The Tears of the Singers

by Melinda Snodgrass

  “It’s plain, Doctor, that ye have no appreciation of fine music.”

  “Oh, were we talking about music? I thought we were talking about bagpipes.” Scotty glared at McCoy, and marched on down the corridor.

  “Well, shall we go join the fun, Doctor? I understand Maslin has opened the auditions, and it’s almost outdrawing Riley’s betting pool.”

  McCoy nodded, and they moved on to the recreation room. It was Kirk’s favorite, where he often played chess with Spock, enjoyed a cup of coffee and listened to Uhura sing. He also liked it because it was close to the bridge, and he could respond faster should an emergency arise.

  The tables had been pushed back toward the walls to form a sort of stage near the far end of the room. The large table that held Spock’s three-dimensional chess board was set horizontally across the room facing the stage area. The chess set had been relegated to the far end of the table, and Maslin sat at the table with papers scattered about him. Uhura was seated at his side.

  Scotty was droning vigorously through “Scotland the Brave,” while Kirk and McCoy took an unobtrusive position along one wall where they could watch the audition. Maslin kept his eyes riveted on the engineer, and his pen unconsciously beat time on the papers before him. Uhura was watching Maslin. Scotty concluded, and there was a swell of enthusiastic applause from the assembled crew members. Whether the listeners liked bagpipes might be in doubt, but they unquestionably liked Scotty, and they showed their support with a long and loud ovation.

  “Do you read music, Mr. Scott?” Maslin asked while Scotty beamed at his public.

  “Aye, sir. That I do.”

  Maslin and Uhura put their heads together, and conferred for a few brief seconds. “Mr. Scott, if you can be spared from your duties aboard the Enterprise I’d like to have you included in the landing party.”

  A slow grin split the engineer’s face. “Aye, thank you, sir, and I’m sure it can be arranged.”

  “My God, I’ve lost another one,” Kirk muttered as McCoy gave him an incredulous look.

  “Why in the hell …” McCoy began.

  “I haven’t a notion.” Kirk had thought he had Maslin’s tastes figured out when the composer had accepted Spock, and had politely declined Riley’s aid after hearing the lieutenant’s dubious singing abilities, but now he had totally destroyed Kirk’s careful construct by deciding to utilize Scotty and his pipes.

  Maslin reached for his mug of tea as Lt. Donovan from biology began to tune his guitar. He gripped the cup, but his hand was shaking so badly that it slipped from his grasp. Uhura rescued the notes from the spreading tide of tea, then gently touched Maslin’s shoulder as he sat slumped in his seat, eyes squeezed shut, and hands tightly clasped to prevent their palsied trembling. She said something to him which he reacted to with a vehement shake of the head. Uhura frowned in irritation, hesitated for a moment, then said, “That will be all for today. Mr. Maslin will pick up again tomorrow.”

  The crew members obediently filed out while Kirk and McCoy joined the couple at the table.

  “God damn you! I told you I was fine!”

  “You’re not fine, and don’t curse at me. I’m not one of your groupies, and I don’t have to take it.”

  Her exasperated tone drew a reluctant laugh from Maslin. “No, you’re a troublesome and bad-tempered woman,” he said between short, painful breaths.

  “Very likely,” Uhura said calmly as she helped him from his seat.

  “That’s it. See if you can get him to behave, Uhura. God knows I’m not having any luck,” McCoy said, perching on the corner of the table.

  “The lieutenant has certain undeniable charms that you manifestly lack, Doctor.”

  “Stop sounding like Spock. One is bad enough,” McCoy complained.

  “Yes, do slow down, Mr. Maslin,” Kirk said. “We’re still four days out from Taygeta. You really can’t solve anything until we arrive.”

  “I can perhaps get a head start by analyzing the one tape we do have of the Taygetian song.”

  “You yourself said the tape is incomplete since the survey team failed to capture the ultra and subsonics. Drop it for now. In fact I’m ordering you to take the remainder of the day off, and no working on that synthesizer of yours tonight. Dr. McCoy tells me you’re not resting.”

  “Your concern is touching, Captain,” Maslin drawled sarcastically.

  “Touching, hell. I’m not worried about you except insofar as it might affect us to lose you before we reach Taygeta. What I’m really concerned about is if you come to grief on this mission. That, together with that protest you filed with Star Fleet Command, could make things difficult for me.”

  Maslin caught the mischievous gleam in Kirk’s hazel eyes. He sighed. “Why is it that I’m constantly unable to silence you, Kirk?” He turned to Uhura. “So, am I to go to bed now, Madam Star Fleet?”

  “No,” said McCoy. “You’ve been hunched over that contraption of yours, or this table, for three days. Go take a walk—unwind. Then try to get some sleep. Have Uhura give you a tour of the ship.”

  “A daunting prospect.”

  Uhura slipped her arm through his. “Oh, come on. I still have to show you why I’m never claustrophobic aboard the Enterprise.”

  Maslin suddenly smiled in capitulation. It was an expression of extreme sweetness, and Kirk was startled at how it softened the harsh angles of Maslin’s thin face. Uhura smiled softly in response, and her fingers laced through the composer’s. Maslin indicated the door, and they left the room.

  “Well!” exclaimed McCoy. “What do you make of that?”

  “Trouble,” Kirk said shortly, a thoughtful frown between his brows.

  “So where are you taking me?” Maslin asked as they strolled down the corridor. They were close, but not touching, yet Uhura was still aware of his incredible magnetism. “I hope it’s not your botanical garden,” he continued, “for I’ll have you know that I find flowers boring.”

  “And why is that?”

  “I get so many after every performance.”

  “Jaded cynic,” she said. “No, I’m not taking you to the gardens, but to my solitary place. We all use it for that. It’s a place to rest and find yourself, and we never infringe on anyone who’s already there.”

  “Sounds intriguing.”

  They took the turbolift to deck five, level seven, where Uhura led them through a door and onto the observation deck. Wide ports, that could be shielded during battle, gave a giant panorama of the stars. Here the star field did not appear to be moving. It was as if the Enterprise had stopped her swift journey between the worlds, and hung suspended in the cosmos.

  Uhura stepped to one port, and rested the palms of her hands on the clear plexisteel, absorbing the grandeur of a billion suns. Moments passed, and she realized that Maslin had not joined her at the port. She turned back to face him, and found him trembling uncontrollably in the center of the room.

  “Guy?” she said questioningly, taking a few steps toward him.

  “Too much,” he finally forced between stiff lips. “How do you live so close to death?” he asked in an anguished whisper. His eyes stared unfocused at the stars, and even in the dim light of the observation deck Uhura could see that he had lost all color in his face. His question made no sense to her, but she could see that he was in great distress. She crossed swiftly to him, and without thinking wrapped her arms about his slender body.

  He gave a moan of relief, and buried his face against her. Gently she stroked his hair, enjoying the silky touch of the strands against her fingers. Slowly the trembling subsided, and he stood quietly in the circle of her arms. He raised his head, and they gazed seriously into one another’s eyes.

  “I need … to know … life,” he said disjointedly and, lifting his hand he cupped her cheek with it, and pressed his lips on hers.

  She had fantasized about this moment, wondering if it would ever come, and how she would react if it did. Now it had arrived, finding her unprepared and off-g
uard. All of her careful objections to this man—his lifestyle, his many women, his dislike of her work—fled from her mind beneath the heady touch of his lips.

  The embrace was long, and Uhura was shaken at the power of her reaction. She had had her lovers, but none had ever affected her so deeply with only a kiss.

  Maslin released her, and took one step toward the port. The faint light in the room heightened the gauntness of his face and deepened the shadows beneath his eyes. He stared, fascinated, at the star field, and the look on his face was that of a man who has heard a distant call that lay far beyond the senses of mortal men.

  Uhura felt fear, followed by a sense of furious denial at what she read in his face. She caught him by the shoulders, and jerked him around to face her.

  “What do you want?” she asked in a low voice, her hands digging into his shoulders.

  “To know I’m still living.”

  “Then I’ll give you that, but damn it, don’t you dare slip passively into that long night. I’ll take no lost causes, no unresisting martyrs.”

  He smiled for the first time since they had entered the observation deck, and he lost some of that fey quality that had so frightened her.

  “All right. No great sacrifices, I promise. And now I want you, Uhura.”

  She drew in a steadying breath. “Then you can have me.” His hand was warm on her waist as they left the deck.

  Chapter Four

  “Captain’s Log, Star Date 3127.1: We are within minutes of attaining the Taygeta system. I have placed the ship on standby alert in case we should find enemy vessels already present in the system. I hope my fears will prove to be groundless, and that we will be able to accomplish this mission without the added burden of dealing with the Klingons.”

  Kirk snapped off the recorder and leaned forward, intently watching the main screen. There was a brief moment of disorientation as they shifted from warp to sublight speed, and the stars seemed to rearrange themselves on the screen. The Taygetian system lay before them. They swept past a large gas giant. Several smaller planets loomed into view and faded behind them as they continued to move deeper into the system.

  Suddenly they observed the phenomenon. It lay like an opalescent curtain between the ship and the sun. Uhura gave a gasp of wonder, and Sulu whistled tonelessly between his teeth. Kirk had to admit that it was an awe-inspiring sight. Brilliant colors danced and shimmered against the utter blackness of space, cutting off all view of the stars beyond. Arching tendrils from the sun’s corona reached out and joined with the fulgent aurora, striking golden fire from the edge of the phenomenon. Its beauty was awesome, as was its deadliness, for Kirk could see that where the flares touched the space/time vortex there was a writhing maelstrom, and the flares vanished.

  They made a slow pass by the edges of the eddying veil so Spock could take readings. Then Kirk leaned back in his chair, and said, “Take us on to Taygeta, Mr. Sulu. I think I’ve seen all I want to of this beast, and I certainly don’t want to get any closer.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The planet approached quickly, seeming to swell and blossom in the forward screen. Three small moons came chasing each other around the bulge of the mother planet. Silver white clouds swirled over the planet’s face, but through occasional breaks in the cover Kirk could distinguish flashes of brilliant blue green. The clouds vanished, and a medium-sized continent came into view as the planet revolved on its axis.

  “The larger of the two continents, Captain,” Spock said from the science station.

  “Orbit in three minutes, Captain,” Sulu said, glancing down at the chronometer set in the navigation console.

  The bridge door hissed open. Kirk glanced quickly over his shoulder. Maslin and McCoy stepped onto the bridge. Maslin’s narrow face was white and tense as he watched the screen. He moved quickly to stand next to Uhura’s chair, while McCoy drifted down to stand slightly behind Kirk’s chair. He stared meditatively at the screen, and bounced lightly up and down on the balls of his feet.

  “So, this is it,” Maslin said softly to Uhura.

  “Yes,” she said, continuing to watch the screen while one hand delicately touched the monitor in her ear.

  “When will we be heading down?”

  “Probably an hour or so after we enter orbit. Spock will have to run a scan, and the rest of the ground party will have to—” She broke off abruptly, the fingers of her right hand playing rapidly over the communications console.

  “What is it?” Maslin asked. She silenced him with a quick gesture.

  “Captain, I’m picking up a coded transmission.”

  “Source?”

  “Uncertain, sir. I had it for only an instant.”

  Kirk knuckled his chin, weighing what he had heard. Every person watched him intently, waiting for orders.

  “Mr. Sulu, pull out. I don’t want us trapped against this planet in case we should have company.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  The Enterprise began to swing away from the planet. Spock stood hunched over his scanners. Suddenly his head jerked up. “Ships, Captain! Two of them.” He returned to the scanner. “And by their configuration they are—”

  “Klingon,” Kirk finished for him as he watched two of the Empire’s battle cruisers appear from both sides of the planet. Spock turned slowly to survey the screen, and one mobile eyebrow quirked upward.

  Kirk slammed his hand down onto one of the buttons set in the arm of his chair, opening the ship’s intercoms. “Red alert! Battle stations! All hands to battle stations. This is not a drill!”

  The alarm began whooping through the ship. Sulu brought up the screens, and readied the phasers and photon torpedos. Maslin placed his hand on Uhura’s shoulder, gripping it tightly. Unconsciously she reached up and laid her hand over his. Her brown eyes were locked on the screen.

  “The Klingons are holding their position some one hundred and fifty kilometers from the Enterprise,” Sulu reported.

  “Interesting. It seems they are as uncertain as we are.” Kirk sat silent for several moments. “Lieutenant, open a hailing frequency. Let’s see if we can find out why the Klingons aren’t shooting first and asking questions later.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The screen flickered, then settled into a picture of the bridge of a Klingon warship. A man was seated with his back to the Enterprise bridge crew. Slowly he swung about in his chair, and smiled ironically into the screen.

  “Greetings, Captain Kirk. I knew your high command would send someone to investigate this phenomenon, but I never expected you. It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

  Kirk and Spock exchanged glances. “A long time, and a long way from Organia, Commander.”

  Kor smiled, his teeth gleaming whitely in his dark face. He reached up and lightly stroked at his thin, drooping moustache. “I’m surprised you remember, Kirk.”

  “It would be difficult to forget, Commander.”

  “I found it so myself. I still regret the Organian interference that kept us from our appointed duel.”

  “Are you suggesting that we pick up where we left off?”

  “I would say that depends on you, Kirk, and that thing,” Kor added, pointing off to his left, “which is eating away at the fabric of space.”

  “I’ll get back to you, Commander.”

  “Don’t take too long, Captain. There are some aboard my ships who would not be as forbearing as I am.” The screen went dark.

  McCoy released a pent-up breath. “Well, what do you make of that?”

  “I make of it that he’s worried about that phenomenon, just as worried as we are, and he doesn’t want to risk his ship in a battle.”

  “I concur, Captain. At present the space/time warp represents a greater threat to the Klingons than it does to the Federation. They hold inhabited planets closer to this sector than we do. Kor has obviously been sent here to investigate the phenomenon. He will not willingly risk his ships even for the lure of a Federation starship.”

&n
bsp; “How the hell do you know what their willin’ to risk, Spock?” McCoy exploded. “These are Klingons, for God’s sake. They’re about as trustworthy as a rattler.”

  “Maybe, maybe not, Bones. They’ve got a problem on their borders that’s larger than the Federation right now. I think they may hold off.”

  “I hope you’re right, Jim, but just in case you’re not I’m going down to sick bay, and get set up for casualties.” McCoy gave a nod for emphasis, and stomped from the bridge.

  “What do we do now, Captain?” Sulu asked.

  “Maintain red alert and wait. We’ll let the Klingons make the next move.” Sulu grinned, and turned back to his console.

  “I hope he knows what he’s doing,” Maslin muttered. Uhura glanced up at him, noting that in spite of his dubious tone there was an expression of respect and grudging admiration on his face.

  “He’s always known before,” she said quietly, and returned to work.

  The conference room aboard the Klingon flagship was a scene of chaos. Kandi, captain of the second Klingon vessel, sprawled in a chair near the door, stared morosely at the toes of his high-topped boots and wondered if Kor had lost his reason. To have the Enterprise under the disruptor fire of two Imperial cruisers, and let the opportunity pass, seemed like madness. Apparently the other men in the room agreed, but they chose to be more vocal in their objections. Karsul, Kor’s ambitious second-in-command, was holding forth the loudest, and drawing nods of approval from his listeners.

  Kandi thoughtfully stroked his spadelike beard, and watched Karsul through narrowed eyes. Ambition was a good thing in an officer, but not when the officer served under one’s best friend.

  Perhaps it is time to suggest to Kor that we arrange a tragic accident for this one, Kandi mused.

  The door hissed open, and Kor strode into the conference room. The hubbub died as the top officers of the two ships eyed their commander. Kor straightened the gold command sash, and dropped heavily into a chair at the head of the table.

  “Recommendations?” he asked.