“Thank you, sir.”
This time it was Kirk’s turn for blank astonishment. “A transfer?” he asked. “Why? Where? What’s happened to make you unhappy on the Enterprise ?”
“I’m happy here, Captain!” Sulu cupped his hands around the brandy glass. Above all, he wanted Kirk to understand why he had to take this step. The scent of the brandy, almost as intoxicating as the liquor itself, curled up around his face. “Captain, I have an unexceptional record—”
“Your record’s exemplary, Mr. Sulu!”
Sulu began again. “Serving on the Enterprise is a bright mark on anyone’s record. It’s the only thing outstanding about mine—and I think I must have got it by sheer luck.”
“Oh?” Kirk asked. “Do you think I choose my crew at random?”
Sulu blushed, realizing the tactlessness of his remark. “No, sir, of course I don’t. But I don’t know why you did pick me. My marks at the Academy were dead average ...” He paused, for his own disappointment in himself and his performance at the Starfleet Academy was an ache that had never faded.
“I didn’t just look at your cumulative marks,” Kirk said. “Moving around the way your family did was bound to leave you less well-prepared than most cadets. So every time you encountered a new subject you started out pretty nearly at the bottom of the class.”
Sulu did not look up. He was embarrassed, for that was true.
“And then,” Kirk said, “you got better and better, until you mastered the subject completely. That’s my idea of a potentially fine officer, Mr. Sulu.”
“Thank you, Captain...”
“I haven’t convinced you, have I?”
“I have to live with my record, sir. Whatever you saw behind it...”
“Your next captain might not?”
Sulu nodded.
“I think you’re underestimating yourself.”
“No, sir! I’m sorry, sir, but maybe for once I’m not. I love this ship, and that’s the problem. It would be so easy to stay—but if my name comes up on a couple of promotion lists, I’ll be promoted right off it. Eventually I might get a command position. But unless I distinguish myself somehow, unless I get as much experience in as many branches of Starfleet as I can, I’ll never be able to hope for more than command of some supply-line barge, or a quiet little outpost somewhere.”
Kirk hesitated; Sulu wondered if the captain would try to reassure him, or try to convince him that he did not understand how Starfleet worked and in which direction his career was likely to proceed.
Kirk looked at his drink. “There’s no shame in a quiet command.”
Sulu took a sip of brandy to give himself some time. “Captain, living my life without shame is important to me. It’s necessary—but it isn’t sufficient. Watching the diplomacy has been an education in itself, and I wouldn’t have missed the exploration for anything. But without something more, my career dead-ends in another two steps.”
He watched Kirk’s face anxiously, trying to read his expression. Finally Kirk looked up, and his voice carried an edge of coldness.
“I never would have thought Hunter would shanghai my crew—it is Aerfen you want to transfer to?”
“Yes, sir—but Captain Hunter said nothing to me of this! I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. My very first duty preference was for assignment to a fighter squadron, and it was only because the Enterprise ’s requirements took precedence over everything else that I was assigned here.” He was not sure that was the right thing to admit to Captain Kirk, but it was true. “I’ve discussed the possibility with one friend on board, but otherwise you’re the only person I’ve spoken to.” It would have been unethical to apply to Hunter first, and Sulu was rather hurt that Kirk assumed he had done so. “I know she’s lost two people in her crew, but I’m not under any illusions: there’s got to be a waiting list of volunteers for Aerfen . I don’t even know what positions need to be filled or whether I’d be suited to fill one. I have no way of knowing how she’ll react to my application even if you approve it.” He leaned forward earnestly. “Sir, I’ve never lied to you before, and I’m not about to start now. You can ask Captain Hunter if I’ve talked to her about this—she doesn’t seem to me to be the sort of person who would lie, either.”
Sulu could not tell from the far-away, introspective look on Kirk’s face how the captain would react now. Perhaps he was only trying to keep anger in check.
“Mr. Sulu,” he said, “what happens if she doesn’t accept your application, or if Starfleet has already assigned new people?”
“Captain Kirk . .. this is something I’ve got to try to do, whether it’s Captain Hunter’s squadron or some other.”
For the first time since Sulu had come in, Kirk smiled. Sulu had never been quite so grateful to see that expression on anyone in his life.
“I don’t know how Hunter will respond to your application, either, Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said. “But if she refuses it she’ll be a long time looking for anyone half as good.”
The process went faster than Sulu ever imagined possible. He was granted an immediate temporary transfer to Aerfen . At first he wondered if perhaps he had been accepted out of desperation, because the fighter was so short-handed. It was possible that Hunter did not really want him on her ship. But Kirk assured him, and Captain Hunter reassured him by her manner, than he was accepted on his merits both past and potential, and that the transfer would be permanent as soon as the red tape threaded its convoluted way through the bureaucratic machinery. So at six hundred hours, barely five hours after he had spoken to Kirk, he stood in the middle of his emptied room, a full duffel bag and a small box of miscellaneous stuff at his feet, and his antique sabre in his hands.
Carrying it, he left his cabin, walked quietly down the corridor, and knocked softly on Mandala’s door. The answer was almost instantaneous.
“Come in!”
The lock clicked free; he went into the darkened cabin.
“What’s the matter?” Mandala had her uniform shirt half over her head already, assuming an emergency for which she would be needed.
“It’s all right,” Hikaru said. “It’s just me.”
She looked out at him from the tangle of her shirt. It covered the lower half of her face like a mask, and
pulled loose strands of her hair across her forehead.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “You don’t look like you’ve come to get me to help repel an invasion.” She pulled her shirt off again, tossed it on a chair with her pants, and waved the light to the next brightest setting. The gold highlights in her red hair gleamed. When she was on duty she never wore her hair down like this, in a mass that curled around her face and shoulders and all the way to the small of her back. In fact Hikaru supposed he was one of the few people on board who had ever seen it down.
Mandala’s smile faded. “On the other hand you look like something’s wrong. What is it, Hikaru? Sit down.”
He sat on the edge of her bunk. She drew up her knees, still under the blanket, and wrapped her arms around them.
“Come on,” she said gently. “What’s the matter?”
“I did it,” he said. “I applied for a transfer to Hunter’s squadron.”
“She accepted you!” Mandala said with delight.
He nodded.
“You ought to be turning cartwheels,” she said. “It’s just perfect for you.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if I made a mistake. I’m having second thoughts.”
“Hikaru, the Enterprise is a great assignment, but you haven’t been wrong in thinking you need wider experience.”
“I wasn’t thinking professionally. I was thinking personally.”
She glanced away, then back, looked straight into his eyes, and took his hand.
“You see what I meant,” she said. “About getting too attached to anybody.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I know how you feel. I didn’t even mean to talk about that. I just came to say goodbye,
