by Diane Duane
Jim nodded.
“It will not last forever,” Ael said. “Nothing does. But after such a withdrawal, or absence, when we appear again, possibly you should not be surprised if we do not look, or act, as we do now. There is always the possibility—”
“That something will go wrong?”
“That something will go as the Elements please,” Ael said, “and not as we plan. They will have Their way. Perhaps our plans will coincide with Theirs. If not—” She shrugged, and turned again, heading for the door, and the Imperial escort waiting outside.
“But who knows?” Ael said, as the door opened, and she stepped through it. “In the name of peace, just to reassure other species, you understand, who can say? We might even start calling ourselves ‘Romulans.’”
EPILOGUE
The sequelae of the Romulan Civil War (as it eventually became known in the Federation) naturally lasted for many months. The war’s repercussions traveled as if on slow-moving wavefronts all across and through that part of the galaxy; political and trade alliances among worlds shifted to accommodate it, and here and there, in the spaces on either side of the Neutral Zone, planetary governments fell or were radically changed. Inevitably, on both sides of the Zone, historians started their work, sifting through all the available data to support their own theories of what had been going on, and why, and how. A few of them actually got close to the truth.
As is so often the case, those closest to it had least to say in public on the subject. In some cases this was because they were bound by the exigencies of circumstance, or service-based oaths of confidentiality. In others because the events they had striven to bring about were best served by their silence. In a few cases, it was a combination of the first two, as well as just being too damn busy.
James Kirk would have fallen into the last category. What with one thing and another, it was almost two months before he and Enterprise made their way back into Earth orbit for a long-scheduled, much-needed dry-dock period. Jim’s time off, as was so often the case, was much delayed by the business of getting his ship and people settled in. He had two appointments that were the first things he’d wanted to handle on returning, which turned out—after a most exhaustive debriefing at Starfleet Command—to be the last.
The first of these was in an office in Paris, as evening fell, and outside the office window the lights began to race up and down the Eiffel Tower. Jim stood there in his dress uniform, chafing in it somewhat as always, and received from the President the Federation “Medal of Peace” decorations for Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and himself—the decorations that none of them would ever be able to wear in public, because no part of the reason they’d been awarded could ever be revealed.
And having done so, Jim was able to sit down with the President and give him a piece of his mind. It took quite a while, and the President sat there and took it like the seasoned campaigner he was, watching Jim thoughtfully over one of the pair of glasses of brandy he’d poured. At the end of it, when Jim had run down—it took him nearly an hour—the President refilled Jim’s glass.
“Every word you’ve said is true,” the President said. “No one should ever have to be in the kind of position in which I put you. But I won’t say I’m sorry, because I saw what needed to be done, and you were the only man to make it happen. I have only one question to ask you. Will it have been worth it?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Jim said. “But in the long run, I think so.”
The President nodded. “Thank you,” he said, and raised his glass.
Jim hesitated, then lifted his glass and touched it to the President’s.
They stayed there talking until quite late—one of those long discussions that reminded Jim, as he left, that the loneliness of command comes in many different forms and qualities. But the late night led in turn to a late morning, so that he was delayed in checking out of his Paris hotel, missed his originally scheduled beam-up time, and had to call Enterprise for another. As a result, it was half-past predawn twilight before he materialized on a stony hillside in the middle of what had once been the Sespe Condor Preserve in the wilds of central California.
The gully wound down and away through the hilly ground as it had when he was last here—a lifetime ago, it seemed. Everything was utterly still except for the thin trickling sound of the little creek that ran down through the gully, off to his right. A thick mist lay in the gully, hiding the water from sight; the top layer of the mist shifted slightly in the light of a setting moon just barely past its full.
Carefully—for the footing was uncertain in this twilit mist—Jim started to walk up the length of the gully, paralleling the creek as he headed for its source. Sometimes the mist hid the smaller watercourses that fed into this one, little stony runoffs that were live only in the rainy season, so that he stepped down onto the tumbled stones about twice as far as he thought he was going to have to; once he almost twisted his ankle in one of these. But he just smiled to himself in the predawn light, and kept on going.
The damp smell of wild olive and scrub oak around him, of sage and piñon, seemed to get stronger as the sky lightened. Jim reached the place where the rough path by the live streambed had been blocked by a fall of rocks from the steeper bank on the right. He crossed the creek, missing his footing once, splashing into the water and cussing absentmindedly at the cold of it. But just a little way beyond him, farther up the hill, was the place he had been heading for, the last thing he needed to do.
The old wild olive tree was deeply rooted in the steep hillside, just above the source of the spring that fed the creek. More bears had been at it since Jim had been here last: deep splintery clawmarks zigzagged the largest trunk where it reached out over the downfalling water. Jim paused, sniffing at a faint charred smell that hung in the damp air. Some of the tree’s upper branches were missing, others broken over sideways, still others scorched. The tree had been hit by lightning again since he’d been here last.
One branch, though, much slenderer than the main trunk, had not been touched. Its leaves were sparse, and unlike the last time, there were no olives; this was the wrong season. But the pennon hung where he had left it. The red polymer of the pennon was unfaded, the glyphs on it still in clear contrast, getting clearer by the moment as the dawn grew slowly nearer.
Jim glanced around to find the best way up, over a few newly fallen boulders, and scrambled up onto the olive’s main trunk. Carefully he stepped out toward the branch where the pennon hung. The branch hadn’t yet broadened out enough for the polymer strips holding it in place to sink much into the branch’s rough bark, but olives are slow growers.
He pulled out his phaser and took careful aim. The first shot severed the nearer of the two strips, so that the pennon slumped down, hanging by just the remaining strip with the other top corner folded over the first couple of glyphs. But Jim didn’t need to see them to know what they said. If his memory had needed any refreshing, the memory of the pennon’s twin—now hanging as a standard outside the Senate on ch’Rihan, bearing glyphs as tall as a man—would have been more than adequate to the task.
But only one such standard was needed. That name would now be remembered and spoken again in the world that had given it birth, and in many others. Or at least the first three words of it would be.
Very quietly, Jim spoke the fourth word of it, the name not written on either pennant. One time for each of the Elements he spoke it, as was appropriate, and then one last time for the Archelement that encompassed them all, that It might know the soul that owned that name to be home again at last. And with the fifth repetition he fired once more, severing the second fastening. The pennon fluttered down toward the water.
His final phaser blast reduced it to its component atoms well before it hit the stream. At first the thought of that name vanishing in fire one more time had troubled him, but she’d told him not to be concerned. As you see, he could still hear her saying, I have come through the Fire and out the other side. From that Element, at lea
st, I’ve nothing further to fear. The rest of my life’s problems, now that my name is written again where it is, will be made of Earth and Water and Air. That’s the destiny I’ve wrought for myself. Now, set me free of Earth—She’d smiled at the pun.—and get back to finding your own.
Jim stood there for a moment, looking up into the swiftly lightening sky. The stars were fading, but still he waited.
And somewhere down the watercourse, a California jay suddenly spoke up, making a noise like an extremely rusty hinge. Then it made it again, much louder.
Jim let out a breath of amusement at himself. Hanging around here like someone waiting for a sign, he thought, while there are things to do. Destinies to find.
He put the phaser away and pulled out his communicator, flipped it open.
“Enterprise, Commander Uhura.”
“I’m done here,” Jim said. “Any time you’re ready.”
“Yes, sir. Transporter room, one to beam up.”
The captain of the Starship Enterprise vanished in dazzle. A few moments later, the rising sun cresting the hillside above the gully struck through where he had been, throwing the olive’s shadow stark against the slope.
Only a few breaths after that, silent, riding the wavecrest of morning, the condor planed by over the stream—its wings bloodied by the new morning’s light—banked sideways, briefly silhouetted against the setting moon, and was gone.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diane Duane has been making her living writing fantasy and science fiction for more than a quarter century, and has written for Star Trek in more media than anyone else alive. Born in Manhattan, a descendant of the first Mayor of New York City after the Revolutionary War, she initially trained and worked as a psychiatric nurse; then, after the publication of her first book in 1979, spent some years living and writing on both coasts of the United States before relocating to County Wicklow in Ireland, where she settled down with her husband, the Belfast-born novelist and screenwriter Peter Morwood. Her work includes more than forty novels—a number of which have spent time on the New York Times best-seller list—and much television work, including story-editing stints on the DiC animated series Dinosaucers and the BBC educational series Science Challenge, a cowriter credit on the first-season Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Where No One Has Gone Before,” and (most recently) another on the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, written in collaboration with her husband. When not writing, she conducts an active online life based around her weblog (http://www.dianeduane.com/outofambit), her popular “Young Wizards” novel series (http://www.youngwizards.com), and her European recipe collection (http://www.europeancuisines.com), while also stargazing, cooking, attempting to keep the cats from eating all the herbs in the garden, and trying to figure out how to make more spare time.