by Tony Daniel
Oh, the Enterprise was not flawless—no ship was. But perfect in her way? Maybe. Yet there were degrees of completion, and Scott was perpetually modifying and upgrading a function here or a component there to add to her beauty.
Scott felt he’d found a kindred spirit in James Watt. The Scottish engineer and inventor was almost as taken by the functional beauty of a starship as the chief engineer. He’d asked for and received permission to bring Watt up to the Enterprise. Within the boundaries of Starfleet security, he’d shown Watt every crack and crevice of his vessel. They’d crawled the Jefferies tubes, with Scott pointing out the slight tweaks here and there that allowed him to deliver performance from his ship that was far and above the norm. Scott’s efforts were so wide reaching, her perfection was taken for granted.
The Enterprise was simply better and faster than most other Constitution-class ships, and because of that, more could be demanded of her. Sometimes Scott was afraid that those demands would prove too much. His charge, his bairn, had met the most severe tests a dangerous galaxy could throw at her and emerged with her colors flying, even if a little battle- and storm-torn in places.
James Watt had been rapidly catching up with modern engineering principles, and he seemed to have a natural grasp of the complex ship’s systems, comparing them in telling ways to his own steam engines and astronomical inventions.
It had been a pleasure to work with Watt on Zeta Gibraltar, strengthening the point defenses for the outpost. It was impossible to create an energy shield defense—the resources and power supplies were limited, and the base, much less the entire planetoid, was much too large to cover with an energy screen.
What could be done, however, was to anticipate the likely incoming threats and have methods in place to deal with them. A kinetic-based attack—a meteoroid drop from space—always the most deadly possibility in terms of destructive energy, could be guarded against by gravitationally attuned phaser defenses. A rock might be accelerating toward the planet at even relativistic velocities, but it could never move faster than the speed of light.
There were, of course, ship-based attacks that could move faster, such as an opponent’s phaser blasts, and torpedoes created with uniform energy payloads, such as photons, positrons, and other, heavier particles.
Watt, for his part, had previously made a study of the defensive works of the real James Watt’s time in history and he had many useful suggestions for positioning equipment and—given the technology—appropriate lines of fire.
The outpost upgrade had proved a fruitful and most enjoyable partnership, and Watt accompanied Scott on many trips up to the Enterprise, where the engineering workshops were more extensive than planetside at the small research station.
The final planetary system was in place within two weeks, and Watt invited Mister Scott and several other officers from the Enterprise engineering team to his outpost quarters to celebrate.
They gathered around Watt’s table, which doubled as a desk, and pulled up the two period armchairs—the others insisted that Watt and Scott occupy these—and a couple more contemporary chairs from a corner.
Wonderful, Scott thought as he sank into the cushion of Watt’s chair. Not too soft, not too hard. Almost as if it had been as ergonomically engineered as the Starfleet furnishings rather than designed by Watt himself (the real Watt). Watt had told Scott his furnishings had always been custom-made articles whenever he could afford it, and Scott now appreciated what that meant: custom-made to James Watt’s exacting standards. He may not have had access to modern construction techniques, but he’d found a way to substitute eighteenth-century know-how to create a chair perfect for drinking—
“Now, gentlemen—and lady,” Watt said, nodding toward Ensign Mullen, who was the leader of Scott’s trusted plasma-transfer tech team. “How do you all take your Scotch? As for myself, I prefer it neat.”
Watt wandered over toward a cupboard near the wall. He stood on a stepstool—Watt was rangy, but not a tall man—and pulled a greenish-colored bottle from a high shelf.
The Scot then sat down in his own armchair, obscuring the label of his liquor with the fabric of the smoking jacket he’d donned upon entering.
Scott smiled and nodded toward the mystery bottle. “That all depends on what we’re drinking, Mister Watt. A bit of ice can go a long way toward giving a good Scotch a momentary bump to greatness, if you understand what I’m saying, but you don’t want to ruin the flavor of something that’s already—”
“How about this, Mister Scott?” Watt said.
Oh my, Scott thought. It’s a Strathisla 1786.
“What year did you come into this beauty, Mister Watt, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Watt gazed upward, rubbed his chin. “I seem to remember it was 1810 or thereabouts.”
Strathisla 1786.
He’d been prepared for a pleasant surprise from Watt, but this?
It’s not only fantastic, it’s entirely impossible.
Six-hundred-year-old Scotch did not and could not exist in drinkable form.
“A lovely replica,” said Scott, shaking his head. He wondered, but did not ask what was actually inside of it.
“Oh, this is no replica,” Watt answered. “At least in the way that you mean. I assure you it is authentic.”
“You must be joking, sir,” Scott said, not entirely seeing what was so funny about pretending a Scotch was better than it actually must be.
“Oh, it’s an old Strathisla, all right,” Watt said. “Saving it for a special occasion, and this certainly qualifies.”
Strathisla 1786.
“You’re telling me this is—”
“It comes from your own computer records and, I have no doubt, from your own mind, Mister Scott,” Watt answered. “I assure you this will be the best Scotch you’ve ever tasted. It’s the Scotch of which dreams are made. Literally.” He picked the bottle up, gave it a little shake, while Scott looked on in mute astonishment. “Shall we?”
Scott nodded. “By all means,” he said. “Neat, if you would.”
Watt produced snifters all around. None of the others dared ask for ice after their chief had declined to do so.
Watt smiled, raised his glass. “Independence,” he said, “Freedom for all people.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Scott said.
Glasses clinked and Scott took a tentative sip.
Then he took a full, mouth-filling taste.
The thistle, the heather, the sea. They’re all in there.
“This can’t be real,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s too perfect.”
“It is as real as your own conception of perfection,” Watt answered. “How could it not be? It was taken from the archetype within your own Scottish soul, my friend. And now, it is part of mine.”
Scott blinked, took another sip, savored this one for quite a long time. Finally he spoke. “Wherever it comes from, here it is, and if we don’t drink it, we’ll live lives of misery from now on longing for what might have been.”
“Spoken like a true Scot, sir,” Watt said. “Now set down your glass, and I’ll fill you up with another.”
“Absolutely. But we mustn’t waste such a treasure,” Scott said. “At least, not too much.”
“No fear, Mister Scott, I assure you that this bottle will not run dry,” he said.
Two hours later, the last of the Strathisla trickled over Scott’s grateful tongue. The room was not very steady, and he wondered if the station’s artificial gravity compensators were fluctuating.
I’d check in with outpost maintenance on that, but I can’t quite get my feet under me.
Watt and the others seemed to have similarly diminished locomotive capacities.
“I believe we’ve done it, Mister Watt,” Scott said. He was almost in tears. “We’ve drunk it all, and now there’s no more heaven that awaits us.”
Scott hung his head down and the motion pitched him forward. He’d have slammed into Watt’s desk if he hadn’t also pa
rtially slipped off his chair and, in the process of keeping himself off the floor, arranged for his head to miss getting a good knot from striking the wood. Scott pushed himself back into the armchair.
He looked back up to find Watt smiling. “Ah, but Mister Scott, if there’s one true quality heaven is said to possess, it is that it is eternal.”
He filled Scott’s snifter once again with Scotch. He set the bottle down, and Scott watched as the level within it slowly, but inexorably, rose until the content of the bottle was complete again.
“The other quality heaven must possess is a drink such as this,” Scott said, raising his glass once more. “At least the Scottish portion of heaven, eh, Mister Watt?”
The glass was moving toward his lips, but Scott realized that it was not going to arrive at the correct docking position if his arm kept wobbling as it was. It took an immense effort of will, but Scott set the glass carefully back onto the table.
Across from him Watt was bobbing from side to side in a similar manner. Scott looked around. The others were slumped in chairs in serene repose—well, except for Lieutenant Gaines’s unfortunately positioned slack jaw and the tiny bit of drool leaking from the corner of his mouth.
Watt suddenly chuckled, smiled broadly, then himself crashed facedown onto the table. Scott was concerned for a moment, but then he heard Watt’s peaceful snoring.
For several seconds more, Scott observed the engineer and wondered why he, too, was not in a similar position.
But then his chair unaccountably wobbled again.
Damn those gravitational compensators!
Scott found himself deposited on the floor under Watt’s desk.
He’d really have to speak to outpost maintenance and have the things examined. Maybe a bit later, later . . .
Then Scott fell into a slumber dreaming of craggy mountain peaks swept by refreshing, peat-scented ocean winds.
Twelve
Captain’s Log, Stardate 6099.1. I have deployed a shuttlecraft on a recon mission into the Vara Nebula to determine if there is a pirate build-up. I gave my officers complete latitude to conduct an extensive sweep, and I have faith in Lieutenant Sulu and Ensign Chekov. I am greatly concerned about the length of time without contact, but without direct evidence of imminent danger, I cannot take the ship out of this system. We continue long-range sensor sweeps looking for the Kepler.
We have now been on guard duty at Outpost Zeta Gibraltar for three standard weeks. The crew has been augmenting planetary defenses and analyzing the strange device we located on a captured L’rah’hane ship. Commander Spock and the Excalbian Benjamin Franklin have determined that the device can somehow affect the underlying structure of space-time. The crew have mingled with and studied the Excalbians. I still believe there is something missing in their explanation of their motives, but it cannot be denied that their mimicry is convincing. Federation Special Representative Valek, the plenipotentiary command of this system, has been at times contentious, but overall, has proven effective so far. The Excalbians await her decision.
The sickbay door swished open and McCoy looked up from his microscope, where he was examining the rapid decomposition of two severed Excalbian cells belonging to Cyrano de Bergerac and Commodore Stephen Decatur.
“Doctor Leonard McCoy, I presume?” The voice was female and had a distinct French accent.
McCoy did not at first look up. “Yes,” he answered.
“My name is Emilie du Chatelet,” said a woman, the possessor of the voice, who stood in the doorway. “I have come to look through your graviton microscope.”
“My graviton—” Now McCoy did look up and see her. A wave of recognition passed through him and just as suddenly retreated. “Madame, have we met?”
“Never, Doctor.”
McCoy stood as the Excalbian woman entered the room, her wide dress brushing against the doorway.
“Well then, it’s nice to meet you, Madame . . . was it du Chalet?”
“Du Chatelet, Doctor McCoy, but I insist you call me Emi. Arouet always did.”
“I just had the most extraordinaire moment of déjà vu,” McCoy said. “Perhaps I’ve read about you and forgotten. What is your interest in the graviton microscope, if I may ask?”
“I have long been interested in the principles of physics, Doctor. Although we only had the works of Newton and Leibnitz in my time with which to gauge the universe, I was always convinced there was more to it all, something we had not yet grasped. Now I have read Einstein, de Varlane, and Beldak and see that I was not mistaken.”
McCoy came out from behind his worktable. “Well, if I’m going to call you Emi, you’re going to call me Leonard,” he said. “Do you often read papers on particle physics for fun?”
“One likes to understand the universe in which one finds oneself, Leonard.”
As she moved across the room, McCoy struggled not to stare. She was not the most beautiful woman McCoy had ever come in contact with, but she was close. She was also the picture of elegance, seeming to glide across the sickbay as she approached him. She wore an elaborately brocaded dress of a fine blue fabric, probably pure silk, with a plunging neckline. Between her ample breasts was a blue-and-white cameo suspended on a black ribbon.
Her green eyes were deep with intelligence. On her left cheek was a slight beauty mark. Full lips, perfectly bowed.
And the scent of her! He caught it as she approached. He had never much liked perfume, but this was different. Complex, floral, yet with a touch of the exotic. Sandalwood, maybe?
Her scent was, he had to admit, intoxicating.
McCoy shook himself out of his reverie. “Step this way, Emi, and I’ll give you a look. Might be of particular interest to you. I’ve got an Excalbian skin cell on the stage, and I was examining some very strange structures inside of it when you came in. Perhaps you can tell me their function.”
“I dabble a bit and keep up with the science, but I am afraid that biology was never my specialty, Leonard,” she said. She bent down to look through the scope’s viewer. McCoy found himself staring at the delicate curve of her porcelain neck. “Oh, my. It’s beautiful.”
“Yes, it is,” McCoy replied.
“And are there different wavelengths of gravitons in the same manner there are different wavelengths of light?”
“Yes, I think so. Physics was never my specialty, Emi.”
Du Chatelet looked up expectantly at McCoy. “What else can you show me with this marvelous mechanism, Leonard?”
McCoy gestured to his sample shelf. “Would you like to see a Vulcan heart cell? Most unusual, and I’d have to say lovely, shape—though you’ll never hear me admitting that to Spock. Full of copper-loving compounds.”
“I’d be delighted,” du Chatelet answered.
That feeling again. McCoy shook his head. “I’m sure we’ve never met, of course, but—”
Du Chatelet smiled. It lit up her face wonderfully. “You know, Leonard, Arouet used to always say the same thing. He swore I was the image of a dryad in a Botticelli painting he’d once seen in Italy. Silly man. He also said that while he came to me for the mathematics, he stayed for the view.”
“You’re a mathematician, too?”
“I dabble,” she said. “My main interest is—was—in the luminous properties of fire. The books I’ve read tell me that I predicted ultraviolet and infrared radiation, which later were measured, but the fact that there must exist invisible spectrum was, well, as plain as day.”
She covered her lips with a lace-gloved hand and snickered at her slight witticism. McCoy found it utterly charming.
“The properties of fire,” McCoy said. “How appropriate.”
“I don’t follow what you mean, Leonard,” she said. Then another smile and a gentle laugh, and she gestured toward McCoy’s samples. “You were going to show me that Vulcan heart cell? I’ve read your paper on it, you know.”
“That is the first time a beautiful woman has ever uttered those words to me. ‘Read you
r paper on it.’ I kind of like the feeling.”
Chatelet blushed. “You have a tongue as silky as Arouet’s. Poor man, it often got him into trouble, though.”
“Who is this Arouet? Is he your husband?”
Du Chatelet gasped. “Heaven forbid, Leonard,” she said. “If I’d married him we’d have been as poor as church mice. Especially after he came back from his exile in England.” Another silvery laugh. “Oh, he should never have taunted the authorities so with his Candide.”
Candide.
Arouet.
The real name of Voltaire.
“You’re Voltaire’s mistress,” McCoy said. “Of course, I’ve read about you.”
“I was,” she said. “Sadly, Arouet was killed in unfortunate circumstances during our departure from the planet Excalbia.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” McCoy said. “I would have liked to meet him. A rational man with a sense of humor. Could teach Spock a thing or two.”
“That he was, Leonard. That he was. And kind. Perhaps the sweetest of all my lovers.” There was a pause as McCoy took this in. She had stated it as if she had ample experience for comparison.
After a moment of silence, Du Chatelet brought up a delicate hand and touched McCoy’s cheek.
That scent again.
“The heart cell, Leonard? Might we put it under the microscope now?”
* * *
“Here is the problem, Captain Kirk,” said Washington-Yarnek. “The pirate raids, in some ways, woke us up to our own problem. We feel that we are locked in a perpetual limbo. If that is the case, we might as well be back in the magma of Excalbia.”
Kirk and Washington-Yarnek were in the outpost recreation room, sitting near a window that looked out on the blue-orange vastness of the planetoid. It was near sunset, the purple sky darkening to a bruise brown. In the distance, a dust storm was approaching, and a huge plume from its outlying edge was beginning to darken the sky even further. The storm was to the west, and the planetoid, which had an Earth-like rotation, had its sunset in that direction. That sun, Gibraltar, shone eerily through the distant dust whorls, turning portions of the cloud a glowing bright red. It seemed as if the storm might be literally on fire.
