STAR TREK: TOS #83 - Heart of the Sun

by Pamela Sargent

  Kirk felt like a junior engineer reporting for nacelle cleaning duty. “We’ll do our best—Marcelli.”

  “That kind of answer always sounds like an excuse in the making, Kirk. You don’t anticipate any problems, do you?”

  “We don’t anticipate any problems beyond the ones we can reasonably anticipate,” Kirk said.

  “In other words, you’re expecting some problems—just not any new problems.”

  The Tyrtaean seemed to be doing his best to be annoying, which did not seem consistent with the stoicism these people allegedly practiced. Kirk reminded himself that the reputedly friendly people of Cynur IV had only begun to warm to his personnel just before the Enterprise was to leave their system, and that all of the affected colonies had deeply resented the loss of their data bases. There had been no available target for their resentment other than the personnel of the Enterprise. Once again, Kirk decided to make allowances.

  “As you well know,” Kirk said, “we can’t overcome the lack of physical backups. If you have lost [13] certain kinds of data, we can’t recreate that information from nothing. There has to be—”

  “And who put us into this situation?”

  Kirk kept his composure, although it was becoming more of an effort after dealing with the reproaches of four resentful worlds. “We’ll do the best we can. I can promise you that, Marcelli. But we can’t work miracles.”

  “Captain,” Spock said, coming forward to face the viewscreen, “may I make a suggestion?”

  Kirk glanced at him. “Of course.” He motioned to Spock. “This is Commander Spock, my science officer and second-in-command of the Enterprise.”

  Marcelli’s brows shot up. “A Vulcan! Maybe now we’ll get somewhere.”

  Kirk tried hard not to look annoyed.

  “I do not wish to offer false hope,” Spock said. “I merely wish to recommend that you do not give up on the physical presence of certain kinds of data. Such data may still exist in unexpected places on your world. For example, the inhabitants of Emben III were certain that several of their most highly prized narratives were lost. Records dating back to their earliest settlers were thought to have existed only in their damaged planetary database.”

  “Really,” Marcelli said, sounding either skeptical or disappointed, it seemed to Kirk.

  “He was practicing his calligraphy,” Spock went on, “and preferred to do so while copying out old narratives by hand. So, whatever you have lost may [14] still exist on your world, and possibly elsewhere, in surprising places. And I also suspect—”

  “Tyrtaeans wouldn’t waste time copying down old stories by hand,” Marcelli muttered.

  “And on Cynur IV,” Kirk said, “a few people were quite upset at losing some poetry by one of their minor poets. As it happened, records of those poems had gone to the New Paris colonies as part of a cultural exchange. They were found in the personal library of a scholar who detested that particular poet and was in the middle of writing a devastating analysis of his poetry for a literary journal.”

  Aristocles Marcelli stared out coldly from the screen.

  “In other words,” Spock said, “do not limit your search only to the most logical places.”

  “A good thought, Spock,” Marcelli said, and Kirk wondered if that comment might be a veiled insult to himself. Tyrtaeans might be stoic, but they were also apparently touchy. “I look forward to meeting you.” The Tyrtaean did not sound as though he was including Kirk in that attempt at courtesy. “Needless to say, we’ve already started looking for physical sources of lost data, but we may have limited ourselves too much.” A grimace that might have been an attempt at a smile passed across Marcelli’s face. “Until we meet.”

  His image faded from the screen. “Seems he was unhappy,” Kirk said as he sat down, “that he couldn’t go on contending with us.”

  [15] “We gave him few openings,” Spock said.

  “I suspect that he would be happier if you were in command of this ship.”

  Spock looked at him for a moment, obviously puzzled by the apparent jump in logical steps to a conclusion.

  “In other words, my emotional control is akin to that of the Tyrtaeans, specifically to that of Aristocles Marcelli?”

  “That’s the general idea,” Kirk said.

  “Aristocles Marcelli and I are quite different, Captain. He is, after all, a human being. His steadfastness seems to me to be more an emotional insistence rather than a rational framework of being. The Stoic philosophers of your ancient world knew this quite well, the difference between wishing and knowing what is and what one can or cannot do about it.”

  “Thank you, Spock. I meant to express my admiration for the kind of deference you’re able to elicit from these people. I don’t seem to have the touch,” Kirk said, barely suppressing a smile.

  Spock nodded. “Thank you for explaining. It is very clear to me now.”

  “What is?”

  “Why you suspected Aristocles Marcelli would be happier if I were in command. For the record, once again, I do not wish command, and will never seek it.”

  “But you would do it superbly.”

  “Of course.”

  [16] Kirk thought about replying, then changed his mind. He tried to read the expression on his friend’s face, but Spock was already moving aft, attracted by what the sensor display screen was revealing about that unknown object. Kirk was amused—and curious again, but he pushed those feelings aside. First things first.

  Chapter Two

  FROM THE FOOTHILLS of the Arrian Mountains, the city of Callinus looked to Wellesley Warren like a set of toy buildings arranged by an orderly child. The central square of the Tyrtaean municipality was clearly visible even from here; perfectly straight roadways ran from the corners of the square to the edges of the small city. The design resisted improvement whenever he saw it, and he had long ago given up on imagining its better, so pleasing was it to him.

  “The first party from the Enterprise will be beaming down soon,” Myra Coles said as she stood next to him.

  Wellesley glanced at her and said, “We’d better go back, then,” noting her flushed cheeks. She had obviously enjoyed the hike.

  [18] “Aristocles said he would be in the square with us to greet them, but he’ll be expecting me to handle most of our subsequent dealings with them.”

  “He seemed very grateful when you volunteered to do so,” Wellesley said.

  “Yes—a little too grateful.”

  Wellesley knew what she meant. Myra’s political position had been weakened by the loss of their world’s data base, fueling the resentment of Tyrtaeans who already distrusted the Federation and who were beginning to see Myra as overly sympathetic to the Federation’s interests. There were too many such Tyrtaeans, without whose support Aristocles Marcelli would never have been elected. He had played on their resentments during his campaign, reminding them of the settlers who had come here from Earth a century ago. They had seen back then what the United Federation of Planets would become, a network of cultures and worlds bound in interdependency, and they had wanted no part of it. Better to look out for oneself, and not count on anyone else.

  Naturally, Aristocles would want Myra to manage the Enterprise personnel who would be restoring their data base. He would want to avoid the crewmembers as much as possible, so that if there were delays or any unexpected problems, he would be held blameless.

  “We can go a little farther,” Myra said, “before we head back.”

  [19] He followed her up the hillside. Myra was ten years older than he was, but extremely fit; occasionally he had trouble keeping up with her. Like many Tyrtaeans, she did not care to hold meetings indoors when matters could be discussed outside, while getting needed exercise, and she had often led her aides on treks through the Arrian foothills. Improved circulation quickened their thinking, she claimed, enabling her to hear their best thoughts. Wellesley had been her aide for two years now, having joined her small staff of four right after graduating fr
om Callinus’s small university.

  He used to wonder why Myra had selected him as one of her aides. He had been an outstanding student in both mathematics and history, but others had such qualifications. After his interview with her, he had not really expected to be chosen over older, more experienced people; he had feared that she might have glimpsed his secret self, despite his best efforts to keep his flaws hidden; he had been struggling with them all of his life.

  “Wellesley is a daydreamer,” his childhood teachers had said. “Wellesley is too demonstrative.” “Wellesley mistakenly thinks of the classroom as a place for humor.” “Wellesley must learn to avoid wasted effort and impractical pursuits.” He had tried to overcome his flaws, but suspected that others still sensed them in him. He remembered worrying that he might have seemed too affable during his first interview with Myra. Now he suspected that she had chosen him because of [20] his flaws, that she might even secretly share a few of his faults herself.

  The aurora flowers of the foothills were in full bloom; their wide pink, salmon, and rose-colored petals covered the grassy slopes. The blue sky was cloudless, the air just warm enough for both of them to hike out here without jackets. He had often thought it ironic that the stern Earth folk who were their ancestors had settled such a hospitable planet, one with the kind of climate that might have led other settlers into hedonistic, indolent lives. With the Tyrtaeans, the invariably pleasant climate of their world’s largest continent had only strengthened their isolationist tendencies: we have our world; we can get along by ourselves; we don’t really need the Federation.

  Unfortunately, the original settlers had made one mistake. By settling a world on the fringes of Federation space, they had believed that they had ensured their isolation. But the Tyrtaean system had turned out to be too close to the Neutral Zone to be left alone for long; the Federation had to make it clear to the Romulans that any foray into this system would be regarded as an act of war. Forty years ago, after a border skirmish with a warbird that got too close, the Tyrtaeans had unwillingly joined the Federation. They realized that was the only way to protect themselves if another war with the Romulan Empire ever came. Still, they had resented having to acknowledge such [21] a dependence on the political entity they had hoped to escape.

  Myra had been the Federation’s advocate throughout her six years as one of her world’s two leaders. “We value our independence, and the Federation allows us our independence,” she had often argued. “Our isolation allows us to develop in our own way. But it also serves the Federation in the long-term. Some day, the Federation may need the culture we have developed, and we may need to strengthen our ties with our ancestral world. Then we will repay the Federation for its help, and free ourselves from what some mistakenly view as too much dependence upon it.” Wellesley had never quite understood what she meant by that; it seemed to him that she was trying to have it both ways.

  Still, Myra looked out from this world, to its future, but increasing numbers of Tyrtaeans seemed to be looking inward. Once, the Tyrtaeans who dreamed of founding a second colony, one far from this sector with no ties to the Federation at all, and of creating and keeping to a true Tyrtaean culture apart from any outside influences, had been a tiny group on the fringes of society. Now there were a quarter of a million of them, according to a survey Wellesley had conducted before their planetary data base had been lost, and even more who had some sympathy for their position. Time, these people cried, to sever all ties to the Federation, to [22] settle another world where they would be left to themselves. They had been responsible for electing Aristocles Marcelli.

  Myra stopped walking and turned toward him. “Let’s hope that our data base is restored as quickly as possible,” she said. “Any problems, and it’s going to be even harder to convince the anti-Federationists that their way is a mistake.” She let out a sigh. “They fear other cultures so much. Why can’t they see that the kind of small colony they want wouldn’t be viable, that such extreme isolation would only be setting themselves up for eventual failure? Why can’t they understand that it’s possible to love one’s world and yet to try to look beyond it?”

  Wellesley gazed at her in surprise; she was rarely so open and emotional, even with him, the only person with whom she shared her deepest thoughts. She looked away for a moment, then gazed back; her customary distant, almost severe, expression returned to her face.

  “Enough self-indulgent outbursts,” she murmured. “We must head back. I promised Aristocles I’d be with him to greet the first group of Enterprise officers. He’ll be disappointed if I’m not there. He’s probably getting tired of having to scold them all by himself.”

  Wellesley almost laughed, wondering if Myra had meant to make a joke, but she was frowning as she turned away and started back down the hill. It seemed to him that she was expecting trouble.

  [23] What she most feared was that the separatists might charge that the Federation had deliberately lost their world’s data base, in an effort to retard the Tyrtaean culture’s growth and development. There was not one bit of evidence to support the idea. Why would the Federation then be working so fast to restore all the lost data bases? The separatist rebels would have an answer for that also—to show how caring the Federation was, to elicit gratitude from their colonies, to draw them into greater dependency. Clever, but untrue, Wellesley told himself; but it sounded good and might convince many more people, if the charge were brought publicly—and then Myra’s position would be even weaker, perhaps dangerously so.

  When the transporter had cycled and she could see again, Uhura found herself in an open square of flat, bluish-gray rock, facing a large white structure that resembled Earth’s Parthenon. This building, however, which housed the main library complex of Tyrtaeus II, was quite a bit taller than the ancient Greek monument; in fact, it seemed almost too tall to be supported by this particular type of architecture.

  Commander Spock was already scanning the building with his tricorder. “The pillars have been reinforced,” he said, “and also the inside walls.”

  “It’s a lovely building,” Uhura said. In spite of the buildings nearby, the library complex seemed to be standing in a kind of splendid isolation. She [24] looked around the square. Every building here was like that, she realized, part of a pleasing whole and yet very individual. There had been no attempt to make each structure a part of some overall design, and yet the square viewed as a whole had an austere beauty.

  “The design of the library does have a classical simplicity,” Ensign Tekakwitha murmured.

  “That building there,” Captain Kirk said, “with the walls that look like rose quartz—it’s quite striking.”

  The architecture made Uhura think of their music. She had listened to some recordings of Tyrtaean compositions that the ship’s computer had called up for her. The composers were clearly heavily influenced by Western neo-classical symphonies of the early twenty-second century, but there was something strange about the Tyrtaean symphonies. Uhura had listened to each performance twice before realizing why the music sounded so odd. The composition was more of a succession of solos rather than a symphony, with passages for string instruments, then for woodwinds, while the percussionists went their own way, resonating with the rest of the orchestra while still sounding independent of it. Given the way the music was written, Uhura thought, the musicians probably could have put on a performance without a conductor, which seemed consistent with the Tyrtaean approach to life.

  The four officers had beamed down to the main [25] square of Callinus, the so-called Tyrtaean capital city. But to call it a city was an exaggeration; Uhura knew that fewer than forty thousand people lived in Callinus. The two million people on this world so prided themselves on their self-reliance that the vast majority of them lived in small villages, preferring them to larger cities that might rob them of some of their independence. But despite the Tyrtaeans’ aversion to centralization, the library of Callinus was their cultural center, the repository of most
of their society’s treasured lore.

  No wonder they were so bitter about the loss of their data base, Uhura thought. They must be as angry with themselves for their dependence on this library as they were of having any need of the Federation.

  The other buildings surrounding the square were not quite as impressive as the library, but she admired them all. One long, low structure was made of a material that resembled cedar; at the other end of the square, across from the library, a massive stone stairway led up to the wide metallic doors of the Callinus Administrative Center. One door slid open; three people, two men and a woman, passed through it and descended the stone steps.

  Uhura recognized one of the men as Aristocles Marcelli, so the woman with them had to be Myra Coles. The two Tyrtaean leaders had said that they would meet Captain Kirk and his landing party here. Myra Coles had been as terse as Aristocles [26] Marcelli in her messages, but Uhura had detected a softer note in her voice.

  The three Tyrtaeans hurried across the square, slowing as they came closer, then stopped two meters away and stood rigidly, regarding the officers from the Enterprise with cool, disdainful expressions.

  “Myra Coles,” the woman said. Her thick chestnut hair was cut short, and she wore a simple gray tunic and trousers, but her kind of beauty needed no adornment. If anything, the plainness of her clothing only emphasized her attractiveness. Her large gray eyes were framed by thick dark lashes, and her flawless pale skin had a rosy glow; if the woman could ever bring herself to smile, Uhura was sure that she would see perfect white teeth.

  “James Tiberius Kirk, captain of the Enterprise.” The captain nodded at Myra Coles and smiled, clearly enjoying the chance to use his middle name; her mouth tensed, as if she resented his smile. “This is Commander Spock, first officer and chief science officer.” Myra Coles stared at Captain Kirk without blinking; maybe she thought that even this scaled-down greeting was too effusive. “Lieutenant Uhura is our communications officer.” He waved one arm toward Uhura, who smiled. “And Ensign Cathe Tekakwitha, one of our other science officers, is a trained anthropologist and information retrieval expert.”