Chapter Fifteen

“VAGRA II,” croaked Emil Costa to the rapt observers in the courtroom. “That’s the planet where I found the submicrobe. I trapped it myself while we were in orbit and did all the preliminary tests myself.”

Data was surprised when Judge Watanabe put Emil Costa on the stand before the defense had presented its case, but he didn’t object. He understood her desire to comprehend the secret dealings between the deceased and the accused. She was looking for the truth, he sensed, not flexing her authority.

The judge increased her intense stare as she leaned forward to ask the defendant, “When did you decide to keep this discovery hidden from your colleagues and superiors?”

The frail scientist squirmed in his seat but managed to put a measure of professional pride into his voice. “I knew it was special right away,” he said. “I tested it on Lynn’s newest filters and found it was invincible—this little submicrobe throws all our previous work out the window. Lynn and I immediately transferred the test data to our private file and started making only oblique references to it. All we knew was that we wanted to control the discovery until we had a clear goal for it. The applications for weaponry or sabotage are frightening.”

Emil took a drink of water and leaned forward in his chair, keeping his voice low. No one had trouble hearing him in the hushed courtroom. “To avoid discovery,” he swallowed, “I ejected the only sample we had into space. No one but Lynn and I knew where to get more. We went to Karn Milu for advice, and that was our first mistake. He said we should sell the information to the highest bidder, in secret. The secrecy made sense to us, because if word ever got out, everyone would flock to Vagra II to trap their own specimens. With the open policies and reviews of the Federation, they would never be able to keep it a secret. Karn Milu offered to arrange all the details of the sale for a twenty-five percent cut. We agreed, without giving him any hard information.

“But Lynn got cold feet,” he rasped, his eyes tearing slightly. “The implications worried her. Without even telling me, she erased every record that might remotely reveal the existence of the submicrobe. I was aghast at what she did, although it did serve to safeguard the secret even more. Milu got desperate and started to threaten Lynn. By this time, I was in complete agreement with my wife and wanted nothing more than to forget about the whole thing.

“That was not to be,” he said hoarsely. “Lynn had felt we were in danger for some time, but I never took her seriously . . . until her death. Now I know how right she was. It was a terrible thing we did, and we’ve paid for it . . .” Emil’s voice cracked into a sob, and he struggled to compose himself.

Judge Watanabe leaned toward him and asked, “Would you like a recess, Dr. Costa?”

He sat hunched and motionless, like a cheap hologram devoid of life. The judge cleared her throat and announced, “I believe we can excuse this witness until he is called by the defense. Lieutenant Worf, you may continue with your case.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” said Worf, standing slowly. He waited until the old man shuffled down from the witness stand. By his own testimony, Emil Costa had just opened himself to even more charges. He would not be a free man in his lifetime, Worf realized, no matter what happened here.

“At this time,” intoned the Klingon, “I wish to present physical evidence.” He nodded to a security officer, who placed a small palm-sized device on the bench. First Assistant Kwalrak eagerly poked at it. “This is the type I phaser weapon confiscated from Emil Costa less than half-an-hour after Karn Milu’s murder. This is the weapon he used to hijack and disable the Ericksen.”

“Objection,” protested Data. “That is a separate matter.”

“Yes,” admitted Worf, “except that it proves without a doubt that Emil Costa was armed with a phaser of the same type used to kill Karn Milu. He had the opportunity, the motive, and the weapon.”

“One moment, Lieutenant Worf,” said Judge Watanabe with a hint of confusion on her ageless face. “Excuse my ignorance, but weaponry is not my strong suit. Is there any way to determine positively whether this is the murder weapon?”

“No,” answered the security chief. “Small phaser weapons, such as this, are made in the replicator. All are identical and have an identical firing pattern, with a slight variance when the power is running low. This phaser weapon was fired repeatedly aboard the shuttlecraft before it was forcibly removed from Emil Costa. His fingerprints and blood are all over it.”

Kwalrak slammed the weapon down and hissed at Emil, “Why did you shoot Kreel? They had done you no harm!”

Judge Watanabe banged her gavel and leveled the Kreel female with a critical gaze. “Please,” she cautioned, “let’s confine our inquiry to the single charge of murder. Without a doubt, other charges are warranted, but we are trying the most serious charge first.”

Disgruntledly, Kwalrak sat back in her seat and folded her huge arms. “We will wait,” she grumbled, “as long as this is not a subterfuge to deprive the Kreel of justice. But I think we should recall this witness and find out more about the weapon.”

The judge nodded in agreement and turned to Data. “If your client is recovered and you have no objection, the bench would like to ask a few more questions.”

Data glanced at his client, who had apparently recovered from the emotional reliving of the events leading up to his wife’s death. The aged scientist nodded gamely, so the android said, “I have no objection.”

While Emil was taking his seat, Kwalrak turned to Worf, an action which seemed to dismiss any lingering tensions. “Is it normal in the Federation for civilians to carry phasers?”

“Not at all,” he replied sternly. “This is a severe breach of security.”

Judge Watanabe turned to the defendant. “Then the first question is, where did you get this weapon?”

The scientist hung his head, looking guilty enough to bring a slight smile to Worf’s face. “I replicated it—while I was consulting with a group who were doing a study on replicator maintenance,” he said sheepishly. “Yes, I know it’s another crime I have committed. But Lynn was so scared that she insisted upon having some sort of protection. I replicated two of them.”

Several pairs of eyebrows rose at once. “Where is the other one?” asked Worf.

“I don’t know,” Emil shrugged with confusion. “Lynn left it somewhere, or it was stolen . . . I don’t remember.”

Worf charged toward the witness and bellowed, “You replicated phaser weapons without authorization, then left them lying around where anybody could take them?”

“Calm yourself, Lieutenant Worf,” cautioned Judge Watanabe. “Granted, this is a serious matter, but it’s not our immediate concern. Dr. Costa, let me clarify this: You positively admit to having carried a concealed phaser weapon from the time you left Dr. Grastow’s cabin, throughout your meeting with Karn Milu, then on to the shuttlecraft bound for this starbase?”

Head bent, the old man croaked, “I do. But I never fired it until I got on the shuttlecraft and they started to turn back. I swear! I was out of my mind, but I couldn’t stand to go back there!”

Worf relaxed even more. If Wesley Crusher’s testimony had been less than impressive for its total honesty, then Emil Costa’s honesty was even more damning. The court was getting the picture of a deeply disturbed individual who would not hesitate to fire a phaser weapon indiscriminately.

“Dr. Costa,” snarled the Kreel observer, “the boy said in his videotape that you were ‘settling matters once and for all’ when you went to see Karn Milu. If not to use it, why were you carrying that phaser?”

All eyes turned again to the wizened old man with the close-cropped hair. His hands shook feebly, but he returned the lopsided gaze of the triangular Kreel face. “I was afraid,” he confessed. “I was more afraid than any time in my life. My wife was dead, my career was over, and I didn’t know what would happen next. I didn’t know who had killed Lynn—or even if she killed herself—but I knew it was because of my discovery.”

He laughed derisively, “My discovery! This little submicrobe made a mockery out of all our work, our plotting and scheming, our whole lives! It was too late to save Lynn, but maybe, I thought, I could salvage our reputations by taking the secret to my grave. You think people like us, at the end of a famous career, have nothing to protect? You would be wrong—we have everything to protect. We fear being replaced, we fear being made useless, and we fear being discovered.”

With bleary eyes and clenched fists, Emil grunted, “Most of all, we fear being discovered for grabbing the credit while letting others do the work.”

Leering lopsidedly, the Kreel leaned forward. “Then you were prepared to kill him to keep your secret?”

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” he muttered. “I knew Karn Milu would be angry when I said the deal was finished, but what could he do to me? Take away my beloved wife? My career? My self-respect? They were all gone before I went to the pod room.

“I’ve done some terrible things,” brooded the scientist, “but not murder. I never killed anyone.”

“Who did?” asked the Kreel.

Emil folded his hands and shook his head emphatically. “I don’t know,” he swallowed, “but they must still be aboard the Enterprise.”

*   *   *

Engineering was running with a skeleton crew, all nonessential personnel having beamed down to the asteroid for a day’s outing. The computer was being very logical in scheduling shore leave, thought Geordi La Forge, letting as many people as possible from the same department go together. It was too seldom, he decided, that the Engineering staff got to fraternize and meet one other’s family and friends. He wondered how many of them were attending the murder trial?

That was something he wouldn’t mind seeing, with Worf and Data pitted against one another. But Geordi got enough away assignments—he didn’t mind holding down the fort while others had fun. Still, it was a little disconcerting to look around the cavernous engine room and see so few warm bodies pulsing red in his VISOR.

“Geordi,” said Deanna impatiently, “how long is this going to take?”

The chief engineer peered down at the computer screen. Now that Deanna had snapped him out of his reverie, he had to admit the computer was taking too many seconds over this one problem. “Computer?” he asked, “what’s happening with the code?”

“The data in question has insufficient recurrence factor to be code,” replied the cordial female voice. “It does not match any recognized or hypothesized system of symbols, numerals, letters, words, phrases, or signals. It appears to be random.”

Geordi looked at the counselor and smiled. “Computers always were lousy mind readers.”

Deanna patted the chief engineer on the back and assured him, “It was a good try, Geordi. I can’t say I’m surprised—I didn’t think it would be that easy.”

“That code of yours is the real thing,” he allowed, shaking his head, “pure stream of consciousness. Like beatnik poetry.”

“Beatnik poetry?” asked Deanna.

“Beatniks were a substrata of Earth society from the mid-twentieth century,” the human replied. “They recited surreal poetry that was rhythmic and often accompanied by bongo drums or a saxophone. Didn’t mean a thing, except to the poet.”

“I see,” Deanna nodded, the idea of poetry suddenly intriguing her. She didn’t know if it would work, but she had a burning impulse to walk in a holodeck setting and try to remember some Betazoid poetry from her youth. “Thank you, Geordi,” she said, squeezing his hand and rushing toward the door.

“You’re welcome!” he called after her puzzledly.

Upon reaching the turbolift, her combadge sounded with a polite male voice, saying, “Security officer Queryl to Counselor Troi.”

She tapped her badge. “Troi here.”

“An environmental technician is requesting entrance to your quarters to fix your food slot.”

“My food slot?” she recalled with surprise. “Please, let him in. And thank him for his prompt attention.”

“The appointment can wait until you’re present.”

“No need for that,” answered Deanna. “I may not return to my quarters for some hours. Out.” Thinking of the peculiar meters of Betazoid poetry, she gave the turbolift deck 11 as her destination.

 

Dr. Grastow shifted his massive bulk but still didn’t fit comfortably into the wooden witness chair. Lieutenant Worf was not about to give him much chance to get comfortable. Prowling in front of the witness stand, he snapped, “How would you define your relationship with Dr. Costa?”

Grastow gazed warmly at the old man seated between the forcefield rods. “I idolize him,” he admitted in his distinctive high-pitched voice. “I exist only to serve him.”

“Were you serving Dr. Costa after his wife’s funeral,” asked Worf, “when you lied to his friends, saying he was unwell, while he hid in your quarters?”

“Yes,” answered Grastow, “it was his wish.”

“What about later?” replied Worf. “When you forcibly restrained Ensign Crusher and prevented him from leaving your quarters?”

The Antarean nodded gravely. “I knew it was wrong,” he said, “but Emil wanted to be alone. I was the only person he fully trusted.”

“Why was that?” growled Worf. “What power does he hold over you?”

“He and Lynn saved my planet,” Grastow answered simply. “I would be dead, my parents dead, my world dead—were it not for the Costas. I exist only to serve him.”

Worf shook his head impatiently and growled, “The character of the accused is not the issue.”

“I believe it is,” proclaimed Grastow. “Emil couldn’t hurt anybody.”

The Klingon paced, then stopped and leveled Emil with a pointed finger. “In preparation for his meeting with Karn Milu, did you see the accused arm himself with a phaser weapon?”

The humanoid squirmed and looked down at his beefy fists. “Yes, I did,” he muttered.

“Why did he think he needed it?”

Grastow snipped, “He didn’t say.”

“You didn’t think it was odd he was carrying a phaser weapon to meet his superior, a man with whom he had been a close associate for a number of years?”

“Uh, yes,” gulped Grastow, “but I knew he was in a distraught frame of mind.”

“Yet,” growled Worf, “you kept doing his bidding, which included assaulting a Starfleet officer and aiding in the possession of a concealed weapon, even though you knew he was mentally disturbed?”

“Objection,” interjected Data. “The witness is not a trained psychologist.”

“I withdraw that question,” muttered Worf. “Let’s just say, Dr. Grastow, you were willing to break Starfleet regulations on behalf of Emil Costa. Is that correct?”

The Antarean nodded sheepishly, “Yes.”

“How much did you know about the secret dealings between Karn Milu and Emil Costa?”

“Nothing!” claimed the big man emphatically. “I knew nothing.”

Worf shook his head grimly and observed, “Then you sabotaged your career for nothing.”

Somehow, the big Antarean managed to slump a bit farther down in his chair.

“This is a chance to resurrect your career for something,” insisted Worf. “Won’t you please tell us whatever you know about the secret dealings between the Costas and Karn Milu?”

The witness shook his massive head.

“Did you ever hear them discuss a secret discovery, a submicrobe that was indestructible?”

Grastow gave the Klingon a quizzical stare. “No,” he said with finality.

“No further questions,” murmured Worf, returning to his seat.

Judge Watanabe turned her attention to Data. “You may cross-examine.”

The android stood and nodded politely to the witness, “Good day, Dr. Grastow.”

“Good day,” he chirped, brightening a little.

“How long,” asked Data, “have you been working with the Costas in the Microcontamination Project?”

“I came to the Enterprise with them,” the witness proclaimed proudly. “That was approximately three years ago. Only Dr. Saduk has been with them longer.”

“Then you, Saduk, Lynn and Emil Costa joined the crew of the Enterprise at the same time?”

“Yes, we did,” answered the Antarean, becoming talkative as he became more cheerful. “We’ve always been a very close-knit group, that’s why I can’t believe the terrible things that have happened to us.”

“You testified,” said Data, “that you are so loyal to Dr. Costa that you would break Starfleet regulations for him.”

Warily, Grastow answered, “Yes.”

“Does that include committing murder?”

“Objection!” barked Worf. “This witness isn’t on trial.”

Data countered, “I only wish to demonstrate to the court that others on the Enterprise may have had the motivation and opportunity to kill Karn Milu.”

“Objection overruled,” Judge Watanabe answered thoughtfully. “Let the witness answer.”

Grastow squirmed in the tight-fitting chair. “I don’t know about murder,” he said squeamishly. “It never came up.”

“Let us pose a theory,” offered Data. “Dr. Grastow, if you possessed the missing phaser weapon, you could have followed the others to the cleanroom on deck 31 of the Enterprise and seen Emil Costa and Karn Milu arguing after they had disposed of Ensign Crusher. Perhaps you waited until Dr. Costa left, then confronted Karn Milu yourself. Would you commit murder to save Emil Costa’s reputation?”

Abruptly, the defendant leapt to his feet and shook an aged fist at his own attorney. “Don’t incriminate yourself, Grastow!” he crowed. “You weren’t there—you didn’t do it.” In his agitation, the old man moved too far and hit the forcefield. He was knocked back onto his chair and nearly impaled on the backrest.

The security officers instantly shut off the barrier, and Worf was the first one to reach the fallen man. He caught him and gently steered him to his seat.

“I request a recess,” said the Klingon.

Judge Watanabe sat forward intently, asking, “Are you all right, Dr. Costa?”

“Just bruised,” he wheezed, clutching his chest. Then he looked gratefully at Worf. “Thank you.”

Judge Watanabe removed her spectacles and rubbed her suddenly small eyes. “Due to the lateness of the hour,” she announced, “we shall adjourn this court until ten o’clock tomorrow, when we will resume with Dr. Grastow’s testimony.”

While the others were rising from their chairs, Emil gripped Worf’s brown hand with his withered pale one. “I didn’t kill him,” he breathed. “My life is over—I have nothing to gain by lying. To find his murderer, you must keep looking.”

Worf stepped back and let the security officers remove the frail scientist. He stood motionless, watching the room gradually empty, thinking about the tangled web of interpersonal relationships that had constituted the Microcontamination Project. On one hand were the opportunistic Costas and Karn Milu; on the other were the loyal assistants, Grastow, Saduk, and Shana. She was the newest member of the group, yet she had been the first to point a finger at Karn Milu’s involvement in Lynn Costa’s murder. What might the others know that they hadn’t said?

The Klingon shook his head, thinking this would be another night without sleep. He didn’t know exactly why, but he was going to heed the old man’s admonition and keep looking.

 

It was one of those overcast days ruled by a good stiff breeze—the kind of day Deanna remembered so well from her youth. The meadow was alight with orange col blossoms, no more than a few centimeters tall. The giant mela reeds whipped in the breeze, their blue tassels hurling winged seeds into the wind, and the moss squished pleasantly under her boots. A drizzle struck her in the face, and she thankfully turned her face skyward to lick the rain with her tongue.

She hugged her old shawl tighter around her shoulders and recalled how it had been knitted by a friend of her mother. She wanted to feel like a child again, to rediscover the primitive emotions of childhood: poetry, frivolity, the joy in taking a walk, and the hurt of an unkind word. These were the triggers that allowed a Betazoid to access parts of the mind shut off to most species. A spirit of playfulness was the essence of discovery.

She walked along, marveling at the authenticity of the holodeck setting and wondering what was over the next hill. Why had she never tried this before? Because, she sighed to herself, she had never had to reach back quite so far to her roots. Betazoids could not only read emotions, she knew, they felt a compulsion to be completely honest about them, seeing them not as weaknesses to be hidden or exploited but as common bonds of experience and empathy. How could one sense emotions without experiencing them first? Deanna had kept hers in check—for the most part—during her tenure aboard the Enterprise, but now she had to forget that and open up every part of her mind and senses.

If she knew how Karn Milu was feeling, she told herself, she could decipher the meaning behind his subconscious ramblings. She didn’t have to decipher every letter, just the portions dealing with the Costas and the Microcontamination Project. She was certain he had recorded some word, some note about his dealings with them. He would not have gone to all the trouble to make the isolinear chip if he hadn’t wanted to leave some record.

One word, she told herself as she ran down a flowered incline, the wind slicking back her hair. One word, one name, might lead to others. Lynn, she thought, the one who had started it all. She would look for Lynn Costa’s name, and she would know it when she saw it, somehow.

Deanna twirled for a moment, her scarf billowing behind her, as she chanted the nonsense words of a nursery song remembered from long ago. Aglow with exertion and the warmth of fond memories, she stopped spinning and shouted to the wind, “End program!” The room returned to a black segmented enclosure.

She toweled off on her way back to her quarters, feeling refreshed and renewed. Before entering, she paused at the doorway and sent a thought message to Karn Milu, asking him to help her. It was silly, she knew, but emotions and thoughts could linger. Deanna entered her quarters and sat down at her computer screen. She plugged in the optical chip and went right to work.

An odd melange of characters and symbols, apparently typed at random, crawled across the screen. She lightly perused the strange formations, waiting for something—anything—to jump out at her. The image of Lynn Costa was firmly fixed in her mind, and she knew Lynn’s name would appear somewhere in the coded manuscript. She just knew it.

For two more hours, the Betazoid plied the apparent gibberish, never wavering from her belief in her powers. With a sense of playfulness, she tried to chant the nonsense, sing it, and babble it like a happy baby. All the while, the only likeness in her mind was Lynn Costa. How did Karn Milu feel about her?

“A hag,” he called her. She blinked again, having read it right in front of her on the screen.

Suddenly, small clumps of the alphabet soup made sense. Names and simple words leapt out at her. Excitedly, she paged through more screens, looking for another appearance of Lynn Costa’s name. She found it again, this time surrounded by other names she recognized. All the names were from the Microcontamination Project.

“Queen hag,” it said here. She opened another document window to record the raw translations of Karn Milu’s subconscious ramblings.

“Lynn,” she repeated aloud, “is the queen hag. Emil is a naughty jester. Saduk is the heir-apparent. Grastow is a footman. Shana is jasmine.”

She stopped abruptly and peered again at the jumbled letters on the screen and the words she had typed beside them. What did terms like footman, jasmine, and jester mean?

The counselor sat back and scratched her head. Now that she had deciphered the precognition code, she had found another code underneath. It reminded her of the word association tests employed by some psychologists. At this point, Deanna needed a second opinion, another mind off which to bounce all the theories and possibilities. Worf was the logical choice, but she wondered whether the trial on the asteroid was over for the day? It wouldn’t hurt to try to contact him, she finally decided, because his communicator would be disabled if he was still in court.

Worf was in his quarters on the asteroid, quarters that were entirely too plush for his liking, with lots of blond wood and cheerful colors. He was studying another piece of evidence, wondering if it warranted being introduced. He held the blue vial carefully between his fingers, although it was hardly breakable. Even if they were trying Emil for his wife’s murder, he thought glumly, the vial and Guinan’s related testimony only proved that he drank alcohol and went to the pod room.

He remembered how, early on, the blue vial had been the first incriminating link between Emil and the slaying of his wife. It was as if finding the vial had been planned, to point them in Emil’s direction. Worf bolted upright in his chair, his nostrils flaring at a maddening notion. What if Karn Milu’s murder had been purposely planned to further condemn Emil Costa? He slammed his fist on the table, sending a crack down the center of its exotic blond veneer.

A sound on his combadge interrupted his anger. “Troi to Worf,” came an excited voice.

“Worf here,” he snarled. “I must talk with you.”

“Then we’re on the same wavelength,” Deanna replied. “We’ve found an isolinear optical chip hidden in Karn Milu’s office, and it contains coded notes, some of which I’ve been able to read.”

“I’m returning to the ship,” concluded Worf, jumping to his feet. “Where are you?”

“In my quarters,” said the Betazoid. “I’ll see you there. Out.”

As Lieutenant Worf charged toward his doorway, Deanna Troi stood slowly, stretching her back muscles and neck. Despite the mental rigors of the last few hours, finding the key to the code hadn’t seemed like work. Instead, she felt relaxed and invigorated, and she remembered the many times Karn Milu had urged her to practice her telepathy and develop her powers further. He would be proud of her, she felt.

Tea, thought the Betazoid, turning toward the food slot a few meters away. Had she not imagined a brimming cup of tea at that moment, she never would have seen the slight trail of steam spewing from the slot. Damn, she muttered to herself, I thought they fixed that thing.

Deanna took a’ single step, and her mind lost control of her legs. She pitched forward, gasping. Luckily she fell on an expanse of carpet, and her mind stayed alert the seconds she needed to grip her insignia badge and shout, “Troi to sickbay! Emergency! Emerguh . . .”

Her voice trailed off, and the Betazoid lapsed into an unconsciousness so profound that her lungs stopped breathing and her heart stopped beating.