Maybe they’ll need another General Order 7, he thought. Seems like everything I touch is poisoned somehow…
“I wouldn’t get too exercised about it,” Mendez suggested. “None of that was your fault. You did everything you were supposed to do.”
“But it wasn’t good enough!” Pike heard the lament in his voice, heard Charlie admonishing him (“It’s not your fault she died, Chris”), wanted to hit something, or jog off into the hills for miles and miles until he was too exhausted to return, anything to get the voices out of his head. He took several long, deep breaths to slow the pounding in his temples and his heart.
“Not every mission has a clear-cut ending, Chris,” Mendez pointed out. “You win some, you lose some, and some just fade off into nothing.”
“I suppose so. I just wish it hadn’t been the last place we visited before we returned home.” Pike bent down to retrieve a smooth stone, brushing the sand away from it, studying it. “It made me wonder what exactly I’ve accomplished in ten years out there.”
Mendez was wise enough to give him enough silence to finish his thought. Part of him was yearning for a cup of hot coffee and maybe a nice long nap, but he’d wait for it.
“It was so strange,” Pike went on. “For the first few days after my capture, I had no idea if Enterprise would find me, or even if she was still out there. I figured there was a good chance I’d be trapped on an alien world for the rest of my life.”
And not for the first time, either, he thought, suppressing it immediately.
“And yet, here I was, barely able to communicate, in constant fear for my life, but at the same time…” He seemed to have difficulty finding the right word for it. “…almost exhilarated. Relieved, anyway. I was completely on my own, with no responsibility for anyone else, for the first time since I took command. It made me realize what a terrible burden the captaincy of a starship really is.”
Thoughtfully he replaced the small stone where he had found it. He and Mendez headed back along the pavement, found a bench to sit on where they had a full view of the rising sun.
“You’ve had more than your share, Chris,” Mendez offered after another long silence. “Most of us don’t see as much action in a lifetime as you have in only two missions. Maybe you ought to sit out the next dance.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do what I did.” Mendez leaned back on the bench, hands folded over the beginnings of a gut, the picture of complacency. “Let them kick you upstairs. Ride a desk for a few years until you decide what you want to do next.”
Pike shook his head. “Who was it that said ‘you can’t go home again’? That’s a one-way voyage, José. Once they get you behind that desk, they don’t want to give you back the captain’s chair.”
“Would that be such a bad thing?” Mendez wondered.
“The damnable thing is, I don’t know!”
Mendez thought for a moment. “You know, there is a way to combine the best of both worlds.”
“I’m listening.”
“There’s been talk about promoting you to fleet captain.”
Mendez always seemed to have a direct line on all the gossip, Pike recalled. If what he was saying was true…
“You don’t have to do a damn thing, Chris. Just don’t turn down the promotion when they offer it to you.”
And so he would, when the time came. A good part of the decision would be his confidence in the young man who would be replacing him as captain of Enterprise. James T. Kirk was as different in personality and command style from Pike as another human could be, but Pike had to admit he liked the kid’s style.
Besides, Kirk would have Spock as his first officer. If the human felt compelled to make any seat-of-the-pants impulsive decisions, he would have that voice of unassailable Vulcan reason in his ear to provide balance.
Once they reached the Sol system, Enterprise would be refitted yet again, this time to allow for a crew of four hundred thirty, more than double the complement Pike had commanded. He had never been attached to the ship qua ship, investing his vessel as some captains did with a personality, an almost spiritual connection, as if she were a living being. He admired her for her functionality, acknowledged her idiosyncrasies but, ultimately, she was simply a means to an end. And now that the people he’d served with would be scattering throughout the fleet like so many dandelion seeds—all of his command crew except Spock were transferring elsewhere—Pike knew he would have a chance to work with many of them again from his desk at Starfleet Command.
He’d never been close to any of his crew, except maybe Boyce. He’d never bothered examining it before. Only now that he was leaving did he begin to understand why.
He was afraid of losing them. Afraid of the decisions a starship captain had to make to send his crew into harm’s way, and of how he would feel when some of them didn’t come back. If he kept his distance, he’d kidded himself, he wouldn’t feel.
It was safe to consider Boyce a friend. The cagey old ship’s surgeon had managed a decades-long career in Starfleet without ever being shot at. And for all his peccadillos, Boyce was a good keeper of secrets. But Boyce was retired, holed up in a cabin somewhere on the rocky coast of New England—not out of comm reach, but talking to him from a distance would not be the same as sharing a drink in person.
Then there was Spock. Whether he was comfortable with the fact or not, Pike realized Spock considered him a kind of mentor. He had, after all, fostered the raw young talent—all intellect and social ineptitude, so aware of his mixed heritage and wanting so much to be accepted by humans that he sometimes out-humaned them—making maximum use of Spock’s skills and intelligence, promoting him to science officer over older officers with more years in in spite of some grousing by those he passed over, tempering that eagerness with his own steadiness. Pike wasn’t certain at what point he realized Spock considered him a role model, but by then it was too late to alter course. The best he could do was try to live up to the assignment.
Could he consider Spock a friend? They had served together, as Spock would have pointed out, for over eleven years. Spock, of course, would have known the exact number of months and days, perhaps even down to the minute. Was that how Vulcans measured friendship?
In any event, Pike decided, he would make a point of saying something to Spock before they reached Earth, if he could do so in as painless a way as possible.
They were on the final leg of their journey from Starbase 11 to Earth. The crew had somehow gotten wind of Pike’s impending promotion, but he’d neither confirmed nor denied it. He was no more willing to accept his crew’s congratulations than he was to say good-bye. Good-byes always reminded him of the one person who’d been taken from him before he’d had a chance to say good-bye.
It’s not your fault she died, Chris.
Maybe not. It wasn’t his fault Vina had chosen to remain on Talos IV, either. But he still felt no better about that.
Two days out from Earth. It was gamma shift; they were deep in secure Federation territory where it was safe to set most of the bridge stations on autopilot. Pike couldn’t sleep. He’d been walking the near-deserted corridors and found himself headed for the bridge, thinking he’d have it to himself. As the turbolift doors opened, he noticed Spock at the science station, running some calculations.
“Couldn’t that wait for morning, Science Officer?” Pike asked, a slight note of teasing in his voice. Was Spock ever off duty?
“Indeed, Captain,” Spock acknowledged. “But it can also be done now.”
Not knowing how to argue with that, Pike didn’t try. He took his seat in the command chair with his back to Spock and his eyes on the star field, when he heard the creak of Spock’s chair.
“Permission to speak candidly, sir?”
Pike rotated his chair toward the science station. “Granted.”
“I remain curious about your reasons for allowing yourself to be captured by the Kan’ess.”
It was not a subject Pike par
ticularly wanted to talk about. He thought of offering the same explanations he’d entered in his logs—an attempt to infiltrate Kan’ess society, learn their technological capabilities, communicate with them, maybe even establish first contact. But he remembered the conversation he’d had with Spock about the pastry shop, and wondered if his motives would seem…unbalanced, maybe even suicidal.
“You read my official log entry,” Pike said.
“Indeed.”
“And?”
Spock hesitated.
“What was it you said about its not being a lie to keep the truth to oneself?” Pike reminded him. “You think there was more to it?”
“Perhaps. It did seem…an unusual level of personal sacrifice…for a human.”
Pike found this amusing. “You mean it’s the sort of thing a Vulcan would do. But you have to admit allowing myself to be captured was illogical.”
“Not necessarily, sir. Your actions did possess an intrinsic logic, despite their seeming impulsiveness.”
Pike found himself smiling. “So you’re saying you approve of what I did?”
“In essence, yes.”
“What if it had turned out differently? What if the Director had simply made a meal of me on the trip back to Kanes?”
Spock considered this although, Pike suspected, not for the first time. “I believe, Captain, that sacrifice in the acquisition of knowledge is commendable.”
“Even if I didn’t live long enough to impart that knowledge to anyone else.” Pike made it a statement, not a question, and Spock did not reply. This conversation was straying into dangerous territory. Pike tried to make light of it.
“Why do I get the uncomfortable feeling, Mr. Spock, that this means I’ve earned your loyalty for life?”
“Captain, you would have my loyalty for life in any event.”
It was more of a burden than Pike wanted. How many Earth cultures were there that believed if you saved someone’s life you were responsible for that life? The thought was almost more troubling than the responsibility for all the lives that had been lost on his watch.
Pike eased himself out of the command chair. He’d have to sit here tomorrow and the next day as they brought Enterprise into spacedock, then never again. Wherever else his fortunes took him, he was certain of that much. As for the burden of a Vulcan’s loyalty…
“I was afraid you’d say something like that,” he told Spock. His tone was joking, the lopsided grin was there, but the dark brows were drawn down over the steel-blue eyes, and those eyes were sad.
2320: TALOS IV
Spock stepped the long-range shuttle’s speed down out of warp as he made the final approach to the Talos star group. Before he could even open comm to send a standard greeting to Talos IV, he heard the Magistrate’s voice in his mind.
You are punctual.
Indeed, was his response.
You are prepared?
Prepared for what? Spock wondered. How can one be prepared for the unknown? Nevertheless he replied, Affirmative.
Excellent! was the Magistrate’s response, with still no hint of what Spock would find when he landed. We will feed the proper coordinates into your ship’s system. We eagerly await your arrival.
20
2264–67
The transition to fleet captain was less harrowing than Pike expected. It was almost with gratitude that he accepted the promotion when it was offered, handing Enterprise off to Kirk with something like relief. The fleet’s youngest captain was all but bouncing on his heels in his excitement. Pike felt like a parent handing over the car keys for the first time, and wondered if he had ever been that young and eager.
His new assignment suited him. As fleet captain he could deploy a dozen ships or more without leaving his desk, or lead an expedition into uncharted regions, cataloging gas giants without an enemy in sight. It was a pleasant change of pace. Yes, there was paper to be shuffled and seemingly endless staff meetings to attend, but there were also the perqs, like being closer to Earth, and having more leave time, and being invited to the right parties.
Over the course of the next few years, he began putting down roots, buying himself a tract of undeveloped land within the Mojave enclave, close enough but far enough from Charlie and Hobelia’s place. He and Charlie had barely spoken since the revelation that Charlie was his biological father, and Hobelia had given up trying to patch things between them (“You two want to spend the rest of your lives out-stubborning each other, it’s no skin off mine!” was her decision).
Pike thought of moving Tango to the new spread once he’d gentled the land away from the wild in a careful pact with nature—taking only as much as he needed to build himself a house, leaving the scrubland around it alone—but the old devil had built lifelong friendships with Charlie’s other horses, and it would have been cruel to uproot him. Besides, who would look after the big bay when he was off on assignment? He left Tango where he was happiest, using him as an excuse to visit with Hobelia.
“That and my cooking!” She snorted. “You don’t fool me. Somebody’s got to keep you fed, and if it’s not a wife, it might as well be me. Left alone, you’d subsist on reconstituted stuff until your taste buds atrophied.”
“That’s not entirely true,” Chris protested. Hobelia’s favorite topics of conversation were as predictable as rain. “I’ve finally mastered the delicate art of boiling water.”
“So when are you going to settle down?” Hobelia demanded, as if this were a natural segue from Chris’s last statement. He tried to steal something from the salad she was making and she slapped at the back of his hand, just as she had done when he was a child. “You’ve been home for three years.”
“I don’t see what one thing has to do with the other,” he joked, stealing a slice of jicama anyway.
Funny how Hobelia sometimes knew what was on his mind before he did. He’d been thinking about the women in his past lately. Hana Flowers had been too upset over the Aldrin trial to stay with him. He’d gone so far as to ask Janeese to marry him, but his need to be out in space for long periods of time had been too much for her, and she’d broken their engagement, preferring to be with someone who was around more often.
Then there had been Vina, and whatever other relationships he’d become involved in since had perforce been temporary, not only because so few of the women he met could countenance the idea of a husband who was gone more often than he was at home, but because he couldn’t get Vina out of his mind.
He couldn’t tell Hobelia about Vina. If there was anyone he wished he could tell, aside from Charlie…
Damn Charlie, anyway. The more time passed, the more difficult it was for Chris to see a way to reconcile his differences with Charlie. Why did he cling to this childish resentment about not knowing that Charlie was his father? Seeing the bond Charlie had with Hobelia, wishing for something like that for himself—was he actually jealous? Chris put that thought out of his head as well.
Hobelia had stopped chopping vegetables and was studying him. She wasn’t a mind reader, but she came uncomfortably close sometimes. Chris treated her to his most brilliant smile.
“Truth is, Hobe, you’ve spoiled me. I want what you and Charlie have. If I ever find a woman who measures up to you, she’ll be the one.”
“The sun don’t shine just ’cause you’re crowing at it!” Hobelia muttered, trying unsuccessfully not to beam at him. Wisely, though, she let the subject drop then.
The United Federation of Planets continued to expand, adding ever new planets to its membership. One of the newest members was a fog-shrouded world known as Argelius II which, it was hoped, would one day serve as a remote spaceport at the then-boundary of Federation space. Delegates from this new world were being welcomed at a diplomatic reception on Earth, and all senior Starfleet officers in the vicinity were required to attend.
Pike read the official invitation and grimaced. Seemed half of his duties nowadays consisted of attending these fancy-dress balls.
Se
ttling the medals and insignia on his dress uniform tunic with resignation, he decided he’d do what he usually did—put in an appearance, sample the buffet, make polite noises for a couple of hours, nod to the CinC so that he’d remember Pike had been there, then duck out. He was off duty for the next couple of days, and wanted to see about some fences at the back of his property before winter.
The reception was held at the Terran ambassador’s main residence, a sprawling rococo mansion clinging improbably to a cliff on one of Northern California’s wilder coasts. Pike lingered on the terrace with the wind in his face contemplating the pounding surf below, wishing he could go for a late-night hike among the coast redwoods that hid the residence from the nearest road some five miles east. The chatter and the moil of bodies juggling hors d’oeuvres and protocol in the glittering ballroom behind him was grating on his nerves. Did he hear a string quartet playing somewhere? Perhaps in one of the inner courtyards, where there would be fewer people and he could listen to the music and pretend he was alone.
He had to pass through the ballroom to get to the courtyard, and found himself waylaid by, of all people, a three-sheets-to-the-wind José Tyler. His former navigator had made commander, Pike had heard, and was now first officer on a frigate. Well, good for him. Pike would listen to Tyler’s wild tales for a few minutes, hoping to catch the CinC’s eye and fulfill the evening’s obligation, if he could only shake loose of Tyler after the fact.
“Argelius, Chris—imagine,” Tyler was saying, grinning like a schoolboy. “Are we ever lucky to have brought them in. Not only strategic importance as a spaceport, but—you ever been there?”
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