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Authors: Margaret Wander Bonanno
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really cared about. “Computer, present position and status of Enterprise? ”
“One moment.” Pretty kaleidoscopic patterns played across the small screen. Kirk swirled the ice cubes in the bottom of his glass, waited. The rest of him might be parked behind a desk, but his heart was always with his ship. “Ready.”
“Go ahead.”
“Position and status USS Enterprise , NCC-1701: Stardate 8083.6. Crew complement comprising engineering officer and thirty-seven trainees: bridge crew comprising seven cadets, Captain Spock in command. Presently engaged in training patrol two parsecs off Llingri Star Cluster, to continue approximately three solar days. Employing Regulation 14-B standard maneuvers with accepted Vulcan variant. As of last report, all is well.”
“I see,” Kirk mused. Accepted Vulcan variant, indeed. That meant Spock was working their little human tails off under Vulcan regimen. Good for him! “Estimated return date?”
“Captain Spock had logged return date of 8097.4. Precisely.”
Precisely. He would do it, too. Bring her into spacedock trim and unscathed and down to the minute by his calculations—ion storms, intervening interplanetary conflicts, and Scotty’s lamentations about his engines notwithstanding. Good old Spock. Enterprise couldn’t be in better hands.
Dammit.
Kirk ran himself through the sonic shower in record time, and slipped into an old sweatsuit. He padded into the kitchen and punched up a salad—McCoy had been on him about his weight again—then settled back by the fire, and lovingly turned the crisp new pages of his anachronistic book.
THREE
In the dying light of a stormy afternoon, Yoshi sat in the other room of the agrostation staring at the comm screen, neither hearing nor seeing it.
They had always called this the “other room.” There was the sleeping room and there was this room—living room, kitchen, den, workroom, office, storage area, library, gym, entertainment center. The comm screen dominating one wall was combination computer, holovision, ship-to-shore, mail service—their only contact, except for Delphinus ’s monthly supply runs, with the rest of the world.
What Yoshi really wanted to do was to cut himself—themselves—off entirely from that world, pretend nothing had happened, retreat, hide out, wish it all away. But he kept the screen on, kept staring at its melange of images though most of them made no sense in his present state of high agitation. He seemed to think he ought to be watching for something specific, but whether or not he would recognize it when he saw it…
Did he actually expect MediaComm to announce that an alien spacecraft was being hunted in the South Pacific?
He’d thought of tapping into the AeroNav band. He was a good enough hacker to make it work, but figured their equipment was sophisticated enough to detect a tap and abandoned the idea. Instead he sat flipping from one news channel to another, mesmerized.
“…following his attempted assassination by pseudo-religious factions calling themselves the Alliance for the Twelfth of November…”
Flip.
“…threatening their mutual nonaggression pact with a renewal of hostilities unless…” Flip.
“…when a riot, believed to have been instigated by spectators for the Southern Hemisphere team, resulted in twenty-three deaths…”
Good old Earth, Yoshi thought. Half a century since the last world war and we still can’t keep from cutting each other up for anything from the rights of the persecuted to a disputed soccer score. Any aliens in their right minds would have taken a quick look around and kept right on going. Those poor souls we fished out of the water this morning must have been lost but good.
Flip.
“…trading was active, the price of mixed SeaSources shares plummeting in the wake of reports that fungus infestations first noted in the mid-Pacific region continue to spread unchecked…”
Uh-oh, Yoshi thought, coming back from wherever he’d been
“One moment.” Pretty kaleidoscopic patterns played across the small screen. Kirk swirled the ice cubes in the bottom of his glass, waited. The rest of him might be parked behind a desk, but his heart was always with his ship. “Ready.”
“Go ahead.”
“Position and status USS Enterprise , NCC-1701: Stardate 8083.6. Crew complement comprising engineering officer and thirty-seven trainees: bridge crew comprising seven cadets, Captain Spock in command. Presently engaged in training patrol two parsecs off Llingri Star Cluster, to continue approximately three solar days. Employing Regulation 14-B standard maneuvers with accepted Vulcan variant. As of last report, all is well.”
“I see,” Kirk mused. Accepted Vulcan variant, indeed. That meant Spock was working their little human tails off under Vulcan regimen. Good for him! “Estimated return date?”
“Captain Spock had logged return date of 8097.4. Precisely.”
Precisely. He would do it, too. Bring her into spacedock trim and unscathed and down to the minute by his calculations—ion storms, intervening interplanetary conflicts, and Scotty’s lamentations about his engines notwithstanding. Good old Spock. Enterprise couldn’t be in better hands.
Dammit.
Kirk ran himself through the sonic shower in record time, and slipped into an old sweatsuit. He padded into the kitchen and punched up a salad—McCoy had been on him about his weight again—then settled back by the fire, and lovingly turned the crisp new pages of his anachronistic book.
THREE
In the dying light of a stormy afternoon, Yoshi sat in the other room of the agrostation staring at the comm screen, neither hearing nor seeing it.
They had always called this the “other room.” There was the sleeping room and there was this room—living room, kitchen, den, workroom, office, storage area, library, gym, entertainment center. The comm screen dominating one wall was combination computer, holovision, ship-to-shore, mail service—their only contact, except for Delphinus ’s monthly supply runs, with the rest of the world.
What Yoshi really wanted to do was to cut himself—themselves—off entirely from that world, pretend nothing had happened, retreat, hide out, wish it all away. But he kept the screen on, kept staring at its melange of images though most of them made no sense in his present state of high agitation. He seemed to think he ought to be watching for something specific, but whether or not he would recognize it when he saw it…
Did he actually expect MediaComm to announce that an alien spacecraft was being hunted in the South Pacific?
He’d thought of tapping into the AeroNav band. He was a good enough hacker to make it work, but figured their equipment was sophisticated enough to detect a tap and abandoned the idea. Instead he sat flipping from one news channel to another, mesmerized.
“…following his attempted assassination by pseudo-religious factions calling themselves the Alliance for the Twelfth of November…”
Flip.
“…threatening their mutual nonaggression pact with a renewal of hostilities unless…” Flip.
“…when a riot, believed to have been instigated by spectators for the Southern Hemisphere team, resulted in twenty-three deaths…”
Good old Earth, Yoshi thought. Half a century since the last world war and we still can’t keep from cutting each other up for anything from the rights of the persecuted to a disputed soccer score. Any aliens in their right minds would have taken a quick look around and kept right on going. Those poor souls we fished out of the water this morning must have been lost but good.
Flip.
“…trading was active, the price of mixed SeaSources shares plummeting in the wake of reports that fungus infestations first noted in the mid-Pacific region continue to spread unchecked…”
Uh-oh, Yoshi thought, coming back from wherever he’d been
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