Home Is the Hunter

by Dana Kramer Rolls

  A large iron kettle hung from a hook by an open fire, and a savory smell wafted from it, but it was almost overpowered by the smoky smell of the warm, sprouted barley and the smell of fermenting mash. And through an open door Scott could see a vat on a tripod, and a tangle of odd equipment. The whole cottage reeked of a distillery—but what a smell! The heady bouquet bore as much resemblance to the common brew as a venison stew did to thin porridge.

  "Sit down, Montgomery Scott," the old man ordered.

  "How did you know my name?" Scott said in confusion.

  The old man said nothing, but instead ladled a bowl of the stew out and handed it to Scotty along with a hunk of bread.

  "Dare I eat of your food?" Scott asked warily. The almost forgotten memories of the tattered book of folklore his grandmother had read him suddenly felt very real and important. They all said that the fairy folk would offer food and drink, and if you ate, you'd never go back to the world of men.

  The old man laughed and slapped his knee. "I didn'a think you knew such things. Good, good. Eat or not, as you will. It makes no matter." He turned away to ladle a bowl for himself.

  Scott shrugged and took up the spoon and ate. It didn't matter. What more could happen to him? He was lost, and alone, and he had failed in his duty. What matter if he was snatched by the fairies?

  He was polishing off his second bowl and feeling much better when the old man pulled out a bottle of whiskey.

  "Now this is the nectar of the gods," he said proudly, holding the bottle aloft. "This batch was brewed almost a century ago. There are casks in these hills that are older than that. Here, drink. Slainte mhor," he toasted, "To your health!"

  The bouquet was only a faint promise of the liquid wonder. Scott rolled it around his mouth, luxuriating in its smoothness, and even more with the almost orgasmic shock of its burning force.

  The old one poured Scott another, and another. Scotty's head was spinning and his ears burning, and he didn't care.

  "So," said the old man. "You think you have The Sight."

  Scotty stared at him through glazed eyes. "The future … is open to me. I'm a Miracle Worker."

  The old man laughed coarsely. "Ran out of miracles in the war, I see."

  "Ach, yes. I failed. I failed. I've never failed before." Something twinged in Scotty's conscience. But he went on. "I always managed to do it. No matter how dangerous the situation, no matter how tight the deadline, I always managed for …" His mind hazed out. "For …"

  "Haaahaha," chortled the old man. "A little shortsighted when it comes to yourself, eh? And what makes you think you failed, eh?"

  "I failed because I didn't succeed!"

  "You succeeded, because you could only fail!"

  Scotty glared at the old man, and then, with a furious lunge, leaped at him. Somehow the old man was out of his way and Scotty hit the floor, in a dead sleep.

  He woke to the light of a full moon. The air was uncommonly warm. The strange old man was nowhere to be seen.

  Then the moon was blotted out by a dark form that seemed to float across the horizon. He blinked as it passed, the renewed moonlight suddenly blindingly bright. He threw his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. When he took them away, there stood before him the figure of a woman in a long, loose robe.

  "Monty," she cooed.

  "Mother?" He had not heard that voice for a long time.

  "Monty, you did not fail. It was just not your task. You always were one to take on the world."

  "But Mum!" he called out in frustrated anguish.

  "It wasn't your task. The die is cast, my son. You cannot change it." She loomed up, filling the sky.

  "You are not my mother. Who are you?" he asked in wonder.

  "I am the land," she said, shimmering. "I am the land. You are all my children. What is to be is to be. I suffer with you, but it is the way it must be."

  "I do not understand …" he groaned, reaching out for her with outstretched arms.

  "Didn't he tell you … the brewer? My children are not spiritless slaves of the big gun. They are dreamers and warriors. For the land to live, they must be true to their spirit, whatever the cost. In the Dance of Time, their ways will change, but what happens here will strengthen their spirit to face their destiny. You have a great heart, Montgomery Scott. Listen to it!"

  As she spoke she became more and more transparent, until she was but a thin film across the sky.

  "Be at peace," she whispered, and faded from sight.

  "Wake up, man, wake up."

  Scott woke up. Someone was shaking him. He managed to open his eyes. A scrawny middle-aged man with thin gray hair sticking out from under a large black hat, and thick-lensed spectacles over his watery eyes, was vigorously shaking him back to consciousness.

  "Thank you, dear Lord," the man prayed, addressing the blue sky above. "I am William Smythe, vicar of the parish over that hill." He gestured. "I was on my rounds when I espied you, lying for all the world a corpse. Ah, my good man, you are soaked with sweat." He pressed his hand to Scott's brow. "A fever, no doubt. But, thank God, it has passed. Have you been out here all night?"

  Scott nodded. The minister shook his head. "Terrible things happen out here at night. They say the ancient ones and the fairy folk walk the moors at night."

  "Now isn't that the silliest thing I've ever heard," said Scott.

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Moscow, 1942

  CHEKOV WAS FROZEN as the general stood there in the doorway of the hangar.

  "I am amazed," the general said again.

  Chekov tried to think of something to say. Nothing came to mind. "General, what are you doing here?"

  He scratched his hips just to the right of his holster. "Do I not have the right to go where I wish, nephew?"

  "Yes. Yes, of course. General, I—"

  Chuikov put up a hand. "I should not be surprised, of course. How did you know?"

  Chekov frowned, uncertain. "How?"

  "Yes. How?"

  He didn't have the faintest idea what the general was talking about, but he realized that there was no need to make that obvious. Chekov drew himself up and, with a slight swagger, said confidently, "How could I not?"

  Chuikov winced. "I suppose you are right. Our knack for secrets-keeping … it's a joke, is it not?"

  Chekov laughed and blew air disdainfully through his lips. He was in a complete fog.

  "Does everyone know?" asked the general.

  "If they do, they haven't told me."

  "At least someone can keep a secret. Well, they'll all know of the mission within the hour. I must admit, when I was coming across the base and I saw the lights glowing from here in the hangar, somehow"—he waved a scolding finger like an annoyed parent, although there was no annoyance in his eyes—"somehow I knew it would be you. I had to see for myself, though. So eager to get into the air that you had to start checking over your plane immediately, eh?"

  Chekov laughed and patted the nose of the plane fondly. "Oh yes. You know me so well, General."

  Chuikov shrugged. "It's a knack. I can tell things about people. So … come with me, nephew. By now the rest of your squadron has been roused. I regret the short notice, but you know how there can be miscommunications."

  He didn't spot Chekov's duffel, which the Starfleet officer had fortunately tossed over to the side. Chekov walked toward him, and Chuikov put a firm and friendly arm around Chekov's shoulders. Together they walked toward the now-active barracks, leaving behind Chekov's duffel and an unconscious KGB man.

  Chekov sat in the squad room, surrounded by the rest of the men, some of whom were still rubbing sleep from their eyes. The C.O. briskly laid out their mission.

  It was a diplomatic one, but no less dangerous for it. The American statesman Averell Harriman had been in Moscow as President Roosevelt's personal representative, with the latest package of lend-lease aid from the Allies. He was flying back to London on a tight schedule, and that meant flying through a lot of enemy-held
territory. The Red Guard squadron was to fly cover for the transport. With any luck, they wouldn't see action, but if luck didn't hold, it was their mission to protect the diplomat by whatever means necessary.

  "The transport has a twelve hundred mile range, so he can fly to London without problem," said the C.O. "We fly west as far as Riga on the Latvian coast, where there is a secret refueling station. Then we turn back," the base commander droned on, "and the transport with Uncle Vanya—the code name for our diplomat—will pick up RAF squadrons flying from Sweden, to escort him the rest of the way."

  Chekov's eyes went wide. This was perfect! Within the hour they would be airborne, and then he could break off at the earliest opportunity and hightail it for Sweden. He could report that he was having engine trouble and needed to set down. No one would doubt him.

  Then he looked at General Chuikov, who was beaming at him from across the room. Regret flashed across his mind. How could a decorated Hero of the Soviet Union run away during the most terrible war in their history? And what about General Chuikov? Would not Chekov's defection certainly reflect on him and his own survival? But could Chekov live and survive the postwar Stalin era? Of course, it was all moot. The unconscious KGB man had settled it. There was no turning back.

  It ached inside him to think that he would have to keep still for the rest of his life, ignoring the terrible injustices to human rights that would haunt this society for decades to come. It certainly was the darkest period of his people's history, or so it now seemed. And how well could he hide his knowledge and skill in engineering? Would he be the cause of World War III in a world where the delicate balance of power was suddenly upset by a future technology? At least in a place like Sweden he could be relatively safe.

  But despite his clear knowledge that this was the only ethical course for him, the idea that he was going to leave his motherland forever, a traitor in the eyes of these new friends and companions, made him hurt in places he didn't know he had, and he cursed the unknown demon that had brought him here.

  Chapter Forty-eight

  Japan, 1600

  IT WAS the eighteenth day of the seventh lunar month, the warm days of late summer, when the first wave of the enemy attacked Fushimi Castle and its fortified towers.

  They rushed against the walls, shooting with the guns that both the Portuguese Catholics and the English and Dutch Protestants had supplied the Japanese to lure them into their religion and politics. But the Japanese had taken the guns from both and made promises to neither.

  "Keep your heads down," Sulu shouted, running up and down the line, forcing the men on the wall to take cover against the wads and balls of the primitive muskets. Far in the distance he thought he could make out the split in the road where he had hesitated for so long. He could even see the curve of the road that went off in the other direction, to safety—the road not traveled.

  No one noticed, of course, that Sulu wasn't hitting anyone. He still couldn't take the chance of killing someone and possibly wiping out not just one life, but the innocent lives that would be affected if he changed history. When he fired, it was always away from any target.

  It was better this way. No more concerns with possibly violating the Prime Directive. No inner wrestling with honor. He could be accused of many things, ranging from being a fatalist to outright stupidity—but not being a man of honor would never be one of those things.

  And it wasn't so bad a thing to be part of a legend. Even a small part.

  Fiery arrows volleyed into the compound, their flaming heads seeking random death and mayhem.

  "Damn, put those fires out," Motonaga shouted. Firemen in heavy woven garments soaked with what water could be spared rushed to beat out the flames in a world where paper was a principal building material.

  "Look, look," a terrified man shouted, standing up and pointing. "The tower is on fire." It was his last service to his lord. He fell with an arrow in his back. But his warning sent men up the ladder toward the flames. One bold man plunged directly into the billows of black smoke that puffed out from the observer's platform, his hollow coughs audible above the shouts and screams of the wounded. Tongues of yellow flame shot out around him. Then there was more black smoke, but the fire was out. The body of the hero dropped back over the edge and down to the ground below—he hadn't survived the smoke and heat.

  Two days later they were still on the wall, sending out volleys of arrows, putting out fires, and counting the dead. It was almost dark before any food arrived. Servants groaned under the weight of the barrels of cooked rice.

  "Here, Great One Cut," Motonaga said, handing Sulu a bowl of rice which sported some fish and vegetables. Sulu settled himself on the paved ground, his back against a box of arrows.

  "Thanks," he grunted, and waited for the young man to collect his portion and settle down beside him.

  "I really didn't expect to see you back, you know," the boy said thoughtlessly.

  "I was ordered back," Sulu answered.

  "So you were stuck. They ordered you back. But you did follow orders. Good for you," he said with a pompous and somewhat patronizing flourish of his eating sticks.

  Sulu groaned quietly, but let the implied insult go. There was no point in flexing the muscles of his ego when he knew, as by now they must all know, that this was their burying place.

  "Tell me, Heihachiro-domo," the boy continued, somewhat subdued. "Are you ever afraid?"

  "Of course I am. I have no desire to die," he said simply.

  "You don't ever seem afraid. You are a brave samurai. I am afraid, not of death, but of not being brave when I die."

  Sulu's face softened into a gentle smile as he watched the boy straighten with pride at this. "There is no good way to die," he said. "Death is the enemy. The warrior doesn't seek death, by the hand of his adversary or by his own hand. When death is inevitable, he cheats death, his great enemy, by embracing death with the love of a man for his wife. He doesn't feed death with fear. And that is the bravest thing any man or woman can do. However it comes to us, if we face it with a pure heart, we have already paid death's dues. You will serve bravely to the end. I do not doubt it."

  "Thank you, Heihachiro-domo," Naito Motonaga replied, bowing humbly. The two men sat together quietly for a while, savoring the simple fare, watching the small contained fire where men were heating sake or boiling tea.

  After ten days of hell the forces in the cluster of fortresses that Mototada commanded were depleted by the random arrow or shot over the wall, the fires, and the desperate sallies from the gate. They could see the banners of General Ishida, who had come to encourage his troops, but that only encouraged Mototada's men. A ration of sake was issued to congratulate the defenders because they had forced the great general from his plans for the main attack at Sekigahara to try to break the bottleneck at Fushimi Castle. For a brief moment there was even hope that they might survive the siege.

  But on the morning of the tenth day, the final assaults began and Sulu knew, witnessing the ferocity and desperation, that this was it. The castle had been held for as long as possible, and now the reaper of history was screaming for his final due. Sulu fancied he could hear the screeching of fate in his head, like nails on chalkboard.

  Yet he heard it with only vague interest.

  Again and again they rushed into the face of death, each time fewer and fewer coming back. And each time more of the enemy found a way to breach the sanctity of the castle, so that by the final charge there was no safety to retreat to. It was over, and Sulu knew it.

  The last meeting Sulu had with Torii Mototada, his lord had looked wan but content. He had made Sulu his standard bearer and cheerfully added, with gallows humor, that the post carried a one thousand koku stipend. Sulu knew he wouldn't have to worry about where to spend it.

  Death and hopeless combat faced him. So did honor.

  And hell … anyone could fight a battle that could be won. The hopeless causes were the truly worthy ones.

  He wondered where
he had heard that before. Either from Mototada or from Kirk.

  It occurred to Sulu, as the enemy faced him, that the two liege lords would probably have gotten on quite well.

  Wheeling his mount around, he charged into the enemy. It was right and proper for Sulu to take his own life. That was the honorable way, a gift of dignity which a noble enemy offered a defeated foe. But the two worlds of Mister Sulu, lieutenant commander, Starfleet, and Okiri Heihachiro, banner man to Torii Mototada, crashed in on one another, and seppeku was not an option for this warrior. With serene calm he faced his fate.

  "Captain, I apologize for not returning to duty," he shouted into the air, addressing both Kirk and Torii with a peculiar mixture of the two times and two commanders. "Farewell, Oneko; hello, honor!" he shouted as the enemy closed in on him.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Scotland, 1746

  INVERNESS WAS FROTHING with news of war. Murray paced back and forth, his shaved head glistening as he passed through a shaft of light from the leaded window in his study. He listened grimly as Scott detailed the action at the fort.

  "You have done as much as any man could have under the circumstances," the general consoled him. "What galls me," he went on as he resumed his caged pacing, "is that now we have word that Cumberland did not split his men, but marches upon us in mass, so that we must recall Keppoch and Lochiel, with whatever of their men still remain. And it grows worse. The prince listens more and more to Mr. O'Sullivan and his ilk, and they council foolhardy ventures. I'm afeared that our Charlie was brought up on tales of glory but little practical training."

  Scotty stayed with Murray, serving him as an aide and tactical advisor, but mostly as a bulwark of emotional support which the general badly needed in the endless war councils, which were battlefields in themselves. Several times he tried to fulfill his word to Seamus and find Megan, but the city was a madhouse and finding one girl was well nigh impossible.