craggy-faced, graying, middle-aged man. When he decided not to blend, he emanated the most chillingly dangerous aura of anyone Flynn had ever met. She had seen him break up an incipient fistfight between two irritable crew members: he never had to lay a finger on either of them, he did not even have to threaten them. They surrendered out of pure irrational terror at what he might do.
Flynn glanced at Captain Kirk. “I hope the security force is adequate, sir.”
“Yes, Commander Flynn,” he said, so poker-faced that she knew her assessment of the situation was not far wrong.
Flynn glanced at al Auriga. “All set, Barry?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said softly.
Then, after half a beat, Jenniver Aristeides said, “If we’re waiting for a troop of Klingons.”
She just barely smiled. Max laughed, the sound like a growl, Neon made an eerie, tinkling, wind-chime noise, Barry giggled, and Snarl glanced from face to face, rumbling low in her throat, wondering if it were she who was being laughed at. Along with restraint and discipline, Snarl also lacked a sense of humor.
“I appreciate all of you a very great deal,” Flynn said. Snarl raised her ears and smoothed her hackles and glided silently to her position by the transporter.
“Captain Kirk,” Mr. Spock said, in a tone Flynn would have called very near distress, if anyone had asked her. “Captain Kirk, Dr. Mordreaux is an elderly academic. This . .. this .. . guerrilla strike force is
hardly necessary.”
“Come now, Mr. Spock—we want Ian Braithewaite to see that we’re taking him seriously, don’t we?”
Spock’s gaze moved from Kirk, to Flynn, and across the security group. He looked at the ceiling for a long moment.
“As you wish, Captain.”
The transporter signalled ready, and a moment later the prisoner and Aleph Prime’s chief prosecutor materialized. Flynn’s quintet put their phaser rifles at ready, and she rested her hand easily on the butt of her holstered phaser pistol.
Why—he’s drugged, Flynn thought, as soon as Mordreaux solidified. The blank expression and unfocussed gaze allowed no other interpretation. In addition, the prisoner wore energy-cuffs on his wrists, and a set of inertial- resistance leg restraints that would permit him to walk, but which would snap short and trip him if he overcame the drugs long enough to try to run. It was all as old-fashioned as a set of iron chains, as unnecessary and as humiliating. Mordreaux was in no shape to notice humiliation. Flynn glanced at Spock, but his face remained impassive; he had apparently expended any outburst on the guerrilla strike force.
Braithewaite bounded down from the platform, glanced briefly at the security team, and nodded to Kirk. “Great,” he said. “Where’s the detention cell?”
“Mr. Braithewaite,” Kirk said, “I’m taking the Enterprise out of orbit immediately. There’s no time for you to look around, nor any need.”
“But Captain—I’m going to Rehab Seven with you.”
‘That’s impossible.”
“It’s orders, Captain.” He handed Kirk a subspace transmission form. Kirk scanned it, frowning.
“You’ll be on your own getting back, and as you pointed out yourself there aren’t many official ships.”
“I know, Captain,” Ian Braithewaite said. His expression turned somber and thoughtful. “After what’s happened—this trial, and Lee, and . .. well, I need some time by myself. To think some things out. I’ve arranged for a single-ship; I’m going to sail back.” He glanced down at Kirk. “I’ll do my best to stay out of your hair till we get to Rehab Seven, and you won’t have to worry about me afterward.”
He hurried after the security team and his prisoner. Kirk paused a moment, feeling rather nonplussed at being told not to worry about someone who proposed to fly all the way across a star system, all alone, in a tiny, fragile, unpowered sailboat. Shaking his head, he followed the others out of the transporter room.
Jim Kirk returned to his cabin and collapsed in a chair, too tired to move even as far as his bunk. He had had no sleep in thirty-six hours; he had lost the best helm officer the ship ever had; his science officer, trying to salvage some results from his observations of the singularity, some possible explanation for its occurrence, had tied up most of the available computer time working out equations that no one else could even read, let alone understand; and Mr. Scott had just begun irritably demanding engineering’s share of the computer time. A brilliant lunatic or a slandered genius—possibly both—was under detention in the
V.I.P. cabin, and his unrelentingly energetic watchdog was quartered nearby. The ship flew creaking like a relic, the warp engines needed a complete overhaul, and even the impulse drive was working none too dependably.
One of the reasons Kirk felt so exhausted was that Ian Braithewaite’s animation never let up. It would have been far easier to deal with him if he were despicable, but he was only young, inexperienced, likeable ... and ambitious.
Kirk regretted, now, that he had not explained to Commander Flynn just exactly what was going on—though she obviously knew it was something not quite completely above board. When Kirk pled the press of work and tried to persuade Ian to get settled in, the prosecutor waylaid Flynn for a tour of the security precautions. Kirk hoped she was perceptive enough to continue the show they had set up. He believed she was; now he would find out.
Kirk could not keep his thoughts away from his conversation that morning with Dr. McCoy. Part of him wished it had never happened; he did not often go in for soulbaring, and on the rare occasion that he did, he always felt embarrassed afterward.
Damn, he thought, but that’s just what we were talking about. Leonard McCoy and Hunter are the two best friends I’ve got, and I can’t even open up to either of them.
It’s absurd. I’ve been trading my life for a fa9ade of total independence that I know is full of holes even when I’m holding it up in front of me. It isn’t worth it anymore—if it ever was.
If Spock succeeds in clearing Mordreaux, we’ll have to bring him back to Aleph Prime. Even if he doesn’t, the Enterprise needs a lot of work before we can even think of restarting Spock’s observations, and the nearest repair yards are at Aleph. If Hunter has already left, I can hire a racer and fly out to wherever she’s got her squadron based. I need to see her again. I need to talk to her—really talk to her this time. Bones was right: even if it doesn’t change anything, I’ve got to tell her I was wrong.
Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott tramped down the corridor, muttering curses in an obscure Scots dialect. Six weeks’ work for nothing, six weeks’ work that would have to be done all over again, or more likely abandoned if it were so trivial that it could be interrupted only two days from completion—and for such a foolish reason. Ever since the mysterious emergency message came and they had been diverted, all he had heard was Poor Mr. Spock, poor Mr. Spock, all his work for nothing.
And what, Scott wondered, about poor Mr. Scott? Keeping a starship’s engines steady in the proximity of a naked singularity was no picnic, and he had been at it just as long as Spock had been at his task.
The engines had been under a terrific strain, and it was Scott’s job to be sure they did not fail: if they had given out during a correction of the orbit, the mission would have ended instantly—or it would have lasted a lot longer than six weeks, depending on where one looked at it from. From outside, the Enterprise would have fallen toward the deranged metric, growing fainter and fuzzier, till it vanished. From inside the ship, the crew would have seen space itself vanish, then reappear—assuming the ship made the transit whole, rather than in pieces—but it would have been space in some other place, and
some other time, and the Enterprise ’s chances of getting home again would have been so close to zero as to be unmeasurable.
The engines were much of the cause of Scott’s foul mood. While everyone on the ship, or so many as made no never-mind, received a day’s liberty on Aleph Prime, Scott—rather than relaxing in the best place in this octant to spend liberty—had used every minute hunting up parts and getting them back to the ship. That was only the beginning of the work: he still had to install the new equipment in the disconnected warp engines. He felt far from comfortable, with impulse engines, alone, available to power the Enterprise . But they could not dock at Aleph Prime: no, they had to carry out their mission. Mission, hah.
Then there was the matter of Sulu. True, Scott and Sulu were not particularly close, but he had known the helm officer for years and it was downright embarrassing to resurface after six hours fighting energy pods, to find not only that he had left, without so much as a good-to-know-you, but also that virtually everyone except Scott knew he had gone.
