as he decided to pull focus toward him. This was the course he opted for now, sidling into Ten-Forward and being noticed by no one present. The crewmen continued to drink and laugh and interact and, if they’d been asked, every single person present would have sworn that the captain’s son had never set foot in Ten-Forward that evening.
Xyon, however, saw them. To be specific, he saw two of them, and the rest of the people in the place faded to irrelevance.
There was Kalinda, seated at a table with Tania Tobias, the ship’s conn officer. Tania had her mouth up near Kalinda’s ear, and she was whispering something to her. Kalinda was responding with peals of laughter, and the happiness in her face made her seem incandescent.
The closeness of Tania’s face, her body, all of it bespoke an intimacy that was far beyond anything appropriate to two friends being out for the evening and enjoying each other’s presence.
Then Kalinda leaned forward and pressed her lips against Tania’s.
That was the moment that Xyon pulled out his disruptor, took aim, and blew Tania’s head off.
At least, in his own mind, he did.
He might well have done so, if he’d had the opportunity to follow his gut impulse. He didn’t think of himself as someone given to rages, and certainly not the type that could rack up a body count. Xyon abruptly remembered reading somewhere that the vast majority of murders were crimes of passion, but he never thought such a thing would have a direct application. What woman, he remembered thinking, would ever be worth killing for? What woman couldn’t be casually replaced by another one at some point down the road, or perhaps even with a good hologram in the interim?
The answer, one that he was not welcoming, was abruptly being presented to him.
Whether he would actually have done it, whether he would have followed through on the impulse and the mental image that was compelling him to turn Tania’s head into an unrecognizable, pulped mass, he would never actually know. A steely grip clamped onto his right wrist even as it started to move toward the disruptor, and he was abruptly twisted around in place to find himself staring into an older version of his own face.
Calhoun didn’t say a word. Instead, while Xyon was still off balance, Calhoun backstepped quickly, never easing up on his grip. Xyon had no choice but to follow, almost stumbling over his own feet as he did so. It all happened so quickly that no one in Ten-Forward was aware of the altercation.
In the corridor, as the doors slid shut behind them, Calhoun continued to keep Xyon’s arm immobilized. Xyon, for his part, made no effort to pull away. He felt it would be undignified, as if he were a frustrated infant who was balking against his daddy punishing him. He also knew it would be pointless: Calhoun was simply too strong.
In a low, tight voice, Calhoun said, “I just got done telling Kebron you didn’t need a security escort. It could damage my standing with my crew if they think there’s ever a possibility that I could be wrong about something. Am I wrong in this case?”
Xyon never lowered his gaze even as his father’s purple eyes seemed to bore right through his head. “No,” he said tightly. “You’re not wrong.”
“So I won’t regret letting go of your arm, then?”
“Only one way to find out.”
It was a small gesture of defiance, but all that Xyon could find within himself to muster at that moment.
Calhoun maintained his grip for a moment longer, just to drive home the point, and then he released it. Xyon discovered that his wrist felt numb, but decided he wouldn’t give his father the satisfaction of seeing him shake it out in order to restore the circulation.
“Burgy told me the two of you happened to meet up and informed me where you were going. I wasn’t quite sure how you were going to react when you saw the two of them together.” He gestured for Xyon to walk in front of him, and Xyon did so, both of them heading in the general direction of Calhoun’s cabin.
“You knew about this? About Kalinda and that… person?”
“It’s a small ship, Xyon. Pretty hard to keep certain behaviors secret.”
“I wouldn’t really have attacked—”
“That’s what you say now. It doesn’t take all that much, though, for ‘I wouldn’t really have done it’ to become, ‘I really shouldn’t have done it.’ You know what I