by Tony Daniel
Spock turned toward Washington-Yarnek and Valek to indicate he was wrapping up. “For the moment,” he continued, “a very long moment indeed, the Excalbians and the Federation are safe from the Demiurge.”
“Commander Spock, on behalf of the Assembly, allow me to extend the thanks of our new government to yourself and the Enterprise crew,” Washington-Yarnek said. “And, since the representatives of my former species do not understand the idea of gratitude, allow me to say thank you for them, as well.”
Anvit, on the viewscreen, appeared nonplussed by this, more befuddled than imposing. “Agreed,” he finally said. “We acknowledge that the present situation in which we find ourselves has been brought about by a series of misconceptions on our part. It may be that we have finally come to an understanding of this thing called ‘good.’ ”
“Excellent,” said Washington-Yarnek. “You may find, Anvit, that good may be more useful to the survival of your species than its converse, evil.”
Anvit turned his head in what Kirk imagined might be the Excalbian version of a nod of acknowledgment. “We will contemplate this,” said the Excalbian commander. “We have also arrived at a second conclusion that we intend to act on henceforth.”
“What is that?”
“Do not make James T. Kirk angry,” Anvit replied.
“Wise,” said Washington-Yarnek.
“Since any further interaction with the Federation might do so, we will disengage from any such attempt and will also relinquish any plan to destroy any planets within the Federation.”
“Good to hear,” said Kirk under his breath, then he stated more loudly: “That would anger me, I can promise you, Anvit.”
“Acknowledged,” Anvit replied.
Valek cocked her head and spoke to Anvit. “Commander, might I suggest that your people go to the Vara Nebula? The protean star-forming matter in the nebula may be an excellent substrate in which to release your archived Excalbian mentalities. Perhaps you can even terraform some of the rocky bodies to support humanoid life, should you ever want to try what Yarnek and the others have done.”
“That is . . . an interesting suggestion, Representative Valek,” Anvit said.
“Furthermore, this will allow you to keep watch over the scattered remains of the Demiurge. You might also deal with the pirate situation while you are about it.”
“Quid pro quo,” said Anvit. “We will contemplate this.”
“Good,” Valek said.
Valek turned toward Washington-Yarnek. “Shall we get on with other business, Mister President?”
“Please do, madam,” Washington-Yarnek replied.
Valek nodded. “Very well. As a plenipotentiary special representative, I have complete latitude in all matters under the brief of my appointment. One of those matters is the granting of Federation citizenship to the humanoid Excalbian refugees.” Valek gazed around the room at the gathered historical figures for a long moment, then rendered her verdict. “That application is hereby denied,” she said.
There were a few murmurs of discontent, but her announcement did not cause a general uproar.
Their president has them well prepared, Kirk thought.
“There is also the matter of the Declaration of the New Excalbia Assembly presented to me and provisionally accepted by me.” Valek reached down, took hold of the rolled piece of old-fashioned paper, and lifted it up. “I suggest that you make this permanent, knowing you will have the full support of the United Federation of Planets with all the previously stipulated terms, including the transfer of the Zeta Gibraltar planetoid from the Federation to the polity known and recognized as New Excalbia.”
At this, a cheer went up from all the gathered Excalbians—a cheer that resonated into the remainder of the outpost as the news was communicated to those who could not squeeze into the Council Chamber.
The only one who didn’t seem very happy was Imelda Contreras, who was trying to put a good face on her personal discontent over losing her post.
Washington-Yarnek rose from his seat. He reached into his blue woolen jacket and pulled forth—his musket pistol.
This quieted the room almost instantly.
Then he turned the pistol around and used its butt as a gavel. Whatever murmurs remained now cut out, and the room was silent.
“Today, I wish to declare the first act of foreign policy by this Assembly by calling for the acceptance of the representative’s proposed settlement by popular acclaim.”
Another cheer went up, this one longer and louder than the first.
This time it did take several bangs of the musket butt to achieve quiet again.
Kirk glanced over at Valek, who had taken a seat and was serenely directing her gaze at the president.
God, she’s beautiful in her Vulcan way, he thought. What would it be like to—
Then he mentally kicked himself for even allowing himself to consider it.
“Captain Kirk,” Washington-Yarnek said, pulling Kirk abruptly out of his reverie.
“Yes, Mister President?”
“I would like to offer a pledge to you and to Starfleet that my administration shall make it a point of honor to boldly go forth and discover whether any remnants of the Hradrian slave empire still exist. If we do find them, I will make it my personal task to free those slaves. I cannot do penance for an historical figure I do not really know, but I can certainly make amends with my own actions. We’ll lick whatever remains of those L’rah’hane pirates in the bargain.”
Kirk smiled and nodded. “That is very good to hear, Mister President,” he said. “With you in charge, I’m sure the task will be a success.”
Washington-Yarnek nodded his acknowledgement of the challenge. Then he turned to the assembled. “Having no further business . . . business that can’t wait a few days, that is . . . I hereby declare this meeting dismissed.”
Dismissed by George Washington, Kirk thought. There’s something bracing about that. Even if he is a big phony, he’s my big phony after all—plucked from my expectations and my wells of inspiration.
* * *
Emilie du Chatelet hadn’t said anything when McCoy showed up in her doorway. She had just wordlessly motioned for him to come inside.
Her dressing room was furnished like an eighteenth-century dream of luxury.
Which, in a way, is exactly what it is, thought McCoy.
He sat in a marvelously soft chair while she got them both sherry in glasses with the weight of cut crystal to them.
McCoy raised his in a toast.
“Well, my dear Emi, even though in my medical opinion you are a hideous alien got up to look like a beautiful and intelligent woman, as a man, I’m still going to miss you,” McCoy said.
“And I will miss you, Leonard, my master of the body in all its variations, my captain of life,” Emilie du Chatelet replied.
“It’s not every man who can say he slept with the woman who predicted ultraviolet radiation and translated Newton’s Principia into French.” McCoy took a sip of sherry and gazed at her. “And, of course, was Voltaire’s mistress,” he said, shaking his head.
“And now McCoy’s,” she replied. “Or you could say you were a particular fancy of mine.”
“I could and would,” McCoy said.
“Will you ever return to me, Leonard?”
“You never know with a captain like James T. Kirk,” McCoy responded.
“He is your friend?”
“He is.”
“As well as the reserved Mister Spock. He, too, is your friend?”
“Yes,” McCoy answered. He lifted his sherry. “To us.”
“To what we were and what we are,” said du Chatelet.
“And what we will be,” McCoy said, and drank from his glass, as du Chatelet did.
He noticed the smear of rose-colored lipstick she left on the rim and caught the faint scent of her perfume, that perfume, as she reached to adjust a curl that had fallen over her forehead.
“We still have an ho
ur,” McCoy said. “I’m not due back on the Enterprise until zero seven hundred.”
“My quarters or yours, Leonard?” du Chatelet asked in a husky whisper.
“Let’s stay here,” said McCoy. “I’d like to feel that French feather bed of yours.” He smiled ruefully. “I wish I could take something . . . a feather, a glove, a lock of your hair, anything to remember you by.”
“It would disintegrate to component parts within a day or two without the animism of my presence to reinforce its molecular structure.”
“ ‘The animism of your presence,’ ” McCoy said. “That I’m going to miss most of all.”
“I think I can send you away with a little of it,” du Chatelet answered. She leaned over and turned her face toward him. McCoy drew her closer and planted a kiss on her perfectly bowed lips. “Or maybe more than a little,” she whispered into his ear.
The bed was even softer than McCoy had imagined. And when they were finished, McCoy realized he would take something of hers with him, something of which he could never rid himself, and would never wish to.
The memory of her scent.
* * *
“Captain, do you think all this effort and peril has merely left us with a little slice of hell that the Federation is glad to get rid of?” Washington-Yarnek asked Kirk.
They were standing at the large windows of an outpost exterior observation room window looking out over the blue-orange vista that was the surface of Zeta Gibraltar. The sky glowed its neon purple.
“It kind of grows on you,” Kirk said. “Kind of.
“I think you’ll find that home is home, no matter what it looks like out there,” Kirk added.
“I suppose you’re correct,” Washington-Yarnek replied. “Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected, and there is much to do. We shall find happiness in maintaining what we have won for ourselves. Yet, there are times when I doubt any of this will amount to much, that I am living someone else’s dream.”
Kirk nodded. “Many of us feel that way,” he said. “A parent’s expectations. Our own youthful choices. An inherited duty. Life can feel . . . out of one’s control.”
“What do you do when that anxiety comes upon you, Captain?”
Kirk turned to the Excalbian and smiled. “Well, sometimes I ask myself what George Washington would do,” he said.
* * *
It was the day cycle on the planetoid, and laboratory C was well lit from its exterior windows. Spock and Franklin bent over an experiment that the doctor had convinced the Vulcan might be worthwhile to begin together.
Franklin had called it his “gravity stove,” and Spock had to admit that the idea was ripe with possibilities. Franklin had been studying the various means extant for producing artificial gravity, and he had discussed with Spock several possibilities for using alternating gravitational plates to create a kind of “current” of gravity whose feedback might created a localized warp effect.
Franklin envisioned its use to create an interstellar “flying carpet,” but Spock could imagine more mundane and widespread uses, should the device prove viable.
“Galileo did the math, and he says it will work,” Franklin said. “But in this world nothing is certain but death and debt.”
In order to work with Franklin, Spock had remained on the planetoid until the final moment before the Enterprise’s departure. Spock’s communicator signal indicated that time had come.
Spock straightened from the project before them.
“Doctor Franklin, I regret that I must beam up to the Enterprise,” Spock said. “Before I go, I must tell you that it has been an honor and a privilege to have met and worked with you,” Spock said. “I hope that our paths may cross again.”
“Oh, I expect they will, Mister Spock,” Franklin said. “I may do a bit of traveling myself after we get this new government settled in. Humans may have the right to pursue happiness, but you have the responsibility to catch it yourself.”
“Indeed.”
“Besides, I suspect both of us would like to play a truly challenging game of three-dimensional chess every once in a while.”
Spock nodded. “You have a standing invitation, Doctor Franklin,” he said. “Shall we make it seven out of nine?”
“Seven out of nine it is, Mister Spock,” Franklin replied. “And we’ll replay the stalemates. That ought to keep us busy for years.”
* * *
The Enterprise transporter shimmered, and Representative Valek materialized upon the platform. She looked about and then raised an eyebrow when she saw Kirk was there to meet her.
“There was no need for you to be present,” Valek said. “I no longer serve as your superior. ”
“I thought I might escort you to your quarters,” Kirk replied.
“I hope the slight diversion to deliver me to Sandora is acceptable, Captain,” Valek said. “The repairs to the Montana are still under way, and I am needed immediately in the territorial capital on Sandora Prime to arbitrate a dispute over asteroid mining rights. It is quite a fascinating case, actually.”
“I’m certain you find it so,” Kirk said. “I’d be interested in hearing why.”
Valek began to speak, but then stopped herself.
“Perhaps another time,” she said.
They exited the transporter room and walked to the turbolift.
“Deck five,” Kirk said. Both of them remained silent until the lift door opened. They stepped out into the corridor, and Kirk pointed them in the right direction.
To the captain’s surprise, Valek reached over and took his arm as they strolled down the passageway.
“In reference to our discussion four point eight days ago, I wanted to supplement a point I was making.”
“By all means do,” said Kirk.
Valek nodded. “It occurred to me it might add to your understanding if I were to expand more on my observations concerning Ambassador Sarek and Amanda Grayson.”
“Please.”
“It took me several years of being in close proximity to them, but I believe I did finally arrive at an understanding of the relationship,” she said. “You humans—”
“Here’s your quarters, Valek,” Kirk said. He pointed to the control button on the wall beside the portal. “The activation lock is keyed to respond to your individual touch.”
Valek pulled her arm away, then turned to face Kirk, her back against the closed door. She raised her right hand and held forth two fingers, the index and middle.
Where have I seen that before, he thought.
Then it came to him. This was the gesture Amanda Grayson made toward her husband, Sarek, when they had reached the limits of spoken logic and must assert the unspoken logic of the bond between them.
Kirk reached up with his own right hand, two fingers extended, and crossed the tips of Valek’s fingers, lightly touching her skin.
He looked into her eyes. Not coldly logical. Just supremely rational. Rational and lovely.
“This is how we humans do it,” Kirk said.
He leaned toward her, fully expecting her to push him away.
Well, what the hell—I’m tired of pretending it’s impossible for me to feel this way. I do feel this way.
But she did not push him away. Instead, she moved toward him. For a moment they embraced—and it was not strange or awkward, as he had feared it might be.
In fact, it finally feels right between us.
Valek brushed her lips against his. The lightest touch.
And it was electrifying. Her mind, her being, almost touching his, almost sharing the same space, the same thought.
Then she pushed him slightly away and stepped back against the door.
“You reasoned it was time we kissed?” Kirk asked.
She arched an eyebrow. “An interesting logical paradox to explore,” she said.
Kirk was about to reply, but before he could Valek reached over and pressed her hand against the button. The door to her quarters slid open.
Note: any deviation from historical accuracy herein is entirely the fault of the Excalbians themselves, and does not reflect on any of the fine historians I consulted while researching this book.
Thanks to my wonderful mother-in-law, Edith Hoffmann, who provided the secluded spot where much of Savage Trade was written, and to Quim and Pilar Montserrat, for their excellent companionship, and for the occasional shot of whiskey, during the writing process. Thanks to editor Margaret Clark once again for her expert guidance and encyclopedic Star Trek knowledge. Thanks also to my lovely and essential wife, Rika Daniel, and to my kids Cokie and Hans, with whom there is never a dull moment. Never.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tony Daniel is a science fiction writer and author of Star Trek: The Original Series: Devil’s Bargain, Guardian of Night, Metaplanetary, Superluminal, and short stories such as “A Dry, Quiet War.” He is also an editor at Baen Books. He’s had multiple stories in Year’s Best anthologies, one of which, “Life on the Moon,” won the Asimov’s Reader’s Poll Award for year’s best story and was nominated for a Hugo Award.
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