Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  “He should’ve just walked round Hayden in the first place,” Phil maintained, refusing to back down.

  “Is Benny supposed to walk around every town he comes to?” McCoy asked. “That’s where roads go: through towns. And even if they didn’t, so what? Benny’s a citizen of this country and he wasn’t doing anything but walking and minding his own business.”

  “And he almost got himself killed minding his own business,” Phil said. “Would that have been better? He ends up dead and Bo Bartell ends up in jail.”

  “You’re saying Benny almost got himself killed, as though it was his fault that Billy Fuster beat him with a tire iron,” McCoy said. “As though it was his fault that Bo Bartell pulled out a shotgun and aimed it at him.” McCoy took a breath, tried to calm himself down. Slowly, he got to his feet. Facing his friend across the kitchen, he said, “You weren’t there, Phil. I was. Lynn was. And I talked to Benny, I tended to wounds inflicted on him just because he was walking along a road. This wasn’t his fault. He suffered a terrible injustice, and yeah, it could’ve even been worse than that.”

  Phil said nothing, and in the silence, McCoy realized where he was right now, when he was. This ugly attitude he saw in his friend had to be a result of his upbringing. McCoy had always believed that, while bigotry might in some few cases develop naturally, mostly it revealed itself as learned behavior. But even if he could understand the reason for Phil’s racism, even if he wanted to avoid arguing with him, he also subscribed to the old saw that the only requirement for the triumph of evil was for good men to do nothing. If McCoy forgave Phil’s behavior, or even ignored it, then he tacitly condoned it. He could not do that.

  “Let me tell you something,” McCoy said. “If you looked at all the folks who live here in Hayden, you’d find a lot more differences among them than you’d find between you and Benny.” Phil scoffed. “I’m a doctor,” McCoy said. “I know these things.” When Phil didn’t respond, McCoy went on. “Lynn,” he said quietly, hoping that she could help her husband see the inequity of his beliefs. “Tell Phil how it was.”

  Lynn looked down at her hands, which she twisted together in her lap. McCoy thought she might not say anything, but then she told Phil, “It didn’t seem very Christian.”

  “So now you love coloreds too,” Phil replied.

  “Phil,” Lynn said, and then she stood up and raced out of the room.

  Phil glared at McCoy from across the kitchen. Their disconnection seemed to hang in the air between them, keeping them apart, pushing them apart. Phil had been such a good friend for years now, and all McCoy wanted was to put this argument, this evening, behind them. “I’d better go,” he said. “Tell Lynn I’m sorry for spoiling the supper she made.” He moved to the side door and opened it.

  “Len,” Phil said, but then he could only shake his head.

  “Brown men and white men are all the same,” McCoy said gently. “Some are good, some aren’t. And if there are blue men somewhere out there in the universe, then the same’ll be true of them.” Phil looked at him, but did not respond.

  McCoy went through the side door and left.

  Thirty-Five

  2280

  He didn’t really know why he’d come here. As he stood in the hatchway of the airpod and peered out, he considered turning around and continuing on with his journey. But of course, when he reached his destination, there would be a certain similarity to this place.

  And obviously he had come here for a reason.

  Spock would’ve called him irrational—and come to think of it, really had done just that, though not utilizing that particular word. Bones had characterized Kirk in much the same way, though he had been more understanding. Actually, considering Spock’s complicated relationship with his own parents and his decidedly human side—especially since his apparent acceptance after the V’Ger affair of that aspect of his nature—Spock might’ve understood this—

  This what? Kirk asked himself. Pilgrimage? He didn’t care for the word. It implied too much significance. But then if this place didn’t hold any import for him, why would he have come? “Just go,” he told himself, and he stepped from the craft down onto the dirt road. He touched a control in the hull—a lustrous green that had surprised him when he’d borrowed the vehicle—and the gull-wing hatch swung closed.

  Before him, the dirt road stretched into the distance, long and straight. Years ago, it had ended out in the fields, but he didn’t know if that remained the case now. He hadn’t been back here in a very long time.

  Kirk began walking, staying to the side of the road and gazing out at the neat rows of soybean plants rising up out of the soil. Between, he saw the dried husks of what looked the residue of corn crops from previous years. The deposits appeared significant, and Kirk suspected that the no-till farming methods obviously employed here left the ground covered virtually completely throughout the entire calendar year.

  His boots made gritty, grinding sounds in the dirt as he strode along. He felt uncomfortable in his clothes—gray slacks and a royal blue, short-sleeved shirt—but he knew it had nothing to do with what he wore. He’d made a decision, and now he had to conclude whether or not he’d plotted the right course.

  In the silence and stillness of the mid-July sun, Kirk chuckled to himself, remembering the words he’d so often seen in his evaluations throughout his Starfleet career. Quick to action. Committed to goals. Unwavering. So often, Admiral Komack and Admiral Nogura and others had made him sound like an automaton, like a captain-model robot that took as its input the details of a situation and an instant later spat out a plan of attack that he would immediately implement. Kirk knew that’s how it had to appear to his crews, that in order for them to succeed, he needed to provide strength and direction. And he bore no false modesty: he was a leader, stalwart and decisive. But that didn’t mean that he never questioned himself, that he didn’t expend great amounts of energy and thought in his position—his former position—as starship captain, or even in his thirty-month stint as chief of Starfleet Operations.

  What if I’m wrong? he thought, recalling the question he most asked himself, ever mindful of the consequences of his actions. He remembered once, a long time ago, when Bones had actually answered him—not with an estimate of what would happen if Kirk made a mistaken choice, but with a source of resolve that the captain had subsequently made great use of over the years.

  “What if I’m wrong?” he’d asked Bones, telling him that he didn’t expect an answer. But Bones had said he had one.

  “In this galaxy,” McCoy had said, “there’s a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets, and in all the universe, three million million galaxies like this one. And in all of that, and perhaps more, only one of each of us. Don’t destroy the one named Kirk.”

  Kirk had liked that and had often recalled it to mind throughout his career. It hadn’t alleviated his need to analyze and deliberate about his decisions, but it had often helped him forge through that process a little easier.

  Up ahead, a flash of light revealed the solar panels on the roof of the farmhouse. The image brought him back to the days he’d spent here as a boy, working the fields alongside his father and brother. He remembered the clear, crisp Iowa nights, when he and his father—and sometimes his mother, sometimes Sam, but mostly he and his father—would walk out, away from the house, and gaze up at pinpoints of light that, it seemed, had always beckoned to Jim.

  Why has it been so long since I’ve been back here? Kirk asked himself, though he knew the many reasons. His parents had been gone a long time, and even Sam had been dead thirteen years now. Coming back to this place where he and his brother had grown up didn’t simply bring back good memories; it also reinforced a sense of loss that remained with him always. For so long, he’d wanted to leave this place, not because he hadn’t liked it here—he had—but because his imagination had called him into space. Coming back to this place, with his family no longer here, made that long-ago departure seem
like something of a betrayal.

  As Kirk approached the farmhouse, he recalled the first time that he’d left Riverside, which had also been the first time he’d traveled by transporter. He’d been five years old at the time, and it had been on the occasion of the funeral of his father’s father. Although Jim had barely known his grandfather, he’d still had enough exposure to him to develop some definite impressions of him. The strongest of these had been of the old man as a strident and imposing figure, a huge hulk of a man with a booming voice. Certainly something of that perception must have been the result of the very young interacting with the very old. Still, there must have been some truth to it.

  Today, one of the most vivid memories Kirk retained of his grandfather had come from the funeral: the old man lying in an open casket, with flower arrangements and mourners ringing the periphery of the scene. Even in this remembered picture, the old man seemed larger than life, as though in the next frame of recollection he might jump up and proclaim himself alive and healthy. But Kirk’s grandfather had not leaped from his coffin four decades ago, and he did not do so now in Jim’s mind. And the detail that the five-year-old boy had found missing back then—and that Kirk found so conspicuously absent now—had been the old man’s voice, clear and loud and dominating its surroundings.

  He reached the path that led away from the dirt road and up to the farmhouse. It pleased him to see that the expansive manicured lawn that lay between the road and the house had been maintained, combining with the many bushes and the two huge silver maples to provide a lush entrance to the home. Kirk thought about walking down the path alongside the yard, perhaps even knocking on the front door and explaining that he’d once lived here and asking to see the house. Instead, for the moment, he just stood there, still recalling his grandfather.

  Forty-two years ago, Kirk had been fearful of what the old man’s funeral would be like. He’d never been to such an event before that, and he’d spent the days prior to it living with imagined possibilities that only a child’s inexperienced mind could manifest. He’d slept restlessly, roused often by nightmares that had caused him to lie awake in bed in the early hours of the morning because he could not go back to sleep and he would not cry out to Sam or to his parents.

  At the same time, he’d also felt great anticipation: the young Jim Kirk had looked forward excitedly to his first trip through a transporter. His father had downplayed the significance of travel by transporter—or he’d tried to, anyway—but Jim had been anxious to experience it for himself. This had caused him some un-childlike feelings of guilt; he believed that he should not have wanted so much to attend his grandfather’s funeral.

  On the night before the memorial service, he’d again been unable to sleep, not from nightmares about his grandfather, but from anticipation about the transporter. And when the time had finally come, when he had climbed up on the public platform in Riverside from which he and his family would “go beaming,” as he’d called it, he’d been unable to stand still. The operator had refused to energize the transporter with Jim moving around so much, and his father had needed to scold him before he’d been able to hold his enthusiasm in abeyance. When the effect had taken him, he’d felt dizzy, but not very much so, or perhaps his excitement had simply overwhelmed the brief fainting sensation. One second, he’d stood in the Riverside transporter station, and in the next, it had vanished into nothingness.

  And then the world had re-formed about him. That’s how it had felt, Kirk remembered now. Not that he had been transported from one place to another, not that his body had been encoded, disassembled, and reassembled, but that the universe had disintegrated about him, moved itself around, and then reconstituted itself in such a way that a different transporter platform had positioned itself beneath his feet. A distinctly Otevrel point of view, Kirk thought now.

  After the funeral, after Jim and his family had returned home, after he’d “gone beaming” a second time, he’d explained to his father how it had felt to him, how it had seemed like it had been the world and not his body that had dissolved and re-formed. He’d spoken haltingly, he recalled, concerned that his father would find his notion foolish—though that would not have been consistent with his father’s character—but wanting to tell him despite that fear. But his father hadn’t laughed, or told him that his ideas were silly or even wrong. Instead, he had listened and then had stared off for a moment or two, obviously considering what his son had told him. When finally he’d spoken, he’d told Jim that both feelings and reality depended upon points of view and points of reference. Since apparently everything in the universe moved with respect to everything else, he’d supposed that you could arbitrarily select a point and declare it the center of the universe, about which everything else remained in motion. So if they considered Jim—and his brother—the center of the universe, then yes, the universe actually had dissolved and re-formed about them. That being the case, his father had said that he would from that time forward take on Jim’s perspective as his own.

  Back then, Kirk hadn’t really understood everything his father had told him. Years later, though, he would recall their conversation and realize that his father had been saying that Jim and Sam were the center of his universe. Even now, many years after his father’s death, Kirk found himself moved by the sensitivity of the man. He often hoped that some of that characteristic had been passed on from father to son, and he continually attempted to cultivate it in himself.

  Is that why I’m here? Kirk asked himself. To tend my sensitivity? But of course, he’d come here because he’d made a life-altering decision, and this experience would help him reflect on his choice and find out if he’d made the right one.

  No more Enterprise, no more Starfleet, he thought as he stood in the road and gazed at the house where he and his brother had spent their childhoods. No more Mom and Dad, no more Sam.

  No more Edith.

  He pushed that last thought away, not quite ready to begin revisiting the repercussions to his life of that decision. But the time for that would come soon enough too. Right now, though, he simply needed to slow down a bit, contemplate where he’d been so that he could discover where next he should go—or if he should go anywhere at all.

  Spock and Bones wanted to move on with their lives, he knew. They’d all enjoyed their time together—even Spock, despite his protestations of stoicism—but Jim’s two friends possessed their own ambitions. Kirk’s loyal and indefatigable first officer deserved a command of his own, of course, but had instead developed a desire to teach, to pass on his knowledge and wisdom. Kirk could not disagree that Spock would make a fine instructor. And Bones wanted to continue his medical and scientific research, certainly an understandable and excellent use of his abilities. Since both Spock and McCoy had chosen to remain in Starfleet, Kirk imagined that they would find time to continue collaborating on their shared project, which had started with Jim’s own M’Benga numbers and had led them, at least to this point, to chronometric particles.

  Sulu, Dennehy, and Chekov all had aspirations of command, Kirk knew, and he thought that they all would likely get there eventually. Hikaru had been promoted to commander and offered the captaincy of a Starfleet training vessel, but had instead chosen to sign on as executive officer aboard the Exeter. Dennehy and Chekov had both received rank increases as well, Lisa to commander and Pavel to lieutenant commander; she had been assigned as exec to space station Deep Space KR-3, and he had become second officer aboard the Miranda-class starship Reliant. Like Spock, Uhura had spoken of teaching, but Kirk had heard that Starfleet Intelligence had some interest in her extensive communications expertise. Dr. Chapel had accepted a position as CMO aboard the Canada-class Algonquin. And Scotty—well, it didn’t matter what promotions he received, it would take a supernova to get him moved out of a starship engine room, and Kirk didn’t think it mattered all that much to Scotty which starship, which engine, and certainly not which captain.

  But what about me? Kirk thought. He’d once belie
ved that he would die in space, alone after a long, successful career as a starship captain. He’d stepped down from command of the Enterprise after the five-year mission only because Starfleet Command had wanted him to, and because he’d seen great challenges and opportunities in leading Starfleet Operations. He’d returned to starship command during the V’Ger incident and had then led a new mission of exploration for seven and a half years on the Aquarius expedition. But now—

  Now, his friends had moved on—even the Enterprise herself had been relegated to use as a training vessel for cadets—and he needed to move on too. He’d made a difference in this universe, but still, something was missing from his own life. Being here, peering at the old farm, at the old house, did help, though he didn’t know exactly how. But finally there would be time to figure that out—that, and everything else.

  Kirk turned from the house and started back down the road toward the airpod. He would take it back to Riverside, climb onto the public transporter platform there, and beam out to Idaho, where he still owned the home his uncle had left to him. There, he didn’t know what would happen next, but he would leave himself open to possibilities.

  “Doctor, the first member of the team is here,” Tulugaq said over the intercom.

  Great, McCoy thought, peering down at the top of the desk—or at least at where it had been before he’d moved into his new office and buried the desktop in slates, data cards, hardcover books, handwritten notes on paper, and unaccountably, a full internal medical scan of a Vedala female. McCoy reached forward into the disarray and activated his intercom. “Ask them to give me just a minute, Tulugaq,” McCoy said.

  “Yes, Doctor,” his assistant said.

  As quickly as he could, McCoy began to gather the items from his desk, sorting them only by type. As he attempted to collect each of the many slates he’d accumulated, he cursed himself for not taking care of this yesterday. He’d wanted to see Jim before the starship captain—now former starship captain—left San Francisco. The doctor had just spent the past seven and a half years with him aboard the Enterprise, but Jim’s decision to retire from Starfleet had been a surprise, and McCoy had wanted to make sure that his friend was all right. In truth, he hadn’t been able to tell, but he thought that perhaps Jim felt lonely. It might seem paradoxical, but he thought that it might benefit Jim to spend some time by himself, not to get away from people, but to distance himself from the great weight of responsibility he had for so long carried.