Strange New Worlds IV Page 2

  “Huh?”

  Kirk started talking normal again. “I mean, ‘the way we had to get rough with ya.’”

  Mr. Ears spoke up. “Fascinating. I believe the Iotians have somehow evolved from the gangster society of the nineteen-twenties to the fictional detective genre of the late nineteen-thirties and early nineteen-forties.”

  The Doc chimed in. “Shades of Dixon Hill.”

  Spocko looked at me and kept yapping. “I would be very interested, sir, to learn how you managed to leave your planet. Have your people developed a method of space travel in such a relatively short period of history?”

  It took me a second to figure out the question. “Oh, no. I’m the first one to make it off the turf. I hitched a ride.”

  The Doc choked on his drink. “You hitched a ride? With whom?”

  “Some idiots called the Pakleds. They were lost and stopped by for some directions. We made a deal. We gave ’em some maps, and they gave me a ride. Since then I’ve been tailin’ Kirk here for two years. Let me tell you, there’s a lot of weird people out there in space.”

  “Two years?” said Kirk. “Tell the Boys I’m flattered.”

  Morrow turned to the other guys. “I’ve never heard of these Pakleds. Have you?”

  Kirk shook his head and looked at Spocko.

  “Nor have I, Admiral. It would be fascinating to learn how these beings of alleged ‘lower intelligence’ managed to achieve warp drive.”

  I had no idea what they were talking about. I didn’t give a damn what they were talking about. I was getting antsy and just wanted to make my delivery and vamoose. I opened the briefcase and showed ’em the goods. “Forty percent. Count it.”

  If Kirk’s kisser had dropped any lower, I coulda drove a cab through it. Spocko was cool, though. Cool as a cucumber. The Doc just had a belt of his drink and took a few steps away. The Morrow guy was trying to hide a smile. I don’t what he thought was so funny.

  And this Kirk guy didn’t seem so tough to me, neither—especially after all the tons of stories I heard about him. “I’m carryin’ ten years’worth here. Now, you want it or not? It’s all there.”

  Spocko spoke. “We are certain the amount is correct. If nothing else, the Iotians are a very precise people.”

  Who were these guys? I was beginning to wonder if Spocko was a Sunday school teacher or something. Kirk cleared his throat and grabbed the case. Finally!

  “Thank you very much. You didn’t have to bring it to me in person, you know.”

  “Huh?”

  “I mean ‘Hey, it’s about time. You coulda just mailed it.’”

  A lightbulb lit up. I was onto Kirk. I figured out what little game he and his boys were playing. He was checking up on me for the Feds. I mean, Kirk’s boss was standing right there and everything. “No way, Kirk. I wasn’t takin’ any chances with this much dough. Things disappear, you know?”

  Kirk mumbled something that sounded like “I wish I could.” But I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t care. I wanted a second chance at that blonde over at the Federation’s clubhouse.

  I looked over at the Doc. “And you, Doc—”

  He gulped down his drink like Prohibition was coming back. “Me?”

  I walked over to him and reached inside my coat. “I got a little somethin’ for you, too.”

  He must have thought I was gonna plug him or something. He took a few steps back. “Easy, Doc. You’ll like this. Here.”

  I offered him the paper. He looked at it like he’d never seen one before. “What is this?”

  “It’s a marker, Doc. Good for when you come back to my planet. I didn’t wanna risk carryin’ that much dough on me. You’re even richer than the Feds. No offense, Kirk.”

  “No sweat,” Kirk said.

  “But what is this for? Why are you giving all this—money—to me?”

  He didn’t know. I couldn’t believe he didn’t know. “It’s for the McCoy, Doc. You know—the McCoy?”

  The Doc stood there like a car outta gas. I wasn’t buyin’ it. “As if you didn’t know. Remember that little thing you ‘accidentally’ left behind?”

  “Oh, boy.” I saw the wheels tumbling in the Doc’s brain. I could tell Spocko knew what I was talking about. He mumbled to Kirk. “The communicator, Admiral.”

  The Doc looked a little uneasy. “Look, I didn’t mean to leave—”

  “Didn’t mean? That’s a good one, Doc. Look, after you left, there was a little scuffle over it and it kinda got bashed up. We put it back together the best we could, but we could only make it work when someone was close by with another one. It’s been the hottest-sellin’ toy on the whole planet for ten years!”

  “Toy?!” The four guys sounded like a choir or something.

  “Yeah. Can’t keep ’em in the stores. And look, as a gesture of thanks and good faith from the toy company, I’m bringin’ back the one you left. The museum put up a squawk, but the Boys thought you’d want it back. No hard feelings, right?”

  “You have it here?” He sounded kind of excited.

  The Doc smiled as I gave him the thing. He looked at it, kind of unsure. I had to convince him. “Oh, that there’s the genuine article. That’s the real McCoy.”

  Suddenly it got kind of quiet for a second.

  Spocko raised an eyebrow.

  Kirk shook his head.

  Morrow tried hiding another smile. (What was with this guy?)

  The Doc rolled his eyes again.

  “Hey, I don’t get it. What’d I say?”

  “Nothing,” said the Doc. He handed me back the marker. “Tell the toy company I’m very thankful and honored. And tell them to donate this and my future ‘cut’ to some charities on your planet that help out anyone who needs shelter or medical help, okay?”

  Now, I’m as tough as they go, but this was one moving gesture on the Doc’s part. “I will, Doc. You’re all right.”

  I stuffed the marker back into my coat pocket. “Well, I’m gonna blow this joint. Kirk, good to meet ya. Morrow, you’re a stand-up guy. Spocko, you’re weird. Cool, but weird. And Doc—you keep downin’ those drinks like that and you’re gonna be one of your own patients. But don’t think I don’t respect you for it.”

  Kirk patted me on the shoulder. “Are you sure you won’t stay for a drink—or a few hands of fizzbin?” I headed for the door. “Oh, no. I heard about you and fizzbin.” Even though I finished third in the Kirk Fizzbin Classic a few years ago, I wasn’t dumb enough to take on the grand master. “I’m keepin’ my dough in my pocket, where it belongs.”

  We stopped at the door and I turned to him—eye to eye. “Oh, and Kirk—”

  “Yes? Er, ‘yeah’?”

  I put out my hand. “See ya next year.”

  Kirk shook my hand and nodded. “Check.”

  This guy was a little out of touch. No one had said “check” in a long, long time. “Kirk, take my advice. Get with the times. You’ll live longer. Nice place.” I looked over at Spocko, Morrow, and the Doc. “Gentlemen.”

  As the door kinda whooshed closed behind me, I thought I heard some more laughing. But I didn’t care. I did my job. And word would get around, and soon I’d have more cases than I could handle.

  I walked down the front steps. The rain had stopped, but the smell of the wet street was fresh—one of the best smells on any world. Kinda musty and sweet, but like the street was new. Like the first time anyone had ever walked on it. I flipped down my collar, shoved my hands in my pockets, and walked away.

  Somehow I knew it wouldn’t be the last time I’d see Kirk and his boys. But I had other cases to solve, other fights to fight, other—

  “Hello, again—sir.”

  It was her. The leggy blonde from Club Fed. She was out of uniform and in a long, tight coat which accented her accents. And her big blue eyes were looking straight into mine.

  I didn’t say a word. I just offered an arm and she took it.

  The other jobs could wait for a little while.

&nbs
p; Right now, I was on my own clock.

  Prodigal Father

  Robert J. Mendenhall

  The scream of the labored engines went unheard in silent space, but their erratic vibrations were felt through the deck plates of the crippled starship as far inward as sickbay. Or was it his rage that shook the Enterprise so? Rage at the monster Khan? Rage at his mother? At his father? David Marcus cursed aloud.

  His father.

  “David, please,” Carol Marcus said from the biobed she lay on.

  David started straight and hard at the ceiling and gripped the edge of his own bed so tightly his knuckles were white from the strain. “You lied to me, Mother. All these years you knew he was my father, and you said nothing. God, how I hate him!”

  “David, you can’t hate him. You don’t even know him. What you hate is what you think he represents.”

  The ship shuddered and seemed to tip for a brief instant, then righted itself.

  David released his grip on the bed and sat bolt upright. He swung his long legs over the side. “What he represents are the corpses of our friends back there on Regula I. Back there. In pools of their own blood.” His mother grimaced and David felt a tug of regret for his crass remark.

  “Wrong, young man.” The voice was raspy and laced with a hint of accent David had come to categorize as pompous Georgian.

  David shot an angry glance at Dr. Leonard McCoy, chief medical officer of the Starship Enterprise. McCoy waved a handheld medical scanner over Carol’s petite body and studied the readings on the diagnostic display over her biobed.

  “You don’t know a goddam thing about what he represents,” McCoy said.

  “He’s a warmonger and a murderer—”

  “He’s neither,” McCoy interrupted. “He’s a peacekeeper and a soldier. You’re fine, Carol. You’re both fine.” He snapped off the scanner.

  “Same thing, Doctor,” David said. “He’s no different than that Khan.”

  “Where does this hate of yours come from, boy? I’ve known Jim Kirk for decades. He’s a lot of things, but right there on top of that list, he’s honorable. Your mother knows him. Does she hate him?”

  “Of course not. He’s charmed her. She can’t see past his pretty face—”

  “That is quite enough,” Carol Marcus said, climbing down from the bed. “The both of you. Leonard, David never knew Jim was his father.”

  McCoy frowned and his voice softened. “I know. Jim and I have talked about it over the years. Quite a bit during the past several months, in fact. He’s feeling his age.”

  “My poor, old man,” David said, with acid sarcasm.

  McCoy shook his head. “You know, David. Back there, in the cave, I was watching you. In the face of danger, not knowing what was happening or who the enemy was, you handled yourself with a great deal of courage. You fought to protect your mother and the Genesis Device, without regard for your personal safety. It reminded me of a young James T. Kirk.”

  David Marcus’s face blazed brick red.

  “Oh, Leonard,” Carol said, shaking her head. “That was the absolute wrong thing to say.”

  “I’m nothing like him,” David exploded. “Nothing!”

  McCoy continued, undaunted by Carol’s admonishment and unimpressed with David’s tirade. “Wrong both times, my young friend. Genetically, you are very much the same as your father, but then you’re a scientist. I don’t need to tell you that. And personality-wise, you’re as headstrong and single-minded as he is. You’re both passionate about your principles and personal values and you both abhor violence.”

  “Him? Abhor violence? How can you say that? He works for the military. He jumps from fight to fight, striking, attacking. Murdering innocent—”

  “You sound like a whiny little boy,” McCoy cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Where do you get your information? First of all Starfleet may be a military organization in structure, but its mission is exploration, David, not warfare. We look for new civilizations, new intellectual challenges.”

  “In an armed-to-the-proverbial-teeth battleship,” David said.

  “In a ship of exploration equipped to defend itself and anyone else who needs defending.”

  “You’re the one who’s confused, Doctor. This ship is a war machine. Its sole purpose is to intimidate and subjugate.”

  The Enterprise lurched again, and everyone standing had to reach for support to keep from tumbling to the deck. The vibration beneath David’s feet increased; he could feel it clear up to his knees.

  “Hates violence,” David mocked. “He’s up there now, in his command room, fighting with this Khan. He doesn’t care who gets hurt or killed, so long as he wins. You heard what he said in the cave. He doesn’t like to lose. And he’ll do anything to win this fight.”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said in the last five minutes that’s been right,” McCoy said. David looked at him questioningly. “He doesn’t like to lose and he’ll do anything to win this fight. But you’re wrong about one thing. He very much cares about who gets hurt or killed. It eats at him, every day. When Jim loses a member of his crew, he loses a part of himself.”

  “Targ shit.”

  “David!” Carol said.

  “Look, I can’t convince you of your father’s sterling qualities,” McCoy said. “But whether or not you like it, or him, you can’t change the fact that you are his son. But that doesn’t change who you are. It’s a simple, biological fact. You’re a scientist. Treat this as a problem. Use the scientific method. You’re stated your hypothesis—”

  “I sure have.”

  “Then move on to the next step. Gather and analyze your data and either prove your theory or change it to match the data.”

  “Leonard’s making sense, David. Listen to him. Take the time to learn who Jim is before you condemn him.”

  David turned to his mother and saw how her short, honey hair was disarrayed and how it made her seem so tired. She looked up at him with a sad, shallow smile on her lips. Her liquid blue eyes reached out to his own, hazel like …

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” he whispered.

  “For the same reason Jim and I never married. He and I live two completely different lifestyles. Mine ties me to education and research. His takes him on adventures across the galaxy. He lives a dangerous life and I didn’t want you exposed to that. I wanted you to grow up safe. And protected. And in a home where your parents are there for you. They don’t allow families on starships. The long separations we would have had to endure would have been worse than if you had no father at all. And there was always the fear that one day a notification team from Starfleet would come to the door and tell me—us—that Captain James T. Kirk had been killed while defending this or saving that. I didn’t want to put you through that. And … and I couldn’t bear to go through it myself.”

  “But maybe I should have been the one to choose whether I wanted to go through it,” David said.

  “You couldn’t make that choice as a baby, dear. That’s what a parent does. It was my job to make the hard decisions for you, to decide what I thought was best for you, to protect you from harm until you could make those choices yourself. You don’t know what it’s like as a parent, David. The heavy burden of having to make those decisions for another.”

  “Sounds like you’re describing the captain of a starship,” McCoy said as he turned and sauntered to his office. David followed sharply on his heels.

  “Oh, please, Doctor. I don’t need to hear your feeble attempts at association. I’m not a child, and you can’t change how I feel.”

  “David,” Carol said, coming up behind her son, her voice stiff. “No one is trying to influence your thinking. And maybe I was wrong to have kept this from you. But, I couldn’t bear the thought of you running off into danger on some mission or some foolish adventure and getting killed.”

  “Mother, you know me. I would never do anything like that.”

  “Oh, yes,” she laughed sardonically and dropped he
r weary body into a hard chair in front of McCoy’s desk. “I do know you. And David, my sweet young son, I see so much of your father in you, it scares me. I’ve always been afraid that if you knew who he was and got to know him as a person, you would actually like him.”

  “What?” David had never seen his mother this way. So distraught. So near the brink of tears. Never.

  “I know that sounds awful. And very selfish. But I was afraid that if you liked him, you would want to be with him. And if you were with him, you’d be in danger.”

  “Mother, I—”

  “David, it’s time you decided this for yourself. We may not survive.”

  “It’s his damn fault we’re in this situation,” David said.

  “You’re stubborn as an old mule,” McCoy said, as he typed onto a keypad next to a display device on his desk. “Just like your father.”

  Carol shook her head. “Leonard.”

  The Enterprise bucked and rumbled and David had to grab the doorframe to keep his balance. McCoy reached for his desk and held down the coffee cup that jumped and threatened to spill over the reports he had been studying.

  “I’m going up there,” David said, looking to McCoy to challenge him.

  “I thought you might,” McCoy said, instead. “I’ve used my authorization code to give you limited access to most of the ship. You can’t get into engineering, or the armory or any place that’s restricted other than the bridge, but otherwise you have free rein of the ship.”

  “I’ll go along,” Carol said, rising.

  “No, Mother. Why don’t you stay and help Dr. McCoy with the wounded. I … I really need to do this alone.”

  Mother and son looked at each other for a long, connecting moment.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know you do. Go ahead. I’ll join you shortly.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  Without another word, David Marcus spun on his heels and trotted through the hissing door into the darkened, main corridor. Three seconds later, he had returned.

  “David, what’s wrong?” Carol asked, concerned.

  “Ahh, how do I get to the bridge?”