by Diane Carey
“And somebody just powered you down,” George said.
The Romulan’s silence was clear answer.
George prodded, “Because ...”
“Because it was my goal to spare your ship. To open relations between our civilizations.”
“That’ll be the day,” George snapped.
T’Cael looked up. “Can you be so pessimistic and still call yourself advanced?”
“Look who’s talking. Your people fired on us, remember? Not mine. We just want out of here.”
“Yes, you must get out. If my fleet is allowed to take your ship, there will be no hope of negotiation with the Federation. I have no desire to see the chance for peace disappear. But I have failed. I am impotent now. It remains in your favor that my officers believe their assassination of me succeeded. I’ll warn you that more ships are on the way. You must hurry.”
“I can’t leave you on this lump,” George said, his anger slipping [200] away to both pity and an unexpected desire to save this unusual man. “You’d be dead in a week.”
“And where will you take me? What place is there for a Romulan in the Federation?”
“What place? You’ll be a celebrity. Everybody’ll want to know everything about the Romulan Empire. Strength, organization, culture—”
“I won’t tell those things.”
It was almost a verbal slap. George stopped in midbreath.
“I have no desire,” t’Cael went on, “to see the Empire make war upon your civilization, but neither can I allow the Federation to use me against my own government.” He turned and held out a hand. “You see the problem. Better I die here.”
“You’re not going to stay here,” George insisted. “You’ll come back with me. Nobody has to know. You could pass as a Vulcan.”
“Pretend to be a Vulcan the rest of my life?” T’Cael’s steady voice rose. “An impossible strain, I think.”
The hand-cannon came back up between them and lined flush with the Romulan’s chest. “You don’t have a choice,” George said. “You’re still my prisoner. Get moving.”
T’Cael smiled sadly, but not without amusement. “Kirk, I appreciate your concern. I see in your face I’ll never be able to convince you to shoot me, though that would be best for both of us. Believe my sincerity when I say I prefer to stay behind and face my failure privately.”
The hand cannon dropped to George’s side. His lips twisted in frustration.
After a moment he jabbed a finger toward the Romulan and said, “Fine. But at least come back to my shuttle and record a statement that my ship didn’t act aggressively and that your own people fired on you. And that you believe we didn’t cross the Neutral Zone deliberately. You owe us that, at least.”
The round eyes flashed beneath their black sickle brows. “I owe you nothing. However, for the sake of interstellar harmony,” t’Cael said, “I will give you your statement.”
During the trek to the Starfleet officer’s shuttlecraft, t’Cael’s determination grew. With each step, the prospect of leaving a statement became more exciting. Perhaps he need not die in vain. Perhaps this was a chance to save the legacy he thought he had lost. One last [201] chance to thwart Ry’iak, a chance to leave his mark on the future. He might indeed die here, but at least his words would survive him and become tools which wiser men could use.
“Not much farther,” Kirk said as they crested a hill. He consulted his compass and adjusted their direction a degree or two before stepping off the hilltop.
Declining to comment, t’Cael followed. There was, after all, very little to say, no comforting words, no optimistic platitudes. He forced himself to stop imagining what was going on in space above them. The many possible scenarios had become dizzying, and he was tired of it all, tired because he would never again participate.
The Starfleet craft was a surprise. He had expected better of so aesthetically oriented a race as humans. His Nestling had been a far more graceful thing than this shuttlecraft. Ugly, clunky, and painted without imagination, this craft exemplified poor use of space. There was too much room involved in the rectangular shape, room to hold too many people, too comfortably. It seemed impossible that the same engineers who designed that magnificent ivory vessel up in space could also have designed this box.
As he stood staring down at the box from a nearby summit, he was jarred from his distraction when Kirk spoke up.
“You coming?”
T’Cael glanced around and discovered Kirk poised awkwardly on the craggy hillside a few steps below, looking back up at him. Reluctantly, he nodded. “Yes, of course.”
“Watch your step. It’s pretty slippery here.”
“Thank you. I shall.”
T’Cael started to crouch down to begin his descent, and was stopped short by the horrid warning beep from his belt sensor. For an instant, he was stunned. Kirk stared upward, his hard glare meeting t’Cael’s as the beeping intensified.
T’Cael reached a hand downward. “Hurry!”
George scrambled on the wet rock and moss, forcing his feet to find holds and his arm to somehow extend until he could reach t’Cael’s grasp.
The sky began to darken. Above him, t’Cael’s face was tinted a horrid red, his royal-blue clothing suddenly flushed purple.
T’Cael’s hand closed around the human’s, and he yanked hard, using the hilltop for leverage even though his feet sank deep into the [202] soft mossy mulch. When he had hauled the Earther over the crest, he dragged him to his feet and they dashed for the nearest rocks.
The planetoid’s surface again bled red. Once again the terrible energy sheets hammered the landscape, singing their song of mutilation, sending a stink of burning organisms through the atmosphere. They were closer this time, and George was slammed against a rock wall by the sheer energy that crushed the atmosphere around them. His body smashed against the stone, and he felt his hip strike against hard rock. Blinded by pain, he squeezed his eyes shut to the explosions in his mind and waited for the assault to end.
Then the last sheet faded, and the red glow thinned to nothing. George forced his eyes open and found himself on his knees, crumpled against a lichened wall. There was movement nearby, but his mind was still foggy.
T’Cael helped him to his feet, and a sharp stab of pain forced his eyes shut again. Gradually, the pain subsided, and he forced his eyes open once more.
The Romulan seemed in good shape. He was holding George up. George pulled away from him and limped toward the overhang. T’Cael paused, then followed. Together, shakily, they moved to the top of the hill and looked down.
The shuttlecraft, and most of the surrounding land, had been thoroughly cremated. Hot metal dripped onto the ground, and sizzled.
Fighting the tingling numbness of his whole left side, George squatted down and pulled on a few scorched tendrils of brown grass. “That’s one way to end a conversation.”
Chapter Sixteen
“FLORIDA! YOU LET them get by us!”
Drake stumbled forward, gaping at the viewscreen.
“I couldn’t stop them!” the helmsman said. “They’re better at this than I am. They cut laterally through the top of the atmosphere and got past us. I can’t do that with this ship!”
“Why would they go back to the planetoid?” Sanawey wondered.
“Maybe to finish the job,” Florida suggested, his words laced with bitterness.
Drake clapped his hands together, newly invigorated. “If they think they have a job to finish, maybe it’s because they think George is still alive. And if they think he’s still alive, maybe it’s because he is still alive!” Delighted, he clapped Florida on the back. “Such deduction! I should have been a Vulcan, yes? Move between them and the planet, fellow. Perhaps it’s time for us to act sans humanité.”
“That doesn’t sound very nice,” Hart commented from her station.
Drake shrugged. “Not what you think. It’s a Creole translation of a Hausa concept. It means, ‘I will give you no sympathy, you
deserve no pity, and it serves you right.’ ”
Florida blinked. Drake shrugged at him and turned to Sanawey. “And you up there,” he added, “boost the gain for communications. Cut through that interference. Can you?”
The big man gave a dubious nod. “Maybe, if we get closer.”
[204] Drake’s mouth curled into a devilish grin. “Oh,” he said with deep satisfaction, “we’re going to get closer. Much, much, and much closer. Mr. Florida, may I have a tiny talk with you?”
There was no candlelight in space. Who could afford such luxuries as candles and soft music when simply staying alive was such a trick? Who had time for such distractions out in space, on a mission, in danger?
Not that most of the ship’s complement would ever know the true extent of their danger in a crisis till the crisis was long past. They were spared the agony of fear—and of choice.
Not so the ship’s doctor, who saw all the pain firsthand. Someone’s hurt; fix it. Don’t take time to worry about what’s coming down the corridor next. And when that someone was the captain, the doctor’s duty quadrupled in intensity.
So Sarah sat beside April, wondering where her responsibility lay—and how on Earth a distraction like love had arisen to complicate that responsibility. Should she bring him around prematurely? Should she prop him up with medications and the technology available to her, shove him back out the door and pick up the pieces later? Or was her duty to the life and well-being of this poignantly gentle man?
Oh, how she’d started to hate that question mark at the end of every thought. She looked at Robert April’s sleeping face and tried to nudge back the memories of all the tender moments he’d given her. Since the first day she’d known him, he’d given her reason to believe that there might be dreams in her life, that everything didn’t have to make sense in textbook form. As he slept on the bed before her, he seemed to have found the peace he so dearly desired to share. If she woke him, she might shatter that peace, and he would once again be alone in that desire. She couldn’t stand to think of making Robert unhappy.
And the courage ... he’d never asked to be protected. Only a brave man could face the cruel realities of the galaxy and still speak of peace the way Robert did.
It felt good to keep him here, safe, asleep. Somehow she was preserving the specialness about him, the gallant fellow who had never acquired the arrogance of so many of his echelon. He was a tonic to her, and she couldn’t deny the affection she had for him. Sometimes it was spooky the way he read her, and others—so subdued, so rational, yet with the courage to choose one direction and stride off that way, [205] no backward glances, with his hands in his pockets and that undemonstrative grin on his face.
She reached a tentative hand to his face and touched him as he slept. She missed him. Despite the comfort of seeing him resting and alive, she wished he was awake too, so she could see his warmth at work. She wanted to experience again his uncanny way of seeing right through to the core of other people’s feelings and needs, and the way he never lost sight of those needs.
“Sarah?”
She flinched at the sound of her name, embarrassed to be caught in a reverie so deep she hadn’t even noticed his eyes flutter open. She withdrew her hand as he focused on her.
The top of the bed was raised, so that he seemed to be reclining in an easy chair, not lying on a diagnostic bed. He tested his voice with a small cough and grinned. “Gosh, you’re nice to wake up to. I’d like to try it under more stirring conditions.”
“Gosh? Well, gee-whiz, Captain—so poetic,” she said.
He smiled and raised his eyebrows over sleepy eyes. “We English,” he claimed. “Roses and poetry. National heritage and all that. Why am I so groggy?”
“You’re still drugged.”
“You drugged me?”
“It was that or a club. You needed some surgery. That’s what you get for playing too rough.”
“Don’t get medical on me, Sarah, my dear.” he said, moving his back and shoulders carefully, testing the muscles.
“Go back to sleep, Robert,” she said, more quietly than she intended.
“Enchant me.”
Her eyes flashed briefly. “I’m not the enchanting type.”
Indulging in a little groan, he sighed. “No, you’re not, are you? Do you know that’s actually what I like best about you? You’re real. There’s a grand compliment for you, truly.” Now he tried to move his legs beneath the thin thermal cover, and though the motion tired him, it also got his blood moving. He took a few deep breaths, then tried once again to force his eyes to focus on her. “You look very pretty today.”
The compliment caught her by surprise. She lowered her eyes, hoping it didn’t look like she was deliberately batting them. “You’re sweet,” she murmured.
[206] A glitter returned to his gaze. “Thank you. It’s wonderful to be described as something other than ‘affable.’ ”
She grasped his wrist to check his pulse, trying to become the doctor again. “You’re that, too,” she said.
“I suppose I should get up soon.”
“You do and I’ll sedate you.”
“Why don’t you marry me instead?”
She tried, really tried, not to smile. Only half succeeded. “I can’t,” she moaned. “I can’t be tied to a life I don’t suit.”
“I think you suit me rather well. After all, I’m charming, princely, noble, entertaining, giving, and I wash between my toes.”
“Toe hygiene? I’m supposed to marry you because of toe hygiene?”
“It’s my worthiest characteristic.”
Sarah pinched the thermal blanket between her fingers and stared down at it. “I would marry you ... but for the stripes on your sleeve.”
“Why? I don’t mind the emblem on yours.”
He cupped his hand over hers, only to have her pull away.
“Robert, I can’t be a ship’s physician,” she said, not looking at him. “I don’t want to be a ship’s physician, and you do want to be a ship’s captain.”
He chuckled. “What gave you that idea?”
Sarah blinked.
April smiled, interpreting her expression. “Did you think I meant to live out my career aboard the empress here?” A twirl of his forefinger took in the whole starship.
Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Don’t you?”
“Actually, I never had that in mind at all.”
“After everything you’ve put into this project?”
“Even after.”
“Then ... but then what?”
April let his throbbing head roll against the pillow. “ ‘Captain’ is a word with wonderful sounds, isn’t it? It’s much more than just a rank. There’s something superb about it and it makes people want to follow it. People like me shouldn’t be allowed to be called ‘captain.’ We should be ‘professor’ or ‘parson’ or things like that. Things more sublime.”
“You’re not making much sense,” Sarah said.
“I’m not, am I?” He flexed his arms and went on, trying to be clearer. “I never planned to carry this ship into exploration, Sarah. [207] And you know how I’d boggle combat. No, this ship needs someone else to run her. Someone almost reckless—a daredevil who can care for the lives of others, who can go out in space and lose touch with everything, and make all the decisions, and broach new ground in policy and practice. The mavericks, I mean. Like George, perhaps.”
“Like George?” Sarah shook her head. “George Kirk is the opposite side of your coin, Robert. You might not push hard enough, but he’d push right through the fabric and rip it.”
April shrugged and blinked groggily. “Well, perhaps not George, but certainly not me. I’m not enough of a lion.” His blue eyes twinkled and he smiled. “That’s what she needs,” he whispered. “A lion at her helm.”
Tears broke from Sarah’s eyes and gave her away. Her voice cracked. “I was right; you are a poet.”
“Why, Sarah ...” He saw the tears then. He reached up instan
tly to brush them away, and was surprised when she folded over to rest her head on his chest and cling to him. She was trembling slightly. April coiled his arms around her and murmured, “Sarah ...”
Her tears dripped on his sweater and beaded up on the natural Aran wool. “Oh, Robert, I’m such a lousy doctor ...”
“What?” He chuckled. “You were in the top fifteen of your class. How lousy can you be?”
“I’m not talking medically.”
“What, then?”
She stared into his sleeve, suddenly glad her face was turned away from his. “I’m not tough enough. I’m not strong.”
“Yes, you are; you’re very strong.”
“No, I’m not,” she insisted, her lip stiffening. “I can’t take it. Doctors are supposed to be tactful and distant and removed. And I’m not.”
April stroked her hair. “Isn’t it lucky that you’re not? I might not love you then.”
“You let yourself get hurt,” she whispered, and suddenly sobbed again. She squeezed him tight. “You promised I wouldn’t have to watch you get hurt. You promised. Robert, I’m so scared ...”
“Sarah ...” Now he whispered her name uneasily. Why would she be afraid? There was nothing to—
As if summoned, an energy jolt shook the entire ship. Sarah had to grab the bed in order to keep from being thrown backward. Then a [208] second bolt rippled through the ship. There was no mistaking it. They were being fired upon.
Sarah straightened up to wipe a hand across her cheeks. April had raised his head and was staring at the walls as though he could see through them.
“What was that?” he gasped.
Sarah cleared her throat. “What was what?”
April clapped a hand to his head, barely missing the injured place. “Good God! I thought all that was a dream—”
He raised his legs and pivoted to a sitting position, reaching for the com panel in spite of his disorientation and weakness.
“Robert, stay where you are!” Sarah attempted, reaching across the bed to catch his arm.