up with her at Ten-Forward and informed her of their newly dictated mission from Starfleet.
Tania had hoped that, by telling Kalinda about it in a public place, it would minimize whatever negative response she might have. The reasoning was that, once Kalinda got over her initial shock and had time to listen to what Tania had to say, she would have a more measured reaction.
“You can’t be serious!” the normally soft-spoken Kalinda shouted at the top of her lungs. “Are they out of their minds?!”
Whatever conversations were being held in Ten-Forward came crashing to a halt. All eyes were instantly upon the two of them, and Tania felt as if she were withering under the collective, curious stare of the rest of the crew.
So much for that idea, thought Tania.
Kalinda slid off her chair and headed for the door. “Where are you going?” Tania called after her.
“I need to get off this ship!” said Kalinda, and she sprinted into the hallway. Tania quickly ran off after her.
One crewman muttered in her wake, “There are days I know exactly how she feels.”
Meanwhile Tania caught up with Kalinda as she was barreling down the corridor. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“You already asked me that.”
“I know, but ‘off this ship’ is kind of vague.”
“It seemed pretty specific to me.”
“Will you for God’s sake listen to me?” She grabbed Kalinda by the wrist to try and stop her.
Kalinda spun, yanked Tania forward, and brought her own leg up, tripping Tobias and sending her face-first to the floor. Tania grunted as she hit and Kalinda, abashed, immediately released her grasp. Her hands fluttered to her face and she said, “I’m sorry! Are you okay?”
“I was better when I wasn’t getting slammed to the floor,” said Tania.
Helping Tania to her feet, Kalinda said hurriedly, “I think Si Cwan must have left behind some of his fighting reflexes from when he was possessing my body.”
This comment also drew strange looks from passing crewmen, and more and more, Tobias was regretting that she hadn’t conducted this entire conversation in the solitude of their quarters. “Look, Kally… could you please keep your mouth shut until we can get somewhere private?”
“You’re the one who brought it up in public in the first place.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Acceding to Tania’s request, Kalinda promptly silenced herself until they were safely in their quarters. Kalinda stood there with her hands moving in vague patterns, clearly nervous, and Tania put her arms around her and tried to steady her. “You have to listen to me, Kally. You have no reason to be scared.”
“I have every reason,” said Kalinda. “You weren’t there. You don’t know what it was like, and you don’t know what happened.”
“I know how they treated you there. I know about the attacks. And it was awful and brutal, and I totally understand. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to be in any danger once we get there. You don’t have to go down to the planet’s surface if you don’t want to. They only want to talk to the captain…”
“They want to talk to him about me. About me and Robin and Cwansi. This is going to lead to bad things, Tania, I swear.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Thallon and New Thallon are where bad things happen,” she said matter-of-factly. Gently but firmly she pushed Tania away from herself and turned her back. “Lots of bad things. And they stay there. And they’ll be waiting for me there.”
“I don’t understand. Are you… is this something to do with the spirits again?” That had been an extremely difficult aspect of Kalinda for Tania to fully comprehend. This entire business that Kalinda was able to see ghosts or spirits or lost souls or whatever you’d want to call it. That she was somehow in tune with the netherworld. None of that made a great deal of sense to her.
Then again, it wasn’t as if Tania was completely free herself from abilities that were not readily measurable by anything having to do with normal science but instead were firmly rooted in the realm of the paranormal. So who was she to judge?
Kalinda looked at her over her shoulder. “They’re stronger there,” she said. “Where the bad things happen… that’s where they’re the most potent. I can’t shut them out. They like me because they see me as a link to the world from which they’ve been torn, and they… they won’t leave me alone. They make it difficult to ignore them, Tania, so very, very difficult.”
“Does