Constellations (35 page)

Skidding to a stop, Michael turned and caught his breath in a huff before replying. “Yes, Captain. She was near the infirmary with Dr. McCoy.”

“She was?” Anders furrowed his brow. “We were to meet here to discuss Beth Anne's heart trouble. Did she ask you to inform me she'd be late?”

Michael shook his head and shrugged innocently. “No, I don't believe she mentioned it. But I think they were talking about Beth Anne.”

“I see.” Pressing his lips together, Anders wondered if the total distraction of his people over the last day was temporary or permanent. The buzz of new faces had to wear off soon, did it not? Dr. McCoy was surely a skilled physician, but he didn't have a grasp of Beth Anne's case. Alexandria and Anders did.

“Do you need me further, Captain?” Michael asked, obviously anxious to be on his way.

Anders studied him a long moment, making sure he stood there and waited for a response. “Is there something pressing you must do?”

“I wanted to chat with Mr. Sulu, sir. He was going to show me how his tricorder worked.”

“You've always been cautious with technical equipment—afraid you'd break it.” Anders shook his head. Michael just wasn't acting himself. It was most unnerving.

“Well, Mr. Sulu said they have four with them and more than a hundred more on their ship.”

Chewing his lower lip, Anders wasn't sure what to make of that. Was Michael suddenly planning to go with them? Now? Today or tomorrow or whenever their ship arrived?

“Michael, you told me you had no interest in leaving the Frontier.” The Frontier, an ironic joke at first, had been what the survivors ended up calling their new home, saying they were like frontiersmen of old, starting with nothing.

“Well, I don't, Captain.” Michael shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “Not forever. But they'll take anyone to their starbase for training and—It is a chance of a lifetime, isn't it, Captain?”

“I suppose it is.” Anders nodded with understanding, but a sense of foreboding slithered across him. “Michael, does everyone feel this way?”

“No, no…I think just that…well, options are so open now.” Michael was in his thirties, but suddenly his eyes were as wide as a toddler's. Yesterday life had been simple, linear. Now it could blast into so many directions that he must have been quite confused about his choices. Confused and exhilarated.

“Indeed,” Anders said finally.

“May I go?”

With a hand, Anders waved him off. “Of course.”

 

If frustration were corporeal, D'kar would have gutted it by now and made its skin into a sheath for his knife. Tracking Kirk to the small moon had been a child's task, but now he found the Earther in the bosom of his own kind. What kind of defenses did this colony have? Were they part of Kirk's clan? Would they die for him? If so, D'kar could be killed and his prey would escape. It soon would not matter that he was able to jam Kirk's message to his ship, as they would come looking for him and they would track his shuttle just as D'kar had. It infuriated him that what little time he
did
have left needed to be wasted with watching and waiting and forming yet another plan that would put Kirk within his grasp.

They were crafty. One of the Starfleeters was always using their scanner. What they didn't know was that D'kar had been a little more prepared than they, and he'd left passive reception cones scattered around their camp's perimeter. His hand scanner could now tell him the pattern of their scans, and it was—no matter who held their tricorder—sickeningly predictable. Did all of Starfleet learn the same grid pattern?

It was when the red-shirted one was scanning that things were most unsurprising, so that was when D'kar decided to venture closest to Kirk. He could hear him and see him with proper passive scanning and distance, and didn't dare actively scan for fear of being revealed.

If this were an assassination, D'kar could have his prey by now. A single phaser shot, or even a primitive projectile blast, and Kirk could be dead. He could smell the Earther from where he hid. He could smell them all, and the foul stench that was Terran blood.

But he'd rather give Kirk to his father as a prize. That was what D'kar had planned for so long, had fantasized about, and fallen to slumber with the thought of in his mind, and awakened with the same. It wasn't about self-aggrandizement, he told himself, but about his father's disgrace at Organia. All of Qo'noS spoke of the treaty, and few outwardly blamed Kor for the disaster, but unspoken censure laced every greeting. And to D'kar it was no surprise that his first assignment to the finest cruiser in the fleet had fallen away. He would not let his life fall into a pit because of the dishonor brought on his house because of Kirk. And so long as no one knew it was D'kar who brought the Earther to justice, and in fact believed it was Kor, honor would be restored.

It was supposed to have been done by now, D'kar lamented. This Kirk was a trickster, certainly. But ultimately weak.
There are no Organians to save him this time. Now the odds are more even.

Kirk sat in a chair, using a tree stump as a workbench. He fiddled endlessly with several pieces of almost-random technology. There were only a few people around him—they were not very near—and D'kar thought he might choose this moment to make his move. As he was deciding, an older man approached Kirk, and his body language was not like that of the others who'd previously been near Kirk. It was not toadying or submissive, but that of an equal.

“A word, Captain?”

There was an interesting aspect to his demeanor that piqued D'kar's keen interest. His scanner, however, told him that the other Starfleeter's scans would be proceeding his way, and he must now move his position.

This Earther, however, was one to be watched. By Kirk if no one else, for the look in the new man's eyes was one D'kar had seen before: jealousy.

 

“Can you explain why you've torn apart one of our few working computers?” Anders demanded. Something in his tone was a bit more than confrontational. It was almost hurt.

“I'm sorry,” Kirk began. “I didn't tear it apart. I just needed to see if it had parts we could use to boost our communicators. It doesn't, and I'm putting it back together.”

“And it will function?” Anders sneered and looked at the computer's various parts spread across a cloth on the bench.

“If I say it will function,” Kirk said, “it will function.”

The older man drew a breath as if to respond, but he swallowed whatever he planned to say. He studied Kirk a long moment, then nodded and motioned at him. “You have a ship,” he said. “Let me ask you a hypothetical question.”

Kirk nodded.

“Say I come aboard,” Anders said, as McCoy approached from the door to one of the greenhouses. He had two native apple-looking things in his hands.

Kirk shook his head lightly, making sure the doctor wouldn't interrupt.

“Because my ship was damaged, you provide me and my crew transport,” Anders continued. “What would you say if—having given me your hospitality—I began disassembling your vessel for my needs and ends?”

“I might have thrown you in the brig,” Kirk said. “If I couldn't understand why you did it.”

Anders's head swayed from side to side. “I understand what you're doing, Captain. And even if I had a brig I wouldn't be so disagreeable as to cage you like an animal.” Lips screwed into a frown, Anders sighed. “But I did think you might have a little more courtesy than to take what is not yours without asking.”

Eyes wide in his best apologetic look of innocence, Kirk accepted that with a slight bow of his head. “I'm sorry, Mr. Anders. I should have asked.”

“
Captain
Anders.” He didn't quite bark his own name, but it came close. With that he turned his back on Kirk and McCoy. “Please see that that unit is working within the hour,” he snapped, and left the two Starfleeters alone.

“What was that all about?” McCoy asked, offering Kirk the alien apple.

“I don't know, Bones.” Kirk took the fruit, tasted it, and was surprised that it tasted very much like a normal apple. “He's probably worried about the Klingons. He decided to tell the others and some of them are nervous. I'm sure he is, too.”

“I wonder,” McCoy said, and bit loudly into his apple. “To my view, there went a man annoyed with you, not the Klingons.”

 

It had taken Anders some time to calm himself. There was a grotto made by overgrowing plants to which he would sometimes escape, where it was peaceful and quiet, even in the off-season when most of the green plants had turned brown. Going there had always stilled his temper, and he hoped it would now.

He wasn't quite sure why Kirk's disrespect annoyed him so, but it had—deeply. Perhaps it was because the respect he'd earned over years and years from his people was so soon and so freely given to Kirk. Anders had always led his people with determination and charisma, skills taught him by his adopted father. But Kirk had all those skills, seemingly naturally, and his were stronger. He was
more
charismatic,
more
determined, and Anders felt that Kirk was leading the survivors into danger without a thought about their well-being. That
was
the reason for his disdain, he told himself. It was.

On his way back to the main community building, Anders saw the Kesslers' son coming out of the storage shed and he stopped to supervise the lad. He was only twelve and sometimes was quite sloppy in his chores.

Captain Anders opened the door to the shed wide and let the daylight in.

“Jacob,” Anders called. “Come here, son.”

The boy walked over. “Captain?”

“This isn't like you, Jacob.” Anders motioned to the way the grains were stacked and the contents of the shed were organized. It was all wrong, all disordered. “This isn't how we store our grains now, is it?”

Jacob squirmed a bit and looked away. “No, sir, but Captain Kirk suggested that if we keep—”

“Captain Kirk suggested?” The back of Anders's neck tensed, and he felt his cheeks flush.

“Yes, sir,” Jacob replied earnestly. “He said—”

“I don't care what he said, Jacob.” Anders willed himself not to yell at the boy. It wasn't
his
fault. “Do it the way we've always done it.”

“But—”

“Jacob! Mind me!”

Looking defeated and more disappointed than Anders had wished to make him, Jacob turned somberly back into the shed. “Yes, Captain.”

 

Anders was annoyed—more with himself for losing his temper than with Kirk. Well, probably more with Kirk. Or with the situation. He sulked around his grotto, ripping dried leaves off the “walls” and throwing them to the ground. He'd found this little recess of plants against a craggy hill soon after the crash all those years ago. It was cool and protected by old trees and in the summer smelled of rain even if it had not rained in days. Rarely had he brought anyone to it, and not of late, so few knew it even existed.

He tried desperately to gather peace from the setting, but it was taking longer than he'd have liked, and every moment he was away was a moment Kirk corrupted his people. Finally he thrust himself onto the bench he'd once made and lowered his head into his hands. Long moments passed until he was jarred from sullen meditation by a sharp pressure against the base of his skull.

“Do not cry out,” a voice said. “My blade is at your spine.”

Anders didn't move. The words were in heavily accented English, and the individual, logic told him, natively spoke Klingonese.

“What do you want?” Anders asked. Asking who he was seemed a silly question. He was the person with a knife at his neck.

“I want to speak on you,” the voice said, and it was clear that his English was not the best. “I learn you are a leader of men and I come to join in respect. To make you learn of my goals.”

Anders's brow knitted in confusion, and he needed to decode the poor English. But most of the meaning was evident. “You come to me in respect, threatening to injure me?”

Suddenly the knife point was gone. “Of course,” the Klingon said matter-of-factly, as if threatening Anders had been intended as a standard greeting. “Stay sitting.”

“What do you want?” Captain Anders repeated. He was beginning to see real differences between himself and Kirk, whereas before he thought they were much the same. Anders had to deal with people and problems, but on his small planetoid there were no aliens with agendas. There were no knives at throats and there were no threats. Anders and his people battled the elements, struggled to survive the seasons, not enemies from other worlds.

Coming around to stand in front of Anders, the Klingon man—boy, really, as he could only have been in his late teens or early twenties—showed Anders that he was sheathing his knife. “I want,” he said slowly, perhaps making sure his English was clear, “Captain James T. Kirk, for crimes against my House. Do you understand?”