by Glenn Hauman
“It’s me.”
“nuqneH,” she said.
“It’s me, David.”
“I know who it is. nuqneH!”
Uh-oh. She was using the traditional Klingon greeting not because she didn’t know who it was, but because she did know. And since the door wasn’t opening, and since the literal translation of the phrase nuqneH was What do you want? Gold wasn’t getting off to a good start.
“Honey, I would like to start off by saying I was a jerk.”
“No, you really weren’t.” It was not said in a tone of reconciliation.
“No, I really was.”
“No. Think bigger.”
Gold winced. “I was a fool?”
“Wrong direction.”
He sighed. “I was a momzer?”
The door opened, and Rachel was standing there. “That’s the one. I’m glad that we agree.”
“Fine. May I come in now?”
“Be my guest.” She stood aside. He entered, and the door closed with a sigh. Like it knew.
“To be fair, you were trying to manipulate me, Atalanta.”
“Stop calling me that. I just thought making latke s was a nice thing to do for you. I shouldn’t have had to manipulate you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You should have just gone along with me.”
Sigh. “Dear one, you know that I love you. But you also know that I can’t blindly ally myself with you in this case. Doing so wouldn’t have solved anything—it would still be several sides attacking one another. Someone has to mediate, and I had no stake in this beyond a successful wedding for my granddaughter.”
“Are you saying I was letting—”
“Yes. And you know it.”
She was blessedly silent to that. Gold drummed his fingers for a moment. “Look, I’m going to assume that you and I are going to work together to get Esther married and to avoid sundering an alliance while we’re at it. Am I wrong in this assumption?”
“No, you’re not wrong.”
“Fine. Now that that’s settled, what do you think are the important things that need to be dealt with in the ceremony, and what has to be included?”
“Well, honestly, as long as they sign the ketubah and put everything in writing, and they exchange rings, I’m okay with whatever pomp and circumstance needs to be put in.”
Gold blinked in surprise. “What about breaking the glass? Having a chuppah? Doing the blessings? These are important aspects of a Jewish wedding.”
“Of course they’re important. But it’s like the conversation between Hillel and the Convert.” Rachel leaned forward, getting into full professorial mode, which made Gold smile. This was a side of his wife he rarely got to see. She went on: “The Convert asked to be taught the entire Torah while standing on one leg. Hillel told the Convert, ‘What is hateful to you do not do to your friend. The rest of the Torah is an explanation of that concept. Go and study.’ Similarly, the glass is a tribute, the chuppah is a reminder, and the blessings are a sendoff. To make it a Jewish wedding, the bare essentials are the contract and the rings. Everything else is ceremony.”
“That’s all?”
“That’s it. The Klingon gods are dead, they—”
“We’ve been having a huge fight over this?”
“No, we’ve been having a fight over you not knowing what I want and not knowing your own religious background. Will you get that through your head?”
Gold smirked. “I always had you to keep that stuff straight.”
“If you’re going to have someone else attend to your religious faith, perhaps you should have someone else run your ship.”
“That was low.”
Rachel glared at him. “That’s my point.”
“All right. I’m sorry. But I wish you had just handed me the list, so that I didn’t have to keep it in my skull. I had enough other things on my mind, and I am not a mind reader. Saying ‘you should just know’ doesn’t cut it.”
“I am not one of your subordinates on your ship. I am your wife.”
“Wife, I refer you to Genesis, chapter 3, verse 16. ‘Unto Eve the Lord said thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’”
She shook her head. “Damn. You were almost paying attention.”
“Almost?”
“In the same verse, the Lord also said unto the woman, ‘I will greatly multiply thy sorrow.’”
“My dear,” and here the captain got down on one knee and took her hand, “I apologize for any multiplication of sorrow on my behalf. It won’t happen again. Atalanta shall always be my equal.”
“You big momzer. Apology accepted, provisionally.” She pulled him back up to standing. Gold was thankful for that—he really wasn’t as young as he used to be. “As I was saying; the Klingon gods are dead, they happily admit it, so there’s no conflict with the Commandments. If we have to do everything with a heavy Klingon flavor, then so be it—although I have had some thoughts on combining the two. I think there’re enough spaces in the respective traditions that are complementary, without any contradictions as to how the relevant cosmologies play off each other.”
“You’ve been waiting your entire academic career to do something like this, haven’t you?”
For the first time since Gold walked in the door, Rachel smiled. “Is it that obvious?”
“Yes—and it also goes a bit to explaining.”
“How so?”
“It was a perfectly lovely idea right up until you had to use it with actual Klingons.”
“No, dear, it worked fine when I suggested it to actual Klingons. It’s when I brought it up to Lantar that I started to have problems.”
“Point conceded. Do you think we can get Lantar to go for it now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Shall we take it to him and try it out?”
“Are you planning on shooting any more poor, defenseless, innocent light fixtures?”
“No.” Gold looked thoughtful. “And to sweeten the deal, I think I’ll give him an additional platform where he can showcase Klingon grandeur.”
“Really? What did you have in mind?”
“You’ll see. And with any luck, it’ll also solve a little problem that I hadn’t quite gotten around to dealing with.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What sort of problem, dear?”
“I’ll tell you later, I promise. For now, let’s go and find the ambassador. Oh, and while we’re on the way, would you take a look at these lists and see if there’s anything in here that gets in the way of what you have in mind?”
“Certainly.” She took the lists from him, and expressed a low whistle. “Esther wants ice sculptures?”
“Oh, that’s not the least of it. Keep reading.”
Pause. “You know, suddenly I’m glad we’re not trying to accommodate Jessica’s wishes too. I don’t think there’s a chapel big enough.”
Chapter
5
Sparks shook his head. “It’ll never work.”
Fabian grinned at him. “You never know. And if it doesn’t, I’ll try something else.” They both watched as a small horde of tiny black ants raced across the bridge and stopped just to the left of the command chair, immediately catching Tev’s attention. Not to mention frightened looks from Latha Meru, who was currently on bridge duty. Apparently she had a problem with small insects.
“Computer,” Fabian said, “have the ants disperse themselves to match these patterns,” and he wrote several words on his padd. Hopefully, the computer would treat them as patterns instead of words, as instructed, and would allow it.
It worked, and the ants spelled out the following message:
CHECKED ACTIVITY LOGS. EXAM CLEAN. NO OUTSIDE INTERFERENCE.
The letters dissolved quickly, but not before Tev had read them and nodded. “I concur,” he said to the air in front of him. “I performed my own inspection, and found nothing to indicate inappropriate entry. There is no one interfering from outside thi
s suite, which means the culprit is on the Hyperion itself.”
Fabian rubbed absently at his left leg. It was still numb—he needed a real doctor, and soon, or the damage might become permanent. “Damn,” he muttered to Sparks. “I was hoping he’d found something we hadn’t.”
Sparks nodded. “But how can it be an inside job? We locked the students out of the program, just before that problem with the lift. And we’re not doing it. Could Tev be responsible?”
Fabian laughed. “You clearly don’t know him. He’d never do anything inappropriate—oh, he’ll make a cutting comment or two, but that’s it, and he’d never let it interfere with his work. He wouldn’t do this sort of thing.”
Sparks sighed. “I didn’t think so, but I had to ask. But what does that leave?”
Fabian shook his head. “I don’t know. You’re sure the computer shut down anything pending?”
“Absolutely. Anything the students had set into motion at that point, it removed.”
Stevens shook his head. “Which means it had to start before then, and finish as well.” Sparks looked confused. “Think about it. You told the computer to find anything that was in the works and shut that down. But if they’d programmed something in, and it had already done its damage, the computer wouldn’t have noticed that—the program was no longer active.”
Alex nodded. “Makes sense. But I didn’t find anything in the system except your tests. If someone had added some mishaps of their own, I’d have seen them.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Fabian frowned. He’d seen enough of Alex’s work these last two days to know that he was a good engineer, and a thorough one. He wouldn’t have missed something like that.
Fabian sighed. “Well, we might as well go back to our office for now. At least there we can sit down. Maybe Commander Gomez will come up with something on her end.” He hoped so. As he limped off the bridge, he realized that things were getting worse. The students had already dealt with two new problems this morning—a short circuit in one of the bridge consoles and a faulty replicator that added poisons to everything it created. Both situations could have had lethal results, but the students had handled them fine. The question was, how much longer could they keep this up?
Unfortunately, Gomez wasn’t having much luck herself. Her first idea had been to contact Starfleet Academy and have them shut down the holosuite. But the suite had been designed to be self-sufficient—it had its own internal power supply, and while it was running no one without the proper codes could access its systems. And since Fabian had been given the codes before the exam had begun, she was betting the computer wouldn’t let anyone shut it down, inside or out. So calling the Academy would only make a lot of people very nervous, which wouldn’t solve anything.
Her next thought was to contact Fabian’s friend Kendra Dolby. The Hyperion was her design, and this entire test had been her idea. Unfortunately, she and the rest of Starfleet R&D were making their annual presentation to the oversight committee. It had taken several hours before she’d been able to respond to Sonya’s page.
“Dolby here,” the attractive blond on-screen announced. “You’re Commander Gomez?”
“That’s right,” Sonya replied. “You can call me Sonya. I’m Fabian’s CO.”
“Oh, call me Kendra.” Kendra grinned. “Fabe’s CO, hm? I bet you’ve got some stories to tell.”
“A few.” Sonya grinned right back. “But Fabe’s a good guy, and a great engineer. I’m happy to have him on the team.”
“Yeah, he’s the best.” Kendra frowned. “But if this wasn’t to trade Fabe stories, why did you call?”
Sonya had been dreading this part. “Actually, it’s about your Hyperion project; more specifically, the test at the Academy. There’s been a problem.” She told Kendra what had happened, and watched the other woman’s face pale.
“Is Fabe okay?” was her first question, and Sonya was quick to reassure her.
“He’s got some nerve damage in one leg, but otherwise he’s fine.”
“Nerve damage?”
“Don’t worry, a doctor will fix it right up,” Sonya said quickly. She didn’t point out that they’d have to shut down the program before that could happen, but she could tell that Kendra had already figured that out for herself.
“And the rest? The students?”
“Everyone else is fine—so far. But that may not last.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Can you get back to the Academy?” Kendra’s grimace told her the answer even before the other woman replied.
“The committee’s taking a short break for dinner, then we’re doing the next portion of our presentation. I’ve got about ten minutes before I’m called back in. And the presentation’s going to take at least another day, if not more. I’m sorry.”
“Okay, we’ll just have to do this by remote.” Sonya tapped one hand on the arm of her chair. “First off, who’s got access to the Hyperion program?”
“Only a few people, actually. I do, of course. So do Fabian, Professor Sparks, and Lieutenant Commander Tev—at least, they did. My boss, Felder’nar, has access, though he hasn’t bothered to use it and he’s stuck at the presentation same as I am. The review board has access, and so does the dean of the Academy. Actually, I think all of the engineering instructors were given access, in case Sparks couldn’t make it and one of them had to fill in. That’s everybody.”
“Okay.” Gomez tapped some more. “So far, the dangers have been directed at the students—Fabe got injured pulling one of them out of the turbolift. But why would anybody want to hurt a student? Particularly the top students in engineering?”
“A class grudge, maybe?” Kendra chuckled. “Back in the day, there were at least three fellow classmates I’d have happily murdered.”
“Could be, I guess. I wasn’t that bloodthirsty, myself, but I did hate a few of them. Maybe someone saw this as the perfect opportunity.” She sighed. “Can you get me access to the students’ files?”
Kendra frowned. “Depends. The ones taking the test, sure—the Academy sent me their files, and I’ve got them here on my padd. I don’t have any others, though.”
“That should be fine to start with,” Sonya said. “If I were actually trying to off a class rival, I’d want to watch it happen. Send me the files, and take a look at them yourself. Between us, maybe we’ll find something Fabian and Sparks can look into.”
She signed off, then leaned back in her chair. It was pretty sad when she found herself hoping that one of Starfleet’s brightest potential engineers was a homicidal fiend.
Chapter
6
Esther was sitting on a sofa in her assigned room in the Klingon embassy, going over her list for the eighth time, playing with a Klingon knife she had taken off the wall. Grandpa Gold was clearly upset at her inability to trim her list down, and she was determined to have another go at it.
But really, is that fair? I already cut it down from thirty-five, and now he wants more? Whose wedding is this, anyway?
Her lips pursed. Khor obviously was beginning to think it was his father’s wedding. She would have been quite happy with something quick and quiet, like a bridal package on Risa, just to get it out of the way. But no. Khor kept going on and on about how it was important to his dad for political reasons, that this entire wedding should be a showcase for his friends and his ambitions. He didn’t come right out and say that, of course—he said that it should be a ceremony worthy for one entering the House of Lantar—but she could tell what he Really Meant.
And what he Really Meant was to make her life as difficult as possible, and to prevent her from having any enjoyment of her own wedding. Instead, she was going to be the centerpiece of a giant ceremony that had nothing to do with her. The figurine on her wedding cake was going to be more involved than she was—no, wait, she wasn’t even sure if Klingon ceremonies had wedding cakes. Well, the heck with that. She was going to get the kind of wedding that she always wanted. And nothing�
��not wind, water, or warp core breach—was going to get in the way of what she…
She shook her head. She wondered if she would be having such extreme mood swings if she was marrying a nice Jewish boy. She chalked it up as one of the great mysteries, since there was no way that was going to happen.
The door chimed. “Who is it?”
“It’s me, Esther.”
“Go away, Khor.”
“No. Now open this door.”
“Forget it.” The door slid open anyway. Esther turned to see Khor standing in the doorway. Her surprise must have shown on her face.
“Come on, Esther. This is the Klingon embassy and my father is the ambassador. You think I can’t enter any room in the compound at my whim?”
“Ooooh. Big man.”
Khor exhaled and counted quietly to five. “Esther, would you care to tell me what’s irritating you?”
“Are you sure we can talk freely? There’s no bugs or anything in the room?”
“The room is free of any insects.”
“Listening devices, you clod.”
“There are none of those either.”
“Oh, really? I’m not in here as a prisoner?”
“Esther, I don’t know what you’re talking about or what your grievances are—”
“Fine, let me go through the list. One: Your father is a stubborn idiot. Two: You inherited it from him.”
“I—”
“I’m not done yet!” She moved closer to him. “Three: For reasons known only to God and Kahless, you still want your father’s approval. Four—”
“Enough! I came here to tell you something.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What, then? Out with it.”
Khor began to walk around the room, as if he were hunting something. “I—am intoxicated by you, as by the finest wines and spirits. The memory of you sings in my blood.”
Esther looked around. She considered the plate in front of her, but was looking for something easier to hold in her hand.