Strangers From the Sky (19 page)

“C
APTAIN’S
L
OG
, S
TARDATE
1305.4…”

Captain James T. Kirk kept one finger on the log recorder button while with his other hand he set his knight in a direct offensive against Gary Mitchell’s king.

“Check!” he mouthed silently so the recorder wouldn’t pick it up. Pleased with himself. What Mitchell mimed back was also best kept off the record. Kirk tried to keep any trace of smugness out of his voice as he resumed the log entry.

“We are continuing our mapping of Sector Epsilon Z-3, scanning and cataloging individual planets in previously charted solar systems and seeking out possible additional undiscovered star systems….”

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Gary making tentative passes at the board, mentally trying moves and taking them back. Kirk’s grin widened, turned into a yawn as he returned to the log entry.

“To date we have cataloged some seventeen planets and four planetoids in a total of thirteen star systems. Planets scanned have proved to be Class D or lower. Following standard procedure, we have not found it necessary to send a landing party to a single one of these barren rocks. Needless to say the crew, and I, will be grateful when this aspect of our mission is complete. Estimate another three weeks, at this rate, before that occurs.”

Kirk yawned again, missed the furtive flick of Mitchell’s hand toward his queen and an improbable kamikaze ploy.

“Final note: in view of the meticulous scientific nature of starmapping, I have placed Science Officer Spock in temporary command for the duration.

“Besides,” he said strictly for Gary’s ears, shutting off the recorder, “in view of Mr. Spock’s seemingly unlimited capacity for detail”—Gary laughed with him—“it gives me more time to polish my game. Problem, Mr. Mitchell?”

“Not hardly,
Captain
.” Mitchell couldn’t give him the title without a touch of sarcasm. In a flash his bishop had leaped up two levels, capturing Kirk’s queen and leaving him wide open. “Check.”

Kirk’s jaw dropped.

“You son-of-a…How’d you do that?”

“Piece of cake, kid.” It was Mitchell’s turn to grin, loll back in his chair with his hands clasped behind his head. “I only have to do one thing at a time.”

Kirk scanned the board, saw no way out, decided to make one final log entry before he conceded defeat.

“Addition to bi-weekly log RE: personnel changes. Yeoman Rand, please note and append to respective personnel files: McCoy, Leonard H.: away on leave, Starbase 6 until further notice. Piper, Mark: returned from leave pending retirement approximately Stardate 1401. Additions to crew effective immediately: Bailey, David: navigational trainee, assigned Engineering pending possible bridge assignment, and Dehner, Elizabeth: psychiatrist, assigned Sickbay. Out.”

“Met her yet?” Mitchell wanted to know, watching Kirk stare at the board and sweat.

“You have, I suppose?” Kirk shot back.

Mitchell feigned a shiver.

“Never did care much for cold climates.”

“Meaning there’s at least one female in the quadrant who can resist you,” Kirk muttered, pondering a counteroffensive as suicidal as Gary’s offensive.

“Why be greedy?” Mitchell asked. “I was thinking of doing the charitable thing. Giving the lady a chance to practice some of those healing instincts on one of those grim, serious types who can’t score for himself.”

“I can’t imagine who you’re talking about.” Kirk extricated himself from check, but less flamboyantly than he’d hoped. He was only postponing the inevitable. “The last time you tried to fix me up—”

“Oh, I wasn’t thinking of you, son,” Mitchell said laconically, clinching the game. “Don’t you think Spock would be more her type?”

Kirk didn’t answer right away, wasn’t at all sure it was dignified for a captain to make fun of his crew, even in the privacy of his own quarters.

“Kind of makes you wonder what happens when two immovable objects collide,” Gary persisted, until even Kirk had to laugh.

“Probably ‘The End of Everything,’” he intoned, imitating one of their Academy professors.

Their laughter was all out of proportion to the real humor of what either had said. Why was it so easy to make fun of Spock with Gary? And, more to the point, Kirk wondered, why was it necessary?

He’d been warned it was impossible to warm up to a Vulcan, but that hadn’t bothered him. He didn’t expect his officers to be his friends; the fact that some like Gary and Bones McCoy incidentally happened to be friends first and fellow officers second was an unlooked-for bonus. All Kirk expected—demanded—from his crew was efficiency, loyalty, and compliance to orders. Spock possessed all of these to the nth degree. Why did he still feel uncomfortable with him?

Was it the Vulcan’s absolute humorlessness, demonstrated to him all too frequently in the earliest weeks of the voyage? Was it something as immature as jealousy, envy of the Vulcan’s effortless brilliance, his ability to do six things at once without looking as if he were half trying, his absolute accuracy in the most minute detail? Was it the fact that it was impossible to know what he was thinking, what went on behind that impenetrable gaze, and in not knowing, one concluded that he was looking right through this all-too-human captain and finding him inadequate to the job?

Truth to tell, the captaincy still rested uneasily on Kirk’s shoulders; he wondered if it would prove to be more of a burden, more of a straitjacket than he’d bargained for. Maybe that was why he let himself get so silly when Gary was around. To everyone else on board he was The Captain—if not infallible, then expected to give the impression of being so. To Gary he was just a friend; there was something about that too precious to lose.

Odd how the thing you spent your life pursuing could turn on you once you got it. Kirk had wanted command. Wanted it? His entire life had been spent in preparation for it. He’d eaten, slept, lusted after it. A ship of his own. And now…

“Bridge to Captain Kirk. Spock here.”

“Kirk here,” he managed, with a warning look at Gary. “What is it?”

“You asked to be notified should we encounter an uncharted body of planetoid size or larger,” Spock reported solemnly. “I believe we have done so, sir.”

“On my way.” Kirk snapped the screen off. “Coming, Mr. Mitchell?”

“After you,
Captain
.”

Spock stepped down from the command chair with a bit too much alacrity, Kirk thought, as if he could barely wait to return to his science station.

“Report,” Kirk said over his shoulder, settling into the center seat.

“We are on elliptical approach to the unrecorded planetoid, Captain,” Spock said, his concentration on the hooded viewer of the library computer. “Passing over its companion star now, sir.”

“Main screen,” Kirk ordered, and squinted into its brightness as Lee Kelso punched it up from the helm. A too-bright sun dominated the screen, obscuring the starfield and everything else in its vicinity. “Mag point-five on that screen, Mr. Kelso. And give us some rad dampers.”

“Aye, sir,” Kelso replied.

Reduced by half, its radiance considerably lessened, the star became more comprehensible, but it was still impossible to see past it.

“The star on the screen,” Spock reported, “was designated as Kapeshet by previous expeditions. It was not previously known to have any orbital bodies, however. Kapeshet is a variable star with an outsize corona, which may explain why the dependent planetoid has thus far gone unnoticed.”

“All right,” Kirk said, rubbing his hands together to contain his excitement. He was aware of Gary, stepping down to relieve Farrell at navigation, eager to be in on the discovery of a new planet, no matter how ordinary. “Size and location of your discovery, Mr. Spock?”

There was a silence, prolonged enough to make Kirk wonder if Spock had heard him. He swung his chair around to find Spock standing at attention in that waiting posture of his, hands clasped behind his back, an immovable object.

“I asked you a question, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said tightly.

“Yes, sir. It was the nature of the question which puzzled me. The planetoid is not ‘my’ discovery, sir. Ship’s sensors were responsible for its initial detection, consequently—”

There was muffled laughter from somewhere nearby, a waiting silence around the bridge. Kirk swung his chair slowly in a 180-degree arc, assessing the situation. It was common enough for an established crew to give a new captain a certain amount of ragging in the early weeks, but they’d survived a crisis or two together and should be over all that by now. Besides, most of this crew had signed on when he did; only a few were remnants of Pike’s administration.

How many of them were in Spock’s camp? Kirk wondered, failing to understand this early that Spock had no camp, and never would.

All right! Kirk thought, swinging the chair back in Spock’s direction.

“Very well, Mr. Spock,” he said slowly, his tone calculated to remind everyone on the bridge, but particularly his science officer, exactly who was in charge here. “We’ve had our moment of levity. Our—comic relief, if you will. Now kindly answer my question. Size and location of the object under investigation?”

Spock’s gaze did not falter under Kirk’s glare; it was almost as if he had no idea why Kirk was annoyed. He did not refer to his viewer, but recited his data from memory.

“Planetoid designated M-155, per standard Murasaki Index annotation. Circumference: 16,583 miles. Mass: four times ten to the twenty-first power metric tons. Mean density: 3.702. Quantitatively about two-thirds the size of Earth. Present location: in elliptical orbit around Kapeshet at 131 Mark 4, sir.”

Kirk made an effort not to be impressed.

“Very well. Schematic, Mr. Mitchell. Let’s have a look at it.”

Mitchell plotted a schematic several degrees ahead and put it on the screen. The ship was almost through Kapeshet’s corona; the planetoid should become visible momentarily. The entire bridge crew watched the screen. The sight of the dullest chunk of rock would offer them some relief from the previous week’s monotony.

“I don’t see anything,” Kirk said, voicing everyone’s impatience. Everyone but Spock, who didn’t seem capable of impatience. “Helm, are you sure we’re on course?”

“Affirmative,” Kelso replied; “131 Mark 4, sir.”

“Navigation?”

“Course confirmed,” Mitchell said laconically, checking his instruments with a tilt of his head. “Except there’s nothing out there.”

Kirk frowned. Mitchell could be enviably relaxed, but he was seldom careless.

“Are you sure?”

“No orbital body at 131 Mark 4, Captain,” Mitchell said, for once giving Kirk the title without irony.

“Confirmed, sir.” Kelso turned to look at Kirk. “No planetoid at that location.”

Kirk sat forward in the chair.

“Scan the area. Full sweep fifteen degrees about. Maybe it’s in a rapid orbit or a retrograde. Maybe it’s not in a fixed orbit at all. A rogue or an asteroid.”

“Unlikely, Captain,” the Vulcan said behind him without waiting to be consulted. “Planetoid was monitored on its present course for one Standard hour before verification.”

It was precise standard procedure for the mapping of newly discovered planets. If nothing else, Kirk had to concede, Spock was precise.

“All right,” Kirk said with exaggerated patience. “Then kindly tell me where it is now.”

“Unknown, sir.”

Kirk rose deliberately from the center seat, walked slowly, stiffly to the rail before Spock’s station.

“Uh-oh!” murmured Lee Kelso, who knew that walk. He nudged Gary Mitchell in the ribs. “Duck, Mitch! It’s about to hit the fan.”

“Mr. Spock,” Kirk said, carefully enunciating each syllable. “What is today’s date?”

“Stardate 1305.4, Captain,” Spock answered immediately.

“You’re certain it’s not April Fool’s Day?”

“I beg your pardon, sir? I am not familiar with the reference.”

“No, Mr. Spock, I don’t suppose you would be,” Kirk said long-sufferingly. “But tell me, has anyone else on the bridge seen this elusive planet of yours?”

“No, sir,” Spock said quietly, aware that he had somehow displeased this volatile new commanding officer, though he was at a loss to explain how this had happened. Nevertheless he must give an answer that would only increase his captain’s displeasure. “Due to the interference from Kapeshet’s corona, I was monitoring on a frequency few humanoids can see. Further, I assumed that as commanding officer you wished to be the first informed.”

“I see,” Kirk said slowly. That last sentence was the tip-off, as he saw it. He had as good a sense of humor as the next man, but…“Mr. Spock, we’re all a little fatigued with this starmapping, and I can appreciate an attempt at lightening the mood, when it’s done well. But even the best practical joke can be taken too far!”

Spock stood on his dignity. “Vulcans, Captain, do not engage in the employment of jokes. Practical or otherwise. There was a planetoid. My only error lies in my inability to explain why it is no longer there.”

If Kirk had been a little less of a greenhorn, he might have apologized right then. But he was still a greenhorn—and he didn’t like to be second-guessed.

“Very well, Mr. Spock,” he said, keeping his temper tightly in check. “We will—indulge you—for the next twenty-four hours. We will, for that amount of time, circle this variable star of yours in search of anything that remotely resembles a planetoid. For your sake, I sincerely hope we find it!”

He had planned a dramatic exit, strode toward the lift to find his way obstructed by his ship’s new psychiatrist. How much of the scene had she witnessed, and what sort of martinet did she think him? Elizabeth Dehner followed Kirk into the lift.

“That was pretty,” she remarked, her credentials giving her partial immunity from charges of insubordination.

“Is that a professional opinion, doctor, or are you just minding my business?” Kirk asked.

“I was wondering if that was some new command trend or if you had a personal reason for being so hard on him,” Dehner said incisively.

“Neither, as a matter of fact,” Kirk said. “I can’t abide incompetence, and I can’t abide a smart-ass. I was no harder on Spock than I had to be.”