by Brad
“They have aquatracs,” Louis said. “You don’t need to swim. You just need to be able to use an air tank and to hang on to your aquatrac.”
“I’m sorry,” Jean-Luc said with a grin. “Look, how long did you say this trip will last?”
“One week,” Louis returned, his high spirits flooding back. He almost bounced in his chair. “We’d get a complete tour of all the facilities, and lots of time off. And, Jean-Luc, about half the students touring are always girls!”
“And you look so handsome in swimming trunks,” Jean-Luc said.
“Well, I’d argue with you, but that happens to be true,” responded Louis. “Come on, Jean-Luc. Wouldn’t you like to get away from here for a week?”
For more than that, thought Jean-Luc with a little stab of conscience. But then he considered the possibility. Perhaps this trip could be the excuse he had been searching for. One didn’t just transmit an application to test for Starfleet Academy; that had to be done in person. And while promising high-school students always made the trip to San Francisco, there was also a smaller European testing center near Paris. That would be much more discreet. If Louis had timed things a little better, Jean-Luc might even have gotten away with the actual testing with no one’s being the wiser. However—
“We’ll need to talk more about this later. But I’ll ask,” he said at last. He went in search of his mother and found her at the household computer terminal, shopping. Most houses had more than one computer, more than one holophone. The old-fashioned Maurice permitted just one of each, both of them in the little office off the kitchen. Yvette looked up and smiled as he came in.
“Good morning,” she said. “Jean-Luc, have we had quiche too often to consider it again? I can’t decide how much cheese to order.”
“Your quiche is always delicious,” Jean-Luc said with a smile. “There’s never any left, is there?”
“Well, that’s true.” She ordered the cheese and said, “What’s on your mind, Jean-Luc?”
Jean-Luc told her about Louis and his offer. She nodded and gave him an understanding look. “I think that’s a splendid idea. You’ve worked hard, and you deserve some time off. Go ahead, Jean-Luc.”
“I haven’t asked Father,” he said with some reluctance.
She reached out and touched his hand lightly. “He won’t mind,” she assured him. “Tell Louis of course you’ll go. And while you’re away, try to enjoy yourself.”
Jean-Luc kissed his mother on the cheek and went to tell Louis that he would go. Louis slapped him on the back and then hurried out to his aircar. Jean-Luc saw him off, then stood there until the car was a gleaming silver dot racing off toward LaBarre. He hoped that the deceptions he was planning would work out all right. Louis would not be angry with him. Perhaps, if he succeeded, neither would his father.
With a bitter grin Jean-Luc shook his head.
No. Nothing could save him from his father’s anger.
CHAPTER
3
Louis stared at his friend. “You’re not going?” he yelped, his voice rising with disbelief.
The other young people in the waiting area looked around at them. Jean-Luc spoke in a whisper: “I’m not. I’ll see you off, though, and then I’m going to Paris. I have business there.”
Louis gave him a hard, suspicious look. The two of them sat at an umbrella-shaded table on a wharf at Marseilles. The Mediterranean sparkled beyond, green close in to shore, a brilliant blue farther out. A hundred young men and women were gathered on benches, at other tables, waiting for the hovercraft that would take them out to Medlab-1. Jean-Luc had waited until they were well away from LaBarre before telling Louis his plan. Now he waited for his friend’s reaction. After a long moment Louis said, “You’re going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to apply for retesting to Starfleet Academy.”
Jean-Luc nodded.
Louis sighed. “You have a lot of courage, Jean-Luc.”
“No more than you.” Jean-Luc gestured at the sea. “You’re going down to live forty meters below the surface, and you swim only a little better than a rock.”
“There are dangers and then there are dangers,” Louis returned in a moody growl.
“Jean-Luc? I thought that was you. Remember me?”
A pretty blond girl had walked over to their table and now stood with her hands on her hips and a broad smile on her freckled face.
Jean-Luc recognized her at once. With an answering smile, he cleared his throat and in his best debate-team manner said, “Resolved: Kimberly Bloom is the most attractive student to take this tour. I take the affirmative.”
She took the chair next to Louis, laughing and holding out her hand for Jean-Luc to shake. She was radiantly beautiful, blue-eyed, with a lively face made interesting by those few freckles splashed across the bridge of her nose. “Took you long enough to spot me, mate,” she said, her Australian accent as strong as he remembered it. “I thought you’d blinking well forgotten me.”
“Oh, I never forget anyone who scores more points than I do,” Jean-Luc said with a rueful grin. “Kimberly, this is my friend Louis Blanchard. Louis, Kimberly Bloom, who led the All-Australia Debate Team last year at the Hemisphere finals.”
“And who squeaked out a win over the Western European Team,” Kimberly said. “Hi, Louis. So you’re along for the undersea trip, too. Isn’t this great?”
“It sure is,” Louis said, staring at her.
“I’m just here to see Louis off,” Jean-Luc quickly explained.
Kimberly smiled at Louis.
“Hey, tell you what—I’ll get my gear and we’ll hang out together. I was afraid I’d be all alone this trip. It’s wonderful to have friends about.” She sprang up and walked away.
Beyond her, Jean-Luc saw a white craft coming in fast toward the wharf. He got to his feet. “Well, this is where I leave you. Louis?”
“Hmm?” Louis murmured. He was still staring at Kimberly, who was busily gathering up her luggage.
“You be careful,” Jean-Luc said, grinning at his friend. “I’ve never seen you this dumbstruck before.”
“Jean-Luc,” moaned Louis, “that’s because I’ve never been in love before!”
Paris in May was a beautiful old city, but Jean-Luc hardly noticed it. He spent three days in the Paris Xenology Library, the most complete collection of information on alien life and planets that Earth possessed. He methodically arranged to have book after book transmitted to his home over the computer network, knowing that each one would help his chances of passing the exams. Of course, he carefully arranged to have transmission begin only after he planned to be back in LaBarre. It wouldn’t do for Maurice to demand why he was doing all this reading on Vulcan philosophy, Klingon military organization, and Andorian technology.
Finally, on the fourth day of his stay, Jean-Luc worked up the nerve to take a short walk from his hotel, really just around the block. He had chosen his hotel for this one purpose, after all. Now he plucked up all of his courage to follow through with his plan.
The local applications office for Starfleet Academy was hardly more than a small room divided in half by a chest-high counter. One woman worked there, a grandmotherly type who wore the silver-and-gray uniform of a retired Starfleet engineering officer. “May I help you?” she asked with a smile as Jean-Luc came in from the sunny street.
“Ah—are there any openings left for the July testing period?” Jean-Luc heard himself ask.
“I’m sorry,” she said, making his heart sink. “If you want to test at the main center, you have to apply four months in advance.”
“No,” Jean-Luc said hurriedly. “No, I don’t have to go to San Francisco. I thought maybe the local center was—might have a space or two—”
She looked at him. “You realize that all the secondary testing areas have a pretty strict quota system. Really, one must score more highly at the European center than at the main location to be considered for admission.”
“Yes, I know that,” Jean-
Luc said. He had studied the statistics carefully. The secondary centers, in Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America, were always the choice of the tentative candidates. Not many of them ever made it into the Academy. Those who were more sure of themselves always went to San Francisco for the tests. Jean-Luc said, “I do mean to pass. I couldn’t apply earlier for the main center because of—of family problems.” It was true, in a way. Maurice was family, and he was a problem.
“I see. Well, let me check the records.” The woman tapped a computer board and glanced at a display screen. “You’re in luck,” she said, her tone surprised and at least a little pleased. “We have one position open. Do you want an application form?”
Jean-Luc had not expected his throat to be so dry. He licked his lips. “Yes, please.”
She handed him a computer padd. “You can sit over there to fill out the form,” she said, pointing to a small booth in the corner. “Good luck.”
Good luck, indeed, thought Jean-Luc. If his father ever found out about this, he would need all the good luck in the world and then some.
He began to enter his name on the application form and tried to get over the feeling as he added each letter that he was making the biggest mistake of his life.
“You were in Madrid?” asked Louis, looking baffled. “I thought you were going to Paris!”
“I did, for four days,” Jean-Luc patiently explained. “Then I spent the next two at the Madrid Technological Center, studying the application of Cochrane fields and warp drives. And how was your stay in Medlab?”
Louis could not keep a grin from his face. “Marvelous! I’ve been accepted for the autumn term. Kimberly may apply later. They accept students right up to August, and she hasn’t made up her mind yet. Oh, she wants me to ask you something.”
Jean-Luc had met Louis at the Marseilles dock. Now the two of them were waiting for the shuttle that would take them on the short flight back to LaBarre. The terminal was a busy one, with travelers bustling to and fro, and the two of them had settled on a bench in an out-of-the-way corner to get their stories set.
“What does Kimberly want?” Jean-Luc asked.
“Well, she has a twin sister.”
“I know. She spoke about her when we talked at the debate tournament. What’s her name?”
“Melissa. Misty for short.”
Jean-Luc nodded, remembering the name now. “Interested in computer science, isn’t she?”
“Yes, studying at Melbourne. Anyway, she’s coming to Paris next month, and the two of them are going to take a cycling tour of France. They want us to come along.”
With a tilt of his head Jean-Luc glanced at his friend. “I don’t think I can,” he said.
Louis made a face. “Oh, come on. Kim talked of you the whole time. It would be a lot of fun, and, uh, I really want to go. I mean, I really, really want to go.”
Laughing, Jean-Luc said, “Maybe you’d better not. I’d say you were pretty far gone already.”
“What?”
“Look, I have lots of preparation to do in the next month, all sorts of things to learn. I’m sorry, Louis, but I can’t make the trip.”
“Then I’ll have to go with them on my own,” Louis said. “What a tragedy!”
“That’s your choice,” said Jean-Luc. “I’m warning you, though, be very careful. If Misty is anything like her sister, you’re going to be head over heels with both of them.”
“That is a cutting remark,” Louis returned with dignity. “Just because I value Kim’s friendship doesn’t mean I feel romantic about her. And even if I did, I wouldn’t feel the same way about her sister. And besides—”
“There’s the shuttle,” Jean-Luc said, standing. “Very well, do whatever you want. But on the way home, do me a big favor and tell me all about our trip to Medlab-One. When my parents ask me what we did there, I want to be able to give them some believable answers!”
“All right, all right,” said Louis as they walked toward the boarding gate. “First of all, Kim Bloom looks absolutely stunning in a bathing suit….”
On the flight home Jean-Luc learned lots more. Unfortunately, hardly any of it had to do with Medlab-1.
CHAPTER
4
June began with the usual summer chores to be done on a vineyard run on old-fashioned principles. Jean-Luc, Robert, and Maurice spent hour after hour in the sun inspecting the vines, making sure the clusters of swelling grapes were well-supported on their arbors, looking for telltale spots that would mark the onslaught of disease, fungus, or insect parasites. When they found anything suspicious, they had to go to work at once to cure the disease, stop the fungus, remove the parasites.
It would be so easy, Jean-Luc thought for the thousandth time, to rig biofield generators to keep out pests and to neutralize fungus spores and bacteria. But that would be an invasion of the sacred vineyard by technology, and Maurice wouldn’t hear of it.
For his part, Maurice was exceptionally cheerful. The harvest promised to be a bountiful one, much larger than the vineyard had ever before produced. Even better, the Picard Noir 2316 had proved to be a superb vintage. It was even superior to the wonderful 2315. Last year Maurice had lost the Prix du Soleil to an Italian competitor who grew his grapes on the Cortez space station, with all the help that technology could give him. Maurice took some comfort in the fact that it was a hard decision; it took the judges an unusually long time to decide. This year, Maurice thought, the coveted award was his. He was already planning his trip to Paris for the official tasting and awards ceremony.
And so June went on, day after sweltering day, with both brothers and their father hard at work. If Jean-Luc seemed more exhausted than usual, why, that was only to be expected. His later hours could be chalked up to his youth. If he labored in his room to build a perfect model of the Orlando, a Constellation-class starship, that was only recreation. It certainly could not be called studying—even if the model was complete down to the Jeffries tubes and the antimatter containment field cores. If on the weekends Jean-Luc took the family aircar apart and then reassembled it, that was simply an excess of youthful energy. It couldn’t have anything to do with practical and applied engineering skills.
Or at least that was what Jean-Luc hoped his father would think. Maurice seemed not to notice, even though once or twice Jean-Luc caught suspicious glances from his brother. Robert, who occasionally used the holophone and the computer terminals, could hardly fail to see that Jean-Luc’s computer files had swollen to hundreds of times their normal size. But if he suspected his brother was up to something, at least Robert had the grace not to mention it. And anyway, Robert, just like Jean-Luc, was overworked and tired.
Finally, toward the middle of the month, they all met in late afternoon after a long day in the vineyard, all of them sweating from the hot summer sun. Their labor had paid off, though, for the vineyard was in excellent shape, the vines heavy with their burdens of ripening grapes. Maurice clapped both his sons on the back. “Better and better,” he boomed. “And next year we’ll have the white grapes as well. Think what that means!”
“We’ll need more help,” Jean-Luc said.
“Oh, rubbish. We can handle the work. We’re Picards!” Maurice said with his deep laugh. “Three strong backs, three sharp minds. Like the Three Musketeers, aren’t we?”
“Father,” Robert said gently, “I won’t be here next year, remember?”
Maurice grinned at his son. “Well, maybe you won’t be, and maybe you will. Who knows? If things turn out as well as I think, I may just have to call you back from Alkalurops Beta Two six months early. You wouldn’t want to miss the summer and autumn, anyway. It will be a grand harvest!”
Robert’s face set itself in a grim expression. “I won’t be able to complete my course of study in only six months,” he said. “There’s no sense in going at all if I can’t earn my diploma. Father, you’d better make other plans.”
“You’ll come round,” Maurice insisted. “This is your home, whe
re your roots are. You mark my words. When you get word of how the vineyard thrives this next year, how heavy the vines will be, you’ll want to return for the harvest.”
“Robert wouldn’t have to come back early. We could bring in more help,” Jean-Luc said in a tentative voice.
“I’m sure lots of the high-school students would like to come after school to learn—”
“Amateurs!” Maurice bellowed, though still in a tone of high good humor. “Jean-Luc, you can’t trust grapes to just anyone. They have to be pampered by people who love and understand them.”
“There’s always automation,” Jean-Luc said.
His father gave him a playful rap on the shoulder. “Now you’re just trying to make the old man angry, and I won’t be angry on such a beautiful day. No, we Picards can take care of the vineyard all by ourselves, without any help from amateurs, either flesh-and-blood or electronic.”
“You and Jean-Luc can take care of it, you mean,” Robert insisted bitterly. “Don’t count on having me back, Father. Of course, it’s well known that little brother can do the work of any two men, so you don’t need to worry about it. You won’t need me at all.”
Maurice stared at his elder son. “You’ll think better of it,” he said and turned abruptly. He strode away, leaving the two brothers at the edge of the southern field.
“Don’t set him off,” Jean-Luc warned Robert. “He’ll forget about ordering you home early if you don’t argue with him. But you know how he is when you oppose him. What are you angry about, anyway? You’re going to be going off-world soon.”
“Oh, get out of my sight,” Robert growled.
Jean-Luc felt anger hot inside him, like a tight ball of fire. With an effort he controlled his temper. Maybe a run would help, he thought. A nice long one. He went back to his room, changed from his working clothes to a T-shirt and running shorts, pulled out a well-broken-in pair of running shoes, and then rummaged in a dresser drawer for a sweatband and wristbands. He paused in the kitchen to fill a liter bottle with water. He was ready for a long run.