Tyvan made a move to gather his materials when he saw that Castillo was still fidgeting. “Something else, Ensign?”
“Uh,” Castillo took a deep breath, “yes. I was wondering. Could I…could we…”
Tyvan decided that letting Castillo stew wouldn’t help. “You want to schedule some time, Ensign?”
“Yes, sir.” Castillo looked relieved, though his neck was mottled with red blotches.
More surprises. “Certainly. Now’s not a good time, though. How about we schedule something as soon as I’m done? All right?”
“Yeah, of course, you’re right. Sorry,” said Castillo, and Tyvan was relieved that Castillo had dropped the “sir.” Rank always made him uncomfortable. “We should go.”
“Right.” Medical boards and inquiries—Tyvan felt a quick spark of disgust—he understood why the military had them, but boarding people out of the military because they might have certain physical or mental problems smacked too much of the twenty-first century, as if medicine hadn’t progressed in three centuries and most illnesses weren’t remediable by accommodation, medication, or intervention.
“Well, let’s get going, Ensign,” said Tyvan, with more enthusiasm than he felt. “That way, you won’t get blistered by the captain, either.”
Castillo bobbed his head then stepped out of the way, allowing Tyvan to go first. In the turbolift, Castillo stood behind and slightly off to the left, his hands clasped behind his back. Neither spoke. Instead they stood, staring at a strip of metal above the turbolift doors.
In the silence, broken only by the whirr of the turbolift, Tyvan’s thoughts drifted to Bat-Levi. He’d taken a risk, again. But it was either break through her armor, or sit back and take the path of least resistance and do nothing.
The turbolift dinged, and the computer announced their deck. The doors parted.
But Bat-Levi was right about one thing, thought Tyvan as he walked the corridor to the conference room. She didn’t need to do anything but report. Well, he understood her reactions. Patients were so resistant to change. But change was necessary for a patient to break out of old self-destructive patterns, and that was his mission: to break down resistance.
Resistance—Tyvan heard the mechanical voices of thousands of drones in his head, a single voice that was many, and one he would never forget— is futile.
The realization hit him like a thunderbolt. But then he was at the conference room doors and Garrett was waiting, and Tyvan would have to think about what this meant about himlater. But, he thought, as the doors hissed apart, how odd that he hadn’t seen the irony.
Chapter 17
As it happened, Garrett let Tyvan have it in public.
“My apologies, Captain,” he said, walking rapidly to a vacant chair at Stern’s left elbow. He registered that, besides Garrett, Stern, and a lieutenant recording the proceedings, there were two strangers: a blonde-haired, brown-eyed female lieutenant sitting directly across from Garrett, and to the blonde’s left, a moderately tall though somewhat stocky Vulcan male dressed in the gray and black uniform of the V’Shar, the Vulcan security agency. The blonde would be the Starfleet Intelligence agent, Laura Burke, and the Vulcan’s name was Sivek, if Tyvan remembered correctly.
Stern murmured something he didn’t catch. Sliding into his chair, Tyvan bobbed his head at Garrett, who was to Stern’s right. It hit him at the last second that he probably shouldn’t have sat down until Garrett gave him some indication. Bravo, Tyvan.“I was detained by a patient.”
“I see.” Garrett’s dark brown eyes were hard. “And do you always refuse to answer hails when you’re with a patient, Doctor?”
“Well,” said Tyvan, trying to defuse the situation with a small smile, “I don’t like to interrupt the flow of a patient’s session.” He almost winced.
“I see,” said Garrett again, her tone indicating that she didn’tsee at all. “Well, let me put it to you this way, Commander.You’re a Starfleet officer who just happensto be a doctor, not the other way around. You wear a uniform. You are given orders, and unless there’s a pretty damn good reason for you to disobey—and offhand, I can’t think of very many—then you obey them. I can appreciate that you felt you had important work to do. Someone’s bleeding to death, you might be late. But you’re a psychiatrist, and none of your patients are likely to bleed to death.”
Tyvan could have mentioned suicidal or homicidal patients, but thought he ought to just sit and listen. It was, he reflected, what shrinks supposedly did best.
“So,” said Garrett, “until you can prove to me that a psychiatric session is equivalent to a life-or-death situation, then there is nothingmore important than your duties to this ship—not a patient, not this,” Garrett churned the air with her hand, “flowof a session, nothing. When I have you hailed, I expect you to answer. You don’t ignore a hail because then you’re ignoring me, and I get, well, a little unreasonablewhen a member of my crew doesn’t follow an order. So this is your first and onlywarning. You read me, mister?”
Tyvan was numb with embarrassment and shock. Only aboard a couple of weeks, and already he’d managed to alienate the captain. But she was right. This is a mistake. I have no business being here, I can’t function here.For not the first time, he wondered how Stern did it. Doctors needed autonomy; he required a system to be flexible to the needs of his patients. But that’s not what the military was about. So it was either play by the rules, or think up creative ways around them.
All he said was, “Absolutely, Captain.” The temperature in the conference room was cool, but Tyvan felt an uncharacteristic heat traveling up his face and realized that he was blushing to the roots of his hair, like an errant schoolboy who’d been caught blowing spitballs. “It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t because the next time will be your last,” said Garrett. She turned away, swiveling her chair toward a blank-faced lieutenant who sat across and to her right, making recordings of the proceedings. “Strike all that from the record, please.”
Stern took advantage of the momentary lull to lean toward him and murmur, “Nice move. See me after.”
Tyvan didn’t reply. Instead, he played with his padd, scrolled to his reports, and thought, right. Nice move.
“All right.” Garrett leaned her forearms on the conference table and laced her fingers together. “Where were we?”
Stern spoke up. “Commander Halak’s toxicological analysis, Captain.”
Garrett made a go-onmotion with her hand. Stern consulted her padd. “As I said, there was nothing, Captain. Commander Halak was clean across the board. No drugs, nothing illegal. Clean as a whistle.” Stern threw a pointed glance at Lieutenant Burke. “If Commander Halak was involved with red ice, or this Asfar whatchamacallit, it wasn’t as a user.”
“Qatala.” Burke favored Stern with a frosty brown stare. “The Asfar Qatala.”
“Right.” Stern grunted, returned her gaze to Garrett. “Like I said, not involved.”
“With red ice,” Burke added.
“That’s enough.” Garrett rapped her knuckles on the table. God, she didn’t like this woman. “You’ve made your point, Burke.”
Burke sat back without a word of protest. Garrett suppressed a sigh. Not fair to be angry: Garrett might hate what Burke did for a living, but Burke was doing her job, and Halak had plenty to explain. Garrett stilldidn’t understand what had happened, but then again, she hadn’t confronted Halak herself either.