by L. A. Graf
back."
"The lily pond--" Chekov coughed, then found his voice again. "I had to
break itI'm sorry, sir" McCoy heaved a weary sigh. "Oh, not this
again." Kirk flicked an amused smile at Sulu. "I told you he was
worried."
"Hey, Pavel, that's okay." Sulu crouched down beside the Russian,
wishing there was some part of his friend that looked safe to touch. "I
don't need it now that my lily's dead."
"But the lizardsu" Chekov's voice held the stubbornly worried tone of
someone fighting off shock. "We have to get them some other
container--they can't stay in my bathtub forevers"
McCoy tugged meaningfully on the edge of the gravsled, scowling at Sulu
until the helmsman climbed to his feet to back out of the way. "They
can at least stay there until you get out of sickbay."
Uhura rose up on tiptoe to peek at McCoy over Sulu's shoulder. "But,
Doctor--"
"No buts!" He stabbed a stern finger at Sulu, who
backed up into Uhura in surprise. "You two go back to your cabins or
something--find a home for those damned lizards!" He scowled down at
Chekov when the security chief opened his mouth to protest. "You shut
up and pass out before I sedate you."
"Bones--"
"
"And you.t" He fixed his fiercest glare of all on Kirk, and Sulu felt
better when even the captain looked contrite. "If you know what's good
for you, you'll get up to the bridge and start back to Sigma One before
these three can get us into any more trouble!"
Chapter Twenty
CimKOV LOOKED tm from his bathroom floor when he
heard Sulu enter the outer cabin.
"Anybody home?"
It occurred to the lieutenant that sitting on the floor of his bathroom
in the dark--his dress uniform jacket tossed across the sink and his
hand trailing in a bathtub full of warm water--was perhaps not the most
dignified situation in which to let himself be found. After running
around a hull breach in his stockinged feet, though, not to mention
being cut out of an environmental suit by an engineering ensign with a
phaser torch, he figured he probably didn't have any dignity left worth
worrying about. Besides, it wasn't like Sulu was one of his security
guards; he and the helmsman had known each other a long time. "I'm in
here."
Sulu appeared in the doorway like a slim shadow, the light from the
outer cabin silhouetting him until
his face was too dark to see. "You okay?" he asked quietly, and Chekov
nodded.
"Just thinking." He prodded a floating sponge with one finger and sent
it drifting lazily across the bathtub, its load of passenger lizards
chirping merrily. If his right arm hadn't still been confined in a
ling, he might have tried to reach their fish food from the floor.
Trussed up as he was, though, the effort just didn't seem to be worth
it.
"What are you thinking about?" Sulu asked, taking a seat on the floor
across from him. He pulled up both knees to rest his chin in his hands.
"The wonderful, exotic dinner Uhura and I have planned for you now that
we're back at Sigma One?"
"No." Considering everything that had happened since they left the space
station, Chekov found the suggestion oddly amusing. "I'm thinking about
what a terrible week this has been."
"Hey--" Although Sulu reached out to kick him in playful admonishment,
the concern in the helmsman's voice was real enough. "You promised the
memorial service wouldn't put you in a bad mood."
"It didn't." Chekov shook the water off his hand, and the lizards
nearest his movement froze into a heartbeat of silence. He waited for
them to start singing again before saying, "Really--I'm glad I went."
With a final toll of one hundred forty-three dead, the memorial service
for the Kongo's crew had taken all morning and had been held in one of
Sigma One's docking bays for lack of another place that could hold all
the crew, Starfleet personnel, and station workers who wanted to attend.
Chekov had gone to the huge gathering alone, a little afraid to confront
the emotions he'd kept tightly locked inside since first hearing
about the accident. On board the Enterprise, he'd been a solitary
mourner among people who could only view the tragedy from sympathy's
comfortable dis-rance. Today at the service, he'd been surrounded by
people who had also lost friends, lovers, valued colleagues; it had been
easy to touch them, talk with them, cry with them.
"I got to meet the Kongo's chief engineer," he told Sulu. She hadn't
been at all like Montgomery Scott--small, thin, almost fragile in her
paleness. "We talked a lot about Robert, and what happened the day he
died."
Sulu nodded, looking a little uncertain about how he should respond.
"Did she know him well?"
"Well enough." He wrapped his arms around his knees and looked across
the darkness at Sulu. "She was supposed to go with the party that tried
to unbolt the nacelles. Robert convinced their captain he could do her
work just as well, and there wasn't any need to send her along." Bracing
his free hand on the side of the bathtub, he pushed to his feet. "She
had her children with her at the service."
Sulu stood along with him. "So he didn't do it for nothing," he said,
following his friend out into the main cabin when Chekov went in search
of his duty
jacket. "If nothing else, he did it for her."
"I think so, yes."
Sulu snatched the jacket out from under Chekov's hand when the
lieutenant reached for it, earning a warning glower. "You think so?"
"All right." Chekov took the jacket back with an irritated tug. "Yes,
she was grateful for what he did. And I'm glad something good came out
of his sacrifice."
"That's better." Sulu took over Uhura's unofficial
job of fastening Chekov's collar and straightening his jacket shoulders.
"All points considered, I still like you better when you're grumpy
instead of depressed."
Sometimes, Chekov decided, trying to have meaningful conversations with
your friends just wasn't worth the effort. "I don't know why I put up
with you," he grumbled, heading for the door.
Sulu swung into step beside him, grinning in that bright, disarming way
Chekov found so damnably hard to ignore. "Because my charm and wit
enrich your life?"
"No, that can't be it."
"Because I feed you?"
"I know that isn't it." He held open the door and waited for Sulu to
move out into the hall. "Maybe," he suggested with a smile, "it's
because you're not going to argue with me when I tell you I'm keeping
your lizards."
Sulu blinked at him. "Are you keeping my lizards?"
"We can talk about it on the way to Sigma One."
Chekov hesitated in the doorway to the restaurant, not sure if he should
follow Sulu any farther inside. He should have expected something like
this, he realized. The junglelike profusion of blossoms and vines was
just the sort of thing Sulu would love in a restaurant, and the copious
lack of anyt
hing resembling a table probably struck Uhura as quaint.
Chekov thought it all looked more like the sort of equatorial rainforest
where security officers were routinely killed by natives, poisonous
insects, and carnivorous plants.
"So, where are you planning to keep them?" the helmsman asked, slowing
only enough to catch Chekov's empty sleeve and pull him along behind.
"You yourself said they can't live in your bathtub for ever."
If it weren't for Sulu being with him, Chekov probably could have
returned to the Enterprise and claimed that he wasn't able to find the
restaurant. That's something he'd have to keep in mind for future dinner
dates. "I thought maybe you'd let me use that old fish tank of yours."
"The one in my quarters?" Sulu asked. He felt among the foliage as
though searching for some sort of doorway in the green. "The one that
went the way of all my other possessions when the hull breach evacuated
Deck Six?"
That did throw a bit of an obstacle into Chekov's plans. "How about
visiting a pet store before we leave the station?"
Sulu grinned and pulled aside a swatch of jungle. "'That sounds a little
more reasonable."
The dining area beyond the living drapery was bigger than the lobby but
no less tropical. Small, simple tables stood like quiet mushrooms among
the green riot, and long trains of flowers snaked across the floor from
every angle. Weaving among the plant-life, they came up behind the
restaurant's only human patron, and Sulu announced without prelude,
"Chekov's keeping my lizards."
Uhura leaned back to grin up at them, twirling a flower between her
fingers. "I thought you said all that chirping would keep you up at
night," she said to Chekov.
He shrugged as he slid into the empty seat across from her. "I was
wrong."
"Well, keep them with my blessing." Sulu sat with as much energy as he
did everything, slipping a flower out of the vase at the middle of the
table and sniffing
absently at it. "I don't need them if I don't have the lily pond.
Besides--" He returned the flower in an obvious attempt at nonchalance.
"I'm going to be too busy organizing a free-fall gymnastics group to
spend much time with lizards."
Chekov smiled, but didn't comment. So much for last week's
all-consuming hobby.
"Have you thought about what you want to order?" Uhura asked them both,
helping herself to another part of the arrangement. "I was beginning to
think you weren't coming."
Chekov tipped the flower vase far enough to see down the throats of
various orchidlike blossoms, but couldn't take the prospect of eating
them very seriously. "If I'd known you were going to feed me
house-plants, I probably wouldn't have." He let the vase rock upright
again. "What is this--the only restaurant on Sigma One where it's
socially acceptable to eat with one hand?"
This time it was Sulu's turn to grin with evil pleasure. "Actually,
you're not supposed to use any hands at all. But the Tellerites
understand that humans have underdeveloped snouts, so they give us a
little leeway."
Chekov made a face that a Tellerite would probably have considered
inadequate. "That's disgusting."
"And that's cultural arrogance," Uhura countered. She nipped a trio of
petals off the flower in her hand. "Some people consider sturgeon eggs
and fermented cabbage disgusting, too, you know."
Chekov shrugged, and Sulu waved over a passing Tellerite waiter. "Maybe
we can find some local cole crop. for him to torture," the helmsman
suggested to Uhura. "That should keep him happy."
The Telleritc swung past their table without slowing down, pitching
three menu cards among the litter of leaves and petals. Chekov watched
Sulu and Uhura eagerly scoop their menus out of the foliage, then caught
his with one finger and slid it dose enough to look at without actually
lifting it off the table. Nothing in the long list of flowers and ivy
looked much like food to him. "How late do you think the human
restaurants are open on Sigma One?"
"Do you really want to risk running into some of the humans hanging
around this station?" Uhura reached across to duff him 0n the shoulder
with her half-eaten flower. "You know Aaron. Kelly's looking for you."
Chekov frowned across at her, not sure at first that they were thinking
of the same person. "Aaron Kelly the auditor?"
Sulu laughed, and Uhura explained, "I ran into him on my way to the
restaurant." Her dark eyes twinkled with humor. "He said he feels a
special kinship with Starfleet after everything that's happened on this
mission. He wanted to thank you and show his appreciation."
Chekov couldn't help uttering a gruff sound of disgust, even though it
earned him an admonishing finger-shake from Sulu. "Don't snort," the
helmsman told him. "Kelly's decided you walk on water after you saved
his butt in that brig shootout with Purviance. He went over the
captain's report of the mission and has decided to preempt John Taylor's
recommendation to the Auditor General--they're not going to try to
restructure security after all." Chekov raised his eyebrows, and Sulu
grinned. "You and your department are safe."
The security chief rocked back in his chair, feeling smug. "Maybe I
should break auditors' noses more often."
"Chekov," Sulu said with a sigh, "I think you're taking the wrong lesson
away from all this."
The disjointed rustling of larger-than-Tellerite bodies among the
greenery broke across their conversation. Chekov saw Sulu flick a
startled glance toward the back of their little clearing, and Uhura's
eyebrows lift with surprise, just as Kirk's voice assured them, "This is
all just a misunderstanding--don't anybody worry." Then Sigma One
security guards closed in on all sides.
"Oh, no--" Chekov stood when one of the dozen or so black-dad patrol
officers motioned to him with her phaser. "I thought we had this sorted
out," he said, lifting his free arm so another of the guards could dart
forward and pat him down.
"Lieutenant Payel Chekov, you are under arrest for disturbing the peace,
assault with a deadly weapon, possession of a firearm in a restricted
civilian area, and violation of bail without appropriate legal bond. You
have the right to remain silent--"
Cbekov east Kirk a helpless look over the closest guard's head, and the
captain spread his hands in distressingly contrite chagrin. "I've tried
to explain that the Orions who filed those original charges won't be
around to make the court date," he said. "Butre"
"But--" Sigma One's security chief turned the reader card in her hand as
though to display whatever was printed on it, even though she took it
back too quickly for Chekov to see. "There's still the matter of bail
violation. No matter where your Orions are, only a Federation judicator
can dismiss outstanding criminal charges. Until those original charges
are dropped, I have a legal obligation to hold you in custody pending
receipt of appropriate bail."
a slight problem. "Never mind."
Kirk nodded with a rueful grimace. "Exactly."
At least, the station chief looked equally unhappy as she accepted the
wrist locks and belt restraint passed forward from the back of he
squad. "Whoever posted bail for you, sir, he wasn't Lindsey Purviance.
In fact, Lieutenant Purviance was murdered several hours before your
release."
"But I thought it was Lindsey Purviance!"
She nodded and opened the wide belt restraint. "No matter what you
thought, sir, I'm afraid it's still jumping bail."
Kirk stepped in to catch at her wrist before she could fasten the belt
around Chekov's waist and cuff down his hands. "Is that really
necessary? He's got one arm in a sling, for God's sake."
"We were told he was dangerous," one of the other guards volunteered.
"Our report said he beat an Orion military officer to death on board
your ship."
Sulu burst out laughing, and Uhura elbowed him sharply. "He had his arm
in a sling when he did that, too," the helmsman pointed out, ignoring a
warning glower from Chekov.
Kirk fixed stern hazel eyes on his helmsman, and Sulu fell silent even
though he didn't look any less amused. "You're not helping," the
captain said coolly. Chekov had to agree.