She watched his reaction; he was less than happy with her answer.
“Captain, the project won’t be ready for the next stage of the test for at least three months. There’s no pressure on you to find a place for it instantaneously—” She stopped; the unflappable Clark Terrell looked like he was about to start tearing out his very curly, handsomely graying black hair. “Wrong thing to say, huh?”
“Doctor, we’ve spent a long time looking for a place that would fit your requirements. I’d match my crew against any in Starfleet. They’re good people. But if I put them through three more months of this, I’ll have a mutiny on my hands. They can take boredom—but what they’ve got is paralysis!”
“I see,” Marcus said.
“Look, suppose what our readings show is the end of an evolutionary line rather than the beginning? What if some microbes here are about to go extinct? Just barely hanging on. Would you approve transplantation then?”
“I can’t do that,” she said. She chewed absently on her thumbnail but stopped abruptly. You’re a little old to still be chewing your nails, Carol, she thought. You ought at least to have cut it out when you turned forty.
Maybe when I hit fifty, she replied to herself.
“Don’t you leave any room for compromise?” Terrell asked angrily.
“Wait, Captain,” she said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. It isn’t that I wouldn’t give you a go-ahead. It’s that finding a species endangered by its own environment is a fairly common occurrence. There are established channels for deciding whether to transplant, and established places to take the species to.”
“A microbial zoo, eh?”
“Not just microbes, but that’s the idea.”
“What kind of time-frame are we talking about?” Terrell asked cautiously.
“Do you mean how long will you have to wait before the endangered species subcommittee gives an approval?”
“That’s what I said.”
“They’re used to acting quickly—if they don’t it’s often too late. They need documentation, though. Why don’t you go down and have a look?”
“We’re on our way!”
“I don’t want to give you false hopes,” Marcus said quickly. “If you find so much as a pre-biotic spherule, a pseudo-membranous configuration, even a viroid aggregate, the show’s off. On the other hand if you have discovered an evolutionary line in need of preservation, not only will you have found a Genesis site, you’ll probably get a commendation.”
“I’ll settle for the Genesis site,” Terrell said.
His image faded.
Carol Marcus sighed. She wished she were on board Reliant to keep an eye on what they were doing. But her work on Genesis was at too delicate a point; she had to stay with it. Clark Terrell had given her no reason to distrust him. But he was obviously less than thrilled about having been assigned to do fetch-and-carry work for her laboratory. He was philosophically indifferent to her requirements for the Genesis site, while she was ethically committed to them. She could imagine how Reliant’s crew referred to her and the other scientists in the lab: a bunch of ivory-tower eggheads, test-tube jugglers, fantasy-world dreamers.
She sighed again.
“Mother, why do you let them pull that stuff on you?”
“Hello, David,” she said. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
Her son joined her by the communications console.
“They’re lazy,” he said.
“They’re bored. And if they’ve found something that really does need to be transplanted…”
“Come on, Mother, it’s the military mentality. ‘Never put off tomorrow what you can put off today.’ If life is beginning to evolve there—”
“I know, I know,” Carol said. “I’m the one who wrote the specs—remember?”
“Hey, Mother, take it easy. It’s going to work.”
“That’s the trouble, I think. It is going to work, and I’m a little frightened of what will happen when it does.”
“What will happen is, you’ll be remembered along with Newton, Einstein, Surak—”
“More likely Darwin, and I’ll probably get as much posthumous flak, too.”
“Listen, they might not even wait till you’re dead to start with the flak.”
“Thanks a lot!” Carol said with mock outrage. “I don’t know what I can hope for from other people, I can’t even get any respect from my own off-spring.”
“That’s me, an ingrate all the way.” He gave her a quick hug. “Want to team up for bridge after dinner?”
“Maybe….” She was still preoccupied by her conversation with Terrell.
“Yeah,” David said. “Every time we have to deal with Starfleet, I get nervous too.”
“There’s so much risk….” Carol said softly.
“Every discovery worth making has had the potential to be perverted into a dreadful weapon.”
“My goodness, that sounds familiar,” Carol said.
David grinned. “It ought to, it’s what you’ve been telling me for twenty years.” Serious again, he said, “We just have to make damned certain that the military doesn’t take Genesis away from you. There’re some who’ll try, that’s for sure. That overgrown boy scout you used to hang out with—”
“Listen, kiddo,” Carol said, “Jim Kirk was a lot of things…but he was never a boy scout.” Her son was the last person she wanted to talk about Jim Kirk with. She gestured toward the file David was carrying. “Last night’s batch?”
“Yeah, fresh out of the machine.” He opened the file of X-ray micrographs, and they set to work.
Jim Kirk pulled the reading light closer, shifted uncomfortably on his living room couch, held the book Spock had given him closer to his eyes, held it at arm’s length. No matter what he did, his eyes refused to focus on the small print.
I’m just tired, he thought.
It was true, he was tired. But that was not the reason he could not read his book.
He closed it carefully, set it on the table beside him, and lay back on the couch. He could see the pictures on the far wall of the room quite clearly, even down to the finest lines on the erotic Kvern black-and-white that was one of his proudest possessions. He had owned the small drawing for a long time; it used to hang in his cabin back on the Enterprise.
A few of his antiques were alien artifacts, collected offworld, but in truth he preferred work from his own culture, particularly England’s Victorian era. He wondered if Spock knew that, or if the Dickens first edition was a lucky guess.
Spock, making a lucky guess? He would be horrified. Jim grinned.
Only in the last ten years or so had the beauty of antiques overcome his reluctance to gather too many possessions, to be weighed down by things. It was a long time since he had been able to pick up and leave with one small suitcase and no glance back. Sometimes he wished he could return to those days, but it was impossible. He was an admiral. He had too many other responsibilities.
The doorbell chimed.
Jim started and sat up. It was rather late for visitors.
“Come,” he said. The apartment’s sensors responded to his voice. Leonard McCoy came in, with a smile and an armful of packages.
“Why, Doctor,” Jim said, surprised. “What errant transporter beamed you to my doorstep?”
McCoy struck a pose. “‘Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis,’ ” he said.
“How’s that again?”
“Well, that’s the original. What people usually say these days is ‘Beware Romulans bearing gifts.’ Not quite the same, but it seemed appropriate, considering—” he rummaged around in one of the packages and drew out a bottle full of electric-blue liquid, “—this. Happy birthday.” He handed Jim the chunky, asymmetric bottle.
“Romulan ale—? Bones, this stuff is so illegal—”
“I only use it for medicinal purposes. Don’t be a prig.”
Jim squinted at the label. “Twenty-two…eighty-three?”
“It takes the stuff a while to ferment. Give it here.”
Jim handed it back, opened the glass-paneled doors of the cherrywood Victorian secretary where he kept his dishes, and took out a couple of beer mugs. McCoy poured them both full.
“Is it my imagination, or is it smoking?”
McCoy laughed. “Considering the brew, quite possibly both.” He clinked his glass against Jim’s. “Cheers.” He took a deep swallow.
Jim sipped cautiously. It was a long time since he had drunk Romulan ale, but not so long that he had forgotten what a kick it packed.
Its electric hue was appropriate; he felt the jolt of the first taste, as if the active ingredient skipped the digestive system completely and headed straight for the brain.
“Wow,” he said. He drank again, more deeply, savoring both the taste and the effect.
“Now open this one.” McCoy handed him a package which, rather than being stuffed into a brown paper bag, was gift-wrapped.
Jim took the package, turned it over in his hand, and shook it.
“I’m almost afraid to. What is it?” He took another swallow of the ale, a real swallow this time, and fumbled at the shiny silver tissue. Strange: he had not had any trouble opening Spock’s present this afternoon. A tremendously funny idea struck him. “Is it a tribble?” He started to laugh. “Or maybe some contraband Klingon—”
“It’s another antique for your collection,” McCoy said. “Your health!” He lifted his glass and drank again.
“Come on, Bones, what is it?” He got one end of the package free.
“Nope, you gotta open it.”
Though his hands were beginning to feel like he was wearing gloves, Jim could feel a hard, spidery shape. He gave up trying to get the wrapping off in one piece and tore it away. “I know what it is, it’s—” He squinted at the gold and glass construction, glanced at McCoy, and looked down at his present again. “Well, it’s…charming.”
“They’re four hundred years old. You don’t find many with the lenses still intact.”
“Uh, Bones…what are they?”
“Spectacles.”
Jim drank more ale. Maybe if he caught up with McCoy he would be able to figure out what he was talking about.
“For your eyes,” McCoy said. “They’re almost as good as Retinax Five—”
“But I’m allergic to Retinax,” Jim said petulantly. After the buildup the doctor gave about restoring the flexibility of his eyes with the drug, Jim had been rather put out when he turned out to be unable to tolerate it.
“Exactly!” McCoy refilled both their glasses. “Hap py birthday!”
Jim discovered that the spectacles unfolded. A curve of gold wire connected two little half-rounds of glass; hinged hooks attached to each side.
“No, look, here, like this.” McCoy slid one hook behind each of Jim’s ears. The wire curve rested on his nose, holding the bits of glass beneath his eyes. “They’re spectacles. Oh, and I was only kidding about the lenses being antique. They’re designed for your eyes.”
Jim remembered a picture in an old book he had. He lowered the spectacles on the bridge of his nose.
“That’s it,” McCoy said. “Look at me, over the top. Now look down, through the lenses. You ought to be able to read comfortably with those.”
Jim got them in the right position, did as McCoy said, and blinked with surprise. He picked up Spock’s book, opened it, and found the tiny print in perfect focus.
“That’s amazing! Bones, I don’t know what to say….”
“Say thank you.”
“Thank you,” Jim said obediently.
“Now have another drink.” McCoy drained the bottle into their mugs.
They sat and drank. The Romulan ale continued to perform up to its usual standard. Jim felt a bit as he had the first time he ever experienced zero gee—queasy and confused. He could not think of anything to say, though the silence felt heavy and awkward. Several times McCoy seemed on the verge of speaking, and several times he stopped. Jim had the feeling that whatever the doctor was working up to, he would prefer not to hear. He scowled into his glass. Now he was getting paranoid. Knowing it was the result of the drink did nothing to relieve his distress.
“Damn it, Jim,” McCoy said suddenly. “What the hell’s the matter? Everybody has birthdays. Why are we treating yours like a funeral?”
“Is that why you came over here?” Jim snapped. “I really don’t want a lecture.”
“Then what do you want? What are you doing, sitting here all alone on your birthday? And don’t give me that crap about ‘games for the young’ again, either! That’s a crock, and you know it. This has nothing to do with age. It has to do with you jockeying a computer console instead of flying your ship through the galaxy!”
“Spare me your notions of poetry, please. I’ve got a job to do—”
“Bull. You never should have given up the Enterprise after Voyager.”
Jim took another drink of Romulan ale, wishing the first fine glow had lasted longer. Now he remembered why he never developed a taste for this stuff. The high at the beginning was almost good enough to compensate for the depression at the end. Almost, but not quite.
He chuckled sadly. “Yeah, I’d’ve made a great pirate, Bones.”
“That’s bull, too. If you’d made a few waves, they wouldn’t have had any choice but to reassign you.”
“There’s hardly a flag officer in Starfleet who wouldn’t rather be flying than pushing bytes from one data bank to another.”
“We’re not talking about every flag officer in Starfleet. We’re talking about James T. Kirk—”
“—who has a certain amount of notoriety. It wouldn’t be fair to trade on that—”
“Jim, ethics are one thing, but you’re crucifying yourself on yours!”
“There are rules, and regulations—”
“Which you are hiding behind.”
“Oh yeah? And what am I hiding from?”
“From yourself—Admiral.”
Jim held back an angry reply. After a long pause, he said, “I have a feeling you’re going to give me more advice whether I want it or not.”
“Jim, I don’t know if I think this is more important because I’m your doctor, or because I’m your friend. Get your ship back. Get it back before you really do get old. Before you turn into part of your own collection.”
Jim swirled the dregs of his drink around in his glass, then looked up and met McCoy’s gaze.
The wind nearly knocked Chekov over as soon as he lost the protection of the transporter beam. Alpha Ceti VI was one of the nastiest, most inhospitable places he had ever been. Alpha Ceti VI was worse even than Siberia in the winter.
Driven by the storm, the sand screamed against his pressure suit. Captain Terrell materialized beside him, looked around, and opened a channel to Reliant.
“Terrell to Reliant.”
“Reliant. Beach here, Captain.” The transmission wavered. “Pretty poor reception, sir.”
“It will do, Stoney. We’re down. No evidence of life—or anything else.”
“I copy, sir.”
“Look, I don’t want to listen to this static all afternoon. I’ll call you, say, every half hour.”
“…Aye, sir.”
Kyle broke in. “Remember about staying in the open, Captain.”
“Don’t fuss, Mister Kyle. Terrell out.” He shut down the transmission and turned on his tricorder.
Chekov stretched out his arm; his hand almost disappeared in the heavy blowing sand. Even if whatever they were seeking were macroscopic, rather than microbial, they would never find it visually. He, too, began scanning for the signal that had brought them to the surface of this wretched world.
“You getting anything, Pavel?”
Chekov could barely make out the captain’s words, not because the transmission was faulty but because the wind and the sand were so loud they drowned out his voice.
“No, sir, nothing yet.”
“You’re sure these are the right coordinates?”
“Remember that garden spot you mentioned, Captain? Well, this is it.” Chekov took a few steps forward. Sand ground and squealed in the joints of his suit. They could not afford to stay on the surface very long, for these conditions would degrade even an almost indestructible material. Chekov knew what would happen if his suit were torn or punctured. The oxides of sulfur that formed so much of the atmosphere would contaminate his air and dissolve in the moisture in his lungs. Chekov intended to die in some far more pleasant way than by breathing sulfuric and sulfurous acids: some far more pleasant way, and some far more distant time in the future.
“I can’t see a damned thing,” Terrell said. He started off toward the slight rise the tricorder indicated. Chekov trudged after him. The wind tried to push him faster than he could comfortably walk in the treacherous sand.
Sweat ran down the sides of his face; his nose itched. No one yet had invented a pressure suit in which one could both use one’s hands and scratch one’s nose.
“I’m getting nothing, Captain,” Chekov said. Nothing but one case of creeps. “Let’s go.”
He got no reply. He looked up. At the top of the hillock, Captain Terrell stood staring before him, his form vague and blurry in the sand. He gestured quickly. Chekov struggled up the sand dune, trying to run, sliding on the slick, sharp grains. He reached Terrell’s side and stopped, astonished.
The sand dune formed a windbreak for the small hollow before them, a sort of storm’s eye of clearer air. Chekov could see perhaps a hundred meters.
In that hundred meters lay a half-buried group of ruined buildings.
Suddenly he shivered.
“Whatever it is,” Clark Terrell said, “it isn’t pre-biotic.” He stepped over the knife-sharp crest of the dune and slid down its concave leeward side.
After a moment, reluctantly, Chekov followed. The unpleasant feeling of apprehension that had teased and disturbed him ever since they started for Alpha Ceti gripped him tighter, growing toward dread.
Terrell passed the first structure. Chekov discarded any hope that they might have come upon some weird formation of violent wind and alien geology. What they had found was the wreckage of a spaceship.
Duty, Honor, Redemption Page 4
