“Maybe he’s just asleep,” McCoy muttered, annoyed at himself for their first conversation, for getting into the argument that had driven Spock from sick bay. Spock’s medical record contained practically nothing. Apparently half-Vulcans never got sick. The previous doctor had made a [255] note: Vulcans cure Vulcans more often than doctors cure Vulcans. It is generally unwise to rouse a Vulcan from a healing trance.
So, impatient with his inability to do anything useful, troubled and mystified, McCoy kept watch on Spock and let him rest. Every so often the electrical patterns of the Vulcan’s mind pushed themselves toward normal, but they always retreated again.
Jim sat on the bottom step of the companionway, watching the flyers and Uhura. The intense communication continued. He wondered if he should make Lieutenant Uhura come out of the circle, but she showed no sign of the stunned shock that had affected the science officer, no distress or even fatigue.
He thought about what she had said to Scarlet: “Did Mr. Spock mind-meld with you?” He had never heard the term, and he wondered if it meant what it seemed to.
A footstep scraped the deck above him and Stephen climbed down the companionway. He sat on the step above Jim and rested his elbows on his knees.
“I hope you won’t expect me to entertain your friends,” he said, “because juggling in one-tenth gravity is about as boring an activity to watch as I can think of.”
“I asked for critical objections,” Jim said.
“Oh, I’m not objecting, just making an observation. Vulcans do that. What are they doing?” He nodded toward the flyers.
“I think they’re talking to each other.” Jim started to tell him—to ask him, since he was more or less a guest—to go back to the vaudeville company’s quarters. Then he abruptly changed his mind. “Stephen, do Vulcans have some sort of extrasensory perception?”
For the first time since Jim had met him, Stephen expressed himself in a way entirely Vulcan. He raised one quizzical dark-blond eyebrow.
“What makes you think that?”
“The term ‘mind-melding.’ ”
“What do you know about mind-melding?”
“Nothing,” Jim said. “That’s why I’m asking you.”
[256] “Where did you hear about it?”
“Lieutenant Uhura seemed to think that was how Spock communicated with the flying people.”
“A Vulcan mind can link with the mind of another sentient being,” Stephen admitted. He said the same short phrase Scarlet had used; it must be in the Vulcan language.
“Can any Vulcan form the link? Can you?”
“Most Vulcans will go out of their way to avoid the experience. It’s ... emotional. As for me—much as my family wishes I weren’t, I am still a Vulcan.”
The long symphonic conversation ended with a complex fluting exchange between Scarlet and a flyer person with fur patterned in paisley swirls of tan and brown. The music faded. The circle disbanded.
Uhura drew herself from their spell. All her life she had sought out music that enraptured her as the flyers did. She wanted time by herself to feel it and think about it and understand it. She hummed a phrase. Not quite right. She tried once more. Not perfect, but closer.
Uhura feared she would never understand this music.
Captain Kirk joined her. “Everything all right?”
Uhura nodded.
“Has Spock returned to us?” Scarlet said.
“No,” the captain said. “He’s still in shock.”
The paisley flyer hunched its shoulders and stretched, gradually unfolding its wings until they shivered above its head. Nearby, Athene snorted in alarm and spread her wings, holding them open as if for balance, for defense.
The paisley flyer gazed at Uhura, blinking its brilliant purple eyes.
“Your language,” it said, forming the words with care, “is monotonous. And its pattern is trivially simple.”
The density of the flyers’ language awed Uhura: it had described another tongue and taught it in a few minutes.
The flyer meant its criticism literally. Standard contained neither tone nor melody. Feeling as if she had lost her bearings in her own world, she grasped at the flyer’s statement gratefully. At least she could reply to it.
“There are Federation languages that are sung,” she said. “There are even human languages with tone.” She spoke a few words of Chinese. “But a large number of different [257] kinds of sentient beings can speak Standard—I mean they can physically produce it. It’s useful to have a common language.”
“How do you learn so fast?” the captain asked. “Can you mind-meld?”
“Spock’s abilities are unique in my experience,” Scarlet said. “We have other ways of exchanging information quickly. That is why I had to stop speaking to you—to convey your language to the companionship. They objected to my speaking for them, and I felt unhappy, taking a place beyond the rest.”
“What do you mean?” Kirk said.
“It is as if ... as if I made myself a captain. I told you, James, we do not have such things.”
“And now—you can all speak Standard?”
“This small companionship has the ability. In a few of your days, the information will make its way around the edge of the worldship.”
Athene and Lindy approached. Athene watched the flyers nervously, her wings still half-opened and quivering at her sides. The flyers regarded her gravely and curiously.
“She’s frightened,” Lindy said. “She wants to follow you when you fly.”
“This is Athene, and you are Amelinda the magician?” Scarlet said.
“Yes. I’m called Lindy.”
“A nickname?”
Lindy nodded.
Scarlet extended one long sharp-clawed hand to Athene. “Athene is not fully evolved to her environment. She cannot fly. She has no talons, and cannot hunt. She is unhappy.”
“I’m afraid that’s true,” Lindy said.
The equiraptor touched her nose to Scarlet’s hand. Uhura caught her breath. Since Athene was essentially an herbivorous animal changed into an omnivore, the equiraptor might perceive Scarlet as a competitor or as a dangerous predator. Uhura did not see how either interaction could turn out well. But Athene showed neither fright nor aggression. Now that she had gotten used to seeing them, she seemed to accept the flying people. Perhaps she perceived them as some odd kind of human being.
[258] “Poor thing,” Scarlet said. At the flyer’s comment of pity and dismissal, Lindy looked stricken.
“This creature is very interesting, but I would like to see your craft.” Gold and brown stripes followed the curves of the third flyer’s body in a subtle shaded pattern.
“The gravity is suitable for you now. You can visit the Enterprise without risk.”
A few paces away, Stephen watched with fascination. He shook his head in amazement. “I don’t believe it.”
“What?” the captain asked.
He laughed. Seeing a Vulcan laugh freely discomforted Uhura; and Stephen’s was not an entirely joyful laugh.
“Spock has them all talking just like he does.”
Uhura could not help but smile, for Stephen was right.
“Do different people have different ways of speaking?” Scarlet asked.
“Yes,” Uhura said. “Mr. Spock belongs to a group of people who stress rationality and precision over emotion—”
“Who crush in themselves and in others the factors that make life worthwhile,” Stephen said. “Joy, and love ...”
“You are Stephen?” Scarlet said.
Stephen hesitated. Uhura knew what he was thinking: when Scarlet called her by name, she had wondered what Spock told the flyer about her during the mind-meld.
“Yes,” Stephen said.
“I will find great interest in meeting all the different beings here and in your companionship.” Scarlet touched its sensory mustache with the tip of its tongue. “I have never met another sentient species.”
“And I have
still never seen a Federation starship,” the gold and brown flyer said.
“Please come with me,” the captain said.
Scarlet and the paisley flyer climbed the companionway with Uhura and Captain Kirk, their claws scraping the treads, but the gold-striped flyer and the cream-colored green-eyed being who had not yet spoken in Standard leaped from the deck and soared the ten meters to the catwalk.
Athene snorted and whickered when the flying people left. Lindy knew it was silly to attribute feelings to the equiraptor, who was no smarter than the average horse. Still, to Lindy, Athene sounded lonely and confused.
[259] “Maybe they’ll come back,” she said. But she wondered if they would. Scarlet disapproved of Athene, Lindy believed, because she was not properly adapted. When she saw the beings fly, Lindy had imagined Athene flying with them inside the worldship. Now she wondered if that could happen, if Scarlet would allow it. She let go of Athene’s mane and patted her neck.
Over by the viewport, Stephen glanced toward the worldship. “You can’t say anything about it. It’s too incredible to say anything about.”
Athene trotted across the deck, reared and leaped in a half-turn, and sprinted to the other side. Her hooves cut into the fragile new turf. She skidded to a stop like a cowpony, spun, and galloped toward the catwalk to which the flyers had flown. She spread her wings. They beat the air. Her hooves left the ground.
“Athene!” Lindy cried.
Lindy knew the equiraptor would keep going. Athene leaped into a shallow glide. Somewhere in her small horse brain she believed that if she could just follow the flying people, she, too, would be able to fly. But she had neither practice enough nor room enough to clear the companionway. At the last instant she tried to turn. Her shoulder crashed against the railing. She tumbled to the deck, flapping her wings wildly, tumbling.
Lindy ran to her. The equiraptor lay in a heap, her legs splayed around her, one wing beneath her and the other beating at her side. She flung up her head and screamed. In terror, she snapped at Lindy with her sharp teeth. Lindy hardly noticed. She grabbed Athene’s forelock in one hand and put her other hand just above Athene’s nostrils, desperate to keep her from moving. If she had broken a leg or a wing and she got to her feet, she would hurt herself even worse.
“Whoa, Athene, easy, sweetie—”
Lindy’s weight, especially in one-tenth gravity, was nothing to Athene, but her voice slipped through the terror and calmed the animal so she did not try to bolt. Lindy whispered to her, nonsense words that soothed her. Keeping one hand on the equiraptor’s nose, she carefully ran the other hand down one foreleg, then the other. She found no sign of [260] injury or break. The cannon bones felt smooth and strong beneath her fingers. Reassured about Athene’s forelegs, Lindy touched the free wing, stroking till its frantic beating slowed and ceased. She tried to reach Athene’s hind leg, but could not do so and keep one hand on her head at the same time. If she let go, Athene would lurch to her feet and try to run.
Stephen touched Lindy. He put one hand on Athene’s crest, the other over Lindy’s hand on Athene’s nose. His skin felt hot, as if he had a fever.
“It’s all right,” he said, half to Lindy, half to Athene. “She’ll stay still for me, Lindy.”
Lindy slid her hand from beneath his, grateful for the help. If Stephen could even approach Athene when she was in this state, he could probably persuade her to remain motionless as well. He spoke to her in soft strange words. Her ragged breathing eased. Lindy stroked her hand along Athene’s side, over her near hip and stifle, down her gaskin and hock and shannon bone and fetlock.
“Stephen, let her up now, please. Stephen—?”
He looked at her blankly. Then he shook his head, and the blank expression vanished. He urged Athene to her feet. She struggled up, clumsy not through injury but because horses always look clumsy getting to their feet. Lindy checked her off hind leg and her off wing and found no serious injuries.
“Let her walk—just a few steps.”
Her head down, Athene let Stephen guide her forward. She ruffled her wings and folded them. As far as Lindy could tell she was sound. Now that the terror and the fear had faded from her, Athene looked as if she had run a long, hard race and broken her heart by losing.
Lindy’s vision blurred. She fought to regain her composure. Failing completely, she burst into sobs.
“Lindy, hey.” Stephen touched her shoulder. “She’s okay—nothing broken.”
“She isn’t okay!” Lindy scrubbed her sleeve across her eyes and dashed away the tears. She faced Stephen angrily—not angry at him, but angry at herself, angry at the world, just angry. “I’ve done everything I can. But she almost has room, she can almost fly. That’s the worst thing I ever could have done to her!”
[261] He raised one eyebrow. Only in the moments when he slipped into grim thoughtfulness did he really look like a Vulcan.
“Logic reveals,” he said, “that since she cannot fly here, we must take her where she can fly.”
“The worldship—”
He shook off the serious expression. “Are you game?”
“Of course! But Jim—”
“Jim? What does Jim have to do with anything? The question is, do you want to risk going to an alien place in an unarmed yacht with a Klingon bandit hanging around?”
That slowed Lindy. “But ... she wouldn’t have any reason to bother us.”
“She might not need one.”
“I don’t care about her,” Lindy said. “But what about the flying people? What if they don’t want us in their world?”
“They invited Jim Kirk. They even invited Spock. We’re much more fun. Come on.”
Lindy urged Athene forward. The equiraptor nuzzled her halfheartedly. Stephen parted the wide double doors of the docking hatch.
The obsolete decommissioned admiral’s yacht was worn with use and age. Its main cabin had been stripped to the interior wood inlays. Only the pilot’s and copilot’s seats remained.
“Come on, sweetie,” Lindy whispered. Athene hesitated at the threshold, her ears swiveling back and forth. She stepped delicately on board. Her hooves thudded hollowly on the wooden parquet decking.
“How much trouble are you going to get into for doing this?” Lindy asked.
“I’m going to the worldship,” Stephen said. “I’m going with or without you and Athene, and I don’t need Captain James T. Kirk’s permission. Are you coming?”
“Yes.”
The engines filled the craft with smooth subsonics. Stephen freed his ship from the docking module and eased Dionysus away from the flank of the Enterprise.
On the command platform of Quundar, Koronin pretended ignorance of the consternation traveling through the [262] work pit. Her crew could not understand why she had done nothing, why she simply waited and watched.
They have insufficient patience, she said to herself. If they had practiced waiting for fifteen years, as I did, they would comprehend its uses. If they survived.
At the moment, though, they wondered why she had let the sailboat pass, instead of capturing it; they wondered why she did not incapacitate the Enterprise. They believed the Imperial propaganda, that Quundar could conquer any ship of the Federation. Koronin had sufficient experience and sufficient knowledge to understand that while Quundar might destroy a constellation-class starship, the starship would destroy Quundar as well. Mutual destruction offered no profit.
She observed a small ship detach itself from the docking module of the Enterprise. But it was a shabby little Federation ship, not the sailboat. A quick scan produced some unusual data, but nothing to indicate that the alien creatures were trying to slip past her in secret. The sailboat continued to drift off the flank of the starship, between Quundar and the Enterprise.
So, for the moment, amused by the distress of her subordinates, Koronin waited, and she watched.
The flying people all adopted names: the paisley one was Cloud Touching; the cream-colored, green-eyed, silen
t one was Green; and the striped one took the name Sun-and-Shadows. Jim took them to the bridge.
“Captain Kirk!” Sulu said. “Dionysus has undocked from the Enterprise!”
“What—? Enterprise to Dionysus. Stephen, this is Jim Kirk. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Stephen’s image appeared on the viewscreen. “I’m going to the worldship,” he said.
“But you can’t!”
“Certainly I can.”
“Stephen, this is a first contact—” He stopped, all too aware of the flyers behind him, watching curiously.
“And only certified members of Starfleet could possibly talk to these people without starting an intergalactic war?” Stephen asked. “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
[263] “I can’t allow you to go.”
“How do you propose to stop me? Shoot my ship out of the sky? Declare martial law?”
Jim hesitated. Under certain circumstances, Federation first-contact laws and Starfleet brass would back him up if he were to shoot down an unauthorized ship. But Jim had no intention of firing on Dionysus, and Stephen knew it. He probably knew that Dionysus was out of range of tractor beams, too. Jim could chase him, but Dionysus had far more speed and agility over short distances than the Enterprise; Dionysus would vanish into the worldship, where the Enterprise could not go at all, before Jim’s ship could reach pursuit velocity. As for martial law: Jim had the authority to declare it, but Stephen was hardly any more likely to obey Jim’s orders then than he was now.
“Do you know how close the border is? Not to mention our local bandit out there?” Jim glanced at Sulu. If Quundar attacked Dionysus, Jim would have to respond in some way; he would have to balance his responsibility to protect a civilian against his responsibility to the rest of the Federation.
“What’s life without a little risk?” Stephen said.
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