STAR TREK: TOS #44 - Vulcan's Glory

by D. C. Fontana

  “He must be made to understand that captains do not make lone excursions to hostile planet surfaces,” Orloff said obstinately.

  “Perhaps other captains don’t—and that’s what you’re used to,” Lieutenant Pete Bryce said quietly. He glanced around at the others, his look reminding them that Orloff was new to the ship and new to Pike. Maybe Orloff didn’t understand the nature of their captain, although Pike was certainly well enough known by reputation in the fleet. Pike led his people from the front, waving them on to keep up with him. Pike’s view, often communicated to his officers, was that no commander was any good “leading” from the rear. “The view’s bad, and the firsthand information isn’t reliable” was his personal observation.

  Takahara smiled pleasantly at her superior officer. “No matter what you have been used to, Captain Pike does not follow a common path.”

  “I’ve noticed,” Orloff said snappishly.

  “However, the captain does take suggestions,” Endel pointed out.

  “Meaning?”

  [73] “If you approached him with an alternative suggestion—not a demand, mind you, but a suggestion—he might be disposed to give it every consideration.”

  “The security chief has an obligation to protect the captain’s person from any possible harm—”

  Reed interrupted mildly but tellingly. “That is absolutely true, sir, but the captain is also the commander of this ship and has higher orders to follow. You can suggest ways that those orders might be more—safely—carried out. He’ll listen. Whether he’ll do it your way in the end or not ...” Reed shrugged.

  Orloff studied his junior officers thoughtfully. All of them had more time in service with Pike than he had. In that regard, they were far more experienced than he. “I think this might be a matter the captain and I should explore together.”

  Heads nodded around the table. Orloff felt he finally had a consensus of opinion on the best way to deal with the problem of the captain. It never occurred to him that the captain might consider him a problem.

  Pike started out mildly amused at Orloff’s concern, but his amusement degenerated rapidly into irritation when the security officer pursued the subject. The captain patiently listened to the man’s presentation of his case, then waved his hand to cut the flow of talk when Orloff began to repeat himself. “Thank you, Commander. Your concern for my safety is appreciated, but I don’t believe you’ve fully examined all the facts. The nomad tribes of Areta are extremely [74] suspicious of strangers. A group of unknowns attempting to make contact with them would make the situation far more dangerous than one lone traveler, which is how I successfully presented myself.”

  “But, sir, to go down alone a second time—”

  The piping call of the intercom sounded from Pike’s desk, and Lieutenant Zacharia’s soft, melodious voice spoke into the room. “Communications to Captain Pike.”

  Pike crossed to the comm and tabbed it. “Pike here.”

  “Sir, a message is coming in for you from Starfleet. Classified and priority.”

  “Route it to my screen, Lieutenant.” He barely heard Zacharia’s murmured assent as he turned to Orloff.

  “I’ll leave, sir,” the security officer said immediately.

  He rose to go, but Pike’s voice arrested him in midmotion. “Mr. Orloff, I do know that you’re only considering my safety, but I believe you should also consider the fact that I’ve served my time in the fleet, commanding three other vessels before this one. I’ve had a good many solo missions planetside.” He held out his hands slightly, offering evidence. “Not a scratch, although I admit to some close calls.”

  “Close doesn’t count. Death or serious injury does, sir,” Orloff said brusquely.

  Pike’s eyes hardened into blue ice chips. “The point is taken, Mr. Orloff. I expect you to do your duty, but don’t try to prevent me from doing mine.”

  Orloff opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and opted to sketch a half-salute and a murmured [75] “Yes, sir” to Pike. The captain glanced toward the door, and Orloff took the hint, almost leaping across the cabin to it. The door slid open just as he arrived before it, and Orloff quickly stepped through. It swished back into closed position behind him, and Pike was alone.

  The intercom on the desk had begun to chime softly, a repeating signal of four notes that told Pike the confidential message had arrived and was waiting for him to receive it. When he leaned over to key it, the scrambled version first flashed up on the screen. Then the lettering wobbled and cleared into readable text. Pike read it through and keyed his intercom.

  “Pike to Bridge. Mr. Spock.”

  “Spock here, sir.”

  “Please report to the briefing room immediately.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  The intercom went silent, and Pike smiled briefly. Spock continued to make a good impression. No questions or hesitations on the order, just a simple acknowledgment that he would obey instantly. Perhaps Number One had been correct. Pike had always appreciated having officers with intelligence and efficiency on his bridge.

  Number One had glanced up from the command chair when Spock was paged by Pike. She, too, had been satisfied with Spock’s response, and she noted that Spock promptly keyed the intercom to call in Lieutenant T’Pris to take over the science station in his absence. She counted off the seconds to herself and was pleased that it only took two minutes for the young Vulcan woman to appear on the bridge to [76] relieve Spock. Everything correct, everything precise between the two. Number One personally preferred to run the bridge that way, though Pike liked a warmer, teamlike atmosphere when he was in the chair. It was all a matter of preference. When they arrived at Areta and Pike went down to the surface on a solo mission, she would be in temporary command, and the Enterprise crew would perform to her standards. Because the crew and the ship’s readiness were her prime business as first officer, it pleased her to realize that no matter who she called on to perform, the ship and the crew would respond swiftly and precisely.

  Spock reached the briefing room only minutes after Pike. The captain had had the time to insert a chip recording of the confidential message into the control console of the viewer at the end of the table. As Spock came into the room, Pike waved him to a seat. The Vulcan had barely begun to fold himself into a chair before Pike snapped, “What do you know about the Vulcan’s Glory?”

  “The same as every other Vulcan knows, Captain.”

  “Recap for me, please.” Pike smiled suddenly. “I’m sure your knowledge of its history is far more complete than mine.”

  “I would say that is most likely, sir,” Spock said equably. He paused a moment before he spoke, swiftly marshaling the facts as he knew them. “The Glory is an emerald of immense size—twenty-two thousand eight hundred ninety point four carats—clear deep green in color, uncut but reputedly almost flawless.”

  “That much is recorded.” Pike nodded.

  Spock looked inward and summoned the history as he spoke. “The stone was won as a prize of war in the [77] year 1433 Vulcan calendar, extremely ancient by Terran reckoning. You may appreciate its age by the fact that Vulcans have not embraced a warlike philosophy for more than three thousand years. However, at the time it was won from the house of Kawarda, in the battle of Deen T’zal, it was so great a trophy of war that it was given the name by which we now know it, Vulcan’s Glory.”

  “Why was the gem never cut?”

  “It was the heart of the house of Kawarda. They felt the spirit of their clan dwelt in the stone. To own it was to own the soul—the very being—of the Kawarda. To cut it would have been unthinkable. It became a symbol of Vulcan and was placed in the stewardship of the clan Archenida, whose war leader Sorrd had actually captured the stone in battle.”

  “For centuries, the Archenida protected the Glory. Periodically, it was taken from Vulcan, always in the guardianship of the clan, and paraded in high ceremony among the exploration and merchant ships Vulcan sent out from the planet. In human
terms, it might be called showing the flag. It was on such a ceremonial voyage that the ship He-shii carrying the Glory apparently suffered a fatal accident and vanished forever. Of course, the Glory vanished with it.”

  “According to the records, no debris was ever found at He-shii’s last known coordinates.”

  Surprisingly, Spock felt a twinge of sympathy pulling at him, a heaviness in his chest for the lost ship, its crew, and its treasure. He controlled it ruthlessly, pushing it down and away from his consciousness. “That is correct, Captain. It was concluded that the ship plunged out of control into unknown space, [78] dead, or dying. For centuries, Vulcan engineers and astronomers have plotted every possible variation of the course she might have taken as unknown space became more and more explored and mapped. To date, no trace has ever been found of the He-shii.” He paused and then added quietly, “It was a great loss for Vulcan.”

  “The ship and its crew.”

  “And the Glory.”

  Pike studied Spock carefully, trying to gauge something he did not understand. “If the Glory was a prize of war, and Vulcan rejected the philosophy—the emotion—of war, why is the stone such a great loss?”

  “In the time that it was captured, Vulcan warriors felt the spirit of the Glory had passed into them, that it had become the heart of all Vulcan, as it had been the heart of the Kawarda. When Vulcan’s philosophy changed, the spirit of the Glory also changed, from war to peace, from passion to logic.”

  Spock wondered how he could explain to Pike the depth of meaning the Glory had for Vulcans. It was a symbol of the changes in the Vulcan soul and thought that made them the creatures they were now, the change that created the sophisticated civilization with its high moral, philosophical, and logical standards that governed Vulcans today.

  Pike sighed and nodded. “As the highest-ranking Vulcan command officer aboard, Mr. Spock, you are entitled to know that the priority message I received contains some possible new information on the Glory.”

  Spock’s dark eyes leveled on Pike’s. “New information?”

  [79] Pike tabbed the control console, and a flood of figures flashed up on the screen. “A new extrapolation for the course of the He-shii has been put forth by Vulcan Science Academy theorists.”

  “T’Clar and Spens, no doubt.”

  Pike quirked an eyebrow in sardonic amusement. “Is it true Vulcans know everything?”

  “No, sir. However, we do retain in memory everything we have ever learned.”

  “Thank you for that information, Mr. Spock. You’re correct. Doctors Spens and T’Clar sent a robot probe along one of the projected courses the ship—if damaged and out of control—might have taken. After a long voyage, the probe revealed a small planet in its path. The planet’s been tagged temporarily as GS391. The probe was not equipped to detect life forms.”

  “After so long, life would not be expected to sustain.”

  “No. But the probe did scan the planet’s surface. There were indications of metallic debris. We have been ordered by Starfleet to divert to GS391 to investigate. I want you to head up the landing party.”

  Spock was silent a long moment, then he stirred. “I believe an all-Vulcan team would be appropriate, Captain.”

  “Very appropriate, Mr. Spock. Very appropriate indeed.”

  Number One twisted in midair and angled her body so she caromed off the side wall of the null-G ball court using her right leg to push her back toward the center. Chief Engineer Caitlin Barry had anticipated the move and shot in front of the exec, body-blocking [80] her away from the ball. The collision of bodies sent them careening off in opposite directions, but Caitlin had managed to backhand the ball, slapping it toward the catch-trap goal in Number One’s end of the court. As Number One somersaulted in the air to land with her feet against the end wall under Caitlin’s goal, she saw the ball hurtle straight through the catch trap and in. The Scoreboard honked and racked up the three points for the chief engineer.

  “Lucky!” Number One shouted, but she was grinning.

  “They all count!” Caitlin laughed back.

  The two women pushed off the walls and shot back to their respective goals. Number One grabbed one of the soft holding straps on the wall and waited for the catch trap to drop the ball down to the launcher and snap it into play again.

  Off-duty time during a routine mission often bored Number One. She grew, restless when her shifts on the bridge were monotonously the same, and these one-on-one null-G ball games with the chief engineer helped work off the nagging frustration of her uneventful duty hours. Physically, she had no need of tension release; her musculature and stamina required only a minimum of rest to remain at peak performance level for long periods of time. It was her curious, probing mind that needed the action. Number One liked to lose herself in the strategy and physicality that null-G ball demanded so she could relieve the boredom of too many hours of simple routine. It was an odd “failing” her perfectionist genetic creators had overlooked.

  She and Lieutenant Commander Barry were of an [81] age and had been in the same class at the Academy, though they had not been friends then. The demands of their separate courses of study—command and engineering—had drawn them into relationships with people with the same primary interests. Since being assigned to the Enterprise, however, the two women had found common grounds for a friendship. Caitlin was almost as tall as Number One, an auburn-haired, hazel-eyed woman whose beauty was not one whit diminished by the enchanting splash of freckles on her nose. She was not what many officers thought of as a typical engineer. She had high standards and demanded that meticulous care be taken with the equipment in her charge, but she was not in love with her engines. She was on top of all new engineering advances, but she did not spend all her spare time with technical manuals. She enjoyed her duty on the Enterprise, but she was not enthralled with the starship except as a masterfully designed craft. Many engineers lived and breathed their arcane craft; Caitlin had other interests that occupied her attention off duty. One of them was trying to beat the socks off Number One in one-on-one null-G ball. She was on her way to accomplishing that at the moment. She was ahead twenty-four to eighteen, with less than a minute left in the game.

  “Let’s see you make that shot again,” Number One taunted.

  “Let’s see you make it at all,” Caitlin heckled in return.

  The ball dropped into the launcher. There was a moment’s pause—the launcher was programmed to release on an irregular time sequence—and then the [82] ball was rocketed into the court. Both women waited for its bounce off the far wall to judge its spin and direction, then they pushed off after it. It was headed almost directly at Caitlin, but Number One kicked straight up and intercepted it as it went overhead. She twisted to angle off the ceiling and slammed the ball sidearm toward Caitlin’s goal.

  It hit the outside edge of the catch trap and bounded away to the left. Caitlin snagged it as it passed her and gave a kick that pushed her toward Number One.

  The executive officer arrowed at her, aiming a little low, and grabbed Caitlin’s foot as they passed. The yank put Caitlin into a spin. She still had the ball but couldn’t control her body at center court to take a shot.

  Before she could get straightened out enough to get in a shot, Number One had bounced off the far wall and was on her way back. She reached out to slap the ball away, and it spun free of Caitlin’s hands, hitting the floor and then heading up at an angle. Number One realized it was pure luck that her trajectory and the ball’s coincided, but she willingly took the break it gave her. She grabbed the ball, managed to aim, and two-handed a shot at the goal. It sailed straight in, and the Scoreboard obediently flashed up her three points—twenty-four to twenty-one. Then the game-ending horn hooted raucously. The gravity controller eased on, allowing the two women to lower themselves gently to the floor.

  “Next time,” Number One said mock-threateningly.

  “I was just toying with you,” Caitlin said cheerfully, [83] reaching f
or the towel she had left outside the court. “Next time, I’ll really mop the deck with you.”

  The exec grinned at her. “Buy you a drink in the rec room.”

  “Good loser.”

  “No. You just don’t win that often.” She ducked the towel snap Caitlin aimed at her and trotted ahead of the engineer into the dressing room.

  They climbed out of their shorts and workout shirts, showered, pulled on clean uniforms, and headed for the recreation room without much conversation. The place was only moderately full before dinner, but a few card players heckled one another over poker hands, and several vid fans had gathered around a viewer to watch one of the vidramas the ship had stocked for the voyage. Number One gestured to a food slot on the wall, and Caitlin said, “Herb tea is fine.”

  “Sounds good. I’ll join you.”

  Number One tapped in the order, waited, and the two cups of aromatic brew were delivered piping hot in mugs a moment later.

  Caitlin had settled at one of the smaller tables, and Number One joined her. They clinked mugs and sat back companionably, sipping at the tea.

  “How’s the department?” Number One asked.

  Caitlin glanced at her, raising an eyebrow. “I give you a written report every day.”

  “And I read them. I wasn’t asking for the formal language, Cait. How do you feel it’s running?”

  Caitlin considered, then nodded. “Good. Not great yet, but good.” She caught Number One’s questioning look and raised a hand to cut off the idea. “Oh, I don’t [84] mean there’s anything wrong. The warp engines are tuned so fine there isn’t a fraction of variance between them and the control specs. Starboard impulse engine’s running a shade off, but nothing serious. I’ll call for a recalibration when we get to Areta, just to be on the safe side, though.”