Pathways

by Jeri Taylor

  “I just had my oral exam. It went very well, if I do say so.” The man grunted and moved to the place where Harry had stood in the azalea bed, and began turning the soil slightly as though to erase his footprints. “I have my doubts,” the man growled, and then walked away without another word.

  The encounter left Harry strangely uneasy, though he couldn’t put his finger on just why. The man was just a gardener, a laborer, but something in his attitude, his brusqueness, had destroyed Harry’s euphoric mood. He reported to the transporter room with deflated spirits and when he got home he was exhausted. He fell into bed and took a threehour nap, but when he woke up he was as tired as before.

  The news came on a Saturday in mid-April. Harry, along with the thousands of other applicants, knew the day the freshman class would be announced, and surprisingly he slept well the night before. The transmission came in in the late morning, and he almost opened it immediately, but then thought about his mother. She had been at his side when he expected bad news; it was only fair that she share in this moment of fruition. His father was out of the country on one of his many travels, but had made them promise to contact him as soon as they got the word.

  He found his mother in the garden, pretending to be busy deadheading flowers, but knowing she was as aware as he of what this day meant. “It’s here,” he said simply, and she rose from the flowers, a muscle twitching in her cheek. “It’ll be okay,” he promised her, and they walked into his room.

  “Dear Mr. Kim,” the transmission began, “there are many ways in which we evaluate applicants for Starfleet Academy. One factor is test scores, and yours were excellent. Nonetheless, we regret to inform you that you have not been accepted for admittance in September. We feel you will not fit comfortably with this year’s cadets. You are free to apply again next year.”

  Harry stared at the screen, reading the message over and over, as though it might change on the fourth or fifth reading. Beside him, his mother was silent, and he realized he would have to give some response to this devastating news.

  “I guess . . . I guess that’s it,” he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. He felt his eyes begin to sting and he willed the moisture away, refusing to compound this awful moment by crying in front of his mother.

  He felt her hand on his arm, and he covered it with his own. She had been his friend, his confidante, his strongest advocate since he was a baby. He derived strength from her, and he needed that strength now. He clutched at her hand, trying to feel the succor that flowed from her.

  “I’ve been accepted at a couple of other schools. It’s not like I have no place to go.”

  “Will you reapply next year?”

  “I don’t think so. If I couldn’t make it with all the effort I put into it, there’s not much point in trying again.”

  To his surprise, his mother stood up suddenly, her eyes flashing. “You will not quit,” she said with greater firmness than he’d ever heard. “I won’t allow that. You’ve worked too hard, put too much into this. You will apply next year.”

  Harry was speechless. His mother had never insisted on anything. She had never imposed on him, never demanded anything of him. But there was no mistaking the steel in her voice.

  “I don’t even know why they turned me down.”

  “Then you have to find out.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “However you can.”

  And with that she left the room, leaving Harry absolutely dumbfounded.

  It was perhaps not the most orthodox way to investigate, and Harry wasn’t entirely certain why he was doing it. But a week later he was on the grounds of Starfleet Academy once more, looking for the gardener. He wandered for several hours, but the grizzled old man wasn’t to be seen. For a few moments he had an eerie feeling that the man didn’t really exist, but was some kind of supernatural phenomenon that had appeared only as a dark omen foretelling Harry’s doom.

  If he perpetrated the same crime as before, maybe the wraith would appear. So Harry finally walked into the azalea beds and began plucking at the fading blooms. He had been doing that for only about four minutes when he heard the grumpy voice.

  “Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Deadheading,” replied Harry instantly. “Can’t let the plant go to seed—it’ll think its work is done and stop blooming.” This was a process Harry was intimate with, a litany he had heard from his mother since he was a toddler.

  The old man cocked his head sideways and regarded Harry with faint curiosity. “You’re the one who was here a few weeks ago. Took your oral.”

  “That’s right. And failed. Just like you thought.”

  The man snorted, but made no further comment. Harry walked closer to him. “What’s your name?”

  “Boothby. What’s yours?”

  “Harry Kim.”

  “Not many young folks know diddly about flowers. Much less deadheading.”

  “I know a lot of things. But that didn’t get me into the Academy.” Harry felt foolish now that he was here. Was he really concerned with this gardener’s opinion? On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt to ask.

  “Mr. Boothby, you seemed to know I wasn’t going to get in. Why was that? What was it about me that told you I wasn’t going to make it?”

  Boothby squinted at him, gnarled face screwing up like a wrinkled prune. “Cocky,” he spat. “Arrogant. Too sure of yourself.”

  “Me?” This description was so at odds with Harry’s view of himself that he found it hard to accommodate.

  “They always ask why you want to be in Starfleet. What’d you answer to that?” asked Boothby.

  Harry launched into his carefully prepared answer, but he was barely into it when Boothby waved a hand, stopping him. “You think that’s what they want to hear?” he asked contemptuously. “A lot of empty flattery about how great Starfleet is?”

  “I wanted them to know I value the organization. Respect it.”

  “How would that make you different from anyone else?”

  “I—I—”

  “They’re not interested in hearing you praise Starfleet. They’re interested in knowing who you are. In finding the man you’ll become.”

  “I told them I wanted to be part of that proud tradition—”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. ‘That proud tradition.’ Nobody talks like that. It sounds rehearsed.”

  “Well, I worked on my answer. I wanted it to be smooth.”

  “Better if it was real.”

  Harry had absolutely no answer for that. He felt crushed, defeated. All the work he’d put in hadn’t helped him, it had hindered him. He thought he’d sounded so polished, so articulate, and instead he’d come off as a phony. He knew in his heart Boothby was right. The old man had spotted it right away, recognized his carefully cultivated image for what it was: a façade.

  He was staring at an azalea plant as though it were the most absorbing thing he’d ever laid eyes on. He didn’t want to think about anything else, didn’t want to contemplate coming back to the Academy. His humiliation was too profound.

  “Johnny Picard went through the same thing,” offered Boothby casually. “They turned him down the first time. Always thought he was better off for it.”

  Harry turned and stared at him. “Jean-Luc Picard? Of the Enterprise?”

  Boothby snorted. “He was Johnny when I knew him. And once he got in he got in more trouble than any seven cadets I ever knew. But he turned out all right.”

  Harry was amazed. Jean-Luc Picard, the legendary captain of the flagship, had been denied entrance when he first applied? And wasn’t a model student? It was hard to believe, and yet Boothby’s words had the dry ring of truth.

  Boothby’s bright eyes were on him, focused like a phaser beam. “Most folks don’t come into the Academy perfect,” he intoned. “This place is about coming out in better shape than you went in.”

  Harry stared at the old man, heard the rightness in his words, and felt as
though an enormous burden had just been lifted from him.

  “Way too slow, Cadet. Ten times around the track.”

  Harry stared at Commander Nimembeh, his prep squad officer, then down at the phaser in his hands. He’d disassembled, reconfigured, and reassembled it in under twenty seconds. Wasn’t that fast enough? He looked back up at Nimembeh and tried to figure out what to say, but Nimembeh spoke again. “When I give an order, you follow it immediately. That’s fifteen times around the track.”

  “Like this?” queried Harry, perplexed. He was in his cadet’s uniform and boots, not in running gear.

  “Make that twenty.”

  Harry started moving. He was still carrying the phaser, but he was afraid to put it down or ask what he should do with it for fear the officer would keep adding to his laps. Twenty was bad enough.

  Harry began a slow trot. He was in good shape, having played volleyball since he was twelve, but running had never been his long suit, and he knew twenty laps around the track in his uniform and boots would be a killer. What’s more, it was a rare hot day in San Francisco, the late-August sun steaming the city through moisture-laden air.

  As he rounded the track for the third time, he was already in trouble. At the far end, he saw Nimembeh standing, watching him, trim body erect, sun glinting from his smooth black head. Harry already disliked him intensely, and from what he could tell, the feeling was mutual. Nimembeh picked on him, required more from him than from the others in the prep squad. And this running in boots was ridiculous!

  Harry made it eleven laps before he couldn’t go any farther. He collapsed on the grass at Nimembeh’s feet, feet burning, lungs on fire, consumed with thirst. “I can’t, sir,” he gasped. “Do whatever you have to, but I can’t go another lap.”

  “Report to sickbay, Cadet” was Nimembeh’s response. “Make sure there’s no danger of heat exhaustion.”

  “Aye, sir,” said Harry gratefully. Maybe the commander wasn’t a heartless monster after all. Harry went to sickbay and was examined by a Starfleet doctor who passed a tricorder in front of Harry and inquired casually as to how Harry had become so dehydrated.

  Harry told him briefly, and when he mentioned Nimembeh’s name, he thought he saw the corner of the doctor’s mouth turn up slightly, but probably he just imagined it.

  Harry had hoped for a roommate from a species other than his; it seemed to him that was part of the point of Starfleet. But he had been paired with a tall young man from Kentucky, George Mathers, with close-cropped light brown hair and eyes almost the same color. His mother had warned Harry that after being an only child, and having his own room for all his life, he might have trouble tolerating a roommate. Harry was apprehensive about it, too, and was determined not to be difficult, but was relieved that George was unfailingly pleasant and even-tempered. From the beginning, they got along well and never argued about anything.

  So far, his Academy experience was everything he’d hoped. He had spent the last year catching up on some of his adolescence, doing the things he had refused to do in high school when he was so obsessed with gaining admittance to the Academy. Having been refused served to free him from that obsession, and he set about to become a more well-rounded person. He became more social, dated several young women, and fell in and out of love with at least two of them over the period of several months.

  Once when he attended a Ktarian music festival he sat in the wrong seat by mistake, and when the correct occupant came along, he fell in love with her in a nanosecond. She was voluptuous and tall, almost as tall as he, with raven black hair that was long and thickly curled, and a face that was so perfect, so symmetrical, that he caught his breath. In another nanosecond he decided she would never go out with him and he put her out of his mind. It was a year of such mercurial romances.

  He read for pleasure, not for test scores. He returned to the clarinet and began playing improvisational jazz, something he’d always avoided, preferring to stick strictly to music that was written out, note for note. He found that he enjoyed the freedom of improvisation, and now played the clarinet for pleasure, with no particular goal in mind.

  And the following spring he had retaken both the written and the oral examinations for Starfleet Academy and passed them with, in Admiral Strickler’s words, “great distinction.”

  The first hint of trouble came after their two-week prep squad period, as he and George reported to the sports stadium with the rest of the freshman cadets to pick up their class assignments. There was a palpable sense of eagerness in the air as the young people anticipated their placements. They knew they had been carefully scrutinized during their prep period, and were being classified on the basis of those evaluations. There were occasional yelps of delight from a cadet pleased with the results, and the rarer shake of the head by one who wasn’t. But all accepted the judgments as being in their best interests, and vowed to work within the system.

  But Harry was stunned by what he read on the padd that was handed to him.

  He had been put on probation for his first semester because of a report from his prep squad instructor. Nimembeh! The steely-eyed commander had given him an “unsatisfactory” rating for the prep period, and now he couldn’t choose a career track until he’d eliminated his probationary status. He turned to George, adrenaline flaring.

  “Do you see what Nimembeh did to me? I’m on probation!”

  George’s eyes registered surprise and sympathy, which fed Harry’s feeling that he had been unjustly treated. But George, as usual, was upbeat. “You’ll get that wiped off in no time, Harry. You’re smart, and organized, and you’ll do well in your classes. What did you draw?”

  Harry glanced back down at the padd. “Integrated Systems Management, Nonlinear Control Theory, Subspace Communication Analysis, and Environmental Regulation,” he replied, and began to feel better. He’d been given classes in the Operations track, which was what he would have chosen had he had the opportunity. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. He’d already chosen volleyball as his extracurricular athletic activity, and he’d always done well in that sport. The only other requirement was Basic Wilderness Survival, which every cadet had to take each year.

  “I’ve got Systems Management and Control Theory, too,” said George, scrolling his padd. “And Statistical Analysis, tennis . . . and . . .”

  His voice trailed off and he looked at Harry with a curious expression. “Get this. I drew Nimembeh for Wilderness Survival.”

  Harry glanced down at his own padd and his worst misgivings were fulfilled. So had he. The man who had put him on probation would be his instructor in a course that everyone said could be either an exhilarating adventure or a nightmare experience. Harry had no doubt as to which it would be for him. But at least George would be there to share the pain.

  The group of six materialized somewhere in the Sierra Nevada mountains. In addition to Harry and George, there were two Vulcan females, Slisik and T’Passa, a human male, Kevin O’Connell, and one male Klingon, Tagar. They had spent four weeks under Commander Nimembeh’s tutelage, studying survival techniques and continuing their physical training. Harry had thrown himself into the course, determined to reverse Nimembeh’s adverse opinion of him. Now, on this survival mission, he was sure he could finally win his way back into the commander’s good graces.

  “Well, we know what to do,” Harry said, having decided to take charge from the beginning. “I’ll offer to be group leader unless anyone has a problem with that.”

  The Vulcan women’s eyebrows lifted simultaneously. “Are you the logical choice?” asked T’Passa quietly. There was no threat in her voice.

  “It’s as logical as any other. But as I say, if anyone else wants to volunteer, I’m open to that.”

  George chimed in with support. “I probably know Harry better than anyone else does, and I think he’s absolutely the right choice. You can count on him to keep his head no matter how tough things may get. He’s patient, and fair, but still decisive. He gets my vote.”
>
  That seemed to be enough for everyone else, and Harry began giving orders immediately. “First we should try to determine our position as accurately as possible, then figure out the best route out of here. Kevin, you’ll be the navigator. Give me an estimate based on the sun, then again after the stars come out.”

  Kevin O’Connell was bookish and cheerful, the perfect person to grapple with the problems of navigation. His apple cheeks broadened in response to the assignment, and he set about gathering materials to determine their position. Harry turned next to the Vulcans.

  “You’ll be responsible for finding us shelter for tonight. With any luck we’ll be starting out by tomorrow, but it’ll be cold in these mountains at night and we’ll need to sleep warmly if we’re to maintain our energy.”

  The Vulcans nodded briskly and moved off to reconnoiter the area. Harry turned to George. “Do a preliminary scout and find out if we’re up against any unexpected kinds of hazards.” George nodded and moved off through the woods.

  That left Tagar, who was standing at a remove from the rest of the group. His gaze was fierce and penetrating, as though to show everyone what a formidable warrior he was. Harry moved toward him, wondering why it was so important to the Klingon to assert himself in this way. But he realized that defensiveness might be a natural response to what was still an unusual situation. There hadn’t been more than a handful of Klingons at the Academy in the last ten years, even though relations between the Empire and the Federation had thawed. Tagar probably felt very much alone, and Harry decided to treat him in as welcoming a way as he could.

  “All right, Tagar, you’ve got the most important job of all. Finding us food and water.”

  “That will not be a problem.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Unless anyone here has qualms about what they eat.”

  “I don’t think we can afford to have any.”

  “Very well.” Tagar moved off and Harry mentally reviewed their situation and planned his next moves. He had only one goal: to get this group out of the wilderness and back to the staging ground in record time. He intended to prove to Nimembeh that he was not just a good cadet, but one of the best ever to attend the Academy. That would take some doing, because Nimembeh had continued to hold Harry in some kind of disdain, demanding more of him than of others and disciplining him more severely when he failed to meet expectations.