Star Trek - TOS - 30 - DEMONS

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Star Trek - TOS - 30 - DEMONS Page 3

by J. M. Dillard


  feelings is a liar. We are trained to suppress them, Amanda. We are

  not born without them. But you must not expect Sarek to suddenly act

  like a human male in love."

  "No," she said. "Then he wouldn't be Sarek. But I worry that the

  family wouldn't accept me ... and I worry what would happen if we had

  children. ."

  "The family will accept what Sarek tells them to accept," Silek said,

  not without some irony. "And as for children .. . what two better

  parents can you think of?"

  Amanda smiled at him, suddenly radiant. "Silek, thank you. If I could

  hug you, I would."

  Silek straightened nervously in his chair. "That would be ...

  inappropriate. Here. You'll need to know this soon enough anyway." He

  stretched out his hand, two fingers extended, toward her. "For

  family," he said. "Welcome."

  Smiling, she touched her fingers to his.

  Awkwardly, he joked, "Of course, you needn't tell Sarek where you

  learned this."

  Amanda laughed and turned back to her desk. "Red roses," she said, her

  voice rising giddily, though she fought to keep it level. "Actually,

  yellow are my favorite, but I'm glad he didn't send any."

  "Is the color significant?"

  "Yellow roses are for parting. Goodbyes."

  "Interesting," Silek said noncommittally.

  The day he returned to Vulcan, Amanda found a single yellow rose on her

  desk.

  Skon died soon after, and Silek's mother received her youngest son back

  into the family, as was her right. Soon afterward, Silek's marriage to

  another member of the expedition was arranged shortly before he and his

  bride left for Hydrilla. So it was that Sarek, the conformist, took a

  human wife, while his outcast

  brother returned to Vulcan for the traditional bonding.

  They sat in the large central room before dinner-Silek in Sarek's

  favorite chair, Amanda on the sofa. Sarek had gone to retrieve Starnn

  from the shuttle station. Silek was studying the portrait of mother

  and son that hung above the piano.

  "A very good likeness of you," Silek said. "How old was your son when

  this was painted?"

  "Ten," said Amanda. "It's a good likeness of him, too."

  "I look forward to meeting my nephew someday. You say that he is in

  Star Fleet?" Amanda nodded. "He's a commander on a starship."

  "Commander. Then he has risen to a high rank in a very short time. No

  doubt he will soon be a captain." Silek paused. "I must admit that I

  am .. . somewhat impressed at Sarek's acceptance of his son's choice of

  career. Vulcan fathers are not always tolerant of deviations from the

  family pattern."

  "Spock and his father have reached an understanding. I won't say that

  it was easy." She smiled at him. "But you haven't spoken at all about

  your expedition to the Hydrilla sector. And I'm very interested in

  hearing about your experience as a linguist in the field."

  Silek lifted one eyebrow a millimeter to indicate that he understood

  her reason for changing the subject and respected her loyalty toward

  Sarek. "The number of documents I was able to unearth and translate

  was

  staggering, but most of the work is behind me. Except --"

  "Except?" asked Amanda.

  "The brief inscription that appears on the unusual boxes we found. As

  a matter of fact, your husband has one of the boxes here. The opinion

  of another linguist is always helpful."

  Silek disappeared for a few moments and returned with two items. He

  held one of them out to Amanda. "I forgot to give this to you

  earlier."

  "What is this?" she asked with delight and opened the book. "Copyright

  nineteen thirty-eight .. . "The Creator sat upon the throne, thinking

  .. ." " She smiled up at him. "Silek, thank you, this is wonderful!

  Where did you manage to find this?"

  "In the capital. You don't have it, do you?" he asked. "I have

  always remembered your fondness for them.... I saw you had amassed

  quite a collection."

  "I don't have it. And I love Twain. Thank you very much." She closed

  the book lovingly and set it next to her on the couch. Silek ignored

  the thanks and held the next item out to Amanda, who hesitated as

  though she were afraid to touch it. "What is it?" she asked.

  "My associate Starnn would tell you it's a work of art. I'm not so

  certain. It is, however, shielded against scanners and protected

  against opening by a force field. We found several others like this

  one." He turned it over so that Amanda could see the inscription

  etched into the smooth surface.

  Amanda ran her fingers over it and shook her head. "I couldn't even

  begin to guess its origin. There are no familiar points of references,

  no similarities to any

  thing I've ever seen." She looked up at him. "Have you considered

  that it might simply be a meaningless decoration?"

  "Yes. But the computer indicates that if it were simply a decorative

  pattern, it would repeat its design more often. It has the mixture of

  redundancy and novelty one expects to find in language. But it's quite

  unlike any of the languages in the Hydrilla sector. I'm most familiar

  with the Beekmanian languages, of course, and it's certainly not like

  any of those. One of my theories is that it's an ancient script of

  some proto Beekmanian language lost in some earlier global catastrophe

  --a form of script which died out. My problem has been that there's

  too small a sample of it for the computer to break the code."

  "And how long ago did that civilization die out?"

  " "Die out' is a misleading term. Roughly one thousand solar years

  ago, the civilization destroyed itself."

  "War?" Amanda asked.

  "Perhaps you could call it that. In most cases, the population seems

  to have brutally murdered each other. A plague of some type, probably.

  Whatever happened, the destruction was sudden .. . and thorough. And

  not just Beekman's Planet. All inhabited planets in the sector were

  affected the same way, over a period of time."

  "They must have been quite sophisticated to develop something like

  this," Amanda mused, looking at the box.

  "Our excavations don't give us much clue as to how they managed it.

  Their technology was no more advanced than ours, yet we have nothing

  like this. My guess is that this was left behind during a visit from

  a

  more advanced civilization; but as to who that might be, we have no

  clue. All we know is that if such a visit took place, it was before

  the destruction. Starnn unearthed these himself and verifies that they

  had been buried for at least one thousand years. Therefore, it is

  unlikely that the visit had anything to do with the destruction of the

  planet." "Maybe they opened the box," Amanda joked.

  Tomson was in the rec lounge drinking a solitary Scotch when al-Baslama

  entered.

  "Mind if I join you?" he asked. His expression was unusually

  serious.

  Tomson nodded at the chair next to her. Al-B sat in it.

  "I got that promotion," he said. "I want you to know I appreciate

  everything you'v
e done."

  She forced a smile. "Moh, that's great! Congratulations!"

  "Thank you," he said expressionlessly.

  She quit smiling and frowned slightly. "You don't look too happy about

  it, Lieutenant. I think we'd better do something about that. I've got

  just the thing." She went over to the bar and programmed up another

  Scotch. She brought it back and held it out to him. "To your

  promotion," she said, smiling again. He took it slowly. Tomson held

  up her glass encouragingly. "Cheers," she said.

  Moh said nothing, but drank his Scotch, keeping his eyes on her the

  whole time. When they put their glasses down, he said, "I report to

  the Valor as the new security chief."

  In spite of herself, she said quickly, "When?" "A week from

  yesterday."

  Tomson silently repeated this to herself. "That's great! I'm really

  happy for you." She should be happy, she told herself, but still she

  felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. "The Valor's a good

  ship. Chen Szu-Yi's an excellent captain."

  Moh nodded. "Of course, the promotion is effective immediately. I'm a

  full lieutenant as of today."

  "Full lieutenant," Tomson said and swallowed her Scotch. "Well, since

  we're equals, I suppose you can call me Ingrit."

  "Ingrit," he said awkwardly. "I wonder, Ingrit.. ."

  Tomson looked at him expectantly.

  "We're equals now." Moh leaned forward across the table. "Does this

  .. . change things?"

  He was leaving in a week. Tomson threw her head back and finished her

  Scotch. "I suppose it does," she said, meeting his eyes fearlessly.

  They left the lounge together.

  Sarek awoke with a gasp. He was in his bedroom, in the darkness, lying

  next to his wife. He looked over at her to see if he had disturbed

  her, but she lay on her side, breathing in soft, regular sighs.

  He sat up in the bed and, with a great effort of will, ceased

  trembling. He had had a dream--no, he had had a nightmare, an

  experience quite alien to him. On a few occasions he had listened

  tolerantly, almost smugly, to his wife as she recounted her own bad

  dreams, and he had knowingly reassured her of their insignificance.

  Vulcans dreamed, of course--most sapient creatures do--but Sarek's were

  dreams of everyday occurrences, reflections of reality, the brain

  playing

  back the day's events to index what was important in the memory and

  dispose of the rest. He had never before understood the depth of

  terror such outwardly simple, even ridiculous images could evoke in the

  night.

  He closed his eyes and remembered. Jeweled insects --thousands of

  them, flying and crawling. But something was amiss; the insects fell

  from the air, their wings torn and missing, limbs pulled off, shells

  crushed. They lay on their backs and waved their remaining legs in the

  air in agony. The image was still capable of evoking horror in him,

  but at the same time made absolutely no sense. He had encountered no

  such insects nor had he seen anything mutilated recently. Yet the

  dream disturbed him to the point that he found it impossible to return

  to sleep.

  He sat for a moment on the bed, listening to Aman da's breathing until

  it became absolutely clear to him that he could no longer remain in

  bed. He would go to his study and read. The idea made perfect sense,

  but something in him quite illogically resisted. The notion persisted

  until at last he rose, dressed himself and went into the central room.

  In the darkness he imagined that he could see a faint blue glow

  emanating from his study; but when he entered, he saw that the box was

  not glowing. The force field had been lowered.

  "Fascinating," he said and bent down to open the box.

  In the bedroom, Amanda cried out softly in her sleep.

  Chapter Two

  it was crowded in the rec lounge, as was usual for the time of day

  early evening, for those just coming off the first shift. Kirk had

  joined the small group watching Spock and his opponent and had just

  caught a glimpse of Tomson and al-Baslama surreptitiously gliding out

  when McCoy wandered in with a bottle of beer in his hand.

  "What's the matter, Bones?" Kirk asked. "Did the distillery finally

  run dry?"

  "God forbid," McCoy said fervently. "Can't a man do things a little

  differently once in a while?"

  "No law against it. But forgive me if I stick with my usual." Kirk

  took another sip of his brandy.

  "No law against that stuff--but there ought to be." McCoy sat down and

  took a long pull on his bottle. "Well, I'll be damned. Looks like

  Spock has a new protegee. When did she come on board?"

  Kirk smiled tiredly. "Nearly a week ago. You haven't been paying

  attention much lately, have you?"

  "I guess not," McCoy said, staring quite openly at the woman who sat

  across the chessboard from Spock.

  The most striking thing about her was most likely her hair flame red,

  thick and waving down her back, a startling contrast to her white

  complexion. Her expression was far less exuberant than her hair. She

  leaned forward, elbows on the board, resting a very sharp chin on one

  fist, and the look on her face was a perfect reflection of Spock's.

  Were it not for the ears and that hair, McCoy thought, you'd think she

  was a Vulcan.

  "Care to make a little wager? Two to one says Spock wins."

  "What kind of odds are those?" McCoy complained. "Of course, he's

  gonna win. But you can put me down for five credits just on principle

  in favor of the young lady."

  Kirk shrugged. "It's not that sure of a bet, Bones. That young lady

  is Dr. Anitra Lanter."

  McCoy groaned. "Doctor? I am getting old. She can't be more than

  twenty years old."

  "Twenty-four," Kirk said.

  "Twenty-four," McCoy sighed and shook his head. "Twenty-four. I was

  twenty-four once."

  "You? You were never twenty-four."

  "Ah .. ." McCoy turned his attention to his beer.

  "So the name Lanter means nothing to you?"

  "Should it?"

  "Hermann Lanter, the famous physicist?"

  "Oh, yeah," McCoy said without enthusiasm. "Wasn't he a genius or

  something?" "Or something," Kirk said. "And that's his daughter."

  "Well, dammit, Jim, why didn't you tell me sooner?

  I'd have put ten credits on her." McCoy belched softly.

  "What? And be out twenty credits?" Kirk said, smiling, as the

  intercom whistled. He went over to it, and McCoy watched the captain's

  expression turn sourer with each passing second as he listened and

  argued by turns for a full minute.

  "What is it?" McCoy asked when he returned. "You don't look too

  pleased, Jim."

  "Orders for shore leave." Kirk sat down abruptly and nursed his drink,

  staring straight ahead at the chess game without really seeing it.

  "Don't tell me. Canceled again."

  "Not canceled--changed. Star Fleet figures that since we're dropping

  off the last of the Hydrillan researchers on Vulcan, we can just .. .

  take shore leave there."

  "If that's supposed to be a joke, Jim, that's
not very funny."

  Kirk did not smile. "Komack's orders."

  "But Star Base Five is close enough and would be a hell of a lot more

  fun. Why would they want to change our orders?"

  "Ask Komack," Kirk said glumly.

  "Komack's gone nuts," McCoy muttered into his beer. "Too bad I'm not

  chief medical officer for the fleet. I'd have him certified unfit for

  duty so fast.. .. Why would anyone in their right mind want to take

  leave on Vulcan?"

  Kirk sighed. "I can think of at least one person on board this ship

  who would."

  They watched in glum silence for a few more moments. It looked as

  though Spock would easily rout the

  young woman, until she looked up at him with a sudden, surprising

  impishness, stuck out her tongue, and moved her queen.

  McCoy sat forward, suddenly brightening. "Checkmate. Well, I'll be

  ... I think I'm in love. Hey, where're you going, Jim? You owe me ten

  credits."

  Later that evening, McCoy stopped by sickbay to check in with M'Benga

  and very nearly collided with Anitra Lanter on the way out. She leaned

  against the door, tightlipped and breathing heavily, one arm gripping

 

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