Dark Mirror by Diane Duane Page A

concentration that she felt sure was the captain, Geordi, and Beverly, for it came in three different flavors—one quite fierce and concentrated, one cool and thoughtful, the third holdingitself in check only with difficulty. As always, she could almost, almost hear thoughts moving on the edges of the emotions, but not quite. She had long since given up being frustrated about such things.
    There was another source of emotion in the room besides the two security men—their minds, alert and a bit suspicious, she could clearly distinguish. The other—it was certainly not Stewart. Even if she hadn’t had an evaluation of his physical condition to go by, she would have known that immediately. Mark had never had such a core of suppressed fury in him. And overlaid on that was bitterness, a dreadful sense of betrayal, and a boiling desire for revenge—but all balked, all frustrated because the person having the feelings knew that there was nothing he could do about any of these things. He was trapped, he had failed somehow, and he was frightened for himself. She could feel his mind moving restlessly like a caged beast, trying to find a way out, finding nothing, repeating the motions because there was no hope, and nothing else to do.
    All right
, she said to herself,
there’s your baseline. What are you waiting for?
Still, it took Deanna a few seconds before she could make herself go in.
    Ryder and Detaith looked at her as she came in, smiled at her, and moved aside to let her have easier access to the diagnostic bed. The man on it didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes—or at least didn’t seem to. At the sound of the door, he jumped internally—then, hearing the footsteps pause by his bed, he kept himself very still, a waiting feeling.
    Deanna decided to take the initiative: “Hello, Mr. Stewart. Or is that really who you are?”
    Out of the corner of her eye she saw Picard, Crusher, and Geordi watching through the glass doors of the doctor’s office, saw them react as the man’s eyes flew open. She had little attention to spare them, though. She was too busy bracing herself against the abrupt, desperate wash of fear that came blasting out of the man, directed squarely at her.
    He was physically holding himself still, and a feeling came to Deanna that translated into the image of a small creature being very quiet, quiet for its life’s sake, under the pitiless eye of a predator. He stared at her, opened his mouth, and closed it again. Inside him, utter dread and anguish fought with each other. If the emotions had words, they would have been something like,
Oh, God, oh, no, they never told me
.
    Deanna fought for her own balance. It was poor technique to say something simply in order to alter the other’s emotions in favor of your own comfort. She was sorely tempted, but she put the urge resolutely aside. “I think you have some explaining to do,” she said, purposely holding her body in a nonthreatening position, arms by her side, so as not to encourage him into any response that he didn’t generate himself. The line was “nonguiding,” too, a good one for giving whatever free-floating anxiety was about a chance to express itself.
    “As if you need explanations,” Stewart said. His tone had some bravado about it, but the bravado was frightened and ineffective. He despaired of convincing her; he certainly didn’t convince himself.
    “Suppose you tell me what you were doing trying to get into the computer core.”
    Stewart stared at her. He was trembling now. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Picard stand up in the next room, looking uncomprehendingly from her to the man on the diagnostic bed. Stewart began to sit up. Ryder and Detaith moved a little closer. Deanna waved them back. “No, it’s all right. I want to hear what he has to say.”
    “So it was all a trick then,” Stewart said. “The whole thing. Maybe this, too. A holodeck simulation?” He stared around him, then looked back at Troi, wincing as