Star Trek: The Hand of Kahless (2 page)

The Final Reflection

The main events in this story take place over a half century before James Kirk took command of the
U.S.S. Enterprise
NCC-1701 in 2264, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”

Enterprise,
dormant for nearly a week now, was waking up.

Captain James Kirk had stayed aboard, while the crew took leave on Starbase 12: Dr. McCoy had given him a stern lecture on the perils of overwork, and Engineer Scott a milder talk on the pleasures Kirk would be missing. Even Spock had gone stationside; something to do with new materials for the ship’s library computer.

But Kirk was all right. In fact, he felt wonderful. He had given himself a walking inspection tour of his ship, quite alone, at whatever pace he felt like at the moment. It was not work. It had been sheer play.

Now the crew was returning, making
Enterprise
ready for voyage, and that too was satisfactory. Kirk walked the corridors, giving salutes and greetings, feeling almost light-headed, as if he were present at a new creation.

Yeoman Janice Rand came up the corridor toward Kirk, still in a civilian tunic and loose trousers, traveling bag slung over her shoulder. Her hair was in a new, non-regulation style, upswept, quite striking and attractive; Kirk could not remember having seen the style before—

And then he knew he had seen it, once only: on Specialist Mara, the consort of the Klingon Captain Kang.

Kirk gave a clumsy gesture somewhere between a salute and a wave; Rand smiled and waved back.

She’s still off duty, Kirk thought, she has the right to wear her hair any way she pleases—but why on earth…? It surely hadn’t been that long since the Organian Peace: Kirk wondered if it could
ever
be that long.

He shook his head and walked on. A little farther down the corridor, he heard a crewman use a few words in a foreign language. Kirk did not know the meaning, but knew from the harsh, consonantal sound that the language must be Klingonese. He also knew that only a half-dozen of the ship’s complement spoke Klingonese, and this was not one of them.

Kirk went up a level to sickbay. Inside, Dr. McCoy was unpacking a carrier marked MEDICAL SUPPLIES. Kirk’s medical training was sufficient to identify Romulan ale, Saurian brandy in the trademark bottle, and a complete set of components for Argelian nine-layer cocktails.

“Expecting an epidemic, Bones?”

McCoy looked up. His expression was odd: slightly distant, slightly sour. “I hope to Lucius Beebe there is—” He stopped short, shook his head.

“Who?” Kirk said.

“Nothing. Something my granddaddy used to say when he got dry.” McCoy reverently held up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Black Label. “Bar’s still open, if you want, Jim.”

Something in the way McCoy made the offer made Kirk hesitate. Bones was always playing the curmudgeon, but when he was really disgruntled he was not pleasant company. “Later, Bones. Too much to do, just now.” Kirk smiled. “Promises to keep, and miles to go…”

“Uh-huh.” McCoy put the bottle down, looking a little forlorn.

“Bones,” Kirk said quietly, “what’s wrong?”

“Hm?
Oh.
’Course, you don’t know.” He reached down into the carrier, clinking bottles and cans, and brought out a book. “Here you go. Read all about it.”

Kirk took the book. It was a bookstore edition, in hard covers, not a computer offprint.
The Final Reflection,
the cover said, above a lurid painting showing a Klingon battle cruiser. He turned it over, scanned the blurbs. “This is the one the Starfleet memos were about, isn’t it? The novel about the Klingons.”

“Novel, yeah,” McCoy said. “About the Klingons.” His voice was just slightly less tense. “You might like it…there’s some good space-battle stuff.”

“I’ll get a print—”

“Take it,”
McCoy said, and at once his voice cleared, as if there had never been anything wrong at all. “I’d better get my office in order. I’m about to get four hundred cases of station leave.”

“All right, Bones. Hold that drink for me.”

“Sure, Jim.”

Kirk went on down the corridor, looking at the book, half conscious that others were saluting him or dodging out of his way. He tried to remember the texts of the Starfleet memos about the novel: their substance seemed to have been the routine disclaimers about any book not fully approved by the Public Information Office, maybe a little more strongly worded than usual.

Space battles, Bones had said. According to the cover copy, the story was set not long after first contact with the Klingons, just before Kirk himself had been born; back before dilithium, when the best ship-wrights in Starfleet thought warp 4.8 was the absolute limit. Before phasers. Before
Enterprise
had gone on the drawing boards. That should be interesting, Kirk thought, even if those days seemed as far away as Captain Hornblower’s sails and cannon.

But then, Kirk had always liked Horatio Hornblower.

A name caught his eye: Dr. Emanuel Tagore. A political scientist, Kirk recalled. He had died about a year ago, aged 120 or so; Spock had mentioned it. Spock….

Kirk got into the next turbolift.

Spock was already back in duty uniform, though he had not even unpacked. His small traveling case was on the bed, still sealed; against the wall of the cabin were two large carriers labeled COMPUTER DATA—KEEP FROM ALL RADIATION.

“Captain. I am sorry I have not reported to the bridge. I was…”

“Spock…. Welcome back.”

“Thank you, Captain, though I have not been gone in any real sense.” Spock looked down slightly, saw the book in Kirk’s hand. “I see you have…already obtained a copy of that work.”

“Yes. Bones gave it to me.”

The eyebrow went up like a flag. “Indeed. I find that…well. Perhaps not surprising.”

“I wanted to ask you about it.”

“It is a work of fiction, Captain. That is, I believe, all that needs to be said.”

It’s some kind of strange new hangover,
Kirk thought,
one leave and my whole crew goes crazy.
“I was going to ask about Emanuel Tagore. Did you know him?”

“He was an acquaintance of my father’s. When I was a student at the Makropyrios, we had…discussions, though I was never enrolled in his classes.”

That said more than perhaps Spock had intended; there were over two million students at the Federation’s finest university, too many for anyone to casually “have discussions” outside the classroom.

Kirk said, “So then you did know him.”

“I believe that was what I said, Captain.”

Kirk almost shook his head. “Analysis, Spock,” he said, trying to sound as if he were joking. “Enhancement, please.”

“Yes, Captain, I did know Dr. Emanuel Tagore. I admired him, as did my father the ambassador, although in many ways Dr. Tagore was a most illogical man. But I knew him as a human, not a character in a novel.”

“I haven’t read the book yet.”

“Yes, I had just realized there was not time for you to have done so. Is that all you require from me at this time, Captain?” The tone was no cooler than any Vulcan might use. But this was not just any Vulcan.

“Yes, Spock,” Kirk said, too puzzled to be really hurt. “See you on the bridge.” He looked at Spock, vaguely hoping the science officer would recover as Dr. McCoy had.

But Spock did not. “Of course, Captain.” Kirk went out.

The corridor was empty, silent except for the distant chiming of an annunciator. Kirk looked at the book again, at the Klingon ship.
The Final Reflection. Reflection of what?
he thought. He could remember times when he had seen himself reflected in books…in Mark Twain, in the Hornblower stories. Sometimes the image was startling. But they were, after all, only stories.

Which was, sort of, what Spock had said.

Kirk went to his own quarters, changed from fatigues into duty uniform, put the book on the bedside table.

First
Enterprise, he thought. Then McCoy’s drink. Then we’ll see what it has to say.

It has been sixty-five years since
U.S.S. Sentry
met
I.K.V. Devisor
in the UFP’s first known contact with the Klingon Empire. The final events of the story which follows took place some forty years ago. Some time back we celebrated ten years of
Pax Organia
(of which more in a moment). There are many who are convinced that “the Klingon Phase of Federation history is over.” I first heard that phrase used in a lecture at the Makropyrios. No one even smiled.

So perhaps I may be excused a certain puzzlement at the curtains of silence that descended during the research for this work. UFP “Klingon authorities” were unavailable for extended periods, coinciding with my calls and visits. Official records of the “Dissolution Babel” are incomplete, containing little more than the “we kissed and made up” account found in children’s books. Important persons have died or dropped from sight—neither rare events, but highly concentrated in this area. While my life was not threatened, my researcher’s credentials and my computer’s memory cores were. Only one person was willing to speak freely, and that one both warned me that his memory was fallible and gave me the advice quoted above. He was too modest about his memory. But his counsels were always wise.

Thus what follows is a novelist’s reconstruction of events, rather than a history, let alone an exposé. (It would be embarrassing to admit the size of the fee I lost from
Insider Illustrated
for not rewriting to their specifications. Sample specification:
More details on Klingon torture please.
) My defenses are fictional license and absence of malice; perhaps if the Van Diemen Papers were not under DOUBLET REGAL classification (two steps higher than the Nova Weapons research files) my tale would be different.

I note in passing that I do not intend to disappear from public view in the immediate future.

An old Italian proverb runs:
Traduttore, traditore:
the translator is a traitor. And it is nowhere more true than when translating between races from different stars; still, I have tried to speak as little treason as possible. For clarity’s sake, certain
Klingon
technical terms have been translated as their Federation-Standard equivalents: thus
warp drive, transporter, disruptor,
instead of the more literal
anticurve rider, particle displacer, vibratory destructor
(most literally: the “shake-it-
till-it-falls-apart-tool”). After usual practice, directly equivalent ranks and titles such as “Captain” or “Lieutenant” are given as such, while specifically Klingon titles are translated directly (Specialist, Force Leader) or by convention (Thought Admiral, Examiner).

The translation of
kuve
as
servitor
may raise eyebrows, especially among my Vulcan readers, but it is a growing belief among experts on the
Komerex Klingon
(or at least it was) that the usual translation as “slave” is not only inaccurate but inflammatory, much as the phrases “Centaurian lover” and “filthy Ghibelline” of Earth’s past.

Anticipating another Vulcan response: I am not a geneticist, and I have documentation that the practice of
tharavul
still exists.

This book would not have been possible without the interest (and frequent forbearance) of two persons. Dr. Emanuel Tagore’s notes were indispensable, but no more so than Dr. Tagore himself; the brief time I could spend with him was an education in culture and language, and not only Klingon culture and language. And it was Mimi Panitch, my editor, who first decided that the Federation was ready for this story, and then stayed on Earth while I bummed the warp routes to track it down.

Finally, the work is about more than what (may have) happened four decades ago, in the last Babel Conference to be held on Earth’s surface. Inevitably I come back to Dr. Tagore: “The Organian Peace is a peace of the biggest guns: it neither requires nor creates any understanding among the parties. In the absence of that understanding, the most that can be said about the Organian Treaty is that it works.

“For the present.”

Those were his last words to me before his death last year.

I still wonder what he had seen, that we have not.

—Stardate 8303.24/JMF