STAR TREK - TOS - Spock's World

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SPOCKS WORLD
A Novel by Diane Duane
Printed 1988
E-book version 1.0
PROLOGUE
The joke in Starfleet is that the only thing that can travel faster than warp 10 is news.
Of the many jokes told in Starfleet, this one at least seems true. For a Federation of hundreds of planets,
spread sparse as comet-tail dust over thousands of light-years, news is lifeblood without it, every world is
as alone as if there was no other life, no other thought but its own. Few planets, these days, are so
reclusive or paranoid as to want to be all alone in the dark, and thus the passage of news has covert
priority even over the waging of wars and the making of fortunes. By subspace transmission (faster than
warpspeeds, but not fleet enough), by pumped-phaser tachyon packet and shunt squirt, by
compressed-continuum "sidestep" technology and sine avoidance, and (within solar systems) by
broadcast carrier of all the kinds from radio through holotrans, the news of the many planets of the
Federation and of planets outside it slides its way through and around and under and past the billions of
miles and thousands of lightyears.
The terrible distances take their toll of the passed-on word. Signals are corrupted by subspace noise,
data is dropped out, translations are dubious or ambivalent; distance makes some pieces of news seem
less urgent than they should, proximity makes other happenings seem more dire than they are. But no
news passes unchanged, either by the silent spaces, or the noisy minds that cannot seem to live without it
and no news affects any two of those minds the same way.
This piece of news was no exception.
The door vanished, and the man walked into his rooms and stood still for a moment, then said the word
that brought the door back behind him and shut all other sounds outside. His terminal was chiming softly,
a sound that most people on the planet where he now lived could not have heard it was pitched too high.
The man paused long enough to slip his dark cloak off and hang it on the hook beside where the door
had been. Beneath it his tabard and trousers were dark too, somewhere between brown and black, his
familys sign bound Into the fabric in gold at the tabards throat. It was diplomatic uniform, made more
impressive by his stature, tall but not slender anymore-late maturity had left its mark on his frame. His
looks somewhat matched his dress; a man dark-haired, dark-eyed, deep-eyed, a hawk-faced man with
no expression . . . at least none that most people here were competent to read. There was energy in the
way he held himself, some of those people would have said . . . perhaps too much energy, bound in
check by a frightening control. They never knew how tight a control; they never knew how it slipped,
sometimes, and left their thoughts open to him. He would have been embarrassed, except that he
considered himself neither a child, a brute beast, or an alien, to be so possessed by an emotion.
He turned and paused again, gazing out the window at the brass-and-gold afternoon lying over the
browned lawns outside. It was approaching sunset of what the people who lived in this part of the world
considered a ferociously hot day, much too hot for spring. Several times today, various of them had said
apologetically to him, At least its dry heat. They need not have been apologetic. To him this was a
fab-day in early spring indeed, cool, bracing, with a hundred kinds of plant in exuberant leaf; it reminded
him of hunting mornings in his youth.
Eidetic memory has its prices. For a moment, whether he wished it or not, he found himself out on the
plain again under the burning sky, smelling the air, terrified and out of control of the emotion, knowing
that at the days end he would either be a man or be dead. Then the fragment of memory, like a still
holograph refiled, fell back into its indexed place in his mind. He lifted an eyebrow at his self-indulgence,
made a note to himself to spend a little extra time in the Disciplines that evening, and moved to the
terminal.
Its chiming stopped as he touched it another second and the terminal had read his EEG through his skin,
recognizing the pattern. The screen filled with column on column of blue symbology, a list of calls to the
flat since he left. Most of them were unimportant compared to the one name and commcode at the far
right-hand side of the list, the most recent, the one message that had caused the urgent chime. He had
rather been hoping that the embassy would not need him further today; but hope was illogical. Life was
about dealing with what was. He touched the screen, and the computer dialed the code.
He waited a moment or so before speaking. The link was scrambled, and before communications began,
the computer had to agree with the one on the other end as to the eighty-digit satchel crypton they would
use to keep the link secure. He had the utmost confidence in the ciphering process. Ninety-six standard
years before, he had invented it.
He paused two point three seconds to let the process finish.
Sarek, he said.
The voice that answered him did so, by the good offices of the computer, well above the frequencies that
most people on this planet were capable of hearing. The slightest high-pitched hissing or squeaking on the
air was all any listener would perceive. That tiny speech whispering into the air went on for a moment,
and then Sarek said, By what majority?
The air spoke softly to itself again. "Very well," he said. "Whose was the request?"
Another tiny answer. Tell her I will come, he said. If all the transportation connections work correctly, we
will be there in four point nine six days. Out.
He touched another code on the screen, not bothering to scramble the communication this time. Sarek,
he said again. I am being recalled, informally. Make the arrangements with the usual carriers, and begin
distributing my appointments between Svaid and TAimnu.
Affirmative, said his attache. Being handled now. What reason shall we give the Federation Council and
the immigration authorities?
Personal political business, he said. And, hearing TLies unspoken curiosity, he added, The Referendum
has been called. I must speak for the proposal.
There was a pause. There was nothing about that in the packet this morning. Perhaps there has been an
oversight.
No, no oversight. I was just notified. There will be a full prcis in the next packet. Call a press conference
and issue the statement as soon as you have a context-positive translation.
Yes, sir.
Out.
The Ambassador Extraordinary of Vulcan to the United Federation of Planets, and incidentally to Earth,
turned away from the screen and sat down very slowly in a chair that faced the windows. The light and
heat came streaming into the room, into the silence. Sarek leaned back and closed his eyes, and became
still, tried to become the stillness, the warmth. But he failed the stillness was an illusion. His mind was in
disorderly turmoil. He would have been embarrassed at that, except that it would have made the turmoil
worse.
If I fail in this, he thought, then my honor is in shreds and my family will bear the stigma of it forever. We
will be ostracized. If I succeed. . . then my honor is intact and my conscience will remain whole. But my
House will be broken . . . or if not, I will become an exile and outcast. And Earth. . .
He opened his eyes. Out the window of the towerblock, a redtailed hawk was balancing on the hot wind,
as if on an unresolved thought, hovering. In the blue sky far behind it, past hills like cut-out cardboard,
cream-white clouds piled along the horizon, basking and building in the heat, forging their thunders.
Earth will be dead to us, Sarek thought, and got up to make the call he had been avoiding.
Looking down from space, the miles-deep sea of atmosphere that breeds thunders and winds takes on
another perspective. The endless star-pierced blackness presses down against a thin delicate wrapping of
air, a bubble of glass swirled with white, glittering where the Sun touches it, the blue of oceans showing
through the faintly misted shell. A fragile thing, brittle-looking, an objet dart, round and perfect but for
how long? From far enough out in orbit, one has no doubt that one could drop the Earth on the floor of
night and break it. An urge arises to step softly, to speak quietly, so as to keep whoever might be
carrying the pretty toy from being startled and fumbling it.
That view, the wide curve of the planet, blue and brown and green streaked with white, was the one that
Spock kept on the viewscreen by preference when he was alone on the bridge. He was alone now
indeed he had been alone now for nearly sixteen days, except for the briefest interruptions by
maintenance crew and the occasional visiting bridge-crew member. It was curious how, even though they
were on liberty, they could not seem to stay away.
But then Jim would surely say that it was curious that Spock couldnt stay away, either. And he would
have laughed at Spocks grave attempts to rationalize away the analysis, for in logic there was no reason
for him to be there after a months peaceful work on the bridge instrumentation, every piece of equipment
was tuned and honed to even Spocks relentless standards. Jim would have teased him most assiduously.
That was of course the captains privilege, to refuse to take Spock seriously as it was Spocks to raise
(outwardly) his eyebrows over the amusing and irrational conduct of his human friend, and (inwardly) to
rest satisfied that someone knew him well enough not to take him seriously, Vulcan or not.
Spock sat quiet in the helm, watching the Earth and idly going through lists in his head. When the heavier
and more involved of their repairs were finished-warp-drive adjustments, the replacement of the inside of
one warp nacelles antimatter containment system, installation of a new set of dilithium crystals-Fleet had
moved Enterprise out of the major repair and spacedock facility at San Francisco High to a parking spot
over the North Atlantic, where Starfleet Gander could handle the ships reprovisioning. These were more
mundane and simple businesses, like the complete replacement of the Enterprises forty million cubic feet
of air even with a starships extraordinarily advanced air-conditioning and processing systems, a ships air
could become rather stale-smelling after a couple of years. Not even Spock had stayed aboard for
that-he found breathing vacuum for any length of time to be aesthetically unpleasant. He had spent the
day near Reykjavik, examining the volcanoes.
Then there was the matter of other reprovisioning to be supervised . . . stored food, hydroponics, dry
stores, textiles, machine parts, data tapes and solids, cleaning and maintenance supplies, the hundred
thousand things that a crew in space for long periods needs. Spock did not have to occupy himself with
this-he was, after all, on liberty as much as the rest of the crew-but it suited his whim (and his
commitment to his agreements as executive officer) to make certain for himself that the ship was perfectly
ready for space in all respects, not just to take someone elses word for it.
It became sort of a game, after a time, to anticipate the quartermasters department in things that they
should have thought of first it engendered in them what Spock considered a very healthy attitude of
friendly competition. Who would be first to remember and requisition the right grade of granite (and some
slab marble, as a treat) for the ships single Horta crewmember, who sometimes complained in a
good-natured way that man was not meant to live on nickel-iron alone? Who would know where to find
pinhead oatmeal for the chief engineers occasionally-and loudly-demanded porridge? Where could one
obtain the best price for hundred-ton lots of Arabica coffee? (Spocks simple but admittedly elegant
storage method for coffee-beaming it aboard in small lots, each time purposely aborting the upload in
mid-transport, but holding the coffees completely analyzed pattern in the transporters data solids until
wanted-had become standard Fleet practice for extraneous cargo in starships on tour, and had changed
coffee from a rarely enjoyed and much-longed-for luxury into something that the whole crew could have
when they pleased. But after all, McCoy and Kirk were both very fond of coffee . . . and this kept it
fresh.)
And there were even more pleasant forms of maintenance to handle most specifically, the refreshing of
the ships data libraries. Spock had himself spent nearly a hundred hours scanning the refresh lists sent him
by the British Museum on behalf of the Smithsonian, the Library of Congress, the Ryeshva Moskva, der
Schweizerisches Landesmuseum, la Bibliotheque Nationale, reh Xiao-Mih. Then had come the
uploading, the checking, the indexing, and just as important, the exchange of information-for after
debriefing, Enterprise declassified all but the most sensitive material on returning to her registry port. At
the end of it all, some seventy-two hours without a stop, he had slept, as McCoy would probably have
observed, like a log. Though how a log slept was beyond him, and certainly past McCoy.
Now, approaching the end of the reprovisioning process, Spock let the lists go momentarily and gaze at
the North Atlantic for a while, watching the tiny, precise patterns of weather flow by in curls and curves
of white and gray, while in the background the stars seemed to turn around a fixed globe. The view was
familiar. Spock had taken to predicting the Earths weather lately, as a pastime and an exercise of his
logic. There was a fascinatingly large number of variables-seasonal tendencies, solar storms, the
fluctuations of the Earths ionosphere and ionopause, the occasionally successful attempts to control
weather on a local scale, and in the midst of it all, the endless fluxions, perturbations, and movements of
jet stream and a hundred lesser winds. He had spent a week mastering North Americas weather; and
after writing the master algorithm with all the necessary seasonal variations and sending it off to the
Western Hemisphere Weather Service, he turned away to something more challenging. Greater Britain
and Ireland seemed sure to keep him busy for a long while the algorithms promised to be exceptionally
complex. Perhaps ten days this time. He wondered idly if the people living there would be happy to have
their weather solved at last.
Spock considered the three small, patchy lows presently sitting over the British Isles, while the lists in his
head slipped back for attention. Almost everything was complete now the last few deliveries would be
cargo and mail for parts of the Federation that no normal carrier serviced . . . or at least, no carrier quite
so well armed. There were twelve tons of container cargo, mostly heavy machinery or electronics, and
the equivalent of fifty tons of mail, some as data storage, more in the same kind of abeyance as the
coffee. It cost too much to ship most paper over interstellar distances, but executable documents,
currency, and personal mail still needed to be paper (or plastic or metal) at both ends of the process, for
varying reasons. And the coffee solution was a good one for paper, since energy was cheaper to ship
than matter, even with the overhead energy that the transporter spent keeping the solid goods in flux. Nor
was security a problem Spock had himself devised the ciphers that would make sure no mail was
tampered with while in transit. They were satchel codes of extreme complexity, their basic structure
derived from a most reliable source-
The comm console went off.
Spock punched a button on the arm of the helm.
Enterprise; Spock here.
Sarek, said the voice, and Spocks eyebrow went up.
Father, he said. Are you and Mother well?
The dry voice, far away, got an ironic tone to it. I had not thought you gone so far into human behavior,
my son, as to begin indulging in small talk with me.
Spock held himself quite still for a moment, then said, Father, I rarely hear from you by voice
transmission unless either you or Mother is not well. Therefore my logic is intact for the moment.
There was a moment of stillness on the other end as well. That line of reasoning is justifiable, Sarek said.
However, your mother and I are both in good health.
Then I would assume that your call has something to do with the vote that took place on Vulcan this
morning.
You have had the news?
No. But it seems a reasonable assumption. What was the result?
In favor of considering secession, four thousand three hundred fifty-one to fifteen hundred twelve.
Spock sat for a moment and let one level of his attention flicker back to the British Isles, contemplating a
low pressure area moving slowly toward the Midlands. There was another small low hovering over the
Borders that made it difficult to tell whether the first would head north or south. At any rate, it was surely
raining in the Cotswolds-
Then they have certainly called for you to return home and speak for the secessionists, Spock said.
Another pause. They have. More T Pau did.
And will you?
A much longer pause. My son, you know my reasons.
Spock was silent too, for a moment, regarding a band of cloud over Ayrshire. Too well, my father, he
said. But you must do your consciences work.
So must you. The Council has called for your testimony as well.
Spock considered what this was going to mean to the Enterprises liberty schedule and experienced a
moment of regret, which he swiftly put aside. I should have expected that, he said. Noted. I will make the
necessary notifications here and advise Starfleet . . . though I think I know what they will do.
Agreed. I will see you at home, my son. I estimate that you will be there before me.
As do I, said Spock. He paused, then said, Tell Mother that I think of her.
The silent sound of an eyebrow going up somewhere in Los Angeles. It would be illogical of you not to,
said Sarek, with an edge of humor on the dryness. Out.
Spock touched the button on the arm of the helm and eyed the south of Britain, toward Wales. That little
cloud, reaching back eastward from Gwynedd and across the Irish Sea that was perhaps the symptom of
the solution. That persistent backwash, leading into the major northeastern flow-Spock examined its
path, calculated probabilities, and then reluctantly put the half-born algorithm aside. A wonderfully
complex problem but life had handed him a thornier one. The weather would have to wait.
He got up, leaving the empty helm behind him, went to his Science station, and began making calls.
It was blowing up a gale outside the pub. Wind whipped rain against windows gone glassy black with
night, and rattled the damper in the fireplace. Once he heard a skitter and crash as a roof slate blew loose
and smashed against the chimney, then clattered down into the rain-gutter in an arpeggio of chunks and
splinters. But on the whole, James T. Kirk was beyond caring. He was sitting in a chimney-corner seat
with his feet out in front of a coal fire, and an Irish whiskey in one hand he was warm and snug, and he
didnt have to go anywhere, and there was nothing to do but relax and listen to the wind mutter and moan
in the flue.
Theres the Jim, then, said a familiar voice behind him.
Ronan, Jim said, looking up. They keeping you busy?
Not tonight. Ronan Boyne sat down next to Jim in the twin to the chair he was sitting in, an old
overstuffed horsehair business, heaven only knew how old. Ronan ran the place, which everyone called
the Willow Grove even though Deverauxs was painted over the front door. He put down his
ever-present oranges-and-lemons drink and ran his hands through his hair black hair, for Ronan was
about as black Irish as they came, with a big bland face and big strong hands. Its only the fools and the
desperate cases out tonight, he said. Even the ferries from Wales have all been canceled.
Doesnt surprise me. I wouldnt want to be out on that water. Eight-foot swells, at least.
If you wouldnt, then the rest of us had better stay home! Chess later?
Sounds good.
Youre on, then. And Ronan got up and went off to see to one of the desperate cases, who was bringing
a brace of empty pint glasses back to the bar.
Jim sighed and put his head back against the padded wall behind him. That was the way it had been for a
couple of weeks now. A friendly inquiry or two, then he was left alone if he wanted to be . . . but there
was always the promise of companionship if he wanted it. He couldnt have found a better place for a
vacation.
He had certainly needed one. That business with the Romulans, and right after it the interminable famine
runs for gamma Muscae V, and after that, the intervention at 1210 Circini, with the Enterprise caught in
the middle and everybody on the four planets in the neighborhood shooting at her it was enough to turn
your hair gray. When it was their turn in the Fleet heavy-cruisers rotation to come back to Earth, Jim had
been cranky enough to pull a little rank on his crews and his own behalf. Within an hour of their arrival in
Earth orbit, he had informed Fleet (as was his right) that he was taking his last two years accumulated
leave all at once. Then he had mentally braced himself for a fight. But Fleet had responded blandly that
the Enterprise was badly overdue for retrofit, which would involve at least a months worth of equipment
testing and resupply. So for now, they told him, he and his crew were on indefinite paid liberty unless
they specifically requested reassignment to other ships. Jim smiled, knowing about how likely that was.
He packed a couple of bags, said goodbye-for-now to his crew, and set about getting himself lost.
Technology had made Earth smaller than it had ever been, but you could still get pretty lost if you worked
at it. It had been a matter of only three hours travel, and Jim did it the tourists way, on purpose-after all,
there was no point in simply beaming down to where you were going on Earth, as if it was any other
world you had business with on your tour of duty. He caught a shuttlecraft from the Enterprise to the
Fleet orbital facility, then took the transporter to San Francisco Interplanetary, and the BA hyperbolic
shuttle from SFO to London; after that, the Spas Lingus ionjumper from Luton Spaceport to Dublin, and
finally a rental dual-mode flit for the run south down the coast road. In fact, the travel was really only two
hours worth most of that last hour of the three had been spent sitting caught between annoyance and
bemusement on an abeyance apron at Luton, waiting for launch clearance. Jim had been a little careless
about his timing, and got caught in the commuter rush hour, all the businessmen heading home to Europe
and Asia from the City.
But it had been more than worth it for the view on the drive down, as ahead and to the right the Wicklow
mountains rose up before him, all slate- and emerald-shadowed in a long fierce sunset that piled up in
purple and gold behind them; and on the left hand, the sea, a blue gray like quiet eyes, breaking silent
with distance at the stony feet of Bray Head. There were not too many houses to mar the bleak loveliness
of hill and water and sky; the towns themselves seemed to crouch down to one or two stories, and make
themselves small. And Dublins fair city, where the girls were so pretty, had grown in many directions, but
not this one. Only its spires could be seen away across the tidal flats of Dublin Bay-civilization kept
properly at a distance, where it would not frighten the horses. The Irish had their priorities.
Using the road for the delight of getting down between the hedgerows, Jim had driven past the Willow
Grove, only half noticing the bed-and-breakfast sign, and half a mile down the road had stopped and
turned and come back. It had looked promising, in a quiet way an ancient Georgian house, big for this
part of the world, with two huge bay windows at the front, full of cheerful drinkers. He had walked in,
inquired about prices and credit systems, and half an hour later he was sitting where he was sitting now,
eating clear lamb stew and drinking Guinness, and being checked out by the locals.
Jimmy boy, how are you tonight?
Fine, he said, automatically, because no matter who was asking, it was definitely true. Looking up, he
caught the tail end of a wave from Riona and Erevan Fitzharris, passing by on their way to the bar for
their nightly pint a tall blond man, a tall redheaded lady, computer consultants who commuted home to
Wicklow from Hamburg every day. They had been the first ones to realize who Jim was.
Ronan hadnt even thought about it, he claimed, till he was told. Its not my fault, he said later Kirks are
common as cowpats around here, for pitys sake. Also I dont watch that damn box, that being how he
referred to the holovision, except of course when it was showing soccer. But Jim had his
suspicions-Ronan had taken an image of his direct-credit plate, after all. It was not until Riona and
Erevan accused him in public, one night, of being in Starfleet, of being, in fact, the James T. Kirk, that he
admitted it to anyone. And to his astonishment, after the laughing, hollering group in the pub that night had
been told the secret, and howled with merriment to see Jim blush (it had to have been the whiskey they
kept feeding him), they all pretended it hadnt happened. Only once in a while, if out of habit he had
activated his universal-translator implant that morning, he would hear one of the Irish-speaking regulars
murmur to someone new about ar captaen an t-arthaigh an rhealtai Eachtra our starship captain, the one
with the Enterprise. And he would turn away, so as not to let them see him smiling.
Jim sipped at the whiskey, and stretched a bit in the chair. The people here were mostly interested in who
he was, and only occasionally in what he did-that was what made the place so marvelous. They had been
piqued by not being told what he did, but once that was settled and he had been properly ragged for
being a galactic hero, there were other more important things to talk about weather, farming, sport, and
especially local gossip, which most everyone took covert or overt delight in sharing with him. The
regulars seemed to think it a point of honor that he should know their neighbors, and themselves, as well
as they did. Jim, not to put too fine a point on it, ate it up. There was, after all, a resemblance to part of
his job as a starship captain. It was his business to be very familiar indeed with the gossip of what
amounted to a small spacefaring village-to know where to share it, and when to spread it, and how to
keep quiet and smile.
And if of an evening someone did tempt him to talk shop, it was in the gentlest sort of way. One night
someone happened to mention Grainne, the pirate queen who raged up and down the Irish Sea in the first
Elizabeths day, and it had seemed natural enough to talk a little about Orion pirates and their
depredations, and the deplorable trade in green slave girls. Or another time someone else might admit
how his five-times great-grandfather had been one of the Gentlemen-for smuggling had been more or less
the national sport, some generations back-and if Jim could put on an innocent face and tell them a little
about how one might get Romulan ale across the Neutral Zone without attracting the attention of
Customs and Excise, well, it was the least he could do. . . .
He pulls the slowest pint in the county, and thats a fact, Riona said from just behind Jim, as she picked
her way around the chair and flopped in the other chimney-corner seat.
Its a virtue, Erevan said, coming around the other side and sitting in the chair next to Jim. He was carrying
a perfectly full pint glass of Guinness, which he put down with exaggerated care on the table between
them. Agree with me, Jimmy boy.
I agree with you, Jim said immediately. What am I agreeing with?
You cannot pull a pint of this stuff fast, Erevan said. All those little air bubbles, phah, they get into it and
ruin the flavor.
When youre dying of thirst, the flavor doesnt enter into it if its half an hour before you can drink it, Riona
said, and drank, and got herself a beige moustache from the luxuriant head. She wiped it off
surreptitiously. Ronan ought to do what they do in town, and pull pints ahead of time, and leave them on
the shelf to settle down.
Slops, Erevan said. That is slops. Jimmy, ignore this woman.
Youd hit me if I didnt, Jim said. Then added, Come to think of it, youd hit me if I did.
You be still, then; Im discoursin. Slops. Say you have a barman on the bad, and closing time comes, and
he hasnt sold those pints what then? Whats to keep him from pouring them back into the tank for the next
day, eh? Slops. Erevan said the word with great satisfaction. Each drinker to his own pint, and if you
have to wait, thats the price of quality, and besides, its worth waiting for.
Jim smiled and said nothing, just sipped his whiskey. Much to his annoyance, the thick, brown black
brew called stout had been one Irish taste he had been anable to acquire to him, it tasted like roofing tar.
He had heard this particular argument before; and the worse arguments about brands of stout sometimes
progressed almost to physical violence before Ronan made it plain that such was not permitted, and
besides, it would spill the drinks.
And whats that youre drinking? Erevan said.
Whiskey, said Jim.
Oh, now, what are you drinking that down here for?
Jim was opening his mouth to laugh when in the pocket of his jacket, slung over the back of his chair, his
communicator went off. It had been so long since hed heard it that the sound startled him almost as much
as it did Riona and Erevan. Phone, he said, as casually as he could, and dug around behind him in the
pocket among the cars code plate and the loose change, till he came up with the communicator and
flipped it open.
Kirk here, he said.
Spock here. Captain, and out of the corner of his eye Jim noted with mild amusement that Riona and
Erevan were eyeing one another, for here was another name they knew from the newscasts. Are you
busy?
Chatting with friends. Do you want to call me back?
No need this news will be quite public shortly, if indeed it is not public now. I would suggest to you,
Captain, that all liberties are about to be canceled. I thought you might appreciate an advance warning.
Noted. Whats going on?
A vote was taken this morning, and Vulcan has decided to call the Referendum. My presence will be
required there, and I would strongly suspect that the Enterprise will be sent there as well, to . . . reinforce
the planets memory of favors done it in the past by the Federation.
Jim was still for a moment. This particular problem had been a long time brewing . . . and he had thought
something might happen to make it come to a head fairly soon. At times like this, he thought, I really hate
being right. We have no orders yet?
No, sir. But I judge the probability of the imminent arrival of such orders to be ninety-third percentile or
higher.
He means hes sure, but hes leaving me the option of one more days holiday, Jim thought, entertaining the
idea . . . then reluctantly rejecting it. Better get it over with. He put down his whiskey. All right, he said.
Give me half an hour to check out of here, and Ill be ready to beam up.
Acknowledged. Enterprise out.
He snapped the communicator shut, looked at Erevan and Riona regretfully, and shrugged. There goes
the vacation.
Its a wicked waste, thats what it is, Riona said.
He agreed with her, but there was nothing to be done about it except get up from the pleasant fireside
and take care of business. He spent ten minutes in the comm booth, getting someone from the rental
company to come out and fetch the flitter; another five minutes settling his bill with Ronan; the rest of the
time getting things out of the flit and packing them. And then there was nothing to do but wait for the
communicator to go off again, and say his good-byes.
He was shaking hands with Ronan at the door when his pocket whistled. Thats me, he said sadly. The
chess game will have to wait. You take care of yourself.
Ill do that. Various people in the bar were shouting good-byes, waving even Renny, Ronans daughter
and assistant behind the bar, was calling something to him. He missed it, but was curious she was very
shy and had rarely said more than a word or so to him before. Pardon? he called back.
Go maire t i bhfad agus rath!
He hadnt turned the translator on that morning. Jim looked at Ronan, bemused. Ronan raised eyebrows
at him and said, Old Irish wayfarers blessing. It translates as Live long and prosper.
Very slowly, Jim smiled. Ill be back, he said, and since only a galactic hero would have made a spectacle
of himself by beaming up from the middle of the pub, he stepped out into the black, blowing night and
shut the door behind him, holding on to it carefully so that it shouldnt slam in the wind.
Several seconds later, the rain was blowing through the place where he had been.
The spear in the Others heart
is the spear in your own
you are he.
There is no other wisdom,
and no other hope for us
but that we grow wise.
-attributed to Surak
ENTERPRISE
ONE
Position yourself in the right place-on the surface of the moon, say, somewhere near the slow-moving
day-line, or in one of the L5 habitats swinging in peaceful captivity around the world-and you can see it
without any trouble the old Earth in the new Earths arms. Some people prefer her that way to any other.
Not for them the broad blue cloud-swirled disk, all bright and safe and easily seen. They want mystery;
they want the Earths nightly half-bath in the old dark. She always emerges, but (to these peoples relief)
she always dips in again-the blue fire fading away down through the spectrum, the rainbow of
atmospheres edge, down through the last flash of crimson, to black.
And when she does, the stars come out. Faithful as the other, farther stars, in steady constellations, they
turn as the night that holds them turns-the splatters of spilled-gem light that are BosWash, Ellay, Greater
Peking, Bolshe-Moskva, PluParis. The great roadways across continents are bright threads, delicate as if
spiders of fire had spun them here and there the light is gentled by coming from far underwater, as in the
Shelf cities off the Pacific coasts of Japan and old North America. At the edge, a limb of brightness
shows, the sunrise inexorably sliding around the curved edge of things but the limb is narrow, the merest
shaving of pearl and turquoise curving against the breadth of night. And for the time being, night reigns.
In places light shows without man having made it. When the moon is in the right phase, the polar icecaps
are one wide sheen of palely burning white; the Rockies and the Himalayas and the Alps and Andes glow
with a firefly fire, faint but persistent. Sometimes even the Great Wall will show a silver hair, twisting,
among the silver glint of rivers . . . and afterward the Moon will slide away and around in her long dance
with the Earth to gaze at the great diffuse bloom of her own disks light in Atlantic or Pacific. Half a month
from now the Moon will swing around at the new, and all these places, under the sun again, will give their
light back to her, ashen, a breath of silver against the dark side of the satellites phase. But for now the
Earth keeps the moonlight and the romance to herself, slowly turning, shimmering faint and lovely like a
promise made and kept a long time ago. Darkness scattered with diamonds, and the darkness never
whole there she lies, and turns in her sleep. . . .
. . . and over her comes climbing other light, passing out of the fire of the far sides day a golden light like
a star, dimmed from a blaze to a spark as it passes the terminator, twenty-five thousand miles high.
Moonlight silvers her now as she approaches, not hurrying, a shade more than eleven thousand miles per
hour, not quite geosynchronous, gaining on the Earth. She seems a delicate thing at first, while distant-a
toy, all slender pale light and razory shadows-then bigger, not a toy anymore, the paired nacelles
growing, spearing upward, reaching as high as thirty-story buildings, the main dish blocking the sky away
from zenith to horizon as it passes by, passes over. Silent she passes, massive, burning silver, gemmed in
ruby and emerald with her running lights, black only where shadows fall and where the letters spell her
number and name in one language of her planet of registry, the planet shes about to leave. NCC 1701,
the Starship Enterprise, slips past in moonlight, splashed faint on her undersides with the light of Earths
cities, ready to give all the light up for the deep cold dark that is her proper home. . . .
It takes time to walk right around a starship. Eleven decks in the primary hull, twelve in the secondary,
from an eighth of a mile of corridors per deck to maybe two or three-the old simile comparing a starship
to a small town becomes more obviously true than ever to someone determined to do the hike. Jim,
though, didnt mind how long it took, and he did as much of it as time allowed, every time he came
aboard after a refit.
This time he altered his usual routine a little. After all day stuck down at Fleet, he thought, Im entitled to a
change of pace. Bloody desk pilots. . . . But a second later he put away the annoyance he had what he
had gone for. Jim laughed to himself, and shortly thereafter beamed up via the cargo transporters, along
with a shipment of computer media, toiletries, and medical supplies.
Cargo Transport was a more pleasant place, in some ways, than the usual crew transporters. The huge
room was in the space next to the shuttlecraft hangars, and needed to be, since anything too big to ship
up any other way, from warp-engine parts to container cargo, wound up here. The place tended to be
noisy and busy any time the ship was near a planet at the moment, it was a vast happy racket, boxed and
crated and force-shielded materiel being carried in all directions on gravflats of varying sizes. Jim got
down off the pads in a hurry to avoid being run over by a couple of G-flats the size of shuttlecraft, and
then paused on the loading floor, seeing who was maneuvering the flats by him-two Earth-human
crewmen, a small wiry auburb-haired man and a tall dark-haired woman with a Valkyries figure under a
cargoloaders coverall.
Mr. Matejas, he said, Mz. Tei, and as they heard his greeting and realized with surprise who he was, they
started to come to attention. He waved them off it. As you were. How was the engagement party?
The two of them looked at each other, and Jorg Matejas blushed, and Lala Tei chuckled. It was terrific,
she said, shaking her red hair back. Everybody had a great time, especially the Sulamids . . . Rahere and
Athene got into the sugar, and you know how Sulamids are about sugar, it was a riot, their tentacles got
all knotted, and it took us about an hour to get them undone. Sir, thank you so much for the 'gram! Jorgs
mom nearly went to pieces when Fleet called and read it in the middle of the party, she was so excited. .
. .
Jim smiled, for that had been his intention. One of his more reliable sources of gossip had let him know
that Mr. Matejass mother was very uncomfortable about her son marrying someone holding higher rank
than his. Jim had responded by studying Jorgs record very carefully, noting that he was somewhat
overdue for promotion, and then correcting the matter . . . making sure that the news of his promotion hit
him during the party, via the addressing of the congratulatory telegram. The source-of-gossip, also
present at the party, had let Jim know later that the name signed at the bottom of the gram had counted
for almost as much as Jorgs jump in grade to quartermasters mate. Jim had been gratified-there were
apparently times when being a galactic hero could be turned to some use. Youre very welcome.
Sir, Jorg said, Im glad we had the chance to see you. I wanted to thank you, very much indeed.
You earned it, Jim said. Dont think otherwise. If I helped with the timing a little, consider it my pleasure.
Meanwhile, hows the loading going?
Jorg heard the when under the how. Half an hour. Captain, he said. Less if possible.
Jim smiled more widely, for reasons that had nothing to do with the timetable. Good enough. Carry on,
he said, and went away feeling unusually pleased inside.
He strode across the loading floor, and all the way across it was Good morning. Captain, Good evening,
Captain, and Jims smile got broader and broader not at the inconsistency among greetings, for the ship
was back on cruise shift schedules again, three shifts relieving one another, and some people were
working overtime. Out into the corridor, and it was the same thing, when he said hello to his people or
they said hello to him no Admiral, nothing fancy, just Captain again, as God intended. It was a great
relief. As he walked the halls, Jim acquired a grin that would not go away.
The long afternoon in Fleet Admiral Noguras office had been trying, but the results had been worth it.
Twenty hours after beaming up from the Willow Grove, eight hours after beaming over to Fleet to handle
the inevitable paperwork involved with a new set of missions, he was happily demoted to captain,
effective immediately, revocable at Fleets discretion. Some people would not have understood it, this
desire to be de-admiraled. But most of those people werent naval, or had lost touch with the naval
tradition that was so much a part of Starfleet. And Nogura, in love (Jim told himself tolerantly) with the
power of the Fleet Admirals position, couldnt understand it either. Its not his fault, Jim thought. Hes been
one too long, thats all.
Admirals, from time immemorial, didnt command anything but fleets they managed strategy and tactics on
a grand scale . . . but Jim wasnt interested in a scale quite that grand. Captains might be obliged to give
admirals rides to where they were going, and to obey their orders but for all that, the captains were more
in command than ever an admiral was. There might be more than one admiral on a ship . . . but never
more than one captain. Even as a passenger, another captain would be bumped a grade up to
commodore-partly out of courtesy, partly to avoid discourtesy to the ships true master. It was real
sovereignty, the only kind Jim cared for, and he was glad to get rid of the extra braid on his arms and
settle into the happy business of interacting, not with fleets, but with people.
Jim did that for the hour it took him to cover the manned parts of the engineering hull, stopping last at
Engineering. He strolled in, and almost immediately began to wish he hadnt. Pieces of the backup
warp-drive were all over the floor, or hovering on placeholders, and Scotty was thundering around
among his engineering ensigns, shouting at them. Fortunately, he was doing so in the tone of voice that
Jim had eventually learned meant everything was going all right, and so he relaxed and stood there for a
bit, enjoying the spectacle.
Ye cant put a drive together as if it was a bitty babbies picture puzzle, for pitys sake, Scotty was telling
the air with genial scorn, as junior crewmen scuttled around him with calibrating instruments and tools and
engine parts, looking panic-stricken. Theres got to be some system tot. You cant bring up the multistate
equivocators until the magnetic bottles on-line, and wheres the bottle then? Yeve had ten whole
minutes!-Afternoon, Captain, he added.
摘要：

SPOCKSWORLDANovelbyDianeDuanePrinted1988E-bookversion1.0PROLOGUEThejokeinStarfleetisthattheonlythingthatcantravelfasterthanwarp10isnews.OfthemanyjokestoldinStarfleet,thisoneatleastseemstrue.ForaFederationofhundredsofplanets,spreadsparseascomet-taildustoverthousandsoflight-years,newsislifebloodwithou...

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