“Personnel?”
“Veteran team is top notch. The new ones are settling in. The best of the group is that Scottish j.g.”
“Scott.”
Caitlin nodded. “Appropriately. Montgomery Scott. Engineering’s in his blood and his brains. He does the right things on instinct while others have to stop and puzzle over it. He’ll go a long way, I think. In fact, if I don’t stay on my toes, I might find him promoted to chief over me.”
“Not likely, Cait,” Number One said, smiling.
“Well, not for a while. But he is good.”
They sat silently for a moment, sipping at the tea. Then Caitlin nudged Number One. “How’s the captain?”
“As in what?”
“As in, I usually get a full rundown from you on how he looks, how he seems to be feeling, what he’s been doing. This time, no mention at all. Something wrong up there?” She lifted her eyes toward the ceiling to indicate the bridge.
The exec shook her head, studying the depths of her tea as if to read leaves in the bottom of the mug. “I don’t know. Last time we based on Earth for R&R, he came back happy. He talked about this woman he met. I gathered it was serious.”
“I remember your saying so.”
[85] “She’s an Academy cadet now, but I was sure Chris”—she corrected quickly—“the captain would come back from this leave announcing the engagement. But ... nothing. Not a word.”
“Maybe he didn’t get to see her. She could have been on one of the mandatory cadet cruises.”
“Mmm.”
“What were you hoping for?”
“Nothing.”
“Number One, remember me? This is Caitlin you’re talking to, not some stranger.”
The exec silently studied her tea, and Caitlin studied her. Finally, Number One looked up at her friend. “I was hoping for an answer. He’s engaged, he’s married, something definite—not dead silence. He’s been very preoccupied, even a little moody. It’s not like him.”
“Why does that bother you?”
“A happy captain means a happy ship.”
“That’s a cliché, and I don’t believe you mean it. How long have you served with him now, four years?” Number One nodded. Caitlin considered it, then she said quietly, “You know, I never asked you how important Chris Pike is to you.”
“He’s my commanding officer.”
“I had the impression he means more to you than that.”
“Caitlin ...”
“Now I’m sure of it.”
“Cait.”
“Maybe something happened between him and this woman. Maybe it’s time you let him know how you feel about him.”
[86] “I can’t do that. I—I don’t feel anything toward him.”
Caitlin snorted in aggravation. “You might be genetically supreme by your planet’s standards, Number One, but you’re a rotten liar. What you mean is, you don’t want to let him know how you feel. I understand. You work closely with him. And it’s not just on the bridge. You’ve backed him when he’s been in dangerous situations planetside. You’re both professionals, and you think the relationship could be compromised if it gets personal. On the other hand, there are married couples in command posts on other ships. The relationship could be strengthened. Did you ever think of that?”
“He doesn’t—couldn’t—” Number One stammered, then blurted, “He thinks I’m perfect!”
“I know a lot of women who’d give anything to have a man like Chris Pike think that about them.”
“Perfect for them and perfect as applied to me are two different things.”
Caitlin studied her friend for a long moment, knowing she sometimes felt odd and out of place, despite her poise and strength of personality. Genetic engineering was common on several planets, but it was normally used to correct potential birth defects and other errors of nature. Number One, however, had been completely “designed and engineered,” with an emphasis on intelligence, even temperament, strength, and a pleasing appearance. She was the product of someone else’s idea of what a perfect woman should be. As it happened, a good many people agreed with the design engineer, but ...
“I think you’re projecting your view of yourself [87] onto him. Why don’t you find out what he thinks? Let him know how you feel.”
“I ... might.”
“Yes.”
“If he’s free.”
“Yes.”
“If it’s off duty.”
“Yes.”
“And if I have the nerve.”
The so-called graveyard shift was entirely satisfactory for Lieutenant (j.g.) Montgomery Scott’s extracurricular activity. The ship kept a day and night schedule, and during the graveyard shift most work areas were nightlit to assist the nocturnal illusion. There was never less than a full complement on duty in the engine room, but the chief engineer and assistant chief seldom stood that watch themselves. Engine-room personnel, therefore, were fairly free to amuse themselves as they wished.
The hardware Scott had concocted in the past few days was intricate but not terribly large. Since the members of his shift knew what he was up to and were sworn to secrecy, he could construct his invention without fear of revelation. Bob Brien appeared in the engine room at 0200, his mischievous blue eyes twinkling in anticipation. “Do you have it, Scotty?”
“Of course, man. Do you like the look of it?” Scott moved to a console and lifted the tubing-and-container contraption into view from behind it. It was spindly and awkward and not entirely beautiful.
“We-e-ell ...”
“Och, man, you’ve no eye for the engineering of it,” [88] Scott said disparagingly. “Look here.” He pointed out its salient features. “The ingredients go in here, the boiler.” His finger traced along the slim silver line of piping from the bulbous lump to the next streamlined square of metal. “Through the coil to the collector, where it all comes together and ...” He paused reverently. “... Meshes.” Scott moved his hand along the final line of piping as he finished. “And out through the pipe into any receptacle capable of holding one-hundred-percent true engine-room hooch.”
“It seems so simple,” Brien said doubtfully. “We had something like this when we followed the Lionheart’s recipe.”
Scott snorted disdainfully. “This is just the mechanism, man. The recipe, now, that’s a secret known only to the practitioners of the art. And if you think the Lionheart crew would give it to you, you’d believe in many a thing that doesn’t exist in this world or any other. My recipe, now, is a fact. It came from the lowlands, from the soft and smoky hills, and it has age on it, history on it. A thousand years of Scotts brewin’ it. It’s bewitched and bedeviled and an enchanter besides. And on top of that”—Scott grinned broadly—“it’s a mighty good drink.”
Brien smiled back. “I believe it, Scotty. But where do you plan to put that thing? We can’t leave it here in the engine room.”
“No? Try this.” Scott carried the contraption over to the tangle of pipes that drew coolant off the core where dilithium crystals underwent the bombardment that transformed matter and antimatter into usable power for the warp engines. He shifted the peculiar piece into a position that seemed to meld right into [89] the pipe puzzle. “I can link it in here. Stand off a pace, and you can’t tell there’s anything strange about it being there. Look closer, and it seems like an extra piece of piping in the system. It just draws a bit of heat off the core for the boiling process—no harm done to anyone—but the result is one sweet batch of engine-room hooch.”
“You’re sure?”
“Sure as sure can be.”
Chapter Six
GS391, AN UNPREPOSSESSING PLANET when the ship’s sensors first touched it on orbital approach, proved to be equally unappetizing close up. Spock read out the gloomy statistics from the science station as they flashed up on the screen above his console. T’Pris stood beside him, logging a copy of the readout into her tricorder for use on the surface when the landing party beamed down.
>
“Smaller than Earth, only marginally a Class M planet. No bodies of water that qualify as oceans, but there are thirteen large lakes that may be considered inland seas. Six major land masses characterized uniformly with low mountains, plains areas studded with grasses and small trees, best described as a veldt. No higher-intelligence life forms. Birds and insects predominate, but there are some small carnivores and herbivores, nothing on the mammal intelligence scale as high as apes or dolphins. It is an old planet, wearing away, uncultivated and unpopulated.”
[91] “No signs of habitation at all, Mr. Spock?”
“None detected, Captain. However, the robot probe was correct in reporting large pieces of shaped metal. They are located in the southwestern hemisphere, scattered over approximately two square miles of terrain.”
“Can you determine the nature of the debris with ship’s sensors?” This from Number One.
Spock leaned over his console, his long, thin fingers swiftly tapping controls that denned and refined the information being received by the long-range eyes of the ship. Finally, he glanced up, significantly looking at T’Pris before he looked at Pike. “Sensor analysis of its alloy content indicates the metal debris is ancient Vulcan in its origin.”
“The He-shii,” T’Pris murmured.
“The odds are astronomically in favor of it,” Spock agreed.
Pike swung around in his chair and nodded to the two Vulcan officers. “Get your landing party down there and verify, Mr. Spock.”
Spock was already heading for the lift door, T’Pris close on his heels. “Aye, sir. We’ll beam down in nine minutes and six seconds.” The lift doors swished open at their approach, and Spock half turned to lock eyes with Pike. The captain was staring at him in some amusement at the preciseness of the time specification. “My people have been standing by in the transporter room, waiting for your order to go.”
“Thank you for that enlightenment,” Pike said wryly. “I’ll expect a report from you in ten minutes and ten seconds. Or thereabouts.”
The small team of Vulcans that waited for Spock [92] and T’Pris in Transporter Room 2 was a mixed group of specialists—an engineer, an astrophysicist, a computer analyst/technician, and a junior navigator. There were eleven other Vulcans on board, but Spock had chosen a representative cross-section of age and clan to comprise the landing party.
They turned toward him and T’Pris as if drawn by a string as they stepped into the transporter room. “There is no doubt in my mind that the unnatural metallic objects on the planet surface are the remains of a spaceship,” Spock announced. “If it proves to be the wreck of the He-shii, it may be possible Vulcan will finally regain the Glory.”
“May it be so,” the astrophysicist, Sefor, intoned.
The others echoed it ritually. “May it be so.”
Spock nodded, and they took their places on the transporter platform. The transporter chief waited until they were all correctly positioned, then said, “Ready, sir. I have locked coordinates onto the middle of the debris field.”
“Energize.”
The shimmering glow of the transporter grew over the six figures, covering them. As the mechanical hum rose to its peak, the glow abruptly vanished, taking the Vulcans with it.
They rematerialized on an undulating plain carpeted with thick wild grass that stirred slightly in a low breeze. As they looked around in silence, T’Pris automatically turned on her tricorder and scanned the nearby debris.
The shattered pieces of metal that lay strewn across the landscape bore witness to catastrophe. The ship had died violently. The searing heat of an unbraked [93] entry into the atmosphere left burn scars deep in the metal. Clearly, she had been ruptured and broken as she came down in her blazing death throes. Parts of her uniquely shaped hull had fallen in a pattern consistent with explosions that hurled wreckage from high above, not from impact with the ground. The transporter chief had put them down close to the largest piece of hull section. It was the last and barest bone of a ship—weather, age, and small predators had worn and nibbled it down to the outer skin.
“The metal is definitely of Vulcan origin.” T’Pris’s voice was low and controlled. She hesitated in what might have been a trace of emotion just once. “From the degree of ... of deterioration from exposure to weather and natural erosion, its age is approximately—”
“It is the He-shii,” Spock interrupted flatly. He pointed to the faint trace of lettering that trailed up the side of the large hull piece. The ancient Vulcan script was barely readable as the last part of the ship’s name and a portion of its identification number.
The odds of recovering anything intact from this desolate wreck were so low that Spock did not bother to waste time calculating them. Still, he moved toward the large piece of barren hull, more in curiosity than in the hope of finding anything. T’Pris dutifully followed him, scanning. Their tricorders might be able to detect and analyze clues, something—anything—that might hint at what had happened to the He-shii.
As Spock and T’Pris stepped within three meters of the hulk, a metallic, grating voice suddenly spoke. It took a second for Spock to recognize the words and [94] realize their import. He started to whirl around toward the others, a smile breaking, but he remembered to check himself in time. The face they saw as he completed his turn to them was implacable and Vulcan. “Ship’s message beacon.”
Pike and Number One met the Vulcan landing party in the briefing room. Boyce had trailed along, his interest piqued by the unexpected find. The message beacon had been placed on the table and was still broadcasting. Its surface had been badly damaged, pitted and scorched, but the metallic voice uninterruptedly graveled on in an incomprehensible tongue, obviously repeating a message over and over.
“Ancient High Vulcan, sir,” Number One said after listening intently for several seconds.
Six sets of Vulcan eyes snapped to her at almost the same instant. The look was approving. Pike studied her in some surprise.
“You understand it?”
“I recognize it,” she replied evenly. “The old tongue is still used in a number of formal Vulcan ceremonies, but I do not understand the content except for a few words.”
“Number One is quite correct, Captain.” Spock moved forward a step and placed a hand on the beacon, thumbing a control on its underside. The metallic voice stopped. “Lieutenant T’Pris has recorded the message for our records. I believe I can give a reasonably accurate translation at this time. However, if you wish to wait for an exact word-for-word transcript—”
[95] “I’ll take your version of it now, Spock. We can cross-check it later for any discrepancies in the translation.”
“Very well, sir. It begins with the call sign and name of the ship. The message was recorded by Captain Stepn. By the tone of the voice, I would say it was recorded hurriedly and under stress. The He-shii was breaking up as it neared GS391. The ship was doomed, and the few surviving crew members were abandoning her to take to a life shell. One of them was of clan Archenida, and he was carrying the Glory with him. They had decided to cast their lives in the hands of fate. The life shell would have had provisions and oxygen for ten occupants for three months.”
“Warp capacity?”
The young engineer, Spahn, moved slightly, an alert expression on his face. Pike nodded to him. “Yes, Ensign?”
“Our ancestors did not have such a term, sir, but the life shell would have had a power drive that would give them the equivalent of Warp 2.”
“So this life shell—something like a shuttle, I take it?” There were affirmative nods from the Vulcans. “The life shell would have been able to cover fair distances at low warp capacity for some time.”
“Far longer than the occupants would have lived, if no suitable planet were encountered,” Spock noted quietly. “Captain Stepn gave the course they intended to steer. He states in his message that he had decided to stay with the He-shii. I believe he meant for the message beacon to be ejected into space, possibly in or
bit around GS391, so that it would be activated by the approach of any starship that ventured by. [96] Unfortunately, several identifiable noises at the end of the message imply that the He-shii broke up even as he was recording, and the ship and the beacon simply fell to the planet surface in a flaming wreck. The beacon was activated by our presence, possibly by the workings of the tricorders.”
Number One tapped the now silent beacon with a long, shapely fingernail. Blue polish this week, Boyce noticed. The first officer had decided tastes in cosmetic colors. The blue matched the intense hue of her eyes. “You said Captain Stepn gave the course the life shell was taking.”
“He did, and I believe you will find it interesting. In our reckoning of the coordinates, their course was 32 mark 180 degrees.” Spock let the information drop into their minds as a leaf dropped into a still pool, spreading gentle ripples.
Pike and Number One got it at the same time. “Areta lies directly on that course,” Pike snapped.
Number One nodded and added, “With a three-month food, water, and oxygen supply and a sufficient warp capacity, they would have made it if they didn’t deviate from that course.”
“They would not have deviated,” T’Pris said. “They had decided to accept their destiny as it came. The course, once chosen, would be kept.”
Pike looked around at them—the Vulcans taciturn and waiting, Boyce cheerfully curious and interested, Number One neutral but with an alert intensity dancing in her eyes. “Number One,” Pike said. “Take us out of orbit and set course for Areta at Warp 6. We had no reason to scan for spaceship debris on the [97] planet before, or to ask about any mutants with pointed ears. This time we will.”
Spock was seated in an attitude of meditation when his door chime pealed softly. He rose, frowning slightly as he turned. He expected no one. “Come in,” he called as he pushed the hood of his robe back and down around his neck. The door slid open, revealing T’Pris.
STAR TREK: TOS #44 - Vulcan's Glory Page 7
