Crisis On Centaurus

by Brad Ferguson

  Kirk had been court-martialed once, less than a year after he'd taken the Enterprise out of drydock to begin her five-year mission. He'd been charged with negligence in the death of a records officer, Benjamin Finney. Samuel Cogley had been Kirk's lawyer and, with Spock's help, had broken the case. Cogley and Spock had proved that Finney, still alive and well (although more than a bit around the bend), had faked his own death to destroy Kirk's career.

  Cogley had gone on to defend Finney at his own court-martial and had gotten him off on an insanity plea. That had gotten Finney a small pension and a not-so-long stay at a very good Starfleet mental rehabilitation facility. The cured Finney and his daughter, Jamie, now ran a thriving import-export business on Rigel II. Kirk had gotten a Christmas card from Jamie just the year before. Her father had been carefully taught not to remember Kirk at all.

  Cogley put the tray on a table and reached into his coat pocket. He withdrew a flask. "Saurian brandy, Captain," he announced. "Got any glasses?"

  "In the head, I guess," Kirk said. He ducked into the bathroom to get them. "Sam, just what the hell are you doing here?" he asked over his shoulder.

  "Something that I think might concern you a great deal, Jim," Cogley answered. Kirk came back with the glasses, and Cogley poured. The blue liquor gurgled. Kirk picked his up, saluted Cogley with the glass, found some aspirin in a paper cup on the tray, swallowed the pills, and chased them with the brandy.

  "I wasn't born yesterday, Sam," Kirk finally said. "It's about the New Athens thing."

  "Yes," Cogley nodded. "I've heard from someone about it. They want me to talk to you."

  "Are you representing them?"

  "Yes."

  Kirk shrugged. "So talk."

  "Let's sit down," Cogley said. They did, in flimsy chairs around the table. Cogley's chair creaked alarmingly. "I see they spared no expense."

  "It's worth what I'm paying for it, Sam."

  "Which is?"

  "Zero." Kirk grinned.

  Cogley smiled. "Good to see you again, Jim. It's been a while since I defended Ben Finney; your testimony helped. Still, it took the devil's own time to convince the court that Finney had cracked as a result of his service, and that they owed him a few credits every month."

  "I wouldn't have begrudged him that."

  "They wanted to. First they brought that ridiculous case against you, and then they wanted to cover their tracks with Finney. But I managed to convince a few people that the publicity would be worse if they cashiered Finney and dumped him on a rock somewhere, without scat-all for him or Jamie."

  "Have you seen them lately?"

  "No," Cogley said, shaking his head. "I'm too footloose to keep close to my ex-clients. I trust they'll get in touch if they need me again."

  Kirk nodded. "But now you've gotten in touch with me. So what's up, Sam? You said you've heard from 'someone.' Who?"

  Cogley refilled his glass and did the same for Kirk. "I was in McIverton to give a seminar on civil rights law. I got into New Athens Spaceport and arrived in McIverton by flitter. No sooner had I landed here than the word came that New Athens had been destroyed.

  "A day or two later, the local newspaper noticed I was here and ran a few quotes from me about how I felt about still being alive. I felt just fine, thanks. Very early the next morning, there was a knock on my hotel room door. Two guys, big; they looked like muscle-for-hire. They weren't forthcoming with many details; I was simply told that three leaders of the League for a Pure Humanity were in hiding near McIverton and wanted to give themselves up to the authorities."

  Kirk sat a little straighter. "Any admissions of guilt?"

  "Can't answer that, Jim; they're my clients. But I can tell you that my two visitors weren't much interested in surrendering to Centaurian authorities."

  "Yeah. And I know why. The death penalty."

  "Precisely. Then you'll realize that it's in my clients' best interests to surrender to you, for removal to Geneva for trial on whatever charges, if any, are brought against them. I imagine you have orders to that effect … ?"

  "Yes," Kirk said. "How'd you know?"

  "It's standard procedure in split-jurisdiction cases like this. Federation charges have to be dealt with first, anyway. The Federation court can always surrender jurisdiction to the local authority, but I'd fight that in this case because of the risk to my clients' lives."

  Kirk was silent for a moment. "Sam," he finally said, "forgive me—but I don't give a rat's rear end for the lives of your clients."

  Cogley looked Kirk in the eye. "I forgive you, Jim—and they're innocent until proven guilty. That hasn't been done yet." He paused. "Will your feelings prevent you from carrying out your orders, Captain?"

  Kirk shook his head. "No. They never do, Sam."

  Cogley and Kirk talked long into the night. Kirk's dinner congealed into a cold, inedible mess.

  Sulu arrived back at his room about half an hour before firstdawn; he was beginning to feel a bit queasy, having sampled some of the baser pleasures of what had turned out to be a very friendly town. He thumbed the lock on the door; it swung open. Oh, my aching head, thought Sulu as he stumbled into the bathroom.

  There was a scrawled note left on the sink:

  Welcome back. We're leaving an hour after firstdawn. Mix the contents of the packet with a glass of cold water and drink it. Then sleep. You'll feel much better. Hope it was worth it. Kirk.

  There was a small packet in one of the glasses. Sulu looked at the contents list; the stuff inside seemed to be a cure for everything but the black plague. It has lots of thiamine in it, Sulu thought hazily. I need thiamine. Boy, do I need thiamine.

  The stuff fizzed agreeably and tasted good going down. Sulu left the bathroom and barely made it to the bed before collapsing.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  New Athens

  A CONTINENT AWAY, Chekov, Rawlings and Hudson were putting things in order at their campsite as Spock and Connie Iziharry processed the party's radiological tabs. It had been a warm, dry night, with gentle, safe winds from the north.

  It was a beautiful morning, with the suns bright in a cobalt-blue sky. The forest screened out most of the glare, so sunglasses weren't needed. That was fortunate. None of the humans had brought sunglasses, and Spock had not thought to do so because he himself would not need them and did not consider that others might. The humans would have to depend on the hyperpolarized faceplates in their suits' helmets, if things became intolerable.

  The dirty-dish detail had been delegated to Chekov and Rawlings. Chekov (washing) was whistling; Rawlings (drying) was humming an adequate tempo in three-quarter time. Their slightly syncopated rendition of Tales from the Vienna Woods was doing an excellent job of scaring the birds away. Hudson was making sure that the campfire was dead; he took the job very seriously. They had all seen enough burned-out land the day before.

  * * *

  After leaving the Defense Center, Spock's party had boarded Columbus and flown over many square kilometers of blasted territory to the south and west. There had been nothing but death and devastation; there had not even been a recognizable ruin within ten kilometers of the spaceport site. Everything had been smashed flat and burned.

  Those aboard Columbus had hoped that they might find some evidence of life as they approached less damaged areas. They flew over towns and villages that were more or less intact, but no one had been there; survivors had apparently fled in the face of mounting radiation. One airfield sixty kilometers south of the spaceport seemed undamaged, yet its holding areas were clogged with stalled flitters; no people could be seen. A southbound roadway near the airfield was strewn with ground vehicles of every sort, all of them motionless. Some of them had skewed off the roadway into ditches or collided with others. Hovering close to the ground, those on Columbus could see bodies in some of the vehicles. No one was found alive.

  There had been one exception to the general devastation. Columbus found its first and only survivors of the day some eig
hty kilometers southeast of the spaceport, in Greenvale, a small and undamaged town protectively nestled in a narrow valley. Initially, no one could be seen on the streets. Chekov had overflown the town, and then some of the residents, alerted by the sound of the shuttle's engines, had emerged from their homes and waved. Chekov particularly remembered a heavyset woman in overalls who had energetically whipped a checkered tablecloth over her head.

  Radiation readings were normal. The deadly fallout had missed this valley; the pressure suits would not be needed here. Spock told Chekov to land. By then, all five of them desperately needed to see and talk to some living, breathing people.

  No one in Greenvale seemed to be in trouble, although everyone was hungry for news; they hadn't had electricity since the blast, and all their 3V and newspapers were from New Athens anyway. Spock and the others told them what they'd seen and done that day, but assured the townspeople the skies were now safe and that help was coming.

  Columbus took off from Greenvale soon afterward. Nothing else remarkable was found, and as first sunset approached, Spock decided to stay on the planet overnight. The others were amenable to that; it had been a long and terrible day. They flew to a safe area in some pretty woods well west of the danger zone.

  They landed in a clearing next to a small stream. Spock got a moderately high Geiger reading from Columbus's shell, so Hudson got a long hose and a minipump from the shuttle's small cargo bay and washed Columbus down to get rid of whatever radioactive particles were on her hull. Then they built a fire to hold back the night, ate a little dinner, and slept fitfully. Their dreams were not pleasant.

  Everything was now packed into Columbus for takeoff, and the campsite had been policed. Spock and Iziharry had finished processing the radiological tabs, and fresh ones had been issued.

  "We will fly north today," Spock announced. "As you know, we have reason to suspect conditions to the north of the spaceport are less severe than we have found south of it. We will continue to observe and record, and offer aid where it is needed. Any questions?"

  There weren't, and they climbed aboard. The impulse engines howled once more, and Columbus leaped into the sky.

  Chekov flew directly over the spaceport crater again, left it behind and passed over the site of the Defense Center. He could see the slight impressions left by Columbus's landing pads the day before.

  Spock consulted his map, the one he'd borrowed from Peter Siderakis. The rubble below them was beginning to resolve itself into ruins; this had been a heavily built-up area. It is right near here, somewhere, Spock said to himself. If I triangulate carefully, assuming that this map is in scale, perhaps I might locate it. We should be very near it now …

  "Mr. Chekov, please take us down close to the ground," Spock said. As Chekov pitched the joystick forward and eased back on the power, he asked, "Vhat are ve looking for, Mr. Spock?"

  "Some indication of the location of the New Athens Medical Complex," the Vulcan answered. "Dr. McCoy's daughter was a medical student there. I would like to be able to tell the doctor something of her fate."

  "Of course, Mr. Spock," Chekov replied. "Ve vill all look wery hard."

  Once again, Iziharry, Rawlings and Hudson gathered behind the pilot and co-pilot seats, in order to peer out the forward windows. At last, another kilometer or so onward, Iziharry noticed the stumps of what had been several Gothic-style buildings to port. "I think that's it, Mr. Spock," she said. "I visited here once. I remember thinking the medical buildings here looked like some of the cathedrals on Earth. Nothing else on this whole world was ever built of stone."

  Spock nodded. "Closer, please, Mr. Chekov. The location indicated by Miss Iziharry agrees with my map."

  Slowly, Columbus coasted over the ruins of the Medical Complex and its school of medicine.

  "I remember something from the New Testament," Rawlings mused. "Something about 'no stone being left on top of another,' or somesuch."

  "The destruction of Old Jerusalem, I believe," Spock said. "Yes."

  "This is terrible," Hudson said to no one in particular. Iziharry's eyes had filled. Here and there, dead littered the landscape. Some of them were medical students in their traditional white smocks.

  Chekov's teeth were clenched. "Somevone must answer for this … this …" He sought an adequate word, but could not find one.

  Columbus hovered over what had been the central square of the medical school campus for fully ten minutes. No one came out from hiding. Finally Chekov took Columbus up and away, still heading north.

  "New Athens, Mr. Spock," Chekov announced.

  Before them sprawled a massive city, a proper capital for any planet. But this one appeared lifeless although damage, while heavy, did not match the devastation a few kilometers south. There was a haze in the air from thousands of small, still-burning fires. They looked down into the streets on the southern end of town and saw no one.

  Columbus pressed on. Toward the center of town, damage was even less pronounced; the streets had been sheltered by the buildings between them and the spaceport blast. I believe most of this city can be reclaimed, Spock thought. I did not hope that anything could be salvaged, but with a great deal of work, at least part of New Athens can be repaired and inhabited again.

  They also started to spot some people on the streets. There was even a little ground traffic. Attracted by the noise of Columbus's engines, the citizens of New Athens looked up and waved. Although they could not be heard, some were obviously cheering the appearance of the Federation shuttle.

  "Do you mind, Mr. Spock?" Chekov asked.

  "Not at all, Ensign. I believe some demonstration is called for."

  Chekov smiled and, grasping the joystick firmly, flew a figure-eight over the heads of the people below—the traditional salute of a wingless aircraft. Chekov saw the people below them grow even more enthusiastic; there were hundreds of them now, and some were standing on the roofs of abandoned automobiles and jumping up and down.

  Rawlings said it best: "They look ragged and dirty as hell, but I'll be damned if they look beaten. These people are amazing."

  Chekov, in his soul, agreed. He repeated the figure-eight and then resumed his northerly course.

  "I'm glad we found them," Connie Iziharry said. "I needed to see some happy people."

  "So did we all, Miss Iziharry," Spock said. He was remarkably unembarrassed by what he was feeling, although he took care not to show it overmuch.

  The map indicated a large public park about five kilometers north of the center of the city. Chekov took Columbus there on a hunch, after conferring with Spock; the Vulcan agreed that it looked like a likely place to find an emergency aid camp of some sort. In fact, it was the only large cleared area in the city.

  Founders Park was packed with people. There was more waving and cheering from those below. Spock's preliminary estimate indicated a closely packed crowd of perhaps two hundred thousand; the park had obviously attracted most of the city's survivors. He could see tents, trailers, shelters and shacks dotting the parkscape. There were small cookfires sending thin wisps of smoke into the air.

  The law was here, too. Those aboard Columbus could see police flitters on the ground here and there; two or three were cruising over the park. They appeared to be from the city's own bureau of security. As yet, Spock had seen no evidence of any planetary government involvement in alleviating the disaster; the Vulcan was still wondering about the repair crew that had supposedly been dispatched to the Defense Center. The disaster had been days ago, yet people were greeting Columbus as if she were the first evidence they had seen of any rescue effort. Spock was beginning to believe that it might be true.

  Chekov set about looking for a place to land. One wasn't difficult to find; somebody had painted a large red cross on the roof of a building—perhaps a boathouse—near a large pond. There was a cleared area behind the building; Chekov set Columbus down there.

  "Exterior radiation readings slightly above normal background, Mr. Spock," Iziharry repo
rted. "We don't need the suits, but we ought to keep the tabs."

  "Very well, Miss Iziharry," the science officer answered. He opened the hatch, and they disembarked.

  Spock looked around. A few people were approaching them. In the forefront was a tall, white-haired man in a bloodied white smock; a medical tricorder was slung over his shoulder and bounced against his hip as he walked. He was smiling widely, his hand extended. Then he noticed Spock was a Vulcan; he dropped the smile and raised his hand, his fingers split in the Salute. "I am Dr. Saul Weinstein," he said.

  "I am Spock, first officer and science officer of the U.S.S. Enterprise," the Vulcan said, returning the Salute. "These are Ensign Chekov, Nurse Iziharry, and technicians Rawlings and Hudson." The humans nodded their greetings.

  "Live long and prosper, Spock," Weinstein said formally. Then he grinned again. "How the hell are the rest of you, anyway?"

  Weinstein took the five from the Columbus on a quick tour of the immediate area. The boathouse was serving as a makeshift hospital; what equipment and supplies there were had been looted—with complete police approval and assistance—from a medical warehouse a few blocks east of the park. "We save most of the patients here," Weinstein told Spock a little boastfully. "It's been tough, though, and supplies are running short. Medikits ran out after the first two days; I've even been stitching wounds. But that works just as well now as it did in great-grandpa's time. People still heal themselves, with a little help. We might wind up learning something from all this."

  The boathouse-hospital contained makeshift operating room facilities, and a small recovery room had been established in the boathouse cafeteria. There was no intensive care unit; there was nothing to equip one with, nor personnel to staff it.