STAR TREK: TOS #23 - Ishmael

by Barbara Hambly

  The only other people who knew what was going on were Mr. Scott and his people, who were engaged, under the supervision of Aurelia Steiner, in converting the Enterprise engines so that they could take the stresses of creating a time warp and then being kicked through it, and then—with any luck—reversing the process and getting back.

  On the whole, thought Kirk, looking around the small, cluttered conference room, it was just as well. For three days now he had managed not to realize that Spock was dead more than five or six times a day—usually when he woke up in the morning, or stopped to rest. In spite of his grumbling about playing secret agents, McCoy was looking better, too. There was nothing like the pressure of knowing that your universe might be ineradicably altered to drive lesser considerations from your mind. After this was over ...

  He pushed the thought away. After this was over enough time would have passed so that the hurt would be a little numbed. And anyway, Kirk thought, watching them—Sulu thumbing through another slick, awkward-sized collection of title deeds from Portland and vicinity and groaning in protest, Gilden playing one of his arcane games of solitaire with note cards, Uhura talking to McCoy and even getting him to smile a little—if we fail at this, we might not have an afterwards.

  Or even a before.

  “Well, gentlemen,” he said, taking a chair at the head of the table and removing a pile of translations interleaved with note cards and candy wrappers in order to sit in it, “what have we found?”

  Sulu set down one of the heaps of fax sheets. “I think we’ve located him, Captain.”

  “In 1867?”

  With a slight movement of his foot, Trae turned his chair away from the terminal, removing a sheet from the printer as he did so.

  “Records of the town of Seattle, Washington Territory, show the purchase of town lots in 1856, 1860 and 1866 by an Aaron Stemple, listed as a sawmill owner. A man of some substance. He was a member of the first school board of the town in 1869, and the same Aaron Stemple is listed in 1869 as being elected mayor of Seattle, and in 1872 as running for territorial representative, a post which he evidently succeeded in attaining. He was noted for his philanthropy and for his undoubted ability to turn a dollar.”

  “You know,” said McCoy thoughtfully, folding his hands on the untidy heap of flimsies before him, “that’s what surprises me about this whole thing.”

  “That he was a well-off philanthropist and sawmill owner?” asked Kirk.

  “That he suspected the Karsids in the first place. Trae here says they never presented themselves as aliens. They had an almost uncanny ability to pass themselves off as members of the same race as their victims. Why would Stemple suspect them of being extraterrestrials? Why would he jump to that conclusion, which it looks like he did almost immediately, judging from the date of the first contact-reports from the Karsids and Stemple’s first letter to President Grant.”

  Trae said, “He is described as a shrewd man and an astute judge of character.”

  “Well, so was Charles Dickens, but I doubt he’d have come to the same conclusion. He was a Victorian—the Victorians were about the most pragmatic and hardheaded bunch of cutthroat businessmen you’d ever hope to find. Aliens from another planet? They’d never have believed it.”

  “H. G. Wells was a Victorian,” remarked Kirk. “So was Jules Verne. The fathers of speculative fiction. Wells dealt in invasions of the Earth—not to mention time travel.”

  “Invasion,” said McCoy. “Not economic servitude. And face it, Jim, it’s something people in the twentieth century would have scoffed at, let alone the nineteenth. They’d never have taken it seriously. Only Stemple and, fortunately, President Grant, bless his boozy old heart. But for all he was shrewd—and if he ran a mill in those days he’d have to be—what would have tipped Stemple to the possibilities of alien infiltration? He was just a frontier capitalist with a flair for politics.”

  “Was he?” Kirk leaned back in his chair. “The frontier drew lots of people, Bones. People with all kinds of backgrounds. Dreamers, drifters, gamblers on ideas as well as crooks and grifters out to make a buck. Stemple may just have had a hell of an imagination, and the guts to back his convictions.”

  He extracted from the pile of papers before him the one picture that the faxes had provided, a fairly good copy for having been reduced to its component lights and darks and transmitted across centuries of time and light-years of space. A formal shot, probably an election photo, with that fixed, blank look common to the victims of long-exposure photography.

  Kirk studied the fleshy, rather sensual face framed in its stiff white collar, black coat and subdued mutton-chop whiskers. Dark hooded eyes with a calculating, almost ruthless expression. Almost a villain’s face, he thought in surprise, remembering that Stemple was supposed to have been a humanitarian, not to mention a firm believer in extraterrestrials. This was not the face of a dreamer. There was no fancifulness in that closed, speculative gaze.

  A frontier capitalist with a flair for politics, nothing more.

  What would have caused a man like that to risk an evidently hard-won reputation by the assertions he had made before the secret Congressional committee set up to deal with the first of the Karsid contacts? What had caused him to be that sure of something that wildly improbable? What had given him the conviction to pursue it with the single-minded ferocity that the Karsid intelligence reports clearly showed?

  Beside him, McCoy was saying, “H. G. Wells notwithstanding, from speculation to that kind of conviction is one hell of a leap.”

  “I wonder.” Kirk set the fax down thoughtfully. “Are the Klingons out to kill him, or to prevent whatever incident it was that caused him to make that leap?”

  Trae paused in the act of sorting through his reconstructions of maps made from Seattle property records. “Is it your supposition that Aaron Stemple may have had some kind of contact with extraterrestrials before the Karsids?”

  “Only supposition,” Kirk said. “He could simply have had a bolder imagination than his fellows, and a more stubborn disposition.”

  The Vulcan’s long fingers twitched restlessly along the edges of the several maps he held, neatening the stack. Even the heavier grades of flimsiplast are far less amenable to tidy sorting than actual paper. “Your supposition could be correct, Captain,” he conceded. “But in any case it is a distinction which I doubt the Klingons who conceived the project are capable of making. Like the imperial representative, they tend to prefer their solutions simple. If we cross this time warp, it will not be to aid in some problematical encounter, but to save this man’s life.”

  Chapter 16

  “WAS BIDDY GOING TO COME UP for dinner before the dance?” Aaron Stemple peered sideways at himself in the small round shaving mirror as he tied his cravat.

  “She had intended to,” said Ish, leaning at ease in the doorway. He had donned a blue-and-black plaid shirt over his dark sweater for the occasion of the wedding and the dance, and dark Sunday trousers; his black hair hung down in a shaggy mane almost to his collar. In the two reflections side by side in the shaving mirror, Stemple could see nothing of that shocking difference that had first borne it upon his nephew that he was, in fact, a stranger in a strange land.

  It was something he had almost forgotten, except for moments like this—that Ishmael was not his nephew, and was only passing for human.

  Ish folded his arms in a very human gesture, and went on, “I believe that Jason Bolt is escorting Miss Cloom to the wedding, and to the dance afterwards.”

  Aaron turned, stung. Ish raised an eyebrow. “She is, after all, going to be his wife.”

  “He hasn’t asked her yet,” snapped Aaron irritably.

  “That you know of,” said Ish.

  Aaron was still standing, staring silently into space, when he heard Ish’s limping step retreat down the stairs.

  The music of fiddles and banjos, the click of the bones and the brandy-colored lamplight against the clean pine of the walls. Wreaths of eve
rgreen boughs jeweled with the ceramic-bright red of holly berries scented the air and transformed the long, barnlike dormitory parlor into a sort of bower, out of which Biddy’s framed fashion prints peered with a kind of dignified incongruity. The air in the long, narrow room was warm with the candles and lamps, the press of people and the exertions of the dancers. The smells of it were heavy, wax and pine and cloves, and, whenever the kitchen door was opened, the sweet waft of baking.

  All of Seattle seemed to be there. Lottie, decked out for the occasion in a gown of very bright blue taffeta, leaning laughing on the arm of an extremely rosy-faced Captain Clancey, in his Sunday best with his graying red whiskers trimmed. Candy Bolt, shining with wild, springing joy, her mahogany red hair twined with the white hothouse woodbine that Clancey had nursed all the freezing voyage north from San Francisco; Jeremy Bolt, looking ready to burst his brass waistcoat buttons from pride and happiness. Joshua, pale and solitary, standing near the refreshment tables and watching the dancers move through the first of the reels with a slight smile on his face. Biddy Cloom, pink and radiant with excitement, leaning on Jason Bolt’s powerful arm.

  Other faces—the loggers, the New Bedford girls either newly wedded or betrothed; the foundation of the settled town, as Jason had intended. The foundation of the territory. Stockholders in a brave new world, dancing in the lamplight while the snow drifted down outside.

  Watching them, Ishmael thought, they are one, they are whole. United as the—as the crew of a ship that sails the stars.

  And, oddly enough, for the first time since he had wakened in Stemple’s cabin and seen his own reflection in the mirror, he felt a part of them. For better or worse, however he happened to come here and whatever he was, he was now a part of Seattle. There was no stricture that all members of a society had to be entirely human.

  Someone touched his arm. “Will you dance, Ish?”

  Biddy, her sallow coloring warmed by the dark blue of her bridesmaid gown, her eyes bright as Lottie’s paste diamonds, stood at his side.

  Couples were forming up for another reel, the tentative scrape and twang of the musicians half-buried beneath chatter and jokes. “I do not know how,” he excused himself.

  “Well, you can learn.” She dragged him by main force into the line.

  It required both stamina and concentration. Ignorance and a lame leg slowed him down, but there was a certain pleasure to be had in the measured figures, in the sheer swift joy of the movement itself. Dancing with them, moving up and down the lines, catching hands, catching arms, catching waists, Ish finally understood some of the beauty and fascination of these young girls, bright-eyed and lovely. He would never feel the irrational yearning of physical love for them, but he saw for the first time how others might.

  From the opposite side of the room, Jason Bolt was watching the dancers, thinking to himself that it probably wasn’t going to be as bad as he’d feared. Biddy Cloom did improve upon acquaintance, and seeing her, flushed and giggling as she swung in the arms of Stemple’s imperturbable nephew, he had to admit that there were times when she was almost pretty. He looked around for Stemple, but the mill owner had not yet come in. Better, he thought, to get it over with before he does. He’s got as much riding on it as I do, and he’ll find a way to stop me if he can.

  As the music finished with a flourish he steeled himself to do what he had always suspected he would have to do, from the first moment Biddy Cloom strode down the gangplank of Clancey’s boat.

  The couples were breaking up, laughing their breathless way toward the bright-colored island of the refreshment tables. He went over to her and took her hand. “Biddy, can I have a word with you?”

  There wasn’t a lot of room to slip quietly away. The parlor was large, but milling with people; every corner seemed to contain either a refreshment table or another courting couple. Though the wind had changed and promised a break in the weather it was still cold outside. Jason reflected that he might have to propose to Biddy Cloom to save the mountain, but he wasn’t going to acquire frostbite with matrimony if he could help it.

  He finally settled on guiding her through the crowds to a quiet corner at the foot of the stairs, where the girls normally hung wet coats. The shadows of the banisters interposed themselves between the lights and crowds in the long parlor. Even twined with evergreen boughs they conveyed to Jason’s present mood an uncomfortable suggestion of prison bars.

  He held her hands in his. “Biddy,” he said quietly, “I guess the time has come.” He raised her fingers to his lips and looked down into her long, horsey face, banded with amber light and shadow. Bracing himself for the inevitable, he asked. “Will you marry me?”

  Her homely face broke into a sunny smile. “Oh, Jason! How kind of you to ask.” She squeezed his hands warmly. “Even though I can’t accept it, I ...”

  “What?” gasped Jason. It had never, in his wildest dreams, occurred to him that any woman, least of all Biddy Cloom, would turn him down.

  She blinked those long, perfectly straight lashes. “I can’t accept it,” she stated matter-of-factly. Then she smiled again, glowingly. “But thank you—thank you so much for asking. I’ve never had anyone propose to me before ...”

  I can believe that, thought Jason grimly.

  “... and I never suspected that you ...”

  “But—” This was not going the way he had planned it at all. “Why not?”

  “Well,” said Biddy simply, “I don’t love you.”

  “What does love—” he began, and cut himself off short. “Biddy,” he said, fighting for calm, “I mean it. I do want to marry you. Please say you will. If you don’t ...” He could not say, If you don’t I’ll lose Bridal Veil Mountain to Aaron Stemple, but neither, he found, could he say anything else.

  Her face grew grave in the banded light. “If I don’t, I’ll be an old maid?” she asked quietly. “Maybe I will. I like you, Jason—I like you very much. And it’s very noble of you to ask just to keep me from being an old maid. But there’s only one person in Seattle that I love—that I would love enough to marry—and I ...”

  “Is it Ishmael?” he demanded. “Because if it is ...”

  “Ish?” Biddy looked surprised at the very suggestion. “Good Heavens, no. Oh, Jason,” she added, seeing his expression grow grim. “I haven’t broken your heart, have I?”

  Struggling with shock and punctured vanity, Jason would cheerfully have broken her neck, but at that moment she was distracted by a commotion at the outer door of the hall, by voices and the chilling draft of freezing wind.

  “Oh,” she said, as though the proposal had never taken place, “it’s the passengers from Clancey’s mail-boat!” And with a swish of lace-trimmed petticoats she skipped past him and out into the room again to be among the others greeting the newcomers, Jason at her heels.

  Only one of them had come into the hall—a slender, dark-haired girl whom it took Jason a moment to recognize because she’d taken off her spectacles when the heat of the room fogged them. Joshua’s voice cried, “Sarah!” over the din of the crowd and she looked up, myopia, trepidation and a hint of defiance in her enormous gray eyes. Joshua said, “Sarah!” again and fought his way through the press to scoop her into his arms. “Sarah, you came! I never thought—I mean—”

  “Miss Gay, isn’t it?” asked Jason, coming to her other side.

  She looked up at him, that slight air of challenge back in her eyes as she put on her specs again. “Dr. Gay, actually,” she said. “I’m a licensed medical practitioner.”

  If she was expecting patronizing amusement from this big, strapping man whom she’d met so briefly in San Francisco, she was disappointed. Seattle had been without a doctor far too long. Jason’s voice grew eager. “Have you come to Seattle to practice medicine, then?”

  She pushed nervously at the raveling trails of her escaping hair. “Well, I hope to practice here, yes. But I actually came to Seattle to be married. I think,” she added, casting a worried glance at Joshua.<
br />
  Joshua was blithering in a fashion totally unlike his usual calm self. “I don’t have a ring but I’ll get you one, I swear I’ll get you one. ...”

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, Josh. ...”

  Jason had to smile. Much was now explained that Joshua, usually the most secretive of men, had in the course of their earlier quarrel told Jason was none of his damn business. It stuck him with Biddy, of course—but it was almost worth it to see Josh broken out of his withdrawn coolness.

  The subject of Biddy made him look down at her again, where she stood at his side, like the others babbling a welcome to this shy stranger. As he put his arm around her shoulders to lead her out of the group Jason saw that Aaron Stemple had entered the room, looking dark and somber and villainous as ever, and was watching him and the homely girl with narrowed eyes.

  Jason said, “Biddy?” and she looked up at him again. As he steered her from the crowd he saw her sallow cheeks grow suddenly pink with confusion, and her hand instinctively sought his.

  They were about halfway to the door when Aaron seemed to reach a decision, and crossed through the knots of people around the refreshment tables to intercept them.

  Biddy halted, looking up at Stemple inquiringly.

  Stemple said, “May I—speak to you first, Biddy?”

  She glanced up at Jason, as having prior claim. Jason’s gaze met Stemple’s over her head, suspicious of some new mischief, but was met only by that enigmatic dark stare. He said, “By all means.”

  Stemple took Biddy’s elbow, and guided her quietly to a corner.

  He’s up to something, thought Jason narrowly, watching them talk. He’s guessed I’m going to ask her. But by God he won’t get away with it. I’ll keep that mountain if it’s the last thing I do—if I have to elope with Biddy tonight to do it.