by Peter David
Shelby was about to ask what the second best was, and then wisely thought better of it.
10
EXCALIBUR
BURGOYNE STOOD IN SICKBAY, looking in bemusement at Ensigns Yates and Pheytus. Yates and Pheytus were each sitting on the edge of a diagnostic table, and neither seemed to know quite where to look. They certainly didn’t want to look at each other, but neither did they want to meet Burgoyne’s gaze. So they contented themselves with looking randomly around sickbay. Yates’s left eye was swollen, and there was a greenish bruise on Pheytus’s right cheek. Lieutenant Beth was nearby, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. Nearby, Dr. Selar stood with arms folded and her patented disapproving stare. Annoyingly, Burgoyne found that s/he was unable to meet her level gaze. The reason it was annoying was because s/he felt as if s/he had no reason to feel chagrined. Yet s/he was. Every syllable dripping with incredulity, Burgoyne finally broke the silence by demanding, “Yates . . . Pheytus . . . you got into . . . a fight?”
“That’s not exactly it, Commander,” Mitchell said, entering sickbay just as Burgoyne had been talking. “At least, not as it was explained to me . . .”
Sounding almost apologetic, but firm, Pheytus said, “No, that is exactly it.” Mitchell fired him an annoyed glance, but Pheytus continued, “Yates was in Ten Forward. I walked in, endeavored to start a conversation, and Yates . . .” He cleared his throat. “Yates began laughing at me. At my name.” He scowled as he looked at Yates.
“Is this true?” Burgoyne demanded of Yates.
Yates took a deep breath and let it out unsteadily. “More or less.”
“In Yates’s defense,” Mitchell said quickly, “he was kind of drunk.”
Burgoyne looked in astonishment at Mitchell. “That’s ‘in defense’? Just out of curiosity, what would you say if you were trying to prosecute him?”
“He was off duty, Commander. And the beverage in question had been sent to him by his family, as a gift. In fact, he offered to share it with Ensign Pheytus.”
“You offered to share it with him,” said Burgoyne, feeling more confused than before.
“That . . . was where the problem came from,” sighed Yates. “I was . . . not drunk, but a little tipsy, and I offered him some, and then I said . . . at least I think I said . . .”
Burgoyne waited. Yates didn’t continue. “I’m starting to lose patience here,” Burgoyne informed him. “What did you say?”
It was Pheytus who replied. “He said, ‘Oh, wait, I really shouldn’t, because alcohol can damage a fetus.’ And then he laughed and laughed . . . and that’s when I hit him.”
“So you threw the first punch,” Burgoyne said.
Pheytus, normally possessing a calm demeanor bordering on the supernal, pointed with outrage at Yates. “He acted in a contemptuous fashion to my name. Do you have any idea how seriously we Bolians take our names?”
“I’m beginning to get a feeling for it,” Burgoyne said drily.
“So I had no choice in the matter.”
Clearly wanting to take charge of the situation, Mitchell said, “There’s always a choice, Ensign.”
But Pheytus said firmly, “No, sir. There isn’t always. Among my people, in this instance, there was absolutely no choice at all. I did what had to be done. And with all respect, I very much doubt that Starfleet would endorse the notion of my not living up to the demands my society puts upon me.”
“I’m feeling a bit put upon myself,” Burgoyne muttered. S/he glanced over at Doctor Selar, who was standing there with her arms folded and clear disapproval on her face. “May I help you with something, Doctor?”
She held up an epidermal patch kit. “Not at all, Commander, at long as you do not care whether I remove their bruises or not.”
Hir eyebrows knit a moment, and then Burgoyne said with an air of wry amusement, “As a matter of fact, I do care. Leave the bruises.”
“What?”
“I said leave them,” Burgoyne told her with growing certainty. “I want them to keep the bruises, so that they have to explain them over and over again. Until they’re so sick of repeating it that it drives into them both just how absurd this entire situation is, and how unacceptable their behavior was.”
Both Yates and Pheytus began to protest simultaneously, but Burgoyne turned hir back to them, making it clear that s/he wasn’t paying attention to them. “Is there any reason they can’t leave, aside from the skin contusions?”
“None. I would frankly prefer they departed,” Selar remarked. “I am concerned their stupidity might turn airborne, like any other virus, and contaminate my staff.”
“You heard the doctor. You’re both confined to your respective quarters for the balance of your off-duty time. Pull something like this again, you’re going to be off-duty far longer than you bargained for. Now get. Chief, a moment of your time,” Burgoyne said to Mitchell. Mitchell tilted his bearded, bushy head in acknowledgment as Pheytus and Yates departed. Burgoyne drew hirself up, standing a good half a head over Mitchell. “Chief, this is unacceptable.”
“I know, I know,” Mitchell said, sounding rather miserable. “It’s just . . . that name . . .”
“I’m aware that having an ensign named ‘fetus’ has some amusement value, but this has gone way too far,” Burgoyne told him, shaking hir head as s/he spoke. “This is Starfleet, for gods’ sakes. We can’t have bickering over something as petty and inconsequential as a crewman’s moniker, no matter how unusual and unintentionally amusing that name might be. Work with Lieutenant Beth and get a handle on this situation. If you see a similar situation developing, I want to make sure you—”
“Abort it?” Mitchell expression was one of wide-eyed innocence.
Burgoyne winced. “Very droll,” s/he said. Wanting to sound as reasonable as possible, s/he tried a different tack. “Look . . . Craig . . . I don’t want to make too big a production about this. I mean, hell, for the sake of peaceful coexistence, I could bring in an entirely new engineering team if I felt like it. But I don’t want to do that. Do you know why?”
It was obviously an opening Mitchell couldn’t resist. As deadpan as before, he said, “Because you don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater?”
Burgoyne growled low in hir throat and was pleased to see Mitchell take two steps back at the noise. “Chief . . . if this happens again, I’m going to shoot you out a photon torpedo tube in your underwear. Leave. Now.”
“Aye, sir,” Mitchell said quickly, and bolted.
Burgoyne rubbed hir eyes and could practically feel Selar’s gaze drilling through hir neck. “Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.”
“You never should have accepted the post of first officer.”
“So naturally she said it. What part of ‘don’t’ was unclear?” Burgoyne sighed.
“You were a better fit as chief engineer, Burgoyne,” Selar told hir firmly. “Your organizational skills were more suited to it. Crewmen are not quite certain how to react to you in your new position of authority, and in the meantime, your engineering crew is becoming unfocused and obsessed with nonsense.”
“Number one, they’re neither unfocused nor obsessed,” Burgoyne replied, turning to face Selar and trying to look even more annoyed than s/he felt. “Number two, crewmen are reacting just fine, and number three . . .” S/he frowned. “What was the third thing?”
“Organizational skills.”
“Right. The fact is that I’m perfectly organized as first officer. The crew respects me—”
“Perhaps,” Selar said neutrally. “That is open to debate. What is not open to debate is that the engineering department is the poorer without you.”
S/he leaned against the edge of the bed. “It was never my goal to fashion an engineering department incapable of acting without me there every minute. If I can’t appoint good people to step in and take over for me without missing a beat, then I’ve failed miserably in my job. And by the way, why aren’t you on my side? You’re the mothe
r of my son. You’re my mate.”
“Is that what I am?” asked Selar. Despite the seriousness of the discussion, there seemed to be the slightest twinkle in her eye, a faint glimmer of genuine affection that she was always careful to let no one but Burgoyne see. It was the closest that Burgoyne ever got to an admission of love from her. “And where is it written that ‘mates’ must always be aligned on all issues?”
“I’m just saying you could be a little more supportive, Selar. That’s all.”
“I am supportive, Burgoyne, of that which I find supportable. There may well be no one else on this vessel as familiar with you as I am, and while I find Captain Calhoun’s choice of first officer to be in keeping with his famed sense of whimsy, I simply am unconvinced that you are the best person for the job.”
“Because, of course, not everyone is as fabulous as you at their job.”
“This is not about me,” the doctor said.
“Oh, come on, Selar,” Burgoyne said scornfully, although s/he kept hir voice down so as not to attract undue and potentially annoying attention from the others in the sickbay. “Even the most unassuming of Vulcans holds up his or her race as the model for efficiency on other worlds. And you are hardly an unassuming Vulcan. Admit it: You think I can’t do as good a job as first officer as you do in your position of CMO.”
“It would be illogical of me to make surmises—”
“Ohhh, take a whack at illogic. Just for me. Just for laughs.”
“Logic is never ‘for laughs,’ ” she informed him. “And if you are insisting on total candor: Yes, I find it difficult to believe that you could build an operation that would be on a par with what I have here. My sickbay is efficient, tightly run . . . a model of organizational mastery. I know precisely where everything is, where it has been, and where it will go. Every single person in this sickbay knows precisely what their place is, precisely what their responsibilities are, and precisely how to carry them off to the best of their potential. And now, if you will excuse me, it is time—right down to the second—for me to begin my rounds. You see, Burgoyne? Organization is not at all difficult. One simply has to be aware of everything around one. That describes me perfectly. In the broad sense: I see everything.”
She turned, started to walk away, and tripped and crashed to the ground, going down in a tumble of arms and legs with a small boy, who let out a yowl of protest.
Immediately several med techs were heading in the direction of the mishap, but Burgoyne was already hauling the confused Selar to her feet. Still lying on the ground, looking dazed and confused, was the boy she’d tripped over. “Mook!” Burgoyne snapped out. “What are you doing here?”
“Moke,” the boy said, as one of the med techs stepped in and easily righted him. “My name is Moke.” His eyes were deep-set, his skin still retaining the golden brown that had been baked into him from his native sun, and his somewhat disheveled hair hung in ragged braids, which he had not had trimmed.
“Where did you come from?” Selar demanded. She shook off Burgoyne’s help and picked up the medical utensils she had dropped.
“The planet Yakaba,” Moke promptly replied. “My mother died, and Mac adopted me as his son after—”
“I know all that,” interrupted Selar. She did not come close to losing her sanguine Vulcan exterior, but, nevertheless, her irritation with herself and him was quite evident.
“Then why did you ask?”
Selar didn’t quite seem to know what to say, so Burgoyne stepped in and inquired, “Does Captain Calhoun know you’re down here?”
“No.”
“Then why are you down here?”
“I—” Moke glanced around nervously.
Selar, however, wasn’t exactly in the mood to allow him to explain himself. “Your reasons for being here are irrelevant,” she said flatly. “This is sickbay. If you are not sick, you should not be here. This is not a playground. The fact that this is not a playground should be easily discernible by the absence of climbing equipment, a merry-go-round, or a seesaw.”
“What are those?”
“Ask Captain Calhoun to explain it to you. Ask him in person when you see him. Not here.” She leaned down, almost bending her tall frame in half so that she could be face to face with him. “Go. Away.”
Moke’s lower lip quivered ever so slightly, and then he turned and bolted from sickbay. Burgoyne watched the door slide shut behind him, and then turned and looked at Selar with obvious disapproval. “You could have handled that better.”
“You are correct. I could have simply picked him up and physically removed him. It would have saved me twentynine point three seconds of pointless discourse.”
“You know something, Selar?” sighed Burgoyne. “There are times when you make it very difficult for someone to love you.”
“I am aware of these times,” she said with no trace of sarcasm. “They are called ‘daytime’ and ‘nighttime.’ ”
“ ‘Physician, heal thyself.’ ”
“Meaning?”
“Take a guess.”
“Vulcans do not guess,” she told him.
Burgoyne was about to respond to that when hir combadge beeped. “Burgoyne here,” s/he said.
“Need you up here, Burgy,” came Calhoun’s voice. “We’ve arrived at Thallon 21, and I need you to take the conn while Si Cwan and I go down and have a nice chat with the planet’s leaders.”
“On my way, Captain. Burgoyne out.”
S/he started to head out when Selar said abruptly, “ Burgoyne.”
The Hermat turned and waited. “Yes?”
Her face softened ever so slightly as she said, “I never said you could not do a solid job as first officer. I am quite certain you will be more than adequate to the task.”
“Why, thank you, Selar,” Burgoyne smiled slightly, displaying hir sharp front teeth.
“Or, at the very least . . . adequate, if not more than. Yes . . . definitely adequate. Or as close to adequate as one can come.”
Burgoyne sighed. “You just don’t know when it’s better to stop talking, do you?”
“You,” Selar informed him imperiously, “do not know how fortunate you are that I truly am on your side.”
Staring in amusement at Selar, Burgoyne said as s/he walked out, “I’m almost ready to argue with the captain that I should go down to the planet instead of him. My guess is, compared to you, reasoning with the Aerons is going to be a snap.”
11
AERON
WHEN STUDYING FOOTAGE of old Earth history back at the Academy, Calhoun remembered one image that had leaped out at him from old Earth, circa the mid-twentieth century. It had been an angry statesman, sitting at a long table, banging—of all things—his shoe on the tabletop and howling about some outrage or another. With that in mind, the captain was almost tempted to remove his shoe and hand it to Burkitt, because the Aeron warmaster certainly looked as if he wanted to hammer something on the table.
“We were attacked first, not they! This was our retaliatory strike!” shouted Burkitt. “We are not the aggressors! The Markanians, in addition to waging a physical war, are also waging a war of public relations! A war of perception! And you are foolish enough to fall for it!”
Calhoun bristled slightly, but he kept his calm high and his voice low. He reminded himself that he was standing on the surface of a backwater planet, facing nine scowling Aerons who collectively referred to themselves as the Counselars. They were in a large room in the imperial mansion, the nine of them seated around a sizable circular table with a wide space in the middle. The edges of the table itself were decorated with all manner of emblems that meant nothing to Calhoun, nor was he in the mood at that moment to learn what they meant.
Calhoun was standing in the open area within the desk, and Si Cwan was next to him. The Counselars had made it clear that they would not convene nor speak with him at all unless he stayed in the “Place of Address,” which was where he was standing at that moment. Calhoun did not part
icularly want to be in the Place of Address. Just then, he’d have far preferred to be in the Place of Beating the Crap out of the Counselars, had such a location actually existed. Particularly he would have liked to obliterate the one called Burkitt.
Burkitt was doing all the talking; apparently the others seemed content to nod and smile grimly before deferring to him. They might as well not have been in the room for all the contribution they were providing.
Burkitt, meantime, was displaying enough rage for a dozen warmasters. “We received a communication from the Markanians . . . they told us what happened, why our justice-seekers did not return through the Gateway . . . the Markanians were the most insufferable, smug collection of—” He became so overwrought that he had to stop speaking for a moment to compose himself. When he did talk again, it was with an overly exaggerated calm. “You have a ship, the same as this Shelby person. You tell her to keep out of our affairs!”
Si Cwan and Calhoun exchanged a glance. “You know,” Calhoun said, “that is amusing on so many levels, I am not entirely sure of where to begin.”
“She is your woman, yes?” Burkitt said, eyes narrowed.
Surprised, but not wishing to let on, Calhoun said carefully, “In the sense that we’re married, but—”
“Then it is very simple: Control your woman!”
“Oh, good, I’m glad you said ‘simple.’ Here I thought it would be difficult.” His attention had been splintered because he’d been trying to concentrate on all the Counselars at once. Now Calhoun decided to discard that tactic and instead focused entirely on Burkitt. His gaze bored into Burkitt’s, and he was pleased to see that the warmaster looked slightly taken aback by the intensity of Calhoun’s stare. It was nice to know he still possessed that intimidation factor that had always served him so well. “Let me make this quite clear to you: Captain Shelby is a Starfleet officer, with the exact same rights and privileges as I have. She is fully entitled to act in whatever manner she sees fit, and it is certainly not my place to gainsay her. Further, from what I’m understanding from Si Cwan . . .” He looked to Si Cwan, and the towering Thallonian nodded for him to continue. “From what I’m understanding,” repeated Calhoun, “Captain Shelby did nothing except defend herself.”