Worlds in Collision (45 page)

“I protested,” Gauvreau went on, watching the stars on the viewscreen.

Gutsy,
thought Kirk.

“I sent subspace memos to every starbase, and to Command, demanding a review.”

Bordering on madness.

“And, ‘after due consideration, blah, blah, blah,' nothing changed.” She turned back to Kirk. “Decker said he'd take me with him to the
Constellation.
But being second…again. And as things turned out, maybe I did do the right thing by not going with him. Decker was a good officer. A good man.”

The
Constellation'
s entire crew had been lost. Decker had destroyed both himself and his ship to avenge them. He had been Kirk's friend. “I know,” Kirk said. And then added, “I was, uh, in Starfleet, too,” to cover his slip.

Gauvreau stared at him, as if making a decision. “I know you were, Captain Kirk.”

Kirk sat rigid, prepared for another angry confrontation. They were a day out from anywhere, two weeks still to go to Hanover. If Gauvreau was another like those he had encountered among the rockriggers, if she not only accepted what had been said about him but believed he had not been punished enough…. “How long have you known?” No sense in denying it. He had to come up with a strategy for overpowering her without hurting her. If it came to that.

“Since I saw you in the dockworkers' pool. There was some subspace chatter about you being caught rockrigging for Interworld, so there was a good chance you were still in the neighborhood.”

Kirk had the sudden terrible feeling that she had been looking for him, and had brought him onboard the
Shelton
for a reason. He stared at his empty coffee cup. It had tasted so bad. So wrong. What did she want with him? What were her motives?

“So what happens now?” Kirk asked.

“First of all, you relax. I'm not a one-person recycler mob.”

“Then what are you? Why ‘hire' me?”

“To get you closer to Talin.”

Kirk showed his surprise.

“That is where you're going.” She made it a statement.

“Why do you say that?”

“Because that's what I'd do.” She didn't wait for him to ask more questions. “Look, I know you, Kirk. At least, I know your type. You're like me—the kind of officer that gives the Admiralty their gray hairs. You've got to be resourceful and inventive enough to run the show when you're weeks away from getting advice and orders from Starfleet Command. But when you get those orders, you have to be the kind of person who'll follow them, even if you don't agree. It's an almost impossible mix. Like matter and antimatter. Starfleet has to be the magnetic bottle and you know how tricky those can be to keep properly aligned.”

“What's your point, Captain?” Kirk was getting edgy. He hated not knowing what her motives were.

“My point is, whatever else you might be—maverick, impetuous, stubborn—and all those other things starship captains have to be, you're not a worldkiller. I know what you had to go through to get the
Enterprise.”
She held up two fingers, a centimeter apart. “I know what I went through to get even this close to a starship of my own. And I know the system doesn't let maniacs get that close, or go so far. For all that I have my reservations about Starfleet, even I have to admit the system works.”

“It didn't give you your ship.” Kirk wondered how much of what she said was the truth as she believed it, and how much was her trying to set him up for some other purpose.

“Thirteen starships, Captain Kirk, fifteen, maybe sixteen now, and how many thousands of would-be captains in Starfleet? I had my chance. I got close. And the same system that funnels us all through to one of those fifteen or sixteen chairs doesn't tend to produce officers who'd be happy to settle with second best, or with command of the
Hawking.”

“I still don't understand.” On the viewscreen, the stars shifted slightly to port as the navigation system carried out the planned course correction. The change in heading was smooth, the inertial dampers kept the ship feeling motionless. “If the system works as well as you say, then why don't you accept what the hearing on Talin concluded?”

Gauvreau sat at the navigation station to check the new course. As her fingers worked the controls, swiftly, almost instinctively—the legacy of her Starfleet training—she kept talking. “I accept most of the hearing's conclusions. Talin IV was a living, civilized world, a few decades at most from First Contact. The
Enterprise
went to the Talin system and…within five days Talin IV was a graveyard for an entire civilization.”

“But you don't accept that it was my fault?”

Gauvreau looked over from the board. “Do you?”

“No.” The word hung in the silence of the small bridge like a proclamation from the heavens. There was no equivocation in it, no hesitation or hint of qualification.

Gauvreau smiled at him. “Then why be surprised that I think the same thing?”

“Because Starfleet Command thinks otherwise.”

“And you know what I think about Command. I said the system works. It's the current Admiralty I have trouble with.” She turned in her chair and leaned forward. “Look, Kirk, don't be so defensive. I'm on your side. That's why I brought you onboard, all right? I figured you might need a couple of days of not feeling that the whole galaxy was trying to track you down. I figured if you were already out so far in this sector, then you'd probably appreciate getting another parsec or two closer to Talin.”

Kirk watched the stars. He asked himself what he would have done if, after the Battle of Ghioghe, Starfleet had reassigned him to another patrol ship instead of giving him the
Enterprise.
Would he have stuck it out in a second-place command, hoping for another chance, knowing that once Command had made up its collective mind, an officer's career path might as well be etched in dichronium? Or would he have done what Gauvreau had done? Left Starfleet and taken command another way? He chuckled suddenly, surprised by the answer that came to mind.

“You changed the rules,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The scenario Command laid out for you didn't suit you, so you changed the conditions of the game.” He looked around the bridge. “And you won.”

Gauvreau grimaced. “In a manner of speaking. This isn't the
Yorktown.”

“But it isn't the
Hawking,
either.” Kirk took a closer look at the bridge, suddenly becoming aware of the subtle thrum of the Cochrane generator far below decks, and the gentle airflow of the life-support circulators. If the cards Starfleet had dealt him had not included command of a starship when he felt the time was right, instead of lose their game, he would have refused to play it. And he would have ended up here on the
Ian Shelton,
or a ship just like her. A winner by the only rules that counted—his own.

“We
are
alike,” Kirk admitted. Because he knew if their roles had been reversed and Gauvreau had been cast out and he had been a commercial captain who could offer her a few days of rest, then he would. Not to gloat over Starfleet's failure or another person's misfortune. But because he and Gauvreau were…family. Two members of an exceedingly small family in an extremely large galaxy.

“Good,” Gauvreau said. She tossed over the small packet she had carried up to the bridge. Kirk opened it. It was a manual grooming kit. “Thought you might like to wide beam the beard. Subspace visual's carrying tape from the Interworld rock so it's not much of a disguise anymore. I don't have a grooming booth on board but I can handle your hair, if you want.”

Kirk scratched at his beard. There was no point in hiding behind it any longer. Not this close to his destination. “Thank you,” he said.

“But…?” Gauvreau asked, detecting the question building in him.

“How can you be so sure about me? You don't have the slightest idea about what really happened on Talin IV.”

Gauvreau turned back to the navigation board. “But I will, won't I? If I were you, I'd want someone else to know the whole story. And I tell you, Kirk, fourteen days in space on an automated ship is a long, long time.”

Not as long as my five days at Talin IV,
Kirk thought. But Gauvreau was right.

It was time to tell his story.

In the privacy of his cabin, Kirk tapped his desk screen to shut off the log recording. Somehow, the phrase “crawling the walls” was not one he wished to consign to the permanence of an official log. Besides, as far as he could tell, he was the only crew member having trouble coping with the forced inactivity of this present assignment. Even Chekov showed no signs of edginess at having less than his normal double duty load to contend with. Perhaps he had been spending too much time with Mr. Spock and was acquiring a most uncharacteristic patience. Or maybe the old Academy legends were true and the ship's doctor
was
putting something into the water supply to keep everyone…tranquil.

Kirk told the computer to get him sickbay and Christine Chapel appeared on the captain's screen.

“Yes, Captain?”

“Put McCoy on.”
What a starship needs is a bar,
Kirk thought.
A nice lounge somewhere, maybe forward where there'd be a good view, a few tables, a place to go and relax off duty.
Perhaps he'd suggest it in his next report. Starfleet Command was always looking for new ways to extend the mission time of their ships and a social gathering place might be a welcome addition to the ship's recreation facilities.

“The doctor's not in, Captain. Is there something—”

“Not in?” Even when he was off duty, McCoy was generally in his office, reviewing files, or reading the journals.

“He's at the A and A briefing, sir. Shall I get him for you?”

“No, that's fine, Nurse. It wasn't important.” Kirk reached out to shut down the screen again.

“Excuse me, Captain. Just while I have you on the screen, according to our records, you're still overdue for that physical and perhaps—”

“Not now, Nurse Chapel. Try me later.”

“But, Captain…”

“Thank you, Nurse.” Kirk signed off and sighed. He drummed his fingers against his desk. Two more days of this. He told the computer to get him the bridge.

This time, Ensign Leslie appeared on the screen. “Bridge here.”

“Where's Uhura?” Not the most pleasant way to greet a crew member, Kirk knew, but after all, this
was
Uhura's duty cycle.

Leslie looked nervous. “Uh, with the communications blackout, sir, she said…she said that there was no point in staying at her station, so she assigned me to monitor for emergency signals.”

Kirk was surprised but decided he couldn't take Mr. Leslie to task for Uhura's actions. He knew he himself had set the precedent that allowed most bridge specialists on his ship to choose for themselves when their work could be better performed at other locations in the ship. But that flexibility really couldn't extend to essential personnel such as helm and navigation—and he had never thought of communications as anything other than equally essential.
Except, perhaps, during a communications blackout.

“Tell me, Mr. Leslie, where
is
Lieutenant Uhura?”

“Uh, I believe she's at the A and A briefing, sir. I could call her—”

“That's all right, mister. I'll…have a talk with her later. Get me Spock, please.”

“Um, Mr. Spock is not on the bridge either, sir.”

This time, Kirk was more than surprised. “We're traveling into a system we've never visited before and Spock isn't at the science station?”
Has everyone decided to take the day off?

“Sir, the FCO has spent eight years surveying the Talin system in considerable detail and since we can't use our main sensors because of the blackout…well, almost all the science departments are shut down for maintenance.”

Kirk sighed again. “I see. And would you happen to know where Mr. Spock is?”

“Yes, sir. He's attending the A—”

“—and A briefing. Why not? Everyone else is. Tell me, is there
anyone
on the bridge other than you?”

The ensign looked puzzled for a moment. “Well, uh, Dr. M'Benga is here, and—”

Kirk felt a welcome rush of adrenaline. “What's the doctor doing on the bridge? Has there been an accident?” Kirk jumped up by his desk, ready to run for the turbolift.

“No, sir,” Leslie answered calmly. “Nothing like that. It's just that…” He looked away from the screen for a moment. “Well, since we're not traveling that fast, Mr. Sulu is sort of letting everyone try—”

Kirk held up his hands. “Don't tell me. I don't want to know.” One of his worst nightmares had come true: The
Enterprise
had turned into a cruise ship.

The viewscreen flashed over to the helm station. Sulu was just sitting down. M'Benga stood behind him, looking sheepish. “Sulu here, Captain. Everything's under control, sir.”

“I'm glad you think so.”

“Really, sir. Helm and navigation are supposed to be part of the emergency preparedness program, but it's not too often that we get the conditions where regulations allow EPP trainees on the controls. And at this speed and heading, sir, believe me, we've got those conditions.”

It's not going to be one of those days, Kirk thought.
It's going to be one of those months.
“I have the utmost faith in you, Mr. Sulu.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Just one question.”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“Why aren't
you
at the A and A briefing?”

Sulu smiled. “I lost the toss to Chekov, sir.”

“I see. Well, carry on, Mr. Sulu—or should I say, Dr. M'Benga. Just try not to hit anything…like a planet.”

M'Benga leaned down to bring himself within range of the helm communication scanner. He adopted his best, serious-physician demeanor and spoke gravely. “I'll
try,
Captain.” Then he and Sulu broke into wide grins.

Kirk waved his hand at the screen, searching for the words, any words, to show that he could go along with their joke. He knew his crew already suspected that the past three days had turned their captain into a high-strung worrier and there was no need to give them additional ammunition. But he couldn't think of anything to add that they wouldn't take the wrong way. “Kirk out,” he said in defeat, and the screen shut off.
At least morale is high,
Kirk thought.
Everyone else's that is.

He spent a minute or two staring at the walls of his cabin until they seemed to be moving in on him and that's when he knew he had had enough. “When on Centaurus,” he muttered, and then left his cabin to attend the A & A briefing.

 

Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas had been the ship's A & A officer from the start of the five-year mission. In that time, Kirk could remember her accompanying him on a handful of landing parties, most notably the near-disastrous return mission to Avalon and the run-in with million-year-old warrior robots at the Asteroid Tessel excavations. She had also been present on Pollux IV when the
Enterprise
had encountered an alien who might well have been known to ancient humans as the Greek god, Apollo. In short, she had served competently during a wide range of experiences typical for a starship crew member. She was also an attractive, blond-haired and blue-eyed human, and well-liked by her staff and crew. Especially by Scotty a few years back, Kirk recalled, though nothing had come of it.

But even so, Kirk was hard pressed to understand why almost one hundred other crew members had turned up in the ship's theater for the lieutenant's briefing on Talin IV. It seemed rather unusual that so many of the
Enterprise
crew shared a passion for Palamas's specialty: anthropology and archaeology.

When Kirk entered the theater, he had to silently refuse a dozen crew members who offered to give him their seats. He preferred to lean against one of the back walls. At least there he could sneak out again if the presentation wasn't interesting. He noticed Spock sitting off to the side in the second row, close to the podium in the center of the stage. Surprisingly, McCoy was sitting beside him. Every few seconds, Kirk could see the two officers whispering back and forth. McCoy was even looking pleased with himself. Kirk reminded himself to get in on whatever was going on between the two later, then settled back to listen to the lieutenant.

“Coming up on the screen right now is a computer composite of a typical set of Talin IV's dominant intelligent species.” Palamas touched a control on her podium and a detailed, political and cartographic display of Talin IV was replaced by an image of two reddish-skinned adults and one green-skinned child. Lying beside them was what appeared to be an incompletely formed larval version of a Talin. However, according to the scale grid, the softly rounded, pale white form was the same size as the two adults on the screen—about two and a half meters high.

The adults' faces were each the shape of a smoothly curving, forward sloping egg, sliced through the bottom third by a wide, lipless mouth which opened and shut, revealing an upper and lower row of small, sharp teeth. Kirk could see no nostrils as such, unless they were somehow incorporated into the asymmetrical hearing membranes on either side of the head, near where the jaw pivoted. Each adult's face was dominated by a pair of large, yellow eyes, perhaps twice the size of a human's and dotted by small black central pupils. The child's face had less slope, no teeth, and much larger eyes.

Palamas then rotated the computer composites through a full four hundred degrees. The images moved to show the mobility and gait of the Talins' long arms and legs. As he studied the images, Kirk noticed that each adult wore a biblike covering that hung from a loop of fabric around its neck, continuing down to another loop that slipped between the legs to hook over a small protuberance at the end of the spine. He guessed it was a vestigial tail.

“As you can see,” Palamas explained to her attentive audience, “the Talin are saurian bipeds, though completely different in body structure from the Gornaran archosaurs. Instead, the Talin share some of the characteristics of Earth lizards and birds, notably in the loose folds of pebbly-textured skin and the thin and delicate skeletal structure. As is typical on more than ninety percent of class-M planets, there are two sexes on Talin IV and the female parent carries the live young to term. Preliminary fauna sampling runs indicate that the evolutionary predecessors of the Talin were egg-laying.”

An ensign wearing a red support-services shirt raised her hand and Palamas nodded at her. “Is that what the fourth figure on the screen shows? An egg casing? It looks so large.”

“No, but that's a good question. What we're looking at here is an adult hibernation cocoon. Apparently, it's an evolutionary artifact from the Talin's predecessor species. Many equatorial life-forms on the planet continue to exude a moisture-impervious substance which hardens into a protective shell. The creatures undergo this type of sealed-in hibernation during the extreme seasonal variations when water virtually disappears from the planet's equatorial deserts. The Talin themselves still retain this capability, though because of their relatively advanced technology—including extensive irrigation projects, climate-controlled housing, and efficient agriculture—a hibernation cocoon like this one is rarely seen among the Talin except in cases of extreme trauma or illness. Indeed, in most of the major nation states, there is a cultural prejudice against it—almost as if it's a reminder of their bestial past. We have noticed that in their popular entertainment, references to the hibernation cocoon and the distinctive odor of the skin secretion which forms it are usually at the level of what we would call crude humor.”

“How can you tell male from female?” another crew member asked. Kirk looked again at the image on the screen and though both adult figures were virtually identical, he decided the male was probably the adult with the more pronounced cranial crest—it seemed to be composed of thick tufts of hair about ten centimeters high which ran in a stripe from the center of the head along the extended neck, getting shorter until it vanished about halfway down the creature's back. The other adult's crest was only half as high and disappeared on the neck, not the back. Of course, Kirk had seen enough different lifeforms in his career that he wouldn't be surprised if the male turned out to be the small, green, childlike figure.