STAR TREK: TOS - Enterprise, The First Adventure

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “I have heard of that,” Jim said.

  “Oh, excellent, we will try some.” He studied the menu [27] set into the tabletop, blinking his great orange eyes. “Aah, thaat sounds interesting.” He twined together several of the tentacles of his hands and pushed the order button. The lid of the table slid aside for a tray-sized platform bearing two tall drinks.

  Jim looked at Vanli’s choice with disbelief. Layers of liquor of different shades of amber and gold filled the glasses. A straw and some fruit protruded from the top.

  “Aa ‘tropical zaambie.’ Is my pronunciation correct?”

  “Close enough. ‘Zombie.’ ”

  “A beautiful word. Mellifluous. Are you familiar with the language? Do you know what it might mean?”

  “I don’t know what language it comes from. But I know what it means. It’s a dead person who still walks around and thinks it’s alive.”

  “How quaint. Your customs never fail to delight me. But what is the ‘tropical’?”

  “Must mean the fruit.”

  “Of course—even a zaambie must eat.”

  Jim gingerly lifted his glass.

  “No, no, no!” Vanli rumbled. “Use the straw! You insult the builder if you disturb the laayers.”

  “Vanli, nobody built these drinks. The table synthesized them for us.”

  “The principle remains. It arrives in layers, it must be drunk in layers.”

  “All right, if that will make you happy.”

  Jim took a careful sip of the darkest layer of the drink. The deep amber liquor exploded against his tongue and blazed trail down his throat. The stuff was at least 180 proof. He gasped and smothered a cough, which caused the fumes from the liquor he had drunk to roar into his nasal passages and flame against the fumes from the zombie’s top layer, which rushed into his nostrils.

  “How pleasant,” Vanli said, oblivious to Jim’s reaction. “I have only a taster’s tolerance for aalcohol, aas you know, but this is enjoyable. What do you think of it?”

  “ ‘Enjoyable’ doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

  Vanli took another gulp. “ ‘Enjoyable’ is too mild a term.”

  “Excuse me,” Jim said, dropping his fruit on the floor. [28] “I’ve dropped my fruit.” He bent down and poured nine-tenths of the zombie into the potted rhododendron. The rhododendron leaned closer, as if anxious for another drink.

  Vanli slurped at the bottom of his glass.

  “That was excellent,” he said. “But it was such aan enjoyaable experiment—I believe I shaall experiment again. Do you wish to choose something, Jaime?”

  “How about a ‘Virgin Mary’?” It might be cocktail hour on Spacedock, but for Jim it was still morning.

  Vanli looked up Jim’s suggestion. “You’re teasing me.”

  “Zombies are pretty powerful,” Jim said. “It doesn’t hurt to alternate them with seltzer water. Or tomato juice.” He could feel the rum in his stomach, like a small hot coal. He had skipped breakfast, and though Vanli had invited him to lunch they had yet to eat anything. Intoxicating beverages nowadays contained enzymes that eliminated the danger of long-term damage. But the short-term effects had not been tampered with, and Jim was beginning to experience them.

  “Jaime, Jaime, you know I never do more than taste my drinks. This one sounds delightful. Aa ‘blaack saamurai.’ ”

  “No,” Jim said. “I draw the line at sake and soy sauce. You have to keep the stuff in the same bottles they use for positrons.”

  Vanli pouted. “Here is one called the ‘fruit punch.’ What could be more innocuous?”

  He pushed the button before Jim could object. This time two pineapples appeared, or two things that bore a certain plasticized resemblance to pineapples. Straws stuck out of their sides. The synthesizer created the drink with the pineapple shell around it rather than synthesizing a knife cut around the outside and marks inside where the pulp had supposedly been removed.

  Jim wondered how to pour this drink into the rhododendron, then realized that Vanli would not be able to tell if the level of the liquor had decreased unless he shook the pineapple, juggled it, or made a forward pass with it. Unfortunately, he might do any of those things.

  Vanli’s pineapple emitted muffled slurping noises. “Do you like it?”

  In the spirit of experimentation, Jim tasted the drink. He tried to reply, but though his mouth moved, fire had [29] paralyzed his tongue and his vocal cords. He ordered the first thing that looked cold and relatively innocuous. It popped through the center of the table. He grabbed it and drank it. Overwhelmed by a powerful peppermint taste, the burning eased.

  Vanli consulted the menu. “What are you drinking? A ‘flowing spring’? I believe I’ll have one, too. Such imaginative names!” Vanli made appreciative humming sounds.

  Jim looked more closely at the menu. A ‘flowing spring’ consisted of vodka infused with peppermint. The ‘fruit punch’ contained several fermented and distilled fruit juices, none pineapple and none from earth, plus a high proportion of ginger. When the peppermint began to wear off, his tongue still felt like a cinder. No wonder.

  And his head was full of fuzz.

  Jim fumbled with a piece of the table setting, dropped it for real, and used the opportunity of picking it up to pour the rest of his flowing spring into the rhododendron. Jim hoped the plant had a high tolerance for alcohol. One branch drooped over his shoulder, as if in need of support, or perhaps of someone to drive it home.

  Better a rhododendron than me, he thought. Besides, I can’t be the first person to ever give the vegetation in here some high octane fertilizer. I wonder if there’s a society for the prevention of cruelty to rhododendrons? If so, I could be in big trouble.

  Thinking over what he had just thought, he thought, I could be in big trouble anyway.

  The cold woke Hikaru from a sound sleep. His fire had died. His breath steamed in the chill of dawn. The rising sun cast purple rays across the eastern horizon. Hikaru brushed wet sand over the gray ashes and climbed the grassy bank above the beach.

  He could hear his communicator beeping even before he opened the door of the tiny cabin. He hurried inside and dug through his pack, finding it at the very bottom.

  “Sulu here.”

  “Spacedock. We’ve been trying to reach you for hours.”

  “I’m on leave.”

  “You have new orders. Prepare to beam up.”

  [30] “I need a few minutes—I’m not dressed and I’m not packed.”

  “No more than five minutes, lieutenant.”

  He scrambled into his uniform, stuffed his other clothes in his pack, and slung the strap of the scabbard of his antique saber over his shoulder. Excited, he thought, Starfleet must have found a transport heading for the frontier. They’re sending me to report to Captain Hunter on Aerfen already!

  “Are you ready, lieutenant?”

  “I’m ready.” If I’m not, he thought, I never will be.

  “You’re on your way to your new ship, lieutenant. Transferring control to Enterprise.”

  “Enterprise? Wait, there’s been a mistake—”

  The cold prickle of the transporter beam enveloped him, sparkled him out of existence—

  —and re-formed him on the transporter platform of a starship.

  “Welcome aboard the Enterprise. So you’re the new helm officer. I’m Kyle.” The transporter technician shook his hand. He was tall and wore his light brown hair brushed back. Friendly smile lines crinkled from the corners of his eyes.

  “Who’s in charge?” Sulu’s good mood had vanished.

  Kyle considered. “Since Commodore Pike isn’t on board, and Captain Kirk hasn’t arrived, and change of command isn’t till this evening,” he said thoughtfully, “that leaves Mr. Spock.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Anywhere and everywhere,” Kyle said, with deliberate ambiguity. “But you might try the bridge.”

  Hikaru dropped his dufflebag and stalked out.

 
“Wait a minute,” Kyle said. “You forgot your stuff!”

  “No, I didn’t,” Hikaru said. As soon as he got things straightened out he would leave and take it with him.

  Hikaru had never been on a constellation-class starship. For training cruises, he had always managed to finesse his way onto the smaller, more agile craft he expected to be flying. Having stormed out without asking Kyle for directions, he walked obstinately down the corridor with no idea where he was going. He fetched up in a dead end. He had [31] turned himself around without ever having made a turn. This did not improve his humor. He retraced his steps, puzzling out the codes at each intersection, till he made his way to a turbo-lift.

  “Destination?” it said.

  “Bridge.”

  A moment later the doors slid open again and he stepped out. The bridge was crowded with techs and ensigns and other assorted crew members. Everyone appeared to be doing at least two things at once. A crew member nearly bumped into him on her way to the lift, for she was reading one list on her electronic clipboard and marking off items scrolling past in a window on the screen.

  “Excuse me—” She tried to pass him.

  He moved in front of her. She looked up, blinking.

  “Who is Mr. Spock?” he asked.

  She gestured toward the science station, where a tall figure in blue sat at a computer console, so intent that his back seemed to form a barrier to the outside world.

  “Mr. Spock?” Hikaru waited. “Mr. Spock!”

  Spock turned and rose, as if uncoiling. He gazed down. If the interruption annoyed him, he did not show it. He was a Vulcan.

  “What is it?”

  “My name is Sulu—”

  “The new helm officer. There is your station.” Commander Spock turned away.

  Hikaru touched his sleeve. Spock stiffened. Without making any overt sign of displeasure, he moved so he faced Hikaru again, and so Hikaru no longer touched him.

  “There is more?”

  “There is a mistake. I’m not supposed to be on the Enterprise.”

  “You are assigned to the Enterprise.”

  “How do you know? You haven’t even looked at the postings! You didn’t even check!”

  With resigned patience, Spock played his fingers across the controls of his computer. Hikaru’s name glowed in gold letters on the screen. Hikaru Sulu. Helm officer. Starship Enterprise.

  “I don’t understand,” Hikaru said. “I had my orders. I’m [32] supposed to be on my way to the frontier. To join Captain Hunter’s squadron.”

  “Then you are most fortunate to have had your orders changed,” Spock said.

  “I don’t want my orders changed! I liked the orders I had! I requested those orders!”

  “Indeed?” Spock said. “Fascinating.”

  “Starfleet promised me—”

  Spock raised one eyebrow. “Starfleet makes no promises in matters such as this.”

  “But—”

  “Starfleet assigns its personnel where they will be most useful. A senior officer’s request takes precedence over mere personal preference. Captain James Kirk requested that you be assigned to the Enterprise.”

  “Why?” Hikaru asked, mystified.

  “I am sure,” Spock said, “that I do not know.”

  “I don’t have any experience piloting a starship. He’s got me mixed up with somebody else, or he just made a mistake—this is ridiculous!”

  “If you wish to inform your commanding officer that you believe him to be a fool, that is your own business,” Spock said. “However, my observations of human nature suggest to me that the statement would not be favorably received.”

  “I’ve got to get reassigned to Aerfen.”

  “You would choose to serve on the border patrol rather than on the Enterprise, which has the ability to expand the limits of exploration?”

  “Yes,” Hikaru said. “I would.”

  “I fail to understand why.”

  “Then you never lived on Ganjitsu.” Hikaru wished he had not said the. last. He was angry and upset; he did not want to talk about Ganjitsu or Aerfen or Captain Hunter. Now the science officer would fix him with his intense gaze and insist on an explanation.

  To Sulu’s surprise, Spock did nothing of the sort.

  “Ganjitsu,” he said thoughtfully. “This explains much. However, nothing can be done at the moment. The Enterprise departs tomorrow. Finding another helm officer by then would be impossible. You must request a transfer.”

  [33] “And then what?”

  “And then wait.”

  Hikaru blew out his breath in frustration.

  “In the meantime,” Spock said, “computer has routed to your station a list of the tasks you must complete.”

  Hikaru took the defeat as a temporary setback.

  “You are aware,” Spock said, “that the captain must approve your request before you file it.”

  “No,” Hikaru said. “I wasn’t.” But I probably should have guessed, he thought. He passed the empty captain’s seat and stopped at the helm officer’s station.

  His list of duties included his share of preparing the ship for departure, his cabin assignment, information on the change-of-command ceremony, and an order to make an appointment with the ship’s surgeon for a complete physical. He grimaced. He hated physicals. He wondered if he might arrange to fail it, but abandoned the thought. If he were too unhealthy to remain on board the Enterprise, which had state-of-the-art medical technology, he would certainly not get sent off to the frontier, where they made do with medics and patchwork surgery.

  The scabbard of his saber bumped against his chair as he sat down at the helm officer’s place. He slipped out of the strap and stowed the saber under his console.

  He had never, in real life, handled a constellation-class starship. But he had trained on enough simulators to know what they felt like: clunky, unresponsive, and slow.

  It occurred to him that he could claim complete incompetence—and demonstrate it—in order to get himself posted off the ship. But that would do him no more good than failing his medical exam. Feigning incompetence would damage his reputation, not to mention endanger the starship. On the other hand, he might win his transfer if he made it possible for his successor to replace him without any fuss or trauma.

  That meant doing the best job he could. Time vanished as he melded himself with the workings of the ship.

  Koronin stretched in smuggled silks. She enjoyed the slide of layers of satin, the softness of layers of thick fur pelts. She had come upon an oligarchy transport, and she took it [34] unawares. Now the command balcony of the fighting ship contained the pick of the prize’s cargo, never mind what she might have sold it for deeper inside the boundaries of the Klingon Empire. Koronin liked profit, but preferred luxury.

  The ship’s command balcony overhung the whole length of the work pit. Floor ports, canted panels of one-way glass, and armored sensors spied out upon the stations. The shipmaster could oversee each subordinate without vulnerability. Koronin disdained the safeguards. The Serjeant of the pit had sworn himself to her, and none of the crew much regretted losing the government officer from whom she had taken the ship.

  No doubt he had treated his crew with as little consideration as he offered his relatives. He had as much as sold the future of his family when he lost to Koronin, for the government would ruin him—and all the members of his lineage, if necessary—to recover his losses. He should have known better than to gamble stakes he could not afford to lose. He was, of course, beyond caring.

  Quundar, as she had renamed her ship, possessed speed and firepower to waste; and Koronin was an excellent pilot. Before the government could take back the ship and the crew, they would have to catch her.

  If she could remain free long enough to succeed at two or three audacious raids against the Federation of Planets, the oligarchy would add her name to the select list of independents whom they overlooked. Fragile agreements and tacit neutralities prevented official oligar
chy forces from harrying the instruments of the Federation. Independents had more freedom.

  Koronin laughed with contempt. She could amuse herself, increase her worth, fill her command balcony with luxuries approaching decadence, live outside the law, and reap gratitude for it. The oligarchs could not stop her. What could they do to her? Kill her? Before she ever set out on this course she accepted that someone might kill her one day. The prospect held no fear for her. As for their weapons of confiscation and ruin: Koronin had no assets outside the ship for the government to seize, and no family for them to torment. No, no family: the Federation took care of that, and her own government let the outrage pass unanswered. [35] Only Koronin had survived, barely past childhood, without friends or patrons to plead her cause. Now she was grown, and she had scores to settle with the oligarchy and with the Federation.

  The star map formed at her command. Space controlled by the Federation glowed red, a great spreading mass, a gigantic corruption. One long, narrow, vulnerable projection thrust into Klingon territory: the Federation Phalanx. Its existence offended her; its very name insulted her. And in the Arcturan system, where outcasts of both societies met on terms of indifferent neutrality, those from the Federation found great amusement in repeating their repellent jokes loudly enough for everyone to hear. The Kumburanya lacked the morals to find such gibes offensive, but Koronin, a Rumaiy, found them nearly intolerable.

  She expected nothing better of the Kumburanya. They were the majority group in the Klingon Empire; Kumburan nobles formed the oligarchy, controlled resources and expansion, and indulged in discrimination against the Rumaiy minority to which Koronin belonged.

  Koronin let the silks fall away. This ship would run forever without her attention; the denizens of the work pit had no way of knowing when she watched and when she rested, or when she might detect and punish a moment’s preoccupation. She had complete power over them, for the oligarchy, in conscripting them, made them legal possessions of the ship and whoever controlled it. She could even program the computer to curb their errors for her, at whatever level of cruelty she chose. That way, though, lay true decadence: not the simple enjoyment of physical luxuries, but the laxness of body and mind that could bring her down as surely as it brought down the officer from whom she won Quundar.