Ex Machina

by Christopher L. Bennett

  (“This is the country whose history is basically one foreign army after another marching through and ravaging the place, right?” Hikaru had once asked. “Leading you to live in a constant state of paranoia? This is your idea of paradise?”

  “Of course!” Pavel had countered. “Why do you suppose everyone else was so eager to invade us?”)

  Normally he might have Nyota Uhura to talk to as well; communications was just two stations down from tactical. But Uhura’s new duties were keeping her busy elsewhere. Her gift for communications extended beyond hailing frequencies and subspace modulations to languages and the nuances of alien social interaction. So when Captain Decker—the former Captain Decker—had arranged for Enterprise to carry the most diverse multispecies crew in Starfleet history, he’d recognized that Uhura’s skills would be essential to helping that crew mesh as a unit, smoothing over potential tensions and misunderstandings between species that had rarely if ever served together before. The last Chekov had heard, Uhura was still working with the new Megarite oceanographer, refining the programming of the translator/voder, which would interpret the musical, whale-like sounds of her speech.

  And Chekov hadn’t had much luck striking up a conversation with the tall young Trill woman next to him at environmental engineering. He couldn’t really find much to say about atmospheric gas storage or thermal regulation, and the Trill didn’t seem eager to encourage a dialogue. He wondered if that was due to the species’ general secretiveness, or if she just didn’t like him. Too bad Uhura wasn’t around to ask.

  Chekov suppressed an urge to sigh. Look at you, feeling sorry for yourself. It’s not as though you’ve been exiled to Siberia. Some security chief—stop feeling so insecure. Resolving to at least look busy, he stood and made his way across the bridge to check on Ensign Zaand at the internal security station. (Uhura had wondered the other day why tactical and internal security had been placed on opposite sides of the bridge. But she’d quickly interrupted Chekov’s catalogue of the things that could theoretically destroy one side of the bridge or the other, saying that security training had made him too morbid.)

  “Ensign, report,” he said, trying to make it sound routine and official.

  The Rhaandarite snapped to attention. “Yes, sir,” he said crisply. “All units show green. Exterior sensors, all nominal. Interior sensors, all nominal. All on-duty personnel reporting and accounted for, sir.”

  It was the same report he’d given at the start of the shift—verbatim. “Thank you, Ensign. At ease.”

  “Sir,” Zaand acknowledged, but didn’t show much change in his bearing. That was a Rhaandarite for you— along with the smooth, bulging forehead, golden eyes, and stringy hair came an innate knack for obedience and discipline. He recalled Uhura saying it had something to do with the intricate social structures on their world, with a specific set of rules laid out for every possible status relationship. For his part, Chekov wasn’t so sure how to relate to Vaylin Zaand—he was three times Chekov’s age, but wouldn’t hit puberty, or his full two-and-a-half-meter height, for another sixty or seventy years. Did that make him a naive kid or a seasoned veteran? In the two weeks they’d been serving together, Chekov had seen signs of both. It did nothing to ease his concerns about his own youth and inexperience. At least Zaand had never questioned Chekov’s authority—or at least, not to his face. When Kirk had taken the ship back, it had been Zaand who had stood up for Decker, once Kirk had left the bridge. Apparently those strict social rules held sway only in face-to-face interactions.

  “So,” Chekov ventured, “do you have any questions about the mission?”

  “I’m sure you’ll address any questions fully at the security briefing, sir,” Zaand said.

  “Well, I’ll do my best.” Zaand just looked at him uncertainly. Chekov sighed and wandered back toward his station.

  “Sir?” It was Chief DiFalco. “Do you have a minute?”

  Chekov pretended to think about it. “I believe I can make the time. What is it, Chief?”

  “I have what I guess is both a navigation question and a security question,” the slim brunette told him. “I figured you’d be the best person to ask.”

  “Well, here I am. You could’ve been asking me already.”

  “Oh. Of course. Sorry, sir. I don’t mean to waste your time….”

  “You’re still not asking.”

  “Oh. Umm… see, I need to plot a course from here to Daran, and, well, look.” She projected a star map onto the astrogation display disk between the helm and nav positions, highlighting their current position in the Regulus Sector and their destination on the edge of the Lower Sco-Cen Cluster. “You see the problem—it means passing between Klingon and Romulan space where they touch, or else taking a major z-axis detour around them. The captain ordered best possible speed, but the fastest subspace geodesic I can find that doesn’t go right through them still brushes right up against Klingon territory.” She added the spatial-topography data, though Chekov didn’t need it shown to him. After four years at navigation he knew intimately how the distributions of mass, energy, and subspace fields in the region affected the efficiency of a warp engine, and could instantly see which paths would allow the greatest effective speed. “But given how, well, turbulent things have been over there lately, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. Do you know, are they taking it out on others, too? Looking for excuses to start a border incident?”

  Chekov was tempted to tell her that was a bit outside her purview as a navigator. But he supposed he couldn’t blame her for being concerned. Whatever had been going on in the Klingon Empire lately, it was probably something it would be best to stay away from. Starfleet Security had been sending out regular intelligence reports, but there was little solid information coming from within the Empire, and nothing to explain why the more humanlike race of Klingons, which had dominated their military for the past few decades, had suddenly fallen out of sight in the recent upheavals. Such information was notoriously hard to gather from Klingons, who had some kind of taboo against discussing ethnic matters with outsiders. The first Terran anthropologists sent in to study them, around the founding of the Federation, had been executed as spies. To this day, even Starfleet Intelligence wasn’t certain (or wasn’t admitting it knew) what the different types of Klingon actually represented: different ethnic groups or developmental stages, genetic mutants or hybrids, or even separate species with a common national identity, the way everyone from Estonians to Uzbeks had all once called themselves Soviets.

  Bottom line, Chekov had no idea what to tell her, except to fall back on first impulses. “I’d say that’s a bit outside your purview as a navigator, Chief. You just plot the course—the captain worries about the politics.”

  “I know,” DiFalco said, “but I want to make sure I give the captain the best possible option.”

  From the command chair behind them, Sulu chuckled. “Cella has a crush on the captain.”

  DiFalco blushed. “I do not. I just… Look, I never expected to get this posting. I was just a backup navigator— heck, I wasn’t even supposed to be on the Enterprise; I just happened to be available when the emergency was declared. I was amazed when Captain Kirk asked me to stay on as head navigator.” She finished in a stage whisper. “I don’t know if I’m ready for this.”

  Chekov patted her on the shoulder. “Chief, the captain wouldn’t have picked you if you weren’t. He’s a very good judge of character.”

  “Oh, I know. That legendary intuition of his.” Sulu grinned and rolled his eyes at Chekov. “That’s just it—serving under Captain Kirk is a dream come true for me. I never expected it to happen so soon, or ever—and of course I never wanted it to happen the way it did,” she hastened to add.

  Chekov winced at the reminder of DiFalco’s immediate predecessor. Ilia had been kind and easygoing, nothing like what he’d expected from the lurid spacer’s tales about Deltan women. She’d used her empathic abilities to ease Chekov’s pain when he’d been burned dur
ing V’Ger’s attack, and he’d felt a wave of gentle compassion immerse him, like being in his mother’s arms. It had been a hard shock when she’d been disintegrated by V’Ger’s plasma probe, then used as the template for a cold, unfeeling android. He took some comfort from the knowledge that Ilia’s consciousness had apparently survived within the android, and still existed in some form, on some plane. But then, he would have believed that anyway—it was just reassuring to have hard evidence.

  “But what about the way Captain Kirk got his post?” That was Ensign Zaand, taking a step toward them. “Captain Decker earned this command. He supervised the whole refit. He handpicked this crew, and he was entitled to our loyalty.” Apparently Zaand felt more able to speak freely as long as the conversation wasn’t initiated by his direct superior, Chekov thought with annoyance. “But Captain Kirk pushed him aside, out of his command, ultimately out of his whole life!”

  “He had his reasons,” DiFalco countered.

  “More ‘legendary intuition’? Or was it recklessness? Kirk has no respect for the way things are supposed to be done. He just acts on his personal whims and thinks he can get away with it because he’s popular.”

  DiFalco’s expression had grown mortified, but Chekov realized her gaze was directed not at Zaand but at the starboard lift, whose opening he’d subliminally noticed a moment before. Chekov looked over to see Captain Kirk standing rigidly on the threshold.

  “Captain on the bridge!” Chekov announced, then threw a sharp look at Zaand. “Ensign! Man your post.”

  “Aye, sir,” Zaand said, but his response seemed to be an unconscious reflex, given the look of paralyzing dread on his face.

  * * *

  Kirk just stood there for a moment, taking in the scene, debating how to respond. Ultimately he decided just to let it go, to pretend he hadn’t heard the ensign’s remarks. Chekov had acted promptly to maintain discipline, and Kirk wasn’t the type to punish people simply for not liking him. So far Zaand had done his job so efficiently and faithfully that Kirk hadn’t even realized how the man felt. It was painful to hear such sentiments from one of his crew, but they clearly weren’t a threat to discipline, so it was best to let the matter go—for now.

  Besides, Kirk thought as he took over from Sulu and listened absently to his routine report, he didn’t know if he could blame the young Rhaandarite for his doubts. He had shoved Decker aside, hijacked the man’s well-deserved command for the sake of his own personal ambition. And look what the cost had been. Even Scotty didn’t trust him anymore.

  But he’d just have to deal with that as it came. Right now, he had a job to do. “Navigator, is our course to Daran IV laid in?”

  Chief DiFalco spoke with a trace of hesitation. “Plotted, sir… but if you’ll take a look…”

  Chekov interjected. “We… I have some security concerns about the proximity of this course to Klingon space, sir.”

  Kirk looked over the plot on the astrogator display, reflecting on his idle wish for the distraction of a Klingon attack. Tempting fate, he thought. In the mood he was in, he would be happy to charge right into battle, prove himself in fire. His doubts fell away when adrenaline took over. But he wasn’t about to risk losing more crew members just to satisfy his selfish drives. Probably it would be better to take a longer, safer course—but how many more people on Daran IV might die as a result?

  Kirk stared at the display, wondering how in hell he’d ever gotten this public image as an impulsive hothead. A lot of the time he felt more like Hamlet, agonizing over every decision. He just had the knack for not letting it show. Being a captain was sometimes more about looking decisive and convincing your crew that you knew what you were doing. Right now, though, he couldn’t see which course to choose. He knew that only a few seconds had passed, but it was still too long.

  Chekov cleared his throat. “However, Chief DiFalco here has reminded me that the Lantaru disaster has altered the subspace geometry in the surrounding sectors. So there might be a slightly more circuitous route that lets us make up some time on the final leg. Isn’t that right, Chief?”

  DiFalco looked nonplussed for a moment; Chekov was clearly trying to give her a boost in her captain’s eyes. But the chief rose to the occasion, looking at the plot for a moment and soon spotting the option Chekov was hinting at. “Uhh, yes, sir. If we head on 59 mark 354, then just past N Velorum we can trim onto this new heading and… it should only lose us three hours, Captain.”

  Kirk nodded. “Very good. Lay in the course, Chief.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said crisply, then smiled thanks at Chekov.

  Kirk threw the lieutenant a look. “Mr. Chekov, I know I’m new around here, but weren’t you a security chief instead of a navigator?”

  “Ahh… yes, sir.” Chekov hastened back to his post. Kirk was slightly annoyed to see him trying to help DiFalco impress her captain, when she so clearly had a crush on him—or more likely, on his public image, which Kirk was eager to discourage interest in, particularly among his own crew members. But the lieutenant and the chief had spared him from a tough decision, so he could excuse it—this time.

  Kirk tapped the intercom on his seat arm, and was pleased that he was finally able to find the switch without looking. “Captain to all decks. Stand by for departure at 1800.”

  * * *

  Spock was beginning to recognize that the Vulcan face was more expressive than most Vulcans were willing to admit. He had seen evidence enough in the expressions of the other Vulcans aboard over the past days. And he saw it now, on the gaunt, stern face of Security Technician T’Hesh as the door to her quarters slid open. But the slight, centenarian Vulcan controlled her voice well, by contrast. “Commander Spock,” she said with icy formality. “How may I assist you?”

  “May I enter?” At T’Hesh’s hesitation, he added, “Given the temperature differential between your quarters and the corridor, it would place less of a strain on your environmental controls if we could have our discussion with the door closed.”

  After a moment, T’Hesh stepped back to let him enter. But as the door closed behind him, Spock discovered that the room was bare except for a small cargo container and two carrying cases. “Are you relocating?” he asked.

  “I am transferring to another posting.”

  “Indeed. May I ask where?”

  “That has not yet been determined.”

  “Ahh.” Spock decided to get to the point. “I had intended to ask a favor. In recent weeks, I have had difficulty achieving a meditative state. It occurred to me that I might benefit from a focusing aid, such as a meditation flame or keethara blocks. Never having needed such aids in the past, I have none of my own. I had hoped I might borrow something of yours.”

  T’Hesh’s visage remained stony. “As you can see, all my possessions are packed, and I must leave the ship before it casts off at 1800.”

  “I see. Very well. Thank you for your time, Technician.” He turned to leave, disappointed at the failure of his goal, but relieved that the encounter had gone relatively smoothly. But T’Hesh proved unable to resist speaking her thoughts.

  “I am surprised,” she said in an imperious tone, “that a V’tosh ka’tur would seek to meditate at all.”

  So—someone voices it at last. Spock turned to face her. “Then you are operating under a misconception. I am not ‘without logic.’ On the contrary—I have recognized that it is illogical to ignore the input of my own emotions. They are a part of me.”

  “You are half human.”

  Spock quirked a brow at the non sequitur. “Vulcans have emotions as well. We simply manage them with logic. Yet that does not mean we must pretend they do not exist.”

  T’Hesh turned back to her packing cases. “If you will excuse me, Commander. I must prepare for departure.”

  She wouldn’t even listen. Spock supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. “Very well. Perhaps Spanla or T’Khuln will be able to help me.”

  “If they do not transfer as well,” T’Hesh s
aid. “And even so, I doubt very much that you can be helped.”

  Spock gazed at her rigid back for a moment, examining the emotions her words evoked. There were strong echoes of the pain and anger he’d felt as a boy, when the other children had taunted him as a “half-breed,” a “barbarian” whose father had brought shame to Vulcan by marrying a mere human. Fascinating, how much those memories could still burn, even now that he could see the irony in the way the children had treated him with anger and hate for being emotional. Such outbursts were tolerated by Vulcan adults, who took it as a given that their children would outgrow such behavior as they matured and mastered logic. Instead, Spock realized, they simply grew more subtle in expressing it.

  Spock noticed that his fists were tightly clenched. Taking a deep breath, he forced one fist open and his fingers apart into the Surakian salute. “Peace and long life, T’Hesh. And success in your future postings.”

  Evidently T’Hesh judged him unworthy of a response. Spock hastened from her quarters.

  * * *

  “All decks report ready for departure. All hatches secure. All seals holding.”

  “Thrusters are hot. Intermix set for impulse power.”

  “Nav deflector on standby at impulse mode.”

  “Helm ready, sir.”

  “System departure on plot, sir.”

  “Clear all moorings.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “AG section reports clean decouple from starbase AG field. Structural integrity field ramping to full.”

  The voices mingled in a smooth, professional counterpoint, veterans and newcomers each taking their verses in turn. Sulu at helm, his solemn tones belying his passion for flight. DiFalco at navigation, her voice strident with tension. Chekov at tactical, crisp and determined. Zaand at internal security, controlled and letter-perfect. Baby-faced Enrique Mercado at engineering, his every word tinged with excitement. And Uhura at communications, the concertmaster whose voice led all the rest.