by Diane Carey
The stout, dark-haired Latino fellow at the helm offered George a friendly wave of recognition and filled in, “How’ve you been, sir?”
George nodded uneasily, but he was inwardly damned relieved to see a face he recognized. “Great. You?”
Florida returned the nod, smiled, and made George feel a little more welcome.
“Over there is Ensign Isaac Soulian, our navigator.” Robert gestured to a young skinny Arabic type, or Lebanese, or something, with one of those beards that wouldn’t go away no matter how much he shaved. He nodded at George, but both hands were busy as he handed tools to—
“Ensign Veronica Hall,” Robert went on, noting the young woman on the deck, “is our astrotelemetrist and communications officer.”
“Hello, Commander,” the girl said in her quiet voice, wagging a stylus-type instrument, then pushed aside one of a dozen blond braids—supposedly braided to keep the short hair out of her face, and apparently failing at that.
George nodded down at her, noting that she wasn’t much older than Jimmy, and was assaulted by all the other why-couldn’ts that came with such a realization about young people. Three or four years ago, this girl hadn’t been on the verge of criminal behavior, that was sure. Why couldn’t—
“All our women seem to be on the floor today,” Robert said. “Gentlemen, you’re failing at your courtly duty.”
Smiles rippled. The good mood started to seep over George and smother his doubts.
Until the turbolift doors opened again.
He turned, and was hit by a blast of cold teenager.
Jimmy Kirk stepped onto the bridge of the starship Enterprise, absorbed the active colored lights, the fog of shadows above and below, drew in a breath, and wrinkled his nose in contempt.
“It stinks in here,” he said.
The deck turned to concrete. The words dropped and clattered.
Several members of the bridge crew heard. They turned to get a look at the jacketed, capped, eagle-eyed snot who spoke that way about their bridge.
Already they didn’t like him.
A few paces away from his son, George Kirk felt his muscles turn to thread. He drew his brows together in a kind of warning.
“They’re doing electrical work,” he said. “You know . . . accomplishing something.”
“Watch your tongue, son,” a voice crackled from the lower forward deck. “Somebody might say the same thing about your ship someday.”
For the first time since George came in, the first officer showed herself out of that hole in the deck. Lorna Simon let herself be hauled to her feet by Florida and Soulian, but her eyes were already on Jimmy.
She was a very stout woman with a shaggy hat of white hair and long time lines arguing between scowls and smiles etched into her roundish face. Everything on her was round, in fact. Hair, face, figure, fingers—a mushroom of officer material—and she would’ve had to tease that hair to make five feet.
George held his breath, terrified of what Jimmy might say to such an unlikely person.
Maybe there was a lingering resemblance to somebody he respected, or maybe Simon looked like a teacher he was scared of, but the boy clammed up suddenly and glared at her.
She didn’t give him a second glance after that. She turned to the captain and said, “Permission to go below and adjust that thing at the source?”
“Certainly,” Robert said. “I’d like you back on the bridge after we leave the star system.”
“Aye, sir,” she said. “I’ll be back in time to spank any little ass who gets out of line.”
She tossed a very short but puncturing glance at the somebody she had in mind, then toddled into the turbolift and disappeared.
Only after she’d gone did Jimmy muster the nerve to speak again.
“What’s somebody’s grandmother doing on your ship?”
“That’s Commander Simon,” Robert said. “First officer.”
“First officer? Seems more like first warden of the women’s block.”
“She’s been offered a captaincy with a ship command nine times. Turned down every one.”
Jimmy’s expression changed from trying to gather up his spilled respect to real amazement. “Why would anybody turn down a chance to be a captain?”
Robert offered a supple librarian’s shrug. “She didn’t want it.”
“That’s stupid,” the boy said, and was gratified to catch his father’s wince in his periphery. “Why wouldn’t you want to be in charge?”
“Charge means responsibility, Jimmy, decisions. Maybe lives on your hands. You could kill someone just docking a ship incorrectly. The prospect of command is enthralling, but there’s a certain shine that comes off the function. Lorna’s just smarter than I am,” he added with a grin.
“Where’s Lieutenant Reed?” George interrupted, turning to Jimmy.
His son shrugged, not in a polite way. “He sent me up here. I don’t know where he went.”
“He just sent you up alone?”
Jimmy ironed him with a glower that said he understood that his father didn’t trust him.
“He said he’d sell me to a reggae drum section if I didn’t come straight up. Whatever that means.”
George set his jaw and tried not to snap back an answer, but it was Robert who took care of the ugly moment.
The captain didn’t seem at all bothered by the boy’s tone. He swept his bridge crew with a series of glances.
“All right, everyone, let’s say we heave tight and fetch some headway, shall we? Bill, sound the farewell whistles in the dockmaster’s office and request clearance.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Ensign Hall, get up off the deck, dear, and help us clear for making way.”
“Yes, sir.”
Hall clamped the access panel shut, squirmed to her feet, and wriggled over to the communications station, straightening her uniform girlishly as she went.
George tried to keep his eyes off her, but in spite of being very thin and small-boned, she was all girl. Seemed too soft and flowerlike to be in the service. Hard to ignore in this environment. He noticed Jimmy watching her too.
Behind him, the turbolift doors parted, and George stepped aside as quite another kind of woman stalked onto the bridge. This one was blond too, only straw-colored blond while Hall’s hair was creamier.
Somehow it fit. George always thought that color had suited this particular lady from the moment he first met her.
“Robert!” the newcomer cried. “You’re late!—oh, George. Hello. What in blue hell are you doing here?”
“Came to see you again, Sarah, why else?” George said.
“I know,” the woman said. “It’s always wonderful to see me. Robert, that sickbay’s a mess! You said my surgical team was cleared for duty on this ship, and they’re not!” She shook a yellow computer recording disk at him. “I’ve got four complaints from planetside Starfleet hospitals saying I’d appropriated their personnel without ample notice. They’re bitching at me about the Third Interstellar Convention for Safety of Life in Space and quoting bylaws at me! What am I supposed to do at this late date? We’re about to take off, for crying out loud!”
Robert turned a glad eye on her and said, “Ah, Sarah darling, yes. Veronica, would you patch my authorization through to those hospitals, please? And notify Starfleet Headquarters that it’s all clear?”
Hall put out a hand for the yellow disk. “I’ll take that for you, Doctor.”
“Report for me, Sarah?” Robert asked. “All squared away in sickbay?”
“Well,” the doctor grumbled, “I guess so. I just hate coming back to these details.”
Robert stepped onto the upper deck and took both her hands. “Isn’t she lovely, George? Gotten prettier every day since we welded the old nuptial bargain, eh?”
Sarah April softened visibly, sank against him a little, and lowered her voice.
“Cut it out . . . making me look bad.”
“So lovely,” he murmured, and pe
cked her cheek.
“That’s not regulation, Captain,” George commented from one side.
Sarah leaned back and cast him a casual look. “Who asked you, volcano? Hey—is that Jimmy back there?”
George stepped aside, but didn’t look at his son.
Sarah backed away from Robert, though still holding one of his hands, and spoke to Jimmy. “Last time I saw you, you were sailing paper boats on the puddle behind your farmhouse. What are you doing here?”
“Not much,” was all Jimmy said, and he put some space between himself and the adults.
“Well, let me know when you get spacesick.” She pushed off her husband and headed for the turbolift without ceremony. “It’s always like that when there’s a young crew. Barf, barf, barf. I keep telling those idiots at headquarters that artificial gravity is never going to take the place of some nice chunky planet. I’m going to check the medical stores. I don’t trust the manifests they sent me. And please be sure to have the department heads tell the new recruits where sickbay is, because I don’t want to be running all over this ship, looking for some confused midshipman. You can get lost with a bad left turn on this monster. Don’t forget!”
The lift doors almost cut off her last words, but she pushed them out in time.
“Oh, brother,” George grunted. “One of the great universal constants.”
“Ah, there she goes,” Robert said, “twittering like a mistlethrush. What would I do without her?” He circled back onto the lower deck, turned the command chair, then settled into it and crossed his legs. “Short range scan, on visual.”
There were responsive bleeps, and the big viewscreen before them came to life—a view of one open end of the box dock, the moon way out there, and after that . . . space.
Robert seemed notably more content at having had a few seconds with his wife. There was an extra lilt in his voice and a grin tugging at his cheeks as he casually said, “Batten down all external maintenance systems and confirm all running lights on, please.”
“Confirming, sir,” helmsman Florida said. “Battened and confirmed, sir.”
“Thank you, Carlos. Let’s get under way, then—oh, Jimmy, come down here. Want to watch?”
The boy stepped down as beckoned, but his attitude didn’t improve. “What’s to watch?”
“It’s complicated,” Robert said, “but very interesting.”
“What’s complicated about it? You just pull the ship out, and once you’re out, there’s nothing in space but more nothing.”
“Seems like that,” the captain agreed, “but you don’t just bear off with a ship like this and assume everyone will get out of your way. Even on the ocean there are rules of the road. ‘Pass port to port,’ ‘red right returning,’ things like that. Aren’t there?”
“Well . . . yeah.”
“I envy you knowing about such things. I learned it all in space. Never spent much time out on the water other than the occasional fishing curragh in Ireland. I more or less cling to the land, myself. Never heard of a continent sinking, you know!” He swung around to the communications station and spoke to the young girl who looked so small against those controls. “Are we cleared by the dockmaster?”
“Clearance is coming in now, sir. All dockworkers and maintenance personnel are accounted for.”
“Good, very good. Thank you, Veronica. Oh, Carlos, remember that we have to arrange our departure around the orbit of that new powerplant.”
“Yes, sir, I’m working out a trajectory to avoid it,” Florida said. “I’ll be glad when they figure out a better place to hang that thing.”
“What’s a powerplant doing in orbit?” Jimmy demanded.
“Jimmy!” George spat from behind. “Don’t interrupt.”
But Robert tossed him a glance that said he had expected, and maybe even intended, this to happen.
“That’s what he’s here for.” He looked at Jimmy and said, “It’s a starship-type powerplant. There are several of them in orbit several thousand miles farther out than we are. The power is tight-beamed back to Earth. We have to be careful not to knock into them as we leave, and of course not to fly through one of those tight beams. That’d be spine-chilling, wouldn’t it?”
He rolled his eyes, and the bridge crew chuckled and rolled theirs.
George was the only person standing stiff, almost at attention, consumed by nerves. Everyone else was hovering over his station with a hip cocked or a hand on a belt, poking at controls and overseeing monitors, every face showing a hint of satisfaction. Something about the launching of a ship, no matter where, no matter how long or how short a time she’d been at anchor—there was just something about it.
Their casualness made them seem particularly capable. They had the attitude of people who really knew the ropes.
George almost dared relax—but then—
“Why don’t they just put the powerplant down on the planet?” Jimmy persisted. “That’s where the power gets used, isn’t it? Why bother to orbit it?”
“For one thing, they’re ugly,” Robert answered. “Who wants to live next to one now that we have an alternative? But most important, these are antimatter-type powerplants. We didn’t dare use them for planetary power until we figured out how to keep them in orbit and funnel just the power down. Wouldn’t want something like that sitting on the planet’s surface, where all the people live, would we?”
“Why not?” Jimmy jabbed back. “We’re sitting inside one, aren’t we?”
On the quarterdeck behind them, George closed his eyes in misery and knew the nightmare wasn’t going to end.
Below him, Robert was peering at Jimmy, trying to see under the cap’s brim into that shadow where the eyes were burning, and he slapped the arm of his chair.
“By St. Christopher, everyone, he’s right!” he said. “Let’s turn back.”
The crew laughed and made exaggerated nods and somebody muttered, “Too late. We’re doomed.”
George watched his son.
Suddenly a hillbilly at dinner, Jimmy’s face turned hard and humiliation scorched his cheeks. The chuckles of the bridge crew made him seem dirty and oafish.
George couldn’t help but empathize as Jimmy backed off a step, behind the captain’s chair, and made a look that said he didn’t want to be talked to. Suddenly, George felt bad for his son—then also remembered that this was why he had brought the boy here.
“Captain,” Veronica Hall said, “the dockmaster’s hailing with a correction from the barging port. He asks if we can wait for a hydrohaul to pass us.”
“Of course we can. Signal affirmative. Jimmy, come here and look at what’s passing by us,” Robert called, seemingly unaware of the black cloud over Lake James. He pointed at the forward screen, paused a moment, and waited, then kept pointing as a long, ugly blue and gray ship came across the bow. “That’s a barge, Jimmy, heading out to one of our colonies in another star system. Oh—see that little blue and white decal? That’s a mail pennant. It means she’s carrying mail for her port of destination, and possibly ports in between. That little sticker makes it a UFP offense to tamper with her in any way, rather than only a criminal offense. Quite a vision of accomplishment, isn’t it? There’s a whole stasis warehouse inside, with live fish and everything.”
“Fish?” Jimmy snorted. “Why?”
“Watch.”
As an answer, the big rectangular barge went out the other side of the screen and showed what it was towing.
Jimmy squinted disdainfully. “A block of ice?”
“Frozen saltwater. Several hundred thousand tons. Essentially an iceberg. They just beam it up, it freezes, they warehouse as many live fish as they can, and off they go to a colony. They’re going to establish a saltwater hatchery.”
“Don’t they cover it up? Put it in a tank or something?”
The captain cranked around toward him. “Why?”
Unable to think of anything, Jimmy clammed up. After all, it was just ice.
“Doesn’t
seem to be any reason to go to all that expense,” Captain April commented. “Nothing sticks to it in space, after all . . . ”
Jimmy buried his bungle in another accusatory question. “They just beam up a couple cubic kilometers of ocean and take it?”
The captain looked puzzled for a moment, then said, “Oh, no, my boy, no! That would be a catastrophe! They have to beam it up a little at a time, in slices, essentially.”
“Why?”
“Well, beaming isn’t a net energy loss of zero, you know . . . ” He paused again, surveyed his guest, then said, “No, I don’t suppose you do know, do you?”
“Sure he does,” the navigator grumbled without turning.
“Knows everything,” somebody else underbreathed from forward starboard.
On the upper deck, George was beyond wincing. The heat flushed out of his body and into the deck. He’d made some mistakes before in his life, but this—
“There’s a tremendous energy exchange involved in transporting,” Captain April said, ignoring the comments. “We make the universe unstable for a moment. We take mass and move it. There has to be an equalization and absorption somewhere else. Theoretically the transporter takes a bit of where it’s going and moves it . . . it’s very complicated, Jim, and dangerous unless you know quite well what you’re doing. That’s why a transporter’s not exactly a household tool. Perhaps your father back there can show you the ship’s data on the subject after we get under way, eh, George? George, you still back there?”
“Yes, sir,” George said, surprised. “Yes, I’m still here, I guess.”
“Captain,” Hall said, touching her earcom unit, “the barging port signals their vessel is cleared of our trajectory and they send their thank-you. Dockmaster confirms area is clear now.”
“Acknowledge both of them.”
“Aye, sir, acknowledging.”
Robert turned his chair forward. “Carlos, clear all moorings, cables, and antigravity support systems.”