by Laurence Yep
Sulu, Swordsman.
The bandit yelled in pain and Sulu slid his blade free. There was blood on the point. From somewhere to his left, another bandit screamed—Urmi’s work. The prince was still busy with Lord Tayu.
Panting for breath, Sulu turned back to the other bandits. But they weren’t nearly as enthusiastic as they had been before. Finally, a large man with a huge cutlass started toward Sulu. And Sulu tensed. The man’s cutlass was large enough to break Sulu’s own blade if he wasn’t careful. But on the other hand, it ought to be a clumsier weapon. It would be a test of Sulu’s own quickness—and perhaps his luck. ...
POCKET BOOKS
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Another Original publication of POCKET BOOKS
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, N.Y. 10020
Copyright © 1985 Paramount Pictures Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures Corporation.
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ISBN: 0-671-66087-X
First Pocket Books printing March 1985
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
POCKET and colophon are trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.
Printed in the U.S.A.
To my brother,
Spike,
who went to all those
samurai and kung fu movies
with me
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Epilogue
Afterword
About the e-Book
Prologue
McCoy tugged at the collar of his dress tunic. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to these blasted monkey suits, Jim. Why can’t we just let Mr. Spock meet Prince Vikram? He enjoys being uncomfortable. Let him stand around all day in one of these things.”
Mr. Spock coolly arched an eyebrow. “Comfort has nothing to do with diplomacy.”
“You’re always so conscientious about watching my weight.” Captain Kirk self-consciously smoothed his own tunic over his stomach. “Maybe you ought to take your own advice and take off a few pounds, Bones.”
“But I’m just here to fill out the crowd on the stage.” McCoy swept his hand around the transporter room. “A mannequin would serve just as well.”
“And provide just as much intelligent conversation,” Mr. Spock added.
McCoy leaned back against the wall. “Tell me one thing, Spock. If normal human conversation bothers you so much, why don’t you transfer to a ship with a [2] Vulcan crew? What little conversation they hold should be rarefied enough for you.”
Mr. Spock’s face was a rigid mask. “I’m also partly human, Doctor.”
McCoy straightened. “Well, you’d never know it from the way you act.” He wagged his index finger at Mr. Spock as if a new inspiration had come to him. “Or do you remain here because you hate yourself so much?” McCoy spread out his hands. “Is that it, Spock? Is this all some elaborate form of punishment?”
Kirk frowned at the doctor. Sometimes there was a fine line between McCoy’s needling and actual browbeating. “What does it matter as long as we’ve got the best science officer in the fleet?”
McCoy held out his left palm and then smacked the back of his right hand into it. “But it’s the right of every sentient creature to be content. It’s right there in the Fundamental Declaration of the Martian Colonies. And yet Spock can’t be very happy here.”
Mr. Spock looked away absently—the way he did when he was intrigued by an especially difficult problem. “I have never really considered the matter before this.”
McCoy stared at Mr. Spock as if he suspected he was being set up for some sort of retort; but when Mr. Spock remained lost in thought, McCoy could only shake his head. “All that knowledge inside that computer brain of yours and you haven’t ever considered the most obvious question?”
Kirk fiddled with his sleeve. “I’m less interested in philosophy at this moment than I am in fashion. I’ve got the feeling that we’re all going to be underdressed compared to His Highness. Did you hear how many [3] trunks he beamed over from the passenger liner? He’s probably got enough clothes to outfit all of Angira.”
“At least, it was enough to fill up an extra room,” Scotty offered. “My back’s still aching from helping to carry all of them.”
“Why didn’t you assign some yeomen to the duty?” Kirk demanded.
Scotty spread his arms helplessly. “But the trunks just kept coming and coming. I couldna have them cluttering up the transporter room.”
“I’ll examine you after the reception,” McCoy promised. “Don’t worry. I won’t charge overtime.”
“And in the meantime, Doctor?” Scotty pressed a hand to the small of his back.
“Take two double scotches,” the doctor smiled.
“Just be glad it was trunks of clothes,” Mr. Spock advised Scotty. “As the son of an absolute ruler of an entire planet, he’s probably used to indulging every whim. You’re lucky it wasn’t a menagerie.”
“Good Lord,” McCoy said in alarm, “I just had a terrible thought. If he has that many outfits, is he going to expect formal dress every night?”
Kirk examined a plate of what looked like miniature candied trees but were actually sea worms still within their thin casings. “The Federation wants to make sure that the prince’s return trip to Angira is as comfortable as possible. And if that means formal dress all the way, then that’s what we’ll do.” He sampled one of the worms and, finding it tasty, took another. “Cheer up, Bones. You’ll be dining out for years on how you entertained Prince Vikram.”
“And I’ll be able to show them the scars from this blasted collar-.”
[4] “Put in for medical disability then,” Kirk said and signed for them to be quiet as the door slid open.
“Greetings, ladies and gentlemen.” Prince Vikram, ninth in line to the throne of Angira, wriggled his fingertips at them. Though his arms and pear-shaped torso were about the same proportions as a human’s, most of his two and a half meters of height seemed to be taken up by his long, muscular legs.
His fur was soft and golden on his arms and legs, but the fur on his face had been raised in sharp hennaed spikes so that his large, mascaraed eyes seemed to be set within a rayed circle. With his head tapering to an angular chin, he gave the appearance of a rather dissipated lemur.
But his vest of black leather was scuffed and muddied and one leg of his orange and red checkered shorts was torn. And there was only one boot on his leg. “You must excuse my dress, but I came straight here from the most amusing little pub on the liner.”
Though Kirk had seen stranger costumes, he hadn’t been expecting the prince to be dressed this way, so it took him a moment to recover. “If ... if Your Highness wishes to refresh yourself—”
“Nonsense, I liv
e for temptation.” Prince Vikram had to stoop to enter through the doorway and headed straight for the buffet table.
“Use a plate, Your Highness.” A middle-aged Angiran with the ramrod posture of an old soldier stepped into the room. But in contrast to the prince, he wore no makeup and was dressed in a plain set of red coveralls.
“My hands are large enough, Bibil.” The prince had already began to snatch things from the table with his right hand and set them on his left palm.
[5] Bibil took the hors d’oeuvres from the prince’s palm and set them on the plate. “You don’t want to make these people think that Angirans are savages.”
The prince stiffened as if he had just been lashed. Apparently it was an old argument between the prince and his servant. “But they are savage.”
“We still know about plates.” He thrust one toward the prince. “So take this.”
The prince licked his fingertips and smiled tolerantly. He took the plate and turned to the officers of the Enterprise. “Please, let me introduce you to Bibil, who sometimes is my servant and sometimes my nursemaid and sometimes my keeper.”
“And trainer,” Bibil announced. “We will need facilities so the prince can practice his fencing.” He fixed them with a stern eye as if he were prepared to convert the room at that moment into a gymnasium.
“Yes, you never know whom I might insult when I go home.” The prince scooped several hors d’oeuvres into his mouth and began to munch happily.
McCoy folded his arms skeptically as if he did not expect anything nearly so serious from the outlandish prince. “Well, the closest thing we have to a cutlery expert is Sulu here.”
“It’s just foils mainly,” Sulu said.
“Good enough,” Bibil grunted. “We need to develop his eye and hand again and something quick like that is just the thing.”
“Well”—Kirk clapped his hands together and continued to hold them that way—“we have all the facilities you might need; and what weapons we don’t have, we can have made up to your specifications.” He strolled over to the buffet table and picked up a plate. “Will that suffice?”
[6] The prince scanned the table critically. “Personally, I would prefer political asylum.”
The corners of Kirk’s mouth turned up slightly as if he were trying to treat that as a joke; but the prince seemed quite serious. “I thought Your Highness would want to go home after all these years.”
The prince gave Kirk a sad smile. “It is no kindness to take a boy from a limbo of ignorance and teach him to enjoy the pleasures of paradise only to exile him back to limbo again.”
“But the opportunities are immense.” Mr. Spock drifted over to the table. “What you can achieve—”
The prince kicked out one leg and left it there as if it stood upon a bar. His legs, at least, seemed well muscled. “Yes, perhaps they will enjoy the latest Terran dances. And then we shall all dance our way to political and ethical enlightenment.” He lowered his foot. “No, my dear, that simply won’t do.”
Uhura was startled when he pointed to her. “Your Highness?”
“That hair fashion vanished—absolutely vanished two years ago.” The prince strode over to her and, wiping his fingers on his vest, fussed with her hair. “There. That’s the best I can do for now. But come to my cabin sometime and I’ll do your hair so that you can go in any little Parisian club and be all the rage.”
Uhura pulled away. “I don’t want to be the rage of Paris—or any other place.”
Kirk nibbled a small pastry. “You’ll find, Your Highness, that fashions and hairstyles take a secondary place on a military ship. And what styles do reach us tend to be several years out of date. We generally don’t worry about keeping up with the latest fads.”
[7] The prince lowered his hands, disappointed. “Yes, of course. I should have known.” He stood there for an awkward moment as if he did not know what to do with his hands now. Most of the knowledge that had made friends for him on Earth was out of place on the Enterprise.
And there was something in his uneasy stance and posture that reminded Sulu of himself as a boy when his mother’s work had taken him on to some new planet. The first few days—even months—there had been that terrible sense of standing out. “But you fence, Your Highness?”
The prince perked up and looked at Sulu almost gratefully. “Yes, I have a mild interest in any edged or pointed weapon. You have to realize that of the last nine emperors on Angira, eight have died from unnatural causes.”
“But,” Bibil was quick to add, “his father is in firm control of Angira now.”
“Yes”—the prince returned his attention to the table—“they say the sun doesn’t rise without my father’s permission.”
McCoy cleared his throat sympathetically. “That’s quite a shadow to live in.”
“No, no, I positively thrive within his shadow,” the prince said. “Some men and women are like noble oaks that crave the sunshine, but I am like a fungus. Keep low and hidden and you’ll always survive.” He picked up a red stalk of some vegetable and whipped it through a bowl of dip. “And you are—?”
“Dr. McCoy. I’m what passes for a medical officer around here.”
With a little deprecating nod of his head, the prince [8] jabbed the stalk at the doctor. “And I am what happens to pass for nobility.” The prince turned the stalk toward the captain. “And you?”
“Captain James Kirk.” Kirk twisted his head slightly as if puzzled by the prince. “You don’t seem to take yourself very seriously.”
There was something sad in the way the prince laughed. “Funguses rarely do, Captain.” And he went on to introduce himself to the other officers until he came to Mr. Spock.
The Vulcan inclined his head slightly. “You went to Boca Tigris, I understand.”
The prince brightened. “Yes, were you ever there?”
Mr. Spock shook his head slightly. “No, but I am acquainted with Professor Farsalia’s work.”
The prince smiled even more broadly. “Why, yes, dear old Farsie was my dissertation director.”
“Indeed.” Mr. Spock clasped his hands behind his back. “May I inquire on what?”
The prince took a napkin from Bibil and wiped his fingers. “It was a mouthful of a title: ‘Rates of Change in Cultural Diffusion.’ ”
Mr. Spock lowered his eyelids as if he were hunting through his memory. “Then it would involve the Tokano coefficient on the role of the Outsider.”
The prince pressed a hand beneath his throat. “Why do I feel as if I am in the midst of my orals?”
McCoy drifted over with two Cetian Coolers in hand. “That’s just our science officer’s form of cocktail chatter. You should feel complimented. He usually reserves it only for computers.” With a slight bow, he presented one of the drinks to the prince. “Try one of these, Your Highness. I think you’ll like it.”
The prince took the glass in both hands, holding the [9] stem in his right hand and balancing the bottom of the glass on the fingertips of his left hand. “Such a delightful blue color. It reminds me of the sky over Boca Tigris.”
The doctor sipped his drink. “And I’ve always thought of it as a southern sky. It’s an insidious drink, isn’t it?” He gestured with his Cooler. “It sets you to thinking of pleasanter places so you forget how many you drink.”
In the meantime, though, Mr. Spock was looking past the prince as if he were getting ready to absent himself physically as well as mentally from the company of the charming, chatty doctor—as he had on so many other occasions.
But the prince merely nodded his head perfunctorily as if he no longer cared about mere amusement. “Yes, quite,” he said to the doctor, but he was looking at Mr. Spock. “Tell me, Mr. Spock. Why does a science officer interest himself in the finer points of the social sciences?”
Mr. Spock glanced at the prince. “All the sciences interest me. True, the social sciences may not be as exact as the physical ones, but they are related.”
“Ho
w?” McCoy asked skeptically.
“The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle applies not only to physics but also to the social sciences,” Mr. Spock explained. “The very act of observation changes the phenomenon being studied.”
The prince bounced up and down on his toes. “But that’s just it. Farsie’s had to modify the coefficient.”
Mr. Spock folded his arms. “In what way?”
The prince wagged a finger at Mr. Spock. “You have to take into account the technological level of the society being studied.”
[10] Intrigued, Mr. Spock pressed his thumb against his fingertips. “But in a primitive society—”
“Yes, of course, one has to assume a certain minimal level of sophistication and technology,” the prince was quick to concede. “But there is a point in cultural development when the culture itself is ripe for change. A person has only to introduce exotic items like silk and tea and spices for medieval Europe to reach outward.”
“And the Outsider?” Mr. Spock asked.
“She or he is only the catalyst.” The prince set his drink down.
“I think you may be oversimplifying,” Mr. Spock insisted.
The prince laughed much more easily this time. “That’s the result of trying to condense a hundred pages of statistics and formulae into a few sentences.”
McCoy’s discomfort had been growing with each passing second. He wasn’t used to having people prefer Mr. Spock to himself for conversation. But at the mention of statistics, he finally sighed. “You’ll excuse me, Your Highness, Spock.” But the pair were so deep into their conversation that they didn’t seem to hear him. “Yes, of course, you will,” the doctor muttered and retreated over to where Kirk was observing Mr. Spock and the prince.
“Did you learn a few things, Bones?” Kirk rattled a handful of candied worms in his hand.
“Just that my vocabulary is more inadequate than I thought.” McCoy turned and scratched his cheek as if he were still puzzled by what he’d just seen.