For a fraction of a second, the biologist seemed intent on figuring out whom Kirk was talking about. Then realization dawned.
“You’re not referring to me, are you?” he asked.
“Why wouldn’t I?” the captain returned. “I’ve seen you in action, Bones. They don’t come any better.”
[38] “But ... that was years ago,” McCoy sputtered. “Dammit, Jim, I’m a research biologist, not a doctor.”
“And a pretty good research biologist from what I understand. But I saw the kind of work you did on the Constitution, remember? If you performed half as well on the Enterprise I’d be getting my money’s worth.”
The other man shook his head, his forehead creased with thought. “I don’t know. I mean, I just finished a tour of duty on Capella Four. It wasn’t exactly what I’d call satisfying.”
“Well,” said Kirk, “I’ve never had the pleasure of visiting Capella Four, Dr. McCoy. But I’ve been to Kratosian Prime and Bender’s Planet and Pareil Seven, and I’ve seen you save lives in those places that no one else could have saved.”
“My work here saves lives too,” the biologist argued.
But the captain could tell by the sound of his friend’s voice that he wasn’t arguing from his heart—not really. He was putting up barriers in the hope that Kirk could knock them down.
“No offense to Starfleet Medical,” said the captain, “but there are dozens of people qualified to do what you do. But how many doctors have the wisdom and the toughness to serve as the chief medical officer of a starship?”
McCoy didn’t answer him. Not right away, at least.
“All right,” he said at last. “I see your point. But I’ll need some time to think about it. After all, it’s a [39] pretty big decision I’ll be—” Suddenly, his expression changed to one of annoyance. “Aw, who am I kidding? I haven’t been happy at Starfleet Medical for some time now. You want a chief medical officer? By god, you’ve got one!”
Kirk smiled. “Welcome aboard, Doctor.”
His friend nodded. “It’s good to be aboard ... Captain.”
Just then, their waiter arrived at the table with a bottle of dark red wine in hand. “Chateau Picard,” he said, “one of the few French varieties Sal carries. I believe you’ll enjoy the vintage.”
The captain looked at the label. The bottle was nearly twenty years old. “I believe we will,” he agreed.
The waiter extracted the cork from the wine bottle and offered it to Kirk. Sniffing its aroma, the captain nodded to show that he approved of it. Then he watched as the waiter poured a little into his glass.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said, declining the traditional sip.
“As you wish,” the waiter replied. Then he poured for both Kirk and McCoy, set the wine bottle down on the table and left the two Starfleet officers to their own devices.
The biologist picked up his glass and swirled the contents around. “It’s not Saurian brandy,” he remarked, “but it’ll have to do.”
“To Gary,” said the captain, raising his glass with his good hand.
“To Gary,” McCoy echoed, clinking his glass against his friend’s.
[40] Kirk sipped his wine. It was full-bodied, flavorful. He might even have enjoyed it if the circumstances were a little different—if he didn’t have so much on his mind.
His friend looked at him askance. “Let it go, Jim. Just try to relax for a little while.”
The captain shook his head. “There’s more to it, Bones.”
“More to it?”
Kirk nodded and stared into his wine. “Gary’s parents have asked me to deliver the eulogy at his funeral service.”
McCoy regarded him for a moment, absorbing the import of the remark. Then he said, “You lied to me, didn’t you?”
Kirk looked at him, perplexed. “Lied about what?”
“You said you had just one problem,” the doctor replied. “Sounds to me like you’ve got at least two.”
The captain nodded again. “I’ve got to get up in front of his friends and family, Bones, and tell them a story about how he died. Can you imagine if I told them the truth? Gary was a great friend and a terrific colleague, folks. Oh, and by the way, I’m the one who killed him.”
McCoy leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “I hear what you’re saying. It’s a dilemma, all right.” He paused. “On the other hand, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.”
Kirk looked at him. “What isn’t?”
The doctor looked back. “Telling them the truth,” he said.
[41] The captain recoiled at the very thought of it. “Are you out of your mind?” he asked.
McCoy shrugged, “Maybe so. But wouldn’t it make you feel better if you could tell them the truth—the same way you told me?”
Kirk shook his head. “Why even consider it? I can’t do it. Not at Gary’s funeral service. Not when we’re supposed to be mourning him.”
“You can’t tell everyone,” his friend agreed. “But you can tell some of them. The ones who matter.”
The captain didn’t know what McCoy meant, at first. But after a moment, he began to figure it out.
“You’re talking about Gary’s parents,” he concluded. “You think I should tell them how Gary really died.”
His friend leaned forward. “I’m no psychiatrist, Jim, but I can see how this is eating at you. I think it would eat at you a damned sight less if you told the Mitchells the truth.”
Kirk swallowed. Even if he could work up the courage, he thought, even if he could find the words ...
“What if they hate you for it?” McCoy asked, posing the question the captain would have posed to himself.
Kirk nodded. “What then?”
The other man appeared to weigh the possibility. “Then you’ll have to live with it.”
The captain made a derisive sound in his throat. “Not much of an improvement, I’m afraid.”
“I’m not saying it’ll be easy,” McCoy told him. “But at least you’ll have given them their due. For [42] godsake, if you were in their place, isn’t that what you would want? To know the truth?”
Kirk considered it. It didn’t take him long to come to the conclusion that his friend was right. I would want to know the truth, he told himself, readjusting his cast on his wrist.
No matter how badly it reflected on the messenger.
Chapter Four
THE MITCHELLS LIVED on Manhattan Island, a continent away from Velluto’s and Starfleet Headquarters, in a sleek, well-lit forty-story edifice overlooking the dark flux of the East River.
Thanks to the Starfleet transporter facility in Battery Park, the captain had been able to leave San Francisco and cross the continent almost instantaneously. And the officer on duty had been kind enough to have a hover taxi waiting for him at the curb.
Kirk wrapped his coat around himself against the autumn chill and shouldered his way into the weather. Sensing his approach, the door panel slid open. He got in.
“Where to?” the vehicle’s computer voice inquired in the vernacular of the old-time cabbies who used to ply Manhattan’s thoroughfares.
[44] “Uptown,” he replied. “Three Twenty East Fifty-third Street.”
“Gotcha,” said the computer as the taxi began to ascend. “Sit back and enjoy the ride.”
A moment later, he was speeding through the city’s deep canyons, her pedestrian walkways a good thirty meters below him. Other vehicles zipped by at various heights and velocities and in different directions, all of them coordinated by a network of traffic computers.
The captain had forgotten how gaudy Manhattan could seem to an occasional visitor, from its white-crowned skyscrapers to its green-glowing street-lamps to the red, blue, or purple signs announcing its restaurants, night spots, and never-closing coffee bars. With the rain sheeting hard against the cab’s windows, it seemed even more exotic, more alien.
Then the Mitchells’ building separated itself from the other behemoths, and
Kirk felt a little more at home. In fact, he might have smiled at the sight except for the icy coldness in the pit of his belly.
Suddenly, the vehicle dropped to street level and made a loop to stop in front of the captain’s destination. He breathed a sigh of relief. Somehow, he felt more comfortable in a starship careening through space at warp six than a New York taxi weaving its way through traffic.
Tapping his personal commerce code into the wafer-thin pad on the surface in front of him, Kirk watched the readout reflect the transaction. Then he touched the control stud next to him and saw the door open.
As he got out, cold, heavy drops pelted his head [45] and the back of his neck, the sidewalk around him hissing with their concerted assault. Pulling the collar of his coat up higher, the captain made his way through the front door of the building into the cavernous, imitation-stone lobby.
It was much quieter inside. And when the door slid closed behind him, it was quieter still. He ran his fingers through his hair, shedding raindrops on the orange ceramic floor.
“Please identify yourself to the party you wish to see,” said an artificial female voice. “The communications panel is on your left.”
Kirk hadn’t needed to be told. He recalled the place well enough from all the visits he had made here in previous years. Crossing to the comm panel, he entered the number of the Mitchells’ apartment.
It took only a few seconds for a response to manifest itself on the panel’s readout. Entry authorized, it said.
The elevator that served the west side of the building was just a few paces away. The captain pushed the button on the wall beside it and the doors whispered open. Then he got in, saw the door panels close again and heard the mechanism begin to hum.
It was a short ride—less than thirty seconds to ascend to the thirty-fifth floor. From Kirk’s perspective, it was too short. He reached his destination before he was ready for it.
But then, he wondered, how could one ever be ready for something like this? How could one prepare for the hardest thing he had ever done?
When the lift doors opened, the captain stepped [46] out and looked around. It was just the way he remembered it. A foyer with four black doors, the gaps between them illuminated by narrow, vertical lighting strips. The first door on the left was the one he wanted.
He drew a breath, touched the pad beside the door and waited. It would take a few moments, he estimated, before Gary’s parents could stop what they were doing and react to the chime. He steeled himself.
Then, with breathtaking suddenness, the door in front of him slid aside with a rush of air. And there they were—Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell. The parents of the man Kirk had killed on Delta Vega.
Thomas Mitchell was a sturdy, broad-shouldered man with thinning hair and dark, inquisitive eyes. His wife was small and slim by comparison, an attractive brunette with high cheekbones and blunt but expressive features.
It had been a long time since the captain had seen them in person. More than a few years, in fact. Perhaps that was why Gary’s parents looked so much older than he remembered—older and grayer and more beaten down.
Or maybe it was something else. Something other than just the advance of the years.
Losing your only son can do that to you, he found himself thinking. It can whittle you out, leaving your skin too big for your bones and your eyes too big for their sockets.
“Jim,” said Mrs. Mitchell. She pulled him in and hugged him earnestly, as if he were her own son. “It’s good to see you.”
[47] “I wish I could’ve come sooner,” Kirk told the woman as she eased her embrace, “but I was called to a starbase first to—”
“Don’t apologize,” Gary’s father interrupted. “We understand. You’re the captain of a starship. Your life’s not your own, right?” He clapped the captain’s shoulder and reached for his hand—until he saw the cast on Kirk’s wrist. “Little gymnastics injury?”
The captain didn’t tell him that he didn’t do much in the way of gymnastics anymore, because that would have begged the question as to how the injury had really occurred. “Something like that,” he said instead.
“Give me your coat,” said Mrs. Mitchell, tugging at a wet sleeve even before the captain could divest himself of the garment. “Can you believe this weather? It’s like a monsoon out there.”
Gary’s father grunted. “I’m sure the boy’s seen worse, Dana. He’s probably been on planets where it never stops raining.”
As he turned his coat over to Gary’s mother, Kirk nodded. “That’s the truth,” he replied politely. “Quite a few, in fact.”
Mr. Mitchell ushered him into the living room, where two comfortable-looking black couches faced each other across the expanse of a transparent, free-form table. The walls were decorated with colorful oil renditions of Paris, London, and Rome.
The captain hadn’t recognized the locales the first time he set foot in Gary’s parents’ apartment some fourteen years earlier. Back then, he hadn’t seen [48] enough of Earth to distinguish Boston from Barcelona, much less one planet from another.
It was Gary who had taken the time to identify the subject of each painting for him. Unlike his friend, Gary had been around the block a few times. As he had once gibed, he was the city mouse to Kirk’s country mouse.
And now he was dead. Here more than other places, it was a difficult thing to believe. The captain half expected Gary to come walking into the room as he had so many times in the past, a couple of cold ales in his hands and a jest on his lips.
Rain stitched and sloshed its way across the only window in the room, a large, rectangular pane that stood perpendicular to both couches. Through the darkness and the downpour, Kirk could see the distant, distorted glows of penthouse lights on the neighboring apartment buildings.
“I’m glad we had a chance to get together before the funeral service,” said Mr. Mitchell. He tilted his head to indicate the kitchen. “Can I get you something? Some wine, maybe?”
The captain shook his head. “Thanks, but no. Actually, I just wanted to talk to you for a moment.”
Gary’s father turned to his mother, who had hung up Kirk’s coat and was joining them in the living room. “Something for you, dear?”
Mrs. Mitchell thought for a moment. “Maybe some tea. But I’ll make it.” She glanced at the captain. “Tom brews it so strong I can’t drink it. You’d think after all these years, he would have learned.”
As his wife left the room, Gary’s father shrugged. [49] “She’s right. A simple thing like making tea ...” His voice trailed off as he contemplated the phenomenon, probably not for the first time. Then, as if remembering that there was someone else in the room, he looked up and blushed. “I’ve been doing that a lot the last few days,” he said.
“Doing what?” asked Kirk.
The man smiled self-consciously. “Getting all wrapped up in little things. Forgetting where I am and who I’m with.”
The captain’s heart went out to him. “It’s not very difficult to understand,” he said.
“You mean under the circumstances,” said Mr. Mitchell.
Kirk nodded. “Exactly.”
Gary’s father grunted. “You’d be surprised how many times I’ve run into that phrase since we learned of Gary’s death. ‘Under the circumstances, Mr. Mitchell.’ ” He shook his head helplessly. “I’ll be glad not to hear it anymore, I can tell you that.”
The captain didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately, Gary’s mother chose that moment to return to them. She held a tray with a gray, ceramic teapot and three matching cups.
“I know you said you didn’t want any,” she told Kirk, “but ... well, I brought a cup for you anyway. I know how shy you can be about taking food from people—even people who are like family.”
Like family. The words echoed in the captain’s mind as he adjusted his cast for the twentieth time that day. He wished Gary’s mother hadn’t used them. Hell, he wished a lot of things.
“Now that you me
ntion it,” Kirk said, “maybe I [50] will have a cup.” After all, he didn’t want to disappoint the woman.
Mrs. Mitchell smiled knowingly and poured the tea. She gave the captain the first cup and her husband the second. Only when they had been served did she pour a cup for herself.
“So,” she said at last, sitting down next to Mr. Mitchell, “you said you wanted to talk about something.”
Kirk’s heart began thudding in his chest. “That’s right,” he told Gary’s mother, “I did, didn’t I?”
The Mitchells sat there on the other side of the transparent table, looking at him expectantly. The rain pattered a little harder against the windows, but only the captain seemed to notice.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” he started out.
His voice must have sounded grave because it made Gary’s mother put down her teacup. “What is it, Jim?” asked Mr. Mitchell.
What indeed, Kirk thought.
He tried to give the man an answer, but his mouth suddenly became a senseless, clumsy mess of flesh, unwilling to do his bidding. Refusing to stop now, he pressed it into service as best he could.
“I ...” he began.
Gary’s parents continued to regard him. Their concern was evident in their faces, though they didn’t know yet what they were concerned about.
The captain tried again. “I ...”
I killed your son, he thought.
But he couldn’t seem to make himself say it out loud. Maybe, he told himself, because speaking the [51] words would change his entire world—and once they were out there, they couldn’t be taken back.
The Mitchells leaned forward, something deeper than concern etched in their faces now. “Go ahead and take your time,” Gary’s father advised him, managing a smile. “We’re not going anywhere, y’know.”
Kirk knew that expression, that tone of voice. They were the same ones Gary had often used when he was hurt or scared about something. And with their help, the navigator had fooled people. He had made them think he was doing fine when he wasn’t doing fine at all.
STAR TREK: TOS #87 - My Brother's Keeper, Book Three - Enterprise Page 4