“Have you made a decision,” he inquired hopefully, while McAteer wiped a bit of cherry debris from his chin, “as to the next stop on your tour?”
The admiral had indicated that he would be visiting several vessels, not just the Stargazer. After all, Arlen McAteer was nothing if not “hands-on.”
“I’ll be going to the Antares,” the admiral said, picking up his cloth napkin and wiping his mouth. “Captain Vayishra’s ship.”
Picard knew quite well whose ship it was. So did anyone else who had spent any time with McAteer. As far as the admiral was concerned, there was no finer commanding officer in the fleet than the much-decorated Vayishra.
“Shall I have my com officer contact the Antares,” Picard suggested, “and arrange a rendezvous?”
McAteer dismissed the idea with a wave of his hand. “That won’t be necessary. I don’t want to tie up an entire starship when a shuttle will do just fine.”
Picard frowned. If McAteer meant to take a shuttle, the captain would have to supply personnel to man it—not just a pilot, but a squad of security officers as well. This was, after all, a Starfleet admiral they would be transporting.
“You’re certain?” the captain asked, extending McAteer a chance to reconsider.
“Quite certain,” said the admiral, giving him little choice in the matter.
Picard looked up at the intercom grid hidden in the ceiling. “Mister Chang, this is the captain.”
“Chang here,” came the response.
“Prepare a personnel shuttle for Admiral McAteer and a security escort. The admiral will want to leave…” He turned to McAteer, leaving it to him to supply the rest of the information.
“Twelve hundred hours tomorrow,” said McAteer.
“Consider it done, sir,” said the shuttlebay officer. “Chang out.”
“Excellent,” said the admiral. “Oh, and Picard…?”
The captain turned to him. “Yes?”
“I’d like Paris to pilot the shuttle. That way I’ll know I’m in good hands.”
Cole Paris had distinguished himself as an excellent helm officer. However, Picard suspected that the ensign’s lineage, as the scion of an old Starfleet family, had as much to do with McAteer’s request as anything else.
The admiral seemed to like people whose families were associated with the fleet. Maybe that was how he had gotten friendly with Admiral Caber.
“Paris it is,” Picard assured the admiral. Anything to get you off this ship.
Phigus Simenon, chief engineer of the Stargazer, cast a critical eye over the console screen in front of him.
Normally, it played host to operating data on any number of ship’s systems, from warp drive to waste recycling. Or else it displayed some complicated set of calculations, which no one but Simenon would even consider following without the assistance of a computer.
But at the moment, the engineer’s screen was filled with something else—images of a half-dozen lizard-like creatures, their oversized golden eyes peering at him innocently from the safety of their artificial nest.
My children, he thought.
It didn’t sound right. It didn’t feel right. And yet, there they were, irrefutable proof that Simenon had indeed made a contribution to the future of his species.
Soon, the hatchlings would be removed from their nest and given to their mother to raise. Simenon hadn’t met her, but he had heard good things about her. She would be a fine parent. The children would be trained in the ways of Gnalish society and educated in accordance with their natural talents.
And Simenon? He would do what males of his species had always done. He would stay as far away as possible, minimizing the chances of his screwing everything up.
He recalled his own mother—a stern individual who had taken no guff from anyone, especially her off-spring. Now there was a parent. He still thought of her on occasion, though he would never have let any of his crewmates know that.
Simenon could just imagine the comments—especially from the humans aboard, who seemed to have a very different relationship with their mothers than his own people did. But then, what could one expect from a species that insisted on feeding its young with maternal secretions?
It made him shiver down to the tip of his scaly tail just thinking about it. He was still doing so when he noticed that he had unaccustomed company—in the large, blue form of Vigo, the Stargazer’s weapons officer.
Along with the captain, Ben Zoma, and Doctor Greyhorse, Vigo had earned Simenon’s undying gratitude by assisting him in a grueling ritual back on the Gnalish homeworld. It was that ritual that had ensured Simenon of the progeny pictured on his screen.
At first, the engineer suspected that his colleague had come to challenge him to a game of sharash’di, a complex and apparently habit-forming conceit that Vigo had acquired as a gift from another crewman. Then Simenon saw the expression on Vigo’s face, and doubted that he had come about a game.
The engineer swiveled in his chair. “What’s the matter?”
Vigo grunted softly. “Is it that obvious that I’m troubled?”
“No more obvious than, say, a supernova.”
The weapons officer pulled up a chair and sat facing Simenon. “I need to ask you a question,” he said.
It wasn’t often that crewmates came to the engineer for advice. He just wasn’t the type to lend a sympathetic ear. But he gave Vigo’s question his full attention.
It wasn’t until Vigo was done speaking, and Simenon had seen the light of determinaton in his friend’s eyes, that he realized something about the answer he was about to utter….
It was the same as the one already lodged in Vigo’s heart.
Hundreds of years earlier, when horse-drawn stagecoaches carried passengers across the middle band of North America called the United States, the man charged with protecting the stagecoach would sit next to the driver.
In his arms, he would cradle a primitive projectile weapon known as a shotgun. Hence, the derivation of the term “shotgun seat,” which referred to the place next to the driver, or pilot, or helmsman of a particular vehicle.
It was this seat that Ben Zoma claimed as soon as he entered the Livingston, a sleek, warp-capable personnel shuttle designed to accommodate a crew of two and six passengers—maximum.
Not that the first officer was so hungry for a view of the stars, which was so eminently available through the vessel’s forward observation port. In this case, it was purely a secondary consideration.
It was more a matter of his avoiding Admiral McAteer. By sitting next to the shuttle’s primary pilot—Ensign Paris, in this case—Ben Zoma could be certain he wouldn’t have to listen to the admiral for the entire trip.
Of course, Paris would eventually turn the helm over to someone else, and Ben Zoma would have to do the same with the shotgun seat. But for the first shift, at least, he knew he would be safe from McAteer’s commentary.
“Thanks,” he told Chang, the officer in charge of the ship’s shuttle deck.
“Don’t mention it,” said Chang, sticking his head in after Ben Zoma and taking a critical look around. “I just wish my people would be a little neater sometimes.”
The first officer inspected the interior of the shuttle. As far as he could tell, it was spotless. He turned to Chang and said, “You’re kidding, right?”
Chang looked deadly serious as he regarded Ben Zoma. Then, unexpectedly, he cracked a smile. “Commander, the Livingston is the one we always keep clean.”
Ben Zoma had to laugh. “And they say I never take anything seriously.”
“The problem,” said Chang, “is I take everything seriously. If I didn’t laugh about it, I’d go insane.”
“Pardon me, Lieutenant,” said an all-too-familiar voice, “I’d like to board.”
Chang cast a glance over his shoulder, then stepped back from the hatch. “Of course, sir.”
A moment later, McAteer slid into the Livingston. He was halfway inside before he noticed that Ben
Zoma had preceded him.
“Well,” said the admiral, “we are punctual.”
“Yes sir, we are,” said Ben Zoma.
Fortunately, they didn’t have to prolong the conversation, because the rest of the crew arrived in the next few moments. In addition to Paris, it included Chen, Ramirez, Horombo, and Garner—all experienced security officers.
Not that Ben Zoma expected to need them. They were ferrying an admiral from one starship to another, not smuggling tribbles across the heart of the Klingon Empire. However, protocol called for the largest escort possible where such a high-ranking officer was involved, and unless McAteer said otherwise, they were all going to have to pile in.
Before they closed the hatch, Picard appeared. “Bon voyage,” he told McAteer, maintaining an air of cordiality. “And please, say hello to Captain Vayishra for me.”
If the admiral took note of the sarcasm, he gave no indication of it. “I’ll do that. Thank you for the hospitality, Picard. And,” he added, “good luck.”
His back to McAteer, Ben Zoma made a face. Good luck was the last thing the admiral wanted for Picard.
The captain took a last look around inside the shuttle, briefly meeting his first officer’s gaze. Then he nodded to Paris, who used his controls to swing the hatch closed.
Once Picard had withdrawn, the ensign activated the Livingston’s thrusters to lift the craft off the deck and bring her about. In a matter of seconds, he and Ben Zoma were facing in the direction of the bay doors. Then the doors parted, revealing the star-pricked blackness of the void.
A semipermeable, transparent barrier kept the air in the bay from rushing out. However, it wouldn’t keep the shuttle from doing so. Moving forward, the Livingston approached the barrier and the slice of space beyond it.
Then, as smoothly as a bird taking to the sky, the shuttle slid through the aperture. The vast sea of space opened before them, lonely and mysterious.
And they were off.
Chapter Four
DIKEMBE ULELO HAD A JOB to do.
With that idea firmly in mind, he approached the bridge’s communications console, where his superior, Lieutenant Paxton, was still compiling a report on message activity during his shift.
“You’re early,” Paxton said without looking up. “Of course, you’re always early.”
His tone, usually a good-natured one, sounded a trifle less so this morning. Ulelo chalked it up to the fact that Paxton wasn’t used to working the graveyard shift—and wouldn’t have done so this time either, except for the fact that one of the junior com officers had come down with a virus.
The transporter’s biofilter strained out most alien parasites, but not all of them. Hence, the virus, which Greyhorse, the ship’s chief medical officer, had been pleased to declare was “not much worse than a head cold.”
Still, Paxton had been forced to replace the patient on her shift. Another com chief might have appointed someone else to do it, and gotten his usual hours of rest. But not Paxton. He never asked anyone to do something he wasn’t willing to do himself.
Ulelo attempted to respond in a friendly, even playful way. “Are you complaining, sir?”
He wasn’t by nature a playful person. However, he had come to realize that such banter was expected of him. It was expected of almost everyone on the ship, now that they had all gotten to know each other.
Paxton looked up at him and smiled a weary smile. “Not at all, Ulelo. Don’t mind me. I’m a little…tired, I guess.” With that, he finished what he was doing, got up, and moved aside.
Ulelo took the vacated seat and reviewed his superior’s report. Nothing unusual, he noted as he went over it. Nothing that would pique anyone’s interest.
That was fine with Ulelo. He didn’t want anyone to have a reason to take a look at the com logs, so the more routine they were, the better.
“See you later,” said Paxton. Then he headed for one of the aft consoles on some other bit of business, as he often did when his shift was over.
Ulelo waited a moment, until he was certain that Paxton wasn’t coming back. As he sat there, he could hear the soft chirping of the other consoles, the even hum of the warp engines. He had gotten so accustomed to them, he hardly noticed them anymore.
Finally, the lieutenant took a quick look around to make certain no one was watching him. No one was, of course. No one ever watched him.
But then, why should they? Ulelo was an officer in good standing, a trusted member of the Stargazer’s crew. His record showed that his actions were beyond reproach.
That was why he had been given the responsibility of sending and receiving any number of subspace messages, some of them containing delicate and even classified information. But not the kind he was preparing to send now.
The transmission he was setting up at that particular moment contained strategic data on the Stargazer’s operating systems. Ulelo had gathered it painstakingly over the course of the last few days.
None of his superiors had asked him to either gather it or send it. In fact, they would have been shocked to know of his actions in this matter, which was why he was working in secret—just as he had done so many times before, over and over again, since the day he first set foot aboard the Stargazer.
After all, there was more to Dikembe Ulelo than met the eye.
On the surface, he was like anyone else on the ship. But inside, he was the minion of another set of masters, and it was on their behalf that he pursued his clandestine mission.
His preparations complete, Ulelo tapped in the command that would send out the packet of information. Then he returned the data to the file it had come from—a personal file, never seen by anyone else—and erased any evidence that it had ever been accessed from the communications console.
Done, he thought.
But before Ulelo could take any pride in the notion, he felt something strange—something he hadn’t ever felt before on the bridge of the Stargazer.
Scrutiny.
Turning his head ever so slightly, he cast a glance in what he felt was the appropriate direction. It was then that he realized he was right. Someone was watching him, all right.
It was Lieutenant Paxton.
Why? Ulelo asked himself. Why was Paxton looking at him that way? What had he done to attract the man’s attention?
Trying not to give anything away, Ulelo turned back to his console and forced himself to do some work—legitimate work, this time. But his heart was pounding so hard against his ribs that he thought they might break.
What is Paxton doing? he wondered, filled with a strange mixture of fear and curiosity. But he didn’t dare glance in his superior’s direction a second time.
Maybe he’s not doing anything, Ulelo thought, and liked the sound of it. Maybe he just happened to be looking at me for a moment. Maybe he still has no idea what I’ve been up to.
Then he heard Paxton’s voice, calm but firm: “Get up and step away from the console, Ulelo.”
Ulelo turned to his superior again—he had to, having been addressed—and saw that Paxton was almost on top of him. He did his best to feign surprise: “Sir?”
“Step away from the console,” Paxton repeated, a little more forcefully this time. His gaze was uncharacteristically hard and unyielding.
Ulelo’s mind raced, seeking a way for him to wriggle off the hook. But he couldn’t think of one.
Just then, the turbolift doors slid open and a couple of security officers stepped out. One was Joseph, the acting head of the section. The other was Pfeffer, one of the friends to whom Emily Bender had intoduced Ulelo.
Pfeffer’s expression was unmistakably one of regret. Obviously, she knew what she had come for.
It was only then that Ulelo realized the extent to which he must have incriminated himself.
Paxton hadn’t sent for the security officers. They had been waiting in the lift. So Paxton’s suspicions weren’t brand-new. He had known about Ulelo for some time.
A trap, Ulelo reflect
ed.
“Come with us,” said Joseph.
“Don’t make it harder than it has to be,” said Pfeffer, her eyes beseeching him to cooperate.
The other officers on the bridge had turned to them, wondering what in blazes was going on. Ulelo thought about protesting his innocence, stalling for some time.
But there was nothing to be gained by it. Without another word, he got up from his station and allowed his colleagues to escort him to the brig.
“Well,” said Lieutenant Bender, as she set her tray down on the rectangular mess-hall table, “I hope I ordered the right thing, because I can’t see worth a damn.”
She had been studying alien microbes under a high-powered microviewer for the last several hours. If she hadn’t officially gone blind, she had certainly come close enough.
Bender’s friends at the table, Kochman and Vandermeer, glanced uncertainly at the food on her tray. Then they turned to each other, looks of grave concern on their faces.
“Should we tell her?” asked Kochman, one of the Stargazer’s junior navigation officers.
Vandermeer, a transporter operator, shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe she likes heart of targ.”
“Heart of targ…?” Bender echoed, pulling her chair out and depositing herself in its accommodating plastiform curve. What in blazes was heart of targ?
“A Klingon dish,” Vandermeer explained. “Or so I’ve been told. I’ve never seen it myself.”
“Until now, you mean,” said Kochman, tilting his head meaningfully toward Bender’s plate.
Vandermeer raised her hand to her mouth, obviously to conceal a smile. “Of course. Until now.”
“Actually,” said Bender, happy to go along with the gag no matter how lame it was, “I’ve always been curious about Klingon cuisine. It’s probably time I gave it a try.”
And with that, she dug her fork into her pile of chicken cacciatore. Raising a piece of dusky meat covered with tomato tatters to the level of her eyes, she peered at it for a moment. Then she opened her mouth and slipped it inside.
“Mmm,” she said, purposely speaking with her mouth full as she rounded up another forkful, “tastes just like chicken.”
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