Collision Course

by William Shatner

  “Honor violations,” Elissa interrupted as they passed by a freeform flowerbed planted with martian zinnias that changed color according to the angle of the sunlight. She gave Zee a reluctant smile to show she appreciated her efforts.

  “That speech we got, that was for any mid who gets into academic trouble. No one fails out of the Academy. I’m not worried about that.”

  Zee nodded vigorously. “Good, because the point I’m trying to make is that Starfleet wants to hold on to as many mids as it can. You’ve got the benefit of the doubt working for you, so it only makes sense that the board’s going to bend over backwards to find some kind of reason to keep you here.”

  “Sure,” Elissa said. “On probation, no liberty, loss of privileges.”

  “Will you stop being such a drudge? Who cares about any of that? The point is, you’ll still be here and, don’t forget, at graduation, if you haven’t totally screwed up, those records’ll be sealed.”

  “Thanks, Zee,” Elissa said quietly. “But I’d know. And honor violations…that kind of record has a way of spreading outside the system.”

  “Good morning, ladies, you’re both looking great today.”

  Elissa and Zee both whirled at the same time to flatten the boorish second-year mid who had suddenly run up behind them, only to realize it was Jim Kirk.

  “Very smooth, sport,” Zee said sarcastically.

  “Jim!” Elissa looked around nervously to see if any instructors were near. “Do you know how much trouble you can get into wearing that uniform?”

  Kirk threw his arms around the shoulders of both mids and kept walking. “A lot less trouble than I’m in right now.”

  Elissa was not through scolding him. “Where’d you get it anyway?”

  “Let’s just say it was hanging around. I’ll get it back before it’s missed.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “That’s what they told Zefram Cochrane,” Kirk said.

  “Jim, I’m serious, you can’t be here.”

  Kirk stopped and Elissa and Zee stopped with him.

  “Elissa, I’m serious. I need to talk to you about the board.” Before she could argue, Kirk gave Zee an apologetic smile. “And it’s probably better that you don’t know about the conversation. Just in case anyone asks.”

  Zee shrugged, but she didn’t look happy to leave Elissa with Kirk. “Thanks, I certainly wouldn’t want to tell a lie. You two have fun.” She looked meaningfully at Elissa. “Corso, if this starts getting too much for you, just call me and I’ll do anything I can to help, okay?”

  Elissa gave her a hug of thanks. “It’ll be okay. Enjoy breakfast for me.”

  “Mmm,” Zee said. “Retextured protein blobs with syrup. Who’d miss that?” She gave Kirk a look that swept him from head to toe. “You almost look good in that uniform, hotshot.” She winked at Elissa. “Almost.”

  Then Zee turned and left, glancing back only once.

  “Wild guess,” Elissa said when they could talk alone, “you’ve got a new plan.”

  Kirk took her arm and propelled her along the path. “Let’s keep walking, just two mids heading for the monorail station.”

  Elissa tensed and slowed her pace. “Why there?”

  Kirk pushed her to quicken her step, kept his voice cheerful. “I had a run-in with Starfleet Security yesterday.”

  Elissa groaned. “Right. Sam said you didn’t come home. And I got visited by some tough guy from HQ.”

  “White hair? Name Mallory?”

  Elissa felt like melting away into nothing. Her shoulders sagged. “They know about the staff car, Jim. They know about us. It’s all over, isn’t it?”

  Kirk’s stride didn’t falter. “No! In fact, it’s what happened at Starfleet that made me realize there’s another way to prove you’re innocent.”

  “You mean, like the override was going to prove it?” Elissa pulled away from him. The path they were on now wound through a grove of genetically reconstructed elms.

  Kirk took her arm again, insistent. “Mallory’s got the override now. You can definitely tell the honor board about it. He’ll have to produce it.”

  Elissa shook him off again and started walking away. “Don’t worry. I will. I have to.”

  Kirk hurried after her. “I know—will you stop for a second? This is important!”

  Elissa wheeled around, furious. “I know it’s important! It’s my life!”

  “And I want to help make it right!”

  “All you’ve done is make it worse! You don’t even like Starfleet!”

  “But I like you. I want to help. And I know how to do it now.”

  Elissa stood facing him. “Okay, then. Convince me.”

  Kirk took a breath, then launched into what Elissa realized was something he’d been practicing. “I didn’t think of this until last night, but it suddenly came to me that security systems have two separate functions.”

  “Keep going.”

  “First, they’re designed to stop people from breaking into something—a car, a safe, a databank, whatever.” Kirk held up a finger to make a point. “But then, because no security system can ever be one-hundred-percent foolproof, they have a second function.” Kirk looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to realize what he had realized.

  “Not foolproof…” Elissa said, working it out. “I know—their second function is to alert someone that they’ve failed.”

  Kirk beamed. “That’s it! That’s how the guards came after us so quickly in the parking lot the other night. My override broke through the security lockouts on the car—”

  Elissa continued, spurred on as Kirk’s enthusiasm became hers and her spirits lifted. “—so the system sent out an alarm saying it had been defeated.”

  She stiffened as Kirk made a move as if to hug her, then didn’t. Elissa bit her lip, relieved. There were other mids on the path and the Academy’s fraternization rules were strictly enforced.

  Kirk rushed on, not seeming even to have noticed how close they had come to breaking yet another rule. “Which raises a really interesting question about what happened in the warp lab.”

  Elissa caught what he meant at once. “The security lockout on the dilithium vault didn’t send out an alarm.”

  “Exactly! And listen to this: Mallory confirmed that my override worked just like the one that was used to break into the dilithium vault—by transmitting signals to the security system. But, to stop an alarm from going out, I would’ve needed a second piece of equipment to either jam or block the signal. And that second piece of equipment—”

  Elissa gasped as she understood what Kirk was about to say, and then they said it together: “—had to stay in the lab!”

  Kirk pointed in the direction of the monorail station. “Let’s go get it.”

  But Elissa wasn’t yet convinced. “Hold on. What makes you think it’ll still be there?”

  “Because nobody’s found it.”

  “Yeah, well, I hate to be the one to give you the bad news, but you’re not the smartest person on the planet. If you figured this out, Security did, too.”

  Kirk grinned. “They’re smart, but they don’t have you for a girlfriend.”

  Elissa hated it when Jim turned on the charm as she was trying to be serious. “And that’s important, why?”

  “Simple. The first investigators checked to see whose codes had been used to open the vault—your codes. As far as they were concerned, that was the end of the investigation. But I—your boyfriend—know you’re innocent, so I kept digging. Which Security didn’t do.”

  “One problem,” Elissa said. “Even if you’re right, and whoever did it used an override and some kind of jammer, why’d they leave the jammer behind? Why not take it with them?”

  “They needed it to keep working so they could leave the lab.”

  Elissa thought it through, found one loose end. “So why didn’t they go back and get it during normal hours?”

  Kirk shrugged. “Maybe they did. Then again,
maybe they haven’t had a chance yet because of all the extra security measures that’ve been put in place. The point is, we won’t know until we go look for ourselves.”

  “Even if I accept everything you’re saying, what I have to do is tell my conduct adviser and then have Academy Security check the lab.”

  Elissa was surprised to see Kirk’s boundless enthusiasm suddenly vanish as he became graver than she had ever seen him. “Elissa, I know you don’t want to hear this, but Starfleet isn’t the perfect organization you want it to be.”

  Elissa glared at him. This was the one topic of conversation the two of them had promised each other they’d never discuss. They’d had too many arguments because of it. “Don’t even start,” she warned him.

  “I don’t want to fight,” Kirk said, trying to sound reassuring, “but come on, you have no motive, there’s no DNA evidence putting you in the lab, and how the hell do they think you got the dilithium off campus? The fact is, you didn’t do it and someone in Starfleet Security is making a huge mistake thinking that you did. So do you really want to risk your career by trusting someone like your adviser who’s capable of that kind of mistake? That’s all I’m saying. That’s it.”

  “Mallory already told me there was no evidence that I personally stole the dilithium.”

  “But they’re still making you go before the board.”

  “He thinks they’ll settle for finding that I didn’t protect my codes.”

  “That’s great. That means they don’t think you’re a thief. But has anyone from Security come and told you that? Has your adviser passed on the good news, told you not to worry so much?”

  Elissa shook her head.

  “It’s a bureaucracy, Elissa. The cogs start turning and no one cares about the little people that get ground up in them. The truth is, if you want to do something—anything—to change Starfleet’s way of doing business, you’re going to have to do it on your own. The system’s already made up its mind about you, and that system is not about to help.”

  Elissa stared at him, confused. She didn’t want to believe what Kirk said about Starfleet—she couldn’t believe it. But she also couldn’t argue with his analysis of what the Academy’s security investigators had and hadn’t done. Maybe every big organization, no matter how wellintentioned, always had a few people who didn’t measure up. And maybe her conduct adviser was one of those, someone who just wasn’t watching out for her best interests in the way that Starfleet, at its best, would demand.

  “Elissa…trust me. This won’t be like overriding a staff car. We’re only going to look for something that someone else put there, and when we find it—if we find it—then we’ll tell someone who can help us. Maybe that Mallory guy.”

  Elissa took a deep breath. “Ground rules: We don’t break into anything. We don’t take anything.”

  Kirk didn’t argue. “All we need this time is information.”

  “And if we don’t find it?”

  Kirk gave her his most winning smile. “Then you can dump me, and Zee can have me.”

  “You’re such a liar.”

  “That’s why you love me.”

  “No, I love you because you’re arrogant and insufferable.”

  “Two of my best qualities.” Kirk pointed down the path. “Monorail station?”

  Elissa made her decision.

  22

  After his morning meditation, Spock remained in his private room, continuing his study of classic Earth literature. As always, he was fascinated by the conundrum that study presented. How any culture could give rise to master-works with the brilliance and sensitivity of J. Susann’s Valley of the Dolls and Once Is Not Enough, yet, within decades of their publication, engage in a devastating global war, was an enigma whose solution still challenged finer Vulcan minds than his. Not that that stopped Spock from trying, which was why, for the third time since coming to this world, he once again began to read H. Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, in a diligent search for answers.

  In less than an hour, he had finished the novel, his usual speed reduced by the number of times he had had to backtrack and reread particularly descriptive passages, not trusting them to memory, and scarcely able to believe them.

  Then, having heard Sarek exit their family’s quarters to go to his office in the main embassy building, Spock put on his cloak, felt for the weight of the tracking module in its pocket, and left his room.

  His father’s study was, of course, unlocked. This part of the compound rarely had human visitors, so security precautions were more typically Vulcan—which is to say, there were none.

  Spock stood in the hallway by the study’s closed door and listened carefully. He could hear in the main room the “Flower Duet” from the Earth opera Lakme, the twenty-second-century recording of the Sydney Opera Company, considered definitive by Vulcans. It was one of his mother’s favorites, and true to her schedule, she would now be tending the plants on the courtyard balcony. She was not due to teach at the compound school until this afternoon.

  Knowing he would not be disturbed, Spock pushed the door that opened into his father’s private sanctum. The room was dark, the “Flower Duet” becoming softer and more distant, all sound muffled by the thick carpets and wall hangings.

  Spock moved toward his father’s desk, an heirloom carved from a single block of Vulcan wehk wood. Its polished surfaces revealed the striations of the hundreds of vines that had grown cooperatively, then fused into one organism. The distinctive markings most resembled ripples frozen on a rich sea of mahogany and oak.

  Sarek’s personal computer terminal, which sat on the top of the desk, was installed in a frame made of the same wood, pleasing to the eye.

  Spock sat in his father’s chair and accessed the terminal—he had long ago deduced Sarek’s personal codes, more as a mathematical exercise than for any other reason. Even on Vulcan, sons and fathers inevitably fell into competition.

  Then he called up his father’s daily schedule. Spock raised an eyebrow at its extent. It went back seventy-five Earth years, to the first entry Sarek had made when he was the equivalent of seven Earth years old. But for Spock’s purposes, he only needed the details of his father’s activities since being posted to Earth, so he isolated just that dataset and captured it on a red data wafer.

  He switched the terminal back into standby mode, pocketed the wafer, and stood, ready to—

  Amanda was standing in the doorway, wearing a gardening apron, holding soil-stained cloth gloves. She made no attempt to hide her human indignation. “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  Spock had no trouble maintaining his equanimity. “I am preparing to meet with one of my father’s ‘business associates.’ ”

  “Does Sarek know?”

  “I would prefer he did not.”

  Amanda suddenly looked to her son’s wrist. “Spock, where’s the tracking module?”

  “I have removed it.”

  “They could take you back into custody!”

  “Since they have not, it is obvious I was able to remove it in such a way that it did not send out an alarm.”

  His mother stepped into the room, her concern turning to fear. “I don’t care that you know how to take off the module. The point is, it’s against the law. You know better.”

  What Spock knew was that he had only a few hours to complete the task he had set for himself before his father returned and realized his terminal had been accessed. This was no time to debate his mother.

  “Will you report me, Mother?”

  Spock could see Amanda wring the gloves she carried. “Logically, I should. Ethically, I must.”

  Spock accepted her decision calmly. His plan had failed. He could not blame his mother for doing what she must. She was only human.

  “But I’m your mother,” Amanda sighed. “And one thing mothers have to do is to know when to let go. You keep telling your father and me you want to be treated as a Vulcan, and we do treat you that way, though you somehow don’t seem to realize
it. You keep telling us you want to be treated as an adult, and that’s something your father and I have always worked toward, giving you more and more responsibility as you’ve proven to us that you can exercise it. But you’re so young. You’re just nineteen.”

  Spock wondered if he would ever understand human logic, even that of his own mother.

  “You don’t know how much your father and I discuss you, ask ourselves if we’ve done the right thing, not done enough…You are in our minds—and in our hearts—every day. Every day. And still, somehow, you don’t seem to know it.”

  Spock had no time to waste. If Amanda was not going to report him, then he needed to go at once.

  “Mother, I know you care for me. If I have not shown you proper respect for that care, then I regret it, and I will strive to do better in the future.”

  Amanda shook her head as if she couldn’t understand him. “Spock, the embassy staff cares for you. Your father and I love you.” She waved her hand before he could protest further. “Oh, I know ‘love’ isn’t the word you’d prefer to hear said aloud, but it’s true. And not even Sarek would deny it. He is so proud of you, has such hopes for you.”

  “I regret that I cannot reciprocate.”

  “How can you say that?” Amanda spoke as if he’d struck her.

  Spock repeated what he had said earlier. “Mother, I have work to do. If you are not going to report me, then I must go.”

  “There will be consequences to what you’re doing,” Amanda said, now sounding more Vulcan than human. “If you choose to act on your own, you must take responsibility for your own mistakes. Neither Sarek nor I will permit less.”

  “I am aware of that.” He fixed his dark eyes on her, the teenager’s challenge to his parents. “Just as my father must take responsibility for what he has done.”

  He left then, before his bewildered mother could reply.

  There was so much that needed to be corrected in his family and in the embassy. But at last he was free to do something about both conditions, and act not just as a privileged son, but as an adult.