Being Human

by Peter David

  “Not at all. I mean, it’s not something I would readily embrace for myself,” she admitted. She looked down at her own drink, trying to imagine what it would be like to be on that other side. “It’s an entirely new way of . . . of existing, and I’m somewhat used to the one I’ve presently got. But when the time comes, sooner or later,” and she shrugged, “I’ll be ready for it.”

  “Hopefully it won’t come for you for a long, long time yet,” he said with conviction. “You know, Kalinda . . .”

  “My friends call me Kally.”

  He smiled a dazzling smile. “Kally, then. You know, Kally, I was thinking, perhaps we might consider—”

  There was a sudden clearing of throat behind Gleau, and he turned in his seat and looked up. Standing behind him was the head of security—that oddly proportioned fellow named . . . what was it again? Oh yes . . . Arex. His head seemed higher than it did before, his neck extended, and he was scowling rather fiercely . . . although since he had a fairly low-hanging brow, it wasn’t easy to be sure.

  “Lieutenant Commander,” he said in his warbly voice, “a moment of your time, please.”

  “Well, Lieutenant, now I wouldn’t want to be rude . . .” said Gleau suavely, indicating Kalinda.

  “Oh, this won’t take long. I’m sure the young lady would be able to excuse us for a brief time.”

  “Of course,” said Kalinda. “I wouldn’t want to do anything that would get in the way of the ship running smoothly or important things.” Then, in a low voice, although she wasn’t sure what prompted her to say it, she added, “Don’t worry, Gleau. I’ll wait right here.”

  He smiled and cupped her chin once more, and she felt a tingle up and down her spine. “You do that,” he smiled, and then got up from his chair. Arex ushered him over to a table a short distance away, and draped his three legs carefully around a chair, sitting as best he could in a seat that was not exactly built for his species. Gleau, by contrast, sat gracefully, crossed his legs at the knees, and regarded Arex with patience, mixed with mild bemusement.

  Kalinda calmly sipped her drink, every so often casting a glance at Gleau and Arex’s table, hoping that they would wrap up whatever they needed to discuss as briskly as possible. Even though she knew she should not, she tried to pick up bits and pieces of their conversation. She thought she heard the word “Mess” or “More Ess,” whatever “ess” might be, being mentioned a number of times. And something about a knack for something, and comments about “easing up on her.” At first Arex seemed to be doing most of the talking, but then Gleau started speaking, and he seemed to be getting increasingly angry at what Arex was saying.

  And suddenly Gleau was on his feet, and he said, “I don’t have to take that from you!” He turned and started to walk away, and one of Arex’s arms snared out, fast as a whip, and snagged Gleau’s right arm.

  “Sit down. We’re not through,” said Arex, and every eye in the place was on them, but Arex didn’t seem to care.

  “Oh yes we are!” shouted Gleau, and he tried to shove Arex back. That was a total mistake, because thanks to his tripodial structure, Arex was the single most difficult individual on the ship to throw off balance. Instead, operating purely impulsively, Arex spun Gleau around and then shoved him as hard as he could.

  It was, apparently, a little too hard, for Gleau sailed through the air. He smashed into Kalinda’s table, Kalinda managing to salvage the drink. The remains of the bearclaw, however, were a total loss.

  Gleau rolled off the table, landing just to Kalinda’s left. He scrambled to his feet as Arex advanced on him, and other crewmen were now endeavoring to get between the two, to keep them separated and calm things down.

  “You’re insane, Triexian!” Gleau was shouting, and it wasn’t just that he was angrier than Kalinda had ever seen him, because she knew perfectly well that she hadn’t known him for all that long. But he was angrier than she would have thought possible for him, considering the utterly placid demeanor he’d been putting forward. “You’re insane, and you’re going to pay for this! This is not over!”

  “I’m telling you to leave M’Ress alone,” shot back Arex. So that’s what he’d said! Not “Mess” or “More ess” or similar idiocy! It was Muh-Ress. Probably someone’s assumed name. “If the captain telling you that wasn’t sufficient, then perhaps my doing so will be.” Yet he was already busy picking up after himself, righting the table that had been knocked over, dusting up the crumbs. He looked apologetically to Kalinda. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m . . . I’m fine, I think . . .”

  Gleau was stabbing a finger at Arex. “Not over,” he repeated. “Not over at all.” Then, gathering up what was left of his battered pride, Gleau stalked out of the room.

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the Ten-Forward then. Arex didn’t bother looking at anyone else; he was busy cleaning up the mess that had resulted from his altercation with Gleau. Kalinda’s initial reaction was to be horrified on Gleau’s behalf over what she’d just seen. But as moments, and her first impulses, passed, she found herself wondering just what it was that Gleau could have said or done that would have so incensed the head of security.

  She sidled over to Arex. He turned to her and said apologetically, “Again, I’m sorry for disrupting you. Where I come from, walking out the way he was trying to was extremely rude. I suppose I overreacted. Let me get you another of those—whatever that was you were eating.”

  “A bearclaw.” She looked at him with curiosity, because he seemed most amused. “What? That’s what it’s called: a bearclaw. What did I say—?”

  “Nothing. It’s funny to me; I doubt it would seem so to you.”

  Then, in a very low, very quiet voice, she asked, “What did he do? Gleau, I mean.”

  Arex righted the nearest chair. “Do you have strong feelings for him?” he asked in that high voice of his. “Be honest.”

  “I . . . I think I do, yes . . . at least, I think I did.”

  “Well, a friend of mine developed strong feelings for him. But be careful . . . because the feelings you think you have, aren’t always yours.”

  ii.

  “I feel that I have been misused, abused, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it, Captain!” Shelby was in her office, which adjoined her private quarters. Despite the fact that she was off duty, she had complied with Gleau’s request for a meeting, and had chosen to take it here rather than up in the ready room. Truth to tell, she’d been expecting him, since she’d already heard about the altercation in the Ten-Forward. However, she’d had a long day, which was getting longer by the moment, and so she wasn’t especially in the mood to be bellowed at by one of her officers. So when Gleau raised his voice to her, she was on her feet in an instant, eye to eye with the angry Gleau, and she didn’t feel the least bit of charm coming off him. He was purely angry, and on one level she couldn’t blame him, and on another, she was rapidly reaching a crisis point of frustration. “Sit down, Lieutenant Commander. Now.”

  He stabbed a finger at her and remained standing. “I blame you for this, Captain.”

  “Me? I didn’t knock you over a table.”

  “No,” he said, his hands on his hips, looking like a defiant gold statue. “But a crew takes its lead from its commanding officer. This ‘Oath of Chastity’ which you forced upon me . . .”

  “Mr. Gleau,” she said with forced calm, “if you do not sit down, I will have security come in and force you to sit. And since we now know that our security chief can handle you with little difficulty—”

  “You approve of what he did?!”

  “No, I do not,” Shelby told him firmly. “And Mr. Arex has been dealt with separately.”

  “Court-martial, I should think, for striking a superior officer.”

  “There will be no court-martial, and the specifics I took in Arex’s case are between him, me, and Starfleet. Now sit the hell down.”

  He sat, but remained ramrod stiff. “Captain,” said Gleau stiffly,
“I have given this matter a great deal of thought, and I am seriously considering filing charges, against you, for harassment.”

  “Really,” she said, eyebrow cocked. Shelby began to feel as if the entire thing was spinning off into the realm of the truly insane. “And I have harassed you . . . how?”

  “As far as I am concerned,” he told her with an air of great wounded dignity, “you have acted in direction violation to General Order Seven.”

  Shelby frowned. “When the hell did I visit Talos IV, and how is that remotely relevant? Unless you’re trying to find a way to have me executed . . .”

  She was pleased to see that that threw Gleau off his mental stride considerably. “That’s not General Order Seven.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant Twelve. General Order Twelve.”

  “You think that I didn’t take adequate precautions when approaching a starship without establishing communications first?”

  His face darkened. And as far as Shelby was concerned, the best thing was that he had nowhere to direct his anger except at himself. “Twenty-four, then.”

  She leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers, and recited, “ ‘Upon receiving direct instruction from a flag officer in an emergency situation, a starship will be authorized to use deadly force upon a planetary surface unless receiving counter—’ ”

  “Damnation!” thundered Gleau.

  “Are you sure you graduated the Academy?”

  “We Selelvians have a different numbering system. I’ve made the transition to Federation standard, but I get confused sometimes. The one about,” he waved his hands in frustration as if he was hoping to pluck the elusive general order out of the air, “about respecting customs of crew members—”

  “General Order Thirty-four? Starfleet captains will honor, respect, and display extreme tolerance for species-based customs and practices insofar as the safety of the vessel is not threatened by such practices . . . ?”

  “Yes!” he clapped his hands once in an “ah-ha” manner. “Yes, thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. Always glad to aid in my own pillorying.”

  “It has nothing to do with being ‘pilloried,’ Captain. The simple fact is that at no time have I acted in a manner that is not in keeping with customs and decorum as practiced by my people. And I have been penalized for it. I did nothing with M’Ress that she did not desire to have happen on some level. Yet now she is abrogating responsibility for it, and you are aiding and abetting her in that. You forced me to take an onerous oath of personal conduct. And now she has come complaining to you about my subsequent treatment of her, when I have done nothing to—”

  “M’Ress hasn’t come to me. Not since she filed her initial complaint.”

  Gleau was visibly startled at that. “She . . . hasn’t.”

  “No.”

  Then he understood. “Ahhh . . . but she complained to Arex.”

  “She complained to him within the context of one friend venting frustration to another,” said Shelby. “She did not, however, instruct him to have an altercation with you. Apparently he took his friend’s discontent to heart, and took it upon himself to let her perceived oppressor know of his anger.”

  “And you’re not court-martialing him for that!”

  It was everything she could do not to sound smug as she said, “Well, apparently it is social custom for Triexians to step in and take actions—including physical confrontations—when they feel a friend has been ill-used. Something of a matter of honor with them, really. And I was concerned that if I penalized him too severely, that he could accuse me of violating General Order Thirtyfour.”

  For a long moment, Gleau stared at her with his face a frozen deadpan. Then a very small smile played on the edges of his mouth. “That’s very amusing, Captain. Very amusing.”

  Shelby then rose from her chair and came around the desk, sitting on the edge of it. “Arex also claimed that you were busy working your ‘charm’ on the Ambassador’s sister, Kalinda . . .”

  Gleau made no attempt to hide his exasperation. “I was talking to the girl! That was all! Am I now supposed to take an oath of silence as well? Hell thunder, Captain, this is going beyond the bound of ludicrousness! Our security chief takes issue with the way in which I run the science department, and you allow him to do so! I engage in civil discourse with a young woman and it’s treated as if it’s a high crime!”

  “He said she seemed very taken with you. I’ve spoken to Kalinda as well. Her description of the conversation matches Arex’s.”

  “Can I help it,” he demanded, standing once more and throwing his arms wide, his face almost in hers, “if I am so blasted charming that people actually enjoy speaking with me? This is madness! What would you have, Captain? Shall I wear a bag over my head? Perhaps I should take to treating everyone I encounter as if they were dirt on my boots, so that no one should—heavens forbid—find my company engaging!” She watched as he reined himself in then, trying to keep a handle on the situation. “Do you see how this has spiraled out of control, Captain? In the interests of accommodating one timedisplaced female, the integrity of a lieutenant commander with a blemish-free record is being challenged. It is intolerable. Intolerable!”

  The door chimed. Saved by the bell, thought Shelby, as she called, “Come.” The door slid open and Kat Mueller entered.

  She glanced from Shelby to Gleau and back again before saying, “Ambassador Cwan has told me he wishes to speak with you.”

  Shelby let out a soft sigh. “My my. He’s being rather formal about it. All right, tell him to come up.”

  Nodding briskly, Mueller tapped her com badge and informed Si Cwan to report to the captain’s office. As he did so, Shelby turned back to her annoyed science officer. “Mr. Gleau, we’re done for the moment.”

  “Only for the moment, Captain,” said Gleau stiffly.

  “Oh, and Gleau . . . ?”

  He paused at the door. “Yes, Captain?”

  “I certainly hope, for your sake, that you were limiting your interaction with young Kalinda to mere discussion. From myself you need merely worry about disciplinary action, and Arex seems to believe a severe tossing is the answer to things. But God help you if Ambassador Si Cwan feels you have taken . . . liberties. My guess is you simply won’t be found. Ever. Si Cwan can be very inventive.”

  Gleau said nothing. He simply nodded a silent “Good day” to her and to Mueller before walking out the door.

  “That man has a spectacular ass,” Mueller commented when he was gone.

  “He is a spectacular ass,” replied Shelby, sitting back down behind her desk and rubbing her temples gently to offset the chance of a headache. “Unfortunately, he’s a spectacular ass who also makes one or two valid points. How do you punish someone for simply doing that which is culturally and genetically inbred?”

  “Firing squad?” suggested Mueller.

  “You’re not helping, XO.” She sighed. “He accused me of favoritism . . . of working to accommodate M’Ress’s needs at the expense of other crew members, including himself.”

  “I said as much to you already when she first came aboard,” Mueller reminded her.

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Curse my infallibility,” deadpanned Mueller.

  The thudding in Shelby’s temples was becoming more pronounced. She had the makings of a considerable headache coming on, she realized.

  “Are you quite all right, Captain?”

  “No, I’m not quite all right. I’m not even close to all right. I have a planet below that once oppressed my husband, which now wants to try and restart the empire that held an iron grip on this sector of space for hundreds upon hundreds of years. I have a science officer who may or may not be seducing women against their will, and a security officer who seems to feel that the best way to handle the situation is to use the science officer as a bowling ball. So I appreciate your concern, XO, but the truth is that I’m a rather far piece from ‘all right.’
I’m hoping, though, that whatever Si Cwan has to say, it will do something to alleviate the aggravation.”

  As if with supernatural timing—which Shelby would have been perfectly willing to credit him with—Si Cwan appeared at her door. She stood up and ushered him in, taking a moment to draw in a few deep, cleansing breaths. He looked at her with concern. “Are you all right, Captain?”

  “I’m thrilled that everyone seems so concerned with my well-being, Ambassador. Please,” she gestured, “have a seat.”

  “I’d prefer to stand, if that is acceptable.”

  She turned to Mueller. “I’m going to have these chairs checked. There’s something about them that just prompts people not to sit. All right, Ambassador,” she said, looking up at him, crossing her arms and forcing a smile against the pain that was thumping in her head. “What’s on your mind?”

  “The Danteri offer.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  “I’ve given it a great deal of thought, and I’m very pleased to tell you—”

  “Ah—!” said Shelby cheerfully.

  “—that I have decided to take them up on it.”

  “—ha,” she finished, far less cheerfully. “And . . . you are ‘pleased’ to tell me this . . . why?”

  “Why,” he said, as if it should have been the most obvious thing in the world, “because the opportunity presenting itself to me is a remarkable one, and makes me extremely happy. And since I know you are the type who is pleased to share in others’ happiness, I simply concluded that you would be delighted to take pleasure in mine.”

  “I see.” She took a deep breath, leaned back against the desk once more. Then she tapped her com badge and said, “Captain to sickbay: I’m going to be down in a few moments looking for a headache remedy. Anything short of decapitation would be greatly appreciated.”