by Peter David
“Hit them again!” crowed Dackow, the shortest and yet, when the mood suited him, loudest of the Thallonians. Dackow never voiced an opinion until he was absolutely positive about how a situation was going to go, at which point he supported the prevailing opinion with such forcefulness that it was easy to forget that he hadn’t expressed a preference one way or the other until then. “You’ve got them cold, Zoran!”
Zoran fired again, this time missing the shuttle craft with one phaser cannon but striking it solidly with the other.
But as Zoran gleefully celebrated his marksmanship, Rojam commented dryly, “What happened to having Si Cwan’s throat in your hands, enabling you to squeeze the life out of him?”
The observation brought Zoran up short for a moment. “If you had done your job better, I might have had that opportunity,” he said, but it seemed a hollow comeback. The truth was that Rojam’s statement had taken some of the joy out of Zoran’s moment of triumph. Granted he had won, but it wasn’t in the way he would have liked.
And then a flash consumed the screen as the shuttle craft erupted in a ball of flame. Automatically the Thallonians flinched, as if the explosion posed a threat to them. Within mere seconds the flame naturally burned itself out, having no air in the vacuum of space to feed it. The fragments of the vessel which had been the Marquand spun away harmlessly, the twisted scraps of duranium composites no longer recognizable as anything other than bits of metal.
“Burn in hell, Si Cwan,” Zoran said after a long moment. The others, as always, nodded in agreement.
Only Rojam did not join in the self-congratulations. Instead he was busy checking the instrumentation on an adjoining console. “What are you doing?” asked Zoran after a moment.
“Scanning the debris,” Rojam informed him.
“Why?” said Juif, making no effort to keep the sarcasm from his voice. “Are you concerned they still pose a threat?”
“Perhaps they do at that.”
The pronouncement was greeted with contemptuous guffaws until Rojam added, “They weren’t aboard the shuttle craft.”
“What?” The comment immediately galvanized Zoran. “What are you talking about? Are you positive? It’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible, and they weren’t there,” Rojam said with growing confidence. “There’s no sign of them among the debris. I wouldn’t expect to find any bodies intact . . . not with the force of that explosion. But there should be something organic among the wreckage. I’m not detecting anything except pieces from the shuttle craft.”
“Are you saying they were never aboard? That it was some sort of trick?” Zoran’s anger was growing by the minute.
“That’s a possibility, but I don’t think so. If they were never at risk, then they went to a great deal of trouble to try and force our hand. But here is a thought: Some of those Federation shuttles come equipped with transporter pads.”
“You think they may have evacuated before the ship blew up.”
“Exactly.”
“But the only place they could have gone to . . .” And then the growing realization brought a smile to his face. “ . . . is here. Here, aboard the ship.”
Rojam nodded.
Beaming with pleasure, Zoran clapped a hand on Rojam’s back. “Excellent. Excellent work.” Rojam let out a brief sigh of relief as Zoran turned to the others and said briskly, “All right, my friends. Somewhere in this vessel, Lord Si Cwan and his associate, Lieutenant Kebron, are hiding. Let’s flush them out . . . and give our former prince the royal treatment he so richly deserves.”
SELAR
III.
SOLETA GLANCED UP from her science station as she became aware that McHenry was hovering over her. She glanced up at him, her eyebrows puckered in curiosity. “Yes?” she asked.
Glancing around the bridge in a great show of making certain that no one was paying attention to them, McHenry said to her in a lowered voice, “I just wanted to say thanks.”
“You’re welcome,” replied Soleta reasonably, and tried to go back to her studies of mineral samples extracted from Thallon.
“Don’t you want to know why?” he asked after a moment.
“Not particularly, Lieutenant. Your desire to say it is sufficient for me.”
“I know I was ’spacing out’ earlier, like I do sometimes, and I know that you were defending me. I just wanted to say I appreciate it.”
“I was aware that your habits posed no threat to the Excalibur,” she said reasonably. “I informed the captain and commander of that fact. Beyond that . . . what is there to say?”
“Why’d you leave, Soleta? Leave Starfleet, I mean.”
The question caught her off guard. Now it was her turn to look around the bridge to make sure that no one was attempting to listen in. She needn’t have worried; eavesdropping was hardly a pastime in which Starfleet personnel habitually engaged. Still, she was surprised over how uncomfortable the question made her feel. “It doesn’t matter. I came back.”
“It does matter. We were friends, Soleta, back at the Academy. Classmates.”
“Classmates, yes. I had no friends.” She said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that there was no hint of self-pity in her tone.
“Oh, stop it. Of course you had friends. Worf, Kebron, me . . .”
“Mark, this really isn’t necessary.”
“I think it is.”
“And I say it isn’t!”
If they had been trying to make sure that their conversation did not draw any undue attention, the unexpected outburst by Soleta put an end to that plan. Everyone on the bridge looked at the two of them in unrestrained surprise, attention snagged by Soleta’s unexpectedly passionate outburst. From the command chair, Calhoun asked, “Problem?”
“No, sir,” said Soleta quickly, and McHenry echoed it.
“Are you certain?”
“Quite certain, yes.”
“Because you seem to be having a rather strident dispute,” he said, his gaze shifting suspiciously from one to the other.
“Mr. McHenry merely made a scientific observation, and I was disagreeing with it.”
And now Shelby spoke up, observing, “It’s rare one hears that sort of vehemence from anyone, much less a Vulcan.”
“Lieutenant Soleta cares passionately about her work,” McHenry said, not sounding particularly convincing.
“I see,” said Calhoun, who didn’t. “Mr. McHenry, time to Nelkar?”
“Twenty-seven minutes, sir,” McHenry said without hesitation, as he turned away from Soleta and headed back to the conn.
Calhoun never failed to be impressed over how McHenry seemed to carry that knowledge in his head. Only Vulcans seemed nearly as capable of such rapid-fire calculations, and McHenry seemed even faster than the average Vulcan.
Which Soleta, for her part, did not seem to be. Her outburst had hardly been prompted by some sort of scientific disagreement. But Calhoun didn’t feel it his place to probe too deeply into the reasons for it . . . at least not as long as he felt that his ship’s safety was not at issue.
If it did become an issue, though, he would not hesitate to question Soleta and find out just what exactly had caused her to raise her voice to McHenry despite her Vulcan upbringing.
“Vulcans,” he muttered to himself.
Soleta turned in her chair and looked questioningly at Calhoun. “What about Vulcans, Captain?” she asked.
He stared at her tapered ears, which had naturally zeroed in on the mention of her race, and he said, “I was merely thinking how what we need on this ship is more Vulcans.”
“Vulcans are always desirable, Captain,” she readily agreed, and went back to her analyses.
• • •
The main lounge on the Excalibur was situated on Deck 7 in the rear of the saucer section, and was informally called the Team Room, after an old term left over from the early days of space exploration. It was to the Team Room that Burgoyne 172 had retired upon hish returning to the ship. S/he ha
d felt a certain degree of frustration since s/he had not had the opportunity to complete hish work on the Cambon. If there was one thing that Burgoyne disliked, it was leaving a project unfinished.
And then s/he saw another potentially unfinished project enter the Team Room. Dr. Selar had just walked in and was looking around as if hoping to find someone. Burgoyne looked around as well and saw that all of the tables had at least one occupant. Then s/he looked back at Selar and saw an ever-so-brief look of annoyance cross the Vulcan’s face. That there was any readable emotion at all displayed by the Vulcan was surprising enough, and then Burgoyne realized the problem. Selar wasn’t looking for someone to sit with. She was trying to find an unoccupied table.
Her gaze surveyed the room and she caught sight of Burgoyne. Burgoyne, for hish part, endeavored to stay low-key. S/he gestured in a friendly, but not too aggressive manner, and waved at the empty seat opposite hir. Selar hesitated a moment and then, with what appeared to be a profound mental sigh, approached Burgoyne. Burgoyne could not help but admire her stride: she was tall, almost regal of bearing. When Selar sat down, she kept her entire upper body straight. Her posture was perfect, her attitude unflinching.
“I believe,” Selar said in her careful, measured tone, “that our first encounter was not properly handled . . . by either of us.”
“I think the fault was mostly mine,” Burgoyne replied.
“As do I. You were, after all, the one who was rather aggressively propositioning me. Nonetheless, it would not be appropriate to place the blame entirely on you. Doubtlessly I was insufficiently clear in making clear to you my lack of interest.”
“Well, now,” Burgoyne shifted a bit in hish chair, “I wouldn’t call it ’aggressively propositioning’ exactly.”
“No?” She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Burgoyne leaned forward and said, “I would call it . . .” But then hish voice trailed off. S/he reconsidered hish next words and discarded them. Instead s/he said, “Can I get you a drink?”
“I am certain that whatever you are having will be more than sufficient.”
Burgoyne nodded, rose, disappeared behind the bar, and returned a moment later with a glass containing the same dusky-colored liquid that was in hish glass. Selar lifted it, sniffed it experimentally, then downed half the glass. It was only her formidable Vulcan self-control that prevented her from coughing it back up through her nose. “This . . . is not synthehol,” she said rather unnecessarily.
S/he shook hish head. “It’s called ’Scotch.’ Rather difficult to come by, actually.”
“How did you develop a taste for it?”
“Well,” said Burgoyne, and it was obvious from the way s/he was warming to the subject that s/he had discussed this topic a number of times in the past. “About two years ago, I was taking shore leave on Argelius Two . . . a charming world. Have you ever been there?” Selar shook her head slightly and Burgoyne continued, “I was at this one pub, and it was quite a lively place, I can tell you. It was a place where the women were so . . .”
Burgoyne was about to rhapsodize about them at length, but the look of quiet impatience on Selar’s face quickly dissuaded hir. “In any event,” continued Burgoyne, “I felt very much in my element. We Hermats are sometimes referred to as a rather hedonistic race. That’s certainly a sweeping generalization, but not entirely without merit. In this pub, however, watching the Argelians and assorted visitors from other worlds engaging in assorted revelries and debaucheries, why . . . I felt that my humble leanings were dwarfed in comparison.
“And then my attention was drawn by one fellow seated over in a corner. A Terran, by the look of him, with hair silver as a crescent moon.”
“You are attracted to him, no doubt,” said Selar dryly.
“No, actually. He was a bit old for my tastes. But I was interested in him, for he seemed to be watching everything without any interest in participating. Furthermore he was wearing—believe it or not—a Starfleet uniform that hasn’t been issued in years. A costume, I figured. I asked the bartender about him, and apparently he’d simply wandered in one day some weeks previously and just—I don’t know—taken up residence there. He hardly ever left. So I went over and chatted with him. Asked him what he was doing there. He told me he was ’reliving old times,’ as he put it. Remembering friends long gone, times left behind. He was reticent at first, but I got him talking. I have a knack for doing that.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes. And he seemed particularly intrigued when I told him I was an engineer. He claimed that he was as well. Claimed, in fact, that he wrote the book on engineering.”
“A man with drinks in him will claim a great many things when he seeks the attention of a pretty face,” observed Selar.
Burgoyne was about to continue when s/he paused a moment and, with a grin, said, “Are you saying you think I have a pretty face?”
“I am saying that, with sufficient intoxication, anyone may seem attractive,” replied Selar. “You were saying—?”
“Yes, well . . . as I said, he boasted of a great many things. Sufficiently intoxicated, as you noted. Came up with the most insane boasts. Said he was over a hundred and fifty years old, that he served with Captain Kirk . . . all manner of absurd notions. And he also had no patience at all for—how did he put it—?” And Burgoyne made a passable attempt at imitating a Scots brogue as s/he growled, “The wretched brew what passes for a man’s drink in this godforsaken century.’ He was drinking this,” and Burgoyne tapped the glass of brown liquid.
“That very drink?”
“Not this specific one, of course. It was two years ago, remember. But he seemed to have a somewhat endless supply of it. We seemed to communicate quite well with one another. At first, I believe, he took me for a standard-issue female, and he openly flirted with me. When I informed him of the Hermat race and our dual gender, at first he seemed amazed and then he just laughed and said,” and again Burgoyne copied the brogue, “’Ach, I would have loved to set up Captain Kirk with one of ye on a blind date. There would have been some tales to tell about that one.’” Burgoyne paused and then added, by way of explanation, “There are some who find our dual sex disturbing.”
“Is that a fact,” said Selar noncommittally.
“Yes.” Burgoyne swirled hish drink around in the glass. “Tell me, Doctor . . . are you among them?”
“Not at all. I find you disturbing.”
Burgoyne’s smile displayed hish fangs. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” s/he said.
“As you wish.”
“So anyway, the Terran offered me some of what he was drinking, and I tried it, and I swear to you I thought that it was going to peel the skin off the inside of my throat. I quickly realized that he was right: The stuff they’ve gotten us accustomed to in Starfleet is nothing compared to genuine Earth alcohol. Hell, even Hermat beverages pale in comparison to,” and s/he rubbed the glass affectionately, “good ol’ Scots whiskey. He told me if I had any intention of being a genuine engineer, that I should be able to drink him under the table. So I matched him drink for drink.”
“And did you succeed? In drinking him under the table, I mean.”
“Are you kidding?” Burgoyne laughed. “The last thing I remember was his smiling face turning at about a forty-five-degree angle . . . or at least that’s what it seemed like before I hit the floor. But before that happened, I really let him have it.”
“’Have it’?”
“I told him that I thought he was being gutless. That he was sitting in this pub hiding from the rest of the galaxy, when he could be out accomplishing amazing things. That he might be telling himself that he was being nostalgic, but in fact he was just being gutless,” and s/he tapped one long finger on the table three times to emphasize the last three words. Then s/he winced slightly and said, “At least I think that’s what I told him. It got a little fuzzy there at the end. When I came to, I was in a back room at the pub with all sorts of debauchery and perversity going
on all around me. Reminded me of home, actually. And I found that he’d left me something: a bottle of Scotch, and a message scribbled on the label of the bottle. And the message was exactly two words long: He’d written, ’You’re right.’”
“ ’You’re right.’ That was the message in its entirety.”
“The whole thing, yes. Never saw him again, but I can only assume that he decided to get back out to where he belonged.”
“And where would that be?”
“Damned if I know.” Burgoyne leaned forward. “Do you understand what I’m saying to you, Doctor?”
“Oh. Well . . . not really, no. I had simply assumed that this was a long and fairly pointless narrative. Why? Is there something to this story beyond that?”
“What I’m saying, Selar, is that we shouldn’t be afraid to try new things. We Hermats have our . . . unusual anatomical quirks. But—”
She put up a hand. “Lieutenant Commander . . .”
“An unwieldy title. I prefer Burgoyne from you.”
“Very well. Commander Burgoyne . . . despite a valiant endeavor, this conversation is not proceeding in substantially different fashion than our previous one. I am not interested in you.”
“Yes, you are. You simply don’t know it yet.”
“May I ask how you have come to this intriguing, albeit it entirely erroneous, conclusion?”
“All right . . . but only if you promise to keep it between us.”
She pushed the drink of Scotch several inches away from her as she said, “I assure you, Chief Burgoyne . . . nothing will give me greater personal satisfaction than knowing that this conversation will go no further than this table.”
S/he leaned forward conspiratorially and gestured that Selar should get closer to hir. With a soft sigh, Selar did as Burgoyne indicated, and the Hermat said in such a low voice that even the acute hearing of the Vulcan could barely hear hir:
“Pheromones,” whispered Burgoyne.