Strangers From the Sky (32 page)

“Oh, they’re from another world, all right!” Grayson stated unequivocally, pulling himself off the bed suddenly and rummaging in a bureau drawer for something. “No human would have tolerated the nonsense they have without raising hell. If it rested with me—and that’s a rather improbable ‘if’—I’d see they got a ship to return to their world and hope to God they can forgive us our immaturity!” He found what he was searching for, a small odd-looking talisman on a tangled silver chain. Grayson proceeded to try untangling it. “Mind you, if you think the powers-that-be are going to take the advice of one decrepit pacifist—here, give me a hand with this, can you?”

The tremor in his hands made him drop the talisman; Spock retrieved it from the floor and examined it curiously.

“Doubt if your generation would know what to make of that little object.” Grayson’s breath came in shorter gasps now, but his eyes remained untroubled, studying his mysterious lodger under his eyebrows, glinting mischievously.

Spock disentangled the talisman from its chain and studied it. It was a simple thing—a circle enclosing a modified inverted “Y” or perhaps a runic “K”—simple, but of great significance.

“I believe it was commonly called a peace symbol,” Spock observed. “Of obscure but possibly ancient origin, first used extensively during the antiwar movements of the 1960s.”

Grayson nodded, as if he’d expected Spock to know this much. “It became our symbol in the underground during the Third War—a way of knowing whom we could trust. Now that peace is the majority opinion, the symbol has fallen into disuse. Though if I fail in what I’ve been asked to do—well, this small thing has gotten me through many a dangerous situation; let’s hope it can get me through one more.”

He sat heavily on the bed, his breathing growing more and more labored. He seemed to be listening to some inner voice. Spock watched him with growing concern. Unaware that he was doing so, he had untangled the fine silver chain and extricated the talisman; he held it gently, reverently in his hands.

“You have extraordinary hands, Ben, has anyone ever told you that?” Grayson’s voice sounded dreamy, far away. “I’ve watched them do things—strong, deft, accustomed to work, but gentle at the same time…”

Those same hands caught Jeremy Grayson and prevented him from falling as he was suddenly taken by some sort of seizure.

“You are ill,” Spock said, steadying him, activating the alarm on the commphone, which would alert the nearest hospital. He lifted the old man effortlessly in his arms and carried him downstairs to await the ambulance.

“Ben…” Grayson gasped, clinging to Spock as if to life itself. “Benjamin…favored son…”

He suffered a second seizure, which sent him into cardiac arrest. Spock laid him out on the living-room carpet and began CPR, breathing life into him to whom he owed life.

Mahmoud Gamal al-Parneb Nezaj abandoned his crystal-gazing with something like despair. Lee Kelso was nowhere to be found, and whatever hope he’d had of finding Spock was finally exhausted. Parneb made himself a pot of mint tea and absently flicked on his vidscreen. Voices trickled in and out of his consciousness as he waited for the tea to steep.

“…in major capitals and small villages alike, demands from groups of every political stripe calling for the aliens to be brought forth and made available for questioning, if they in fact exist. Meanwhile, planetary defenses continue on the alert, and countless millions scan the heavens nightly, waiting with dread for the appearance of further strangers from the sky…”

“…have gone so far as to suggest that the arrival of aliens is in fact a reprisal for the launching of the
Icarus
mission to Alpha Centauri. Spokesmen for the Back to Earth Movement, at a prayer meeting hastily assembled in Salt Lake City, called for a halt to all further space exploration, and one source was quoted as saying there would be nothing morally wrong with abandoning the
Icarus
in space if this would put an end to the alien invasion…”

“…eyewitnesses claim that such aliens have landed before, and have been secretly interbreeding with human stock since the first UFO sightings nearly one hundred years ago…”

“…seventeen people injured when an unidentified person or persons spread the rumor that alien invaders had taken over the airports…”

“Oh, dear!” Parneb sighed, stirred his tea, and changed the channel. In a moment of serendipitous coincidence, he found something he’d been searching for for days.

“…Awaiting your command. Spock…”

“Virtually no one suffers from stroke anymore,” Jeremy Grayson’s daughter told Spock when she arrived at her father’s house from the hospital to pick up some necessities. “But the injuries suffered during his imprisonment, and some of the drugs they used…”

“How is he?” Spock asked quietly.

“He’s not regained consciousness,” Grayson’s daughter said.

“And the prognosis for his recovery?”

“It’s too soon to tell. He’s an old man, Mr. Spock, a very tired old man. But it would upset him to think that you were leaving because of this.”

“I am needed elsewhere,” was all Spock could say. Around his neck, beneath a high-collared shirt, he wore the small peace symbol on its silver chain; he could only hope that it would help him achieve what Jeremy Grayson could not.

“All right,” Grayson’s daughter said with much of her father’s warmth and concern, traits that would someday be characteristic of a certain great-grandniece. “My father spoke very highly of you, Mr. Spock. There were a number of promising young people whom he ‘adopted’ over the years. I think you might have been among that select group.”

“Indeed,” Spock said, struggling with something that was very like emotion.

“If you ever need a place to stay…”

Spock merely nodded and took his leave of her. The small silver talisman dangled cold and hard against his alien flesh as he set off to do the impossible.

Jeremy Grayson’s daughter locked the house behind her and returned to the hospital. Inside the big, empty house the commphone began to beep. It beeped continuously for the rest of the afternoon. Somewhere in Egypt, a sometime sorcerer sipped his mint tea and sighed.

J
ASON
N
YERE SAT
listening to the proposal being made by the bright young peace representative and his psychiatrist friend, and seriously considered mutiny.

He’d been surprised, stepping out of the conning tower for some fresh air and a chance to rejoice in the silence following the departure of the last wingboat, to see these two emerge hand in hand from the main structure at Byrd, stroll across the snow, and casually request permission to come aboard.

“We’ve refused transport out,” Jim Kirk explained once the reintroductions were out of the way. “We’ve signed all the necessary waivers, and we’re here on our own recognizance.”

Nyere listened, trying to read between the lines. There was more to this bright young man than met the eye. “I suppose my first question would have to be why? Why put yourselves at risk of getting caught up in this thing when you don’t have to?”

“Maybe it’s the reason we’re here,” Jim Kirk suggested, at his charming best. “To get caught up in what could be a critical moment in history. Dr. Bellero’s studies on space psychology and the possibility of alien life are what brought her here in the first place.”

“I can’t tell you how gratifying it is, Captain, to find my speculations confirmed in the person of these Vulcans,” Elizabeth Dehner said sincerely. “They confirm what most reputable scientists have maintained for years: that a civilization advanced enough for interstellar travel must be a peaceful one.”

Not counting Klingons, Romulans, Orions, Jim Kirk thought, distracting himself.

“As for my people,” he went on, hoping Nyere would take that to mean the Dove Society, “we are committed to a peaceful solution, as I believe you are, Captain. The way you’ve stood by the Vulcans during the questioning indicates to me that you want exactly what we want—a just solution, with nobody hurt. Dr. Bellero and I have a mission to perform here, Captain, and we need your help.”

“My ‘help’ or my ‘cooperation,’ Mr. Kirk?” Jason asked dryly; he was familiar with this particular variety of hotshot. “Or is it ‘Colonel’? Twenty-four hours ago you were passing yourself off as an intell-agent. I’m still not entirely clear on whom you’re working for.”

Jim Kirk grinned at him, disarming. “Do I look like an intell-agent?”

“No, your color’s too good.” Jason Nyere chuckled at the joke he was about to make. “You look as if you spend more time on the rocks than under them.” He did a sudden about-face into seriousness. “I don’t know what you are, Kirk, and I don’t know if I can trust you. But I’ll tell you something you can pass on to your ‘people,’ whoever they are—even if it means my neck. I have sat by and watched two innocent people—and they may not be ‘human,’ though I’m not sure anymore if that’s a privilege or a disgrace, but they
are
people—poked, prodded, put through all manner of foolishness, and treated like they’re carrying some sort of disease, all because they are ‘different.’ Historically speaking, I believe I know something about that.”

“I’m certain you do, Captain,” Elizabeth Dehner offered sympathetically.

“And if I had the means to bust out of here and let these people go—”

“Captain”—Jim Kirk gestured ingenuously at the vast ship surrounding them—“it seems to me you have the means.”

Nyere narrowed his slate-gray eyes at him. “Don’t think I haven’t thought about it, Kirk. But there’s a question of what Commander T’Lera wants—oh, and don’t underestimate the lady; she has very strong opinions about what’s to be done or not done in her name—and there’s also the little matter of where we go from here.”

“Suppose I told you that my people were prepared to take it from there?” Jim Kirk asked eagerly. Was it to be this easy? “Suppose I told you we had the means to conceal these people where no one could find them—not the media, not the PentaKrem, not anybody. Suppose…”

But Jason Nyere was shaking his head; it was not to be that easy. “No, Kirk. That’s one of the tamer scenarios the Council’s toying with even as we speak. I won’t have these people sent into exile, no matter how pleasant.”

“Will you stand by and let the Council exercise a more extreme option?” Kirk asked incisively.

“That’s my business,” Nyere snapped back, but he’d given Kirk the answer he was looking for.

“Suppose I said we had the means to send the Vulcans home?” he ventured, out on a limb.

Nyere chuckled. “Now you’re creating fantasies. Don’t I wish!” He shook his head sadly. “No, people, I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do until Command gets back to me with the Council’s decision. After that…”

No one spoke for a long moment. Jim Kirk shrugged at Dehner and they got up to leave. But not before Jason Nyere asked them for a favor.

“You’re both free to come and go as you please, of course. Talk to T’Lera and Sorahl. I don’t mean convince them to try to escape with you; I doubt if you could. But let them know that all humans aren’t like the ones they’ve had to deal with across that inquiry table.”

“We’ll do our best,” Elizabeth Dehner promised.

“Captain…” Jim Kirk shook his hand, feeling optimistic that at least Nyere wouldn’t prove an obstacle; he’d hate to see the man hurt.

Jason Nyere did not share Kirk’s optimism. When his guests were gone, he glared at the silent comm screen—locked on two-way silence until the council reached its decision—and willed it to speak, at the same time as he dreaded what it might ultimately tell him. After all this struggle, he was faced with the same moral dilemma thrust upon him when the first retrieval order had come down from Command. If the trigger was to be pulled, he would be expected to pull it.

When he was sure that he was totally alone, Jason Nyere put his head down on his arms and wept.

Gary Mitchell’s snowmobile made excellent time over the fresh powder laid down by the recent blizzard; he skimmed merrily along with the late afternoon sun, skirting the horizon as it did this time of year, directly in his face. It wasn’t the best of travel conditions; even with his goggles and the mobile’s photosensitive windshield he was virtually snowblind, and he could as easily fall into a crevasse in this unrelenting brightness as he could in total darkness. The captain of the AeroNav ship that had dropped him on the edge of the shelf had wanted to provide him with a snocat to get him safely over the crevasses, but the thing was armor-plated and heavily tracked and much too slow for Mitchell’s purposes. He’d taken the mobile and headed directly into the sun, running on instinct.

It was instinct that made him veer off to avoid the two identical snow-covered hillocks directly in his path before he actually saw them. Skidding around them to leeward, Mitchell saw why they were identical and got out of his mobile to rap on Easter’s windshield.

“You guys all right in there?” He framed his face with his mittened hands and pressed it against the glass to see better. “Want some help digging out?”

“We are fine, thank you, sir!” a cheery voice said from the backseat. Mitchell could barely distinguish a flash of white teeth in a dark face. The death-pale spiky-haired figure in the driver’s seat seemed mute as well as sullen. “Excepting, if you had a spare fuel block…”

“Sure thing!” Mitchell was halfway back to his vehicle when the windshield on the strangers’ mobile slid down and the sullen figure spoke.

“We don’t need nothin’ of yours,” it said. “Bugger off!”

“Hey, no skin off mine, man!” Mitchell grinned. A crawling sensation at the back of his neck told him what he didn’t need to turn and see: someone had stepped out of the second mobile and aimed an automatic at his spine.

Mitchell himself had brought no weapons, hadn’t wanted to take the risk of being searched, had assumed a vessel like
Delphinus
carried sufficient armament to provide him with whatever he might need once he got there. He’d also had a hard think about the Prime Directive; if it forbade creating new lifelines in the past, what did it have to say about destroying existing ones, even if they belonged to the scum of the Earth?

He backed slowly toward his snowmobile with his hands raised and the grin frozen to his face, slid in, and gunned the motor with one hand while he slammed the hatch shut with the other, swinging away in a great arc that he prayed was out of firing range, and roared back the way he’d come. When he was sure the lay of the land hid him from view, he switched off the engine and sat there sweating, listening to the ticking silence.

What the hell had that been all about? They might only be poachers, predators still bagging seals regardless of the bans, but what were they doing this far in on the shelf? They could be prospectors or tourists or even, though he doubted it, natives out joyriding. Or—

Mitchell listened to his inner voice. It told him that even if these friendly souls were acting alone and running low on fuel, he’d better make damn sure he got to Byrd before they did.

He reset his controls for a route around the strangers and fed the snowmobile as much speed as she’d take without shaking apart, caution to the wind. If there were crevasses between him and Byrd, he figured he’d fly right over them.

Yoshi was alone at the crew’s table in the mess hall when Sorahl brought him the computer printout.

The dinner crowd varied nightly. Yoshi, Tatya, and Sorahl invariably ate together; most times Jason joined them, less often T’Lera. Melody preferred leftovers in her cabin and her own company.

It was Tatya’s turn to cook; she could be heard rattling around in the galley, the strains of Borodin’s “Polovetsian Dances” weaving around the sounds of cookware. Tatya had chosen the music as well; perhaps the festive mood was in celebration of the inquisitors’ departure, or only false hope.

Yoshi frowned at the printout in his hand, mystified. “What’s this?”

“I believe it will prove efficacious in the cure of the kelpwilt,” Sorahl said simply. “Once you are able to return to your station and actualize it, of course.”

“It looks complicated,” Yoshi said, avoiding the issue of his return to the agrostation and what he would have to sacrifice to get there. He deciphered what molecule chains he recognized, puzzling over the rest. “What’s this thing over here?”

“A synthetic enzyme similar to one developed not long ago on our world,” Sorahl explained. “I was unable to find an analogue in any of Earth’s texts, which may account for the unresponsiveness of the disease to present methods. However, I believe it can be implemented under Earth conditions.”

“You mean you just made it up?” Yoshi was incredulous.

“I assure you the research is accurate,” Sorahl said, mistaking his meaning. “To within 99.44 percent, as measured under laboratory conditions. Whether or not it will prove so under actual field conditions—”

“I didn’t mean that,” Yoshi said quietly, getting to his feet as if in homage. “I meant, all by yourself you’ve discovered something a dozen agronomy experts with a million credits’ worth of grant money couldn’t find under their noses in two years of research, and you pass it off as if it’s all in a day’s work. I meant—you’d do this for us, after all we’ve done to you. After all we may yet do to you.”

“It is no more than any Vulcan would do, given the same circumstances,” Sorahl said, puzzled that humans still could not understand this.

Yoshi shook his head, amazed and ashamed. Amazed at Sorahl’s people, ashamed for his own.

“I also meant—thank you—my friend.”

For the second time in history, human and Vulcan exchanged the handshake of friendship in spite of difference.

“Soup’s on!” Tatya announced loudly, blundering in from the galley with her hands full, shattering the moment. Yoshi laughed for the first time since he could remember, and Sorahl raised both eyebrows in astonishment. Yoshi folded the printout very small and slipped it into a pocket of his jeans, and the three sat down to dinner.

“I’m told we have someone aboard who makes the best chicken Kiev in the Southern Hemisphere,” was Jim Kirk’s entrance line. If it was calculated to have Tatya eating out of his hand, it succeeded.

“If I can twist Jason’s arm into freeing up some of the real chickens he’s got frozen in the hold, you’re on, Mr. Kirk!” She giggled.

“Complaints, complaints!” the accused party rumbled as Jason too joined them. He had recovered from his earlier moment of despair; if his eyes were bloodshot it might only be fatigue. “I let you have the real coffee, didn’t I? You’ve been eating a lot higher on the hog than my regular crew. Real eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables—”

“Only because of the Vulcans!” Tatya teased him, returning to the galley for more plates and replacing the Borodin with some Prokofiev; the composer’s “Kije” also joined them for dinner. “You’d never be so nice if it was just us!”

The good-natured banter went on, with Yoshi joining in, and Sorahl at least managing to look less somber. Jim Kirk exchanged glances with Dr. Bellero when she came in. Whatever was going on in the world beyond, morale was high in here.

“Maybe too high,” Elizabeth Dehner whispered, reading Kirk’s thoughts. “It could be false euphoria. The calm before the storm. Overcompensation for recent events and future uncertainties. I’d be careful.”

“So noted,” Kirk whispered back. “How do you do that?”

“What, read your mind?” Dehner teased; if they were going to pretend to be lovers, she would give it her best shot, in public anyway. “You telegraph with your face, didn’t you know that? I also have a high esper rating. Though not as high as Parneb’s.”

“I’ll keep that in mind!” Kirk grimaced, aware that Sorahl could not help overhearing. He was searching for an opening gambit to talk to the young Vulcan when T’Lera was suddenly among them.

She made no entrance, in fact made no sound, but her presence was such as to reduce them to silence and draw their attention to her. An officer and a gentleman, Jason Nyere was on his feet at once; the other males, excepting Sorahl, followed suit. Accepting Earth’s antique chivalry with her silence, T’Lera seated herself beside Jim Kirk.

“I am told you are sent to offer us freedom,” she began without preamble, including Dr. Bellero in her careful, damped-down gaze, but primarily addressing Kirk. “I am also told you are not what you earlier purported to be, ‘Colonel’ Kirk. Is my information accurate?”