The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (16 page)

I headed back to the bridge. As I walked the corridors, I was reminded that McCoy was an exception; most of the crew went out of their way to show me deference and respect. But, paradoxically, this deference thrust me into a specific kind of loneliness. This was not the friendless solitude I’d faced on the
Republic.
My responsibility to the people I was now in command of was a burden; my actions could and would literally affect their lives. And I experienced a strange sensation as captain, a shrinking of my personal identity, as if my nerve endings had been extended to the physical limits of
Hotspur
. I never quite slept, not in the way I had before; I was like a young parent, my ears listening apprehensively even in my sleep. The crew were my children; I was looking after all of them, so I could be a friend to none of them.

And yet, ironically, I hadn’t experienced that with my own child. I was going to try to change that. The last leg of our current run took us to Starbase 12, where Carol had been now for four years. I hadn’t seen very much of her and David during that time. We had spoken frequently by subspace, and when David was a baby she would hold him up to the screen. However, recently, she would speak to me alone, always having a reason why David wasn’t there. During our last conversation, she had told me her project was finished and she was heading back to Earth. Conventional transport wouldn’t be able to take her for another month, so I arranged for a scheduled layover at Starbase 12 under the guise of some minor ship maintenance that I’d been putting off, and we would transport Carol and David home.

I was very excited about them coming on board. I knew that I’d been neglecting them because of my work, but now with my position I felt I could exert some control over my life. There were starship captains who were married and had children; why couldn’t I be one of them? Which is why I had also decided to make it official and marry Carol on this voyage, although since I was in command, I wasn’t sure who was going to perform the service.

I arrived on the bridge; my first officer turned and got out of the command chair.

“Captain on the bridge,” Gary Mitchell said. Gary knew I hated this formality; though I was “captain of the ship,” I had not received the official rank of captain.

“Status,” I said, as Gary went back to the helm station.

“We’ve assumed standard orbit of Starbase 12,” he said.

“Very well, begin transport of passengers and cargo,” I said.

Gary had been serving on the
U.S.S. Constitution
as a relief helmsman when I was promoted. I immediately asked Starfleet personnel to transfer him as my first officer. He was probably a little young for the job too, which is one of the reasons why I wanted him. I was 27, and all of the senior officers on the ship were older than me; having a contemporary (and a friend) as my exec buttressed my confidence. My only criticism of him was he tended to be too loose regarding the rules of fraternization with the female crew members.

We began the complicated unloading of cargo from the ship. About two hours in, Ensign Uhura, the relief communications officer, relayed a message from ground control.

“Sir,” Uhura said, “a request for permission for a Dr. Carol Marcus to beam up.”

“Guess she can’t wait,” Gary said, a little too salaciously. Gary didn’t know the full story; he knew Carol and I had been involved, but not how far it went. I gave him an annoyed look.

“Permission granted,” I said. “I’ll be in the transporter room.”

As I left the bridge, I found myself smiling; my enthusiasm about seeing David began to overtake me. I remembered my own excitement to see my father or mother after any kind of absence, and also remembered fantasizing about what it must be like aboard a spaceship. Now I would be able to show my ship to my son, who I was sure had the same thoughts. I was indulging myself, looking forward to being proud, to walking down the corridor of my ship, while my crew showed deference to me in front of my child, and the pride he would feel at being my son. I was looking forward to that admiration and unconditional love.

I arrived in the transporter room. The technician on duty informed me that one person was standing by to beam up.

“One?” I didn’t know what to make of it. “Very well, energize.”

The image on the transporter pad shimmered into the recognizable form of Carol. She had no luggage. I could tell immediately she didn’t want to be there.

“Hello, Carol,” I said.

“Commander,” she said. I realized she wasn’t going to talk openly in front of a stranger. I turned to the transporter technician and relieved him of his post. Once he left, however, Carol showed no sign of being more comfortable.

“Where’s David?” I said.

“With a sitter,” she said.

“The ship needs to leave orbit in a few hours. I thought you’d want the time to settle him in on board—”

“We’re not coming with you,” she said. “I don’t think it would be good for him.”

“You don’t think it would be good for him to see his father?” I was a little indignant.

“Right now, he doesn’t know he has a father,” she said.

I was stunned. I didn’t know how to respond, so I got angry.

“Bring my son to me now,” I said. It sounded ridiculous even to me, and Carol laughed, but without mirth.

“I’m not one of your crew,” she said. “I’d like to go back now.”

“No, wait,” I said. “Carol, I’m sorry. I just—”

“He’s a little boy,” she said. “He wouldn’t understand why his father doesn’t love him enough to be with him.”

“But I can now,” I said. “Give me a chance—”

“I’ve given you several chances. Years of chances. I kept hoping …” She was welling up. I hadn’t realized up to that moment just how much my absence had hurt Carol. I kept rationalizing that at some future date I would figure out how to be together, to be a family. But I’d taken too long. “So … I can’t see him …”

“I think it would be better if you stayed away,” Carol said. It was hard for me to hear, but I could also see it was hard for her to say. She took a pause, finally stepped down off the transporter pad. She took my hand. “Jim, there is no easy answer. Neither one of us is going to give up our work. And that means only one of us can be there for David, and it’s going to be me.”

I could see there was no changing her mind. And I knew, from my own history with my mother, that in one sense, she was right: David wouldn’t understand.

“All right,” I said. “But one day, when he’s old enough …”

“One day,” she said. She kissed me on the cheek, then turned and got back onto the transporter. I went to the controls, signaled the starbase, and, without another word, beamed her down. In a moment, she was gone, and I was alone.

A short time later, I was on the bridge, making final preparations to leave orbit, when Dr. McCoy came to see me.

“Commander, I’ve got a play area set up,” he said.

“What?”

“I had some crates moved out of a small storage locker off the gymnasium. I’ve put in some age-appropriate games, and taken out anything that might be harmful. I’ve also set up a schedule for the nursing staff to take turns—”

“We don’t need it,” I said, cutting him off. I’d completely forgotten about this task I’d given McCoy.

“What do you mean? What about the child?”

“There’s no child on board,” I said. “The passengers made other arrangements.”

Gary looked back at me from the helm, surprised.

“Mind your helm, Mr. Mitchell,” I said. My curtness told Gary I wasn’t going to give him any information, at least not now, so he turned back to his console. McCoy, however, wasn’t letting it go.

“I’ve spent the last three hours on this,” he said.

“Look, Doctor—”

“I’m the chief medical officer aboard this ship. I’m responsible for the health of 300 crewmen, and you’re wasting my time on some kind of horseshit practical joke—”

“That’s enough,” I said.

“It’s not enough—”

“Dismissed, Doctor,” I said. McCoy still stood there, glaring at me, and I didn’t like it. “Get the hell off the bridge.”

“I’m putting this into my medical log,” he said. “This isn’t the end of it.” He stormed off into the turbolift. I noticed the bridge crew glancing over at me, trying to figure what it was all about.

“Show’s over, folks,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Leaving orbit and getting under way gave me a little while to cool down. I realized that I probably did owe McCoy an apology, but his attitude really didn’t make me want to give him one. Still, I wasn’t sure I wanted him entering this in his medical log either. I was already probably under scrutiny at Command because of my age, and I had a feeling it might not be the first time McCoy put something in his log that would undermine me in the eyes of Starfleet. Once we were under way, I left the bridge and went down to see him in his office.

“Captain,” he said. “Please come in. I was just going to come see you …” His affect was much less confrontational than I expected. And he’d called me captain, as did many of the crew, in deference to naval tradition. But some of the older crewmen used my actual rank of commander, which I always took as a sign they didn’t fully respect my position. Up until this moment, McCoy had been one of them.

“Look, McCoy, I owe you an apology …”

“No sir, it’s unnecessary,” he said. “I was way out of line.” Any trace of his anger and resentment was gone.

“I’d still like to say I’m sorry,” I said.

“Well, apology accepted,” he said. We stood in awkward silence for a moment, and when I turned to leave, he stopped me and went over to a cabinet on the wall. “I was about to have a drink …”

He opened the cabinet and inside were a variety of bottles in different colors and shapes. His sudden cordiality didn’t make any sense to me. He didn’t seem like the same man.

“Quite a collection,” I said.

“A doctor needs to be prepared for all medical contingencies.” He took out a bottle of Saurian brandy and poured us two glasses. I sat down and took one.

“So, half an hour ago you were ready to rip my head off; now you’re sharing the good liquor with me.”

“Maybe I just realized we have more in common than I thought,” he said, then activated his computer viewscreen, and turned it toward me. On it was a picture of a young girl, maybe eleven, dark hair, blue eyes. She was standing against the post of what I assumed was a porch, overlooking a grand green yard.

“She’s lovely. Who is it?”

“My daughter, Joanna,” McCoy said. “She lives with her mother.” There was remorse in the way he said this.

This caught me by surprise. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Gary, that David was my son. How could he have figured it out?

“They were coming aboard, and then suddenly they weren’t,” he said, obviously reading my bafflement. “It had a familiar emotional tinge to it.”

It was my first exposure to McCoy’s emotional perceptiveness, which I would eventually count on, but at the moment it caught me off guard. It took me a moment to realize that I also felt relief; someone knew the guilt I was carrying, someone who understood. I finished the drink in my glass, looked at the picture again.

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“It’s been a while,” he said, then held out the bottle. “Another?”

“We’re down to our last crystal,” Kaplan said. “And it’s fracturing. I don’t know how much longer it’s going to last.” I had gathered my officers in the ship’s small briefing room. McCoy, Kaplan, and Gary joined me at the table. Standing against the wall were Communications Officer Chen and Cargo Officer Griffin. I was very annoyed; Kaplan was a terrible choice for this ship. He went by the book, so I could never officially fault him, but the
Hotspur
was so old that it needed a lot more creative thinking than he was capable of. His regular maintenance schedule for the dilithium chamber was too lax, and had caused us to go through our crystals abnormally fast. Without them, we’d have no warp power, and he’d waited until the last minute to alert me to the situation. When the last crystal burned out, we could be stuck in the middle of nowhere.

I remember my years on the
Hotspur
with more nostalgia than they probably deserve. All we did was travel back and forth between the same planets, carrying the same supplies, and it didn’t take long for me to figure out how to avoid the traps of the pirates who were looking to get our cargo. There was no real exploration, and the ship itself was never easy to run. But I often long for the simplicity of that period, my first command, when we were frequently risking our lives for no great cause other than cargo.