Constellations

by Marco Palmieri

  “Our station’s xenobiology team will meet us in the holding chamber,” Thavas said quietly as he and Spock exited a turbolift at a circular airlock station. “Environmental suits beyond this point.” The Andorian pointed out a row of silver pressure suits and helmets lining one wall. Spock pulled a suit off the wall and adjusted it to his measurements. In a few minutes he had the suit on and made the final adjustments to the helmet before fastening it into place.

  Four suited technicians were visible ahead as Spock and Thavas entered the holding chamber. Spock felt a slight crackle as the heat and pressure of the chamber pressed in on his suit seals. Behind the four station personnel lay the Tholian ship, a wedge-shaped vessel similar to the gleaming webweavers Spock had encountered before, but far smaller, with a faceted central core bulging out from between its three triangular hull segments. As he approached he saw three similar vessels lined up behind the pair the technicians were examining: all three looked strangely desiccated, their hull surfaces shriveled and cracked. Spock’s eyebrows rose appreciatively; it looked as if his earlier declaration of the scientific opportunity here might be an understatement.

  One of the figures ahead of him turned as Spock and Thavas approached, and Spock saw the face of a surprisingly young human woman behind the environmental suit helmet. “This is M-33’s chief xenobiologist, Dr. Casio Glasser. Doctor, may I present Commander Spock of the Enterprise.”

  “Commander Spock,” the woman said. She seemed about to extend a hand almost excitedly and then seemed to think better of it, inclining her head slightly in the Vulcan way instead. “This is an honor.”

  “I was not aware this station had a full xenobiology staff,” Spock said.

  “Well, we didn’t originally—I was just doing planetary science until the first incursion thirteen months ago; after that I got a little promotion.”

  “Indeed,” Spock said, gesturing at the lineup of Tholian vessels. “You have an enviable opportunity to examine Tholian technology. I am curious as to why the Tholians would allow it.”

  Glasser shrugged, looking back at the ships. “Well, you’re welcome to join us, but you won’t learn much. We haven’t gone very far beyond the basics.”

  “Why have these three additional vessels not been transferred off the station by the Tholians?”

  “The pilots all died before the Tholian Assembly transfer ships made it here. Tholians seem to have no interest in their dead, or the dead pilots’ ships. These vessels started to decay shortly after we brought them on board. We’ve tried to approximate what we know of Tholian atmospheric conditions in here on the off chance the pilots might survive after their ships break down, but it seems to make no difference.”

  Spock approached one of the breached ships, its hull splintered and cracked. An entire side of the arrowhead-shaped vessel had disintegrated, leaving the remains of its interior and its dead pilot open to inspection. “Remarkable,” Spock said, activating his tricorder. The Tholian pilot was now a glinting, lifeless husk, shards of its crystalline body fraying away from a hollow center. A barrel-shaped torso, multiple supporting, segmented legs, and the remains of the familiar, helmet-like head Spock had once viewed on the Enterprise’s main screen: the details were all there, but shattered to the point where they were barely recognizable.

  “Somewhat insectile, as you can see,” Glasser said. “That seems to extend to their society as well; individuals seem to be bred for specific societal functions, like ants. Or a caste society on Earth.”

  Spock nodded. “I have heard the caste system mentioned in relation to the Tholians.” He found it interesting how often human scientists relied on Earth-based analogies. “It would appear that very little of their internal structures survived whatever caused their deaths,” Spock said. “Yet you say the majority of your captures have survived.”

  “Yes,” Glasser acknowledged. “The survivors have stayed sealed in their ships and are pretty uncommunicative. It’s funny; two of these died in captivity and the other was dead when we brought it in. The Tholians declined to retrieve any of them…it was almost as if they knew these particular pilots would die even before their ships started to decay.”

  “I fail to see why those facts would be considered cause for amusement,” Spock said, training his tricorder on the newly captured Tholian vessel. Its energy output was steady and it was clearly maintaining its own intense internal heat and pressure, but there was very little more useful information available. “It is quite effectively shielded. I should like to tie my tricorder into the holding chamber’s sensors if I may. You said you have had at least some limited communication with captured Tholians?”

  “We’re not that certain of our translations, and we only got a few words; nothing that made any sense.”

  “Our ship’s chief communications officer has had some experience in Tholian translation, which may be helpful,” Spock said. “With your permission, I would like to involve her in this research.”

  “Of course,” Glasser said. Spock reached up to toggle the communicator control just underneath the foreplate of his helmet, cycling through command channels to beam outside the station’s interior relays. “Spock to Enterprise.”

  “Enterprise; Uhura here.”

  “Lieutenant, contact M-33’s executive officer, Commander Thavas, and arrange to be transported to the station. I will need your presence in the—”

  A piercing whine suddenly erupted over Spock’s helmet speakers, and he saw the four human researchers reflexively clutch at their own suit helmets as the sound flashed through their communicators. One of the scientists had the presence of mind to focus his tricorder on the transmission.

  “It’s coming from inside the Tholian ship!” he exclaimed.

  “Dr. Glasser, I assume this transmission differs from your prior communication attempts with the Tholians,” Spock said.

  Glasser nodded as she adjusted the volume of her helmet speakers, wincing as she shook her head. “It’s different all right,” she said. “We had to tap into their comm grids to get anything before.” She looked back at the ship and then at Spock. “This is directed at us. The pilot is definitely trying to communicate.”

  Uhura’s voice overrode the shrieking sound in Spock’s helmet. “Mr. Spock, report on situation, please.”

  “We are experiencing a form of Tholian communication, Lieutenant,” Spock said. “Your presence is urgently required.”

  Kirk found the right pause in Merrill’s storytelling and managed to gesture at the big viewport across the room, standing as he pointed to the Ifukube Veil and a few of its artificial satellites. “Those drones weren’t put in place for defensive purposes originally, were they, Commodore?”

  “No,” Merrill said, getting off his own couch with a little grunt. “That all started as a way to study the Veil. We found we had to reinforce the satellites even for that purpose because the Veil’s so active and unstable—we actually lost a few satellites from energy spikes. Blew them to pieces. Ultimately we think we can tap this thing for one hell of a lot of free energy. M-33 could become a lot more valuable to Starfleet than anyone thought it would.”

  “How so?”

  “We’re out on the edge of Federation space…but we could expand our borders from here, using the station as a launch point.”

  “Wouldn’t the Tholians have something to say about that?” Kirk asked.

  Merrill looked at him seriously for a moment, then his face lit up in that irrepressible grin. “They might, son. They might.”

  Kirk frowned. “Commodore…you’re facing what appears to me to be potentially dangerous incursions by Tholian vessels. I’m afraid I don’t quite understand your attitude.”

  Merrill nodded. “We were warned about this. I got diplomatic messages from the Tholians around the tenth month of our construction and setup here. The Assembly has no interest in this system, but there are factions within Tholian society that do for some reason. Outsiders, they’re called. The Assembly says they’re rene
gades and pirates, probably looking to set up a base here just like we are. They could use the Veil in the same way; most of the incursions have centered on the cloud, penetrating it or skimming it. I think they’re trying to figure it out, do their own experimentation, and they’ve had their accidents and successes just like we have.”

  “That certainly doesn’t sound like a promising situation for the station, however,” Kirk argued. “It’s clear this dispute, or whatever it is, has been growing over the past year.”

  “I won’t argue with that, but we’re still talking about mostly small, one-pilot ships. And the Tholian government has assured us that it recognizes our claim to the system.” At that a communications panel at Merrill’s desk beeped. “Excuse me,” the commodore said, moving to answer the call. Kirk’s communicator beeped a few seconds later, and the captain glanced at McCoy as he flipped the device open.

  “Spock here, Captain. There has been a development with the captured Tholian vessel.” It was obvious from Merrill’s end of his conversation that they were dealing with the same subject matter.

  “Let’s have it.”

  Uhura’s brow furrowed as she made minute adjustments to the universal translator, which was plugged into a dataport on her tricorder drawing on logic interfaces from both the Enterprise’s and M-33’s central computers. She had found a communications node on one edge of the Tholian ship and had attached a transponder directly to it to feed the translator telemetry through.

  This would be a lot easier without a bulky environmental suit getting in the way, she thought. She hadn’t even had time to adjust her suit quite to the optimal temperature in her rush to get into the holding chamber. There was a pesky bead of sweat on her brow, and Spock’s impassive face staring at her as she worked wasn’t helping.

  She’d skimmed the records of previous communications with the Tholians the station had captured. It was clear from what M-33’s xenobiology staff had told her that most of the other Tholian individuals had been drones or scouts, unequipped for any kind of sophisticated communication with beings outside their species, or perhaps even outside their caste. The ideas she’d been able to glean from the logs were fragmentary, even contradictory. It was remarkable how different these language concepts were from Tholian diplomatic tongue.

  Strangely, the language coming from this newest Tholian individual was much easier to grasp, and the currents of communication seemed to be flowing faster as Uhura worked and transmitted her own responses, as if the Tholian was learning humanoid language concepts at an incredible rate.

  Dr. Glasser nodded as Uhura relayed her conclusions. The copper-haired xenobiologist looked at Spock through her helmet faceplate. “It’s adapting. I think this one’s a Mage, Mr. Spock. Either that or it’s been in contact with one.”

  “Mage?” the Vulcan said.

  “They’re Tholians that are able to move freely between castes. They have the authority to modify individuals from caste to caste, changing their societal roles. And they’re able to do the same thing to themselves, apparently, so that they can take on specialized skill sets for specific jobs.”

  “As I understand it, that would represent a rather important role in Tholian society,” Spock said. “What would such an individual be doing here?”

  “With a group of Outsiders? Good question.” Glasser shook her head. “Commodore Merrill’s always thought the Tholian faction was trying to set up a beachhead here. This could be a leader.”

  Uhura frowned as she correlated the data feeding in from both computers and watched translation concepts cross-connect on her tricorder’s small readout screen. “Mr. Spock, there’s one clear idea that’s appeared more than once in this transmission. It works out as ‘sanctuary.’ I thought initially it may have referred to something in this area of space, but it may now mean this station specifically or us.” She kept her eyes on the readouts while computer translations filtered through her speaker headphones. It was a riot of information, but she could still make sense out of some of the concepts. “Sir, the word has a political aspect to it.” She turned to look at Spock. “It’s related to ‘asylum.’”

  “Political asylum,” Spock said gravely.

  “Nonsense,” Merrill said a quarter of an hour later, glaring at Kirk, Spock, and McCoy while Thavas, Glasser, and Uhura sat around a conference table. “None of the Outsiders has ever asked for asylum. They’d rather face whatever punishment their own people have in store for them than deal with us.”

  “I do not understand how you draw that conclusion, Commodore,” Spock said calmly. “Prior communication with Tholian pilots has been far from conclusive.”

  “But their actions have been conclusive enough,” Merrill snapped. “It’s clear they want access to the Veil, and they’re willing to sneak past us or even attack us if necessary to get to it.”

  “But why, Commodore?” Kirk said, studying Merrill intently. “If they’re really trying to harvest that cloud, they wouldn’t be using one-man ships to do it.”

  “We don’t know what they’re doing,” Merrill said angrily. “We know some of the pilots are scouts; odds are they’re testing our defenses for a more sustained operation.”

  “Uhura, what do you make of the communication you’ve had with this pilot so far?” Kirk asked. “Has it made reference to the cloud or what they might want with it?”

  “It made reference to something,” Uhura said. “The language did seem to relate to the Veil, but the terms weren’t…well, they didn’t sound like references to fuel, economic, or strategic concepts. More abstract than that…I haven’t worked it out yet.”

  “But you’re certain this pilot was asking for asylum?” Kirk asked. Uhura glanced at Spock before replying.

  “I’d say it’s a very strong probability, sir.”

  “Probability!” Merrill snorted. “I have an agreement with the Tholian Assembly, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to violate that agreement over a probability. Thavas, tell the captain what you told me about that signal.”

  “The transmission was directed outside the system in addition to the direct feed to your communications receivers,” the Andorian said quietly. “It may have been an attempt to distract from its true purpose.”

  Kirk glanced from the Andorian to Merrill, who met his look defiantly. “I’d like to speak with the commodore alone, please,” he said. “Mr. Spock, Lieutenant Uhura, continue your work in cooperation with the station’s staff.”

  A few seconds later the briefing room was empty except for the two commanding officers. Kirk studied Merrill carefully. It was clear the commodore was already angry at having his authority questioned. He’d been in command at M-33 for more than a year, and his experience, not to mention his rank, outstripped Kirk’s. What Kirk had to say now would have to be said carefully.

  “Commodore, what exactly is this ‘agreement’ with the Tholians? There were very few details of anything like that in our briefing on the situation here.”

  “It’s simple enough,” Merrill said flatly. “We keep any Tholian Outsiders away from our station and the Veil, and hold any we capture for transfer back to the Tholian government.”

  “In exchange for what?”

  Merrill paused almost imperceptibly before answering. “Tactical aid, of course. Keeping these pirates off our backs as much as they can and shuttling them out of the system when they do manage to break in.”

  “You keep referring to them as ‘pirates’ against any evidence I’ve yet to see regarding their goals.”

  “That’s how they were defined to me by the Assembly.”

  “Then why would a pirate request political asylum?”

  “We don’t know that’s the case, Kirk.”

  “Then let’s just assume that it is for a moment,” Kirk said calmly. “How would it affect your agreement if I honor the request?”

  Merrill stood up, shaking his head. “Don’t you see how remarkable it is that any kind of agreement exists between a Federation individual and th
e Assembly?” he argued. “We’ve been trying to understand the Tholians for over a century now. We’ve barely come away from that with comprehensible territorial boundaries made between us. Now we have a working agreement, cooperation—”

  “You’re not answering my question,” Kirk interrupted. “How will the Tholians react if we grant an individual asylum?”

  “I don’t plan on finding out,” the commodore said. “I don’t know about you, but I keep my word.”

  “Your word? What about your oath to Starfleet?” Kirk dropped that bomb and sharpened his focus on Merrill. He saw a volcanic rage erupt out of those clear blue eyes as Merrill put his hands down on the table and glowered down at the sitting Kirk.

  “Don’t you lecture me about my oath, Captain,” the commodore said, twisting his mouth around Kirk’s rank. “I took that oath before you were born!”

  “I won’t ignore a request for asylum,” Kirk said slowly.

  “You will if I order you to!” Merrill barked.

  Kirk let the impasse stand for a moment as he stared Merrill down. At this point he was more than prepared to override Merrill’s authority. But even as he glared down at Kirk, Merrill seemed to compose himself. “Kirk,” he said, “let’s be reasonable, son. You know what can come out of this, what this means. In a few more months, maybe a year, I can have an alliance with the Tholians. We can anchor this sector and expand the reach of the Federation to dominate the entire quadrant.”

  “Dominate?” Kirk said. He stared at Merrill harshly. Somehow the big, athletic man seemed diminished, the wear and tear on his aging face uglier than it had been when Kirk had first met him. He began to understand now how a man with the commodore’s reputation and history could be shuttled out here to a command on the edge of nowhere.

  “All right, that was a poor choice of words,” Merrill muttered. “But you must at least see the opportunity—”

  “Commodore, I’m asking you to signal the Tholians that we will be holding that pilot under rules of political asylum. Until I find out what’s going on here, there will be no transfer.”