"MORE CHONDRIKOS, DAVID?"
Dr. Medford extended a plate of the stuff in his direction. It smelled terrible—not at all like the fragrant, alien fir trees from which it had been harvested.
The boy looked down at his plate, where the only evidence of the baked chondrikos casserole was an oily film and a few yellowish fibers, and regarded Dr. Medford anew. "No thank you, sir. I think I've had about all I can handle."
The big man's eyes narrowed beneath his large brows and his even larger mustache. The overhead lighting was reflected in his bald spot.
He looked from David to his daughter and back to David again. "Does that mean you liked it and you can't eat any more? Or that you hated it and you don't want to eat any more?"
David shifted in his seat, not sure how to respond. His mother had always told him to tell the truth, but these circumstances seemed to call for something else. He pretended that a piece of chondrikos had caught in his throat and coughed into his cupped hand to clear it.
Finally, Medford responded for him. "He hated it, Daddy. I told you he would hate it." She smiled and leaned closer to David. "Don't worry. My mom can't stand the stuff either. That's why Daddy only makes it when she's working late."
Dr. Medford grunted. "Let the boy speak for himself, Keena." He rested his elbows on the table and regarded their guest. "Now tell me, David. Did you like it or didn't you?"
"It's all right," Medford told him, putting her hand on his arm. "You can tell him; he won't get mad."
David swallowed. "Actually," he began, meeting Dr. Medford's gaze, "I, uh … didn't like it."
For a long moment, Medford's father just sat there, staring. David wondered if his friend had miscalculated and he was about to get kicked out of their dome for insulting the cook.
Then, ever so gradually, the man's expression changed. His brows lifted and the lower half of his face stretched out into a rueful grin.
"Well," Dr. Medford said, "at least you're honest." He sighed. "It was that bad, huh?"
David nodded, encouraged by the man's smile. "The worst."
Medford whooped, clapped a hand over her mouth, and laughed so hard she was almost in pain. Her father, after a second or two of indecision, began laughing too.
David chuckled, caught up in the spirit of it. "To tell you the truth, it was worse than the worst. It was—"
Dr. Medford held up a meaty hand. "Enough," he said, still grinning. "There's only so much criticism a man can take." He straightened. "That is, before he cancels dessert."
Suddenly, his daughter found the self-control to stop laughing. Her lips pressed together, she shot her friend a look of mock warning.
Taking the cue, the boy went deadpan. He looked at Dr. Medford, awaiting his verdict.
"That's better," the big man said. He got to his feet. "Now you two wait here, while I get the homemade ice cream." He looked at his daughter. "He won't hate that, will he?"
She shook her head. "No way."
Dr. Medford nodded approvingly. "Good. I'd hate to have him tell his mom we poisoned him or something." He winked at David. "Right?"
The boy nodded. "Right."
As her father crossed the dining area, Medford leaned toward David again. "I think he likes you. That's good, you know. Daddy doesn't like everybody."
David watched the man open the refrigeration unit and remove a container. "I like him, too. He's the kind of …"
… man I could look up to … The phrase flashed in and out of his mind.
"… he's kind of neat," he finished, ignoring his thought.
Medford nodded. "Yeah. I think so, too."
The boy looked at her. "It's nice of you to have me over," he said.
His friend shrugged. "When my mom was invited to the big dinner they're having for the starship people, and she found out your mom was invited too . . ." She shrugged again. "She didn't want you to have to eat alone."
Actually, the Pfeffers had asked David over to dinner as well, and so had the Chiltons. But he was glad his mom had accepted the Medfords' offer first. The Chiltons didn't have any children. And he much preferred Keena Medford's company to Will Pfeffer's.
Of course, David thought, if I had a father like everybody else, I could've had dinner with him. There wouldn't have been any need to find a place for me with someone else's family.
But it wasn't that way. And there was no use wishing otherwise.
"Your mom was very thoughtful," David said.
"I had something to do with it, too," Medford told him. "I mean, you're my friend, right? Friends have to stick together."
The boy smiled. "That's right. We do, don't we?"
She lowered her voice a notch. "So have you seen any of them yet? The starship people, I mean?"
He shook his head. "Mom asked me to stay out of their hair, so that's what I'm doing."
"Aren't you curious about them? At least a little?"
David thought about it. "Not really. Mom says they're people like anybody else."
"Well, I'm curious. And I heard they're not jus there for medical checkups."
He looked at her. "What else would they come for?"
Medford glanced in her father's direction. Satisfied he wasn't listening in, she said: "I heard they're going to be grading us. You know, like Mr. Fredericks does in school. And if we don't get a good grade …"
She made a cutting movement with her hand across her throat.
"We're dead meat?" he asked.
"The colony's dead meat," she told him. "They'll cut off our funding faster than you can say Jack Robinson. At least, that's what my mom told my dad."
David pondered the information. Cut off their funding? After his mother had worked so hard to get it in the first place?
"That doesn't seem fair," he said.
The words were barely out of his mouth when Dr. Medford started back to the table with three bowls of frosty, yellow ice cream in his big hands. The spoons were inserted between his fingers.
"Here it is," he announced. "Just like I promised."
Bending over the table, he set David's ice cream down first, then his daughter's, and finally his own. It looked good—real good. So good, in fact, that the sight of it pushed David's concerns about the future of the colony to the back of his mind.
As Dr. Medford sat down, he said: "Dig in, everybody." And then, to David: "I hope you have a hankering for chondrikos. We were all out of chocolate."
The boy paused in mid-dig. Medford slapped her father on the forearm. "Daddy! Will you cut it out?"
The big man grinned at David. "Actually, it was the chondrikos we were out of. That's vanilla." He paused. "You do like vanilla, don't you?"
David chuckled. "I like vanilla fine, sir."
Dinner, which was held in the rec dome on a series of stripped-down Ping Pong tables, was modest but tasty. Kirk sat between Spock and McCoy, opposite Boudreau, Carol, and a colleague of theirs named Medford.
"I take it you were able to clear up your bureaucratic problem?" Doctor Medford asked.
The captain shrugged. "For the time being, yes. But you know how it is with bureaucratic problems. They have a way of coming back."
"In this case," McCoy explained, "we've got a crazy ambassador on our hands, who can't wait to get to Alpha Maluria Seven."
Kirk shot him a remonstrating glance, like a warning shot across his bow. No matter what the ship's officers thought of Farquhar, it wasn't good form to rail at the man behind his back.
Bones frowned at the suggestion of self-censorship but complied with his captain's wishes. "I guess I shouldn't tell tales out of school," he said.
"Alpha Maluria, eh?" The colony administrator shook his head. "Can't say I'm familiar with it. But then, I can barely tell you where Beta Canzandia is."
"If you wish," the Vulcan said, "I can show you its location on a starmap."
Boudreau smiled. "That won't be necessary, Mr. Spock. Even if I knew, the information would be meaningless to me. I'm afraid astronomy is not my strong point."
McCoy grunted. "It's all right, I'm the same way. If the captain relied on me to navigate, the Enterprise would be circling the Klingon homeworld right about now." He stood. "On the other hand, I know my way around a buffet table just fine. Anyone care to join me?"
Carol shook her head. "Not I, Doctor. I've got enough here to last me for a while."
"Looks like you're on your own, Bones."
"Fair enough," said McCoy. "If I'm gone too long, send out the dogs."
Chuckling, Medford watched the medical officer go. "A very amusing man, your Dr. McCoy." She turned to Spock. "He must keep you entertained all the time."
The Vulcan was as deadpan as ever. "That is one way of putting it," he remarked. "The doctor has a unique point of view."
The captain decided it might be a good idea to change the subject. Turning to Boudreau, he said: "Mr. Spock tells me your research is going quite well."
The colony administrator turned to Carol. "What do you think, Dr. Marcus?"
Medford smiled. "Actually, that's a constant bone of contention between them."
"A friendly bone of contention," Boudreau amended.
"But a bone of contention nonetheless," Carol amended further. She turned to Kirk. "It has to do with oxygen production. Our specimens simply don't perform in the field as well as they should."
Spock nodded. "Dr. Boudreau mentioned your dissatisfaction. I am curious to know more about it."
Carol shrugged. "It's pretty simple, really. Before we send our specimens out in the field, we observe them under controlled conditions in a little garden I've set up. And in the garden, their oxygen production is terrific. Then we plant them outside the colony and their production falls off." She frowned. "My current theory is that the G-Seven beam is altering the plant's DNA somehow, but I'm nowhere near proving it. So far, I haven't found any differences at all in the genetic material—not in the first generation or any other."
The Vulcan looked more than casually interested. "Fascinating," he commented. "May I see your notes?"
"Of course," Carol replied. There was a slight flaring of her nostrils, though, that told the captain that she was at least a little put off by the bluntness of Spock's request. Why? Because it implied that he could find the answer when she couldn't?
Kirk wondered if he was the only one who noticed her pique. After all, it had taken him a long time to be able to read Carol's little quirks, and they'd had something a lot more intimate than a professional relationship.
"Miss me?"
The captain and everyone else at the table looked up at McCoy as he rejoined them. His plate was once again heaped with selections from the simple buffet.
"You know," said Kirk, "these people are going to think we don't feed you on the ship, Doctor."
"Pshaw," McCoy replied. "Only a fool turns down home cooking." He leaned closer to the center of the group as he took his seat. "Though I have to admit, there was one dish there that must have gone bad a couple of weeks ago. Or at least, it smelled that way."
Medford looked at him. "Was it kind of yellow and oily looking?"
"That's the one," Bones confirmed. Suddenly he blanched. "Don't tell me you cooked it. I'll want to crawl under a rock."
The black woman shook her head. "No, I didn't cook it."
"That's a relief," said McCoy.
"My husband did."
The doctor's jaw dropped.
And Medford began laughing out loud. When she finally got control of herself, she added: "It's all right. Everybody thinks it smells terrible. But he did the cooking tonight for—"
She exchanged a quick glance with Carol, which the captain missed the significance of.
"—for my daughter, and he insisted I bring some of the stuff along to the buffet. He thinks people like it."
Kirk smiled. So did Boudreau and Carol. Finally, Bones smiled too. Only Spock remained expressionless, as usual.
"Well then," said McCoy, "I'm glad I didn't offend anyone."
"Just my husband," Medford replied. "But believe me, no one's going to tell him. No one dares."
The whole table chuckled—again, with the exception of Spock. Kirk looked at Carol; he'd always loved her smile, and now he remembered why.
He wished she smiled more often these days. But then, maybe she did, when she didn't have to contend with the presence of an old lover.
Suddenly she turned and saw him staring at her. If she was surprised, she didn't show it. She simply returned the look.
And then surprised him. "If you want to cash in on that rain check, Captain, you'd better do it soon. It gets pretty cold here after dark."
Kirk nodded. "In that case, we can go as soon as you're finished eating."
She shrugged. "I'm finished now."
Vheled was in his quarters, sharpening his favorite knife with a honing stone, when he heard the rap on his door. Rising, he replaced the dark, abraded stone on the low shelf where he usually kept it.
Next, he tucked the knife into the space between his belt and the small of his back. Finally, feeling prepared for anything out of the ordinary, he barked, "Enter."
At his command, the heavy door to his quarters slid aside, revealing the lean, proud form of his gunnery officer. Inclining his head by way of a greeting, the young man took two steps into the cabin; the door closed behind him.
No threat here, Vheled mused. Removing the knife from its hiding place, he flipped it point first into the throwing board on his wall. It hit with a soft thud and remained fixed among the board's many scars.
The young officer smiled approvingly. "You are skilled with the dagger," he noted. "I trust that is not your only weapon, however."
It was. If a warrior could not rely on his own senses, of what use were weapons?
"Of course not," Vheled lied. He indicated a seat across the room, near the tapestry that had been in his family for twelve generations. The man made his way there and sat down, but not before the captain did. For a moment, they sat in silence.
"Why have you come?" the captain asked finally.
"There is to be an assassination," the younger man told him.
Vheled's eyes narrowed. He was interested, but he wouldn't let on how interested. It was never a good idea to let a warrior think he had an advantage over his captain. "Are you my security officer," he asked, "that you should warn me of such things?"
"No, excellency. But I have some experience in these matters."
Vheled knew that, of course. "I see. And who is to be assassinated?"
With just the slightest amount of hesitation, the gunnery sergeant replied: "Gidris."
The captain grunted. Gidris was his first officer, an efficient and dedicated man. Not one who was widely liked, but that was of no importance to the captain; popularity wasn't necessarily a virtue on a bird of prey.
"And the assassin?"
The man's narrow features hardened into a scowl. "Your second officer seeks advancement. I believe he intends to create an opportunity for himself sometime in the next couple of days."
Vheled looked at him askance. "You have evidence? Or has the second officer confided in you?"
The other man shrugged, ignoring the taunt—and impressing the captain with his self-control. "No evidence. But it is obvious, nonetheless."
Vheled digested that. He had served with this officer long enough to know his capabilities.
Besides, the report came as no great surprise. Vheled's second officer was an ambitious sort, Gevish'rae through and through.
Under normal circumstances, the captain would have allowed the assassination to proceed. After all, it was part of the process by which Klingons remained strong, ensuring themselves that the most capable and aggressive personalities were always at the forefront.
However, these were not normal circumstances. Vheled wished his crew to be as stable as possible when they arrived at Pheranna. He would brook no distractions, nothing that might upset the quick and efficient fulfillment of their task. There was too much riding on this mission to let any one man's desires get in the way.
The captain nodded to the younger man. "You've made your report. You may leave."
"As you wish, excellency."
He turned and exited the cabin. Vheled watched him go, not without a certain amount of satisfaction. Haastra, his current security officer, was getting old. He believed he had just found his replacement.
After all, Grael was Gevish'rae, too.
Boudreau was right, the captain mused. This world's Bois de Boulogne was somewhat humble compared to the original.
Actually, it was a cluster of perhaps fifty golden-needled conifers, none of which was more than a dozen feet tall. As Kirk walked among them with Carol at his side, the foliage was barely thick enough to block out his view of the white colony domes.
"You say these are hybrids?" he asked.
Carol's cheeks were already beginning to turn ruddy with cold. He remembered that about her—how red her face used to get, and how beautiful it made her eyes look by contrast.
"Half Aldebaran eristoi, half Marraquite casslana," she answered. She was all business; he could have been a complete stranger. "We planted four of them to start out; none were more than a foot high. Obviously, they thrive in this kind of environment. And they responded very well to the G-seven beam. What's more, we think they'd get along fine with Terran flora. But as I mentioned at dinner, they don't produce as much oxygen as we'd like—not as much as I'd like, anyway, and I set the standards for them. In that respect, they're a disappointment. And oxygen production is, after all, the most important trait of all."
"So you'd call this group a failure?"
She shook her head. "I wouldn't go quite that far. On the other hand, I obviously wouldn't call it a success, either. I guess it's somewhere in between."
"A step in the right direction?"
"Yes. A step in the right direction. And when we get over this oxygen production bugaboo, we'll have taken even a bigger step."
"You're optimistic, then?"
Carol nodded. "Very optimistic. We've had other obstacles, and we've always gotten past them. There's no reason for me to believe we won't get past this one as well. And someday, we'll reach our goal—"
"A plant that can reproduce like crazy and spew out oxygen even faster . . . a plant that can help turn a freezing ball of dirt into a class-M world."
Carol hesitated, then looked at him. "My words?"
"Your words, after you got that job working on Schwimmer's terraforming project. I only heard them on subspace radio, but I'll never forget how excited you were."
For a moment, a silence hung in the frosty air. In a way, it was more personal than any of the talk that had passed between them, more lush with feeling. Then the moment subsided.
"Anyway," she said, "for the time being, we've pretty much turned our attention away from Bois de Boulogne and Sherwood Forest and all the other little woodlands we've created down here in the valley. We've set our sights on a couple of projects up in the hills—so we could test the range of G-seven technology."
Kirk nodded. "And a new batch of hybrids?"
"Uh huh. Though the next batch I'd like to test isn't a hybrid at all. Ever see a Klingon fireblossom?"
He half smiled. "No, I can't say I have." And then: "Where did you get hold of a Klingon plant?"
"Not just one—a number of them. Remember the Klingon ship found a few months ago by the Potemkin? Or should I say the wreckage of a ship?"
"Sure. The one whose impulse engines blew. It had every admiral in the fleet buzzing for weeks. But—"
"A couple of compartments survived intact. One was the captain's quarters. And his hobby, it seems, was cultivating fireblossoms."
The captain chuckled. "I see. How convenient."
"The funny thing," Carol said, "is that the fireblossom is outperforming everything else in the garden. And I didn't have to splice any genes to make it; it occurs as naturally as you or I. Of course, it has its share of drawbacks: specifically, it can't seem to get along with its neighbors. But I'm hoping we can find neighbors it'll like a little better."
Kirk looked around at the tops of the golden conifers, emblazoned against the crisp, blue sky. "All right. Let's say you find a way to tame your fireblossom, or you come up with a hybrid that does what you want, or you isolate the glitch in the G-seven beam and correct it. Then what?"
"You mean where do we go from here?"
"Yes. What's the next step?"
Carol shrugged. "Provided we can continue to make the Federation believe in us, we find another planet. Not like this one—where it's already got a bona fide oxygen atmosphere, and just hasn't produced any organisms yet—but one of those marginal places where there's barely enough warmth and oh-two to support life. And we terraform it. We make it into a garden." She grinned, her mind focused on that distant paradise.
He grinned, too. Beyond the branches, the sun was sinking, turning the colony domes pink with its dying light. "You sound happy," he observed.
She fixed him with her eyes, and for the first time since his arrival, it was truly Carol looking out at him. "The happiest I've been in a long time. I mean, I complain about oxygen production and such, but we're making real strides here, Jim, real progress. For the first time, I can see the day when we'll be able to terraform any planet at all."
"It's hard to imagine," he said sincerely.
"Nonetheless, it's going to happen. I don't know when, but it's going to happen." She regarded him, the sunset light in her eyes. "And I've got at least a small chance to be a part of it. That's about the most exciting thing I can think of. It's what I've worked all my life for."
The captain looked back at her. "Good. Lord knows, you deserve it. No one's lobbied harder than you have to make terraforming a priority for the Federation."
Carol shrugged. "I don't know about that. Dr. Boudreau's the one who got this colony off the ground. Without him, I'd still be conducting research in a lab back on Earth." She paused. "And what about you, Jim? Are you happy?"
He thought about it. "I guess I am, most of the time. I mean, being a starship captain isn't all glory and adventure. People die—people who depended on you to keep them safe and secure. And too often, you have to compromise your ideals—your sense of justice—for the sake of policy." He took a deep draught of the cold air, which was getting colder by the minute. "But it's got its up side, too, of course. You get an opportunity to travel the stars. You get a chance to see something new every day, maybe something no one has ever seen before. And every now and then, you strike a blow for something you believe in."
She nodded, then turned away, as if some nuance of movement in the tree branches had caught her eye. When she spoke again, there was a distinct note of emotion in her voice.
"Would you trade it for something else?"
The captain hesitated, understanding completely the significance of the question. After all, he'd heard it before, in a slightly different form. But there was still only one answer.
He shook his head. "No. I wouldn't. Or rather, I couldn't."
It might not have been what he wanted to tell her. It might not have been what she wanted to hear. But it was the truth—no less today than eleven years ago.
Carol nodded again, still not looking at him. "I had a feeling you'd say that."
Instantly, Kirk regretted making the conversation personal. He regretted asking her if she was happy, and the line about the freezing ball of dirt.
He could have left things as they were. He could have let the past be the past, and nothing more.
But now, the memories of their loss were bubbling to the surface. The old emotions were coming back unbidden.
He felt awkward, off-balance. And a little sad—maybe more than a little. He could only imagine how she was feeling, the things that were going through her mind.
It had been a mistake to recall what they'd had together. If he could have taken the words back, he would have. But it was too late. Hell, it was too late for a lot of things.
"I'm sorry," he told her. "I didn't mean for this to happen."
Carol turned to him. "It's all right," she said. "If you hadn't brought it up, I probably would've done it myself." She sighed. "I guess neither of us has changed very much. We're still two people going in different directions, though we may wish it were otherwise." Smiling ruefully, she added: "Funny how life gives you just what you really want, isn't it?"
He didn't know what to say to that. Fortunately, Carol didn't leave him twisting in the wind too long.
"Care to take a look at Sherwood Forest?" she asked him. "Before it gets too dark?"
It didn't require much thinking on his part. Anything was preferable to standing here like this. "Sherwood Forest it is," he replied.
They started walking. Before long, they emerged from Bois de Boulogne and felt the wind on their faces again. It seemed to clear the air a bit—not completely, but enough for them to feel comfortable with one another.
As they skirted the colony, headed for a somewhat smaller cluster of trees, the captain's attention was drawn to something moving up in the hills. When he turned to look, he saw that it was only a white plastic playground set, with some swings moving in the wind.
The playground was the standard model, of course. He'd seen it a dozen times before on colony worlds. Nor were the swings themselves anything remarkable.
But for some reason, he found them fascinating. As if there were something to be learned from watching them, as if they held the key to some sort of ancient and obscure wisdom.
Then the fascination faded, and it was just a playground again. He turned back to Carol.
And noticed she was watching him—not circumspectly, as before, but with plain and terrible intensity. Then she saw the look in his eyes, and she became interested in something else, or pretended to.
But there was a rouge in her cheeks much deeper than that imparted by the weather, and a tightness around her mouth that he recognized from days gone by, when she'd been angry with him about things neither of them could control.
"Is something wrong?" he asked her.
She shook her head. "No, nothing at all." When she regarded him again, she was smiling, though he sensed it was only for his benefit. "Really."
Kirk didn't probe into it any further. He'd done enough of that already.
Without another word, he let Carol guide him into the shade of Sherwood Forest.