“Lieutenant, I need ye in the engine room. Our captain has no stomach for speed, so we must keep close watch that the new drive plates stay polished—” He stopped. He looked at the salad. “Have ye begun eating greens?”
Tzesnashstennaj’s ears swiveled in irritation.
“I do not take well to insults from ... outsiders,” Hazarstennaj said. “Even from superior officer outsiders.”
Spock knew that the word “outsiders” in Hazarstennaj’s language translated more accurately as “nonpeople” in Standard. In the spirit of interspecies cooperation, her species softened the meaning.
Then Scott saw the demolished remains of Spock’s steak. His expression changed from surprise to shock.
“Are you all right, Mr. Scott?” Cheung asked.
“Aye, fine, but—” He shook his head. “Mr. Spock, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing at all, Commander Scott.”
“Aye, but—” He stopped again; he shook his head again. He started to say something more, then spied Sulu, who had been hoping to escape his notice. “Sulu! Ye are Sulu, are ye not?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll have no more performances like this morning’s!” Scott snapped. “Why, ’tis a disgrace, the caliber of graduates they let loose from the Academy!”
Sulu’s cheeks burned with humiliation and anger. He said [100] nothing, for Scott would discount explanations as feeble excuses. Worse, he would be right.
“Mr. Scott,” Spock said. “ ’Twas not so easy in my day.”
“The captain considers the incident forgotten. I think it only courteous that you and I do the same.”
Scott grumbled something about the caliber of Starfleet’s new officers, but he said it nearly under his breath, so Spock chose to ignore it.
“Lieutenant,” Scott said again to Hazard, “I need ye in the engine room.” He gave Sulu a significant glance. “We may get more stress on the engines than we planned.”
“Thank you for the excellent lunch, Mr. Spock,” Hazarstennaj said.
Under Scott’s disbelieving eye, Hazarstennaj finished the final leaf of salad. Accompanied by Tzesnashstennaj, she rose and took her tray to the disposal chute. Scott left the mess hall. Hazarstennaj and Tzesnashstennaj loped after him, shoulder to shoulder.
Unsuccessfully fighting an attack of giggles, Commander Cheung gathered up her plate and tray.
“I’ve got to run—I’ll be late for a meeting.”
Cheung hurried from the mess hall. Spock collected his plate and tray. He stood up, but Sulu remained.
“Commander Spock—” Sulu said.
“Yes, Mr. Sulu?”
“Why did you do that?”
“Because my body needs fuel to function, Mr. Sulu. Sometimes one cannot take excessive note of the form.”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“Please explain what you did mean.”
“Why did you stick up for me to Mr. Scott? Why did you give me a second chance on the bridge?”
“As I told Captain Kirk: other matters occupied my attention.”
“You could have piloted the Enterprise out of Spacedock with both eyes closed and one hand behind your back. I’ve heard enough about you to know that.”
“The Enterprise is unique. It is common for new pilots—even for pilots accustomed to this class of vessel, not simply to its simulator version—”
[101] Sulu blushed again. Spock had looked at his records and divined the meaning of their anomalies.
“—to require some time to accustom themselves to its handling. I should have discussed the matter with you, but as my attention has been occupied elsewhere, the opportunity did not present itself.”
“Thank you,” Sulu said.
Spock gazed at him with complete composure. “I find it odd in the extreme to be thanked for neglecting a part of my duty.”
“Nevertheless, I’m in your debt,” Sulu said.
“Vulcans do not collect debts,” Spock said.
Spock picked up his tray and departed, leaving Sulu puzzled over someone who refused gratitude, who refused even thanks, for rescuing the career of a virtual stranger.
Vulcans must be even harder to deal with than rumors hinted.
At the captain’s table, Leonard McCoy got tired of making up excuses for Jim’s absence. After all, it was Jim’s idea to invite the company to sit with him tonight.
“Pardon me just a moment,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
A minute later, the lift let him out in officers’ territory. He headed toward Jim’s cabin. He felt in better physical condition than he had enjoyed for years. Even the ache of his deeply bruised thigh muscle reminded him of a moment of sheer, terrified exhilaration.
He knocked on the door of Jim’s cabin.
“Come.” The voice hardly sounded like Jim’s: tired, aggravated, impatient. In the past, Jim’s mood always skyrocketed when he returned to space.
“Your guests are waiting,” McCoy said.
Jim looked up bleary-eyed from the comm screen. Transmission flimsies and a yeoman’s tablet and several crumpled coffee-stained plastic cups littered his desk.
“My guests?”
“Your guests. The company. Dinner.”
“Oh, lord!” He jumped up. “I lost track. I don’t believe it—I’m already behind in my paperwork.”
“What is all this?”
“It’s, you know—” He waved his hands. “Paperwork.”
“Why are you doing it?”
[102] “It has to be done,” he said, then, defensively, “I always do it. But I never had quite so much of it before.”
“Where’s your yeoman?”
“I don’t have one.”
“You don’t have one?” McCoy said with disbelief.
“I’ve never had a yeoman.”
“You were never captain of the Enterprise before.”
“I don’t want a yeoman. I don’t need somebody fussing over me and sticking things under my nose to sign and being sure the synthesizer put the right stripes on my shirt.”
McCoy drew up a chair and straddled it. “Jim, permit your old Uncle Bones to give you some friendly advice. You’re commanding twice as many people as you ever have before. Starfleet paperwork increases in geometric—maybe even logarithmic—proportion to the size of the crew.”
“It’ll be all right as soon as I get caught up.”
“You’ll never get caught up. What’s more, you know you’ll never get caught up. This isn’t your job anymore.”
“I suppose you have a magical solution.”
“You could send out a press gang—” At the change in Jim’s expression, McCoy stopped. If he wanted Jim to follow his advice he had better stop teasing him. Otherwise Jim would never do it, no matter how sensible his suggestion. “Jim, go down to quartermaster’s office, pick out a likely clerk, and promote them.”
“It’ll take me more time to train somebody to do this than it would to do it myself.”
“Not in the long run. Not if you pick somebody with more than half a brain.”
“Ever since I came on board this ship, people have been telling me to surrender gracefully.”
“What?” McCoy said.
Jim sighed. “I said—I’ll try it. On a temporary basis.”
“Good. Now come on. If you think a feeble excuse like work will save you from what the synthesizer has laughingly billed ‘dinner,’ you’ve got another think coming.”
Jim accompanied McCoy to the mess hall.
“Lindy, I’m terribly sorry,” he said. “Ship’s business—I hope you and your company will forgive my inexcusable tardiness—”
An older man, spare and dark-haired, wearing an [103] immaculate and severely tailored suit, broke in before Lindy could reply. “If your tardiness is inexcusable, then how do you expect us to forgive it?” His black mustache curled up into double points at each end.
“Of course I forgive you, Jim, don’t be silly.” Lindy glared at th
e older man. “Mr. Cockspur was just joking.”
“You youngsters are far too cavalier with the language,” Mr. Cockspur said. “We should all endeavor to speak precisely.”
“Let me introduce you, Jim,” Lindy said. “A few people had to leave. You’ve already met Mr. Cockspur, our neo-Shakespearean actor.”
The coldness between Lindy and Mr. Cockspur went beyond ill-mannered jokes. Jim hoped the performers could keep peace with each other during the tour.
Lindy introduced Philomela Thetis, a tall, elegant, heavy-set woman, the company’s singer; the tap-dancing team of Greg and Maris, who had come to dinner in his-and-her suits of black and white houndstooth check; Marcellin, the mime, a lithe, slender, dark man who moved with self-possessed certainty.
It seemed to Jim like a pitifully small and quiet group to set out to conquer thirty starbases. Everyone greeted him in a friendly fashion. Jim went to get some dinner, but found the synthesizer closed and blinking, “Down for repair.”
“Count your blessings,” McCoy said. “You wouldn’t have liked it, whatever you got. If you could tell what you got.”
Jim sat down to keep the others company—Lindy in particular. “By the way, Lindy,” he said, “we got a greeting from—” He stopped, becoming aware of Mr. Cockspur’s expression of indignation.
“I was telling of my sojourn in Lisbon,” Mr. Cockspur said.
“Do go on,” Jim said, trying to be polite.
“As I said, the performance was a triumph ...”
And he did go on. Jim did not get a chance to talk to Lindy that evening at all.
Chapter 5
HIS SHIP SHUDDERED around him and blood covered his hands—
Jim sat up with a start. Darkness dissolved as his cabin illuminated itself. His cabin on the Enterprise.
Someone was knocking on his door.
“What—? Just a minute.”
Bleary-eyed, Jim Kirk struggled out of his bunk and grabbed his robe. He found it and fumbled his way into it, somehow getting the heavy silk twisted till he had one arm in an inside-out sleeve.
“Come.”
The door slid open. A young crew member stood on his doorstep. Her eyes widened.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello.” She looked everywhere but at him.
“What’s the matter?”
“Uh, nothing, sir. I ... I’m sorry, sir, quartermaster said be here this morning, but I must have misunderstood—”
Jim rubbed his eyes and yawned. Then he saw the chronometer.
“Good lord, do you know what time it is?”
“Yes, sir. It’s morning, sir.”
“This isn’t morning, this is the crack of dawn!”
“I’ll come back later, sir—”
“No, no, it’s all right, come in. I just need a cup of coffee.” This morning the synthesizer seemed to be working. “Stuff would shock anybody awake.”
“I’m here to help with your files?” Her voice rose in an uncertain question.
[105] “Right over there.” He gestured toward the comm unit. His coffee arrived. He sipped it and made a disgusted noise. “This is bad even when the synthesizer works. Whoever designed the template got their idea of how it ought to taste from a third-generation reproduction of whatever they found in a wardroom coffeepot.”
She moved around the periphery of the room, staying as far from him as possible and casting her gaze down.
First day on the job, Jim thought. It gets to everybody.
“Oh!” she said at her first view of the comm unit. “That’s not right!”
He had spent half of yesterday trying to get the damned thing to make sense. His reward was a comm screen with sixteen overlapping message blocks connected by lines and arrows whose significance he had already forgotten; and now he got criticism from a wet-behind-the-ears crew member.
“All right, you make sense of it.”
She stared at him, her eyes wide. “I—” she whispered. “I—”
It’s too early for this, he thought, and fled into the bathroom.
The sonic shower and the coffee, which, though it tasted terrible, also was too strong, began to wake him up.
Did I snap at her? he wondered. He tried to convince himself he had not, but failed. Embarrassed, he dressed and returned to his cabin.
She sat at the comm unit with her back to him, her shoulders hunched as if she were trying to make herself even smaller than she already was. He tried to remember what she looked like, but recalled only huge blue eyes and close-shorn blond hair.
He cleared his throat.
She leaped to her feet and faced him, staring.
“As you were,” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” He gestured at the comm. “Looks better already. Yeoman, did I snap at you a minute ago?”
“Oh, no, sir,” she whispered.
“I think I did.” He smiled. “I apologize. I’m not at my best before I’m awake. Let’s start over. Good morning. I’m Jim Kirk.”
[106] “Rand, sir,” she whispered.
“Can you get me out of the hole I’ve dug, or will you have to start all over?”
She fumbled the commands. He wondered what was wrong, for she appeared to be doing what needed to be done. She stopped, put her hands in her lap, and clenched her fingers.
“Is it that bad, yeoman?” Every time he spoke to her, she flinched. He wished she would stop.
“I’m sorry, sir, it will take a little time to ...” She stopped and began again. “I’m sorry, sir, I—I’m not too experienced ...” Her voice trailed off.
He realized she was trying to figure out how not to tell her superior officer that he had made a horrible mess. He wanted to tell her it was all right, but considering his reaction to almost the first thing she had said, she would hardly have any reason to believe he took criticism well. As, in fact, he often did not. Probably the best solution was to go away, let her calm down, and come back later.
“I’m sure you’ll do fine, yeoman,” he said. “Lieutenant Uhura on the bridge will know how to reach me, if you have any questions.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, relieved. “Thank you, sir.”
When ship’s computer called him into sick bay and mangled his given name, it gave Hikaru Sulu some comfort. He still felt embarrassed over having botched the Enterprise’s departure from Spacedock, and he felt glad to know he was not the only entity on board who could make a mistake.
“Mr. Sulu, how do you do. I’m Dr. McCoy.” They shook hands and McCoy glanced at Sulu’s files. “Hikaru,” Dr. McCoy said, mangling the name the same way the computer had. “Hmm. Don’t believe I’ve encountered anyone named Hikaru before.”
“Neither have I,” Sulu said. “But, doctor—it’s pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, not the first. The r is very soft.” He pronounced his name for McCoy.
Dr. McCoy repeated it, getting it better. Hardly anyone ever got it exactly right.
“What does it mean?” Dr. McCoy asked.
“Why do people always think a name from an unfamiliar [107] language has to mean something?” Sulu said. He felt himself blushing. He knew perfectly well what it meant. It meant “the shining one,” and he had encountered as much teasing about it as he ever needed. Hoping to sidestep Dr. McCoy’s query, he said pleasantly, “After all—do you know what your given name means?”
“It means ‘heart of a lion,’ or something on that order,” the doctor said. “But I see your point.” He smiled. “Back to business. You’re extremely fit, lieutenant, even for someone your age.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t let this sedentary starship life seduce you away from that.”
“I’ll try not to. I don’t think I will—I get too twitchy unless I get some exercise.”
Dr. McCoy glanced at the sensors that blinked and bleated above Sulu’s couch. “You have a phenomenally low pulse—did you spend time in a high-gravity environment?”
“Yes, sir, nearly a y
ear.”
Dr. McCoy nodded. “I thought that might be the explanation. The sensors show scars on your back and legs, too. Mind if I take a look?”
“You can hardly see them anymore.” Sulu peeled off the upper half of the exam coverall. He was impressed that McCoy had made the connection. Few earth-normal populations of human beings lived on high-grav planets. No other earth-based doctor, even the ones at the Academy, had asked about the scars or his low pulse.
Dr. McCoy touched the old, faint scars beneath Sulu’s shoulder blades.
“My mother had a consulting job on Hafjian,” Sulu said. “We had an antigrav generator just big enough for our living quarters, but when we went out we used Leiber exoskeletons.” Just the name brought back memories of how it felt to wear the harness for hours and sometimes days on end. The alloy frame helped support and propel the unadapted human body in high gravity. The exoskeleton served its purpose, but at the points of highest stress it always caused abrasion. And of course it did not prevent gravity from affecting the circulatory system.
“How old were you? Thirteen? Fourteen?”
[108] “Exactly that,” Sulu said. “We left just before my fourteenth birthday. How did you know?”
“You wore the exoskeleton during your major growth spurt,” the doctor said offhandedly. “There’s a characteristic shape to the scars.” He unfastened the cuffs of the coverall and looked at the scars on Sulu’s legs, just above and behind his knees. “They did heal well,” he said. “Do they ever bother you?”
“No, sir. I hardly ever think about them.”
“Should have been treated with fibroblasts in the first place,” Dr. McCoy said. “New skin instead of scars.”
“The technology wasn’t available. Not on Hafjian. Not for something this trivial.”
“Hmmph. We have the technology and to spare, here. Do you want to get rid of them?”
“No, sir, I don’t think it’s necessary,” Sulu said, surprised at the reluctance he felt toward effacing the old scars. They were, he supposed, a part of his history.
“Very well. Just one other thing.” Dr. McCoy glanced at the sensors again. “You appear to have sustained no damage at all from the gravity stress. But once in a while the effects are latent. In a few years they could catch up with you. It isn’t anything to worry about, and it isn’t even very likely. But it is something to be aware of.”
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