Nichols glanced at McCoy with a wry grin. “Academics,” he said.
“What can we do to persuade you we’re legitimate?” McCoy said.
“Are you?”
“Er…in a way. In that we’re not trying to cheat you or defraud you. Or embarrass your company.”
“But if this is real, you could sell it—”
“Do ye no’ understand?” Scott cried. “We have no time!”
Nichols hitched one hip on his desk, deliberately turning his back to the information on the computer screen.
“Ordinarily, if you wanted to sell something like this—no, let me finish—you’d take it to a company and license it in return for a royalty.”
“But ’tisna royalties we need. ’Tis—”
“Mark,” McCoy said, “we don’t have time for this. We’re going to make this trade with someone. It ought to be you. Don’t ask me to explain why. If it is you, I think we can be sure it will be well used. If it’ll make you feel better to assign the royalties to your favorite charity, or your Aunt Matilda, go ahead. But we’re pretty desperate. If we have to go elsewhere, to find someone with fewer scruples, we will.”
Nichols drew one knee up, folded his hands around it, and gazed at them both. Then he turned to the computer, carefully saved Scott’s work, and moused a purchase order up on the screen. Beneath “Bill to” he typed “Marcus Nichols.”
“Tell me what you need,” he said.
Nine
Gillian’s Land Rover wound through Golden Gate Park along Kennedy Drive.
“Are you sure you won’t come with us, Mister Spock?” Gillian said. “We don’t have to have Italian food. I’ll take us to a place where you can get a hamburger if you want.”
“What is a hamburger?” Spock said.
“A hamburger? It’s, you know, ground-up beef. On a bun. With a little lettuce, maybe some tomatoes.”
“Beef,” Spock said. “This is meat?”
“Yes.”
“Sounds pretty good, Spock,” Kirk said.
Spock looked green. Uh-oh, Gillian thought, a vegetarian. She had never seen anyone actually turn green before. Maybe it was a trick of the light on his sallow complexion. But he sure looked green.
“I shall prefer not to accompany you,” Spock said.
“Okay.”
Spock looked at Kirk. “I thought that among my acquaintances only Saavik eats raw meat,” he said. “But, of course, she was raised a Romulan.”
“It isn’t raw!” Gillian exclaimed. “They cook it! Raw hamburger, bleah.”
“I don’t think we should discuss Saavik, Mister Spock,” Kirk said. “And I hate to disillusion you, but I enjoy a bit of steak tartare on occasion myself.”
Mister Spock looked at Kirk askance. Gillian wondered why he reacted like that to the idea of raw meat, considering what sushi is made out of. She considered offering to change their plans and go to a Japanese restaurant instead. Then she wondered what country or city people called Romulans lived in. Maybe Mister Spock’s friend Saavik came from a country where the people called themselves something that had nothing to do with the country’s name, like Belgium and Walloons. Or maybe Mister Spock did not speak English as well as he seemed to, and he really meant his friend who liked raw meat was Roman. But who ever heard of steak tartare Romano, and what kind of a Japanese name was Spock anyhow?
But if he is Japanese, or from anyplace in Asia, Gillian thought, suddenly suspicious—
“How do I know you two aren’t procurers for the Asian black market in whale meat?” she said angrily.
“What black market?” Kirk said.
“Human beings consume whale meat? The flesh of another sentient creature?” Mister Spock sounded appalled. His reaction surprised Gillian. Up until now he had seemed rather cold and unemotional.
“You two pretend to know so much about whales—then you pretend not to know anything—”
“I did not pretend to know that human beings ate whales,” Spock said.
“Gillian,” Kirk said, “if we were black market procurers, wouldn’t it be awfully inefficient to come to California to steal two whales, when we could go out in the ocean and hunt them?”
“How should I know? Maybe your boat sank.” She jerked her head toward Spock, “Maybe he wants to take Gracie and George away and pen them up like cattle and start a whale-breeding program back in Japan or someplace—”
“I do not intend to take George and Gracie to Japan,” Spock said. “I am not from Japan. I have never been to Japan.”
“Oh, yeah? Why are you walking around in that Samurai outfit, then? If you’re not from Japan, where are you from?”
“I am from—”
“Tibet,” Kirk said. “He’s from Tibet.”
“What?”
“He’s from Tibet,” Kirk said again. “It’s landlocked. It’s thousands of meters above sea level. What could he do with a pair of whales back in Tibet?”
“Christ on a crutch,” Gillian said.
The Land Rover approached a meadow.
“This will be fine,” Kirk said.
Gillian pulled into a parking lot. She did not spend much time in San Francisco proper; she did not like cities. She wondered if it was safe to be in this park at night. Probably not. Though dusk had barely begun to fall, only one other vehicle remained in the lot: a beat-up old muscle car with a young man sleeping in the driver’s seat. Gillian felt sorry for him. He probably had nowhere else to stay.
Kirk opened the door and let his strange friend get out.
“Are you sure you won’t change your mind?” Gillian said.
Spock cocked his head, puzzled. “Is something wrong with the one I have?”
His tone was so serious that Gillian could not decide whether to laugh or answer in the affirmative.
“Just a little joke,” Kirk said quickly. He waved to Mister Spock. “See you later, old friend.”
Gillian left the Land Rover in neutral. “Mister Spock, how did you know Gracie’s pregnant? Who told you? It’s supposed to be a secret.”
“It is no secret to Gracie,” Mister Spock said. “I will be right here,” he said to Kirk, and strolled across the meadow toward a terraced bank planted with bright rhododendrons.
“He’s just going to hang around in the bushes while we eat?” Gillian said to Kirk.
“It’s his way.” Kirk shrugged and smiled.
Gillian put the Land Rover into gear and drove away.
Javy woke with a start.
“Hey, bud, you can’t sleep here. Come on, wake up!” The cop rapped sharply on the Mustang’s roof.
“Uh, good evening, Officer.”
“I know things get tough sometimes,” the cop said. “But you’re not allowed to sleep here. I can give you the address of a couple of shelters. It’s getting late to get into either one of them, but maybe—”
“I don’t need a shelter!” Javy said. “You don’t understand, Officer. I’m…” He got out of his car, pulled out his wallet, flipped it open to flash his city I.D., and flipped it shut again. “We’ve had trouble with vandalism. I’m supposed to be keeping an eye out.” He grinned sheepishly. “I’m kind of new. I thought it’d be easy to keep awake on stakeout, you know, like on TV? But it’s boring.”
“No kidding,” the cop said.
A sparkle of light against the darkness caught Javy’s attention.
“Jeez, did you see that?”
He bolted past the cop and sprinted a few steps into the meadow. He stopped. The light and the man-shaped figure both had vanished.
“See what? There’s nobody out there, bud. Let me see that I.D. again.”
Still staring toward the vanished light, Javy pulled out his wallet. Once the cop had more than a glance at it, he realized what department Javy was really in.
“What do you think you are, detective trash class? Look, I don’t know what you’re trying to pull, trying to sleep on taxpayers’ money, or what—”
“I start work
at four a.m.!” Javy said angrily, defensively. He gestured toward his Mustang. “That look like a garbage truck to you?”
“Looks like it belongs in a garbage truck,” the cop said. “But I’m tired and the shift’s almost over and I can’t think of any reason to take you in, acting stupid not being against the law. But if you make me—”
“Never mind!” Javy said, annoyed at the cop for insulting him and his car as well, but mostly annoyed with himself for falling asleep and blowing his chance. “I’ll leave.”
Gillian took Kirk to her favorite pizza place. She wondered if she would have had the nerve to come here if Mister Spock had accompanied them. He was so strange—there was no telling how he would act in a restaurant. Come to think of it, she was not entirely sure how Kirk would act.
“Listen,” she said to Kirk. “I like this restaurant, and I want to be able to come back, so you behave yourself. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said.
Nevertheless she was relieved when a waiter she did not know took them to their table. She glanced over the menu, though she almost always had the same thing.
“Do you trust me?” she asked Kirk.
“Implicitly,” he said without hesitation.
“Good. A large mushroom and pepperoni with extra onions,” she said to the waiter. “And a Michelob.”
He took it down and turned to Kirk. “And you, sir?”
Kirk frowned over the menu. Gillian had the distinct impression that he had never heard of pizza before. Where was this guy from, anyway? Mars?
“Make it two,” Kirk said.
“Big appetite,” the waiter said.
“He means two beers,” Gillian said.
The waiter nodded, took the menus, and left. Gillian toyed with her water glass, making patterns of damp circles with its base and drawing clear streaks in the condensation on its sides. She glanced at Kirk just as Kirk looked at her, and they saw that they were both doing the same thing.
“So,” Kirk said. “How did a nice girl like you get to be a cetacean biologist?”
The slightly condescending comment jolted her. She hoped Kirk meant the lines as a joke. She shrugged unhappily. “Just lucky, I guess.”
“You’re upset about losing the whales,” he said.
“You’re very perceptive.” She tried to keep the sarcasm down. Just what she needed, Bob Briggs all over again, telling her she shouldn’t think about them as if they were human, or even as if they were intelligent. They were animals. Just animals.
And if the whale hunters got to them, they would be dead animals, carcasses, raw meat…
“How will you move them, exactly?”
“Haven’t you done your homework? It’s been in all the papers. There’s a 747 fitted out to carry them. We’ll fly them to Alaska and release them there.”
“And that’s the last you’ll see of them?”
“See, yes,” Gillian said. “But we’ll tag them with radio transmitters so we can keep track of them.”
The ice in Kirk’s water glass rattled.
His hand’s trembling! Gillian thought. What’s he so damned nervous about?
He drew back before he exploded the glass in his grip. “I could take those whales where they wouldn’t be hunted.”
Gillian started to laugh. “You? Kirk, you can’t even get from Sausalito to San Francisco without a lift.”
The waiter reappeared. He put plates and glasses and two bottles of beer in front of them.
“Thanks,” Gillian said. She picked up the bottle, raised it in a quick salute, and took a deep swig. “Cheers.”
“If you have such a low opinion of me,” Kirk said grimly, “how come we’re having dinner?”
“I told you,” Gillian said, “I’m a sucker for hard-luck cases. Besides, I want to know why you travel around with that ditzy guy who knows that Gracie is pregnant…and calls you Admiral.”
Kirk remained silent, but Gillian was aware of his gaze. She took another swig of her beer and set the bottle down hard.
“Where could you take them?” she said.
“Hmm?”
“My whales! What are you trying to do? Buy them for some marine sideshow where you’d make them jump through hoops—”
“Not at all,” he said. “That wouldn’t make sense, would it? If I were going to do that, I might as well leave them at the Cetacean Institute.”
“The Cetacean Institute isn’t a sideshow!”
“Of course not,” he said quickly. “That isn’t what I meant.”
“Then where could you take them where they’d be safe?”
“It isn’t so much a matter of a place,” Kirk said, “as of a time.”
Gillian shook her head. “Sorry. The time would have to be right now.”
“What do you mean, now?”
Gillian poured beer into her glass. “Gracie’s a very young whale. This is her first calf. Whales probably learn about raising baby whales from other whales, like primates learn from primates. If she has her calf here, she won’t know what to do. She won’t know how to take care of it. But if we let her loose in Alaska, she’ll have time to be with other whales. She’ll have time to learn parenting. I think. I hope. No humpback born in captivity has ever survived. Did you know that?” She sighed. “The problem is, they won’t be a whole lot safer at sea. Because of people who shoot them because they think they eat big fish. Because of the degradation of their environment. Because of the hunting.” Her voice grew shaky. “So that, as they say, is that.” She cut off her words and dashed the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. “Damn.”
Gillian heard a faint beep. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” Jim said.
The beep repeated.
“A pocket pager? What are you, a doctor?”
At the third beep, Kirk pulled the pager out and flipped it open angrily.
“What is it?” he snapped. “I thought I told you never to call me—”
“Sorry, Admiral,” the beeper said. “I just thought ye’d like to know, we’re beaming them in now.”
“Oh,” Kirk said. “I see.” He half-turned from Gillian and spoke in a whisper. Gillian could still hear him. “Scotty, tell them, phasers on stun. And good luck. Kirk out.” He closed the beeper and put it away.
Gillian stared at him.
“My concierge,” Kirk said. “I just can’t get it programmed not to call me at the most inconvenient times.” He stopped, smiling apologetically.
“I’ve had it with that disingenuous grin, Kirk,” Gillian said. “You program your concierge? I’ll bet he loves that. And if this is the most inconvenient time anybody ever called you, I don’t know whether to envy you or feel sorry for you. Now. You want to try it from the top?”
“Tell me when the whales are going to be released.”
“Why’s it so important to you? Who are you?” she said. “Jeez, I don’t even know the rest of your name!”
“It’s James,” he said. “Who do you think I am?”
She tried to take another swig from her beer bottle, but she had emptied it into her glass. She picked up the glass, drank, and put it down.
“Don’t tell me,” she said sarcastically. “You’re from outer space.”
Kirk blew out his breath. “No,” he said. “I really am from Iowa. I just work in outer space.”
Gillian rolled her eyes toward the ceiling in supplication. “Well, I was close. I knew outer space was going to come into it sooner or later.”
“All right,” he said. “The truth?”
“All right, Kirk James,” she said, “I’m all ears.”
“That’s what you think,” he said with a quick grin that she ignored. “Okay. The truth. I’m from what, on your calendar, would be the late twenty-third century. I’ve been sent back in time to bring two humpback whales with me in an attempt to repopulate the species.”
Gillian began to wish she were drinking something stronger than beer. “Hey, why didn’t you say so?” she said, g
oing along with him. “Why all the coy disguises?”
“Do you want the details?”
“Are you kidding? I wouldn’t miss this for all the tea in China.”
“Then tell me when the whales are leaving,” Jim said.
“Jesus, you are persistent,” Gillian said. She looked down into her beer. “Okay. Your friend is right. Like he said, Gracie is pregnant. Maybe it would be better for her to stay at the Institute till the end of the year. Then we could let her loose in Baja California just before she’s ready to calve. But if the news gets out before we release her, we’ll be under tremendous pressure to keep her. And maybe we should. But I told you the reasons for freeing her. We’re going to let her go. At noon tomorrow.”
Kirk looked stunned.
“Noon?” he said. “Tomorrow?”
“Yeah. Why’s it so important to you?”
The waiter appeared and placed a large round platter on the table between Jim and Gillian.
“Who gets the bad news?” he said, offering the check to the air between them. Kirk looked up at him blankly.
Gillian took the bill. She had expected to go Dutch, but Kirk could at least offer to pay his share. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “They don’t have money in the twenty-third century.”
“Well, we don’t,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet. “Come on. I don’t have much time.”
He strode out, nearly running into a young man at the door.
Perplexed, Gillian watched Kirk leave. The waiter was staring after him too. Gillian wondered how much of their conversation he had heard. The waiter glanced at her with a confused frown. He could not be more confused than she was, and she had heard the whole thing.
“Uh, can we have this to go?” She gestured to the pizza.
Shaking his head, he went away to get a box, and Gillian wondered if she would ever be able to come back to the restaurant after all.
Uhura re-formed within the cool tingle of the transporter beam. She let out her breath with relief. The beam had placed her in an access corridor that led to the nuclear reactor. The reactor and all its shielding skewed the tricorder readings sufficiently that she had not been absolutely certain where she would appear. She pulled out her communicator and opened it. “I’m in,” she whispered. “Send Pavel and the collector.”
Duty, Honor, Redemption Page 62
