by Judith
An old Talin female was the first to see him as he took another step in the ash. She had one arm. Her bibcloth hung in tatters. Kirk could see her bones move beneath her cracked and bleeding skin.
The female cried out weakly, a harsh discordant shriek. Behind her, other Talin slowly emerged from the rubble they had made into shelters. A few hundred meters away, he saw the long shapes of soot-darkened cocoons stacked like firewood.
[401] Respectfully gathered for a better day which no Talin could believe would ever come.
But Kirk was there to make that day a reality. He looked all around him at the desolation and destruction. He saw the blasted stumps of buildings, shattered girders, fields of blackened crops.
And it was all a mistake. It had all occurred because there were still too many mysteries, still too many unknowns. But Kirk knew, at least, that this would not happen again. The Federation would learn. It would know what to look for next time. Other worlds would be saved by the painful lessons of Talin IV. The Federation would learn and from that knowledge, grow stronger.
A dozen Talin had gathered before him now. They pointed at him in wonder. Some covered their eyes, afraid to look at his alien form. Others reached out with trembling limbs, but were too frightened to come closer.
Kirk heard another transporter chime swell. He heard the gasp of awe from the crowd before him. More Talin were coming from the ruins. Some dropped to their knees as the golden light played upon them.
There were new footsteps behind him. Kirk glanced over his shoulder to see Spock and McCoy coming toward him, already opening their tricorders. A wall of medical supplies had also appeared, still shimmering.
He heard another cry from the Talin as the air filled with the pulsed harmonics of multiple transporter chimes. All around them the air danced with shimmering columns of luminous energy. And from each apparition came another human, or another gift of supplies.
Chekov stepped forward with Sulu and Uhura. Scott appeared with a pallet of machinery that could draw water from the air. Next, M’Benga, Chapel, Palamas. Everyone had returned to Talin.
Then, from the crowd of Talin adults, staring, pointing, shaking, not daring to believe that what they saw might be real, [402] one female child stepped forward. Her skin was green and caked with mud, but her yellow eyes were clear and penetrating.
Alone among the Talin, she stepped up to Kirk unafraid.
Kirk twisted the dial on the small silver wand of his translator. He spoke into it for the child.
“My name is James Kirk,” he said. “Captain of the starship Enterprise.”
He waited as the translator repeated his words in the whistles and whispers of Talin.
The child’s eyes widened. She looked up to the sky, past the clouds, as if they were no longer there. She whispered one word back to Kirk. The translator spoke it to him.
“Starship.”
Tears fell from the child’s eyes. She turned back to her people and shouted the word to them, pointing to the skies, to the stars that waited there.
“Starship. Starship.” The translator said the word as each Talin spoke it.
The child came closer to Kirk. She lifted her arms to him and he saw then in her eyes what he had seen in the eyes of a woman long ago on Earth, what he had seen in the eyes of a Tellarite child in an asteroid only weeks ago.
Kirk took the child’s hands in his and lifted her up close to him, knowing that the beginnings and the endings of things were sometimes one and the same.
But this time, he knew, it would be a beginning.
“It’s all right,” Kirk said. “Let me help.”
EPILOGUE
THE DREAM OF STARS
The ship surrounds him and bears him through space, and protected by her, he sleeps.
And dreams of Iowa.
He is a young boy. He runs with his dog through fields of grain, full of the smells of things growing, and of life.
At night, he feels his father’s hand, rough in his, as they walk into those fields.
The boy looks up and gasps to see the sky so black, the stars so brilliant. His father names them, magic to the boy’s ears, to his eyes, to his heart, to something within him that he does not yet understand.
Rigel, his father says. Aldeberan, Antares.
Yes, the boy says. He has never heard them before but he is certain that he knows them all. The names continue, the grain is forgotten. His mother waits in the house nearby, lights blazing through windows brilliant as the stars.
But the boy looks up. I want to go there, he says, reaching out to them. His father’s face is uplifted, too, feeling the heat of a thousand suns, seen and unseen, known and unknown.
The boy is five years old and he feels a pain in his chest with the weight of millennia, as if the whole species had moved forward to this one instant, to this one person, driving him on.
[404] I have to go there, the boy says. I know, his father answers. He reaches down and lifts the boy high, holding him to his chest with love, holding him to look up, just that little bit closer to the stars in his father’s arms. And you will, Jimmy, you will.
The boy’s heart beats faster. I will, he whispers, clutching his father, afraid of the dark and the cold of night and the distance from the house, but hungry to see more. The challenge, the promise, the love he feels. All cast in him in that one night when first he looked up and knew where his destiny lay.
That night his house surrounds the boy and bears him through the darkness, and protected by her, he sleeps.
And dreams of stars.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We are deeply indebted to our editors, Dave Stern and Kevin Ryan, for their ongoing support, encouragement and, most important, patience.
Once again, our “historian,” Sal Nensi, has worked hard at Memory Prime to help us keep our facts and references straight and we are grateful for his fast and detailed assistance, and his friendship.
We are also grateful to Carole, Mario, and Peter, for kindly introducing us to Star Trek Toronto in particular, and Trek fandom in general.
In the almost quarter century that Gene Roddenberry’s Star Trek has been in existence, a great number of writers have contributed to its canon. For this story, we have drawn on the work of many of these writers and thank them all for the entertainment and inspiration they have provided.
The character of Lt. Carolyn Palamas, the ship’s A & A officer, first appeared in the television episode “Who Mourns for Adonis?” written by Gilbert Ralston and Gene L. Coon. Palamas was played by Leslie Parrish. An older but no wiser Lt. Styles first appeared as captain of the Excelsior in the movie, The Search for Spock, written by Harve Bennett. Styles was played by James B. Sikking.
[406] We would also like to acknowledge the work of Vonda McIntyre and Shane Johnson. Allan Asherman’s Star Trek Compendium has been an invaluable reference tool as well.
Of course, none of this would exist without Gene Roddenberry’s creative and ongoing vision of the future as it should be—a grand adventure.
Our thanks to all. Here’s to the next 25.
J & G
About the e-Book
(SEP, 2003)—Scanned, proofed, and formatted by Bibliophile.