Titan 5 - Over a Torrent Sea (31 page)

He thought it over for a few moments, then nodded. “All right. Let’s do that.” He felt relief wash over him. They were comfortable together again, and that was what he wanted most of all.

“Great.” She smiled. “I love you, Xin.”

He kissed her, taking his time. “I love you, Melora.”

After a moment, he let her go, fidgeting a bit. “I…suppose we should get back to work on those probes.”

She blinked a few times and cleared her throat. “Uhh, right. Right behind you.”

They both took a moment to gather themselves, then came back out into engineering, totally professional, their
eyes daring the crew to be anything else. But then Melora moved close and spoke softly. “You know…if most of the crew’s going to be down on Droplet, covering the planet’s surface systematically…maybe we’ll find the captain and Aili while we’re at it.”

He nodded. “I’m sure we’ll all be looking.”

After all, there was more than one kind of loving relationship. And Captain Riker and Counselor Troi deserved to have theirs restored.

DROPLET

By now, Aili herself was starting to feel the effects of malnutrition. She was weakening, unable to swim as far without needing rest. She knew matters must be far worse for Riker at this point—and would get far worse for her before long.

We can’t rely on
Titan
finding us,
she thought.
The life-pod transformation may be our only hope.
If anything, she was starting to look forward to the prospect of beginning a new life with the squales. She felt she had grown close to Alos, Gasa, Melo, and others in the contact pod, and knew she would be safe with them. And she enjoyed their company—enjoyed communing with aquatic beings who didn’t judge her (at least not by the same standards she used in judging herself). The squales were a beautiful people, and even their most idle conversation was a symphony. She would gladly spend the rest of her life mastering the intricacies of their song.

As for her more carnal needs, the squales were rather
casual about sex play, not unlike aquatic Selkies, and she was sure she could engage in some interesting experimentation with them. But she would be better off having another humanoid to keep her company.

The thought made her feel guilty, but a part of her countered,
It’s a matter of cruel necessity. The change would take weeks; even if
Titan
is still up there looking for us, we’d be out of their reach long enough for them to give up. And there’d be no going back anyway. The only way to save Will’s life might be to let the others think we’re dead. And then we’d
have
to learn to…live together. We’d need each other…like it or not. He’d hate me for a while, but he’d have to come around.

But she didn’t want him to wake up and find that this had been done to him. That would make it far harder for him to adjust—or to forgive her. Better if she could persuade him to accept the change willingly. She quailed at the thought, knowing how he would react.
Oh, how I wish he spoke better Selkie. Then the squales could be the ones to convince him.

She had no choice, though. As much as she would have preferred to avoid it, Aili had to be the one to convince Riker to stay here—to abandon his family and spend the rest of his life here with her.
So much for not making him think I’m a homewrecker.

Aili put it off as long as she could, rehearsing what she could say, trying to figure out how to cast the argument in the most convincing, unselfish terms possible. Eventually, though, her own fatigue and nausea convinced her that Riker couldn’t afford to wait much longer. So she went to his islet, still having no idea what to say.

When she reached the islet, though, Riker failed to respond to her calls. Bracing herself, she climbed out onto the solid surface and jogged to Riker’s cave.

She gasped when she saw him. He lay sprawled, unmoving save for tremors, his breathing shallow. “Captain!” she cried, running to his side. At her touch, he moaned, but that was all. He was burning with fever. She registered an unpleasant smell; gingerly pulling his leaf-blankets aside, she saw that he was lying in his own filth, unable to move enough to tend to his basic needs. Two of the squales’ helper creatures were nearby, but they were agitated, keeping their distance. Aili realized the disruption in the Song was throwing them off, preventing them from fulfilling their duties. The others must have wandered off or perhaps been taken by predators.

Aili winced in sympathy at the sight of Riker, and though her kind did not shed tears, she keened for him. She cradled his head in her lap, stroking his hair. “Sir, can you hear me?” she said softly. “There’s a way to save you. Please, I need to tell you about it.”

But he gave no response beyond another feeble groan. Aili’s first thought was to take him to the squales. She pulled at him, trying to lift him up enough to lead him to the water. He was practically a dead weight, but swimming kept her strong and he’d lost several kilos, so she was able to pull him mostly upright and drag him forward, his weight on her shoulders.

When she reached the shore, however, she didn’t summon the squales. Instead, she simply lowered Riker into the water to cool his fever and cleanse his skin of sweat and other things. She hurried back inland to get
some fresh water from the small pond, soaking it up in a spongy leaf. (
Idiot! You could have brought him here!
she thought, before responding to herself,
Idiot! And foul his drinking water?
) Returning to Riker, she dribbled it into his mouth. Once he’d been rehydrated, she used the leaf to clean him. It was embarrassing to do this with her captain, but it was nothing she hadn’t dealt with many times with her eight children. Though at the time, she had retreated from such duties whenever she could finagle a relative into taking them over for her.

But not now. At first, she wasn’t sure why she was tending to Riker in this way instead of letting the squales remake him and remove the need. But the more she tended to him, the more she understood. “I’m sorry, Captain,” she told him as she wrapped him in new leaf-blankets, this time near the shore so she could stay close. “Sorry I left you to go through this alone. I was selfish, and childish.” The truth was, she
couldn’t
simply fob him off onto others as she had so often done with her own children. She’d been the one to let him deteriorate into this state. And so it was her responsibility to help him through it.

And so she took care of him. Over the next several hours, she kept him hydrated, fed him what he could keep down, wiped away what he could not, kept him wrapped in leaves to stay warm, changed his leaves, and cleaned him when the need arose. When he awoke halfway, he ranted in delirium about being locked in a pit in the darkness. He screamed curses at “Kinchawn,” and Aili realized he was flashing back to an ordeal on Tezwa before his promotion to captain. The curses soon gave way to pleas; he begged to be allowed to see his wife and his baby girl. “My girl,” he
sobbed. “Deanna! I’m with you! Please, tell me you know I’m with you. I should be there, I should…hold…hand…be there to…see her…come out…help you…I’m sorry!” He broke down sobbing, and Aili held him and stroked his hair. She eased him closer to the water, lay with her back to it, her gills trailing in the shallows, so she could continue to comfort him.

Why did I ever run away from this with my own children?
she found herself wondering.
Why did I think I couldn’t do this?
She had rarely felt such a sense of purpose. Rarely been so fulfilled.

In time, Riker became lucid again—still weak, but able to respond coherently. “Thank you” was the first thing he said to her.

“I’m sorry” was the first thing she replied.

“Unhhh…forget it.” He tried to roll around to face her. She helped him to sit up at the water’s edge and stepped back a few paces to crouch in the shallows, resting on the submerged outer curve of the islet, while she faced him. “What’s…the situation?” he asked her.

She filled him in on the basics, including the squales’ offer. “I see,” Riker said when she was done. “You think we should take it?”

Aili lowered her eyes. “I did. But not now.”

“Why not?”

It was several moments before she spoke. “You remember what you asked me before? Why I joined Starfleet if I was so ashamed of my affairs with offworlders?”

He showed no confusion at the non sequitur, perhaps simply being too weak to muster it. “Uh-huh.”

“I always told myself it was about responsibility. That
it was a way to make up for being so irresponsible as a mother. I’d used the galaxy as a distraction from my duties, so maybe giving something back to the galaxy would even the scales. Or something like that.”

“But that’s not it?”

She gave a small shake of her head. Again, a long silence preceded her next words. “When I was young…my sister Miana was out swimming with our mother and Miana’s father when…she was taken by a sea predator. Such things still happen on Pacifica…even with modern technology, an ocean is a big, wild place, hard to tame. It’s one reason we need such large families.”

“I’m sorry.”

“So was I. And I was angry. I loved Miana so much, and I blamed Mom for letting her die. For not protecting her like she was supposed to.” She winced at the memory of the pain in her mother’s face as she’d cursed her—the grief, as strong as her own, that she’d ignored. “So as I grew up…when she tried to teach me the values of good parenting that are so important to amphibious Selkies…I didn’t find it credible, considering the source. I tuned them out, rebelled against her lessons. Miana’s father left, of course, and other fathers came and went, but I wasn’t willing to trust any of them either.

“I didn’t even want to become a mother, but I’d tuned out my parents’ lessons in responsible sex too, so I kind of ended up getting parenting thrust upon me. And I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know how to cope. And…” She leaned back in the water, immersing more of her gills—in essence, taking a deep breath before going on. “And I was afraid. I didn’t admit it, but I was afraid of being just as
bad a mother as I thought my own was. I didn’t trust myself to take care of my children. So I retreated. As often as I could, I left my kids in the care of relatives, friends, anyone. And I lost myself in the kind of self-indulgence we’re supposed to save for our aquatic phase—that’s supposed to be a well-earned reward for two decades of devoted parenting. I played, I danced, I drank, and I had sex with aliens who didn’t know our customs or didn’t care.”

Riker studied her. “Why have more children, then?”

“Because I couldn’t completely get away from my social obligations. And because I preferred taking the easy way out. It was easier to go along with the pressure to take more mates and then foist the babies off on family than to try to stay unattached.” She smirked. “Besides, I liked sex with Selkie men too. I attracted a lot of desirable partners. My affairs with offworlders made me seem alluringly experienced…mature. And some men like ‘bad girls.’

“And maybe, eventually, it became about trying to mend my reputation. I got tired of being the butt of everyone’s gossip and dirty looks, wanted to prove I could do the respectable thing. But I still didn’t trust myself to be a good mother, so I still ran from my responsibilities.”

“So is that why you left?” Riker asked. “To get away from everyone’s judgment?”

She shook her head. “All I had to do for that was wait for my amphibious phase to end. Aquatics lead the kind of uninhibited life I was already leading on land. They don’t judge much.”

Riker’s eyes widened. “You mean you left before you…changed?” He gestured to indicate her current physiological state.

“Not long before. A couple of years. And it could’ve come on me at any time.”

He narrowed his eyes, discerning what lay behind her words. “You wanted to leave Pacifica before it happened.”

She nodded. “I told myself I’d be bored as a mature aquatic. It would just be more of the same thing I’d been doing for twenty years, but with less variety and less…spice. Because it would be normal and accepted. No more ‘bad girl’, just blending in with the group. We call it a
sepkinalorian
…I think the closest Standard concept would be a face in the crowd, except it’s more of a party than a crowd. I liked to joke to myself that it was a kind of drudgework, a ‘job’ I was happy to have avoided.

“But really, I guess I didn’t think I deserved the life of a mature aquatic. I hadn’t earned it. They wouldn’t have judged me, but I was judging myself, whether I admitted it or not.”

“So you cast yourself out of paradise.”

She tilted her head. “You could say that. I signed up with Starfleet, and I told everyone it was so I could give something back, make up for my selfish life. I even convinced myself.

“But I think I understand now—I was still running away. Leaving home was a way to avoid facing the real root of my problems. To avoid facing my mother…and my memories.”

She straightened in the water. “Sir, I really am happy here. The squales have offered me something that would be an amazing adventure, and I’m grateful to them for that. But…it would still be running away. Hiding from my responsibilities.

“Well, I’m not going to do that anymore, sir. You’re my captain, and I have a duty to you. If you’re convinced
Titan
and Commander Troi are still out there, then I trust you. And we just have to make sure we find them and get you back together with your family.” She lowered her eyes. “It’s too late for me to get back the time I lost with my children. I’m not going to let you lose out on yours.”

Riker gave her a slow, heartfelt smile. “Thank you, Aili.”

LUMBU

“She’s beautiful,” Nurse Mawson said as Deanna cradled her newborn daughter in her arms.

“Even without a
clarfel
,” Nurse Hewton added, but Mawson shushed him.

The delivery had been very smooth, ironically an anti-climax after all the melodrama leading up to it. Deanna’s Caeliar-restored physique had proved robust enough to handle the delivery with relatively little difficulty; the intense exertion of labor had been more euphoric for her than painful. Ree had done his part with total professionalism, but there really hadn’t been much he needed to do. As for Tuvok and his team, they had frightened off the local police with little difficulty; a few phaser stuns and a few roars from Hriss and Dennisar had been enough to overwhelm their courage.