KIRK, LESLIE, AND THEIR security team beamed down into an inferno. Everywhere they looked, there was a colony dome ablaze.
Carol, he thought.
The captain turned to Leslie, shielding his eyes from the terrible heat. "Where are they?"
If the colonists were still down here, in one of these domes, he had to get them out. He wasn't sure how, but he had to try.
Leslie took out his tricorder and scanned the area in a full circle from where they were standing. Sweating profusely, he wiped his forehead on his sleeve.
"They're not here," hereported. "Not anywhere in the installation."
Kirk knew full well that that could be good news … or bad. The tricorder only responded to living beings. If the scientists were dead already …
Whipping out his communicator, he barked, "Mr. Sulu. I want a sensor scan of this place—a radius of two kilometers from my position." He frowned. "With particular attention to human and Vulcan life-forms."
"Coming right up, sir." There was a pause, during which the captain could hear the helmsman relaying his command. Then Sulu came back to him. "There's a group of humans just west of the installation, and one Vulcan. Do you need more detailed data?"
Breathing deeply, Kirk shook his head, even though he knew Sulu couldn't see it. "No. No, thank you, Lieutenant. Kirk out."
Leslie smiled. "They got out."
"Apparently," the captain replied. He looked around at the fiery domes. "Come on. Let's see if there's anything around here we can still salvage."
David was sitting at the edge of the playground, looking down at the still-smoking domes and trying to imagine what had happened, trying to reconstruct the events that had led up to the destruction of the colony, when Spock gave the all-clear.
Apparently, it was safe for them to return to the installation. The Klingons were gone now, Spock's ship had called him to tell him so. The fires had been put out, ironically, by strategic phaser fire.
A couple of the domes on the far side of the colony had even been salvaged. The terraformers would have places to live until new structures could be erected to replace the old.
As the group, children as well as adults, began to move down the hillside, they had the look of a people that was going home. There was hope in their eyes, David thought, not bitterness. Relief, not anger.
Even Dr. Boudreau, who had been livid at the sight of the domes going up in flames, had calmed down considerably when Spock ordered the G-7 unit beamed over from its hiding place in the hills. The colony administrator had been cradling the device in his arms ever since, carrying it like a big, shiny baby.
But as he took his mother's hand and descended the slope, David felt strangely detached from the spirit of relief and hopefulness. He felt as if the colony's destruction was a nightmare that could have been avoided.
Sure, the Enterprise had sent the Klingons packing, but from what the Klingon in the hills had said, the invaders were probably going to leave the planet anyway. If they'd just been left alone—if they hadn't been confronted and provoked by the presence of the Starfleet ship—would they have trained their disruptors on the domes?
If the Enterprise hadn't butted in, the boy thought, would his home still be standing? And the lab dome? And all the rest of them? David shook his head. They hadn't needed any help from Starfleet. They'd done fine without them. But the Enterprise had interfered anyway. And this was the result.
His sense of horror grew worse with each step. By the time they reached, the bottom of the hill and entered the installation, he felt even more detached than before. Distant, in fact—distant and numb. It was as if he were walking with someone else's legs, surveying the charred wrecks of the domes through someone else's eyes.
Though the smoke was lifting up into the air, driven by a stiff wind, the pathways between the blackened, skeletal domes seemed flooded with something thicker and harder than air. It was like walking underwater, David imagined. Or through a dream.
His mother was expressionless. Her features may as well have been carved from rock. But her hand, the one that held David's, gave her away. It was trembling ever so slightly in his grasp.
Unburned tatters of dome material reared and flapped at them as they passed by. They reminded the boy of huge beasts, writhing in agony. Writhing and dying.
The smell of smoke made his eyes start to water. But he wouldn't cry; he wouldn't give even the appearance of crying. Setting his teeth, David pressed on.
Why had it been necessary for the military to show up, with its phasers and its photon torpedoes and its bluster, and make the Klingons angry? Why?
Abruptly, his horror turned to anger. It lodged in his throat, slick, hot, and throbbing. It spread to his belly, where it smoldered like white-hot coals.
The group began to split up. Here, the Pfeffers stopped at the ruin of what used to be their home and peered into the wreckage. There, the Wans walked toward a clump of spiderlike remains.
Why? David asked again—silently, so no one heard his pain. Why?
Then he and his mother came in sight of the place where her garden used to stand. There was movement there—not colonists but Starfleet people, in their red or gold uniforms. Directly ahead of them, one of the men from the Enterprise knelt in the scorched tangle that was once a patch of living things. David recognized him, too.
It was the captain, the one called Kirk. The one who had confronted the Klingons.
The man looked up at the boy and his mother. He was holding something. It was so desiccated, so black and twisted, that it took David a moment to figure out what it was. Finally, he recognized it.
It was one of the Klingon plants. One of the fireblossoms.
Where did that captain get off touching his mother's plants? He was the one who'd destroyed her garden in the first place, just as clearly as if he'd pressed the trigger on the disruptor himself.
What right did he have to look sad? To look as if he cared—now, when it was too late?
Suddenly, David's anger surged and spilled over, and the world melted, caught in the heat of his righteous fury.
It didn't seem to Kirk it had been that long since he'd authorized Spock to give the all-clear. So when he looked up and saw Carol, he was surprised.
But he was even more surprised to see her holding the hand of the blond boy. Not that he hadn't seen the boy around the colony; most likely he had, but until he'd had this chance to see the youngster next to Carol, he'd had no idea that they were related.
Now, as he compared their faces, the conclusion was inescapable. It was Carol's son—no doubt about it. But why hadn't she told him? Why had she—
And then he took another look at the boy, and he had his answer.
My God, he whispered inwardly, suddenly finding it hard to swallow. He felt a smile taking over.
I've got … a son? he thought. And then, liking the sound of it: I've got a son!
That's when Carol and the boy turned their heads and saw him standing there, looking at them. Gaping at them is more like it, he mused.
The captain started toward them, not sure of what he would say when he got there, not sure of anything except the inexorable pull of his own flesh and blood. The youngster's expression slowly began to change … But not to one of joy. Instead, his mouth twisted and hardened as if he'd just eaten something he didn't like. And even then, Kirk didn't quite catch on, until the boy barked something at him—something about Klingons and destruction—and the captain realized what had contorted those young features.
It was hatred—pure, seething hatred. And it was all directed at him.
Horrified, he asked himself: Why? What had he done?
"David!" Carol took him by the shoulder and whirled him around to face her. She shook her head as if she couldn't believe what she'd heard.
"David," she said, this time in a more measured tone, "what are you saying?"
The boy scowled and took a step back. But when he spoke, his voice was level, almost calm.
"He did this, Mom. It's his fault."
"His … fault?" she repeated. "What do you mean?"
For a moment, the youngster seemed on the verge of telling her. Then, biting his lip, he just turned and walked away.
Carol looked at Kirk, hoping he would have an explanation. Of course, he didn't. He just shook his head in helpless bewilderment.
She started after the boy, but the captain held her with a cry: "Carol!"
Carol stopped and turned, looking miserable. "Yes," she said. "He is who you think he is. Now I have to go find him. I have to—" She frowned. "We'll talk later."
Numb, he nodded. "Later." He watched Carol disappear around the curve of a ruined dome.
But in the space of a couple of moments, Kirk had fallen from the pinnacle of jubilation to the depths of dark confusion. And in the wind that whistled through the installation, he could still hear the boy's bizarre and discomfiting accusation: His fault … his fault …