Chapter 1
No time for thought.
That was one of the reasons Jim Kirk enjoyed handball: during most of his waking hours (and even, it seemed, during most of his sleeping hours) he was faced with making one decision after another. Nothing aboard the Enterprise could be accomplished without input from him. Input from others turned into thought, weighing of possibilities, measuring the possibilities against past experience, all evolving into decisions, thousands of them, one after another, all day and all night long. Twenty-three years after receiving his first command, he had begun to feel the oppressive burden of so many decisions, so much thinking, so much responsibility. But here, in the handball court, with the reduced-gravity field in effect, the only decisions to be made were the most elemental. There was no time to think out the possibilities. No time for anything but watching the ball. And for watching his opponent.
He had scratched his memory a few days ago, trying to remember the first time he'd played reduced-grav handball. Back in high school, he'd decided, a year or so before he'd entered the Academy. That amounted to...what? Thirty-seven years of handball. In all that time, among all those opponents (of skill so widely varying it was ridiculous), he had never seen anyone so singular minded on the court as Gretchen Jaeger. She played the game with a vengeance that was almost chilling, as if nothing in life mattered except winning.
Sometimes, leaving the court, Kirk wondered if she remembered that it was all just a game.
He turned his head a little to the left, and the ball streaked past him like a torpedo. Flinching, he pulled his head in out of harm's way, an automatic response to the threat that was already past. He felt himself smiling nervously, but Jaeger didn't respond--not that he expected her to. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the observation window connecting the court with the corridor. McCoy and Chekov were there watching, Chekov wearing a mild expression of pride in his champion, McCoy grinning smugly. Twisting so he could propel himself away from the wall, Kirk returned his attention to the ball and caught it on its rebound, scooping it up and sending it back to the wall, noting unconsciously that he hadn't given the push even half Jaeger's power. She didn't hesitate. Bouncing gently up from the floor, she drifted slightly, and, in the same instant, she twisted, thrusting both feet out to connect with the wall and shoot her halfway into the court so that she could meet the ball barely into its rebound. The ball struck the opposite wall so hard that Kirk half-expected it to keep going, leaving a perfect round hole in its wake-like phaser fire. It seemed to lose none of its momentum on its return, and when Kirk connected with it and sent it flying back to the wall, the impact made his hand throb even inside the leather glove.
The volley continued for several minutes, until one of Kirk's returns slid off the edge of Jaeger's glove and she was unable to recover it. He found himself smiling at the hard-won victory.
"Twenty-twelve," Jaeger said, bobbing lightly off the floor on the ball of one sneakered foot.
"Really?" Kirk asked. "I didn't think..."
She seemed puzzled and nearly apologetic. "I'm pretty sure," she said hesitantly. "Did I miss a point for you, sir?"
"Oh, I doubt it," said Kirk, unsure that he'd scored anything near twelve points, although the amount of effort he'd expended made it seem that his score must be something near a thousand. He let his mind drift for a moment, taking advantage of the brief respite and making a mental note to remind McCoy that he could get all the way through a match now without feeling as if he'd taken part in an Iron Man relay. The first time he'd played Jaeger, he'd managed to finish the match maintaining a careful facade of physical fitness, and some ten minutes later had collapsed on the bunk in his cabin, certain that he must be dying. His heart had throbbed fitfully, and another ten minutes had gone by before he could pull himself up to the intercom to send for McCoy. The doctor had been perversely amused, and Kirk infuriated at his lack of concern.
"You're not dying," McCoy had pronounced. "You're just in lousy shape for someone your age. Which is why I suggested you play some handball in the first place." He'd stood back a step, folding his arms across his chest. "It was your idea to take on the intramural champion."
Kirk had scowled blackly. "She's a little girl, Bones."
"Exactly. She's twenty-one years younger than you are, and in excellent physical condition." McCoy half-turned to head for the door, stopped and said over his shoulder, "Chauvinism ill becomes you, Captain." He ducked through the door as Kirk pitched a sneaker in his wake.
The "little girl" bounced again and shot off another rocketing serve. Waiting for Kirk to return the volley, she pushed off with one foot and drifted up near the ceiling, turning a smooth, gentle somersault so that she was hanging upside down when she reached out to crack the ball. Kirk avoided reacting; he was used to her playing style now, used to the brief acrobatics she indulged in to waste time while the ball cruised back and forth. He'd tried it once or twice himself (although there weren't many occasions when he had time to waste during a match) and knew the reasoning behind it: a bit of extra showing off, of proving herself in front of her captain. He knew she meant no harm by it, probably wasn't even aware of what she was doing, other than that every movement contributed to the match. He had to strain to reach the ball this time. She returned it without difficulty, and when he vaulted to catch the shot, it sailed by so near to him that he could feel the wind.
"Game point?" Kirk asked.
Jaeger hesitated. "Yes, sir."
"Well, Lieutenant," Kirk smiled, "either I'm improving, or you're slacking off. You didn't trash me quite as thoroughly as usual." He dropped one foot, pushed himself away from the floor, and retrieved the ball. "You're not throwing the game, are you?" Her eyes crossed, and Kirk laughed heartily. "I didn't think so. I must be improving."
She reached for the gravity control switch and slid it down so that the court's gravity would return to normal. "You're not a bad player, Captain."
Kirk laughed again. "Thanks for the generous compliment."
"That's not..." she stammered. "I didn't mean..."
He remembered the day she'd joined the Enterprise's crew, just over a year ago. She'd reported to the bridge, orders in hand, uniform crisp, head erect, possessed by utter and complete nervous terror. Two months had gone by before Kirk could speak to her without feeling like a school principal rebuking an unruly student. Now, a year later, while they were still not friends (and Kirk resisted the possibility), they could at least speak to each other normally. He remembered, too, the day the change had occurred: the first time they'd played handball together. She'd beaten him that day, and on every occasion since. He was irked at first (though with himself for having lost, and not with her for having beaten him), until he realized that the winning gave her some solid ground to stand on. She'd bested him, and he could feel the satisfaction that gave her. He knew she still stood in awe of him, but she was no longer afraid, and that was fine. While Jim Kirk insisted on respect from his crew, he had no use whatsoever for fear.
The normal gravity took hold, and Kirk and Jaeger both paced the court reaccustoming themselves. Kirk grabbed up the towel he'd left looped around the ring near the door, tossed Jaeger's towel to her, and mopped at the mist of sweat at the nape of his neck. Towel in hand, she seemed to forget he was there. She leaned against the bulkhead for a minute, closed her eyes, and took a series of long, deep breaths. He said nothing to disturb her silence, just went on mopping trickles of perspiration from his arms and legs. He caught sight again of McCoy and Chekov at the window, and beyond them, someone approaching from the direction of the turbolift. McCoy's grin had faded; he was waiting for Kirk to come out, no doubt so he could offer his usual sage advice on the values of handball. Chekov's eyes were on Jaeger. Idly, Kirk wondered if she made love as vigorously as she played handball.
The sound of approaching footsteps made McCoy turn from the window in the direction of the turbolift. He was immediately sorry--given the choice, he preferred not to acknowledge the existence of the young man who'd come out of the lift. Wearing his usual self-absorbed look, Peter Kirk stopped arm's length from McCoy and gazed through the window into the handball court. McCoy began counting silently; the young Kirk never took longer than ten seconds to offer a comment.
"Who won?" Peter Kirk asked mildly. "Not my uncle."
"Gretchen won," Chekov replied, struggling to keep his voice even.
The young Kirk smiled. "Naturally," he murmured, and cocked his head a little.
Chekov echoed, "Naturally," though in a totally different tone of voice. "She is...invincible." He hated the word as soon as he'd spoken it. He hadn't spent more than a month all told in his native Russia in the last fourteen years, but bits of the accent stuck with him. His compliment to Jaeger came out sounding more like "inwinceeble": another reason for Peter to offer comment.
To Chekov's surprise, the young Kirk let it go by. "Nobody labors under that delusion for very long," he laughed softly, with a sound that didn't quite succeed at being a sigh. "Spiritual fulfillment through sweat," he observed, though more to himself than to the other two men, and without waiting for any kind of response, pivoted and strode off down the corridor.
"Are we sure he's the captain's nephew?" Chekov asked McCoy.
McCoy wagged his head, watching Peter Kirk disappear around a corner. The young man had inspired the usual response in both the doctor and Chekov: the urge to punch him. He'd known that, and yet the knowledge meant nothing to him. At this point in his life, at the age of twenty-seven, Peter had gotten a rise out of so many victims on so many occasions that he seldom noticed any more. "I don't know," McCoy said. "But every time I see him, it reminds me of one thing: how ungodly long one month can be."
The door to the handball court hummed open. James T. Kirk ushered Jaeger out ahead of him with a sweeping gesture of one hand, and she moved to accept a hug and a lingering kiss from Chekov. McCoy and Kirk exchanged small smiles, sharing the same amusement at the effects of the younger officers' love affair: Chekov had turned forty-two some three days before, and Jaeger was thirty-three, but their being in love seemed to spark in them an amazing child-like ability to forget they were in anyone else's company. Until the glow wore off, no one but the two of them lived in their private little universe. Moments ticked by, and the two senior officers shared another thought: nostalgia for the time they had each felt the rich, warm glow of being in love. For each of them, that had been ages ago.
Finally, Kirk cleared his throat. Jaeger and Chekov both turned to him, both straightening unconsciously. He held back a smile, made a shooing gesture with his right hand, and said mildly, "Dismissed."
"Thank you, sir," Chekov beamed.
Jaeger nodded slightly. "Thank you, Captain."
Kirk draped his towel around his neck as Chekov and Jaeger walked off arm-in-arm down the corridor. McCoy was grinning again. Kirk frowned. "Want to let me in on the joke, Bones?" he inquired.
"What are you dismissing them from? Neither one of them is on duty. And what exactly are you dismissing them to?" The doctor shook his head again. "I should do some sort of psychological study on those two. They change direction like a scout ship changing course. Five minutes ago, she was on the court with you, and she was so fixed on that game that the ship could have blown up around her and she'd never have noticed. Now neither one of them seems to know that they're on a ship. They're walking around in a pleasant little fog. In two hours, they'll both be on duty, and..."
"And they're two of the best officers I have," Kirk filled in.
"Exactly. I want to know how they can pop in and out of consciousness like that."
"Young love, Doctor."
"Young, my eye. Chekov's forty-two years old."
Kirk sighed heavily--a bit more heavily than he intended. How long had it been since he'd walked around in that "pleasant little fog"? Edith! If he closed his eyes, he could still see her face, though he'd begun to think the memory had been colored by time more than a little. Had she really been as beautiful as he seemed to remember? Or was it that wonderfully brilliant smile and the gently musical laugh that made her beautiful? Edith. She'd died so long ago. Died in front of him, in front of McCoy. A pang of anguish shot up from somewhere inside of him. "I think it's been too long, Bones," he said after a minute. "We're both having too hard a time remembering what it was like." He fought off the nostalgia, traded it for a smile. "So tell me: has the McCoy Physical Fitness Plan been successful?"
"Has what...?" Realizing, McCoy nodded. "Well, you've lost the twenty pounds. How do you feel?"
"Fine. I feel fine."
"That's all? Just 'fine'?"
"How do you want me to feel? That little girl beats the hell out of me every time we play. That doesn't exactly put me on top of the world."
McCoy took stock of his captain, decidedly unmilitary in shorts, tee shirt, sneakers and thick white socks, blotched with sweat. "But you feel better than you did."
"When?"
"Two and a half years ago. When they gave you this brand new Enterprise."
Frowning again, Kirk asked, "What do you mean?"
"You were a mess. Don't tell me you weren't." Kirk opened his mouth to respond, but McCoy waved him into silence. You spent ten years wandering around Starfleet Headquarters...."
Kirk said quietly, "Seven. And a half. Off and on."
"Seven and a half, then," McCoy shrugged. "Spock died. You got back your son, then lost him and the Enterprise. Spock comes back, but not in one piece. And then we were all on Vulcan for three months with nothing to do but eat and drink, while Sarek tried ironing out legal problems and the Vulcan techs took apart the Bird of Prey and put it back together." Memories popped into his head of those months: David's death, the Enterprise, waiting for Spock to regain his memory, waiting for orders from Starfleet. Vulcan's heavy gravity, thin air and oppressive heat precluded any kind of exercise--for anyone not extraordinarily fit, merely walking around was exhausting after a couple of hours. So Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Sulu and Chekov had spent most of their evenings indulging in the only sort of exercise they found agreeable: imbibing. McCoy had quickly lost count of the number of raised eyebrows they'd caused among the Vulcan population. "We got back to Earth in about the lousiest condition the bunch of us has ever been in. And you, my friend, were the worst." He gestured Kirk into silence again so that he could continue. "Blood pressure too high, blood lipids too high, chronic insomnia..."
"Enough!" Kirk said. "I remember." Now it was his turn to gesture McCoy into silence. "Like I said...I feel fine now. You ran all the tests last week. Tell me how I should feel."
McCoy was silent, studying Kirk's expression. True, the biomedical tests he'd run on the captain were excellent. Kirk was in better shape, his endurance better than it had been in years. Everything that had been out of balance was now back in balance, mostly due to a carefully regulated diet (McCoy recalled snatching a plate of scrambled eggs out of Kirk's hands just a few days ago) and the bi-weekly thrashings on the handball court with Jaeger. But there was still something about Kirk's condition that McCoy didn't like. Something was lingering below the surface. Something like the depression he'd suffered when he'd lost his command status and had been stranded behind a desk in San Francisco. Something like that...but different. McCoy couldn't quite put a finger on it, but it was there, and it had irked at him for weeks.
"I don't know, Jim," McCoy said finally.
Smiling, Kirk reached out and gripped McCoy's shoulder in one hand. "I'm fine, Bones. I feel great. You've got nearly five hundred other people on board to worry about, too. Give one of them a turn, okay? Now, I've got a date with a jacuzzi."
*****
Jaeger tied the belt of her robe around her waist and shook her head vigorously to loosen the curls that had kinked up from the steam of the jacuzzi. Her face was flushed, both from the workout and from the whirlpool. "Better?" she asked.
Chekov shrugged. "I like you better with the robe off."
"We go on duty in an hour, Commander."
"Who needs an hour? We've accomplished a lot of things in a lot less than an hour."
Teasing, she slipped out of his embrace and shut down the controls for the jacuzzi. The water would drain out now, be recycled and purified in the ship's storage tanks, and remain ready for use again. Jaeger had wondered on occasion how many times the ship's relatively small supply of water had been used, purified, and reused. She didn't bother to wonder about the myriad of things the water had been used for. Chekov followed her into their shared sleeping room, tapping the control panel that would shut off the bathroom lights as he passed through the doorway. Jaeger stopped halfway to the bed and frowned at herself in the mirror. "Pavel," she said solemnly, "do you think it bothers him?"
"Do I think what bothers who?"
"The captain. Do you think it bothers him that I always win?"
Chekov sat on the side of the bed, his hands resting palm down on the bed frame. "Nobody likes to lose all the time. On the other hand, if he wants to win, he knows better than to play with you. You're..." he hesitated, then repeated his compliment, careful with his fluttering accent so that the "v" came through. "...invincible."
She moved to stand in front of him, resting her hands on his shoulders. Chekov slid his arms around her waist. "I feel...I don't know, guilty sometimes. As if I shouldn't win."
"Do you think he'd feel any better if you let him win?"
"Well, no. But he is the captain."
"And you are the best handball player in Starfleet." He reached up to chuck her under the chin. "It's allowed."
Wagging her head, Jaeger moved away again, wandering around the room with her hands in the deep pockets of the heavy cotton robe. "I still feel funny about it, Pavel. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to act around him. I'm not scared any more, not really, but it seems like..." She paced distractedly, breathing so deeply that Chekov could hear each breath. "They told me at the Academy that if you were extremely intelligent, and extremely brave, and willing to give a hundred percent a hundred percent of the time, that where you wanted to be was serving under Jim Kirk. So that's what I put in for." She wheeled. "They told me that..." She had to pause, because the phrase still sounded a little ridiculous. Dave McClennan had been more than a little drunk the first time he'd quoted it to her. "That everybody on this ship was willing to walk straight into the jaws of hell for Jim Kirk."
"We have," Chekov replied. "And more than once."
"And that he would do the same."
"He has."
"I didn't figure I could do that for Captain Styles." She stopped pacing to look at Chekov. "And I didn't think he'd do it for us." Chekov nodded. He'd never met Styles, but had heard enough tales about him that he believed Jaeger instantly. She'd served under Styles for nearly a year aboard the Excelsior, the pride of Starfleet, the first ship equipped with the revolutionary (if somewhat disappointing) transwarp drive; she'd been chief navigator, a position to be proud of, but somehow Jaeger had never felt any pride, either on her own part or on that of most of the other crew members. Working with Styles didn't foster pride--didn't foster much of anything except frustration. The man gloried in being master of the Excelsior, wielded the captaincy like an egotistical child, delighted with himself because the best ship in the fleet was under his control. The trouble was (and Styles failed to understand) that he'd won the Excelsior by default. Hikaru Sulu, the Enterprise's former chief helmsman (and now a captain in his own right on the U.S.S. Cooper), had been first in line to command the glorious new ship. Then had come the Genesis fiasco. Starfleet, true to form, had protected itself from any possible embarrassment by snatching Sulu's command from him before he'd even assumed the captain's chair, and had dumped the prize into the lap of the runner-up: Styles.
Jaeger rubbed at her head, as if the very thought of Styles had given her a headache. "The captain is supposed to be...up there somewhere." She gestured toward the ceiling. "Someone you look up to. When he gives you an order, you don't question it, you just obey it. Nobody ever wanted to follow orders from Styles. He's a nincompoop."
"I would have used another word," Chekov smiled.
"No," Jaeger replied. "I think 'nincompoop' suits him. I could never see him putting himself in danger for any of us. Or for the ship. Or even for himself. That's why I couldn't stay with the Excelsior." She turned to him. "What about you? Are you where you want to be?"
"Yes." He got up from the bed and crossed the room to join Jaeger. "I belong here. And I have a prettier roommate now." He gathered her into his arms, half expecting her to move away and begin pacing again, but this time she didn't stray. Content, Chekov pulled her closer. She was still warm and damp from the jacuzzi. She looked up at him, but something in her eyes was distracted. He'd grown used to that; it happened every time they discussed the Excelsior, or her service there, or her sudden transfer to the Enterprise. He'd resigned himself to never being satisfied with her explanations, and that distant look remained. Ignoring it, he said with a small smile, "As your superior officer..."
"Yes, Commander?"
"I order you to stay right here."
"Yes, sir."
"And you're going to show me how much you can accomplish in forty-five minutes."
Jaeger chuckled softly, and moved to help him untie the belt to her robe. "You know one thing about handball, Commander?"
"What's that?" Chekov murmured.
"It teaches you to move very fast."
*****
*****
"Message coming in from Council Chambers on Dianas, Captain," Uhura announced as Kirk tapped the "off" button on his console. "They acknowledge our transmission. Awaiting our arrival as scheduled." She smiled as she concluded, "They're preparing a reception for you and the other 'most welcome Federation representatives'."
Kirk nodded. "Reply, 'Message received. Looking forward to meeting with the Council.'"
"Aye, sir. Sending now."
The bridge fell silent again. Kirk glanced around, taking stock of his crew, all bent to work at their stations, quietly absorbed in individual tasks. For several minutes, once Uhura had finished transmitting the message to Dianas, there was no sound on the bridge but the humming and chirping of the computer consoles and the distant, almost unnoticeable throb of the engines. The crew's backs were all to Kirk, giving him a view of the backs of some dozen-odd very young heads. Save Uhura, Spock, and Kirk himself, no one on the bridge at the moment was over thirty-five years old. Kids, he thought, I'm commanding another boatload of kids. His eyes strayed to the helm, and he found himself wishing Sulu were there. Hennessy was good, extremely good, but nonetheless Kirk held onto the feeling that no one could guide the Enterprise quite like Hikaru Sulu. Not until Hennessy turned to give him a questioning look did Kirk realize he had sighed.
"Sir?" Hennessy said.
"Nothing," Kirk replied, shaking his head. Hennessy nodded and returned his attention to his console. Kirk watched him for a moment, wistfully aware of how much (from the back, at least) the young lieutenant resembled his son, David. Hennessy was three years younger than David had been when he'd died. Twenty-six, Kirk believed--he'd checked on Hennessy's age when assigning him to the helm. Twenty-six? Kirk held back the expression of disbelief he felt creeping into his face. I've been a commanding officer since this kid was three years old?
Uhura's voice broke his reverie. "Captain?"
He swiveled the command chair to face her. "What is it?"
She was touching her earphone. "I'm getting something, sir. Very faint. There's a great deal of interference...but it sounds like the universal distress code."
"Source?"
Spock was bent over the science station, working in conjunction with Uhura's communications board to clarify the signal and identify its origin. A moment went by while Spock's long, thin fingers moved over the buttons keyed into the ship's main computers. Finally, information began to appear on the main screen. "Source is in the Alpha Reticuli system, Captain. The interference is coming from an ion storm in that system. No identification yet on the vessel transmitting the signal."
"Alpha Reticuli? Can you pinpoint the location?"
"Yes, Captain," Spock said somberly. "On the surface of Duncan's Planetoid."
Kirk sank back in his chair and rubbed at his temples. "That's not what I wanted to hear, Spock."
"Unfortunately, Captain, the fact remains."
"You're sure."
"Quite sure." Spock glanced at the screen again.
"Somebody mining for malium crystals, no doubt," Kirk said heavily. "If I had a malium crystal for every time somebody's crash-landed on Duncan's Planetoid trying to find malium crystals, I'd be hopelessly rich." He turned to Uhura. "Signal on speakers." Uhura nodded, keyed the instructions into the board, and winced a bit as the subspace static erupted through the bridge speakers. Fingers moving swiftly, she augmented the signal, washing out most of the static and leaving the thin, regular beep of the universal distress code: two short, two long, two short. "Damnation," Kirk murmured. "Any identification yet, Spock?"
His first officer responded, "Negative, Captain. We do have an approximate location on the surface of the planetoid, however."
"Alter course, Mister Tenaka," Kirk told the navigator on duty. "Take us to Duncan's Planetoid."
"Aye, sir. Changing course to...one five five mark one six."
"Mister Hennessy, take us to warp six."
"Warp six, aye, sir," Hennessy replied.
"Captain?" Tenaka said over his shoulder, his eyes still on the board. "Has there ever been a successful mining expedition to Duncan's Rock? All you hear about are the crashes." The round-faced Polynesian shot a glance at Kirk; the captain's mood was painfully easy to read. He was drumming his fingers on the arm of the command chair, though softly enough that it made no sound.
Spock replied for Kirk. "Two hundred-thirteen known crashes. Two known successful landings. If I recall correctly, the actual number of malium crystals that have been taken off Duncan's Planetoid..."
"Seven," Kirk said. "There are seven."
"Two hundred crash landings? To get seven stones?" Tenaka let out a long, low whistle. "Why do it, sir? I mean, it seems so crazy, to take that kind of a chance. Come all the way out here, risk your ship and your crew, when the odds are so bad."
Kirk examined the navigator's face for a moment. If anything, given his age, Tenaka should have been far more possessed of the "spirit of adventure" than Kirk could hope of being. Nothing in Tenaka's background hinted at his being unusually cautious. Yet he seemed truly mystified by the history of "Duncan's Rock". "Human nature, Mister Tenaka," Kirk said finally. "I can't speak for any of the other races in the galaxy, but as far as human beings go, the possibility of winning--no matter how remote--outweighs the risk. Even when you're risking your neck, and the necks of your crew. How's your American history?"
"Rusty, sir," Tenaka admitted.
"Do you remember anything about the great gold rushes of the eighteen hundreds? Men murdered each other over stakes in a gold deposit. Thought nothing of it."
"Yes, sir, but for only seven crystals..."
"Seven have been taken off the planetoid," Kirk reminded him. "Each one of extremely high value. Everyone assumes that that's only a sample of what's left to be found. Anyone who could successfully set up a camp long enough to tap into a large vein of the crystals and take them back to a trading post would be rich beyond his wildest dreams." Even as he spoke, Kirk found himself echoing Tenaka's thoughts. Rich enough to justify over two hundred crashes? he wondered. All those small ships, almost a hundred people killed, hundreds more injured. All for the chance of finding a vein of the hypnotically beautiful blue gemstones on a planetoid claimed by no civilized race in the galaxy. Find it, and it's all yours. So they keep trying! Kirk thought. And crashing. And sending out distress signals so that we can go and pick them up. Keep at it, boys; the Federation will come and save your skins if you get into trouble. Even if we have to risk our own lives to do it. Grumbling to himself, Kirk tapped the intercom. "Scotty?"
"Scott here, Captain."
"Is the transporter operational?"
"Aye, Captain," the chief engineer's voice came back.
"Mister Spock tells me that we're headed into an ion storm. We've got to rescue some fortune-seekers from Duncan's Rock."
There was a long, pregnant pause from the other end. "Aye?"
"What are our chances of transporting anyone in?"
"In an ion storm, sir? I wouldna try it."
"Shuttle?"
Another pause. "The shuttle's your best bet, Captain, but it's still risky. If that ion storm is up to Alpha Reticuli's usual standards, they'll be going in there blind."
"Opinion noted, Mister Scott. Kirk out."
"I concur with Mister Scott's judgment, Captain," Spock said, straightening up from the science console. His screens had begun to register the interference from the storm, though the Enterprise was still a considerable distance from it. The main screen was offering a wide-angle scan of the planetoid's surface: inhospitable to say the least. Rocky, mountainous, few native life forms, thin atmosphere torn by high winds. "If I might volunteer to command the landing party," Spock suggested. "I have done considerable research on the history and conditions of this particular system. With the proper pilot for the shuttle, I believe we have an acceptable chance of landing safely. And returning safely to the Enterprise."
Kirk gnawed his lower lip. "Your opinion as to 'the proper pilot'?"
"Lieutenant Jaeger."
"I see. Any particular reason?"
Spock paused for a moment. "As I understand it, Captain, during her senior year at the Academy, Lieutenant Jaeger was rather fond of flying the shuttle simulator blindfolded."
"Blindfolded?" Kirk blinked.
"Yes, sir. And if I am correct, she had an acceptable success rate." Spock waited for Kirk to respond. He did not bother to define "acceptable" or "success", and Kirk did not ask. "Of course," Spock went on, "that was under simulated conditions, with no actual danger present. However, being blindfolded would be somewhat analogous to..."
"To flying in an ion storm," Kirk finished for him. "All right, Mister Spock. I trust your judgment. Assemble your crew." Spock nodded acknowledgment and moved toward the turbolift. The lift doors sighed open as he approached. Blindfolded! Kirk thought with a shudder, recalling the one time he had tried that stunt himself-- and had most definitely not been successful. "And Spock?" he concluded. The Vulcan turned. "I'd like a word with whomever you bring back from Duncan's Rock."
*****
"Commencing planetfall, sir. Hull temperature seven hundred degrees and rising. Course, bearing point seven seven. Altitude..." Under Spock's coolly watchful gaze, Jaeger resisted banging on the panel to make the digital readout reflect their descent. The number had not changed in some seconds. "Estimate altitude at ninety-one point four kilometers."
Spock nodded. "Adjust course to point seven five."
"Point seven five, aye, sir."
"Surface temperature, minus eighteen degrees Celsius," Spock read from the sensors. "Sensors show an atmospheric content of four percent cyanoalisitate."
"Cyanoalisitate?" That was Will Hollis, strapped in with the rest of the landing party in the row of seats behind the pilot's and co-pilot's chairs. "That stuff smells like burning rotten eggs!"
Spock's left eyebrow slid up under his bangs. "A reasonably accurate comparison, Lieutenant. And cyanoalisitate in this percentage is rather hostile to the human respiratory and nervous systems. I would exercise caution against inhaling even minute quantities of the atmosphere." He flipped a couple of switches and touched a toggle on the control panel, but the adjustments did nothing to steady the flashing readouts from the shuttle's systems. They had lost contact with the Enterprise several minutes ago, almost from the time the shuttle had left the protection of the landing bay, and now the ion storm was making increasing havoc of all the Galileo's electrical systems. There were readings, yes, but none of them seemed correct. Jaeger glanced intermittently at Spock, beside her at the controls, his lack of expression belying their situation. The only information being received with regularity was the rhythmic bleep of the distress signal.
"Altitude eighty kilometers," Jaeger said. "Hull temperature...eight hundred degrees and stabilizing."
The Galileo hit a sudden pocket of turbulence as solid as rock. Harry Gibbs' head jerked backward, connecting with the padded headrest behind him with a teeth-jarring thump. "Jeeesus, Jaeger!" he howled. "Watch those bumps, willya?"
She checked the panels, waiting for a reaction from Spock that never came. A small voice inside her wanted to suggest turning the controls over to Gibbs if he thought he could do better, but she resisted saying anything to the security officer. "Thermal inversion," she said quietly to Spock.
The Vulcan agreed. "Hold course, Lieutenant."
"Aye, sir. Holding course at..." As Jaeger bent to check the readout, the panel flashed and went dark. Jaeger's eyes went automatically to the viewport in front of her. They were descending rapidly through a heavy layer of clouds, thick trailing things that obscured visibility beyond a few meters outside the shuttle. Spock began working on the console, flipping switches, crossing circuits. After a moment, the panel lit again, but half the indicators would do nothing more than flash like tiny strobe lights. The altimeter read a persistent, flashing "0.00".
Spock seemed almost amused. "According to our instruments, Lieutenant, we have crashed."
"No instruments. No visual. Guess I get to fly by the seat of my pants, Mister Spock," Jaeger replied, with a vague attempt to keep her voice level.
"On instinct, Lieutenant?" Spock translated.
"Yes, sir."
"God help us," Harry Gibbs murmured.
"I trust your instincts," Spock said. "Continue present course and set us down."
Jaeger's hands had gone cold. Marveling at the fact that she could still move her fingers to make the minute corrections in their course, she forced a small smile and remarked, "Did they ever tell you that at the Academy I was pretty good at flying the simulator blindfolded?"
Spock had abandoned the shuttle's on-board computer and was running a series of computations on his tricorder, glancing intermittently at the viewport. They had passed out of the worst of the cloud layer, continuing to descend, visibility now extended to what McCoy would refer to as "a stone's throw". "I am aware of that, yes."
"The last half-dozen times I didn't have a single crash landing."
"One might observe, Lieutenant," Spock replied, his eyes still on the tricorder, "that statistically speaking, you are perhaps overdue."
Her mouth gaped. "I..."
"I trust your instincts," Spock repeated. "If I did not, you would not be flying this craft."
Jaeger closed her mouth. "Understood, sir."
The landing party began to fidget in their seats as much as the restraining straps would allow. All three young men--Gibbs, Hollis and Cooper--wore the same expression of tightly controlled panic. They had all heard the stories about Duncan's Rock and the abysmal results of the hundreds of attempted landings in small craft. Most of the stories now entered the realm of the fantastic, but they were still realistic enough to inspire fear aboard the Galileo. Gibbs, Hollis and Cooper were all security officers, all highly trained and selected for their ability to remain calm in the worst of situations, but now, with the conditions of their own landing on Duncan's Rock deteriorating rapidly, even they were not highly trained enough to ignore reality.
Tom Cooper began to search his memory for the words to the Lord's Prayer. Will Hollis's palms had sweated so much that the knees of his flight suit were soaked through. Harry Gibbs wondered why in the name of all that was logical, their commander was leaving their lives in the hands of "Roadrunner" Jaeger. Given the choice, Gibbs was quite ready to forget the distress beacon and hightail it back to the warmth and safety of the Enterprise. Instinct? Gibbs thought with a silent, hysterical laugh. In an ion storm? Flying on instinct, trying to land on a gigantic orbiting rock famous for the number of people who were now a part of the landscape. Gibbs wanted badly to be sick. Grimacing greenly, he looked at each of his companions in turn, and found some shred of satisfaction in discovering that each of them was fighting nausea. At least Jaeger has something to do, he thought.
"Maintaining rate of descent," Jaeger announced. "Commencing landing procedures."
Spock glanced up from the tricorder. "Very well."
She squinted furiously at the viewport, as if that would help clear the forward visibility. The clouds had thinned out a bit more, but the shuttle was still too high up for Jaeger to pick out anything solid on the ground. She began to wonder how to go about finding a landing site without being able to see. Spock still seemed completely at ease, though she knew (mostly from Chekov's many anecdotes) that he was probably no less worried than she, just immeasurably better at disguising the worry. Shuddering, Jaeger tried to steal a look at what he was computing on the tricorder, hoping that he knew enough about the planetoid to find open ground by the seat of his own pants. She had never lost sight of the fact that flying a simulator blindfolded was a lark, the kind of stunt that was practically expected of all Academy seniors, in spite of all the realism she'd attempted to give it both in her own mind and in the stories she'd told afterwards. She also knew that all the larks had stopped the minute she graduated from the Academy and received her commission as a Starfleet ensign. A joke was a joke. And no matter how good she had been at guiding the simulator to a smooth landing half a dozen times (seven, if you counted the time the simulated shuttle had bounced off a simulated tree before landing softly on the simulated ground), this was no joke. This time there would be no cartoonish readout announcing "YOU HAVE CRASHED," no simulator doors sliding open to reveal a group of her fellow cadets clustered outside.
Concentrating, she moved her hand gently on the throttle controls. The shuttle bounced spastically. Jaeger shivered again.
"Steady," Spock said quietly.
She felt a sudden need for the comfort of the jacuzzi and a good strong belt of Chekov's cherished ice-cold vodka. "Firing braking thrusters."
A dozen nervous minutes later they were on the ground. The Galileo rested in the closest thing to an open field to be found within a hundred kilometers, a twenty-meter wide space in the midst of a peppering of enormous rocks and the planetoid's largest indigenous life form, skeletal things much like petrified trees. The wind, driven on by the relentless ion storm that tore the planetoid's slight atmosphere into miniature hurricanes, howled around the shuttle as its crew of five released themselves from their safety harnesses. Jaeger took another long look out the viewscreen. The panorama ahead of the shuttle, with its skeletal trees and swirling, misty atmosphere, had the look of Scottish moors.
Spock was already slipping into cold weather gear. The three security men followed his cue and also reached for breathing apparatus. "Heads up, Jaeger," Hollis said brightly, tossing a set of gear to Jaeger.
"You don't need an airpack, sir?" Cooper asked Spock.
The Vulcan shook his head. "Cyanoalisitate has no effect on the Vulcan respiratory system. However, I would caution you again, Ensign, not to inhale any of the atmosphere here." He accepted the communicator and phaser Gibbs handed him and buckled them in place on the belt of his coat alongside his tricorder. "Our sensor readings are somewhat inaccurate at best," he informed his crew. "The distress signal is apparently coming from a point roughly three kilometers away, in that direction." He nodded at the port side of the shuttle. "We will spread out, covering as much of the area as possible but remaining within minimum communicator range of each other and the shuttle. If any of you lose contact with the others, maintain your position and we will find you."
"Excuse me, sir," Hollis said, "but do you really think the communicators are going to function under conditions like this?"
"Perhaps not, Ensign."
"Well, then, sir, if the communicators don't work..."
"Then use your voice, Ensign."
"Sir?" Hollis frowned.
"I believe it is an old Terran phrase, Mister Hollis. 'If you need help, yell.'" The four Humans stared at him. Spock ignored the looks and shut down most of the shuttle's systems, putting the rest on standby. That done, he waited for the crew to finish fastening on the thermal coats, pulling up hoods, sliding on gloves, buckling on the breathing apparatus, clipping on phasers and communicators. When they were done, all he could see were their eyes, which seemed preternaturally bright. He knew they were all nervous and afraid (he would have thought them to be mentally deficient if they had not been), but they were all ready to follow his lead, out into the hostile surroundings of the planetoid. They had made it here safely, if a little bruised, but none of them knew whether they'd be returning safely to the Enterprise. Spock considered them for a moment. "Phasers on stun," he said finally. "We have no idea who is sending the distress call, or what condition they are in. We shall maintain caution."
Without waiting for a response, he released the lock on the shuttle's main hatch, pressed the control, and stepped back as the hatch slid open. The little craft was immediately filled with the keening wail of the wind.
"Welcome to Duncan's Rock," Harry Gibbs said.
The four Humans followed Spock out of the Galileo like ducklings trailing their mother. When they had gone about fifty meters, he stopped and pulled his communicator from his belt. A series of quick tests assured him that all five communicators were working acceptably...at the moment. Returning the device to its clip, he motioned for the others to spread out.
"We'll find 'em, Mister Spock," Will Hollis assured him, his voice sounding eerily tinny through the speaker of the breathing apparatus. "Let's just hope they're still alive."
"Indeed," Spock replied. "Carry on."
Bending against the wind, the landing party and its commander spread out across the landscape. For the first five or six hundred meters they were within sight of each other, though none of them really bothered looking. They were all (except for Spock) shaking, but none of them could have answered whether that came from the cold, or fear, or just the heavy buffeting of the wind--or all three. Moments later, as they moved on ahead, the clustering of rock formations increased, giving the four Humans the impression that they were moving into deep gullies rather than across a nearly flat surface. The light gravity of the planetoid combined with the push of the wind made forward progress difficult. At the end of another hundred meters they could no longer see each other, or anything else except the rocks and the weird, skeletal trees.
Hollis' words came back to Jaeger as she plodded ahead through the wind. Still alive? she wondered. Spock had not mentioned the possibility that the distress beacon might be an automatic one coming from the computers of the crashed ship. Though, come to think of it, neither had he said anything about receiving life form readings. The ship's occupants might have been dead for some time, and the computer would nonetheless continue broadcasting distress until the ship's batteries had been totally drained. Some swell field trip, Jaeger thought. Poking around this place looking for somebody who might have been killed months ago! She stumbled, caught herself, and cursed under her breath. It was a habit she'd learned from her father at so young an age he hadn't been aware she was learning: fighting fear by cursing as vehemently as possible, in as many languages as possible. Normally it worked, and it seemed to be working now.
Then she heard Hollis scream.
She grabbed for her communicator with her left hand and the phaser with her right. They had fanned out like the fingers of a spread hand, Hollis the closest to her, probably no more than a couple hundred meters away on the other side of the long rock formation to her right. "Hollis? What's wrong? Hollis?" There was no response, just the eternal crackle of static. She flipped through the communicator codes for the others and had no better luck. Thrusting the communicator back onto its clip on her belt, she began scrambling up the rocks to close the distance between herself and Hollis. It took her several minutes to scale the rocks and come down the other side, fighting the wind every step of the way. Once she had reached the crest, she slowed her pace a little so that she could keep a tighter hold on the phaser. The wind covered the sound of her movements. When she had reached level ground again and began moving in the direction Hollis had taken, she had reason to be grateful for the cover of the wind.
Hollis was some twenty meters away, flat on his back on the ground, unmoving. Standing over him, showing little effect from the biting cold and the foul atmosphere were the three stranded explorers the landing party had come to rescue, each armed with a disruptor and a ceremonial blade.
Klingon warriors.
"Oh, shit," Jaeger said.
*****
"Helm, report."
Hennessy glanced at the readouts and said over his shoulder to Kirk, "Maintaining stable orbit, sir. Altitude one thousand kilometers."
Kirk nodded. "Uhura, anything from the shuttle?"
"Nothing, Captain. Just static." Uhura tapped out a medley on the buttons on her console. "Still receiving the distress beacon, sir. It's grown a bit fainter from the interference, but still maintaining one complete signal every ten seconds."
"Keep tracking," Kirk said. "Keep trying to find the shuttle; I don't want to lose them."
"Yes, Captain."
Kirk's hands tightened rhythmically on the armrests of the command chair. Twenty-three years? he thought. Have I been doing this for twenty-three years? A sour taste began to rise in his mouth, and he reached for the cup of coffee he'd brought up with him from the officer's mess some hours ago. It was long since cold, but he gulped some of it down anyway, grimacing at the taste. He'd forgotten when he'd had his last solid meal--it seemed like days ago. He looked around the bridge, frustrated by the lack of something constructive for him to do, and thumbed the "record" button on his console. "Captain's Log, Stardate 8771.9," he dictated quietly. "We still have not regained contact with the shuttle Galileo..."
At the weapons board, Pavel Chekov turned a little. His expression was a dour reminder to Kirk of Chekov's vested interest in the safe return of the landing party. "Sir?" Chekov said. "Permission to take the science station?" The captain had barely nodded his assent when Chekov rose from the weapons station and crossed the bridge to Spock's chair in a half-dozen steps. Sliding into the seat, Chekov began activating sensor probes. Most of the readouts were gibberish, fouled by the interference of the ion storm. He muttered a breathy Russian curse, tapped some more buttons, tried an alternate system. On the other side of the bridge, Uhura flinched from the increasing pitch of static in her earphone. She and Chekov exchanged mutually frustrated looks.
"Anything?" Kirk asked.
"Garbage, sir," Chekov replied. He tried cutting into another computer circuit and got a shower of flashing lights on the board. "The storm is interfering with computer circuits, Captain."
Kirk's grip tightened on the armrests. "Communications?"
"Nothing, sir," Uhura murmured.
The bridge seemed too silent again, in spite of the faintly audible crackle from Uhura's phones and the whispered sound of continued Russian oaths from Chekov. The main viewer displayed the same picture for over half an hour: the churning clouds covering the surface of Duncan's Rock, an occasional flicker of lightning that from this altitude looked like a Terran firefly. Somewhere down there, Kirk thought frustratedly, was his shuttle. His people: Spock, Jaeger, Gibbs, Hollis, Cooper. He'd no choice but to send them; he was painfully aware of the long-standing Starfleet regulation that no distress signal was ever to be ignored. So the shuttle had gone, half an hour ago, down into that ion-charged soup. Sensors fouled, visuals almost non-existent. Twenty-three years of this, Kirk thought.
"Sir!" Chekov erupted.
Kirk shot upright in his chair and swiveled to face Chekov. "What is it?"
"Klingons, sir!" Chekov shouted. "The computer has identified the source of the distress beacon. It's a Klingon scout ship down there."
"Damn," Kirk spat. "The shuttle? Where's the shuttle?"
Uhura's shoulders sagged. "Can't find them, Captain. Nothing on any frequency."
"Find them!" Kirk shot to his feet, although he had nothing to do either sitting or standing. All systems were being capably manned, all frequencies being monitored, everything being done that could be done. His fists were clenched so tightly that his fingernails bit deep ridges into his palms. His people were out there somewhere, heading right into a Klingon trap. Spock and four kids. "Find them!" Kirk snapped. "And get them back here!"
*****
If she had been aware of how little time actually passed while she was huddled in the shelter of the rocks, Jaeger would have been amazed at how much had gone through her mind. Starfleet regulations, the captain's standing orders, war games, practice drills, training sessions, classes at the Academy. Textbooks, rulebooks, training manuals, library tapes, long hours of instruction from everyone in authority who had ever crossed her path. What was in front of her now seemed to boil down into what her teachers liked to call a scenario.
And the question is, Jaeger, she thought, what do you do now?
The three in the clearing were arguing among themselves. Over what, she was unable to determine; the howling wind and her rusty memory of Klingonese allowed her to translate only bits of what was being shouted out in the open. It had something to do with Hollis and "the other one" (Gibbs? she wondered). Carefully, Jaeger brought the phaser up in front of her and considered her options. If she remained hidden, she was unable to take a clear shot at any one of the Klingons with the phaser on narrow beam. On wide field, she was likely to get Hollis along with the Klingons. All three of them were armed, and if she moved out of cover, they were likely to target her with disruptor fire before she had eliminated more than one of them-- leaving Hollis still vulnerable.
It occurred to her that the reason she and Hollis and the others were here was to rescue whoever had sent the distress call. Certainly that had been the Klingons. Rescue? she thought. The regulations called for immediate response to distress calls, but she was unable to remember any subsection dealing with rescue of the enemy.
The enemy...
In fact, a handful of Kh'myr Klingons had murdered James Kirk's son on the Genesis planet simply to exercise their own sense of superiority. Chekov had described the incident for her one night in the dark, and in her mind's eye she could see Kirk sliding out of the command chair onto the floor, stricken with rage, and grief, and pain. Someone in the mire of Starfleet records-keeping still maintained a list of casualties caused by encounters with the Klingon Empire; it went on to the point of being numbing, in spite of the much-heralded Organian Peace Treaty. There was no declared war between the Federation and the Klingons, but that was not to say that there were no battles. They were a people driven by hate, it seemed. Loving nothing so much as the victory, the kill, the destruction of the enemy.
And Klingons have no mercy no mercy no mercy.
Abruptly, one of the Klingons reached down and hauled Hollis to his feet. Hollis seemed to be regaining consciousness, and struggled feebly against the much stronger grip of the Klingon. The three warriors exchanged more heated words. The one holding Hollis dangled him easily from one hand, studying the young man as he might some sort of biological specimen. He tossed his head, laughed loudly and raucously, and then, in a movement so swift that Jaeger never saw it happen, brought his ceremonial blade up, thrust it in, and brought it back down. He dropped Hollis to the ground and withdrew the blade easily, wiped it on the sleeve of his uniform, threw back his head, and resumed laughing.
Jaeger's mouth lolled open. Her stomach rolled over slowly, and she was forced to swallow hard several times to keep anything from coming up.
"Evaluate," she heard one of her Academy instructors droning inside her head. Johnson? Yes. He'd been fond of comparing battle to football games. "Evaluate. Size up your situation. Then take the ball and run with it."
If nothing else, Gretchen Jaeger had been an excellent student. In the space of a few seconds, she sized up her situation, seized the ball, and ran like hell with it.
The three Klingon warriors barely knew what was happening. In the midst of quarreling over what to do with their captive (a moot question now that his entrails were spilling out onto the ground), they had made the mistake of assuming that there were no more Federation people nearby. Now, seemingly from out of nowhere, another of the puny Starfleet people had exploded into their midst. They were scrambling for cover and drawing disruptors when phaser fire cut down one of them. The other two dove behind rocks and shouted to each other. Jaeger, coming out of the furious roll with which she had thrown herself across the clearing, took shelter a short distance away.
Something was wrong with her phaser; despite its "heavy stun" setting, which should have done no more than jolt the Klingon off his feet, the single shot had blasted him into infinity--and with more intensity than Jaeger had ever seen come from a hand phaser. Heart throbbing furiously, she brought the phaser closer to her face to examine the settings, and her eyes widened in horror. Almost inaudibly because of the shrill of the wind, the phaser was bleeping rhythmically in sync with the tiny amber "OVERLOAD" light set into the grip. More instructions popped into her head from the week-long training session intended to make the cadets as familiar with phasers as they were with their own hands. Jammed with safety features, the little phasers didn't often malfunction, but when they did, and the "OVERLOAD" warning appeared, there was only one option open to the weapon's owner: get rid of it, and do it fast.
Rolling onto her side, Jaeger curled her arm and gave the phaser a beautiful, powerful toss out and away. Three seconds later, it plopped to the ground alongside the Klingon who had murdered Will Hollis. Frowning, the Klingon reached out, seized the tiny weapon and drew it closer to examine it. He had no time to notice the bleeping of the flashing amber light. Twelve seconds after Jaeger had jettisoned the phaser, it reached critical overload and exploded. Two seconds after that, all that remained of the phaser were needle-sized shards of metal. Not much more remained of the Klingon.
The last of the Klingons bellowed a horrible, echoing curse in his guttural native dialect. Nothing answered him but the howl of the wind. Furious, but struggling to maintain what was left of his warrior's dignity, he shifted into a squat behind his pile of rocks and abandoned his Klingonese for a heavily accented version of English.
"Come out!" he yelled across the clearing.
Only one word came back. "Bastard!"
The Klingon rocked onto his heels. Female? The cause of all this trouble was a female? Never mind, he told himself; she would be unarmed now...or so he hoped. Creeping slowly to one side to allow himself somewhat of a clear shot, he brought his disruptor up to shoulder level and fired toward the mound of rocks behind which Jaeger had taken shelter. Chunks of rock exploded into the air, flickering with sparks. There was no movement visible. The Klingon began to smile as he drew himself to his feet and strode across the clearing, rounded the rockpile and pointed the disruptor at Jaeger. As he had suspected, she had no other weapon. It was just like the simple-minded Starfleet people to depend on a single phaser! "Come out of there," he said, consumed with amusement.
Jaeger glared up at him. "You murdering Klingon son of a bitch."
He knew more than enough colloquial English to understand the meaning of her words. One female, he thought, and such a small one at that. "I said come out of there."
She climbed to her feet just slowly enough to demonstrate that she was not pleased with the situation. "Murderer," she snapped.
He was a full half meter taller than she, and was at least double her weight, but he could tell he had a job on his hands convincing her who was now in charge here. There was rage in her eyes when he reached out, took hold of her thermal coat just below her chin, and hoisted her into the air so that they were face to face.
Her face drained of color. "We came here to help you."
The Klingon began to laugh.
She wanted to struggle, try to set herself free, but knew that was what he expected, so she hung limp and weighty from the end of his arm. "You had no reason to kill him."
"You are the enemy. That was all the reason we needed."
"We came to help you!" she snapped into his face.
"Unfortunate." The Klingon glanced around. "Your ship is nearby, and in good condition, or you would not bother coming to find us, in spite of your...good intentions. So, little one, I have no need of you or your comrades. I'm sure I will be quite capable of piloting your craft out of here without your help. I would rather have had Kragan and Kurlon to accompany me, but," he shrugged, "fate seems to have had other plans for them." He grinned again. She was fuming so hard behind the breathing mask that it had begun to fog up. "Rest assured that when I reach home, I will let everyone know that the Federation came to rescue us from this lovely place. I'm sure my friends will find that most amusing." He moved his hand slightly, letting her sway back and forth like a child's toy. "I hate to dispose of you," he mused. "You would make a most interesting captive."
Her eyebrows came down so low that they sank into the top rim of the breathing mask. "I'd rather die."
"Fine," said the Klingon.
"I thought you people don't take prisoners."
"Most of the time, no. It's not worth the trouble. But in certain cases..." He chuckled softly. "You could serve to amuse me during the journey home. But since you're not interested, I'll send you to join your two comrades."
"Two?" Jaeger murmured.
"Yes. That one," he jerked his head in the direction of Hollis's corpse, "and the one who argued with Kurlon's disruptor." He studied her expression. "You didn't know about him? He's gone, little one."
She was beginning to quiver involuntarily in his grip, though it was half because his clench on her coat collar was squeezing her windpipe. They spent a long moment examining each other across the narrow space between their faces. She felt oddly detached, as if this were yet another Academy scenario (they had acted out dozens of them, with other students dressed as Klingons), somehow unconvinced that her life would end here, as Hollis's had, yet unsure why she was not afraid.
Several seconds had ticked by when she caught sight of movement over the Klingon's left shoulder. "Let me go," she croaked. He frowned but said nothing. "I said let me go!" she sputtered. He grinned widely, unaware of what had caught her attention behind him.
Before he could react, in a move to rival anything she had ever accomplished on the handball court, she brought her legs up and in, slammed the soles of her feet against the Klingon's midriff, and tucked herself into a roll as his grip on her coat was snapped loose.
As she hit the ground a couple of meters away, she heard the whine of a phaser and the Klingon's abbreviated scream of protest. Her vision blurred for an instant; when it had cleared, Spock was bending over her moving silently and rapidly.
Until she felt his touch, she had been unaware that in pulling away from the Klingon, she had broken the strap on the breathing apparatus. She lay still, holding her breath as much as possible while Spock finished repairing the damage. She remembered Hollis's comparison: the air did smell something like a bonfire of rotten eggs, and her stomach churned from the sharp lungful she had inhaled when she hit the ground.
"Are you all right, Lieutenant?" Spock asked finally.
She coughed spastically. The fresh air coming through the breathing mask didn't seem to do much to clear her offended lungs. "I think so," she wheezed.
With a firm hand on her upper arm, Spock hoisted her to her feet, keeping hold of her until he was sure she wasn't likely to topple over. Tom Cooper stood a few feet away, alternately watching his shipmates and the tortured figure of the Klingon. The enemy warrior's body was convulsing, surrounded by a flickering, sparking aura of eerie greenish light. He was obviously dead, yet continued jerking on the ground like a beached fish. Jaeger peered down at him, then looked curiously at Spock. "His molecular structure has begun to dissolve," the Vulcan said dispassionately.
"But your phaser was set on stun," Cooper pointed out.
"Indeed," Spock replied. "The ionization in the atmosphere caused the phaser to malfunction."
"Mine overloaded," Jaeger told him. "Took two of them with it."
Spock examined his phaser briefly, checking for signs of overload. Clipping the weapon back onto the belt of his jacket, he asked Jaeger, "Then this was the last of them?"
"Yes, sir. There were just the three--that I know of."
Cooper was looking around, frowning. "We'd better find Gibbs."
"They got him," Jaeger said quietly.
"When?"
"Before they..." Her eyes went to Hollis. Some of the blood soaking his coat had dried in the wind. His right fist was clenched in a final, futile protest. Jaeger's vision misted over. "Before they...oh, God, Hollis." She looked plaintively at Cooper, then at Spock. "I was too late, Mister Spock."
He nodded solemnly. "We were all too late, Lieutenant. But we have all done everything we can do. I believe we should try to return to the Enterprise."
*****
"Sensors picking up something, sir," Chekov said. "Unidentified."
"Hailing frequencies open, Captain. No contact with the vessel." Uhura tapped on her keyboard, the fingers of her other hand resting lightly on her earphone. She had been listening to static for so long that the sound began to seem natural.
Kirk's fist clenched and opened. "Go to yellow alert."
"Yellow alert, sir," Uhura confirmed.
Chekov went on urgently tapping instructions into the computer relay. His reaction to the relentless static in his ears and flickering through the computer screens was opposite that of Uhura; it was more than he could stand, and he felt a wicked urge to pull up the board and begin ripping out circuitry modules and fiber optics just to silence the noise. He tried feeding the shuttle's specifications into the computer and asking it to verify whether the approaching blip met the same specs, but the computer insisted in its inscrutable green on black readout, "INSUFFICIENT DATA".
"Come on, come on," Chekov muttered, switching tacks and scanning the planetoid's surface for large metallic objects. "Don't tell me 'insufficient data', machine. Tell me where the shuttle is, and tell me now."
Kirk was watching his lack of progress. "Visual on the vessel, Mister Hennessy."
"Aye, Captain." Hennessy set the main viewer to pick up visual scan of the area around the blip, filling the screen with the gray-brown image of the planetoid peppered with static. "Nothing yet, sir," Hennessy said quietly, adjusting the controls to augment the image slightly. An interminable couple of minutes went by, then, at last, a tiny, wobbling object appeared near the center of the screen. "There, sir!" Hennessy exclaimed.
"Full magnification," Kirk told him.
Hennessy touched the zoom controls. Approaching the Enterprise on an increasingly ragged course was the Galileo. "Sir?" Hennessy said. "It doesn't look like they know where they're going."
"It may not be the landing party," Kirk said through his teeth. "Uhura, keep trying to raise them."
"Galileo, this is Enterprise," Uhura said softly but urgently into the mike. "Galileo, this is the Enterprise, do you read? What is your status, Galileo? Come in."
Chekov stopped playing with the computer and alternated watching Uhura and the main viewer. Most of the color had drained from his face. Kirk's words had stricken him; was it possible the Klingons had overcome the landing party and taken the shuttlecraft for their own? He doubted they'd be stupid enough to take on the full crew of the Enterprise, even if they were heavily armed. On the other hand, the shuttle had insufficient power for them to head anywhere else.
"Collision course, Captain," announced Hennessy.
"Homing beacon," Kirk instructed. "Full power. Turn on all the docking lights. Whatever you can do to guide them in."
Uhura said soberly, "No answer from the shuttle, sir."
"Keep trying."
They watched for another urgent moment while the Galileo bobbed closer, looking like nothing so much as an amusement park ride. The tiny shuttle's stabilizers seemed to be gone; that, or it was being driven by a very drunken pilot. "Gretchen?" Chekov whispered. His thoughts bounced between wanting it to be her (and not hostile aliens) and wanting it not to be her (for on her worst days she would never pilot the shuttle so badly). He began to rise from the science station seat, moving unconsciously closer to the viewscreen. "Sir," he said sickly, "they're out of control. We've got to do something. They're going to hit us."
"Tractor beam," Kirk said to Hennessy. "Haul them in here."
Hennessy programmed the information into his board and touched controls. "Tractor beam locked on, sir."
Kirk was out of his seat now, too, moving toward the turbolift doors. Over his shoulder, he said to Uhura, "Full security detail to the shuttle bay. Phasers on stun. Go to red alert... until we find out who's on that shuttle. And have Doctor McCoy meet me outside the landing bay. On the double."
*****
Surrounding the shuttle were six security officers, all crouched with phasers aimed at the doorway of the shuttlecraft. When Spock stepped into the doorway, brows hiked in surprise, they held their position, but all looked to Kirk for instructions. Kirk said nothing for a long, heavy moment: he was staring at the front of Spock's thermal coat, which was soaked through with blood: red, not green.
"What happened, Spock?" Kirk asked tersely.
"The distress signal was from a Klingon scout vessel." Stepping off the ramp, Spock beckoned McCoy to go inside. "I believe that Lieutenant Jaeger needs your attention, Doctor. Her breathing apparatus was torn off briefly." To Kirk, he added somberly, "Gibbs and Hollis are dead, Captain."
"How?"
"Gibbs from disruptor fire, I believe. Hollis is inside."
McCoy--with Chekov two steps ahead of him--had already gone into the shuttle. He had glanced at Hollis's body just long enough to assure himself that the young man was beyond any help he could offer, then had joined Chekov at Jaeger's side. Chekov was holding Jaeger's hand, talking to her softly, enormously relieved although her pasty expression should have done little to reassure him that she was all right. With one eye on the doorway as Kirk entered the shuttle, McCoy ran his mediscanner in front of Jaeger and made mental notes of the readings it produced. Chekov looked at him hopefully.
"She'll be all right," McCoy said, straightening up. "Lieutenant, can you walk on your own?"
Jaeger nodded, stood up, and swayed alarmingly. Chekov seized her by the arm. "I guess not," she said to McCoy, trying for a smile.
"Take her to Sickbay," the doctor told Chekov.
Spock had placed Hollis's body stretched out in the rear of the shuttle, where it occupied most of the available empty floor space between the bulkhead and the crew seats. The security officer's eyes were closed, but even so his face left little doubt as to what kind of pain he had been in when he died. His jaw was contorted; his fair, whiskerless cheeks were drawn back as if he had been trying to scream. The thermal coat bulged open from the slice the Klingon dagger had made, although Spock had tried to press it closed to cover the enormous wound underneath. Kirk stood over the boy, wedged between the crew seats, gazing down at the body with something unreadable spread across his face. The air in the shuttle was tangy with traces of cyanoalisitate and the smell of Hollis's blood.
"Jim?" McCoy ventured quietly.
The captain turned to him, his expression still enigmatic but with a severity in his eyes that startled McCoy. His glance went past McCoy to Spock and to Cooper, standing near the front of the shuttle, waiting for orders. Kirk's fingers moved a little, then, abruptly, he snapped, "Report at oh-eight-hundred hours for debriefing," and strode out of the shuttle.
Cooper turned to Spock, his eyes full of questions. "Sir..."
"Dismissed, Ensign," was Spock's only response.
Chapter 2
McCoy shoved aside the stack of medical record tapes he had been working from, thumbed the intercom button and punched in the code for the bridge with a force that threatened to send the button through the console to the underside of his desk.
"Bridge. Commander Uhura."
"Uhura, where's the captain?" McCoy asked sharply.
The chief communications officer's voice had a strong thread of stress in it, too. "I don't know, Doctor. He hasn't been on the bridge for some time. Would you like me to --"
"No." McCoy thumbed the button again and tried the code for Kirk's quarters. This time there was no reply. Gritting his teeth, McCoy got up from his chair, and smacked his knee hard on the edge of the desk. The pain brought a couple of involuntary tears to his eyes. "God damn," he muttered, directing the oath at the wall beacon which had been flashing red alert for the last two hours. Favoring the injured knee, McCoy strode to the wall and examined the intercom with a rising fury, trying to decide if dismantling the unit was more than a five-minute project. Zapping the infernal thing with a phaser would be a lot faster, he thought.
The door to the main corridor hummed open, and Spock stepped into McCoy's office, frowning when he noticed the doctor moving toward the wall speaker with a slender medical instrument in his hand. "Are you planning to stab it to death, Doctor?" he inquired.
McCoy wheeled. "Damn it, Spock," he began. Over the last half hour he had perfected the art of talking through clenched teeth, and had to make a conscious effort now to unclench them. "Jim canceled the alert almost two hours ago. We got out of the ion storm almost that long ago. How long is it going to take to silence this thing? Or are they testing me? They want to find out how much of this it takes to drive me into a homicidal frenzy."
"I doubt that anyone has you singled out, Doctor," Spock replied mildly. "The alarm goes to every part of the ship."
"I know. I checked."
"The maintenance team is working as quickly as possible."
"That's what they always tell you," McCoy hissed. "They're 'working on it'."
"Do you have reason to doubt them?"
McCoy opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it. Twenty-one years of practice had taught him that volleying with Spock was usually pointless, and, at the moment, his nervous system was far too frayed for him to enjoy the effort. "No," he sighed. "I don't."
The Vulcan nodded. "How is Lieutenant Jaeger?"
"I released her into Chekov's care. He was driving me crazy, too, with his hovering." McCoy sank into his chair and rubbed gingerly at his knee. "She seems to be recovering. I don't think she got enough cyanoalisitate to do any permanent damage, although she's going to have a hell of a headache for a while." He nodded at the empty bed. "I told her to rest--although how anyone could rest in all this racket is beyond me."
Hands clasped behind his back, Spock leaned toward the desk to scan the information on the viewer. It was a report on the effects of cyanoalisitate on Human life forms. "Interesting. If you don't mind, Doctor, I should like to review this information later myself."
"Do it now, if you want. I can't concentrate."
"Later will be fine." Spock paused, straightened up and moved away from the desk a pace or two. McCoy peered at him curiously. "I am concerned about the captain."
"Join the club."
"He seems to be taking Hollis and Gibbs's deaths much too seriously."
McCoy switched off the viewer and sat back in his chair. "I know."
"I haven't seen him quite this...preoccupied in some time."
"You're not going to quote me a precise number of months, days and hours?" McCoy asked perversely. Spock lifted a brow in response but said nothing. The doctor went on, "He's been...all right, 'preoccupied' for a few weeks. I don't see any reason for it. Nothing's changed. It's been over three years since the trouble on Nimbus Three. He's gotten over his problem with you--fine. Now, he seems to be getting worse. When I ask him about it, he either ignores me or laughs it off. I don't like it, Spock. I don't like it a damn bit. We're supposed to meet with the Citizen's High Council of Dianas tomorrow, and he isn't...well, let's say he doesn't represent Starfleet in its best light."
Spock asked, "There's nothing medically wrong with him?"
"Not a thing. Those handball matches with Jaeger have whipped him into shape. Physically, he's fine."
"I believe we should talk with him."
McCoy considered the suggestion for a long moment. He didn't begin to think they'd have any sort of success; his attempts in the past to get Kirk to discuss an emotional problem had usually resulted in arguments, denials and bad feelings on both sides. But, he reminded himself, it was his duty to supervise Kirk's emotional health, no matter how difficult that might be or how much Kirk resisted it. Nodding, he got up from the desk. "All we have to do is find him. Nobody's seen him for over an hour."
"I know where to find him," Spock said.
"Oh, you do?"
"Of course, Doctor. The captain would not leave the bridge without informing someone of his whereabouts. He is depressed, not irresponsible."
McCoy countered, "Well, it was nice of you to share the information."
"He wished to be alone. I respected that wish. Informing the crew of his whereabouts would not have served to accomplish anything, in either event."
Why can't I ever win an argument? McCoy wondered, ushering Spock toward the door, then amended the thought, No, I don't want to win. Don't care if I win. I just want to come out of one of these discussions feeling like what I've said makes some sense.
*****
*****
Jim Kirk sat alone in the officers' lounge, two levels below the bridge in the Enterprise's eleven deck saucer section. He was slouched in one of the softly cushioned chairs, his legs stretched out straight in front of him, his arms folded over his midriff. In front of him, just out of reach, was the fifteen-meter-wide viewing port, and beyond the glass, the glittering blackness of space. He watched star trails stream by for a long time, his mind largely empty though there was an aching heaviness inside him. All the artificial lights in the room were out, leaving the lounge in almost total darkness.
His eyelids began to feel heavy after a while, but he resisted giving himself up to sleep. Every time he closed his eyes he could see Hollis's face floating in front of him. Light brown, fuzzy hair, bright blue eyes, a crooked scar over his left eyebrow that he'd never bothered to have removed. He was a gregarious kid, funny, the first one to liven up a gathering on the rec deck. Kirk remembered seeing him one evening not long ago, loudly leading an off-key rendition of "Happy Birthday" for some fellow crew member around an obviously hand-fashioned birthday cake. That faded into the memory of two hours ago. The look on the boy's face--he had died in inconceivable pain. Soon Kirk would have to perform that least pleasant of all commander's duties: sitting at the BellComm terminal in his quarters and sending a commpic to be forwarded to the boy's family. A few words about how brave their son had been, how he had died gallantly protecting the galaxy from...what? A handful of stranded Klingons? Kirk rubbed fiercely at his temples.
Things could have been different, he thought. I could have saved Edith. Could have stayed back there with her. He shut his eyes and tried conjuring up her face instead of Hollis'. They'd had such a short time together, just a few days--but there had been so much caring, so much emotion in that little time. She didn't have to die! he thought. So what if it changed the future? There are so many alternate futures. One lost wouldn't make that much difference.
He used that argument with himself more often lately: that he could have made a life back there, with Edith. A home, children, a solid, regular existence that didn't involve sending someone else's children to their deaths. Occasionally, it occurred to him that even when he had had a home on Earth, he had not been happy, but he ignored that train of thought. At one point, he even wondered how it had happened that he had fallen so completely in love with Edith Keeler over the course of a few weeks--love enough that she had haunted his memory for twenty years. What do I want? he asked himself. He sat forward in the chair, leaning his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his fists. Her? Do I really want her back? Want to be back there with her? Something Spock had said when they were battling the entity that called itself V'Ger came back to him: "It knows only that it needs. And like most of us, it does not know what." Pain throbbed at the back of Kirk's head. So tell me, James T. Kirk, he thought. What is it that you want? What do you need?
Something, he thought. Something more than this.
"Damn," he murmured.
He'd had high hopes a month ago, when they'd picked up a passenger at the Prothos colony, a Starfleet specialist bound for a year's tour of duty on Dianas. Peter, his nephew, the only surviving son of his brother Sam and Aurelan Kirk, one of the few living relatives Kirk had left. The captain, barely restraining a broad grin, had dashed from the bridge down to the hangar deck to greet his guest, anticipating a month of good times before Peter's service on Dianas began...and was met by a stranger. The young man who stepped out of the Federation shuttle and faced James Kirk was most decidedly not the child Sam and Aurelan had borne. He was stiff, unfriendly and unwilling to acknowledge his uncle in any way that was not demanded by the elder Kirk's rank. Dislike emanated from every square inch of him. Jim Kirk had been startled, then puzzled, then hurt, then angry, and, after a single day of trying to penetrate his nephew's defenses, had walked away from the boy and left him in the hands of the science department. McCoy had questioned both Peter's coldness and Kirk's reaction, but neither offered the doctor any explanations. In the ensuing month, uncle and nephew had not spoken a single word to each other.
Something more than that, Kirk thought. I need something more than that. Someone more. Someone I don't need to leave behind.
He stared out the viewport at the flickering vista of stars. This is what I chose! No home, no family. This. He'd lamented once, long ago, about not having a beach to walk on. Beach? he thought. No solid ground at all. And I picked it. A sigh welled up inside him, and he didn't try to hold it back. Swell choice, Jim! You'll be old and doddering, and there you'll be, on the bridge, till they have to haul you out of there because you can't handle it any more. Unless you reach the point where you can't handle it anymore before you get old and doddering. He smiled wryly to himself. Then what would you have? he thought. Less than what you have now...
The lounge door opened, but Kirk avoided turning his head.
"Private party?" McCoy asked.
Kirk said stiffly, "Yes."
Spock and McCoy crossed the room to stand near Kirk's chair. He could barely hear their footsteps, cushioned by the heavy pile carpet. A minute ticked by, weighty with silence.
"Spock," McCoy said finally. "It's quiet in here."
"Yes," Spock agreed.
The doctor persisted, "I mean, you can't hear the damn klaxon in here."
"Of course not. I disconnected the circuit to this room."
"Why?"
Another beat of silence. Kirk could imagine the look Spock was giving the medical officer: that same look he had every time he felt himself wasting time giving obvious information to the unenlightened.
"So that it would be quiet in here," Spock replied evenly.
McCoy shot back, "Well, thanks a lot. That was thoughtful of you."
"You're quite welcome, Doctor."
"Gentlemen," Kirk said softly.
"Captain?" Spock inquired.
"Get out."
"We came here to talk," McCoy said.
"I don't want to talk. If you two want to talk, be my guest, but do it somewhere else. This is a big ship."
McCoy looked around as his eyes became accustomed to the dim light. He could hear nothing save the sound of their breathing. Funny, he mused, I never noticed it could be this quiet in here. He rested his hands on the back of an empty chair. Kirk was still staring out the viewport.
"Jim," McCoy said, "that boy's death wasn't your fault." Kirk said nothing, didn't even stir, so McCoy plunged gamely ahead. "Or Spock's, or anybody else's. It just happened." He waited. Still no reply. "It was a risky mission, Jim. He knew that. They all know it. This is no church picnic we're on. You don't sign on with Starfleet if you enjoy being safe and cozy. It's a risk--every day, every minute." He glanced at Spock.
The Vulcan was watching him curiously, not contributing, not interfering, just listening.
Somehow McCoy found that annoying. "We've lost personnel before. God knows, we'll probably lose more. But you can't blame yourself for it. That's not realistic, Jim."
"Are you through?" Kirk asked.
"No, damn it, I'm not through. Take this for what it is, Jim. It's the same thing every commander has gone through for thousands of years. You have to make the decisions. Sometimes you don't like the results. But there was no other way. You had to respond to that distress call, no matter who sent it, or where it came from. That's your duty."
Kirk stiffened a little in the chair. "Don't tell me what my duty is. I know what my duty is."
"Then either live with it, or resign. Those are your options."
There was another long moment of silence. Then Kirk got up from the chair, moving slowly, and stood with his back to the viewport so that his face was practically invisible to Spock and McCoy. "If you want to remove me from command," he said stonily, "then do so. Otherwise, keep the lectures to yourself. I don't need any lectures. I know what my job is, and I'm trying to do it. Now get out of here, and leave me alone."
I knew it, McCoy thought. "All right...Captain."
McCoy stalked out of the lounge, not looking to see whether Spock would follow. The door hummed open to allow him to pass and hummed shut behind him. Spock stayed where he was, his face impassive, his arms hanging easily at his sides.
"Well?" Kirk said hotly.
"I did not come here to talk. Only to listen."
Kirk studied his friend briefly, his face chiseled with a furious frown that gradually slid away and left nothing in its place. Then he began to pace back and forth in front of the viewport, his hands clenched, his shoulders so stiff that they would ache for hours afterward, his breath coming in and out startlingly loud in the hush of the dark lounge. He stopped pacing intermittently to look at Spock. The Vulcan changed neither posture nor expression as the minutes passed; if need be, he could stand frozen for several hours, though he seldom found occasion to try. He just waited until James Kirk was ready to unleash the emotion building up inside him.
Fully twenty minutes passed before Kirk finally spoke. "How would you feel, Spock, if you went through your life and after fifty-four years all you had left of your family was my nephew, Peter?"
"I'm afraid I don't see your point," Spock replied.
"I've lost both parents, my brother and sister-in-law. My son. I have no wife, no children left. My uncle passed away last year. My cousins don't speak to me, neither do Georgie or Marcus. All I really have left is Peter."
"You find that to be a problem?"
"He hates me."
"Your nephew," Spock pointed out, "hates every living being he has encountered in this galaxy. Including, I might add, himself." He shifted position slightly, moving to gaze out the viewport at the retreating stars. "There is some fault in your logic, though. Unless you refer specifically to blood relations, I believe you tend to regard Doctor McCoy and myself as family. You have expressed that opinion on several occasions." He turned to the captain. "You are not alone, Jim."
Kirk sighed. "I'm not so sure."
"In a sense, the entire crew of the Enterprise is your family," Spock went on. "Perhaps that is what is causing the difficulty? You feel too strongly about..."
"How many have I lost, Spock? Since I got command of the Enterprise-A?"
"Seventeen," Spock replied.
"Seventeen? Seventeen people in three years? Jesus!"
"Actually, Captain, that is an extremely low ratio. Not even including the Kelvan War, there are several current ranking officers in Starfleet who have lost a majority of the people under their command. Of course, it would depend upon the particular circumstances. Captain Esteban of the Grissom lost his entire crew--and himself--but I doubt anyone in the fleet claims that it was his fault."
Kirk began pacing again. "I owe them something, Spock. These kids look to me for...to do the right thing, make the right decision. They depend on me. Why is it my right to sit on the bridge like some king on a throne, and send these kids out into God knows what?"
Spock cut him off. "I have not found it your habit to 'just sit on the bridge'. In fact, over the years, I believe you have stepped into far more dangerous situations that you should have." He moved in front of Kirk so that the captain would be forced to stop pacing. "To follow your present line of thought--is it your opinion that when the need for a landing party arises, we should choose that landing party only from among those senior officers who volunteer to take part? And leave the young people here on the ship? If the landing party were killed, the crew would have no leadership. As I believe Doctor McCoy would express it, they would be 'afloat without a paddle'. As unfair as it may seem, this crew, any crew, needs a commander. And as the doctor attempted to point out, they are not children. They are highly trained military personnel. They all knew what was involved when they received their commissions. They do not expect this to be a 'church picnic'."
"I know, Spock. I know."
"There is a burden, Jim," Spock acknowledged quietly. "But do not let it overwhelm you."
A smile grew in Kirk's face. "I thought you didn't come here to talk."
"The opportunity presented itself."
"Indeed."
If Spock had been more than half Human, he would have smiled in return. As it was, he felt the gentle impulse inside him and, as usual, pushed it aside. He considered Kirk briefly and came to the conclusion that their conversation was over and that he had accomplished a good deal more than McCoy had. Knowing that Kirk would not be distressed by the Vulcan habit of walking away without a good-bye once a conversation was over (after so many years, he was still infinitely puzzled by the Human need for punctuation of situations that had resolved themselves), he simply turned then and left the room.
Kirk watched him go. "There is a burden," he said softly. "The question is, Spock, how long am I supposed to carry it?"
*****
Chekov took a final critical look at the contents of the cafeteria tray as he approached the door to his and Jaeger's cabin. Medical orders be damned; he'd take the things he knew she couldn't resist: French toast with plenty of syrup, scrambled eggs, bacon, melon and hot, sweet coffee. The mixed aromas had beguiled him all the way from the mess hall even though he'd already had his own breakfast. He'd gone up to the mess hall for his usual spartan bowl of hot cereal so that she could sleep a while longer rather than hear him clanking around the in-room food processor unit. Halfway through his meal, it had occurred to him that nothing was as likely to cheer her up as the most enormous, non-nutritious, smelly tray full he could create. He'd even considered trying to cook some of it himself in the galley, without the aid of the computer, but decided that would have taken far too long...and might have produced a disaster. A very blackened disaster.
"Gretchen?" he said when the cabin door slid open. "I've brought you some breakfast." He moved into the room far enough to catch sight of her, and stopped. When he'd left half an hour ago, she'd been sound asleep (or at least seemed to be), huddled under the bedcovers with her pillow balled under her head. Now she was standing in front of the dresser, in full uniform, brushing her hair. Smiling brightly, she turned to him, saw the tray, and sniffed at the air.
"Thanks!" she chirped. "Smells great."
"What are you doing?" he asked dourly.
She put the brush down, took the tray from him and set it on the desktop. "I have to go to the debriefing."
"And then what?"
"I'm going on duty. It's my watch."
"Not until Doctor McCoy says you're fit."
"I'm fit. I talked to him." She went on talking as she cut into the French toast and nibbled at slices of bacon, half her words coming out around large mouthfuls of food. "He can't find any reason to find me not fit. He went through record tapes all night, and there's nothing to indicate that there should be anything wrong with me. I just have a wicked headache; that's all."
Chekov's dour look degenerated into a scowl. "He said the cyanoalisitate is a toxic substance which interferes with--"
"God, you sound like a textbook." Jaeger scooped up the rounded, brightly colored stone they used as a paperweight. It was a sample of a native mineral something like chalk, so that while it was nearly the size of a baseball, it was closer in weight to that baseball than a rock. "Here," she went on, tossing it lightly to Chekov. "Pitch it to me. Any time you're ready." He began to protest, but she waved him off. "Just throw it, and I'll see if I can catch it. No fumbles allowed." Chekov frowned at her, let a few seconds tick by, then tossed her the stone in a creditable underhand pitch. Jaeger's right hand shot out and she caught the paperweight easily in her palm. "See?" She put the stone back on the pile of reports it had been securing. "Now what would you like me to do? Walk a straight line?"
"Don't make fun of me, Gretchen."
"I'm not, baby, I'm not." She got up from the desk and went to him. He resisted her embrace for a moment, then softened. "I'm okay, Pav, really."
"I worry about you," he said, trying to sound angry.
"I know. I appreciate it. But I can't sit around here any more. It makes me think too much. I have to get back to work. There's no reason for me to stay in here, if there's nothing wrong with me." She kissed him soundly but quickly and went back to her breakfast. "This is great." He sat on the edge of the desk. She held out a slice of bacon. "Did you eat?"
"Yes." Even though it wasn't kosher, he took the bacon anyway. "It'll go away, you know."
"What will?"
"The nightmares."
Jaeger lowered her eyes but went on eating. "Nightmares?"
"Now you're going to lie to me and tell me you didn't have nightmares last night? You woke up three times."
"I didn't think you knew," she murmured.
"Of course I knew."
Head still low, she began prodding at the remains of the French toast with her fork. Chekov reached out and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder, surprised at the tension that had come into her muscles. "I can still see it, Pavel," she whispered. "Especially when I close my eyes. What they did to Hollis. And the Klingon--the look on his face while he was holding me." It hadn't occurred to her at the time, but once safely back on board the Enterprise, she had remembered some of the gossip about what happened to Klingon prisoners. Back at the Academy, during long summer nights around a bar table, the stories of Serenidad and Stradia had been spookily involving. Now they seemed closer to real nightmares. The Klingon had talked about taking her prisoner. In her dreams, her mind had conjured up scene after scene of what might have happened if he had done so. Shuddering, she raised her face so she could see Chekov's. "He wanted to...he wanted..."
"It didn't happen," Chekov said firmly. "And what did happen is over now."
"I don't know if I can forget it."
"You will."
"But you haven't..." she hesitated. "You still have dreams about the Ceti eel. You don't talk about it, but I know about your dreams, too."
He shrank back from her, repulsed by the memory. "Not as often," he muttered. The aroma from Jaeger's breakfast was beginning to turn his stomach.
The haunted look in his eyes made her forget the Klingon. She didn't know the entire story of the torture he'd endured at the hands of Khan Noonien Singh, but she had coaxed enough of the details out of the ship's computer to know Pavel Chekov had reason to be haunted. The idea of a tiny, larval creature crawling around inside your skull, seeking to curl itself into your brain... Jaeger was sorry she'd spoken. "Pavel," she said quietly. "I shouldn't have said anything. It was stupid and mean."
"It's all right," he said, but it was a lie.
She embraced him again, held him close and waited until his tension began to loosen. "I love you, Pavel. I love you so much."
"I love you, too."
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't...sometimes I talk without thinking."
"Everybody has their own bad memories," Chekov said. He forced a smile that almost succeeded at being genuine. "Are you done eating? We'd better go down to the briefing room."
"I'm done," she nodded. "I think I spoiled my own appetite."
He slid an arm around her shoulders and steered her out of the cabin. Neither of them spoke during the short walk down the corridor to the turbolift. "Level, please?" the computer voice said when they stepped into the lift. Chekov rolled his eyes a little; although he'd been around talking non-living things since he was a small boy, the computer voice in the lift still disoriented him, especially when he was preoccupied. "G Level," he said, feeling the familiar pang of embarrassment at talking to a wall. "Main Briefing Room." The car slid into motion, gliding rapidly sideways then down, depositing Chekov and Jaeger on G Deck within a matter of seconds. Jaeger stopped outside the door to the briefing room and carefully straightened her tunic. Chekov grinned widely. "Practicing to be a Vulcan?"
"What?" Jaeger frowned.
He shook his head. "Nothing."
He remembered the first time he'd seen her. It had been inside this room, over a year ago, on the occasion of her first briefing as a new member of the crew. Kirk had come down to give the seven women and four men his usual orientation speech; later would come the one-on-one getting-acquainted chat. None of them had met the captain before, and he inspired the same terror-stricken awe in all of them. For some reason he was still not certain of, Chekov, sitting across the table from her, had particularly noticed Jaeger. She was paying diligent attention to Kirk's every word as if she were trying to memorize the whole speech, her hands tightly clenched together on the tabletop, her face painfully expressionless. Chekov recalled feeling much the same way during his first orientation, but Kirk had been a lot younger then and much more of a hardass, demanding nothing less than the best from his crew and from himself. Relax! he wanted to tell the attractive, curly-haired lieutenant. This is easy! He won't bite you--tell him a joke, and he might even laugh.
But the lieutenant hadn't noticed him. The eyes of all eleven neos had never strayed from the captain's face. If Kirk hadn't been used to that, it might have made him flinch. He tried his damnedest to get the little group to relax, lightening his tone a bit, using a few subtle jokes of his own, but they had listened to too many epic sagas concerning Jim Kirk. They would all do their jobs, and do them well, but it would take them months to learn the meaning of the two simple words "at ease".
And she's still nervous, Chekov noted as Jaeger fussed with her uniform. After a minute, he prodded her in the shoulder. "Let's go, Lieutenant."
She started. "Sorry."
They went on into the briefing room. Spock was already there, sitting placidly at the long table, his hands folded. He nodded in acknowledgment when Chekov and Jaeger entered and sat together across the table from him. The captain's yeoman had come and gone ahead of Spock, leaving an urn of coffee and a plate of sweet pastries, both of which Spock had ignored. Under his even gaze, Jaeger ran herself a cup of coffee and seized one of the pastries and disposed of both with a speed that made Spock blink. Nervousness, he observed, made her eat even faster than normal--even though her usual pace would have caused rampant indigestion in anyone else. Spock had once heard McCoy observe that the young lieutenant could eat more and eat it faster than anyone he'd ever seen, and despite McCoy's love of hyperbole, this particular time Spock believed there was no exaggeration involved.
"Lieutenant," Spock said as Jaeger self-consciously and surreptitiously licked powdered sugar off her fingers, "you are not here to be punished."
"Sir?"
"This is merely a debriefing. I assume you know what that means."
"Yes, Mister Spock. We each tell the captain our version of what happened."
"Do you have some reason for believing you are at fault?"
Jaeger looked searchingly at Chekov, then at the tray of pastries, then at her fingers (there were still traces of sugar, but she resisted the urge to aim her fingers at her mouth again), then finally back at Spock. "Well, sir, I..." She sighed. "Yes, sir, I think I do."
"Why is that?"
"I didn't act quickly enough. To save Hollis."
"I see."
She shoved her hands under the table, holding them aloft so that the powdered sugar wouldn't rub off onto the lap of her uniform. Spock reached over to the small pile of napkins beside the coffee urn and handed one to Jaeger. Eyes down, she wiped her hands, than made a quick swipe around her mouth. If Spock thought there was anything wrong with the entire performance, he made no sign of it. When she was finished, she held the napkin crumpled in both hands. Spock seemed to be waiting for her to proceed with her explanation, so she continued, "If I had acted faster, I could have done something...stopped the Klingons. I just sat there, trying to figure out what to do. I waited too long. I should have known...should have done something." She looked to Spock for a response, some sign of approval or disapproval, but found none. He merely considered her for a long moment without expression. Jaeger let her eyes drop again and played nervously with her napkin, wondering how long it would be before Spock's intense gaze made her blush.
"There is a concept in Vulcan philosophy," Spock said at last, steepling his fingers. "It is called Kaiidth. There is no exact English translation, but you might call it 'what is, is'. I believe Mister Chekov is familiar with it."
Chekov nodded. In his mind he could hear the words not in Spock's voice but in the gentle, musical voice of Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother. During those painful months after the struggle with Khan, when Chekov had often believed that he could never drive the memories from his mind in spite of lengthy bouts of elbow-bending with Scott (when he had downed enough vodka to float the Enterprise on an eighty-proof sea) and in spite of the hypnotherapy treatments with McCoy, Spock's mother had sat with him on an ornately carved bench in her garden and explained Kaiidth in terms he might hope to understand. The Lady Amanda had studied Vulcan philosophy since her marriage to Sarek, Spock's father, some sixty years ago, and, while many of its concepts were still beyond even her patient understanding, she had grasped this particular one when the death of Sarek's brother had made it necessary. She had sympathized in her own unique way--as mother, as teacher, as student--with Chekov's anguish over the death of his captain, Clark Terrell; the deaths of the Regula personnel; his own part in the loss of Genesis to Khan Noonien Singh. She knew too well the Human habit of taking blame onto oneself for something that had been painfully unavoidable. Now, listening to Spock explain Kaiidth to Jaeger, Chekov could hear the echo of Amanda's voice in his mind.
"It is also referred to as 'mastery of the unavoidable'," Spock went on. "To simplify, it means that there is no point in overt emotional reaction to an event over which one has no control."
"The fact that you were there, that you played some role in what happened, does not mean that you were to blame," Amanda's voice said inside Chekov's head. "No one person is entirely to blame. Not even Khan himself. Any event, no matter how seemingly simple, is the result of many interrelating causes." She had smiled warmly at Chekov, who began to understand how even the logical heart of the Vulcan ambassador had been melted by this woman so many years ago. "As any Vulcan would say, to blame yourself for the death of another, even, sometimes, if you yourself held the weapon, is an example of Human conceit. In other words: the world does not revolve around you. Or any of us. You were merely one catalyst among many. Find it in your heart not to blame yourself." Chekov had still been skeptical. Amanda reached out to rest a gentle, lined hand on his arm. "Does anyone blame you, other than yourself?"
"But I did have control," Jaeger argued.
"If you have recounted the series of events accurately, Lieutenant Jaeger," Spock countered, "the amount of time between the moment when you first sighted the Klingons and the moment when they executed Ensign Hollis was approximately thirty seconds."
Jaeger's jaw sagged. "But that's not possible!"
"I assure you, Lieutenant, it is not only possible, it is a most accurate assessment." The Vulcan gave her a long look. "If you have reconstructed everything correctly."
"Thirty seconds? That's all?"
"That is all."
"But that doesn't..." She began shredding the napkin, totally unaware that she was doing it. "No disrespect, sir, but I could swear I was there five or ten minutes. I mean...I watched them. They kept arguing about something--what they were going to do with him, I guess. I couldn't make out very much of it. My Klingonese isn't very good. It was a long time that went by, Mister Spock. A lot more than thirty seconds. It had to be."
Chekov said quietly, "Time slows down."
Jaeger turned to frown at him. The rustle of air caused by her movement made some of the shreds of cloth flutter off the table onto the floor. "What?"
"It's hard to tell how much time goes by. It might seem like forever and only be a few seconds."
"I suppose. But..."
"I'm sure Mister Spock is right, jajub...Lieutenant."
"Thank you, Mister Chekov," Spock said.
Pushing his chair away from the table, Chekov gathered the remains of the napkin and carried them to the disposal bin. Jaeger had begun wringing her hands down in her lap. Chekov and Spock exchanged glances but said nothing. They had both experienced this situation before: Chekov with Jaeger, Spock with someone else. Chekov smiled wryly, wondering how long it would take Spock's Vulcan patience to wear thin if he intended making Jaeger accept the philosophy of Kaiidth. When she fell into a funk like this, she would blame herself for the very existence of Klingons if the thought occurred to her. He glanced at the chronometer over the door: 0757 hours.
"May I suggest that you give the matter additional thought, Lieutenant," Spock said. "But on some other occasion."
"Yes, sir," Jaeger said morosely.
"For the time being," Spock continued as the chrono ticked over into 0758, "I would recommend not claiming any responsibility for the events that took place during the rescue mission...and not wasting the captain's time with anything other than facts. He has a good deal more to occupy his attention than dealing with rampant emotionalism on the part of one of his crew."
"Yes, Mister Spock." Jaeger's eyes dropped once more. She was reddening in earnest now.
Chekov leaned over and whispered (knowing that Spock could hear him nonetheless), "Remember, this is Starfleet. If you've done something wrong, they'll blame you." He meant it as a comfort, with a broad smile intended to spark a grin from Jaeger, but all he got in return was a horrified stare.
The briefing room door hummed open, and Tom Cooper hustled in, trailed by McCoy and Kirk. The two senior officers had resumed their argument along the way; Kirk's face was frozen, and McCoy was scowling. Kirk moved to the chair at the head of the conference table, surveyed his assembled personnel, nodded and sat down. Spock, Chekov and Jaeger, who had risen as the captain strode into the room, resumed their seats as McCoy and Cooper found chairs on Spock's side of the table. Pretending to ignore Spock's long, assessing look at him, Kirk drew himself a cup of coffee and plucked a Danish off the plate, daring McCoy with a steely look to say anything in protest. The hard-lost twenty pounds lingered just over his shoulder, he knew, but if he felt like making breakfast out of a gallon of coffee and half a dozen Danish, then he would damn well do just that. After a long swig of coffee, he reached out to tap the "record" button on the console.
"Record of official debriefing," he said into the little condenser mike in the table. "U.S.S. Enterprise, Starfleet registry number NCC-1701-A, Captain James T. Kirk commanding. Stardate: 8772.7. Present: Captain Spock, First Officer; Commander Leonard H. McCoy, Chief Medical Officer; Commander Pavel A. Chekov, Chief of Security and Personnel; Lieutenant Gretchen L. Jaeger, Relief Navigator; Ensign Thomas J. Cooper, Security Specialist." He gulped a large bite of Danish. "We are here to record and examine the events which took place during the rescue mission of Stardate 8771 to Duncan's Rock in response to an unidentified distress call received from the planetoid surface, which rescue mission resulted in the deaths of Lieutenant Harold Gibbs, Ensign William Hollis, and three...citizens of the Klingon Empire." Watching McCoy, he swigged down more coffee and another huge mouthful of Danish. McCoy's lower jaw was sticking out, his eyes narrowing. "Captain Spock, would you please relate for the record your version of the events that took place during the rescue mission."
"Go ahead," McCoy told Kirk hotly. "Poison yourself."
"Save it," Kirk snapped.
Spock began to talk, quietly and evenly, into the mike in front of his chair, seemingly oblivious to the anger rebounding between Kirk and McCoy. He recounted little that Jaeger and Cooper had not been aware of; so little time had passed while the landing party was separated that not much had occurred on the surface of Duncan's Rock aside from the encounter with the Klingons. Spock's final comments were on his discovery of the Klingons' wrecked spacecraft.
"It was intact enough to serve as shelter," Spock went on.
Kirk replied, "Supplies?"
"There were enough food stores left for an additional seven to ten days. Water for approximately two weeks."
"Communications?"
"Non-functional, except for the distress beacon."
"So if the Enterprise had not responded to the distress call, the Klingons would have been able to survive for another two weeks."
"At best, Captain, assuming another rescue party did not come along."
Kirk nodded. "Let the record also show that according to all known surveys of Duncan's Rock, there are no natural sources of water or anything that might be used as food on the surface of the planetoid. The only indigenous life forms are poisonous to most humanoids." He turned to Jaeger, then to Cooper, and listened in silence while they recorded their own versions of what had happened. He had heard most of it already, from them and from Spock, and had few comments to interject when they were finished talking. Inwardly, he was surprised at how little emotion surfaced during the debriefing, though he suspected Spock had forewarned the two younger crew members against it. He had watched Jaeger's and Cooper's eyes while they were speaking; the grief, the regret, the sense of failure he felt in himself were in them also, but what went into the ship's record was bare fact. As it should be, he thought, wishing there were another, separate way to record everything that was being suppressed by Spock and the two young people. "Very well," he said ultimately. "Anything else that should be added into the record?" Everyone at the table shook his or her head. "End of record," Kirk said into the mike, and touched the "stop" button.
"There is one more thing, Captain," Spock said, "but I do not believe it should be part of the official record of the incident."
"What's that?" Kirk inquired.
Spock lifted onto the table the small, drawstring cloth bag he had been holding in his lap since taking his seat over an hour before. Under the curious gazes of the others, he loosened the drawstring and emptied onto the polished table surface a heap of malium crystals as big as his fist. The five Humans gasped in unison as the crystals tumbled loose on the tabletop, their natural facets reflecting the overhead lighting.
"Bozhe moi," Chekov breathed.
"Spock," McCoy said with a noticeable catch in his voice. "Do you know what you have there?"
"Yes, Doctor. At the current rate of exchange, one hundred sixty-three million, seven hundred forty-six thousand, nine hundred thirteen credits."
"Holy cow," Cooper said. "You could buy yourself a planet!"
"I could," Spock responded evenly. "But the crystals are not mine to dispose of."
"Where did you find them, Spock?" Kirk asked.
"Inside the Klingon scout craft."
"Really." It wasn't quite a question. Kirk's hazel eyes hadn't strayed from the crystals for an instant since Spock had poured them onto the table. He had to consciously restrain himself from reaching out to gather up a handful. So this is what all the fuss is about, he thought, at once understanding (at least partially) why so many people had gone to their deaths on Duncan's Rock on the off chance of obtaining what Spock had in front of him. "So you...salvaged them from the Klingons."
"Yes, Captain. In the strict sense, that is exactly what I did."
Kirk's gaze flickered up. "I see."
McCoy also pulled his attention away from the crystals to examine the typically unreadable expression on Spock's face. "You can't really intend to...give them back to the Klingons?"
Spock shrugged. "What would you have me do, Doctor?"
"I don't know," McCoy sputtered. "Don't you have a favorite Vulcan charity you could donate them to? Something! Anything!"
"As I said, they are not mine to give."
"Confound it, Spock! Stop being so damned honest."
"I cannot be anything else, Doctor."
McCoy began wringing his hands, his attention bouncing from Spock to Kirk to the crystals and back again. He, too, understood the reason for all those mining expeditions. Like love at first sight, he thought. He'd never seen a malium crystal up close, only on record tapes which failed to capture even a fraction of the stones' hypnotic beauty. During all his years on Earth and in space, he'd encountered few objects he could truly refer to as breathtaking, but the malium crystals were definitely breathtaking. When the thought occurred to him, he had to shift his attention for a moment to make sure he was still breathing.
Kirk asked quietly, "Why did you take them, Spock?"
"I am not certain, Captain," Spock replied.
Kirk studied the face of his first officer for a long moment, finding no more answers in Spock's expression than McCoy had. Was it possible Spock was as hypnotized by the stones as the rest of the people around the table? He'd had more than one surprise from Spock over the last couple of years, since the Vulcan's death and rebirth and retraining. Somehow, this time around, the Vulcan Masters had slipped up with Sarek's son. His hold on Vulcan mysticism was much more tenuous this time, his suppression of emotion almost sporadic. His Human side slipped through now. Kirk felt his tension sliding away, forgot why exactly he'd been so angry with McCoy when they'd come into the briefing room. As he sat watching Spock, he began to grin widely. "Recommendation?" he said, and almost gagged on the word.
"I had hoped for a recommendation from you."
A flash of memory went through Kirk's mind but was lost. "All right, Mister Spock. My recommendation is that until we are able to decide what should be done with the malium, it should be held for safekeeping." McCoy and the others were watching him closely. "In my safe. It goes unsaid that this is confidential. Highest security. No one mentions the existence of the crystals to anyone. Clear?" He received a series of nods in reply as Spock scooped the crystals back into the drawstring bag and handed it over. Kirk's hands closed over the bag, and in that moment the flash of memory came back. That's what this is, he thought, and went on grinning. This is like when I was small, and Sam stole one of my toys away. I just stole away Spock's toys. He choked down the hearty laugh that was bubbling up inside him and slid the bag into the pocket of his uniform jacket. "Dismissed," he said, a bit more gaily than he'd planned. "Those of you on first watch, report to your stations." A moment later he was gone, followed by Cooper, Jaeger and Chekov.
"That's one for you, Spock," McCoy said when the door had closed behind the others.
"Doctor?"
"You made him laugh."
"That was not my intention."
"Doesn't matter," McCoy replied. "It's a step in the right direction."
Spock considered the idea. "The real question is, Doctor, whether laughter is of any permanent value in the captain's present state of mind. It is quite possible--indeed, it is very likely--that he will return to the mood he was in when he entered this room. Once the joke wears off."
"Why did you take the crystals?" McCoy asked pointedly.
"As I told the captain...I do not know."
"Really?" McCoy snickered. "There's another one for the books."
*****
For most of his life Tom Cooper had heard the cliché about opportunity knocking at the door. This time, he reflected, it had not only knocked at the door, it had come in and sat down in his lap. And though Thomas Jefferson Cooper had never been listed as a genius under anyone's classifications, neither was he anybody's fool. He had spent most of the day ruminating over what he had seen that morning in the briefing room and how best to take advantage of it, and had arrived at several conclusions, one of which was--unfortunately-- that he would be unable to accept opportunity's offer single-handedly.
At the moment, he was seated in one of the fatly cushioned chairs on the rec deck, apparently kibitzing on a game of poker between four other members of the ship's security force, but actually keeping a careful eye on Gretchen Jaeger. He had located her on the rec deck forty minutes ago after a hurried check of the several other places she was likely to be in the late afternoon, intending to outline his plans for her in as much privacy as possible, dismayed when he realized she was involved in an animated conversation with an Andorian lieutenant from Personnel. Maintaining as much of a casual air as he could muster, he found a seat at the fringe of the poker game and settled for watching Jaeger out of the corner of one eye, mentally urging the Andorian to find another diversion. He had nearly reached the limits of his patience when the Andorian elaborately nodded her head, made several concluding remarks and scuttled away from Jaeger in the direction of the turbolift doors. Slowly, languidly, Cooper got up from his chair, burrowed his hands in his pockets, and ambled across the room.
"How's it going?" he said casually when he was close enough to Jaeger's chair for her to hear him.
She looked up, recognized him, smiled. "Okay."
"I wondered. The way your mask came off and all. You didn't look too hot when we got back here."
"I'm all right," Jaeger said mildly. "But thanks."
Cooper nodded. "You handled that shuttle pretty well, by the way. Tough job. Like piloting a rowboat in a hurricane." He rolled his eyes, shuddered a little, moved his face, absolutely certain she would have no idea that he didn't have a bleeding ounce of interest in her ability to pilot the shuttlecraft.
"I did all right until the stabilizers went out," she frowned.
"Oh, well, hell, that wasn't your fault."
"No, I guess not."
He nodded again and sat down casually in the seat the Andorian had vacated. "Some surprise Captain Spock came up with, huh? That stack of crystals."
"We're not supposed to discuss that," Jaeger replied.
Cooper shrugged that off. "A hundred and thirty million credits," he went on, a slightly lower tone of voice his only concession to Jaeger's warning. "You know what you could do with that much?"
"On board ship? Not a whole lot."
"Anywhere." Slouching back into the chair, Cooper stretched his long legs out onto the footrest. His expression was still deceptively mild; inwardly, he fumed at the lack of results he was getting. Come on, honey, he thought. You can't be that square. "A hundred and thirty million. Hell, even if we split it, that's still a bundle."
She frowned. "Split it?"
"Sure. Three ways. That's fair enough, isn't it?"
Jaeger's eyes widened with disbelief, and she glanced around to see if they were being overheard. "You're kidding."
"No, I'm not kidding."
"Get off it, Cooper. Mister Spock found the malium."
"If he hadn't," Cooper argued quietly, "somebody else would have. Look...we all risked our lives going down there. Hollis and Gibbs didn't even make it back. We all had an equal stake in that trip. I think we ought to have an equal stake in the reward." The look on her face made him pause. He could see her mind working behind her eyes. He didn't know her well--had only encountered her a few times before their trip to Duncan's Rock, and then very briefly--but he knew she was engaged to a senior officer, and began to think that he was very likely propositioning the wrong partner. "It's just an idea," he said mildly.
She watched his face for a long moment. "There's no 'reward', Cooper. This isn't the Cub Scouts."
"Don't I know it."
"And we're not supposed to be discussing this. Captain's orders."
Cooper gnawed his lower lip. Captain's orders, he thought. I suppose if the captain ordered her to jump into the trash disposal, she'd do that, too. "It was just an idea. I thought if we both went to the captain..."
"Count me out." Jaeger got up from her chair, eyes on something beyond Cooper's left shoulder. He turned to look; the Andorian was returning, a portable computer game tucked under her arm. She gave Jaeger a broad smile and gestured with the game, but Jaeger shook her head lightly and patted the Andorian's arm. "Maybe later, S'jaei, I've got to go." She glanced back at Cooper. "I think you ought to forget everything you saw this morning. You'll just drive yourself crazy. And get into trouble."
"Just an idea," Cooper muttered sourly as she walked away. The Andorian looked at him curiously, her head cocked to one side. Cooper sighed heavily. "Hey," he said after a moment, "How do you say 'fuck you' in your language?"
The Andorian, who had been asked similar questions countless times during her tour of duty, smirked and wrinkled her nose, then made a guttural yet musical sound.
"Thanks," Cooper said wryly.
*****
"Come," Kirk said in response to the door chime.
The door to the corridor whooshed open, revealing Leonard McCoy standing just outside, but the doctor didn't move, regarding Kirk at the far side of the room with an expression nearly as inscrutable as Spock's usual one. Kirk lowered the book he had been reading and gazed back at the doctor; after a moment, he beckoned, and McCoy strolled into the sitting room.
"You've come to harass me some more?" Kirk asked mildly.
"No." McCoy bent and deposited the bottle of Saurian brandy he had toted up from his quarters on the little table to Kirk's left. "I came to see if you want to play cards."
Kirk frowned. "Cards?"
"Name your game." McCoy produced a well-worn deck from his pocket. "Gin Rummy, Poker, Canasta...Old Maid."
"Fizzbin?" Kirk responded.
McCoy snorted and sat down. Kirk was referring to a mythical card game he'd invented years ago to help himself out of a tight spot on Sigma Iotia II. "Not one of your finest moments," the doctor pointed out.
"Really? And how many card games have you invented, Doctor?"
"None. Same reason I don't bother trying to invent new cocktails. Some of us are inventors, and some of us are consumers." Dropping the deck of cards onto the table, McCoy crossed the room and selected a pair of brandy glasses from the collection on a shelf of the wall unit. Under Kirk's still even gaze, he poured each glass half full, handed one to Kirk and sat at the end of the couch to nurse the other glass. Nodding in the direction of Kirk's book, he inquired, "What is it?"
"Twentieth century. Tolstoy."
McCoy hiked a brow. "Light reading?"
Kirk let his spectacles slide down his nose and peered at McCoy over the rims. The glasses were a gift from McCoy, to replace an earlier pair that had been broken and then sold to an antique dealer back in San Francisco. The captain wore them only in the privacy of his quarters, grateful that his vision still had not worsened to the point where he needed spectacles for anything other than reading. Corrective lenses had been replaced years ago by chemical treatment and surgery, and existed now only as a curiosity...and Kirk had no desire to be connected with a curiosity, no matter how much it helped his vision. His particular problem could not be remedied with surgery, and he was powerfully allergic to the usual medicinal treatment, which left a choice between wearing the glasses or giving up reading. Thoughtfully, he took them off, fingered them for a moment, and laid them on the table.
"I need to forget," he told McCoy.
"Have a drink." The doctor sipped at his brandy.
Kirk swirled the golden liquid around in his glass, watching the way it caught the light. "I don't think I need a hangover right now."
"One glass does not a hangover make."
"We're a long way from home, Bones."
"What's that supposed to mean?" McCoy sniffed.
"What are we doing out here?"
"Now you're going to get philosophical on me?" McCoy took a long pull of the brandy. "For crying out loud, Jim. You know exactly why you're out here. And I know why I'm out here. It was either this or living on a remote mountain top someplace. Although sometimes I ask myself why I didn't opt for the mountain top. I could have avoided a lot more problems that way." Kirk didn't reply, but finally took a small sip of the brandy. "I heard from Joanna, you know," McCoy went on, referring to his daughter, the only child of his disastrous brief marriage. "All's well. She's settled, happy. I can just imagine the stories she tells those kids about their loony grandfather." He smirked. "There's your answer. Let's resign from the fleet and become gentleman farmers. I could see the grandchildren every Sunday. Sit on the porch and watch the sun set. Very bucolic. Picturesque. Just what we need." Sipping again, he looked at Kirk over the rim of the glass. "A life of absolute, stupefying boredom."
"That from you?" Kirk asked. "The way you kicked and screamed when Admiral Nogura called you back from retirement?"
"I hate retirement. It's like practicing for death."
Kirk smiled, a warm expression that reflected twenty years of knowing the man seated on his couch. "I'll remember that the next time you try telling me how much you hate Starfleet."
"You know what I mean," McCoy said crossly.
"I know what you mean."
"It's a matter of reconciliation. Reconciling what ought to be with what is."
Kirk smiled again. "Now who's getting philosophical?"
"Not me. I came to play cards."
"Thanks, Bones."
"For what?"
"You know what I mean."
McCoy drained his glass, considered the brandy decanter for a moment, then answered his own silent question and poured himself another drink. "Sometimes, Captain, I wish I didn't."
*****
Even before eight-pound, seven-ounce Tom Cooper had made his howling entry into the world, his family had decided how his life should be best led, and that choice led straight to Starfleet. The 'fleet had turned his father down due to a series of unusual medical problems (never defined to young Tom), and his mother felt herself not the military type, but Tommy, their sturdy, athletic, clear-eyed boy, was obviously meant to build himself an inspiring career in space. So as far back as he could remember (and long before that, he assumed), his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, various and sundry family friends, his teachers, and even strangers off the street had pointed out to Thomas Jefferson Cooper exactly how proud he would make his mother and father by becoming a Starfleet officer.
At the age of eighteen, he followed their instructions and entered Starfleet Academy. Of course, he had done so simply to shut his family up. Once he was away from home, he found it relatively simple to avoid hearing from them: keep person-to-person calls short, on the pretext of missing a class, or a drill, or a meeting, if the call lasted more than a minute or two; and toss their frequent comm tapes into the disposal chute. He had been at the Academy less than a year when the family's endless harping changed slightly. Now it was pointed out to him exactly how he could best find success. Command school, of course. A leader of men, that was their Tommy. Why, eventually he could captain a starship! Wise, and brave, and true, with the beginnings of a hero's career behind him and brilliant gold braid decorating his shoulders, there he would be in the center seat, crisply issuing commands, a man his crew would be honored to follow into battle and back out. But by this point, their Tommy had had quite enough of listening to advice. He was, after all, a grown man, a member of Starfleet (if only a fledgling), able to make his own decisions. Nodding dutifully at his parents, he made his own decision and announced to his advisors which branch of Starfleet he would most enjoy entering. The perversity of it delighted him. Not Command; no center seat for him. Not Engineering, or Sciences, or even Maintenance. Thomas Jefferson Cooper, age nineteen, opted for the branch of Starfleet in which he was most likely to get himself killed before the age of thirty. He became a Security officer. The horror his decision inspired in his parents filled him with unbounded glee, and he took to his new calling like every fish had taken to water since the beginning of time. He was a security guard, and hot damn, he was a good security guard. No matter that the odds on his survival were abysmal. It was the luck of the draw, no more than that, and he found that the God-awful odds thrilled him the way nothing else ever had. The fact that he was posted aboard the Enterprise after graduation was testimony to his skill at his chosen profession, and he crawled into his bunk each artificial night knowing that he had done right, done well, done for himself.
And he would go on doing for himself.
Deep in thought, barely noticing the popular music piping from the speakers in the bulkhead beside him, he folded his arms up under his head and gazed up at the gray-white ceiling. It had been several hours since he had sought out Gretchen Jaeger in the rec room (and to hell with her, anyway; he should have known she was one of the captain's faithful little flunkies). Now he was waiting quietly, patiently, for the return of his cabinmate, the only other person aboard the Enterprise he was sure disliked James Kirk as much as he did. He hesitated at telling anyone new about the malium crystals, but decided it couldn't be helped. He needed a cohort, even one he did not respect. A right-hand man, an underling, a peon. He had gone to great pains over the past four weeks to convince Peter Kirk that in this one cabin, he was tolerated, if not liked. And Kirk seemed to think that was enough.
A little past nine o'clock, the outer door to the other sleeping room opened and Tom Cooper's roommate ambled in, hands burrowed deep in his pockets, a heavy scowl on his face that said he had just crossed horns with someone between here and the lower-level science labs. Cooper, who had sprung off his bunk at the sound of the door, lounged in the doorway of the bathroom that divided the two sleeping rooms. "Hey, buddy," he said amiably.
Peter Kirk snorted something in reply that failed at being words, yanked off his uniform jacket and flung it onto the end of his bunk. "What do you want?" he asked, fixing Cooper with a pointed stare.
"Hey...ease up. I'm just saying hello. That a crime?"
Jerking his head (neither a yes nor a no), Kirk dropped onto the bunk and began pulling off his boots. After a couple of minutes, Cooper's intense, watchful silence began to bother him and he swung around to look at his roommate. "Why are you staring at me?" he snapped. "Are you that bored?"
Cooper meandered around the room, pretending not to notice the younger Kirk's growing irritation. When he was sure Kirk would tolerate the beating around the bush no longer, he turned languidly, smiled, and said, "Buddy, have I got a deal for you."
*****
The Enterprise was on night watch.
In deep space, there is no day and no night, but because of the Human need for near-natural surroundings, Starfleet had decreed long ago that on long voyages, the ship's computers should be set so that for eight out of every twenty-four hours, the lights would be lowered throughout the ship to give a night-like feeling to the corridors, public areas and even the bridge. Few areas of the Enterprise remained brightly lit during night watch: Engineering was one of the exceptions, where Montgomery Scott had been known to sit up through several consecutive watches, nursemaiding his beloved engines. During this particular watch, however, even Scott was asleep, along with two-thirds of the Enterprise's crew and her captain. The entire ship was hushed; those crew members who were not asleep were reading, clustered in small groups around the video game terminals on the recreation deck, meditating, making love, or manning their assigned stations with an attitude that occasionally drifted into a highly watchful doze.
The circular bridge, so busy during first watch even when the ship was uneventfully cruising from one assignment to the next, was at present manned by only two officers: Relief Helmsman Yehadi Remaden, and Commander Nyota Uhura, whose assigned duties had ended at midnight but who had crept quietly back to the bridge when she discovered that she was too restless to sleep. When the intercom sounded, she began to wonder if her unusual spell of insomnia had been entirely natural.
"Cooper here, Enterprise," an unfamiliar male voice came through Uhura's earphone.
"Greetings, Cooper," Uhura replied. "Is Captain Sulu available?"
"Affirmative, Enterprise. Hold on while I patch you through."
Half a minute went by, a remarkable short time in view of the distance that Uhura's words and their response had to travel across space. Uhura closed her eyes briefly, drinking in the hush of the bridge. All she could hear was the regular clicking of computer circuits. Yehadi was breathing so softly that she had to remind herself that she was not alone. The helmsman, native to an area in southern India, had told her about his skill at stalking prey: before joining Starfleet, he'd worked odd seasons as a guide for tourists on camera safaris and had an unequaled record for sneaking up on wild game. Uhura's hearing was far above par, but for all she tried, she was unable to pick up the slightest indication of the Hindu's presence on the bridge. During the half-minute, she became so absorbed by the silence that when Hikaru Sulu's voice came through the ear piece, she was so startled that she bounced several inches out of her chair.
"Enterprise, this is Captain Sulu. Uhura?"
"You bet," Uhura replied, feeling her startled heart throbbing inside her chest. "How are you, Hikaru?"
"Never better. Hey, who's got the helm? Reichard?"
"No. Yehadi."
"That cowboy? Better watch out, Nyota. If you don't keep an eye on him, he'll be playing tag in the nearest asteroid belt." Sulu's voice was solemn, but Uhura knew the joke; Sulu had trained Remaden himself and had recommended him for a spot at the helm when the captaincy of the recently refitted Cooper was offered upon their return to Earth from the center of the galaxy. Sulu went on, "Keep your finger on that yellow alert button as long as he's got the wheel."
Uhura half-turned in her chair to face Remaden, who had turned toward her when he heard his name mentioned. Holding back a smile, she relayed Sulu's message. Remaden's placid expression didn't flicker, and, in a voice as smooth as pond water, he replied in several long, lyrical Hindi sentences.
"Hikaru?" Uhura said into the mike. "He says you are a son of a Denebian slime-devil, and he heaps curses upon your ancestors."
Sulu burst into riotous laughter. "Hugs and kisses to him, too."
Once again, Uhura relayed the message. Still deadpan, Remaden pressed his palms together, bowed his head, and blew a kiss to the communications chief to be passed on to his former teacher. Uhura, too, burst into gales of laughter, buoyed on by the guffaws coming from Sulu over the subspace channel. By the time she had regained her composure, tears were flowing over her cheeks and Remaden had finally also broken into a grin.
"Listen, Nyota," Sulu said, trying for something approaching proper demeanor, "down to business. What's got you requesting a priority channel at this hour?"
"Captain Spock."
"Serious? You got a problem out there?"
"He wouldn't say."
"Better patch him through, then. Good to talk to you."
"You, too. Switching now. Hold on, Hikaru." Uhura tapped the subspace equivalent of a "hold" button, then keyed into the intercom and pressed the code for Spock's quarters. She had barely removed her fingers from the buttons when Spock's voice came through the 'com. Must have been sitting on the console, she thought, fighting an active battle not to begin laughing again. "I have Captain Sulu for you, Mister Spock. Patching him through now."
"Thank you, Uhura." Spock waited the few seconds for the relay to be completed, then leaned forward towards the mike on his desk console and said evenly, "Spock here."
"Greetings, Mister Spock," Sulu's voice came back, full of the deference he had always used with the Vulcan, in spite of the fact that they were now equal in rank. Assuming correctly that Spock would not want to waste time--especially on a priority channel--with small talk, he asked, "Anything wrong?"
"I need a favor, Mister Sulu."
"Name it."
"I would like you to locate someone, and, if possible, bring her with you to Dianas. Am I correct that you do not leave Earth for another two days?"
"That's right. We have to wait for Ambassador D'Novio to get back."
Spock nodded to himself and named for Sulu the object of his request, ignoring the soft chuckle that came across even through subspace. "I believe two days should be sufficient time for you to contact her. She is presently working at the Federation Science Institute outside Seattle, according to the personnel status listings."
Sulu replied mildly, "Enough time for me to find her...but not much notice for her to drop everything and hop a ship to Dianas. What if she's busy?"
"I trust you will persuade her, Captain."
"I'll give it a try, Mister Spock." Sulu paused. "Can I ask the reason for all this subterfuge, or is it none of my business?"
"I believe her presence on Dianas would serve to alleviate a certain difficulty we are presently experiencing."
In his cabin aboard the Cooper, Sulu crossed his eyes. He had years of experience translating Spock's highly logical, linguistically complicated speech, but yet, after all that time, he still marveled at the Vulcan's complete inability to give what Sulu would term a simple answer. Stifling another chuckle, Sulu rubbed at the back of his head and responded, "Would this 'difficulty' have anything to do with Captain Kirk?"
"It would."
"He misses her? Is that it?"
"I do not believe so. To be precise, if he does 'miss' her, I do not believe he is aware of it. However, he has developed a sudden fondness for a beverage called 'Michelob,' which she introduced him to." Puzzling over a mental picture of Kirk frowning absently into a mug of the computer's best attempt at recreating Michelob, Spock continued, "I understand that to be a trade name used in the late twentieth century. Its generic name I believe is 'beer.' As I said, the captain has become quite fond of it of late. He seems to be especially fond of staring into it until it becomes quite flat."
This time Sulu let loose a hearty laugh. "I'll do my best, Spock," he promised.
"I would appreciate that."
"I'll get her there. Is there aquatic life on Dianas?"
Spock replied, "I am quite sure there is."
"That should sway her a little. Just hold things up on your end in the meantime. We'll see you in nine days." Sulu waited a moment to see if Spock had anything else to say, knowing that if Spock was finished, he was likely to break the channel without much warning. The Vulcan said nothing, so Sulu concluded, "Keep well, Mister Spock."
"Thank you. I shall. Keep well, Captain Sulu."
Spock touched the key to break the connection, then sat unmovingly at his desk, his gaze fixed on the communications console but his thoughts elsewhere. Lightly, between the thumb and the first two fingers of his left hand, he held something he had kept back from Jim Kirk: the smallest of the malium crystals. He had told Kirk and McCoy he did not know why he had taken the crystals from the Klingon scout craft, and, if they had asked, he would have said he did not know why he had not given this particular stone to Kirk with the others. Under the red lights of his cabin (meant to give his rooms the look of his native world under its red sun), the stone was deeply purple, its facets twinkling as Spock turned it in his fingers. The Humans found malium to be unbearably lovely, but Spock would have claimed that it had no such effect on Vulcans.
If anyone had asked.
He thought back over his conversation with Sulu, and wondered briefly at his taking what on Vulcan would have been an unforgivable breach of another's privacy...but then, he was not on Vulcan, and the one whose privacy had been breached had never subscribed to Vulcan thought. Whether he would be offended by Spock's actions was another question, but Spock had not let Kirk's passions guide him. He knew only that Kirk needed help, and that he would find a way to supply that help, even if it went against every grain of his Vulcan training. Jim...my t'hy'la, he thought. The Humans translated the term as "friend", but it had so many shades of meaning that a correct translation into English was impossible. He hoped that Kirk would understand his actions, for in the heart that had denied emotion for so long, he could find only one path to follow. He had questioned himself many times, and each time had arrived at the same conclusion: that there was nothing he would not do for James Kirk.
He laid the malium crystal gently on his desk. It continued to glitter, although the light source overhead was steady and still.
His father would have been horrified.
Even through horror was an emotion, and Sarek held tight to the notion of logical, emotionless thinking, he still would have been horrified. Vulcans did not amass personal wealth; the personal belongings they allowed themselves to collect were mostly of what Humans would term "sentimental value".
Yet here was Spock, the son of a Vulcan, who could have held all his personal belongings in his arms, now the owner of a fantastic fortune in gemstones.
The little stone caught his attention and held it.
The Humans had decided to call the substance malium; other cultures, in other languages, had given it a variety of names, but most of those, too, reflected the thought that the crystals were bad news. The peoples of several worlds Spock had encountered maintained that the malium had a curse of some sort connected with it, and, while Spock held nothing more than a mild curiosity towards superstitions, he was willing to agree that the malium--native only to Duncan's Rock--did indeed have more than its share of a negative history. The original owner of three stones taken off the planetoid fifteen years ago had met a violent death in an unexplained warehouse fire; five of his eight nuclear family members had died during the next several years. The other four stones--making up the seven that had been secured from Duncan's Rock until Spock found the cache in the Klingon scout craft--belonged to four different owners: one to a museum whose curator had developed a rare and deadly neurological disease, one to a wealthy native of Regulus V who had disappeared without a trace, one to the ruler of a planet in the Orion system who had been impeached and imprisoned, and the last to an Earth woman who had had the stone made into a ring, and who, at last count, had been married eleven times.
Bad news. But hypnotically lovely.
The stone Spock had held back from Kirk was no larger than his thumbnail, with a large, penetrating flaw on its widest facet. According to the normal determination of such things, the flaw rendered this particular stone utterly without monetary value. However, that did nothing to diminish its appeal for Spock. Half the night went by as he sat at the desk, his attention fixed on the crystal. When the ship's night cycle came to a close, he still had no idea why he had brought the stones back to the Enterprise...at least, no idea that satisfied the logical part of his mind. He had salvaged them from the Klingon vessel--whose ultimate fate certainly seemed to support the "curse" theory--but for what?
Night turned itself into morning, and Spock began to regret that he had ever come across the crystals.
He regretted even more who he had turned them over to.
Chapter 3
"Energize."
The transporter technician replied, "Energizing, sir," and slid the quartet of levers from top to bottom in their parallel tracks. As the transporter sang, the figures of the six members of Kirk's senior landing party shimmered, grew indistinct, faded and vanished. A moment later, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Kirk's nephew Peter and Science Specialist Laurel McCutcheon rematerialized in the transporter chamber of the Citizen's High Council building in Dianas's capital city.
"Welcome to Dianas, Captain Kirk."
Kirk had straightened himself automatically as he felt himself rematerializing; the others came to attention at the sound of the unfamiliar voice. Before them, standing near the transporter console, was High Councilor Gehaan, the head of Dianas's government, flanked by two of his fellow council members. The Dianasians and the Starfleet personnel looked each other over for a long moment, each making mental notes about the other. Peter Kirk and Laurel McCutcheon both had tricorders hanging from their shoulders, but did not move to activate them for the time being, contenting themselves with making only visual observation.
The three Dianasians were shorter than the Enterprise's representatives--save for Laurel McCutcheon, who stood five-feet-six in bare feet--and were stockier than the Federation people except for Scott, who had disdained McCoy's recommendations and weighed the same hundred kilograms he had when the Enterprise crew had left Vulcan four years ago. Under the artificial lighting of the reception area, the main distinction between the Dianasians and the Humans was obvious: the Dianasians were vaguely blue--which McCoy felt gave them the look of oxygen starvation--but was actually due to a difference in blood chemistry. Their hair, too, was a sort of silvery blue, worn loose and nearly shoulder length, brushing against the collars and shoulders of their soft-looking, jumpsuit-styled clothing. All three were dressed varyingly: Gehaan in dark gray with black piping, the others in deep red and pale green respectively.
"Thank you, Councilor," Kirk said as he stepped off the transporter platform and extended his hand to Gehaan, as he had been informed was proper. Gehaan pressed his palm to Kirk's. The Councilor's hand was quite warm, but dry, his fingers long and slender. He smiled broadly at Kirk, bringing Kirk's attention to his eyes, which were somewhat larger than a Human's, giving him and the other Dianasians the look of being perpetually startled. Kirk smiled warmly in return and retrieved his hand from the Councilor. "May I present--" He indicated each in turn. "--my first officer, Captain Spock; our chief medical officer, Commander Leonard McCoy; our chief of engineering, Commander Montgomery Scott; and our science team, Lieutenant Peter Kirk and Lieutenant Laurel McCutcheon."
"You are all most welcome," Gehaan beamed, and went to each of the Federation people with the same hand-pressing greeting he had used with Kirk. "May I present my fellow Council members, Rebaak and Salaarn."
"Gentlemen," Kirk said.
"You speak English very well, Councilor," McCoy observed. He did not add that he was profoundly grateful for the Councilor's abilities; if the Dianasians had not been able to speak English, the landing party would have had to come equipped with computer-connected universal translators, the use of which McCoy found annoying in the extreme.
"Thank you, Commander McCoy." Gehaan exchanged smiles with his peers. "We...learn quickly. The tapes that the first two Federation ships left with us were most useful. All of us on the Citizen's High Council have taken the time to familiarize ourselves with Federation laws and customs, and we have requested that our people attempt to learn your language as quickly as possible. We hope that you will have occasion to acquaint yourselves with our language as well."
"Of course," McCoy said, though that was nearly a lie.
Gehaan beckoned Kirk's people to move with him out of the transporter room into the corridor and went on talking as the five Humans and Spock swept long looks around their surroundings. Rebaak and Salaarn trailed along in the rear. "We hope you will make yourselves at home during your stay with us. We have prepared accommodations for as many of your crew as wish to take shore leave on Dianas, and we look forward to meeting all of them." He stopped walking and turned to face Kirk. "Will some of them be able to join us for the celebration tonight?"
"Celebration?"
Gehaan frowned and looked to the other two Dianasians for help. "I am using the wrong word?" The three Councilors all murmured for a moment in their own language, came to agreement, then Gehaan turned to Kirk again. "Celebration. A welcoming party? For you and all of your crew, to introduce you to some of our citizens. There will be much food and drink, and music. Will you allow your crew to attend?"
The Councilor looked like nothing so much as a small child with grand plans. Kirk didn't dare turn him down; he had the distinct feeling that if he demurred, the High Councilor would begin to cry. "Of course, Councilor," he agreed pleasantly. "We'd be more than happy to attend. But my entire crew...the Enterprise's crew is well over four hundred people."
"We have room. Plenty of room," Gehaan said brightly.
"Yes, Captain," Rebaak agreed. "Our grand ballroom holds a thousand easily."
Salaarn added, "They would be most welcome."
The captain stifled a smile. The enthusiasm of the three High Councilors, whom he had expected to be as stuffy as most of the planetary governors he had encountered over the years, was almost comical. He wondered if they treated all visitors this eagerly. Located well away from the Federation's trade routes, in a system that had almost nothing to offer to either legitimate merchants or pirates, Dianas had practically escaped notice by star-travelers over the millennia. Its people's lack of interest in interplanetary travel did nothing to alert the rest of the galaxy to Dianas's presence as the home of sentient life.
It had only been five years ago that a Federation scout craft had come across the planet by accident, and Federation knowledge of Dianas's existence had certainly not put it on the "must visit" list in the meantime. According to the reports Kirk had been furnished, Dianas had a lovely, temperate climate--most of its weather corresponded to that of the mid-Atlantic coast of North America, due to the particular angle of its axis--attractive flora and fauna, a flourishing culture well into its high-tech period, and warm, friendly inhabitants. However, the galaxy was full of such planets. Dianas had nothing to encourage travelers out of their way, except for the fact that its inclusion in the Federation would nudge the Federation's borders a bit further outward. Another name to be added to the planetary roster...and another thorn in the side of the Klingon Empire. It made absolutely no difference in the scheme of things that Dianas had nothing the Klingons would want. Whether it was something or nothing, the Klingons simply did not want the Federation to have it. Kirk suspected that Spock would have a supremely logical argument against the struggle to possess nothing...but then, the Klingons were not logical. Nor, as Spock was so fond of pointing out, were the Humans. So the quibbling goes on, Kirk thought. Just to see who can put together the biggest collection of nothing. The Federation's ambassadors would be here in a few days, ready to sit down with the Dianasians one jump ahead of the Klingons, to add Dianas to its list of non-possessions.
Smiling slightly, he remembered to be glad he was not an ambassador.
The rest of the landing party was waiting along with the Dianasians for Kirk's reply--even Peter Kirk, who had fixed his uncle with a bland stare that Kirk tried to ignore. "I can bring down most of them, Councilor," Kirk said finally. "But I have to leave at least a skeleton crew aboard to run the ship, even though we're in stable orbit."
"Of course. I understand. We would not want to do anything to interfere with the operation of your ship," said Gehaan.
"It takes a while to beam down so many," Kirk went on, beginning to feel uneasy under the constant, brilliant gazes of the High Councilors. He glanced at Spock, who merely raised an expressive eyebrow. "Our transporters can only handle a small number of people at any one time, and it takes several minutes for the system to recharge." They were still waiting. He held back a sigh. "What time is the party?"
"Sundown."
"Approximately seven point four hours from now, Captain," Spock announced.
"Very well. Sundown, then," said Kirk.
"Excellent!" Gehaan replied gaily. "In the meantime, Captain, if you will permit us, we would like to show you around our capital city. We have transportation arranged to take your science team to the Central Laboratory Complex on the other side of the city so that they may acquaint themselves with the facility and return before the celebration begins. They may leave now, if you would like."
Kirk nodded. "That would be fine."
Gehaan strode on ahead down the corridor with his own people and Kirk's six in his wake. Thirty meters ahead, the corridor ended in what seemed to be the lobby of the Citizen's High Council building, an enormous round room with a domed ceiling ten meters above the tiled floor. The Starfleet personnel all craned their necks for a look at the ceiling, which would have put Earth's aging Sistine Chapel to shame: intricate gold work in the shape of delicate vines and leaves surrounding support braces of a type of polished marble. The doorways, half a dozen of them all leading into various corridors, and the splendid central stairway leading to the second floor were carved of the same marble.
"Transporters and marble staircases," Scott mused.
"One for function, the other for beauty," Gehaan told him. "Surely you have similar on your home planet."
"Aye, that we do," Scott smiled.
Peter Kirk and Laurel McCutcheon had moved a little toward the main door, waiting to be shown their transportation to the lab complex. Leaving McCoy, Scott and Spock to continue taking in the splendor of the domed lobby, Kirk joined the science team near the main doors. "Remember," he said quietly. "These are very private people. They value their 'oneness' above everything else, and they may not take kindly to intrusions...or anything that seems like an intrusion. If you're not sure about something, ask."
"Yes, sir," McCutcheon replied. "They do seem very friendly, though."
"Nevertheless, we don't want to do anything to offend them. This planet is important to the Federation."
"Yes, Captain," Lieutenant Kirk said mildly.
Kirk bristled. "I trust you don't need any supervision, Mister?"
"I worked without supervision for two years on Prothos, Captain. I'm sure I'll do just fine here. And don't worry; I won't do anything to irk the natives."
"Make sure you don't." If they had been alone, Kirk would have had a good deal more to say. As it was, he dismissed the younger Kirk with a sharp glance that was acknowledged with a broad, artificial smile. Then, without more formal dismissal, Peter Kirk moved into the open doorway and stood with his back to the group in the lobby, gazing placidly up into the sky.
Jim Kirk took a couple of deep breaths and tried to will his blood pressure back down to normal. Laurel McCutcheon was watching him, but her gaze was so mild that Kirk let her wait until he no longer felt like exploding. "You have everything you need, Lieutenant?" he asked, meaning something entirely different.
She smiled. "I've been working side-by-side with Lieutenant Kirk all month, Captain. I just take him for what he is, and let it go at that." She did not bother to add that what she thought he was was an arrogant, self-centered son of a bitch.
"I admire your patience," Kirk muttered.
"Oh, it's not patience, sir," she chuckled. "It's a battle of wills. When it comes down to it, I can be just as miserable as he can. You've had two porcupines working down in Lab Four for the last couple of weeks." She glanced in Peter Kirk's direction. He had his hands clasped behind his back, quite obviously ignoring both his hosts and his fellow crew members. This came as no surprise to the people who knew him; in fact, they were glad for the chance to be away from him. The Dianasians seemed not to notice that they were being snubbed, either, and went on quietly discussing the artwork of their council building with Spock, McCoy and Scott. McCutcheon blew out a breath that spoke volumes about her attitude toward Peter Kirk. "If he gets out of line, sir, do I have your permission to belt him one?"
Captain Kirk's eyes widened. "I...yes, Lieutenant, I think you do."
"Good. I may need it."
Salaarn moved away from the group and joined Kirk and McCutcheon. "I will take you to your transportation now," he announced. "If you will come with me, there is a vehicle waiting just outside."
"Good luck, Lieutenant," Kirk concluded.
"Thank you, sir," she smiled. "See you at the party. If Peter and I haven't broken each other's necks by then."
*****
At the dinner party, McCoy lifted another forkful of the delicate, lacy vegetable mixture on his plate into his mouth, chewed it a little, then closed his eyes. His expression changed slowly from curiosity to near rapture. He hesitated to swallow the mouthful until he had peeked at his plate to assure himself that there was still more available. For the first time in his life, he was inclined to follow the old adage and chew each bite twenty times.
"Something wrong, Bones?" Kirk asked curiously.
"This is cooked," McCoy murmured.
Kirk frowned at his plate, half full of the same vegetable dish the doctor was eating. "Uh...sure it's cooked."
"I mean it's cooked. Somebody grew this. In the ground."
"Bones..."
"Don't you get it?" McCoy said, brandishing his fork like a conductor's wand. The others at the table were beginning to turn in his direction, each giving him puzzled looks as if they were afraid of some strange outburst on their physician's part. "This is real food," he went on, letting his voice drop to just above a whisper. "No computer has touched this with its infernal microcircuits. It's not been frozen. It's not reconstituted. It's not been microwaved. It's one hundred percent natural." He scooped up another forkful and chewed it with gleeful enthusiasm.
Spock, seated across the table from McCoy, agreed in the same hushed tone. "The doctor is correct. However, I do believe it was chemically fertilized."
"Who the hell cares?" McCoy hissed.
Uhura put her fork down and fixed her shipmates with a piercing look. "Are we going to eat this or dissect it?"
"She's right, gentlemen," Kirk said. "Let's just eat."
"Fine," said McCoy. "I'm eating. Is there more of this? I could use another helping." Uhura slid him the large, ornate serving bowl, and, with unaccustomed gusto, McCoy heaped more of the vegetable mixture onto his plate. Chemical fertilizer or no, he hadn't tasted anything like the Dianasian cuisine in more years than he cared to think about. The Starfleet handbooks insisted that shipboard, computer-prepared food was every bit as good as "home cooking", but there were few aboard the Enterprise (or any other ship in the fleet) who would swear they could tell no difference between computer-prepared lobster newburg and the real thing. The galley computer was programmed to duplicate the thousand best recipes of the thousand best chefs in the Federation, but somewhere along the line between chef and mess hall table, the recipes were ever-so-slightly garbled. McCoy had yet to encounter a computer that could come anywhere close to preparing pasta primavera anything like that from Delmonico's...and now, with his mouth pleasantly full of vegetables, delicate sauce, and tender, sweet noodles, he remembered his last visit to the restaurant and grinned insanely.
"Restrain yourself, Leonard," Scott chuckled. "There's more. You can have the whole bowl if you want it."
"I just may," McCoy replied around his mouthful.
Uhura took a sip from her glass and said softly, "So it is true."
"What is?" McCoy asked, beginning to frown at the look of high amusement she was giving him.
"That the way to your heart is through your stomach."
"If you're using this kind of bait it is."
A group of servers in spotless white had entered the room from the kitchen and was beginning to distribute large, steaming platters of yet another dish. McCoy was the only one at his table to notice their approach but kept most of his attention on his meal until one of the servers leaned between Scott and Uhura and deposited a platter on the table. A brand new aroma wafted around the Enterprise's bridge crew. Spock's nose wrinkled almost imperceptibly. Scott leaned forward a little for a closer inspection of the new arrival. "I think you'll have to share your vegetables with Spock," he told McCoy. "This one's meat."
Spock, who had taken a single helping of the vegetable dish and was working his way through it with an almost maddening slowness, remarked, "I have plenty, Mister Scott. If the doctor wishes to finish the damariarle single-handedly, he may do so with my blessing."
"What do they call it?" Uhura asked.
"Damariarle," Spock repeated.
"Pasta primavera," McCoy said. "They can call it whatever they like, but it's still pasta primavera."
"A rose by any other name," Scott remarked.
"...Still tastes like pasta primavera," McCoy insisted.
Scott slid the serving platter toward Uhura, who transferred a healthy portion of the meat dish to her plate. Rather than help himself to more food, Scott hoisted his glass, considered its contents, smiled broadly, and extended the glass in a toast. "To our hosts. And their fine idea of a party." The others lifted their glasses, shared in the toast, then returned to their meals. "It's not scotch," Scott went on, "but it's close enough." He drained the glass and looked around for a server to refill it for him. He had finished the refill, along with three more, by the time dinner was finished. Still far from being intoxicated, he leaned back in his chair and once more considered his empty glass while McCoy, Uhura and Kirk considered their full stomachs.
"This is more than I've eaten in..." Uhura began, then corrected herself. "You know, I don't think I've ever eaten this much."
"There goes your waistline, lass," Scott grinned.
The communications chief clucked her tongue at the big Scot. "And what happened to yours?"
Scott looked down at his midriff and feigned surprise. "I don't know!" he told Uhura, and patted his expansive stomach lovingly. "But I've got plenty of happy memories of the food and drink that contributed to this." His attention drifted across the room. Gehaan had risen from the Citizen's High Council's table and was moving their way. When he reached Kirk's table, he stopped, folded his arms, and gave the Federation people the broad smile they were by now accustomed to.
"I trust you have enjoyed your meal?" he beamed.
"And then some," said McCoy. "That was the best meal we've had in a very long time, Councilor. Thank you."
"Most welcome," said Gehaan.
The others at the table echoed their thanks, and Gehaan nodded at each in turn. If he had been happy early in the afternoon at the arrival of the first landing party, then he was ecstatic now, nearly wallowing in joy at being surrounded by some three hundred strangers in maroon and black uniforms. Kirk's table mates waited quietly, wondering what was coming next and hoping that it was not more food. They had worked their way through seven tremendous courses, each more delicious than the last, and all except Spock had reached their bellies' capacity long ago. Spock had been content to nibble at each course that did not contain meat and had consumed only enough to nourish himself, as was the Vulcan custom. Very few Vulcans ever attempted the illogical engorgement that his Human friends practiced, and Spock found some small satisfaction in knowing that the over-eaters would all regret those extra helpings. He would offer no comment to that effect, of course; he'd known since his first encounter with a Human that they most often took their pleasure in illogical indulgences.
"Now," Gehaan continued, with a broad, sweeping gesture toward the center of the enormous room, where no tables had been placed, "there will be music. I hope you will enjoy it." He bowed slightly in Kirk's direction. "I take my leave. I must extend wishes to the rest of your crew."
A minute later, the ballroom was filled with the sweet, lilting strains of Gehaan's music. Since no orchestra was visible, the Starfleet people decided that the music must be recorded; however, none of them was able to detect any sort of speaker or amplifier. The servers went on with their work of clearing tables, moving so quickly that the job was complete before the first musical selection had faded away. Some of Kirk's crew had their eyes closed, swaying a little to the tune drifting over their heads. At the far end of Kirk's table, Chekov and Jaeger, who had had eyes only for each other during dinner and had eaten no more of it than had Spock, broke their concentration on each other and listened intently to the music.
"A waltz," Chekov mused. "Here?"
Spock listened to the tempo a moment longer, then nodded in response to Chekov's question. "There is some slight variation in structure, but generally speaking, I do believe it is a waltz."
"It's lovely," Uhura said.
Chekov and Jaeger resumed looking at each other; the same thought had occurred to both of them almost simultaneously. "Mister Spock," Jaeger asked quietly, "do they...dance...here?"
Spock mulled it over for a moment, silently poring over the brief conversation with Gehaan earlier in the day, his study of the few Federation reports on the Dianasian culture, and the artwork he had observed in various parts of the capital city. "I am not certain, Lieutenant," he replied finally. "But since few cultures employ music on occasions such as this without the accompaniment of dancing, I believe the odds are in your favor. The empty area in the center of the room would also seem to indicate that our hosts anticipate our wanting to dance."
"'Our'?" McCoy echoed.
"A relative term, Doctor," Spock responded. "I did not intend to include myself in the generalization."
Chekov and Jaeger stayed in their chairs, both looking around to see if anyone else had the inclination to dance. No one else had gotten up from the various tables lining the walls of the ballroom, but several of the Enterprise's junior officers were also scanning their surroundings. "Go on, Chekov, ask the lady to dance." Scott encouraged. "If you're waiting for somebody else to get up first, you could be sitting there all night."
"We won't offend anybody?" Chekov asked uncertainly.
"If you do, we'll find out about it quick enough." Scott looked to Kirk for a reaction but received none other than a mild shrug of the captain's shoulders.
Chekov got up from the table as if he were diving into cold water, circled around to Jaeger, took her by the hand and led her out into the empty center of the floor. They did not have to wait long for a reaction; the level of conversation in the room dropped noticeably as they began dancing. The Dianasians, scattered among the Starfleet personnel at the dining tables, immediately fell silent and watched Jaeger and Chekov move around the floor with a fascination that bordered on awe. Chekov felt a sudden stab of guilt, but rather than slink back to the table as his subconscious mind was suggesting, he held tighter to Jaeger and twirled her around a bit more elaborately. After another couple of minutes they were being watched by everyone in the room.
"This is all wrong," Uhura observed aloud but mainly to herself.
"Hmmm?" Scott replied.
"They're in uniform," Uhura said, nodding at Scott to indicate her knowledge that everyone from the Enterprise was in uniform. "It looks...I don't know, out of place." She smiled wistfully, imagining Jaeger in a soft, clinging dress with a full, twirling skirt. "Scotty, dance with me," she added abruptly.
"Now?" Scott asked.
"Yes, now." Uhura got up from her chair. "We can't leave them out there all alone with everybody staring at them. Come on, dance with me."
"All right," Scott said with a bit of hesitation. "But don't blame me if I trample on your toes. I'm a little rusty."
Uhura mocked Spock's habitual raised eyebrow. "You don't think I am? I don't spend my off hours waltzing in my cabin."
"Ah, darlin'," Scott smiled, "that wouldn't be the strangest thing anyone's ever done off duty." He took her by the arm and nodded toward the open floor. "Come on, then, let's show the youngsters how it's done."
McCoy watched them go, squirming in his chair in an attempt to find a comfortable position in which to sit. An unborn but potentially astounding belch was lingering somewhere just above his stomach, and he had begun to feel the bite of indigestion. Small price to pay, I suppose, he thought, and wondered what the Dianasians had in the way of an antacid. He had the distinct feeling of being alone: Kirk was absently smoothing a tiny wrinkle in the tablecloth with the tip of his forefinger, and Spock was intently watching the Dianasians watch Jaeger and Chekov. McCoy followed the Vulcan's glance around the room. The hundred-odd Dianasians (except Gehaan, who had stopped circulating to stand near a marble pillar, his hands intertwined and his head cocked) were all still seated, leaning forward, their expressions full of curiosity and wonder. Jaeger and Chekov seemed to have stopped noticing that they were the center of attention and were once again intent upon each other and their dancing. Not bad, McCoy thought. They would never win any competitions, but they both had the same easy grace, the same instinctive, fluid movements.
"Well," McCoy observed, "at least they aren't offending anyone."
"To the contrary, Doctor," Spock replied. "Our hosts seem to be quite fascinated."
"And here we sit," McCoy murmured.
Kirk broke his attention from the tablecloth. "What...did you want to dance, Bones?" he asked mildly.
"Not with you," McCoy scowled.
Kirk let the remark go by. He'd been listening to the music, feeling the pull of it, envying Scott and Uhura their happy, unselfconscious turns around the room. True to his word, Scott made a few missteps, but neither he nor Uhura seemed to notice. After a moment, Kirk let his body begin swaying a little from side to side in time with the music. Edith, he thought. They'd danced together one night--although the music had been nothing like this; as he recalled it, it had been some popular tune of the time--and he remembered the feel of his arm tucked around her slender waist. She'd been laughing softly, much as Uhura was laughing now, tossing her head back now and again, her dark eyes reflecting the room lights, her free hand warm against the back of his neck. Kirk closed his eyes. His hands closed too, though he was unaware of that. Edith...
"Uh-oh," McCoy said. "Here he comes again."
Kirk looked. Gehaan was trotting toward the table, purposeful, his mouth open slightly. When he arrived at the table he was as breathless as if he'd been running the hundred-meter. "Captain!" he wheezed. "This is most interesting!"
"Councilor?" Kirk inquired.
Gehaan plopped into Scott's vacated chair and made a broad gesture toward the two dancing couples. "I have never encountered anything like this. It is most fascinating. Please explain."
"The dancing, you mean? It's a waltz. Native to our planet. I think it's been around for five or six hundred years."
"No, no, no. The emotion."
Kirk frowned, puzzled. "I'm not sure I understand. Which emotion?"
The High Councilor's hands were quivering. He shot looks back and forth between Kirk and the dancing couples. McCoy began watching him more closely: the Dianasian was close to hyperventilating. Spock also turned his attention to Gehaan, though his interest was more clinical and less medical. "I do not understand either, Captain Kirk," Gehaan went on, now indicating that he meant Jaeger and Chekov. "I have never seen anything quite like this. I had observed them communing during the meal, but I thought perhaps they were telepaths." McCoy coughed abruptly, barely managing to contain the belch, and put his hands over his mouth. If Gehaan noticed, he made no sign. "The emotion they share...I do not understand it."
"Love," Kirk said. "They're in love."
Worry lines appeared around Gehaan's eyes and mouth. "Love," he mused. "I recall reference to this concept in the record tapes that were left with us by the other Federation people. But it is unfamiliar. We have been unable to translate."
"You don't know what love is?" McCoy asked.
"No, Commander. Please explain. We are all most curious."
Kirk groped for words and was unable to find any, the task not made any easier by Gehaan's intent gaze, now matched by one from Spock. Now, how am I supposed to explain this? he wondered. As a young man, he had decided that when the time came to explain love (and sex) to his children, he would be completely honest, holding nothing back, shrouding nothing in useless euphemisms, giving his children the benefit of everything he had learned. But his only child, David Marcus, had grown up without him and had gone to his mother when the time came for explanations; Kirk's grand plans had never been needed. He had never had to explain love, only to experience it. And now that he needed words, his mind seemed to have conveniently emptied itself. "Well, Councilor," he said, realizing that he was stalling, "it's not an easy thing to explain. It's a...very complicated emotion, something that means different things to different people."
"What does it mean to them?" Gehaan asked, attempting to be helpful, pointing to Chekov and Jaeger.
"It means..." Kirk watched his security chief and his handball partner gliding across the tiled floor. It means pain, he thought. It means losing, and being left behind to remember what you had and how it was taken away from you. It means having a hole in your heart when you see what other people have and you know you can never have it back again. He heard Spock's voice echoing through his memory: a few words spoken in a tiny, dingy hotel room in Chicago, so long ago. "Jim...Edith Keeler must die." Then the sound of squealing tires, and the sight of she who held his entire soul in her delicate hands, lying broken in the middle of the street, the life gone out of her after only a few seconds. He had not cried then, or ever; after all, he was the captain of the Enterprise, the authority figure, the one who must maintain control at all times, show no weakness, no humanity. He had not cried, but he had cursed the roads his life had taken. He had chosen Starfleet, following in the footsteps of his restless father, had wanted the stars, wanted the command of a starship, wanted ultimate control, wanted everything. The cadets at Starfleet Academy told stories about James Tiberius Kirk, some true, some a little gilded, elevating him to near-god status. He had his starship (had lost it once, but now it was his once more, and he would be damned if he would give it up this time), had his command, had under his thumb four hundred and eighty-nine people who would obey his every wish or be punished for saying no to Jim Kirk. All of that. And what the hell do I really have? he thought.
McCoy coughed again, bringing Kirk out of his reverie. Gehaan was waiting, smiling a little.
He wants the answers to life's mysteries, Kirk mused. He picked a great one to ask!
And Gehaan, finally aware that Kirk was near being stumped, offered gently. "I have much time, Captain. Many things that are worth knowing are not easily explained. I will wait while you think."
*****
Hands in his pockets and his eyes cast down, though more to watch for obstacles along the path than as a reflection of his inner gloom, Kirk strolled toward the beach, leaving the Dianasians' version of a hotel (some of the younger crew members had tagged it "the Dianas Hilton") behind him. He was still some twenty or thirty meters from the waterline when he noticed that Jaeger was already there, sitting on a large, flat-topped rock, her head thrown back so that the sun shone directly on her face. She was dressed in exercise gear and sneakers, the underarms of her tee shirt ringed with perspiration. Kirk moved closer, his pace still slow, his own sneakered feet making no sound. When he was within earshot of Jaeger, he observed in a low tone, "When you've been aboard ship for a while, you start forgetting what the sun feels like." She didn't move, didn't open her eyes, but the corners of her mouth curved up slightly. So she had known he was approaching, he noted with satisfaction. Good thing she wasn't armed; she might have dropped him with phaser fire. He grinned reflexively. "You're up early, Lieutenant," he went on.
Now she turned to look at him. "I came out to run. I haven't run on the beach in a long time."
"Where's Pavel?"
"Still sleeping. He sleeps a lot longer than I do, usually."
Kirk took a few more steps and leaned against a tree just beyond arm's length from Jaeger. "Beautiful morning."
She peered at him. "Are you all right, sir? You look tired."
He smiled wryly and let out a little puff of air that didn't succeed at being a laugh. "I was up late last night. The last three nights in fact." He watched her shut off the curiosity in her eyes; she assumed he'd been enjoying the local hospitality along with the rest of the crew. "The High Councilor has been grilling me," he went on. "About you and Pavel."
"Sir?" she said, eyes widening in near horror.
Kirk waved it off. "He's...curious."
"About.... Did you tell him we plan to get married, sir?"
"Uh-hmmm. He didn't understand."
"What? Marriage?"
"Marriage. And love. And friendship. Or anything even approaching that line of thought. I've spent the last two days trying to get him to understand. It's like trying to explain 'green' to someone who's been blind since birth." He smiled again, still trying to ease Jaeger's obvious dismay at being the object of such discussion, noticing the bluish circles under her eyes and the discomfort reflected in them. She's not well, he thought. Not just from lack of sleep. "Don't worry about it, Lieutenant," he said. "You haven't done anything wrong. The Dianasians just don't seem to understand certain types of emotion. Their philosophy of life is quite a bit different from ours. Mister Spock explained their idea of 'oneness' to you, didn't he?"
She nodded. "Yes, sir. It was part of our orientation before we beamed down."
"They're very...isolated, in a sense. Each of them walks around in his own little universe. So, apparently, any concept that involves emotion between two people is foreign to them."
"But that's awful, sir."
"Everybody's different," Kirk shrugged. "I've come across a lot of strange philosophies in my time, and this isn't the strangest one."
"Have they always been like that?" Jaeger asked, gnawing at her lower lip.
Kirk tossed his head in a gesture that was neither a yes nor a no. "For several thousand years, at least. They seem to like to think they've always been the same, but the High Councilor said their holy writings talk about a 'gift'...their word is 'theaemrayal'. According to our computers, that translates as 'giving of oneself'."
"To someone else?" Jaeger filled in.
"To someone else. That doesn't quite fit in with the 'oneness' philosophy." He thought back over his two days of convoluted discussions with Gehaan, wishing Spock had taken part so that Gehaan could be kept to some sort of logical path. Gehaan's consuming interest seemed to be on the subject of love, which he claimed not to understand, but Kirk had gotten a distinct impression that the Dianasian did not want to understand, in spite of all his questions. He had returned continually to the idea of the Dianasians' "gift", which none of them had possessed for thousands of years, but which seemed to be (at least in Gehaan's eyes) virtually a raison d'être. According to Gehaan's scriptural quotes, if the Dianasians followed faithfully a quest for knowledge and understanding, both of themselves and of every stranger who came along, eventually they would find their mysterious gift once again. However, neither Gehaan nor anyone else Kirk had surreptitiously questioned seemed to know exactly what the gift had been or how it had been lost.
"It will all be explained to us when the time comes," Gehaan had concluded sagely.
Kirk mused, "So you're looking...but you don't know what you're looking for?"
Gehaan had sat back in his upholstered chair and had gazed placidly at Kirk for a long moment. Finally, in a voice fringed with irony that did not seem to suit him, he inquired, "Do you always know what you are looking for, Captain?"
Kirk had no answer to that question, either for Gehaan or for himself. He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist; it was early yet, and Gehaan did not expect him until late morning. After the first night's pointless verbal merry-go-round, Kirk had explained to the Councilor that Humans needed a good eight to ten hours of undisturbed sleep in order to function at peak efficiency. He flinched inwardly at the bald lie, hoping that Gehaan would never discover the tiny percentage of the Enterprise's crew who would even attempt sleeping that long, shore leave or no. To his enormous relief, Gehaan had not questioned the statement, had dismissed Kirk with a broad, enthusiastic smile, and requested that the captain return yet again to talk when he felt rested. Pushing the memories aside with an inner shudder, Kirk asked, "What about you, Lieutenant? Are you all right? You look worse than I do."
Jaeger's hand drifted up against her temple. "It's just this headache, Captain. Doctor McCoy said it would last a while, but it just goes on and on. It's been days now, and it doesn't get any better. I thought maybe if I came out and got some fresh air and sat in the sun a while, it would help." She sighed deeply. "But I think now I feel worse. My head feels like a stone."
"Then you should see McCoy again."
She paused, then said, "Yes, sir."
Kirk shaded his eyes with his hand so that he could get a better look at her expression. He'd recognized the tone in her voice: she was trying to determine if he'd issued an order or just a friendly suggestion. Another doctor-hater, he thought with a twinge of amusement. Since assuming command of the Enterprise, he had rarely been able to avoid McCoy for more than a few hours at a time, but (though he knew keeping healthy was in his own best interest as well as the crew's) Kirk had never professed any fondness for the medical profession. It was an attitude inherited from his father, and his grandfather, and from all the other males in the family since time immemorial: you visit a doctor only under one of two circumstances, when you are bleeding to death or when you are in so much pain you can't see. On all other occasions the Kirk men held fast to the "ignore it and it'll go away" school of thought. And, perversely, the Kirk women had fought that stubborn philosophy tooth and nail.
"...too stubborn for your own good, Jim Kirk," his mother retorted, exasperated.
"Ah, Mom, I'm all right."
She had stood her ground, two paces from the bed, arms folded across her chest and fire in her eye. That morning, clowning around with Sam, he'd thrust out his arm to break a fall that Sam had induced and had dislocated his shoulder for his troubles. The local doctor, an old fossil named Hermitage, had put the shoulder back in place under Marjorie Kirk's intense scrutiny and had prescribed several days of rest for fifteen-year-old Jim, with the wounded shoulder protected by a gray canvas sling.
Jim had nodded in pleasant agreement, had ridden home with his mother in near silence, and once back in the safety of his cluttered bedroom had tossed the sling onto a pile of books and magazines. Marjorie Kirk, bearing a tray of snacks, had found him curled on his bed with his treasured copy of Moby Dick and had nearly dropped the tray to the floor. They were still arguing the merits of second-guessing a seventy-eight-year-old G.P. when Sam came pounding up the stairs and popped into the open doorway.
"Tell her, Sam!" Jim had pleaded. "I don't need the sling."
"He doesn't need the sling, Mom." Grinning, Sam had pitched his younger brother the apple he'd toted in from the orchard. Jim caught it in a move so quick it was nearly invisible, and with his injured arm, to boot. Marjorie Kirk blanched and whirled on Sam, who thrust both hands up in front of his face to protect himself. "Whoa, Mom, easy!" Sam laughed.
Mrs. Kirk ignored her younger son's habit of calling his older brother 'Sam.' A stubborn Jimmy Kirk long ago had decided his brother and father couldn't possibly have the same name, and had taken to calling his older brother Sam. But she would have no part of it. "George, don't you encourage him," their mother said through her teeth. "You're even worse than he is."
"Good catch," Sam told his brother.
Jim bit into the apple, running his tongue down to catch the trickle of juice that escaped over his chin. "Thanks. Think I'm major league yet?"
"You bet," Sam replied, tossing his head back.
"I'm all right, Mom," Jim said once more.
Her eyes narrowed. "Someday, Jimmy, you're going to realize that there are people on this Earth who know more than you do about some things. Sometimes we tell you things for your own good."
He'd sighed deeply. "I know, Mom. I know."
Another voice penetrated the memory. Kirk blinked; Jaeger was peering at him curiously. "Did you say something, Lieutenant?" he asked.
"Yes, sir. I was just wondering...well, there was something Pavel and I wanted to ask you about." Kirk nodded for her to go on. She hesitated for a moment, glancing down at the ground, then out over the water. "I know we originally planned to wait till we get to Starbase Eleven, and have the chaplain there marry us. We can still wait until then; the time is no problem. But we've changed our minds." She flashed him a tentative smile. "If you'd consider it, Captain...if it's all right with you...well, we'd like you to marry us."
He returned the smile. "I'd be happy to."
"Really, sir? It's no trouble?"
"It's no trouble. It's an honor. Let me take a look at my schedule, and we'll work out a date and time."
She seemed enormously relieved. "Thank you, sir."
"You're welcome." Kirk straightened away from the tree and stretched his arms over his head. "Well, Lieutenant, if you don't mind being alone again, I think I'll try a run on the beach myself. It's been a while since I've run anywhere except the ship's gym." She was still forcing that attempt at a smile; if she tried any harder, he suspected her jaw would lock. "Get McCoy to take another look at you," he told her, thought of his mother one more time, and amended, "That's an order."
"Yes, sir," she murmured.
Kirk went off at a slow jog down the beach, intending to stop and do some warming-up out of sight of Jaeger and anyone else who might stroll down from the hotel. He was unaware that Jaeger had stopped watching him the moment he jogged away, and had resumed looking out over the water, where a pair of the Dianasian version of seagulls was doing kamikaze dives over the waves. She rubbed at her temples intermittently, trying to will away the dull, throbbing headache that hadn't left her since she'd boarded the Galileo back on Duncan's Rock. McCoy had given her a single, mild injection for the pain when he'd first examined her, then had suggested that it might be better to let the headache run its course so that he could more accurately monitor the ill effects of her cyanoalisitate exposure. Fine for him to say, she thought. He doesn't have anybody pounding on his head. She'd considered seeking the doctor out early that morning but had decided against it, sure that he would do nothing more than order another round of tests and then quote his earlier instructions.
"The hell with it," she muttered, and got up from the rock, blinking at the stab of pain that shot into her head just above her eyes. A little more sleep, that would take care of it. She'd already slept more than her customary five hours, but it had been a heavy, drugged sleep that left her as exhausted as if she had never been to bed--more than five hours filled with flashes of nightmares she couldn't remember. Just after sunrise she had struggled out of bed and pulled on running pants and T-shirt. Chekov had rolled over, murmured, "You are a driven woman, Gretchen," and instantly returned to sleep. She wasn't sure he'd be awake now, but no matter; she'd just crawl back in beside him.
Shoving her hands into the deep pockets of the running pants, she trudged back up the path to the garden entrance of the hotel (the Dianasians called it a guest building, but the Enterprise's crew would never think of it as anything other than an alien hotel). Nothing stirred except for a cluster of tiny, rainbow-feathered birds splashing in the fountain of the broad, marble-walled courtyard. Jaeger stopped for a moment to look at them, then moved into the lobby. It was dim inside; the artificial lights had gone off at sunup, but the sun's rays didn't penetrate far beyond the doors and windows.
The lobby was constructed of more of the ever-present pink-veined marble ("Half the planet must be marble quarries," Bob Tenaka had commented), the walls hung with tapestries, the floor dotted with thick woven rugs and massive, but beautiful upholstered wooden furniture. On Earth it would have been considered a ghastly mixture of decorative styles, but here, brightened by the beams of morning light, the clash was oddly appealing and much in keeping with the Dianasians' desire to be surrounded by beauty and comfort. None of the natives were around now, though, and the lobby was even more hushed than the outdoors; not so much as the hum of a chronometer broke the silence.
Jaeger padded along on sneakered feet, headed for the nearer of the two marble staircases leading up to the guest rooms. McCoy had bleated in dismay their first night on the planet at the complete absence of turbolifts. "Quite logical," Spock had responded. "None of their buildings are more than three floors tall. Are you unable to manage two flights of stairs, Doctor?" McCoy's reply had been whispered and extremely rude (at that moment, he felt astoundingly unable to manage two steps let alone two flights of stairs), but he had trailed Spock on up, not sharing the amusement of the younger crew members clustered behind them, one or two of whom had never seen a staircase before.
Jaeger was halfway to the stairs when she was halted by the sound of footsteps coming from the main entrance to the building. She turned in the direction of the sound.
"Good morning," said the newcomer. "A member of Captain Kirk's crew, I presume?"
Jaeger's hand flashed to her hip, and panic flooded through her when she remembered that she was both out of uniform and completely unarmed. She managed, but barely, to keep herself from shaking as the strength sapped out of her arms and legs. She said nothing, but her mouth drooped a little. There were two forms in front of her, one much taller and more imposing than the other, though it had been the smaller of the two who had spoken. The smaller one was smiling cheerfully, the bigger one looming behind him, silent and sullen. This is another nightmare, Jaeger thought. I'm dreaming all this. They say you never really know the difference between reality and dreams, so it doesn't matter how real this seems, it's just a bad dream.
The smaller form stuck out his right hand.
He wants to shake my hand? Jaeger thought hysterically. She tried to turn but her body refused to move.
"My name is Koloth. And this is Kilon. You are...?"
No matter that she was being rude, if this was only a dream. But then, was it possible to be rude to a Klingon anyway? Jaeger studied him, the pounding in her head now rivaled by the frantic pounding of her heart. Captain...? she pleaded silently. Why don't you come in here right now? Koloth didn't seem to notice that she was being rude. Was it possible that no time was passing? Of course....that was it. Time had stopped, like Chekov had suggested back in the briefing room. She felt a rush of relief and went on staring. Kilon, the bigger one, was dressed in the military uniform Jaeger was accustomed to, though there were no weapons dangling from his belt. His height, his clothing, and the belligerent sneer on his face made him a typical Kh'teb Klingon. Koloth, however, wore a deep green robe trimmed with soft leather and gold buckles. He was a full head shorter than Kilon, which would make him about Kirk's height, and the practically friendly look on his face belied his heritage. He was of the Kh'fjin sub-race
"Is something wrong?" Koloth asked finally.
"I..." was all Jaeger could force out.
"Please, please," Koloth said encouragingly. "There's no need to be afraid."
He was extending his hand a little further now. Barely half a meter separated them. He intended seizing her hand if she did not offer it to him. An instant before his gesture would have been complete, Jaeger's paralysis broke, and she bolted around Koloth, made the stairs, and tore up them two at a time. When she reached the sleeping room she was sharing with Chekov, she slammed the door control with the flat of her hand and almost fell through the doorway. Chekov was still curled under the bedcovers, his pillow bunched over his head; he was snoring.
"Pavel!" Jaeger shrieked.
Chekov's eyes shot open, and he sat up automatically, though still not really awake. "What...what's the matter?"
"In the lobby..."
"Calm down and tell me what's wrong." He groped his way out of bed, blinking heavily against the sunlight, his eyes bleary and bloodshot. Inwardly it surprised him that he was able to cross the floor to Jaeger without stumbling. She was breathing like an old steam-engine gone berserk. If he had been a little more awake, he would have remembered both his Starfleet training (which made reaction in situations like this totally automatic) and the fact that Jaeger was not a hysteric.
"There's a Klingon in the lobby," she blurted.
His eyes opened a little wider. "There's a...? Jajubimets, there are no Klingons on this planet."
"There's one...no, two. In the lobby. Downstairs."
"What are they doing?"
"One of them tried to shake my hand. Aren't you going to do anything?" she asked shrilly.
Rubbing at his head, Chekov padded across the room to the chair where his clothes were tossed, and ferreted in the pile until he located his communicator. Under Jaeger's frantic gaze, he flipped up the grid and said into the mike, "Enterprise."
"Enterprise bridge. Levine here," a woman's voice came back.
"This is Commander Chekov. Are there any Klingon vessels in the vicinity?"
After a beat, Linda Levine replied, "Negative, Commander. No vessels in this system except the Enterprise." There was a note of uncertainty in the voice of Uhura's relief officer. Nothing came over the communicator's tiny speaker to betray it, but Chekov could sense the increased level of activity on the bridge in response to his question. "Were you expecting any, Commander?" Levine asked.
"Negative. Do me a favor, Levine, and run a sensor scan. Are there any Klingons down here?"
"Hold a moment, sir. Checking now."
Chekov smiled benignly at Jaeger. She seemed to be unconvinced, and unsoothed by the calm that radiated from Chekov and from the Enterprise's bridge. He reached out to touch her, and her eyebrows crushed together in an expression of frustration and growing anger. Chekov rolled his eyes, which did nothing to improve her feelings.
"Commander Chekov?" Levine's voice said.
"Go ahead, Lieutenant."
"Sir..." She sounded puzzled, and not a little worried. "Sensors show two Klingon life forms within one hundred meters of your position."
"Are you sure?" Chekov barked into the communicator.
"Yes, sir. We ran the scan twice. The computer positively identifies two Klingons at...ninety-six point four meters from your present position. I think that would be in the same building you're in." When Chekov didn't reply, Levine prompted gently, "Did you want a security team down there, Commander?"
"Negative," Chekov said. "Stand by, Enterprise. Chekov out."
"Now do you believe me?" Jaeger asked.
Chekov flipped the grid down on the communicator, tossed it onto the end of the bed, and began yanking on his uniform. He was already half dressed when he said, "It's not that I didn't believe you. There aren't supposed to be any Klingons on this planet. According to the information we were given, there hasn't been a Klingon vessel in this sector for over a month." He fastened the front of his tunic and reached for his boots. "Were they armed?"
"Not that I could see. One of them...I don't know, he wasn't your typical Klingon."
"What does that mean?" Chekov asked, one boot dangling in the air.
"I told you--he tried to shake my hand. He wasn't in uniform." She thought back, trying to call up details of Koloth's appearance. "He was wearing some sort of a robe...something like their ambassadors wear. And he had this little furry thing hanging from his belt." The detail surprised her even as she mentioned it. At the time, she hadn't been aware of trivia.
Chekov stood up and settled his feet into the boots. "Little furry thing?"
"Uh-huh," Jaeger said hesitantly, puzzled by his expression.
"A tribble?" Chekov suggested.
"It might have been. It didn't really look like a tribble, though. It looked sort of...well, I guess it might have been dead. But why would anybody walk around with a dead tribble hanging from their belt?" Chekov had begun to pace the room agitatedly. Jaeger stayed where she was, growing more confused by the moment. He was obviously remembering something he didn't care for: he had that same knotted, intense look he wore whenever he was faced with something repugnant. "Pavel?" Jaeger said. "If it helps...I think he said his name was Koloth."
He bunched his hands and let out a howl of disgust, following that with a hot, Russian curse. It took him a moment to recover. When he had, he stuck the communicator and his hand phaser onto his belt, up under the back flap of his tunic, out of sight. "The captain isn't going to like this," he muttered, then amended, "No...the captain is going to hate this."
"Why? Who's Koloth?"
"It's a long story. A very long story." He moved toward the door.
Jaeger trailed him out into the corridor. "The captain's out running on the beach," she said, hustling to keep up with Chekov's long strides.
Koloth had already found Captain Kirk. After Jaeger had run off, he had made his own way down to the beach, smiling bemusedly at the sight of the Enterprise's commander jogging along the sand. Kirk was so involved in the run and in his own thoughts that he failed to notice Koloth until he had returned to a spot near where Jaeger had been sitting. He was walking around, cooling down, when Koloth stepped out from behind the tree that had concealed him and said ebulliently, "Greetings, Captain!"
Kirk shot upright, his hand moving toward his hip as Jaeger's had. When he found no phaser there, he let the hand drift down and straightened himself to face his accoster. "What..."
"You don't remember?" Koloth inquired. "I'm disappointed."
Kirk knew the voice. He had hoped never to hear it again, after the debacle of twenty years ago. Tribbles! he thought. On the bridge, in the corridors, in every cabin, every deck, in the food processing machinery. Little, pulsing, furry masses that reproduced at an incredible rate. The presence of the tribbles alone would have been bad enough, but then there was that pontificating Federation ambassador--what was his name? And the Klingons. He recalled Scott starting a fight in one of the space station bars when a Klingon had insulted his beloved Enterprise. Hadn't blinked twice at an insult to Kirk, though. Tribbles! Kirk held back the impulse to spit. "I remember all too well," he responded, hoping that his tone of voice was even. "Captain Koloth...or, rather Admiral Koloth these days."
"Glad to hear it, but I'm no longer in the military service now. I'm...I imagine you would call it an 'ambassador at large'."
"What are you doing here?" Kirk asked suspiciously, doubting that Admiral Koloth was no longer in the Klingon Defense Force.
"Meeting the people," Koloth replied pleasantly. "Getting to know this lovely planet. Familiarizing myself with their customs, their history, their culture. Quite interesting, don't you think? This concept of 'oneness' of theirs. Something like the Vulcan."
"Not really," Kirk snapped back.
"Ah, Captain, don't lose your temper. Not just when we're becoming reacquainted. I've missed you, you know. It's been a long time."
"Two years. Not long enough, Koloth."
Koloth took a few steps around, ostensibly examining his environment, idly touching a tree branch and pulling off a leaf. "I have as much right to be here as you do, Captain Kirk. I'm here as a visitor."
"Horseshit," Kirk said.
Eyes widening, Koloth threw back his head and laughed raucously. "I'm glad to see you haven't changed, Kirk. I was afraid that after all the years you might have mellowed. Become one of those old 'stuffed shirts' they talk about. But I underestimated you. You're still the same short-tempered Earther you always were. I must be sure to tell the Klingon Council. They'll be interested in your...lack of progress." Kirk said nothing, just glowered. Unaffected, Koloth reached down to unfasten one of the ornaments from his leather belt and extended it in Kirk's direction. "I've thought so much of you," Koloth went on, "that I kept a souvenir of one of our encounters. Rather well preserved, considering it's been dead for twenty years, don't you think?"
Kirk was careful not to move any closer, even though the angle of the sunlight kept him from seeing the object clearly. He was determined not to give Koloth any advantage in the conversation, but, to his annoyance, that seemed to be happening anyway. "A tribble," he guessed.
"Of course. One of many...very many."
"Thousands," Kirk said.
"Hundreds of thousands. All transported from your ship onto mine by the good graces of your engineer. And not on one occasion, but twice." Koloth returned the long-dead tribble to the clip on his belt. He'd had the creature deboweled and stuffed long ago (after having dangled it from the belt of his uniform with its innards intact until he'd left the military and surrendered the uniform), and had had it chemically treated several times since then, but it still gave off a faint, pungent odor. Idly he wondered if Kirk could smell it. Human revulsion for bad smells was well known--as well known as the Klingon fondness for the same bad smells. "By the way, Captain...is this some new uniform your crew has adopted? You're the second person I've seen this morning wearing this...unstructured outfit."
"We're on shore leave," Kirk snapped back. "The crew has my permission to wear anything they like."
Koloth exclaimed, "Really! How generous."
"Get to the point, Koloth." Do I really need the uniform? Kirk wondered. I can't be that insecure, to not be able to face him without the uniform. He was beginning to feel out of control, just enough to make him uneasy. In another minute he would feel as uncaptainlike as if he had been naked, and he cursed Koloth silently for destroying his composure that way. "I know you must have a point. What are you doing here?"
"I told you. Observing. Learning."
"The Citizen's High Council of this planet has already made their decision. They're joining the Federation. The agreement has been drawn up. It's going to be signed as soon as the Federation ambassadors get here."
"They've made up their minds," Koloth echoed.
"Yes."
"And they can just as easily un-make them," Koloth said.
"Koloth..."
Koloth waved the Enterprise's captain into silence. How he was enjoying all of this! It made the long years of study so worthwhile. All those record tapes: thousands of them. He'd suspected that the Starfleet people made a log entry every time they ate, spat or inhaled. And the history tapes! He nearly shuddered at the thought. Halfway into his first tape, a record of twentieth century Terran civilization, he'd wondered if a mistake had been made and this tape was really an entertainment program, some sort of satire. With that sort of background, no wonder the Humans acted as they did! With his old friend Kumara's help, for twelve standard years Koloth had read, listened and studied, filling his brain with every scrap of knowledge he could find about the Federation, about Starfleet, about Earth and about James Tiberius Kirk.
Now that Kumara himself was dead, Koloth knew he was the nearest thing the Klingon Empire had left to an expert on Terrans. Few of his peers respected him for that; they were a battle-happy people, establishing merit from a warrior's battle record, and Koloth, being a Kh'fjin, had a battle record that was spotty at best. He had had his own ship once, and had it taken away by the Kh'myr. He was promoted to Admiral, and given a desk job. Through his cunning, he survived the civil wars as Admirals Kusan and Khalian battled for control of the Empire. Following the purges which he managed to escape, the population of Kazh had devoted itself to warring amongst itself and with whatever Federation ship or planet or base that was in their way.
The majority of Kh'myr Klingons regarded him as a pathetic weakling, one of the few surviving members of his sub-race, a being not even worthy of battle. He paid little attention to the ridicule that followed him around like a pet animal. He had chosen his own path to honor as a D'Har master, and he had stuck to it faithfully. And now, as he faced the very unmilitary James Kirk (clad in drooping, stretched-out blue trousers and a tattered, thin shirt from which the sleeves had been torn off), he knew more of life from Kirk's point of view than any Klingon ever had--or, he suspected, ever would. That gave Koloth an extraordinarily heady sense of victory that he had never attained in battle.
The smile faded into a slight uplift at the left-hand corner of his mouth. Koloth fingered his stuffed tribble and watched Kirk fuming at him. "If you have a problem with my being here, Captain," he ventured, "I suggest you bring it up to the Citizen's High Council. They invited me to remain when my ship left to return to the Empire."
"Are there more of you here?" Kirk demanded.
"Just my aide, Kilon. You may remember him; he was formerly Kor's aide. I would have sent him on his way, too, but Admiral Kusan thought it unwise for me to remain here by myself. So Kilon is here as my...I think you refer to it as a 'bodyguard.'"
Kirk's hands fought to clench. It took quite a bit of will to keep them open. "You might need a bodyguard, Koloth. To protect you from me." Koloth's expression didn't change. He and Kirk both knew that if they had not been alone, Kirk would not be speaking this way. But with no witnesses...
"A little threat between friends?" Koloth inquired. "And after our Empire helped saved your Federation from the Kelvans. Tsk tsk."
"I will be going to the Council," Kirk concluded. "To see what the hell is really going on here."
"Be my guest. I'll be around. Do let me know when you're ready to talk some more. I'm looking forward to continuing." Koloth dipped into a bastardized bow. "Now, Captain, I really think you should do something about your appearance. Very...unimpressive. Shore leave or not. You're not living up to your reputation. I expect more of you."
Kirk strode past him, aiming for the Dianasian guest building.
Smirking, Koloth called after him, "You can't imagine how pleased I was to find out you were coming here. It's made everything worthwhile."
*****
Spock moved the joystick lightly and noted with satisfaction how easily the aircar responded to his touch. The car slid smoothly upward, clearing by at least a meter the tree that Spock had climbed to avoid. He had been at the controls only half an hour, but had become so accustomed to flying the little craft that he was making adjustments nearly by instinct, and was able to devote the better part of his attention to the landscape and not the instrument panel.
When he had first ventured out of the guest building, it had been just before sunrise and he was alone in the quiet streets of Dianas's capital city. Rather than go directly to the hanger where the aircar was parked, he had strolled through the city for nearly two hours, silently absorbing the details of his surroundings. The small city was unique; despite the Humans' insistence upon comparing it to other places, other worlds they had seen, Elyantorvan was quite different from anything Spock had ever encountered. True, there were small similarities in architecture and in the plant and animal life, but, for the most part, every detail, every species, every line in the carvings that decorated the building facades, was unique in and of itself. It was in keeping with the Vulcan joy in the philosophy of infinite diversity in infinite combinations (IDIC, or as McCoy insisted on referring to it, "idick", which bore no relation to the melodic Vulcan words) that Spock found himself absorbed in cataloging the thousands of tiny differences he found. Now, as the morning progressed, he was at the controls of the aircar Gehaan had loaned to him, taking a better look at the city from above.
Pleasant, he thought to himself as he angled the car a bit higher, cruising some twenty meters above the ground. Gehaan had assured him that he would disturb no one by flying low over the huge park that bordered Elyantorvan's western limits; the aircar ran silently, and there was still no one to be found on the city's broad, tree-lined streets. Spock had left the craft's window panels open so that the sweet, cool morning air could sweep through the car, and heard nothing over the rush of wind other than the myriad songs of the birds hidden among the tree branches.
The Dianasians had done a fine job of maintaining their city to appeal to their love of beauty, he observed. It had no tall buildings, no narrow streets, no visible garbage, no signs of disrepair. No dust rising to irritate the eyes or prick at the nostrils, no smells of decomposition or waste, no harsh facades. The buildings were all of marble or other carved stone, with an occasional wooden panel for decoration. The streets were paved with a pebbly substance that gave minutely underfoot to lend the impression of walking on grassy soil rather than pavement. Storefronts were filled with potted flowers and gay fabrics to set off the wares being displayed, and the small, comfortable dwellings were flanked with broad lawns, trees, shrubbery, flowers, small fountains and lovely carved statues of birds and animals. Nothing seemed out of place. It was a world of singular beauty, Spock noted. In that sense it was like so many others that the crew of the Enterprise had come across in their journeys: "like the Garden of Eden," they would invariably muse. But unlike most of those other worlds, Spock had been unable to find the serpent in this particular Eden. The Dianasians seemed to have achieved a remarkable balance: technology without technology's usual demons. He had given some thought shortly after the Enterprise's arrival here, to the Dianasians' other remarkable balance: they seemed, as McCoy would colloquially put it, to "have a handle on their emotions." They did not know love, but on the other hand, neither did they know anything about hatred. Or jealousy, or greed or ambition. They were a wonderfully placid, settled people who found great joy in their world.
But, Spock wondered, was there truly such a thing as a one-sided coin? Beauty without ugliness? Joy without pain? The concept of the two-sided coin could be found in Vulcan philosophy (though in somewhat different terms), and in the Human, and in the philosophies of thousands of other races throughout the universe. A justification? Spock wondered. A way to reconcile the mind to everything negative it might encounter. Everything had its opposite, surely. Would the Dianasians know that? No joy without pain. The thought made Spock breathe a quick sigh as he guided the aircar in a smooth arc to bring it back into the limits of the city.
Their concept of 'oneness' saddened him, too, in a way that it would not have earlier in his life. The younger Spock had tried to follow his forebears' insistence on pure logic as a guide for life--had tried to purge the Human half of his heritage in a quest for what the Vulcans called Kolinahr. He had spent nearly a year with the Masters of Gol in their forbidding mountain temple, trying to forget the Humans he had called his friends, trying most of all to forget Jim Kirk, trying to bury his emotions in a place so deep that even he would be forever unable to find them. He had almost succeeded.
Then, across the void of space, the being that called itself V'Ger had called to him. And in V'Ger's vastness, he had found the flaw in the Kolinahr. Logic, V'Ger cried out in its black emptiness, is not enough. V'Ger, the living machine, on a journey of eons across the universe, had gathered into itself all that was knowable, every particle of information it could find as it crossed from one end of time to another, and, when its journey was through, it cried out in its pain and loneliness: is there nothing more?
Spock had wept for V'Ger's isolation, its endless yearning for the answers to its own existence, its life without feeling, and had looked for the joy in his own life. "Your answer lies elsewhere, Spock," the Vulcan masters had told him when he failed at Kolinahr, and that was true. His answers were not on Vulcan, not in the discipline of pure logic, not in the great loneliness that reliance on logic alone would bring. He had searched his soul endlessly, wondering how his Vulcan fathers could bear that sort of isolation, and had ultimately been reminded that he too was a part of "IDIC", a unique being who must follow his own path in life. Though he was not entirely sure why, he still maintained the mask of the Vulcan, but underneath lay an entirely different Spock, a creature who enjoyed no "oneness" but who cared as deeply and felt as much as his Human companions.
Once, years ago, before he had learned to see through the mask of the Vulcan, McCoy had observed with some sympathy, "Think of all the things you'll never know...just because the word 'love' isn't written in your book."
To Spock's endless gratitude (and perhaps to McCoy's as well), McCoy had been wrong.
Down below, the Dianasians were beginning to emerge from their homes, headed for their day's activities. Some of them were dressed in jumpsuits like the ones the High Councilors had worn to greet the Enterprise crew; others wore long robes that swished around their ankles as they walked. They seemed not to notice the aircar that floated high above their heads. For beings whose "book" did not include the concept of love, they seemed remarkably pleased with each other, with themselves and with their surroundings. Not one of them wore a negative expression; no scowls, no frowns, not even the absence of a smile. Perhaps that could be considered a drawback, Spock observed. Having lived most of his life in the diligent avoidance of smiling, he wondered about the wisdom (the logic? he thought) of smiling all the time. Surely these people did not, could not. Surely they were not this pleased with life all the time. How profoundly unfair that would be! Spock had never wasted much of his time in the pursuit of anything as ephemeral as happiness (even at this point, he still felt that to be the most fruitless of Human passions), but for these people to be so overwhelmingly self-satisfied while one of their visitors was so overwhelmingly self-defeated.... He thought of the expression on Kirk's face the night before as he had left the dining room on the coattails of Gehaan, who was murmuring on and on about the Dianasians' lost "gift". No smile there. Just endless weariness, a quick resigned quirk of one corner of his mouth in Spock's direction, and then no expression at all. He was in pain of a kind, chronic, the sort that would wear away at him until it had defeated him entirely.
Curious, Spock reached out with the part of his mind that belonged to the link and searched for his t'hy'la, sighing again when he bumped into the same wall of annoyance and frustration that had occupied Kirk's mind for weeks. He probed a bit further, and found one thought being repeated (beyond a string of what Spock referred to as "colorful metaphors"): Koloth. Spock's brow slid up under his bangs. Koloth? Here? He was not conscious of altering the aircar's course, but a moment later it was turned completely around, headed for the storage hangar.
*****
"Councilor," Kirk said, struggling to keep a nearly polite tone in his voice, "you have to understand..."
"I understand what Koloth had told me," Gehaan said mildly.
"His people..." Kirk began again.
Gehaan lifted a hand and gestured for Kirk to be silent. "His people have come and gone. Koloth has stayed behind to study, to be among us, to learn from us and to allow us to learn from him. He causes no harm, Captain. We are certainly in no danger from him or from his companion." He seemed not to notice the rage boiling under the surface of Kirk's expression. "Please. Allow us to make our own decisions. After all, Captain, you are a visitor here, as is Koloth."
Kirk's mouth opened, but a moment went by before he replied. "Of course, Councilor."
"Good," Gehaan smiled.
Deflated, Kirk sank into one of the plush chairs in front of the High Councilor's enormous carved wooden desk. Sitting down made him feel even less in control, and he began to wonder what had happened to his sense of authority. Ever since Koloth had pointed out the oddness of his worn-out jogging clothes, he'd had the feeling of descending a long staircase that seemed to have no end. Full uniform didn't help, even with a communicator and hand phaser tucked under the back flap of his tunic. He had not one shred of authority over Gehaan (or anyone else from Dianas), or over the two Klingons; the only members of his own crew he'd seen that morning were Chekov and Jaeger, with whom he had collided in the lobby of the guest building. He remembered addressing them in a tone that now reminded him of Captain Dynhart, the most obnoxious of his Academy instructors, full of anger and frustration. Chekov had heard him bark too many times in the past to let Kirk's tone bother him, but Jaeger had shrunk back with obvious puzzlement in her eyes. Damn it, Kirk thought, what the hell's happening here? He looked across the desk at Gehaan, who for the moment was not broadcasting that ridiculous childlike grin of his.
"Councilor," he began once more, "we simply feel that you should be aware of the Klingons' intentions."
"You speak for them?" Gehaan inquired.
"No, sir. I speak from experience." Kirk paused, waiting for a reaction. All Gehaan did was steeple his fingers. "The Klingon Empire believes in domination, Councilor, not in friendly co-existence, which is what the Federation offers. We have no desire to conquer your people."
"The Klingons have made no attempt at conquest, either, Captain."
"They may be merely biding their time, sir."
Gehaan sat back a little. The hinges on his chair creaked with his weight. He rocked in the chair several times, almost as if he were provoking the creaking, and his gaze wandered around the room, taking in his collection of paintings and tapestries, the fabric of the drapes at the tall windows, the sunny view of the garden outside. When he finally turned back to Kirk, there was no suggestion of the ever-present smile, and his tone had darkened. "I do not believe you understand our people, Captain Kirk. There are few of us, and our philosophy is one of peace and the enjoyment of life. There would be no profit in conquering Dianas; we have no wealth here, and we are not in a position that would make us a valuable planetary base. We have been left alone for thousands of years, Captain. No one, save ourselves, has found anything of value here. And what we value most of all is our solitude. We have made you welcome, because our ancient teachings celebrate the value of learning, and of teaching. We take joy in learning from you and in giving learning to you." He paused, and the chair creaked painfully. "However, if you insist on bringing discord to our people because of your disagreements with the Klingons, we will be forced to ask you to leave."
Kirk felt himself bumping down several more steps. "You have my sincere apologies, Councilor," he said. His stomach had begun to burn. "It wasn't my intention to create any sort of problem among your people. Captain Koloth and I will...take our disagreements elsewhere."
"That would be best." After a long moment of thought, Gehaan slid open one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out a fat, leather-bound book. The musty smell of old paper wafted across the desk. "This is the Ghanni," he told Kirk, cradling the book gingerly in both hands. "Our holy book. You would do me great honor if you would read it." His smile began creeping back as he eased the book across the desktop toward Kirk, and he continued, "I believe the computer aboard your ship can translate?"
Kirk murmured, "Yes. It has a scanner that translates printed material."
"Then you will honor me by reading our Ghanni?"
Stuck again, Kirk thought. "Yes, of course," he replied, trying to match Gehaan's smile and not quite succeeding. "I'd...be glad to." He accepted the book, judging by the weight of it that he had a lot of reading ahead of him. Normally he enjoyed reading and had a collection of printed volumes in his cabin aboard the Enterprise, but holy books had never been among his favorites. On the other hand, he thought ruefully, the Christian Bible was composed mostly of stories; perhaps this book was much the same, rather than being thousands of pages of deadly-dry philosophy like the Vulcan holy works.
"You will learn much about our people from the Ghanni," the Head Councilor went on. "I hope it will help you understand what I have been trying to say."
"I'm sure it will, Councilor," said Kirk, who was not sure at all.
"Excellent." Gehaan got up from the creaking chair and ushered Kirk to the massive door of his office. "Please do return when you have finished reading, and we will talk again. I think we have much still to learn from each other." He reached beyond Kirk and opened the door. "I hope your crew is enjoying their visit here?"
"They seem to be."
"Good. Go well, Captain."
The Councilor seemed to be waiting for something, but Kirk had no clue what that might be. Hugging the book closer to his chest, he nodded to the Dianasian and said quietly, "Thank you, Councilor." Gehaan bobbed his head in return. When Kirk had moved through the doorway into the corridor, the door softly thumped shut behind him.
Spock was standing down the corridor a few paces, his back to the wall. "Jim?"
"I've been rebuked," Kirk told him.
"Not surprising," Spock said, paying no attention to the startled look he got from his friend. "A collision of philosophies was bound to occur sooner or later. I do not believe that the Dianasians' view of life could possibly differ from yours any more than it does." Kirk opened his mouth, but Spock shook his head and continued, "I imply no criticism. Merely a statement of fact."
"Hmmm," Kirk said, frowning.
"Actually, the Dianasians have been most gracious at accepting the crew of the Enterprise, despite the differences in philosophy. They simply do not understand Humans."
Kirk muttered, "Maybe you could give them some pointers."
Spock began walking down the corridor toward the lobby of the council building. After a pause of a few seconds, Kirk followed him, taking the first few steps rapidly so that he could fall into pace with Spock. "I believe some of the Dianasians were actually quite perturbed about Chekov and Lieutenant Jaeger sharing a room. As I am sure you've noticed...the Dianasians do not believe in sharing one's living quarters with anyone. It is a gross violation of their 'oneness'. They seem to be allowing the situation to continue simply because of their desire to learn new things."
Rolling his eyes, Kirk inquired, "You're sure they don't have the room bugged, Mister Spock?"
"'Bugged'?" Spock echoed.
"Listening devices. They aren't eavesdropping, are they?"
"I do not believe so."
"That would be a violation of 'oneness', then."
"Of course."
Kirk mused, "Thank heaven for small favors."
They went on walking, footsteps echoing down the corridor. "I see Councilor Gehaan has given you a copy of the Ghanni," Spock observed.
"Homework, Mister Spock."
"I read it myself during the night. I believe you will find it interesting. The language is quite beautiful." Kirk said nothing in reply. Spock stopped walking and regarded his friend, waiting for a response of some kind. Kirk stopped arm's length away, clutching the book, still frowning. "I did not intend to criticize," Spock said again.
"I know." Kirk paused, looking around. "Things are getting away from me, Spock. It never used to be that way. I used to be able to hold my own."
"You are not the same person you were, Jim."
"I've been in a position of authority for almost half my life, Spock. Why do I feel like I'm...losing hold?"
"You have changed," Spock said. "I believe you now have the ability, as Doctor McCoy would say, to see past the end of your own nose."
"And I didn't have before?" Kirk asked.
"Not at first. Not when you first took command." Spock resumed walking, and again Kirk fell into step beside him. "I admire you for what you are, and for what you have learned, Jim. You are more than able to command...and I am not."
"But you are. You've taken command many times."
"Briefly," Spock acknowledged. "I find myself unwilling to accept the responsibility for a ship and a crew. I see in myself the same questions, the same pains that you have. I do not believe I would be able to shoulder command of a starship. I am simply not a leader, Jim. I content myself with being a teacher, and a student. You are the captain. Admiral Nogura knew that when he gave the Enterprise to you. You proved yourself to be the finest starship commander in Starfleet. You became everything Captain Pike had been...perhaps more. I have never felt a moment of regret that Starfleet Command gave the Enterprise to you."
"Thank you, Spock," Kirk said solemnly.
"I wish I could provide more of the answers you seek," Spock went on.
"Nobody can," Kirk murmured.
"If my advice helps you, I will continue to offer it. However, I do not feel..."
The chirping of Kirk's communicator cut Spock off in mid-sentence. Indicating with a nod that Spock should hold the thought, Kirk plucked the communicator from his belt, flipped up the grid and said into the mike, "Kirk here."
"Jim?" McCoy's voice came back. "I need you up here."
"Up...?" Kirk frowned, momentarily confused. "What are you doing on board, Bones? I thought you were down here."
"I was. Chekov and I brought Jaeger up a little while ago. She passed out and fell down half a flight of those infernal marble stairs." There was a pause. When McCoy spoke again, his voice had become noticeably harsher. "She's pretty banged up. Those people ought to discover the wonders of a turbolift and forget about the pretty staircases."
Kirk said narrowly, "Bones...what do you need me for?"
"I'd sooner tell you when you get here."
The captain rubbed at his hair. The nagging feeling in his head that had begun while he was talking with Gehaan was turning rapidly into a headache. "Doctor," he said with an edge to his voice, "you don't need me to hold Jaeger's hand over some bumps and bruises. I'm sure Chekov can handle that quite well. Now, if there's something more important you want me up there for, tell me. I don't have time for guessing games."
Static crackled through the tiny speaker as McCoy paused once more. "All right, then. You're going to have to find yourself another handball partner, Captain."
"Bones!" Kirk roared.
McCoy's voice dropped to near a whisper, just barely audible over the speaker. "We've run the tests three times, Jim. I've recalibrated every damn way I can think of, and the results all come out the same. Jaeger's dying, Jim. Now will you come up here?"
Kirk exchanged a long, pained look with Spock, and squeezed his eyes shut. "I'll be right there," he told McCoy.
Chapter 4
"Normally," McCoy said, aware that most of what he'd been saying up to this point was familiar to any high school biology student, "the red blood cells piggyback oxygen around in the body." He tapped a key on the computer console, and a simplified molecular diagram came up on the screen. None of the people around the briefing table seemed terribly impressed. "But when a person is exposed to certain substances--carbon monoxide, cyanoalisitate, a few others--those substances bond onto the red blood cells, preventing them from carrying oxygen." One side of his mouth crept up in a sickly grin that had absolutely no humor behind it. "The red blood cells simply like the other stuff better." Spock hiked an eyebrow; Kirk and Chekov merely looked blearily at the doctor. Losing the grin, McCoy went on, "The effect of carbon monoxide or cyanoalisitate depends on the amount of exposure. With a little bit, all you get is a headache, maybe some nausea. With increasing exposure..."
"Severe headaches, dizziness, drowsiness, lack of coordination, difficulty in interpreting visual stimuli," Chekov muttered.
McCoy tapped the console button again. A new diagram popped onto the screen. "Right. This is what it looks like--hemoglobin bonded to a cyanoalisitate molecule. As you know," he forged ahead, suspecting that none of them did know, except possibly Spock, "there isn't much research on the effects of cyanoalisitate exposure, due to the fact that few planets have any cyanoalisitate gas in their atmospheres. It's normally found as a solid. But from the research that's been done, unless a certain dosage is exceeded, the cyanoalisitate seems to just sit there. It bonds onto some of the red blood cells, but then it doesn't seem to do anything." He paused.
"Keep going," Kirk told him tiredly.
The doctor brought up a new drawing onto the screen. "Now, in the atmosphere here--on Dianas--there's a trace element. The locals give it a name with about twenty syllables." He tapped the computer screen with a forefinger. "This is it, here. This stuff, whatever it is, bonds onto the cyanoalisitate and forms an entirely new molecule." Once more he touched the console and prompted a new schematic. "The whole thing is attached to the hemoglobin. And it doesn't let go, the way oxygen ultimately lets go of the hemoglobin as it's transported through the body. It is an unstable molecule, however, and after a certain period of time it breaks down into two separate molecules, which look like this." He touched the screen when the last schematic appeared, indicating the two separate molecules represented there. "Neither of which is hemoglobin."
Kirk studied the screen for a long moment. His high school biology days were long behind him, and he hadn't had much occasion to refresh anything he'd learned back then. "That's wonderful, Bones," he said without enthusiasm. "What does all that mean, exactly?"
"It means," McCoy replied, "that once the cyanoalisitate and this other stuff bonds together inside your body, then starts breaking down, after a while you end up with no red blood cells whatsoever."
"There's nothing you can do?"
"Not that I can find. Like I said, you can't unbond this thing."
"What about transfusions?" Kirk suggested.
McCoy waggled his head. "As fast as we pump in new red blood cells, the cyanoalisitate bonds onto them, whether they're produced naturally in the body or transfused in. And this cyanoalisitate-whatsis molecule clings to the lining of the blood vessels, so even if we did a complete transfusion with whole, new blood, it wouldn't do any good at all. The damage is already done. Seems like it was done the first few minutes she was here. So it doesn't make any difference now whether she stays up here aboard ship, or goes back down to the surface."
"How long, Bones?"
With a heavy shrug, McCoy settled back into the chair, away from the computer screen. He'd looked at the series of schematics so many times during the last hour that he could still see them even when he closed his eyes. "Hard to tell. But it's a slow process, the breakdown I mean. I'd say maybe a week, two weeks." He rubbed at his temples. "Of course, that's not to say she's going to be in top form the whole time. She feels pretty lousy already."
Chekov lifted his head, gazing first at McCoy, then turning a little so he could face Spock, his expression heavily clouded. "This is your fault," the Russian said a moment later.
"Chekov..." McCoy said.
"You took her down there," Chekov murmured. "None of this would be happening if you hadn't taken her down there."
"Take it easy, Pavel," Kirk warned.
Shaking, Chekov bounced up out of his chair, lowering his head so that he was staring stonily at the Vulcan first officer. As he spoke, his voice grew progressively higher in pitch so that by the time he was finished, he was practically screeching. "You're supposed to be so logical! If the cyanoalisitate is only harmful to Humans, why did you take Humans with you? Why didn't you take somebody else?"
"It was an accident, Chekov," McCoy urged.
"It never should have happened!" Chekov howled. "He should have known!" Kirk and McCoy both got up from the table, went to Chekov and firmly sat him back down. The younger man had begun to quiver convulsively and tears were overflowing down his cheeks. He made no attempt to resist the captain or McCoy, just slumped back into the chair, his hands in his lap, and eventually began to sob hopelessly. "Why?" he snuffled. "Why didn't you know what would happen? Why did you take her down there? Why couldn't you pick somebody else?"
McCoy sighed deeply. "He didn't do it deliberately, Chekov. It was an accident. Nobody meant for anything like this to happen, for God's sake."
Chekov peered at him. "You don't understand."
"I do, Chekov, I do."
"No you don't," Chekov persisted, tears running off his chin onto the front of his uniform jacket. His nose had started running too, and he swiped roughly at it with the back of his hand. "How could you understand? Any of you?" He jabbed a finger in Spock's direction. "And how could he understand? He doesn't have any idea how I feel about her."
"On the contrary, Mister Chekov," Spock replied quietly. "I know all too well."
Kirk took a sudden step away from Chekov's seat, resting a hand on the briefing table to support himself. Somewhere inside his head he could hear that horrible thump again, feel his arms around McCoy as he held his friend back, prevented him from running into the street to stop the collision. McCoy had gaped at him, shocked, unable to interpret Kirk's expression, unaware of the absolute hopelessness that had overtaken Kirk as the truck came out of nowhere and slammed into Edith. It was the worst sound he had ever heard, that single thump: an odd sound, like a sack of flour hitting a wall. A moment later she lay on her back in the street, blood oozing over the pavement, and he tried to find some shred of gratitude that at least she had died immediately. It had been difficult; most of what swept through him was a sort of black emptiness.
"Jim? You all right?" he heard McCoy asking.
He took a deep breath, nodded, and stepped further away from the table. "I'll be in my cabin if you need me," he told the doctor, pivoted, and hurried out the door of the briefing room. He was not in the corridor long enough to notice if anyone was nearby. The briefing room door had barely closed behind him when he strode into the smaller conference room across the corridor, dropped into a chair as the door closed, lowered his face into his hands and gave in to his own tears.
*****
"Distress call on the emergency channel, Captain."
"Speakers."
The collection of cadets manning the bridge listened to the distress call as had hundreds of rookies before them--tinny, static-filled, the voice thick with fright. Jaeger straightened in the command chair, knowing what was coming, trying to organize her thoughts so that she could speak without a waver when the message ended. She could feel Spock's eyes on her like two cold spots at the back of her neck. Okay, Jaeger, let's do this right, she thought. The question was, was there or was there not a Kobayashi Maru in real jeopardy out in the middle of the Neutral Zone? The freighter was under attack, so the distress call maintained: life support systems out, only a few minutes' worth of air left, no other help available in the sector. They needed help from the Liberty, and they needed it now.
If, indeed, there was a real Kobayashi Maru out there.
"Patch me in," Jaeger told Bess Lauderbeck, her roommate, presently sitting in at the communications console. Lauderbeck tapped several buttons, nodded in affirmation at Jaeger. "Kobayashi Maru, this is the starship Liberty," Jaeger said loudly enough for the overhead mike to pick up her voice and send it across space. "We are receiving you, but your message is breaking up. Can you boost your signal?"
"Affirmative, Liberty," the voice came back, a bit louder but still crackling with static.
"What are your coordinates, Kobayashi Maru?"
The voice at the other end read off a series of numbers. Smack in the middle of the Neutral Zone, as Jaeger had known they would be. She frowned slightly, not enough to be obvious, and tapped into the intercom. "Transporter room, did you get that?"
"Got it, Captain," the reply snapped. "Standing by."
Jaeger considered the main viewing screen in front of her for a long moment. Walking Bear had brought up on the screen a schematic of where they were in relation to the Neutral Zone, where the stricken Kobayashi Maru would be. Another time, at another place (though not far enough away that the memory could be avoided), there had been another ship in much the same situation. It had answered a distress call and had never returned to Federation space. Spock's gaze seemed to have drilled halfway through the back of her neck. Jaeger rested her hands lightly on the arms of the command chair, marveling at the fact that she was not sweating. "Transporter room, keep a fix on those coordinates. When you can lock onto the survivors, move like you never moved before. We won't have much time."
"Aye, Captain."
She turned again to Lauderbeck. "Message to Starfleet Command. We're going into the Neutral Zone...in violation of the treaty accords, on my responsibility. Rescue mission." Lauderbeck acknowledged the order and immediately began sending the message. "Helm, how long to reach them at Warp Eight?"
Walking Bear had already calculated it. "Three point six minutes, Captain."
Almost four minutes. Under the conditions they'd be flying into, four minutes could be endless. On the other hand, it could all end very quickly. Jaeger eased in a deep breath, tried for calm, and said rapidly, "Yellow alert. All shields up. Phaser banks and photon torpedoes armed and ready. When we're close enough to lock on with the transporters, we'll drop the shields for fifteen seconds. No more."
"Aye, aye, Captain," Walking Bear said quietly.
"Warp Eight, Mister Walking Bear. Now."
The surge of increased power shuddered through the bridge. The schematic on the main viewer changed rapidly; at Jaeger's signal, Walking Bear replaced it with the normal full-ahead picture. A few seconds later, the irritatingly precise voice of the computer announced, "Warning. Warning. We are in the Neutral Zone. Warning. We have penetrated the Neutral Zone. We are in violation of treaty."
"Lauderbeck, shut that thing up!" Jaeger snapped.
Lauderbeck touched a button and the computer voice was cut off in mid-word. She had one eye on her board, one on Jaeger, and, if it had been possible, would have had a third eye on Spock, who was manning the science station, present as one of the three required Academy instructors for the duration of the Kobayashi Maru test. Though each of the cadets would eventually have his or her turn in command (at least for the purposes of the test), this was the first time any of this particular group had taken part in what their instructors referred to as "the no-win scenario." Jaeger was one of their own--a popular one of their own--and the entire group had a vested interest in her success. If she failed, in a sense it would make all of them look bad. They waited, literally on the edges of their seats, and their intensity did little to ease Jaeger's rapidly fraying nerves.
"Sensors?" she said over her shoulder, not wanting to turn and face Spock. "What's out there?"
"Some natural space debris, Captain," Spock replied evenly. "And an ion cloud--causing some interference with long-range sensor sweep. There is, however, an object on screen that might be a ship."
"Just one ship," Jaeger replied, not quite a question.
"Affirmative."
Her eyes were on the screen again. They were out there somewhere, she was sure, waiting for the right moment. In spite of what the sensors might indicate, they would be there, guarding their side of the Neutral Zone like weeds alongside a fence.
"Intercept in two minutes, mark," Walking Bear announced.
Spock said abruptly, urgently, "Sensors picking up additional objects, Captain."
"Identify."
His fingers moved over the keys on the science panel, almost too rapidly to be seen, calling up augmented information. "Three ships, moving in at Warp Seven. Klingon battle cruisers, Captain."
Kenny Bushmiller, beside Walking Bear at the navigation console, said wryly, "Here comes the wolf pack," and nodded at the screen.
Jaeger's hand slammed down on the command chair console, activating the alert system. The bridge lights dimmed to scarlet and the alert klaxon began its strident whooping. Keying into the ship-wide intercom, Jaeger said tersely, "Battle stations. All hands, battle stations. Full power to the shields. Ready with phasers."
"Phasers ready, Captain," Walking Bear confirmed.
"Torpedoes armed?"
"Armed and ready. Awaiting your order."
She turned just enough to be able to see Lauderbeck out of the corner of one eye. "Open hailing frequencies." Allowing Lauderbeck a second to do so, she went on, "This is the U.S.S. Liberty. We are on a rescue mission. Repeat, we are on a rescue mission. Hold your fire."
"They're jamming us, Captain," Lauderbeck replied.
Though still a huge distance away, the Klingon ships nearly filled the main viewscreen. Jaeger's hands tightened on the arms of the command chair. "Evasive maneuvers, Mister Walking Bear. Keep us out of their way."
"Aye, Captain." Walking Bear's hands moved deftly; the perspective on screen changed as the Liberty dipped in space and headed off on a tangent away from the converging paths of the Klingons. The enemy ships changed course just as rapidly, once more closing on a point in front of the Federation ship. Walking Bear tried another tack, the ship responding quickly and smoothly to his commands, but it accomplished little, the Klingons responding in kind. "They're arming weapons, Captain. Still closing."
"Five hundred thousand kilometers," Bushmiller said. "Four fifty..."
A glowing ball of red appeared at the nose of one of the Klingon vessels: a photon torpedo, aimed at the Liberty's foremost vulnerable points. When it impacted, the bridge shuddered, the lights blinking briefly as if unsure whether to stay lit. "Shields holding," Spock announced.
"Fire torpedoes!" Jaeger said sharply.
Bushmiller's fingers danced on the keys. "Fire one...fire two..."
One of the torpedoes found its mark, on the port side of the middle Klingon ship. Instantly all three ships returned fire, rocking the bridge with the impact of the triplet of explosions, shorting out electrical systems and filling the air with trailing wisps of smoke. Damage reports began coming in over the intercom. Bushmiller continued sending off torpedoes, with little effect; for every one that found a target, several more soared off into empty space.
"Still closing!" Walking Bear called out. "Two hundred thousand kilometers."
"Forward shields down to sixty percent," Spock announced. "Starboard shield inoperable. Damage to decks three and four. Casualties on deck three, no fatalities."
"In phaser range, Captain!" Walking Bear shouted over the growing racket on the bridge.
"Fire all phasers," Jaeger called back.
Bushmiller's fingers flew again. "Firing phasers!"
Two of the Klingon ships began dancing around the Liberty while the third remained dead ahead, holding its position relative to the Federation ship. The two coming around behind continued their assault, barraging the Liberty with both phaser blasts and torpedoes. The noise on the bridge doubled, tripled, and with it the amount of smoke in the air as more of the bridge systems shorted out. Yet another photon torpedo found its mark just off the bridge, and the Liberty was jolted sharply, rocking half the bridge personnel out of their seats.
"Losing power to phaser banks!" Bushmiller shrieked.
Jaeger whirled the command chair around. "We need power to the weapons!"
Spock shook his head, more grave than alarmed. "Impossible, Captain. Batteries are down to twenty percent and draining off rapidly."
"They have us surrounded, Captain," Walking Bear shouted over his shoulder.
For an interminable few seconds, Jaeger considered her situation. The bridge continued to be rocked by explosions, though Bushmiller did his best to counter them and a handful of his shots did indeed find targets. Warning lights were flashing all over the bridge, alerting the crew to the failing status of most of the ship's systems. Another well-aimed shot from the lead Klingon vessel destroyed the communications system, with a resulting massive electrical short that threw Bess Lauderbeck out of her seat to lie crumpled on the floor. A few seconds later, the science console exploded, and, though Spock had seen it coming soon enough to pull his hands away, the blast was still violent enough to throw him onto the floor beside Lauderbeck. Bushmiller glanced around, shuddered and returned his attention to his board, beginning to wonder how long it would take until it, too, blew out.
"Captain," he said sickly, "I believe we are well and truly fucked."
"Mister Walking Bear," Jaeger said. "Pivot."
Walking Bear shot her a startled look. "Captain?"
"Pivot, Mister Walking Bear. You're an expert. Get us out of here while we still have power!" She gripped the command chair's arms, appending silently: And before I throw up.
Walking Bear didn't bother informing her that the stress on the ship from the maneuver she proposed would rip the Liberty apart. It would have wasted time, and, beyond that, he himself had taught her the maneuver and knew she was aware of its dangers. "Pivot," he confirmed, and programmed it into his board, ignoring the frantic ABORT MANEUVER SYSTEMS OVERLOAD on the little screen beneath his hands. Under his command, the Liberty strained and upended herself, nose up, tail down, and dropped below the galactic plane of battle. They were some ten thousand kilometers from their original position when Walking Bear's board blew out. He managed a scream before he hit the deck.
Jaeger's mind cranked out a dozen vehement curses in as many different languages. Shuddering, she tapped the console buttons that would arm the log buoy and propel it into space in the direction of Starfleet Headquarters, to be intercepted by the first Federation vessel to encounter it.
"Power's gone, Cap'n," Bushmiller wheezed. "We're dead in space."
She glanced around. Two of the other cadets were still in their seats, watching her worriedly through the smoke, hacking for air and blinking frantically. What's he waiting for? she thought; Spock had not moved from his crumpled position on the deck. How much more do we have to blow up here? "They're not taking my ship," she told Bushmiller.
"You gonna take it with you?" he coughed.
Choices, she thought. I could call "abandon ship," let anybody who's still moving go in the escape pods, but the Klingons wouldn't let them get ten feet. Ditto the shuttles and the fighters. Nobody on this boat is going anywhere no matter what happens. The corners of her mouth crept up. Yes, ma'am, she thought, we are all well and truly fucked. "Damn straight I'm taking it with me," she told Bushmiller, pushed herself out of the command chair, stepped over Spock's unmoving form, waving at the plumes of smoke still wisping from the science board and keyed into the only ship's system remaining operable: the self-destruct sequence.
"Lights," Spock said from the floor.
Jaeger sank into the science chair. Overhead lighting, somewhat more brilliant than the normal bridge lights, clicked on, and the sliding panels that formed the aft wall of the bridge hummed open to reveal the wide corridor beyond. The air conditioning kicked on, blowing fresh air in and sucking out the acrid smoke. Slowly, and with more dignity than it seemed possible for him to muster, Spock climbed up from the deck, straightened his uniform, and gave Jaeger an even, expressionless, appraising look. She blinked uncomfortable, but managed not to flinch. "Cadets," he said quietly, "report to the briefing room." He held her eyes for another minute, then silently followed the line of sooty, bruised rookies out into the corridor in the direction of the main briefing room.
"Hikaru's Hope?" Lieutenant Commander Dawson Walking Bear said, wincing as he got up from the deck.
She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists. "It was the only thing I could think of."
He sat on the edge of the helm chair. "You could do worse."
"I ripped the ship apart."
"The ship was doomed no matter what you decided, kid," he replied with a mild shrug. "They just want you to be creative."
"I guess I was that."
"You were that."
Jaeger groaned heavily and leaned back in the chair, which creaked under her weight and threatened to give way. "I really bollixed this up something fierce. Lost the ship...killed my roommate." She glanced out toward the corridor; Lauderbeck had been one of the first cadets to stumble out into the fresh air. "What a mess." Walking Bear didn't reply. Jaeger looked at him curiously. "So there was no Kobayashi Maru."
"Sometimes there is."
She shook her head and made a loud, guttural noise of distress. "God, what a mess. Look at this."
"They'll clean it up."
"I lost my ship, Mister Walking Bear! I walked right into a trap."
He shrugged again. "No choice. You can't ignore a distress call. Listen, Jeeter, you miss the point of this whole magilla."
"Which is?" she asked halfheartedly.
"To see how you handle yourself. And you did fine. You did all the right things...well, most of them. Spock was pleased."
"Spock is never pleased," Jaeger sighed.
"Trust me. Spock was pleased." Walking Bear got up from his chair, crossed the debris-strewn floor, and rested a reassuring hand on Jaeger's shoulder. "There's no way to win, kid. That's the point of this. They just want to see how you handle it." His expression sobered a little. "You heard Admiral Kirk: 'how you face death is at least as important as how you face life.'"
How you face death, she thought.
The turbolift eased to a halt and the doors hummed open onto the bridge of the Enterprise. Jaeger stepped out of the lift and stood quietly for a moment. The bridge was sparsely manned. Bob Tenaka, who was slouched back in the navigator's chair, was idly working on a battle simulation. Filling the main viewscreen, the surface of Dianas glided by as the Enterprise continued her orbits.
"Bob?" Jaeger said tentatively.
Tenaka shot upright in the chair. "What...?! Oh, it's just you, Jaeger. You scared the hell out of me."
"You're lucky it was me and not the Klingons." Jaeger stood behind the navigator's chair. "What's going on?"
"Not a thing. It's like a tomb up here." He nodded to the empty helm station. "Levine went to get some coffee for us a few minutes ago."
"Will she be back soon?"
Tenaka scowled a little. "What are you, the hall monitor? We're in stable orbit. There's nothing going on. She set the board to buzz if we drifted...if we drifted. You figure I don't know how to correct an orbit?"
She sighed. "Why don't you take a break and leave the helm to me?"
"It's not your watch," he argued, then saw the twinkle in her eyes. He grinned in return, but let that fade when he noticed the circles under her eyes and the purplish bruise under her jawline. Well...none of my business, he thought. He didn't think Jaeger and Chekov were the type to take out their frustrations on each other physically; on the other hand, he didn't know either one of them well enough to inquire. If she was offering to take over his duty station when she still had more than a day of leave coming, maybe she had had a fight with Chekov. Tenaka made a mental note to check the rumor mill in the cafeteria and said to Jaeger, "You sure? I wouldn't mind the break."
"Go ahead. I signed myself back in. I don't think anybody minds whether I sit watch, or you do. As long as somebody does."
He considered it. "Probably not. Thanks, Jaeger. The conn is yours."
"No problem." Jaeger moved into the navigator's chair when Tenaka vacated it, and smiled at him once more as he trotted off to the turbolift.
Halfway there, Tenaka stopped. "Hey...something you can look for." He returned to the board and pointed to the image of Dianas. "We're on the far side of the planet now--when we get around to the other side, keep an eye out for the little horseshoe shaped continent in the southern hemisphere. That's where the capital city is. There's some kind of a tracking tower or something down there, and every time we pass over it, their signals start playing bingo with the sensors." He tapped the board. "Looks like a video game. Craziest damn thing you ever saw. Keep an eye out for it on our next pass over. Might keep you from falling asleep, anyway."
"I will. Thanks, Bob."
"Yeah," Tenaka said. "Want anything from down below? Cup of coffee or anything?"
"No thanks."
"Okay. Hey, listen...every hour, do a sensor sweep of this sector, will you? Captain's orders. He's looking for Klingons." He rolled his eyes. "There aren't any Klingons within a million parsecs of this place, except for those two strays down on the planet, but what can you do. They say 'jump,' we say 'how high?'"
Jaeger smiled a little, understanding what Tenaka was not saying as well as what he was. Neither one of them would have even considered ignoring an order from Jim Kirk, no matter how foolish it seemed, but the long hours of doing nothing at a duty station had worn on both of them many times. "Anything else you forgot?" Jaeger asked.
"Don't think so." Tenaka thumped her on the shoulder. "See you later, Lieutenant."
When the hum of the turbolift doors indicated that Tenaka had finally gone, Jaeger sagged into the chair and squeezed her eyes shut. McCoy had been close to right in his assessment of her condition: she not only felt lousy, she felt exquisitely lousy. Her headache had taken on a life of its own, and was joined now by a throbbing in a dozen points on her body where she'd bounced on the marble staircase. She had no memory of falling, only of turning to say something to Chekov, who was behind her, then resuming consciousness at the bottom of the stairs. If anything, she supposed that fainting had saved her from more serious injury by allowing her to take the tumble without stiffening. An hour later in Sickbay, McCoy had made his pronouncement. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant," he had postscripted, and she'd believed that--the miserable look on his face didn't leave much room for doubt. But dying? Walking Bear's words came back to her again. How you face death...
She reached out and made a minor correction on the board. The turbolift doors opened, and Levine returned to her station, nodding a greeting. Hell of a way to run a ship, she thought. True, they were in stable orbit, but even so, the ship wouldn't run itself. Left alone, without benefit of occasional minor adjustments, the orbit would decay over a period of time and the ship would plunge into the planet's atmosphere and incinerate.
Dying.
She'd rejected the idea from the beginning. She couldn't recall ever having felt as completely bad as she did now, but it would pass. Headaches, sprains, broken bones--they all eventually healed themselves. She had not, and would not, surrender herself to the terror that had welled up inside her as McCoy was speaking. She was only thirty-three years old, and she would not give herself up to anything as insubstantial as "trace elements." She was, as Chekov had pointed out, invincible. Dying? Of course not. She was thirty-three years old, and by anyone's estimate she had at least a hundred good years left.
The only trouble was, while she refused to believe McCoy's diagnosis, everyone else was not quite that stubborn. It had taken some glib talking on her part to convince McCoy to release her from sickbay; she'd told him she was headed for her cabin--to rest in her own bed--and she'd been sufficiently penitent that he hadn't suspected that she was lying. She had no intention of spending any time in the cabin, whether or not Chekov was there. In fact, she had not seen Chekov since moments after McCoy had finished examining her. He'd ducked out of Sickbay with a pale, stricken look on his face, and Jaeger was unable to find any desire in herself to seek him out. Obviously, he believed McCoy, too, and that she did not need. Better to be here, on the bridge, doing something useful... She concentrated on the console in front of her, carefully watching its myriad readouts; slaved into nearly every bridge system, it informed her of the status of everything aboard ship with its quiet chirpings and bleeps. Boring as this might be, it was work.
Almost two hours had gone by when the turbolift doors hummed again. For an instant, she hoped the new arrival would be Tenaka, back from his rest break; almost as quickly she knew that it was not. Well, here we go, she thought, steeling herself. Here's where I get tossed off the bridge. She turned a little in the chair to see Spock standing at the rail separating the two deck levels. He seemed unsurprised to find her on the bridge, but by rights he should have been surprised to find her anywhere but Sickbay, doing anything but sleeping. Is it possible he hasn't spoken to McCoy?she wondered. All he did was stand there, palms resting lightly on the rail, gazing blandly at the blue-green image of Dianas on the viewscreen.
"Status, Lieutenant?" he asked finally.
"Standard orbit, sir. Altitude...one one seven nine point eight four kilometers. One complete orbit every four point six hours. All systems normal."
He nodded slightly. "Carry on, Lieutenant."
"Aye, sir."
His footsteps were soft, catlike, but she could tell he was crossing the upper deck to the science station. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched him settle into the chair and begin keying instructions into the console, paying no attention to her at all. She had no way of knowing that fully half his attention was on her. He had passed Bob Tenaka in the corridor, questioned Tenaka's being off the bridge, and had then learned Jaeger's whereabouts. He had indeed spoken with McCoy, and as patently Human as it seemed, had come to the bridge with the express intention of keeping an eye on her.
He had also spoken, briefly, quietly, with Jim Kirk, pretending not to notice the captain's reddened eyes.
Kirk looked up at him from his seat on the couch in his sitting room, listened to what his first officer had to say, finally shaking his head in morose disagreement.
"With all due respect to the good doctor," Spock replied, "I do not believe that is true. To paraphrase an old saying...some things are more difficult than others, but nothing is truly impossible."
"You may be lining yourself up for a lot of frustration, Spock," Kirk sighed.
"I do not..."
Kirk hiked a brow. "Tell me you don't get frustrated. Then you'd be lying. And Vulcans never lie."
"You know me too well."
"Probably," Kirk said heavily.
"Nevertheless, I would ask your permission to do some research on my own. There may be something Doctor McCoy has overlooked. There is not much material available on the subject, but there may be avenues which have not yet been explored."
"And you intend to explore them."
Spock hesitated for a moment, taking his eyes away from Kirk's. "I have no other choice. I find it difficult to accept Doctor McCoy's diagnosis without at least attempting to find a solution." He looked again at Kirk, who was resting his forehead against his hand, eyes closed. "Since it may remove my attention from some of my customary duties, I must have your permission."
"Go," Kirk murmured. "Explore."
"Thank you, Jim."
With his back to the young woman at the navigator's console, Spock tied the science station into McCoy's medical computer and called onto the screen one section at a time all the information the ship's banks had relating to Jaeger's condition. As McCoy had pointed out, there was painfully little, but enough to use as a starting point. And while he worked, he would allow her to continue to work, in defiance of McCoy's insistence that she rest. Sick or not, he felt certain she was enough of an officer to remove herself from duty if she became unable to carry on the few duties required of her. From the words he had exchanged with her, and from the look on her face, he had understood her need to be here. If she had wanted to be alone, the ship was full of places to accomplish that. If she wanted simply to be on the bridge, she had no need to dismiss Tenaka. If she wanted to work...well, he would allow her to work until her condition disallowed it.
Fingers playing silently on the console, he recalled her performance on the Kobayashi Maru test. Hikaru's Hope! She'd sat at the long table in the briefing room, hands folded as was her habit, unflinching in her belief that she had "screwed up." But he had taken note of her quick reactions, her attention to detail, her refusal to give up the ship that was not truly even a ship, just a training simulator. She had been, and was now, a fine officer, the loss of whom would affect captain, crew and ship. A supremely talented navigator, with potential for command, extremely valuable to the 'fleet. The vacancy her loss would create would be most difficult to fill. That was the logical line of thought.
However, logic had no place here.
Twenty years ago, Pavel Chekov had been Spock's protégé, brought aboard the Enterprise at Spock's specific request. He had overseen the young man's training, both as chief navigator and as Spock's assistant at the science station, and had noted with satisfaction Chekov's rapid progress in both fields. After the Enterprise's encounter with V'Ger, it had also been under Spock's recommendation (as glowing as much as as was possible for a Vulcan) that Chekov went on to serve as first officer aboard the doomed Reliant. And during all that time, Spock had been very much aware of two things: Chekov's skill and talent, and his loneliness, which mirrored Spock's own, though not to as great a depth. So it was with silent joy that Spock had taken note of the change some four months ago in Chekov's relationship with Gretchen Jaeger. Chekov was a man in love, and though it tended to decrease his efficiency by some three point seven four percent, Spock would not have wished things otherwise. His protégé was exuberantly, deliriously happy.
Now, this "condition" (McCoy had no other name for it) threatened that. And if Spock had been even slightly inclined to follow McCoy into dejected resignation, ignoring the fact that Gretchen Jaeger herself was logically worth fighting to keep, his fondness for Pavel Chekov served to erase any fragment of doubt that remained. For Jaeger's sake, and for Chekov's, he would not follow McCoy's lead. There was something to be accomplished here, and he would accomplish it, no matter how long that might take. So, on the bridge, with her back to him, he went on studying the computer records, waiting for an answer to show itself to him.
One of the sensor lights blinked at Uhura's communications board, with an accompanying bleep, and Spock turned his attention to it, brows lifted in curiosity. Before he could speak, a number of other lights flashed on, blinked in a nonsensical sequence, and were matched by a series of beeps, chirps and pulses from the helm.
"Lieutenant?" Spock asked.
She said over her shoulder, "Tenaka said this has been happening, Mister Spock. Every time we pass over this area of the planet, every sensor goes crazy. He said the signal is coming from a tracking tower."
"There are no 'tracking towers' on Dianas, Lieutenant. The Dianasians have no aircraft." Spock got up from the science station, crossed to the nav board in three steps, bent alongside Jaeger and began adjusting settings. When he was unable to resolve the situation to his satisfaction, he tapped into the intercom. "Captain? Spock here."
"Kirk," came the reply. "What is it, Spock?"
"I need your attention on the bridge, Captain."
"On my way. Kirk out."
Spock keyed off the intercom and turned to Jaeger. "The signal is coming from somewhere just outside the capital city. But as I said, the Dianasians have nothing that would account for this. It is most unusual."
"Makes the ship sound like a big pinball machine," Jaeger mused.
"Indeed," Spock said dryly.
A moment later, the turbolift doors opened and Kirk shot out onto the bridge, jerking to a halt just short of the steps to the lower deck, startled by the cacophony of noises and lights. "What the hell....?" he said as Spock turned to face him. "What's going on, Spock?"
"Unknown, Captain."
"How long..."
"Approximately three point two minutes."
Kirk pivoted, taking in the entire bridge and noting that there were several unoccupied stations. Nearly every panel that was capable of making noise was now doing so, every light flashing strobically. "Where is everybody? Let's get some people up here to man these controls, Spock!"
"Yes, Captain." Spock crossed to the communications board and opened the ship-wide intercom frequency. "First watch bridge crew to your stations," he said into the mike. "First watch bridge crew to your stations." That done, he stepped away from the console, taking up a position near the railing. Kirk looked at him frustratedly. "I believe this condition is being caused by a beam emanating from the planet surface, Captain."
"Source?" Kirk scowled.
"Unable to pinpoint it, Captain," Jaeger replied, her fingers moving over the sensor controls. "I have approximate coordinates...within say a ten-square-kilometer area."
"Where?"
"Just outside the capital city limits, sir."
"That's not good enough, Lieutenant! I want to know where this beam is coming from."
She went on tapping instructions into the panel. "Our sensors are being blocked, sir, by some sort of net effect. We can't get exact readings on anything inside that ten-square-kilometer area. Sensor beams are being deflected back." She paused, wondering if Kirk would come closer. At times like this, when he was unsatisfied with the results being given to him, he was likely to half-sit in someone's lap and take over the instruments himself. He seemed agitated enough to do that now. However, he seemed to find nothing wrong with the fact that she was manning the nav board; and because the nav board had been slaved into every station on the bridge except Spock's science station, she was virtually running the entire bridge single-handedly. It wasn't a new experience for her, but given the circumstances.... She looked over her shoulder at Kirk, who simply went on scowling, and continued instructing the sensors. "Getting more information on the beam now, sir. We're reaching the edge of its range...should be moving out of it any second now." She had barely finished the sentence when the noises and the flashing lights stopped abruptly, as if someone had flipped a switch. "That's it, sir," Jaeger said. "At our present altitude, maximum width of the beam is approximately five seven eight point five oh five kilometers."
Kirk dropped into the command chair and hit the intercom button. "This is the captain. All decks, report."
The replies began coming in as Spock slipped back into the communications chair and acknowledged them one at a time. He had nearly finished when half a dozen of the first watch bridge crew, all in uniform and all displaying various degrees of puzzlement, trotted out of the turbolift and took their positions. Tenaka leaned over the nav station and whispered, "What'd you do, Jaeger? Everything was quiet here when I left."
"The beam," she whispered back.
Tenaka had heard the results of the beam down in his cabin. "It didn't make all that racket the last three times. What gives?"
"All decks reported in, Captain," Spock announced. "All systems normal."
Drumming his fingers on the arm of the command chair, Kirk thought the situation over for a moment, ignoring the expectant stares of his crew. "Is that beam still being emitted from the surface?"
"Affirmative, sir," Jaeger told him.
"Constant? No frequency variations?"
"No, sir."
"Then they're not...looking for us."
Spock replied from the comm station. "It would seem not, Captain."
"Then...what are they looking for?"
"Unknown, Captain," Spock said.
Kirk drew in a long breath. "Spock, see if you can reach Gehaan. I want to know if he knows anything about this." He paused. "Or if the Klingons do."
Fingers flying, Spock programmed a sensor scan of the area of the capital city, Elyantorvan, and received in response to his specifications a pair of blips only a few hundred meters from the guest building Kirk had spent the night in. "According to our sensors, Captain, Koloth and Kilon are still at the guest building, some twenty kilometers from the nearest edge of the blacked-out area."
"That doesn't mean they had nothing to do with that beam."
"True...but their involvement seems unlikely."
"Explain," Kirk snapped.
"I do not believe it is within their capabilities."
"Why not?"
"According to the information on file with the Dianasians' visitors' liaison office, the Klingons left Koloth behind without much more than a change of clothing."
Kirk replied, "He could be using Dianasian equipment."
"True...but doubtful."
"Sneaky devils," Tenaka whispered into Jaeger's ear, then slipped into the helmsman's chair, which had remained empty; none of the five helm personnel had responded to Spock's call. No one protested his action, so Tenaka unslaved the board from navigation, checked it briefly to assure himself that nothing was abnormal, and sat with his hands resting lightly on the edge of the panel, waiting for instructions. He had run back up to the bridge, glad for a little excitement to break the tedium of the last few hours, but the excitement seemed to be dissipating rapidly, leaving nothing to spark the bridge but Kirk's agitation. He's looking for Klingons under every bed now, Tenaka thought. Just because of what happened to Hollis and Gibbs? He stifled the urge to shake his head in wonderment, and went on waiting for Kirk to say something. Silence fell over the bridge, broken only by the normal sounds of the equipment and the rhythmic drumming of Kirk's fingers on the chair arms.
"High Councilor Gehaan, Captain," Spock said.
"Put him on screen," Kirk replied sourly. Spock nodded, tapped in the cue, and the picture of Dianas was replaced on the main viewscreen by Gehaan's pale blue features. "Councilor Gehaan, this is Captain Kirk."
Gehaan hiked an eyebrow in a good approximation of Spock's usual expression of curiosity. "Yes, Captain?"
"Do you know anything about an energy beam being sent out from somewhere just outside your capital city? We just passed through it, and it disrupted practically every system aboard my ship."
"No, Captain, I know nothing about it."
"We attempted to track it with our sensors, but there's a screen of some sort blocking our transmissions in a large area around the source of the beam. It's..." He looked to Spock for the information. Spock read off the coordinates for him, and Kirk repeated them to Gehaan. "We would appreciate any information you can give us, Councilor. I'd like to avoid having the ship's systems disrupted every time we pass over that area."
"Our central laboratory complex is in that area, Captain," Gehaan offered. "I believe your people are still there." His expression changed almost imperceptibly; he seemed to be holding back an explosion of mirth. "Perhaps they are sending the beam."
"A point perhaps worth considering, Captain," Spock said.
Kirk twirled the command chair to face his first officer, momentarily lost for words. "How can..." he began angrily, then cut himself short. Was this the sort of thing Peter would consider, even to exasperate someone he considered well worth exasperating? A few days ago, Kirk would not have thought so. In spite of Peter Kirk's taciturnity, he had viewed the young man as a professional, a member of Starfleet. Damn it! he thought. Gehaan's joke was lost on him, but the idea had lodged itself in his mind. Slowly, he turned the chair back around to face the viewer. "Thank you, Councilor," he said. "We'll get back to you later. Kirk out."
Spock killed the connection, and Gehaan's face faded off the viewscreen. After a moment, Kirk got up from the command chair. "I'm going back down to the surface, Mister Spock," he told the Vulcan. "If they won't tell us what's going on, then it seems we have to find out for ourselves."
"Do you need Security, Captain?" Spock inquired.
Kirk thought it over. "No. No, that would attract their attention. You're still working on your...problem, Mister Spock?"
"Affirmative."
"Ask Mister Scott to accompany me. You have the conn."
Spock reached for the intercom button. "Acknowledged, sir."
*****
Resisting the urge to grin maliciously in response to Peter Kirk's gritted teeth, Laurel McCutcheon sliced off the remnants of his uniform sleeve and liberally sprayed his burned forearm with antiseptic. He didn't flinch, but she could see in his eyes that the spray hadn't done much on contact to ease the pain of the burn; it would take a minute or two for that to happen. As the antiseptic dried, she dropped the container back into the first aid kit and pulled out a packet of plastiskin, tore it open and laid the patch over the burn. "That ought to take care of it," she announced.
Kirk scowled at her handiwork and gingerly flexed his elbow. The plastiskin tugged a bit, but the antiseptic spray had begun to work and the injured area no longer shrieked at him. "I could have done that myself."
"With your left hand? I'm sure."
"If you had the gift, you wouldn't need the...what is it? First aid?" That was Beleen, the young Dianasian scientist who had been assigned to help McCutcheon and Kirk during their first few days of experimentation at the laboratory complex. She had sat perched on the corner of one of the lab tables during McCutcheon's ministrations, watching with that same fixed curiosity that seemed never to fade from the Dianasians.
McCutcheon replied, "Gift? What gift is that?"
"The healing."
"Your people can heal themselves?" the young Kirk asked crossly.
Beleen giggled softly, making the ends of her hair dance against her shoulders. "Of course not. It's a legend. Nobody's had the gift for many centuries. I was making...an amusement?"
"A joke," McCutcheon corrected.
"A joke. I was making a joke." Beleen hopped down from the table and resumed her position at the microviewer. "I forgot you don't like jokes, Lieutenant Kirk. I extend apologies to you."
McCutcheon snickered. "He likes jokes, Beleen. He just doesn't like them when they're on him." She grinned at Kirk, who was giving her his best outraged expression. "Belay that crap, Peter," she told him. "It's not working! Listen, go grab me some more culture dishes out of the storeroom, will you? And try not to set yourself on fire again."
"I'm not your God damn slave, McCutcheon," Peter Kirk snapped.
"I know that," McCutcheon said archly. "I just thought it would give you a minute to go off by yourself and lick your wounds."
Lost for a properly scathing reply, Kirk stalked out into the corridor, pivoted and headed for the storeroom at the far end of the building. The two women could hear the heavy impact of his footsteps for several minutes, and McCutcheon laughed heartily, then shook her head in wonder. Amazing how childish he could become when she'd one-upped him! No doubt now he would stay in the storeroom until he became "good and ready" to return, making her wait for the culture dishes, which she had not really needed in the first place. Gnawing at her lower lip to cover a hysterical grin, McCutcheon went back to work preparing slides for Beleen to feed into the microviewer.
"Why do you and Lieutenant Kirk behave so?" Beleen asked.
"So how? Oh, you mean the bickering? Don't think anything of it, Beleen. That's just how he is. And I play along with him. It's the only way to react to him without letting him drive you crazy."
"But to insult each other so...I do not understand."
"It's his way."
"Does he truly dislike you this much?"
"Hard to tell. I don't think so. I don't think he dislikes anybody as much as he pretends to. Cutting other people down just makes him feel better."
"I do not understand," Beleen repeated, brows furrowed.
McCutcheon laid down the slide and turned to rest her backside against the table, grasping the edge with both hands. She thought for a moment, smiling at Beleen's piqued curiosity mirrored in the wide blue eyes and the gentle pale features. "It's sort of hard to explain. Peter doesn't think too highly of himself. He's insecure. And his way of making himself feel better is to point other people's faults out to them...even when they don't really exist. It makes his faults not look so bad. At least that's what he's aiming for. Really, he just ends up making himself look worse. Not many people like him because he's that way." That didn't seem to satisfy the Dianasian, who began to waggle her head in dismay. "Peter's had kind of a tough time," McCutcheon went on. "His parents were killed when he was young, and he went to live with his grandmother. Then she got sick and died, so he's got nobody left to care for him--so he thinks."
"'Care for him'?" Beleen echoed.
"Somebody who loves him." McCutcheon paused, trying to interpret the other woman's growing bafflement, then abruptly realized the problem. "Oh! I see. You don't understand about.... You see, Beleen, we don't have...we don't believe in 'oneness' like you do. We need other people to care for us, and we care for them. Otherwise we grow lonely. Some people can stand loneliness, but others...well, some get bitter, like Peter, and some even kill themselves. It's a terrible pain, for us."
Beleen said softly, "I am sorry for that, Lieutenant."
"No need to be. It's not your fault."
"It was explained to me that you have no 'oneness', when I was asked to assist you in your work," Beleen told McCutcheon. "I find this most confusing, but I understand that each people...each species has its own peculiarities." McCutcheon grinned at the word. Beleen went on, "But could you not learn the 'oneness', if it is so painful for you to have no one to 'care for you'?"
"I suppose so. Like I said, some people can stand the loneliness. I suppose they know what 'oneness' is. But most of us can't. We enjoy being with others of our own kind, and sharing emotions."
"Most confusing," Beleen mused.
"Haven't you ever had someone to care for you, Beleen?" McCutcheon asked. "Even your mother and father?"
"I do not know my mother and father."
"Are they dead?"
Beleen waggled her head again. "I do not believe they are dead. It is possible, but since they would not yet be in their middle years, I believe they are alive."
"And you've never met them?"
"Oh, I am sure I have met them. But I would have no way to know which of our people are my mother and father." The Dianasian glanced around, then studied McCutcheon's expression for a moment, uncertain how much the Human woman had been told about the Dianasian culture. When she spoke again, her tone was softer, near a whisper, as if she were afraid of being overheard. "It is a private matter. We must each forsake the 'oneness' for a short period in order to...preserve...our people. Have I chosen the right word?"
McCutcheon shrugged. "I think I know what you mean. Go on."
"The male and female come together for a short time to reproduce. They do not remain together. The male continues his oneness, and the female carries the child until birth. After birth, she resumes her oneness. The child is housed in one of the Children's Buildings until it becomes of age. Then it may have its own dwelling place and assume its own oneness."
"Who cares for the children?"
"There are those who volunteer. They are highly honored."
McCutcheon ran a hand through her hair, looking away from Beleen's intent expression for the moment. A world where even the children knew no love! The idea made her shiver. But, she thought, Beleen didn't seem to be any the worse for having been raised that way. Aside from her tenacious sense of privacy, she was much more open and friendly than Peter, who'd had love lavished on him for most of his life. "That's quite a story, Beleen," she said finally.
"It is our way," Beleen replied. "I fear we are too different, Lieutenant McCutcheon."
"I fear you're right," McCutcheon smiled wryly.
*****
Scott changed the settings on the tricorder sensors and slowly turned in a complete circle, making sure the instrument was reading in all directions although really the gesture was unnecessary. The tricorder gave off a steady pip that failed to indicate what Scott was looking for. Gravely, he shook his head. "Nothing, Captain. I think we're underneath the sensor web, but the tricorder should still pick it up. All I'm getting is normal background readings."
"These are the right coordinates?" James T. Kirk frowned.
"Aye. We're standing almost smack in the middle of the blacked-out area they picked up on the bridge. But there's nothing here, Captain. Everything's normal."
Kirk did a slow pivot himself, as if he expected the mysterious beam or the sensor net to be visible. They were standing at the curb of one of Elyantorvan's wide streets, about fifty meters from the main entrance of the laboratory complex. Dianasians strolled nearby, going about their daily routine, paying only passing attention to the two Humans. Blowing out a long breath, Kirk craned his head back and looked straight up into the late afternoon sky. Finding nothing there but drifting clouds, he pulled out his communicator, flipped up the grid, and said into the mike, "Enterprise."
"Spock here, Captain," the first officer's voice came back.
"Are you still getting the same readings, Spock? On the beam and the sensor web?"
"Affirmative, Captain. Readings have remained steady."
"Can you scan the surface at all? Where are we in relation to the sensor web?"
There was a brief silence, then Spock responded, "Most curious."
"Explain."
"We are receiving your communication clearly, Captain, but sensors do not show your location at all. I believe you are within the limits of the blacked-out area?"
"As far as we can tell, Mister Spock," Kirk said, his impatience again growing.
"And you are receiving our transmission clearly?"
"Yes, Mister Spock."
"Fascinating," Spock mused. "Apparently, the sensor net is limited to transmissions of certain types. Communications go through, but informational sensors do not."
"You're still reading that beam?"
"Affirmative."
"We get nothing down here. No beam, no net, nothing but background radiation." Kirk turned to Scott, who was still fiddling with the settings on his tricorder and seemed to have the thing focused on an aircar that had passed by some fifteen meters overhead. When he noticed Kirk watching him, Scott indicated with a nod that the tricorder was receiving normal readings from the emissions of the aircar. "We're going into the lab complex, Spock. Let me know if those readings change at all. Kirk out." He clipped the communicator onto his belt. Scott shook his head at the tricorder and let it dangle from its strap against his hip. "We're in the middle of it," Kirk said. "And it's not here."
Scott agreed, "It's got me boggled, Captain."
Kirk's shoulders sagged a little. "Let's go talk to Peter."
"You think you'll get any satisfaction out of that, sir?" Scott asked mildly.
"Probably not," Kirk replied.
They found McCutcheon and Beleen working alone in the low-ceilinged laboratory at the north end of the building, McCutcheon now bent over the microviewer while Beleen passed slides to her. When the two senior officers entered, McCutcheon straightened into something near attention, and Beleen smiled politely. "Hello, Captain," McCutcheon said, puzzled by Kirk's intense expression. "Is something wrong?"
"Where's Peter?" Kirk asked, looking around for his nephew.
"Sulking, probably. I sent him to the storeroom to get culture dishes half an hour ago, and I haven't seen him since. He's mad because I made fun of him for setting his sleeve on fire."
"He..." Jim Kirk began, then stopped short. He found himself not caring that Peter had been hurt, only annoyance that the young man had been careless enough to let it happen.
"I will bring him for you," Beleen volunteered, and trotted out of the room before Kirk could accept or refuse the offer.
"That was Beleen," McCutcheon explained. "They assigned her to help Peter and me. I'm not sure exactly what her job is around here, but she seems to know what she's doing. We've put together almost two hundred slides of the plant life already." She spoke slowly, waiting to see if Kirk would interrupt to tell her why he had come; obviously he and Scott weren't there to check on the progress of the science team. Scott seemed at a loss, too, and spent the time glancing around the room, acquainting himself with the Dianasian laboratory equipment. After a moment his eyes fell on the wide table at the back of the room, and McCutcheon observed with a small smile that he'd noticed its contents almost immediately after entering the room but hadn't said anything until Kirk's silence prompted him.
"What's all that?" he asked McCutcheon.
Kirk, too, turned to look at the table, but unlike Scott he hadn't noticed it before. "Lunch," McCutcheon explained. "Peter's and mine."
Scott walked a little closer to the table, which was covered with platters and bowls of food much like the dinner they'd enjoyed that first night in the ballroom. "There's enough here for twenty people!" he exclaimed.
"At least," McCutcheon nodded.
"They don't believe in leaving ye unsatisfied, do they?"
"I guess not, sir," McCutcheon chuckled. "I think they think we eat as much as they do. You should have seen what Beleen put away! I made her eat some of it so it wouldn't go to waste. Of course, she's a little above average because she's young, but I asked her to let me run some scans after I watched her eat--her basal metabolic rate is almost four times as high as mine! She's got the metabolism of a volcano. And they're all like that! The way they eat, if they didn't burn it up so fast, they'd be as big as mountains."
"Ah, well, lass," Scott smiled, "there's something to be said for people who enjoy their food and drink."
"In spades, sir," McCutcheon replied.
"Lieutenant," Kirk broke in, and the other two could see from his expression that he had paid no attention to the food beyond his first glance, and possibly had not even heard their exchange regarding it. With McCutcheon's attention now on him, Kirk briefly explained the situation regarding the mysterious beam and the sensor net, then concluded by asking, "Do they have sensors of any kind here? Something we could use to track that beam? The tricorder doesn't pick it up--we need something more powerful. What have they got around here?"
"Nothing like what's on board ship, Captain," McCutcheon told him, "but there's a computer center in the next building. You might be able to program it to scan for the beam."
Kirk nodded. "Take us there."
He was already moving toward the door. McCutcheon cut in front of him and led the way down the corridor, out a rear door and across the grounds to another building much like the one they had originally been in. Humming sounds betrayed the presence of several large computers. McCutcheon took the two senior officers through the first doorway they reached into a wide, high-ceilinged room lined with computer banks, all of which seemed to be in operation. "Hi, Dalaarn," she said to the young Dianasian computer operator who turned from his work when they entered the room. "This is Captain Kirk and Commander Scott. They'd like to do some work with the computers, if that's all right with you."
The Dianasian dipped his head. "Most certainly. I will leave you, if you would be most kind to summon me when you have finished."
"Sure thing, Dalaarn. Thanks."
Dalaarn scuffled out of the room, nodding a good-bye to Kirk and Scott. The big Scotsman looked after him in confusion and said to McCutcheon, "Just like that? How does he know we don't want to rip the thing apart?"
"He doesn't. But he can't ask."
"Why in the world not?"
"That would disturb our oneness. That's one of their big sins here, being rude enough to ask somebody else what their intentions are. They assume you know what you are doing, and that you wouldn't do anything to interfere with anybody else's oneness. He'll go meditate in the garden now, until we go get him and tell him we're finished."
"Trusting souls," Scott commented.
Kirk sat down at one of the computer modules and leaned close to examine the controls. "Scotty, can you do anything with this?"
"Aye, Captain. Give me a few minutes." Scott settled into a seat near Kirk's, flexed his fingers and went to work reprogramming the module to scan the surrounding area for the beam and the sensor net. Within a few minutes, the computer was flashing results onto the screen between Scott and Kirk. "There," Scott murmured, his hands still moving over the panel, adjusting settings and narrowing the focus of his search. "That should do it. Now let's see what's out there." He pressed a button with the flat of his forefinger and sat back to see what the computer would find. Information flashed onto the screen. "That's it, Captain," Scott announced. "There's the source of your beam."
McCutcheon leaned toward the screen to see what Scott had found. "But that's five kilometers up in the air."
"Aye, lass," Scott confirmed.
"But, Mister Scott, there's nothing up there but air. They don't have any satellites or aircraft here, and there's no land mass near here that reaches that high. All they've got is the aircars, and their top altitude is only a few hundred meters. That beam is coming out of nowhere."
Kirk's brows crunched together. "Scotty..."
Scott knew what was coming next. "Aye, sir?" he asked in a low tone.
"I want to know where that beam is coming from. I don't want any more mysteries. That thing is disrupting my ship."
"We'll find it, sir," Scott promised. "Just gi' me a wee bit o' time to work with the computers. I'm not familiar with some of the preprogramming they've got going here. That has to be gotten out of the way first, then I can feed in some more of my own specifics." Kirk was about to go on sputtering, but Scott urged him into silence with a look as firm as he dared give. They'd known each other for twenty years, gone through every possible experience together, but still there were times when he dared not open his mouth to argue with the younger man. What the captain wants, the captain gets, Scott reminded himself silently, glad that Kirk was giving him the chance to continue. "The Enterprise is in no danger for the moment, Captain," he suggested to Kirk. "All we need here is a little time. We'll find what ye need. Won't we, lass?" He beamed at McCutcheon.
McCutcheon nodded. "Yes, sir."
Jim Kirk thought it over, then slowly got up from the computer console. "Very well, Mister Scott. Carry on. But keep me posted on your progress."
"I will, Captain," Scott promised, add silently: Or ye'll call me every ten minutes to check.
"I'll be in my quarters." He was moving toward the door.
"Sir?" McCutcheon interrupted. "Do you need a ride? You said the transporter doesn't work inside the sensor net."
Kirk stopped short. "No," he said through his teeth. "I'll walk."
*****
James T. Kirk was halfway across the bridge before he realized that he and Scott hadn't crossed any bridges on their way to the lab center. The idea that he might be lost didn't faze him; in fact, being lost for a short time seemed an acceptable distraction. At least he could take these few minutes to be alone without reminders of the damned beam, and the presence of Klingons, and Gehaan's growing uncooperativeness. Kirk had felt himself no longer wanting to be here, biding time until the arrival of the Cooper.
It was another baby-sitting mission, and as he had always told himself, he was no diplomat. Rubbing at the back of his neck, he stopped in the middle of the bridge and leaned against the guardrail to look down the river to the horizon. The water was surprisingly muddy, and he wondered idly how that gibed with the Dianasians' frenetic pursuit of cleanliness and beauty. Birds swooped overhead, and, after several minutes, one of them cruised toward Kirk and landed neatly on the guardrail a few meters away. Some things are the same everywhere, he thought. No matter what planet you're on, all birds have the same little beady eyes. This particular bird blinked at him curiously and cocked its head. In an odd way, the expression reminded him of Spock. He chuckled softly, tossed his head and resumed gazing along the river. There had been another time...
"How high do you think this is?" he asked.
"I don't know, a hundred feet. I don't know." Leaning against the rail beside him, Jessica Kyle tipped her head, eyes widening in growing horror. "Hey, wait a minute! Don't you dare!"
"Dare what?" he grinned.
"Don't you even think about jumping off here! What do you think you are, an Olympic diver? For crying out loud, if you hit the water wrong, you'll break your neck." She went on studying his expression and began to relax when she found the twinkle in his eyes that told her he was putting her on. "Besides, if you get killed, your mother'll bring you back to life and then she'll kill you."
He snickered. "Maybe."
"I don't believe you, Jim Kirk. God, the things you do to drive your mother crazy." She tossed her head, and her blonde curls bounced against the shoulders of her plaid flannel shirt. "If I was her, I'd kill you too."
"She'd kill me if she knew what we just did."
Jessica let out a shriek and covered her face with her hands. "You can't tell her, Jim, promise you won't tell her! If my mom and dad ever hear about it...oh, Christ, they'd have me for lunch. You think I could ever convince them that sixteen is old enough? I'd have a better chance of sprouting wings and flying. Don't you dare say anything to anybody, or I swear I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."
"Not even Sam?"
"Not him either! Nobody! Jim, you can't!"
"I promise." He scooped her into his arms and gave her a long, loud kiss. "Stop worrying."
"I have to worry. I never know what you're going to do."
Unaffected, he bent down to scoop up a handful of the gravel that littered the edges of the bridge surface, and began pitching the bits out across the water, mentally calculating the distance each one flew before it dropped into the river. Jessica leaned her head against his shoulder, and he turned a little to kiss her hair. The curls were warm from the sun and smelled of flowery shampoo. "I wouldn't do anything to hurt you, Jess."
"Better not," she said archly. "How could we end up getting married if I couldn't trust you?"
He shrugged, the way he always did when she broached the subject of marriage. "Don't know."
Jessica looked at him sharply, though not critically. "You won't end up marrying anybody, I bet," she said after a moment. "You'll be one of those people who's married to his ship." She made herself laugh. "You'll be...Captain James Kirk, with a woman on every planet, but no wife and no home." Kirk did nothing to disagree, and she sighed a little. "My parents don't think you're good enough for me anyway," she told him. "My dad wanted to know if your middle name was Foolhardy. James Foolhardy Kirk."
"Maybe," he said quietly, his attention more on the river than on the girl.
"Why do you have to go?" Jessica asked. "You could stay here. Go to regular college, like George. Be a scientist. There's nothing wrong with that. It could be exciting. You could...discover things. Why do you have to join Starfleet?"
His eyes still away from her, he pointed toward the sky with his chin. "I want to go out there. I want to find out what's out there. See it. Touch it." He turned then, so suddenly that it almost made her stumble. "My dad said there are forms of life out there that you couldn't even imagine. It's like nothing here on Earth, Jessie." His tone of voice rose, his excitement showing on his face. I couldn't go to any regular college. That's okay for Sam, but not for me. I've got to go out there, Jessie. I want to see it all." Realizing that he was only compounding her disappointment, he stopped and took her arms in his hands. "Don't you see? It's something I have to do."
"I understand," she said softly. "If you stayed here, you wouldn't be happy."
"No. I don't think I would."
She nodded and half-turned away, but not before he had seen her luminous green eyes begin to glisten with tears. By the time she turned back she had blinked the tears away. "Let's go back down to the field," she said gaily. "I want to watch the team practice some more."
"Sure...whatever you want."
"Hah," Jessica said.
Kirk's communicator chirped and startled him out of his reverie. When he flipped up the grid and said, "Kirk," into the mike, the voice of Kevin Leslie, the transporter technician on duty, replied, "Captain, we have a fix on your position. Ready to beam you up on your signal."
"Acknowledged, Mister Leslie," Kirk said, and took a final look down the length of the river. "Energize."
*****
Spock stepped into the turbolift, let the doors close, then hit the "stop" button a moment after the car had begun to move down toward C Deck in response to Jaeger's command. She was angry, but containing it, and he considered her impassively for a moment before he spoke. "Lieutenant," he said quietly, "I believe you to be a reasonably intelligent woman, and you are a Starfleet officer. You have a responsibility to the fleet, to this ship, and to her officers and crew. I trust you not to make any foolish judgments. Your mental capacity appears to be unimpaired, so I will allow you to make decisions regarding your fitness for duty. If you believe yourself to be unfit for duty, then you will remove yourself from duty and report to Sickbay. Is that clear?"
"Yes, sir," Jaeger said to the floor.
Something ached inside him in response to her obvious misery. "I did not ask Mister Gnutson to relieve you because I wanted to banish you from the bridge, Lieutenant," Spock went on. "I seldom act out of pity or sentimentality. As I said, I am allowing you to make your own judgments regarding your condition. However, you have been at the navigator's station for a full watch. As far as I am able to determine, you have not had anything to eat all day, and you have been out of bed since very early this morning. I believe you should have something to eat and then get some sleep if you intend to resume your duties tomorrow."
Jaeger's eyes came up, and she blinked at the first officer. "I...all right, sir. Thank you, sir."
"I am not doing you a favor, Lieutenant."
"Yes, sir. I mean no, sir," she stammered, wondering: maybe he really doesn't know? It seemed strange that no one had tried to remove her from duty, or had even come looking for her since she'd left Sickbay. "Mister Spock," she said heavily, "Doctor McCoy...says I'm dying."
The Vulcan did not reply for several seconds, during most of which his eyes were on the 'lift doors and nowhere near Jaeger's face. When he spoke again, it was with a bitterness he had never before heard come from his own throat. "Lieutenant Jaeger," he told her, "in some sense, we are all dying."
*****
Chapter 5
A hearty giggle from across the room roused Jaeger from her fitful doze in one of the rec deck's fatly cushioned chairs. She stirred and opened her eyes, and pain shot between her temples. Felt like that before, she thought sleepily. When? She closed her eyes again, trying to drive away the pain, sinking deeper into the chair cushions. When? Long time ago...baseball...hurt...
Daddy.
"Oh, God, Pug, I'm sorry!" He ran to her and cradled her in his arms, holding her startled face against his chest. "Daddy didn't mean to hurt you. Are you all right?"
She snuffled into his shirt. "Guess so," she mumbled.
"I'm sorry." He held her back at arm's length and looked into her teary eyes, then smiled encouragingly and brushed stray curls from her forehead and smudged the tears from her cheeks with the flat of his thumb. She'd zigzagged suddenly and had walked right into his pitch. Luckily, she hadn't wailed; that would have brought Fran running, and Fran was opposed enough to his teaching baseball to a six-year-old girl without hearing that he'd beaned the child. Satisfied that she was all right, Doug Jaeger moved to his feet, scooping Gretchen up into his arms, and walked to retrieve the ball from its resting place on the lawn. "You have to remember, Pug, to keep your eye on the ball. The idea is to catch it with your hands, not your noodle."
"I'll try, Daddy," she promised solemnly, and snuffled again.
Daddy...
The giggling went on. Jaeger peeked through her lashes: one of Scott's engineering crew (Washburn?) was leaning over the horizontal board of the Tri-Cross game, inspiring fits of high-pitched laughter from a young blonde woman Jaeger didn't recognize. The laughing wouldn't have bothered her at all if it hadn't been so shrill. In fact, she'd come to the rec deck specifically because there were other people there. The cabin she shared with Chekov was dark and empty, and when she tried to rest there alone, the darkness and the silence had stricken her with a sudden black terror. An ages-old child's prayer had forced itself into her mind and clung there: "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." After ten minutes of remembering that refrain, she had scrambled out of bed, pulled on warm clothing, and stumbled to the comfort of the rec deck. Who the hell had made up that thing, anyway? she wondered. What a God-awful thing to teach to kids. Or to anyone! Shivering, she drew up her legs so that she was crushed into the environs of the chair, aware that she probably presented a strange picture to anyone who might walk by. She began to feel more alone than she'd felt in years--since she had lived at home, in the little tract house her father had settled them in on Ganymede Triad 6, a colony on the Jovian moon. Funny how cold Mom had turned there, like a stranger, leaving Gretchen to feel like someone who rented a room from her.
"Pug? You sleeping?"
She opened her eyes and broke into a wide, beaming smile, reaching up to accept his embrace. "Daddy!"
"Ssshhh. Andy's asleep." He nodded toward the matching small bed where Andrea, her sister, was curled beneath the covers, clutching her stuffed panda. "Listen, Pug," he whispered, nudging her bottom toward the far side of the bed so that he could sit beside her, "I have to go away for a while. It's a long mission, so it might be a while before you see me again. But I'll get in touch with you as soon as I can, I promise. I'll send you tapes, and you can send me tapes. Tell me all about what you've been doing. And I'll get back here just as soon as I can. Now, you're the oldest, so you have to help Mom look after things, and take care of Andy and Jeffer. Okay?"
She frowned, and he cuffed her gently under the chin. "Okay, Daddy. I promise. Where are you going?"
"Not sure, Pug."
"On the Armstrong?" She'd visited his ship, the U.S.S. Armstrong, and fell in love with its sleek lines, the wonders of its computer systems, the sense of hurry among its crew even in spacedock and especially with the captain, Elizabeth Dell. A lady captain! What daydreams that had inspired! "With Captain Liz?"
"Uh-hum. That okay with you?"
"Sure. I wish I was going with you, Daddy."
"Well," he smiled, "maybe when you're a little older, Pug. Right now I think you're too short to reach the controls."
She sighed. "I'm little for seven. I heard Mom say so."
"You'll grow. Everybody grows in their own good time. Just eat all your vegetables and go easy on the cookies." His eyes twinkled. "Bet you'll grow up to be just as tall as you want."
"Really, Daddy?"
"Bet you. You wait and see." He ruffled her hair. "Then..." He paused. The idea of his child on board a starship, living that sort of life, had sent a flicker of horror into him. "Then if you still want to, you can sign up with the 'fleet."
"Will they let me? Even if Mom says no?"
"You can do anything you want to do, Pug. And knowing you, you probably will, whether Mom likes it or not."
Mom hadn't liked it. Mom had cried, and yelled, and pleaded, and thrown dishes against the kitchen wall to shatter in a shower of flowered china shards. No matter that Gretchen was now seventeen, aching to make her own decisions, ready to give up the idea of a "normal" college education and follow her father into Starfleet. No daughter of Frances Hollard Jaeger would go into the service, no sir, not over her dead body. Gretchen wanted to be like Daddy? Well, then, if she wanted to get herself killed just like Daddy, she could open the electrical circuit board in the wall and grab onto a live wire. Then she could die like Daddy had, and she wouldn't have to leave home to do it. Ignoring the pain on Gretchen's face, Fran Jaeger had sunk into one of the chrome and plastic kitchen chairs and howled.
Feeling hollow, Gretchen had slunk into the bedroom she still shared with Andy and lay on her stomach on the bed. He'd made her promise to look after Mom, but was that possible, when Mom wouldn't listen? Starfleet was a proud profession, one of honor, and good Lord, not everyone got killed! Why, there had to be thousands of career officers who lived to see retirement, gray hairs intact. Admiral Mills, who had signed her letter of recommendation with a broad flourish, was nearly ninety and had suffered nothing more serious than broken bones in all his years of service.
"You're out of your ever-loving mind," Andy offered sagely, rummaging deep in the bedroom closet. "What do you want to be in Starfleet for?"
"You'd never understand," Gretchen muttered.
Daddy would have understood. Would have been proud. He'd told her that it was all right to enlist. And Daddy had never been wrong! It wasn't his fault that the trouble had happened. He was following orders, serving aboard the Armstrong as weapons officer during her two-year scouting mission in the fringes of the Neutral Zone, and since he was something like fifth in the chain of command, it was hardly his fault that the Armstrong had ventured into an area of the sector that the Klingons claimed was a violation of their space. There had been no Organian Peace Treaty then, so the Klingons saw nothing wrong with pursuing the Armstrong, issuing a single perfunctory warning, and then blowing Captain Liz's ship into baseball-sized debris. Gretchen ached over his loss every day of her life. But since none of it had been his fault, she could see no reason for rejecting the life he had chosen. It was a proud career: Admiral Mills told her so. Choosing to believe Admiral Mills and the memory of her father rather than her mother's hysterical tirades, she had gathered the other three required letters of recommendation, sent them off to the Academy Review Committee, and eleven weeks before her eighteenth birthday received her letter of acceptance as First Year Cadet, Starfleet Academy. She pursued her proud profession, and in all the years that followed, she did not once hear from her mother.
"Gretchen?"
She peeked once more but said nothing. Chekov sat down on the footrest in front of her chair and folded his hands in his lap. His eyes were puffy and bloodshot, his face pale and streaky. For a few long minutes he too said nothing more, listening with a small part of his consciousness to the cheerful laughter coming from the direction of the Tri-Cross game and the soundtrack of the holo-film being shown across the room. His feeling that no one in the universe had any right to be happy had faded away hours ago and left him without much in the way of emotion. Maybe this is what Spock feels like, he thought idly. Drained. "I'm going to resign, Gretchen," he said finally. "I don't want to stay in Starfleet any more. I thought maybe...I still have family in Moscow."
"Thanks," Jaeger said.
He didn't seem to hear her, or notice the effect his words had taken. "I haven't seen my mother in a long time. I used to be good at farming. Or teaching. I could teach. Russian history. I would enjoy that." His accent had begun creeping back, and he could hear in himself the echo of the young ensign of nearly two decades ago. How many times had Kirk thrown up his hands in exasperation over Chekov's thousands of tidbits of romanticized history? According to the 22-year-old Chekov, when God had created the world in six days, he had had a Russian at his right shoulder directing him. Chekov smiled wistfully at the memory.
Jaeger got up from the chair. Her stomach was cramping, but she had no idea whether that was from her illness or from what Chekov had just told her. "Thank you, Pavel Andreievich," she said bitterly. "I appreciate you writing me off."
"What...?" He looked up at her, startled. "I'm not..."
"You're making plans!" she shrieked. Across the room, Washburn and his girlfriend turned to stare in her direction. Tears streaking down her face, she balled her fists and held back the sudden urge to vomit. "I can't believe you're making plans for after I'm dead. How could you do something like that? How can you even think of it? Of all people, I didn't expect anything like that from you. You rotten, self-centered bastard." A sob forced its way out. Mouth open, Chekov gaped up at her but made no move to help her. "Do you think about me at all? Do you care how I feel? I'm the one that all this is happening to, damn you! All you have to do is watch. You don't have to die." She sank back into the chair, hands up to her face, gulping in great lungfulls of air and sobbing them back out. "I hate you, Pavel Chekov. I can't believe this is how you feel." He reached out to her, but she slapped his hand away. "Get away from me!" she screeched. "I never want to see you again. I'll do this all myself. I don't need anybody with me. And I know I don't need you. Just get away! Go ahead, resign your commission and go back to Russia. Starfleet is better off without you, if that's the kind of loyalty you have!"
Chekov whispered, "Gretchen...I'm sorry."
"Sorry? Sorry! You're just like everyone else. The only thing you care about is yourself. You're just like her. She never cared about me, or Daddy. All she cared about was what was good for her." Mommy? Jaeger thought. The rec deck was spinning around like a carnival ride. Dozens of people seemed to be staring at her, though it was really only Washburn and his girlfriend, and three people who'd been watching the holo-film. Mommy? Daddy? She clung to the arms of the chair, which felt like the seat in the null-gravity simulator at the Academy, but this time there were no restraining straps to hold her in place, a comfort against the wild sensation of being flung out into empty space. Her vision was filled with flashing lights. She barely felt Chekov taking hold of her, gathering her up. "Pavel?" she muttered. "Pavel, help me. Please help me. I don't want to die!"
"It's all right, jajubimets," he murmured, frightened at the way she was shaking. "I'm here." He held her head against his chest, trying to steady her. "It's all right."
All right? she thought. His uniform tunic had that peculiar computer-generated smell about it, the way all Starfleet uniforms did, no matter how much they were worn or how much they were aired out. Artificial sort of a smell, mixed with the normal musky Human smell. Warm, she thought. Just like Daddy. Her shaking increased, and she nestled closer to Chekov, no longer hearing anything else that was going on in the room. All right? Yes, it seemed all right. The familiar smell and the warmth comforted her a little.
"It's all right, Pug," she heard him say, though of course Pavel would never call her that, had no idea that anyone had ever called her that. Daddy...just going away for a little while, but don't worry, you can send tapes and I'll send tapes back...nothing to worry about...
He began stroking her hair. "Daddy?" she whispered. He didn't reply, but tightened his hold and went on stroking.
Going away for a while, with Captain Liz. Where? Not sure, Pug. But nothing to worry about.
Nothing to worry about...
Admiral Mills was standing in the living room, obviously uncomfortable, cap in his hands, his feet a little apart, some of his kinky white hair sticking straight up like a horn. His kind, wrinkled dark face seemed a little flushed, as if he'd run there, but of course he'd come by transporter, probably hadn't run anywhere in years. In a dog's age, Daddy would say. Gretchen crouched in the hallway, peering around the corner into the living room, frowning intensely at the Admiral's nervousness and her mother's wringing hands. "I'm sorry, Frances," he was saying. "No one saw it coming...the trouble. The Armstrong was destroyed. No survivors."
Frances looked up at him but if she felt anything other than anger, she kept it in check. "I knew this would happen," she snapped.
"Is there anything I can do for you?" the Admiral asked.
"No." She sighed. "What could you do?"
"Help you...with the arrangements. Whatever needs to be done."
"Arrangements?" Frances got up from the sofa and began to pace a small circle in the center of the living room. Her face was still impassive. "What arrangements? The ship was destroyed in the middle of space. Are you trying to tell me there are remains, Admiral?" Mills shuddered, more at Frances Jaeger's attitude than anything else. "I didn't think so," she went on. "There aren't any arrangements. He's been gone for six months. We'll just keep going the way we've been going. He's always been gone, in one way or another. Nothing's changed. He might have died years ago, for all the difference it makes."
Mills looked around helplessly, clinging to the brim of his cap, and, for the first time, noticed the small figure crouched at the end of the hallway. His face full of pity, he went to Gretchen and knelt in front of her. "Hello, Missy, how are you? Did you hear me talking to your mother?"
"Yes," she said. "Is my daddy dead?"
"Yes, dear, I'm afraid he is. His ship was attacked, a long way from here, and everyone on board was killed. But your daddy didn't suffer, and he died a hero."
She could still see the expression on Mills's face: trying to help, trying to be kind to a child.
Daddy, she thought.
Just gone for a little while, nothing to worry about.
Dead?
Thoughts began to crowd into her head, all disjointed, rushing, not lasting long enough for her to sort them out. Ship destroyed...trouble...long way from here. Daddy dead now. Where? No remains...destroyed in the middle of space. But where now? Where is Daddy now? Gone? Nothing left, destroyed, no remains, doesn't matter, gone all the time anyway. Just gone for a while. The thoughts spun in her head. She lost track of the feeling of Chekov's arms around her and seemed to be floating in space herself, with the mad rush of disconnected thoughts spilling around her mind. Her existence seemed to be nothing but a gray fog. Daddy gone? No, Daddy not gone, Daddy promised never gone. But where? her mind insisted. If not gone, then where? Dead now, not coming back, no remains, no Daddy any more.
Daddy dead Daddy dead Daddy now me dead...
The new thought exploded in and she felt the blackness falling over her again, the way it had a couple of hours ago when she had tried to find sleep in the darkened cabin on E Deck. There, at least, she had had a little control over it, could stumble out of bed and find others, find light, find a way to reassure herself. Now there was nothing, nothing but a spinning, horrible grayness, into which the thoughts kept forcing themselves.
No more me? Me dead...nothing...no more anything...ever...no more self, gone where? Where?
Nothing nothing nothing nothing...
Somehow, her lungs found air and she began to scream, hysterically, her voice rising in pitch and renewing itself though she was completely unaware of doing anything at all but careening around that vast gray emptiness inside her head. Chekov clung to her and continued vaguely trying to comfort her. She went on screaming in pulses that lasted five or six seconds but seemed to go on forever.
"Commander?" a voice said urgently. Chekov looked: it was Washburn, eyes wide with fright, his girlfriend hovering just behind him, hands resting on him. "Do you need help, sir?"
"Yes," Chekov choked out. "Get Doctor McCoy."
*****
"She worked herself into a state, as my grandmother used to say," McCoy observed. His voice was quiet, though even if he had shouted, it would have done little to disturb Jaeger's fitful rest. "Her oxygen absorption is down to sixty percent of normal, and when she started yelling at you, it used up what little she's getting and caused her to black out. I gave her some tri-ox. She'll be--" He avoided saying 'all right.' "--comfortable as long as she takes it easy."
"Takes it easy?" Chekov echoed. "She never takes it easy."
"She hasn't got much choice." McCoy pulled a chair up alongside the bed and urged Chekov into it. "She keeps asking for her father. He's Starfleet, isn't he? Do you know where he's stationed?"
Chekov shook his head. "He died when she was a little girl. He was weapons officer on the Armstrong."
"The spy ship?" McCoy asked, brows lifted.
"Yes." Frowning, Chekov brushed a stray lock of hair off Jaeger's forehead. She flinched in her sleep, as if the touch hurt her. "She doesn't talk about him any more. Or about anybody else in her family. Her mother stopped talking to her when she entered the Academy. Her mother hates Starfleet, and everybody associated with it. I think she passed that on to the other two--Gretchen's brother and sister. So now she has nobody."
"If she won't talk about it, how do you know all that?"
The corner of Chekov's mouth quirked into a smile, but there was no humor behind it. "I'm Chief of Security and Personnel. I read all of her psychological studies."
"That's a nice invasion of privacy," McCoy said.
"I needed some answers."
"So do we all," McCoy told him wryly.
Answers, Chekov thought. About why she kept getting up out of bed and running out of the room, leaving him alone and baffled. She hadn't resisted the sex; it was intimacy she wanted no part of. She'd made him remember the times he and Sulu had worn away long, boring hours by cataloging every name in every language they could think of for the act of sex, and he tried to decide which one suited Jaeger. Certainly not "making love," because there was no love involved (at least not on her part). It was more like an athletic event, and as soon as it was over, she escaped back to the privacy of her own cabin in spite of his numerous protests. He confided his confusion to no one, though not really because he was embarrassed, and finally, at a loss for other solutions, had accessed the computer records on Jaeger, Gretchen L., serial number 24NR1516.
The following night when, on schedule, she headed for the door of the cabin, he stepped in front of her and quickly fed the "security lock" code into the door controls, ensuring that no one but himself, the captain or First Officer Spock could open the door without a phaser. "Wait a minute," he told her.
She was immediately flustered. "I don't understand."
"I want you to stay. Why won't you stay? Nobody cares if you spend the night in here."
"I'd rather not."
"Why, Gretchen? Just tell me why."
Her eyes dropped. She was pointedly avoiding meeting his gaze. "I just would rather..."
"You don't have a reason, do you?"
"Pavel, let me go." Her hands were working nervously, but she still would not look up at him. "You got what you wanted. Why do you want me to stay here?"
His mouth lolled open. "I got what I wanted?"
"Yes..." she murmured.
"Is that all you thought it was? 'I got what I wanted'? Bozhe moi," he said, shaking his head. Why do I like this woman? he wondered. It's not because I like frustration. I get enough of that on duty. Why should I go looking for more frustration? I'm not that much of a masochist. Am I?
Involuntarily, he shuddered. "Gretchen," he said, reaching out to take her shoulders in his hands, "I don't know why you wouldn't believe this, but I like you. I like you very much. I don't ask you here so I can 'get what I want.' I like being with you. I thought you liked being with me. Now I'm not sure. Will you please tell me what's wrong? Tell me why you keep running out of here." Her head still drooped, as if all the vertebrae were gone out of her neck.
Sighing, Chekov stuck a hand under her chin and hoisted her head up so he could see her eyes. She flushed. "Come on, Gretchen, out with it."
"There's nothing," she mumbled. "Really, there's nothing."
"Then you're like this with everybody?"
She tried looking sideways, upwards, over his shoulder. "There isn't any 'everybody'. Please, Pavel, I'd like to go now."
"No," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because I want some answers." He paused, considering the possible consequences of admitting his snooping to her, then plunged gamely ahead. "Listen...I read your files. I know about your family." She colored even more and seemed to shrink in his grasp. "But I don't have anything to do with that. You don't have to be my 'buddy.' I care about you."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"I think you do. You get along great with everybody as long as you can be their buddy, be 'one of the guys'. You had more friends at the Academy than anybody else in your class. The person everybody can turn to when they need a favor." He paused again. "But you never ask for any favors. You never confide in anybody, you never ask for help. Being a friend works both ways, Gretchen. I don't need any more buddies. I have enough of those. I need you to open up to me. I need you to make me feel like there's somebody in there." Trying for a smile, he rapped her temple lightly with his knuckles. "My father doesn't talk to me either, Gretchen. He hates Starfleet and everything it stands for. But I don't use it as an excuse to not care about people...or letting them care about me." She blinked hard, and turned her head as far as she could with his hand glued under her chin. "Stop pretending, Lieutenant Jaeger. I read the files. I can see through you."
She said into her lower lip, "You had no right."
"I had every right in the world. I care about you. I wanted to find out how to help."
"I don't need your help."
"I think you do. Mine, or somebody's. I'd like it to be mine." He smiled again. "Don't fight me. There are enough other people around you can fight."
"I don't..." she began again.
"Will you try? That's all, just try. Trust me a little."
She sighed heavily. "I suppose."
"I fought for her," Chekov said to McCoy. "I fought her for her. Everything was...wonderful." He turned and looked at the doctor. "Now this."
"I know how you feel, Chekov," McCoy replied solemnly. "I'm not made of stone."
"Yes...I'm sorry. I said some things..."
"Forget it," McCoy said with a small shake of his head, trying to remind himself that he'd been through situations like this too many times to let anything said in grief affect him too seriously. But, damn it, he thought, I'm not made of stone. "So she doesn't speak to them," he went on. "But they'd want to know, wouldn't they? Her family?"
Chekov replied bitterly, "They don't care that she's alive. Why should they care that..." His voice trailed off.
"Still, I think they should be notified."
"Later. Tell them later. If they haven't cared for all these years, they won't care now."
"That's assuming a lot," McCoy said. Chekov gave him a sharp look. "All right," the doctor conceded, "so last-minute reconciliations aren't worth a lot. It just soothes the guilt of..."
The whooping of the alert klaxon cut him off in mid-sentence. At the same time, the diagnostic panel over Jaeger's bed began flashing, together with every other instrument in the sickbay connected to the ship's electrical systems. A moment later the room lights too began to blink on and off.
"Son of a bitch," McCoy said hotly. "Now what?"
Jaeger's eyes opened and she looked up at Chekov and McCoy, awake if somewhat foggily so. "Beam?" she said.
"What?" Chekov replied, leaning closer.
"Is it the beam? We're not on alert, are we?"
"Are we?" Chekov asked McCoy.
McCoy's eyes opened a little wider. "You're asking me?"
The ship's intercom bleeped, cutting through the racket of the klaxon. "All hands," Kirk's voice came through the speaker, perfectly even but with a cutting edge that both Chekov and McCoy noticed, "this is the captain. We are not on alert. Repeat, we are not on alert. We are experiencing a temporary malfunction of the electrical systems which should last only a few minutes. Stand by. Kirk out."
McCoy rubbed tiredly at his temples. He'd had a good solid hour and a half of sleep before Washburn had frantically wakened him, and the prospect of additional sleep anytime soon no longer looked promising. He began to wonder about Kirk, and that thread of rage behind the steady, modulated words to the crew. Must've eaten half a chair before he came on the intercom, McCoy thought. "There's your answer, Lieutenant," he said quietly. "We're not on alert. This is just a test...of my nervous system. Which I believe no longer exists." Left without the aid of the diagnostic panel, he bent over Jaeger and peered into her eyes. "How do you feel now?"
"My head hurts," she muttered. "What time is it?"
"The middle of the night. But it doesn't make any difference. I'm not letting you out of here this time."
She let out half a sigh. "Don't do this to me."
"Do what?"
"Keep me in here." She glanced at Chekov, who seemed content to go along with McCoy's prescriptions while clinging to Jaeger's right hand and looking mournfully solicitous. "I can't just lay here, Doctor McCoy," she went on, thinking remotely that her sister Andrea had worn the same expression as Chekov years ago when their cat had been attacked and badly wounded by a Ganymedian wompbat. "I can't. I can't lay here and wait to die. What the hell does that accomplish?"
"Jajubimets," Chekov urged, "you don't have to accomplish anything."
She ignored him. Fine lot of help he was turning out to be, the back of her mind said. He'd been a Starfleet officer for twenty-one years, and, according to everything she'd heard, held up remarkably well in tight situations (aside from a bad tendency toward screaming). Now that seemed to apply only to situations where he himself was under threat. As far as she was concerned, he was no tower of strength, and the last thing she needed was somebody gazing at her with the same pitying, misty expression Andrea had used on that mangled cat. McCoy wasn't misty, but he too had given up the ship. "I want to go back on duty," she said abruptly.
"Forget it," McCoy told her.
Pushing herself up onto her elbows (Chekov's hand slid right along with hers, as if it were grafted on), she fixed the doctor with as stern a look as she could manage. "I need something to do. I want to go back up on the bridge, even if I just assist."
McCoy waggled his head. "I can't let you do that. Your condition isn't...your judgment might be impaired."
"My judgment is not impaired!" she shrieked.
The doctor's expression narrowed. "Watch it, Lieutenant."
She fought the impulse to continue shrieking and brought her voice down to a reasonable level. "You can't make me stay here. I can't..." She pulled her hand out of Chekov's and sat up on the bed, wavering only for a second as dizziness came and went. Maybe my judgment is goofy, she thought, if I'm talking this way to a senior officer. She considered backing down; arguing would give her something to do, but arguing with Chekov had made her pass out in the rec room, and she remembered just enough of that to not want to repeat it. "Please, Doc. Don't make me just lie here. I have to do something."
"You could read," McCoy offered.
"Jesus in a sidecar," Jaeger groaned. Both McCoy and Chekov looked startled at that. She gnawed her lower lip for a moment, groping for a way to escape Sickbay and all this maudlin scrutiny. Spock! she thought. He seemed to be the only one who hadn't written her off. In fact, his attitude seemed to be much like hers. "Can I see Captain Spock?" she asked, with the sweet, "pretty-please" tone of voice she had used as a child to wangle favors out of her mother.
"Will you lie back and rest?" McCoy countered.
Same as Mom, Jaeger thought. The ploy had never failed. "Yes, sir," she replied pleasantly, lay back down on the bed, and pulled the thin blanket up over her chest.
*****
Scott rubbed thoughtfully at his chin, eyes following the printout on the computer screen as it unscrolled line after line of data. "Lass," he said finally, in the tone of a proud teacher, although McCutcheon was really no student of his and they had been working together only a few hours, "for a xenobiologist, you make a fine hacker. I think you're in the wrong line o' work."
"Just a hobby," McCutcheon told him. "I like to tinker."
The big Scotsman snorted. "I've seen professionals who can't handle a board like that as well as you can."
"Well," McCutcheon conceded with a grin, "I'm a good tinkerer, then."
"Aye." Scott returned the grin, then reached for the keyboard and began tapping in more specifics for the program he and McCutcheon had created. They had tracked the mysterious beam all evening and into the night, their work interrupted only by periodic trips to the enormous table of food the Dianasians had provided in the science lab, and by several unobtrusive visits from Beleen, who, after hours of searching, had been unable to locate Peter Kirk. Although the Dianasian woman had originally volunteered to find Kirk only as a favor to McCutcheon, she now seemed to regard the task as a sort of personal quest and pooh-poohed McCutcheon's suggestion that spending so much time on Kirk's trail was a horrid waste of a perfectly good evening. Just before midnight (two hours ago), Beleen had finally given in, said her goodnights, and went off home. Scott and McCutcheon settled in for more work, uniform jackets tossed aside and shirt sleeves rolled up to their elbows. At this point they knew the beam intimately and had printed out on a mile-long trail of paper all the details the computer could provide--everything except where the beam was coming from. Nodding in acknowledgment of the continuing flow of information on the screen, Scott keyed into the communications system and said to the mike, "Are you getting all this, Enterprise?"
Uhura's voice came back through the finely-circuited speaker as clearly as if she had been sitting in the computer room. "Affirmative, Scotty."
"All of it?" Scott queried.
Uhura chuckled softly. Like Beleen, and like Scott and McCutcheon, none of whom seemed to have noticed that it was well past midnight, she was well acquainted with personal quests. Their devotion to the project had long since passed a desire to provide Kirk with an answer; now the three Enterprise officers were tracking the beam for themselves, to the point of filling a dozen computer discs with information that might or might not ultimately prove useful. Glancing at the scrolling information on the screen above her communications board, Uhura let her voice drop a notch to the conspiratory level, though it was entirely for Scott's benefit. "Now, the question is, Scotty, what do you want us to do with it?"
Scott chuckled back, eyes twinkling. "File it, of course."
It was an old joke between them, recalling a God-awful trip to Outpost 7734 seven years ago, when a certain Federation commodore had decided to use the Enterprise to haul himself, his surviving staff, and a collection of "essential" papers from the destroyed Outpost 7734 to his new post in the Beta Epsilon system. These days (indeed, as far back as either Scott or Uhura could remember) few worlds with up-to-date computer technology still used hard copy, relying instead on computer discs, from which information could be retrieved in a moment. The Dianasians, however, seemed to have a romance with paper, and their voluminous use of it in the computer center had recalled the old joke. The commodore's "files" had packed two of the Enterprise's storage bays from floor to ceiling, and halfway through the trip from the abandoned Outpost 7734 to Beta Epsilon, the cadets aboard the Enterprise had begun finding relief from their boredom by creating a repertoire of comedy routines about Finnegan's files.
"Of course," Uhura echoed. "And do we send a copy to Finnegan?"
"In triplicate, Commander," Scott said, sounding archly offended.
"Enterprise is coming up on the beam, Mister Scott," McCutcheon pointed out, quietly enough not to intrude on his exchange with Uhura.
Scott nodded and said to the mike, "Stand by, Enterprise. Crossing into the beam in...one minute, mark."
The open channel to the ship let Scott and McCutcheon hear what erupted on the bridge as the beam took effect for the sixth time. McCutcheon watched the screen, which reflected a trebled output of data from the computer in time with the cacophony on the bridge. "It's doing something different this time, Mister Scott," she said puzzledly, tapping requests for augmentation into the keyboard.
"Affirmative that," Uhura's voice agreed over the speaker. "Receiving something...it's an old binary code, Scotty."
"I see it. Translating."
The Enterprise's main computers worked in unison with the Dianasian computer banks to pound out a translation of the rapid-fire blips coming in from the beam. There was a brief pause from the ship over the comm speaker, filled with machine chatter, beeps, trills and klaxon whoops. "Oh, for..." Uhura sputtered. "Are you getting a printout on this, Scotty? Are we decoding this right? If we are, somebody thinks they're mighty damned funny."
"Aye," Scott groaned. "The captain's going t' have kittens."
Shaking his head, he touched the printer controls and resumed the printout of hard copy. The computer's translation of the coded pulse from the beam looked no better on paper than it did on the video screen. Scott rolled his eyes at McCutcheon, who released the smirk she'd been holding back, waiting to see if the engineering chief was really angry or just anticipating another firestorm from Kirk. Printed across the full width of the paper (for the computer had not been programmed to break the message into components) were the words THREE BLIND MICE THREE BLIND MICE SEE HOW THEY RUN SEE HOW THEY RUN THEY ALL RAN AFTER THE FARMER'S WIFE SHE CUT OFF THEIR TAILS WITH A CARVING KNIFE HAVE YOU EVER SEEN SUCH A SIGHT IN YOUR LIFE AS THREE BLIND MICE.
"It can't be anybody from Dianas doing this," McCutcheon said after a moment. "How would they know anything about children's rhymes from Earth? All they know about us, they got from the Federation first-contact tapes. The last I knew, the tapes didn't include stuff like this. This is...is it a joke?"
Scott sat back in his chair and folded his arms across his midriff. The printer went on spieling paper into a neat heap on the marble floor. "If it's not one o' them," he mused, "then it's either those two Klingons...or it's one of us."
"How much do the Klingons know about nursery rhymes?"
"Maybe a bit," Scott shrugged. "They have people poking all around practically every Earth colony there is. But I don't know, lass." He made a face of well-worn disgust. "I never met a Klingon yet with a sense o' humor."
"Which leaves one of us?" McCutcheon responded.
"And isn't that a pleasant thought," Scott sighed. "Uhura? How much o' this is the captain getting?"
"Nothing, Scotty," Uhura replied.
"Come again?"
"He's not getting anything. He shut off his comm terminal just before we crossed into the beam. I think he's still in his quarters..." There was another brief pause, filled with racket, as she ran a status check through her board. "Yes, he's still there. He's accessing the library computer automatic translation reader. But the comm terminal is off."
Reading? Scott thought. Reading what? Nodding half to himself, he said to both Uhura and McCutcheon, "Not much more we can do now, in the dark. We've got coordinates for the source, right down to the square inch, but even if we went up there we wouldn't have much chance o' finding anything. In the morning I'll come up and get a thruster pack, and when ye ride through the beam again, I'll go take a look. Scott out." He keyed off the comm channel; without the chatter from the ship, the computer room fell oddly silent in spite of the clicks and taps from the hard-copy printer. "There's got to be something up there, Lieutenant," he said thoughtfully. "I've seen people come out o' nowhere, and energy fields, and illusions, and heaven knows what all else. But things that come out o' nowhere don't broadcast nursery rhymes. There's a source for this."
"Five kilometers up in the air?" McCutcheon asked. "It sure looks like it comes out of nowhere, Mister Scott. There's nothing solid up there. I'd say it was a bird, but if it was, it's developed a hell of a hover capacity."
"Where's your spirit of adventure, lass?" Scott smiled. "Ye don't like a good mystery?"
She grinned back. "I guess so. It's sure more interesting than making slides by the hundreds in the other lab. But the captain expects some awfully fast answers."
Scott sobered a little. "The captain's never been one for mystery solving, Lieutenant. Just answers. It may take a bit longer than he likes, but we'll find the answer. Five kilometers up, or not--there's something up there. We'll find it." He considered the young woman for a moment. Lines of tiredness were beginning to show around her eyes. "Why don't you go get some sleep, lass? There really isn't much more we can do till daylight."
"I think I will," McCutcheon nodded. "If it's all right with you."
"Go. You've already put in better than a double watch. Nobody really expects triple out o' ye."
"But you're staying," McCutcheon observed.
"Aye," Scott admitted. "I'm used to it. I've spent many a night baby-sitting machinery. Now I sleep better in a chair than I do in a bed. Don't worry about me. I'll just get myself another plate of food and keep watch over this thing. Go, get some sleep."
"All right." She reached for her uniform jacket and slid into it. "I should go tell Dalaarn to go home, too."
"Dalaarn?" Scott's eyes widened. "You mean the computer operator?"
"Uh-huh."
"Will he still be out in the garden? It's been hours! He'll have meditated the life out o' those plants by now."
"He said he'd be out there till we finished," McCutcheon smiled. "They're true to their word. If he said he'd stay there until we come and get him, then that's where he'll be." She stretched, accompanied by a tiny yawn, and fastened the flap of her jacket. "It would disturb our oneness to have to go and look for him, you know." Taking a last look at the printer, which was now into its umpteenth printout of "Three Blind Mice", she concluded, "I suppose I'd better take a look for Peter, too. God knows he's not likely to be anyplace he said he'd be. He's not worried about anybody's oneness." She hadn't quite finished speaking when the printer stopped its savagely rapid production and lapsed back into a slower, methodical listing of stats from the beam. "They're out of it again," McCutcheon said, and bent to gather up the stack of paper.
Scott said quietly, "Where is Peter likely to be? What's-her-name must have covered half the planet looking."
McCutcheon caught his train of thought. "You don't really think Peter would do something like this, Commander?"
"I don't know, lass. You tell me."
She stood with the heap of paper in her arms, thinking back over a month of exposure to Peter Kirk. Peter, do all this? she thought, feeling the weight of all that paper. "I don't know either, sir," she told Scott. He took the mountain of paper from her, and she scooped up her communicator and the tricorder she'd left lying on an extra chair near the console. "This is how I find Peter," she told Scott hesitantly, tapping the tricorder. "I...got kind of tired wasting time looking for him in the middle of experiments. So I did a little tinkering. Had to delete some of the other functions, but it'll find Peter if he's within ten kilometers."
"Sneaky of ye," Scott observed.
"I'd never find him otherwise." She paused. "I suppose I should have given this to Beleen, instead of letting her waste her whole evening looking for him. But...oh, they just get to you after a while, Mister Scott. All that constant cheerfulness. I can only take it for just so long. I know that isn't very tolerant..."
He cut her off in mid-word. "I know what ye mean. I don't blame ye." He nodded at the tricorder. "Or for that, either. It's not exactly regulation, but we can keep it between us. Now off wi' ye."
McCutcheon draped the tricorder strap over her shoulder. "Good night, Mister Scott."
"Good night, McCutcheon. Don't search for too long. And don't bother gettin' up too early. Whenever you're ready in the morning, I'll be here."
McCutcheon nodded acknowledgment and went on out. Once outside the building she activated the special search mode she had programmed into the tricorder. The tiny instrument bleeped obediently and ran through several scanning cycles as she walked through the lab center grounds and out onto the street. By the time she reached the aircar the Dianasians had left for Kirk's and her use, the tricorder had located her errant colleague some five kilometers southeast of the lab center--nowhere near anyplace Kirk had any business being. Figures, she thought, climbing into the aircar. The air was still and quiet, full of the cool dampness that would be gone shortly after sunrise. The area around the lab center was mostly shops and businesses, all closed down for the night; the only light came from the aircar itself and the glow of Dianas's trio of moons. McCutcheon listened to the silence for a moment before keying the aircar's hatch closed. A moonbase baby, she was unaccustomed to the natural sounds of the outdoors; even during her several years as a Starfleet biologist she had spent more time in the labs than out in the field.
It took her less than ten minutes to reach the area the tricorder had identified: a wooded section just outside the capital city limits, empty of buildings but wound with narrow, interesting footpaths. McCutcheon brought the aircar to the ground in the nearest open area, shut down its operating systems, and climbed out, the tricorder held in front of her so that it could pin down Kirk's whereabouts. Its beeping sounded unnaturally loud in the hush of the woods, and with something close to embarrassment McCutcheon switched off the warble function. She kept her eyes on the screen, with occasional glances at the path to avoid tripping, and followed the readout as it closed the distance between her and Kirk to a hundred meters, then fifty, then thirty, then twenty. Something's not right here, she thought, standing still for a minute to sweep a look around. Why am I out here in the middle of the night, wandering around in the woods? Let Peter come back on his own! She shivered, thinking, Why do I even care where he is? She was considering turning back when the sound of voices--two? three?--from up ahead interrupted her train of thought. Who's he talking to? she wondered, shrugging off her nervousness with difficulty and treading softly ahead along the path. She was tempted to call out to him, just to break the quiet, but long months of training reminded her how unwise it might be to sing out in a strange area, in a strange situation, armed with nothing but a jury-rigged tricorder and the communicator clipped to her belt.
Another twenty paces ahead she found Peter Kirk.
As the mixture of voices had told her, he was not alone. Another Enterprise officer, out of uniform, dark-haired and younger than Kirk from the look of him, lounged against a tree as though he had only been listening to the conversation and not taking part in it. He stiffened away from the tree when he spotted McCutcheon but had no weapon to reach for. His movement attracted the attention of the others in the small clearing and within seconds all eyes were on her. It was an odd tableau, everyone watching her but frozen in place, Kirk's right hand extended, offering something that looked like a computer record cassette to the third member of the group. If Scott had not told her there were Klingons wandering around Elyantorvan, she would have been horrified. As it was, she was merely confused.
"Peter?" she said quietly. "What's going on?"
She had no time to say anything more. The flicker of a feeling like a heavy static shock ran through her, giving her an instant to think the word "phaser," then, within another instant, the world spun, went black, and she dropped to the ground like a stone.
Peter Kirk's hand jerked back. "You stupid bastard," he said to Kilon, who had come up behind McCutcheon with his disruptor aimed and ready and had flattened her with a point-blank shot. "What did you do that for?" Shoving the computer cassette into his pocket, he ran the few steps to McCutcheon and knelt beside her. Only stunned, he thought, turning her onto her back on the mossy ground. "You didn't have to fry her," he snapped, this time to Koloth.
"I thought you didn't care about any of your shipmates," Koloth said dryly.
"You didn't have to..." Kirk repeated.
"The only thing we 'fried' was this," Koloth replied, taking the few steps to reach McCutcheon and shoving the tricorder away from her with the toe of his boot. The instrument emitted a flurry of sparks, then fell dark and silent. "I imagine all its circuits are fused. But I believe your...friend...will be all right in a few hours." He glanced at Kilon, who spoke no English and was waiting for instructions, the disruptor dangling from his hand. Koloth told his underling in a glance that he'd done well, as far as Koloth was concerned. Kilon blinked agreement and let the disruptor down to point at the ground.
Kirk sat on his heels and glared at the senior Klingon. "Have you ever recovered from phaser stun?"
"Life is full of difficulties, Lieutenant Kirk," Koloth smiled.
Tom Cooper planted his hands on his hips and took a step toward Koloth. The Klingon greeted him with a raised eyebrow, and Cooper stopped abruptly, unsure whether he'd prompted a shot from the disruptor for himself but unwilling to press his luck by venturing further. "Look," he said quietly, "can we finish? It's late."
"We can," Koloth shrugged. "But there seems to be a snag in your arrangements now."
Kirk fished the computer cassette out of his uniform jacket pocket and tossed it at Koloth, who caught it easily and took a long look at it, although he had no way of determining if the labeling on the case was correct. "We'll take care of it," Kirk said through his teeth. "Don't worry about it."
"Oh, I'm not worried, Lieutenant Kirk."
The Klingon's expression gave Kirk a shudder he wasn't quite able to suppress. He glanced from Koloth to Tom Cooper, and to his discomfort found little difference between the Klingon's smirk and Cooper's. "We'll take care of it," he said again.
*****
"You're soft, Kirk," Tom Cooper announced. "I didn't think you were soft."
Peter Kirk kept his back to the younger man so that he wouldn't have to endure any more of that increasingly feral expression Cooper had been wearing for the past hour. They'd been arguing since Koloth and Kilon had left them to return to the guest building near the beach, and Cooper had expressed his point of view with a vehemence that was beginning to turn Peter's stomach. "I'm not going to commit murder," he said quietly. "We draw the line there, Cooper. Nobody dies so we can do this."
Cooper leaned against the door frame and crossed his legs at the ankle. "Like I said...you're soft."
"That doesn't have anything to do with it," Kirk snapped.
"Doesn't it?" Cooper asked. "How bad do you want this to work out? I don't think it's worth a whole lot to you, really, if you're not willing to risk..."
"I said nobody dies!" Kirk shouted, turning now so he could look at Cooper, whose face was in deep shadow in the angular light from the lantern Kirk had perched nearby. Fists clenched, Kirk moved to his feet and stood a couple of meters from Cooper. Cooper's stomach twitched; he was stifling a laugh, his eyes on McCutcheon. Kirk's gaze went down to her, too: he'd laid her on a pile of blankets on the dusty floor, arranged in a position he thought would be nearly comfortable when she finally roused out of the disruptor stun. He'd tied her hands and feet, though he was quite sure she wouldn't be up to running off anywhere. For the moment she seemed placid enough, but that would end the moment she regained consciousness and began feeling the worst of the disruptor's effects. Something turned over inside Kirk, and he fought not to let it show in front of Cooper. "I'll...make sure she doesn't foul it up."
Cooper began to whoop with laughter. "Oh, sure!" he gasped between breaths. "She won't tell. Just give her your best smile. Lay on the old Kirk charm, and she won't run straight to the captain."
"She--" the young Kirk started.
Shaking his head, Cooper cut him off. "The first word out of her mouth is gonna be 'traitor' and the second one'll be your name. Don't kid yourself, Kirk." The laughter had gone out of him, and he considered Kirk for a long moment in the lantern light. "I don't want any trouble, Kirk. We can't afford it. I spent a lot of time working this out, and I won't let her, or anybody else, get in the way." He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. "I'm getting out of here. Sit here a while if you want--think it over. But think it over real careful, buddy. I need you, but if you screw this up, I'll try real hard to find a way not to need you." Kirk said nothing. The corner of Cooper's mouth crept up. "Don't sit here too long. You know what the chief lizard said about this place," Cooper concluded, referring to Koloth. "The buildings have a bad habit of falling down."
Then he was gone.
Kirk sat on the floor near McCutcheon's makeshift bed, knees drawn up near his chest, and began unconsciously wringing his hands. "What did you have to show up for?" he muttered at McCutcheon. "Now we have to..." Do what? he thought. Sighing, he leaned back a little and looked around the room. With Koloth's help, he and Cooper had brought McCutcheon to a cluster of long-abandoned buildings that had apparently been a settlement over a hundred Standard years ago. The Dianasians seldom ventured near here now, Koloth had explained, because the area was seismically active and all the buildings they'd laboriously constructed with their usual tons of pink marble and carved wood were, over the course of time, jiggled apart by the near-constant ground tremors. No point in making your home in a structure that was likely to fall down around your ears! In fact, Koloth had smiled, seven hundred Dianasians had lost their lives in just that way in a period they called the Black Upheaval. Contrary to Earthlings' ancient habit of building homes on top of fault lines and then refusing to leave them even after disasters like the Black Upheaval, the remaining settlers of this area had packed their belongings and moved eastward, toward the sea. Now nothing remained in the green, fertile valley of Kasmarin but the tumbled remains of the buildings and the contents the Dianasians had not been able to take along.
Kirk and McCutcheon were in the bottom level of someone's former home, which because of the hilly terrain was half above ground and half below. The four rooms were littered with toppled pieces of massive furniture, broken statuary, crumbled pieces of floor and ceiling. It seemed safe enough for the time being, though being in the rearmost room (and thus underground) gave Kirk the uneasy feeling of being entombed. A more superstitious person would have felt the ghosts of all those crushed Dianasians nearby, he supposed; as it was, he merely felt alone, and buried, and at a complete loss for ideas.
Not my fault! he thought several times. I didn't ask her to come looking for me! Why can't she just leave me alone?
He looked over McCutcheon, who had stirred in her sleep, her face puckered as if she had eaten something disagreeable. Kirk smiled wryly, thinking, Wait'll she wakes up, if she thinks she feels bad now. He'd been through phaser stun once, on Prothos, when he'd surprised a guard who didn't take kindly to surprises. Coming out of the stun felt like a combination of the Shanghai flu and the worst hangover imaginable: every nerve ending singing, head pounding, vision spinning. And the nausea! If she had anything in her stomach...
What do I know? he thought.
Abruptly, something fluttered through the room, dipping close to his head, and with a cry of fright he flung himself face down on the dirty floor, hands crossed over the back of his head. The things! he thought hysterically, feeling his heart begin to pound. He could hear it swooping back and forth. "No!" he shrieked. "Get away! Get away!" There was dirt in his nose and mouth, but he didn't dare lift his head. The thing went on flapping back and forth, and after an endless minute he shifted his head a little to one side, looking for a piece of furniture to crawl under. It'll get me! his mind screamed. Every breath he took filled his nose, throat and lungs with more dirt, and he coughed and sneezed, eyes beginning to water. Nooooo! he thought, and hunched himself up enough to scrabble across the floor to the shelter of a toppled wooden wardrobe. Crushed between the back of the wardrobe and the wall, he snuffled heavily, trying to blow the dirt out of his head. Things! his mind went on screaming. Bad things! Behind that, from somewhere in his memory, he could hear other screaming: his mother. Mommymommymommy, he heard himself howling. And voices.
"She's dead, Jim. I'm sorry."
McCoy? Yes, it'd been McCoy. And his uncle. They were hovering around his mother, who had stopped screaming finally. Peter hadn't opened his eyes, just huddled deeper into the bed, and a while later his uncle had come to stand beside the bed, gloomily silent.
"Peter? It's Uncle Jim, son. Your mother..."
He'd known all along that she would die, just like all the others, like his father, and virtually all his friends. The things had gotten Peter, too: he could feel them, as if there were someone--many someones--living inside his body. He supposed he would die eventually, howling like his mother. The thought made him tremble. His uncle must have seen that, because he took Peter's hand and clasped it tightly, brushing a stray lock of hair off Peter's forehead with his free hand.
Peter clung to him, eyes still jammed shut...but now there was no other hand there, nothing to hang onto but empty air. There was somebody calling his name, but it wasn't his uncle.
The voice said again, "Peter?!"
He opened his eyes, shooting a rapid glance around, looking for the things. "Where is it?" he called back nervously.
"Where's what? Peter, what the hell is going on?"
"The thing! Is it gone?"
McCutcheon let out a noise that was a groan, a whine, and an explosion of rage all at the same time. "Is what gone? Peter, there's nothing out here but me and this pigeon."
"It's a...pigeon?"
"Peterrrr," she moaned. "I don't know; it looks like a pigeon. Whatever their local version of a pigeon is, that's what this is. Will you stop carrying on, and come out here and untie me? Now!"
Chagrined, he crawled out from behind the toppled wardrobe on his hands and knees. The fat, grayish bird he had fled from was sitting alongside the lantern, pecking idly at it, unmindful of the frenzy it had caused Kirk. McCutcheon was glaring at him, looking about the same shade of gray as the bird. Slowly Kirk straightened up, glanced down at his uniform and brushed dirt off his knees and sleeves. "I can't untie you," he announced, trying for a modicum of control. "This isn't a joke."
"Then sit me up," she said, her voice wobbling.
"Look, McCutcheon," he told her, loudly enough to make the bird blink, "don't you..."
Her reply came out one carefully enunciated word at a time. "No, you look. I am going to throw up in about two seconds. Sit me up."
The look in her eyes left no room for doubt. Kirk shot another look around the room, scooped up an ornamental bowl with a large arc broken off one side, shoved an arm underneath McCutcheon's back and hoisted her to a sitting position with the broken bowl under her chin. The bird fluttered down from its perch beside the lantern and scuttled across the floor to watch curiously as McCutcheon got rid of everything she'd eaten with Scott back at the lab center. When there was nothing left in her stomach, she suffered through several minutes of dry heaving with Kirk clutching her right arm and the bird watching from alongside her left foot. "Peter," she said through her teeth when it was all over, "untie me, or I'm going to kill you with my bare hands." She gave no thought to the impossibility of carrying out the threat, just glared at him with an astounding hatred. After a minute of that, Kirk let go of her, carried the bowl outside and tossed it into a clump of bushes.
"I told you, McCutcheon," he said when he returned to the little room at the back of the house, "this isn't a joke. You weren't supposed to show up there."
She tried propping herself up by leaning slightly on her bound hands, but all that accomplished was a strain on her already aching shoulders. "You were giving computer tapes to the Klingons?" she said softly, half-listening to her head pound. "Why, Peter?"
"None of your business."
"You're working with Klingons? What in God's name for?"
"I'm not 'working' with them," Kirk scowled.
"Then what do you call it?" McCutcheon opened her mouth to continue, then stopped and stared at the floor. It took her a moment to understand that the vibrations she could feel were external and not internal. "The ground is shaking," she muttered. "Peter, where are we?" He didn't reply, just shifted his head so that he was no longer looking in her direction. She looked around, taking in their surroundings, trying to sort out the information in her mind, which seemed to be filled with oatmeal. Cold sweat broke out on her arms and down her back, and nausea bubbled up again. "Where are we?" she asked again. "Peter, are we in the Kasmarin Valley?" Still he said nothing, but now his silence told her as much as a reply would have. "We are, aren't we? You brought me to the Kasmarin Valley."
"I had to," he said, and turned his back on her, folding his arms across his chest.
"Peter?" She was almost whispering. "Are you going to kill me?"
"Cooper wants to." His attention was on a tattered velvet tapestry, hanging in large, drooping folds from three hooks on the wall. It was some local scene, he assumed. Trees, soaring birds, small animals on the ground. "You shouldn't have tried to find me. You weren't supposed to show up there. You should have just...why can't you mind your own business?" He pivoted, arms still folded, fists clenched. "What do you think you are? My keeper? Nobody appointed you to keep an eye on me, McCutcheon. Well, it serves you right! You walked up on me once too often. Now you're stuck. You're not getting out of here." He tried for vehemence, but the sight of her, sagging half-upright on top of the heap of blankets, didn't allow for that. "Why can't you just leave me alone?" he shouted.
McCutcheon shut her eyes, wishing for a free hand to rub her pounding head. "They'll come looking for me," she said quietly. "Scotty expects me back in the morning. When I don't show up, they'll look for me."
"Not out here. Nobody comes out here."
"Peter...I thought we were friends."
His mouth lolled open and his brows crushed together. "You thought we were what?"
"Friends. I thought you were my friend."
His mind started to churn, rejecting, rejecting, rejecting. "Why the hell would you want to be my friend? What the hell would you get out of that?" Heart beating faster, he started to pace the dusty floor, shoving the bird aside at one point as it tried to trot alongside. "You think that'll get you somewhere with the captain, is that it? Keep an eye on the misfit nephew? I suppose he asked you to do it! He hasn't trusted me for a minute since I came aboard. He needed somebody to keep an eye on me, didn't he?"
"You're out of your mind," McCutcheon told him.
"I am?" he shot back. "Why else would you hang around somebody that nobody else can stand? Why would you give a flying shit what goes on with me, McCutcheon? Friends?! Jesus Christ, how stupid do you think I am?" Bothered by the yelling, the bird craned its stubby neck and pecked at Peter's boot. Face reddening, he raised his foot and tossed the bird across the room. It broke into flight halfway there and came to rest on top of the wardrobe, where it could watch Kirk and remain well out of his way. Kirk sucked in a long, trembling breath. "The captain's gonna find out eventually what happened to his spy," he snapped.
McCutcheon was shaking, no longer from the effects of the disruptor. "Peter, please. Listen to yourself. You're not making any sense. The captain didn't ask me to--"
"He doesn't ask. He orders."
"Let me go, Peter. We can try to work this out somehow. I won't say anything to anyone. Just...I don't know, we'll figure something out."
"No chance," he said. "No chance at all, hotshot. You screwed yourself, following me around. You've buried yourself now. I don't have to do anything." The corners of his mouth snaked up. "I'll just leave you here. Sooner or later, this building is coming down on top of you. Unless you starve to death first. And I don't have to do a damn thing. I just have to not do anything." He grinned at her, aware that he was putting on quite a performance. McCutcheon's mouth hung open. Even the toadishly fat bird seemed fascinated. Kirk was half inclined to bow. "See you around, McCutcheon," he concluded, turned, and strode out of the room. He could hear her calling faintly after him as he left the building, but outside there was no one to watch the starch go out of him. As he sagged into the seat of the aircar Cooper had left behind him, he thought one more time, What the hell do I do now?
Chapter 6
High overhead, the sky took on the pale silver color of pre-dawn. Jaeger craned her head back to look at it and asked quietly, "Vulcan isn't like this, is it, Mister Spock?"
"No. Vulcan is quite arid, and a good deal hotter than this," Spock told her. "There are no large areas of plant growth like this, except in laboratories."
"Like this one?"
"Like this one."
A soft, whistling trill came from somewhere off in the distance, capturing Jaeger's attention until she realized it was a bird and not the intercom. The concrete bench began to feel uncomfortably hard against her backside, and she drew her legs up underneath her, resting her hands at the rear edge of the bench as a prop. At the horizon, barely visible between the branches of the variety of trees, the sky was turning to pink and gold. Almost looks real, Jaeger thought. She had been in the botanical gardens many times before, but had never had occasion to study her surroundings as much as on this particular day. They were down in the Enterprise's secondary hull, in a room barely a hundred feet square, filled with hundreds of varieties of plant life originating from all over the galaxy. Carefully plotted footpaths, together with the thick vegetation and the hanging branches of the trees, gave the impression of a much larger space, and here, at the center of it all, the gardens' architects had created a spot in which it was possible for an Enterprise crew member to forget he or she was aboard ship. Dozens of birds and small animals added to the realistic impression; computer-tracked lighting, holographic projections of clouds near the slightly domed ceiling, air conditioning simulating gentle spring breezes and an occasional "shower" from the sprinkler system feigned mild weather conditions.
"Do you miss Vulcan?" Jaeger asked.
Spock thought the question over for a moment, watching the progress of a squirrel as it toted a collection of nuts one at a time to its nest high in the branches of a weeping willow. "No," he said finally. "I did at one time, but there is very little on Vulcan now to draw me back."
"Your parents are there, aren't they?"
"On occasion. They travel a good deal. They have spent more time on Earth during the past several years than they have on Vulcan."
"Then you're more at home here, on the ship?"
"Very much so."
Jaeger tossed her head back and shifted her position again. "Me, too. It's strange...to feel like a starship is your home, but I guess a lot of the crew feel that way, don't they?"
Spock nodded.
"I think Pavel does. He put that poem Commander Uhura wrote up on the wall in our cabin--the one that says 'No more will I sleep beneath sky and wind; Endless space will be my canopy; These decks and walls my home.'"
Spock's expression changed minutely. He knew the poem, and treasured the copy Uhura had given him. He was recalling the rest of the verse when Jaeger went on, "I don't think I've ever been homesick. There wasn't much on Jeeter that I was too crazy about even when I lived there."
"'Jeeter'?" Spock echoed.
"Ganymede Triad Six. That's too much for people to keep saying, so everybody who lives there just calls it G.T., or Jeeter."
Spock murmured, "I see." The Human desire for simplification, he reflected. Any Vulcan would have stubbornly called the place Ganymede Triad 6, since that (and not "Jeeter") was its name.
"They called me that, too. At the Academy."
More simplification: nicknames. The Humans loved them, and Spock avoided them. He used Kirk's nickname because that was what Kirk preferred, pointing out that no one except the Ph'ecdalyn-possessed Gary Mitchell had ever referred to him as "James." For a reason he had never been able to pin down, Spock had never even considered using Kirk's full name. He was simply Jim, whether that was the result of an illogical Human habit or not.
"In the house we lived in when I was little," Jaeger continued, not noticing whether Spock was following her disjointed train of thought, "I could climb out my bedroom window and sit out on the kitchen roof." She smiled slightly. "Late at night, after everybody turned off their house lights and went to bed, you could see millions of stars. My dad climbed out there with me once. He said over there--" She gestured in the direction her father had pointed out, though the starscape above her childhood home bore no relation to the holographs above her now. "--was Sol, and that was where Earth was. And that way--" Another gesture. "--was the Klingon Empire." She stopped abruptly and heaved a sigh.
Spock ventured, "May I make an observation, Lieutenant?"
"Sure. I guess so."
"I find it to be an unfortunate tendency of Humans to lay blame for the occurrence of certain events. As if the laying of blame would assuage the situation. You seem not to blame the Klingons for what happened to your father."
Jaeger lowered her head. "Do you know what happened to my father, Mister Spock?"
"To some extent. I have seen the official records."
"The official records are bullshit," she said with a sharp edge.
The first officer hiked a brow. "I beg your pardon?"
She got up from the bench and paced around it, scuffing the soles of her boots in the grass. "The official reports don't have anything to do with what happened." She met Spock's eyes again for a moment. "I made a lot of friends when I was in the Academy. One of them ended up working as a clerk for Fleet Admiral Mills one summer. I did...him, the clerk, a...well, a favor, and in return he helped me get access to the 'unofficial' reports. The Armstrong was fifteen parsecs inside Klingon territory when it was destroyed. It went there to pick up a scout ship that had lost power--instead of rendezvousing in Federation space like they were supposed to, they had to go into Klingon space to rescue him. I guess they thought they'd have enough time to get in and out safely, because they didn't pick up any sign of Klingon ships in the area." She smiled wryly, painfully. "They got surprised." A minute went by as she paced several more circuits around the bench. "I thought my father was a hero. That's what they told me when he died. But I was only a kid then. My father was no hero, Mister Spock. He was a spy, and he wasn't even a good spy. The Armstrong was destroyed because he fouled up."
Spock watched her pace, prepared to stop her if she became too agitated. "But he was working for the Federation," he pointed out quietly. "Surely..."
Jaeger cut him off, shaking her head vehemently. "There could have been a war, if the Federation hadn't buried the truth about what happened. An intragalactic war, and it all would've been my father's fault." She paused. "I thought he was a hero. I thought there wasn't anything he couldn't do. I guess it's easy to think that way when you're little. The last time I saw him, I was only six years old." Her eyes were beginning to glisten as she forced another wry smile. "There aren't any heroes, are there?"
"It depends upon your interpretation of the term," Spock replied mildly. "Generally, I find that 'heroes' are simply people who take unnecessary chances."
She nodded. Tears were dribbling down her cheeks. "I wish he was here now--the way he used to be, when I was little. He always made everything all right." Spock said nothing. There seemed to be some measure of sympathy in his expression, but she was unsure whether it was real or imagined. "There hasn't been anybody to take care of me since my father went away," she murmured. "I used to feel like I got cheated, because after my father died, my mother stopped caring about things. She was ashamed of my father, you know. She wouldn't talk about him, and she got rid of all his things. So I didn't have a daddy anymore, and my mother didn't care. I figured out how to take care of myself, but it's not the same. Sometimes you need somebody to take care of you. I don't have anybody."
"You have Chekov," Spock pointed out.
"He tries," Jaeger agreed softly. "But he can't...he can't give me what I need, not now. I guess it's not his fault. I just want somebody to wake me up and tell me everything's all right."
Spock's mother had cried now and then during his childhood: bad news from home, the death of Spock's uncle, a few times out of frustration, though she was a woman of great strength and normally did not give in to the emotion that her husband's people thought to be a failing in her character. But there were those few times when the tears could not be held back, and she had retreated to the privacy of her bedroom to sob quietly into a towel or a pillow. The child Spock had stood nearby and listened, until he grew old enough to understand that eavesdropping on another's sorrow was wrong, wondering at the terrible emotion that must lie behind his mother's heaving sobs. He himself had cried only once as a child, when the taunting of his playmates had shattered his attempt at Vulcan stoicism. As an adult he had wept a handful of times, but never with the heartfelt pain he had heard in his mother's room. Now, as he sat on the worn concrete bench, with the artificial sky above him gradually lightening into pale blue, he heard that awful pain again, and without thinking he rose from his seat and gathered Jaeger into his arms. She shrank there and went on weeping, her tears quickly soaking the front of his uniform jacket. After a while the strength went out of her and he sat on the grass in front of the bench and held her there, huddled half on his lap and half on the ground, until finally the heaving stopped and her breathing turned slow and even. She seemed very much like Doug Jaeger's six-year-old daughter then, and like a child, she had cried herself to sleep.
"Spock?"
Spock glanced up. The sky was fully bright now; time had passed, but he was unsure how much. Jim Kirk was standing on the path a few meters away, gazing at the picture of his first officer sitting cross-legged on the grass with Gretchen Jaeger curled up against him. She was obviously asleep, and Spock had been unconsciously stroking the back of her head.
"You going to leave her lying there on the ground?" Kirk asked.
"She seems to be sleeping peacefully," Spock replied, his voice low. "If I move her, it may disturb her."
Nodding, Kirk took the few steps to the bench and sat down. Both he and Spock were silent for several minutes. Funny how it all spirals down like this, Kirk thought, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his hands. You worry about--what did they used to call it? The Big Picture. A starship full of people, the future of the Federation, whole planets. Everything big and grand. He recalled the words he had exchanged with Spock as the Vulcan crouched, dying, inside the reactor room at the rear of the Enterprise's huge engine pod. "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one." Always the many, Kirk thought. You worry about the greater good, what's best for four hundred and eighty people, or a planetful, or the whole Federation, or the whole galaxy. So many people you can't count that high. And then, sometimes, it all comes spiraling down. And the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the whole damn galaxy. It all comes down to this. Spock had resumed stroking Jaeger's hair--but to comfort himself, or her? If Kirk had been seated a little closer, he would have reached out to match the gesture. What does she care, now, about the galaxy? he thought. Not a tinker's damn. When you come down to it, all that's real is what goes on between your ears, and when you lose that...
"Have you found anything?" he asked Spock. "Any hope?"
Spock shook his head gravely. "I do not believe there is any hope. I have searched through every piece of information in the computer banks. Everything I am able to find says 'no'."
"So now you pray," Kirk smiled.
The Vulcan's expressive brow rose. "Pray?"
"People invent religion for times like this, Spock," Kirk sighed. "When you can't find any more answers, you can turn to something bigger and say, 'I give up. Please help me.'" He shook his head. "A couple of days ago she whipped the hell out of me at handball. I figured I was getting somewhere because I only lost by nine points. Thought with a little more time, I might stand a chance of actually beating her." He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. "Damn it, Spock, I want a chance to beat her at handball."
"Yes." The Vulcan considered his friend in silence for a moment. "I believe I understand now how you feel. I have betrayed a trust."
Kirk looked at him sharply. "You...Spock, you can't think of it that way."
"Is that not how you yourself see the situation?"
"You had nothing to do with what happened to her. There was no way you could have foreseen..." Kirk stopped. Spock was regarding him calmly, yet Kirk could tell that what was beneath the surface of his friend's expression was far from calm. "...the outcome," Kirk went on, as if he had not interrupted himself. "Spock, there's no reason for you to do this. If there's no answer, then there's no answer. Some problems just don't have a resolution--or at least not the resolution you want."
Spock replied, "The Kobayashi Maru test?"
"Exactly. A no-win scenario. I was--I think I still am--the only cadet to find a way out, and I had to do that by cheating."
"That was still an answer," Spock persisted. "Even if it was not the answer your instructors had anticipated."
Kirk stared at him. Something in Spock's expression (or perhaps missing from it) bothered him. For a moment he wondered if Spock could be using Kirk's own lack of logic to turn the situation around and make him surrender his stubbornness. But no, Spock was far from shallow enough to use Jaeger's illness as a tool toward an end...any end, even helping Jim Kirk. Kirk knew his friends were used to seeing him wallow in his own version of self-pity from time to time; they were also used to seeing him come out of the funk by himself eventually. What, then? Kirk thought. His eyes hadn't moved; neither had Spock's, though Spock's hands were still now, one resting on Jaeger's left shoulder, the other against her temple. "What are you doing?" Kirk asked abruptly, sharply.
"What do you mean?"
The captain gestured at Jaeger. "I thought you couldn't stand contact like that, without blocking...you're not blocking, are you?"
"I fail to see..." Spock began.
"Spock," Kirk said. The Vulcan went on gazing at him evenly, but the answer was evident in his lack of response. Kirk's thoughts went back over the years, remembering his first contact with Vulcans, and the whispered advice of a classmate never to touch a Vulcan: their sensitivity to the thoughts and emotions of others, strong even without physical contact, became so powerful when contact was made that the touching was a source of terrible mental stress. Adult Vulcans touched no one under normal circumstances. The rule was broken only in cases of emergency, or during the mind-meld process, when the Vulcan could maintain the integrity of his or her self only with the most careful control. Touching brought on a flood of conflicting impulses. Spock was a bit of a different situation: his shipmates had all been warned about touching Vulcans, but being Human, accustomed to touching in the most routine of circumstances, they forgot the warning more often than they remembered it. Kirk had wondered idly how Spock had managed to endure all those years of thumps on the back, taps on the arm, clumsy near-collisions in the corridors, even an occasional hug from Uhura. Perhaps, McCoy had suggested, because of his half-Human heritage Spock even secretly enjoyed the physical thumpings from his crewmates but out of sheer stubbornness would never admit it. Kirk doubted that; he himself was guilty of breaking the rules on umpteen occasions and had gotten the sense that Spock endured the touching because he know the other person found satisfaction in it. But over all those years, at all those times, Kirk had never seen Spock break the rule himself as violently as this. He understood now what had felt wrong. Spock wasn't sitting here on the ground because he thought it would help Jaeger. Obviously, she had been asleep for some time and was unaware of Spock's presence.
"How long have you been sitting here?" Kirk asked.
"A little over an hour, I believe. I have...lost track."
"Don't do this, Spock." Spock's only response was to look away, breaking his eye contact with Kirk. Talk about wallowing in self-pity, Kirk thought. He was no telepath; the only way he (and most other Humans) could immerse himself in negative emotions was to create them himself. But for Spock, born with the Vulcan ability to mind-link.... He's soaking it up just like a sponge, Kirk realized. He's drawing everything she's feeling into himself. Something about that seemed wrong, horrifying, like a bizarre form of mental rape.
Spock saw Kirk's assumptions taking form on his face. "I have not intruded on her privacy," he told Kirk. "There has been no mind-link."
"Then for God's sake put her down."
After a moment of consideration, Spock did so, depositing Jaeger carefully on the cool, mossy dirt, then straightening up to face his captain. Kirk got up from the bench, and the two men stood regarding each other with the artificial spring breeze ruffling their hair and the artificial sunlight warming their shoulders. "If I recall correctly," Spock said finally, "you do not believe in no-win scenarios. Yet you would ask me to do just that."
"No. I'm asking you to be realistic. There's nothing you can do to help her."
"There is still time, Jim."
Kirk's eyes widened. "Time to do what? You said you've been through the library tapes a dozen times. The cyanoalisitate compound is killing her red blood cells. There's nothing you can do about it. You're not a doctor, Spock. You can't invent a cure. There is no cure."
"But there is time."
Nobody ever taught him there's dignity in giving up when you have no other choice, Kirk thought with a sigh. "So it's not over till it's over, is that it, Spock?"
"I owe her nothing less."
Kirk looked down at Jaeger, sleeping placidly on the artificial ground like an infant safe in its cradle. Curled there, still dressed in the rumpled sweat pants and tee-shirt she had been wearing since Spock had dismissed her from duty the previous night, she looked as little like a member of the Enterprise's bridge crew as Kirk himself had when he had confronted Koloth on the beach. "I think we need a faith healer, Spock," he observed wryly.
"Captain?"
"Faith healer. Don't tell me that's something you haven't studied?"
"I have--to some extent."
Kirk smiled, but there was no amusement behind it. "Wonderful, colorful personalities. Very adept at separating the hopeless from their money. My grandfather used to go to revival meetings. Said they were better than theater. Some slick operator all in white, like an angel, only it wasn't always a robe. Sometimes it was an expensive, tailor-made suit. Lifting his arms to heaven and shouting, 'Believe and you will be healed!'"
"Indeed," Spock said.
"Most of them were charlatans, but there were a few who seemed to be genuine. They actually did cure a few people, and nobody's quite sure why, or how."
"Faith?" Spock suggested.
"Or something." Kirk paused. "I suppose anything that works..."
Spock said quietly, "Yes."
Kirk glanced at the chronometer on his wrist. "I have to go. I promised Councilor Gehaan I'd bring him his book back. He wants to sit down with me and talk it over. At great length, no doubt." He smiled without humor once more, the weight of the universe back in his eyes. The thought of reviewing the Dianasian holy book at length with Gehaan filled him with something near dread. As Spock had predicted, Kirk had found the book interesting reading only during the spells when his attention had stopped wandering. Once more he wished he could send Spock in his stead, devoting another day to reading the book rather than haranguing with the High Councilor. Spock never seemed to mind pointless discussions; in fact, the Vulcan had initiated more of them than Kirk cared to count. "He wants to talk about their 'gift,'" he said to Spock. "Again. And again."
A moment went by before Spock replied; when he finally spoke, his thoughts seemed to be elsewhere. "Theaemrayal," he said softly.
"Yes..." Kirk frowned.
The distraction in Spock's expression disappeared as quickly as it had come. "A fascinating concept," he went on. "The Ghanni discusses it at length."
"I know," Kirk sighed. "I know." Nodding down at Jaeger, he added, "Can I convince you to turn her over to Chekov? I could use you on the bridge. We'll be passing through the beam again in another twenty minutes, and it seems to get worse every time. I'd rather have you on the bridge to keep an eye on things than down here."
Spock nodded. "If you wish."
"Thank you, Spock." Kirk turned to walk away, then stopped and said, "Be careful."
His first officer hiked a brow. "In what sense?"
"Whatever it is that's going through your mind," Kirk replied. He could find nothing in Spock's expression to justify the uneasiness that had begun to creep through him; nevertheless, the feeling was there. "Just be careful." Spock inclined his head, not quite a nod, and Kirk gestured his acceptance and strode off in the direction of the turbolift, holding back the urge to shudder.
*****
Tom Cooper traveled the length of the corridor between the turbolift and his cabin as quickly as he dared without attracting attention from the few crew members who were in sight. His arms and legs felt chilled and slightly numb from the flood of adrenaline, and his heart seemed to be pattering six times its normal speed. With the cabin door sliding closed behind him, he reached into his pocket and produced a hand phaser, which he tossed across the room to Peter Kirk. "Time to go, buddy," he announced. "Captain's gone down to the surface. You've got about ten minutes before we hit the beam."
"What if I changed my mind?" Kirk asked, turning the phaser over and over in his palm.
Cooper's brows knit together. "Don't try me, Kirk. I told you: I don't need you that bad. I'll find a way to do it myself. The only reason I pulled you into this in the first place is because you're one of the few people on this ark who'd have any kind of an excuse to be in the captain's cabin. If somebody finds you in there, you can talk your way out." He sneered. "Unless they find you with your hand in the safe." He studied Kirk's face for a long moment. Kirk's expression was nearly unreadable; most of his attention was on the phaser. "How come you need to change your mind? Decided you don't want your share of the crystals any more?"
"There's too much that could go wrong," Kirk told him.
"No there isn't. We all have a lot of thought invested in this. Nothing's going to go wrong--if you do what you're supposed to do. Go for it! It'll all be over in an hour. We'll have the crystals, and we'll be out of here. In a couple of days we'll be where nobody can touch us." Cooper shifted his weight back and forth. His nerves were far too ragged to allow him to stand still. "Look, Kirk, the crystals aren't theirs anyway. Spock stole them from the Klingons. We're just giving them back to their rightful owners."
Lieutenant Kirk replied mildly, "Some of them."
"You heard Koloth," Cooper said with an expressive shrug. "He doesn't really care about the crystals. He's just helping us so he can piss off your uncle." He glanced at the chrono over the door. "You better get going. You don't have much time to get down there."
Kirk got up from his bunk. Things seemed to be moving much too fast, and he wondered for the hundredth time since breakfast why he had ever agreed to Cooper's scheme. Contrary to Cooper's assurances, there were too many things that could go wrong: for one thing, a large part of the plan depended on the cooperation of the Klingon, Koloth, who seemed to regard the whole plot as a monumental practical joke. And now McCutcheon was involved.
Involved? Kirk thought. I left her tied up in an abandoned building a hundred kilometers away--no food, no water, in a place that's falling apart in big pieces. He remembered her puzzled, frightened expression as he was leaving her behind. It was becoming harder and harder to convince himself that she'd done anything wrong enough to deserve dying alone out in the Kasmarin Valley. She'd said she was his friend.
"Look alive, Kirk," Cooper said.
Something Peter Kirk had not stopped to consider was the fact that Tom Cooper was five years his junior in age and a full grade his junior in rank, two inches shorter and ten pounds lighter. Yet when Cooper spoke, he knew enough about conveying authority (not only due to his training as a security officer) to make Kirk obey without thinking. They'd roomed together long enough for Cooper to understand why the rest of the crew believed Kirk to be a self-absorbed, arrogant bastard whose only claim to glory was being the nephew of the captain. That same month of living together had convinced Cooper that what the captain's nephew was in truth was an enormous fake. No ego, no talent, no strength. Just a mama's boy who had lost his mama, and was trying his damnedest to appear otherwise. He was, in short, somebody Cooper could use.
Cooper put his fisted hands on his hips and projected across the room all the authority he could muster. When he spoke again, the soft, whispering tone of his voice belied the bravado in his stance. "Afraid you'll fail?" he asked his cabinmate slyly.
The words seemed to shoot a little backbone into Kirk. Gnawing fiercely at his lower lip, he shoved the phaser into his pocket and strode past Cooper out into the corridor. He was halfway between anger and misery, but he forced himself not to think much about what he was doing, just to perform automatically. Whether there was anyone else in the corridor, he could not have said; his focus was completely inward as he walked up to the turbolift and slapped the summoning button.
The car arrived immediately and carried him to the senior officers' quarters in a matter of seconds. He straightened his shoulders a bit as he stepped out of the lift, preparing himself for encounters that did not occur. The corridor was empty and eerily silent. Heart fluttering, Kirk walked down the corridor past the door to his uncle's cabin and pressed himself against the wall around the corner. His chronometer showed two and a half minutes left, and when most of that time had ticked away, Kirk's arms and legs seemed to belong to someone else. He counted off the final half minute mentally, using the last five seconds to stride back to his uncle's cabin door and aim the phaser at the lock.
Though he was prepared for the reaction of the ship's systems to the beam coming from down below, his heart jumped at the onset of the noises and the flashing lights. As Koloth had promised, it was worse this time: not a single circuit seemed to be unaffected. The corridor lights flashed strobically, mixing with the blinking red of the alert signals. From every possible direction noises erupted: klaxons, bells, the intercom hail, dozens of kinds of music from the wall units inside the senior officers' individual cabins. Kirk grit his teeth and burned out the captain's door lock with a brief burst of phaser fire. The security alarm whooped frantically, but the new sound was unnoticeable above the other racket.
Kirk hustled into the cabin as the door slid open, turned long enough to make sure it closed properly behind him, and shot a fast glance around to assure himself that the cabin was indeed empty. The safe was right where Cooper had indicated, in the divider unit beside the desk. Still running on automatic, Kirk fired the phaser again and fried the lock on the safe. The little door sprung open involuntarily, triggering yet another security alarm. Kirk shuddered involuntarily, driving away the thought that he could hear running footsteps headed for the cabin, not quite convinced by Cooper's assurances that by this time, the beam would have caused so much disruption aboard ship that no one would pay attention to one extra alarm from anywhere-- even the captain's quarters. Kirk's heart was throbbing in time with the alert klaxon as he dipped to his knees, reached into the safe, felt around for a moment, and scooped out the drawstring bag containing the malium crystals.
"Gotcha," he muttered, and tried to straighten up. His wobbling legs refused to support him, and he had to rest a hand on the desk to steady himself long enough to stand. As he moved away from the safe, a small satin-covered box, dislodged by his ferreting, tumbled out onto the floor and popped open from the slight impact. Inside, resting on crimson velvet, was James Kirk's Starfleet Medal of Honor. It glittered up at Peter Kirk, reflecting the strobing room lights.
"So this is the hero's nephew," he heard a voice saying inside his head.
Kirk stared at the medal for a moment, then snaked his foot back and sent the little box sailing across the room. It dropped out of sight beside the couch.
"You're being silly, Peter." That was his grandmother's voice, talking to him from the other end of a comlink. "Just be yourself, and do the best you can. You don't have to live up to anything your Uncle Jim has done. He certainly doesn't expect you to. People like to be petty sometimes. They're jealous...that's the problem. Do the best you can, and don't let them bother you. They'll get tired of it after a while and they'll leave you alone. Don't forget, your uncle Jim had to live up to your dad's image for a long time when they were young."
Dad. Peter barely remembered his father. He had flashes of a very tall man with thinning hair, more slender than James Kirk, moustached, with crinkles around his mouth and eyes that made him look as if he were perpetually smiling. He and Peter's mother, Aurelan Swift, had gone to Deneva to continue their work, aiming for another paper to publish in the Journal of Xenobiology, but the paper had never been completed. Not long after Peter's seventh birthday, the neural parasites had infested Deneva, killing George Samuel Kirk, Jr., his wife Aurelan, and over a thousand other colonists almost instantly. Many more deaths lay in store, despite the very best efforts of the captain and crew of the Enterprise. It chilled Peter to think that he could picture the creatures--flat, unfeatured, something like flying leather pancakes--far better than he could his father's face. Dad had been enormously proud of little brother Jimmy, though he seemed to take the many tales of Jim Kirk's exploits with a grain of salt. He'd avoided Starfleet, the path Peter's grandfather and uncle had chosen, opting instead for the relatively quiet life of a scientist, hopping from Deneva back to the family farm in Iowa with Aurelan, Georgie, Peter, and on one occasion, little Marc in tow, but he was far from disdaining military life. He seemed to understand the calling his younger brother followed, and kept track of Jim's travels as closely as fleet censorship would allow. Stuffed away in Peter's few belongings were photographs of the last time the Kirk brothers had seen each other: a brilliantly sunny afternoon, a laughing touch football game, a picnic lunch spread out on a plaid blanket.
Laughter, as George's high-flung pass soared over Jim's head, and Jim, leaping toward the ball, lost his center of gravity and went sprawling on the grass. The ball sailed another fifty meters and thumped to the ground close enough to the picnic blanket to make Aurelan shriek.
"Damn you, Sam! I'm not an eagle! Where are you aiming?"
More laughing, until the brothers were both red-faced, tears running down their cheeks, George's sun-browned, Jim's fairer and pinkish. Peter sat on his heels beside his mother, hoping for an invitation to join the game, considering the forgotten football and finally scooping it up and running with it to present it to his uncle. Jim had ruffled his hair and hugged the boy effusively. "Watch that father of yours, Peter," he'd cautioned, wiping away tears with the heel of his hand. "He never learned to play fair."
Fair? Peter Kirk wondered. What was fair about it all? His father was dead now, and his mother, his grandmother, and the grandfather who had existed only in stories told in Peter's childhood. Add to all that two brothers who may as well have been dead. And Uncle Jim was still alive, overseeing the Enterprise from his padded seat on the bridge, issuing commands, the golden boy, who by rights should have been killed years ago. It was the military that was dangerous: how many battles had Jim Kirk fought, exactly? Peter had no idea. Dozens? Hundreds? Unscathed from the look of him. His life was a litany of honors now, citations, commendations, awards, testimonials, medals. Medals.
The young Kirk looked around the cabin at the periphery of his uncle's life. The shelf of old books, the brandy decanter and glasses, discarded printouts, odds and ends collected from visits to worlds Peter would never see. What gives him the right? Peter thought furiously. Why is he untouched? Dad, and Mom, they were only scientists. What they were doing wasn't dangerous. And Gram: she never asked for trouble from anybody, a quiet, gentle woman whose body had turned on her and resisted cure. Nobody left now but Uncle Jim, the hero, Captain-then-Admiral-then-Captain-again, James Tiberius Kirk, the glory of Starfleet, who could do no wrong even when he ignored direct orders from Command, stole one of their ships and destroyed it. He blew up the God damned Enterprise! Peter thought. And what do they do? They give him a new one.
The lights blinked more slowly now, leaving the room dark for several seconds. Lights...
She'd turned the lights off, that first day, then flicked them back on, revealing her standing near the door, arms crossed over her breasts, computer flimsy dangling from one hand. The sudden darkness had made Kirk jump and he turned on her with fury evident on his face.
"What..." he began.
She'd smiled, ever-so-slightly. "Just wanted to see if it was true." She paused. "That you glow in the dark. Guess not."
His fingers tightened, rolling into fists. "What do you mean?"
She seemed not to notice how angry he was, just strolled across to the lab table, laid down the flimsy, glanced at the rack of test tubes filled with a half-dozen kinds of sera. "You're the captain's nephew, right? Everybody seems to think that makes you perfect." Her expression indicated that Lieutenant Laurel Eloise McCutcheon, Science Specialist First Class, was not about to give quarter to anyone because of rumors. This was her lab, her ten-meter-square kingdom, and she had already decided that no newcomer was going to strut in and take over, regardless of who his relatives happened to be. When Peter Kirk said nothing more, she turned to him again, resting back against the edge of the table, and considered him with a look almost as poker-faced as Captain Spock's. "Looks to me like you walk on the floor like the rest of us," she said.
He could feel himself reddening, and cursed himself, his family, the Academy rumor mill, his classmates, his teachers, his lack of control, and most of all his churning brain for failing to provide him with an adequate comeback for this woman, this smug, secure, uniformed bitch. He muttered something she couldn't hear, but she seemed to understand what he had said, or at least its intent. Shaking her head mildly, she took off her uniform jacket and went about her work as if Kirk were not even in the room.
Let her be smug, he thought. All of them. The hell with all of them.
Glancing around one last time, he thumbed the controls on the hand phaser as he did a slow pivot, targeting the walls and the furniture with a dozen short blasts. "How do you like that, hero?" he said bitterly, still squeezing off shots, watching exposed wires begin to sputter and spark, hypnotically colorful under the blinking room lights. "Wait'll you come back and take a look at this." The phaser was beginning to heat up in his palm. Shuddering, he flicked it off, buried it in his pocket with the drawstring bag of gemstones, and hurried out of Jim Kirk's cabin. He was once more unaware of whether or not the corridor outside was empty.
Behind him, the captain's cabin was in flames.
*****
"Mister Spock?" Uhura said urgently, twirling her chair to face the first officer at the same moment that he turned the command chair toward her. "There's still an alarm coming in, sir, from the captain's quarters. All other systems are normal. I think this is a legitimate signal."
Spock said, "Send Security."
Nodding, Uhura paged the security guards on duty nearest the senior officers' quarters and waited out the minutes it took for them to respond and report. "Acknowledged," she said into the mike. "Stand by, Ensign. Someone's broken into the captain's quarters, Mister Spock. Significant damage...there's been a fire, but Security has it under control." She paused as more information came in. "The safe has been opened. Security is unable to tell what's missing, or if anything is missing."
Spock was well aware of what might be missing. "Have them seal the area, Commander. No one in or out."
"Yes, sir. Should I notify the captain?"
"No. I'll inspect the damage, and contact the captain myself."
A flicker of dismay crossed Uhura's face, though more at the thought of what Captain Kirk's reaction would be than at Spock's expressionless rebuff. She wondered at what Kirk might have locked in the safe that would prompt this, the first forced entry into his quarters in all the years she'd served aboard the Enterprise. No one was aboard except those crew members not on shore leave, and all of them had been security-cleared by Starfleet before assuming their duties over a year ago. No, change that, she thought. There was one newcomer: the captain's nephew. I wouldn't put it past that one to break in! She suppressed a wry smile. But what would the captain have locked up in there that he'd want? She turned her attention again to Spock, realizing that he'd been watching her face the whole time. Damn, I wish he wouldn't do that! she thought, though she knew Spock hadn't been probing her mind; he never would, under these circumstances, but all the same, that intent, bland expression of his made her feel exposed to his scrutiny.
"Carry on, Commander," the Vulcan said finally. "I shall be in the captain's quarters."
*****
Tom Cooper selected the largest of the malium crystals and held it up to the light, sighing deeply at the twinkling blue stone. "Now you see why we went to all this trouble?" he said over his shoulder to Peter Kirk. "With these beauties, we can write our own ticket anywhere we want to go."
"They'll find us," Peter Kirk replied distantly.
"Who will? The captain? Starfleet? Come on, Kirk! I told you, Spock stole them from the Klingons. As far as I know, he and the captain never had any intention of telling Starfleet Command--or anybody else--that they even had the stones. You think they're going to start searching the galaxy for us over something that they weren't supposed to have?"
"No," Kirk said. "For desertion."
Cooper laughed heavily. "Man, do you ever like to overestimate your own importance. They might put out a bulletin on us--send our pictures around to the starbases. If we show up anywhere, they'll have us arrested. But we're not going to be anywhere in Federation territory. They can't get us. And believe me, Kirk, they won't waste much time trying. We're little fish." His back still to Kirk, he scooped the crystals back into the bag and hurried around the cabin, gathering the few of his possessions he considered to be essential and yet innocent enough to escape notice by the transporter tech. "You learn that fast in the 'fleet: they don't waste time on little fish. By the time they even notice we're gone, we'll be long gone. And by the time they connect us with this--" He gestured at Kirk with the drawstring bag. "--they'll have no hope of tracking us down." Ignoring Kirk's expression, he burrowed the tiny pouch down inside the duffel bag of his belongings and shouldered the duffel. "I'm off," he announced. "I'll meet you in two hours, where we planned."
"And you'll have the crystals with you?" Kirk asked, eyes narrowed.
"Hey, old buddy," Cooper snickered. "You think I'd run out on you?"
He didn't wait for a reply. Kirk could still hear the echo of his snickering after the door had closed behind him.
*****
Pavel Chekov couldn't recall a time in his life when he had ever felt this lost.
He'd come aboard the Enterprise twenty years ago, fresh out of the Academy, still feeling the hugs and kisses and thumps on the back from his family and friends that had sent him on his way, his head full of glorious dreams and expectations. He'd been quite giddy, and with good reason: he was a Starfleet officer now, serving aboard the Enterprise, the glory of the fleet, under a captain who barely past the age of thirty had already racked up an unsurpassed list of achievements. And Chekov? He was sure of three things: that his superior officers would be as impressed with him as his instructors had been, that he would soon begin building his own roster of glories to rival James Kirk's, and that every woman he encountered would wilt at his feet, dizzied by the uniform, the face, the wonder that was Pavel Andreievich Chekov. It didn't take him long to discover that he would not succeed at any of those three things.
Unfortunately, his superiors not only were unimpressed by his performance, most of the time they failed to even notice it. When he did something right, no one saw. When he did something wrong (which he took nearly hysterical pains to avoid), then they saw, and took note, and rebuked him. Consequently, there were no commendations to record under his name for a long while, and when they did come, Chekov received them for acts he had not gone out of his way to perform. He reflected on the contrariness of that, and tried his best to understand the way the system worked, and earned nothing for his troubles but a massive headache. His sense of pride at being chosen to serve on the bridge evaporated quickly when he realized that he was the "bridge baby," the youngest of the dozen-odd personnel surrounding the captain, which made him eligible for the closest scrutiny, the worst rolling of eyes at a movement or word made in error, the sharpest criticism. He supposed that eventually all that wicked attention would hone him into a better officer, but on each particular occasion, the thought of ultimate success years down the road did little to soothe the sting.
Over the past twelve years, he'd managed to serve as an executive officer on three different occasions, but each of those assignments had ended with the death of his captains. He had decided he was a jinx, pure and simple, and when Sulu had asked him to come aboard as an executive officer, he had told his friend no. He'd chosen to stay aboard the Enterprise. During the Kelvan War, he'd received command of a corvette, but following the war, Captain Kirk had asked him to come back to the Enterprise to serve as its third officer. Who was he to refuse James T. Kirk? So he'd come back. Oh, certainly, he'd gotten a lot more time in the center seat, but had his career advanced? No, he had to admit, not really.
And the women?
There were nearly two hundred of them aboard the Enterprise, but of course they were not impressed by Chekov's uniform, nor his wonderful record at the Academy, since they each had their own uniforms and their own fine Academy records. As for being drawn in by his personal magnetism, well...the first time he relaxed with his crewmates on the rec deck, sipping a glass of vodka and watching a game of Tri-Cross, he heard over and over again (mostly in whispers, followed by sly smiles or an occasional giggle) the name of the owner of the only noticeable personal magnetism aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise: James Tiberius Kirk. Even those women who said they weren't interested, or weren't impressed, or had a husband, fiancée, or lover who took precedence, had noticed what made James Kirk the subject of stories. Perhaps they didn't swoon physically, but they knew. They knew.
Janice Rand, the captain's yeoman when Chekov arrived, transferred off the Enterprise a few months later. Better assignment elsewhere, they said, but Chekov know that wasn't true--he'd seen Rand red-faced, holding back tears, creeping silently back to her quarters because the hopeless devotion she felt for Captain Kirk was not, and never would be, returned. Rand, and all the others--he held them all in the palm of his hand. Now, two decades later, James Kirk was not so young (nor quite so unapproachable), but the women were still drawn to him, not just from among his crew but on every planet they had visited, every starbase they had anchored at, even back home on Earth. If someone had invented James Kirk as a fictional character, Chekov thought, no one would believe in him. But there he was, sitting cross-legged in the command chair, rubbing absently at his chin with his forefinger, watching the forward viewscreen intently, completely unaware of the effect of his personality.
Then, finally, after Chekov had resigned himself to a quiet life aboard the Enterprise, surrounded by friends and spiced by the odd shore leave, his life had swung itself around.
He was a full commander now, no longer a nervous ensign doing his best to prove himself the finest navigator around, but Chief of Security and Personnel. He had the respect of his fellows (and, glory be, his captain) now. He was no longer a boy. The job no longer felt like magic, as it had when he'd taken those first tremulous steps away from the transporter platform. It was routine, and often stupefyingly boring, but it was his life, and he surrounded himself with it like a comfortable old suit of clothes. Most of the time, despite the warm company of his friends, he was alone, and had his own cabin in the senior officers' quarters, quiet and empty when he returned from duty for a few hours' rest. Alone. Until those last few crew replacements beamed up from the surface and took their places throughout the ship.
On Earth, which they were leaving behind for five years, it was April. Afterwards, when he thought about it with a flush of romantic nostalgia, that seemed apt. He watched her that first day, saw the way she looked at the captain the way they all looked at the captain. But this time, Pavel Chekov would be God damned if he would let the captain win. He was no believer in love at first sight (at least not that he would admit), but there was something about her that drew him. Not beauty, for although she was attractive enough to be noticed, there were plenty of women aboard who were more beautiful, carried themselves more gracefully, knew more about "feminine wiles," about flirting. This one would never flirt! The next morning, in front of the mirror, he asked himself why he should bother and was unable to provide himself with an answer. Nevertheless, he would bother. And he would win, if it was the last thing he did.
She had been on board less than twenty-four hours when the door to his office hissed open and she stepped in, exactly on time, coming straight for the gym, hair still damp from the shower but perfectly regulation. To his utter dismay, she snapped to attention with a kick of her boots together. He'll break her of that soon enough, Chekov thought. Captain Kirk had no use for such an anachronism, considered it a waste of time; he preferred that his crew show their respect by their actions, not this nonsensical snapping of hand to forehead.
"Jaeger, G.L., reporting as ordered, sir," she said.
He sat there behind the desk and considered her for a long, pregnant moment, then smiled (he hoped not too eagerly) and nodded her into a chair. "Welcome aboard, Lieutenant."
"Thank you, sir." She folded her hands in her lap and waited.
And waited.
Inside his head, Chekov heard himself reciting the orientation speech he used with all the other new arrivals, heard her responding as all the others did, acknowledging his comments on her good and bad points, offering a few comments of her own on what she hoped to accomplish as a member of the crew of the finest ship in the fleet. Several minutes went by, and he was utterly silent, and so was she, waiting respectfully for this odd, smiling chief of security and personnel to say something...anything.
"Is something wrong, sir?" she ventured finally.
That broke him out of his stupor. "No...no, nothing's wrong, Lieutenant." Bozhe moi, he thought, she must think I'm an idiot. Or that I'm conducting some sort of weird psychological test. He glanced at the printout of her service record, which had grown quite damp under his hands. "You have an excellent record. I think you'll fit in well."
She opened her mouth to thank him, but he went on haltingly before she could speak. "The captain is assigning you to the bridge as one of the relief navigators. It's an excellent position. He doesn't often give a new crew member a bridge post." He rebuked himself silently, fiercely, certain that every word coming out of his mouth sounded abysmally stupid. "He's very impressed with your recommendation from Captain Styles," he plodded on.
"I'll do my best to live up to his expectations, sir."
She was smiling vaguely, tentatively, as if she was still not sure of his mood. All the "sirs" began to bother him; she was using the word like a punctuation mark. To distract himself, he looked down at the printout of her records, glancing through the page-long summary of the last fifteen years of her life. Everything was in order, with a minor commendation here and there and not a black mark to be found. And there, at the end of the page, were the few lines summarizing the end of her service aboard the Excelsior and her transfer to the Enterprise. Chekov frowned. "Your transfer seems to have gone through very quickly, Lieutenant," he said quietly. Eight days? he thought. She filed a request for transfer with Styles eight days ago?
"Yes, sir," she agreed, moving her shoulders in the slightest suggestion of a shrug.
Chekov glanced at her, then down at the paper again. If nothing else, twenty-one years of service had taught him that requests for transfer moved snailishly through the cogs--unless someone pushed them along. But who? Not Styles, certainly. Although he had no reputation for brilliance or ingenuity of any kind, he knew a good crew member when he saw one, and held onto the few he had with bullish tenacity. Even with the Excelsior likely to be taken away from him at any time, he was