AS KIRK TOOK HIS SEAT, he surveyed the faces of those assembled around him in the briefing room. He did not show the deep agitation that he felt. Lieutenant Uhura had been called, and Dr. McCoy and Dr. Ramsey, a specialist in child behavior and child psychology. Kirk had left Scotty in command again, and Chekov and Sulu up on the bridge were making a sensor sweep of the quadrant, combing space for the renegade Starfleet ship. And Spock would be joining them in the briefing room shortly, as soon as Starfleet Command finished transmitting to him a more detailed report of the current situation. Everything that could be done was being done. Yet Kirk felt an exaggerated sense of impatience. What had happened? When they had last visited that system …
He called the meeting to order.
"Ladies and gentlemen, much of what we have to discuss here depends on the information that Mr. Spock will be bringing. But we can take this time to reassess what we already know.
"Juram Five is no ordinary planet. For centuries, it has had only a handful of inhabitants. The same inhabitants. Children who aged only a year with every passing century, who lived a wild existence, uninformed by adult discipline and understanding. Long ago, scientists on that world were experimenting with a youth serum, to lengthen the life spans of their people. What they came up with was a virus that spread like a plague. It prolongs childhood, but once the hormonal shifts that bring about adolescence and adulthood occur, the virus turns deadly. The entire population was swiftly contaminated, the adults reduced to brutal, raving creatures before they died. They took much of the planet with them in their final madness; destruction was massive.
"A handful of children were left alive, haunting a lone city, scrounging for food, living for centuries as a wild band, until puberty set in for them one by one, bringing madness and death."
Kirk paused, distracted by memories which had become raw and vivid in his mind. He was distracted mostly by concern for one particular individual. But he shook himself and pressed on.
"The Enterprise visited this planet on an early mission. We came into contact with … one of the children. We won her trust. Dr. McCoy was able to formulate a serum to counteract the effects of the virus—both the longevity it gives to childhood, and the degeneration that follows—and we left the children under the supervision of an emergency Starfleet team. And that is the last we have heard of them. Until now."
McCoy shifted in his seat.
"Yes, Doctor?"
"Captain, I'd just like to point out that the serum formulated by Spock and me was not administered to all the children, just to Miri, and the others on the verge of puberty. And in the report I left behind for the Starfleet team, I recommended that the others not be decontaminated. I don't know if my recommendation was waived or not."
The doctor scratched his chin, trying to decide how to continue. At last, he said, "You know it's a question of ethics, a moral question, really, whether these children should be restored to a normal life span, or allowed to let the years before their adolescence spread over a millennium. Now, I wouldn't recommend infecting children all over the galaxy and distorting their lives that way … but, after all, in inoculating those younger "Onlies' …" McCoy glanced around. "The children called themselves the Onlies," he explained. "By inoculating those younger Onlies, we would be, in effect, shortening their life spans. And that is not exactly the usual practice of members of the medical profession."
"It's a tricky question, Bones. Childhood lasting for that long, centuries of immaturity—with adult supervisors constantly aging and dying all around you—could seem more of a nightmare than a blessing. And the comparatively short adulthood that followed seems a colossal cheat. Dr. Ramsey, could you fill us in on what was actually done with Miri and the rest of the Onlies?"
Ramsey was a young, thin, nervous man. A shock of white hair proved him to be an albino. He peered at the others through pink, blinking eyes.
"Yes, Captain. A very strange and interesting case, this. It appears that the team of specialists which took over after the departure of the Enterprise, after carefully weighing Dr. McCoy's recommendations, decided that all the children would benefit from being returned to a normal life span. Because they had been exposed to the virus for so long, it was necessary for the children to be inoculated repeatedly, on a regular basis. A school was set up on the planet to help the children to readjust, acclimate themselves to aging more rapidly, help them to understand its implications. And to 'civilize' them, or prepare them to become integrated with the modern galaxy, to respect adult authority, and so forth. From what I've read, the program was not an unqualified success."
"Have you ever visited it, Ramsey?"
"No, Captain. Only read about it in science digests. But I got the feeling the results of the program were mixed. It was run by a man named Voltmer. He's a somewhat controversial figure in the educational field … always urging a return to old-fashioned values and methods of teaching, with an emphasis on discipline, obedience, even learning by rote … it was felt by some that he was not the man for the job."
Kirk winced as he remembered the satisfied confidence with which he had left the world of Juram Five behind him. He had had no doubts that the team of specialists would help the children to readjust, give them the guidance they needed. . . . Federation experts in any field were, after all, only human—well, most of them. "What kind of problems were there, Ramsey?"
"Rebellion on the part of the children. Deep depression among some of the older ones. Distrust of their teachers, secretiveness. It appears these Onlies had developed a weird child-culture of their own during their years of isolation—that's what makes them so fascinating. Their own customs, almost a language of their own made up of childish gibberish, and remembered fragments of things from the adult world. Some of the children obstinately clung to it in the face of the changes they were going through. Or they'd fight for food, although it was readily available. Or they'd hoard it in closets and under beds. Or they'd refuse to wash."
Ramsey laughed nervously, and ran a wiry hand backward through his hair.
"Of course, many of the children adjusted beautifully. We had psychologists, anthropologists, and other researchers going in to test them a lot, though, trying to learn about the little community they had created for themselves before the memory of it vanished completely. Dr. Voltmer encouraged this—the children are such a curiosity, you see, their story has such interesting implications for a variety of scholars."
Kirk felt a wave of irritation pass through him at the stuffiness and insensitivity of the academic mind. He had seen the sad bizarre culture the Onlies had created for themselves amid the rubble of their world. He had borne the brunt of the anger and betrayal that they felt toward "Grups," as they called grown-ups, and had worked to restore their trust, and prepare them to receive adult care. For Kirk, Miri … and all of the children were not strange specimens, not guinea pigs for scientific research … the whole tone brought to this discussion was wrong!
He rose from his seat, paced the room rapidly.
"Well. It would seem that we have a pretty good idea of the causes of the trouble. Now, if we can only get the details—"
As if on cue, the doors slid open, and Spock entered, a tape in his hand. "I have the information here, Captain. Do you wish me to feed it through the computer, or communicate the body of the report to you directly?"
"Blast the computer and all the red tape, Spock!" McCoy said. "Just tell us."
Kirk gave an affirmative nod.
Spock lowered himself into a chair, and steepled his long fingers before him.
"The Federation report is unclear on the exact sequence of events. But it appears that the causes of the disturbance were two of the older children. One was the boy Jahn, who in terms of physical aging is now nearly seventeen. The other was a girl named Rhea, who is now fourteen, in medical terms.
"Both children had proved apt students in some respects, and absorbed a great deal of information on the program. Rhea showed an aptitude for math and the applied sciences. Jahn was taken with engineering and spent a great deal of time learning about Starfleet, its procedures and protocol. Both were encouraged to pursue their interests, and made great use of the tapes in their school library. Yet both were also often discipline problems and proved most uncooperative in … tests they were asked to participate in.
"Apparently, these children, all the children, had developed with curious irregularity. Emotionally immature"—Spock seemed to use these words guardedly, grudgingly—"they had acquired surprising pockets of information from books, and experience over the centuries. At any rate, it seems it was possible for these two children to commandeer the class five vessel in question, a ship called the Sparrow."
Kirk swallowed. Hard. "So it was two of the children, then, who stole the craft. And who destroyed …"
Spock nodded. "It appears so, Captain. Who destroyed the two ships of the Boacan system. And severely crippled a Federation ore freighter, although its two pilots have survived." He seemed to hesitate for a second. "There is more, sir."
"Yes, Mr. Spock?"
"The vessel is meant to be manned by nine, but can be piloted by two, with difficulty. It was bringing dilithium crystals to resupply the power generators of the program complex, and most of the crew came planetside. The children were able to stow away, and then knock the rest of the crew out with sedatives, and beam them down.
"But apparently, Jahn decided to try to influence the other Onlies to come with them. He beamed back to the surface, to the children's recreation room, and was accosted by both security guards from the Sparrow and program staff, who tried to reason with him, to induce him to relinquish the ship. Several children became physically violent; Jahn was armed, and in the scuffle several of the adults and several of the children were killed. Rhea beamed Jahn back up to the ship, and a smaller child, a boy named Pal, physically nine years old, either went willingly or was abducted by them. It would seem that the violence and the killings utterly panicked the runaways, pushed them over the edge to complete instability. Hence their refusal to answer all hails and communication, and their completely unprovoked attacks on the ore freighter and the ships from the Boaco system."
As Spock paused, a heavy silence filled the room. He knew what his captain was thinking, what he would ask next. If only I could tell Jim later, in private …
"Mr. Spock," Kirk said quietly. "You say several of the children were killed in the skirmish on the planet. Did the report happen to mention—"
"It listed their names, Captain." Was there a gentleness moderating the Vulcan's speech? "Miri was one of them. She was killed by a stray phaser blast."
Captain James T. Kirk was no Vulcan. He felt it unhealthy, unnecessary to deny or suppress his emotional responses. He sank heavily back into his seat. The pain he was feeling flashed across his face for a moment.
But he was a commander. With responsibilities. Personal sorrows would have to wait. "You bring us harsh news, Mr. Spock. What a waste," he added, almost in a whisper. "Well! There still is that ship to be recovered." He flicked on the switch of the triangular viewscreen at the center of the briefing-room table. The face of Mr. Sulu, up on the bridge, filled the three screens.
"Any luck, Helmsman? Have you been able to track the Sparrow?"
Sulu's usually lighthearted face showed perplexity. "I'm not sure, sir."
"You're not sure? Either you have or you haven't," Kirk snapped. Easy, he told himself. The pain is yours. Don't take it out on the crew.
"Well, we've been getting traces of something, Captain. Could be a small ship. But they're occasional, spotty. They blink in and out. Appear and disappear all over the quadrant. If it's the same ship, it's following an awfully erratic course and traveling very fast. And ion storms simply don't account for the readings coming and going like this. Pavel says … that is, the only thing Chekov and I can figure is that they're using some kind of cloaking device."
Spock nodded. "I was getting to that, Captain. As you know, we have already penetrated the Romulan cloaking device, and so have the Romulans themselves; the technology in that field seems to have rendered itself obsolete. But the Federation, it appears, has been secretly experimenting with a new kind of cloaking device, which confuses, misinforms a ship's sensors rather than jamming them. The Flint device, as it is called, has proved most successful and difficult to thwart in tests. Too successful, perhaps."
"Flint device?" McCoy said, and frowned. "What's a name like that supposed to signify?"
Spock went on quickly. "What is relevant to our mission is that the Sparrow was equipped with just this device. Which is what makes the ship's recovery of even greater importance to the Federation. Its theft was a minor disaster."
Kirk moved to switch off the viewer. He said as he did so, "Mr. Sulu, continue your sweep. The next time you pick up sensor traces of the Sparrow, plot a course for it at maximum warp, and calculate as best you can its probable heading."
"Aye, aye, sir," Sulu said, and vanished from the screen.
Kirk felt very tired. I like your name, Jim. I've sharpened some more pencils for you. Killed by a stray phaser blast …
He shook himself. "Lieutenant Uhura. You were able to monitor the attack on the Boacan ships when the Enterprise was still orbiting Boaco Six. You intercepted Irina's message to the Council of Youngers. Was that all you picked up?"
"No, Captain. There were bits of … something else. It was fragmentary, crazy … I thought it might have been stray panicked signals from one of the ships under attack. Now, I think it must have been coming from the Sparrow."
"What were these 'fragments' like, Lieutenant?"
"Gibberish. Phrases like 'Crush, crash, crush' and 'Police! Police under fire!' And 'See how bad, how bad, how bad I am.' Really strange to listen to."
Kirk thought of children in trouble. In so deep they knew they could never get out, could never go back. Who had done something too horrible to face up to with an adult's understanding.
He felt no anger at what had taken place. Only a feeling of sadness which swallowed him whole.