Carol grabbed his hand. Keep hold of yourself, she thought, and took a deep breath.
“Commander Chekov, the order is improper. I’ll permit no military personnel access to my work.”
Chekov paused again, glanced away again.
What’s going on out there? Carol thought.
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Doctor Marcus,” Chekov said. “The orders are confirmed. Please be prepared to hand over Genesis upon our arrival in three days. Reliant out.”
He reached forward; the transmission faded.
On Spacelab, everyone started talking at once.
“Will everybody please shut up!” Carol said. “I can’t even think!”
The babble slowly subsided.
“It’s got to be a mistake,” Carol said.
“A mistake! Mother, for gods’ sake! It’s perfect! They came sucking up to us with a ship. ‘At our disposal!’ Ha!”
“Waiting to dispose of us looks more like it,” Jedda said.
“David—”
“And what better way to keep an eye on what we’re doing? All they had to do was wait till practically everybody is on leave, they can swoop in here and there’s only us to oppose them!”
“But—”
“They think we’re a bunch of pawns!”
“David, stop it! You’re always accusing the military of raving paranoia. What do you think you’re working up to? Starfleet’s kept the peace for a hundred years….”
Silence fell. David could not deny what she had said. At the same time, Carol could not explain what had happened.
“Mistake or not,” Vance said, “if they get Genesis, they aren’t likely to give it back.”
“You’re right,” Carol said. She thought for a moment. “All right, everybody. Get your gear together. Start with lab notes and work down from there. Jedda, is Zinaida asleep?” Carol knew that Zinaida, Genesis’s mathematician, had been working on the dispersal equations until early that morning.
“She was when I left our room,” he said. Like Jedda, Zinaida was a Deltan. Deltans tended to work and travel in groups, or at the very least in pairs, for a Deltan alone was terribly isolated. They required emotional and physical closeness of such intensity that no other sentient being could long survive intimacy with one of them.
“Okay, you’d better wake her. Vance, Del, Misters Computer Wizards: I want you to start transferring everything in the computers to portable storage, because any program, any data we can’t move we’re going to kill—that goes for BH or BS or whatever it is, too. So get to work.”
“But where are we going?” Del asked.
“That’s for us to know and Reliant to find out. But we’ve only got three days. Let’s not waste time.”
The doors of the turbolift began to close.
“Hold, please!”
“Hold!” Jim Kirk said to the sensors. The doors opened obediently, sighing.
Lieutenant Saavik dashed inside.
“Thank you, sir.”
“My pleasure, Lieutenant.”
She gazed at him intently; Kirk began to feel uneasy.
“Admiral,” she said suddenly, “may I speak?”
“Lieutenant,” Kirk said, “self-expression does not seem to be one of your problems.”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“Never mind. What was it you wanted to say?”
“I wish to ask you about the high efficiency rating.”
“You earned it.”
“I did not think so.”
“Because of the results of Kobayashi Maru?”
“I failed to resolve the situation,” Saavik said.
“You couldn’t. There isn’t any resolution. It’s a test of character.”
She considered that for a moment.
“Was the test a part of your training, Admiral?”
“It certainly was,” Jim Kirk said with a smile.
“May I ask how you dealt with it?”
“You may ask, Lieutenant.” Kirk laughed.
She froze.
“That was a little joke, Lieutenant,” Kirk said.
“Admiral,” she said carefully, “the jokes human beings make differ considerably from those with which I am familiar.”
“What jokes exactly do you mean?”
“The jokes of Romulans,” she said.
Do you want to know? Jim Kirk asked himself. You don’t want to know.
“Your concept, Admiral,” Saavik said, “the human concept, appears more complex and more difficult.”
Out of the blue, he thought, My God, she’s beautiful.
Watch it, he thought; and then, sarcastically, You’re an admiral.
“Well, Lieutenant, we learn by doing.”
She did not react to that, either. He decided to change the subject.
“Lieutenant, do you want my advice?”
“Yes,” she said in an odd tone of voice.
“You’re allowed to take the test more than once. If you’re dissatisfied with your performance, you should take it again.”
The lift slowed and stopped. The doors slid open and Doctor McCoy, who had been waiting impatiently, stepped inside.
All this newfangled rebuilding, he thought, and look what comes of it: everything’s even slower.
“Who’s been holding up the damned elevator?—Oh!” he said when he saw Kirk and Saavik. “Hi.”
“Thank you, Admiral,” Saavik said as she stepped off the lift. “I appreciate your advice. Good day, Doctor.”
The doors closed.
Jim said nothing but stared abstractedly at the ceiling.
Doing his very best dirty old man imitation, McCoy waggled his eyebrows.
“Did she change her hair?”
“What?”
“I said—”
“I heard you, Bones. Grow up, why don’t you?”
Well, McCoy thought, that’s a change. Maybe not a change for the better, but at least a change.
“Wonderful stuff, that Romulan ale,” McCoy said with a touch of sarcasm.
Kirk returned from his abstraction. “It’s a great memory restorative,” he said.
“Oh—?”
“It made me remember why I never drink it.”
“That’s gratitude for you—”
“Admiral Kirk,” Uhura said over the intercom. “Urgent message for Admiral Kirk.”
Jim turned on the intercom. “Kirk here.”
“Sir, Regulus I Spacelab is on the hyperspace channel. Urgent. Doctor Carol Marcus.”
Jim started.
Carol Marcus? McCoy thought. Carol Marcus?
“Uh…Uhura, I’ll take it in my quarters,” Jim said.
“Yes, sir.”
He turned the intercom off again and glared at McCoy, as if having any witnesses to his reaction irritated him.
“Well, well, well,” McCoy said. “It never rains but it—”
“Some doctor you are,” Jim said angrily. “You of all people should appreciate the danger of opening old wounds.”
The lift doors opened, and Kirk stormed out.
“Sorry,” McCoy said after the doors had closed once more. Well, Old Family Doctor, he thought, needling him isn’t working; you’d better change your tack if you want to bring him out of his funk.
On the other hand, McCoy said to himself, depending on what that call is about, you may not have to.
Jim Kirk strode down the corridor of the Enterprise, trying to maintain his composure. Carol Marcus, after all these years? It would have to be something damned serious for her to call him. And what, in heaven’s name, was going on with McCoy? Every word the doctor had said in the past three days was like a porcupine, layered over with little painful probes veiled and unveiled.
He hurried into his room and turned on the viewscreen.
“Doctor Marcus, Admiral,” Uhura said.
The image snowed and fluttered across the viewscreen. For an instant, he could make out Carol’s face; then it fragmented again.
“I’m trying, sir, it’s coming in badly scrambled.”
“…Jim…read me? Can you…”
What did come through clearly was Carol Marcus’s distress and anger.
“Your message is breaking up, Carol. What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”
“…can’t read you….”
“Carol, what’s wrong?” He kept repeating that, hoping enough would get through for her to make out his question.
“…trying…take Genesis away from us….”
“What?” he asked, startled. “Taking Genesis? Who? Who’s taking Genesis?”
“…can’t hear you…. Did you order…?”
“What order? Carol, who’s taking Genesis?”
The transmission cleared for a mere few seconds. “Jim, rescind the order.” It began to break up again. “…no authority…I won’t let…”
“Carol!”
“Jim, please help. I don’t believe—”
The picture scrambled again and did not clear. Jim slammed his hand against the edge of the screen.
“Uhura, what’s happening? Damn it!”
“I’m sorry, sir. There’s nothing coming through. It’s jammed at the source.”
“Jammed!”
“That’s what the pattern indicates, Admiral.”
“Damn,” Jim said again. “Commander, alert Starfleet HQ. I want to talk to Starfleet Command.”
“Aye, sir.”
Jim Kirk strode onto the bridge.
“Mister Sulu,” he said, “stop impulse engines.”
Sulu complied. “Stop engines.”
The bridge crew waited, surprised, expectant, confused.
“We have an emergency,” Kirk said stiffly. “By order of Starfleet Command, I am assuming temporary command of the Enterprise. Duty Officer, so note in the ship’s log. Mister Sulu, plot a new course: Regulus I Spacelab.” He paused as if waiting for an objection or an argument. No one spoke. He opened an intercom channel to the engine room. “Mister Scott.”
“Aye, sir?”
“We’ll be going to warp speed immediately.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Course plotted for Spacelab, Admiral,” Mister Sulu said.
“Engage warp engines.”
“Prepare for warp speed,” Saavik said. Her voice was tense and suspicious; only the regard in which Captain Spock held this human kept her from rebelling. She shifted the ship to warp mode.
“Ready, sir,” said Mister Sulu.
“Warp five, Mister Sulu.”
The ship gathered itself around them and sprang.
Kirk stepped back into the turbolift and disappeared.
In his cabin, Spock lay on a polished slab of Vulcan granite, his meditation stone. He was preparing himself to sink from light trance to a deeper one when he felt the Enterprise accelerate to warp speed. He immediately brought himself back toward consciousness. A moment later, he heard someone at his door.
“Come,” he said quietly. He sat up.
Jim Kirk entered, hitched one hip on the corner of the stone, and stared at the floor.
“Spock, we’ve got a problem.”
Spock arched his eyebrow.
“Something’s happened at Regulus I. We’ve been ordered to investigate.”
“A difficulty at the Spacelab?”
“It looks like it.” He raised his head “Spock, I told Starfleet all we have is a boatload of children. But we’re the only ship free in the octant. If something is wrong…Spock, your cadets—how good are they? What happens when the pressure is real?”
“They are living beings, Admiral; all living beings have their own gifts.” He paused. “The ship, of course, is yours.”
“Spock…I already diverted the Enterprise. Haste seemed essential at the time….”
“The time to which you are referring, I assume, is two minutes and thirteen seconds ago, when the ship entered warp speed?”
Kirk grinned sheepishly. “I should have come here first, I know—”
“Admiral, I repeat: The ship is yours. I am a teacher. This is no longer a training cruise, but a mission. It is only logical for the senior officer to assume command.”
“But it may be nothing. The transmission was pretty garbled. If you—as captain—can just take me to Regulus—”
“You are proceeding on a false assumption. I am a Vulcan. I have no ego to bruise.”
Jim Kirk glanced at him quizzically. “And now you’re going to tell me that logic alone dictates your actions.”
“Is it necessary to remind you of something you know well?” He paused. “Logic does reveal, however, that you erred in accepting promotion. You are what you were: a starship commander. Anything else is a waste.”
Kirk grinned. “I wouldn’t presume to debate you.”
“That is wise.” Spock stood up. “In any case, were the circumstances otherwise, logic would still dictate that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
“Or the one?”
“Admiral—” Spock said. He stopped, then began again. “Jim, you are my superior officer. But you are also my friend. I have been, and remain, yours. I am offering you the truth as I perceive it, for myself and for you.”
“Spock—” Kirk said quietly. He reached out.
Spock drew back within himself.
Kirk respected the change. He let his hand fall.
“Will you come to the bridge? I didn’t do much explaining, and I think your students wonder if I’ve mutinied.”
“Yes, Admiral. But perhaps we’d best talk with Mister Scott first, so he may explain the situation to his cadets as well.”
That day at lunchtime, Saavik went to the mess and got in line. All around her, her classmates speculated about the change in plan, the Enterprise’s new course, the admiral’s unusual move in taking over the ship. Saavik, too, wondered what all these abrupt changes meant. She leaned toward the view that it was another, more sophisticated, training simulation.
A few minutes after the admiral’s order, Captain Spock had returned to the bridge accompanying Admiral Kirk. He assured the crew that Kirk’s action had his consent. Yet Saavik still felt uncomfortable about the whole procedure.
She hesitated over her choice of lunch. She would have preferred steak tartare, but the captain considered eating meat—raw meat in particular—an uncivilized practice at best; consequently Saavik ordinarily chose something else when she was to take a meal in his company. She had tried for a long time to conform to the Vulcan ideal, vegetarianism, but had succeeded only in making herself thoroughly sick.
She compromised, choosing an egg dish which came out of the galley in a profoundly bland state, but which could be made nearly palatable by the addition of a large amount of sesame oil and pippali, a fiery spice. Peter Preston had taken a taste of it once, and Saavik had not warned him to use it sparingly. She had had no idea of the effect it would have on a human being. Once he stopped coughing and drinking water and could talk again, he described it as “a sort of combination of distilled chili and nuclear fission.”
She wondered where Peter was. They occasionally ate together; but though now was his lunch break, he was not in the cafeteria.
Saavik stopped beside Captain Spock’s table. He was eating a salad.
“May I join you, sir?”
“Certainly, Lieutenant.”
She sat down and tried to think of a proper way to voice her concern about the admiral’s having taken command of the Enterprise.
“Lieutenant,” Spock said, “how are Mister Preston’s lessons proceeding?”
“Why—very well, sir. He’s an excellent student and has a true aptitude for the subject.”
“I thought perhaps he might be finding the work too difficult.”
“I’ve seen no evidence of that, Captain.”
“Yet Mister Scott has asked me to suspend Mister Preston’s tutorial.”
“Why?” Saavik aske
d, startled.
“His explanation was that the engines require work, and that Preston’s help is needed.”
“The engines,” Saavik said, “just scored one hundred fifteen percent on the postoverhaul testing.”
“Precisely,” Spock said. “I have considered other explanations. An attempt by Mister Scott to shield Preston from overwork seemed a possibility.”
Saavik shook her head. “First, Captain, I believe Peter feels comfortable enough around me that he would let me know if he felt snowed under—”
“ ‘Snowed under’?”
“Severely overworked. I beg your pardon. I did not intend to be imprecise.”
“I meant no criticism, Lieutenant—your progress in dealing with human beings can only be improved by learning their idioms.”
Saavik compared Scott’s odd request to her earlier conversation with Peter. “I believe I know why Mister Scott canceled Cadet Preston’s tutorial.”
She explained what had happened.
Spock considered. “The action seems somewhat extreme. Mister Scott surely realizes that proper training is worth all manner of inconvenience—for student and teacher. Did Mister Preston say anything else?”
“He preferred not to repeat part of it. He said it was…‘too dumb.’ He seemed embarrassed.”
“Indeed.” Spock ate a few bites of his salad; Saavik tasted her lunch. She added more pippali.
“Saavik,” Spock said, “has the cadet shown any signs of serious attachment to you?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Does he express affection toward you?”
“I suppose one might say that, Captain. He appeared quite relieved when I told him that I do not consider him a ‘pest.’ And I must confess…” she said, somewhat reluctantly, “I am…rather fond of him. He’s a sweet-natured and conscientious child.”
“But he is,” Spock said carefully, “a child.”
“Of course.” Saavik wondered what Spock was leading up to.
“Perhaps Mister Scott is afraid his nephew is falling in love with you.”
“That’s ridiculous!” Saavik said. “Even were it not highly improper, it would be impossible.”
“It would be improper. But not impossible, or even unlikely. It is, rather, a flaw of human nature. If Cadet Preston develops what humans call a ‘crush’ on you—”
Duty, Honor, Redemption Page 9
