What Lies Beneath the Waters

[MC_Escher 0]

Meritorious Achievement Award

 

Escher’s life had been waterlogged. His every action had coursed under the weight of muddied currents, opaque eddies. He had worried that the river would never clear.

 

Now, for a moment, the sun had broken through the brown swirls and pierced all the way to the bottom of Escher’s heart. He wished it would go back to the way it was, though. At least the pain was less then.

 

Deflector control gleamed in the way that only starships can, and med techs bustled around Syndrx’s crumpled corpse as only those who see death every day can. To them, Syndrx was just another body, created for their disposal by the Manticore’s calamitous journey through dimensions. To Escher, a department member, and valued scientist, a man – a friend – had just been snuffed out. The heap of flesh and bone lying on the deck were simply a mockery of what had once been a person.

 

Horrible echoes range through Escher’s ears.

 

He had issued a stern order to place T’Prise at deflector control, away from Syndrx. Escher knew with the absolute certainty reserved for the most uncertain that her presence, her cold Vulcan logic, would have saved one of Escher’s best friends and fellow officers. She would have acted quickly, not let Ian’s frantic actions surprise her. She would have been better, faster, smarter. Escher’s throat grew tighter as a million alternate endings spun themselves out in his head, all ending with a smiling Ian, bruised and tattered and exhausted but happily content, having successfully helped the Manticore get home. Escher closed his eyes as he imagined himself wrapping a surprised Ian in a bear hug, pulling back, slapping him on the back. Ian, he would say, I’m not sure if I’ve told you how good of a friend you are – how glad I am to have you in science. Ian’s confused but grateful expression would make Escher laugh. The warm, yellow glow of contentedness would suffuse the scene and –

 

Escher’s eyes snapped open and he was surprised to find tears staining his cheeks. As the never-can-bes had unfolded in his mind his fists had started clenching, and the feeling of something being squeezed in his right hand had broken him from his reverie. He sat down heavily to look at the photograph that he had taken from Syndrx’s body and that had been sitting, forgotten, in Escher’s right hand. He wiped the salt water and desperation from his eyes so that, for a moment, he could see clearly.

 

And then his eyes grew wide.

 

Picture T’Prise and Picture Escher stood next to each other. Escher’s arm wrapped firmly and lovingly around T’Prise’s shoulder, who was leaning ever so slightly into the embrace. The grin that encompassed Escher’s expression in the picture was glowing. Even T’Prise was smiling a little, the corners of her mouth turning up slightly in a way that the Escher sitting in deflector control, leaning over the photograph, had never seen before. Both Picture T’Prise’s and Picture Escher’s gazes were pointed down, where standing between them, grabbing their hands, looking curiously at the camera, was a small boy. His ears were slightly pointed and he already had a keen, intelligent edge to his gaze. He could be no older than two or three.

 

Escher snapped back to deflector control and blinked as the waves of realization hit him. This had to be the son he had discovered among the wreckage of the alternate Manticore. But how had Ian come to possess such a photograph? Escher turned over the photo to find a scrawled note.

 

“I was his godfather. You three were so happy.”

 

It was interesting, the small, detached part of Escher’s brain thought, how strange it feels to switch from abject despair to complete confusion.

 

The waters were muddled again. Escher felt that this time, the murkiness went much, much deeper than before.