To Krong’s surprise, Spaytak neither tried to escape nor prevaricated. He stuck with his story: “It’s true, Krong. One of them said he was the captain of the Enterprise. Do you really think I’m stupid enough to come here and tell you this if I didn’t hear it with my own ears?”
Krong had to wonder: Was Spaytak that stupid? The Klingon was surprised to discover the answer that came to him was, No, he isn’t. Delusional, perhaps. Inflated with entirely inappropriate self-importance, yes. But not stupid. It would be dishonorable to kill a man or even severely dent his skull simply for being an idiot, wouldn’t it?
Wouldn’t it?
Krong released his grip on Spaytak’s nose and turned back to the mirror. “I don’t care,” he said. “And even if I did care, even if I, for a solitary nanosecond, entertained the thought that you might be right, then I would have to do something far worse than kill you for the indiscretion of introducing the concept of hope into my existence. Do you understand?”
Spaytak nodded once, then allowed the bridge of his nose to touch the cool bar top. “Yes,” he whispered.
“Good. Get out of my sight.”
The Denebian scurried away. When the sound of his flat footfalls had receded out the door, Krong turned and looked at the handful of dour, gray faces. None of the pairs of eyes dared to meet his own. That was something, wasn’t it? At least they all still feared him and would not look Krong’s way. He turned back to the mirror and looked at his reflection one more time. Krong had many faults; he knew this to be true, but self-delusion was not one of them. He looked at himself and knew that it was possible none of the pasty-faced Denebians would meet his eyes because none of them could even see him anymore. Or maybe, he reflected, they simply thought he was just one of them.
Outside the bar, Spaytak’s cadre of associates waited for him. The three diminutive, shuffling forms called Mot, Lort, and Churt stood around the immense jiggling bulk that was their youngest brother, Dorsoll, like planetoids trapped in the gravity well of a gas giant. Mot, always the first to speak (if not to think) stepped forward and asked, “Well? What did he say? How much will he pay?”
Spaytak knew he had only seconds to provide a convincing response. If he hadn’t been so worried that the Klingon was going to change his mind about the merger between Spaytak’s face and the bar, he would have taken his time and come up with a satisfactory story. Mot, Lort, and Churt—with almost an entire brain between the three of them—would find some way to fade into the shadows if Spaytak couldn’t convince them there was motivation to remain. Dorsoll, he knew, would stay with him until some other, stronger drive (probably hunger, possibly a flood tide) carried him away, but the oaf was useful only as long as the other three were nearby to goad him into action. Spaytak did not see himself in that role. He was a planner and a plotter, but not so much the man of action. He needed the three smaller brothers to stay. “He wants us to bring them here,” Spaytak lied, and then added, “for interrogation.”
“What’s our cut?” Lort asked. He was almost as clever as Mot, but usually quieter and more deferential.
“We didn’t discuss cuts,” Spaytak admitted. Always a good idea to mix in some true things. “I’m not worried, though. If we pull this off, there’ll be enough to go around.”
“What if the Klingon tries to pull a fast one?” Mot asked. “I don’t trust him.”
“And I don’t trust you,” Spaytak said. “But we’re all in this together. And if Krong tries to double-cross us, well, there’s five of us and only one of him.”
“But what about them?” Lort asked. “The Fleeters. We’ve heard stories about those guys. Everyone has. They have all kinds of arcane fighting techniques.”
“And superhuman strength,” Mot said.
“And what about our women?” Churt asked. “Everyone knows the tales. If that Kirk guy gets anywhere near them…”
“You say that,” Spaytak sneered, “like you might actually have a woman.”
“I have a mother,” Churt said. “That’s enough for me to worry about Captain Kirk being on the same planet.”
“Stop worrying about what the Fleeters might do and start worrying about me.” Spaytak lowered his head and put his face so close to Mot’s that one of the small hairs that projected out of the tip of the runt’s nose tickled his own. Mot pulled back and looked like he was about to protest, but he must have seen something in Spaytak’s bleary red-rimmed eyes that made him pause. “When I left the pub, they were already three drinks in. By now, they’ve probably had at least one more, and maybe two.”
“One more what?” Churt asked. “What were they drinking?”
The corner of Spaytak’s mouth curled up. “What do all the offworlders get?”
After a moment, Mot and Lort—both slightly quicker on the uptake than Churt—chuckled ominously, and a moment later their brother added his glee to theirs. Dorsoll, who had been as quiet and unperturbed as a support pylon, must have enjoyed hearing his brothers’ laughter because after a second he joined in, too. The giant oaf had a disconcertingly high-pitched chuckle, like something that would come out of an infant, and the sound made Spaytak’s skin crawl. Why do I work with these fools? he wondered, though he knew the answer: They were the best fools he could afford. When this deal was done, Spaytak decided, and the prize was his, he would kill them and find new help more in keeping with his status.
Time oozed by. Their conversation, McCoy noted, also seemed to be oozing. Pondering the currently very plastic nature of his consciousness motivated the doctor to do a quick (well, not all that quick) mental calculation. After rechecking his math a couple of times, McCoy realized that he and Scotty had been awake (if “awake” was a fair assessment of their current condition) for the better part of the past twenty-four hours. Tuning back into the conversation, McCoy began to understand that Scotty’s response to exhaustion was quite different from his own: The engineer had become quite animated, even manic.
“And another bloody thing,” Scotty said, slapping the tabletop, “why is it that it’s always the captain and Spock who get the credit for saving civilization?! I’ve saved civilization plenty of times!”
This claim roused McCoy’s interest. “How many times?”
Scott’s eyes shifted around the room as if he were reading the answer off the walls. Finally, he said, “Four.”
“That’s a lot of times.”
“It is.”
“And you died a couple times, too,” McCoy remembered.
“I did, didn’t I? That’s gotta count for somethin’!” The more excited he became, the thicker Scotty’s accent grew. “No one ever seems to remember those sorts of things. It’s always, ‘Captain Kirk saved this,’ and ‘Mr. Spock rescued that.’ All I want is a little respect, a little acknowledgment.”
“You still have your reputation as a miracle worker,” McCoy offered.
“Oh, well, sure. That. I do enjoy that.”
“And you said you wouldn’t want to be a captain.”
“Nay.”
“Well, then, what’s to complain about?”
Scotty stared balefully into the middle distance, then turned to McCoy, apparently finally noticing the doctor’s head was near the tabletop. “A wee bit tired, then, Leonard?”
McCoy nodded minutely. “A wee bit.”
“Well, then, we’ll be goin’ about finding lodgings.” McCoy sighed with relief as Scotty rose to his feet. “After just one more round.”
“Scotty,” McCoy moaned. “I can’t feel my extremities.”
“Oh, come on. These pink fizzy things aren’t that strong.”
“It has nothing to do with the fink pizzy…Okay, maybe a little. But it’s very late. Or very early. One or the other.” Distantly, a part of McCoy’s brain wondered why he didn’t just head out on his own and leave the engineer to find his own lodgings, should he choose. An even more distant portion of his mind responded with the simple answer: He didn’t want to be alone on a strange planet. McCoy turned
this puzzling observation around in his mind: When had he turned into someone who disliked being alone? Or, put another way, when had he turned into an individual who was unaccustomed to being alone? The response was breathtaking in its simplicity: If you spend five years gallivanting around the galaxy with a group of people in a tin can—even a really big tin can—almost anyone would lose their tolerance for isolation. How long had it taken? And what would be the long-term effects? More importantly, how would this affect the whole structure of Starfleet in the future? In a flash, McCoy clearly saw that Constitution-class ships like the Enterprise wouldn’t be enough soon. A starship couldn’t be merely a vessel: It had to be a community.
He sat up straight. Could he be the only one who was feeling the effects? He looked over at his friend, the chief engineer of the flagship of the fleet: He was frantically waving at the bartender for another round. “Obviously not,” McCoy said aloud.
“Obviously not what?” Scott asked.
McCoy pondered how to approach the question and decided to soft-pedal it. “Something that came to me while I was listening to you. An interesting question. Maybe even a thesis.”
Scott seemed genuinely intrigued. “An idea for a paper?”
“Maybe,” McCoy said, and found that he liked the idea very much. Feeling much more alert suddenly, he concluded, “Yes, I think it might be. Or even a long-term project.”
“Lovely,” Scotty said. “Then I’ll expect to be acknowledged in the notes section and invited to the conference when you deliver it.” The bartender arrived with their drinks, set them down, then cleared away the last round and the credits Scotty had slapped down on the counter. “Let’s drink to it,” the engineer said, raising his glass.
“Aye, Mr. Scott. Let’s.” They touched glasses, but before McCoy sipped any of his, he stopped the bartender and asked, “By the way, what are these things called, anyway?”
“The drink?” the bartender asked. He was a short, thickly built individual with a small circle of spiky black hair at the center of his head, but was otherwise bald.
“Yes.”
“We call those Denebian slime devils.”
Scotty, who had been in the process of taking a large slurp, sputtered and sprayed the mouthful out his nose. McCoy speedily pushed himself away from the table, almost overtipping his chair, but found he couldn’t help but giggle at the engineer’s expression of disbelief. “What,” McCoy asked, “could have provoked such a reaction?”
“A Denebian slime devil?” Scotty gasped.
“Sure,” the bartender said. “Not too many other things to name a drink after on Denebia.”
“But why?” Scott asked. “What does a pink, fuzzy drink have in common with a slime devil?”
“Keeping in mind,” McCoy inserted, “that we may not want to know all the details about how they’re made.”
“I’ve heard a lot of answers to that question over the years,” the bartender said, “but the best one anyone’s come up with is that the drink is like the slime devil because when you’re least expecting it, they both suddenly wake up and disembowel you.”
Scotty narrowed his eyes at his half-empty glass, then concluded, “Good to know.” He turned his gaze back to McCoy and said, “Doctor, I think it’s time to call it a night.”
McCoy nodded and gestured toward the door. “After you, sir.”
The bartender gave Scotty a respectful nod as the engineer got off his stool. “Pleasant evening, Captain.”
“Huh?” Scotty said, but the bartender had already gone to take someone else’s order. Scotty blinked a few times. “Did he just call me captain?”
“I think so,” McCoy replied placidly. “Though it has been a long night and I could be mistaken.” Regarding Scotty curiously, he asked, “What was that all about? You have a problem with Denebian slime devils?”
“Well, no,” Scott said, a tad embarrassed. “Not as such.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“Not really.”
“Would you like to? I hear they have a couple at the local zoo.”
“Not really, no.”
“Then…?”
“It’s a long story, Doctor. Didn’t I ever tell you about the time me and Chekov and the others got into the fight with the Klingons on Station K-7?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t remember the part where the Klingon called the captain a Denebian slime devil?”
McCoy searched his memory. The story had been elevated to shipboard legend, but the detail about the slime devil had heretofore eluded him. “I guess not,” he decided.
Reseating himself, Scotty said, “Well, then, aye, finish your drink while I tell you. See, it all started when the Klingon started saying as how the captain…”
Spaytak had only ever seen one offworlder finish more than three slime devils, and that poor, benighted soul had been rushed to either the hospital or the decontamination center, Spaytak couldn’t remember which. According to the bartender, Kirk and Spock had finished nine or ten between them, though he hadn’t been clear who had drunk more. He would have expected Kirk to have more, but from where he sat hunched in the shadows across the street, Spaytak thought Spock was the one who looked the worse for wear, wobbling a little woozily on the stairs down to the otherwise deserted sidewalk. Behind him, he heard Mot and Lort arguing in (for them) hushed tones about which of them would take on the Enterprise captain and which the first officer. The sounds of the argument were punctuated by various slaps, smacks, and a noise that could only be the sound of one man yanking on the other’s nose. Gingerly, Spaytak touched his own nose where Krong had grabbed it and silently vowed to avenge himself on someone or another sometime soon.
Without turning, Spaytak hissed, “Shut up, you idiots.” The pair fell silent. “Now where’s Churt? He said he could get a vehicle.”
“He’ll be here,” Mot said. “Or I’ll disembarass him.”
Spaytak frowned.
“Here he comes,” Lort whispered. “Just like we planned.”
Like we planned? Spaytak thought but didn’t say aloud. Better that the fools think they were an integral part of the plan, when in reality they were mostly just being used as ballast. Having reasoned that Kirk and Spock couldn’t be taken by force—especially not the force Spaytak had to muster—he had decided to use guile. If things did get rough, Mot, Lort, and Churt might be able to subdue one of the Fleeters and Dorsoll would likely be able to pacify the other if the oaf could be convinced to sit on his opponent. The important thing was that neither Kirk nor Spock be killed, at least not until they had been delivered to Krong. What the Klingon did with his prisoners after he had paid Spaytak was inconsequential…as long as the Denebian got to watch.
Spaytak decided not to ask where Churt had procured a hired vehicle, though the cab looked as if it had recently been hauled out of an open sewer. Neither of the Fleeters raised an eyebrow when the vehicle screeched to a halt in front of them, but seemed to accept it as their due. Churt lowered the side window screen and asked if they needed a ride.
Staring out into the gloomy evening, Kirk seemed to ponder the question for what felt like a very long time, but then finally said, “Might you know where we could find a couple comfortable rooms for the night?”
Spaytak couldn’t believe his ears. How could it have worked out any better? He had been anticipating that the Fleeters would ask to be taken to a particular hotel and then Churt would have to pretend to get lost, but this…this was too good to be true. Unfortunately, this fact registered on Churt, too, and the lummox actually turned to look at the spot in the dark alley where he thought Spaytak was hiding and leered gleefully. Then he turned back to Kirk and said, “Certainly. Climb on in, gents, and I’ll take you to the nicest, cleanest little joint in this part of town. It’s run by my sweet old auntie. She makes the best galopoly stew in town.”
“Oh, aye?” Kirk asked as he tugged open the rear door and guided his first officer into the rear of the vehic
le. Spock didn’t so much climb in as tumble forward. “I don’t believe I’ve ever had that.”
“You’ll love it!” Churt cried. “It’s sensational. She even makes her own noodles!”
“That sounds lovely, it does. You think she has any about tonight? I could do with a bite before putting me head down.” Kirk elbowed his companion. “What do you think? Fancy a little stew?”
“Ehhhhh…” Spock said without lifting his head from the seat. Apparently the stories about these two having an almost telepathic bond was true because Kirk simply said, “All righty then. Off we go.”
And off they went into the night. Spaytak was flummoxed. “It can’t be this simple,” he said aloud.
“Whataya mean it can’t?” Mot asked. “You got us working with you. Of course it’s gonna be simple.”
Spaytak knew better than to try to respond to that. Instead, he said, “He knows to drive around for a bit, right? We have to get to Krong before Churt does.”
“He’ll remember,” Mot said. “’Cause if he doesn’t, I’ll castigate him.”
Eyes narrowed, Spaytak stared down at the ugly little man in disbelief, then finally asked, “Don’t you mean…?” Observing the blank stare, he said, “Never mind. Let’s go.”
The driver hummed tunelessly and tonelessly as he guided the vehicle through Meekrab’s narrow, dirty, underlit streets. Scotty, veteran of many a late-night pub crawl, strongly suspected they were being taken to the hotel by a longer than necessary route in order to inflate the fare, but decided he did not particularly care. Unfamiliar coins jingled in his coat pocket and, as he always did whenever he visited a planet that used hard currency, Scott knew that when they arrived at the hotel he would set aside one of each so that later he could throw the coins into a wood box he kept on his nightstand. Whenever Scott returned to Earth for a visit, he would take along the box of mementos to show to his nephew Peter, who would engagingly ooh and aah over each and every one.
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