Star Trek: Duty, Honor, Redemption (30 page)

Spacelab drifted in its orbit, a shadowed silver flash against the limb of the planetoid. The Starfleet science ship
Grissom
lay in a matching orbit, waiting for the
Enterprise.
The ship and the laboratory satellite gradually entered the shadow of their primary, vanishing into the featureless darkness. David shivered. He had lived and worked on the research station for two years. He had called it home. Now it felt alien and threatening. If hauntings were possible, it must be haunted. On Spacelab, no one was left alive. The bodies of the people Khan had murdered lay waiting to be returned to Earth and to their graves.

As the transporter beam faded from the newly materialized form of Captain J.T. Esteban, James Kirk waited to greet him. Esteban stepped down. They shook hands.

“Welcome aboard, J.T.,” Kirk said. “It’s been a while.”

“It has that,” Esteban said. “An eventful while, too. You folks have things in quite a tizzy, back home.”

Kirk led Esteban to the nearest turbolift. “I don’t believe I follow you,” he said.

“Will Doctor Marcus be available, Jim?” J.T. said. “I need to talk to the both of you.”

They stepped into the lift. “Officer’s lounge,” Jim said, and felt the faint acceleration as the lift whisked them toward their destination. “I’ll have Doctor Marcus paged.” Kirk contacted Uhura. “Uhura, Kirk here. Would you ask Doctor Marcus to meet Captain Esteban and me in the officer’s lounge?”

“Certainly, Admiral.”

“Thanks. Kirk out.” He turned off the intercom. He could sense the tension in the captain of the
Grissom.
“What’s going on, J.T.?”

“I just think it would save time to talk to you both at once.” Esteban was deliberately misunderstanding the question, and Jim did not push it. They tried to make small talk, but it was strained.

“The galaxy ships are already paying off,” Esteban said. “Have you heard?”

“We’ve been out of touch,” Jim said drily.

“Of course. But a subspace transmission just came through—it made all the news services.
Magellan
is in Andromeda. It just completed the first close-range observation of a supernova.”

“That’s very impressive,” Jim said. And for all his offhandedness, he
was
impressed. Andromeda! Another galaxy, millions and millions of light-years away. A different ship, with a different crew and a different commander, had reached it first. He made a mental note to tell Mister Sulu the news of
Magellan,
for Sulu and the galaxy ship’s captain, Mandala Flynn, had been the closest of friends for a long time.

They reached the officer’s lounge and went inside. Carol had not yet arrived.

“Jim?”

“Eh?” Kirk realized J.T. had spoken to him, but had no idea what he had said. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said
Magellan
is a bit of a technological trick. It’s too small to do anything but quick and dirty scouting missions. And if they encounter hostiles, what can they do but turn tail and run?”

“No doubt you’re right,” Jim said. He tried to imagine something that might cause Mandala Flynn to turn tail and run. He failed.

“No, it’s
Excelsior
that’s the wave of the future,” J.T. said.

The door to the lounge slid open to admit Carol Marcus, accompanied by David. Carol nodded to Jim coolly; if she was not still angry at him, at best she was not yet willing to forget about last night’s conversation.

“Carol,” Jim said, “this is J.T. Esteban, commanding the
Grissom.
J.T., Doctor Carol Marcus, and her son…” Jim paused, thinking he really should say, “Our son,” but deciding not to because it would take so long to explain. “Her son, Doctor David Marcus.”

“Two for the price of one,” David said.

Jim chuckled and Carol smiled. Missing the joke, J.T. rubbed his jaw and frowned.

“This is sensitive information,” he said. “I only expected Doctor Marcus, senior.”

David’s smile vanished. “I can take a hint,” he said. He headed toward the door, the irritation in his voice mirrored in his stiff-shouldered walk.

“David—” Jim said, but David kept walking.

“David, wait,” Carol said.

David hesitated, then glanced back.

“David is a full member of the Genesis team, Captain Esteban,” Carol said. “He and I are the only surviving principal investigators. Anything you have to say about Genesis, you must say to him as well as to me.”

“The first thing I have to say is I wish you’d called it something else,” Esteban said.

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“It’s too late now, but it wasn’t the wisest move you could have made, in terms of PR. Never mind that, for the moment. Doctor Marcus—” He addressed David this time. “I apologize for my bad manners. Please come sit down with the rest of us. We have a great deal to talk over.”

They sat around one of the small tables next to the star portals, and Esteban described the circumstances they would return to on Earth.

“The news of the Genesis effect created…shall we say, a sensation,” J.T. said uncomfortably.

In all the years Jim had known J.T. Esteban, he had never seen him lose his composure. Anything and everything, no matter how strange, no matter the stress, he had always taken easily, even phlegmatically, in his stride. Jim had read the reports of some of his missions. Esteban had come up against extraordinarily challenging events, and he had prevailed. To see him so agitated about Genesis disturbed Jim more than anything the younger Starfleet officer could tell him.

“Of course it did,” David said. “That’s sort of the point, isn’t it? We’ve made possible the elimination of poverty. We’ve made the reasons for war completely untenable—”

“You’ve created a device that could destroy the galaxy. That’s what our adversaries perceive, not universal peace and plenty. They have demanded multilateral parity—”

“You mean they want Genesis, too,” Carol said.

“Precisely.”

“Why don’t you give it to them?” David said.

“David!” Jim said, shocked. “We didn’t just go through—the last few days—so we could turn Genesis over to an enemy power. Your friends didn’t die resisting Khan so you could hand over the discovery to the next person who demanded it.”

“That was different,” David said. “Khan wanted it for revenge. Revenge against you.”

Jim scowled, but did not reply to the jab.

“I’m not talking about giving it to every crazy who comes along,” David said. “I’m talking about making Genesis openly available for transforming lifeless worlds.”

“That is absolutely outside the realm of possibility,” J.T. said.

“But that’s what we made it for!”

“My dear boy,” J.T. said.

Jim winced, seeing David bristle.

“My dear boy,” J.T. said, “we can’t give it to anyone else. That would be too dangerous.”

“The Federation is the only organization with the wisdom to decide on its use?” Carol said dryly.

“I’m glad you understand Starfleet’s—the Federation’s—position, Doctor Marcus,” J.T. said, missing the irony the same way he always missed jokes.

“Oh, I understand it, all right,” Carol said. “That doesn’t mean that I accept it.”

“I knew it!” David shouted. “You just can’t keep your hands off any discovery, can you? You have to grab it and hoard it and twist it until you can figure out a way to use it for destruction!”

“David, relax,” Jim said.

“We would hardly have to do much figuring, now, would we?” Esteban said. “The evidence for the destructive power of Genesis is its first deployment. It completely recreated the substance of the Mutara Nebula, a volume of space some hundred astronomical units in radius. It destroyed
Reliant
and all the people on board. It nearly destroyed the
Enterprise,
and it did cause the death of—”

“Indirectly,” Jim Kirk snapped. “We were involved in hostilities—”

“Because of Genesis!”

“Not entirely,” Jim said. David was right: Khan had intended to use Genesis to wreak revenge upon James Kirk. But he had stumbled upon the project by chance, then turned it to his purposes. He had succeeded better than he could have known.

“You’re hardly being fair, Captain,” Carol said. “The Genesis device was obviously never meant—in any form—to go off inside a ship. That particular device was never intended to go off within a nebula.”

“But that’s precisely my point, Doctor! After all that’s happened, how can you argue that the device cannot be an instrument of terrorism?”

“But if everybody has it there isn’t any need for terrorism!” David said.

Carol was touched by David’s naivete, Jim was surprised by it, and J.T. thought he was being deliberately, perhaps even maliciously, dense.

“Your discovery may eliminate poverty. But it’ll hardly change the natures of sentient beings. It won’t eliminate greed or lust for power or simple error, and it most certainly won’t eliminate ideology. The drive to convert people’s minds and hearts has caused more grief, more suffering, more loss of life than any desire for property, riches, or even the necessities of survival.”

“Very eloquent, Captain,” David said sarcastically. “I take it you mean our ideology requires us to pervert Genesis into a weapon before anybody else gets a chance to?”

“It’s hardly productive to ascribe malicious motives to everybody who disagrees with you, David,” Jim said sharply.

“What has to be done with Genesis isn’t up to me to say,” J.T. said. “Or to any of us.”

“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Carol said.

David jumped to his feet. “I always said the military’d try to take Genesis away from us! I suppose if I try to call the Federation Science Network in on this, you’ll throw me in the brig!”

“Sit down and shut up, David,” Jim said. “If anybody gets thrown in the brig on this ship, it’ll be by me. And you’re making it mighty tempting to send you to bed without your supper.”

David glared at him with a sudden flare of resentment that surprised Jim completely.

“Try it and see how far you get!” David glared at Kirk, then at Esteban. “I don’t see any point in continuing this discussion.” He stalked away.

“Come back here, David,” Jim said.

“Do you think you can make me? You and who else?” He strode from the lounge.

Jim started to rise.

Carol put one hand on his arm.

“Let him go, Jim. He’ll be all right when he cools down.” She smiled. “That’s another way he’s like you.”

“I was never that hot-headed!”

Carol looked at him askance. Jim reluctantly sat down again.

He realized that J.T. was watching them with both curiosity and confusion. He deserved at least some explanation.

“David is my son, as well as Carol’s,” he said.

“Oh,” J.T. said. “Er…I didn’t realize you had any children.”

Neither did I,
Jim thought, but what he said out loud was, “Just the one.”

“How did we get off on this track, anyway?” J.T. said. “What I asked you here to tell you is that
Grissom
has been ordered to the Mutara sector to make a complete survey of the Genesis world. We can hardly discuss it, with our allies or with our adversaries, unless we know more about the effect and its consequences. Doctor Marcus, I’ve been directed to transfer you to my ship.”

“What?” Carol said.

“Obviously, we need you to supervise the observations—”

“Forget it,” Carol said.

“I beg your pardon?”

“What the hell do you think I am? ‘Transfer’ me? Like a crate of supplies? Do you think I’m a robot?”

“I’m sorry, Doctor. I don’t follow you at all.”

“Six people died on Spacelab. I was responsible for them—and they were my friends! I owe them. At the very least I owe them the courtesy of telling their families what happened!”

“Their families know of the tragedy…”

“What did you do—send telegrams? My gods!”

“I feel sure things were handled with more…more delicacy than you suspect.”

“I don’t care,” Carol said. “I’m not going back to Genesis, not now. I won’t discuss it any further.”

“But—”

“The subject is closed.”

She stood abruptly and strode from the lounge, leaving Jim and J.T. together in awkward silence.

“Well,” J.T. said finally, “I didn’t handle either one of them very well, did I? Maybe if I ask her again a little later—?”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” Jim said.

Valkris knelt on the floor of her cabin, meditating. The low gravity of the mercenary’s ship made the discipline very difficult. Remaining in one position for a great length of time required no strength of will, where gravity put little stress on the body.

Meditation was one of the few ways she had of passing the time during the miserable boredom of space travel when one was merely a passenger, a lone passenger at that. She had been more accustomed to flying her own ship, before her family fell upon hard times.