is that children often conclude that the rules governing their behavior must change before the parent agrees. Am I correct in thinking that situation can logically be applied to humans, as well?”
With rising despair, Kirk understood that this Vulcan would do anything in his power to demonstrate that alien emotions were to blame for Joseph’s disappearance. There was nothing wrong with Vulcan-only with the aliens who visited the world.
The realization gave Kirk the strategy he needed.
“Then prove me wrong,” he challenged the prefect. “Check the public surveillance records for images of my son taking off his own cooling cloak and running away by himself. Use satellite sensors to locate him so he can confirm your conclusion.”
Vorrel leaned back slightly, just enough of a change in posture for Kirk to see the prefect suspected a trap. “The Bureau of Public Safety does not maintain surveillance records on Vulcans in public venues.”
“On Vulcans, no,” Kirk agreed. “I agree. That wouldn’t be logical. But the Gateway attracts visitors from dozens of worlds. Are you saying that you don’t monitor hundreds of emotional aliens who might disrupt the public order?”
The prefect took several moments to reply.
I’ve got you, Kirk thought. But he kept his own expression as impassive as Vorrel’s.
“There are no public surveillance records for the viewing platform,” the prefect admitted.
Kirk saw his opening. Unless they had a strong motive, Vulcans as a rule would not lie. But that tradition didn’t prevent them from withholding information when it suited them.
“I wasn’t talking about the platform. I found Joseph’s cloak behind the confectionery stand at the base of the platform. Are there records for the plaza?”
The prefect tapped a finger once on his desktop, obviously agitated at having lost this round to the human. “I see. Your request was not precise. I believe there might be a visual sensor in that area. To monitor… alien activities.”
Kirk refrained from gloating. He slid a small padd across the desk. Its display held an image of Joseph recorded just last week. “He’s quite distinctive.”
Vorrel glanced at the padd, raised an eyebrow without attempting to hide his reaction to Joseph’s multispecies appearance. “Indeed” was his only comment.
Then he pressed a hidden control, and a larger datascreen folded out from the side of his desk, while an input panel glowed up from the wooden surface. Until the moment it was activated, it had been completely hidden.
Vorrel input several commands and the datascreen lit up. He checked his notes on the evidence padd, entered more information. “You sent him for candy at the fourth ode, past noon?”
“About that time,” Kirk confirmed, struggling not to appear impatient. He was familiar with Vulcan timekeeping.
The prefect placed Kirk’s padd beside his control panel in order to transfer Joseph’s image into the main computer system.
It took less than a second to run the search. Even that brief time seemed too long to Kirk.
“And there we have him.”
Vorrel turned the screen on its support arm so Kirk could see the frozen image displayed on it.
It might as well have been a phaser set to stun.
In one instant, Kirk felt relief. There was Joseph in the plaza by the carved stone staircase, cooling hood back, Romulan ears, Klingon head ridges, Trill-like dappling…
And then came the next instant.
The figure he had taken for Joseph was too tall, almost Kirk’s height.
The breeze had made the cooling cloak cling to the figure’s body.
It was a female.
A female of Joseph’s species.
But Joseph was unique, born of the combined genetic heritage of Kirk and Teilani, herself a product of Klingons and Romulans and Vulcans and humans.
How could there be another?
“Run the image,” Kirk said.
The prefect hesitated, reached out to swing the screen back.
But Kirk didn’t care about protocol anymore. He stood up abruptly from his chair, swung the screen back to keep it in sight. “Run the image! That’s not my son!”
Keeping his attention completely on Kirk, as if Kirk were a wild animal about to lunge at him with glistening fangs, Vorrel hit the proper control without looking.
On the screen, the surveillance image came to life; tourists and pilgrims, aliens and Vulcans, all began to move about the plaza.
Except for the female.
She remained at the base of the stairway, occasionally looking around the immediate area, but spending most of her time looking up the stairs, as if waiting for someone.
Expecting someone.
Kirk’s attention was riveted to the screen. He didn’t blink as seconds turned to minutes, marked by the Vulcan timecodes that wove themselves around the dialectic staff at the side of the screen, resembling musical notation.
And then, on the stair at the topmost part of the screen, a familiar pair of boots appeared. The image was silent, but Kirk knew the thunder of those small feet-he had heard them so many times on the Belle Reve.
“There he is…” Kirk said, his voice unexpectedly tight.
On the screen, Joseph raced down the stairs, almost comically changed direction, holding his voucher padd high as he ran for the confectionery stand.
He didn’t even notice the female as he passed within a meter of her.
But she had noticed him.
She turned toward the stand.
She took a step forward.
The image dissolved into a blur of static.
“What happened?” Kirk asked.
Instead of attempting to turn the screen away from him again, Vorrel got up from behind his desk to look at it from Kirk’s side.
“Unusual,” he said. Kirk was unable to read any emotion into the statement.
The prefect leaned across his desk, entered more commands.
The static shifted, then the image from the plaza appeared again, running in reverse as Joseph ran backward up the stairs.
“What’s wrong with the recording?” Kirk demanded.
Vorrel tried other commands, but to no effect.
“The record has been erased,” he said.
Kirk’s fears soared. This couldn’t be a coincidence. Not on Vulcan.
Joseph’s disappearance was no random crime. It had been planned.
“Who has the authority to erase that record?” Kirk demanded.
“Records can’t be erased,” Vorrel said. “There’s ample storage available. Future sociologists could find– “
“Then how did this happen?!”
Kirk had nothing more to lose. If Vorrel wanted to think of him as a typical, emotional human, then Kirk wouldn’t disappoint him.
The prefect moved warily back to the other side of the desk, as if intending to shield himself behind it. “I… I will have to conduct an investigation.”
“I want access to satellite surveillance records. Joseph has a unique biosign.”
“This is a municipal center, Mister Kirk. What you ask is outside my authority.”
“Then find me someone who does have the authority, now.”
