STAR TREK: TOS #23 - Ishmael
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“And he found you?” asked the captain quietly.
“Yes.”
“And took you in?”
“Yes.”
“And he knew no more than you—that you were an alien?”
“Yes,” said Ishmael. “I was a stranger in a strange land, Jim. I had no hope, beyond what he gave me.”
The man Jim was quiet. Knowing Ish—Spock—as he must, he would know the torture of loneliness in those four months of a hell of hopelessness on an alien world. It was in his voice when he spoke again. “Was it bad?”
Ishmael’s reply was in that very formal tone that masked what in anyone else might have been termed impishness. “On the contrary, Captain, it was a fascinating experience to live as a human among humans. Rather like being a research worker on an anthropological field assignment.”
Their eyes met, human and alien. Give me a straight answer, said the captain’s gaze, and Ishmael’s, You know the answer.
The captain turned, and came to Stemple’s bedside, Ishmael limping quietly behind him. The captain was startled, Stemple saw, to find him awake—if he was awake, and this wasn’t some pain-induced dream. Ish moved up beside him, and reached down to take Stemple’s hand. “You’re among friends.”
Stemple nodded, almost too weak to move. “You—found your friends.” He was surprised at the faintness of his own voice, but Ish heard. Of course, Ish would.
“Yes. And my memory, and my home.”
“They aren’t—like you—either.”
“No,” said Ish softly. “I have always been a stranger, an alien even at my mother’s breast. But I had a home among you. I will never forget.”
“Nor we.” He looked cloudily up at the alien face—human and familiar to him now. He knew he’d never see him again.
“Tell Dr. Gay that I have gone home. She knows.”
“Ah,” whispered Stemple. “Sorry—to lose you. Glad ...” Ish’s hand tightened over his, telling him that he understood this very human piece of illogic. After a moment’s rest he murmured, “Why? You know why, now?”
Ish nodded. “I cannot tell you,” he said. “But everything will be well, now.”
Aaron managed a crooked grin. “Just my luck. Curious—the rest of my life. Itch—I can’t scratch.”
It was the nearest Kirk had ever seen Spock come to that sudden tangle of human emotion that is between laughter and tears. There was a break in his voice and a soft chuckle, as near to human as Jim had ever seen him. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I would tell you if I could.”
“I know.” The drugs were pulling him down, dragging him, as if weighted, into dark waters again. “Take care of yourself, Ish.”
That surprising grip tightened over his hand again. “You, also. Good-bye, Aaron.”
Kirk started to say something else to Spock, but his first officer straightened up quickly, and without a word walked from the room.
“So they really were hoist on their own petard.” McCoy drained his glass, and picked up the brandy bottle, offering more. Kirk held out his; Spock shook his head, nursing the half glass or so that he had left. It was the first time Spock had consented to drink with them. Though the alcohol had no visible effect on him, the social implications were interesting. Spock had, McCoy concluded, learned something of humans on Earth after all.
“Not only that,” said Spock, after a moment’s consideration. “Their experiment in retroactive tampering with history was not only a failure, but a warning. When their mission logs are analyzed, I believe they will come to realize that not only did they not achieve their ends, but in attempting to achieve them, they in fact precipitated the very chain of events they sought to stop. We are, in fact, the product of a tampered time-stream already. The Klingons were attempting to prevent the tampering caused by my presence, but as they were not aware that they were looking for an alien, they made Stemple their target.”
McCoy regarded the Vulcan over the rim of his glass. “So by attempting to thwart history, they actually served it, by bringing you there.”
“Precisely,” said Spock.
Kirk tilted his head to one side, caught by some thought. “Then—you’re almost implying a sort of—predestination. That historically, you had to be there.”
“Historically, I was there, Captain. You will find in the town records of that time an Ishmael Marx listed as accountant for Stemple’s Mill; and, did the mill records still exist, you would find that they are in my handwriting.”
“That’s preposterous,” said McCoy uncertainly.
Spock only cocked an eyebrow at him.
“You’re implying a predestination,” said McCoy, “a—a purpose—about the whole thing. That’s a little illogical for a Vulcan, isn’t it?”
“Not at all, Doctor. Philosophically, the concept of holistic unity of all things would include unity of past and future, as well as of space, personalities, energy and matter. And as for a specific intentionality about so-called random events—it would be illogical to conjecture without sufficient data.”
“In other words, God can be presumed to exist in the absence of solid evidence to the contrary.” Kirk leaned back in the more comfortable of the two chairs in Dr. McCoy’s rather Spartan quarters. Spock, out of deference for the awkward sheath of the lightweight cast on his leg, sat on the edge of the bed.
“If you wish to speak anthropomorphically,” Spock conceded, in his most Vulcan tone.
“But what about the others, Spock?” asked Kirk, holding up his brandy snifter to catch the warm, dimmed light of the shadowy lamps. It was late in the watch—he knew they’d all have to turn in soon, if they were going to be on the bridge at 0800 the following day to leave orbit around Starbase Twelve.
“Others?”
“The Klingons were seeking to halt one chain of events, the one that prevented the Karsid infiltration of the Earth in the 1870s. But doing that, how many other chains of events got started, that would not have been started had the time-stream not been tampered with? How many people did you influence besides Aaron Stemple, Spock? You said that there were two at least who knew what you were. How many other people’s lives did you change?”
“Seven, directly,” replied Spock, with his customary precision. “Not counting the ripple effect. Influence is an incalculable quality, Captain. Events of major significance can last for a few seconds only. That is why I say that I was an integral part of the history of the town; that is why I say that we ourselves are the product of a tampered time-stream.”
“How do you mean?” asked McCoy.
Spock glanced over at him, and set his empty brandy glass down on the edge of the table. “I mean that I have reason to believe that Biddy Cloom is an ancestress of mine,” he said. “Had I not lived in Seattle, had I not been there when I was, I doubt that she would have married, or borne sons. Because of my influence, she—did.” There was an almost imperceptible pause in his voice as he spoke.
Watching his face, Kirk saw that he realized, perhaps for the first time, that Aaron Stemple, and Biddy Cloom, and the Bolt brothers and Lottie and Candy and Dr. Gay, were dead now. Had been dead for centuries.
Kirk returned to his quarters in a meditative mood. The room was comfortingly dim after the daylight glare that eternally brightened the corridors. He made a final check on communications with the base, and confirmed clearances for the Enterprise to depart at 0800. A recorded message from Maria Kellogg further informed him that Trae and Khin Khlaru had departed Starbase Twelve for Vulcanis, where the Klingon historian was applying for Federation citizenship; and that the imperial representative Colonel Nch’rth had been recalled to Klinzhai, where, Kirk presumed, he would have a lot of explaining to do.
He stripped mechanically for bed, his mind on all the things that had been said that night in McCoy’s quarters, and on the plain, brown-eyed girl he’d gotten such a quick glimpse of in the cabin on the mountain, homely and anxious, with a small silver pendant gleaming on its chain at her throat.
A thought
came to him, and he went to the small terminal in the corner cubicle, and tapped quickly into the personnel records of the ship’s central computer. As Maria Kellogg had said, what was the point of being commander if you couldn’t pull classified files now and again?
White letters formed up on the dark screen before him.
SPOCK, S’chn T’gai—S179-276-ST
Lieutenant Commander.
Science Officer, Starship Enterprise.
b. 3492.6, ShiKahr, Vulcanis.
Parents: S’chn T’gai Sarek,
Hgrtcha Clan, ShiKahr, Vulcanis.
Amanda Stemple Grayson,
Seattle, Washington, Earth.
About the e-Book
(DEC, 2003)—Scanned, proofed, and formatted by Bibliophile.
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[1] Star Trek episode, “City on the Edge of Forever,” by Harlan Ellison.