by Peter David
Which was a very diplomatic way, Soleta thought, of saying that if a sinkhole hadn’t swallowed her ship, she wouldn’t have needed Spock to rescue her, she wouldn’t have to depend on him for a way offworld, and he could have continued to go about whatever important business he had set in hand on Thallon.
Wind whipped her improvised hood away from her hair, which was clasped once again with the IDIC symbol that Lord Si Cwan had returned to her along with her life. There had been no logic in the prince’s capricious act, which had released her and Spock, but she was thankful for it.
“If your freighter captain’s shuttle raises a backwash, I suggest we move out of range,” she said.
Spock nodded. “Captain Akachin will not be rash enough to operate with running lights,” he said. “Incidentally, it would be best not to ask him why a navigator from Qualor is running freight.”
“Got it,” Soleta said, then regretted her informality of expression for the additional one-point-three minutes it took the tiny, dilapidated shuttle to land.
As its hatch opened, she and Spock ran forward. With every step, she wondered if some seismic tremor or other was going to crack open the ground underfoot and swallow them, too.
Spock hurled himself through the hatch with the energy of a much younger Vulcan. “The land is unstable,” he warned the ship captain, whose face was marked not just by the drooping folds of pallid skin characteristic of natives of Qualor II, but by an expression of chronic worry and discontent. “An expeditious takeoff would be advisable.”
Although the ground had begun to tremble ominously, the shuttle achieved a swift and surprisingly smooth liftoff. Once in the air, the captain set it into a steep climb, banking sharply away from the city to avoid onlookers as well as patrols.
“I’ll have you know this shuttle is not as shabby as it looks,” said the being Spock now introduced to her as Captain Revex Akachin. He resembled, Soleta decided, nothing so much as a nervous Terran shar-pei who had spent a rainy night outdoors. “I’m the Portmaster’s cousin. I could afford a fancier-looking craft any time I wanted, but I just think it’s smart not to draw attention to myself.”
“Prudent,” said Spock. “Logical, even.”
Akachin preened visibly, his facial folds flushing, then went back to his litany of complaints. “You didn’t tell me about a second passenger. Not to mention a female,” he told Spock. “It’s a good thing I maintain my shuttles carefully, or…”
“The Qualor shuttlepod 41Y,” Spock cut in smoothly, “has fuel and life-support to sustain four people for approximately eight-point-three-five days, as we both know. I will, of course, adjust your compensation.”
Revex Akachin huffed, then sniffed something that sounded like “I wouldn’t have expected anything else.”
The shuttle gained altitude. Despite a huffed-out breath from Akachin that warned Soleta not to come too close, she bent forward to study its instruments, hoping not to see the blips that might mean patrol craft coming to investigate an unauthorized takeoff from Thallon’s surface.
“Just don’t think,” the Qualor freighter captain said, “that because I’ve fallen on hard times, I don’t take care of my ship. Or my passengers. Qualor II is known for its fine ship-handling and maintenance. If I say my ship will get the job done, it will get the job done. The ambassador knows that. I just hope, however, you’re not a fine lady who expects a luxury liner. You’d better not be.”
Soleta arched an eyebrow at Spock in recognition of her lack of choices. As long as the ship was a ship, not a dungeon, and held air and—luxury of luxuries—a sonic shower, she would believe any stories Revex told her. Or appear to believe them.
“There,” said the captain. “Qualor’s Pride.”
He didn’t sound very proud. And, as the shuttle made its docking approach, the ship didn’t look like it had much to be proud of. But Revex and Spock were watching her, so she fell back on what a Starfleet Academy classmate from Iowa used to call the Midwestern Mantra. “I’m sure,” Soleta said soothingly, “that it will be very nice.”
Spock nodded approval. She would have expected he’d know that mantra too. After all, Captain Kirk had also come from the Midwest.
Akachin’s hands never stopped what Soleta realized were astonishingly competent maneuvers at the controls. He brought them into the cramped docking bay quickly and smoothly enough to earn her respect. As the doors closed behind them, the Pride left orbit.
Standing orders, no doubt, or part of that astonishing fugue he’d played on controls during the trip from the surface. Three-point-four minutes later, Revex turned his passengers over to a crewman.
“I’ll need to be on the bridge till we leave Thallon’s system,” Akachin said. “It’s not as if the Pride is a Romulan or Klingon ship with one of those fancy cloaks. When we came in, we had to dodge system patrols three times. They’d have treated us like common smugglers!”
“Imagine that,” Soleta said. The captain took her irony for sympathy. Spock gave her a Look.
The crewman—a Bolian with a swagbelly that made him look like a hairless blue bear—escorted Spock and Soleta to their quarters. The two adjoining cabins with their jury-rigged refresher were cramped and bare, but they were at least clean.
“Replicator’s on the blink,” said the crewman. “You can try it, though, and if you fix it, we’ll all be in your debt. That crate holds rat bars…field rations. Cap’n says to tell you none of them contain animal protein.”
“Thank you,” said Spock. “We appreciate the consideration.”
Turning to go, the crewman said, “We’re kind of cramped here, and we run a tight operation. Better you stay in your quarters as much as possible. Ship’s gym, though…feel free within reason…ship’s map is outside, by the lifts. But otherwise, better stay here.”
“Thank you,” said Spock again to the man’s wide back as the hatch slid shut behind him.
“What a garbage scow!” Soleta exclaimed, starting to look a gift ship in the mouth.
Spock pointed at the bulkheads, which had been enameled white and trimmed with green stripes running parallel to the deck. Ultimately, the attempt to camouflage the fact that their quarters had started out life as holds for perishable or valuable cargo might be kindly meant, but it was futile.
It was only logical to suspect that sensors had been activated. Sensors set to spy on them. What humans called “bugs.” She nodded understanding.
“I believe the term ‘garbage scow’ is one that Terrans call ‘fighting words.’ It is also inaccurate, Soleta. Qualor’s Pride is most laudably clean.”
She nodded, turning to prod a bunk that was pretty much a pad of drab recycled fibers over a battered metal shelf. “Looks almost Klingon,” she commented wryly.
“Klingons would not provide mattresses,” Spock replied. “At least, however, no one will expect us to eat gagh. Or to watch them doing so.” He was opening crates and hatches. “Here,” he said, and tossed a ship’s coverall, worn but serviceable, at her.
No wardroom. No officers’ mess. Not even a tour of the ship and bridge access, as was customary for Starfleet officers and high-ranking diplomats.
Be logical, Soleta. Captain Revex Akachin doesn’t know you’re Starfleet. For that matter, you’re not sure you’re still Starfleet either.
“No gagh on the menu is indeed an advantage,” she conceded. Is he trying to find out if I still observe Vulcan dietary laws?
Stop that, she told herself. It was going to be a long, long trip if she subjected every remark Spock made to analysis and used it to reproach herself. “Well, what do you suggest we do first?”
“Wash,” said Spock. “Seeing as you were imprisoned longer than I, I suggest you go first.”
“I’ll hurry,” she said.
“Acceptable,” Spock said. “The olfactory memory of dungeons is most disagreeable, and”—he raised a hand to one hollowed cheek—“this artificial pigmentation is beginning to itch. While you wash, I shall endeavor to d
isable the sensors that have no doubt been set to observe us.”
She’d stepped into more powerful sonic showers, but the improvised hookup finally got her clean enough that she could pull on the coverall and stuff her old clothing (and Si Cwan’s cloak, whose lavish fabric had acquired a ripe odor of dungeon) into the recycler with an illogical sense of relief.
Even more illogical was a sensation that Soleta identified as chagrin. She had told Spock she was half Romulan. “I’m not sure why I’m telling you. Perhaps because you are the last individual with whom I shall hold a relatively normal conversation. I have very little to hide.” Even now, she remembered how she had shrugged, a most un-Vulcan gesture indeed.
Now, however, with her continued survival guaranteed, at least for the present, her statement was no longer true. Moreover, she had plenty to hide, especially from a Vulcan ambassador, the close personal friend of admirals and captains, a living legend in the Federation.
Plenty to hide from yourself, too, she suspected that Spock would point out.
He’ll probably be too pleased at the chance to get clean to analyze you, she assured herself and emerged from the fresher.
“Your turn!” she called as she went into her cabin. She heard the sound of panels being returned to positions and boxes being opened before the fresher’s hatch closed and the whine of the sonic shower started up again.
No point in wasting time, she told herself, and began to rummage through the storage compartment at her bunk’s foot. She might be no kind of Vulcan, least of all an eidetic scholar like those from Gol, but she had vivid recollections of what she’d observed on Thallon as well as from her dig, and it was logical to record them before the memories faded. She found a padd that, although battered, appeared operational and set to work.
The Spock who tapped at her compartment, requesting entry, was clean and considerably paler now that he was no longer an imitation Thallonian. He glanced at the bulkheads.
“Be my guest,” she told him. As he hunted for and disabled surveillance devices whose blinking green and amber lights quickly faded, Soleta made note after note.
“You are reproducing your field notes?” Spock asked. He disabled the last of the telltales and straightened, dusting his hands in an illogical “well, that’s that” gesture. “That would indeed be productive. But let me suggest what might be a more profitable subject of study for us both.”
Soleta set down the padd. When a senior officer—and even though Spock had resigned his commission, he was still an elder—made that sort of suggestion, what could she do but say, “Yes, sir,” and wait for her assignment?
Spock walked over to a bulkhead and pressed a button. A section of bulkhead lowered, becoming a foldout desk that contained a computer. “My cabin has a similar unit. I suggest we use them to investigate this ship.”
“The ship’s awfully old,” said Soleta. “It probably still has duotronic circuits.”
“Very possibly,” Spock agreed. “Because the Pride is approximately sixty-point-five years old, its systems are likely to be not just unfamiliar, but more complicated than the technology which you studied at the Academy. I suggest that becoming familiar with them might prove to our advantage. In particular,” he added, “its command, communications, control, and intelligence systems. Not to mention weapons and navigation.”
Soleta looked up at him.
“Furthermore,” he added serenely, “since it appears that we are to be isolated, we have no need to ask anyone’s approval. As Captain Kirk always said, it is always much easier to get forgiveness than permission.”
Something had to be going on, Soleta suspected. And she was sure Spock thought so too. But just in case their quarters contained bugs that Spock hadn’t found, neither mentioned these suspicions to the other. They simply acted on them as if they were a team that had operated together for years.
“Sir, this navigation system isn’t just primitive,” she said. “These circuits are ancient.”
“Much can be achieved with old technology,” Spock assured her. His eyes took on the distant, remembering look she remembered from the dungeon. “Even technology as primitive as stone knives and bearskins.”
“These characters, for instance,” Soleta said. “They turn up initializing every system, but they’re no cipher I know.”
Spock glanced over casually, as if he expected a careless student mistake. After all, he had been one of Starfleet’s outstanding computer scientists. His gesture stung Soleta. No, she might not be a computer specialist, but rigorous work on small and large systems had been part of her general scientific training.
If you think it’s so easy, you try it! she challenged him in her thoughts. The tricky bits of code caught Spock’s attention and held it. He tapped out a phrase or two, erased them, then tried again. Finally, his back straightened, and, if he hadn’t been Vulcan, he’d have chuckled.
“These are prefix codes,” he said. “Very old prefix codes.”
Soleta realized that the ambassador spoke the truth. Starfleet encrypted its ships’ codes, and had been doing so for over eighty years. It did not surprise Soleta that Captain Akachin used an older version of the encrypted security, as that would be more cost-effective.
“If we can secure the prefix codes,” Spock said, “we have a ninety-six-point-nine-eight percent chance of controlling this ship from our quarters.”
With difficulty, Soleta suppressed a grin. In all the stories about Spock, no one had ever said he thought small.
Three days out from Thallon, Soleta ran one hand across her dark hair, bound up again with the IDIC pin that Princess Kalinda had stolen, but been ashamed to keep. Two days ago, Captain Akachin had called a red alert owing to some ships that looked as if they were either smugglers or trying to hunt down smugglers. She and Spock had been confined to quarters.
Although the lockdown had speedily been lifted, she and Spock had used their next “free period” to seek out ship’s lockers for breath masks and to hunt, with little success, for weapons. She suspected her desire for a weapon other than her hands and her mind must be the Romulan in her coming out. Someone must have discovered the attempt, because they had been asked to confine themselves to their quarters once again. Now Soleta missed even the limited physical activity of the ship’s cramped gym. Even more unsettling was what might be going on throughout the ship. She had mastered enough of the ship’s navigation systems to know that the Pride had changed course several times. Now they were headed not toward the central worlds of the Federation, but even farther out.
“There!” said Spock. “I believe I have achieved a fine enough calibration on ship’s sensors that they can detect tachyon particles.”
This accomplishment seemed to please him, because he abandoned his work on the sensor array and proceeded to involve himself with communications while Soleta, as she had been ordered—or courteously requested, which amounted to the same thing—continued working on the navigation and weapons systems.
The buzzer requesting admission to their quarters made Soleta start. Spock, more cautiously, swept diagrams and stray components away into the storage compartment at the foot of his bunk. Soleta ghosted behind the hatch.
“Come,” Spock called, and the hatch slid open. “Captain Akachin.”
Even the shadows beneath the folds of the skin on the Qualorian’s face were pale and unhealthy looking, and he sported a distinct black eye.
“What has happened?” Soleta demanded, coming up behind him.
The freighter’s captain jumped. He was frightened to the point of panic.
“You Vulcans aren’t the only ones to be able to know when there’s a problem,” Revex Akachin said. “Once we got by the system patrols, it took me this long to figure it out and pry the truth out of my crew. My own crew, I ask you. Is that fair? Is that loyal?”
“What happened?” Spock asked, with considerably more composure than Soleta thought necessary. Her IDIC ornament, applied to the man’s fingernails—if he had f
ingernails—might get the truth from him, she thought, then dismissed the idea as far too Romulan.
“Ambassador, I don’t know if you’re aware of how merchant ships are commonly owned outside strict Federation control,” Akachin said. “Because of the capital expenditure involved, they tend to be joint owned, a covenant among the captain and his crew, who buy shares, each according to his means. From this disposition, the ship’s complement derives proportionate shares of the ship’s profits.”
“And I assume that if funding is tight, you may turn to an outside lender to raise capital,” Spock said. “Is that correct?”
Revex Akachin looked away. “I had been so proud that we’d avoided bringing in outsiders. My ship. My crew. No debts—that is, we had none to speak of. But apparently, before we reentered Thallonian space to pick you up—” His emphasis on the you seemed to imply that Spock was to blame for the current state of affairs. “—some of my crew had a little too much to drink portside. They started gambling and…”
“Don’t tell me,” said Soleta. “They wagered their ship-shares.”
“And then some.”
Soleta sat on her bunk. She could see where this was going. Why couldn’t the fussy little man simply tell them what was worst-case, instead of fussing and babbling as he led them step by step through his history of petty calamities?
“They couldn’t pay their gambling debts. Ordinarily, I’d say ‘That’s hard luck, boys’ and pick them up after they’d finished serving their sentences, but I ran into two problems. First, my men somehow managed to lose to a kind of aliens they didn’t know. They didn’t want to press charges, which was good. But they did want, very much, to take control of a small, neat freighter like the Pride. And—here’s where the trouble started—they were aware that debts against ship-shares can be used as a lien on the ship.”
Soleta glanced over at Spock.
“So in other words, these aliens…”
Revex Akachin buried his head in his wrinkled hands. “Have essentially taken ownership of the Pride. They’ve let us continue running her, but, the point is, we’re at their orders. And Rakhal, who’s spent half the trip in sickbay anyhow, with a reaction to something called Huyperian beetle snuff, don’t ask me to describe his symptoms, Ambassador, they’re terrible, just terrible…”