by Barbara Paul
"I'll give you all the details later. Right now what we need are some fire fighters."
"They are coming next."
Just as Spock was speaking, the first team of fire fighters beamed in. Kirk gave them directions and sent them on their way. "Spock, you three go on to the baryon reverter—Chekov knows where it is. I'll join you there shortly."
"Where will you be, Captain?"
"On the bridge. I have one last thing to attend to." He stepped into the turbolift. "I don't know how big the reverter is," he said as the door closed.
One last thing to attend to. It could wait, he supposed; but he felt he couldn't leave without reassuring Babe that she had indeed done the right thing.
He stepped from the turbolift into a scene that might have been funny if it weren't so serious. It was a toss-up as to which side was more frightened of the other, the humans or the Sackers. But this time it was the humans who held the weapons, and the Enterprise security guards were pointing them. The young Sackers were twitching with anxiety, Misterma'am so much so that he looked as if he were afflicted with some strange nervous disorder. Blue, on the other hand, was stiff as a board, too scared to move. Berengaria was at the communications console, giving orders—and staying as far away from Rose as she possibly could. The command chair was unoccupied.
"Where's Babe?" he asked.
"Here, Captain."
He hadn't noticed her standing by the weapons station. "What are you doing over there?"
"I am no longer in command of this vessel. It did not seem fitting that I occupy the command chair."
"Ah. Well." Kirk cleared his throat and spoke so that everyone on the bridge could hear. "I am beaming an officer over from the Enterprise to assume command. I'm sure he would appreciate all the help you can give him, Babe. Are you willing to help?"
"I will do all I can to make the transfer of authority as smooth as possible."
"Good, good. So, until he gets here …?" He gestured toward the command chair.
Babe walked with measured steps back to the chair. With a tense regal dignity, she seated herself.
"Lieutenant Berengaria!" Kirk called out. "Do you suppose you could get your people to point their weapons at the deck instead of at me?"
She didn't have to say a word; the weapons were lowered. Reluctantly.
"Ah, that's better." He leaned one elbow casually on the back of the command chair and bent in close to Babe. The other humans on the bridge stared at him in astonishment; he wanted them to see that the Sackers weren't as monstrous and as fearsome as they appeared to be. "If you're thinking that's the last time you'll ever sit there," Kirk said to Babe, "don't count on it. You'll be back."
"How can I be, Captain?" she answered tightly. "If your Federation does not execute us, we will surely spend the rest of our lives in a penal colony somewhere."
He raised his voice again; they should all hear this. "Well, nobody's going to execute you, and I seriously doubt that you'll end up a hardened convict. You'll probably go to some sort of juvenile rehabilitation institution where you'll be re-educated."
"Re-educated?"
"Babe, you and your crew have been taught to hate us and even to kill us when you think it's necessary. That's not natural to you—it's something you had to learn. We've got to undo that conditioning. There's no reason why, in time, you can't all become functioning members of Federation society. We want you with us, not against us."
"You would do that? After what we have done?"
"Well, the adults in those other Sacker ships aren't going to be welcomed with open arms—frankly, I don't know what's going to happen to them. But if they're willing to give up their notion of ruling the Federation, I don't see why we can't sit down and talk. But however that works out, you people on this ship are safe. We've never known a starship to be operated entirely by youngsters before. Starfleet isn't going to let that kind of talent go to waste. Babe, you have a natural gift for command. You belong in a command chair. Sooner or later, you'll be sitting in one again. And speaking of this ship, don't you think it's about time we gave it a name?"
Every Sacker on the bridge turned and looked at him. "You … you have a name for our ship?" Babe asked, almost afraid to believe it.
"I do indeed. I've decided that from now on, this ship will be known as the Babe in Arms. In your honor."
There was about two seconds of silence, and then all the Sackers started talking at once. Orangejuiceandwodka was jiggling up and down happily in the navigator's seat. Babe was stunned.
"Captain Kirk," she said, "you … Captain … I, I do not understand why you honor a defeated enemy in this way."
"Not an enemy. A friend. A friend and a future ally."
She couldn't speak for a few minutes. "Captain, when you took over the environmental control section, I thought you must be the most duplicitous creature in the universe. Even when you told me you were trying to keep us alive, I did not believe you. I was wrong. You are concerned with our welfare—perhaps even more so than the others of our race. I never thought I would be thanking a conqueror, but that is what I am doing. I thank you, Captain Kirk. For everything. I wish there were some way I could show my gratitude."
"As a matter of fact," Kirk grinned, "there is something you can do. Tell me the name of your race. The only reason we call you Sackers is that we don't know what else to call you. What do you call yourselves?"
"You wish to know our race-name?"
"You bet I do. But only if you want to tell me. This isn't one of the spoils of war, Babe. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."
"But I wish to. I think we would all wish it."
She stood and looked to the other members of the bridge crew. They were all on their feet, wagging their heads back and forth in their affirmative gesture. The sight of so many Sackers all making the same gesture at the same time was a bit unnerving to some of the Enterprise's security team; Lieutenant Berengaria spoke a word of command, and the weapons that had started to rise went back down again.
"Very well," Babe said. "Captain Kirk, we are the Vinithi. That is our race-name."
"Vinithi," Kirk repeated, thinking it was a lovely name for a people whom, even in his most charitable moments, he could never think of as lovely. "I like that much better than 'Sackers'."
"So do we," Orangejuiceandwodka said earnestly.
Just then the turbolift doors hissed open, and an Enterprise spacesuit walked on to the bridge. A familiar face looked out through the helmet's visor.
"Aha—here is your new commander now!" Kirk announced expansively. "Welcome aboard, Mr. Sulu!"
"Sulu!" The name was spoken aloud by every one of the Vinithi. An audible wave of fear and curiosity swept through the bridge. After all their failed plans, after all that had gone wrong—now they had to suffer the trauma of finding the much-dreaded Sulu suddenly thrust among them! If Captain Kirk had been hard to please, the Sulu would be impossible! What was going to happen to them? Unconsciously they all edged a few steps away from this new human.
Sulu was a little taken aback at this reaction to his name; even Berengaria's security team looked surprised. But Sulu was quick to regain his composure. "Thank you, Captain."
Kirk waited until the murmuring had died down a little and said, "Mr. Sulu, this is Commander Babe. The commander wants to make the transfer of authority as easy as possible, and I think you'll find she'll be of invaluable assistance to you."
"Commander."
"Mr. Sulu." She couldn't quite bring herself to say Welcome aboard.
Kirk was pretending not to notice the stir Sulu's appearance had created. "I hereby turn command of this vessel, Babe in Arms, over to you. It's all yours, Mr. Sulu."
The murmuring resumed, and Sulu began to get an inkling of what was going on. He was the Bad Guy. For a time they'd all watched from the Enterprise as Captain Kirk had ground down the Sacker bridge crew, instilling in them a fear of Sulu that was, in the helmsman's private opinion, totally unjustified.
But what an opportunity to play villain! Sulu marched to the very edge of the upper platform of the bridge next to Kirk, slammed his feet down about three apart, and planted his fists on his hips. "I accept command," he said sternly. At the sound of his "command" voice, silence fell. Sulu looked his new crew over and then asked Kirk out of the side of his mouth, "Now what do I do?"
Kirk smiled tiredly. "Wing it, Mr. Sulu," he said as he headed toward the turbolift, "wing it."
Sulu examined the bridge personnel one by one, and then picked out the one who was cowering the most. "You! Helmsman! Come here!"
The last thing Kirk saw as the turbolift doors closed in front of him was the sight of poor Blue, slowly shuffling forward to meet his doom.
Chapter Twelve
DR. McCOY HAD a decision to make, and whichever way he decided would put his patients in danger.
He'd beamed over from the Enterprise with a medical team and headed straight for the Sacker sickbay, sending the rest of the team to the site of the fire. Fortunately, only four of the Sackers had been hurt in the fire so far, none with burns. All four had been struck by some falling or flying object that had ruptured the membranes encasing their bodies; two of them had lost a lot of sac fluid before they'd been found and could very well die, he'd been told.
The Sacker who'd told him was a horrendous-looking female with black and blue sac fluid. To McCoy she looked like a walking bruise. The doctor had to concentrate on not turning his eyes away from her; at least his suit protected him from the odor and from any accidental touch of her body.
He'd thought he was ready to face the Sackers after studying the visuals transmitted from their bridge, but he'd underestimated the power of their physical presence. McCoy had seen some pretty gruesome things in his time in the medical profession, but this decayed-looking creature standing before him was a healthy organism, hard as that was to believe. Healthy, and sentient. This one seemed to know what she was doing; she'd taken each patient in turn and explained succinctly what was wrong and what she'd done to patch the membrane ruptures. As far as McCoy could tell, her procedure had been impeccable.
It took him a while to get used to his strange surroundings. Many of the instruments he found in the sickbay were unfamiliar to him. Some of the medicines were labeled in English, but many were not. Most astonishing were the vats of gelatinous substance the Sackers used for beds—a lubricant, no doubt, for their tough membranous exteriors. The real problem, of course, was that McCoy knew nothing at all about Sacker anatomy and physiology.
He pointed to the nearest patient, a big Sacker whose sac fluid was a sort of dirty yellow. "Tell me, how much sac fluid can a fellow this size lose before his condition turns critical?"
The walking bruise twitched. "The medical computer says a full liter. But I think it must be less. Our fluid cells regenerate very slowly."
"But what does the fluid do? What's its function?"
"It keeps us warm. We are not low-temperature dwellers like humans. The sac fluid prevents ice crystals from forming in our internal organs."
"My God," McCoy said, amazed. "Antifreeze!"
"Pardon?"
"Nothing, nothing. Why don't you just give this fellow a transfusion? You must have a supply of the sac fluid on hand."
"The fluid does not preserve well in its natural state. An artificial substitute must be made up."
"Well, did you make some?"
Her head drooped forward. "I do not know how."
McCoy reminded himself that this "doctor" was little more than a child. "Do you want to explain that?" he asked encouragingly.
The Sacker waggled her head back and forth and said, "The medical computer has the formula and the steps to follow in making it up. I read it and I read it, but still I do not understand! There are too many questions, and no one to ask …"
"I understand. What language does the programming use? I don't mean computer language—is it in your language?"
"No, it is in two other languages, Zirgosian and Universal English. The Zirgosians did not know our language."
"Then there shouldn't be any problem. Call up the formula for me, and let's take a look."
He read the formula on the viewscreen and studied the procedure for making it. He told the young Sacker to assemble the ingredients. They sat down at a table in the sickbay laboratory and together they mixed up a batch of artificial sac fluid. McCoy answered all her questions, and laughed when he saw her jiggling with pleasure at finally understanding something that had eluded her for so long. "Let me ask you a question," he said. "The computer said nothing about different formulas for different sac colors. Are you sure this same formula will work for all four of those people in there? We've got four different color patients, you know."
"Oh, that is not a problem. Coloration has nothing to do with the composition of the fluid—nothing essential, I mean to say."
"Then why are you all different colors?"
"Why do all humans not have the same color eyes? Or hair? Or physical attributes of other kinds?"
"Ah. It's simply a matter of individual characteristics."
"Yes, that is so."
He thought that once there must have been many Sacker races, and the varied hues he saw now were the result of some long-ago dissolving of barriers between the races. "You're going to have to do the actual work," he told his colleague. "This suit I have to wear makes me clumsy. Besides, I've never treated one of your race before."
She made a sound McCoy couldn't interpret. "I have treated a human!"
"You have? Who? What?"
"The Chekov's shoulder was accidentally burned—not badly. But I treated him."
"Tell me what you did." He listened as she described how she had treated Chekov for pain and sterilized the burn area and then checked carefully for infection before spraying on the new skin. "That sounds all right," he told her. "I'll have a look at his shoulder later, but you did everything the way you're supposed to. By the way, what's your name?"
She raised her head proudly. "I am named Dr. Bonesovna. The Chekov named me."
"Bonesovna!" McCoy looked at the black and blue space monster across the table from him and thought: My daughter? But he recognized Chekov's brand of humor at work and merely smiled. "That is an honorable name."
"It is?" She sounded surprised.
"Yes indeed. Did you know it means 'Daughter of Bones'? Bones … well, I'll just say he's a famous and distinguished Starfleet surgeon. A remarkable man."
"I did not know that! And I am given his name? Oh, thank you for telling me!"
"You're welcome," Bones said dryly.
McCoy did little more than watch as Dr. Bonesovna hooked up the transfusion apparatus. She worked quickly; he noticed there was very little waste motion in her work. Finally the last Sacker was taken care of, a green male with a gaping hole in his side. The young would-be doctor courteously stepped aside and invited McCoy to check the patients himself. He went through the motions, but he could think of nothing to suggest. He congratulated Bonesovna on her efficiency.
When he was sure the patients were all resting comfortably, McCoy took some time to look over the rest of the sickbay. He wandered into a side room where he found what could only be a coffin. He asked Bonesovna about it.
"He was killed in the engine room. When the Enterprise fired upon us."
McCoy hadn't known there'd been a death. "I'm sorry, Bonesovna. We were hoping no one would have to die. We didn't want it this way." He stopped to think. "I'm going to have to beam the body over to the Enterprise."
She twitched. "To perform a post-mortem examination. I thought perhaps you would."
He didn't like distressing her. "If we're to help you," he said gently, "we're going to have to know more about you."
"I understand, Dr. McCoy. I do. I do not believe you mean us ill."
Glory be, he thought, she trusts me! He was extravagantly pleased. He felt like a kid who'd been paid a compliment by an approving adult, even though he was the a
dult here and she the kid.
About that time McCoy became aware of a growing warmth and adjusted his suit temperature control for the second time since he'd beamed aboard. That led him to his dilemma. As long as that fire was still burning, Bonesovna's four patients would be safer on the Enterprise. But all the equipment and medicine they needed were right here, as well as the specialized Sacker medical computer. He could keep them here and risk their getting killed in the fire, or he could transfer them to the Enterprise sickbay and risk killing them himself through his own ignorance. Some choice. He could take Bonesovna with him, but he didn't want to have to rely on her limited experience alone; he needed their computer.
He called Spock on the communicator and asked if the fire was under control yet. Spock told him it had been extinguished in the engine room and in the environmental control section, but flames had escaped up a few of the shafts. The unfolded leg of the ship was safe, but now the main body was in danger of catching fire.
McCoy hadn't seen Jim and the others since he'd beamed over, but he accepted Spock's reassurances that they were unharmed except for Chekov's burn, which didn't seem to be causing him any trouble. But it was Uhura that McCoy was worrying about. Finding herself caught on a burning starship—that could only compound her nightmares and make her lose whatever ground she'd gained in conquering her fears. She shouldn't be here.
He decided to keep the Sacker patients where they were for the time being. He could always beam them over later if the fire got closer. But surely they'd have it out before long.
He and Bonesovna went back to check on their patients—and found the green one struggling to sit up. "Whoa, there!" McCoy said. "Take it easy—that's a pretty big rupture you have in your side."
"Aye," the Sacker said, "but I'm feelin' so much better I thought I'd move meself about a wee bit."
McCoy blinked. "What … did you say?"
"I said I'm feelin' better. What's the matter? Am I not sayin' it right?"
"Oh, you're saying it right. You wouldn't happen to know a human named Montgomery Scott, would you?"
