But Commander Spock worked with Sherev on recalibrating her team’s sensor equipment and his own team’s tricorders to maximize their penetration and resolution through meters of rock. The improvement in sensitivity he was able to achieve was impressive, as was his ability to compute bore power adjustments in his head to avoid overheating yet maintain a steady excavation rate. There were moments when watching the lanky young Vulcan perform his task so effortlessly gave Sherev twinges of doubt about her own adequacy as a science officer. But she quickly decided she was glad Kirk had traded up in that department as well as in starships. Surely the best captain she’d ever served with deserved the best science officer he could get.
With that in mind, Sherev took advantage of a meal break in the dome to sit opposite Spock, who was absently picking at some sort of bean and vegetable dish while reviewing scan results on a data slate. “Do you mind if we talk for a bit, Commander?”
“I am able to multitask, Doctor Sherev.”
“Do I understand right that this is your first mission with Captain Kirk?”
“The second, following a medical supply run to Draxis II.”
“So the first significant one. Those leg-stretching milk runs they like to start us out with hardly count.”
“I believe the colonists on Draxis II would not agree.”
Sherev quirked an antenna. She was still trying to adjust to Spock’s dedication to Vulcan literalism. “I meant from the crew’s perspective. Specifically, yours and Jim’s. As his former science officer, I’m naturally curious to know how my successor is getting along with him.” She thought of another tack. “As I imagine you might be curious to learn a thing or two from one of his former science officers. I just want to make sure things run smoothly between you two.”
Spock nodded. “A reasonable consideration. Perhaps you might be able to offer insight on something that is unclear to me.”
“Ask away.”
The Vulcan set his fork down and steepled his long fingers before him. “Captain Kirk has an excellent record and a reputation as a highly disciplined commander. Indeed, his demeanor in the fifteen days we have served together has been consistent with that record. Though he does demonstrate a characteristically human tendency toward frivolity and social interaction while off duty, and is prone to idiomatic speech and wordplay, these do not in any way detract from his performance of his duties. In that respect, I have found him to be admirably focused, serious, and intellectually acute.”
Sherev was tempted to make a joke about Spock thinking Kirk was acute, but given his disparaging tone when discussing wordplay, she quashed the impulse. Instead she said, “It sounds like you’re hitting it off very well.”
“As I understand the idiom, one would expect so.” His slanted brows drew closer together. “However, I continue to get the impression that Captain Kirk is not entirely comfortable with me. It has not affected our work together as yet, so it is a minor concern. However, I find it a paradoxical reaction. Many humans and other non-Vulcans in Starfleet have responded to me in similar ways, finding my Vulcan control and precision to be a source of bemusement or irritation. Beings accustomed to emotional engagement with others often have difficulty adjusting to Vulcans’ nonemotional mode of interaction.”
Only Sherev’s antennae showed what she thought about Vulcans’ pretense of nonemotionality. She had found Spock highly expressive, and he even had a tendency to shout a bit when giving orders.
“However,” Spock finished, “I had not expected an equivalent reaction from an individual as controlled and dispassionate as Captain Kirk.”
This time Sherev did laugh; she couldn’t help herself. Spock frowned in confusion, and she tried to catch her breath. “Jim Kirk? Dispassionate? Oh, Uzaveh.” She took a few moments to calm herself. “Heed the benefit of my experience, young science officer. The thing you need to understand about James Tiberius Kirk is that he is a man of intense passions. Everything he does is the result of passion—the passion to explore, the passion to achieve and learn, the passion to help others and make a positive difference in the galaxy. Even that rigorous command discipline and emotional control you admire so much are the result of Jim’s passion, his need, to be the best captain he can be.”
Spock appeared skeptical. “You describe a paradox.”
“Do I? Is it any more paradoxical than Vulcans suppressing your emotions because they’re so powerful that you’re afraid to let them rule you? Your discipline is driven by passion too.”
“That is a questionable interpretation,” Spock said. “Though I have heard similar opinions expressed by my mother.”
“Then I know where you got your smarts from.”
Spock seemed to struggle for a moment with whether or not he should be scandalized by that. Then he wisely let it drop. “If your assessment is valid, how does it explain the captain’s unease? Even if his discipline is motivated by emotion, he still values reserve and control in the performance of one’s duty.”
“That’s just the thing, if you ask me,” Sherev said.
“I did ask you.”
“Yes, you did,” she answered, rolling her eyes a little. “The point is, Jim’s used to being the reserved and controlled one. He plays it straight and serious, and he relies on his more relaxed friends and crewmates to balance him out. His old exec, Commander Adebayo, was one of the kindliest, sweetest old men in Starfleet. Gary Mitchell, as you’ve no doubt learned already, is the resident rogue and jokester.”
“Yes,” Spock replied sourly. “I have observed as much.”
“And I’m outspoken, sardonic, stubborn as hell, and prone to get carried away with my work. Jim is our pole star, the stalwart one who keeps us anchored and focused. And in turn, we keep him connected to his humanity, as he’d call it. To other people, to a life beyond duty.
“Now, that’s changed. Most of the people he relied on for that are gone, except for Gary. If anything, his problem finding his balance with you is that you’re too much like him. You don’t give him the counterbalance he’s used to.”
“I see.” Spock’s frown deepened, no doubt an expression of his complete lack of emotion. “I am not likely to change, Doctor.”
She sighed. “Well, maybe Jim will. Maybe he just needs to find a new equilibrium. Once he gets used to you being the more regimented, unemotional one, maybe he’ll give himself the freedom to loosen up some. Maybe he’ll finally feel free to embrace the emotional instincts that are such an important part of his success as a commander—even if he doesn’t always realize it.”
Before Spock could answer, a clamor of voices from the dig site deeper within the mountain crevice drew both scientists’ attention. “I know that sound,” Sherev said, shooting to her feet. “That’s the sound of a dig team that just made a breakthrough!” She ran toward the voices, with Spock following close behind.
U.S.S. Enterprise
It was some time before Kirk managed to persuade Director Skovir to board the Enterprise and hear his counterproposals for the terraforming project. She came reluctantly, and with so little time remaining before the bombardment, Kirk had to skip any sort of banquet or entertainment and get straight to business. Mitchell and Sulu’s presentation of alternative bombardment plans on the briefing room screen failed to impress her. “We have considered all these options. The thrust required to redirect those comets would be prohibitive.”
“If you let Starfleet work with you,” Sulu replied, “we could provide more powerful thruster units, or even verteron beam emitters.”
“Which would have a significant probability of fragmenting the comets while still in space, which would make them useless upon impact. The risk is too great.”
She proved just as intractable regarding the alternative terraforming sites. “Your offer of worlds in Federation space is generous, but our goal is to increase our livable territory in this region. And Patavon IV’s star is too cool, with too little ultraviolet. We would be dependent on vitamin supplements our whole
lives.”
“It seems a small inconvenience,” Kirk said.
“For millions of colonists, for generations to come? Why subject them to that when there is a more ideal world available?”
“A world that had its own civilization before,” Kirk said. “A civilization that left a message for others to find, a legacy of its past. We are on the verge of discovering that legacy.”
“The legacy of a race of savages. Genocidal monsters.”
Kirk studied Skovir. “You seem awfully sure of what they were like. I thought they’d left no evidence about themselves.”
“The evidence of their destruction of their world is clear enough. That’s all we need.”
Her tail was twitching fiercely. She’d make a poor poker player, Kirk thought, now convinced that Sherev had been right that the director was hiding something.
He rose from his seat and stepped closer to where Skovir stood. “You should be aware, Director, that Doctor Sherev and an Enterprise science team penetrated a Karabosi vault several hours ago. The vault was designed to store records of their people’s history, their scientific and technical achievements, samples of their art and literature.” He paused for effect. “We now know what they looked like.”
The alarm in Skovir’s eyes told him what he needed. Kirk nodded to Sulu, who worked the display controls to bring up images transmitted from the vault by Spock’s tricorder. “The vault contains thousands of thin platinum sheets encased in sapphire, laser-etched with millions of microdots,” Sulu said. “It’s an effective way to preserve vast amounts of data in a durable form that can be read by anyone who finds it.” The screen showed samples of dozens of sheets slightly smaller than a Starfleet data slate, with close-ups of the microscopic engraving that put thousands of books’ worth of content on each one. “The sheets contain a translation matrix starting with prime numbers and scientific constants and building from there. Our computers are working on deciphering the written languages, but we’ve already gleaned much from the pure mathematics.”
Kirk picked up the thread, still staring intently at Skovir. “And more importantly . . . there are images.”
Sulu brought up magnified medical diagrams from the sheets, followed by images of some of the artworks they had found depicting the Karabosi form. The Karabosi had been large, burly humanoids with gray skin, feline-simian features . . . and prehensile tails.
“We’re still searching for detailed genetic information, Director. But the resemblance is . . . suggestive.”
Skovir thought for a time, then sighed and spoke with reluctant slowness. “I could have argued that humans look almost identical to Vulcans, Makusians, and others. If only more of you out here had sharp teeth and tails.
“Yes, Captain Kirk. The Karabosi and the Aulacri are related species. My people evolved on Karabos II, in parallel with another species of our genus. I gather that it is uncommon in the galaxy for two civilized species to share a planet, that usually one such species outcompetes the others or assimilates them genetically.”
“There are exceptions,” Sulu said. “Xindus, Valakis . . .”
“Karabos II was another exception—for a time. The proto-Aulacri and the Karabosi evidently managed to last long enough to develop separate civilizations, perhaps because they resided on different continents. But eventually they came into direct contact—and, it seems, frequent conflict. The Karabosi would not tolerate our existence. Little knowledge survives from that era, but we know we were murdered, enslaved, raped. Possibly even consumed. We fought for our survival, but they were too powerful a foe. Too vicious. They warred with one another as well as with our ancestors. Perhaps some conflict between Karabosi gave the Aulacri enough time to develop spaceflight, to escape our world before the final, cataclysmic war.
“Eventually, four thousand years ago, a small band of survivors made their way to Aulac. They lost most of their technology, needed millennia to rebuild their population and recover to an advanced civilization.” Skovir closed her eyes for a few moments. “Only legends of our origins survived. We thought they were myths. Only when we regained starflight and found our way to Karabos did we learn the truth.”
“Then this vault we’ve found isn’t the only evidence of the Karabosi after all,” Kirk said.
“We found evidence of Aulacri. Remains of an early settlement on Karabos III, a world not unlike your Mars. Records revealing they had come from the second planet—and enough fragments about the Karabosi to corroborate our myths and let us reconstruct the rest.”
Kirk tried to understand. “So that’s why you’re so determined to terraform Karabos II. You want to reclaim your original homeworld.”
“We have a right to, don’t we?”
“Of course,” he replied. “But what I don’t understand is why you’ve hidden the truth of your origins, your history. Why you didn’t want Sherev to discover it.”
“It’s not about us, Captain Kirk. It’s about the Karabosi. They were monsters. Creatures of pure cruelty and hate. They were too violent to survive, or to let others survive being near them. They did a service to the universe by wiping themselves out. If we remake the planet and erase the last vestiges of their existence, we will only be finishing what they started.”
Skovir bared her sharp teeth at the look on Kirk’s face. “This may seem vindictive to you, Captain. Perhaps, on some level, it is. But consider how it would feel to our people if they knew the world of our birth had been home to such genocide. It would taint it for all time.”
She stepped forward. “Captain Kirk, I must remind you that you and Doctor Sherev’s team are here as guests of the Aulacri. Karabos II is our territory, and all that you have found belongs to us. We will decide its disposition—and that includes your scans of the vault’s contents as well as the actual materials. I hereby demand that you turn all your data over to us, and retrieve your team from the surface. You have no choice in the latter case, for the impacts will not be halted, and your team has only hours remaining before the first impactors hit.”
Kirk wanted to argue further, but he knew it was pointless. Skovir was within her rights to make those demands. Regretfully, he told her, “We will do as you say.”
“Good.” Skovir strode for the door, but she paused, her tail curling down and around her legs. She turned back. “I don’t blame you for your attitude toward this, Captain. Your desire for knowledge is admirable—it’s one of the things that draws us to your Federation. But some knowledge does more harm than good. And some truths are better forgotten. Just let this go, and we can move forward as friends again.”
Kirk traded a solemn look with Sulu once she had gone. They both knew that, for the sake of good relations, they had no choice. But Kirk knew Sherev would not accept it easily.
Karabos II
“No, Jim, we can’t leave yet!” Sherev called into Spock’s communicator, her voice raised over the sound of her team’s digging. “We still have hours to go. And we’re on the verge of a major discovery. There’s a deeper section within the vault, and the records we’ve translated suggest there’s something inside of great importance to the Karabosi, something fundamental to their identity as a people. Possibly some kind of genetic research, from what we can tell.
“But this mountain range wasn’t quite as stable as they hoped. The inner vault is blocked by a cave-in, and we need a couple more hours to dig through. We need to keep the phaser bore on low power so we don’t risk damaging anything inside.”
“It doesn’t matter, Rhen,” Kirk told her. “Skovir is adamant. You wouldn’t be allowed to share what you found anyway. She believes the legacy of the Karabosi needs to die, and we don’t have the authority to override her.”
“I just don’t buy it,” Sherev went on. “Something about her story just doesn’t ring true.”
“Indeed,” Spock remarked. “Two closely related species sharing a planet for such a length of time, yet not interbreeding, seems unlikely. I believe Skovir and the Aulacri may have deriv
ed some inaccurate conclusions from the available evidence.”
“They’re just not interested, Mister Spock. I sympathize with your curiosity, but your time’s run out. I’m ordering both your teams to return to the Enterprise immediately.”
“I’m not in Starfleet anymore, remember?” Sherev told him. “I’ll send the rest of my team back with your people, but I intend to stay as long as possible.”
“Rhen, you’re a Federation citizen on foreign soil, and the sovereign power has requested that we remove you. I’ll have Mister Spock bring you back by force if I have to.”
“Please try to understand, Jim! We’re so close to solving this whole thing. Don’t ask me to walk away before I absolutely have to.”
“Rhen, please—don’t do this to me again.” She was startled by the emotion in Kirk’s voice. “I’ve come close to losing you too many times because you didn’t know when to stop chasing a discovery. Please, for my sake, come back to the ship.”
She winced. That’s a low blow, Kirk. “All right,” she finally said through gritted teeth. “I’ll come back.”
The relief in Kirk’s voice was palpable. “Thank you, Rhen. Mister Spock—”
“Captain,” the first officer spoke up, surprising Sherev. “I request permission to remain and complete the excavation. I am able to perform the work myself, so no one else need be risked.”
A moment of stunned silence. “Mister Spock, surely you understand the risk as well as anyone.”
“Which is why I calculate that the odds of success are still high enough to justify the effort.”
“The Aulacri don’t want this knowledge.”
“They may change their minds if they can be made aware of it. Though I am not yet certain what we will find, I have projected several possibilities that could be transformative to the Aulacri’s understanding of themselves and of the Karabosi. They have a right to hear that information, at least, before deciding what to do with it.”
Kirk replied after another moment. “While I admire your altruism, Mister Spock, your sense of self-preservation leaves something to be desired. I only just got you as a first officer—I don’t want to lose you on our first mission together.”
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