Strangers From the Sky (27 page)

T’Lera understood that this last was meant as irony. Sawyer’s general disaffection, her barely concealed fury at being shut out while T’Lera was let in to hear the comm from Norfolk Command (though doubtless she’d tapped in from her quarters; in a calculated oversight, Nyere had not forbidden it), her inability to be within ten feet of either Vulcan without, in Jason’s words, “starting something,” were sore points with the captain. He’d expected this kind of small-mindedness from his superiors, but with Melody turned on him he felt like he was getting it from all sides.

“Captain to First,” he spoke into the intercom, not waiting for her to acknowledge; he knew she was listening. “Sawyer, inform the crew we will be under way in one half hour.”

“Destination?” Sawyer asked, pure as the driven snow.

“Don’t believe it’s necessary for me to repeat what you already know,” Captain Nyere said tightly. Did he read bemusement, or at least appreciation, in those steady laser eyes beneath their perpetually quizzical brows?

“Laying in a course for Byrd now,” Sawyer shot back.

“Acknowledged.” Jason kept it succinct. “Is Yoshi back yet?”

“Affirmative, suh! Aboard this past hour.”

“Very well. Inform him and Tatya they’ll be taking a little vacation.”

True to his word, Yoshi had returned at dusk on the first day of the Vulcans’ voluntary exile. He brought further bad news.

“It’s the wilt!” he cried, finding Tatya in Sorahl’s quarters, deep in conversation. He showed them both the dispirited-looking clump of kelp he’d brought back. “Beats me how, but it’s got us. Half the north quadrant’s affected.”

Sorahl examined the kelp thoughtfully, mindful of everything he had learned of Earth’s flora from his departed teachers.

“It appears to be a fungal infection,” he observed. “What preventive methods do ploy?”

“None,” Yoshi lamented. “And there’s no known cure, either. The stuff doesn’t respond to anything we zap it with, and we don’t even know what causes it. A mutation, some little surprise left over from the last century’s pollutants—we haven’t a clue.”

“The only thing we can do is slash and burn,” Tatya said remotely. Forty-eight hours ago she might have shared Yoshi’s despair; now little things like losing their entire harvest seemed somehow unimportant. “Although once it’s gotten to more than 10 percent of the crop even that doesn’t usually work.”

“Well, I’m sure as hell going to try!” Yoshi declared. “Jason’s got to let me back out tomorrow. Has he said anything about what they’re going to do with us?”

“He sent a report to AeroNav Command,” Tatya told him. “He’s waiting for them to reply.”

“Hell’ll freeze over!” Yoshi plunked himself on Sorahl’s bunk beside the young Vulcan, who was still studying the kelp, turning it over and over in his sensitive hands. “You’re looking at our entire year’s crop down the drain, my friend. And the experts say, if this thing can’t be stopped it could put a serious dent in food production.”

“Indeed?”

Yoshi nodded. “Some of the hysterical types are even talking famine. Luna has its own hydroponics labs, but Mars is still terraforming; they import all of their food, and it’s mostly processed—kelp, algae, soybeans. If they can’t get enough, they’ll have to requisition our reserves or come home. At least, that’s the worst of it. Anyway, what am I bothering you with this for? You obviously have nothing else on your mind!”

“May I keep this?” Sorahl asked, indicating the weed.

Yoshi found the request surprising. “Sure. Why?”

“I should like to study it,” the Vulcan explained. “Captain Nyere informs me the
Delphinus
has a number of research laboratories aboard which are not presently in use. If I might have access to certain materials…”

“I’ll ask him!” Tatya volunteered at once, and there was a kind of animation in her voice Yoshi hadn’t heard since this misadventure began. He wondered what she and Sorahl had found to talk about in his absence, did not like the trend his thoughts were taking and dismissed them. He too had more important things on his mind.

Jason Nyere was only too happy to honor Sorahl’s request for a computer terminal and some of the chem lab equipment. Unaware of the rigors of a Vulcan’s upbringing, unable to conceive of the limitations imposed upon the body and the spirit by the confines of scoutcraft travel or the mental disciplines mastered to compensate for them, he’d been troubled at having to keep the younger Vulcan a virtual prisoner.

All guest cabins were equipped with vidscreens, of course, and Ensign Moy had been kept busy trotting to the ship’s library to fetch requested books and tapes, leaving them outside the visitors’ closed doors, but Nyere found this inadequate compensation for denying his charges the freedom of the air. That the young Vulcan had a project to occupy him eased the captain’s conscience considerably.

For his part, Sorahl was grateful for the intellectual exercise, but well aware of a more pragmatic concern as well. The unchecked destruction of the kelp would mean personal hardship for Yoshi and Tatya, and inconvenience for all of Earth. Though Sorahl was no biologist by his people’s standards, any Vulcan held the equivalent of several science degrees, and there had been a paper published on his world some months ago regarding the treatment of a similar plant disease among the hydroponic farms of Vulcan. If he could apply the same research principles to plant life grown in salt water, Sorahl believed he could find a cure, and a way of repaying his debt to those who had saved his life.

He labored long hours over his research, sometimes overtaxing the human-built computer at his disposal, sometimes outdistancing it with his mental calculations. Whatever humans decided to do about him and his kind, surely none of them could find fault with what he did here.

One of them did.

“He’s good on that computer, Jason,” Melody Sawyer remarked. “So good he’s got it panting to keep up with him most times. I don’t like it!”

“Seems to me you don’t like much of anything around here lately.” Nyere was using the endless wait for Norfolk Command’s reply to catch up on the paperwork he usually ignored until he couldn’t find his desk. “What’s your beef this time? Or do you simply object to their breathing the same air as you?”

“It just occurred to me”—Melody ignored his sarcasm; it hit too close to the truth—“that this little Merit Badge biology project could be a cover. I don’t buy Her Nib’s story about them being the only ones out there. For all we know, Junior could be signaling in an entire invasion force right down on our heads.”

“Not likely with you bugging him round the clock.”

“It’s an open computer system, Captain suh. He’s gonna buy time on it, I have a right to tap him.”

“Tell me, Sawyer, have you bugged the heads, too? Or don’t you want to know if they do that the same as us?” Jason didn’t wait for her to reply. “Besides, I really don’t think he’s calling in any big guns at this late date. I understand his grandfather had the opportunity during World War II.”

He hadn’t told Melody the history of the Vulcan scoutcraft as T’Lera had told it to him as a gesture of openness, told it to her now in yet another attempt to convince her that these people meant no harm. His narrative had the opposite effect. Melody listened slack-jawed, her face gone so white her freckles looked like they’d been painted on.

“Pete’s sake!” she said finally, and stormed out.

Jason Nyere returned to his paperwork, seriously considering a request to Norfolk, if they ever got back to him, to have Melody Sawyer transferred off his ship.

Lee Kelso waited for the shift change at Media-Magix, Inc., his current home, before locking himself into a security terminal and keying in the final sequence he’d kept in his head all afternoon. If Mitchell was on time, and if he’d done everything right…

Beneath a roar of static and discordant microwave melodies, a laconic, skeptical voice seeped through.

“Mitchell to Kelso, Mitchell to Kelso, do you read? Lee, old buddy, you told me this would work…personally I think you’re nuts, but I’ll play along…Mitchell to Kelso.”

There was far too much static, and a whine that reminded him of a three-day hangover he’d earned during a hard night on Argelius, but Kelso was inordinately pleased with himself. He tinkered and fine-tuned, letting Mitchell babble on.

“Lee, if you’re listening, respond, will you? This is beginning to get very old…Seriously, old buddy, you’ve got another minute or two before I give this up…Oh, Le-ee, this is Gary! Hey, sailor, you come here often?”

Kelso made a final adjustment and keyed the answer back.

“Hiya, Mitch. Kelso here. How are things in Glockamorra and Gdansk and points north and east?” He heard Mitchell’s laugh through the static. Old Reliable had struck again. “And they said it couldn’t be done!”

“Yeah, well, you did it, all right.” Mitchell tried not to sound surprised. “You’re actually doing this from a two-hundred-year-old computer terminal?”

“Affirmative.”

“The man is amazing!” Mitchell marveled. “Yeah, but listen, old buddy, there’s just one thing: I don’t want to complain, but from the sound of things you’ve got a little tinfoil in the radar here…”

“Stand by, Mitch, I’m not reading you…” Kelso replied, tongue-in-cheek, stripping the static out. “Say again?”

“Never mind!” Mitchell’s laughter was clear as a bell this time. “Listen, I’m due to check in with Jim in a few minutes. Anything you want me to tell him?”

“Save you the trouble,” Kelso said, tapping in another frequency code. “Let me see if I can rig a conference call.” Within moments he had tied in not only Kirk but Elizabeth Dehner as well.

“How long can you keep the four-way open?” Kirk wanted to know, as amazed at Kelso as Mitchell had been.

“As long as I don’t get caught,” Kelso said.

“Good. We’ll need it,” Kirk said tersely. Kelso knew what he could do and didn’t need to be stroked. “Gary, what have you got?”

“Think I’ve narrowed it to one ship, Jim. She’s the
CSS Delphinus
, classified as an SCC-MultiUse, meaning ‘Sub/Carry-Cruiser.’ She can go over or under at up to twenty knots, level a city, set up as a floating laboratory, carries enough cargo to feed a family of four for a hundred years…”

“Sort of a water-borne
Enterprise
,” Kirk said wistfully, wondering if her captain was anything like a starship’s. “I’ve studied those old multi-use vessels. Incredible machines!”

“Exactly,” Mitchell said. “And according to my info,
Delphinus
was diverted from her regular route around the agrostations, ostensibly to pick up a satellite, and has been on radio silence for four days.”

“Sounds like she’s the one,” Kirk said hopefully. “Lee, can you tap a ship at that distance?”

“Sure, if Mitch could just get me some call numbers…”

“Have ’em in my back pocket, son.”

Kirk left them to themselves and opened his channel to Dehner. “How’s it going, doctor?”

“Hanging in here, Captain. Catching up on my reading.”

“How’s that?”

“I’ve been reviewing all of the papers and monographs my alter ego has written. Might as well know what I’m talking about if anyone asks me. Besides, I can’t say much for the nightlife around here.”

“Hey, if you’re looking for a little action, doc,” Mitchell chimed in, “just you let me know. Nights sure do get cold here in scenic downtown Gdansk. Anything I can do for a change of scenery…”

“Leave her alone, Mitch,” Kelso griped; he’d had to listen to the two of them bickering all night on their flight out of Alexandria before they changed planes in Central Europe. But Dehner could take care of herself.

“Doesn’t your celebrated charm work in Polish, Mr. Mitchell? Or am I the only game in town?”

“Captain said don’t get involved with the native women,” Mitchell said. Kirk listened, let them have their heads; he was blind—they all were—but he could see their faces, watch their little gestures, decided they needed the interplay, however acrimonious, to take their minds off the waiting, the uncertainty. “I’m just doing my bit to make sure I don’t end up as my own great-grandfather.”

“Of all the egotistical, irresponsible—”

Kirk could see her tossing her silky hair in her anger, her gray eyes flashing. But enough. He cleared his throat.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you were!” He let the silence linger long enough for them to pull themselves up to attention. “Now then. Mr. Mitchell, the minute you see that ship so much as blink…”

“Got you, Captain. Mitchell out.”

“Mr. Kelso?”

“Sir?”

“Keep your ears on. If you can read
Delphinus
, or the Command Center at Norfolk or, better yet, both—”

“Will do, sir.”

“Also, check in with Parneb at regular intervals. If anything goes wrong, if you’re in any kind of trouble, bail out and get back to Egypt and stay put, understood?”

“Sure thing, Ji—Captain. Last time I talked to him he was still looking for Spock. And he said nothing else about history was changed that he can see. Who knows, maybe—” Kirk said nothing. Kelso had the good grace to take the hint. “Ears on, Captain. Kelso out.”

“Doctor,” Kirk said at last.

“I’m with you, Captain.” She’d been listening to the affection between this man and his old crew, wondered if that was the secret to his command ability—the simple, deep caring for every individual under his command. If that were the case, it must put him through hell every time he lost one. Elizabeth Dehner realized how much she had underestimated this man.

“All I can tell you is, hang on a while longer,” he was telling her. “When this thing starts to move, you and I are going to be the front line.”

Kirk could see her nod, though he couldn’t see her. “Understood, Captain.”

Captain Nyere had given Yoshi permission to tend his acreage while they waited. The young agronomist was out at dawn daily, sometimes with a member of
Delphinus
’s crew along to help him cut the infected kelp adrift and set it ablaze, letting the tide carry it away from the healthy weed until it had burned itself out and, presumably, incinerated the kelpwilt with it.