Strangers from the Sky
Page 37
partly to have another go at her philosophically,
partly to salvage his pride, but Melody had found
another target for her fury. "Goddamned if they
aren't everywhere you turn!"
She slammed her racket against the net post,
advancing on someone hidden in shadow just outside the
gyms "Have those big ears of yours gotten all that?
Come out here where we can see you!"
T'Lera emerged from shadow. "It was not my intention
to eavesdrop; I was merely uncertain of the
protocol of interrupting your competition. However, the
experience was most illuminating. was She crossed the
gym floor precisely to the boundary of the tennis
court and stopped. Jim Kirk did not recall
scrambling to his 323
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feet, but there he was. While T'Lera's
eyes included him in her awareness, her words were
solely for Melody. "If I understand the
terminology of the game correctly, I believe
it is accurate for me to say: your form is
excellent."
"Thanks!" Melody said grudgingly and
by reflex. The Vulcan's compliment confused her,
reduced her to an angry silence in her confusion.
"An interesting game, this tennis," T'Lera
went on. "Pleasing to the observer as well as to the
participant, in that it combines physical skill
speed, grace, agility, and strength with
intellectual acuity the insight into the opponent's
thinking, the striving to improve one's skills to the
limits of one's ability."
"Sounds like you've done your homework!" Melody
sneered. "Did you study up on all that in your
cabin just so you could impress me?" She jerked her
head in Kirk's direction. "You two in cahoots
or what?"
"I beg your pardon?"
"I don't suppose they play games on your
planet!" T'Lera's impervious cool was making
Melody blush again. "All locked in their ivory
towers being cerebral all the time."
"On the contrary," T'Lera was saying. "We are
not so very different from you in that respect."
Jim Kirk, silent for once and watchful, was
reminded of the only time he had chanced to observe a
Vulcan in some solitary physical routine.
He knew the stories of Vulcan superiority
in strength and agility, had always thought them
exaggerated, until he came upon Spock, alone
on a practice mat in a deserted corner of the
rec room late into ship's night, engaged in something
that was neither dance nor calisthenic, neither aerobic
nor isometric exercise, yet somehow a
harmonious blending of all of these with
something purely Vulcan and, Kirk was to find out
the hard way, virtually impossible for a human
to master. 324
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He had merely stood and stared, until Spock
became aware of him.
The Vulcan came to a complete standstill, hands
locked behind his back. "Captain?"
"Don't you ever sweat?" Kirk had joked
lamely, embarrassed for them both.
"Not with such minimal exertion, Captain,"
Spock had replied stiffly, and Kirk had choked
back a laugh. Minimal exertion? That last routine
would have put a human's neck in a sling for a week.
Maybe the stories were true
"It's an interesting routine." Kirk was still trying
to warm up to his first officer; this was some weeks
prior to the M-155 incident. "Could you teach it
to me?"
Spock had hesitated. "It is not often taught
to humans."
"But there's no taboo forbidding it, is there?"
Kirk had persisted. It would be a long time before he
would learn to hear the silent alarm behind
Spock's reluctances. "I'm in pretty good
shape; I'm sure I could handle it""
"Undoubtedly, Captain. However, I do not
think you would find it less-than lesirable."
"Why not?" Kirk had found himself growing an-
noyed. Every time he tried to understand this Vulcanhe
found doors slammed in his face. "I'd welcome
the challenge. I may be only human his
"Captain," Spock seemed to have difficulty
finding the correct words. "The routine you observed was
a basic warm-up. It is mastered by most Vulcan
children before the age of infant school. If you will
excuse me . . ."
DeLner's right I never learn! Kirk thought,
snapping himself back to the present and what he
suddenly perceived as T'Lera's interest in quite a
different pastime than tennis.
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"That the term "love" is used when referring to a
null score," the Vulcan was saying. "Perhaps you
could enlighten me as to its origin?"
Melody was being engaged in dialogue with the enemy
in spite of herself. The effort made her diffident.
She shrugged.
"I don't know. No one does. It's one of
those obscure things that's lost in the antiquity of the
game."
"Nevertheless," T'Lera pursued her thought
relentlessly, "one might perceive an interesting irony
in the use of the term in a sport not noted for its
"love" of anything, except perhaps
aggressiveness. Might one consider the use of the term
an instance of "adding insult to injury"?"
Kirk stifled a laugh and Melody glowered at
him. She'd gone back to hitting the ball off the
back wall. "I never thought about it."
"One wonders if the game would retain its
essence were the aggression factor eliminated,"
T'Lera mused.
She made to leave the gym then. Melody turned
on her.
"Listen, you're such an expert, why don't we
go a few games?"
Jim Kirk's head came up at the same time
T'Lera's did, and he caught the gleam of
something in those laser eyes, something it would take him
years to learn meant "I accept the challenge."
"I would be honored," T'Lera replied,
extinguishing that gleam aborning. "However,
I suggest such a contest might prove inequitable."
"Why?" Melody was suddenly intrigued by the
idea. "Because I'm a pro and you've never played?
We'll treat it like a lesson, then. Just for the
exercise, no points. You look like you're in good
shape, and you can't be more than a few years up on
me. I'll handicap if you like."
T'Lera continued to demur. "I doubt you could
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handicap sufficiently for the differences between us
Forgive me, Commander, but I would prefer not."
"Afraid there's something you can't one-up a human
at?" Melody held her racket like a
weapon. "Mr. Kirk here says I should try
interacting with you instead of "objectifying" you.
I'm not a diplomat like Jason; I believe
actions speak louder than words. I've listened
to all the heroic words about how you scuttled your
craft and how you we
re willing to die rather than let us
discover you. Just words. I want to see what you're
really made of."
The challenged and accepting look had
returned to T'Lera's eyes. Jim Kirk
found himself intervening.
"Melody," he interjected. "I don't think
you want to do this . . ."
"Shut up, cream puff! You're out of this!"
Melody barked, still focused on T'Lera.
"Well?"
"As you wish, Commander," T'Lera said, and Jim
Kirk wanted to scream.
Chapter Nine
"CAP-RAFATION S PERSONAE LOG:
"This has to be a joke, a single great cosmic
joke, probably at my expense. Here I stand,
on a tennis court buried deep within an Earth
ship, awaiting what may literally turn out to be the
match of the century, played out before an audience of
one whose role is nothing more than unofficial
referee.
"I consider myself fairly well read. I am
familiar with the Faust legends, the tales of
mortals dicing with the devil. I seem to remember
an old 2-D film whose outcome had something to do
with a knight playing chess with Death for possession of
his soul. But the fate of the Federation hanging on the
outcome of a tennis match? It is simply too
much.
"Maybe history derailed cannot be set back
on course, and my crew and I have been exerting
ourselves for nothing. Maybe I, captain without a
ship, leader with no one to lead, deserve to be caught
between two. of the most impervious females, two of the
most immovable objects, in the galaxy.
"The urge to scream has passed. I am now
possessed of an almost uncontrollable desire
to laugh. Only the
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thought of all the bad things that may yet happen
makes it possible for me to contain myself. At the very
least, I may be able to prevent these two from killing
each other. his
Kirk and Melody stood around waiting for
T'Lera to change into borrowed tennis clothes.
Melody had insisted on it, and Kirk felt he
deserved points for not strangling her on the spot.
She stood glaring at him.
"What are you grinning about, cream puff?"
Kirk just shook his head; he didn't trust himself
to speak.
"You don't have to hang around!" Melody growled,
pacing the service line like a tigress,
perhaps having second thoughts. "Why don't you go
make yourself a cup of hot milk and his
"Sawyer, if you think I'd miss this match for
anything . . ."
"Kirk, let me ask you something." Melody
stopped pacing and came over to him,
confidential. "Do you really think she's as old as
she says?"
Kirk shrugged, bemused. "Who knows? I under-
stand from the medical findings that their lifespan is more
than twice ours. You should have asked me. Getting
cold feet?"
"In a pig's eye!"
Kirk smiled outright; that response had a
familiar ring. "Melody, out of curiosity what
if you lose?"
Her laugh was more a bark, a forewarning of her
bite. "I haven't lost since Goddard, and I
played on a busted ankle that day! Besides, Kirk,
she claims she's a hundred years old. Give
me a break!"
Melody had blundered into the age factor all
by herself.
"I suppose your space service has some
pretty tough fitness requirements,"
she'd sounded T'Lera out in the locker room. She
really was trying; Kirk's remark about good soldiers
had stung her more than she cared 329
STRANGERS FROM THE SKY
to admit. "You look to be in fair shape for your
age, if I guess right."
"One-hundred-thirteen point-four-six,"
T'Lera sum plied deliberately.
The information rocked Melody, as every new and
different datum about these people did. She shook her
head and went to wait on the court.
"Good night, Yoshi, and thank you!"
Elizabeth Dehner shut her cabin door,
listened as Yoshi's sneaker soles faded down the
corridor, took a deep breath, and counted to a
hundred. Wil1ing herself to remain calm, she
rummaged in her luggage for a small hypersonic
lock pick, the very one Lee Kelso had
jury-rigged to get into the computers at Alexandria.
Stepping back out into the corridor, Dehner
returned the way she and Yoshi had come, heading for the
pharmaceuticals locker three decks below where
she'd made note of it during their walk.
Itya flipped open the hatch on the conning
tower, reached out, and scooped up a handful of
snow. Cupping it in her two hands, she tiptoed
down the metal steps, past Jason Nyere,
snoring in the captain's chair beside the defiantly
blank comm screen, and presented her offering
to Sorahl. The young Vulcan took the uncanny
melting stuff from her, marveled at a cold that
burned the hands.
"My teacher Selik once calculated that a
moderate storm of one minute's duration, over an
area of one square mile, would contain a number of
these hexahedral crystals equivalent to his
"Shut up and stop breathing on it!" Tatya
hissed' exasperated. "Look, it's melting already.
Your hands must be incredibly warm."
"In its present state it is most untidy,"
Sorahl observed, watching the melt drip between his
fingers
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and onto the floor. "Is there someplace where I
can dispose of it properly?"
"It's only water!" Tatyadismissed it,
wiping her own hands on her trousers, suddenly
disappointed with the venture. It wasn't that
Sorahl's childlike wonderment wasn't
what she'd expected; it was the sense that everything was
melting everything. "When my cousins and I were
small, my Tante Mariya used to pour hot
syrup over the new snow on a really cold day; it
would freeze hard in seconds and we'd eat it like
candy. It tasted like oh, I don't know like something you
knew you had to enjoy for that moment because you could never have it
again . . ."
She stopped babbling, turned away from him to hide
her tears. What an idiot she was to offer him something
as cold and ephemeral as a
handful of snow! What she wanted to offer him was
freedom. She wanted to grab his hand and run with him
across the pack ice to the mainland, to roll in the powder
until it was in their hair and their eyelashes and down
inside their boots and parkas, though she imagined
he'd hate that. She wanted to flee with him to the
nearest
settlement no matter that it was a thousand
kilometers away to go to ground where no one could find
them. She would travel with him for years until
everyone had forgotten, until it was safe. They'd
send-for
Yoshi, and the three of them could build a
life together, somewhere, somehow.
She realised Sorahl felt nothing for
her, perhaps believed his people knew nothing of emotion as
he claimed. His response would always be polite
interest, nothing more. Somehow it no longer mattered.
What she felt for him was pure and cherishable in and of
itself, and if only she could set him free . . .
"I wish I'd never met you!" she whispered through
her tears.
"Truly?" The young Vulcan stood with the
snowmelt still dripping from his fingers. "If I have
given offence, or committed some error his
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"No!" Tatya whispered sadly, and she touched
him then, put her hand against his cheek as she might have
with a favored brother, or a child. "No, you're
close to perfect! It's we who've got it
wrong!"
The border towns were in chaos.
While it continued to deny the presence of
extraterrestrials anywhere on Earth, much less
within the boundaries of Antarctica, the
PentaKrem was being an awful nuisance about
letting anyone travel inland without proper
authorisation. The backlog of media types and
UFO groupies in the raggedy little
settlements dotting the coastlines made the
natives irritable, and they shut their doors in
stolid silence, letting the rabble of outlanders cool
their heels quite literally in the sub-subzero cold as
they scrambled for hot meals, hotel rooms, and
rarer-than-hen's-teeth travel permits.
Tensions mounted. Daylong blizzards, the
occasional earthquake, and a mysterious delay in
arrival of supply ships only added to the
turmoil. Some of the groupies grumbled and went
home, but the media reps held their ground,
disregarding the fact that it wasn't theirs to hold.
Drunken brawls were common, the jails filled up
almost as fast as the hotels, and sanitation robots
could not possibly keep up with the excess.
In the midst of chaos a solitary figure stood
out by virtue of his refusal to succumb to it. Finding
no order, Spock set about creating his own.
He waited all day and half the night in the
anteroom of the PentaKrem's temporary
headquarters in the tiny prefab town of
Sunshine, where a squadron of aides processed
media personnel through their offices in an attempt
to convince them that there really was no story, so would they
all kindly go back home? Looking