STAR TREK: TOS - Enterprise, The First Adventure

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “And will you tell me the joke?” He looked like a little boy who realized for the first time that his mischief had caused grief and pain. He looked like someone who needed reassurance. If he had been anyone but the captain of the ship, she would have let him in on her plans for Roswind.

  “No, sir,” she said. “I can’t. It’s personal.”

  Lieutenant Uhura got out of the lift in officers’ territory. Jim returned to the bridge alone. Yeoman Rand glanced up from her conversation with Lindy, then looked away, afraid to meet his gaze.

  “Lindy, would you excuse us?” Jim said. He spoke loudly [154] enough for everyone on the bridge to hear him. “Yeoman Rand, I spoke to you in an unpardonable manner this morning. I criticized you when I should have been complimenting your dedication. I apologize.”

  She stared at him in silence.

  “Would you come with me, please?” He had no particular destination in mind; he simply found a corridor in which they could walk. “Yeoman, when’s the last time you had any sleep?”

  “I ... I ...” She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, sir, I overslept. That’s why I was late.”

  “Maybe the question I need to ask is how long did you work.” She remained silent. “All night?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. I tried to finish ...”

  “Yeoman, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you aren’t very useful if you’re too tired to—to get the right size uniform out of the synthesizer—”

  “I didn’t—!”

  He heard protest and anger in her voice, but she cut herself off quickly.

  “You didn’t what, yeoman?”

  “Nothing, sir.”

  He sighed. She was still flinching. “There’s such a thing as being too conscientious. There’s such a thing as wearing yourself out before you’ve even gotten started.”

  “I’m sorry ...” she said.

  He felt like cringing himself. He could not figure out how to talk to her. “You don’t need to apologize for being conscientious. I don’t think I’m a tyrant—I don’t try to be. But sometimes you’ll have to work two watches straight. Maybe even work around the clock. I won’t apologize when I ask that of you. I’ll hand you trouble-shooting jobs that I expect you never to mention again, and like as not I’ll forget to give you credit because I’ll forget I gave them to you. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, her voice feathery.

  “There are times when you’ll have to work harder than you’ve ever worked before.” He noticed her ironic smile, which she repressed almost instantly. “But outside those times, you’re going to have to use your judgment.”

  [155] “I did use my judgment!” she said, flustered.

  “Your judgment told you to stay up all night working on a job that didn’t have to be finished for three months?”

  “You said, ‘As soon as you can, put together an appointments schedule for me.’ My judgment told me that I have to answer to your judgment. Whether it’s poor or—I mean, I’m not familiar with your judgment.”

  “I see.” They reached the observation deck. Jim idly opened the shield to reveal the stars.

  Janice gasped.

  “It is quite a sight, isn’t it?” Jim said. “Sit down, we’ll talk for a few minutes.” He gestured toward a chair where she would be able to see outside.

  “But your schedule—”

  “I still have a good fifteen minutes left of my appointment with Dr. McCoy. I shouldn’t have snapped at you about that, either.” He grinned. “He thought he’d found a clever way to get me in his clutches long enough to make me take my physical. Sit down.”

  She obeyed.

  “I was thoughtless yesterday,” Jim said, “and I was ... unnecessarily harsh with you this morning. I apologize, and I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  “There’s nothing to forgive, captain.”

  “I think there is—and I think you ought to convince yourself that you have the right to be treated as a sentient being. Your feelings matter, too.”

  “I’ll try, sir.” She answered quickly, firmly: he suspected she was saying what she thought he wanted to hear.

  “Did you make an appointment to talk to me?”

  Her pale face burned. “No, sir. I ... forgot.”

  “Tell me a little about yourself.”

  She gazed at him, straightforward, deliberate. Then she looked away and said quickly, “There’s nothing to tell, sir. I got out of school, I joined Starfleet.”

  “Your family?”

  “They’re just ordinary people, with ordinary jobs.”

  “Sisters? Brothers?”

  She said nothing.

  “Pet goldfish?”

  [156] She nearly smiled.

  “That’s better. Well, yeoman, you’re an enigma. Too bad the Foreign Legion was disbanded.”

  “I don’t understand what that means,” she whispered.

  “It was a military organization, several centuries ago. People joined it who ... didn’t want to be asked questions.”

  She looked away, partly to avoid his gaze, partly to see the stars. The orientation of the Enterprise turned the galaxy into a great diagonal slash, eerie against the blackness.

  “Never mind, yeoman,” he said. “You’re an adult; you have a right to your privacy. But if you ever feel you need someone to talk to ...” She did not reply. Jim rose. “We’d better get back to the bridge.”

  She followed him out, pausing to glance back one last time. The shield closed over the viewport.

  “By the way,” Jim said, “Lindy complimented your work in the strongest terms. Where did you learn design?”

  “Here and there. About Ms. Lukarian, sir—”

  “What did she want this time?”

  “Dirt, captain.”

  “Dirt—?”

  “Bridge calling Captain Kirk.”

  Jim hurried to the nearest intercom. “Kirk here.”

  “Sir, there’s a subspace communication—”

  “Starfleet—?” His adrenaline level rose. An emergency ... ? What would he do with the civilians? Or perhaps it was a message about Gary.

  “Not Starfleet, sir. It’s a private craft. He says ... he’s a juggler, sir.”

  Jim stared at the intercom. “A juggler?” He laughed. “Is Ms. Lukarian still on the bridge?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think it’s safe to assume the communication’s for her. Let her take it. I’ll be up in a minute.” Still chuckling, he entered the nearest turbo-lift; Rand followed. “You were saying, yeoman. Dirt?”

  “Yes, sir. The deck is too hard for her horse’s hooves, and the corral doesn’t give Athene enough room to move around. She’d like to put a layer of dirt on the shuttlecraft deck—”

  [157] “We don’t have any dirt!” Jim exclaimed. “What does she want me to do, deplete molecular storage to synthesize—dirt? No, it’s out of the question. A layer of dirt—on the shuttlecraft deck? It’s ridiculous!”

  “I’ve spoken to Mr. Sulu and Mr. Spock and Lieutenant Uhura. We could do it.” She outlined the proposal as they rose toward the bridge.

  “No,” Jim said. “I want to stay in warp drive.”

  “But Athene—”

  “Athene will have to wait. A starship is no place for a bunch of animals in the first place!” The turbo-lift doors stood open. His voice had carried all the way across the bridge.

  Lindy, sitting in his seat, glanced back at him.

  “Oh, hi, Lindy,” he said. “Er ...”

  “Jim, I’ve found us a juggler.”

  On the viewscreen, five blazing torches circled furiously, obscuring the juggler behind them.

  He caught one, two, three, four, spun the last torch high out of range of the screen, and caught it as it tumbled into view. He extinguished the flames. He turned his head and pulled loose the length of blue ribbon at the nape of his neck. He shook his golden hair free as he bowed.

  “You’re in!” Lindy said.

  The long
, ascetic lines of his face broke into a brilliant smile. He put down the torches. His hair curled below his collar. He wore a single ruby earring. The blue of his eyes was so pale it was almost gray.

  “Can you meet us on Starbase 13?” Lindy asked.

  He frowned. “That’s a good long shot for my ship. Why don’t you stop and let me piggyback?”

  Lindy glanced back. “Jim—?”

  “I know these drifters,” Jim said, annoyed. “He just doesn’t want to pay for his own fuel.”

  The juggler smiled without offense. “I don’t want to pay ransom to the Klingons, either, if they stray into the Phalanx when I pass by. I might get out of it, but I’d never get my ship back.” He raised one pale eyebrow. It slanted upward, very like a Vulcan’s. “Isn’t that part of your job—protecting us civilians?”

  [158] Jim still did not want to stop, but the juggler had a good point. Venturing into the Phalanx unarmed and without a convoy could be risky.

  “Very well,” Jim said. “Give my navigator your coordinates.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “You are—?”

  “James Kirk. Captain.”

  “You can call me Stephen.” As he shook back his hair, light glinted from the ruby earring and Jim got a good look at his ears.

  Stephen was a Vulcan.

  On impulse, Jim glanced at Commander Spock.

  The science officer stared at the screen. His expression was hard, not with imperturbability, but with shock and violently repressed anger.

  Chapter 7

  SPOCK COMPOSED HIMSELF after his untoward show of emotion. James Kirk averted his gaze, but Spock knew the captain had seen his reaction.

  The workings of the bridge flowed over and around Spock. Lukarian and Rand conferred with Captain Kirk about dirt. Despite his intellectual interest in the project, Spock remained intent on his argument with himself.

  The captain already had a perfectly appropriate, perhaps even adequate, suspicion of the vaudeville company’s new recruit. Perhaps Spock need say nothing. Few human beings could comprehend the workings of his home world’s politics and society; attempts at explanation merely confused them.

  Spock tried to convince himself of the accuracy of his analysis, but could not dispel the suspicion that he was letting his preference for privacy interfere with his responsibility.

  He shut down his station, rose, and left the bridge.

  When he entered his cabin, the door shut out the cold yellow-lit dampness that most humans preferred. In a hot, dry, scarlet environment, reminiscent of Vulcan, Spock lay on his meditation stone. He relaxed his muscles in a prescribed sequence and let himself drift into deep thought.

  When Mr. Spock left the bridge without a word of explanation, Jim said nothing. But he began to be annoyed when the science officer failed to return after a few minutes.

  First Lieutenant Uhura, now Commander Spock, Jim thought. Was it standing operating procedure under Chris [160] Pike to stomp off the bridge whenever you didn’t approve of something? If so, it’s going to stop.

  Yeoman Rand finished outlining the plan. It would work—nothing about it exceeded conventional techniques. But he was not happy about the project. It simply did not seem like a good idea to him to fill the shuttlecraft deck with dirt. He would have found some satisfaction in sinking the whole project. Petty satisfaction. He knew it, and he knew he felt like this because everything else had gone wrong all day.

  “Mr. Sulu, lay in a course change for the rendezvous. Use a minimum of fuel. When we reenter normal space, I’ll decide if it’s feasible to proceed with this harebrained scheme.”

  He left the bridge.

  He reached Commander Spock’s cabin, knocked, and waited impatiently.

  The door slid aside. Jim blinked, trying to focus on the tall, thin figure in the dim red light.

  “May I come in, Commander Spock?”

  “Most human beings find my quarters uncomfortable,” Spock said.

  “I think I can stand it,” Jim said.

  “The gravity—”

  Jim stepped inside before he realized what Spock meant. He tripped on the level floor that felt like an upward step. The gravity gradient changed from earth-normal to something considerably higher. He came down hard, twisting his knee. He managed to keep his feet. He scowled at the offending deck before facing Spock again.

  A long slab of polished gray granite lay against one wall of the stark, spare, dimly lit cabin. Jim wondered if the Vulcan aesthetic required sleeping on stone.

  Spock gazed at him, impassive.

  “Do you want to explain your behavior on the bridge just now?”

  “No, captain.”

  Taken aback, Jim realized Spock was retreating into evasion by the route of literal-mindedness. Jim chose a more straightforward attack.

  “Lindy’s new juggler—do you know him?”

  At that question, Spock hesitated.

  [161] “Yes, captain.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “There is little to tell, beyond the obvious. He is a Vulcan.”

  “Not so obvious in the way he behaves. A Vulcan juggler?”

  “Juggling is an excellent method of improving hand-eye coordination, Captain Kirk,” Spock said.

  Jim would almost have sworn that he detected a note of pique in Spock’s voice.

  “It takes intense concentration, patience, and practice.”

  “You sound like an expert,” Jim said.

  “I am hardly unique among Vulcans in developing the ability,” Spock said.

  “Maybe we don’t need this fellow after all. Why don’t you help Lindy out instead?”

  “She did not ask me, captain.”

  Jim had been sidetracked, deliberately or inadvertently, but quite effectively. He wished the cabin were not so hot. “Tell me about your Vulcan friend.”

  “He is not,” Spock said, “my friend.” He gazed past Jim for a moment, his eyes focused on something invisible in the dim light, something no one else could see. “He comes from an unobjectionable family. He had an excellent education and many advantages. He has used these advantages to little purpose. His accomplishments are negligible. He has few inhibitions and less discipline. He ... does as he pleases.”

  Jim frowned. “I don’t understand the problem here, commander. You reacted to him as if he were a hardened criminal. But he sounds ... ‘unobjectionable.’ ” He shifted his weight to his left leg. The high gravity and the heat did nothing for his mood.

  “He has been known to follow trouble, and one must also suspect the reverse. He ... takes advantage. However, you determined that on meeting him; I saw no reason to repeat what you already knew.”

  “Now tell me what it is about him that you aren’t telling me.” A drop of sweat tickled Jim’s face; he blotted his forehead on his sleeve.

  “He ...” Spock hesitated. “He seeks out emotional experiences.”

  [162] Jim would have sworn Commander Spock was embarrassed, if he had not been told so often that Vulcans had no such reaction. He waited for Spock to continue. Spock said nothing.

  “Is that all?”

  “Yes, captain.”

  “Good lord! You acted like you’d seen an ax murderer.”

  Spock considered. “The analogy is not unreasonable. He is ... a pervert.”

  Jim could not help it. He laughed. “Thank you for the warning, Commander Spock. I’ll certainly keep it in mind when I’m dealing with Lindy’s new recruit.” Jim’s right knee had begun to ache—so much for “as good as new”—and the dim light had given him the beginnings of a headache. “Will you grant us the honor of your presence on the bridge? Soon?”

  “Very well, captain.”

  On his way out, Jim forced himself to walk without limping.

  The Enterprise slowed from warp-speed and continued through normal space on impulse engines. Sulu scanned for Stephen’s vessel; Uhura projected its image on the viewscreen.

  Inspecting Dionysus, Jim understood why Stephen
preferred piggybacking on the Enterprise to taking his ship on the long haul through the Phalanx. The decommissioned admiral’s yacht had seen better days.

  “Enterprise to Dionysus.”

  “I hear you.”

  “We’re extending the docking module at the port side of the shuttle deck,” Jim said. “We can put out a tractor—”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “I’m going to go meet him,” Lindy said.

  “I’ll go with you.” Jim was looking forward to meeting this atypical Vulcan. Commander Spock’s disapproval added to Jim’s interest. At the door of the turbo-lift, Jim glanced back and said, “Commander Spock—would you care to be on hand to greet this old acquaintance?”

  “I should prefer,” Mr. Spock replied, “to decline that privilege.”

  [163] Jim joined Lindy and they headed aft.

  “Jim, I appreciate all your help,” Lindy said.

  “My help?” he said. “I didn’t arrange the rather incredible coincidence that these coordinates just happen to fall within the system’s Oort cloud.”

  Lindy grinned. “We had to pick Stephen up someplace, and he offered to come to the edge of the star system.”

  The lift stopped. Jim stepped out. His knee streaked pain down to his ankle and up to his hip, and collapsed under him.

  “Jim! Jim, what—”

  He lay on the deck with both hands clamped to his knee. He clenched his teeth, vaguely aware of the sweat on his forehead, the cold rough metal beneath him, Lindy beside him. Mostly, though, he was aware of the pain.

  “I’ll get help.”

  He grabbed her sleeve before she could stand. “No, I’m all right.” He rubbed his knee. The pain receded.

  “You don’t look all right.”

  “I just twisted it.” He struggled to his feet. “Mr. Spock keeps a Vulcan environment in his cabin—I walked into a gravity shelf I didn’t know was there.” That was the truth. It was incomplete, but it was true. He gingerly tested his weight on his right leg. The knee held; the ache threatened more than hurt.

  “Okay,” she said. “You’re a big boy, your health’s your own business.”

  Jim did his best not to limp as he crossed the catwalk and climbed down the companionway. In her corral, Athene weaved nervously, swaying back and forth. Two felinoids, one a member of the company and the other an Enterprise engineer, sat on the deck nearby.