by Peter David
“Engine room. Burgoyne here.”
“Burgy, we’re going to be firing up to maximum warp. You have everything ready to go?”
“For you, Commander? Anything. We’re fully up to spec. Even I’m satisfied with it.”
“If it meets your standards, Burgy, then it must measure up. Shelby out.”
McHenry was already on his way, and Calhoun was half-standing. “If there’s nothing else . . .”
But Si Cwan was shaking his head, as if discouraged about something. The gesture caught Calhoun’s attention, and he said, “Si Cwan?”
“The Lemax system. I know the area. He must have tried to run the Gauntlet. It shouldn’t have been a problem.” He sighed.
“The Gauntlet?”
“It’s a shooting gallery. Two planets that used to be at war, until we imposed peace upon them. The Gauntlet was a hazard of the past, except apparently the danger has been renewed. Just another example of the breakdown occurring all around us.” He shook his head again, and then looked around at the silent faces watching him. And then, without another word, he rose and walked out of the room.
• • •
Si Cwan stared at the wall of his quarters. Then he heard the sound of the chime. He ignored it, but it sounded again. “Come,” he said with a sigh.
Calhoun entered and just stood there, arms folded. “You left rather abruptly,”
“I felt the meeting was over.”
“Generally it’s good form for the captain to make that judgment.”
“I am somewhat out of practice in terms of having others make judgments on my behalf.”
Calhoun walked across the room, pacing out the interior much as Si Cwan had earlier. “How do you wish to be viewed aboard this ship, Cwan? As an object of pity?”
“Of course not,” Si Cwan said sharply.
“Contempt, then? Confusion, perhaps?” He stopped and turned to face him. “Your title, accorded out of courtesy more than anything else, is ’Ambassador.’ Not prince. Not lord. ’Ambassador.’ I will hope you find that satisfactory. And by the same token, I hope you understand and acknowledge my authority on this ship. I do not want my decision to allow you to remain with us to be viewed by you as lack of strength on my part.”
“No. I don’t view it that way at all.”
“I’m pleased to hear that.”
Si Cwan regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “May I ask how you got that scar?”
Calhoun touched it reflexively. “This one?”
“It is the most prominent, yes.”
“To be blunt . . . I got it while killing someone like you.”
“I see. And should I consider that a warning?”
“I don’t have to kill anymore . . . I hope,” he added as an afterthought.
They sat in silence for a moment, and then Si Cwan said, “It is important to me that you understand my situation, Captain. We oversaw an empire, yes. In many ways, in your terms, we might have been considered tyrannical. But it was my life, Captain. It was my life, and the life of those around me who worked to maintain it and help it prosper. Whether you agree with our methods or not, there was peace. There was peace, “and he slapped his legs and rose. He turned his back to Calhoun and leaned against the wall, palms spread wide. “Peace built by my ancestors, maintained by my generation. We had a birthright given to us, an obligation . . . and we failed. And now I’m seeing the work of my ancestors, and of my family, dismantled. In a hundred years . . . in ten years, for all I know . . . it will be as if everything we accomplished, for good or ill, will be washed away. Gone. As traceable as a tower of sand on the edge of a beach, consumed by the rising tide. What we did will have made no difference. It was all for nothing. Every difficult decision, every hard choice, ultimately amounted to nothing whatsoever. We have no legacy for our future generations. Indeed, we’ll probably have no future generations. I have no royal consort with whom I can perpetuate our line. No royal lineage to pass on.”
“And you’re hoping to use this vessel to rebuild your power base. Aren’t you.”
Si Cwan turned and stared at him. “Is that what you think?”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“I admit it crossed mine as well. But I give you my word, Captain, that I will do nothing to endanger this ship’s mission, nor any of its personnel. My ultimate goal is the same as yours: to serve as needed.”
Slowly Calhoun nodded, apparently satisfied. “All right. I can accept that . . . for now.”
“Captain . . . ?”
“Yes.”
Si Cwan smiled thinly. “You were aware the entire time, weren’t you. Aware that I had stowed away on your vessel.”
For a moment Calhoun considered lying, a course that he would not hesitate to indulge in if he felt that it would serve his purposes. But his instinct told him that candor was the way to go in this matter. “Yes.”
“Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes. It is something of a relief, really. The notion that I was aboard a ship where the commanding officer had so little awareness of what was happening around him . . . it was unsettling to me.”
“I’m relieved that I was able to put your mind at ease. And Si Cwan . . .”
“Yes?”
“Believe it or not . . . I can sympathize. I’ve had my own moments where I felt that my life had been wasted.”
“And may I ask how you dealt with such times of despair?”
And Mackenzie Calhoun laughed softly and said, “I took command of a starship.” But then he held up a warning finger. “Don’t get any ideas from that.”
“I shall try not to, Captain. I shall try very hard.”
X.
HUFMIN STARED OUT at the stars and, focusing on one at a time, uttered a profanity for every one he picked out.
Cramped in the helm pit of the Cambon, he still couldn’t believe that he had gotten himself into this fix. He scratched at his grizzled chin and dwelt for the umpteenth time on the old Earth saying that no good deed goes unpunished.
He glanced at his instrumentation once more, his lungs feeling heavier and heavier. He knew that the last thing you were supposed to do upon receiving a head injury was let yourself fall asleep. And so he had kept himself awake through walking around in the cramped quarters, through stimulants, recitation, biting himself—anything and everything he could think of. None of which was going to do him a damned bit of good because, just to make things absolutely perfect, he wasn’t going to be able to breathe for all that much longer. The life-support systems were tied into his engines. When they went down, the support systems switched to backup power supply, but that was in the process of running out. Hufmin was positive it was getting tougher to breathe, although he wasn’t altogether certain how much of that was genuine and how much was just his imagination running away with him. But if it wasn’t happening now, it was going to be happening soon enough as the systems became incapable of cleansing the atmosphere within the craft and everybody within suffocated.
Everybody . . .
Every . . . body . . .
. . . lots of bodies.
Not for the first time, he dwelt on the fact that this was a case where the more was most definitely not the merrier. Every single body on the ship was another person who was taking up space, another person breathing oxygen and taking up air that would be better served to keep him, Hufmin, alive.
What had possessed him? What in God’s name had possessed him to take on this useless, unprofitable detail? If he’d been a Ferengi he would have been drummed out of . . . well, whatever it was that Ferengi were drummed out of when they made unbelievably bad business decisions. The problem was that this was no longer simply a case of costing him money. Now it was going to cost him his life.
. . . lots of bodies . . .
“Dump ’em,” he said, giving voice finally to the thought that had bounced around in his head for the last several hours. It was a perfectly reasonable idea. All he had to do was get rid
of the passengers and he could probably survive days, maybe even weeks, instead of the mere hours that his instruments seemed to indicate remained to him.
It wouldn’t be easy. There were, after all, forty-seven of them and only one of him. It wasn’t likely that they would simply and cheerfully hurl themselves into the void so that he, Hufmin, had a better chance at survival. No, the only way to get rid of them would be by force. Again, though, he was slightly outnumbered . . . by about forty-seven to one.
He had a couple of disruptors in a hidden compartment under his feet. He could remove those, go into the aft section where all the passengers were situated, and just start firing away. Blow them all to hell and gone and then eject the bodies. But then he pictured himself standing there, shooting, body after body going down, seeing the fear of death in their eyes, hearing the death rattles not once, not twice, but forty-seven times. Because it was going to have to be all of them. All or nothing, he knew that with absolute certainty. He couldn’t pick and choose. All or nothing. But he was no murderer. He’d never killed anyone in his life; the disrupters were just for protection, a last resort, and he’d never fired them. Never had to. Kill them and then blast them into space . . . how could he . . . ?
Then he realized. He didn’t have to kill them. Just blast them into space, into the void. Sure, they’d die agonizingly, suffering in space, but it wasn’t as if death by disrupter was all that much better.
The Cambon was divided into three sections: The helm pit, which was where he was. The midsection, used for equipment storage mostly, and his private quarters as well. And the aft section . . . the largest section, used for cargo . . .
. . . which was where all his passengers were. They were cramped, they were uncomfortable, but they were alive.
Hufmin’s eyes scanned his equipment board. And there, just as he knew it would be, was the control for the aft loading doors. There were controls in back as well, but they were redundant and—if necessary—could be overridden from the helm pit. The helm pit, which was, for that matter, self-contained and secured, a heavy door sealing it off from the rest of the vessel.
All he had to do was blow the loading-bay doors. The passengers back there probably wouldn’t even have time to realize that their lives were ended before they were sucked out into the vacuum of space. Granted he’d lose some air as well. With power so low, the onboard systems would never be able to replenish what he lost to the vacuum. On the other hand, he’d have the remaining air in the helm pit and in the midsection. Not a lot, but at least it would be all his. All his.
. . . lots of bodies . . .
The bay-door switch beckoned to him and he reached over and tapped it, determined to do what had to be done for survival before he thought better of it. Immediately a yellow caution light came on, and the operations computer came on in its flat, monotone masculine voice. “Warning. This vessel is not within a planetary atmosphere. Opening of loading-bay doors will cause loss of air in aft section and loss of any objects not properly secured. Do you wish to continue with procedure? Signify by saying, ’Continue with procedure.’”
“Con—” The words caught in his throat.
. . . lots of bodies . . .
“Con . . . contin—”
There was a rapping at the door behind him. It reverberated through the helm pit, like a summons from hell. “What is it?!” he shouted at the unseen intruder.
“Mr. Hufmin?” came a thin, reedy voice. A child’s voice, a small girl. One of the soon-to-be corpses.
“Yeah? What?”
“I was . . . I was wondering if anyone heard our call for help.”
“I don’t know. I wish I did, but I don’t. Go back and sit with your parents now, okay?”
“They’re dead.”
That caught him off-guard for a moment, but then he remembered; one of the kids had lost her parents to some rather aggressive scavengers. She was traveling with an uncle who looked to be around ninety-something. “Oh, right, well . . . go back with your uncle, then.”
There was a pause and he thought for a moment that she’d done as he asked. He started to address the computer again when he heard, “Mr. Hufmin?”
“What is it, damn you!”
“I just . . . I wanted to say thank you.” When he said nothing in response, she continued, “I know you tried your best, and that I know you’ll keep trying, and I . . . I believe in you. Thank you for everything.”
He stared at the blinking yellow light. “Why are you saying this? Who told you to say this?” he asked tonelessly.
’The gods. I prayed to them for help, and I was starting to fall asleep while I was praying . . . and I heard them in my head telling me to say thank you. So I . . . I did.”
Hufmin’s mouth moved, but nothing came out. “That’s . . . that’s fine. You’re, uh . . . you’re welcome. Okay? You’re welcome.”
He listened closely and heard the sound of her feet pattering away. He was all alone once more. Alone to do what had to be done.
“Computer.”
“Waiting for instructions,” the computer told him. The computer wouldn’t care, of course. It simply waited to be told. It was a machine, incapable of making value judgments. Nor was it capable of taking any actions that would insure its own survival. Hufmin, on the other hand, most definitely was.
“Computer . . .”
He thought of the child. He thought of the bodies floating in space. So many bodies. And he would survive, or at least have a better chance, and that was the important thing. “Computer, continue with . . .”
What was one child, more or less? One life, or forty-seven lives? What did any of it matter? The only important thing was that he lived. Wasn’t that true? Wasn’t it?
He envisioned them floating past his viewer, their bodies destroyed by the vacuum, their faces etched in the horror of final realization. And he would still be alive . . .
. . . and he might as well be dead.
With the trembling sigh of one who knows he has just completely screwed himself, Hufmin said, “Computer, cancel program.”
“Canceling,” replied the computer. Naturally, whether he continued the program or not was of no consequence to the computer. As noted, it was just a machine. But Hufmin liked to think he was something more, and reluctantly had to admit that—if that was the case—it bore with it certain responsibilities.
He leaned back in his pilot’s seat, looked out at the stars, and said, “Okay, gods. Whisper something to me now. Tell me what an idiot I am. Tell me I’m a jerk. Go ahead. Let me have it, square between the eyes.”
And the gods answered.
At least, that’s what it appeared they were doing, because the darkness of space was shimmering dead ahead, fluctuating ribbons of color undulating in circular formation.
Slowly he sat forward, his mind not entirely taking in what he was witnessing, and then the gods exploded from the shadows.
These gods, however, had chosen a very distinctive and blessed conveyance. They were in a vessel that Hufmin instantly recognized as a Federation starship. It had dropped out of warp space, still moving so quickly that it had been a hundred thousand kilometers away and then, an eyeblink later, it was virtually right on top of him. He’d never seen such a vessel in person before, and he couldn’t believe the size of the thing. The ship had course-corrected on a dime, angling upward and slowing so that it passed slowly over him rather than smashing him to pieces. He saw the name of the ship painted on the underside: U.S.S. Excalibur. The ship was so vast that it blotted out the light provided by a nearby sun, casting the Cambon into shadow, but Hufmin could not have cared less.
Hufmin had never been a religious man. The concept of unseen, unknowable deities had been of no interest to him at all in his rather pragmatic life. And as he began to deliriously cheer, and wave his hands as if they could see him, he decided that he did indeed believe in gods after all. Not the unknowable ones, though. His gods were whoever those wonderful individuals were who loomed abov
e him. They had come from wherever it was gods came from, and had arrived in this desperate environment currently inhabited by one Captain Hufmin and his cargo of forty-seven frightened souls.
Thereby answering, finally, a very old question, namely:
What does God need with a starship?
And the answer, of course, was one of the oldest answers in the known universe:
To get to the other side.
XI.
ROBIN LEFLER LOOKED UP from Ops and said, “Captain, everyone from the vessel has been beamed aboard: the ship’s commander and forty-seven passengers.”
Shelby whistled in amazement as Calhoun said, clearly surprised, “Forty-seven? His ship’s not tiny, but it’s not that big. He must have had people plastered to the ceiling. Shelby, arrange to have the passengers brought, in shifts, to sickbay, so Dr. Selar can check them over. Make sure they’re not suffering from exposure, dehydration, et cetera.”
“Shall we take his ship in tow, sir?” asked Kebron.
“And to where do you suggest we tow it, Mr. Kebron?” asked Calhoun reasonably. “It’s not as if we’ve got a convenient starbase nearby. Bridge to Engineering.”
“Engineering, Burgoyne here,” came the quick response over the intercom.
“Chief, we have a transport ship to port with an engine that needs your magic touch.”
“My wand is at the ready, sir.”
“How many times have I heard that line,” murmured Robin Lefler . . . just a bit louder than she had intended. The comment drew a quick chuckle from McHenry, and a disapproving glance from Shelby . . . who, in point of fact, thought it was funny but felt that it behooved her to keep a straight face.
“Get a team together, beam over, and give me an estimate on repair time.”
“Aye, sir.”
He turned to Shelby and said briskly, “Commander, talk to the pilot. Find out precisely what happened, what he saw. I want to know what we’re dealing with. Also, see if you can find Si Cwan. He’s supposed to be our ambassador. Let’s see how his people react to him. If they throw things at him or run screaming, that will be a tip off that he might not be as useful as we’d hoped. Damn, we should have given him a comm badge to facilitate—”
