossfire of an Orion mad as hell at me, and an entire Federation frightened about the return of ancient, wrathful aliens, hell, I’m the life of every party in the whole damn quadrant.”
“Oh, so you did all that by yourself.”
“Didn’t I? I got in this job—hell, I stayin this job—because I want to help put things right, not to be the architect of doom for everyone I know. But I’m not putting many things right these days.”
“Then consider this, Tim,” Fisher said. “Maybe you don’t try to engineer positive change one quadrant at a time or one planet at a time or one station at a time. Consider doing what’s right by one individual at a time. When you change one life for the better, you can get to feeling pretty damn good about the world. Why the hell else do I stay in medicine?”
“It’s not for the free coffee?”
Fisher smiled and nodded at me, then gave me a clap on the shoulder while rising from his seat. As we walked back toward the reception area, I could not help but look back toward Isolation Ward 4, where I knew staff members were checking readouts, holding hands, and changing the world one life at a time.
But the only life I wanted to change in that moment was my own.
15
It should have come as no surprise to me that two days of drinking at Tom Walker’s place would do little to change my life. Well, little to change it beyond the fact that by that time, even the most indulgent of the establishment’s servers had lost a measure of patience with me.
Not that I had become an unruly, unwashed sot as I occupied my usual table. I had done my best to bide by the establishment’s regular business hours as well as to maintain my professional demeanor, despite my carrying myself in a manner that I assumed made me seem more unapproachable than usual. Yes, I knew my next story could have come from the next person passing by my table, and that my appearing open and interested might well have been the key to unlocking that person’s secrets. But in that moment, I would not have wanted a good lead even if a source had poured it over ice and served it to me in a glass. What was more, while I had the air about me of someone who had come to the place to drink, even that was a façade. Rather than knocking back whisky after whisky on a growing tab of expenses, I simply stared into the glass before me, swirling its contents frequently to appear as though I had been consuming it. In all likelihood, I was losing as much of the alcohol to evaporation as I was to ingestion.
“Freshen that for you, Tim?”
I snapped my head up to look at the source of the question, almost expecting to see Amity in her skimpy barmaid’s outfit from aboard the Omari-Ekon. Rather, it was Meryl, the young brunette who seemed to be the only server with any remaining interest in checking on me. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were asleep.”
“I wasn’t. And I don’t.”
“Don’t?” she repeated. “Don’t sleep?”
“Do sleep. Don’t want whatever it is you asked me.”
“Okay,” she said, setting a tall tumbler of ice water on the table. “But I brought this for you anyway.”
“Fine.” I reached for the glass and brought it to my mouth, the coolness of the water delivering a bit of a sting to my healing lower lip as well as a burst of clearer consciousness to my mind. A bead of water dripped down my chin, and as I brushed it away with the side of my finger, the sensation of the scruff on my unshaven face reminded me that I likely looked much like I felt inside: disengaged and unmotivated. Considering that I had not returned any of my editor’s messages, nor Quinn’s for that matter, since Amity’s disappearance, Meryl here was likely the only person even aware of where I was.
“Tim?”
“Yes?” I set the glass down and looked at her.
“I know I haven’t known you long, but I don’t think this is very like you,” she said. “I don’t know whether I should ask if you want to talk or if I should just leave you alone.”
“What are you wanting to do?”
“Ask.”
“Leave me alone.” Her eyes dropped to the tabletop as my words seemed to sting her at least a little. “Meryl? Sorry. That was my idea of a joke.”
“Then this is my idea of a laugh,” she said stone-faced.
“I deserved that. And I’m just a little wrapped up in myself, it seems. My responses to the contrary, I do appreciate your asking.”
“Then I’ll ask again,” she said, offering a small smile. “If nothing else, just to make sure you haven’t died.”
“If I need to move along, just let me know.”
“I could,” Meryl said over her shoulder as she walked from the table, “but it would be more fun just to call Security.”
I returned my gaze to the tabletop, choosing to chase my sip of water with a nip from my whisky glass. I swallowed, knitting my eyes shut as I did to savor the burn of the single-malt spirit, thankful for the familiar sensations that helped to cover my memory of whatever it was I had been served on the Orion ship that led to my disorientation and my inability to keep any harm from befalling Amity.
“Mister Pennington?”
The low voice prompted me to open my eyes, and as they focused, all I could discern before me was a field of red that began to coalesce into the outline of a man in a Starfleet tunic.
“Wait,” I spoke quickly to the red shape, “the woman’s remark about calling Security was merely a joke, I assure you.”
“I wasn’t called to take you away,” the man said. “At least not yet.”
My eyes unblurred enough to see the face of who addressed me. “Lieutenant Ginther.”
“I have some information for you, but we’re not talking in here,” he said. “Follow me out.”
I complied, but not before settling what small bill I had with Meryl. Ginther left Tom Walker’s place and strode ahead of me, eventually turning into an alleyway between buildings in Stars Landing. I stepped in as if it were a natural path to take rather than hesitating and looking around to determine whether I had been observed. I simply took it on trust that Ginther had a good idea of the area’s discretion.
The broad-shouldered man seemed to examine my current state of appearance, but extended the grace of not making a verbal comment. “I did some follow-up on your report and I wanted to tell you what I found,” he said, “but what I tell you doesn’t leave this alley. Are we clear?”
“Of course,” I said. “But what report?”
“Your missing-persons report on Amity Price.”
“What? You filed a report?”
“No, I didn’t file a report. But I did some checking, and I found something. Well, someone.”
“You found Amity? You’re kidding?” I felt a wave of relief and joy start to wash over me.
“Calm yourself, Pennington,” he said. “It’s not what you think. The scrubbing of Vanguard’s computer records was not as untraceable as the responsible party had hoped. We detected evidence just fast enough to lead us to the perpetrator and it was a Starfleet computer engineer, someone who had a high clearance for a great amount of information.”