No Limits

by Peter David

  How long it would take the crew to recover, though, was an open question. Casualties were light—twelve killed in the Romulan attack, and another four dead in engineering when a bulkhead exploded, including Commander Kogutt.

  Mueller sighed and closed her eyes. Kogutt had been a good friend and a good mentor. He had a great love of beagles, she recalled; his family had raised them for generations.

  The chime to Mueller’s cabin sounded. “Come,” she said, and the door swished open.

  Against the light of the corridor she could only make out a vague silhouette that took a tentative step into the cabin.

  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I, Lieutenant?”

  Startled by the voice, Mueller sat up. “No, Captain, not at all. Please come in.”

  He nodded his head. “Thank you.” He took another step into the dim cabin and the door slid closed behind him.

  “Computer, lights one-half.” She rose from the bunk and rubbed her eyes.

  “I can come back later, Lieutenant.”

  “No, it’s all right, sir. I’m tired, but can’t sleep.”

  “Understandable. Commander Parsons tells me engineering took a beating during the encounter.”

  She pulled a chair out from the desk and gestured toward Kenyon. “Please, sir, have a seat.”

  He took the proffered chair. Mueller sat back down on the edge of her bunk.

  “Several bulkheads ruptured in engineering. Commander Kogutt and three others were killed.” She paused. “I’m very sorry about your loss. I know you and Commander Kogutt were close.”

  He nodded slowly. “Thank you. I served with Todd for almost fifteen years, since we were both lieutenants aboard the Lankhmar. He was my chief engineer on the Harriman and the Grissom. He had a very practical mind for an engineer, one that I learned to rely upon.” He sat silently for a moment. “I was proud to call him my friend. Probably my best friend in the service, other than my wife.”

  “I’m so sorry, sir,” Mueller said, barely audible.

  They sat in silence for several moments.

  “I’m going to need a new chief engineer,” Kenyon said at last.

  “Yes, sir,” said Mueller.

  “What’s your opinion of Rachel McLauren?”

  Mueller blinked quickly and her head jerked back slightly in surprise. “Rachel? She’s very capable, very knowledgeable. She knows the ship well, and there’s not a person in engineering that she doesn’t get along with.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “She’ll make a fine chief engineer.”

  “Disappointed, Lieutenant?”

  Mueller bit the inside of her lip, narrowed her gaze, and looked hard at Kenyon. “Frankly, sir, yes. I feel I’m more qualified for the position than Rachel.”

  “I agree, Lieutenant. Completely.”

  “Then why—?”

  “Because I would rather have you as my XO. Your natural talents would be wasted on the engineering deck.”

  “But, sir, I endangered the ship. If maneuvering the ship into the comet hadn’t worked—”

  “You’re second-guessing your actions on the bridge.”

  Mueller nodded.

  Kenyon shook his head. “Don’t. You went outside the traditional command box and gave me a better option than either Christine or Cray could give.” He took a deep breath. “Christine didn’t have an option, because there were no good options and she recognized that. Cray’s option was to go down fighting because that’s his way, but it’s not the right way when dealing with Romulans.”

  “But you couldn’t have known my plan would work.”

  “Poppycock. You wouldn’t have suggested the course of action if it wouldn’t. A commander knows what a ship can do. An engineer knows how to do it. You can do both.” He paused. “The position is yours, Katerina, if you want it.” He rose and held out his hand.

  “Thank you, Captain. I do want it.” She took his hand.

  Kenyon smiled. “Congratulations, Lieutenant Commander.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Kenyon shook his head. “No, thank you. If it hadn’t been for your quick thinking, we might not be having this conversation at all.”

  “One question, sir.”

  Kenyon nodded. “Of course.”

  “What about Cray?”

  “What about him?”

  “Why did you select me over him?”

  “A good question. Cray has his talents, but thinking outside the box is not one of them. He is a very focused individual, and that suits him at tactical and in security. But in command?” He nodded his head pensively. “He isn’t ready yet. Assuming he will ever be.”

  As Kenyon turned to leave, Mueller said, “I won’t disappoint you, sir.”

  Kenyon’s smile turned into a wide grin. “You haven’t yet.” The door to her cabin swished open, and Kenyon stepped into the corridor.

  She sat back down on her bunk, her head swimming in giddiness. She had to tell someone. Who?

  She tapped the companel on her nightstand. “Mueller to McLauren.”

  A groggy voice responded. “Go ahead, Kat.”

  “Did I wake you, Rachel?”

  She heard a stifled yawn on the other end. “ ’Course not. What’s up, kiddo?”

  Mueller finally allowed herself a smile as the realization of her promotion sank home. “You won’t believe what just happened….”

  Even after a week, Katerina Mueller couldn’t help but finger the third hollow rank pip on her collar. In time, she knew, the thrill would wear off, but for now the pip was new, and running her thumb and forefinger across it gave her an emotional high, and she smiled wistfully.

  “Ah, Lieutenant Commander,” she heard.

  Mueller looked up from her half-eaten lunch. Cray stood before her, a food tray in his hands.

  “Cray,” she said with the sudden realization this was their first conversation in months. “What can I do for you?”

  His eyes narrowed and both antennae bent in toward her.

  “I’ll be watching you, Lieutenant Commander. When you stumble, I will be there.”

  She pushed the tray away from her and folded her arms in front of her on the mess hall table. “Watching me?”

  “The promotion to XO was mine. It should have been mine.”

  “Captain Kenyon disagreed.”

  “Sarn—” Cray began.

  “—is in the past, Lieutenant. Captain Kenyon made his decision based on the present.” She opened her hands magnanimously. “You’ll have other opportunities.”

  Cray’s scowl became a sneer. “I will prove to the captain that he should have chosen me, and when you make a mistake I will see to it that you suffer for it.”

  Mueller rose, planted her hands firmly on the table, and looked at Cray with such fury that the facial scar stood starkly white against her reddened face. “Are you threatening me, Lieutenant?”

  Cray backed away and smiled. “Not at all, Commander. I never threaten. I only promise.” He turned and walked toward an empty table at the far end of the mess hall. Mueller watched him go.

  She returned to her seat and rubbed her chin slowly. Cray would bear watching. Andorians never made promises lightly, nor promises they didn’t intend to keep.

  XANT

  Redemption

  Glenn Hauman & Lisa Sullivan

  One of the biggest thorns in Captain Calhoun’s side in Sector 221G has been the “Redeemers,” a group of religious zealots who worship a god called Xant. “Redemption” provides us with a bit of insight into the figure behind the Excalibur’s foes.

  Glenn Hauman

  & Lisa Sullivan

  Glenn Hauman has been called a “young Turk of publishing” by the New York Observer and a “Silicon Alley Veteran” by Crain’s New York Business, and his new business, LotAuctions.com, is making great headway in the online auction space, though he suspects “Weird Al” Yankovic won’t be doing a song for him anytime soon. He has been a featured speaker on the future of publis
hing at numerous industry trade shows. His Star Trek: S.C.E. eBook Oaths was recently reprinted in the omnibus edition No Surrender, and he’s working on more eBooks; he’s also been an editorial consultant on many Star Trek CDROMs. He is, among other things, the webmaster for PeterDavid.net.

  Lisa Sullivan received her MA in Early Church History from the University of Georgia, and has completed several years of doctoral studies in the same subject at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. She has previously written for the academic journals Semeia and Studia Patristica, and has presented papers at conferences in her field both nationally and internationally. She has no idea how she ended up writing for Star Trek, but figures if it’s good enough for Dr. Marc Okrand, it’s good enough for her.

  Before his ascension, the great god Xant was walking through the woods and he came to a stream. Gazing across the stream, he saw a nibor, an aquatic animal, and a pygram, a stinging insect, arguing.

  The nibor wanted to cross the stream to get some berries on Xant’s side, but feared Xant looming over him from across the water. The pygram had no way to cross the stream by himself, but was capable of slaying Xant with his fatal sting. Of course, he was also capable of killing a nibor as well, and pygrams often did so to fill their stomachs. Nibors often ate pygrams when they could, as they considered them menaces, and rightly so.

  The pygram spoke to the nibor. “Friend! If we tie our fates together, then none can stop us. Carry me across to the other side, and I will protect you from the huge creature over yonder! I shall frighten him away with my deadly poison!”

  “How do I know that if I try to help you, you won’t try to kill me as well?” asked the nibor hesitantly, staying a safe distance away.

  “Because,” the pygram replied, “on the other side of the river, the huge creature is the greater threat, and while I slay him, you can gather your berries and then escape. If I try to kill you while we are in the river, then I would die too, for you know I cannot swim!”

  Now, this seemed to make sense to the nibor. But he asked, “What about when I get close to the bank? You could still try to kill me and get to the shore, before I kill and eat you!”

  “This is true,” agreed the pygram, “but then I wouldn’t be able to get back to this side of the river!”

  “All right then…how do I know you won’t just wait till we get back and then kill me?” said the nibor.

  “I could ask the same thing of you! How do I know you won’t just wait till we get to the other side and I scare him off, and then you will devour me?” said the pygram.

  “Ahh…” crooned the nibor, “because you see, once you’ve taken me to the other side of this river, I will be so grateful for your help that it would hardly be fair to reward you with death, now would it?”

  “And I would not kill you either. But I do not trust you, nibor!”

  “Nor I you, pygram!”

  The two beasts continued to yell at each other, becoming louder and shriller, until it seemed that each had forgotten why he had started to argue, only knowing that he had to win the argument. Xant looked at the two of them from across the stream, laughed, and seated himself atop a large boulder.

  “A very difficult dilemma, is it not? And you…what would you do?” Then Xant turned to look down at…me.

  “This is a dream,” I said.

  “Perhaps,” said Xant. His voice was clear and calm, with the muted sounds of the birds and small animals around him and leaves of thick brush swaying in the breeze. “Or perhaps it is the long-awaited vision of me that you have prayed for all your life.”

  “A vision of Xant?” I asked. “I’ve neither waited nor prayed for such a thing. I must accept Xant if it will save my world from the accursed Redeemers, but I do not believe in him. He is not my god.”

  “Yet here we both are, together,” said Xant. “You must believe in my existence to some extent, or I would not—indeed, could not—be here. Incidentally, have you ever received any visions from Kolk’r, the god of your ancestors?”

  This had not occurred to me. “N-n-no—I have not,” I stammered. “But why would the great god Xant appear to me, a nonbeliever? There are many who are more faithful, more deserving of visions, than I.”

  The figure on the boulder looked at me intently. A cold chill passed through me, and my mind began to race.

  What if this really is Xant? I thought. He did bear more than a passing resemblance to the iconic figure that was displayed so prominently around the town. Am I insulting a god? Better to be safe than sorry, even if it is only a dream….

  I fell to my knees in front of him. “I…am not worthy of this great hon—”

  “Hah! What honor?”

  “This vision of you—”

  “Perhaps this is not a vision after all, but merely the delusion of madness, of one who dares to rise too far above his station in life.” And Xant suddenly began to look strange and sinister as he loomed above me.

  “Or perhaps this is indeed a simple dream—like the dream in which you stand naked before your teacher and you feel like a dunce. Well? Are you a dunce?”

  “I—I—”

  “Hmmm. You certainly sound like one.”

  “—I am no dunce!”

  “That remains to be seen. However, it would only be polite to take you at your word. This is your dream, after all. Perhaps.”

  His words confused me. “Is this—is this some sort of a test, my lord?”

  “Hmm. A test. I suppose it could be, couldn’t it?” Xant smiled, although I could not tell if it was the smile of an indulgent teacher or of a being laughing at a cosmic joke that only he had the awareness to perceive.

  Xant slid off the boulder, landing lightly on the ground in front of me. “Walk with me,” he said. I started to walk behind him, but he stopped before we had taken three steps. “No, no, no. Do not follow me. Walk with me, Eben.” He smiled. “Of course I know your name. You are Eben Saxosus. Child of Kayi and Teir, brother of Falo. I know many things about you. And that is why I want you to know many things about me.”

  I took two steps forward to be alongside him, and continued for another two steps beyond. Xant, however, stayed standing where he had been, a slight smile on his lips as he watched me. Slightly aggravated—but trying to keep the hint of it out of my voice—I turned to face him and said, “I can go no further if you do not lead me, Lord Xant.”

  “You speak more truly than you realize. Shall we?” And we walked off downstream.

  We continued along for a while, with Xant looking calm, but somewhat more unsettled than I would ever have suspected a deity could be. “My lord—”

  “Please. Just call me Xant. For us to truly hear each other, we must be able to speak as brothers.”

  “Xant, is…is this really you?”

  “You still do not believe?”

  “Well, it’s just that—I never quite thought of you as real.”

  “But everyone on your planet believes in me.”

  My mind cried out that this was obviously not the truth, but I bit my tongue. “We believe that you existed in a historical sense, of course…”

  “Ah, you doubt my divinity.”

  “I would not dare to do such a thing, Xant…but…if you are a god, why do you walk and talk like a mortal now?”

  “I was once like you,” Xant said.

  “Yes, I know that you were mortal for a time, before you reached your state of divinity.”

  “No. Wrong.”

  “You mean you were always divine, even when you walked among mortals?”

  Xant sighed. “Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. You listen, but you do not hear.”

  Confusion must have been evident on my face. “I am divine now, Eben. Could one who was not divine do this?” Xant raised his hand upward and swept it across his field of vision. A glorious rainbow appeared, shooting overhead and across the sky. He turned to look at me expectantly. “Well?”

  I must still have appeared unconvinced, for Xant grew impatient.
<
br />   “What tricks must I perform to make you believe?” He gestured again, and the rainbow turned into a giant arc of flame.

  I looked back at him. “I am sorry, but I still do not know if I am dreaming, Xant, and all things can happen in dreams. I suppose I could be wrong…but then, here, everything could be wrong.”

  Then he did smile, as if I had passed his test. “Skepticism is a healthy trait. You mistrust your own perceptions?”

  “Yes, I suppose I do.”

  “Then shouldn’t you mistrust your mistrust?”

  I started to answer, but found I had no suitable reply. Instead, I grew quiet as I looked ahead, toward a village we were approaching and that Xant apparently meant for us to enter. Our path took us to a marketplace. It was not one I was familiar with, and it was populated with the people of Xant’s race. They did not, I was relieved to see, dress in the ceremonial garb of Redeemers.

  As Xant and I walked silently into the crowded market square, the crowds parted to let us through, almost unconsciously. I looked at them and then looked again, intrigued.

  The crowds did not part so much as they seemed to be repelled from our path. It was much the same effect as when one brought like poles of a magnet together, and yet it all flowed naturally, and the crowds themselves seemed unaware of our passing. I wondered why I was not pushed away in the same manner.

  “You are not repelled because I choose to have you by my side,” Xant said. “Yes, I know your thoughts. Omniscience is one of my many traits, though I tend to allow people their privacy for the most part.” He smiled. “You have an active imagination, Eben.”

  I was startled. Why hadn’t I thought of it? Of course a god would be able to read my thoughts. I ran quickly back over my last twenty minutes of silent musings, hoping desperately that I had not been thinking anything that was too offensive.