Worlds in Collision (63 page)

“Don't give me that,” Gauvreau said. “You know there is.”

Kirk listened to and read the main updates whenever he got the chance. He knew that nothing had happened in the Talin system since Starfleet had blockaded it to keep out scavengers and exploiters. It had been estimated that the blockade would have to stay in place for at least five hundred years before the Talin came anywhere near their previous level of technological development. In the last two months, the only mention of Talin in the public updates had been in relation to the long-term resource allocations that the Federation was requesting for blockade maintenance. Starfleet had succeeded in doing what it had set out to do—close the datafile on the entire incident without withholding anything.

But now Gauvreau acted as if something had changed.

“Is it something you think I should know?” Kirk prompted.

“ ‘A good commander learns all that she can,' ” Gauvreau quoted, “ ‘then uses all that she has.' ”

“What's in the updates?” Kirk didn't want to recap Academy lectures. He wanted off this ship.

“It seems you're not the only one who wants to go back to Talin.” Gauvreau slipped a microtape into a screenpad. “Recognize these names? Palamas, Carolyn. Frietas, Jorge. Let's see…M'Benga, Chapel, Fisher…about a hundred others?”

Kirk took the screenpad from her hand and scanned the list of names. There was no Starfleet imprimatur on the display but all the names were of Starfleet personnel. All the names were of
Enterprise
crewmembers.

“What is this?” Kirk said, feeling the anger build in him again as he realized something was developing of which he was unaware. “This isn't an update sheet from a public channel.”

“It's a recall list, Kirk. Those officers and specialists are being reassigned to their previous posting.”

Kirk felt gooseflesh crawl up his arms and neck. “The
Enterprise?”
he whispered. But his ship was dead. He had destroyed her himself.

Gauvreau nodded.

“Who authorized the recall? Where's the
Enterprise?”

Gauvreau passed over another tape wafer for Kirk to read. “Authorization source is Vice Admiral Hammersmith, Starbase 29. And the originating source is given as Lieutenant Commander Scott,
U.S.S. Enterprise,
on station, Talin System.”

Kirk read the second tape and confirmed the code designations. His hands shook. “They told me she was dead,” he said. “They told me…she'd never be operational again.” And why was Scott still on her, almost four months later, unless…

“Where did you get these? How recent are they?”

“No more than a few days old, Kirk. And I'm afraid I'm going to keep my source at Starfleet communications a secret. They never pass on classified or military information, but sometimes it helps to know where the big ships are going to be—especially if I've got a hold full of real coffee.”

Kirk looked at the tapes Gauvreau still hadn't passed over. As a civilian, it was a violation for her to have them. But perhaps some good could come of it. “No harm done?” he asked her, indicating the tapes.

“Never,” Gauvreau said. “Little more than the gossip I'd hear in a bar.”

Kirk took the rest of the update wafers. Obviously, Gauvreau and her sources had gone to a great deal of trouble to pull out all recent transmissions which had contained the words
“Enterprise”
or “Talin.” There were dozens of them and the story they told was staggering.

“They detached the port nacelle,” Kirk read. “They told me it couldn't be done.” He scrolled through the reports. “And nothing happened, per the reports submitted by Scott. Replacement warp nacelles are in transit…crew is being recalled…” For a moment, he felt as if he couldn't breathe. “My ship…” he said. “The
Enterprise
…she's…”

Gauvreau reached out and took Kirk's hand. “I know,” she said gently. “She's going to be given to someone else.”

Kirk sat back and pulled his hand away. It was one thing for him to have lost his career
and
the
Enterprise
together. Without one, what could the other be worth? But to think of someone else taking out his ship, and his crew—he was wracked with terrible jealousy.

“They told me every circuit in her was fused. They told me the nacelle was still drawing her into warp space and she could never be released.”

“Here's a weapons-damage analysis report from Scott,” Gauvreau said, handing the appropriate tape to Kirk. “Read it.”

Kirk's eyes sped over the display. “Only twenty percent damage…precisely focused subspace pulse….” He looked up, eyes blazing. “It was a deliberate attack. An attack beyond the Talin's capabilities.” He looked back at the analysis. It wasn't signed off by Hammersmith and it was tagged as a preliminary report, but it meant there was a chance that another reason existed for what had happened to the
Enterprise.
And to Talin IV. “But how did anyone figure the damage pattern out?” Kirk asked. “To break it down like this someone would have to crawl through the whole ship on his hands and—”

And then he knew what Scott was still doing on the ship.
Bless you, Scotty,
he thought.
You never gave up.

He scrolled through the rest of the tapes, scanning supply requisitions and personnel transfers until he had an idea of the schedule Hammersmith was on in getting the
Enterprise
back into space under her own power. He clenched his jaw. He had less than a week to get back to Talin before they'd be starting warp trials with her to bring her new nacelles into balance. A week.

“Thank you, Captain,” Kirk said, standing suddenly with the screenpad in his hand. “I can't tell you what this means to me.”

“I saw the look on your face when you realized someone else was going to get her, Kirk. I know exactly what it means to you.”

“That's not important,” Kirk said. “It's this report from Scotty. If the
Enterprise
was hit with a precisely focused subspace pulse, then there's another factor which hasn't been included in the equation.” He swung his kit bag over his shoulder. “May I use the bridge to place a call to the spacedock transporter?”

Gauvreau went to the coffee osmoser and poured two cups from the flask. “Sit down, Kirk, you don't have to go anywhere, yet.” She handed him a steaming mug.

“You don't understand, I have less than a week to get to the Talin system.”

“The
Shelton
can make it in five days.”

“I'm going to have to—what?”

“Don't look at me like that, Kirk. You heard what I said. I'm the captain and this ship's next port is Talin IV.”

Kirk put the coffee mug on the table, but he no longer felt the need to rush away. Not until he found out what Gauvreau was up to. “The Talin system is blockaded,” he said.

Gauvreau opened a small, soft-sided bag and pulled out two more pale yellow microtapes. “Now this one is from the public update services.” She held it close to her, not letting Kirk have it yet. “You see, at the Starfleet office, I was able to request a search for everything to do with the
Enterprise
and Talin IV, because they're both within Starfleet jurisdiction. But for the rest of the
Enterprise
Five, I had to go to the public update bureaus.”

Gauvreau glanced down at the tapes. Kirk didn't grab for them. He'd give her another minute to play her game. He knew what it was like to have another person hanging on every word.

“Now,” Gauvreau said, “for Chekov, I found nothing. He resigned. Was last seen heading out on a pleasure cruiser to Eisner's World…in the company of Sulu. Same thing. No other mentions of him, either. The communications officer, Uhura, well, she was released from detention on the Moon. Was met there by…Leonard McCoy…the one who took a swing at Hammersmith…then they both went back to Earth, then to Mars, then to…Rigel II of all places…and then no more references, just like the others.”

“That just leaves Spock,” Kirk said.

“And you,” Gauvreau countered. “But for what it's worth, you've been spotted on just about every seedy frontier world, doing everything
except
rockrigging and handling cargo. As for Spock, well, he's one of the reasons why the Talin system might not be blockaded for much longer.” She passed over the microtapes at last.

Kirk took them calmly from her, trying not to show how eager he was for the news of his friend. But then he forgot all about keeping up appearances as he read the update story three times before he was sure he believed it.

“Spock's
suing
the Federation?”

“That's what he said at his update conference.”

“And
Starfleet?”
Kirk blinked to clear his vision. “On behalf of…Students for Stars for the People. Who the hell are Students for Stars for the People?”

“Last paragraph,” Gauvreau said. “Apparently it's a radical student organization based at Berkeley.”

“Berkeley?” Kirk said in shock. “Across the bay from San Francisco, Berkeley?”

Gauvreau nodded.

“But that's almost next door to Starfleet Academy. Berkeley's been one of the most conservative universities on Earth for more than a hundred years. Why would Spock get mixed up with anything so…?”

“Amateur?”

“Exactly.”

“From what you've told me about him, I'm sure he has his reasons.”

“I'm sure he does, too,” Kirk said, rereading the update for the fourth time.

“But because of the challenge he's threatening to bring over enforcement of the Prime Directive, there seems to be quite a public outcry to get emergency relief aid to Talin.”

Kirk sat back at the table, feeling overcome by the sudden assimilation of this much unexpected news. He had been so singlemindedly fixed on his goal of getting to Talin IV that he had not permitted himself to remember how much he missed his crew, and how much he cared for his friends.

“Even Spock will never be able to do that,” Kirk said. “No matter what they think the trigger incident might have been, as far as the board of inquiry was concerned, the destruction of Talin IV was caused by Talin weapons and Talin politics. Neither Starfleet nor the Federation could possibly allow the Prime Directive to be broken there again.”

“Maybe,” Gauvreau said, “and maybe not. But my credits are on your Mr. Spock. All of them.” She flipped open the screen of her paymaster terminal and hit the balance button. It came up close to zero. The ship's accounts were drained.

“There should be close to one hundred thousand credits in there,” Kirk said. He had seen the cargo manifest and the insurance papers from Lloyds.

“Already transferred out to pay for our new cargo,” Gauvreau explained. Should be shipping up to the spacedock within the next hour.

“What did you buy?” Kirk asked.

“Emergency supplies—medical mostly. Radiation stabilizers. Water purifiers. That sort of thing. Should come in handy when Starfleet calls off their blockade.”

“You're serious, aren't you?”

“According to the updates, Kirk, I'm not the only one. There are about two hundred ships already underway to Talin. And that's not counting the additional picket ships Starfleet's ordered in to manage the traffic. Something's going to give there soon. And whatever else happens, you and I will be there along with your ship and most of your crew.”

She clicked the paymaster off and shut its screen down. “Now drink your coffee, so I don't have to hear you complain about the jifficoff cubes anymore.”

Kirk lifted the mug and finally savored the rich scent of the brew.
Scott hadn't given up,
he thought. And Spock was doing something completely outrageous. And if McCoy and Uhura, and Chekov and Sulu had disappeared, then the chances were more than likely that they were somewhere together, also planning something. He found himself smiling at the way things had turned out. He had decided he would go back to Talin on his own because he couldn't force any of the others to share the hardships and the risks of the journey with him. Yet they had all come to the same conclusion and set out for the same goals on their own anyway.
Even when we're apart,
he thought,
we're a team.

Kirk sniffed the coffee. Real beans, freshly roasted, steaming hot. But even without tasting it, he knew it couldn't be even half as good as what he had had on the
Enterprise.
And would have again.

By standing to the side of the small window and almost against the wall, Spock could just see past the other towers of the student housing complex and catch a glimpse of clear sky over San Francisco. He looked into his human half for some connection with what he saw, but the blue of Earth's skies was still alien to him. He found it intriguing that he responded to the red skies of Vulcan in the same way—neither world held the skies of home for him.

Behind Spock, in the small and cluttered student apartment, five humans carried on two separate conversations—both about him. He followed their words easily while reflecting on the hundreds of skies he had seen in his travels, trying to recall which ones, if any, he had felt at home beneath.

After a time, one of the conversations became heated.

“Well, don't ask
me,”
Marita Llorente said in exasperation. “Ask
him.”

“I don't think I can,” Marita's companion said uncertainly. “Look at him. Isn't he meditating or something?”

“No,” Spock said, and at the sound of his voice the other conversation died. “I am not meditating. What did you wish to ask me?” He turned from the window. For now, he decided that the true color of his sky was black. His home was space. He was confident he would return there soon.

Marita's companion was Penn Grossman, the young oriental human who shared these quarters with her. Spock had seldom seen a more harried or nervous creature. He had the attitude of someone who felt anything and everything which happened anywhere in the galaxy had some direct personal bearing on his life—usually negative.
At least,
Spock thought,
in regard to my presence in his life, the young man is correct.

“Why did you have to go to the update services and tell them about the legal challenge?” Penn rocked back and forth on the worn couch where he sat beside Marita. The couch could be unfolded. It was where Spock slept. “That little grandstanding ploy could ruin everything.”

Spock placed his hands behind his back, remaining impassive as he rapidly tried to recall if he had ever before heard the term “grandstanding.” He guessed at its meaning from the way Penn had used it. “I assure you I was not grandstanding. It will be more beneficial to our purposes if update coverage of the General Council meeting is more intensive than normal, so that more beings will be aware of our struggle.” Spock had quickly picked up the cant of Marita's organization. Typical for humans, they found romance in thinking of their political aspirations as rebellion. Many scholars on Vulcan still had trouble understanding how democracy had flourished on a planet where logic had not.

Penn's hands fluttered rapidly in front of him. “But Marita told me what happened when you saw Ambassador Sytok. He said that if the Council found out Marita would be attending the general meeting, then they'd cancel it or something so she couldn't disrupt it.”

“First, I must remind you that under the terms of our agreement, the Council meeting must not be disrupted. All business which I shall present there will be conducted in accordance with the Federation's Rules of Order.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Penn said rudely.

“Second, at no time during the update conference did I mention that Marita would be attending the Council meeting with me. All the update services reported was that I would be speaking on behalf of Students for Stars for the People to press for the repeal of the Prime Directive.

“If any of the Council members had learned of the topic of my address before it had been made public, then the meeting could have been delayed quite easily. But now that my intentions have been widely reported, the Council cannot postpone their meeting without inviting public criticism and an increased public debate on the propriety of the Directive. By holding the update conference, I have removed that choice from the Council's options and we remain in control of their agenda.”

Marita clapped her hands. “Well done, Mr. Spock.” She looked scornfully at Penn. “See? I told you he knew what he was doing. You should have seen the look on the ambassador's face when Mr. Spock had me do the finger-embrace thing. I tell you, this guy knows how the system works. He's just what the SSP's been needing—someone from the inside who knows firsthand how morally bankrupt the Federation is.”

Penn sat back in the couch and folded his arms across his chest. “I thought that the finger embrace was something that only married Vulcans did. Or…”

“I assure you, Penn, that I asked Marita to attend me only to distract the ambassador from the true purpose of our visit to his embassy. Nothing else was intended by it.”

One of the other three students in the cramped room chuckled. “Hey, Penn's jealous of a Vulcan!”

Penn was indignant. “I am not! It's just that…” He glared at Spock. “We were doing pretty good on our own. We didn't need him to come along and take over.”

Spock remained expressionless though he conceded to himself that, for all of Penn's misplaced nervous energy, the young human was quite perceptive.

Marita pushed against Penn's shoulder. “Mr. Spock hasn't taken over, Penn. He's helping us. Running student rallies and uploading pamphlets is one thing…but Mr. Spock is the first person from the inside who believes the same things we do. The Prime Directive has got to go and Mr. Spock's the one who can make that happen.” She smiled up at Spock. “Isn't that right?”

“I do not know if I can indeed convince the Council to repeal the Directive,” Spock said truthfully.

“See?” Penn said, hands waving. “He admits he can't help us.”

Marita stood up from the couch and gathered a stack of serving plates from a small table. “All he's saying is that he can't
guarantee
anything. He's just being truthful, Penn. You know that Vulcans can't lie.” She carried the plates over to a small autokitchen set in a corner of the room. As the plates clattered in the metal-walled cleaner, Spock heard the first stirrings of the baby waking in the bedroom. No one else did.

Penn stared at Spock. “Is it true what she said? Is it true that Vulcans can't lie?”

Spock allowed a momentary half-smile to come to his lips. “Assuming that you really do not know the answer, I believe if you consider that question carefully, you will discover that no possible answer I could give would provide you with any useful information.” Spock was pleased that he would not have to answer Penn's question directly. The truth was that Vulcans, as a matter of principle, strove to avoid the telling of lies at almost all cost. However, there were times when, to accomplish the greater good, it was necessary to disguise the truth. In the past, Spock had experienced no moral qualms in telling outright lies to Klingons and others who would do violence to the innocent, just as he experienced no qualms in lying to Marita and the other students involved in the SSP. Despite what they might think when they discovered his real purpose in joining them, he was not seeking personal gain. Someday, he hoped they would understand his motives, and condone them.

The student who had laughed at Penn's apparent jealousy got up from the floor where he sat. Beside him, the two other students who had been sitting crosslegged stretched out their legs. One of them knocked over a stack of music cubes. Spock noted disapprovingly that many of the cubes were not in their covers.

“So when is this other bigshot insider going to be coming?” the standing student asked. His name was Lowell and he had told Spock he intended to study law. Spock had noted the orderliness of Lowell's mind and was thankful that he was not the leader of the group. That role had fallen to Marita not because she was the best organizer among the students, but because of her unrelenting energy. The notoriety she had gained by having and caring for a child while still a student also helped attract attention to the group. It was a choice seldom made on Earth these days.

“I believe my guest is due at any moment,” Spock said in answer to Lowell's question.

The young law student stood by the window beside Spock and stared out as if trying to find whatever it was that Spock had been looking at. “And he's just supposed to be another guy from Starfleet who's seen the light about the Directive and wants to make the galaxy a better place?”

Like Penn, Lowell also had his doubts about Spock's motives in becoming involved in the SSP. But unlike Penn, he seemed willing to go along with Spock, if not trust him, as long as he felt that the group might gain an advantage from their association with him—even if it wasn't the advantage they were hoping for.

“He is not ‘just another guy,' ” Spock said. “And he will attract even more public attention for the SSP than I.”

“Hard to imagine that,” Lowell said, giving up on his search out the window. “You were the first Vulcan to join Starfleet, and the first Vulcan to resign. And along the way you helped destroy a world.” Lowell glanced at Spock, looking for a reaction.

But Spock gave him none. He was used to the charges and the misconceptions by now. He felt no need to correct them. There were other solutions. “I believe young Alexander is waking up,” he said to Marita.

The woman turned away from her recycler and smiled at Spock. “Would you?” she asked. “You're so good with him.”

Spock nodded. Since the day he had resigned from Starfleet and sought out the SSP to take his first unexpected step in his new course to correct the errors of the past, Marita and Penn had not accepted what little payment he could make for his room and board. Thus, he felt he was obliged to contribute to their lives in other ways, such as by tutoring and helping with Alexander. He excused himself to the students and went into the small bedroom.

Alexander's crib module hung against the wall near a larger bed. The walls were decorated with two-dimensional images printed on sheets of plastic and paper. Spock found it ironic that many of the images depicted pristine landscapes from other systems—not colony planets but alien worlds. He wondered if Marita could imagine what these scenes would look like if the Prime Directive did not exist. From Earth's own history, images of the fate of indigenous North Americans came to Spock. As was known now, the European colonists were not representatives of a better culture, simply a more intrusive one, and the indigenous cultures had been overwhelmed. The Federation Council was committed to ensuring that such outrages were never repeated on an interstellar scale, which is why Spock had had to be so careful and so precise in orchestrating the appearance he planned to make before them. He had no doubt that they would not be a receptive audience for what he had to say.

Alexander stopped rocking in his crib as he heard Spock enter the darkened room. He waved his stubby arms and legs as Spock appeared above him and gurgled happily as he was lifted into the air.

When Spock returned to the main room, Alexander was contentedly resting against the Vulcan's shoulder, intently tugging on a gracefully pointed ear.

Penn came over as Spock rocked the child gently, waiting for Marita to finish at the autokitchen. “I didn't think Vulcans liked to be touched by humans,” he said waspishly.

Normally, when a Vulcan came into unexpected physical contact with a human, or any being with an undisciplined mind, the crude contact-telepathy transmission of uncontrolled emotion could be distressing. But children were an exception.

“The minds of babies are seldom confused,” Spock observed. “And, in fact, they can be quite refreshing.” However, he did have to adjust Alexander's position against him to prevent the child from deciding to chew on the ear to which he had become so attached.

A few moments later, the visitor chime sounded. It was an old building, so Marita couldn't speak to the door. She had to walk to it and open it by hand.

Lowell was the only one to recognize the man Spock had invited to join them.

“Alonzo Richter?” the student said in awe.

The old theoretical culturalist waved Marita back from the door by brandishing his black cane at her.

“What about it, you little brat?” Richter growled at Lowell. He shuffled into the room and looked around, licking his teeth and lips noisily.
“Barge g'l,
what a dump. You actually live here, Spock?” He coughed loudly.

Alexander twisted in Spock's arms to see who the new intruder in his home was. Richter stuck out his tongue at the child and Alexander began to cry.

Marita took Alexander from Spock and was jostled out of the way as the other students gathered excitedly around Richter. They all had heard his name before, even if they hadn't recognized his face.

“Dr. Richter,” Lowell said, “your work is the underlying structure upon which the Prime Directive is based. Are you seriously joining us to oppose it?”

Richter frowned and made another face at the crying baby. “I'm one hundred percent behind Spock, here,” he said. “And I've come a long way to be able to say that, you can be
vrelq
sure about that.”

The autokitchen buzzer blared and Alexander responded with screams. Marita bounced him energetically and smiled in the face of the chaos. “The sandwich tubes are ready, Mr. Spock. Would you?”