by Tony Daniel
“We’ve had the distinct displeasure to have met Khan in the flesh, as a matter of fact,” said Kirk. “It was an unsettling experience. He attempted to kill me without a second thought in order to get what he wanted.”
“And what was it he wanted?” asked Hannah.
“My ship,” said Kirk, “to begin with.”
“Then Khan chose the wrong captain to dally with,” Hannah replied. “I can assure you that I and most others on Vesbius desire nothing other than to remain on Vesbius and live out our lives here. We do not have visions of conquest, but visions of living in community and happiness.”
“How do you really know?” asked McCoy, still not giving up his pique. “You aren’t human anymore. What if there’s something new in your genes that compels you to destroy us or destroy the worlds where we come from? You said there were terrible allergies before. What if Vesbians become allergic to humans, and decide to rid the galaxy of us?”
Hannah Faber shook her head. She spread her hands before her in a gesture of supplication to the doctor. “All I can tell you is that I find no such desire in myself or in the majority of my people. We wish to live in peace. And we wish to live here.”
“But you would have a better life elsewhere, rather than on a dead Vesbius,” Kirk said. “Surely you see that you can carry what it means to be Vesbian with you—to another world, a new world, that you can pioneer just as your father pioneered Vesbius.”
Hannah sighed. “Would that this could be so, but it is not.” She seemed to be on the verge of saying more but then held herself back. Instead, she rose and smiled. “I trust I will see you all at the dance? It is to be quite a gala affair. You will have surmised that we are grasping at anything that improves our spirits at a time like this.” She turned to Kirk. “And please don’t hesitate to ask the lady of your choice to be your partner in a round or two of dance,” she said quietly, then blushed. She excused herself and, after turning to deliver a final radiant smile, exited the quarters.
As soon as she left, Kirk pulled his communicator from under the back of his shirt. He flipped it open and called Enterprise.
“Scott here,” came the familiar voice over the communicator speaker. “We were beginning to wonder if something was keeping you down there, Captain.”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” Kirk replied. “Status report, Scotty.”
“Well sir, we’re being buffeted by this rocky churn that’s been thrown out ahead of that approaching huge chunk of doom. That asteroid may be a month away, but the gravitational effects around this planet are already evident. It’s churning up all sorts of debris from the local planet-moon system. We’re taking a beating, sir.”
“Are the deflectors doing their job?”
“Aye, they are,” said Scott, pride ringing in his voice. “But I wouldn’t want to keep this up for very long, Captain. These kinetic energy strikes can be much worse than a Klingon barrage over time.”
“Will she hold, Scotty?”
“Aye, Captain, she’ll hold,” Scotty replied. “But I wouldn’t make the same claim for that planet you’re standing on. Not in a few more weeks, especially.”
“Understood,” Kirk replied. “Maintain orbit while you can. If something threatening to the ship comes along, your orders are to break orbit and get out of the way. Do you hear me, Scotty?”
“I hear you, Captain,” said Scott. “Let’s hope it won’t come to that.”
“For both our sakes,” Kirk replied. “Now we have another request: Have our dress uniforms collected and beamed down to these coordinates.”
“Your dress uniforms?”
“That’s right, Scotty. It seems we’re going to a dance.”
• • •
The dance was held at what Kirk learned was the colonial celebration hall. Word must have spread fast that visitors from off planet had arrived, because more than two thousand revelers packed the space. It was quite a large hall with room enough for a dance floor and a fully equipped archaic instrument band. As a cadet, Kirk had, of course, learned the rudimentary dancing skills that every Starfleet officer was expected to possess. But it had been some time since he danced a waltz, a jig, or—stretching back to growing up in Iowa—a square dance.
Doctor McCoy busied himself in conversation with the locals. A particularly lovely physician picked him out as her dance partner, and the two moved through a complicated arrangement, McCoy following her rather than she following McCoy. But the doctor seemed to be having a good time.
The captain wandered toward a large queue that led to where the Vesbian ale was being dispensed. He was about to get in line behind a group of strapping young men with very large backs when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to find Hannah Faber smiling at him and holding out a tankard of ale for him to take.
“Thank you,” Kirk said. “I thought those fellows in front of me might drink it all before I got my chance. You certainly know how to grow them big here on Vesbius.”
Hannah smiled, but then her smile turned into a look of thoughtfulness. “Yes,” she said, “but it wasn’t always that way.”
“What do you mean?” asked Kirk.
“There was a generation of children before mine,” Hannah said. “A lost generation. But let’s not talk of that here.” She took him by the arm and led him toward a large double door that opened to the veranda. They were on the same hill as the government complex; the veranda overlooked the entire settlement. Below, lights were twinkling in the windows of the chalets, and Vesbius’s two moons hung low in the eastern and southeastern sky.
They stood near the railing around the veranda. Kirk looked up into the night sky and observed the local constellations. “You have an interesting arrangement of stars here,” he said. As the captain spoke, two meteors streaked across the sky and left behind their paths a blue-green trail of glowing embers. More meteors fell. On Earth, Kirk had witnessed a particularly strong showing of the Leonid meteor storms one winter from a vantage point on the dunes of Long Island’s Montauk Point—a spot not far from New York City. There, aurora-like plasma paths had hung in the air for seconds at a time. But the Vesbius night fireworks were far stronger than anything on Earth. Kirk gazed at the stars beyond, attempting to visualize what the normal night sky would be like. He pointed in a generally northern direction. “Rigelius there is your polestar, I see. And that way”—he swung his hand around and pointed farther to the south—“that way is Sol and Earth.”
“Home to you?” Hannah asked.
“Yes,” Kirk replied. “But I haven’t been there for quite a while.”
“You must miss it,” Hannah said with a low whisper.
“I do. Very much,” Kirk replied. He turned to face her.
“Imagine that feeling increased one thousand-fold,” Hannah said. “That’s what it’s like for me.”
“Hannah, I’m so sorry,” Kirk said. And then she was in his arms. They kissed quickly, and then Hannah pulled Kirk into an alcove nearby that hid them from most of the crowd. Falling stars lit up the sky behind them. Hannah kissed him again, and for a long time. Kirk realized that underneath the committed and industrious woman he’d come to know was someone who was feeling desperation. Should he play upon that in order to convince her people to leave? Perhaps. But he also understood that in some measure he returned these feelings. As captain of the starship, his was an isolated position. To meet a woman who was his equal, or even superior, in level of command, and yet also so completely a woman, and so obviously attracted to him, was not something he could take lightly.
“Hannah,” Kirk finally whispered to her. “You must leave. You must let me take you. Please.”
At this, Hannah drew back and looked him full in the eyes. “Oh, I wish it were so simple, Captain.”
“Call me Jim,” Kirk replied.
“I would like . . . Jim . . .” And then Hannah glanced over his shoulder at the partygoers behind him, through the doors of the veranda and into the ballroom full of colonis
ts desperately trying to have a final moment of happiness in the life they had built, and were about to abandon on the surface. “Oh Jim, please dance with me. Will you dance with me?”
She led Kirk into the ballroom, and as the band struck up their next number, Kirk put out his hands and the two began a slow waltz. She was a wonderful dancer, and she allowed him to believe he was leading her in such a way that their movement together seemed fluid and perfectly natural. In the moment of the dance, Kirk led himself to believe that perhaps it was, that he’d perhaps found the perfect partner. And then, with the closing bars of the music, they drew apart and Hannah gave him a quick curtsy. “Thank you, Captain, for the dance. I don’t believe I have enjoyed myself so much for a very long time.”
Kirk returned her curtsy with a bow. “Nor I,” he replied.
And then the band struck up a more sprightly number and they danced again. Afterward, they drew to the side, and Hannah allowed Kirk to pour them each a glass of punch. He discovered that the punch was laced with the local rum, which was as potent and balanced as the Vesbian ale. It seemed that these people did anything having to do with agriculture well.
The band struck up an even faster number—music that seemed disjointed and even discordant to Kirk’s ear.
“What is that?”
“Ah, you are unacquainted with our local folk dance,” Hannah replied with a smile. “It is a rhythm that takes some getting used to, I’m told. But once you learn the movements, it can be quite lovely to watch, I assure you, and even more entertaining to take part in.”
As they watched the other dancers return to the floor, Doctor McCoy sidled up beside Kirk and nudged him in the elbow. “Captain, I believe something’s gotten into your first officer.”
“How do you mean, Bones?” asked Kirk.
McCoy pointed across the room toward a corner in which Kirk could now make out the blue shirt of Spock. Several of the locals were gathered around and calling out merrily to him.
“What are they doing?” asked Kirk.
“I think they are teaching Spock to dance,” said McCoy. “Though I can’t be certain. I’m not even sure if such a thing is possible.”
But, indeed, it proved to be quite possible. As Kirk and McCoy watched with amusement, Spock attempted a few steps to the music. After receiving correction and encouragement from those surrounding him, he tried a few more. Suddenly, almost as if he achieved an understanding of the music in his very bones, Spock broke into a lively jig that exactly matched the mood and rhythm of the music. And as they watched, a bemused Spock was drawn into the dancing crowd as others began to dance alongside him.
Kirk was surprised, but not as amazed as the locals or McCoy. He surmised that Spock had been conducting his usual study from the moment he had set foot in the hall.
“Well, I have to say it appears to be precise,” said McCoy. “I’ll give him that.”
“It usually takes outsiders many months to master the Vesbius Tawla, which is the name of that dance,” said Hannah. “Most never do. I would have to say that what Commander Spock lacks in emotion, he makes up for with perfect form.”
Kirk downed the rest of his punch. “Yes, Mister Spock is most impressive. Most impressive in many ways. He’s more than a first officer to me. I also count him as one of my close friends.”
“Then he is lucky to have a friend such as you,” Hannah replied. She closed her arms around Kirk’s bicep and leaned against him while they both watched Spock finish up the quick-paced dance. When the music was done, Spock ceased moving and returned to his usual reflective self, standing in the middle of the dance floor. There was a huge roar of appreciative applause, which Spock acknowledged with a nod of his head.
“I’d better go rescue him,” said McCoy, “or they’ll have him dancing jigs all night. I don’t know if a Vulcan can keep that up for long. He might be permanently warped.” McCoy went off to save Spock, leaving Kirk and Hannah once again together.
“Captain . . . Jim . . . Come take a walk with me. I have something I wish to ask you. We could go out through the garden gate, and there is a fountain with a wonderful tree next to it. It is the first tree that the colonists ever got to grow on Vesbius so many years ago.”
“Lead the way,” Kirk replied.
Hannah pulled him along silently, and they followed a winding path through a series of hedges and garden displays, each as beautiful as the next in the double moonlight. Finally, they came to a large courtyard, and in this place grew what appeared to be a cedar tree of great height and large proportions. Its surface was strangely gnarled—twisted into shapes and forms that seemed to Kirk to form landscapes of their own along the trunk. Beside the tree there was a bench, and Hannah led Kirk to it.
“What is it you wish to ask me?” asked Kirk after he was settled beside Hannah.
Hannah did not answer at first. She merely held his hand and gazed up into the evergreen foliage of the tree. “We call this the Beginning Tree,” she said. “It was planted as a memorial to the first generation of children of this colony.”
“So it is a symbol of hope for your people?” Kirk asked.
Hannah shook her head. “No, it is not. This is a place of mourning.”
“Mourning? How so?” said Kirk. He looked over at her and saw that she had tears in her eyes.
“You see, Jim, the whole first generation of children on Vesbius, all of them—they all died. It was as if the planet had an immune reaction against them and they against it. I had an older sister, Sarah. I never knew her. She was one of those children who succumbed.”
“Why didn’t this affect the adults?” asked Kirk.
“It would have, eventually. We didn’t know at first,” said Hannah. “We’re still not completely sure, but after studying the planet for many years now, we believe that there is a quantum interaction, an entanglement, of some sort that the planet engages in with all the life forms that inhabit it. This process initially affects the young, but it eventually pervades the biology of everything on the planet. We do not fully understand the science—no one does—but we needed to replicate this effect. Many of the original settlers were biologists. My father is a xenobiologist by training. They knew what they had to do. They also knew it was forbidden within the Federation.”
“For good reason,” Kirk said. “If you’re talking about human genetic engineering—hadn’t they ever heard of the Eugenics Wars?”
“Of course they had,” Hannah said dismissively. “This was an entirely different circumstance. The aim was not to create a race of supermen like the Augments. On the contrary, the purpose was to survive.”
“They could have left, found another world.”
“Yes, they could have,” Hannah said. “They might have left behind the graves of their children and moved on. But they did not wish to, or perhaps they could not bear to do it. That was the choice they made. The fateful choice. Without it, I wouldn’t have existed.”
“No, I suppose not.” Kirk considered the shadows formed by moonlight through the branches of the tree above him. Lovely. Also a trifle unsettling, almost supernatural. “And I presume that’s also why Vesbius left the Federation.”
“Yes, Jim.”
“And then they genetically modified themselves and all new children who were born.”
“That’s correct.”
“You aren’t human.”
“Not fully, no.”
“Better?”
“Hardly,” said Hannah. “You might even say our ambition proved our doom.” Hannah turned to the captain, her eyes blazing with both sadness and determination. “This is what I want to ask you,” she said. “You and Spock are friends. I have heard rumors of a ritual that the Vulcans must undergo every seven years. It is much like the return of the salmon to their native creeks on old Earth. What I have heard is that a Vulcan is bonded at a young age with another Vulcan, and that no matter how far they are separated, he or she cannot resist the urge, the necessity, to return and consummate this pa
ir bond when directed by instinct. In fact, my information tells me that if they do not do it, they will die. Is this true, Jim?”
“I know these rumors,” Kirk replied carefully. “I can tell you that nothing you told me seems to me to be preposterous or inconceivable. But I cannot speak more on the matter, for I have given my word.”
Hannah nodded and smiled knowingly. “It is as I suspected then,” she said. “This ritual, this pon farr, is real.”
Kirk did not reply, but he did not deny it. Hannah leaned over and kissed him on the cheek, then leaned back and gazed into his eyes. “Now I will tell you a secret, Captain Jim Kirk. I would like you to treat it with a similar delicacy.”
“I will,” said Kirk.
“You see, we Vesbians who were conceived and born on this planet are tied to this world with more than emotional ties. A Vesbian must not be away from the local ecology for more than a few weeks. If one of us is, he or she will develop a rapid autoimmune collapse that will bring on death within days. And it is not a pretty death, Jim. We are writhing in agony as our bodies reject our own cellular structure. We need the biosphere of this world. We are genetically engineered to need it, and this process is irreversible. We are part of Vesbius, and Vesbius is part of us.”
“But surely you can take a portion of Vesbius with you, in greenhouses, in ships’ stores?” Kirk said.
“It has been tried. We have also experimented with vaccines. Nothing has worked for long,” Hannah replied. “It is the whole planet that we Vesbians need, the ecology itself.”
“But that ecology will soon be gone.”
