Star Trek: Duty, Honor, Redemption (81 page)

“You can always appeal, you know,” he said.

Jim stared at him for a moment, speechless, his fear for the doctor renewed. And then he noticed the smile McCoy tried to hide. Jim started to laugh. McCoy gave up trying to keep a straight face. He laughed, too—finally, after too long, back to his old self.

They eased their way between spectators till they reached Chekov and Scott and Uhura, hugging each other and shaking hands. Sulu stood nearby, perhaps more stunned by a positive verdict than by the negative one for which he had prepared himself.

“Congratulations, Admi—I mean, Captain Kirk,” he said.

“The congratulations are for all of us, Commander Sulu,” Jim said. He wanted to tell him something more, but the onlookers pushed between them.

In San Francisco, in the twentieth century, Javy and Ben climbed down the terraced bank and headed for their dieseling truck. Despite everything, the rest of their day’s work remained.

“I’m really sorry, Javy,” Ben said. “I should of believed you right off. Maybe if I had we would of seen what made that burn.”

“I saw it,” Javy said. “I saw its shadow, anyway.”

“But, I mean, we would of seen it and we would of been able to show it to other people. To a reporter, maybe, and they’d write us up in a book and maybe we’d get on Johnny Carson.” He brightened. “Maybe if we show them the burned place—”

“Maybe if we show them the burned place, they’ll arrest us for arson. Or they’ll write us up as a couple of nut cases,” Javy said. “And maybe they’d be right. We don’t have any proof. A burned place and a shadow.”

“I’m really sorry,” Ben said again, downcast.

“Don’t be, Ben, it’s okay, honest.”

“I’d be mad, if I were you.”

“Maybe I ought to be,” Javy said. “Except…” He hesitated, not sure he wanted to say it out loud before he was certain it was true.

“What?”

What the hell. Telling Ben the story had always worked before. Javy grinned. “I figured out how to end my novel,” he said.

The FBI agent put all the reports together and looked at them and wished the lights were brighter so he could put on his sunglasses.

I might as well be named Bond, he thought. Nobody outside a spy novel would believe this stuff. My boss sure won’t, and my partner will say I’ve been talking to Gamma too much.

“
I
don’t even believe it,” he muttered. “I don’t even believe the parts I saw with my own eyes.” The radar reports from San Francisco and Nome did nothing to improve his mood.

Maybe the report will get lost when it’s filed,
he thought.
Stuff sometimes does. Before anybody has a chance to read it. With any luck…

But he trusted Murphy’s Law more than he trusted luck. He decided to file the report himself.

He picked it up, took it to the proper place, and filed it.

In the circular file.

Finally the crowd in the Federation Council chamber dispersed. Jim felt wrung out. He glanced around, looking for an escape, and found himself face to face with Gillian Taylor.

“My own exonerated Kirk!” she exclaimed. “I’m so juiced, I can’t tell you!” She gave him a quick kiss. “I have to hurry. So long, Kirk. And thanks.” She headed for the arched exit.

“Hey!” Jim cried. “Where are you going?”

“You’re going to your ship, I’m going to mine. Science vessel, bound for Mer to recruit some divers to help the whales. Why, the next time you see me, I may have learned to breathe underwater!” She grinned, honestly and completely happy for the first time since Jim had met her. “I’ve got three hundred years of catchup learning to do,” she said.

Though glad for her happiness, he could not help feeling disappointment as well.

“You mean this is—good-bye?” he said.

“Why does it have to be good-bye?” she asked, mystified.

“I…as they say in your century, I don’t even have your phone number. How will I find you?”

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll find you.” She raised her hand in farewell. “See you ’round the galaxy!” She strode away.

Just farewell,
Jim told himself.
Not good-bye.
He shook his head fondly as she vanished through the wide, arched doorway of the council hall.

In a secluded corner, Spock waited for the last spectators to disperse. He wished to leave, but he did not want to go anywhere on this planet. Spock knew now—he had learned again, or he had remembered; it did not matter which—that he had never felt at home on Earth or on Vulcan, or indeed on any planet. He felt at home in space.

Sarek, tall and dignified, his face expressionless, approached him.

“Father,” Spock said.

“I will take passage to Vulcan within the hour,” Sarek said. “I wanted to take my leave of you.”

“It is kind of you to make this effort.”

“It is not an effort. You are my son.” He stopped abruptly, controlling his instant’s lapse. “Besides,” he said, “I wished to tell you that I am most impressed with your performance in this crisis.”

“Most kind, Father,” Spock said, and again Sarek had no suitable response for the charge of kindness.

“I opposed your enlistment in Starfleet,” Sarek said. “It is possible that my judgment was incorrect.”

Spock raised his eyebrow. He could not recall his father’s ever having confessed to an error before, or, indeed, ever having committed an error.

“Your associates are people of good character,” Sarek said.

“They are my friends,” Spock said.

“Yes,” Sarek said. “Yes, of course.” He spoke in a tone of acceptance and the beginnings of understanding. “Spock, do you have any message for your mother?”

Spock considered. “Yes,” he said. “Please tell her…I feel fine.”

Spock took his leave of his bemused father and crossed the council chamber to join James Kirk and his other shipmates.

“Are you coming with us, Mister Spock?” the captain asked.

“Of course, Captain,” Spock said. “Did you believe otherwise?”

“I haven’t been quite sure what to believe, the last few days.”

“Sarek offered you a compliment,” Spock said.

“Oh, really? What might that be?”

“He said you were of good character.”

Kirk stopped, nonplussed, then recovered himself.

“Sarek is getting effusive in his retirement,” Kirk said. “I wonder what I did after all these years to make him come to that conclusion?”

Spock felt astonished that Captain Kirk did not understand. “Captain—Jim—!” he said in protest. Then he noted James Kirk’s smile. Solemnly he replied, “I am sure that I do not know.”

Jim Kirk began to laugh.

Inside Spacedock, a shuttlecraft dove through the great cavern of a docking bay. The
Enterprise
shipmates searched among ships and tenders and repair scows, curious to discover their destination.

They passed the
Saratoga,
being towed in for inspection. Its captain—
Alexander, isn’t it?
Jim thought—had saved her officers and crew in stasis before the life-support systems gave out entirely.

“The bureaucratic mentality is the only constant in the universe,” McCoy said. “We’re gonna get a freighter.”

Jim remained silent, but he tightened his hand around the envelope of thick, textured paper that he carried. The envelope held written orders, not a computer memory chip, and by that alone Jim knew that the orders were something very special. But he was forbidden to break the holographic epoxy of the Starfleet seal until he had accepted his new command and taken it beyond the solar system.

He turned the envelope over and over, then pulled his attention back to the conversation.

“—I’m counting on
Excelsior,
” Sulu was saying to McCoy.

“Excelsior!”
Scott exclaimed. “Why in God’s name would you want that bucket of bolts?”

Before Sulu could retort and the two men could embark on one of their interminable arguments about the merits of
Excelsior,
Jim cut in.

“Scotty, don’t be judgmental. A ship is a ship.” At the same time he had to wonder how Sulu would handle being subordinate to James Kirk on a ship that should have been Sulu’s own.

It appeared that they were indeed heading for
Excelsior.
The massive ship filled the wide shuttlecraft windows. Scott watched it apprehensively.

“Whatever you say, sir,” he said, resigned. Under his breath he added, “Thy will be done.”

To Jim’s surprise the shuttlecraft sped past
Excelsior.

Jim blinked. In the next slip, a
Constellation
-class starship echoed the lines of his own
Enterprise.
And this time the shuttlecraft did not duck around it. On the saucer section of the ship, Jim made out the name and the registration number.

U.S.S. Enterprise.
NCC 1701-A.

A suited-up space tech put the finishing touches on the “A,” turned, saw the shuttlecraft, waved jauntily, and powered away on travel jets.

Everyone in the shuttlecraft gazed in wonder at the ship. Spock, silent, stood at Jim’s right and McCoy, chuckling, at his left. Scotty leaned forward with his nose practically pressed against the port. Sulu and Chekov clapped each other on the shoulder, and Uhura smiled her quiet smile.

“My friends,” Jim said softly, “we’ve come home.”

When he took his place on the bridge of the
Enterprise,
Jim Kirk gripped the sealed envelope so tightly he crumpled it. “Clear all moorings. Reverse thrust.”

Jim unclenched his hands, still trying to keep them from trembling with excitement. He settled into the difference of the ship, and the sameness.

“Rotate and hold.”

Below, Scotty would be mother-henning the engines. Sulu and Chekov held their places at navigation and helm. Uhura conferred with Spacedock control, and Spock bent over his computer console.

The
Enterprise
spun slowly and hovered as Spacedock’s doors slid open.

McCoy lounged easily against the arm of the captain’s chair.

“Well, Captain?” he said. “Are we just going to sit here?”

Deep space stretched out before them.

“Thrusters ahead one-quarter,” Captain Kirk said.

“Course, Captain?” Chekov said.

Beside Jim, McCoy grinned. “Thataway, Mister Chekov,” the doctor said.

Spock glanced up from the science station. “That is, I trust, a technical term.”

The impulse engines pressed them beyond Spacedock.

Jim wanted to laugh with joy. “Let’s see what she’s got, Mister Sulu.” He rubbed his fingertips across the glimmering Starfleet seal. “Warp speed.”

“Aye, sir!”

The
Enterprise
plunged into the radiant spectrum of warp space, heading toward strange new worlds, new life, and new civilizations.