“All right, Captain.”
“I assume a day on Aleph and a leisurely trip to Rehab Seven will suit your plans?”
“Admirably, Captain.”
The spacious plaza gave the illusion of being under an open sky. In reality it was deep beneath the surface of Aleph Prime. With its mild, random breezes, the scent of flowers in the air, grass a little shaggy, inviting strolls, it was so perfect that Jim Kirk knew he would not be able to tolerate it for long. But until the cliches became obtrusive, he could enjoy it for what it was, the re-creation of a planet’s surface by someone who had never walked in the open on a living world. Besides, if he decided he did not like it, he could always go to one of the other parks, one designed for the non-human inhabitants of the station. Jim Kirk glanced around at the nearly empty plaza and wondered if an inhabitant of Gamma Draconis VII would find the nearby tunnel-maze enjoyable for a while, then gradually come to the conclusion that it was just slightly too uniformly-dug, just triflingly too damp, and just faintly, barely perceptibly, too cleverly predictably complex.
Then he saw Hunter, walking out of the shadows of a small grove of trees, and he forgot about tunnel-mazes, about the inhabitants of 7 Draconis VH, and even about the balmy, erratic breezes.
Hunter waved, and continued on toward him.
They stopped a few paces apart and looked each other up and down.
Hunter wore black uniform pants and boots that were regulation enough, but she also had on a blue silk shirt and a silver mesh vest, and, of course, the red feather in her hair.
“Still collecting demerits, I see,” Jim said.
“And you’re still awfully regular navy, you know. Some things never change.” She paused. “And I guess I’m glad of it.”
They both laughed at the same time, then embraced, hugging for the simple pleasure of seeing each other again. It was not like the old days, and Jim regretted that. He wondered if she did, too. He was afraid to ask, afraid to chance hurting her, or himself, or to put more of the kind of strain on their friendship that had nearly ended it before.
They fell into old patterns with only a little awkwardness, in the way of old friends, with good times and bad times between them, and years to catch up on. They walked together in the park for hours: it came to about an hour per year, by the time they worked their way to the present.
“You didn’t get orders to come to Aleph, did you?” Jim asked.
“No. This is the only outpost in my sector that will paint Aerfen the way I want it, without throwing stupid regulations at me. And my crew likes it for liberty. Gods know they deserve some right now. How about you?”
“Weirdest thing that ever happened. This fellow, Ian Braithewaite—”
Hunter laughed. “Did he pounce on you, too? He wanted me to pack up some criminal and take him to Rehab Seven, in Aerfen !”
“What did you tell him?” Jim asked, as embarrassment colored his face.
“Where he could put his prisoner, for one thing,” Hunter said. “I guess I should have claimed Aerfen would practically fall out of orbit without a complete overhaul, but the truth is I was too damned mad to do any tactful dissembling.”
“So was I.”
“I wondered if he might go after you, too—but, Jim, a ship of the line flying a milk run? Don’t keep me in suspense, what did you say to him?”
“I told him I’d take the job.”
Hunter started to laugh, then saw that he meant it.
“Okay,” she said. “That’s got to be a better story than any amount of imaginative profanity. Let’s hear it.”
Jim told her what had happened, including Spock’s analysis. He was glad to have someone more objective to talk to.
“Have you ever heard of Georges Mordreaux?”
“Sure—good gods, you don’t mean he’s been on Aleph all this time?He’s the one you’re supposed to take off to have his brain drained?”
Jim nodded. “What do you know about him?”
Hunter had always had a serious talent for physics, and had considered specializing in the field. But the academic life was far too quiet for her, and her taste for excitement and adventure won out early on. Still, she kept track of major advances in research in the branches that interested her.
“Well,” she said. “There are two schools of thought, and hardly anybody in the middle. The first camp thought he was the finest physicist since Vekesh, if not Einstein. Listen, Jim, do you want to have dinner on Aerfen , or shall we find a place around here? I don’t know what schedule you’re working on, but it’s late for me and I’m starved.”
“I was hoping you’d come up to the Enterprise and let me show you around. What about the other camp?”
She glanced away. “I might have known a diversionary tactic wouldn’t work with you.” She shrugged. “No offense to your Mr. Spock—but the other camp, which is most people, thought Georges Mordreaux was a loon.”
Jim was silent for a moment. “That bad?”
“Afraid so.”
“Spock didn’t mention it.”
“That’s fair. I expect he has his own opinion and considers the opposing one scurrilous gossip. Which it surely fell to.”
“Why do you keep talking about Mordreaux in the past tense?”
“Oh. I think of him that way. He put out some papers a few years back, and the reaction to them was ...hm... negative, to put it mildly. He still publishes once in a while, but nobody knew where he was. I had no idea he was here .”
“Do you think it’s possible somebody’s arranged some kind of vendetta against him?”
“I can’t imagine why anybody would, or who would do it. He just isn’t a factor in academic circles anymore. Besides, criminal prosecution isn’t the way physics professors discredit their rivals, it hasn’t got the proper civilized flavor to it.”
“What do you think about him?”
“I’ve never met him; I can’t give you a personal opinion.”
“What about his work? Do you think he’s crazy?”
She toyed with the corner of her vest. “Jim ... the last time I studied physics formally was fifteen years ago. I still subscribe to a couple ofjournals, but I keep up a superficial competence at best. I’m far too out of date to even guess at an answer to the question you’re asking. The man did good work once, a long time ago. What he’s like now—who knows?”
They walked for a while in silence. Hunter shoved her hands in her pockets.
“Sorry I’m not more help. But you can’t tell much about anybody’s personality from their work, anyway.”
“I know. I guess I’m just grabbing at anything to try to figure out why the Enterprise got chosen for this
duty.” He had already told her about Mr. Spock’s ruined observations. “Well, Captain, can I offer you a tour of my ship, and some dinner?”
“Well, Captain, that sounds great.”
From across the park, Jim heard a faint voice.
“Hey, Jim!”
Leonard McCoy waved happily from the other side of the park, and, with his companion, came tramping across the grass toward Jim and Hunter.
“Who’s that?”
“That’s my ship’s doctor, Leonard McCoy.”
She watched him approach. “He’s feeling no pain.”
Jim laughed, and he and Hunter walked together through the field to greet McCoy and his friend.
Spock returned to the Enterprise , paged Lieutenant Commander Flynn, and started working out a schedule to give the maximum amount of liberty to the maximum number of people, as Captain Kirk had requested. Before he
