STAR TREK: TOS - Enterprise, The First Adventure

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Spock rubbed his chin, deliberating. The captain made telling arguments; they could even be said to possess an element of logic.

  “Mr. Spock, I’m going to rip up the transfer applications I found on my desk today. I hope I won’t find more tomorrow.”

  “Very well, captain. I will consider what you have said. But—you received more than one application?”

  “I received two, but one was from Mr. Scott. A misunderstanding. It’s cleared up.”

  “I see.” Spock also saw Mr. Sulu, sitting on an equipment trunk a few meters away. Though he looked rather disconsolate, he must have decided that staying on the Enterprise was not, after all, the disaster he first thought.

  “Commander Spock,” James Kirk said, “aren’t you supposed to be out in the audience, waiting to volunteer?”

  “Yes, captain. But I wished to observe backstage preparations.”

  Captain Kirk was right, though; it was time he took his seat. Kirk walked with him toward a path that led into the amphitheater.

  “Good lord,” Jim said. “I have to speak in front of them all.”

  “A challenging audience,” Spock said.

  Federation, Klingon, and worldship people sat together on the natural stone terraces, a restless group of at least a thousand. But the restlessness appeared to be good-natured. Jim hoped it stayed that way.

  The Empire fleet’s transporter area shimmered. The director of the oversight committee transported into being, accompanied by his entourage. Jim and the director had agreed to prohibit weapons on the worldship. The director had kept the bargain. He brought bodyguards who could protect him [347] without weapons. Each was nearly the size of Newland Rift. A mysterious veiled figure also accompanied him, and a second figure wearing an unfastened veil draped across her shoulder.

  “Captain—” Spock said.

  The director’s bodyguards prodded Koronin forward. Her hands were shackled. She resisted, moving only when continuing to resist would rob her of the last of her dignity. Jim winced. No matter what Koronin had done or attempted, Jim hated seeing a sentient individual displayed like a captured wild animal.

  The director strolled toward Jim.

  “I hope you have prepared yourself for this honor, captain,” he said. He showed him a tooled leather box.

  “Your excellency, I protest this barbarism!”

  “Captain, what are you talking about? This creature, do you mean? Don’t let her concern you. You will display your prize, I will display mine.”

  “What you’re displaying is—”

  Spock’s hand gripped Jim’s arm, gently restraining him.

  “—uncivilized—”

  Spock’s fingers tightened around his biceps.

  “Captain!” the director exclaimed, with mock distress. “We had agreed to forbid fighting and name-calling among our subordinates. I took it on faith that the prohibition extended to you and me.”

  Jim subsided. There was nothing he could do, not without jeopardizing the fragile peace he had helped create, and not without endangering his entire crew.

  “Besides,” the director said, “this is Koronin’s last glimpse of freedom. I could have left her in her cell. It has no windows, no light at all. In fact it has nothing. My magnanimity in bringing her with me will do my reputation no good whatever.”

  Seething, Jim glanced at Koronin. She must have seen pity in his eyes.

  “I challenge you, Federation brigand!” Koronin shouted at Jim. “And if you decline, you’re a coward!”

  “Quiet, traitor! No name-calling today.” The director chuckled and strode toward his seat. His bodyguards followed, pushing Koronin along.

  [348] “You can let go now,” Jim said.

  Spock released him. Jim rubbed the bruised place on his arm.

  “I understand your objections, captain,” Spock said. “Perhaps better than you think. I cannot excuse Koronin’s actions ... but they were not entirely gratuitous. She has reasons for her hatred, both of her own people and of us. She acted out of a deep desire for revenge.”

  “What does a Vulcan know about revenge, Commander Spock?”

  “You know little of Vulcan history,” Spock said gravely. “Our capacity for vengeance is a primary reason we chose to eliminate our emotions.”

  In the audience, surrounded by the director’s graceless thugs, Koronin sat rigid on the natural stone bench. I claimed this world, she thought. I own it. But I will never be permitted to present it to the empress, and for that, somehow, I will take my revenge.

  The great low voice of Newland Rift rumbled over the crowd.

  “Guests, old friends, new friends, welcome! May I present—the Warp-Speed Classic Vaudeville Company!”

  The audience waited, silent and expectant. One of the fleet members glanced up, saw the flyers swooping toward them, and shouted in alarm.

  Koronin saw the director tense. He suspected an attack, a trap. For herself, she welcomed it. She was watching for a chance; chaos might work to her advantage.

  High overhead, flyers soared and dipped and stroked each other with their wingtips. The light web silhouetted them from above and illuminated them from the sides.

  The audience gasped as the flyers dived toward the stage. But one of the flock was not a flyer. It was a four-legged being with feathered wings. It beat its wings, hovering, and touched down. A human sat upon its back.

  The human leaped to the stage. The Federation people applauded wildly. The director’s personnel waited in silence. As soon as something pleased them, they would cry out their wild, eerie howl of approval. They felt confused, for they did not know if they were supposed to appreciate the human’s [349] ability to balance on the four-legged person’s back, or the human’s ability to train the flying creatures, or what. They certainly did not feel like applauding after having been frightened.

  The flyers departed the stage and sat or perched on various spots around the amphitheater. The four-legged person took off and flew. Its threatening shadow passed back and forth.

  “Honorable people,” the silver-clad human said. “Welcome.”

  She introduced the director. Koronin wished the human would make some humiliating gaffe and plunge the audience into a brawl. But the human could not reveal the director’s name, since she did not know it, and as far as Koronin could tell she used all his titles properly.

  The director joined her on the stage.

  “As representative of our revered empress,” he said, “I come to honor a member of the Federation who risked his life to thwart the miserable traitor Koronin—”

  He went on for some while. Koronin took pleasure in smiling at him the entire time he railed against her.

  Jim Kirk just wished the whole thing were over. The director finally finished his verbal abuse of Koronin.

  “I honor the captain of the starship Enterprise.”

  Nervously waiting for his name to be called, Jim did not realize for a moment that it was his turn to get up.

  McCoy nudged him in the ribs. “C’mon, Jim, don’t rain on the parade.”

  Jim stood too fast for the low gravity. He leaped halfway to the stage in one step. Blushing, he recovered and proceeded in a more dignified way.

  The director opened the leather box, drew out a necklace, and lowered it over Jim’s head. A chain of heavy gold-colored links supported a garish pendant made of blue and red stones. It looked like costume jewelry.

  “I name you a Guard of the Empress.”

  The director stepped back.

  Jim faced the audience.

  An unearthly howl filled the amphitheater, overwhelming the applause of the Enterprise crew members. Jim tensed, thinking that the fleet personnel were about to attack despite [350] the truce. But they only shrieked. He had not thought to ask how people applauded in the Empire. Now he knew.

  “Thank you.” Can I stop there? he wondered. I guess not. “I am most honored and humbled by the director’s gesture, and gratified that this occasion brings us togeth
er in friendship and peace. May the friendship between the Empire, the Federation, and the people of the worldship continue and grow stronger.”

  Somehow he got off the stage and back to his seat. His hands were slick with sweat. He was glad that shaking hands was not, apparently, a custom of the Empire.

  McCoy leaned over to inspect the medal.

  “Quite a bauble,” he said.

  “Looks like a brooch my great-aunt Matilda used to wear to church,” Jim muttered under his breath.

  Scarlet leaned forward from where she sat cross-legged on the next tier of seats.

  “It is bright,” she said, “but if you flew, it would weigh you down.”

  The applause and the shrieks faded. Amelinda returned to the stage.

  “And now,” she said, “entertainment for our heroes.”

  Relieved to be done with his part in the evening’s proceedings, Jim sat back to enjoy Lindy’s show.

  The director watched the magic, his irritation increasing with each act of witchcraft. He wondered if the Federation people had planned this to offend him, or if they expected him to leap onto the stage and attempt to cleanse away the diabolical presence, or if they actually thought he would enjoy such a display. He decided to thwart all their plans. He would do nothing in protest, for now; neither would he pretend to approve or, worse, enjoy.

  Since he did not react, neither did anyone else from his fleet.

  Koronin, though, watched the magic act in fascination. Unlike the director, whose discomfort amused her, she knew it was all show, all tricks. Rumaiy were not superstitious, at least not about diabolical presences. Besides, she had encountered sleight of hand at Arcturus, where a roving Federation outlaw used it to entertain acquaintances and defraud strangers.

  [351] But Koronin had never seen anything to match Amelinda Lukarian’s escape act. Her assistant wrapped her up in restraints and locked the electronic locks and fastened her inside a trunk and covered the trunk with a cloth and let twenty-three flying people grab robes attached to it and lift it off the ground. When they lowered it again it was empty, and Amelinda Lukarian stepped out from behind the stage curtains with a flourish. Koronin howled in approval and would have applauded in the Federation manner, too, if her hands had not been chained.

  The puzzle of how Amelinda Lukarian escaped so intrigued Koronin that she hardly noticed the rest of the performance.

  And it gave her ideas.

  At the end of Lindy’s act, the applause of the people from the Enterprise sounded feeble in the huge amphitheater, for they were outnumbered by fleet personnel three to one. Lindy left the stage, stunned by the reaction of the crowd. She never got nervous onstage, but after fighting this audience she was dripping with sweat. Tzesnashstennaj and the rest of the hunt troupe glided past.

  “Break a leg,” she said.

  “Don’t you mean, be sure the audience doesn’t break my leg?” Tzesnashstennaj bounded onto the stage.

  Mr. Spock returned from the end point of the disappearing trick.

  “I died out there,” Lindy said. “Mr. Spock—do you understand what’s going on? I couldn’t have been that bad—the Enterprise people liked it. Or were they just being polite?”

  “I can offer only a hypothesis,” Spock said. “The director did not appear to be pleased by what he saw.”

  “But nobody applauded!”

  “He did not applaud; therefore his subordinates did not applaud.”

  “You didn’t applaud at first—that didn’t stop anybody on the Enterprise.”

  “Lindy,” Spock said, “unlike the director, I do not have the power of life or death over anyone on my ship.”

  “Oh.”

  “I believe we are involved in a cultural misunderstanding. [352] It is a shame, but there is nothing to be done about it except continue.”

  “Yeah. The show must go on,” Lindy said.

  It went on, all right: straight downhill, if that was possible. Either the director hated Lindy’s act so much that his dislike carried over, or he hated everything.

  Backstage morale was not good.

  Out front, Jim leaned toward the director.

  “Aren’t you enjoying the show?” he whispered.

  The director glared at him. “Your civilization, if one may dignify it with the term, is in extreme decline.”

  With that, he gave Jim the cold shoulder.

  At intermission, Jim went backstage. Lindy was trying not to look downcast, but she was not succeeding very well.

  “I just came back to—” Jim stopped. Saying he wanted to offer sympathy seemed undiplomatic.

  “To offer moral support? Thanks, Jim ... I need it.”

  “I’m afraid I offended the director with my speech,” Jim said. The truth was he had no idea what had offended the director, but it might have been the speech. Since Jim did not make his living giving speeches the way Lindy and her company made their living by performing, he was perfectly happy to take the blame.

  “Do you think so? Honest?” She suddenly blushed. “Jim, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded—”

  He grinned. “I know. It’s all right.”

  “This is going to be one of those shows you remember forever, and tell your grandchildren about, and afterwards it seems funny.” She smiled ruefully. “About a hundred years afterwards.”

  Out front at the temporary bar, McCoy offered the director a frosted silver cup.

  “Try this,” he said. “It’s one of the high achievements of human civilization.”

  The director vetted it out with an instrument like a tricorder.

  “No poison,” McCoy said cheerfully. “I’m a doctor, and doctors are forbidden to prescribe poison.”

  “How odd,” the director said. “What’s this called?”

  “It’s a mint julep. Look, I’m having one myself.” He sipped from another frosted cup.

  [353] The director sipped. The director considered. “Drinkable,” he said.

  “It’ll put hair on your chest,” McCoy said.

  In horror, the director flung the cup at McCoy’s feet. Crushed ice and sprigs of mint splashed over McCoy’s boots. The director stamped back to his seat.

  “Good grief,” McCoy said.

  Jim saw Scarlet strolling around backstage. He joined her.

  “Scarlet,” he said. “Are you enjoying the show?”

  Scarlet brushed her tongue across her sensory mustache. “It is charming. I will tell my grandchildren about it.”

  Jim grinned. “That’s what Lindy was saying. But maybe your grandchildren will get to see it, or something like it, themselves.”

  “I do not think so, James.”

  “Why? Scarlet—”

  The signal sounded and they were separated as the crowd returned to their seats.

  In the amphitheater, Hikaru Sulu slouched despondently on the stone bench. He knew he ought to take off his costume, but he thought he would wait till after the show just in case.

  Captain Kirk paused beside him and smiled. “Mr. Sulu, you’re either out of uniform, or you’re on the wrong side of the stage.”

  “I got canceled,” Hikaru said.

  “That’s too bad,” the captain said. “Or maybe not, considering.”

  In the wings, Lindy screwed up her courage and entered, stage left, to announce Stephen.

  Lindy thought he did a fantastic job of accommodating his act to the low gravity. Nevertheless, the director and his people watched in stoic silence. Only when Stephen brought out the torches did they loosen up a bit.

  They’re probably hoping he’ll singe his eyebrows, Lindy thought uncharitably.

  If they were, Stephen disappointed them. He juggled nine torches, flung them up one by one till they were all spinning above him at the same time, then caught them as they fell and arrayed them in a flaming fan in front of him. He extinguished them, put them down, slipped off the blue ribbon to let his hair fall free, and bowed. Though the [354] Enterprise people clapped long and hard, only
a few howls of approval trickled out of the director’s people.

  “And I thought Vulcans were tough to please,” Stephen said to Lindy after his exit.

  Lindy hesitated. She realized she had been avoiding him, which was hardly fair to Stephen. She wanted to hug him, but she did not want to make him uncomfortable.

  “Your act was terrific,” she said.

  “I know it,” he said. “But aren’t you glad we’re more than halfway done?”

  Lindy could not help but laugh.

  Philomela barely made it through. Marcellin strolled onstage, carrying his invisibly visible universe with him. But as far as the director was concerned, it was just plain invisible.

  Now it was only Mr. Cockspur—Lindy winced; if they hated the other acts, they would eat Cockspur alive—and Newland Rift, They’ve got to like Newland, Lindy thought. How can they not? If Cockspur can just get through without having tomatoes thrown at him ...

  Where was Cockspur, anyway? He always came out at the last possible moment. He might not even know what a disaster they had on their hands tonight.

  Lindy looked around. Cockspur stood just outside his dressing room. He looked pale.

  “Mr. Cockspur, what’s wrong? You’re on!”

  His eyelids flickered and he winced.

  “I do not think I can perform.”

  “But you have to!” She could hardly believe he would chicken out because of a hostile audience. He was pompous and arrogant, but he was not chicken. “We’re counting on you!” Did I really say that? she thought. Yes, I did, and I meant it, too—I won’t have anybody saying that we didn’t give an audience the whole show, even if they don’t understand what we’re doing. Even if they do understand, and hate it anyway.

  “It is impossible. The pain ... It grieves me to let you down, Amelinda. Perhaps ... if I rest ...”

  “But you’re on!”

  He swayed as if he were going to faint. Newland, inside a neat little circle of his poodles, reached out with one massive hand and steadied him.