Creative Couplings Book 2

by Glenn Hauman

  “Finally, the day of the race came. The young men gathered at the edge of the field, along with Atalanta herself, the prize that they sought. Then a bugle sounded—” She mimicked a bugle cry, which got laughter from the children. “—and the runners were off!” And now she started to move in a small circle, playing to the kids.

  “The crowds cheered as the young men and Atalanta began to race across the field. At first, they ran as a group, but Atalanta soon pulled ahead, with three close behind her. As they neared the halfway point, one of them put on a great burst of speed and seemed to pull ahead for an instant, but then gasped, and fell back. Atalanta shot on!” The kids squealed.

  “Then another drew near to Atalanta, reached out as if to touch her sleeve, stumbled for an instant, and lost speed. Atalanta smiled as she ran on. ‘I have almost won!’ she thought.

  “Just then another man drew near to her. This was young John, running like the wind, as steadily and as swiftly as Atalanta herself.” At this, Gold came up next to his wife. “Atlanta felt how close he was, and in a sudden burst, she dashed ahead.” She took a step forward and continued. “But John didn’t give up.”

  “‘Nothing at all,’” said Gold, “‘will keep me from winning my chance to speak with Atalanta.’” And he took a step, to be side by side with her. The children stared, enraptured.

  Rachel continued. “Atalanta was aware of him, and she raced even faster. But John was a strong match for her. And, smiling, Atalanta and John reached the finish line together!”

  “A tie!” Esther said, and led the young children in a cheer as they shouted and leapt about.

  Rachel affected a stern king voice, and addressed David. “‘Young John,’ said the king, as John and Atalanta stood before him, ‘you have not won the race, but you have come closer to winning than any man here. And so I give you the prize that was promised: the right to marry my daughter.’”

  And here Gold took up the story. “Young John smiled at Atalanta, and she smiled back. They had found their match in each other. ‘Thank you, sir,’ said John to the king, ‘but I did not win this race, and could not possibly marry your daughter unless she wished to marry me. I have run this race for the chance to talk with Atalanta.’”

  Rachel laughed. “‘And I would like nothing better than to spend the afternoon with you.’ And she held out her hand to young John, who took it.” And so did Rachel and Gold. “Then the two of them sat and talked on the grassy field. Atalanta told John about her books and her studies, and John told Atalanta about his globes and his star charts. At the end of the day, they were friends.

  “The next day, John set off by ship to discover new lands, and Atalanta set off on horseback to visit great cities. Perhaps someday they’ll be together for the rest of their days, and perhaps they will not.

  “In any case,” they finished in unison, “it is certain they are both living happily ever after.”

  Rachel grimaced. “To this day, he calls me Atalanta whenever he thinks I’m being too much of a princess.”

  “But what does it mean?” said a young Klingon to his mother.

  “It’s a silly human story,” she said as she led him away from the gathered people.

  “But I thought she was brave….”

  “Look, fuzzy—”

  “My name is ge’Nilet, madam.”

  “Ge’Nilet, all I want is a tequila. Is that so much to ask?”

  “I’m sorry, we don’t have any of this—what did you call it?”

  “Tequila.” Domenica Corsi spoke very slowly and deliberately. “I could have sworn you would have it. It’s an alcoholic beverage with a worm in the bottle. Klingons should love it.”

  “Oh! You want gaghtlhutlh. Just a moment.” The al’Hmatti bartender reached under the bar and pulled out a black bottle.

  Corsi looked at the bottle dubiously. “I assume the skulls painted on the side are just for decoration?”

  “Oh, it’s quite mild.” He poured out a small amount. It had a reddish tint and seemed a bit oily.

  Oh, what the hell. “To your health,” she said, and sipped at the rim of the glass. Spicyspicyhothothotwow!

  “Do you like it?”

  “I’ll take the bottle,” she gasped. “I have phaser rifles I can clean with this stuff.”

  “Happy to oblige.”

  Corsi eyed the oversized, bearlike bartender. “What are you doing here? I would have thought that everyone working this event would be a Klingon.”

  “Oh, I’ve been with Lantar’s House for a long time. So long, in fact, that I’m first in line to be the al’Hmatti ambassador to the Federation, when that day happens.”

  “God willing, then, and praise the al’Hmatti.” Corsi toasted the bartender.

  “Captain, although that was a lovely story, it’s not quite in line with the traditional version in mythology.”

  “Oh? How so, Abramowitz?”

  “Well, in the traditional myth the suitor won, not tied. And he won only by tricking her along the way. And those who lost the race were put to death.”

  “Hmmm.” He stroked his chin in exaggerated thoughtfulness. “How about we don’t tell her about that version, then?”

  “Of course, sir.”

  “Good.”

  “Daaaaavid!” The captain winced again.

  “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Gold asked.

  “Are you sure you don’t want us to keep you here for a while?” asked Hawkins.

  “Thank you for the offer, but no. I better go deal with her, lest she undo the last ten years of treaty negotiations.” He moved off quickly on an intercept course between Eva and Lantar.

  Hawkins watched his captain go to face a peril worse than death. “Well, I guess I know why now.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why young John is still off sailing the seas.”

  Carol looked up at him for a second. Then she stepped on his toes. Slowly.

  Anthony continued to sit in the corner, silently observing the ebb and flow of people around him. Over there, a couple was beginning to dance.

  “Hiya, Anthony. Do you mind if I join you?”

  He looked up, surprised. “Dr. Lense?”

  “Please, it’s Elizabeth.” She sat down next to him, a bit ungracefully.

  “Why come over here? I thought you’d be the belle of the ball.”

  “Nah. The Klingons want no part of me whatsoever. They heard I was the savior of Sherman’s Planet. Apparently, it’s still a sore spot in their history. Something about the great tribble hunt of eleventy-seven or something.” She gestured over to the gathering of humans. “And the bride’s family wants to ask me about all their little aches and pains.” She looked at the glass in her hand. “And I am also, I suspect, a little bit drunk.”

  “Ah.”

  “And what about you? What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for Bart, I suppose.”

  “Bart? Last I saw, he was in line at the bar, chatting with Fabian and being a general social butterfly.”

  He looked over at her. “Let me ask you a question.”

  “As long as it doesn’t require a physical exam, shoot.”

  “Why do most relationships break up?”

  “You are asking the wro-o-ng person, Anthony.” She looked up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a successful romantic relationship in my life.”

  “Do you think these two will make it?”

  She sighed. “I don’t know. The odds are good in so many ways—but there’s a lot against them too. They come from different cultures—”

  “Don’t we all, when you get down to it?”

  “Point.”

  Anthony leaned forward, looking more intent. “Really, what do you think makes one coupling work over another?”

  Lense pondered that for a bit, and then said, “Po.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Lense leaned forward, and spoke very slowly. “Po.”

  “Doctor, maybe it�
�s time that you switch to drinking synthehol.”

  “No, no, no…” she waved her hand, as if swatting at flies—or for all Anthony could tell, green fairies. “Po. One word. Two letters. P-O. Concept described by de Bono.” No sign of recognition of the name came to Anthony’s face, so she continued. “Edward de Bono was born in Malta on Earth in the twentieth century. He attended St. Edward’s College during World War II and then the University of Malta, where he qualified in medicine. He proceeded, as a Rhodes Scholar, to Christ Church, Oxford, where he gained an honors degree in psychology and physiology and then a D.Phil. in medicine. He also held a Ph.D. from Cambridge and an M.D. from the University of Malta, and held appointments at the universities of Oxford, London, Cambridge, and Harvard. Brilliant, brilliant man.” She rattled off the credentials as if she’d just finished writing her college thesis on the man.

  “I’ve never heard of him.”

  “And this is what passes for a Federation education these days? De Bono’s special contribution was to take creativity and, for the first time in history, put the subject on a solid basis. He showed that creativity was a necessary behavior in a self-organizing information system, and how the nerve networks in the brain formed asymmetric patterns as the basis of perception. He was ten years ahead of contemporary mathematicians dealing with chaos theory, nonlinear and self-organizing systems.” Still nothing. “He invented the term ‘lateral thinking.’”

  “Okay, that I’ve heard of.”

  “Oh goody.” She was beginning to warm to the topic. “He showed that the logical alternatives are easily explored in most situations—either ‘yes, it is,’ or ‘no, it isn’t.’ But logic isn’t effective in coping with open-ended problems. It takes a long time before an unjustified step is taken, because no one feels justified in taking it. Yet only unjustified steps are likely to open up new patterns of thought.”

  “So what does Po have to do with this?”

  “Well, de Bono suggested that to solve a problem, the thinker should relate the problem at hand to a random input, such as a word chosen by chance in a dictionary, and then see if he can, by connecting the two, open up a new approach to the situation. And the word he created to couple the two concepts was…” Here she paused.

  After a second, Anthony realized she was waiting for him to reply. “Po?”

  “Gold star! Head of the class! I have competition!” She raised her glass to him, took another sip—a big sip—and went on. “So you use it to combine concepts and see where it takes you. Like diamond po spaceships.”

  “Or rabbits po flight.”

  “Kidneys po electricity.”

  “Marbles po frontier.”

  “Holodeck po headgear.”

  “Klingons po Judaism.”

  “Yes! That’s it exactly. Maybe it’ll work, maybe it won’t. But if a coupling of complete non sequiturs can be made and held together, even for a little while, something new and exciting can come out of it. And that’s what a marriage needs. Creativity. Being in an ongoing relationship means that things always have to be kept new and interesting, yet at the same time secure and stable. People love nothing more than to be pleasantly surprised—even by the familiar and the comforting.”

  “You have to give the other what they want and need, but not always what they expect?”

  “Exactly.” She leaned even closer to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “That’s exactly what I mean. Sometimes you have to look in strange places to get something new, and sometimes it’s right there all the time, you just have to find a new way of looking at it.”

  “You’re right. Thank you.” And he kissed her on the lips, a kiss that lingered. After a second or two, he pulled back. “I’m going to go find Bart and talk with him. See you soon.”

  Elizabeth sat there, not moving at all except for blinking.

  “Yes,” she said at last. “Exactly like that.”

  “Nice ceremony,” Kendra commented, handing Fabian a glass of champagne.

  “Yeah, it was,” he agreed. “Though I think I’ll stick with the old ‘I do’s.’”

  She nudged him, smiling. “Got someone in mind there, mister?”

  He laughed. “You never know, Ken. You never know.”

  Just then Kendra’s padd beeped.

  “Trouble at work?” Fabian joked, but stopped when he saw the look on her face. “Ken, is everything okay?”

  She had turned completely pale, and looked a bit stunned. “Fabe, I—”

  Quickly he pulled the padd from her hand and read the message. Then he glanced up at her.

  “Ken, they approved the Hyperion! That’s fantastic!”

  She still looked shocked. “But—I don’t understand. It failed.”

  “Not at all,” he assured her, and she looked at him, then looked again. He was trying to hide the smile, but knew he wasn’t succeeding.

  “What did you do, Fabe?”

  “Me?” He laughed. “Nothing. Well, okay, I did point out to Starfleet that none of the problems were with your design—they were all from outside sources. And I also mentioned that no existing ship design could have handled so much damage for that long. I guess they agreed.”

  “But—” She was still at a loss for words, and Fabian hugged her.

  “Ken, relax. You did it. The Hyperion’s a great design—trust me, I spent two days going over every inch of it. You did a great job, and Starfleet saw that. They do occasionally notice such things, you know.” He held up his glass, and she finally raised hers.

  “Here’s to good friends,” Kendra managed, smiling at him. “I couldn’t have done this without you, Fabe.”

  “Maybe you could have,” he replied, “but it probably wouldn’t have been such a mess.” Then he clinked her glass. “To old friends. And to the Hyperion.”

  “To the Hyperion.” She started to move her glass, but paused as she saw the look in his eye. Sure enough, Fabian clinked his glass against hers again.

  “And to a good prank,” he toasted, and she laughed.

  “Always,” she said. “To a good prank.” She sipped her champagne, then grinned at him. “So what did you do to Crawfish?”

  Fabian grinned back. “Oh, just a little of his own medicine. But I’m not the one who did it.”

  “Computer, open this door!”

  “Access denied,” the computer replied.

  Crawford Pressman banged on his door again, but to no avail. Somehow the computer was refusing to recognize his voice or his password. Which meant that, since his door had inexplicably locked itself, he couldn’t open it. And he’d been stuck in here for hours now!

  “Computer,” he shouted again, “this is Professor Crawford Pressman. I demand that you open this door!”

  “Access denied,” the computer replied again. And was it his imagination, or did it sound a little smug?

  “Dammit!” Pressman pounded on the door again. “Someone, help me!” He was starting to feel faint from hunger. And he desperately needed a bathroom. “Anyone!”

  Outside his office, several students glanced at the door on their way past, and laughed but kept on walking. Alex Sparks watched it all from where he leaned, directly across from Pressman’s door. He had to admit, imagining the look on his colleague’s face was entertaining. And the looks from the students were priceless. Perhaps there was something to this whole prank thing, after all.

  “Help!” Pressman called again, though Alex could barely hear him through the door. Chuckling a little, he levered himself away from the wall and walked off down the hall, whistling softly to himself.

  About the Authors

  When last we left GLENN HAUMAN’s biography in Book 1, he was going to tell you about his company LotAuctions.com and the patent he has pending for that business—however, he was recently surprised to find out that he missed out on having the patent for the Internet shopping cart. This means he’s missed out on being and Internet millionaire five times over instead of four, as he previously thought. He consoles himsel
f in his spare time by being Star Trek’s answer to Nicholson Baker, and by running the websites for GrimJack.com, JonSable.com, PeterDavid.net, and BobGreenberger.com, and writing the Photoshop blog for Weblogs, Inc. Because, you know, he’s not in this for the money, but for the power and prestige.

  AARON ROSENBERG writes role-playing games (including the Origins Award-winning Gamemastering Secrets), S.C.E. eBooks (including the Psi Phi Awards Hall of Fame inductee Collective Hindsight), short stories (“Inescapable Justice” in Imaginings: An Anthology of Long Short Fiction), educational books, and anything else people want to pay him for. When not writing, he runs his game publishing company Clockworks (www.clockworksgames.com), reads comics, watches movies, or spends time with his wife, their daughter, and their cat. Every so often he sleeps, just for variety.

  Coming Next Month:

  Star Trek™: S.C.E. #49

  Small World

  by David Mack

  The da Vinci’s latest mission involves bringing precious cargo to the Mu Arae system—an entire world that, through a miraculous feat of engineering, is being stored in a small, pyramid-shaped box. Unfortunately, a hostile species wants the pyramid—and its amazing technology—for itself, and won’t hesitate to go through the da Vinci to get it. To make matters worse, the caretaker of the world is the only one who can open the box and release the planet—and he’s in critical condition in sickbay. The S.C.E. must figure out the secret of the planet-in-a-box before they’re destroyed…

  COMING IN FEBRUARY 2005

  FROM POCKET BOOKS!