“I’m the captain,” he said. He took the steps of the companionway three at a time and headed toward the turbo-lift. As he reached it, the doors slid open. Admiral Noguchi hurried out, so intent on the transmission flimsy in his hand that Jim had to step back quickly to keep the older officer from running into him.
“Sir! Admiral Noguchi!”
“Jim!” He sounded disappointed. “What are you doing here? You’ve discovered my surprise, I suppose—did you meet Ms. Lukarian? We can make the announcement together.”
“But I thought—Who is Ms. Lukarian? You mean that—that Amazon down on my landing deck trying to keep her flying horse from destroying the place?”
“Jim, get hold of yourself! You’re practically hysterical. [64] What’s the matter with you? Have you had too much to drink?”
“No, sir. At least, I didn’t think so. Admiral, there is a creature obstructing my shuttlecraft deck.”
“Calm down, Jim. You’re not going where you’ll need a shuttlecraft. Not this mission.”
“What exactly,” Jim said, suspecting that he no longer wanted to hear the answer, “is the mission?”
Noguchi handed him the transmission flimsy. “An elegant solution to the traveling salesman problem, wouldn’t you say?”
Jim looked at it. What traveling salesman? Noguchi had cut orders for the Enterprise for the next three months, during which the ship” would spend a day at each of thirty different starbases, starting with Starbase 13.
“The Phalanx?” Jim said. “Starbase 13? Starbase 13 is a waste of time and resources. It ought to be shut down!”
“Starbase 13 is of tremendous strategic importance. I’m afraid I gave the mathematicians some problems when I insisted your route begin there.” Noguchi chuckled. He explained the difficulty of determining the most efficient route among several different points. Mathematicians had solved the traveling salesman problem in two dimensions, but three dimensions added several levels of complexity.
“I ... I don’t understand,” Jim said. “What’s the mission?”
“I had three major factors to consider,” Noguchi said. “First, to give you a chance to regain your strength—”
“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Jim snapped. “I’m perfectly healthy.”
“Second,” Noguchi said, ignoring Jim’s protest, “to give you time to acquaint yourself with ship and crew.”
“That’s why I’ve been looking forward to a challenging mission, sir—”
“And third, to deal with the results of the starbase survey. You did see them, didn’t you?”
“No, sir, I didn’t. I was out of touch—I’m completely recovered now!—but I was out of touch for a few months.”
“The results were a shock, Jim. On every starbase we surveyed, morale is terrible. Especially,” he said, “at Starbase 13. We take people and send them off to the corners of [65] the universe, away from their homes and families, and we completely ignore their needs. I’m going to change that. I’ve chosen you to help me.”
They reached the catwalk and Noguchi climbed down the companionway. Jim followed. Sam and Winona remained at the corral, where Ms. Lukarian toweled her creature’s sweaty shoulders. Winona rubbed the creature behind the ears, while Sam inspected the complex joint of wing to body.
“Ms. Lukarian,” Admiral Noguchi said.
She turned, smiling. When she saw Jim her expression clouded. “Admiral,” she said, and, warily, “captain.”
“Jim, I want you to meet Amelinda Lukarian, general manager of the Warp-Speed Classic Vaudeville Company. Ms. Lukarian, Captain James T. Kirk.”
“How do you do, captain.”
His fingers closed over hers, nearly obscuring them, but her hand was hard and strong, with traces of callus.
“Vaudeville? What’s vaudeville?” Jim tried, and failed, to place the word in the realm of high-energy physics, as “warp-speed” seemed to indicate, or in the realm of commercial applications of faster-than-light travel, as the “company” hinted. And where did the flying horse fit in? A trademark? An advertising gimmick? If it were either of those, how had Starfleet become involved?
“Vaudeville is entertainment,” Lukarian said.
“You’ll be at the company’s disposal during its tour.”
Speechless with shock, Jim stared at Noguchi.
“This animal is incredible, Jim,” Sam said. “The anatomical problem of the wings—”
“Admiral, you can’t mean Starfleet has assigned the Enterprise—”
“Shh, Athene, easy,” Winona said, trying to calm the creature, which started at Jim’s raised voice. “Jim—”
“—that Starfleet has assigned a constellation-class starship with a crew of four hundred thirty to ferry around a—a mutant horse and its trainer?” Jim felt as if even his mother had taken sides against him.
“Don’t shout,” Lukarian said. “She’s mostly Arabian—she’s very high-strung. You’ll frighten her again.”
“I mean to tell you,” the admiral said calmly, “that I have given you the task of getting the vaudeville company to the [66] starbases to perform for Starfleet personnel, safely, on schedule—and without argument. I also have given you command of this ship. Neither order is carved in stone. Is that understood?”
His last three words brought a sharp tone to his voice. Jim met his gaze. Staring into the older officer’s hard brown eyes, he began to believe the legends of the admiral’s temper, glacially slow to break, but volcanic in intensity.
“Any further questions, Captain Kirk?”
Jim hesitated for perhaps a second, almost a second too long. “No, sir,” he said before Admiral Noguchi spoke again.
The admiral turned his back on Jim. “Ms. Lukarian, are your people comfortable? Do you have everything you need?”
“Some of them are a little shaken up,” she said. “Most of us have never been in a transporter before. Athene and I came up in a courier ship, so she’s a little nervous. We’re used to traveling by train.”
“I’m sure, once you get your space legs, you’ll find it quite tolerable. It’s extraordinarily beautiful in space.” He chuckled. “And you’ll find that you have more room to move around in than you would on a train.” Noguchi clasped Lukarian’s small hand. “I’m grateful for your willingness to assist Starfleet on such short notice. And I’m looking forward to making the announcement. Are you ready?”
“As soon as one of the riggers gets here to stay with Athene. Are you sure you don’t want us to perform?”
“That is a very generous offer,” Admiral Noguchi said. “But I planned for you to be guests tonight. I don’t think guests should have to sing for their supper.”
“Okay. I’ll bring the company upstairs in a minute.”
“Good. Please don’t hesitate to call on me at any time. My office will always know how to reach me.”
Admiral Noguchi climbed the companionway to the catwalk and disappeared, leaving Jim and Lukarian facing each other.
“This is impossible,” Jim said. “Simply impossible.”
“I can’t afford to lose this commission,” Lukarian said. “We’re not leaving—there’s no way you can make us.”
“Would you like to bet on that?”
[67] “Ease up, Jim,” Sam said.
“Name the amount,” Lukarian said. “Losing couldn’t make things any worse.”
“Don’t challenge me on my own ship, Ms. Lukarian,” Jim said. “It’s a very foolish thing to do.”
“Rather like opposing an admiral’s pet project,” Winona said, not to Lukarian but to Jim.
“I will not give up this commission.” Lukarian’s voice hardened. Behind her, the winged horse sensed the anger between the humans. She snorted and stamped nervously, prancing from one side of the small corral to the other.
“You’re scaring her,” Lukarian said. “Will you leave?”
“Jim,” Winona said as Jim was about to retort. Her tone was both angry and disappointed.
/> “What, Mother?”
“Surrender gracefully.”
Jim felt that he had a right to be furious—in fact he thought he had kept his temper remarkably well under the circumstances. Still, his complaint was more with Admiral Noguchi than with Amelinda Lukarian.
Athene nudged Lukarian. Lukarian put her arms around the creature’s neck, whispered to it, and laid her cheek against its dark forehead. “Go away,” she said.
Winona touched Jim’s arm and gestured toward the exit.
“Try to keep that beast under control, Ms. Lukarian,” Jim said.
On the way back to the recreation deck, Jim and his mother and brother maintained an awkward silence. When they heard the clatter and hum of the party, Winona stopped.
“I have to get some sleep,” she said. “It’s been a long day.”
“Do you want company back to the hotel?” Sam said.
“Don’t be silly. Enjoy the party, Sam. Jim, I want to talk to you.”
“I ought to—”
“This won’t take long.” She walked down the corridor toward the Spacedock gangway.
Sam gave him a sympathetic shrug. They both knew better than to argue with her when she used that tone.
Her arms folded and her head down, Winona gazed thoughtfully at the deck.
[68] “What’s the matter, Mom?” Jim asked.
“You have an interesting way of handling Starfleet politics, Jim. Not very effective. But interesting.”
“But I thought ... the admiral led me to believe ...”
“Kimi never does anything without a good reason. That’s beside the point. We aren’t discussing his behavior, we’re discussing yours. He gave you an order and you argued with it—because it didn’t suit your fancy!”
“He could have—”
“We aren’t talking about him!” she said angrily. “Don’t you remember anything your father told you? Don’t you even remember the mistakes he made? You can’t navigate through Starfleet politics by the seat of your arrogance! Someday you’re going to need—to be forced—to disobey the command of a superior officer. You’re going to have to defend your actions. If you’ve built a reputation as a headstrong twit, you’ll get your legs kicked out from under you. Not to mention your career.”
“I think my actions speak for themselves.”
“Do they? What, exactly, do they say? Let’s take an example. You were incredibly rude to that little child—”
“Little child? She’s an adult sentient being—who has a screaming monster on my shuttlecraft deck!”
“She’s no more than twenty and she’s responsible for a whole company, not to mention the ‘screaming monster.’ Can’t you see she’s hanging on to this job for her life?”
“No, and I don’t see how you could, either.”
“It was obvious. It sounded to me like this is her company’s last chance to survive!”
“Maybe if they’re living that close to the edge, they ought to go out of business.”
She looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending, then shook her head. “It’s too bad, Captain Kirk, that everybody can’t be as perfect and successful as you are.”
She turned without another word and walked away from him, out of the Enterprise and into Spacedock. He took one step after her, then stopped. He had no idea what to say to her, and she was so angry—he was so angry—that if he followed her they would get into another argument. Yet Winona had made an irrefutable point. He had been inexcusably rude to Amelinda Lukarian.
[69] He headed toward the recreation deck, wishing he could go anywhere else besides back to the party.
Sam waited where Jim had left him, leaning casually against the bulkhead with one knee drawn up and the sole of his boot pressed against the wall.
“All clear?”
Jim shrugged.
“Reading the riot act time, huh?” Sam said.
“She’s not real happy with me,” Jim said. “But, dammit, Sam—I wanted ... I expected ... a decent assignment from Noguchi. I earned it—I deserve something—!”
“Something where you could cover yourself with more glory?”
“Glory?” He turned on his brother, furious. “Do you think that’s why I’m in Starfleet? Do you think getting blasted into the middle of next week qualifies as glory?”
“No. But I’m beginning to wonder if you do.”
“I don’t. Believe me, I don’t. The last six months were no fun.”
“Then why don’t you cut yourself a little slack? If you can’t, let Kimi do it for you.”
“I don’t want any slack—especially from my C.O.!”
“He didn’t mean it as an insult. Look, he’s known our family for a long time ...”
“That’s just fine,” Jim said. “That’s just what I need, an admiral who treats me like I’m still fifteen.”
Sam grinned. “No, he treats me like I’m fifteen. That’s when he met me. He treats you like you’re eight.”
“Did anybody ever tell you how effective your reassurance is?” Jim said with sarcasm.
“People tell me that all the time. People come to me especially to get reassurance. And I’m assuring you that Kimitake Noguchi is giving you a gift. Try to accept it in the spirit in which it’s offered.”
“When he makes that announcement, I’m going to be a laughingstock! You’d give this job to somebody who can’t do anything else, somebody you don’t trust anymore, somebody washed up, used up—” He caught his breath, suddenly afraid the pain would return, the pain and the nothingness.
“Jim!” Sam grabbed him around the shoulders.
Jim pulled away, embarrassed.
[70] “Is that what you’re afraid of?” Sam said.
“I’m not afraid—”
“Stop it! Don’t hide from me! Maybe you can hide from everybody else, but you can’t hide from me!”
“How can I know,” Jim whispered, “when I get a mission like the last one, how can I know how I’ll react until I face it? I have to be sure, Sam. I have to know if I ...”
“If you still have your nerve?”
Jim could not reply.
“You’re not broken, Jim. Dammit, don’t you think I’d feel it, don’t you think I’d know if you were?”
“I don’t know!”
“I think Kimi’s right to give you this time,” Sam said. “I think you need it.”
“I don’t—and I don’t think I need any more lectures from my own family, either!”
He fled into the party and hid himself in the crowd.
Soon the vaudeville company arrived. Jim tried to listen while Admiral Noguchi introduced them, but he had to put most of his attention into pretending he liked the idea of spending the next three months with a bunch of entertainers, traipsing around the Phalanx.
Koronin looked for her pet. “Come, Starfleet!”
The little pink primate whispered at her from the nest it made at her feet each night. It climbed from the fur blanket it had adopted as its own, bounded across the bed, and leaped to her shoulder.
“There,” she said, “are you hungry? Be a good pet. Put on your costume and perhaps I’ll give you breakfast.”
Starfleet comprehended perhaps one word in a hundred, but “hungry,” “costume,” and “breakfast” formed a major portion of its vocabulary. Her pet climbed down her leg and scampered around the bed, looking for its clothes: little black trousers and a gold velour shirt.
It amused Koronin that the creature looked so much like a type of human being, for among the species of the Federation, humans most earned her ire. It amused her to dress her pet in the uniform and insignia of a Starfleet officer. It did not amuse her that the creature rebelled against its cunning [71] boots. Koronin could force Starfleet to wear them, but the primate staggered when it tried to walk, slipped and fell when it tried to climb, crouched on the floor and chewed at the leather around its toes when it grew frustrated, then huddled in a miserable heap and whimpered until Koronin freed it of the foot
gear. The staggering and slipping and toe chewing afforded Koronin hours of laughter, but the huddling and whimpering bored her. Even a good swat would not move the creature when it got to that state. So for the moment she let it go unshod. But she was determined eventually to break it to the boots.
While Starfleet rooted for its clothes like an idiot child, Koronin checked the control surfaces of the ship. Gold inlay traced filigree patterns on panels of translucent pink jade. The government officer had spent great sums on the visual decoration of his command balcony. Koronin supposed the officer assuaged the guilt he felt for such expenditures with the cold sparseness of his personal area. That suited her; the officer had lavished money or credit on things with which Koronin would not have bothered, leaving her the pleasure of ripping out his hard bunk and suiting her own fancy in replacing it.
She wondered how many loyal subjects of the empire knew the uses to which the oligarchy put their tithes. She wondered how many loyal subjects knew about the oligarchy in the first place. Koronin had been raised to revere the empress, but among the highest class it was an open secret that the oligarchs controlled a powerless, toothless, heirless sovereign. The outcasts knew the secret and held an invidious rumor in great credence: Koronin had heard, from numerous sources, that the oligarchy deliberately allowed the empress’s brain to deteriorate to the vegetative state, then kept the body alive with machines and replacement therapy. When Koronin was younger she might not have believed it; but she believed it now.
“Starfleet!”
The pet yelped in fear, scampered to her, and cringed at her feet.
“So,” she said. “You got your shirt on correctly today. You may have some breakfast, then.”
[72] The animal moaned and wiggled with pleasure. She held a bit of fruit just out of its reach and laughed as it leaped at her hand.
“Be still!”
Starfleet crouched, quivering, following the food with its intent and mournful gaze.
“Good,” she said, and gave it the fruit.
It gobbled the fruit and looked around for more.
Koronin forgot about the animal. She studied the free-floating star map to decide the best way to harry Phalanx shipping. Too near the main body of Federation space would bring a patrol after her; too near the far tip of the intrusion and Quundar would meet the defenses of a Federation starbase. But the center, now: the center seemed quite vulnerable.
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