by Peter David
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Calhoun said.
“You are, of course, always free to exercise your discretion as commanding officer,” Shelby replied, as she wondered what other oddities would surface about the crew during their voyage.
• • •
Burgoyne 172 strode into sickbay with an impatient look on hish face. S/he turned to Dr. Maxwell and said, “Well?”
“Well what, Lieutenant Commander?”
“Dr. Selar said she wanted to see me. Here I am. I have things to do, so if the doctor could please tell me what she wants, I might be able to get back to my duties.”
Selar emerged from her office and said, “In here, Mister Burgoyne, if it is not too much trouble.” She stood there as Burgoyne appeared to be studying her. “Is there a problem, Mister Burgoyne?”
“No. No problem at all,” Burgoyne said as s/he entered Selar’s office. “You know, I don’t think we’ve actually had a chance to meet.”
“You have not attended any of the initial department-head meetings,” replied Selar. “That would have been the logical place.”
“I had a lot to do to get things ready,” Burgoyne said, not sounding particularly apologetic. It seemed to Selar that s/he was looking over the Vulcan doctor in a startlingly appraising manner. “It always comes down to the chief engineer having to pull everything together during the last minute. So . . . what can I do to help you, Doctor?”
“Your most recent medical examination is over two years old. By putting out to space without a more recent exam, we are technically already in breach of Starfleet regulations.”
“Can’t have that,” Burgoyne said agreeably. “Do you wish to conduct it right now? Because I’m free now.”
“Dr. Maxwell will attend to the actual examination.”
Burgoyne made no effort to hide hish disappointment. “I would prefer you do it. Have the top woman attend to it, and all that.”
She glanced at him with eyebrow cocked in mild curiosity. “Do you have an unusual condition which would require my direct attention?”
“Well . . . no . . .”
“Then I assure you, Dr. Maxwell will prove more than sufficient for your needs.” She turned and became immediately engrossed in her computer screen, familiarizing herself with other medical profiles. It took her a few moments to realize that Burgoyne was still there, and looking at her with a very strange lopsided grin. “Is there something else, Lieutenant Commander?”
Burgoyne dropped into a chair opposite Selar, giving her the impression that s/he wasn’t about to leave anytime soon. “Well, I admit if nothing else I’m disappointed in you, Doctor.”
“How so?”
“There aren’t very many Hermats in Starfleet, and none at command level aside from me. The Vulcans I know have always had a great inquisitiveness about the galaxy they live in and the people therein. I would be surprised if you, a woman of science, did not share that famed Vulcan drive to satisfy curiosity.”
She gave a brief acknowledging nod. “A small amount, I admit. Hermats, as a race, tend to keep to themselves. The tendency toward segregation from the rest of the Federation is well known . . . right down to your tendency to refer to yourselves with a unique set of pronouns to accommodate your dual-sex status. ’Hir’ rather than ’him’ or ’her’ . . . ’hish’ for the possessive forms of ’his’ or ’hers’ . . . ’s/he,’” and she punched a bit harder than usual on the separately accented h, “rather than ’she’ or ’he.’”
“We developed those actually to simplify direct communication with UFP representatives, and also to maintain our uniqueness as a race. Actually, we were originally going to combine ’she,’ ’he,’ and ’it’ in order to cover all possibilities, but the term we developed—’sheeit’—caused Terrans to laugh whenever we would use it, so we surmised that it had some other, inappropriate meaning and discarded it.”
“That was probably wise.” She paused a moment. “Is there a significant distinction between the Hermat and the J’naii?”
“The J’naii?!” Burgoyne made an annoyed sound. “Those asexual, passionless creatures? No, no. They’re neuters, denying all orientation. We celebrate the duality that makes us unique. They are neither. We are both. Fully functioning male and female capabilities.” S/he leaned forward and grinned, displaying hish sharpened canines. S/he seemed to be someone who smiled a great deal and enjoyed it while doing so, as s/he repeated, “Fully functioning.”
“I comprehend the adverb,” Selar said evenly. “However, I am quite certain my curiosity about the medical uniqueness of Hermats will be more than satisfied by my scrutiny of Dr. Maxwell’s no-doubt detailed examination. For my part, I have a good deal that remains to which I must attend, and a routine exam which could be handled by any first-year resident does not fall into that category. Good day, Lieutenant Commander.”
Burgoyne’s smile widened as s/he got up from the chair. Hish voice was light and musical as s/he said, “There’s one thing you should know about me, Doctor.”
“Only one thing. Very well” Selar looked up with poorly veiled disinterest.
“I can sense when I’m going to get on well with someone,” Burgoyne informed her. “There’s something about the two of us . . . some chemistry . . . that I can’t quite discern yet. But it’s there all the same.”
Folding her fingers, Selar said, “I am unclear as to your implication, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Would you like me to clarify it?”
She considered for a moment and then said, “No. Actually, upon reflection, I prefer the vagueness. Good day, Lieutenant Commander.”
“But—”
“I said . . . good day.”
S/he stabbed a finger at Selar and said, “You’re a challenge. I like a challenge.”
“If that is what you desire, I understand surviving in a vacuum can be most challenging. If you wish, I can arrange to have you try that right now, and we can combine your examination with an autopsy.”
Burgoyne laughed that delighted musical laugh and coquettishly ran hish fingers through hish closecut blond hair. “Why, Dr. Selar . . . was that a threat?”
“Not at all. Merely that famed Vulcan drive to satisfy curiosity.”
And with one final, lilting laugh and a toss of hish head, Burgoyne sashayed out of Selar’s office, leaving the Vulcan doctor shaking her head and wondering two things:
What could she have possibly said or done that would have led Burgoyne 172 to think that there was a fragment of interest on Selar’s part in hir?
And why was it that, as Burgoyne walked, Selar found herself watching the sway of hish hips?
IX.
CALHOUN LOOKED AROUND the conference lounge and nodded in approval. “Commander Shelby . . . Lieutenants Soleta and McHenry . . . Ambassador Si Cwan . . . Lieutenant Kebron . . . thank you all for coming . . .” He paused. “Although frankly, Mr. Kebron, I’m not entirely sure if your presence is required here.”
“This will be the ambassador’s first meeting with you, Captain, without a protective barrier between you. I feel it best if I be here to supervise.”
“Yes, your Mr. Kebron has become somewhat attached to me as of late,” Si Cwan said dryly. “I would have liked to think that he is fascinated by my sterling company. In point of fact, he’s likely concerned I’ll disassemble the ship bolt by bolt while his back is turned.”
“Merely exercising reasonable caution in the presence of a party with questionable security clearance,” Kebron replied.
Calhoun had the distinct feeling that Kebron’s comment was a veiled jab at Calhoun himself. Kebron had made no secret that he was unhappy over Si Cwan’s unorthodox (to say the least) means of joining the crew, even in a limited, semiofficial capacity. Nor was he any happier over Calhoun’s condoning it. However, the Brikar was not one to question his captain’s decisions, and so he endeavored to keep his doubts and criticisms to himself. He wasn’t terribly good at it—his body language was generally a dead give
away, as was his tendency to grind his large fingers into his palm with a scrape like rock on rock whenever he was particularly annoyed about something.
“Very wise, Mr. Kebron,” Calhoun said diplomatically.
“I do appreciate the title of ’Ambassador,’ Captain,” Si Cwan commented. “Will quarters appropriate to the title likewise be issued me?”
Calhoun leaned forward and, keeping that same polite, diplomatic tone, said, “That cook job is still open.”
“Understood,” Si Cwan said in a neutral tone.
With a satisfied nod, Calhoun turned his attention to Soleta. “All right, science officer. You and Mr. McHenry have been working tandem, I understand?”
“Yes, sir. I’ve been talking extensively with Si Cwan to supplement my own knowledge of Thallon . . .”
“And I’ve always been something of a history buff,” McHenry put in. “So I volunteered to help out with some separate research.”
“Good to see, Mr. McHenry,” Shelby said approvingly. She wasn’t simply being flattering, either. McHenry’s clear focus and relatively normal behavior ever since the earlier incident had mollified her concerns to some degree. “What have we got?”
Soleta and McHenry exchanged glances, and she nodded to him that he should begin. He ran his fingers through his shock of red hair, a slight nervous habit, and then said, “Thallon has achieved a nearly mythic status, from everything that I’ve been able to determine. For starters, the Thallonians were not native to the region. Thallon gained its start as a populated world in much the same way that Australia began.”
“You mean criminals?” Kebron said. He made no effort to hide his distaste. In truth, he couldn’t have hidden it even if he’d been so inclined.
“That’s right. There was another race, a sort of Uber race, which had a variety of names as they were known by assorted worlds which were under their influence. The name they had for themselves is lost to history. They were a star-spanning empire who were, if we judge by their conduct, big believers in conquest but also tended to preserve life rather than destroy it, even if it was of no use to them. They used the planet we now call Thallon as a sort of dumping ground for criminals, unsavory types, political exiles . . . assorted refuse from throughout their system.”
“It was, at the time, a small, cold, and not especially fertile world,” Soleta added. “It may very well be that they did not expect any of the residents there to survive. Mr. McHenry has chosen to give a somewhat humanitarian spin to this Uber race’s motivations, but for all we know, they simply regarded Thallon as an experiment in endurance. They may have wanted to see how long individuals could survive there before expiring from the harsh conditions.”
“So they simply kept dumping criminals onto this inhospitable world?” asked Shelby.
Soleta shook her head. “Not precisely. From archaeological records and the myths put forward by Si Cwan’s people, the first of the Thallonians arrived in what we would call space arks. They were given provisions enough to last them a few months, plus materials to seed the ground and try to make a life for themselves there.”
“Seed unfertile ground,” Calhoun mused. “The parent race was all heart.”
“Yeah, but apparently they weren’t all-knowing.” McHenry picked up the story. “The exiles were sent to a planet that had been described to them as inhospitable. But that’s not what they discovered when they arrived there. The climate was fairly temperate, the world almost paradisiacal.”
“Could they have arrived at the wrong planet?” asked Shelby.
“A logical conclusion,” Soleta replied. “However, the coordinates for the intended homeworld of the criminals had been preset and locked into the ark’s guidance systems. After all, the race didn’t want to have their exiles taking control of the ship and heading off to whatever destination they chose. There do remain several possibilities. One is that the planet underwent some sort of atmospheric change. A shift in its axis, for example, causing alterations in the climate.”
“Wouldn’t that have changed the orbit and made the locating coordinates incorrect, though?” Shelby said.
“Yes,” admitted Soleta. “Another possibility is that the present coordinates were simply wrong and they did not arrive at the intended world. Or perhaps someone within their race simply took pity on them and secretly made the change. It is frustrating to admit, but we simply do not know to a scientific certainty.”
“What we do know,” McHenry stepped in, “is that Thallon itself was an almost limitless supply of pure energy.”
“Pure energy? I don’t follow,” Kebron said.
“Think of it as an entire world made of dilithium crystals,” explained Soleta. “Not that it was dilithium per se, but that’s the closest comparison. The ground is an energy-rich mineral unique to the world, all-purpose and versatile beyond anything that has ever been discovered elsewhere. The nutrients in it are such that anything planted in it grows. Anything. Pieces of the planet, when refined, were used to harness great tools of peace and growth . . .”
“And then, eventually, great tools of war,” McHenry said.
The tenor of the meeting seemed to change slightly, and when the mention of war came up, eyes seemed to shift to Si Cwan. He shrugged, almost as if indifferent. “It was before my time,” he reminded them.
“With Thallon as their power base, they were able to launch conquest of neighboring worlds,” McHenry said. “And then, once they had those worlds consolidated under their rule, they spread their influence and power to other nearby systems. In essence, they imitated the race which had deposited them there in the first place.”
“What about this race you mentioned,” asked Calhoun. “Was there a conflict with them? Did they ever return to Thallon and discover what they had wrought? Or did the Thallonians ever go looking for them?”
“No to the first, yes to the second,” McHenry replied. “But they never found them. It’s one of the great mysteries of Thallonian history.”
“And great frustrations,” Si Cwan put in.
“Understandable,” Kebron rumbled. “Your ancestors wished to pay them back for the initial indignity of being dumped like refuse on another world.”
“You see, Lieutenant Kebron,” Si Cwan said with mild amusement, “you understand the Thallonians all too well. Perhaps we shall be fast friends, you and I.”
Kebron simply stared at him from the depths of his dark, hardened skin.
“The Thallonian homeworld has always been the source of the Thallonian strength, both physical and spiritual,” said Soleta. “The events of the last weeks, including the collapse of their empire, may have been presaged by the change in the planet’s own makeup. In recent decades, the planet seemed to lose much of its energy richness.”
“Why?” asked Calhoun.
“Since the Thallonians were never able to fully explain how their world acquired its properties in the first place, there’s understandably confusion as to why it would be deserting them now,” said Soleta. “Still, the Thallonians might have been able to withstand those difficulties, if there had not been problems with various worlds within the Thallonian Empire.”
“It was the Danteri,” Si Cwan said darkly.
Calhoun seemed to stiffen upon the mention of the name. “You claimed that at the Enterprise meeting, I understand. Do you have any basis for that?”
“The Danteri have always hungered to make inroads into our empire. They’ve made no secret of that, nor of their boastfulness. I believe that they instigated rebellion through carefully selected agents. If not for them, we could have—”
“Could have retained your power?”
“Perhaps, Captain. Perhaps.”
“By the same token, isn’t it possible,” Calhoun said, leaning forward, fingers interlaced, “that the Danteri simply serve as a convenient excuse for the deficiencies in your own rule. That it was as a result of ineptitude among the rulers of the Thallonian Empire that the entire thing fell apart. That, in short . .
. it was your own damned fault?”
There was dead silence in the room for a moment, and then, imperturbably, Si Cwan said once again, “Perhaps, Captain. Perhaps. We all have our limitations . . . and we all have beliefs which get us through the day. In that, I assume we are no different.”
“Perhaps, Si Cwan. Perhaps,” said Calhoun with a small smile.
Then Calhoun’s comm unit beeped at him. He tapped it. “Calhoun here.”
“Captain, this is Lefler. We’re picking up a distress signal from a transport called the Cambon.”
“Pipe it down here, Lieutenant.”
There was a momentary pause, and then it came through the speaker. “This is the Cambon,” came a rough, hard-edged and angry voice, “Hufmin, Captain. We’ve sustained major damage in passing through the Lemax system. Engines out, life-support damaged. We have nearly four dozen passengers aboard—civilians, women and children—we need help.” His voice seemed to choke on the word, as if it were an obscenity to them. “Repeating, to anyone who can hear . . . this is . . .” And then the signal ceased.
“Lefler, can we get them back?”
“We never had them, sir. We picked it up on an all-band frequency. He threw a note in a bottle and hoped someone would pick it up.”
“Have we got a fix on their location?”
“I can track it back and get an approximate. If their engines are out, I can’t pinpoint it precisely. On the other hand, they wouldn’t have gone too far with no engine power.”
“Our orders are to head straight for Thallon,” Shelby pointed out.
Calhoun glanced at her. “Are you going to suggest that we ignore a ship in distress, Commander?”
There was only the briefest of pauses, and then Shelby replied, “Not for an instant, Captain. We’re here for humanitarian efforts. It would be nothing short of barbaric to then ignore the first opportunity to deploy those efforts.”
“Well said. McHenry, get up to the bridge and work with Lefler to find that ship. Get us there at fastest possible speed. Shelby—”
But she was already nodding, one step ahead of him as she tapped her comm unit. “Shelby to engine room.”