Ahead of McCoy the grasses thinned out and grew less tall. At last he came to a break in the foliage, bare ground that sloped upward. Kirk stood at the crest of the rise, and as McCoy joined him he saw that this was no ordinary rise—beyond it stretched a canyon, vast beyond his experience. The ground fell away, rock strata exposed to the elements, and from his vantage point McCoy could not see the far side. Intellectually, he knew there was an opposite wall, but it was lost to him in the mist and haze.
His mind staggered at the size of it. McCoy had first seen the Grand Canyon on Earth when his grandfather, T. J. McCoy, had taken him along on a business trip to Las Vegas and, as a reward for his good behavior, they took a shuttle flight through the enormous ravine’s eight-hundred-kilometer length. Years later, on a Starfleet survival course, he had overflown the Valles Marineris on Mars en route to a base camp at Fort Kiley, and even from twenty kilometers up and a thousand kilometers per hour, the largest canyon in the solar system presented an impressive sight. But never before had McCoy stood at the lip of a canyon’s walls—though not acrophobic, McCoy had little interest in seeing nature up close and personal. Here, now, at the edge of a yawning chasm, McCoy felt very small. Something had carved out a slice of this world, and measured against that, a single man was nothing.
“Fascinating,” said Spock from behind. He joined Kirk and McCoy on the canyon’s edge and held out his tricorder to perform a survey.
“How far’s the eastern side?” asked Kirk.
“Ten kilometers, Captain,” Spock said. McCoy thought the natural horizon, the distance one could see before the world fell away due to curvature, was five or six kilometers. It wasn’t the haze that prevented him from seeing the opposite side but the curvature of Algenib II itself.
Kirk stood quiet in contemplation. McCoy could see the resolute determination in his gaze, focused somewhere far into the misty horizon. The trail of shuttle debris had led them here—where would their journey take them now? Into the gorge itself? Only Kirk could make that decision.
McCoy looked down into the canyon. The haze that obscured the far side blanketed its floor as well, but McCoy thought that he could see something rising through the mists, something not quite natural. “What do you make of those, Spock?” he asked as he pointed at something far below. Spock’s Vulcan eyesight, McCoy knew, was sharper than any human’s, but even Spock would have difficulty seeing at a distance through Algenib’s haze.
Spock looked in the direction McCoy indicated, then raised an eyebrow. “Curious.” He raised his tricorder, adjusted the dials, and studied the data on its screen. “It appears, Dr. McCoy, that there are objects below us on the canyon floor. Constructed objects, alien machines of enormous size.”
“Machines,” said McCoy. “There’s more than one?”
“My tricorder indicates that there are one hundred fifty such objects within a ten-kilometer radius of our position.”
Kirk came to stand beside McCoy. “How enormous?” he asked.
“Judging by my tricorder readings, each one may dwarf the Enterprise in size.”
“Larger than the Enterprise?” said McCoy. “My God, what are they? Who built them, and why?”
“Unknown, Doctor,” said Spock.
Kirk shook his head. “What did my crew find?” He fell quiet, and neither Spock nor McCoy broke the silence. McCoy knew the thoughts running through Kirk’s mind—could the alien machines, their builders and purpose unknown, have been responsible for the downing of the Enterprise’s shuttle?
“Spock,” said Kirk at last, “I’m thinking the shuttle went down in the canyon. With one engine sheered off, she couldn’t have gone much farther, and as intact as the nacelle was, it couldn’t have fallen from too great an altitude.” He took a deep breath. “I’m thinking we’ll find the shuttle on the canyon floor.”
Spock nodded once. “A logical surmise.”
“Jim,” said McCoy, “how can you be sure the shuttle couldn’t have glided to a landing on the plateau beyond the opposite canyon wall?”
“I can’t, which is why we’ll descend into the canyon, look for signs of the shuttle, and if we find nothing by our next transport window, we’ll beam back to the Enterprise and resume our search for the shuttle from there.”
Before long, Spock found a way down. It was clearly a path, beaten and worn through use over the years.
“I don’t like this, Jim,” said McCoy.
“I will take the lead, Captain,” said Spock. Kirk nodded his approval.
McCoy began to follow Spock’s lead down the path. He stopped abruptly.
“Bones?”
McCoy heard something. It sounded like a voice, very faint and distorted, as if from far away. “Do you hear that?”
Kirk and Spock stopped, turned their heads to the sky to listen. “Clearly, Doctor,” said Spock, “what you hear is the sound of wind echoing off the canyon walls.” He started back down the path toward the canyon floor.
Kirk, however, continued to listen. “I think I hear it, Bones,” he whispered.
McCoy nodded. “It sounds like a woman’s voice, Jim,” he said quietly.
“But where’s it coming from?” When McCoy didn’t respond immediately, Kirk clapped him on the shoulder. “Bones…?”
“…did you hear me?” A pause. “Mrs. Howard?”
Gabby Howard shook her head, tried to refocus her train of thought. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”
“This is Mrs. Davis, the counselor at Lewis Elementary.”
Her eyes closed, Gabby could picture Mrs. Davis, a matronly woman of nearly sixty that she had met with several times over the past two months. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Davis?”
“I wanted to talk with you about your son, Brennan.”
“It’s Breandán,” said Gabby quickly. A common mistake—six-year-old Breandán still had difficulty pronouncing the “d” sound, and often-times strangers misheard his name. That the school counselor could mistake her son’s name bothered Gabby—if the counselor were genuinely interested in Breandán, she wouldn’t make such an obvious mistake.
“Breandán yes.” Mrs. Davis paused. “There was an incident at school today you should be aware of.”
Gabby sat down and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “An incident,” she repeated.
“Apparently Breandán brought a toy from home with him to school today, and during recess this afternoon he played on his own with that rather than with the other children. His teacher felt that Breandán hadn’t been socializing with his classmates recently, and he confiscated the toy from him.”
“Which toy was it, Mrs. Davis?” Gabby asked, though she was confident she already knew the answer.
“An action figure—Star Trek, Star Wars, I can’t tell these things apart.”
Gabby sighed. “It’s his Dr. McCoy action figure. Star Trek, if you must know.”
“Right.” Gabby thought from her tone of voice that Mrs. Davis cared not at all whether the action figure came from Star Trek or from something else entirely. “I take it you’re a fan.”
“Frankly, I couldn’t care less. My husband, though—” She paused, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and decided to shift gears back onto the important topic of conversation—her son—rather than a pointless digression into Star Trek fandom. “I take it, Mrs. Davis, that the incident was more than the teacher taking away Breandán’s toy.”
“That’s correct. According to the teacher, after the toy was confiscated your son…‘shut down.’”
“Could you be more specific?”
“He didn’t play with the other children. In fact, he simply sat immobile where he had been playing with his Star Trek toy.”
Gabby frowned. “He does that, Mrs. Davis.”
“Your son isn’t socializing with the other children. Our school has policies, and children are not to bring toys from home because it can lead to situations like today’s where children play by themselves instead of with their classmates. Frankly,
I’m concerned, Mrs. Howard, by your son’s behavior today and your own indifference to the problem.”
“My indifference? The problem, Mrs. Davis,” said Gabby, her voice rising, “is that you took away his toy. That’s your indifference. I made that mistake. I took his Captain Kirk toy away once, and he said not one word to me for a week. A week, Mrs. Davis. Do you think I want to go through that hell again?”
“Mrs. Howard…”
“No, you listen to me. His father bought him those toys, and while I don’t pretend to understand the hold they have on Breandán, I know enough not to mess with it.” She paused, took a deep breath, and felt relieved that Mrs. Davis didn’t quickly jump into the breach. “It’s not healthy, but what can I do?”
For several moments neither spoke. “I don’t think you appreciate our problem.”
Gabby buried her face in her free hand and wanted to cry. “I do appreciate your problem, Mrs. Davis.” Her voice grew hoarse and ragged, almost a whisper. “No one would be happier than I to see him parted from those toys. You and your teachers take them away from him at your own peril.”
“What does he do with the toys at home?”
“There’s a muddy hole in our backyard where he sits and plays with them for hours.” She stood and walked across the dining room to the bay window overlooking the backyard and Breandán’s muddy hole. “And he’ll sit there, from the time he gets home from school until the sun goes down, playing with his toys—his construction trucks, his other action figures. I can’t talk to him, he doesn’t pay attention. The toys, that hole, those are the only things that truly matter to him.”
“I see,” said Mrs. Davis. She paused. “You say his father bought him the toys.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you feel that this is something you and his father should address with Breandán?”
“I can’t,” said Gabby, her eyes welling up with tears. “My husband Kevin died in Iraq.”
The curtains are pulled shut so no sunlight can intrude. A sterile gloominess pervades the room. What light there is comes from the fluorescent tubes overhead, a weak, dull light that only enhances the room’s depressive air. Above, one tube lights momentarily, then flicks out from a short in its ballast, producing an unintentional strobe effect on the room’s occupants. No one notices.
People talk. A coffin sits on a dais at the front of the room, flanked by flower bouquets at both head and foot. The coffin sits closed; this is no open casket viewing. Kevin Howard was an army pilot. He died in an Apache helicopter crash, his body horribly mangled and burned.
The mourners make polite conversation, share anecdotes about college pratfalls, weekend excursions, business contacts. Remember that time back in Florida? People still talk about that Little League record he set. Wasn’t he a handsome child? Look at how sharp he was in his army uniform. Whatever happened to that old friend of his from college? No profundity in these conversations, they are the words one speaks when coming to grips with a senseless tragedy to comfort those left behind, important words but ultimately empty and hollow words all the same.
There Gabby Howard stands, her long red hair falling across her shoulders and halfway down her back, flowing freely for once instead of being pulled back into her usual ponytail. She wears a dark dress, blue not black, because she feels blue highlights her green eyes better, a long dress to obscure the sneakers she wears for comfort instead of dressier flats. She works the crowd, greeting those paying their respects to Kevin, in a kind of lazy orbit in the open area in front of the dais. Most visitors she knows, some she does not, but she makes conversation with anyone who wishes it. Her duty as the grieving widow, the concerned mother.
Her son, Kevin’s son, Breandán. He stands mutely near the foot of the coffin, his blue sport coat one size too small, his clip-on tie slightly askew, his blond hair combed but still ruffled. Breandán seems not to notice that his clothes don’t quite fit, that the pin of his tie irritates the base of his neck. Gabby had intended to hire a sitter, leave him at home, and only changed her mind on her mother’s advice—“He won’t understand, he may not remember years from now, but he deserves to be there. It’s his father.” She looks at Breandán from time to time, standing so quiet, so stoic, and she knows in her heart that bringing him was the right decision after all. He exudes a calm she wishes she felt. She sees in his quiet stoicism the strength she wishes she possessed. She feels pride in her son as other mourners approach him and offer their condolences, pride that he accepts their wishes and seems untroubled.
Outside night has fallen. Inside the mourning crowd thins out as the viewing hours end. Gabby walks up to her son, pats his head, tussles his hair. She kneels down and hugs him, but Breandán does not return the hug. Instead, he stands passive and looks her in the eyes, but she knows not what she sees there. His hands are folded before him, gripping something tightly. She takes his hands in hers, looks at his clenched fists and the object they hold. She says nothing, peels back his fingers.
Dr. McCoy.
“You’re late, Doctor,” said Kirk, a mischievous smile playing across his lips.
McCoy frowned slightly and took his seat at the conference room table. “Dr. M’Benga had some concerns about a tissue sample we took from Ambassador Gett’Ipher.”
“Anything I should be concerned with?” asked Kirk. Ambassador Gett’Ipher, a Tellarite diplomat aboard the Enterprise en route to an urgent diplomatic conference on Algol Prime, had taken gravely ill two days out of Starbase 31. Though Kirk could substitute for the ambassador if necessary, Gett’Ipher had been instrumental in bringing the two parties—the Gottar Hegemony and the Omjaut Republic—to the negotiating table. The ambassador’s health was an ongoing concern for the Enterprise senior staff.
McCoy shook his head. “The broad-spectrum antibiotic regimen we’ve applied has brought his fever down, and we’re seeing an increase in his white cell counts, but we’re not out of the woods yet, and I’ve got M’Benga and Chapel monitoring the situation closely.”
Kirk leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Keep me posted.” He turned and gestured to Spock. “The floor is yours.”
Spock nodded. “Thank you, Captain.” He touched the control panel before him, and the lights in the conference room dimmed. On the room’s viewscreen a single star appeared. “This is Alpha Persei, also known in ancient Earth astronomy as Algenib. A blue-white supergiant, spectral class F, approximately five thousand times more luminous than Earth’s own sun.” The image on the viewscreen changed, the single star replaced by a chart showing the plotted orbits of its twelve planets. “The Algenib system was first charted by the Earth starship Columbia, NX-02, in 2159.” Again the viewscreen changed, this time showing a single planet, gray and rocky, its face scarred by ancient asteroid impacts. “This is Algenib II, as photographed by the Columbia. A lifeless planet, not unlike Mercury in Earth’s solar system.” The image of Algenib II changed, replaced with a fuzzy image of a blue-white planet, obviously taken from long distance. “This is Algenib II as it appeared to the Enterprise’s stellar cartography telescope, six hours ago.”
“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” said Kirk. He turned to the officer seated to Spock’s left, another man in sciences blue. “Mr. Pearson.”
Thorvald Pearson, the head of stellar cartography, nodded slightly. “The Enterprise is the first starship to pass within twenty light-years of Algenib in the past decade, and stellar cartography asked for a brief viewing window on Algenib and its system to compare our observational data to that collected by the Columbia a century ago. We expected to find twelve lifeless planets. We didn’t expect to find a Class-M planet.”
“Could the Columbia simply have missed it?” asked Kirk.
Pearson shook his head. “Unlikely, Captain. First, the world we observed is precisely where Algenib II is supposed to be, according to orbital predictions based on the Columbia data. Second, Algenib is a young system—no more than a quarter billion years—too young for any of its planet
s to have oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres.” Pearson must have seen the confusion on McCoy’s face, for he explained, “Earth itself has had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere for only the last half-billion years or so, and that came about when single-celled life began producing and releasing oxygen as a waste product. Before that, Earth’s atmosphere was a muck of carbon dioxide and methane. Things happen faster in a supergiant system than they would in a system like Earth’s, but not that much faster.”
“So you’re suggesting, Mr. Pearson, that Algenib II’s atmosphere isn’t natural.”
“I’m not suggesting it, sir, I’m saying it—it can’t be natural,” Pearson said. “Something else to consider is that the image you see comes from our telescope observations. The Class-M world there on the screen is the way it was twenty years ago, not the way it is today.”
McCoy frowned. “So what does the planet look like today?”
“Unknown,” Spock said simply.
“We have a mystery on our hands, gentlemen,” said Kirk, “and we’ll need to take a look for ourselves.” He frowned. “The diplomatic conference is our priority, and though we can spare a brief detour into the Algenib system, we haven’t the time now for a thorough survey. We can, however, send a landing party to the surface for an initial survey while the Enterprise continues on our mission to Algol Prime for the diplomatic conference, and then return to Algenib once we’re sure Ambassador Gett’Ipher has the situation in hand. Opinion, Spock?”
Constellations Page 40
