Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (8 page)

“Spock, I’d call you soulless if I didn’t know better from personal experience! Think about it. We found you, saved you, brought you back from the dead, all on a hunch, if you want to call it that. At the risk of sounding maudlin”—McCoy took a sip from his cup as if to brace himself for what he was about to say—“there seems to be some sort of. . . I don’t know, call it a psychic bond between the three of us. All that time in space, getting on each other’s nerves . . . and what do we do when shore leave comes along? Spend it together. Most people have
families.”

“Other people, Bones,” Jim said wistfully, thinking of David and Carol Marcus. A gray blanket of depression began to settle over him. “Not us.”

“Untrue,” Spock countered, unmoved by the sharp
looks directed at him. “The captain has a nephew with whom he could stay. You, Doctor, have a daughter—and a granddaughter, if I am not mistaken—with whom you could live. And I have a family on Vulcan. No, the three of us
choose
to serve together rather than live with our families.”

Jim’s lips twisted wryly. “Thank you, Mr. Spock, for rescuing me from the throes of self-pity.”

“Just for that,” McCoy said lightly, “when we get back up to the ship, I’m gonna force both of you to look at four dozen holos of that granddaughter of mine. Still, I’m disappointed in you, Spock.” He took a final mouthful of beans and put his plate down.

“I do not understand.”

McCoy hadn’t quite finished chewing when he said, “For not making fun of my psychic bond idea.”

Spock set down his own empty plate, then picked up a stick and examined the end with a finger. “Actually, I quite agree with your theory. After all, you and I had some difficulty
dissolving
our link after
fal tor pan.
And the captain has managed to contact me telepathically before. As to whether you and the captain are linked together . . .” He broke off to retrieve a bag from his knapsack, then reached into it and pulled out a soft, pristine white marshmallow.

Kirk grinned, delighted. “What are you doing, Spock?”

“I am,” Spock replied gravely, as he attached the marshmallow to the pointed end of the stick, “preparing to toast a marsh melon.”

“A marsh
what?”
Jim blurted, but McCoy silenced him with an elbow in the ribs. Clearly, the doctor was enjoying a little practical joke at the Vulcan’s expense.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” McCoy remarked pleasantly and perfectly straight-faced, while Jim did his best to hide a smile. “Toasting marsh melons. Where did you learn that, Spock? Did your mother teach you?”

Spock held the marshmallow over the fire with great seriousness. “No. Before leaving the ship, I consulted the library computer in order to familiarize myself with the custom of camping out. The evening meal is traditionally followed by the toasting of marsh melons.” With his free hand, he offered sticks and marsh-mallows to the doctor and Kirk, who hurried to finish off his beans. “Though I must admit to a certain degree of puzzlement: I do not see any physical resemblance between these small confections and any melon with which I am familiar.”

Jim improvised. “It resembles a certain type of melon grown in a—”

“A southern swamp,” McCoy finished helpfully. “Hence the name,
marsh
melons. My grandfather used to grow whole fields of them. Quite a thing to see right before harvest time.”

“Indeed.” Spock nodded with interest.

Now it was McCoy’s turn to fight a grin. “Tell me something, Spock,” he said, with a shade too much solicitousness, “what do we do
after
we toast the marsh . . . er, melons?”

Spock’s marshmallow was puffing up and turning a glorious golden brown. “We consume them.”

“I
know
we consume them. I meant
after
we eat them.”

“Ah.” Spock removed his marshmallow from the fire, slipped it from the stick, and popped it into his mouth with surprisingly little mess. He grimaced
slightly at the taste. “I believe we are required to engage in a ritual known as the sing-along.”

Jim grinned, his moment of depression forgotten. “I haven’t sung around a campfire since I was a boy in Iowa. What should we sing, Bones?”

McCoy puckered his brow as he searched his memory. “How about ’Camptown Races’?”

“’Pack Up Your Troubles,’” Jim countered. He twirled his stick so that the marshmallow’s sides were evenly exposed to the flame.

Spock turned to him. “Are we leaving, Captain?”

McCoy was clearly enjoying himself. “It’s a song title, for God’s sake, Spock! Don’t
you
have any song titles you’d like to suggest?” He leered expectantly.

“Ah,” Spock said, then thought. “No.”

McCoy seemed taken aback. “The computer didn’t list any?”

Spock shook his head. McCoy deflated in obvious disappointment and confusion.

“How about ’Moon Over Rigel Seven’?” Jim suggested.

“Naw,” McCoy said. “Too mushy. Hey, I’ve got it: ’Row, Row, Row Your Boat.’”

Jim smiled. “Excellent. You know that one, don’t you, Spock?”

“I did not encounter it in my research.”

“You’ll learn it in a matter of seconds. The lyrics are simple: ’Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream . . . Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.’”

Spock arched a brow. “They are also quite redundant.”

“Songs aren’t meant to be logical, Spock. Bones and
I will start it off, and when we give you the signal, join in. Doctor, if you please . ..”

McCoy took another swig of bourbon, gargled with it, then swallowed. He smacked his lips. “All right. . . but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

He began to sing in a voice that was not particularly pleasant, but adequately on key. “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream . . .”

When he reached the first “merrily,” Jim joined in. Maybe it was the bourbon, but it seemed that the two of them sounded pretty good. At the appropriate moment, he signaled for Spock to jump in . . . but the Vulcan merely regarded him with a perplexed expression.

“What is it?” Kirk asked, mildly exasperated. “Why didn’t you join in?”

“I was trying to comprehend the meaning of the words,” Spock replied. “I must admit, I am unable—”

McCoy lost patience. “It’s a
song,
you green-blooded son of a Vulcan! You just
sing
it. The words aren’t important; what’s important is that you have a good time singing it.”

Spock digested this in silence, then said, with utmost sincerity, “I apologize, Dr. McCoy. Were we having a good time?”

McCoy rolled his eyes toward the starry sky.
“I
give up. I think I liked him better before he died.”

“I think we’ve fulfilled sing-along requirements. Why don’t we call it a night and get some sleep?” Jim suggested. The small amount of liquor he’d drunk had made him sleepy in his already exhausted condition. “I’m anxious to have another go at El Cap in the
morning.” He had thought it but had not meant to say it aloud; he knew the instant the words were out that it was a mistake.

McCoy, who had abandoned his burnt marshmallow and was already rolling out his sleeping bag, snorted. “Over my dead body, Jim.”

“Drop it, Bones. At least until morning.”

They went to bed.

Twenty minutes later, Kirk lay exhausted in his sleeping bag, listening to McCoy’s insistent snoring. He was on the verge of drifting off when he heard someone speaking to him.

“Captain?” Spock had no doubt guessed he was awake; the Vulcan’s voice sounded unusually troubled.

“We’re on leave, Spock. Call me Jim.”

“Jim.”

“What is it, Spock?”

There was a dramatic pause before Spock, in all seriousness replied: “Life is
not
a dream.”

“Go to sleep, Spock.”

In the back room of the Paradise Saloon, Talbot sat at the round table with Caithlin Dar and Korrd. Dar sat stiffly, her spine not touching the back of the chair. Korrd lay slumped across the table, still passed out as a result of the incredible amount of liquor he’d imbibed in anticipation of his capture. The exit was barred by an armed sentry—a shabby homesteader with a handmade pipegun.

So they sat, waiting . . . for God knew what.

Talbot ran a trembling hand over his forehead; his palm came away shining, damp with perspiration.
More than at any other time in his life, Talbot craved a drink. The recent excitement had sobered him up quickly, resoundingly, so that his mind was entirely clear, so that he could think.

That was worst thing of all, being able to
think.

Not that he was afraid of thinking about what the homesteaders and their maniacal leader—whom Dar insisted was Vulcan, not Romulan; Talbot believed
that
about as much as he believed the leader’s reassurance that they would not be harmed—would do to him. No, in a way, he welcomed the thought of dying. He had long ago given up wanting to live.

He preferred to stay in a pleasantly dull alcoholic haze, because when he thought, he
remembered.

Seven years before, St. John Talbot had been one of the most, if not
the
most, respected diplomats in the Federation service. At the time, he had been rather impressed with himself and his talents. After all, he had negotiated a truce between Capella and Xenar, avoiding an interstellar war, and as a result, had received the Surakian Peace Prize and been awarded a coveted assignment to Andor.

Up to that time, Talbot had led a charmed life. Born to wealthy parents, sent to all the best schools. He was a precocious boy; it had always been easy for him. So easy, so very, very easy.

The Federation Diplomatic Service was a goal that only the very best strived to attain. Talbot was admitted without a hitch; he never worried for a moment that his application would be rejected. After all, he was rich, he was brilliant, he was talented, he was handsome . . . and there was nothing in the universe to stop him.

But now the memory of his arrogance filled him with pain. Oh, he had boasted then of his diplomatic conquests. “Not a drop of blood shed,” that was Talbot’s motto. St. John Talbot, bringer of peace, miracle worker.

He’d become too cocky, too sure of himself. On Andor, his overconfidence got the better of him.

The capital city had a large population of disaffected immigrants, most of them miners from the neighboring system of Charulh. The Andorians were not generally hospitable to outworlders, even if the outworlders had lived and worked on Andor and benefited the Andorian economy for the past seven generations. A small group of Charulhans, in a desperate demand for a voice in the Andorian government, had kidnapped a number of influential citizens, including the adolescent son of the city’s female Andorian governor, with whom Talbot had worked closely.

A hostage situation. Talbot had successfully handled a half-dozen of them during the twenty-year course of his career. He felt more than competent to handle the situation—alone, at his insistence. After all, he was at the top of his form. The great St. John needed no native cultural advisers to help him clean up the mess.

He had acted on his own, sending the kidnappers a message intended to defuse the situation, but inadvertently, thanks to Talbot’s spotty knowledge of Charulhan culture, the message had insulted the lot.

The response was almost immediate.

Talbot slowly squeezed his eyes shut in a futile
attempt to blot out the image formed by his sobered brain . ..

The street outside his office in the capital. The body of the governor’s son. Only a child, really. The Charulhans were honorable even when committing violence; they had broken the boy’s neck, so that his head veered from his body at an entirely unnatural angle. The attached note assured the reader that the child had died easily.

So very, very easily.

Talbot was first to find him; Talbot was the one obliged to inform the child’s mother. It was Talbot’s first real brush with crushing failure, with shame, with defeat.

His career went downhill overnight. He sank into alcoholism and despair—again, ever so easily.

He preferred to drink bootleg liquor, when he could get it. Romulan ale appealed to him because it was stronger, and it was untreated, so that it would damage his liver, kill his brain cells, and give him horrendous hangovers. Talbot had concluded that he deserved to suffer.

More accurately, he had concluded that he deserved to suffer and
die,
except that he was too much of a coward to kill himself outright. And so he was content to kill himself slowly.

After all, the ale did a most marvelous job of fogging his memory.

Talbot stared at the bored guard standing in front of the exit and thought that this situation might be the answer to his prayers. Perhaps the Vulcan-Romulan leader of the rebels would interrogate them and then
kill them. Talbot’s mind emphatically refused to contemplate the possibility of torture.

A poetically just way to end the career, Talbot reflected, for him to be taken hostage. He could not feel sorry for himself or for Korrd. The two of them were spent, washed up, waiting to die. The best part of their lives was years past.

But for Dar he felt great pity. Her death would be a horrid waste. He looked over at her, as she sat beside him, staring at nothing in the far distance. He could feel a subtle emanation of warmth from her, no doubt due to her higher body temperature. She was young, strikingly beautiful, clearly brilliant, full of an intense determination Talbot found more alluring than any physical attribute.

If I were twenty years younger,
Talbot told himself wistfully, and stopped. Age had little to do with it.
More aptly, if I were not a wretched, wasted, sottish excuse for a human being. . .

He ceased all thought as a second soldier—dirty-faced, dressed in rags rather than a uniform, but possessed, like the guard, of an expression of such fanatical devotion that outward signs of his allegiance were unnecessary—entered the room and pointed the barrel of his rifle at Dar’s smooth, unlined forehead.

“Let her alone. I’ll go first,” Talbot said quietly. He rose.

Caithlin began to protest, but the soldier interrupted. “Suit yourself,” he said to Talbot, and gestured with the rifle for Talbot to go ahead of him through the exit. The other guard silenced Dar with a wave of his gun.