him, the Martok estate was an explosion of dark purple summer-growth vegetation in more subtly differentiated hues than Kirk could identify. Wild targ roamed the forests to the east, in the midst of which stood the ancient ancestral castle of the House of Martok. It had a solid, imposing appearance, almost pyramidal, reminding Kirk strongly of the Great Hall housing the Klingon High Council. Why it was considered an ancestral castle, Kirk wasn’t certain. Less than a century ago, the House of Martok had wrested the castle from the House of Krant, which had wrested it in turn from the House of Fralk, which had rebuilt it after slaughtering the entire House of Tralkar, which originally had defeated the House of Fralk during an imperial inter-regnum four hundred years earlier, following the defeat of…The rest of the endless history was a blur to Kirk, who had tried to follow Worf’s recitation on the occasion of the first dinner held for Joseph. From that evening, he had retained little more than the impression that Klingon realestate transactions were extremely complicated, and often bloody.
“So what’s today’s diagnosis?” Kirk asked McCoy.
The doctor, simply clad in civilian trousers and a loose black shirt that looked suspiciously Vulcan in design, kept making adjustments to his medical tricorder and didn’t bother to look up. “For Joseph, or for you?”
Kirk leaned against the rough-hewn wooden railing that surrounded the combat pit. He heard the ladder creak as Worf climbed up. The sound made him rub his strained shoulder. “I already know what my diagnosis is. What about my son?”
McCoy slipped a thumb-sized, cylindrical plaser from a small pouch on his belt. For all that his snow white hair and narrow build made him look frail, his movements were sure, his hands steady. At one hundred fifty years of age, McCoy was reaching the upper limits of recorded human life spans, aided by internal skeletal actuators, synthetic organs, and his latest implant—an experimental, artificial mitochondrial biogenerator based on one of the remarkable subsystems built into the late Lieutenant Commander Data. In truth, Kirk thought a trifle grudgingly, his old friend looked better than he had in years, and his voice displayed no loss of gruff authority as he ordered Kirk to turn around.
“Joseph’s diagnosis is as close to textbook Romulan perfect as the tricorder can scan. For all that running around you were doing down there, his heart rate barely rose, but his blood-flow pattern went through a massive reconfiguration.”
Kirk flinched as he felt the plaser’s medical forcefields go to work on his shoulder, tightening stretched ligaments and loosening tight muscles. “Explain,” he said. A few years ago, he might have worried at the words “massive reconfiguration” being applied to Joseph, but he was used to it now.
“Blood flow to his muscles increased by twenty-three percent, shifting from less critical areas: intestines, both livers, and the secondary heart. How’s that?”
Kirk stretched his arm over his head, turned back and forth. The pain in his shoulder was gone. He grinned. “Good as new. Thanks, Bones.”
McCoy made a sound halfway between a snort and a laugh. “You, my friend, are held together by spit and baling wire.”
Kirk stiffened. “What kind of bedside manner is that?” He was still in command of his faculties—or at least most of them, he told himself. The last thing he needed was someone else to remind him of his own mortality.
“I save that for patients who at least make an attempt to follow my medical advice.”
Kirk turned back to McCoy. “I make an attempt.”
McCoy rolled his eyes skeptically.
Kirk felt he might as well be having another conversation with his five-year-old. “You were saying about Joseph…” he prompted.
McCoy slapped his tricorder to his belt and the device hung there by molecular adhesion. “Jim, to be blunt, to be medical, your boy…that is, your child…is a hybrid. Genetically, hybrids can often tend to be stronger than their individual parents, their genetic makeup more robust. I can’t say for certain there aren’t more unusual growth spurts in his future, but my instincts tell me that Joseph’s physical development isn’t anything you or I should be worried about anymore.”
Kirk read between the lines, realized what McCoy wasn’t saying. “Then what should we be worried about?”
McCoy nodded to Worf as the Klingon joined them. “That other half of him,” the doctor said. “His mind, his spirit, what makes him human.”
“Or Klingon,” Worf said.
“Or Romulan or Vulcan,” Kirk added. “I know all this, Bones.”
Then McCoy surprised him by saying, “No, Jim, you don’t know.”
Kirk tapped his fingers on the wooden railing. If there was anything he disliked more than an argument, it was an argument he had had before.
“Bones, that’s the point of this exercise,” he said. “I can teach Joseph everything I know about his human heritage. But he’s more than that.” Kirk turned to Worf. “That’s why I’m relying on my friends to help him learn about everything he is. Where he came from. All the possibilities for what he might become.”
“Then you must stop letting him win,” Worf said.
“More important than that,” McCoy added, “you have to give Joseph some structure in his life.”
Worf nodded approvingly. “Discipline. That is the warrior’s way.”
Kirk rubbed at his face, knowing he shouldn’t get caught up in this discussion, but unable to remain silent. “He has structure.”
McCoy shook his head. “Because you make him take sonic showers and study the junior Academy-entrance curriculum? That’s not enough, Jim. Joseph needs a home base. He needs a stable community. A chance to make friends.”
“He has friends,” Kirk argued, defensive. “You, and Worf, and Spock, and Scotty and—”
“His own age,” McCoy said. “Worf’s right. Joseph shouldn’t be sparring with his father in a Klingon combat pit and winning just because he’s your son—or daughter. He should be wrestling with other children, climbing trees, getting dirt under his fingernails, scabs on his knees…being a child, and not…not a recruit in his father’s personal Starfleet Academy.”
Kirk felt anger grow in him as he listened to McCoy’s diatribe, and he could see that his friend saw that anger in his eyes.
“You asked for a diagnosis—there it is.”
A part of Kirk wanted to instantly discount everything McCoy had just said. But because it was McCoy who had said it, Kirk knew he couldn’t. Instead, he fought his resentment, tried to make McCoy truly understand.
“Bones…I don’t want to limit him.”
“Children need limits.” McCoy looked at Worf. “You’re a father. It’s the same for Klingons, isn’t it?”
Kirk felt the heat of Worf’s glare. “Yes. Limits provide security. Security provides confidence. Confidence provides courage. And courage is the key to surmounting all limits.”
Kirk looked up at Worf, unintimidated by his size or attitude. “I thought you didn’t get along with your son.”
Worf’s eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, a predator about to attack. “We had…differences. Had I known then what I know now, perhaps those differences would not have been as…extreme.”
“Well, Joseph and I don’t have differences.” Kirk had the sudden feeling that if he were not an invited guest of the House of Martok, Worf would have already landed the first punch in a fight for honor.
“Fathers and sons always have differences,” McCoy said flatly.
“Other fathers. Other sons.” As far as Kirk was concerned, the unwanted and unwarranted discussion was over. “I’m going to have a shower. See you both at lunch.”
Worf grunted. McCoy frowned. And then all three men turned as one, Starfleet training to the fore, as they heard the first subtle tone of what could only be the carrier wave of an incoming transport.
The color signature of the familiar shimmer three meters away told Kirk it was a Starfleet beam, though the materialization—two figures, Kirk counted—was faster than he was used to seeing, as if Starfleet had achieved yet another incremental breakthrough in the technology.
Then, even before the effect had dissipated, Kirk recognized the new arrivals, and his first thought was that Worf might soon be in a better mood because of them.
Kirk stepped forward, hand extended. “Commander—” He stopped as he saw the pips on the visitor’s
