KIRK FELT GOOD as he walked out into the warm night air. The city street seemed to pulse with people and music, and shafts and columns of light poured down, piercing the orange clouds. Looking out, far out over the lush forest, he could see the burgundy brilliance of a double sunset.
He flipped open his communicator. "Kirk to Enterprise."
"Lieutenant Uhura here, Captain."
"Lieutenant. Everything under control?"
"All quiet here, sir."
"Status of the Boacan patients McCoy had beamed aboard?"
"Sickbay reports they are all in stable condition."
"Good. Uhura, I've received permission from the Boacan government for a limited number of people from our ship to come down on shore leave. Say, six people. I'll give you the new coordinates—they're different from the ones that we used."
"Yes, Captain. I'll notify the next six people on the shore leave roster."
"And tell them to be careful, use discretion while they're down here, Lieutenant. The situation here is still sensitive."
"Yes, sir."
Kirk gave her the coordinates for the city's center, then signed off. This was a tricky situation still, but he trusted his crew, and they'd been too long without shore leave.
A mild breeze eddied through the tropical evening air. The soft wet earth no longer felt so strange beneath his boots; he no longer noticed the lack of the even carpeting of his starship's decks and rooms and corridors, was no longer so conscious of the stillness that had replaced her hums and whirrs and tremors, the living feel of the ship all around him. Well, not stillness, exactly, he corrected himself, as he watched three small children scuffle over a shiny bauble on a piece of string—but a very different kind of living environment.
He himself could never feel truly at home, when planetside. He felt a restless anxiety every few hours for the Enterprise, circling the planet, though he reassured himself by remembering she was under Scotty's capable guidance.
But something about this particular world satisfied him, lulled him, and he let himself be lulled. It was not Eden, was no land of innocence. But it hadn't lost the excitement, the idealism, the comic strangeness of innocence; it was a rich, exotic world, full of life, and Kirk let himself be absorbed by its rhythms.
He had gotten to know the southern quarter of the city of Boa fairly well, picked his way among the ruins and thatched huts.
Music poured out from under the sagging eaves of a tavern, and Kirk suddenly became aware of how parched his throat was. A drop of Boacan brandy would not be amiss. Perhaps he could bring some back for McCoy; the doctor appreciated that kind of elemental medicine.
Kirk pushed aside the dried red and purple vines that hung from the top bar of the door frame, and entered the smoke-filled room. There was laughter, and the tapping and sliding and clinking of glasses of brandy. And wooden cups and bowls of brandy. A little boy in a darkened corner appeared absorbed in drinking brandy out of an old boot.
Old men were playing a giddy fast dance tune on drums and lutelike instruments. One instrument was long and ovular, strung with eight strings and tapering at both ends. It took three men to play it.
Young people clapped and danced and swayed with the music. Kirk slid onto a stool by a table that projected out of the round bar like a peninsula. He ordered a tumbler full of the black sparkling spirit. When the drink arrived, he took a handful of coins out of his small leather purse and slid them across the counter.
He cradled the tumbler in his hand, turned it, and watched the liquid catch the light, like a black emerald. He quaffed it in one gulp and instantly regretted it. His eyes stung and his throat burned. Not quite a native yet, he thought, and ordered another.
"Hey, sailor! You will buy me a drink maybe, yes?" Tamara Angel had emerged from the crowd and was leaning her elbows on the table beside him, chin in hand, smiling.
Kirk smiled at her awkward rendering of the old line. "Make that two," he called down to the barkeep.
Tamara was still in her fatigues. But her thick black hair fell loosely about her shoulders, and her maroon eyes danced. Her dark skin flickered in the lights of the bar. "We have a theory here, Captain, about why the Federation is so angered by our revolution. It is not so much because they fear the loss of our argea—other planets have trees enough to supply those needs. It is because they fear the loss of our brandy."
"Wars have been fought for lesser things," Kirk said, handing her a tumbler.
"You must know. You know your history better than I could claim to. Here is mud going in your eye," she said agreeably. The Terran clichés sounded quaint and strange in her mouth. She gulped the drink down without blinking.
Kirk nursed his. The best thing about the brandy, it seemed, was the warm flush it brought with passing time. Perhaps his personal charm would not be for nothing here. "How did you become involved in all this, Tamara? What is this revolution to you?" In his mind, the words resonated ironically. What's a pretty girl like you doing in a revolution like this?
"I'll have another," she yelled loudly, and turned back to him. "It is simply my whole life, Captain …"
"Jim, please."
"It is my whole life, Jim. The only thing that makes sense. I was brought up to respect, almost revere your Federation. But I have visited some of the Federated Planets, and I did not always like what I saw."
Kirk saw a point that needed to be clarified. "There are differences among the worlds, certainly. The Federation does not have absolute authority over its members. It is a coalition, based on the idea that we are stronger standing together than apart."
"Then it has no moral basis, upholds no code of values?"
"I didn't say that. Only that each planet is self-governed under a different system. Its culture, its history affect that system. But the Federation has rules and values, shared among its members, and it withholds membership from worlds that are too corrupt, or at too early a stage of development … that is why this world was never admitted when it was ruled by the men you deposed."
"But it was aided!"
"It was aided, and there were hopes that eventually it would evolve into a more enlightened system—"
"What if it has?" Tamara challenged him.
"Is that an application for membership?" Kirk asked nonchalantly.
"Is that an offer of membership?" she replied.
Kirk smiled. "I'm afraid, Tamara, we'll never get anywhere if we keep playing these coy, evasive games."
She sighed. "You are right, Jim. But it is our job to be evasive with each other. How I wish we could be more … direct."
Whoa, back off, Kirk thought. Where exactly was this leading? What had they been talking about before? "You were telling me about yourself, Tamara. About how you became involved in the movement here …"
"Ah, yes. The story of my life. Well then. My family was quite well-off under Puil. Illustrious, even respected by the people. A family of scholars, writers, poets … a family that dabbled in the rhetoric of reform and populism. And was tolerated, because we knew enough not to go too far. I wanted something more to have, more to do. I felt something more was necessary."
The jagged scar of a knife wound on her arm caught the light; it went up past her elbow joint and disappeared under the rolled-up sleeve of her fatigues. She's so impossibly young for this, Kirk thought.
As if reading his mind, Tamara went on. "I have no regrets for anything I have done. I have been disowned by my parents and uncles. I have a younger brother who thinks the revolution is very wonderful. I see him sometimes. But I have a new family now—those I have fought beside. The tearing down, the killing, and the pain are over now. We have only to build, to create." Her voice took on a hard edge. "If we are given the chance to do these things. If our world is not distorted again by outsiders."
She wanted to keep the talk strong; he wouldn't mince words.
"The people of Boaco Eight are not sure that rebuilding your planet is the only thing you have on your agenda. They don't like the people you do business with. They don't like your links with subversives on their world. They don't like the way you're arming yourself. They think you're preparing for a civil war within this solar system."
Tamara's face showed contempt. "The government of Boaco Eight will express any fear the Federation tells it is appropriate, will jump through a hoop if the Federation so requires. As for the people of that world, they are hardly at issue, here. Or ever, for the Federation."
"Perhaps you don't like their government? Perhaps you'd like to give them a new one?"
Tamara Angel smiled to ease the tension. "Perhaps I do not want to walk into a trap, Jim. I tell you we simply want to coexist with all the neighboring worlds, to stay neutral in galactic conflicts, and do business with whoever shows us good faith and goodwill and can give us what we need …"
"Even a renegade system like Orion? They're worthy business partners?"
"I tell you we are simply surviving. You must form your own opinion. What do you plan to report to your Federation about us?"
Kirk considered for a moment before responding. "From what we've seen, your world is heading in an encouraging direction. I don't know if we can trust you. But I'd like to meet with your whole Council of Youngers tomorrow. Pending that meeting, I believe my report will be favorable. I'll recommend that relations be increased, that research teams come and pick up where we left off. How does that sound?"
"It is a very welcome sound, Jim. I hope this means that you will stop sabotaging our supply lines, prejudicing Boaco Eight against us, arming our enemies here …"
"Can you prove any of those charges?"
"No, but I stand by them. I am glad that you are giving our world a chance. That is all we need to prove ourselves."
A group of young men came up to the bar, shoving each other and laughing. "Hey, Tamara Angel!" called one. "You are going wild, girl. Maybe you have fallen in love with Starfleet glamour."
"Maybe, Rigo," she called back. "Do you have something better to offer me?"
Not the usual manner of a minister dealing with the public, Kirk mused.
"Oh no, I have nothing! No warp drive, no photon torpedoes. No matter-antimatter charge. Ah, Tamara Angel, I know you will never be mine." The boy pretended to sob into the shoulder of one of his buddies, and their whole group laughed. "Take her, Starfleet man. She is lost to our cause."
The whole bar seemed to be in on the joke now. The old men stopped their pulsing fluttering tune and switched to a slower one, recognizable in any culture as romantic. A toothless man squatting on the floor laid aside his drums and began to sing, in ancient unfamiliar words resembling the wailing of the religious ceremony Kirk had observed in the clearing.
"What is he saying?" he asked Tamara Angel.
"It is a very old song," she said, slightly embarrassed. "It speaks of Azar, our closest star. It says, 'May the light of Azar flow through you, spark your love, flow through me, bind us together.' I think they are having some fun at our expense, Jim."
Kirk grinned. "You could be right at that, Tamara."
"It is so unfair! After all, Jim, we are very serious people. We are having a very serious meeting, are we not?"
"Guess they just don't understand."
Two of the boys shouted over the song, "Tamara Angel! The soldier of Boa! The toast of every quadrant!"
Tamara splashed some brandy in their direction. "I'll soldier you! I'll teach you to insult the minister of interplanetary relations!"
The boys hooted. "Interplanetary relations. And you are having some now, yes?"
Laughter filled the tavern. Tamara was off her stool, half ready to fight the leader of the boys.
"Tamara Angel!" This was a new voice that spoke. It was deep, serious, and it sliced through the merry atmosphere of the bar. It came from a tall boy who filled the door frame. The talk, laughter, and music died away; all heads turned to look at him. Kirk recognized him as Iogan, the minister of public welfare, to whom he'd been introduced that afternoon. A grim young man he had seemed, and still seemed.
"Tamara Angel," he said again. "I must speak to you."
Tamara put down her tumbler, and the crowd parted to let her reach the door. She and Iogan disappeared behind the red-purple vines. Two armed guards appeared in their place, and they glared in Kirk's direction. The people in the bar turned to their drinks, began to talk quietly, and the music softly commenced again.
When Tamara returned in five minutes time, her expression was hard and bitter. She held her head high as she walked toward Kirk.
"Well, Captain, it appears we have misjudged you and your men. We thought you were here to learn about us. We thought yours was a mission of importance. But it appears that you were only a decoy. A distraction from what the Federation really had planned."
"I don't understand."
"Perhaps you do and perhaps you do not. I do not know how extensive your orders have been." Her voice was filled with disgust. "But in case you are being truthful, I shall explain to you my meaning. While we have been hosting you here with trust, Irina, our minister of relations with Boaco Eight, was on a mission to that planet. And one of their leading ministers was coming here, to meet with our council. We planned to let you see him here, to demonstrate that the situation in our solar system is improving …" Her voice trailed off in disappointment.
Iogan stood beside her. "Captain Kirk, we have just decoded a message from Irina's ship, which was escorting the ship of the minister from Boaco Eight. The minister's ship was just attacked and demolished—everyone on board was killed. Irina's crew was able to identify the attacking vessel as a small ship of Starfleet design and make. It fired wildly and erratically, and crippled the ship of Irina, our comrade in arms. She will not be able to make it home to Boaco Six."
Tamara cut in. "But nevertheless, Boaco Eight will say that we instigated the attack, that we killed their minister. When it is the Federation! Always out to sabotage all that we do! Killing Irina and destroying her mission of peace!"
Kirk spoke quietly but firmly. "That's impossible. The Federation would never do such a thing. You must be mistaken. It must have been some other type of vessel …"
"Are you a dupe, Captain?" Tamara demanded. "Or simply a very cunning spy? At any rate, we know her report to be accurate. Though we anticipate that Starfleet and the Federation will deny it. We will not mete out punishment against you and your men …"
Kirk's hand moved up ever so slightly toward the phaser at his waist.
She continued, "… but I am sorry to say that the charade of a meeting you requested with the Council of Youngers will not take place. Return to your starship. Leave our planet's orbit at once."
She and Iogan turned and left, one of the guards falling into step behind them, the other remaining to escort Kirk back to the bungalow. The captain looked around. The warm, amused atmosphere of the bar had given way to one of palpable suspicion and hatred.