Constellations (51 page)

“Jim! Hey, how the hell are you!?”

 

Few things in life could have made Leonard McCoy much happier at that moment than to see his friend and commanding officer standing in a doorway looking so confused and, well, disappointed.
Yes, it's petty,
McCoy thought.
And cynical and might even be considered a court-martial offense in some schools of thought, but having the starch taken out of him once in a while means he won't get a stiff neck.
McCoy chuckled to himself, then winced at the pain in his chest.
Might be a cracked rib,
he thought.
Maybe two. I'll have to look at that as soon as we get back to the ship.
Interestingly, the idea of returning to the
Enterprise
did not bother him.
Possibly,
he considered,
because I know I won't have to stay there forever if I don't want to.
At that thought, he toasted himself and sipped some more of the bloodwine. The stuff wasn't nearly so bad after the first or second glass; the faint background note of steel wool actually became enjoyable after a bit.

In the doorway, Kirk finally released his breath and said, “Bones?”

“Come on in. Watch out for the…Well, over there in a heap by the door.”

The captain and first officer stepped gingerly into the room, careful to avoid treading on the unconscious Spaytak and his brothers.

“Fancy a mug of bloodwine, gentlemen?” Scotty asked cheerfully.

“Bloodwine?” Kirk asked dubiously. “You couldn't find anything better?”

“Better?”
Krong asked, trying to rise. That surprised McCoy. The Klingon had drunk at least one cask of wine by himself since the three of them had settled in after the brawl, and who knew how much beforehand? Also, Spaytak had stabbed Krong twice during their fight and he had lost some blood. McCoy had sealed up the wounds and normally would have offered the patient something for pain, but he was pretty sure Krong wasn't feeling
any
pain. “What could possibly be
better?!
” the Klingon bellowed.

Spock arched an eyebrow. Kirk's eyes widened. McCoy savored the moment.

“Ah, sit down, Krong,” Scotty said before the Klingon could even get out of his chair. Looking up at his captain, the engineer said, “He doesn't mean anything by it, sir. Our friend here is just overly excited because of the exciting new vistas that seemed to have appeared before him.”

“Exciting new vistas…” the Klingon repeated.

“Your
friend
?” Jim asked, then turned to look around the barroom. Obviously, his eyes had adjusted to the murk because McCoy saw the captain fix his gaze on various pieces of broken furniture. “I wish someone would explain what happened here. And why didn't either of you answer your communicators when the
Enterprise
called.”

“Och!” Scott exclaimed. “So that's what that sound was! I thought it was something that came out of the skinny fellow with the mustache when Krong made him eat his mug.”

“And as for what's happened here,” McCoy said, a pleasant sensation of weariness filtering through him, “let's just call it the inevitable result of spending too much time in one place.”

“You were only here for a day,” Kirk said.

“I do not think he means Denebia, Captain,” Spock interjected. McCoy was surprised to hear the comment come from the first officer, but the two locked gazes for a lingering moment. Something in his eyes made the doctor wonder if he was the only one who was feeling like it was time for a change.

Kirk cocked an eyebrow, but did not comment further. Instead, he said, “We should get back to the ship.”

“Aye!” Scotty said. “I need to see my wee bairns.”

“Aye!” said the Klingon. “I also need to see his…whatever he called them.”

“You're gonna love the
Enterprise,
” McCoy told Krong.

The captain became alarmed. “Scotty, Bones…he's a Klingon.”

“Aye, aye. True,” Scott said. “And a fair-to-middlin' barroom brawler if I'm any judge. But he's not really a bad fellow and I think he needs to get off this planet, seeing as he assaulted several locals in the process of saving us from…well, I want to say peril, but I'm not sure exactly how perilous our peril was.”

“Perilous peril!” Krong shouted, then laid his head down on the table and began to snore loudly.

“I think I can keep him asleep until we can drop him off on some other neutral planet, Jim,” McCoy said, very much looking forward to the possibility of sleep himself.
No insomnia tonight…

“But he's a Klingon officer!” Kirk said. “What can I tell Starfleet if they find out?”

“Tell them,” McCoy said, “that you're the captain of the
Enterprise.
That should still count for something?”

Kirk flinched slightly, like someone had just lightly slapped his cheek. He stared down at McCoy for a long second, then turned to look at Scotty and finally at Spock. “I suppose,” he finally said, “that it should.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them impatiently. “Let's get going.”

McCoy rose, enjoying the ache in his back and chest. “Whatever you say, sir.” And to himself, he added,
You are the captain. For a little while longer, at least. And after that, we'll just have to see what the future brings.

Standing, Scott clapped a hand on McCoy's shoulder, producing a groan. “You surprised me a bit tonight during our brawl, Doctor,” he said softly. “You're a man of unexpected talents. The way you took down that fella with the neck pinch.”

“Best not to mention that too loudly, Mr. Scott. The walls have ears, you know.”

“Aye, that they do.” Leaning down to help Krong up out of his chair, Scott surveyed the trashed barroom and commented wistfully, “Not bad for a couple old fellows, eh?”

McCoy grinned and reached for the Klingon's other arm. “Old, Scotty?” he said. “Speak for yourself.”

A repeat broadcast of the animated
Star Trek
episode “The Slaver Weapon” was Allyn Gibson's first encounter with Gene Roddenberry's vision of humanity's future and began a life-long love affair with
Star Trek
in all its myriad forms, with a particular fondness for the early 1980s comic books by Mike W. Barr and Tom Sutton. His discovery of
Star Trek
began a journey into other worlds—historical, science-fictional, and fantasy—from
Doctor Who
to the fires of Mount Doom to the far future of Asimov's Foundation to the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic era. In time, Allyn began writing, to create his own worlds to explore. He wrote the
Star Trek: S.C.E.
novella
Ring Around the Sky
and the
Star Trek: New Frontier
short story “Performance Appraisal.”

Currently, Allyn works for the world's leading video game retailer as a store manager. He maintains a blog at http://www.allyngibson.net/.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Hot sunlight beat down on Leonard McCoy, and sweat dripped from his brow. He may have grown up in Georgia and experienced firsthand its hot, muggy summers, but he never liked the heat—it wilted him too much, and years of starship duty with its climate-controlled environments diminished whatever tolerance he might have developed for the warmer climes. He bent over, placed his hands on his knees, and took a deep breath in the hope of gaining a second wind. “Jim,” he said, “I still don't understand why we couldn't have beamed right to the crash site.”

Ahead of McCoy in the waist-high alien foliage, Jim Kirk stopped and turned to look at his friend. “Bones, we couldn't even
locate
the crash site from orbit.”

Still doubled over, his breathing heavy, McCoy looked up at Kirk. “All the things the
Enterprise
can do, and we can't find a downed shuttlecraft.” He shook his head.

“Really, Doctor,” said Spock, who had come up from ahead to stand beside Kirk, “the explanation I gave aboard the
Enterprise
was not difficult to follow.”

“Yes, yes,” McCoy said, his breathing less ragged than before. “Pulsar activity, magnetic fields, Van Allen radiation. I remember.” Secretly McCoy thought that in some instances Spock simply created his complicated explanations out of whole cloth in hopes of confusing the issue. There simply was no difference between scientific babble and pseudo-scientific nonsense. The explanation Spock had offered aboard the ship for this occasion, McCoy decided, fell distinctly in the latter camp.

Kirk came up and clapped McCoy on the shoulder. “Holding up, Bones?”

McCoy nodded and straightened himself up. He took a deep breath. “How much farther?”

“Difficult to be precise,” Spock said, checking his tricorder. “Five kilometers, possibly ten.”

Kirk smiled wryly. “I'll take point. Spock, you have the rear.” His officers nodded in acknowledgment of the orders. “Let's do it.”

Onward they marched through the alien veldt. Grasses—for that is what McCoy dubbed them, so much did they resemble Terran grasses—grew tall here, sometimes waist high, sometimes well above their heads. Among the taller growths McCoy lost sight of Kirk ahead of him, and in those moments they navigated the foliage solely by tricorder and calling to one another. Above them animals—some like birds, some like monstrous insects—flew, ofttimes circling but never approaching closer than a few hundred meters. McCoy hoped they would reach their destination soon.

This mission should have been a simple matter, McCoy thought. An
Enterprise
shuttle had crashed here on the surface of Algenib II during a routine planetary survey while the
Enterprise
sped toward an urgent diplomatic conference. Upon the starship's return to the Algenib system a week later, Kirk organized a search-and-rescue mission. Sensor readings had proven inconclusive, and the landing party beamed down not to the shuttle's crash site but to the wreckage of one of the shuttle's nacelles, shorn from the fuselage as the shuttle descended through the atmosphere. Unique conditions allowed few transporter and communication windows through Algenib's magnetic field, which meant that, as a practical matter, it would be quicker for Kirk's team to follow the debris trail from the nacelle to the shuttle, then contact the
Enterprise
and beam back to the ship with any survivors at the next transport window. With time so essential, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had set off on foot across the alien plain of Algenib II.

Ahead of McCoy the grasses thinned out and grew less tall. At last he came to a break in the foliage, bare ground that sloped upward. Kirk stood at the crest of the rise, and as McCoy joined him he saw that this was no ordinary rise—beyond it stretched a canyon, vast beyond his experience. The ground fell away, rock strata exposed to the elements, and from his vantage point McCoy could not see the far side. Intellectually, he knew there was an opposite wall, but it was lost to him in the mist and haze.

His mind staggered at the size of it. McCoy had first seen the Grand Canyon on Earth when his grandfather, T. J. McCoy, had taken him along on a business trip to Las Vegas and, as a reward for his good behavior, they took a shuttle flight through the enormous ravine's eight-hundred-kilometer length. Years later, on a Starfleet survival course, he had overflown the Valles Marineris on Mars en route to a base camp at Fort Kiley, and even from twenty kilometers up and a thousand kilometers per hour, the largest canyon in the solar system presented an impressive sight. But never before had McCoy stood at the lip of a canyon's walls—though not acrophobic, McCoy had little interest in seeing nature up close and personal. Here, now, at the edge of a yawning chasm, McCoy felt very small. Something had carved out a slice of this world, and measured against that, a single man was nothing.

“Fascinating,” said Spock from behind. He joined Kirk and McCoy on the canyon's edge and held out his tricorder to perform a survey.

“How far's the eastern side?” asked Kirk.

“Ten kilometers, Captain,” Spock said. McCoy thought the natural horizon, the distance one could see before the world fell away due to curvature, was five or six kilometers. It wasn't the haze that prevented him from seeing the opposite side but the curvature of Algenib II itself.

Kirk stood quiet in contemplation. McCoy could see the resolute determination in his gaze, focused somewhere far into the misty horizon. The trail of shuttle debris had led them here—where would their journey take them now? Into the gorge itself? Only Kirk could make that decision.

McCoy looked down into the canyon. The haze that obscured the far side blanketed its floor as well, but McCoy thought that he could see something rising through the mists, something not quite natural. “What do you make of those, Spock?” he asked as he pointed at something far below. Spock's Vulcan eyesight, McCoy knew, was sharper than any human's, but even Spock would have difficulty seeing at a distance through Algenib's haze.

Spock looked in the direction McCoy indicated, then raised an eyebrow. “Curious.” He raised his tricorder, adjusted the dials, and studied the data on its screen. “It appears, Dr. McCoy, that there are objects below us on the canyon floor. Constructed objects, alien machines of enormous size.”

“Machines,” said McCoy. “There's more than one?”

“My tricorder indicates that there are one hundred fifty such objects within a ten-kilometer radius of our position.”

Kirk came to stand beside McCoy. “How enormous?” he asked.

“Judging by my tricorder readings, each one may dwarf the
Enterprise
in size.”

“Larger than the
Enterprise
?” said McCoy. “My God, what are they? Who built them, and why?”

“Unknown, Doctor,” said Spock.

Kirk shook his head. “What did my crew find?” He fell quiet, and neither Spock nor McCoy broke the silence. McCoy knew the thoughts running through Kirk's mind—could the alien machines, their builders and purpose unknown, have been responsible for the downing of the
Enterprise
's shuttle?

“Spock,” said Kirk at last, “I'm thinking the shuttle went down in the canyon. With one engine sheered off, she couldn't have gone much farther, and as intact as the nacelle was, it couldn't have fallen from too great an altitude.” He took a deep breath. “I'm thinking we'll find the shuttle on the canyon floor.”

Spock nodded once. “A logical surmise.”

“Jim,” said McCoy, “how can you be sure the shuttle couldn't have glided to a landing on the plateau beyond the opposite canyon wall?”

“I can't, which is why we'll descend into the canyon, look for signs of the shuttle, and if we find nothing by our next transport window, we'll beam back to the
Enterprise
and resume our search for the shuttle from there.”

Before long, Spock found a way down. It was clearly a path, beaten and worn through use over the years.

“I don't like this, Jim,” said McCoy.

“I will take the lead, Captain,” said Spock. Kirk nodded his approval.

McCoy began to follow Spock's lead down the path. He stopped abruptly.

“Bones?”

McCoy heard something. It sounded like a voice, very faint and distorted, as if from far away. “Do you hear that?”

Kirk and Spock stopped, turned their heads to the sky to listen. “Clearly, Doctor,” said Spock, “what you hear is the sound of wind echoing off the canyon walls.” He started back down the path toward the canyon floor.

Kirk, however, continued to listen. “I think I hear it, Bones,” he whispered.

McCoy nodded. “It sounds like a woman's voice, Jim,” he said quietly.

“But where's it coming from?” When McCoy didn't respond immediately, Kirk clapped him on the shoulder. “Bones…?”

 

“…did you hear me?”
A pause.
“Mrs. Howard?”

Gabby Howard shook her head, tried to refocus her train of thought. “I'm sorry, you were saying?”

“This is Mrs. Davis, the counselor at Lewis Elementary.”

Her eyes closed, Gabby could picture Mrs. Davis, a matronly woman of nearly sixty that she had met with several times over the past two months. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Davis?”

“I wanted to talk with you about your son, Brennan.”

“It's Breandán,” said Gabby quickly. A common mistake—six-year-old Breandán still had difficulty pronouncing the “d” sound, and often-times strangers misheard his name. That the school counselor could mistake her son's name bothered Gabby—if the counselor were genuinely interested in Breandán, she wouldn't make such an obvious mistake.

“Breandán yes.”
Mrs. Davis paused.
“There was an incident at school today you should be aware of.”

Gabby sat down and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “An incident,” she repeated.

“Apparently Breandán brought a toy from home with him to school today, and during recess this afternoon he played on his own with that rather than with the other children. His teacher felt that Breandán hadn't been socializing with his classmates recently, and he confiscated the toy from him.”

“Which toy was it, Mrs. Davis?” Gabby asked, though she was confident she already knew the answer.

“An action figure
—Star Trek, Star Wars,
I can't tell these things apart.”

Gabby sighed. “It's his Dr. McCoy action figure.
Star Trek,
if you must know.”

“Right.”
Gabby thought from her tone of voice that Mrs. Davis cared not at all whether the action figure came from
Star Trek
or from something else entirely.
“I take it you're a fan.”

“Frankly, I couldn't care less. My husband, though—” She paused, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and decided to shift gears back onto the important topic of conversation—her son—rather than a pointless digression into
Star Trek
fandom. “I take it, Mrs. Davis, that the incident was more than the teacher taking away Breandán's toy.”

“That's correct. According to the teacher, after the toy was confiscated your son…‘shut down.'”

“Could you be more specific?”

“He didn't play with the other children. In fact, he simply sat immobile where he had been playing with his
Star Trek
toy.”

Gabby frowned. “He does that, Mrs. Davis.”

“Your son isn't socializing with the other children. Our school has policies, and children are not to bring toys from home because it can lead to situations like today's where children play by themselves instead of with their classmates. Frankly, I'm concerned, Mrs. Howard, by your son's behavior today and your own indifference to the problem.”