by Jerry Oltion
"I was dragging Harry Mudd out of the line of fire when I got hit," Kirk told him, settling down across from him. "Apparently your computer thought that was heroic enough to send me on."
The Grand General nodded. "Yes, that would probably do it. And it must have happened just before the android ruined everything." He looked a dozen years older than when Kirk had last seen him, but he brightened now and said, "The Heroes must know about it, though, mustn't they? Did they send you back to fix the problem? Did they tell you how?"
"Well, yes and no," said Kirk. "They want me to fix it, all right, but it's pretty clear they don't know how to do that. They don't even know what happened to it. They just told me to undo whatever we'd done and get it working again."
"I see. Well, Mr. Spock and the rest of your crew are trying to do just that, but it all seems very improbable to me. They need to find Harcourt's wife—the real one—and bring her back here to fool the computer into thinking it has resurrected her."
Kirk tried to picture it, but couldn't. "Wait a minute," he said. "What does Stella Mudd have to do with anything?"
"It's a long story," said the Grand General. "Perhaps it would be easier to just show you."
He got up again and led Kirk into a back room, which turned out to be a local transporter that took them to the palace's outer wall, where they stepped across the shield boundary into another transporter which took them to another one in a different city, which deposited them outside a bathhouse. Apparently only the resurrection system could beam through shields, thought Kirk. Transporters that weren't hooked into the network had to do it the normal way.
Inside the bathhouse he saw the Stella android, still reappearing and disappearing in her dry hot tub every few minutes. Then they beamed back to the palace and went into the caverns, through the blind transporter in the hidden closet, to look at the computers. Kirk gazed down the seemingly endless line of memory banks, each one complex enough to store an entire person's molecular pattern, and shook his head in amazement.
"Quite a setup," he said. "But not quite the 'gods' you'd been led to believe in, eh?"
"No," said the Grand General. He looked up at one of the flickering overhead lights. "It all seems a bit…tawdry compared to the legends."
Kirk nodded. "The truth usually does. I guess that's why legends are so popular among the masses." He looked back at the computers. "Narine, one of the leaders of Arnhall, told me I should blow all this to bits."
"I have considered it," said the Grand General. "But I'm not sure if I want to take responsibility for ending a system that has served us for so long."
"Served you, or enslaved you?" Kirk asked.
"That does seem to be the question, doesn't it?" The Grand General shook his head. "But whatever else we may think about it, it has kept us from actually killing each other in warfare for millennia. And now with another battle waiting for the slightest pretext to erupt, I am reluctant to cast away that safety net."
"It's the safety net that keeps you fighting," Kirk said.
"I wish it were so, but the Padishah threatens to attack us even though the…'Gods' no longer protect our warriors. One final, glorious war to end all wars."
Kirk sighed. "I've heard that phrase before. We number our 'wars to end all wars' nowadays. We're up to three and still bickering." Though he had to admit, war—on Earth, at least—was less likely now than ever before. Humanity finally seemed to be learning.
Unlike the Nevisians. They were an old enough race to be one of the galaxy's wisest, but they had stagnated instead.
"Have you and the Padishah ever talked peace?" he asked.
The Grand General nodded. "Certainly. And you saw how well that worked."
"Not that." Kirk waved his hands dismissively. "I'm not talking about trade agreements; I mean have you ever talked peace because you don't want to shoot at each other anymore?"
"That would have been against the will of the Gods."
Kirk kicked at one of the metal consoles with his toe. The hollow bonk echoed down the corridor. "Yeah," he said, "I know what you mean. It's hard to buck authority. But sometimes that's what you've got to do if you're going to grow up."
* * *
Ensign Lebrun stood just inside the door to Harry's quarters, watching him pace nervously back and forth in front of the bed. He'd been fidgeting for hours. If he kept it up much longer he would wear through the deck plating—and through Lebrun's patience.
"Would you calm down?" she said finally. "She's not going to hurt you."
Mudd stopped pacing, but didn't sit down. "That's easy for you to say. You haven't been married long enough to know all the ways a wo—a spouse can hurt another."
"I'm learning," Lebrun said. "But making up is half the fun. Heck, with Simon and me it's all the fun."
"I wouldn't know," said Mudd. "I don't believe Stella and I ever 'made up.'"
"Well good grief, don't you think it's high time you tried?"
"No." Mudd turned to his viewport and looked out at the stars. "In fact, I believe it's time to move on. The Andromeda Galaxy might be far enough, though perhaps I should go for something on the other side of the Virgo cluster. What do you think?"
Lebrun laughed. "I think you're being needlessly melodramatic. She's a perfectly nice woman."
"For a targ."
"Harry, you're impossible."
"So I've been told. Repeatedly."
"Sorry." Lebrun realized she was browbeating him just as badly as anyone. She stepped toward him, but just then the door chimed.
"Don't open it!" Harry said, shrinking back.
"Oh, for crying out loud." Lebrun turned toward the door. "Come."
* * *
It slid aside to reveal Mudd's worst fear: Stella, standing there and tapping her toe impatiently.
"Hello," Lebrun began to say, but Stella spoke at the same time.
"There you are, Harcourt. Consorting with children again, I see. Well, First Officer Spock has just informed me that we're approaching the Nevis system, and will be beaming down so I can save Captain Kirk and the other people trapped by your ridiculous android. Don't ask me why, but he wants you to come along as well."
"I'd just as soon not," said Harry.
"That goes without saying," said Stella. "Since it wasn't your idea. But perhaps you had best listen to good advice for a change."
"Oh, I would listen to it if I ever heard any. But good advice seems to be in such short supply in your vicinity." Harry took a cautious step closer to her. "It's almost as if the abundance of witchon particles in the air cause it to evanesce."
"Witchon particles? Is that some kind of slur? Because if it is—" Stella took a step into the room.
"Please, stop it, both of you." Lebrun held out her hands. "You don't have to do this to each other."
Stella looked as if she might bite Lebrun's head off, and for a second Lebrun thought she might have to go for her phaser, but then Stella blinked and smiled. "You're right, dear. We don't. I've divorced the old windbag."
"Windbag?" protested Harry. "Now just a minute."
"No." Stella turned to go. "I'm needed elsewhere. I'm appreciated elsewhere. Come watch or not; it's up to you." She looked back to Lebrun. "A word of advice, miss. Whatever he promises you, be sure you get it in writing."
Lebrun blushed. "It's not like that."
"I'm sure it isn't. Nothing with Harry is ever quite what it seems."
"No, really, I'm already married and everything." Lebrun held out her hand to show Stella her ring.
"More's the pity," Stella said, as she sashayed off toward the turbolift.
"But—"
Harry laughed. "Don't even try," he said. He watched Stella round the corner and disappear; then hitched up his pants and said, "You know, that was just like old times. And I'd forgotten how refreshing it is to watch her depart. Come on, let's go watch her do it again."
Chapter Twenty-six
THE BEST SEATS in the house, it turned out, were in the b
athhouse, where she would arrive. Harry didn't particularly care; perhaps he could take some amusement at seeing Stella slip in the tub.
He had already witnessed perhaps the most amusing spectacle of all: Spock trying to hide his emotion when he discovered that Kirk wasn't trapped in the computer buffer as they had thought. Dr. McCoy at least had the grace to weep for joy, though why anyone should shed a tear for the likes of Kirk was beyond Harry. But Spock had been forced to stand there like an android himself and say, "I am pleased to see you, Captain," and shake his hand like a politician stumping for votes.
Ah, what fools these mortals be, Mudd thought. Always hiding this, apologizing for that, bickering over something else. No one could say or do what they really wanted to, and all for what? Some misguided sense of duty or honor or decorum? What a crock! Far better to just let it all hang out, thumb your nose at phony obligations, and concentrate on what mattered. Like getting rich and having fun. If everybody did that it would be a merrier galaxy, that much was certain.
The Distrellians had shut down their shield generator so the Enterprise could beam the android away and beam Stella directly into its place. Spock and Scotty were monitoring the "gods' eyes" for their particular emission signature, while Kirk and the Grand General and the Padishah stood beside the empty pool. The Padishah looked a bit stunned—apparently they had shown him the face of God just a few minutes earlier and he was still trying to decide what to think. He kept wiping his face with the backs of his decorative gloves, even though the heat in the room had long since dissipated.
Mudd and Ensign Lebrun and her husband, Lieutenant Nordell, stood on the other side of the tub, while a few dozen Distrellians had gathered around a bit farther back.
"Transporter sequence starting," Spock announced, his voice loud in the tiled bathhouse.
"Get ready," Kirk said into his communicator.
"Matter stream initiated," said Spock.
Kirk waited while the flickering shape in the tub took on form. The moment it solidified, he said "Now!" and the Enterprise's transporter locked on to the android, which shuddered and sparked in the confinement beam but didn't fall to the floor. It faded away, and right on its heels—beaming in from the other transporter on board the ship—came the real Stella. She was in the same orientation as the android, angled slightly backward in a position that would be comfortable in water, but was awkward as could be in air. Even though she had been told to expect it, she flailed her arms and squawked like a surprised chicken before landing with a thump on the thick pad they had placed on the bottom of the tub.
She stood up and brushed off her dignity, then accepted the Grand General's hand out of the tub. He was smiling at her again, Mudd noted. The old goat. Well, if he kept her out of Mudd's hair as well as he'd kept the android, then he was welcome to her.
"Well," she asked. "Did it work?"
Everyone turned this way and that, looking expectantly into the other pools for the host of soldiers who should be materializing in them at any moment. Someone coughed, and after a few seconds, whispering started up, but nothing appeared in the water.
"What's wrong?" asked the Grand General.
"I don't know," said Kirk. "Spock? Scotty?"
"It shoulda worked, Captain," Scotty said, thumping his tricorder and taking another reading of the gods' eye.
"It obviously didn't."
Spock said, "I will go see if I can determine what has happened." He headed for the transport station, and presumably the palace.
There was an embarrassed silence while they waited for him to reach the computers in the caverns. The Padishah finally broke it, saying to the Grand General, "If this is a trick, I promise you will be the first one we send into oblivion when we annihilate your entire planet."
"If this is a trick," said the Grand General, "you can have this planet, because I and everyone else here are heading for Arnhall, with weapons drawn."
"And just how do you plan to get there?" asked the Padishah.
The Grand General laughed halfheartedly. "I hadn't thought of that. If it's a trick, we're stuck here, aren't we?"
Kirk's communicator chirped at him. "Kirk here," he said.
"Spock here. I am in the computer center, and I believe I have found the problem. The system is no longer running its self-test program. It has apparently reloaded its main program, and awaits only the proper input to resume processing."
"So what's the input?" Kirk asked.
"It appears to be…" Spock hesitated.
"What?"
"Unfortunately, it appears that someone must die in battle."
"Oh," said Kirk.
"That is not the worst of our problems," said Spock. "I have examined the transporter patterns in storage, and have discovered an alarming degradation of the signal. Apparently these memory devices were never intended for long-term storage. There was an error-correction routine in effect while the self-check was active, but now that the main program is back on line, the error-correction routine is no longer operating. By my calculation, we have less than ten minutes before the signal degradation becomes too severe to allow reconstruction of the stored patterns."
Kirk looked unbelievingly at his communicator. "Any more bad news?"
"Yes," Spock said, apparently unaware of the concept of a rhetorical question. "The way the memory devices are configured, all of the patterns are decaying at the same rate. Whoever dies to restart the resurrections will stand the same risk as those people already here."
The Padishah looked at Kirk, then at the Grand General. "I can arrange plenty of deaths just as soon as you like."
"No, no, please," said the Grand General. "There's got to be a better way." He looked at Kirk imploringly.
"Spock?" asked Kirk.
"I wish there were, Captain, but this computer is hardwired. There is no altering its program. And it requires a death to trigger the resurrection process."
Kirk looked over at Harry, and Harry could see the gleam of the wolf in his eye. "Who, me?" he asked, backing away, but Kirk had already looked away. Mudd nearly went over backward into the next pool of water, but Lebrun rescued him from that indignity.
Kirk said, "I can't ask anyone else to do this. And I can't let your two planets go back to war to solve a problem that was brought on by outsiders. But it doesn't matter whose fault this is"—and he looked at Harry again—"it's the duty of a Starfleet officer to give his life for the cause of peace if that becomes necessary. We all know the risks, and we all know it could come at any time, no matter…"
What a blowhard, thought Mudd, tuning him out. Kirk was going to puff himself up to heroic proportions and then get someone to shoot him, and he'd come out of this with a commendation and a cushy desk job back home. Mudd knew his type. He'd probably set this all up with Spock ahead of time. There was no more danger here than trimming a fingernail.
Well, okay, trimming it with a phaser set on high, but really. And the rewards—dear lord, the rewards!
Almost against his will, Mudd found himself edging forward. Kirk was winding down now, saying, "…and so I say look not to the past, but to your future, and remember the sacrifices of the people who have come before you. As long as you build on the foundation they lay, as long as—"
Mudd cleared his throat. "As long as you keep blathering on about it, Kirk, we'll never get the job done. Do please close your face and let a real man show you how it's done."
Kirk couldn't believe his ears. Mudd was going to take responsibility for something? It was almost worth the insult just to witness it. And if Harry meant what Kirk thought he meant, this could be a red-letter day indeed. "What do you want, Harry?" he asked. "You and me, mano a mano?"
Mudd looked at him disdainfully. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction, Kirk." He stepped past—shoved Kirk aside!—and reached instead toward the Padishah. The Padishah looked as astonished as Kirk. What could Mudd want with him? But that became clear when Mudd took his gloves from his unresisting fingers, separated one out and
returned it, then turned with the other to the Grand General.
"You've been paying far too much attention to my wife," Mudd said. "Where I come from, that's a matter of honor." And he slapped the Grand General in the face with his glove.
The Grand General narrowed his eyes. "What is the significance of this?"
"He's challenged you to a duel," Kirk said, awestruck.
Stella looked as if she might faint. "Harry…I didn't know you cared."
Harry smiled an enigmatic little smile at her, then said to the Grand General, "Well, are you willing to fight for her?"
The Grand General looked out at the faces turned toward him, especially at the Padishah and his retinue, suspicious and ready to go to war at a moment's notice. The logical choice would be for the Padishah and the Grand General to fight the duel, but that would only trigger the war no matter who won. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I see it now. This is the way it must end. Very well."
Mudd returned the Padishah's other glove and asked, "May I borrow your weapon, sir?"
"What? Oh, yes, certainly," said the Padishah. He drew his disruptor pistol from its holster and handed it over.
"Thank you." Mudd stepped back to the walkway between tubs. As he passed Lebrun and Nordell he said, "Be good to each other. Don't make the same mistakes Stella and I did."
Nordell put his arm around Lebrun. "We'll try," she said.
Mudd turned to the Grand General. "We start out back to back, take ten paces, turn and shoot. Come on, we're about out of time. Kirk, you may count."
Kirk couldn't believe this was the same Harry Mudd he had come to know. Fighting a duel? Impossible! But he and the Grand General moved into position, and everyone else moved away to give them room. Kirk said, "Harry, I can't let you do this. You've never fired a weapon in your life, have you?"
Mudd aimed at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. A bright white bolt of energy caromed off the tile, showering everyone with debris. "Sure I have," said Mudd.
