Return to Valjiir Stories
Del was sitting by himself, quietly fingering the guitar the Loonies had given him. “I see a bad moon risin’," he sang softly, “I see trouble on the way. I see earthquakes an’ lightnin’. I see bad times today…”
“Del,” Ruth interrupted quietly.
“Yeah, cher,” he said without looking up. “Don’t go ‘roun’ tonight, or it bound to take your life. There a bad moon on the rise.”
“I have to tell you something,” the Antari continued, kneeling down to him.
“I listenin’,” he returned. “I hear hurricanes ablowin’. I know the end is comin’ soon. I fear rivers over-flowin’. I hear the voice o' rage an’ ruin.”
“Cobra shot Daffy,” Ruth whispered, her voice choking on the words. “She’s dead.”
“That a fact?” the engineer commented. “Don’t go ‘roun’ tonight, or it bound to take your life. There a bad moon on the rise.”
“Is that all you’ve got to say?” she demanded, her eyes filling with tears. “Don’t you care about any of us anymore?”
He glanced up at her, his dark eyes gleaming. “I care ‘bout you, cher,” he grinned.
“Which is why you’re trying to kill me, is that it?”
“That not me, babe. You stay away from bein’ a keheil an’ nothin’ bad gonna happen.” One hand left the guitar strings, and he reached out, not-touching her leg. “Jus’ let them pretty silver pools be.” He chuckled, “Silver in the gold. Wonder what ol’ Kam say ‘bout that.”
“You’re not making any sense,” Ruth snapped.
“Oh, but I am, cher. I know all. I see all. Not to worry, my golden honey love, I not fly too high on your sweet butterflies.” His fingertips skimmed over the decorations on her body.
“Goddess, this is hopeless,” the Antari breathed.
“Hopeless,” Del murmured, then started singing again. “Hope you got your t'ings together. Hope you are quite prepared to die. Look like we in for nasty weather. One eye is taken fo' an eye."
Ruth sobbed, pushing herself up from her knees, stumbling away, Del’s voice floating after her.
“Don’t go ‘roun’ tonight, or it bound to take your life. There a bad moon on the rise.”
When the shuttle arrived back at Dreamland Base, Sakura immediately went for a pipe and a huge bowl of Rigellian, Lace’s arm sympathetically around her shoulders. The Clavist had tried to comfort the yeoman during the voyage, but Sakura was inconsolable. The two women went to the cargo bay and Sakura found Sulu, sitting down next to him. She filled a pipe, inhaled deeply and passed it to the helmsman who was staring off into space. He took a hit, his eyes closing, and handed the pipe to Lace. She did likewise, returning it to Sakura. Three or four more rounds, and Sakura sobbed, putting her head on Sulu’s chest. His arm came around her, his hand absently stroking her.
Ruth came and sat across from them, clutching the Loony guitar as shield and solace. DelMonde was right behind her, his usual entourage of mooning little girls following. Irina and Pavel and Chione wandered over too, as did Roger and Phen and Madvig. A hopeless, silent pall surrounded the entire group, until it was broken by Irina’s soft clearing of her throat.
“I am so very sorry about what happened,” she said. “It is a terrible thing to lose one so dear.” Her hand reached for Chekov’s.
“We reach, we really do,” Lace added.
“It was how we all felt when we lost Dr. Sevrin – and Adam,” Madvig put in quietly. Roger put his arm around her, hugging her.
“But we moved on, and we’re stronger for it,” Phen continued.
“What doesn’t kill us and all that,” Stupid Roger said, though even he grimaced at the cliché.
“Daffy was strong,” Sakura managed, then sobbed again. Sulu pulled her closer.
“She was more than that,” he went on. “She was bright, intelligent – “ A wistful smile touched his lips. “Funny as hell sometimes.” He glanced at Ruth. “We shouldn’t be like this,” he said. “She was a Clavist. We need to send her off like one.” There were nods all around him, but Ruth was staring back at him, her expression clearly asking if he was kidding. “It’s what she would’ve wanted,” he added, the words spoken almost exclusively for the Antari’s benefit, though everyone else voiced their agreement. I can’t, Roy, almost echoed in his mind. Í can’t, I can’t, I can’t…
You played for Jock, was his silent response. What else do we have to give her?
He saw the sorrow in her huge purple eyes, and she took a breath, but before she could settle her hands on the guitar's strings, Del's were moving over the strings of the boshzier. A melancholy melody began to wind around them.
Deep inside Noel DelMonde, something had begun to tear. Despite what Daffy had said, he didn’t think it was physical… well, not merely physical. It’s not that there wasn’t damage. His mortal body was still, after all, mortal. He stood above himself and looked at his physical being as if it were a ship up on blocks for repair. To the unpracticed eye, it looked intact, but he could see the tiny hairline cracks – the little flaws in the engines that would eventually make it burn out. Prob'ly th' lungs go first… Maybe th' heart… though any of it could develop th' fault that prove critical, he supposed. Heart or lungs be painful but fast...
Of course, he was going to be long gone by then.
He wondered if he’d even feel his own physical death. Looking down on himself, he marveled at how small and unimportant this mass of nerves and tissue that had once been Noel DelMonde was. The world he lived in now was so wide and large. How childish his conception of death had been… Death was simply a natural part of the birth of the thing he was becoming.
And yet…
He felt a pang of nostalgia for the simple creature he had once been. He walked back into his old body and looked through its eyes. So much pain. So much sorrow in this world of flesh. He sang to it.
I keep holdin' on to yesterday
I keep holdin' on enough to say that I'm wrong
So much pain around him. So many echoes of his words in the minds around him. Even Chekov’s black-hearted girlfriend was mourning the ruins of her life as she held her lover’s hand and considered plots to betray him.
I keep t'inkin' that I'm lonely
But it's only missin' you inside
Days when we were once together
Seems we'd never come alive
Poor Jer. Out in the corridor cryin’ in the shadows. Rememberin’ beaches an' Sulu’s hand in his.
So I keep holdin' on to yesterday
I keep holdin' on enough to say that it's wrong
In his mind, Del could see Sulu having a vision. In it, a ghost lamented his lost life. Damning himself for taking the phaser that Stupid Roger had offered. If only the mission hadn’t gone so wrong, wrong, wrong….
Lord I don't know when I’ll see you
I can't reach you anymore
Madvig weeping for Adam and Sevrin..
Well if I'd only known I'd need you
Then I'd keep you like before
Diona yearning for the ghost who’d killed himself with the phaser…
Well I keep holdin' on to yesterday
I keep holdin' on enough to say
And then, of course, there was Del himself, still reaching for Ruth. His beautiful lost love. Close enough to touch. Far away enough to already be separated by his coming death… and perhaps hers. He looked wistfully at her long legs. If only he had her power to heal… Maybe the thing he was becoming would know how…
That I'm wrong wrong wrong wrong to keep holdin' on
My yesterdays have all gone by...
Del changed his song. Without consciously planning to, he shaped it more specifically to the grief nearest to him. His voice soared over the simple melody line, clear and warm.
No one has heard, no one has seen her
Nobody else carin' but me
She was a child, she was a woman
When she was here, she was my lady
Echoes in his head of child/woman/lady from Sulu and Jer. Sulu turning to glare as Jer backed further into the shadows.
Never before was I dependin'
Then she came on, filled in my life
She kept me on my best behavior
She was my lord, she was my savior
Ruth. Ruth. My darlin’, Ruth.
She became my sanctuary
Some place I could lay me down
She would always help to carry
All the t'ings that weigh me down
Everyone’s eyes gradually wandering to Chekov. Poor Chekov. Poor, stupid T-Paul. Not a Clavist. He not know how this game is played. Tears drippin’ from those big brown eyes. Unashamed. His heart on his sleeve. His grief fallin’ like rain. His new lover hangin’ onto his other arm…
Nobody knew how much I loved her
Not even her, not even me
She was my queen, she was my lover
When she was here there was no other
He sent the final line privately to Chekov’s awareness, giving the truth in silent, gentle reassurance, and the navigator found himself whispering it.
“She was my lady.”
So much pain. So much pain in this house o' flesh an' bones…
Leonard McCoy and Jade Han had worked for hours after getting Daffy Gollub on life support. The levels of Rigellian in her system were higher than even Jade had ever seen, but that wasn’t what was causing the main problem. There was a chemical known as xenoneurophene running all through her bloodstream and it was interfering with both their best efforts to counteract it, and to purge it from the chemist’s system. It was almost as though it had a self-preservation instinct all its own. Every intervention method they tried was met with a new physical crisis, from cardio-vascular to respiratory to internal organs to musculature. McCoy had finally stepped back with a frustrated sigh.
“I can’t think of another damned thing to do,” he growled. “I’ve never seen xenoneurophene act like this before.”
Jade nodded, her face set in a frown of deliberation. “It usually only affects telepaths,” she said, “and only then to increase the range and intensity of their gift.”
“Do those loonies have some kind of master chemical genius on the payroll?” McCoy scowled.
“It would appear so,” Jade returned. She checked Gollub’s vital signs again. “I’m afraid all we can to is monitor her and hope it dissipates on its own.”
“And try to keep her alive,” McCoy added.
At the sound of ripping, Ruth looked up. Chekov was methodically tearing his right sleeve. When he had finished, he sat down. Unexpectedly the navigator’s eyes sought hers. The Russian looked at her as if he wanted to ask something and assumed she would automatically know what he wanted.
Since the only other times she could remember him giving her that look had something to do with not having sex with Del while he was studying for a test, she was stumped.
“My parents aren’t dead,” he announced for some reason, his voice thick and cracking with emotion.
“Lucky you,” Ruth couldn’t stop herself from saying.
“The words,” he rasped with difficulty. “If you know them... Will you say them?”
She blinked at him. There was something oddly significant about the way he was sitting there gripping that ripped piece of black cloth. “Words?”
“No minyan, of course,” he managed to choke out. “but still…”
“Oh,” Ruth said, the tears coming to her own eyes anew. “Those words.”
Breathing carefully in and out, she closed her eyes and cradled the guitar close to her before beginning the ancient prayer of mourning that traditionally could not be spoken by a mourner with living parents.
“Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba b'alma di-v'ra
chirutei, v'yamlich malchutei b'chayeichon
uvyomeichon uvchayei d'chol beit yisrael, ba'agala
uvizman kariv, v'im'ru”
Chekov’s "Amin" was barely audible.
“Y'hei sh'mei raba m'varach l'alam ul'almei almaya.”
Ruth allowed the words of the Kaddish to wash over her, their antique melody and cadence comfortingly familiar in the unreal world of Dreamland.
“Yitbarach v'yishtabach, v'yitpa'ar v'yitromam
v'yitnaseh, v'yithadar v'yit'aleh v'yit'halal sh'mei
d'kud'sha, b'rich hu,
l'eila min-kol-birchata v'shirata, tushb'chata
v'nechemata da'amiran b'alma, v'im'ru:”
"Amin."
If only Daffy could hear this, she thought as she continued to chant. Her agnostic boyfriend mourning her as a Jew.
“Y'hei shlama raba min-sh'maya v'chayim aleinu
v'al-kol-yisrael, v'im'ru.”
“Amin.”
“Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu
v'al kol-yisrael, v'imru.”
“Amin.” This last was a bare whisper. The navigator pressed the torn cloth against his eyes tightly. His shoulders shook with inaudible sobs.
His new girlfriend wrapped her arms around him comfortingly.
God, I hate that bitch, Ruth thought in honor of Daffy.
“Come on, girl,” Del urged her quietly, as he began a new melody on the boshzier.
“When you’re weary,”
he began,
“Feelin’ small,
When tears are in your eyes, I’ll dry them all
“I’m on your side,”
Ruth joined him,
“Oh, when times get rough
And friends just can’t be found,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.”
Sakura was crying again. Sulu’s eyes were far away as he stroked her hair. Ruth had to look away from them as she played. How could Daffy be gone? It seemed so false and unnatural. Somehow Daffy still seemed so close. It was almost as if Ruth could touch her old friend if she stretched far enough… If she could just bridge the gap…
When you’re down and out, when you’re on the street,
When evening falls so hard I will comfort you.
I’ll take your part when darkness comes
And pain is all around,
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge over troubled water
I will lay me down.
Like a bridge, Ruth thought, her mind reaching, groping into the darkness… into the evening falling hard...
Sail on silver girl, sail on by.
There was something out there… something just beyond Ruth’s grasp… If only she could just stretch a little further… Like a bridge…
Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.
Almost there, Ruth told herself, ignoring the pain that was beginning to shoot tendrils towards her heart. Just push a little harder…
See how they shine. Oh, if you need a friend…
Friend, friend, friend, echoed inside Ruth’s head as her mind began to pierce through the darkness into a room full of light. “Friend,” she repeated aloud as the images began to resolve and clarify.
“No, darlin’!" Del was suddenly shouting. “No!”
The light in the darkness became harsh. The world began to explode inside Ruth.
“DAFFY!” she screamed before a giant hand closed over her chest.
Nobody knew how much I loved her
Not even her, not even me
She was my queen, she was my lover
When she was here there was no other
The unfamiliar words of an unfamiliar song drifted though her mind, though a part of her noted caustically that that meant she was either dead or hallucinating. The weirdest thing about it was that the voice seemed to be Pavel’s.
I can’t be dead, she mused. No gates. No old man with a beard. Unless everything the rabbis told me was a crock. Which, I suppose is possible. So how possible is it that I’m dead and still wondering about it? Shouldn’t I be having intellectual conversations with – I don’t know. Einstein. Antoine Lavoisier. Stephanie Kwolek. Moses. And oy, do I have a thing or two to say to him.
So likely not dead. Hallucinating. Hello, Loonie chemistry, come eat me.
She was my lady.
She vas? You’d better be talking about me, bubee, or so help me God…
Anything goes in this cosmic dare.
Anything goes, huh? Alright, zona, anything goes!
And I tried to kill the bitch and Pavel the putz tried to protect her Loonie little ass and…
My yesterdays have all gone by...
Nobody knew how much I loved her, not even her, not even me.
Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu, v'al kol-yisrael, v'imru.
Your time has come to shine. All your dreams are on their way.
Friend, friend, friend…
Where the fuck am I?!
Daffy opened her eyes and took a deep breath. It made her chest hurt and then an alarm went off. She tried to sit up and found she was restrained. Panic filled her and a scream began in her throat, only to die as she recognized the Enterprise’s Sickbay. She heard running feet and Dr. McCoy and Dr. Han came into her line of sight.
“So what’s with the straps?” the chemist demanded. “And how the hell did I get here? Is it over, is everyone back?”
Again panic ripped through Spock’s mental barriers. Again he felt his wife’s lungs freezing, the life-giving exchange of oxygen for carbon dioxide ceasing. He heard the signal from the intercom, heard McCoy’s voice asking him to report to Sickbay, but dared not take the time to respond, even in his thoughts. He dropped all his carefully erected and maintained shielding, casting about for any and every image possible – as he had once before – to throw as a lifeline to his dying wife.
Ruth couldn’t even gasp, though she was aware that her torso was convulsing like a fish out of water. It was an odd metaphor, considering that her arms and legs were on fire – but then, maybe that’s what a fish in a frying pan feels. The thought was calm, almost wistful, and that, too, felt odd.
Shouldn’t you be fighting for something here?
We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden
Yes, that’s it. Get back to the garden. See, I didn’t give up, Z. I gave myself to a healing. The first hybrid keheil did You proud. I’m coming, Ara. Can we visit Daddy in Shamayim?
No, darlin’! No!
Dei’larr’ei, golden one, Iocasta…
It not your time yet, cher! I know all, I see all, it not your time!
My wife, my only beloved, do not leave me…
There was pressure now, on her chest, against her mouth. It made the flopping feeling worse.
Ouch! Stop that! She struggled against the renewing pain.
That right, cher, fight! Fight me!
Stay with me, the garden will wait…
I damn you to hell if you leave me now!
Hands pushing hard against her chest, ribs cracking, the taste of Rigellian-flavored breath on her tongue.
Breathe, gods damn you to Satan’s seven hells, breathe!
All my strength is here for you, beloved, my dei’larr’ei, my…
Shut the hell up, Spock! Your contact killin’ her!
Surprise, confusion. My contact…
Bein’ a keheil is fuckin’ killin’ her, ya stupid fuck! You want her to live, let her be Human!
She is not breathing, Mr. DelMonde. She is not responding. It has been five point three…
SHUT UP!
Zilama, I need you!
Terror and loss and grief spilled into her, the cacophony of voices and thoughts drowning her. Drowning. No air in the lungs. Not breathing. Drowning…
Dreamland Base was far away, but it was right in front of him. Sulu blinked, knew his eyes were opening and closing, but the picture before him didn’t change. The feel and reality of emotion within him was far more solid and substantial than Sakura’s head against him, the grief that twisted tendrils of pain within him, the music that sought to carry Daffy’s soul to its rest.
No rest, a voice he didn’t know whispered in his veins. No rest, no hope, why did it have to all go so wrong wrong wrong…
“Here. Take it. I think you know what needs to be done.” Stupid Roger’s face swirling in his memory, for once neither bland nor crazy-eyed – but no less fervent.
He looked down. Roger was pressing a phaser into his hand. Jumbled pictures overwhelmed him – terrible things he had done – no, not done himself, simply ‘pushed’ to happen. Exhilarating freedom, insulation from all the thoughts of others, even while he knew them, used them. Disdainful superiority creeping up on him so gradually that he didn’t even recognize it for the megalomania it was. I’m a god. I know all. I see all…
“You are beautiful,” Cal’s voice said softly. “Truly a god.”
Sulu shuddered with the panic that seared into him. He held his breath, trying to stop the rush of images from overwhelming him – but those that came were not the ones he was expecting.
Distorted voices, clawing need, black surrounding him – black on black on black on black – if you drown, you’ll set it all. You’ll keep letting her control them long after you stop breathing. Only one way to stop her. Break the connection yourself. Don’t let her do it to you.
If only the mission hadn’t gone so wrong wrong wrong…
He felt the phaser against his head. He felt himself taking a deep fortifying breath. Wait, I need to compose a jisei…
Electronic fire exploded his brain all over the cabin wall.
Jeremy rushed into the cargo bay at DelMonde’s hoarse cry. No one wanted him there, he knew, but he wasn’t about to stand around feeling sorry for himself when there was a life at stake. He quickly knelt beside Ruth, beginning CPR as the engineer fastened his lips to Ruth’s. There was a fleeting thought – that neither Mr. nor Mrs. Spock was gonna like that much, but it fell away with the realization that, if she lived, it would hardly matter.
He worked for over five minutes, desperation growing each passing second. Ruth’s body simply wasn’t responding. Jeremy was beginning to lose it completely, imagining burst lungs or bronchial tubes frozen solid by the xenoneurophene. “Come on, come on!” he rasped, “Please, Spike, please!”
Then he felt himself being pushed aside and heard the hiss of a hypospray. Ruth’s body convulsed, her back arching to an impossibly unnatural degree. A long, gasping inhalation began, a sound like the creaking of metal on metal coming from her throat. It grew louder and louder, stronger and yet more strained…
DelMonde cried, ”RUTH!” and the Antari fell back to the floor, rolling to one side, coughing and choking. At almost the same instant, Sakura yelled “Sulu!” and Jeremy pivoted toward her.
Sulu’s body had gone rigid, then slumped under hers. Sakura gasped, raising her head, his name crying from her lips. His eyes were wide open, staring, and if it were not for the rapid beating of his heart against her, the quick, shallow breaths that rasped from between partially opened lips, she would have thought him dead.
“Sulu-chan?” she whispered. “Bishounai?”
“What happened?” Paget’s voice began, then stopped. Tamura heard his gasp and his breathless, “God, Jesus, no…” and her heart nearly broke for the raw anguish contained in those four syllables. And despite her own rage at the security officer, she couldn’t allow him to think what he was thinking.
“No, Cobra, he’s alive. I just don’t know where he is.”
Jeremy’s eyes closed, his lips moving in silent, fervent thanks. His knees started shaking and he fell to them, his hands reaching out for Sulu. Sakura moved aside, letting Paget take the helmsman into his arms, his sobs too quiet and too contained for anyone else to notice. Gradually she became aware of the words Cobra whispered:
“Come back to me, Kam. Come back. I’ll get you home to your little one, I promise. Just come back.”
Black hole suddenly spewing out light. A beacon to call more light to it, though it would devour it all when it got close enough.
Icicle lungs melting, warm black eating them as they dripped again into waiting pools of liquid fire. ‘Just you wait’ was written on them in silver ink.
‘Stupid fuck,’ Mr. DelMonde?
Court martial me fo' it later. For now, you leave her be if you want her t' live.
You are not well yourself.
Yeah, an’ what d’you care ‘bout that?
Any loss of life is to be…
Go away. You give me a headache.
The connection was broken as easily as blinking. Del returned his awareness to Ruth, gently rubbing her heaving side as she fought with her still-spasming lungs. Black on black was next to him, and he found he was curious.
“What you do?” he asked.
The blonde – she had a name, didn’t she? – was staring in wide-eyed faux innocence. “I – I just gave her an injection of protein,” she stammered. “I know Antaris need it, and we’ve been – well, a little lax in providing it to her, being so into the vegan thing and all.” She giggled incongruously. “I thought maybe that’s why she was – in trouble.”
Non, that not it, you lyin’ black-hearted bitch, Del thought. You want my Ruth alive right enough, but that not protein you give her. It alive, it gather all the poison in her like shrimp in a net. It all still there, jus’ waitin’ fo’ the right time to rise up an’ strike her again. The only t’ing I be wantin’ to know is – why?
Sulu blinked, the memory of what had just happened to him – no, not to him – fading into background awareness just as had the image of the phaser’s burn on the cabin wall. He recognized the feel of the arms around him, and managed a rasping “Jer?”
The arms tightened convulsively around him. “Thank you, Jesus, oh, thank you, Jesus!” Jeremy moaned, then hugged him even tighter. Sulu returned the embrace almost as a reflex, then shuddered, pushing the TerAfrican away. The dark brown eyes searched him, wet with tears.
“You alright, babe?” Paget whispered.
“I think so,” Sulu returned, then added with unnecessary cruelty, “a lot better than Daffy.”
Jeremy swallowed. “Yeah. About that…”
“Kam!”
Tongo Rad’s voice lashed across his ears as the Catullan rushed up to him, nearly knocking Jeremy away from him. “Gods, oh gods, what happened to you?! Are you alright? I had to get the contributions logged in, I’m so sorry I wasn’t here!” Rad threw himself into Sulu’s arms, holding onto him fiercely.
Sulu shivered again, then made himself stroke the blue and silver hair. “I’m fine, baby,” he murmured. “I guess it was just the stress of all the emotion…”
Rad pulled away, staring at him. “All the emotion? What do you mean?”
“Kam’s an empath,” Jeremy said, his voice carrying only a touch of condescension. “Didn’t you know that?”
The Catullan’s eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open. “An – an empath?” he repeated.
“And he’s been getting so much stronger with all the clean food here,” Sakura added with a loving caress of Sulu’s arm, though her eyes flashed disdain.
“No…” Rad breathed. “Oh, no. You can’t be serious.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Sulu asked, making his tone sound wounded and anxious. “You aren’t prejudiced against gifted people are you? I didn’t sense any of that in you.”
Rad’s gaze had turned toward Chione. “No, no, it’s nothing like that…” His voice trailed off. The fear within him was so great, Sulu would’ve picked up on it even if he hadn’t been empathic. “If you’re all right, Kam, I have to… to talk to... to see about…” He got awkwardly to his feet.
Sulu reached up to him. “Hey, Tongo, stay with me..” he began.
“I’ll be back, I promise,” the Catullan stammered. “I – I just have to… I’ll be back.” Then he turned, walking quickly across the cargo bay.
“Well, well,” Paget commented dryly. “I think dear Tong’s just had himself a revelation.” He glanced at Sulu. “Maybe we just caught a huge break here, babe.”
“Yeah. Too bad it came too late for Daffy,” Sulu returned.
Go To Part Eighteen
Return To Part Sixteen
Bad Moon Rising by Credence Clearwater
Holding On To Yesterday by Ambrosia
She Was My Lady by Bread
Bridge Over Troubled Water by Simon and Garfunkle
Woodstock by Joni Mitchell