Constellations

by Marco Palmieri

  “A logical strategy, Captain.”

  Kirk pushed his chair back and stood. “Lieutenant Pearson, I’m placing you in charge of the planetary survey. You have six hours to pick your team. Any objections?”

  Pearson seemed overjoyed at the opportunity. “None, Captain. I won’t disappoint.”

  Kirk smiled. “You won’t.” He looked at the others. “Dismissed.”

  “In other news today, President Bush rejected a call by Senate Democrats to dismiss Secretary of Defense Donald—” Gabby clicked the television off and tossed the remote on the sofa.

  “You could have left it on,” said Nicole.

  Gabby frowned. “Old news—I’ve heard it already.” News depressed her, news about the ongoing Iraqi conflict even more so. Five months had passed since the President had declared that “combat operations in Iraq have ended,” yet a month later Kevin’s helicopter was shot down over the desert. How could “combat operations” have ended if combat was ongoing? She tried not to dwell on the disconnect between the two.

  “I’ll fix dinner,” said Nicole abruptly as she stood.

  Gabby blinked, her thinking labored, and she slowly turned her head to look at Nicole. “You don’t have to do that.”

  Nicole smiled and shrugged. “It’s what sisters do.”

  Gabby said nothing.

  With a shake of her head Nicole gestured at the window overlooking the backyard. “What’s Squirt doing?” “Squirt” was the nickname Nicole had used for her nephew since he was a week old.

  Gabby looked out the window. Mid-October, and the leaves were already falling. The oaks, maybe twenty yards distant, were bare, and at the edge of the woods the yard was littered with walnuts. Breandán’s hole lay halfway to the woods, created by rain runoff where the fill dirt from the home’s construction created a sharp incline down to the natural ground. Today Breandán lay prone on his stomach by his hole, each hand holding some toy. From the distance Gabby couldn’t tell which toys he had with him today, but certainly some were his construction trucks, others his Star Trek figures.

  “He needs a jacket,” Gabby said.

  Nicole came up beside her and looked out into the yard at Breandán. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and denim pants, but in the late evening the temperature on an October night was bound to drop severely. “Kids don’t think they need them. Until they really do.”

  Gabby turned and shot Nicole a glare.

  Nicole shrugged. “Call it the wisdom of experience. Three kids’ll do that to you.”

  The two sisters watched Breandán play in the muddy hole, waving his arms back and forth as he moved his toys across the grass and into the runoff gully and back.

  “Where are the kids?” asked Gabby.

  “John wanted to take them to see his parents, which I was fine with since I wanted to come see you this weekend.”

  Gabby came around the sofa and sat down. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  Nicole took a seat. “You haven’t sounded well on the phone. Mom’s been worried.”

  Gabby rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’ve been worried about Breandán.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  “The sleeping? Or Breandán?”

  Nicole leaned forward and shrugged. “Both. Either.”

  Gabby leaned back on the couch, took a deep breath, and frowned. “Explaining the sleep is easy—dreams. I wouldn’t say I have bad dreams, but I have…unpleasant dreams from time to time.” When Nicole said nothing, Gabby went on. “As for Breandán, I worry about him because I have to. I don’t understand why he spends all of his time in the backyard playing with his toys. I don’t understand why he’s getting in trouble at school for bringing his toys. I just don’t understand, and that’s what worries me.” She paused. “I tell myself that, were Kevin here, we wouldn’t have these problems—I wouldn’t have the troubled sleep, and Breandán wouldn’t spend all of his time in the backyard. But then I chide myself for thinking that way, because I don’t know how to deal with this.”

  Nicole laid a hand on Gabby’s shoulder.

  “It’s not like my life with Kevin was without its problems,” Gabby said. “Our life wasn’t perfect. I never understood his fixation on Star Trek and all that geek stuff he liked to do. I never understood why he had to spend his weekends playing soldier in the Army Reserves. We separated for a year after my second miscarriage, and at times I think we got back together due entirely to his persistence in making the relationship work. So why does it bother me to look at Breandán and see Kevin?”

  “Because Kevin loved you,” said Nicole.

  “I know,” said Gabby quietly. “And now Breandán, the one person in this world that reminds me the most of Kevin, shuts me out. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Nicole rose, walked past Gabby on the couch, and looked at Breandán in the yard. “Do you think,” she asked, turning back to Gabby, “that perhaps he’s shutting you out so he can cope with Kevin’s death?”

  Gabby bit at her nails. “Maybe.”

  Nicole sighed. “I don’t know, it’s just a thought.” She tapped the windowpane. “It’s getting late, the sun’s going down. Maybe we should call him in.”

  Gabby nodded and rose from the couch slowly. “I’ll get him,” she said, and she walked out to the porch.

  Nicole stood at the window and looked out. Evening came early in October.

  Hours earlier Algenib’s primary fell beyond the canyon’s western rim, bathing the Enterprise landing party in shadow. Without the harsh glare of the supergiant overhead, McCoy found it difficult to keep track of time—with the sun no longer visible he could judge the hour only by the sky’s deepening color, which passed from a bright white to a deep aquamarine.

  Halfway down the canyon’s slope Kirk had spotted a long furrow in the distance. It appeared freshly dug, its sides bearing the marks of recent burns, straight and narrow, pointing generally from the direction they had come on the plateau above, and toward the canyon’s opposite wall. At the furrow’s far end he had seen what he took to be the shuttle’s fuselage, lying on its side. The light within the canyon had grown dim in the false twilight, and the haze of the canyon floor left Kirk unsure, but a quick tricorder scan by Spock confirmed Kirk’s naked-eye observation: At the furrow’s end did lie the wreckage of the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft.

  As their vantage point improved on their descent along the path down the canyon’s wall, Spock observed that the machines appeared to be designed for digging into the earth, some equipped with enormous drills, others with giant hooks, cranes, and scoops. The immense scale of the machines became apparent as they approached, and as they navigated a path around one machine McCoy could not help but wonder at the beings that had built them and then abandoned them here.

  The hour-long march to the crash site passed in stony silence, and McCoy had concerns for Kirk’s state of mind—except to set their direction he had said almost nothing the entire way. McCoy suspected that Kirk suspected that his crewmen were dead, but he kept those suspicions to himself. Kirk seemed strangely driven, his emotions corked, and McCoy knew his friend well enough not to inadvertently unleash the raw force inside him.

  Kirk insisted on a survey of the initial impact site, hoping for some clue as to what had brought the shuttle down. But just as an examination of the shuttle’s nacelle hours earlier yielded no sign of the crash’s cause, so too did the scattered wreckage here—a few hull plates, a power conduit—offer no insight. Clearly frustrated, Kirk turned and stalked off down the furrow toward the shuttle, saying nothing to Spock and McCoy. McCoy looked at Spock, shrugged wordlessly, and the two of them fell into step behind their captain.

  Several hundred meters later, they came across more wreckage—cracked hull plates, a hand phaser. The closer the Enterprise officers came to the shuttle’s final resting place, the more wreckage they found strewn along the furrow’s path. Less than half a kilometer from the shuttle t
hey found the ship’s other nacelle, pointing nearly straight into the air as a lamppost might. At long last, nearly twelve hours after they had first beamed down to Algenib II, they reached the shuttle’s fuselage.

  The shuttle lay on its side, its nose buried in an embankment. The mounts for the nacelles were gone, the hatch was torn away, and a great gash ran from the nose to nearly aft. After a reconnoiter of the crash site, cataloguing the location of every fallen hull plate, every loose wire, every personal effect, Kirk and Spock scaled the hull and, armed with flashlights, dropped into the shuttle.

  The chairs had come loose of their moorings and were massed in a broken pile at the front of the cabin, resting against the viewports. Storage compartments were thrown open, their doors hanging freely from their hinges, their contents scattered across the cabin. Kirk carefully began to lift away the debris and handed off bits of chairs and headrests to Spock, growing more and more frustrated with every piece of the shuttle’s shattered interior that he moved.

  Of his missing crew, there was no sign.

  Gabby dreams.

  Psychologists believe that dreams are the mechanism through which the mind organizes the day’s memories into long-term storage, but while this explanation holds some truth, it leaves out crucial details. How else to explain Gabby’s dreams? Some nights she wakes screaming, suffering dreams of a living Kevin, shattered by his Iraqi service, sometimes blinded, sometimes an amputee, sometimes emotionally and mentally scarred. In rare moments she imagines what it must have been like for Kevin to hold a rifle, aim at another human being, pull the trigger, and watch in horror as a body, a life, exploded into a reddish cloud of gore. Far too often her dreams are nightmares revealing unspoken fears long submerged in the subconscious. Were the psychologists correct, Gabby should dream of an angry phone confrontation with the school’s counselor and a painful conversation with her own sister.

  But not tonight. For once, her dreams are pleasant. No terrors, no visions of a broken husband. She dreams instead of happier times: Kevin’s last day at home before his departure for Fort Bragg and, ultimately, his deployment to Iraq. She remembers holding her husband. She remembers being proud of her son that day.

  Dreams are never narratives, following instead a surreal illogic. Her dreamtime memories begin with the day’s end, lying with her husband, cuddled together, on the family room couch. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan plays in the DVD player—Kevin’s favorite film, but one to which Gabby is indifferent. For once, though, she indulges him in his odd obsession. This is her husband’s last night home before his departure for training and eventual deployment.

  The film nears its end, the climactic scene in the Enterprise engine room. The pointed-eared guy is dying of radiation burns, while his friend looks on helplessly. “Don’t grieve…Admiral,” the alien says, a line that Kevin echoes from memory. “It is logical. The needs of the many…out-weigh…”

  “…the needs of the few.”

  “Or the one.”

  Spock collapses, breathes his last. A tear streams down Kevin’s cheek.

  “You’re weird,” says Gabby as she wipes the tear away.

  “What’s weird?”

  “You cry when that guy…”

  “Spock.”

  “Yeah. When Spock dies.”

  “You cried when Boromir died.”

  “That’s different.”

  Kevin laughs. “How is it different?”

  “Because Boromir was being all noble.”

  “And Spock wasn’t? He sacrificed himself for his ship and his friends. How is that any different than Boromir sacrificing himself to save the hobbits?”

  “Boromir is a tall drink of water. That’s what makes it different.” Kevin pulls the pillow from behind his head and playfully whaps Gabby across the face with it. She catches the pillow as he comes around for a second swing, pulls it from his hands, and throws it aside. They kiss. In time they roll onto the floor, their clothes discarded, and make love for the second time that day.

  In Gabby’s dream her memories move backward, to the first time they made love that final day.

  “What do you believe in?” Gabby asks afterward, her head resting on Kevin’s chest, her fingers running through his chest hair as he holds her naked body close to his and runs circles with his fingers across her back.

  “Hmm?” Kevin replies, his eyes closed.

  “What do you believe in? I want to know.”

  Kevin opens his eyes and gazes upon his wife. He gives her a wry smile and crinkles his brow. “You. I believe in you.”

  Gabby rolls in the compass of his arms and props herself up on her elbows. “No, really.”

  “I can’t believe in you?”

  “You shouldn’t believe in me.”

  “I have to believe in you. And Breandán. No one in this world matters to me more.”

  Night on Algenib II was cold, far colder than McCoy would have thought possible given the oppressive heat of the day. He huddled by the campfire, a heavy blanket draped across his shoulders and tugged across his head. He looked across the fire at Kirk, who sat impassive, staring into the flames.

  “Why, Jim?” McCoy asked, ending the long minutes of silence. “We could have beamed back to the Enterprise, waited out the night, come back tomorrow with a whole team.”

  For many moments Kirk said nothing, as if transfixed by the dancing flames. Finally he spoke, and his voice was low, his words not more than a whisper above the cracking and popping of the burning logs. “They were my men, Bones. My responsibility.” McCoy saw Kirk slump beneath his woolen blanket and pull it tighter to stave off the cold. “When, halfway down the canyon’s wall, I saw the shuttle, I knew—I’d sent them to their deaths. I owe it to them to know what happened and why they died.” Kirk took a deep breath and sighed. “Were the machines responsible, protecting some secret? Was it my own arrogance, thinking that a single shuttle, on detached duty while the Enterprise went elsewhere, could survive on its own for a week?” He paused. “I don’t know. I need to know.”

  McCoy saw that Kirk’s eyes were squeezed tight, whether shutting out the cold air or the accusing flames he couldn’t say. “It’s not your fault, Jim.”

  “If not mine, then whose?” Kirk looked across the fire at McCoy. “There’s more to being a leader than giving orders and expecting them to be followed. Being a leader means caring as much about those whose lives I’m responsible for as I do for my own. I can’t shake the feeling, Bones, that I didn’t care enough, and that lack of caring sent my men to their deaths.”

  “That’s bull, Jim. Those men would have gone anywhere you asked them to, because you’re their captain. That’s enough.”

  “No, it’s not enough. The relationship between a captain and his crew is built on faith and trust. Together we journey into the unknown every day, confront dangers we can’t begin to imagine. I trust in my crew to do everything I ask of them. In turn they have faith in me, in my abilities as a leader, to see them safely home. The loss of even a single man threatens that relationship and tests the faith.” Kirk paused, as much, perhaps, to collect his thoughts as it was to catch his breath in the chill night air. “If my crew loses faith in me, how can I have faith in myself?”

  McCoy stood, pulled the blanket tight around him, came around the campfire, and placed his hand on Kirk’s shoulder. Kirk’s gaze never wavered from the dancing flames. “Jim, it’s late. We’ve had a long day. As your doctor, I recommend sleep.”

  Kirk looked up, over the campfire, toward the canyon’s eastern rim. “The sun will be up soon. We’ll start fresh in the morning.” His voice grew low, quiet. “There’s still a chance. I need to know.”

  McCoy nodded wordlessly, turned toward the tent Spock had erected hours earlier, and left Kirk huddled by the fire. Perhaps there was nothing more to say. Morning would come. Kirk’s quest for his fallen crew would continue.

  If Breandán heard Gabby’s footsteps he gave no sign, content as he was to play silently with
his action figures and construction vehicles.

  “Breandán, honey,” said Gabby, “it’s time for dinner.”

  Breandán ignored her.

  She sat down on the shaggy grass beside him. “I talked to the school today. They told me about what happened during playtime.”

  Again, Breandán gave no response. Instead, he dropped one action figure and picked up another.

  Gabby picked up the figure Breandán had discarded. “Who’s this?” she asked.

  Breandán looked up at his mother. “That’s Mr. Spock.”

  Gabby nodded, but she was doubtful that in Star Trek Mr. Spock wore camouflage fatigues.

  “What’s he doing?”

  “Sleeping.” Breandán turned his attention back to the action figures in each hand.

  She put “Mr. Spock” back where she had taken him from. She tapped one of the figures Breandán held. “Who’s that?”

  “That’s Bonesey.”

  “So the other one, he’s Captain Kirk?”

  Breandán said nothing.

  “What are they doing?”

  Again, Breandán said nothing.

  “Honey, what are they doing?”

  “They’re looking for Daddy,” said Breandán quietly.

  Gabby said nothing for a few moments as she rolled Breandán’s statement around in her mind. At last she said, “What do you mean, they’re looking for Daddy?”

  Breandán bounced the figures across the rim of the runoff gully. “Daddy told me that Captain Kirk was sending him away. His shuttle crashed. Captain Kirk is looking for him.”

  The last argument Kevin and Gabby had had before his Reserve activation centered on how best to explain to Breandán where his father was going and what he would be doing. Gabby preferred to deal with the issue by not dealing with the issue, but that would have been unfair to Breandán. So, Kevin sat down with Breandán the morning of the day before he left and explained patiently to him that Captain Kirk was sending him on a mission.

  What will you be doing, Daddy?