Return to Valjiir Stories
I never realized you were so popular, an interior voice commented as the doctor exited.
Del frowned. “It my sunny personality that draws 'em in.”
He could feel her follow his thoughts as he located Sulu walking down a corridor on a deck above them.
It’s Wen! Pelori exclaimed surprised and delighted.
“No, it not… Can you see him normally?”
No, it’s not, she confirmed equally surprised but less than delighted. Yes, I can see him… Wow. He really looks like Wen. How is that possible?
Del shrugged. “Odds hover between damn near impossible to none.”
Wow, Pelori repeated.
The engineer scowled. “He ain’t all that cute.”
No, no… I’m looking at him the other way now and…. Wow.
“Yeah.” Del remembered looking at his friend with xenonuerophene-enhanced vision for the first time on Dreamland. “Pretty fucked up, ain’t it?”
Damn. Pelori was impressed/horrified.
“Will he be able to see you?”
I don’t see how he could… I don’t see how he can function at all.
They silently watched Del’s old friend ride the turbo lift down. Average humans were soft, glowing, nebulous globs. In stark, frightening contrast, Sulu was shot through and through with a mass of strings, weird shapes, and patches of odd color.
The longer Del looked at people with his mind this way, the more detail he could make out. Sulu had a LOT of detail – a lot more than was healthy. “Can you see th' second personality?”
Is that what that is? Pelori seemed dubious. Dear God…
An unpleasant thought occurred to him. “How much you know 'bout the Clave, girl?”
Just what you found out the hard way, the ex-Intelligence Officer replied. Off-site experimentation took place there. Officially unsanctioned – but we do have access to the data generated. Before he asked, she went ahead and answered, And yes, if my department wished to disable someone with potential on that level, this is what the result might look like – but I assure you, standard operating procedures were not followed here.
“That a fuckin' understatement,” Del said, feeling memories leak from him.
Pelori didn’t comment, which was always more worrisome than when she did.
He could feel her cycle through a variety of emotions from pity to outrage to cold fear. “Need to chew that over fo' awhile, cher?”
What’s all the silver? she asked, abruptly and obviously changing the topic.
He raised a mental eyebrow at this transparent strategy. “You not know?”
Oh. Pelori’s laugh was self-conscious and apologetic. Guess I should at least half-know, shouldn’t I? He’s bonded to an Indiian, then? I didn’t expect that.
“Neither did he.”
Viewed from this angle, the pure, simple threads of Jilla’s love seemed almost ludicrously out of place in the teaming mass of chaos that formed Sulu’s being. But there they were -- Bringing a semblance of order and harmony where it seemed impossible for order and harmony to exist.
She must be pretty remarkable herself….
Del smiled and held Pelori tight in his thoughts. “All the Indiian women I know are.”
Sulu had reached the outer portions of sickbay by this time.
“So, you gonna just stay out an' talk to him?” Del asked, when the blue essence of his girlfriend showed no signs of moving.
He shouldn’t be able to perceive me… she replied, but her thoughts betrayed her doubt. Then again, I can’t see how he’s able to perceive anything in that condition.
Sulu’s body of emotions shifted so that a glimpse of pure unobstructed Kam was visible.
You won’t think less of me if I hide in the deepest darkest hole I can find, will you, Del? Pelori asked, melting rapidly back into him.
“Discretion is the better part of valor, mon amour,” he replied welcoming her back.
“Hi, Del.”
Sulu’s soothing voice was shockingly at odds with his disturbing emotional appearance.
Deciding not to prolong their meeting unnecessarily, Del cut to the chase. “Don’ call Ruth.”
“I already did,” Sulu replied.
Apparently the Drake’s captain thought he could truncate the conversation too.
“Jesus,” the Cajun swore. “You motherfuckin’ son of a bitch.”
“She can heal you,” his friend replied simply in a tone that brooked no argument.
“No.” Del shook his head in a manner violent enough to be sure to upset Dr. Rendell. “No, she can’t.”
Sulu crossed his arms and sat down on the foot of the bed. “If she pulled you back from death, I don’t think blindness is going to pose that much of a challenge.”
“I ain’t doubtin’ she be capable,” the Cajun clarified. “I sayin’ it can’t happen.”
“If the procedure they do at Starbase 14 doesn’t work out, then I don’t see that we have any other choice.”
“Then there ain’t no fuckin’ choice at all,” Del retorted hotly. “If the operation not work, I be blind. End o' story. Ruth not an option.”
There was no signal of compromise in Sulu. “The Enterprise is going to rendezvous with us at the starbase in two weeks. That gives us plenty of time to see if conventional medical techniques are going to work.”
The engineer ground his teeth in frustration. “Are you fuckin’ listenin’ to me? Are you forgettin’ what a healin’ is? How deep inside each other you gotta go? Compared to a healin’ between ‘pathics, sex between normal people is a like a handshake.”
Sulu remained stubbornly silent.
“An’ you wouldn’t ask me to do that, would you? Come to me an' say, ‘just let Ruth fuck you an’ everyt’ing will be fine’?”
Del watched his captain shake off the emotional impact of this low blow. “If it was going to save your life…” Sulu began.
“My life is not at stake.”
“Your career in Starfleet is.”
“That ain’t my life.” Del could see the extent to which this wasn’t necessarily true register in the flow of emotion to his arms and lower body.
“Really?” Sulu asked as if he could see it too.
“I can do other t’ings,” he retorted, sounding sullen even to his own ears.
“Such as?”
“To start with, I could write me another book,” the Cajun replied, borrowing an idea from some well-wisher’s brain that he’d been jeering at earlier. “An’ just live off the residuals fo’ a few years.”
“Or drink them up in a few months,” Sulu countered bluntly.
The engineer scowled. “Your faith in me is overwhelmin’.”
“Del.” His captain’s affection for him glowed warmly through the twisted mental minefield that should have obscured it. “Starfleet is your life. It’s where your friends are. It’s your family.”
“I not crawl out from under a rock, y'know,” he countered peevishly. “I do have blood kin.”
“Most of whom you don’t speak to,” Sulu pointed out with annoying accuracy.
“An' if I can arrange it where they don’t speak to me, we might all live together jus’ fine.”
“Ruth healed you before and nothing happened.”
“Which nothin’ you mean?” the engineer demanded angrily. “Me tryin’ to kill myself or the fun year we all had together after that?”
His captain’s emotions rocked back a bit at the mention of Captain Bastard’s reign. “The year after had nothing to do with…”
“You not t’ink it laid any groundwork, huh?” Del said, staying on the offensive. “An’ even if it not, you really t’ink that after what happened that year that point-earred fuck could ever live wit’ me bein' that intimate wit’ his wife… even if it was to save my life? Which it ain’t… T'ink Ruth could live wit' it an’ be okay? T'ink I can live wit' it an’ be okay?”
Doubts began to bubble under the hardened exterior of Sulu’s resolve.
“What if you were sick an’ Jilla was the only one who could help you,” the engineer put forward as a hypothetical. “Then after she been wit' you, she had to go back to Selar?”
“In a way Jilla does cure me.” At her mention, Sulu’s uncertainly began to fade. “In a way, she does have to keep going back to Selar.”
A form that was clearly the image of the Indiian’s damnation formed out of the shadowy chaos of the captain’s tormented soul.
“But we face it.” As Del watched, silver threads cleansed and purified the dark edifice into something of awful but austere beauty. “We get through it together.”
“Ruth ain’t gonna be here fo’ me.” Del said turning away from the image. He looked bitterly at the blue that was no longer real silver inside himself. “There nobody to help me face or get through noth'ing.”
All the radiance that was Sulu shone on him like the sun. “I’ll be here for you.”
“Really?” The engineer turned on him angrily. “When my heart is empty an’ layin’ bleedin’ on the floor every night, you gonna come to my bed an’ let me fuck you ‘til I can feel again? Is that what you offerin'?”
“No.” Sulu shook his head. “It couldn’t be that way.”
“Damn straight it couldn’t,” the Cajun replied, watching an unexpected amount of bitterness leak through his psychic form.
“I couldn’t let you fuck me every night.” His captain said seriously, then gently glowed sunshine on him again. “Some nights I’d have to be the one to fuck you.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Del growled, in no mood to be teased.
“So, we both know that I can’t take Ruth’s place,” Sulu said. “But there are ways I can help. And I will help… if you’ll let me.”
The hand that he put the engineer’s leg radiated a warmth that simultaneously was, was not, and was more than sexual.
“It’s not all about fucking or being fucked, Del,” Sulu said, his voice conveying the beauty in him that couldn’t be hidden by his patchworked psyche. “It’s about letting your friends help you when you need help.”
“This ain’t gonna fuckin’ work out,” the Cajun warned.
“We’ll see in two weeks,” his captain said with a finality that signaled the conversation was over for him as clearly as did the way he rose and moved to the door. “Oh,” he said, pausing at the door. “And from now on, when you call me a motherfucking son of a bitch or tell me to shut the fuck up on my ship, you’ve got to start putting “sir” at the end of it.”
“Fuckin’ bastard,” Del sighed after the door closed behind him.
So that’s your taste in men, a little voice inside him said.
“You see what I gotta put up wit'?” He demanded of the blue from that emerged from his chest. “You tell me I gotta stand on my own two feet -- not be a sheep -- and then he tells me I gotta learn to rely on my friends.”
The Pelori ghost shrugged. And we’re both right.
And it's fucked up, fucked up
And this is fucked up, fucked up
This your blind spot, blind spot
It should be obvious, but it's not.
Not to criticize your taste in music, Pelori began after a moment. But…
“I not wanna talk 'bout Ruth,” Del said flatly.
Then let’s don’t, the blue form replied easily, stretching out beside him on the narrow sickbay bed. Let’s talk about something else.
“Such as?”
Ummmm… The ghost of Pelori propped what served as her chin up on the semblance of hands as she thought. When did you first know that you wanted to become an engineer?
“Well, lemme see…” Del took in a deep breath. “It probably all started 'cause of the way I like t' fish.”
Pelori smiled and leaned against him in a way that registered on his emotions rather than on his skin. Really?
“Yeah. You see, though I am a Cajun through an' through, I not have no use for a perot. I gotta have me a boat wit' a motor. I always liked to fish in places where sometimes you needed t' get out in a hurry. I always been that way. So when I was 'bout eight years old or so, I went to my daddy an' told him that fo' my birthday, he was gonna have to get me a motor fo' my boat. An' he said, 'Son, you not have to wait.' He took me out to his shed an' showed me 'bout seven outboard motors he had out there. He say, 'Son, don’t a one of these work worth a damn, but they all yours.' An' I tell ya, I was too dumb not to be thrilled outta my mind. I studied on them motors day an' night. Took ever' one of ‘em apart an' put ‘em back together a half dozen times or more. I used to ‘bout not be able to sleep at night thinkin’ 'bout what all I was gonna do to them motors when I got up th' next day. Finally I stripped 'em all down an' built up one that would work… for 'bout an hour or so at a time… if the wind blowed the right way… All the relatives used to laugh at that t'ing, but I was so proud of it I just about couldn’t stand myself.”
Pelori smiled at the image.
“At firs',” he continued, “jus' to keep the fun goin', my uncles an' cousins an' all would give me spare parts, ‘cause I’d get so worked up 'bout it. After a while though, as I start to get better at it, they come up on th' side wit' somet'ing halfway good they’d broke an' say, “Shorty, see if you can study out how to fix this.” Sometime I could, sometime I couldn’t. But I got a little better all th' time…”
So, your father got you started?
“No,” Del could feel his whole emotional aspect harden. “That son of a bitch jus' figured an easy way to get outta gettin' me a birthday present.”
Pelori ran her fingers soothingly through his upset. I don’t see a lot of good memories of your father.
“They ain’t none,” the engineer replied shortly. “He ain’t never had much use for me.”
I’m sure he loved you.
“Trust me, cher,” he said, pushing her fingers firmly away from that area of his psyche. “A man who has cheated on his wife not need no telepathic son around.”
That would be a problem, Pelori agreed with her typical purposive understatement. She placed her fingers at a safe and respectful distance away from the sore area. Telepathy usually doesn’t begin to manifest until adolescence. I think there’s good reason for that. It’s easier to survive that way. It’s very hard to grow up as aware as the two of us were. For one thing, it’s not always good to know your parents too well too soon.
She shared with him memories of her father – his struggles with alcoholism and depression following her mother’s death. Just when I needed him to be a superman. I found out exactly how very fragile he was.
“'Least your papa was a good man. My daddy not even have that goin’ for him.”
Del opened up for her the large and weighty catalogue of Dominic DelMonde’s failings. Lies from small to large, from thoughtless to calculating, and from self-serving to actively malicious were spread out like a stinking, rotten buffet. Infidelities both major and minor, real and considered formed the centerpiece. Scattered memories of violent confrontations and festering, bitter resentments between father and son decorated the space. These conflicts crescendoed after Del’s mother’s death but stretched back in time to a first initial betrayal that happened when Del was still very young.
Through a child’s point of view, Pelori heard adults talking. The scene shifted to a psychic reality where she had access to all the thoughts and emotions accompanying an exchange between Del’s father and paternal grandmother who were strategizing methods of circumventing Del’s mother’s objections to having her child institutionalized.
“The boy not never gonna be not'ing,” the elder DelMonde had said, unknowingly destroying his relationship with his son forever. “Not'ing but crazy. They not no help for it.”
The former Intelligence Agent took in a long breath and pulled herself out of the memory.
To the layman, Pelori began carefully, broad spectrum Giftedness in a child as young as you were would seem like autism – profound, incurable autism.
"Or demon-possession,” Del offered, unforgiving.
Depending which century one chose to believe one was living in, yes, she agreed, trying not to give in to contempt for the seemingly willful, pigheaded ignorance of some members of the family and community in which the engineer had been raised.
“If he’d taken me from my mama, he might as well have jus' put a shotgun to my head an' pulled th' trigger.” The Cajun’s emotions were cold with old rage. He turned to her and warned preemptively, “An' don’t say not'ing 'bout no external forces of stabilization.”
You needed her, Pelori agreed. Couldn’t have survived without her. She was there for you…. And did everything that she knew to do -- and even some things that she didn’t know about -- to help you be able to take care of yourself.
As always, the memory of his mother brought Del back from the edge of darkness. “She was th' only one who had any faith in me.”
And the only one you had any faith in.
“Oh, yeah.” The Cajun couldn’t help but give a short laugh. “I had some faith in her all right. One time in school I got in trouble when one of the nuns figured out I was prayin' to my mama 'stead of Jesus’ mama.”
Oh, my. Pelori was caught between amusement and amazement. I can see where that might upset a nun.
Del shrugged. “I didn’t see no difference. I knew my mama was jus' as nice, twice as pretty, an' was a better Catholic who never had an illegitimate child.”
Hope you didn’t tell the nuns that.
“'Course I did.”
Pelori nodded. Of course you did.
“There was more than one o' them who thought I was th' Antichrist, anyway,” the engineer remembered. “To tell the truth, I thought so myself some days… either that or I might be Jesus himself… come back again… for revenge… mostly on nuns…”
So, Pelori said, steering back towards her original question. You went from outboard motors and spare parts to Starfleet Academy?
“Not directly. I not t'ink it woulda happen at all if I hadn’t jus' happened to go drinkin’ downtown this one night.” Del let his fingers run though the tingling blue area that would have been his lover’s hair. “I probably jus' woulda been a mechanic. The whole family was all pretty happy wit' that idea. Crazy don’t matter so much if you can fix stuff fo' folks…”
Del could feel Pelori silently highlight this as one of the reasons why being an engineer was so important to him.
“Anyway,” he continued, pretending not to notice. “One night I was out wit' some o' my cousins an' we meet this strange-lookin’ character -- this smooth talkin' young fella who had come to New Orleans to drink wit' some black-eyed Cajun boys. He was payin', so we were drinkin'.”
This is your friend Jeremy, Pelori read from his thoughts.
“Oh, yeah. But I not want not'ing to do wit' him at first. He’s dressed up like he a circus act. Flirtin' wit' anyt'ing drawin' breath like flirtin' is 'bout to go out o' style… He was jus' too much. I was underage in this bar, tryin' t' keep a low profile, y’know. An' he was jus' too much fo' my taste. My cousins could see that ol’ Jer liked me the best o' all of us, an' in part to keep him payin' fo' the drinks an' in part jus' to piss me off -- 'cause they an aggravatin’ bunch o' bastards -- they kept playin' me up to him. 'Oh, you got a ship?' they’d say. “Oh, you need to take Shorty to see that t'ing. If there any li'l t'ing wrong wit' it, he can fix it right up fo' ya.' -- which, in them days, was 'bout three-quarters to a lie part o' th' time. But ol’ Jer, he ain’t never been slow on th' uptake. So he starts into talkin' 'bout the ship he got. An' even though I keep my back turned – 'cause I was a snotty young bastard in them days -- my ears start to prick up. An' when he starts into droppin' hints 'bout this place in Rio where they’s a whole fleet o' these sleek li'l racin' ships, my cousins said I had to pass my hand across my mouth ever' so often to wipe off the drool. By th' end o' th' night, I had to see one o' them racin’ ships or die tryin'. But even though I went off wit' Jer, I was a son of a bitch to him. Told him in no uncertain terms what was what. Told him if he so much as breathed in my direction, I’d smack the shit outta him. ‘Course that was 'fore I realized he liked that sort o' thing. Anyway, by mid-morning I was in Rio, hip-deep in the engine of a needle.”
And in the hands of a sociopath who collected Gifteds like butterflies, Pelori reminded him.
“There was that.” Del confirmed. “Though it didn’t ever go so bad wit' me as it did wit' others.”
Both of them cast a glance at the tortured form of the Drake’s captain working diligently at his desk many decks above them.
Do you ever regret being part of the Clave? Pelori asked, still gazing upwards.
“I have regrets 'bout that time,” he confirmed.
But not about opportunities working there afforded you? she prompted.
“As a Maker,” he admitted after a moment’s consideration, “I got to do t'ings an' learn t'ings I would have never done as a mechanic. Met people who wouldn’t have even spit in my direction otherwise.”
Including people who made it possible for you to get into the Academy…
“Yeah, yeah.” He said, waving her off. “I get it. I get it. Engineerin' is important to me 'cause it was a way out of jus' being Mr. Crazy-Don’t-Matter-Much-When-You-Can-Fix-Stuff-Fo'-Folks. An' Sulu is right. It not jus' my career. It all the self-respect I have some times. An' you right. If I lose Starfleet an' walk away from my friends, it gonna beat me down so low that I may as well jus' put on a wool coat an' a bell an' start bein' Dylan Paine’s lil’ black sheep full time. ‘Cause that what gonna happen anyway – in one form or another.”
Del was amazed at how non-smug Pelori’s silence was.
“How ‘bout you, cher,” he asked, running a finger through her blue mist teasingly. “You have any regrets?"
Regrets? she repeated wryly. Other than dying, you mean?
“Yeah, that a given.”
Hmmm. Blue swirled slowing inside her as she considered. I wish I’d told you that I loved you sooner and reminded you of it every time I had a chance.
“You not have to.” Del smiled. “Ever' time you looked at me, I knew.”
She curled against him. I wonder what would have happened to us?
“You mean after we got married an' had a half dozen kids?
Married? Her blue head turned quizzically to one side. I didn’t think you were the marrying type, Mr. DelMonde.
“I not,” Del replied. “But you were too much of a wild t'ing, cher. Somebody was gonna have to clip them wings.”
And you figured you were man enough for the job?
“Oh, hell yeah,” he affirmed, holding her tight.
Half dozen kids, huh?
The Cajun shrugged. “Thereabouts.”
So you figured on keeping me barefoot and pregnant?
“Oh, you could keep your shoes on if you wanted to,” he offered magnanimously.
The blue ghost smiled and shook her head. I didn’t figure you for the type who’d like kids either.
“I figure I have to like mine,” he replied. “Somebody’d have to, sassy-mouthed, red-headed, black-eyed lil’ smart asses…”
Pelori sniffed indignantly. My children would have been perfectly well behaved.
“Oh, yeah,” Del agreed. “We’d had a division of labor, darlin’. You’d work on makin’ ‘em perfect an' well-behaved and I’d take care of teachin’ ‘em how to spit an' cuss.”
Maybe it’s just as well then, she teased, curling up against him once more.
They lay together, floating on fragile bliss for long silent moments.