“You’ll see,” Peter whispered.
Kirk and Scott and McCoy strolled back along the length of the engine room. When they reached Peter, the cadet saluted hard.
Kirk stopped. “Yes, Mr. Preston?”
Peter offered him a complicated instrument.
“I believe the admiral asked after this?”
[69] Kirk inspected it.
“What is it, Mr. Preston?”
“Why, sir, it’s a left-handed spanner, of course.”
Mr. Scott looked completely and utterly shocked. The admiral’s mouth twitched. Dr. McCoy choked down a smile, then gave up and started to laugh. After a moment, Kirk followed suit. Mr. Scott managed nothing better than a stiff, grim smile. Peter watched them with his very best total-innocent look.
“Mr. Scott,” Kirk said, but he was laughing too hard to continue. Finally he stopped and wiped his eyes. “Mr. Scott, I think we’d better get these kids on their training cruise before they take over completely. Are your engines up to a little trip?”
“Just give the word, Admiral.”
“Mr. Scott, the word is given.”
“Aye, sir.”
Kirk handed the “left-handed spanner” back to Peter and started away. A few steps later, he glanced over his shoulder and winked.
As soon as the turbo-lift doors slid closed, Jim Kirk collapsed into laughter again. “Do you believe it, Bones?” He was laughing so hard he had to pause between every phrase. “God, what a terrific kid. A left-handed spanner!” Jim wiped the tears from his eyes. “I deserved that one, didn’t I? I forgot how much I hated being teased when I was his age.”
“Yes, once in a while we old goats need to be reminded how things were back in the mists of prehistory.”
Kirk’s amusement subsided abruptly. He still disliked being teased, and McCoy was well aware of the fact. Jim frowned, not knowing how to take McCoy’s comment. “Bridge,” he said to the turbo-lift voice sensor.
“What about the rest of your inspection ... Admiral?” McCoy said. He let the tone of his voice creep over into not completely benign mockery. [70] Needling Jim Kirk was one of the few ways to get him to take a good hard look at himself.
Getting him drunk certainly had not worked.
“I’ll finish it later, Doctor,” Jim said mildly. “After we’re under way.”
“Jim, do you really think that a three-week training cruise once a year is going to make up for forty-nine other weeks of pushing paper? Do you think it’s going to keep you from driving yourself crazy?”
“I thought we got this conversation over with last night,” Jim said. “You want to know something? It’s getting extremely tedious.”
“Yeah, concern from one’s friends is a bore, isn’t it?”
“Sometimes it is,” Jim said. “You’re a lot better surgeon than you are a psychotherapist.”
The turbo-lift doors opened, and McCoy repressed a curse. A few more minutes and he might have made some kind of breakthrough with Jim.
Or got myself punched in the mouth, he thought. Some breakthrough.
Admiral Kirk stepped out onto the bridge of the Enterprise, and Dr. McCoy followed him.
McCoy had to admit it was pleasant to be back. He nodded to Uhura, and she smiled at him. Mr. Sulu had the helm, though just now it appeared that Lieutenant Saavik, first officer and science officer for the training cruise, would be piloting the Enterprise for practice. The main difference, of course, was that now Mr. Spock was the captain. He did not relinquish his place to Kirk; to do so would be improper. Heaven forbid that Spock might do anything improper.
“Admiral on the bridge!” Mr. Sulu said.
“As you were,” Kirk said before anyone could stand up or salute.
“Starfleet Operations to Enterprise. You are cleared for departure.”
“Lieutenant Saavik, “ Spock said, “clear all moorings.”
“Aye, sir.”
[71] She set to work. Kirk and McCoy descended to the lower bridge.
“Greetings, Admiral.” Spock nodded to McCoy as well. “Dr. McCoy. I trust the inspection went well.”
“Yes, Captain, I’m very impressed,” Kirk said.
“Moorings clear, Captain,” Saavik said.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” Spock paused a moment, and then his eyes got that hooded look that McCoy had learned in self-defense to recognize.
“Lieutenant Saavik,” Spock said, “how many times have you piloted a starship out of spacedock?”
“One hundred ninety-three, sir,” Saavik said promptly. And then added: “In simulation.”
Kirk absolutely froze.
“In real-world circumstances,” Saavik said, “never.”
McCoy got the distinct impression that Jim Kirk simultaneously thought of two possible courses of action. The first was to pitch Spock out of the captain’s seat and order Mr. Sulu to take the helm. The second was to do nothing. He chose the latter. But it was close to a photo finish.
You damned leprechaun! McCoy directed the delighted thought at Spock. Vulcan discipline, indeed!
Deliberately avoiding a look at Kirk, pretending ignorance of the admiral’s discomfort, Spock glanced at McCoy with a very slight smile. For the Vulcan, that was almost as extreme a reaction as Jim’s fit of laughter in the turbo-lift was for Kirk.
“Take us out, Lieutenant Saavik,” Spock said.
“Aye, sir. Reverse thrust, Mr. Sulu, if you please.”
“Reverse thrust, Lieutenant.”
“It is always rewarding to watch one’s students examine the limits of their training,” Spock said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Admiral?”
“Oh, definitely, Captain. To be sure. First time for everything, after all.”
The viewscreen showed the spacedock recede majestically, then spin slowly from their sight as Saavik rotated the Enterprise away.
[72] “Ahead one-quarter impulse power, if you please, Captain Sulu,” Saavik said.
Jim opened his mouth to speak, took a deep breath and closed his mouth abruptly, and grabbed his hands together behind his back. McCoy leaned toward him.
“Hey, Jim,” he whispered, “want a tranquilizer?”
Kirk glared at him and shook his head.
The ship accelerated.
“One-quarter impulse power,” Mr. Sulu said; then, a moment later, “Free and clear.”
Kirk quietly released the breath he had been holding.
“Course, Captain?” Saavik asked.
Spock turned to Kirk and raised one eyebrow.
“At your discretion, Captain,” Kirk said.
Spock got that expression again, and McCoy’s suspicion that the Vulcan was as concerned about Kirk as he was intensified.
“Out there, Lieutenant Saavik.”
Kirk started.
“Sir?” Saavik glanced back.
“Out there” was something Jim Kirk had said the last time the Enterprise was under his command.
“I believe the technical term is ‘thataway,’ ” Spock said.
“Aye, sir,” Saavik said, obviously not understanding.
But McCoy could see that Jim understood.
Chapter 4
As soon as the inspection ended, Peter dropped the “left-handed spanner” into its bin and sprinted to his locker. He was late for his math lesson. He scooped up his little computer, banged the locker door closed, turned around, and ran smack into his Uncle Montgomery.
“Uh—” Peter came to attention and saluted. “I’m due in tutorial, sir, with your permission—”
“Permission denied, Cadet. I’ll have a few words wi’ ye first.”
“But, sir, I’ll be late!”
“Then ye’ll be late! What did ye mean wi’ that display of impertinence?”
Oh, boy, Peter thought. Now I’m in for it.
“Sir?” he said innocently, stalling for time.
“Dinna ‘sir’ me, ye young scoundrel! Were ye trying to embarrass me in front of the admiral? In front of James Kirk hims
elf?”
“You didn’t have to tell him who I was!” Peter said. “Nobody knew, till now!”
“Aye, is that so? Ye are embarrassed to be my nephew?”
“You know I’m not! It just seems like everybody will think I only got here because of it.”
Montgomery Scott folded his arms across his chest. “Ye have so little faith in ye’sel’?”
“I just want to pull my share,” Peter said, and saw that that was not the right thing to say, either.
“I see,” Uncle Montgomery said. “ ’Tis not ye’sel’ ye [74] doesna trust, ’tis me. Ye think I’d do ye the disservice of letting ye off easy? If ye think ye havna been working hard enough, we’ll see if we canna gi’ ye a bit o’ a change.”
I’m definitely going to be late to math, Peter thought. Lieutenant Saavik will cancel the lesson, and on top of everything else it’s going to take me three days to get uncle over his snit. Well, smart kid, was it worth it?
He remembered the look on the admiral’s face when he gave him the “left-handed spanner” and decided that it was.
But not, unfortunately, as far as Uncle Montgomery was concerned.
“You know I don’t think that, uncle,” Peter said, trying to placate him.
“Ah, now it’s ‘uncle’! And stop changing the subject! Ye havna explained thy behavior!”
“He was testing me, uncle, to see how dumb I am. If that happened, Dannan said—”
“Dannan!” Uncle Montgomery cried. “That sister o’ thine has only just missed being thrown in the brig more times than thy computer can count! I’d not take thy sister as a model, mister, if ye know what’s good for ye!”
“Wait a minute!” Peter cried. “Dannan is ... she’s—”
It was true she had been disciplined a lot; it was even true that she had nearly been thrown out of Starfleet. But even Uncle Montgomery had told him a million times that once in a while you had to work on your own initiative, and that was what Dannan did. It didn’t matter anyway. Dannan was Peter’s sister, and he adored her.
“You can’t talk about her that way!”
“I’ll talk about her any way I please, young mister, and ye shall listen with a civil tongue in thy head.”
“Can I go now?” Peter asked sullenly. “I’m already five minutes late, and Lieutenant Saavik won’t wait around.”
[75] “That’s another thing. Ye spend far too much time hanging around after her. D’ye think she’s naught to do but endure the attentions of a puppydog?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Peter asked angrily.
“Dinna play the fool wi’ thine old uncle, boy. I can see a schoolboy crush—and so can everyone else. My only advice for ye,” he said condescendingly, “is dinna wear thy heart on thy sleeve.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Nay? Well, then, be off wi’ ye, Mister Know-It-All, if ye are too wise to listen to the advice o’ thine elders.”
Peter fled from the locker room.
Saavik arrived at tutorial rather late, for the inspection and undocking disarrayed the usual schedule. She was surprised to find that Peter was not there yet, either. Perhaps he had arrived and, not finding Saavik, assumed that the training cruise would change the routine. But she thought he would wait more than two or three minutes. Perhaps Mr. Scott had lectured his trainees after the engine room inspection.
That could take considerable extra time, Saavik thought. I will wait.
When Spock first requested that Saavik tutor Peter Preston in advanced theoretical mathematics, she had prepared herself to decline. Peter, fourteen, was nearly the same age as Saavik had been when the Vulcan research team landed on her birth-world.
Saavik had feared she would compare the charming and well-brought-up young Peter to the creature she had been on Hellguard. She had feared she would resent the advantages childhood had presented to him and withheld from her. She feared her own anger and how she might react if she released it even for a moment.
When she tried to explain all this to the captain, he listened, considerately and with all evidence of understanding. Then he apologized for his own lack of [76] clarity: he had not made a request; he had given an order which he expected Saavik to carry out as a part of her training. Unquestioning obedience was illogical, but trust was essential. If, in all the years that Saavik had known Spock, she had not found him worthy of trust, then she was of course free to refuse the order. Many avenues of training and advancement would still lie open to her. None, however, would permit her to remain under Spock’s command.
Spock had been a member of the Vulcan exploratory expedition to Hellguard. He alone forced the other Vulcans to accept their responsibility to the world’s abandoned inhabitants, though they had many logical reasons—and unspoken excuses far more involved—for denying any responsibility. Saavik owed her existence as a civilized being, and possibly her life—for people died young and brutally on Hellguard—to Spock’s intervention.
She obeyed his order.
Saavik heard Peter running down the hall. He burst in, out of breath and distracted.
“I’m really sorry I’m late,” he said. “I came as fast as I could—I didn’t think you’d wait.”
“I was late, too,” she admitted. “I thought perhaps you were delayed by the inspection, as I was.” Saavik had to be honest with herself, though: one of the reasons she waited was that she thoroughly enjoyed the time she spent teaching the young cadet. Peter was intelligent and quick, and while their ages were sufficiently different that Peter was still a child and Saavik an adult, they were in fact only six years apart.
“Well ... sort of.”
“Are you prepared to discuss today’s lesson?”
“I guess so,” he said. “I think I followed projecting the n-dimensional hyperplanes into n-1 dimensional spaces, but I got a little tangled up when they started to intersect.”
Saavik interfaced Peter’s small computer with the larger monitor.
[77] “Let me look,” she said, “and I will try to see where you began ... getting a little tangled up.”
As she glanced through Peter’s work, Saavik reflected upon her own extraordinarily erroneous assumption about the way she would react to Peter. Far from resenting the boy, she found great comfort in knowing that her own childhood was anomalous, rather than being the way of a deliberately cruel universe. Cruelty existed, indeed: but natural law did not demand it.
She learned at least as much from Peter as he did from her: lessons about the joy of life and the possibilities for happiness, lessons she could never feel comfortable discussing with Spock, and in fact had avoided even mentioning to him.
But the captain was far more subtle and complex than his Vulcan exterior permitted him to reveal. Perhaps he had not, as she had believed, given her this task to test her control of the anger she so feared. Perhaps she was learning from Peter precisely what Spock had intended.
“Here, Peter,” she said. “This is the difficulty.” She pointed out the error in one of his equations.
“Huh?”
He looked blankly at the monitor, his mind a thousand light-years from anything.
“Your tangle,” she said. “It’s right here.”
“Oh. Yeah. Okay.” He looked at it and blinked, and said nothing.
“Peter, what’s wrong?”
“Uh, nothing.”
Saavik remained silent for a moment; Peter fidgeted.
“Peter,” Saavik said, “you know that I sometimes have difficulty understanding the way human beings react. I need help to learn. If everything is all right, determining why I thought something might be wrong will pose me a serious problem.”
“Sometimes there’s stuff people don’t want to talk about.”
[78] “I know—I don’t wish to invade your privacy. But if, in truth, you are not troubled, I must revise many criteria in my analyses of behavior.”
He took a deep breath. “Yeah, something happened.”
“You need not tell me what,” Saavik said.
“Can I, if I want?”
“Of course, if you wish.”
He hesitated, as if sorting out his thoughts. “Well,” he said, “I had this fight with Commander Scott.”
“A fight!” Saavik said with considerable distress.
“Not like punching or anything. But that isn’t it; he gets snarked off about little stuff all the time.”
“Peter, I think it would be better if you did not speak so of your commanding officer.”
“Yeah, you’re right, only he’s been doing it my whole life—his whole life, I guess. I know because he’s my uncle.”
“Oh,” Saavik said.
“I never told anybody on the ship, only now he’s started telling people. He told the admiral—can you believe it? That’s one of the things I got mad about.” He stopped and took a deep breath and shook his head. “But ...”
Saavik waited in silence.
Peter looked up at her, started to blush, and looked away. “He said ... he said you had better things to do with your time than put up with me hanging around, he said I’m a pest, and he said ... he said I ... Never mind. That part’s too dumb. He said you probably think I’m a pain.”
Saavik frowned. “The first statement is untrue, and the second is ridiculous.”
“You mean you don’t mind having to give me math lessons?”
“On the contrary, I enjoy it very much.”
“You don’t think I’m a pest?”
“Indeed, I do not.”
“I’m really glad,” Peter said. “He thinks I’ve [79] been ... well ... acting really dumb. He was laughing at me.”
“You deserve better than to be laughed at.”
He felt humiliated—Saavik could see that. She knew a great deal about humiliation. She would not wish to teach it to another being. She wished she knew a way to ease his pain, but she felt as confused as he did.
“Peter,” she said, “I can’t resolve your disagreement with your uncle. I can only tell you that when I was a child, I wished for something I could not name. Later I found the name: it was friend. I have found people to admire and people to respect. But I never found a friend. Until now.”
STAR TREK: TOS #7 - Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Page 7