Strangers from the Sky

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Strangers from the Sky Page 12

by Margaret Wander Bonanno


  Thasians, Organians, Medusans spend their

  entire lives in a realm of ever-flowing dream.

  Among the Vulcan Masters, there are mind

  techniques that make logical use of

  dreams, channeling them to the solving of specific

  intellectual problems, suppressing them entirely

  to transform the time of sleep into the vast empty

  blankness where logic is All. It is said that the

  High Masters scarcely sleep at all.

  For the average Vulcan, the realm of dreams may

  perhaps provide release for those emotions kept in

  check while waking. This is a matter for Vulcan

  privacy, and not for the curiosity of outworlders. Those

  who have observed the Vulcan in sleep may doubt that

  dreams transpire beneath the stillness of that repose.

  What the Vulcan dreams, what use he makes of

  such

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  dreams are his concern, but that the Vulcan dreams

  is fact.

  Sometimes it is necessary to dream.

  Abandoning his nightly meditations at last for

  sleep, Spock dreamed.

  "You cannot do it alone," the female insisted. "You

  cannot do it . . . You cannot do it . . . You cannot . . .

  You cannot alone. . . You alone. . . alone. . .

  alone . . . his

  "Mother?" Spock asked the darkness,

  sensing rather than seeing her.

  She was standing beside him, her hand on his arm in a

  gesture he tolerated from no other.

  "Mother, if I fail . . . your people and my father's

  will never meet his

  "And you will never be, was Amanda finished for him.

  "Is that what motivates you, my son?"

  Spock shook his head.

  "Personal concerns are of little consequence in a

  situation of this magnitude. It is the thought of Earth

  without the benefit of Federation his

  "And the benefit of Vulcan wisdom?" Amanda

  asked. "Poor little Earth! How ever will we

  manage?"

  Spock stood on his dignity even in dream.

  "Mother, it is a fact that without Vulcan

  intervention the entire food supply of Earth would have

  been endangered by the year his

  "And as even your father will admit, it is a fact that

  without the mitigating influence of humans, there was a

  67.6 percent probability that Vulcans would have

  logicked themselves to death within a millenniant,"

  Amanda countered. "Assuming they survived the

  Tellarite Insurgency in a Federation that did not

  contain humans. And where was Vulcan,

  I'd like to know, during the Romulan Wars? Which of

  your worlds do you argue for, Spock? And why not both?"

  Spock had no answer.

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  "Neither Vulcan nor Earth could have achieved what

  they have without the other. Neither could do it alone. Nor can

  you. You cannot do it alone . . ."

  It was not Amanda who stood beside him in darkness, but

  T'Lera who stood before him in the light. Vulcan

  and commander, dweller in the void of space for more years

  than Spock had lived, she awaited his argument with the

  equanimity of her station and her years.

  "Commander, was Spock began, wondering for the first time

  in his life which of his worlds he spoke for. "What can

  I say to persuade you?"

  T'Lera now studied him, making no effort

  to mitigate her gaze. This one, whatever he was,

  would not fear her. She must know why.

  "Who are you?" she asked, slowly approaching

  him. "Who are you . . . ?"

  "I'm taking the afternoon off," Kirk told his

  Coridani aide. He had a sudden desperate

  need to be alone. "Get Kinski to cover my

  1400 briefing, hold all my calls,

  and you can have the

  water-ballet tickets for tonight. If you don't

  mind sitting next to Commodore Hrokk."

  "Thanks, but I'll pass."" The girl

  lowered her bifurcate eyebrows at him.

  Commodore Hrokk had two hands more than the

  average humanoid. "Where will you be, Admiral?"

  "Anywhere but here," Kirk said shortly, putting

  the time lock on his desk, jingling the activator for the

  aircar he'd left in the flag officers' hangar.

  Before the results of this morning's psychoscan came

  back he would be long gone. "And don't have me

  paged unless the world's coming to an end. Clear?"

  "I thought you and Enterprise solved that the last

  time, sir," his aide quipped. Kirk stopped in his

  tracks. "I only meant it's a running gag

  around here, sir. V'ger and all that."

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  "Yes, I know," Kirk said. was "Admiral

  Quirk" is what they call me behind my back,

  isn't it?"

  When Coridani blushed, they went from grey

  to mauve.

  "It's not that we don't appreciate

  what you did, Admiral, only his

  "Only what, Ensign?"

  "Only it's a little awesome working for a living

  legend, sir. Particularly one who's so down

  to Earth? Is that the expression I want?"

  "It'll do," Kirk said grimly.

  Living legend! he thought, navigating the

  corridors in quick time before someone waylaid him with

  some new idiocy. They'll cast me in bronze if

  I don't keep moving. Living legend! That

  hurts almost as much as the one about being "down to Earth."

  As Spock would say: precisely!

  Kirk let the aircar down on its pontoons and

  waited for it to stabilise. The sea was calm, but

  he'd come in rather fast and kicked up a local wake;

  he'd have to wait for it to dissipate. Meanwhile he

  opened the overhead iris to 360 degrees and had a

  look around. He'd never been to this part of the

  Pacific before, had no idea it was so built up.

  The picture of it he had in his head was two

  centuries old.

  That clump of submersibles riding at anchor on

  a massive free-floating dock he'd passed to the

  west he recognised as belonging to

  DownUndersea, an entire underwater city

  built out from the coral reefs off Brisbane almost

  to the Solomons. But this far out, well east of

  Norfolk Island and south of Pitcairn, he'd

  expected open sea.

  Instead he'd landed in the middle of a number of little

  pontoon villages built entirely on the

  surface of a reasonably quiet South

  Pacific. No doubt they had

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  some kind of shielding against major storms; all the

  same he'd hate to be bobbing around like a cork on

  that ocean in a typhoon, Kirk thought. But the

  inhabitants of these villages were seafolk

  Maoris and Samoans and the hard-as-nails

  descendants of descendants of HMS Bounty's

  Pitcairners; they could probably weather anything.

  Kirk opened the hatch on the aircar and breathed

  deeply of the salt air. It was beautiful here. He

  would have to come back sometime when he could stay a few

  days, get to andnow the people and their world. There was still so
much

  of his own planet he knew nothing about, and he could

  find much to like in this part of it.

  But what he'd come looking for wasn't here.

  McCoy popped the results of Jim

  Kirk's

  psychoscan out of his viewer and scowled. This was more

  serious than he'd thought.

  "Get me Admiral Kirk's office," he

  barked into the comm.

  Within seconds he was talking to the Coridani

  en- sign, who was extremely sorry, doctor,

  but

  "What do you mean he's gone for the day?" McCoy

  blustered. "Where the hell is he?"

  He rang up Kirk's apartment and left a

  message with the computer. He called the museum at

  Alexandria on the odd chance he might be poking

  around in the library. He called all of Kirk's

  usual haunts. No one had seen Jim Kirk in

  over a week.

  - Ever since he got hold of that damn book,

  McCoy

  fumed.

  Ordinarily he'd let it go. Jim was a big

  boy and could take care of himself. But in view of what

  had turned up on his scan there was something ominous about

  his choosing to disappear right now.

  McCoy had one last resort, and that was to use his

  clout to have Kirk found via the

  intracranial senceiver flag officers were required

  to have implanted whenever

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  they were planetside. McCoy had always hated the

  device, balked at it as a major invasion of

  privacy, and he wouldn't use it unless he was sure

  the man was in real danger.

  And he wasn't at all sure of that. Yet.

  Taking the scan tape with him, McCoy headed

  for the Psych Division. There were some people he had to talk

  to.

  Kirk aimed the aircar toward the nearest of the

  float villages, adjusted its engines for

  oversee, felt it kick in like an outboard and churn

  up a great frothing wake. He lowered the overhead

  dome, keeping only the windscreen in place,

  enjoying the wind m his hair and the spray on his

  face. As he neared the piers extending out from the

  village like the spokes of a wheel and the variety of

  sea- and air-going craft moored to them, he slowed

  to a leisurely bobbing pace, cutting his wake

  to almost nil.

  A boy of about twelve, shiftless and barefoot,

  sat dangling his legs over the end of one

  of the piers. When he saw this exotic craft heading

  in his direction, he jumped to his feet and waved it

  toward him excitedly. Kirk killed the engine to an

  idling purr and came alongside.

  "Whattaway!" the boy called the local

  greeting, just loudly enough to be heard above the aircar's

  jets.

  "Hello yourself," Kirk replied.

  "Mine's Koro Quintal," the boy stated,

  jerking a thumb toward his bare chest. "What's

  yours?"

  Squinting up at him in the afternoon sun, Kirk

  marveled at the diversity his planet could produce.

  Everything about the boy declared the variety of his

  ancestry. His first name, the wiry build,

  jet-black hair and tawny skin, even his abiding

  by the custom of not raising his voice close to the sea,

  revealed his Maori roots. His last name and the

  startling blue eyes in that burnished face made him

  offspring of one of Fletcher

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  Christian's crewmates.an Aussie accent

  the like of which Kirk hadn't heard since Kyle made

  commander and shipped aboard Reliant

  completed the picture. Here was a thousand years of

  Earth history, looking down at him from a pier in the

  middle of an ocean named Pacific, hands on his

  hips, grinning.

  "Mine's Jim Kirk."

  "You're lost, my word," Koro observed,

  cocking his head like a bird.

  "May be, son," Kirk acknowledged, waiting

  for the boy to make the next move, enjoying the

  exchange.

  "Could be I'd help y'find it," Koro said,

  digging one diffident bare toe into a rift in the

  prefab surfacing of the pier. "Can I have a

  go-"round in that-'ere rumlooking rig of yours?"

  "Sounds reasonable, Koro Quintal." Kirk

  smiled, offering him a hand down. "Hop in."

  They'd made the circuit of the entire village

  twice and flown over it once for good measure,

  Koro's eager hands on the controls, before Jim

  Kirk explained what he was doing here.

  "Lot of outlanders been poking around this-here since

  that book come out," Koro observed as they idled and

  bobbed, watching the gulls wheeling and coasting back

  to the haunts of man with the sunset. "Weren't none of

  them a bloody admiral, my word."

  "Don't tell me you've read it," Kirk

  asked, bemused. He'd worn his civvies, hadn't

  meant to tell the boy who he was, but news about

  living legends reached even here.

  "Strangers from the Sky? Aye, sure thing.

  Assign- ment for school. Only it's ancient,

  don't you'see? Hasn't been a kelp farm

  hereabouts in a hundred years."

  "If only there were someone who knew about that time,"

  Kirk mused. "A local historian maybe.

  Koro, who's the wisest person you know?"

  "That'd be Galarrwny," the boy said without

  hesita

  1 1 0

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  tion. "He's curator of the museum over

  to Easter. An outlander like you,

  Admiral-Jim-Kirk."

  Time to use that rank to advantage, Kirk

  decided.

  "Would you introduce me to this Galarrwuy sometime?"

  "Now's as good as any," the boy said, scrambling

  back into the pilot's seat. "Can I steer her again?"

  Kirk hesitated. It was early evening here,

  three hours earlier than San

  Francisco, and it would take him as many hours

  to get back. If he wasn't at his desk

  by 0800 tomorrow, they'd send out an alert for him, and he

  wasn't about to call in and let them know where he was.

  He decided to chance it. At least Easter Island was

  a thousand miles in the right direction.

  "She's yours." He nodded at Koro. "Only

  take her up and over please."

  "Why?" Koro gunned the engine. "You apt

  to seasick?"

  "No, but it's faster."

  "Ar!" the boy marveled. "Caught on to me

  already!"

  "The minute that book hit the stands they started coming

  out of the woodwork," Dr. Krista Sivertsen told

  McCoy. "All the seekers and the searchers, every

  wide-eyed neurotic and flawed personality on the

  planet turned up claiming they were present in a

  previous incarnation when the Vulcans arrived, that they

  helped them escape or helped them pass for human

  or whatever. Some even claimed they were direct

  descendants of Sorahl by way of a variety of

  human females. Whatever it may have done for

  history, that book is playing bob with psychiatry.

  When your admiral told me why yo
u'd sent

  him for a scan, I thought, No, impossible. He's

  not the type at all. He's strong, assertive, a

  totally integrated personality. McCoy's doing

  a number on me. Then I read the results of the

  scan.

  "Let me put it to you this way, Leonard. If

  I sent you

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  a patient whom you diagnosed as having a serious

  communicable disease, would you let me

  plea-bargain him out of quarantine to run around

  infecting others?"

  "He's not going to hurt anyone!" McCoy

  protested. "I'll personally monitor him around

  the clock for as long as you have him in therapy. But you

  can't relieve a man like Jim Kirk of duty and

  expect him to sit home and watch the wallpaper."

  "On the contrary," the leggy blond psychiatrist

  said. "I want him hospitalised. sedation and under

  restraint if necessary, until we get to the bottom of

  this."

  McCoy had argued himself hoarse since he'd

  stormed into Krista's cozy, informal office in

  Psych Division. Krista's digs

  looked more like a high-class ski lodge than a

  shrink's office, right down to the needlepoint on the

  sofa cushions and the choice of hot cider or

  schnapps-spiked coffee Dr. Sivertsen offered

  her patients as part of her unique brand of therapy.

  McCoy had known her for years, had in fact had

  her as a student back when he was teaching. Back when

  he was stil tilde unhappily married, and the sight

  of her crossing and uncrossing those long legs in the

  front of his lecture hall had been enough to remind

  him just how unhappy he really was. But nothing would

  be served by bringing up that particular part of the past.

  "Krista, be reasonable his

  "Leonard, I am being reasonable." She too was

  conscious of their shared history, remembered how his

  dry humor and the laugh lines around those sky-blue

  eyes hadn't disguised the pain behind them. To this day it

  was all she could do to keep from calling him Dr.

  McCoy all the time. "You saw his readout, and

  you're skilled enough to know what it means. I'll run

  it for you again if you need convincing."

  She punched up Jim Kirk's psychoscan.

  "Here, and here," she said, pointing out the anoma-

  STRANGERS FROM THE SKY

  lies. "Radical dysfunction in deep-level

  mnemonic patterns, and localised distortion of

  short-term focal memory."

  "I see it," McCoy acknowledged grudgingly.

 

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