by L. A. Graf
When he finally spoke, his voice was very soft. "When I was, oh, seven or eight, my family had a reunion, a picnic along the banks of the Chattahoochee River." The memory did not elicit a smile, even though McCoy could still hear his relatives' voices, still smell the glorious food, still feel the breeze off the river ruffling his hair. "The men pitched green and yellow pavilions to shield the ladies from the sun. There was all kinds of food, and I remember drinking a lot of lemonade because it was so hot. The men played horseshoes and smoked horrible cigars. I spent most of the morning catching frogs with my cousin David and throwing them at the girls." His lips curved gently. "Some of the older cousins had gotten together earlier and built a raft of logs, like something out of Mark Twain. The Chattahoochee's nothing like the Mississippi, but it served our purposes. In the press of people, with so many children running around, I guess every adult assumed every other adult was keeping watch. Nobody thought it prudent to make certain all us kids knew how to swim." Before McCoy's unfocused eyes, the Titanic's ages-old fate vanished, replaced by a wide expanse of grass and a deep, slow-moving river glinting in the sun.
Something that tried to be a laugh, and died as a short gasp of air, hitched McCoy's chest. "There must have been a dozen of us kids on that thing, maybe more. I guess my cousins weren't as smart as they thought. We got out to the middle of the river and the raft just fell apart. I went down like a stone." His eyes squeezed closed, drawing the memory closer with morbid fascination. He ran a hand across one cheek. "I don't know how long it took them to figure out little Leonard wasn't with them, or who pulled me up. They said I was blue and that my grandfather walloped me sound and got me breathing again." He opened his eyes and focused on a blank area of wall beyond Kirk's left shoulder. "I remember being scared. I remember looking up as I sank, and seeing the whole sunlit world fading to a distant spot of color on the surface of the river. I remember my lungs filling with water."
His gaze jerked sideways to Kirk's astonished face. McCoy's hands felt cold despite the room's heat and he curled his fingers into his palms. Someplace deep inside him a pit shivered open after all these years and a wailing cry echoed where only he could hear. "I wasn't the only one who didn't know how to swim."
McCoy looked across at that damned picture. No grass. No sun-dappled water. Just chunks of ice like dancing mountaintops, bobbing on the ocean's black surface. "They didn't bring David up until after dark." He closed his eyes again and dropped his face into his hands.
Chekov stretched out one arm to tuck Uhura behind him, instinctively wanting to shelter her from the Kitka. She resisted slightly with a hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it away, afraid of being distracted.
The Kitka blended into their arctic landscape with fluid, natural ease. Thick, ice-silver parkas obscured faces already hidden behind carved ivory masks, the wind corkscrewing frost-flower patterns in the long animal fur. Their bodies were uniformly square and small, their limbs short and strong from generations of trudging across barren tundra. When they jostled amongst each other like a band of disturbed foxes, Chekov caught himself restlessly squeezing his hands into fists.
The Kitka fluttered back to either side, harpoons swinging to their shoulders. From behind them a single nativetaller and more slimly built than the restswept forward through a swirl of glittering snow. Stiffened feathers clattered faintly against a chest plate sewn of native bone, and gloves almost as supple and thin as those on a Starfleet insulation suit made his hands seem infinitely delicate in contrast with the bulky Kitka parkas and mittens. For some reason, the fact that he didn't walk or stand like the others bothered Chekov more than the foot-long bone knife at his waist. Knives Chekov understood and could deal withdisparity hinted at danger.
Steno, however, apparently lacked the same reservations. "Alion! My old friend!" Dancing around the end of his untidy gravsled, Steno popped open his faceplate on his way across the ice to greet the feathered man. Chekov noticed that Alion didn't reciprocate the gesture. "How has life been at your village?"
The first fluting words to pass between Steno and Alion were too faint to pick up on Chekov's translator. Even body language could not be trustedSteno was as insincere and erratic as they came, and Chekov hadn't observed enough Kitka yet to know what any of Alion's movements might mean. From Steno's effusive reactions, though, Chekov was forced to assume Alion hadn't offered to murder the station commander. Too bad. He was probably the first person to meet Steno who hadn't. Chekov would have liked a peek past Alion's ivory mask with its temple-to-temple eye slit, though, if only to judge whether Kitka grimaced over Steno's blabbering as readily as humans did.
"See." Uhura placed both tiny hands at the small of Chekov's back and delivered a playful shove obviously not intended to disturb his stance. "I told you they were friendly. You worry too much."
Chekov twisted a look over one shoulder, unsure whether or not she'd intended that remark to be funny. Even without seeing her expression, he could read the eager interest in her body's balance when she leaned around him to study the natives. "You must be joking." He glanced back at Steno and Alion while the businessman tried to thaw the ice statue with his words. "They don't look friendly to me."
Sunlight flashed white across Uhura's goggles when she tipped her head up to sigh at him. "You're paranoid."
Chekov turned his attention back toward the natives without letting Uhura know how much her comment stung. It was his job to be paranoid, to make sure the rest of a landing party could go about their duties without worryit annoyed him to be criticized for being careful.
Steno turned neatly to bring himself shoulder to shoulder with Alion, head still inclined in a very political display of interest. Chekov watched the two men start toward his group across the ice, and his stomach tightened with apprehension. He liked Alion better at a good stone's throw away.
"Chief?" Howard's voice came very quietly over the suit communicators. Chekov answered him by moving one hand behind his back to signal the squad into a four corners watch. Uhura glanced up at him, then behind her at the others, as the three remaining officers pulled together into a diamond with Chekov at the head and Uhura near the center. Chekov almost expected her to say something further about his paranoia, but she only stood close beside him in silence. He never knew when he'd be most surprised by herwhen she agreed with him about something, or when she didn't.
Alion came to a halt just more than an arm's length away. His carved ivory mask shifted to look downward at Uhura, then lifted again to angle at the guards behind Chekov's left shoulder. He stood even in height with Chekovnot tall by human standards, perhaps, but impressive enough among the Kitka if the natives around him were any example. When he straightened his shoulders to stare straight at the lieutenant, something about the ease with which he dismissed the other officers left Chekov certain Alion assumed him to be party leader. "I am Alion, the Speaker to Fishes."
Chekov wondered if these were the same fishes who didn't answer when the Kitka asked permission to kill them.
"I'm Lieutenant Commander Uhura." Voice pleasant with friendliness, Uhura stepped out in front of Chekovnot far enough to panic him, but just far enough to make his hands itch with an urge to pull her back a step. "I speak to other peoples for our leader. This is Lieutenant Chekov." She gestured behind her without turning. Alion's expressionless mask made it impossible to tell if he shifted his gaze even once throughout the exchange. "He and his people provide us with protection when we travel."
Steno pursed his lips and snorted.
Alion nodded, lifting his ivory face to the sky. "You come from houses above the aurora." The English words came through Chekov's translator well behind the sound of the native's throaty ululations. Long pauses disjointed the phrasing, hinting that the translator was having difficulty choosing words and deciphering meanings. "You come to search for your broken airship."
The meaning of that seemed clear enough, though. "You know about the shuttle accident?" Chekov wondered if he should hav
e tried to phrase things more simply when the translator sang back an extended string of verbiage only after a noticeable delay.
Even so, Alion seemed to understand. He lifted one delicate hand to indicate Steno. "Only what he tells me."
"Apparently"Steno folded his arms with a business-weary sigh that would have frosted his faceplate had he left it down"our idiot company pilot landed the shuttle's life-pod in some sort of Kitka ceremonial ground. Alion and his people have been reconsecrating the area all week."
Chekov turned back to Alion, found that the native was still focused on him, waiting. "What about the survivors?" he asked.
Alion offered nothing, but Steno shrugged as though not particularly concerned. "Alion says they saw noneonly the explosion where the shuttle went down."
Chekov frowned in irritation. "Can't your native friend speak for himself?"
"Lieutenant!" Uhura's startled exclamation made Chekov glad for their goggles, if only because they protected him from what he was sure was a killing glare from the communications officer.
"No. I understand." Alion put up one hand to placate Uhura, his dispassionate translator voice giving no clue as to whether he felt anger or amusement or irritation at this treatment. "I have lived with humans at the equator, so I know some of how they think. Lieutenant Chekov believes some man must always be to blame for things that happen, so he wishes I should prove myself blameless." Stepping away from Steno, Alion brought himself so close that Chekov could see reflections from his own goggles dance light patterns on the Kitka's ivory cheeks. "My hunters saw the flash of your airship's landing. It came to rest in a holy area, and none of my hunters could cross the spirit boundary to go to it."
"What about your holy people? The ones who consecrate the grounds?"
"They have not yet been made ready."
"So you haven't made contact with anyone from the accident?" Chekov could almost see the color of the native's eyes inside the shadowed eye slit. "No radio contact? Not even a flare?"
"He told you no!" Steno blurted.
"He's told me nothing." Chekov put out one hand when Steno made as if to come forward, warning him back from where he didn't belong. "Let him answer, Mr. Steno, or I'll have my people remove you so that I don't have to put up with your interruptions."
Steno slapped at the restraining hand, exposed cheeks flushing from more than wind when his blow had little effect on Chekov's barrier. "I'm not afraid of you."
"That's your problem."
"Listen, you pompous little son of"
"Mister Steno!" Uhura flashed forward to snatch Chekov's extended wrist. He let her push his arm back to his side, recognizing her stern grip as a reprimand, although she kept her face and voice directed at Steno. "If you're unhappy with how Lieutenant Chekov conducts an interview, then I ask you to express your opinions in a polite and professional manner, or not at all." The brief tightening of her fingers on his wrist obviously said, And you, too! "Am I understood?"
Steno slapped his faceplate back into placenot specifically an answer, but a retreat, at least, from what Chekov could tell. The lieutenant, meanwhile, kept silent. Uhura would no doubt have plenty to say to him as soon as they weren't in front of civilian personnel, and he was perfectly willing to wait for that lecture.
"If we're finished here," Uhura went on, releasing Chekov so she could chafe her hands against her arms, "can we go someplace a little warmer to finish our discussion?"
Steno fidgeted openly, kicking his heel into the ice to watch the spray of glittering shards it rained across his shadow. Alion simply waited, blind ivory face looking at nothing, while Chekov's stomach knotted with worry. "Mr. Steno?" he prodded.
The sound of Chekov's voice seemed to remind Steno that his job was to be decisive and impervious, not to sulk like a four-year-old. Clasping his hands behind his back, he stated bluntly, "Before they take us to their village, you'll have to hand over your phasers."
That was easy enough to deal with, at least. Chekov crossed his arms. "No."
Alion actually responded in what Chekov almost recognized as surprise, jerking his chin as though to avoid a sudden blow.
"You must understand." Uhura patted the phaser on her hip. "These things are our only means of protection."
Alion made a harsh sniffing noise, and a curl of steam feathered past the bottom of his mask. "I thought he was your protection." He pointed a slim finger at Chekov.
Uhura glanced up at the lieutenant, hesitating. "These things belong to him," she said at last, obviously thinking carefully before saying each word. "The way those harpoons belong to your men."
"He knows what they are," Chekov said, peering at Alion. "He lived at the equator, worked around technology."
Alion answered Uhura as though Chekov had not interrupted. "Harpoons are for fishing," the Kitka told her. "For hunting, for food. Our village will gift you with all the food you neednothing and no one can harm you if you stay with us." He fluttered impatient fingers at the phaser under her hand. "These weapons are not necessary."
Very aware of the dozen native harpoons still surrounding them, Chekov touched the casing of his own weapon behind the cover of his folded arms. "Then why do you have to take them from us?"
Steno brought his hands together in front of his waist. "It's a trust thing, Lieutenantsomething you wouldn't understand." He shot a quick look at Uhura before she could say anything, and added, "I was polite."
Chekov still wanted to tear Steno's voice mike out if he did one more thing to undermine negotiations.
"Our spirits do not allow us to bring another tribe's hunters onto our holy grounds." Alion kept his face close to Chekov's, ignoring Steno in favor of fingering the hilt of his knife in mimicry of the lieutenant's uneasy gesture. "We cannot purify you to travel to our holy places to find your missing crewmen if you carry your weapons."
Without being able to see eyes or even hear a real voice, Chekov couldn't tell how much of Alion's words and mannerisms should be taken as a threat. He decided that being accused of unfair paranoia was preferable to overlooking dangers just because he wasn't certain.
"Howard." He waited for his second-in-command to slip up beside him, then unclipped his phaser and slapped it into Howard's palm. Alion's mask shifted position ever so slightly, following the path of the weapon. "Stay with Tenzing and Publicker," Chekov went on, not taking his eyes off the native. "I'll go with Lieutenant Commander Uhura"
"No." Uhura pulled her own phaser from her belt, checked its charge, and handed it across to Alion. "We're not splitting up the party."
Chekov nearly lunged in front of her to intercept the transaction. "Commander"
"Lieutenant." She put the back of her hand to his chest, an ages-old signal to halt, and Chekov was forced to stand maddeningly immobile while Alion took the gun and slipped it into some carry place beneath his cover of feathers. "If I was safe enough with only you and no phasers, I'll be plenty safe with four of you and no phasers." She clicked off her outside mike and added over their private channel, "We don't even know if the phasers will work down hereScotty said he wasn't certain."
"That isn't the point."
"That's entirely the point." Steno cocked his chin a fraction higher when Chekov shot a sharp glare in his direction, assuming he knew their full conversation, although he'd only heard Chekov's part of it. "Begging Federation Starship Security's pardon"he echoed Chekov's earlier platitude with a sneer"but your lieutenant commander's right. We're not going into a combat zone. We've sent visitors to the Kitka at least a million times in the last ten years, andevery timewe've complied with their religious tenets and walked among them as honored guests."
"Have they always taken your phasers?" Chekov asked.
Steno sketched a little shrug, obviously a little put off by the question. "Not until recently. But I don't see how that matters. They still haven't cooked us for dinner, or shrunken our heads, or anything else similarly dramatic."
Chekov considered suggesting that Steno co
uld stand to have his head shrunken, but bit back the comment to avoid igniting the already volatile feelings between them. "In the past," he said reasonably, "you haven't been among them searching for shipwrecked personnel."
"Missing personnel don't affect how much I trust them," Steno countered, "any more than standing here arguing brings you one step closer to finding those people." He appealed to Uhura, hands outspread in hopeless submission. "Alion won't budge on this matter, believe me."
Uhura nodded, her breath filter hissing on a tiny sigh. "Lieutenant, give him your phaser."
Her acceptance of the conditions struck Chekov like a physical blow. "Sir " He stiffened beside her, bringing his hands to his sides and schooling what he could of the annoyance from his voice. "I would rather not."
"I think that's obvious." She lifted her goggles to squint first at Chekov, then across at Alion. "They'll give the phasers back when we leave. Yes?" Alion nodded slowly, and Uhura echoed his gesture with faint smile creases crinkling at the corners of her dark eyes. When Chekov didn't move right away, she turned her gaze back up to him. "I can make it a direct order, if you want me to."
For an instant he thought about going on record as objecting to her decision, then clenched his jaw with disgust that he'd even considered that course of action. The responsibility for what he did was his, and he refused to shirk that responsibility by either lodging some formal complaint or by forcing Uhura to pull rank. If he had more to go on than an abstract gut feeling, even her direct order couldn't compel him to surrender their weaponshe would do what he thought best for the safety of the party, and deal with the consequences later. With no concrete threat before them, though, he couldn't justify disobedience, and so had no choice but to comply with his commanding officer's wishes before she was forced to turn them into law.
Turning to Howard, he collected back his phaser, then tugged the ensign's weapon from his belt as well. "Go get the others' phasers," he said, his voice as neutral and even as possible. "Bring them here to me."
