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This story is affectionately dedicated to the memory of DeForest Kelley (1920–1999).

Historian’s Note

The main narrative of this story takes place from April 20 to November 17, 2254 CE (stardates 605.2–814.2), roughly concurrent with the U.S.S. Enterprise’s mission, under the command of Captain Christopher Pike, to Talos IV (“The Cage”). Chapter 13 occurs on May 13, 2264 (stardate 1013.9).

The prologue, interludes, and epilogue take place on March 22 and 23, 2285 (stardates 8130.4–8131.0), just prior to and at the beginning of the training mission of the refitted Starship Enterprise (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.”

—from the Oath of

Hippocrates of Cos

“It was the season of Light,

it was the season of Darkness,

it was the spring of hope,

it was the winter of despair,

we had everything before us,

we had nothing before us,

we were all going direct to Heaven

we were all going direct the other way—”

—Charles Dickens,

A Tale of Two Cities

Prologue

SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA, EARTH

Stardate 8130.4 (March 22, 2285)

A pair of small maroon gift bags tucked beneath his arm, Doctor Leonard McCoy waited alone in the apartment building’s tidy entry hall. He touched the door chime and began a slow and silent count; by his reckoning, it should have taken at least a good “six Mississippi” for the man he’d come to visit to appear at the entrance.

But the door slid open in roughly half that time. McCoy found that fact worrisome, considering what day it was. Didn’t his old friend have anything better to do?

A weary-looking Jim Kirk, clothed in casual civilian attire, stood just inside the door’s threshold. His remarkably smooth face, still boyish despite the inexorable advance of the years, registered authentic-looking surprise at the doctor’s unannounced appearance.

Surprise, yes, but no real pleasure.

“Why, bless me, Doctor,” the admiral said. “What beams you into this neck of the woods?”

“ ‘Beware Romulans bearing gifts,’ ” McCoy said, deliberately misquoting as he stepped inside the apartment without waiting for an explicit invitation. While still in motion, he handed off the larger of the two gift bags. “Happy birthday, Jim.”

Leading the way through the entry and into the apartment’s small but comfortable living area, McCoy idly tossed the second, smaller gift bag into the air, catching it on its way down as he continued moving forward.

“Thanks,” Jim said, still displaying no real enthusiasm. McCoy stopped and watched his old friend expose the bag’s contents: a small bottle filled with a cobalt-colored liquid. The admiral paused to study the bottle’s label. When he looked up his expression was both nonplussed and chiding, as was his tone. “Romulan ale! Why, Bones, you know this is illegal.”

“I only use it for medicinal purposes.” McCoy deposited the remaining unopened bag on a small glass tabletop near an intricately detailed model of an ancient three-masted sailing ship and an antique hardcover edition of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. Doffing his white, lightweight civilian jacket, he added, “I got a border ship that brings me in a case every now and then across the Neutral Zone. Now don’t be a prig.”

Discarding the empty bag, Jim held the bottle up at arm’s length, squinting slightly as he resumed scrutinizing the label. McCoy knew that the alien inscription wouldn’t yield much information beyond its obvious Romulan-ness. Fortunately, his reseller had supplemented the bottle’s original label with a second one written in far less abstruse Federation Standard.

“Twenty-two eighty-three,” Jim said, sounding impressed in spite of himself.

McCoy tossed his jacket over the back of a nearby synthleather-upholstered chair. “Yeah, well, it takes this stuff a while to ferment.”

Jim responded with a noncommittal “Hmmm.”

This man needs a mixologist as much as he needs a doctor, McCoy thought.

“Here, give me,” the doctor-cum-bartender said. Moving with a prestidigitator’s swiftness, he plucked the bottle from Jim’s hand, scooped the second gift bag up from the tabletop, and left it in the bottle’s place. “Now, you open this one.”

“I’m almost afraid to,” Jim said, though he wasted very little time trying to get at the bag’s contents.

McCoy unstoppered the bottle and then noticed that the admiral had conveniently left a pair of glass tumblers sitting on the tabletop. He immediately started filling them with the electric-blue fluid.

“What is it?” Jim asked, obviously referring to the small bag he was still in the process of opening. “Klingon aphrodisiacs?”

“No,” McCoy said as he finished pouring the drinks. “More antiques for your collection.”

The admiral finally freed the gift: a pair of small, rectangular glass lenses mounted on a delicate wire frame. As he studied it, his genuine perplexity—mixed, perhaps, with some poorly suppressed dismay—became clearly evident.

“Well,” Jim said, meeting McCoy’s gaze. “Bones, this is . . . charming.”

“They’re four hundred years old,” McCoy said, with no small amount of justifiable pride. “You don’t find many with the lenses still intact.”

It wasn’t precisely a lie, since McCoy had come close enough to the truth to make the difference hardly worth mentioning. Though the lenses were indeed the originals, McCoy had subtly altered their optical characteristics using a precision medical laser; this process made the retrofitted eyeglasses a near-perfect match for the unique idiosyncrasies of James Kirk’s presbyopia profile.

The admiral resumed his careful study of the new gift. “What is it?” he asked again.

For the first time, McCoy realized that Jim really wasn’t kidding around—the artifact in his hand had him legitimately flummoxed. The doctor found that surprising, considering how many very old things Jim had surrounded himself with, from the sailing ship model displayed near the room’s center to the small projectile firearms mounted on the walls to the venerable grandfather clock in the adjacent room.

For an antiques enthusiast, McCoy thought, he sure doesn’t know much about the chronic pathologies of yesteryear.

“They’re for your eyes,” he said. “For most patients your age, I generally administer Retnax V.”

“I’m allergic to Retnax,” Jim said.

“Exactly.” McCoy reached for his glass and hoisted it in an informal salute. “Cheers.”

Jim raised the remaining tumbler, apathetically repeating the doctor’s monosyllabic toast.

McCoy took a medium-size swallow and relished the not altogether unpleasant burning sensation as the liquor made its way down. The admiral followed suit, and his eyes widened comically a heartbeat or two later. His protracted, surprised silence reminded McCoy how easy it was to underestimate the potency of Romulan ale—especially when a Federation embargo, Starfleet regulations, and simple propriety had conspired to make the stuff all but unobtainable.

The sound Jim made as he recovered from that first swallow was midway between a groan of pain and a sigh of relief. He followed up by setting his partially emptied glass back on the table—and by displaying the first real smile McCoy had seen since he’d arrived. Another successful prescription, the doctor thought, warmed by friendship at least as much as by the alien libation. Like I said, it’s for medicinal purposes.

Raising his tumbler to his friend once again, McCoy repeated, “Happy birthday.”

The admiral’s smile abruptly slid back into melancholy. He regarded the spectacles in his hand pensively, then looked up at McCoy.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, you could say ‘thank you,’ ” McCoy said. Jim’s insistent cheerlessness was becoming damned annoying.

“Thank you.” He sounded robotic, like a man who was forcing himself to execute the motions of a life that had grown devoid of meaning.

McCoy thought he had a pretty fair idea why.

The doctor’s exasperation intensified as he watched his old friend drop the spectacles back onto the table, recover his glass of Romulan ale, and cross to the tall panoramic windows. Like a mourner in a graveyard, Jim stared in brooding silence at the San Francisco Bay’s calm, blue-black waters. The sky overhead was slate-gray, filling with thunderclouds that threatened to bring a dreary spring rain.

McCoy couldn’t watch in silence any longer. “Damn it, Jim. What the hell’s the matter with you? Other people have birthdays. Why are we treating yours like a funeral?”

“Bones, I don’t want to be lectured,” Jim said, waving the doctor away dismissively as he took another swallow.

“What the hell do you want?” McCoy growled, moving to the chaise longue in front of the hearth, where a fire was already vigorously burning. Settling down into a comfortable reclining posture, he soaked up the fireplace’s welcome warmth and composed his thoughts.

“This is not about age, and you know it,” he said. “This is about you flying a goddamn desk when you want to be out there hoppin’ galaxies.”

Still holding his half-empty drink, the admiral followed McCoy to the fireplace. “Spare me your notions of poetry, please. We all have our assigned duties.”

“Bull,” McCoy said. “You’re hiding. Hiding behind rules and regulations.”

Sitting on the chair nearest the fire, Jim somberly raised the tumbler to his lips again. But he stopped at the last moment, as though finally realizing he’d find no answers at the bottom of a glass.

Lowering his drink, Jim stared straight ahead into the fire. “Who am I hiding from?”

“From yourself, Admiral.”

Jim sat quietly for another few moments before moving over to the recliner beside McCoy’s chaise, and he adopted the doctor’s laid-back posture. Suits me a lot better than it does him, McCoy thought. Both men gazed into the fireplace as though the flames were an augury.

“Don’t mince words, Bones,” Jim said at length. “What do you really think?”

McCoy turned so that he faced his old friend, who continued to peer into the leaping, crackling flames. “Jim, I’m your doctor and I’m your friend. Get back your command.”

The grandfather clock in the adjacent room tolled, and it sounded to McCoy like a muted death knell. The weapons mounted on the wall suddenly took on a vaguely menacing aspect.

“Get it back before you turn into part of this collection,” McCoy continued. “Before you really do grow old.”

Jim seemed to consider the doctor’s words carefully for at least a full minute. Then he set his drink down and favored McCoy with a scowl. “Bones, you’ve had quite a change of heart since my last command crisis.”

McCoy blinked in confusion. “What the hell are you talking about, Jim?”

Jim’s brow furrowed. “You know perfectly well what I’m talking about: V’Ger.”

“You never should have given up command of the Enterprise after V’Ger got you back into that big chair up on the bridge.”

“I seem to recall you accusing me of using V’Ger to get myself back into the big chair.”

Though McCoy could feel himself reddening with embarrassment at the memory, he knew he had to face it head-on. “It wasn’t the first time I’ve been wrong, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. But unlike you, I’m not too stubborn to admit when I’ve made a mistake.”

Jim got to his feet and strode back toward the windows. “Bones, there are only two kinds of flag officers serving in Starfleet—the ones who say they’d rather shuffle data slates around, and the ones who are lying.”

McCoy rose and followed the admiral. “What about the ones who lie to themselves?”

Coming to a halt beside the table that supported the Romulan ale bottle, Jim said, “I took advantage of a crisis once. That was my mistake. I won’t make it again.”

“Jim, an ethical compass is an indispensable thing,” McCoy said as he came to a stop next to the table. “But  . . .”

“Bones, grant me a birthday wish.”

“What’s that?”

“Let it be.” Jim picked up the bottle of Romulan ale and tossed it to McCoy.

The doctor momentarily fumbled with the unstoppered bottle before catching it. Some of the blue liquid slopped over the sides before he succeeded in righting it.

“I take back what I said about you being stubborn, Jim,” McCoy said. “It was a gross understatement. Truth is, you can be even more pigheaded than Spock when you set your mind to it.”

Jim marched into the entryway, his face a mask of bitterness. He slammed his fist against the keypad and the front door slid open in response. “Thanks for the drink, Bones. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early. We leave for the Enterprise inspection tour at oh-seven-hundred.”

A moment later, McCoy found himself once again standing in the apartment building’s tidy entry hall.

Alone, he thought. He glanced down at the Romulan ale bottle. Well, not completely alone.

Raising the bottle to his lips, he downed a single large, incendiary swallow. His knees wobbled slightly, like San Francisco in the grip of an earthquake aftershock. The doctor considered his options.

Why not? he thought as he paused to examine the bottle in his hand. In vino veritas.

Determined to make one final stop before heading home for the evening, Leonard McCoy made his way out into the gathering gloom of the approaching thunderstorm.

STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS, SAN FRANCISCO

Captain S’chn T’gai Spock sat cross-legged on the floor of the living area of his quarters, gazing out of the broad windows that fronted the sparsely furnished Starfleet-issue cottage. A thick deck of clouds obscured the setting sun, smearing it into wide brushstrokes of distant fire. Dusk would soon diminish into evening.

The moment seemed especially opportune for solitary reflection. Spock’s duties as a Starfleet Academy instructor had kept him intensely busy of late, so much so that he’d spent only minimal time engaging in his daily meditations. Because of the preparations for the following day’s inspection tour, nine days had passed since he’d last paused to examine his life, or to study the verdant, painstakingly tended Starfleet Academy campus where he lectured, or to admire the parsimonious beauty of Starfleet Headquarters, whose sleekly modern architecture and carefully manicured grounds lay just outside his windows. A low fog from the San Francisco Bay now wreathed both complexes; the Academy’s eclectic, centuries-spanning accumulation of structures would have been all but invisible but for its distant constellations of interior lights and the haze-scattered ranks of streetlamps that illuminated the many pathways and concourses that crisscrossed the campus.

Spock had little doubt that this would be his last opportunity to meditate prior to his return to the vessel he now commanded in his capacity as an Academy educator—the starship that had been the focus of so much of his life and career.

Enterprise.

It was illogical to speculate regarding the upcoming inspection’s outcome. He’d already spent much of the day aboard the ship, overseeing the final preparations. Now was the time to let go, to allow his crew of untried trainees to succeed—or fail—on their own merits.

The external door chime intruded on Spock’s carefully ordered thoughts. Snapping back to the here and now, the Vulcan rose to his feet in a single fluid motion and strode to the voice-activated pad that controlled the door.

“Open.”

A familiar slender form stood before him, swaying ever so slightly from side to side just beyond the cottage’s threshold. The bottle that sloshed in the human’s hand more than adequately explained his body’s unsteadiness.

“Doctor McCoy,” Spock said with forced equanimity. “You are intoxicated.”

“You bet your pointed ears I am,” the doctor said. He stepped over the threshold, though staggered would have been a more apt verb. For an instant, Spock thought McCoy was about to walk right into him. But much to his well-concealed surprise, the human weaved nimbly past the Vulcan as he entered the cottage, demonstrating a degree of grace that belied his obvious inebriety.

“Do come in, Doctor,” Spock said, raising his right eyebrow.

McCoy wasted no time making himself comfortable on the low, angular sofa that represented one of Spock’s very few concessions to creature comforts—a compromise with Vulcan asceticism he’d made purely out of consideration for his occasional visitors.

“So,” McCoy said as he took a moment to look around the sparsely appointed room. “This must be the Starfleet Academy party palace I keep hearing all the midshipmen raving about.”

Ignoring McCoy’s jibe, Spock closed the door, crossed to the sofa, and stood with folded arms beside the reclining doctor. “I trust you have a compelling explanation, Doctor.”

“An explanation for why I’m drunk? Or for why I decided to make a surprise house call?”

“The two matters are almost certainly related.” Spock reached for McCoy’s bottle, and the doctor relinquished it without a struggle.

McCoy grinned, but only for a moment. “Spock, you’ve lost none of your acumen.”

Spock examined the bottle’s label. Once again, his right eyebrow vaulted skyward. The human predilection for the fermentation process made possible by the terrestrial yeast known as Saccharomyces cerevisiae was dubious enough. But ingesting the metabolic byproducts of Saccharomyces romii—the far hardier yeast-analog from Romulus whose voluminous alcohol output made Romulan ale more intoxicating than many distilled beverages—struck the Vulcan as the height of irresponsibility.

“Doctor,” Spock said, “you must be aware that this substance is—”

“—illegal, yeah, yeah,” McCoy interrupted. “Jim made the same observation.”

“You visited the admiral in this condition?” Spock set the bottle down on a nearby windowsill, handling the glass vessel with all the delicacy one might accord a slumbering but venomous serpent.

“No,” McCoy said. “My ‘condition’ came on a little later. I dropped by Jim’s apartment to pay my birthday respects.” The doctor nodded toward the bottle on the windowsill. “I brought the Romulan ale with me as a gift.”

“Indeed. You appear to have imbibed a considerable portion of the admiral’s ‘gift’ yourself.”

The doctor glowered. “Turned out he wasn’t in the mood for a celebration. I gotta tell you, Spock—I’m worried about him.”

“Because he evidently lacks your penchant for self-destructive behavior?”

McCoy’s graying eyebrows gathered into a jagged tangle. “He’s decided to self-destruct in slow motion. Even you must have noticed how . . . somber Jim’s been lately. His saying ‘galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young,’ and that sort of thing.”

Spock had to concede that the doctor might have a point, his present neurochemical state notwithstanding. The admiral’s fatalistic melancholy couldn’t have been more apparent than it had been earlier in the day, during the immediate aftermath of Lieutenant Saavik’s Kobayashi Maru examination. But the matter hadn’t seemed especially noteworthy. The person in question, after all, was James Tiberius Kirk. This was a man who already had weathered many emotional storms, and yet had always emerged from even the most devastating tempests at least as strong as he’d been before.

Or so it had always seemed.

As he had done on several previous occasions, Spock wondered if the admiral’s seeming invulnerability was merely a carefully constructed façade. Despite the doctor’s compromised condition, his concerns couldn’t be dismissed out of hand. In fact, they raised a serious question: Were the admiral ever to find himself truly in need of emotional support, would he actually reach out to anyone to obtain the assistance he required?

More specifically, would he ask even his closest and most valued friends for their help?

Spock had to admit that he wasn’t altogether certain of the answer. Have I somehow badly overestimated Jim’s psychological resiliency?

“Are you concerned that he might do himself harm?” Spock said.

“As in deliberately? As in actual suicide?” McCoy shook his head. “If I believed that, I’d have him forcibly relieved of duty and placed under psychiatric observation faster than you could say ‘Kolineer.’ ”

Ignoring the doctor’s grating mispronunciation, Spock said, “Then I fail to see—”

McCoy interrupted again. “Spock, there are ways a man can kill himself without overdosing or turning a phaser on himself. Sometimes all he has to do is let himself get talked into leaving the bridge of his starship.”

The Vulcan contemplated the doctor’s words. Though he had always harbored his own private reservations concerning James Kirk’s decision to accept promotion—and thereby to leave starship command behind—Spock had never shared those misgivings with the admiral. It was simply not his prerogative to question the judgment of the man to whose authority he’d deferred for so many years.

Nor was it McCoy’s.

“Perhaps you are in error, Doctor,” Spock said. “I find it curious that you’ve never before seen fit to bring this matter to my attention.”

McCoy flung his hands out to his sides, his fingers splayed. “Before today it’d never seemed necessary. You remember all the ups and downs of Jim’s life just as well as I do. But tonight he was . . . different. Resigned. Fatalistic.”

“I have no doubt that you perceived those emotions,” Spock said. “But that might be explained by the pernicious effects of your excessive alcohol consumption.”

McCoy rose unsteadily to his feet. “You know what’s really pernicious? A man’s shortsighted view of his own duties and obligations, that’s what.”

“Doctor, do you really believe you understand how the admiral perceives his own sense of duty?”

“I do,” McCoy said. He slowly moved toward the front windows and gazed out at the fog-swaddled Starfleet Headquarters complex. He picked up the bottle of Romulan ale that Spock had placed on the sill. “Because I’ve already been where Jim is right now. I’ve stared right into the very same abyss.”

After reclaiming his earlier position on the couch, McCoy paused just long enough to take another swig from the bottle. “And you know what, Spock? That experience damned near destroyed me. . . .”

One

STARFLEET MEDICAL

Stardate 605.2 (April 20, 2254)

Ignoring the gulls that wheeled across the office’s panoramic view of the San Francisco Bay, Leonard McCoy sat spellbound by the image the desktop viewer displayed. Presenting itself as a narrow, sun-dappled crescent, the blue planet rotated serenely before him, silently beckoning.

McCoy tried to put the planet’s tranquil beauty out of his mind, at least for the moment, forcing himself to concentrate on the immediate business at hand. Shifting in his seat, he focused on the silver-haired, blue-uniformed officer who faced him from behind the black oblong desk that dominated the small but tidy office. McCoy had long admired Doctor Rigby Wieland, whose groundbreaking research in the field of xenoimmunology had been required reading during his med-school years. Though his student days were now more than five years in the past, McCoy could scarcely believe that the Great Man was actually considering him for a slot as one of the physicians on his Alpha Aurigae field medical team.

Squinting at the data flimsy he was studying, Wieland leaned forward across the desktop and met McCoy’s gaze squarely. “May I be candid with you, Doctor?” he said.

“Of course, sir,” McCoy said, suppressing an urge to tug at his uniform’s black collar. This assignment was far too important to allow his own nervousness to trip him up.

Wieland studied the younger man. “For starters, your Starfleet service record is a pretty quick read.”

While considering his response, McCoy resumed staring at the planet on the screen. Most of the alien world’s dayside was turned away, toward the two giant yellow stars it circled. The stygian darkness of the planet’s nightward limb emphasized two distant, ruddy pinpoints—according to the text call-outs on the screen, they constituted Alpha Aurigae’s secondary binary pair, twin red dwarf stars that circled the system’s two far more luminous primaries at a distance of about six light-weeks.

But it was the azure planet in the screen’s center that held McCoy transfixed.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” McCoy said.

“Granted.”

“I’ve been in Starfleet a little over a year, sir,” McCoy said, gambling on Wieland’s reputation for good-natured quarrels. “I’ll bet your record didn’t look very different from mine when you were still a junior-grade lieutenant.”

Wieland chuckled gently as he continued to examine the flimsy. “Truth is, Doctor, your record beats mine. I didn’t earn my first Gold Caduceus until I was nearly three years older than you are now. Well done.”

“Thank you, sir.” McCoy experienced an almost palpable sense of relief. He felt a broad smile spread across his face, defeating his best efforts to maintain a neutral demeanor.

“Don’t pop any champagne corks just yet. I still have a few questions for you,” Wieland said.

His smile abruptly collapsing, McCoy nodded. “Of course.”

“You’ve been a practicing physician for five years longer than you’ve been in Starfleet,” Wieland said. “I joined the service right out of med school. Why the wait?”

Though he’d hoped the question wouldn’t come up, McCoy had an answer prepared. “Until about a year ago, I was preoccupied with my family situation.”

Wieland looked down at McCoy’s hands, and the younger man suddenly realized he’d been fidgeting with his wedding ring unconsciously. A veteran poker player would call it a “tell.” He wondered how long he’d been doing it.

“Seems to me you’re still preoccupied,” Wieland said, nodding at McCoy’s left hand before turning his attention back to the flimsy. “What’s her name?”

“Jocelyn.”

“The two of you married six years ago.”

“Yes, sir. We separated last year, right before I joined Starfleet,” McCoy said. “Our daughter, Joanna, just turned five.”

She’s with her mother. Light-years away. The thought was tinged with ache and longing.

Though his relationship with Nancy Bierce, an attractive young med-tech, had started after his separation from Jocelyn, the burgeoning romance still felt like a betrayal on his part. McCoy knew he had to cut his ties with Nancy soon, while he still had the strength to do it.

Leaving Earth behind entirely seemed like the best way to make a clean break.

“So you haven’t entirely given up hope for a reconciliation?” Wieland said, gesturing at McCoy’s ring-hand.

“Yes, sir,” McCoy said. “After Jocelyn’s done taking the time she needs to work a few things out. But in the meantime . . .” He trailed off and nodded toward the planet on the screen.

“My Alpha Aurigae team isn’t the French Foreign Legion, Doctor,” Wieland remarked.

McCoy blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m not taking on anybody whose main reason for going is to forget.”

McCoy allowed Doctor Wieland’s implication to sink in. The older man’s words ignited an anger deep within him.

“Doctor Wieland,” he replied, pointing at the planet on the screen. “Most people in the Federation live in a kind of paradise, medically speaking. Now you’ve shown me people who’ve never had access to modern medicine. My only reason for going is to help them. Because that’s what doctors do.”

“And your family situation has nothing to do with it? Not even a little bit?”

McCoy mulled the question over. He couldn’t deny that his regular Starfleet duties were rapidly becoming devoid of meaning. He couldn’t deny that his separation from his family had helped motivate him to seek a position on Doctor Wieland’s team. He couldn’t deny that he was in pain.

“The last thing I want to do is forget about Joanna or Jocelyn,” McCoy said at last. “I can’t do anything about their absence. But I can do what I was trained to do, wherever my skills are needed the most.”

“Fine. The conditions there will be primitive,” Wieland said. He set aside the flimsy as he got to his feet. “And we could be there for quite a while. Starfleet is stretched pretty thin out where we’re headed. There’s no guarantee that the Yegorov won’t be called away to deal with some emergency or other.”

“That doesn’t bother me,” McCoy said, rising from his chair.

Wieland extended his right hand; however, his tone remained tentative. “You realize our crew rotations could be several months apart.”

McCoy grasped the older man’s hand tightly. “So when do we leave?”

“Day after tomorrow,” Wieland said with a broad smile. “We beam up to the Yegorov at oh-six-hundred. Welcome to the team, Doctor.”

“Thank you,” McCoy said, hoping he didn’t look as relieved as he felt. He honestly wasn’t sure what he would have done had Wieland rejected him.

Because, he thought, I’ve got no place else to go right now.

Two

ALPHA AURIGAE IV

(CAPELLA IV)

Stardate 683.5 (July 11, 2254)

McCoy stood uneasily on the Yegorov’s transporter stage, listening to the whine it made as the technician behind the console powered it up. The rising din, which reminded the young doctor of a pipe organ playing a duet with a phalanx of wind chimes, reached its unnerving crescendo, permeating his bones right down to the marrow even as it faded away. The transporter’s accompanying sparkle-laden tingle vanished an instant later, drowned out by the low moan of a gentle but very noticeable wind. McCoy realized that the pad beneath his boots had dissolved into crunching gravel, the transporter room’s walls and ceiling having given way to the sides of a narrow, rough-hewn canyon. A pair of yellow suns now stared down from almost directly overhead.

McCoy doubted he’d ever get used to making such abrupt transitions.

He watched in silence as the other members of the landing party—Doctor Wieland, Science Officer Plait, Girard from the Yegorov’s geology department, and Aylesworth and Shellenbarger from security—checked their equipment. Silently, McCoy noted that Girard seemed to be the only other person present who might have been visibly rattled by the beam-down. Since McCoy was already reasonably certain that his body had emerged intact from the transport process, he made sure the same was true of his equipment: a pair of fully loaded standard-issue medikits, one on each hip; the medical tricorder strapped across his shoulder; the communicator mounted on his belt; and the inconspicuous, palm-sized laser weapon right beside it.

“The Yegorov just signaled its departure from orbit,” Lieutenant Aaron Shellenbarger said as he clicked his communicator’s antenna grid closed. “It’s official, folks: We’re on our own for now.”

Now and for the next four months, McCoy thought with no small amount of apprehension. He silently wished the medical vessel could have remained in orbit at least until the landing party had made contact with the Capellan natives, but the Andronesian encephalitis outbreak at the New France colony couldn’t wait. The Yegorov was the only vessel capable of dealing with the disease in time.

McCoy looked toward Doctor Wieland, who approached the higher-ranking of the two security officers. “Which way to the supply caches, Garrett?”

After glancing down at his tricorder, Lieutenant Commander Aylesworth pointed in the sunward direction, deeper into the canyon’s gradually lengthening shadows. “I’m picking up the beacon, about one and a half klicks to the northwest. I made sure the matériel we beamed down ahead of us was off the beaten path, away from the main hunting trails.”

Wieland nodded. “Good. We don’t want the locals stumbling across our supplies.”

McCoy hadn’t been in Starfleet for as long as anyone else in the landing party, but he understood how valuable a secure storage cache was to any long-duration field assignment. The prefabricated shelters would be essential, at least at first. And until the planet’s biome was better understood, it was only prudent to rely on the food from the storage cache in preference to the native fare.

The group fell in behind Aylesworth, who had taken point on the long hike toward the supply cache.

McCoy moved to Wieland’s side. “Once we’re finished checking out the shelters and rations, are we going to stay put overnight?” he asked. “Or do we keep going until we reach that nomad encampment we spotted from orbit?”

“Depends on how quickly we move,” Wieland said. He gestured toward the twin suns, which looked increasingly bloated and orange as they continued their slow horizonward drift. “The camp is about another four kilometers from the supply cache, so making contact might have to wait until morning. Encountering these people in the dark is not a good idea.”

“Too bad we couldn’t have just beamed down closer to the camp,” said Lieutenant Mohammed Girard. He wiped his forehead with a sleeve, evidently feeling the intensity of the twin suns. “The sooner we make nice with the locals, the sooner we can see about gaining access to this planet’s topaline.”

Topaline was indispensable to the operation of the artificial life-support systems used on colony worlds all across the Federation. The urgent need for the mineral no doubt accounted for Starfleet’s rather loose application of the Prime Directive vis-à-vis this planet’s prewarp civilization.

“I still don’t understand why we need a treaty to get our hands on the topaline,” Aylesworth said as the team continued advancing through the canyon.

“Are you suggesting we take it by force?” Girard said.

“Not at all. I’m no mineralogy expert, but it seems to me a mining crew should be able to identify a vein of topaline from orbit and then quietly use a transporter beam to whisk away as much of the stuff as they like.”

Girard chuckled. “There’s more than mineralogy at play here, Garrett.” Turning toward the science officer, he said, “Want to bring him up to speed, Phil?”

“Happy to.” Lieutenant Plait used one hand to shade his bald head as he gestured toward the twin suns with the other. “One of those stars has a pretty fierce X-ray output. If it weren’t for the intensity of this planet’s magnetic field, this entire local biosphere would have to go subterranean, or maybe even retreat to the ocean floor, or adapt to living inside a geothermal vent.”

Aylesworth blinked. “So?”

“So it’s the interactions between those X-rays and the planetary magnetic field that keep us from making reliable subsurface mineral maps from orbit.”

McCoy also knew that the Federation didn’t warp in and snatch whatever it wanted, but he kept it to himself.

Wieland made noises of agreement. “According to the first survey teams, those incoming X-rays can create some pretty spectacular auroras, even during the daylight hours—”

Aylesworth stopped abruptly. The rest of the landing party followed suit.

“What’s wrong?” Wieland asked.

The security chief was scrutinizing his tricorder’s small display screen. “Looks like we’re about to have company.”

“I thought you said we were off the beaten path,” McCoy said.

“No,” Aylesworth replied as he turned in a slow circle, directing his scans in every direction. “I said our stuff was off the beaten path.”

“Are we being followed?” Girard asked.

Aylesworth nodded. “It’s a group of humanoids. About a dozen individuals. And they read as pretty damned big.”

“A hunting party, perhaps,” Wieland offered.

“I thought the beam-down spot we picked was supposed to be away from the locals and their campsites,” Shellenbarger said.

“So did I,” Aylesworth replied, sounding defensive as he continued making his scans.

McCoy realized how terribly exposed and vulnerable he was feeling. “I wonder why we didn’t notice them before we beamed down.”

“Probably for the same reason we couldn’t map the planet’s topaline veins from orbit,” Plait said. The science officer spoke distractedly as he manipulated the controls on his own tricorder. “An atmospheric interaction with a nearby topaline deposit might be a factor as well.”

Absurdly, McCoy recalled a conversation he’d had with Lieutenant Plait in the Yegorov’s galley, during which they had discussed planetological doomsday scenarios. The doctor had been impressed by the science officer’s seemingly boundless capacity for dreaming them up.

A low, feral snarl came from somewhere above him.

“I think we might have another problem,” McCoy said.

Craning his neck in the direction of the canyon’s sunward wall, McCoy shielded his eyes against the brilliance of the swollen suns, which shone through a jagged gap in the rocks to frame a large but graceful silhouette. The sleek, low-slung shape reminded him of a large predatory cat from Earth.

The silhouette leapt from the canyon wall, heading directly for McCoy, bypassing the security officers’ crisscrossing laser beams. An instant later the shadowy form struck him with the force of a rockslide. The ground did likewise half a heartbeat afterward. His body went rigid, as though electrified.

Then darkness engulfed him, thoroughly and completely.

Three

Stardate 685.4 (July 13, 2254)

The shards of a broken universe gradually reassembled themselves around Leonard McCoy. Very slowly he became aware of himself, beginning with the rhythmic pounding he felt emanating from somewhere deep inside his skull. At first, the pain felt like a thousand kettledrums pounding inside him. Fortunately it settled down, gradually but surely, to a dull but persistent ache all over.

It quickly came to him that he wasn’t aboard the Yegorov. Nor was he sprawled across the floor of some windy alien canyon. Instead, the air was still and he lay supine on a rough, canvas-covered floor, surrounded by piles of brightly colored furs and oversized, fringe-edged yet incongruously hard pillows. What he’d at first thought was a burned-orange sky that stretched hundreds of kilometers overhead resolved itself into the inside of the top of a very tall, very wide tent.

He was in a mobile living space made for giants.

Giants.

McCoy remembered the tricorder readings Commander Aylesworth had taken in the canyon. The group of large humanoids the team was preparing to encounter.

He sat bolt upright and immediately regretted it; the tent spun as though some prankster had lashed it to a centrifuge. Groaning loudly, McCoy collapsed back onto the brocaded shambles that surrounded him. He closed his eyes in a vain attempt to shut out this newest spike of pain.

Furs rustled against one of the tent walls. McCoy shut his eyes reflexively when a shaft of sunlight from outside struck his face. He heard movement and conversations nearby but couldn’t make out any of the words.

Until he heard an energetic, childlike voice speaking Federation Standard with great urgency. “Come quickly, Ay-El Zurth! Mak-Koy awakens at last.”

Ay-El Zurth. McCoy pondered the strange yet somehow familiar name. Ay-El Zurth.

Aylesworth?

He opened his eyes again and noticed almost immediately that he was no longer alone in the tent. He saw a young humanoid male, hooded and dressed in a cloak. Despite his obvious youth, this was probably the biggest, most robust humanoid child McCoy had ever encountered, given that the timbre of the boy’s voice pegged him as about ten years old.

A three-meter-high canvas flap behind the boy opened long enough to admit another shaft of light, along with more unintelligible gabble from outside. A relieved-looking Aylesworth stepped into the tent, followed by a smiling Doctor Wieland.

“Our thanks, Naheer. Good afternoon, Leonard,” the older man said with a gentle smile.

“The room keeps spinning,” McCoy said. He clutched at the furs around him, like a mountain climber grasping at a handhold.

“The disorientation is to be expected,” Wieland said. “But it’ll pass soon. You’re bouncing back faster than I expected.”

“Bouncing back? From what?”

“Doctor Wieland gave you something to put you out,” Aylesworth said. “I was starting to think you were never going to wake up.”

McCoy wrestled against a surge of panic. Focusing on Wieland, he said, “You sedated me?”

“Not precisely. I induced a temporary coma. I had no better choice, since we lack access to the Yegorov’s sickbay. You took a pretty hard blow to the head.”

McCoy realized he might have had to do exactly the same thing had their positions been reversed. “What happened?”

“It seems we blundered into the path of a party of hunters headed back to this camp with their latest kill.”

“What was it they killed?” McCoy asked.

“The locals call it a lightningbeast because of the nasty electrical discharge it can deliver. The creature the hunters took down appears to have been the mate of the beast that attacked you.”

McCoy nodded. “That would certainly explain its unfriendly attitude. How long was I out?”

“Two days, give or take an hour or so.”

Two days! McCoy thought, his head throbbing. Noticing for the first time since awakening that he was shirtless, he tried and failed to recall the journey from the canyon to this tent. But the incoherence of his memory didn’t surprise him, given the trauma he’d obviously experienced.

“What about the rest of the landing party?” McCoy asked. “Plait, Girard, and Shellenbarger. Are they all right?”

“Perfectly,” Aylesworth said. “Shellenbarger and I took the thing down with our lasers.”

McCoy certainly hoped nobody other than his landing party colleagues had witnessed that. Firing modern weapons in front of the locals remained verboten under the Prime Directive, this planet’s topaline notwithstanding.

“The others have been worrying about you,” Wieland said. “Whenever they’re not engrossed in sampling the biota or picking up rocks, that is.”

McCoy was relieved to hear that nobody else had been hurt. “Please tell ’em they can stop. Worrying, I mean.” His head throbbed again, making him wince.

Naheer seemed to have taken notice of McCoy’s poorly concealed distress. “Be of good cheer, one named Mak-Koy,” the boy said. “You have awakened from the sleep of death. This proves your worthiness.”

“Worthiness?” McCoy asked. “Worthiness for what?”

The boy tilted his head, as though he’d just heard one of the stupidest questions imaginable. “Survival, of course.”

McCoy found that pronouncement ominous.

He looked up at both of his uniformed visitors. “Is somebody going to introduce me to our new friend?”

“His name is Naheer,” the security chief said. “Judging from what I’ve seen of this place so far, he’ll get a lot bigger when he gets older.”

“You might call him a warrior-in-training,” Wieland said. “In fact, he was part of the hunting party that brought us here.”

Focusing past his headache, McCoy directed a grateful smile at Naheer. “Then I owe you a very big ‘thank you.’ ”

Naheer beamed. The recognition made him appear to stand even taller. McCoy guessed his height to be at least one hundred and eighty centimeters.

“One day I will lead my House into battle, Mak-Koy,” the boy said. “And I will visit the camps of each one of the Ten Tribes, and tell our tales there.”

“I don’t doubt that for a minute, Naheer,” McCoy said, mirroring the lad’s easy smile.

McCoy tried to rise, but Wieland laid his hand gently on his shoulder, stopping him. “I don’t want you getting out of bed before you’re ready, but . . .”

“But?”

“The local chieftain is very interested in speaking with you. It’ll help make our case.”

“Our case?”

“The leader of this camp has been very hospitable to us, and that gives us the perfect opportunity to accomplish our mission here by returning the favor.”

McCoy understood immediately. “By offering him the wonders of modern medicine.”

“Exactly,” Wieland said. “Unfortunately, he hasn’t been terribly receptive so far. These people evidently believe that only the strong should survive. They’re not acquainted with the idea of actively nursing the sick or injured back to health.”

“So you’re saying we’re liable to face a very long four months here,” McCoy said.

Wieland shrugged. “Not necessarily. Maybe he’s persuadable. For one thing, one of his men was injured during the hunt.”

“He speaks of my uncle, Efeer,” Naheer said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“How bad is it?” McCoy asked.

Wieland displayed a grave expression. “Bad enough to require treatment that’s substantially better than the local standard of care. And it had better happen soon, before the question becomes moot.”

“Seems to me that a bad injury to one of the leader’s own people should have persuaded him already,” McCoy said.

“Maybe he just needs to see the results from a different case first.”

“You’re talking about me,” McCoy said.

Wieland nodded. “I made sure he saw the shape you were in when the hunting party carried you here.”

“Judging by how I feel now, I must have looked pretty bad.” McCoy was reasonably certain he was in no danger of winning any beauty contests, even after having spent the past two days under his medical mentor’s expert care.

“None of the locals expected you to make it through the first night, Leonard. But if the Grand Panjandrum gets another look at you now . . .” Wieland trailed off, his meaning plain.

Slowly and tentatively, McCoy rose to a standing position, ignoring the insistent pounding in his head. The hard ground beneath his feet seemed to tilt slightly but quickly righted itself and stayed that way.

“Well,” he said, spying his neatly folded uniform tunic in one of the tent’s corners. “Let’s not keep our host waiting.” He looked at Naheer. “Or your uncle.”

Four

Alpha Aurigae’s two primary yellow stars ambled incandescently into the midafternoon hours. Naheer led McCoy, Wieland, and Aylesworth past a flat, empty drill ground upon which several huge warriors were hard at work training. Each man was dressed in a brightly colored tunic with a cowl-like head covering crowned by either flowing braids or a horsetail-like topknot. The fighters were swinging long, flat sparring swords that looked heavy enough to herniate even the toughest log-throwers from Earth’s Highland Games.

Beyond lay a dense thicket of tall tents, whose area footprints varied wildly. Despite their obvious impermanence, these ranks of temporary canvas structures had taken on the settled, stable appearance of a village or a small town, thanks to the constant activity of the camp’s many smiths, weavers, food preparers, and various other craftspeople. Most of these folks—men and women alike—were in the same size class as the swordsmen McCoy had already seen, and none took any particular notice of their visitors.

As Naheer led the way through the campsite, McCoy noticed that both Wieland and Aylesworth appeared to be ready to catch him should he stumble.

“Relax, Commander,” he said. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine, Doc,” Aylesworth said.

“Nonsense. Haven’t you heard? I just proved my worthiness.”

Naheer came to an unexpected halt, and the Starfleet officers barely avoided a collision with the lad’s broad back. It was still hard to think of such a large humanoid as a child. He stood at the front of a voluminous but otherwise unremarkable-looking tent.

“Is this your leader’s tent?” McCoy asked, nodding toward the entrance flap.

Naheer turned to face McCoy and looked down at him with an expression of profound sadness. “No, Mak-Koy. Subteer Usaak does not dwell here.”

“Who does?”

“No one lingers here for very long. This is the Tent of Dying.”

McCoy made a face. “What?”

“This tent is reserved for those who have yet to prove their worthiness, as you have done. I wish to stop here for a moment—to see if Skyfather Gaar has made his decision.”

“What decision?”

“The one that will determine whether my uncle Efeer lives or dies,” Naheer said. “My mother went to dwell with the gods while giving birth to me. And since my father died during last season’s hunt, his brother is all that I have left.”

McCoy didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry.”

“I will stand vigil over my uncle,” Naheer said. “It is not my place to accompany you all the way to Subteer Usaak’s tent.”

“I know the way,” Wieland said.

Aylesworth nodded. “I’ll assemble the rest of the landing party and meet you there.”

Wieland and Aylesworth turned away from the tent, but McCoy remained where he was. “Sir,” he said, “there’s an injured man in this tent who needs medical attention.”

Naheer shook his head. “Only family may enter the Tent of Dying.”

“Not even with the permission of a family member?” McCoy said.

Naheer said nothing, but his stoic features took on a vaguely melancholic cast. Without saying another word, he opened the tent flap and disappeared into the semidarkness inside.

McCoy felt a hand light gently on his shoulder. He turned to see Doctor Wieland regarding him sympathetically. “Only Subteer Usaak has the authority to let us into that tent.”

A sudden surge of hope galvanized McCoy. “Well, we’re on our way to see him. Let’s get his permission.”

“I’ve already tried,” Wieland said, shaking his head. “The word so far is ‘no.’ ”

McCoy frowned. “I hope I haven’t just heard you admit defeat, Doctor.”

The older man appeared nettled for a moment. “Of course not. As I told you before, I made sure Subteer Usaak got a good look at you right after you sustained your injuries. Our best chance of persuading him to accept our help is to show him how far you’ve come in just two days.”

McCoy made an “after you” gesture. “Lead on, then. While we still have time.”

Five

Doctor Wieland paused before the broad, elaborately woven awning that shielded the tent’s expansive entry pavilion against Capella’s pitiless twin yellow suns.

“This,” he said, “is the tent of Subteer Usaak.”

Wieland led the way into the tent, flanked by security officers Aylesworth and Shellenbarger. McCoy followed, hoping to overcome the obvious diffidence of science specialists Plait and Girard, who were cautiously bringing up the rear.

Flames leapt from the large bronze brazier at the tent’s center, imparting an illusory, undulating motion to the intricate patterns embroidered into the tent’s canvas walls. When the group came to a halt before the raised dais set against one of those walls, McCoy found himself standing directly behind Aylesworth and Shellenbarger.

It was only then that he realized that neither security man was carrying his laser.

And just where the hell is my laser? McCoy wondered. It occurred to him then that he’d somehow lost track of all the gear he’d brought down from the Yegorov other than his medikits. He wondered if some tribal superstition or taboo had made the Capellans leery of handling those kits because of some magical property they believed they possessed.

The landing party members now stood before two hulking humanoid males, both of whom regarded them coolly from the dais. The man who was clearly in charge was lean and middle-aged, his great height apparent despite his seated posture on the elegantly carved, thronelike wooden chair that supported him. An ocher-colored cowl—whose open top showcased a long, braided topknot of white-blond hair—framed his dour face. The rest of his raiment consisted of a simple brown tunic and trousers, fur leggings, and a gold-fringed black cloak.

The second man, who stood beside the chair, was outfitted similarly, differing only in the two-toned orange color scheme of his cowl and clothing. A pale, waist-long braid hung from the top of his head covering, and he kept his thickly muscled arms folded before him; he stood like a statue beside his superior, maintaining a pose of watchful silence.

McCoy’s eyes were drawn to the glint of iron lit by the firelight; both men sported wickedly sharp-looking three-bladed weapons. They appeared to pay the blades no more attention than a Starfleet officer might his uniform insignia. But the quiet confidence that both men radiated warned McCoy that they probably could put those weapons to lethal effect within the blink of an eye.

Subteer Usaak nodded in acknowledgment to Doctor Wieland, then focused his attention on McCoy. Speaking in a cavernously deep tone, he said, “I am Usaak, chief of the Canyonfolk Tribe and subteer to the Council of the Ten Tribes. I speak for the people of this encampment. At my right hand stands my loyal subchief, Keer.”

Keer looked askance at McCoy. “I see that another has joined your group,” he said.

“Please allow me to present Leonard McCoy of Earth,” Wieland said. “He is recovered from his ordeal in the canyon.”

McCoy bowed slightly toward the dais. For an absurd moment he wondered if he’d violated protocol by failing to curtsy.

Usaak scrutinized him, his incredulity clearly evident. “Surely this cannot be the same man who came among us two sunrises past.”

“This is indeed the same man, Subteer,” Wieland said.

The subteer and his aide paused long enough to exchange silent looks of astonishment—commingled, McCoy surmised, with no small amount of superstitious fear—before turning back to face their visitors.

Adopting the blandly neutral expression of a seasoned poker player, Usaak directed his dark gaze toward the younger of the two doctors. “Mak-Koy, I am gratified to see that you have survived your injuries.”

“Believe me, sir, I’m mighty pleased about it myself,” McCoy said.

“The lightningbeast’s mate gravely wounded our brother hunter Efeer,” Keer said. “What sorcery is at work here? How can a small, weak Earthman recover from injuries that may yet claim the life of one of our mightiest hunters and warriors?”

“We used no sorcery, Subteer Usaak,” Wieland said. “What you see is the healing power of medicine.” He touched the medikit on his hip for emphasis.

“Meh-di-sihn,” Usaak said haltingly, the word sounding unwieldy in his mouth.

McCoy knew that the landing party’s universal translators worked accurately only when equivalent words or ideas existed on both sides of any given linguistic divide. That fact brought him to an astonishing realization: This culture had never produced anything that even remotely resembled the healing arts.

“Meh-di-sihn,” repeated Usaak’s lieutenant. “Is this what you call this sorcery of yours that raises the dead?”

“I assure you, we have no such power,” Wieland said. He gestured toward McCoy. “However gravely injured this man may have seemed two days ago, he never crossed over into death. If he had, he wouldn’t be standing before you now.”

“Yet you wield the power of gods,” Usaak said. “One of our hunting scouts has borne witness to this personally.”

McCoy exchanged a quick glance with Wieland; he saw his own surprise mirrored on the older man’s face. Had one of the locals seen the crisscrossing laser beams that had saved him from the lightningbeast?

The subteer held one of his massive hands out flat before his aide. The other man very gingerly laid one of the landing party’s hand lasers upon it.

McCoy suddenly understood why the landing party was carrying so little equipment: The local powers that be had confiscated their weapons.

“Yet you can hurl lightning more powerful even than the lightningbeast’s rage,” Usaak said. “Our scout also says that he saw all of you appear out of thin air.”

“It might look like that from your perspective,” Wieland said, as the science specialists and security officers shifted uncomfortably. “But I assure you, we are merely men, just as you are. The weapons we carry are nothing more than refined versions of the blades and spears you use in the hunt.”

“Our blades and spears do not carry power fit to rival that of the gods themselves,” Keer said. Awe and outrage commingled in his voice and manner.

This isn’t good at all, McCoy thought. The Prime Directive clearly prohibited exposing prewarp civilizations, like this one, to transporters, lasers, and most other advanced technologies.

But such considerations were outside his purview. McCoy was concerned only with the medical aspects of the mission. His thoughts flashed to the hunter who had spent the last two days languishing in the Tent of Dying.

And he saw an opportunity to make a difference.

“Subteer Usaak,” McCoy said, “we can’t hurl lightning bolts or raise the dead. But sometimes we can chase death away. I stand before you as proof.”

“More sorcery,” Keer growled.

“Not sorcery.” McCoy locked eyes with Usaak. “Medicine, given to you freely. Will you let me use it in your Tent of Dying? Will you let me try to chase death away from Efeer?”

“Subteer Usaak has already made his decision regarding your Meh-di-sihn,” Keer said, his tone growing brittle with impatience. “Why do you persist in this matter?”

“Because Efeer isn’t dead . . . yet,” McCoy said. “There’s still time to save a valuable member of your tribe.”

And because that’s what doctors do.

McCoy watched as Usaak stared pensively into the flames of the brazier. He hoped it meant that the subteer was reassessing his options—preferably one that didn’t involve confiscating the medikits as he had the rest of the landing party’s equipment.

“Only the strong should survive,” Keer hissed into his leader’s ear. “Such is the will of Skyfather Gaar. Only He may decide the fate of those who lodge in the Tent of Dying. To allow this . . . Meh-di-sihn to interfere would be to defy the will of both Skyfather Gaar and Baan, His only son.”

“Are your gods not powerful enough to enforce their will no matter what we do?” McCoy asked.

He ignored Wieland’s disapproving scowl, though he understood his mentor’s wordless criticism. McCoy had directly challenged the authority of the local gods, not to mention the faith of the adherents of those gods.

After a seeming eternity, Usaak looked up from the fire. He met McCoy’s gaze directly.

“Gaar’s will shall be made manifest, regardless of what others may do,” Usaak said with a shrug of his massive shoulders. “Go ahead then. Try your Meh-di-sihn on Efeer.”

Six

McCoy entered the Tent of Dying just ahead of Doctor Wieland. He found the semidarkened, enclosed space significantly less spacious than the one in which he had awakened. It had room for little other than the single large rectangular platform that dominated its center. McCoy saw that Naheer stood beside the platform, where he maintained a solitary vigil.

An adult male Capellan, decked out in a warrior’s fringed tunic, fur leggings, and cloak—all of which showed evidence of burn damage consistent with a high-voltage electrical discharge—lay on his back atop the sturdy wooden structure. The man’s heavily muscled arms were crossed over his bloodied chest, like the corpse of an ancient Viking raider laid out on a funeral pyre, patiently awaiting his fiery passage to Valhalla. His right hand clutched the haft of a round-handled blade whose three razor-sharp sides gleamed balefully in the low light of a nearby brazier.

The motionless warrior showed no obvious sign of life whatsoever.

“Damn it. I think we may be too late,” McCoy said, dispirited. Wieland moved to the side of the bier opposite from Naheer and began checking the body for vital signs.

Deciding that his duty lay with the living, McCoy stepped quietly toward Naheer. The boy started slightly when McCoy drew close, as though he’d been lost in thought or meditating.

“I wish we’d been allowed in here sooner, Naheer,” McCoy said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Naheer smiled. “But you are here now, Mak-Koy. It is an answer to my many prayers for Skyfather Gaar’s mercy. I have refreshed my offerings of quickblossoms three times just today to implore Skyfather Gaar to soften Subteer Usaak’s heart.”

The boy’s faith felt like a heavy iron chain wrapped around McCoy’s neck, weighing him down. Like Usaak, Naheer obviously credited the landing party’s doctors with supernatural abilities.

“I’m sorry, Naheer,” McCoy said. “I’m afraid your uncle is beyond help now.”

Naheer blinked in confusion. “But you strangers wield the power of life itself. Mak-Koy, everyone who has seen you two days ago, and then again today, knows this to be true.”

“Leonard, come take a look at this,” Wieland said, adopting the no-nonsense demeanor of a disciplined trauma surgeon.

McCoy began to scrutinize the body on the bier. Though Naheer’s uncle seemed no less dead than he had before, McCoy noticed something new: A dark, orchidlike flower lay on the man’s abdomen—no doubt one of Naheer’s quickblossoms.

“I have spent most of the past two days right here, at my uncle’s side,” Naheer said. “To see if Skyfather Gaar has yet decided whether he is to live or to die.”

“I think your god has already made up His mind,” McCoy said quietly. “Naheer, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you.”

“I do not understand,” Naheer said.

Cursing the circumstances that had cheated him out of any opportunity even to try saving this man, McCoy steeled himself to say what had to be said—

—until he noticed with a start that the flower on the dead man’s belly was moving, though only very slightly and sluggishly. A moment later he realized why: The prostrate warrior’s chest was rising and falling, passing its slow, marginal movement along to the flower.

The man on the catafalque was breathing, though only barely.

“Doctor, I think this man is still alive,” Wieland said with a grin.

McCoy nodded, relieved. “He’s just slowed his metabolism so much that we nearly wrote him off as dead.”

“Perhaps it’s like the healing trance Vulcans put themselves in after they’ve suffered an intense trauma.”

He had to concede it was a reasonable explanation. Activating his medical tricorder, he said, “Well, we’ve got work to do.”

Wieland opened up his medikit. “We have Subteer Usaak’s blessing,” he said. “Let’s make the most of it.”

Seven

Stardate 721.1 (August 19, 2254)

Sword blades clattered and echoed in the distance while the aroma of roasting meat wafted across the designated festival area at the camp’s outskirts. Flames leapt from several broad fire pits and the late afternoon breeze bent the resulting plumes of woodsmoke toward the sinking twin suns.

Basking in the warmth of one of the fire pits, McCoy stood between Lieutenants Girard and Plait. Science Officer Plait inhaled deeply, beaming with anticipatory pleasure as he raised a tankard that all but overflowed with one of the local ales.

“Our hosts might not be the warmest people in the galaxy,” he said, “but they sure seem to know how to throw a feast.”

“Let’s hope the other out-of-town guests feel the same way,” Girard said. He made a sour face as he batted a stray tendril of smoke away from his face.

McCoy watched as the festival area—a wind-scoured, granite surface dominated by a wide natural amphitheater that radiated out of the base of a steep, rocky escarpment—was rapidly filling up with people he’d never seen before inside Subteer Usaak’s encampment. Doctor Wieland, Lieutenant Commander Aylesworth, and Lieutenant Shellenbarger were circulating through the gathering crowd, carefully minding the Capellans’ aversion to the shaking of hands. McCoy spotted young Naheer in the gathering scrum, not far from his dour-faced uncle Efeer, who’d made a nearly complete recovery from the lightningbeast attack. Like Efeer, the boy was wearing his Sunday-best cape, which he showed off proudly.

McCoy scanned the rest of the still-growing crowd. Judging by the bright colors and complex stitching of the fur-draped raiment of most of the native guests, he had them figured for VIPs who hailed from some of the more influential nearby tribes. In the presence of so many of these large, stony-faced people, McCoy felt intimidated, but also reasonably sure that none of them were bent on challenging Usaak’s authority. In obvious deference to the subteer’s will, the newcomers displayed no weapons. Regardless, there was no polite way to eliminate entirely the possibility that somebody had secreted a dagger or a short sword into the folds of a cloak, or had stashed a kligat—one of those three-bladed throwing knives of the kind Efeer had clutched during his time in the Tent of Dying—inside a boot.

Coughing, the geologist wrinkled his nose as he waved away another small cloud of invading woodsmoke. “Ugh. That does it, Doc. Next time I get some extended shore leave, I’m going to take it on Vulcan. I know I won’t have to deal with any carnivores there.”

McCoy could sympathize. Like some of his colleagues, Girard had begun this mission all but unable to remember the last time he’d eaten anything that hadn’t come from a food slot in the Yegorov’s galley. The sight and smell of large animal carcasses being slowly flame-roasted was utterly alien to the young geologist’s everyday experience.

“Since we’re guests of this planet’s dominant carnivores, Lieutenant,” the doctor said, “let’s not go out of our way to offend them by complaining.”

Plait nodded. “Good point, Doc. For all we know, the Capellans see vegetarianism and veganism the same way the Vulcans see the practice of eating meat.”

“Is it really that easy to violate these people’s taboos?” Girard looked surprised.

“Doctor Wieland seems to think so,” Plait said. “Haven’t you kept up with that staff etiquette manual he’s been compiling over the past few weeks?”

Girard scoffed gently. “That would be a full-time job in itself. I’ve been mapping this planet’s extensive topaline reserves. I’d rather put my trust in common sense and let the soft-science types fret about the correct handling of the pickle forks.”

McCoy coughed to suppress a laugh. He didn’t want to admit it in front of senior officers, but over the past week or so he too had fallen a bit behind in reading Wieland’s cultural protocol updates.

“To common sense,” Plait said. After a brief pause to take another quaff from his tankard, he added, “Speaking of which, Mohammed, maybe you shouldn’t be so hasty about planning your next shore leave. What would you do if you suddenly found yourself craving Texas-style barbecue while you’re on Vulcan? You’d suddenly discover that you’re over sixteen light-years too far south.”

“Touché,” Girard said.

Night had begun to fall in earnest, and warriors were lighting strategically placed braziers. The festival area was already beginning to bask in a warm, golden-orange glow.

The three men fell into a companionable silence, which allowed McCoy to focus his attention on the massive animal that was roasting over the nearest fire pit. It revolved on a spit, turning slowly over the flames, the metronomic precision of its motion regulated by a pair of thick-thewed, soot-dusted warriors who seemed utterly absorbed in their task. The sheer size and heft of the beast would have been impressive even in light of the typical Capellan’s larger-than-human proportions. But bagging this creature, whose considerable mass belied its sleek, leonine shape, must have been a very risky endeavor. The half dozen or so sharp spikes that lined the creature’s backbone might have given pause to even the largest and strongest of Usaak’s warrior-hunters.

Despite the sear-marks that covered its flesh and its lack of fur and skin, McCoy noticed the animal’s close resemblance to the creature that had jumped him during the landing party’s fateful first day on the planet’s surface.

Lightningbeast, I presume, he thought. And they’re cooking up at least three of ’em at once. Usaak’s really pulling out all the stops tonight.

Looking beyond the fire pit, McCoy watched as still more people filed into the festival area. Rank upon rank of majestic, extraordinarily proportioned Capellans, their ages spanning a bell curve that ran all the way from early adolescence to late middle age, were arranging themselves in orderly semicircles as they stood around the fire pit closest to McCoy and his comrades. At least sixty percent of the several dozen new arrivals were female—young women whose attractiveness ranged from “very” to “extremely,” at least in McCoy’s estimation.

Because of the patriarchal nature of Capellan culture—the landing party members had been selected very deliberately so as not to offend that particular native sensibility—none of the Starfleet men present had glimpsed such a large assemblage of native women since they’d left the Yegorov.

The orderly, almost pageant-like procession of brightly colored tunics and furs, heavy war boots, and long, diaphanous gowns must have represented every clan in the valley, and perhaps even points far beyond. All the while, a dozen or so of Usaak’s hunter-warriors continued sparring in the background, working in disciplined pairs in the scrub-covered vale about one hundred meters past the nearest fire pit. Save for the loud staccato clashing of their swords and knives and the THUNKs their hard-hurled kligats made against the tree trunks, the blade wielders maintained a grim, purposeful silence as they worked their way through a balletically complex series of combat maneuvers.

This display was no doubt intended, at least in part, to remind everyone of Usaak’s authority and power in this particular region of the continent. All this saber-rattling and swordplay, McCoy thought. It certainly explains why so few of these people ever make it to a ripe old age.

“Have you noticed all the women, Doc?” Plait said quietly.

“I’m a doctor, not a monk,” McCoy said, grinning. “Of course I noticed.”

Unfortunately, the presence of so many attractive young women—the preponderance of whom appeared to be somewhere in their early to middle twenties—only served to remind the doctor of the two particular females from whom he had become so painfully alienated.

Jocelyn, he thought, suddenly overcome by a sense of deep desolation. And Joanna.

But even now McCoy still clung to the hope of patching things up with his wife and daughter. All he needed was to restore his self-confidence. And though the Capellan tribesmen still remained suspicious of the medical arts he and Wieland offered, the few powders and potions the Canyonfolk had accepted so far—a liquid hay-fever remedy here, a powdered hangover cure there—McCoy believed that his work on this planet was starting to give him just the boost he needed, psychologically speaking.

“Don’t the Capellan men usually keep their women out of sight?” Girard said, interrupting the doctor’s unwonted reverie.

“ ‘In the rear, with the gear,’ as Lieutenant Shellenbarger would say,” McCoy said with a nod. “Understandable, especially in a patriarchal society like this one.”

“But they’ve obviously made an exception tonight,” Girard said. “What’s the occasion?”

Plait frowned at the geologist. “Maybe you should spend a little less time obsessing over your topaline maps and a little more keeping up with the briefings. Subteer Usaak is not only the Canyonfolk Tribe’s highest-ranking leader, he’s also its most eligible bachelor. If you’re this high on the Capellan social ladder, this is how you get a courtship off the ground.”

The commander displayed a look of dawning understanding. “So Mister Usaak is holding auditions for a prospective Missus Usaak? And here I thought this was supposed to be the annual festival honoring the Capellan god of thunder and lightning and fur capes.”

“Gaar, the Skyfather,” Plait corrected. “And don’t forget Baan, the Skyfather’s only son.” He pointed to a prominent pair of red stars that had risen over the horizon. McCoy recognized the larger of the two stars as Capella C, and the smaller as Capella D.

“The natives have named those two bright stars after Gaar and Baan, the father and the son,” the science officer continued. “They throw a special feast in their honor every year at this time. It’s a stroke of luck that we’re here to see it.”

Girard shrugged. “But you just said they do this every year. I mean, if we’d missed this year’s party, wouldn’t another one come along the same time next year?”

“You really have spent too much time staring at the rocks,” Plait said, shaking his head. “This planet orbits a pair of yellow giant stars at a mean distance of about twelve AUs. In the Sol system, that would place it somewhere between the orbits of Saturn and Uranus.”

“So?”

“So that makes the Capellan year over forty times longer than a Standard year. In other words, anybody expecting to catch this little shindig the next time it rolls around is in for one helluva long wait.”

The geologist looked suitably chastened. Very quietly, he added, “It hardly seems worth the bother, whichever calendar you’re using. Except for some of the scenery, this party’s really nothing to write home about, at least so far.”

“The Capellans aren’t what I’d call a hasty people,” Plait said. “Maybe their parties just have a somewhat longer fuse than the ones you usually attend.”

“Well, I hope that Subteer Usaak finds what he’s looking for,” Girard said. “Happiness has a way of making a man easier to negotiate with. Maybe once he’s married, Doc Wieland and I will have better luck hammering out that topaline-mining agreement with him.”

“To happiness, then,” McCoy said, raising his cup again as he idly scanned the milling crowd.

He soon caught sight of Naheer moving among the throng. It quickly became obvious that the young hunter-warrior was conducting a diplomatic mission of his own—one focused entirely on one of the female guests, a tall and striking young woman whose improbably long fall of straight blond hair nearly reached the hem of her flowing, floor-length gown. Within moments, Naheer and the girl vanished as they passed farther into the general press of the crowd.

Ah, youth, McCoy thought.

Though still standing, the crowd began to settle down, quickly arranging itself into a broad semicircle that faced the canyon’s cliffside. A lone horn sounded a single high, sustained, clarion note, and the clash of sword blades abruptly ceased. Every Capellan male in McCoy’s line of sight dropped to one knee before the echoes had faded, while the women all remained standing at rigid attention. McCoy noticed that everyone had taken care to leave a broad, unobstructed gap, a thoroughfare that led straight from the rear of the crowd all the way down to the bowl-shaped declivity at the base of the hill.

Usaak strode into view from the direction of the sparring area, his heavy fur cloak billowing behind him. The chief of the Canyonfolk Tribe and subteer of the Council of the Ten Tribes moved with swiftness and grace, just ahead of Subchief Keer. A half dozen or so other large, war-clad aides marched determinedly forward at Usaak’s flanks, their faces as uniformly inexpressive as cold stone. Unlike every other Capellan in the festival area, Usaak and his retinue kept both sword and kligat in plain sight, though their weapons remained sheathed.

Turning his broad back to the granite cliff wall, the subteer of the Canyonfolk Tribe faced his assembled guests, all of whom were watching him in attentive, anticipatory silence. Unsurprisingly, Usaak’s address was both terse and brief, though it was obviously more than sufficient to set the next phase of the evening’s activities into motion.

With the practiced precision of a military unit, the women formed a long queue before the subteer and his men. A graceful, dignified procession of lithe, gowned figures commenced as each young woman in turn walked past Usaak, who had taken a seat in a large, ornately carved wooden chair that had been carried out to him by a small group of his warriors.

“It’s good to be the king,” Plait whispered in McCoy’s ear.

Eight

Leonard McCoy felt sure that everything he didn’t know about Capellan culture could fill a good-size library. However, he was certain of one thing: that the evening’s marriage sweepstakes had produced no clear winner, and possibly not even a viable runner-up. Without uttering a single comment regarding the parade of women that had just concluded, Subteer Usaak abruptly departed, leaving it to Keer to issue the terse declaration that officially opened the evening’s festivities.

Having forgotten to tuck his chronometer into the emergency medikit he carried, the doctor didn’t know exactly how much time had passed since Keer managed to get the actual party portion started. But the drinking had begun almost before the echoes of Keer’s proclamation had finished dying down.

Everyone, including Capellans as young as Naheer, was imbibing something, mostly the fermented milk of an indigenous animal. And they ate copiously. Then everyone drank some more, beginning the cycle anew, in an apparently perpetual, self-renewing oscillation.

At the rate of consumption McCoy was witnessing, the eventual need for medical intervention seemed all but foreordained.

They were still at it even now, hordes of visiting tribesmen descending on what remained of the thoroughly ravaged lightningbeast carcasses, tearing through the roasted flesh as though unsure when they might see another meal. The Capellan women attacked the food with as much ferocity as the men; both genders proceeded with terrifying efficiency, eating and drinking in methodical silence. It was as though the act of ingestion demanded such a large proportion of their attention as to render dinner conversation impossible. Even Rigby Wieland, who frequently reminded everyone of his careful studies of Capellan manners and mores, seemed taken aback.

Having sated his appetite, McCoy found he had little to do now apart from loitering beside one of the guttering braziers and watching the still-unfolding gustatory tableau in semidisgusted fascination.

“Don’t be frightened, Doc,” said Lieutenant Plait, who had managed to sneak up on him somehow, making him jump slightly. Speaking in a quiet, almost conspiratorial tone, the science officer added, “I’ve seen this kind of thing before. You should be perfectly safe. As long as you keep your hands and feet well away from their mouths, that is.”

“Very funny, Phil. Just remember, even I might not be able to patch you up if one of the local warriors overhears a comment like that.”

“Sorry. But don’t worry. I promised Doctor Wieland I’d be on my best behavior, didn’t I?”

McCoy realized belatedly that the science officer had progressed past the terrible pun phase of intoxication, which was where he usually stopped. Having tipped back at least one too many tankards, Plait was swaying like a sapling in a gale.

Then the doctor saw Naheer carefully picking his way through the crowd of preoccupied revelers directly behind Plait, the attractive young woman he’d been chatting up earlier at his side. Noticing McCoy’s distraction, Plait turned toward the youngsters and called out to them.

Naheer and the girl turned and approached them.

“Maybe you ought to consider calling it a night, Lieutenant,” the doctor said. “We could have one hell of a diplomatic incident on our hands if you start throwing up on some visiting VIP.”

“Relax, Doc,” Plait said, scoffing gently around an audible burp. “I shall be a shining exemplar of Federation ideals. Watch and learn, Lieutenant McCoy.”

Before he could say anything further, an ebullient Naheer and the pretty blond young woman at his side were standing directly in their midst. McCoy had to crane his neck to look up at them.

Adjusting his gaze back to eye level for a moment, the doctor saw that the young woman was carrying a small rattan basket, filled almost to overflowing with a broad assortment of flamboyantly colored Capellan fruit.

“I wish you to meet someone, Mak-Koy,” Naheer said, his enthusiasm having left him all but breathless. “This is Jeen, of the Miir Tribe. I have told her some of the tales of my tribe, and would listen to hers. Jeen, meet Mak-Koy.”

McCoy noticed two things at once.

First, Jeen seemed significantly older than Naheer—probably eighteen or thereabouts.

Second, the comely young Jeen was favoring the doctor with precisely the kind of smile he imagined Naheer had been hoping to receive from her.

“Mak-Koy,” Jeen purred. “So this is an Earthman.”

Uh-oh, McCoy thought.

Extending her long, graceful arms toward McCoy, she offered him the basket. “Please. Take whatever you wish.”

McCoy knew a double entendre when he heard one, even through the intermediary of the universal translator. I really have to get out of here, he thought. And right now.

Taking one long backward step, McCoy spread his hands out in front of himself and executed a quick but gentlemanly bow. “Thank you, young lady. But I just finished filling up on roast lightningbeast. Maybe some other time.”

Several Standard years from now, young lady, he added silently. Just to be on the safe side.

Naheer’s expression revealed both surprise and dissatisfaction with the doctor’s reaction. Jeen extended her lower lip in an exaggerated pout.

“I do not understand, Mak-Koy,” Naheer said. “Jeen wishes only that you receive a simple gift.”

I’ll bet she does.

Before McCoy could reply, Plait strode into the gap the doctor’s retreat had opened. “Doc, I think you’re being rude.”

Jeen exchanged a look with Naheer, and they both shrugged. Then, with a swiftness that left McCoy experiencing a confusing mix of relief and disappointment, the young woman transferred her attentions to the tipsy science officer. She extended the fruit basket toward Plait as though that had been her plan all along.

A brief flicker of motion in McCoy’s peripheral vision prompted him to look back at the crowd of revelers. Several of the nearest Capellans had lowered their drinking vessels or set aside their food, apparently intent on the exchange between Jeen and Lieutenant Plait. One of these unexpected observers, a particularly burly young adult male, began approaching in long, quick strides. McCoy noticed the gigantic, deadly-looking sword that the young warrior must have just drawn from the recesses of his expansive fur-trimmed cloak—and that the man’s lips were parted in a rictus that placed his preternaturally large white teeth on very prominent display.

The doctor glanced back at the other onlookers. The sight froze the small hairs on the back of his neck somewhere in the twilight region between fight and flight.

Every Capellan who was looking his way wore essentially the same expression as that of the approaching man.

Dear God. Is that what passes for a smile on this planet?

McCoy looked back toward Naheer, Plait, and Jeen just in time to see the science officer reach into the basket. Plait withdrew something that looked vaguely like a small chunk of blue cantaloupe.

Something about the entire tableau struck McCoy as terribly, terribly wrong.

He called out to the science officer. “Phil, maybe you shouldn’t—”

But it was already too late. With a polite smile, Plait popped the fruit into his mouth. “Hmmm,” he said, talking around the morsel. “Not bad. Not bad at—”

A heart-stopping, ear-splitting ululation interrupted him. And the source of the sound—McCoy now realized it was the approaching Capellan male—was now advancing at a full run. The burly warrior lofted his blade with a high, powerful upstroke. The sword gleamed in the firelight as it began its lethal descent, its keen edge bound straight for Lieutenant Plait’s neck.

There was no time to think, no time to plan. McCoy sprang straight at Plait, aiming to tackle him with a hard strike to the midsection. Gravity did the rest, and both men immediately tumbled to the ground, landing in an awkward tangle. Aside from the blunt pain of the impact, McCoy felt only the wind of the blade’s too-close-for-comfort passage.

McCoy quickly rolled into a sitting position and saw that Plait was trying—and failing—to perform the same maneuver. Fortunately, the inebriated science officer didn’t appear to have sustained any obvious injuries as yet.

A quick sideways glance confirmed that the young Capellan warrior was already poised for a second lunge. Though the interplay of light and shadow from the festival fires partially obscured his hulking shape, the flickering effect only emphasized the swordsman’s lethality, from his weird battle grimace to the tip of the blade he was pointing straight at Plait’s heart.

Addressing Plait with a voice that rumbled like distant thunder, the Capellan said, “Earthman, I am pleased that you have accepted my gift. To my knowledge, you are the first of your kind to do this. I will thank you now, because I may not have another opportunity later.”

“Whu?” Plait said, still on the ground and working hard to catch his breath.

McCoy got back to his feet. A couple of cautious, unsteady steps placed him precisely between the Capellan and his intended victim.

“What the hell are you talking about? What ‘gift’ do you think Mister Plait has accepted?”

A bemused frown replaced the Capellan’s death’s-head smile. “Why, the gift of combat, of course.”

“As far as I can tell, all he accepted was a damned snack!” McCoy shouted, throwing both hands into the air.

“I do not understand,” the warrior said. “Your friend accepted that which my sister offered him, did he not?”

This was just getting weirder and weirder. McCoy gestured toward Jeen and Naheer, both of whom were watching from several meters away. Jeen was still holding the fruit basket.

“She’s your sister?”

The warrior nodded. “I am Huuk. As Jeen’s elder brother, my blood is closer to hers than the blood of any other. That is why the duty of granting the gift of combat to her suitors has fallen upon me.”

Damn, McCoy thought, wondering briefly if Doctor Wieland had covered the present situation in any of his recent endless memoranda. If he has, that’ll teach me to keep up with my homework on Capellan cultural quirks.

Pushing the doctor aside as though he weighed nothing, Huuk stepped toward Plait, who had yet to get back on his feet or fully recover his wind. Extending one huge arm downward, the warrior hoisted the surprised and gasping science officer back to a standing position.

“Now,” Huuk said. “I must resume bestowing my gift of combat upon you.”

I have to stop this somehow, McCoy thought. Unfortunately, he had no laser; Subteer Usaak had confiscated it. He reached reflexively for his communicator but stopped himself, recalling that the landing party’s communicators had been taken along with the lasers. Besides, the Yegorov couldn’t come to the rescue even if he’d had a communicator; she wasn’t due to return to the Capella system for another three months or so.

But maybe there was another option. He glanced down at the small, unobtrusive pouch on his hip. All right, he thought. Lemons into lemonade it is.

McCoy rushed over to Naheer and Jeen, both of whom looked startled when he reached into the fruit basket and snatched up several random pieces of polychrome fruit.

Huuk’s little sister got over her surprise in time to favor him with a sultry smile.

I hope I live to regret this, he thought.

Then he turned around and marched back toward the sword-swinging giant.

• • •

Juice and fruit pulp dripped from McCoy’s right hand as he circled around Huuk’s substantial flank. Coming to a stop about five meters directly behind the warrior, he noted with relief that Lieutenant Plait was still on his feet; he looked wobbly and pale and terrified but was otherwise unscathed.

That was obviously only a temporary condition.

The doctor paused for a heartbeat to ratchet up his courage before proceeding with the next phase of his ad hoc plan. Which was precisely when Huuk did something utterly unexpected.

The Capellan extended his sword, pommel first, toward the terrified science officer. “Take it, Earthman,” the warrior rumbled, sounding almost amiable. “You will need a good stout weapon to properly appreciate the gift of combat.”

McCoy watched in silence as Plait took the massive sword with both shaking hands, nearly losing his balance in the process. He regarded the weapon with fear-swollen eyes, groaning with the strain of keeping the blade’s tip off the ground.

McCoy noticed that the sword was vibrating as though electrified, though it was merely keeping time with the trembling of the lieutenant’s arms. I hope to hell he knows which end of that thing is supposed to be the dangerous one.

“What . . . what are you going to use?” Plait asked the warrior, obviously doing whatever he could to buy himself a few additional final moments of life.

The warrior merely laughed, as though Plait had made a wonderfully droll joke.

“Attack me, Earthman,” Huuk said once he’d regained his composure. He gathered himself into a practiced martial arts stance, his knees bent and his ham-sized hands raised and at the ready. The warrior’s weird rictus-smile returned with even greater intensity than before.

Thanks to the flickering firelight, McCoy was becoming uncomfortably aware of the many pairs of Capellan eyes that had seen this entire tableau—including his attempt to sneak up on one of Usaak’s warriors. Fortunately, none of these witnesses had so far alerted Huuk to his approach, perhaps because nobody considered the doctor to be in any way dangerous. Nor had Plait given away McCoy’s presence, either because he was actually calmer than he looked or because he was giving Huuk his completely undivided attention.

Why in blazes is nobody doing anything to stop this guy? McCoy thought. Whatever bizarre cultural practice was playing out here evidently trumped Subteer Usaak’s strict no-weapons-for-the-guests policy.

Then the doctor noticed that the pieces of dripping Capellan fruit in his hand were growing unpleasantly warm and sticky. This is never going to work, he thought.

The sword in Plait’s shaking hands seemed to oscillate like a tuning fork. In spite of that, the science officer continued to stand his ground with courage, neither retreating nor advancing. Or perhaps he simply couldn’t move.

“I have granted you the gift of combat, Earthman,” Huuk said at length. “As well as the right to claim the first blood.” The warrior seemed to be confused, or perhaps even insulted, by the science officer’s failure to mount an immediate attack.

“Uh . . . thank you?” Plait said. His feet remained planted, as though they’d thrown down roots.

Huuk sighed and shook his head. “Very well then.”

Without uttering another word, the warrior began his barehanded—yet obviously still deadly—advance.

Time’s up, McCoy thought. Hoping that nobody among the nearby Capellan observers had succeeded in smuggling in a kligat, he called out with as much volume and authority as he could muster.

“Hey, Huuk! Over here, you big gorilla!”

Turning on one heel with the grace of an Orion dancer, the huge warrior suddenly modified his advance—which meant that he was now headed straight for McCoy. Behind Huuk, Plait allowed the heavy sword to fall, point first, to the ground. The science officer instantly collapsed against the pommel, inadvertently forcing the blade far enough into the ground to give King Arthur second thoughts about trying to yank it free.

Terrific, McCoy thought. Best not to count on any help from the rear.

“Mak-Koy,” Huuk said as he continued his approach, his tone vaguely chiding. “Why have you interrupted the urgent business I have with your fellow Earthman, Plaat?” In typical Capellan fashion, the warrior’s pronunciation introduced a glottal stop that bisected Lieutenant Plait’s surname, splitting its single syllable into two.

“Because,” McCoy said, “you also have the same business with me.”

Huuk stopped less than two meters from McCoy, his wide brow crumpling in a convincing display of bewilderment. “I do not understand.”

McCoy held up the dripping, pulpy morsels he’d taken from Jeen’s basket, turning them this way and that to make them glisten in the firelight. “Then I’ll explain. But first, I really ought to thank your sister for the fruit.”

With that he popped a chunk of fruit into his mouth and ate it.

Huuk’s confusion abruptly vanished, replaced by that weird death’s-head smile. He started to close the small gap that separated him from the doctor, clearly delighted to have found an additional recipient for his “gift.”

McCoy shook his left arm to loosen the metaphorical ace he’d just hidden there, literally up his sleeve. Nothing happened. Damn these Starfleet uniforms! he thought just as Huuk caught him in a bear hug, hoisting him off his feet as though he weighed no more than a rag doll.

Fortunately, the Capellan had neglected to pin the doctor’s arms below the elbows. That gave McCoy the split second he needed to use his right hand to tear his left sleeve open from wrist to elbow. A small gray cylinder tumbled out, and he batted at it in clumsy desperation.

After twice bouncing out of his grasp, the object fell into McCoy’s right hand—just as the doctor came to the near-panicked realization that Huuk was about to turn him into a missile.

Huuk lofted him over his head, giving McCoy almost a bird’s-eye view of at least half a dozen burning braziers and red-hot fire pits—along with Lieutenant Plait’s astonished, upward stare and the countless Capellans who stood by watching this weirdly lopsided wrestling contest.

McCoy shut his eyes tightly and slapped his right hand against the Capellan’s neck with as much force as he could muster. He felt as though he’d just punched a boulder.

Ignoring the lightning bolts of pain that coursed up and down his arm, he held his improvised weapon in place until he heard its reassuring hiss, which Huuk’s exuberant battle cry drowned out half a heartbeat later.

Easing his grip on Huuk’s neck, McCoy let the spent ampule tumble away. The ethereal fingers of a night breeze combed his hair, and a strangely tranquil sensation of weightlessness engulfed him.

Interlude

STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS, SAN FRANCISCO

Stardate 8130.5 (March 22, 2285)

“Fascinating,” Spock said, his right eyebrow rising as he walked through the spartan near-emptiness of his living room. McCoy thought the usually unflappable Vulcan looked almost impressed. “You incapacitated a fully grown Capellan male by means of a concealed hypospray.”

“Sometimes you just have to make use of whatever’s handy,” McCoy said. “Improvising under difficult circumstances is written into my family’s DNA, going back to the days when Captain William Frederick McCoy made his living smuggling Bahamian whiskey.” He grinned at Spock and raised his bottle of Romulan ale for emphasis.

The Vulcan responded by downshifting into a mildly scolding tone. “Laudable though your actions may have been, Doctor, they could be interpreted as constituting at least a technical violation of Subteer Usaak’s weapons policy.”

After pausing to take another swallow directly from the bottle, McCoy said, “You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But I wasn’t the one who smuggled the sword into the feast. Besides, Spock, you have to remember how the Capellans think about weapons. To a Capellan warrior, a sword is a weapon. A dagger or a kligat is a weapon. But a little gray cylinder that doesn’t even have a cutting edge . . . well, that’s a lightningbeast of a whole different color.”

“Indeed. But how did you determine the appropriate dosage?”

“I’m a doctor,” McCoy said, slightly nettled by the question. “I made my best guess.”

“Were there any lingering aftereffects?”

“Well, Doctor Wieland diagnosed me with a second concussion, if that’s what you mean. And when I came to in my tent the next morning, I had a sore hip and a bad sprain in my right wrist.”

“I was referring to the Capellan warrior you anesthetized,” Spock clarified, as though lecturing an obtuse cadet.

“Huuk came through that little misunderstanding like a champ. You know from firsthand experience how tough the Capellans can be, Spock. It’s damned difficult to kill a Capellan on purpose, much less by accident.”

Spock’s curiosity overcame his reticence. “According to my understanding of Capellan courtship customs, Huuk was required to try to kill anyone who accepted an offering of food from a closely related Capellan female.”

Nodding, McCoy said, “His sister, in this case. Because I accepted Jeen’s token, I was obliged to accept Huuk’s.”

“The ‘gift of combat,’ ” Spock said, his words colored by an understated yet obvious feeling of distaste.

“Oh, come on, Spock. You’re a fine one to talk. I was one of the groomsmen at your wedding, remember? You Vulcans can swing sharp objects with the best of ’em.”

“Vulcans take no pleasure in such things,” Spock said.

Realizing he might have gone a little too far, McCoy tried for a graceful backpedal. “Point taken, Spock. Sorry.”

“Given the length of your stay on Capella IV, I am surprised that you and Lieutenant Plait were so inadequately prepared for indigenous social situations,” Spock said, neatly sidestepping both the insult and the apology.

With a shrug that offered no excuses, McCoy said, “Sometimes we humans have to learn these things the hard way.”

“And what became of Lieutenant Plait?”

“Fortunately for him, Huuk had also had a fair amount to drink that night,” McCoy said. “Enough to blot most of the evening’s unpleasantness from his memory.”

Spock nodded. “Alcohol-induced amnesia.”

McCoy took another swallow from his bottle as he prepared to deliver the next portion of his narrative.

“Yeah,” he said. “Lucky bastard.”

Nine

CAPELLA IV

Stardate 813.8 (November 16, 2254)

The twin suns had already risen by the time McCoy exited the small tent that the landing party used both as a lab and as a makeshift storage depot. Although Lieutenants Plait and Girard both continued to make considerable use of the cramped space to perform their ongoing analysis of the planet’s geological potential, McCoy was coming to realize that he preferred to work in his own tent. He’d noticed weeks earlier that Doctor Wieland had been avoiding the work tent as well, probably for much the same reason.

Stacks of boxes sat gathering dust in that tent, a galling reminder that the medical aspect of the Alpha Aurigae mission was on a slow glide path to certain failure. An abundance of perfectly serviceable medical supplies lay neglected and ignored, unused for no better reason than the indulgence of a warrior society’s ingrained superstitions and antiscientific taboos.

The previous week’s surprise dead-of-night coup d’état—during which Subteer Usaak’s former lieutenant, Keer, had killed and replaced his former liege—had caused numerous deaths and serious battle injuries. But neither the wounded nor their families had sought out either McCoy or Wieland for medical attention, probably out of deference to the newly installed Subteer Keer, whose tolerance for change did not match that of his late predecessor.

So much for the allergy remedies and the hangover cures, McCoy thought. I suppose I should thank my lucky stars that Keer hasn’t ordered us banished.

Or worse.

Stepping out of the tent’s shadow, McCoy checked his chronometer and saw that nearly three hours remained before he was due to return for the midmorning staff meeting. Since he had little else to do at the moment—and certainly no patients to see—McCoy decided to kill at least some of that time wandering around the camp, trying to understand these enigmatic people a little better. Though the suns wouldn’t reach their zenith for another several hours, he needed both hands to shade his eyes against the glare.

This revealed the presence of a familiar figure, seated on a nearby boulder. Deciding that his walk could wait for a while, McCoy approached.

“Why the long face, Naheer?” Though the Capellan boy was sitting, his height still surpassed that of the doctor.

“My uncle tells me I am growing swiftly,” Naheer said, blinking with incomprehension. “But I did not realize he was speaking of my face.”

McCoy sighed quietly. “Never mind. I meant that something is obviously bothering you.”

Naheer looked impressed. “You are very perceptive, Mak-Koy. Or perhaps I must apply myself harder to the warrior’s art of keeping his own counsel.”

Or maybe you’re just not cut out to be a warrior, McCoy thought. It was a pity that this society afforded so few options to someone as intelligent and capable as this lad had proved himself to be over the past few months. In McCoy’s estimation, Naheer had the potential to become an outstanding physician.

If only he lived in another place, or perhaps in another time.

“What is it, Naheer?” McCoy said, prodding very gently. “What’s wrong?”

Naheer took a deep breath and gathered his thoughts. At length, he said, “Can you help me to understand females?”

Unbidden images of Jocelyn, Joanna, and Nancy flashed across McCoy’s mind. “Maybe I’m not the best one to ask.”

“I feel more comfortable speaking of this with you than with any of the others,” Naheer said.

“Doctor Wieland has a lot more experience than I do.”

“Dok-Tor Wee-Land is far too old to understand. Before his arrival here, I did not even know that anyone ever got that old.”

Ouch, McCoy thought.

“This is about Jeen of the Miir Tribe, isn’t it?” he said.

Naheer nodded. “I thought she would wish to bond with me one day.”

“That’s funny. I could have sworn you were trying to steer her at me.”

“She wished that as well, Mak-Koy. But I knew you would not want her.”

McCoy smiled. “You are very perceptive, Naheer.”

“And yet I do not understand Jeen,” Naheer said, a look of sadness clouding his wide brow.

“Don’t be embarrassed about that, son. First, she’s a lot older than you.”

“That is not important,” Naheer said petulantly. “I will be fully grown in less than a season.”

“There’s another obstacle in your path. If I understand your customs correctly, the only way to Jeen is through that killer kinsman of hers, Huuk. I’d sooner pick a fight with my grandmother’s tractor than tangle with him again.”

“By next season, Huuk will no longer have the advantage of me.” Naheer’s broad chest swelled, as if to prove his point.

“But Jeen will probably have moved on by then,” McCoy said.

“Perhaps,” Naheer said. “Perhaps not.”

McCoy could see that the time had come to start walking the tightrope between pep talk and hard reality. Taking a seat on the boulder beside Naheer, he said, “Listen, you’ll be amazed someday at how quickly what you’re feeling right now has faded away completely. The everyday details of building your life and your future won’t give you a lot of time to dwell on the past.”

Naheer shook his head slowly. “We Capellans do not build our lives, Mak-Koy. Our traditions build them for us.”

Though the previous week’s political reversal bolstered Naheer’s argument, McCoy felt obliged to take the opposite side of the argument.

“Are you sure about that, Naheer? Look around you. Your world may be about to change in some very fundamental ways.”

The boy shook his head. “At night, do Gaar or Baan ever veer from the ancient skypaths they have traveled since the beginning of time? Does the son not always follow the father? Does the distance between them ever shrink or lengthen, either in the sky above us or on the earth beneath our feet?

“Like the red stars of the Skyfather and His son, nothing will ever change here.” Naheer fell silent, as though he’d suddenly exhausted his daily allotment of words.

“You can’t stop believing that your world is capable of changing for the better,” McCoy said. Sometimes that hope was the only thing that kept him going.

Naheer’s eyes became deep pools of sadness. “When I was small, I told my father I wanted to follow the path of the tribal talekeeper. Though he forbade it, one of the tribe’s matrons encouraged me in secret. She helped me gather much of the lore concerning Skyfather Gaar and His son, Baan. She even shared some of the songs and sagas with me. But because her knowledge was limited, she could take me only so far.”

“Talekeeper,” McCoy repeated. It occurred to him that he hadn’t spent enough time speaking with Naar, the old woman who currently filled that function in the camp. The endlessly curious Lieutenant Plait always seemed to monopolize her time. “I think that might be just the job for you.”

Naheer shrugged. “Perhaps. But I shall never know. The matron who helped me has been dead for nearly half a season now. There is no one to persuade my uncle to ask Naar to grant me an apprenticeship.”

Nearly half a season, McCoy reflected. A little rough mental arithmetic converted that to a span of at least four Standard years—almost half the time Naheer had been alive.

“I tried to entice Jeen with some of the tales the matron gave me,” the boy continued. “But she told me that she knew them already. She said she found the stories too inflexible, too unchanging—like our world. Perhaps she is right about both.”

“I think I understand a little bit about how rigid your culture can be,” McCoy said. “I had some similar experiences back home. But even on Earth, a man can stitch a new ending onto an old story. Or maybe even weave something entirely original out of whole cloth.”

“I am not certain I understand.”

“I’m not sure I do either, kid. All I know is that any world can change for the better—but only as long as people like you believe that. And keep working for it.”

Naheer stared up into the sky, his countenance taking on a contemplative cast. “Perhaps you are right. Thank you, Mak-Koy.”

A harsh, angry male voice sliced through the ensuing silence like a hard-hurled kligat. “Where have you been, Naheer?! Subteer Keer’s hunting party waits!”

Naheer sprang to his feet, his cheeks reddening. He had obviously lost track of time. “I will be there presently, Uncle.”

McCoy remained sitting on the rock, watching as the boy strode over to Efeer, who held two spears and looked even more stern than usual, if that was possible. Within moments, uncle and nephew were marching in lockstep, just like Skyfather Gaar and His son, Baan, straight out of Capellan myth. They soon joined a group of at least a dozen other hunters, all of whom bristled with spears and blades of varying lengths.

One large, distinctive figure was the clear focal point of the entire gathering.

Subteer Keer, McCoy realized. No wonder Efeer sounded so pissed off. Getting an invite to the royal fox hunt from the new Grand Panjandrum probably isn’t something that happens to him every day.

McCoy got to his feet and resumed his interrupted stroll. He had no idea if he’d really gotten through to the boy about the possibility—much less the sheer necessity—of change. All he could do was try to take his own advice.

And continue to hope that things would get better.

• • •

Joining the loose circle formed by Doctor Wieland, Lieutenant Commander Aylesworth, and Lieutenants Shellenbarger, Plait, and Girard, McCoy sat cross-legged on one of the many oversized pillows that comprised the bulk of the tent’s furnishings.

Wieland opened the meeting by addressing everyone at once. “The Yegorov is due to return for us within the next couple of weeks.”

Plait and Girard smiled broadly.

“Which means,” McCoy said, “we’ll be expected to deliver a progress report for the Federation Resource Utilization Bureau.”

The science specialists’ ebullience abruptly faded into a chorus of groans.

“So where do we stand in terms of pursuing the Federation’s goals here?” Doctor Wieland said.

Aylesworth cleared his throat and then got the ball rolling. “I believe we’ve won the Capellans’ trust, at least up to a certain point.”

“That point being their continued insistence on hanging on to our lasers and communicators,” Shellenbarger said.

“Keer’s taking over as subteer probably had more to do with that than anything else,” McCoy said. “I think Usaak might have agreed to give our communicators back by now.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Wieland said. “Unfortunately, weapons policy isn’t the only hard-line position Keer is maintaining. It should be abundantly obvious by now that he’s doubled down on Usaak’s reticence about accepting medical care.”

The encouragements he’d just offered Naheer inclined McCoy to look for silver linings. “At least he’s still giving us the run of the camp. That’s an encouraging sign.”

“Keer is a shrewd leader,” Aylesworth said. “We’ve become popular enough with his rank-and-file hunters and warriors that getting rid of us would be a serious political risk for him. He knows better than to remind everyone how he came to power. It might encourage somebody younger and hungrier to do the same to him.”

“Which is likelier to happen the more he allows his people to drift away from their warrior traditions,” Shellenbarger said. “He has no incentive to embrace change.”

Aylesworth nodded. “Including whatever medical progress we’ve been hoping to make here. I’m forced to question why we’re still pouring so much time and energy down that particular rathole.”

“Because the Prime Directive won’t let us give them much else in exchange for access to this planet’s topaline reserves,” McCoy said.

Shellenbarger frowned. “But doesn’t the Prime Directive prohibit us from bringing these people high technology of any kind—including advanced medicine?”

“I admit, the topaline question has forced the Federation Council into a certain amount of . . . stretching of the Prime Directive,” Wieland said. He looked to Lieutenant Girard. “Perhaps somebody on the geosciences side of the mission can explain it better than I can. Lieutenant?”

Obviously uncomfortable with the subject, Girard fidgeted as he spoke. “We’re not talking about giving the Capellans warp-drive schematics or vials of antimatter. But we are assuming we’re allowed to offer them more limited, tightly focused technological assistance—mainly in the areas of materials science and metallurgy—in exchange for an agreement to begin mining this planet’s topaline.”

McCoy could see practical problems with that approach, in addition to the philosophical ones. “Wait a minute. Keer is in charge of a single backwoods tribe. He couldn’t possibly have enough authority to negotiate mining rights on behalf of the entire planet.”

“Of course,” Wieland said. “But Keer doesn’t have to represent the entire planet. He has local authority—maybe even regional authority—and that gives him enough clout to get a hell of a lot of topaline into circulation all across the Federation.”

Plait nodded. “And Starfleet will still have the option of pursuing higher-level negotiations while we’re dealing with Keer.”

“We might even cut a much larger-scale deal with the High Teer of the Ten Tribes himself someday,” Girard said. “That could expand Federation topaline-mining operations across most of the planet’s northern hemisphere.”

“Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves?” McCoy said. “We still have yet to convince the local powers that be to let us turn the first spadeful of dirt.”

“You’re being too pessimistic, Leonard,” Wieland said. “We’ve started making real progress toward a formal topaline-mining treaty over the past couple of weeks. Keer is genuinely intrigued by our offers to trade other commodities for certain topaline-extraction rights. I think the notion of incorporating stronger metals into the Canyonfolk Tribe’s kligats and hunting spears has begun to win him over.”

“Considering the decisive way he grabbed power, Keer doesn’t strike me as a man who has any trouble making tough calls,” McCoy said. “So what’s taking him so long to make up his mind?”

“It’s projection, most likely,” Wieland said. “Being a conquest-driven warrior, he’s having some difficulty appreciating the fact that we have no ambitions to do as he does. Keer doesn’t understand why an entity as powerful as the Federation would hesitate to use force to take whatever it wants.”

“Then we’ll just have to go on giving them reasons to believe in our motives,” McCoy said. “Medical miracles should have been the perfect way to do that. It’s too bad that Keer seems so dead set on keeping us stymied on that front.”

“Don’t lose heart, Leonard,” Wieland said. “Just keep on being a credit to your profession and your uniform. And stay alert for every opportunity to put your skills to their highest and best use—”

A sudden commotion just outside the tent ran right over the older physician’s words, diverting the attention of everyone present. Before anyone could get to his feet, a huge, fully armed Capellan hunter shouldered his way past the canvas flap. A momentary frisson of dread stiffened McCoy’s spine when he recognized Efeer.

But it became apparent almost immediately that Efeer wasn’t bent on violence. McCoy could tell at once from the hunter’s uncharacteristically stricken expression that something was terribly wrong.

“I have returned early from Subteer Keer’s hunt,” the warrior said breathlessly.

McCoy rose to a standing position, as did the rest of his colleagues. “Why?”

“An accident has befallen a member of my House.”

Ten

McCoy was the first to emerge from the tent. About five meters away a pair of beefy hunters deposited an unconscious third figure on the ground while Subteer Keer himself looked on in grim silence.

McCoy felt a transitory surge of disappointment when he saw that Keer had emerged unscathed from whatever mishap had befallen the man who lay on the dusty ground. Pushing the shameful thought out of his head, the doctor ran to the injured person.

His heart plunged when he recognized his prospective patient.

Naheer. McCoy had known it since Efeer had entered the lab tent, but had hoped he’d been wrong somehow.

“Give us some room, everybody,” McCoy said. Efeer obediently took a couple of large backward steps away from his nephew’s still form.

McCoy wasted no time breaking out his medikit. In the space of heartbeats, he was using his handheld scanner to assess the adolescent Capellan’s erratic vital signs. Though Wieland was nominally in charge during medical emergencies, McCoy knew that he was far too good a doctor to raise any points of protocol or ego, especially under circumstances as dire as these. He threw himself into the emergency, checking the patient for wounds.

McCoy found the initial scans both discouraging and confusing. And the visual profile of the boy’s injuries was just plain weird.

“What the hell happened here?” he demanded.

“Lightningbeast,” Efeer said. He spoke in an emotionless, shell-shocked tone. “It sprang at us from behind the boulders near the far end of Eastgorge.”

Naheer’s long dark hair had come loose from its braid, and much of it stood on end. The portion of his tunic that stretched across his broad chest had been charred black, as was much of the flesh beneath. Some of the tissue surrounding the burned area was already showing extensive signs of suppuration, and the unscorched portions of the boy’s tunic advertised his extensive blood loss.

“This looks like some kind of high-voltage electrical discharge,” Wieland said.

“I have no understanding of such things,” Efeer said. “All I know is that the creature’s lightning struck him down.”

“What are you doing, Mak-Koy?” Keer rumbled. The subteer had sidled up to the boy’s uncle but was staying out of the way of the doctors.

It suddenly came to McCoy that he was in the process of doing something that Subteer Keer had not yet officially approved. Doctor Wieland, who was frozen in midstep with a hypo, had obviously just come to the same realization.

But McCoy couldn’t bring himself to simply stop. Instead, he decided to vamp for time.

“We’re just looking him over,” he said. “We have to assess the extent of his injuries.”

“Can you tell us whether or not Skyfather Gaar will decide to save him?” Efeer said.

“You’ll know the minute I do,” McCoy said.

Glancing up, McCoy saw that Keer was watching him intently from just behind Efeer. The tribal leader’s narrowed eyes shone with silent accusation.

McCoy looked away, trying to return his focus to his first priority—the welfare of his patient.

“Does this sort of thing happen often?” he heard Shellenbarger asking Efeer. Fortunately, the security officer had the presence of mind to insert himself between Efeer and his nephew, a move that had gently forced the warrior to give a little more room to the wounded boy and the doctors tending him.

“I have witnessed lightningbeast flashes on several prior occasions,” Efeer said. “I have even been struck myself more than once.”

“Sounds like this must happen a lot,” Shellenbarger said.

“The animals require little encouragement to release their power,” Efeer said. “All one has to do is venture too close to a lightningbeast that has yet to succumb to the spear.”

Keer nodded. “Or be insufficiently fleet-footed to step out of the creature’s way when it rushes you.”

McCoy checked his scanner readings again. The boy’s vitals were astonishingly strong, considering the obvious seriousness of his injuries, which included voluminous blood loss and an incipient and apparently rapidly worsening febrile state. But the readings were also erratic and inconsistent. Until he was stabilized, Naheer would remain in very real danger of succumbing to a sudden cardiopulmonary crash. The suppurating chest wound worried him greatly as well, since it was a telltale sign of a likely infection; without immediate treatment, the infection alone could overwhelm his already stressed and damaged immune system.

“I can’t do much more for him out here,” McCoy said. “I’m gonna need some help moving him into the lab tent for further treatment.” He made eye contact with Wieland, motioning with his head in the direction of the tent.

A long shadow engulfed Wieland, who shook his head sadly. McCoy realized with a start that Subteer Keer was looming directly over him, his patient, and the older doctor.

“Mak-Koy,” Keer said. “As subteer of the Canyonfolk Tribe, I have not yet agreed to allow the practice of sorcery on the sick or injured. If I understand your own laws, you may not proceed without first obtaining that consent.”

McCoy could hardly believe what he was hearing. Hiking a thumb in Efeer’s direction, he said, “But I had permission to save him.”

“That was Usaak’s decision. He is subteer no longer.”

Wieland deflated, surrendering utterly. But McCoy wasn’t quite ready for that, despite Keer’s intimidating presence.

“Doesn’t Efeer have anything to say about that?”

Keer shook his massive head. “Efeer does not speak for the tribe.”

“But he can speak for his family, can’t he? By rights the decision ought to be up to h—”

“Hold, Mak-Koy,” Efeer said. “I shall move my nephew.”

McCoy decided not to question his sudden good fortune. There would be plenty of time later to sort out the consequences—after he’d saved Naheer’s life. “That’s great, Efeer. Thank you. I’ll help you get him into our tent.”

“No,” Efeer said, with a wave of one of his outsize hands. “I do not trust you Earthmen, or your potions and powders. Naheer has spoken to me about your strange ideas many times. Perhaps without those ideas distracting him he might have paid proper attention to the performance of his duties on the hunt.”

With that, Efeer turned on his heel and faced Keer.

“Subteer, will you help me bear my nephew to the Tent of Dying?” he said. “Whether Naheer lives or dies, I do not want Skyfather Gaar to render His decision within the sight of outworlders.”

Eleven

The hours between the incident and nightfall passed with agonizing sluggishness. McCoy spent most of the time either stalking around the camp, pacing inside the tent, or wearing a groove in the furs that made up the floor of his canvas-lined sleeping quarters. When he opened his tent’s entry flap and peered upward into the night, he got a clear view of the red lights of Gaar and Baan, the distant third and fourth stars of the double-binary Capella system.

Please don’t make any hasty decisions up there, fellas, he thought. He hoped Naheer’s desire to survive would prove at least as strong as that of his obstinate uncle.

Of course, Efeer’s condition hadn’t been complicated by a virulent infection.

“Doctor?”

McCoy started at the unexpected sound of Doctor Wieland’s disembodied voice. But he recovered quickly and stepped outside his tent. The older physician was standing just outside the entry flap.

“Did Keer agree to that private meeting I proposed?” McCoy asked without preamble.

The starlight and the low, fluctuating illumination from the campsite’s scattered braziers made Wieland look gaunt and grave. “He did. Lieutenant Plait and I just came from there.”

“Damn. I wanted to be there, too.”

Wieland offered a gently consoling smile. “You just would have lost your temper, Leonard. You know, you’ll become more patient when you get a bit more seasoned.”

“The hell I will. What did Keer decide?”

“Only that the answer is still ‘no.’ I’m sorry, Leonard. I don’t want that boy to die any more than you do. But unless Keer and Efeer both relent, the Prime Directive won’t permit us to render aid. I’m afraid our hands are tied.”

Tied in goddamned red tape, McCoy thought. The only substance in the universe more common than both hydrogen and stupidity.

“Thanks for keeping me in the loop,” McCoy said at length.

“Get some sleep, Leonard. You look like warmed-over hell.” With that, Wieland turned and disappeared into the night.

Alone with his thoughts and the stars that the Alpha Aurigans considered the auguries of their fates, McCoy decided that catching up on his sleep wasn’t a viable option this evening.

Instead, he contemplated doing the least he could do. And he decided it was nowhere near enough.

Twelve

Stardate 814.2 (November 17, 2254)

It took the anesthezine nearly two seconds longer to take effect than McCoy had expected. Immediately after the hypospray spent itself in the back of his broad neck, the startled Capellan warrior turned toward him. The thickset man reached for the kligat on his belt.

Then his knees buckled and his eyes rolled up into his head.

I’m glad one of us will get a little sleep tonight, McCoy thought as he caught the dead weight of the fallen guard’s unconscious form and lowered him gently to the ground just outside the Tent of Dying. Now let’s just hope I don’t find any more watchdogs like this one inside of the tent.

Once he’d made sure that the sedative wasn’t causing the Capellan any complications, he slipped quietly into the tent. The light inside was dim, as it had been during Efeer’s stay here. Also as before, a large figure lay supine and motionless on the raised bier in the tent’s center.

Naheer.

McCoy tucked the hypospray back into his medikit and started running a battery of scans. So far so good: The boy was still alive.

But that was the only upbeat news. On the debit side of the ledger, Naheer had lost a great deal of blood. Despite his innate Capellan toughness, his untreated wounds were steadily overwhelming his body’s capacity to heal itself. His pulse was weaker and threadier than before. His breathing was shallower. His fever had increased by nearly a full degree, and his white blood-cell count was declining rapidly. The boy was in a footrace against a virulent bacterial infection, and he was clearly losing ground from hour to hour.

McCoy set his medical tricorder and scanner aside and began manipulating the settings on his hypospray’s molecular synthesizer.

As bad as this looks, he thought, thirty ccs of corophizine should give him better than even odds of surviving long enough to get him into a surgical bay.

While he waited for the hypospray’s indicator to flash READY, he took a moment to examine Naheer’s burns. As he’d expected, the suppurations had grown significantly worse, progressing in lockstep with the rapidly worsening infection. He started tearing the scorched tunic open in order to get a better look at the extent of the electrical burns the boy had sustained. Fortunately, he found little damage that he hadn’t already noted.

Naheer began to stir and his eyes fluttered partway open. “Mak-Koy,” he whispered. His throat sounded dry, but he wasn’t coughing; he appeared to have escaped much of the pulmonary trauma associated with the inhalation of burning particulates.

“Don’t try to speak, Naheer,” McCoy said, astonished to see anyone this badly injured regain consciousness, even for a moment. “You have to save your strength.”

“Has Skyfather Gaar made His decision?” Naheer asked, his voice as dry as ancient parchment.

“I don’t know, kid,” McCoy said. “But I sure as hell have.”

Naheer’s eyes closed as he slipped back beneath the threshold of consciousness. For a moment, McCoy feared that he’d stopped breathing altogether. But he discovered to his relief that the boy had merely depleted some portion of the extraordinary reservoir of strength that had briefly enabled him to speak.

McCoy took another look at his hypospray. Noting that it was ready to deliver the dosage of corophizine he’d prescribed, he brought the injection nozzle up to Naheer’s neck.

“Doctor!” The voice directly behind him startled him into dropping the hypospray only a split second before it would have reached its mark. Annoyed, he turned toward his unwelcome visitor.

“Doctor Wieland?” he said, surprised all over again. “What are you doing here?”

The untended brazier’s wan light only accentuated the older officer’s disapproving scowl. “That’s a question I’d like to hear you answer, Leonard.”

McCoy retrieved his hypospray and held it up for Wieland’s inspection. “Isn’t it obvious? I was about to put my thumb on one side of Skyfather Gaar’s scale.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” Wieland said. “For a moment there I thought you might have completely lost your sense of objectivity. What a relief to discover that you’ve only decided to throw your entire career away.”

McCoy grinned humorlessly. “I’m afraid you’re way too late to talk me out of that, Rigby.”

Wieland’s gaze flicked down to the instrument in McCoy’s hand. “Not unless you’ve already emptied that hypo into your patient’s bloodstream. What’s in it, by the way?”

“It’s an antibiotic that’s already tested out as effective against most of the local bacteria, at least in the lab. If it clears out his infection and gets his fever down, then maybe he’ll have a shot at surviving surgery.”

“But Keer isn’t going to let you perform surgery. And neither will Efeer. And neither will I. You know that.”

McCoy shrugged, neither lowering the hypo nor bringing it into contact with Naheer. “True. But even without surgery, Naheer still might recover on his own—you know how tough these people are—but he won’t have even that chance if I don’t knock down his fever and his infection first.”

Squinting through the semidarkness at the hypo, Wieland said, “So you haven’t treated him yet.”

“Your timing was impeccable,” McCoy conceded.

Wieland approached him so that they stood face-to-face, close enough to touch each other. “Then it’s not too late, Doctor. You can still back away from the edge.”

“The edge of what? Doing right by the Hippocratic Oath?”

Wieland sighed. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” McCoy said, lowering the hypo, though without deactivating it or putting it away.

“It means that you have considerations other than the oath you swore, that we both swore,” Wieland said. “You took an oath as an officer of Starfleet.”

“I have a patient who’s hanging between life and death. That is where my duty lies! What else should take priority over that?”

“Topaline, Doctor. This planet contains enough of it to fill the Federation’s demand for several centuries. That’s why the mining agreement we’ve been working toward is so important.”

“I’ve shared a drink or two with the Yegorov’s geology people during the trip out here,” McCoy said. “I already know more than I ever wanted to know about topaline. Not to mention the settlements that can’t keep their life-support systems running without it.”

“Good,” Wieland said, looking impressed. “Then you must also be familiar with Altimara.”

At length, he said, “No.”

“Altimara is a planet that supports dozens of extensive mining operations,” Wieland said. “For more than a hundred years, it’s been the main topaline source for Federation colony worlds that otherwise wouldn’t be able to support life. During the last few decades, virtually all of the Federation’s topaline has come from the Altimaran mines. But those mines are rapidly playing out. Over the next few years—years, mind you, not decades or centuries—they’re expected to run out entirely.”

“Right now I’m concerned with the welfare of only one person,” McCoy said, gesturing toward Naheer.

Doctor Wieland raised his hands in a gesture of concession. “All right. But how does a single individual’s life stack up against the lives of countless millions of Federation citizens?”

“I don’t make those kinds of decisions!”

“Leonard, you are about to make precisely that kind of decision,” Wieland offered quietly. “By deciding to throw out the Prime Directive, and disobeying your oath as a Starfleet officer, you are deciding the fate of all those millions of topaline-dependent Federation colonists. Only you can decide whether or not to throw your career away. But take a moment and think: How do you suppose the people closest to you will take the news that you’ve been demoted for insubordination? Or even cashiered?”

McCoy lowered his gaze and took a moment to ponder both of Wieland’s aftermath scenarios. Jocelyn would no doubt see a dishonorable discharge as more evidence of his unreliability as a father. Further proof of his inability to follow through on his commitments. He was bitterly aware that he’d already given her ample evidence of those failings over the past several years.

And Joanna will probably believe whatever her mother tells her to believe, he thought glumly.

McCoy looked Wieland directly in the eye. “How can I just let this boy die?”

“Doctor, you can’t force these people to adopt practices for which they’re not yet prepared,” Wieland said. “And there’s no telling when they might finally be ready to accept what we’ve been offering them. You certainly can’t force it.

“Whether they come around a thousand years from now or next week, this boy’s death won’t be your responsibility—it’ll be theirs. They’ve made their choice, as is their right, and they’ll have to live with it. Now it’s time for you to do the same.”

“You outrank me, Doctor,” McCoy said. “Are you ordering me to violate my oath—to stop trying to save Naheer’s life?”

“No,” Wieland said. “I don’t think I’ll have to. You have a promising Starfleet career ahead of you, Leonard.” He extended his right hand toward McCoy.

McCoy studied the older man’s hand.

Ignoring the still, silent voice that warned him not to do it, he deactivated his hypo and placed it in Wieland’s outstretched palm.

Interlude

STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS, SAN FRANCISCO

Stardate 8130.5 (March 22, 2285)

“The course of action you chose was undoubtedly the correct one, Doctor,” Spock said, though he seriously doubted that his friend and colleague was in any condition to process his judgment.

“Think so, do you?” McCoy slurred. He sloshed the Romulan ale bottle’s depleted contents until it became a whirling gyre. “It’s only true from the perspective of the Starfleet hierarchy.”

Studying the drunken doctor sprawled out on his couch, Spock said, “Both of us constitute parts of that hierarchy.”

“But I’m a doctor, Spock. Granted, I was a hell of a lot less experienced then than I am now, but I was certainly no green kid. I was old enough to know I’d just used the Prime Directive and Starfleet protocol to justify the worst decision any doctor could have made.

“And because of my choice, a patient I could have saved died.”

Spock decided that the logic behind the Federation’s prohibition against Romulan ale was utterly unassailable. “That choice may have saved countless other lives. Surely you must know that.”

“But we’ll never know for certain, will we? If I had disobeyed orders and saved Naheer’s life, who’s to say the Capellans wouldn’t have chalked the kid’s survival up to one of their capricious gods? Who’s to say the topaline deal we cut with Regent Eleen thirteen years later wouldn’t have come about either way?”

Spock had always found it illogical to pursue such counterfactual speculations. It was a notably human predilection.

“Short of engaging in extensive chronohistorical research,” the Vulcan said at length, “I know of no reliable means of answering those questions.”

“So we’ll never know,” McCoy said. “Those kinds of questions make a man doubt himself all the way down to his core.”

“I would not number excessive self-doubt among your flaws, Doctor.”

“Why, thank you, Spock. That’s the nicest thing anybody’s said to me all day. But you’re wrong. My decision to let Naheer die became an itch I couldn’t scratch. It made me angry and sullen. It drove everybody I cared about even farther away from me, starting with my ex-wife and daughter. I didn’t realize it at the time, but the divorce became irreversible the moment I handed that hypospray over to Doctor Wieland.

“Now, Nancy was more patient. We reunited for a while after my time on Capella IV. She put up with me for a year, but eventually even she couldn’t take me anymore. And I just got more bitter and more angry, locking myself into a vicious cycle that damned near killed me I don’t know how many times. And my career as a Starfleet medical officer was on life support.”

“Clearly, something interceded,” Spock said.

“Not something,” McCoy said, grinning. “Someone.”

Thirteen

STARBASE 7

Stardate 1013.9 (May 13, 2264)

Leonard McCoy smiled across the table at the deceptively youthful-looking officer in the new gold uniform.

“So Starfleet Command has finally come to its senses and given you a command of your own. It’s about damned time. Congratulations, Jim.”

“Thanks, Bones.”

The two men had become fast friends after the U.S.S. Farragut’s encounter with half a dozen pirate vessels nine years earlier. A wounded Ensign James T. Kirk, barely alive, was carried into Starbase 7’s infirmary, where he said later on that he’d been impressed with McCoy’s no-whining approach.

“To Starfleet’s newest captain,” McCoy said, before pausing to take a swallow of his mint julep. “And the grand adventure that lies ahead of him.”

Kirk took a long draw on his drink, an Andorian ale of some kind. “And ahead of his first chief medical officer.”

In the midst of a second swallow, McCoy barely avoided spitting his drink across the table. “If I didn’t know better, Jim, I’d swear you just offered me a job.”

“Mark Piper turned in his resignation, effective immediately,” Kirk said. “The Enterprise is Starfleet’s flagship, Bones.” The young captain turned on the barstool and gestured toward one of the broad observation windows that ringed the periphery of the nearly empty lounge.

An immaculate white shape hovered silently in the darkness beyond. The doctor read the pride and love in Jim Kirk’s face. “She deserves the best officers. And the best doctor.”

McCoy studied the mighty starship as he considered Kirk’s offer. He contemplated living out among the stars once again. Unlike the stints he’d already served aboard the Republic, the Yegorov, and the Constitution—all three of which had started him, at best, somewhere near the middle of the sickbay totem pole—he’d hit the ground running as the head of a starship’s medical department.

“It’s tempting, Jim. It really is.”

“So why do I hear a ‘but’ sneaking up on me?”

“Because I’m thinking about retiring from Starfleet.”

“Retiring? Come on, Bones, the surgeon general is at least twice your age.”

McCoy shook his head. “It’s not about age, and you know it. It’s about being hamstrung by the damned bureaucracy. It happened during the Capellan mission ten years ago. And it’s happened to me at every posting where Starfleet deigned to put me in charge of anything.”

Kirk’s brow crumpled into a concerned frown. “Bones, what the devil are you talking about?”

McCoy raised his hands and gesticulated, taking care not to knock over either of the drinks. “I’m talking about hierarchy over Hippocrates, Jim. I will never do that ever again.”

Then, over a second and third round of drinks, McCoy told Kirk the story of the months he spent on Capella IV.

Kirk listened attentively. After McCoy finished, the young captain sat in silence, processing what his friend had just confessed about matters of life and death, divided loyalties, and oaths in collision.

“Bones,” Kirk said, “you patched me up after my dustup with those Epsiloni pirates. I don’t think anybody else could have done quite what you did. I need you aboard the Enterprise.”

McCoy nodded. But he needed to hear something more.

“I know the Capella mission put you in an impossible situation,” Kirk continued. “You were forced to choose between that boy and your oath as a Starfleet officer.”

“Yes,” McCoy said.

Kirk’s sharp hazel eyes locked on his. “Doctor McCoy, you have my word as a Starfleet officer that I will never do that.”

A broad smile crossed McCoy’s face before he could do anything about it.

“Okay,” he said. “I’m in.”

Epilogue

STARFLEET HEADQUARTERS, SAN FRANCISCO

Stardate 8130.6 (March 23, 2285)

“Despite your overly harsh self-evaluation,” Spock said, “you must admit that your actions on Capella IV—both as part of the Yegorov expedition and also some thirteen years later, when you took part in the Enterprise’s Capella mission—laid the groundwork for the mutually beneficial relationship the Federation now enjoys with the Capellan people.”

“Maybe,” McCoy said. He felt much more comfortable trading barbs with the Vulcan than he did receiving either praise or solace from him. “Still, when that Capellan boy died, a part of me did as well. And it’s all because I let myself forget that I’m a healer first and a Starfleet officer second. I swore from that day on to question any order that just doesn’t smell right.”

“Interesting, Doctor,” Spock said, nodding sagely. “I find it difficult, if not impossible, to imagine you behaving any other way.”

A collegial silence stretched between the two old friends as McCoy wondered whether to take Spock’s comment as an insult or a compliment.

Ultimately, it didn’t really matter. In fact, the story with which he’d regaled Spock over the past few hours had only been a prologue to the real purpose of his visit. A quick downward glance at the empty Romulan ale bottle in his hand—the remains of one of Jim Kirk’s birthday gifts—reminded him of what he had yet to accomplish.

“Spock, a man can spend most of his life realizing who he really is,” the doctor said. “Becoming whoever he’s going to become, and then hanging on to that. It took me years to figure that out. But along the way I somehow cut myself off from the people closest to me.

“That cost me whatever chance I might still have had to patch up the wreckage of my marriage. And it left me with a teenage daughter who wouldn’t even speak to me.”

Spock rose from his place on the low sofa and slowly paced the width of the unadorned living room. Despite his vaunted Vulcan reserve, he was obviously uncomfortable with the conversation’s intense emotional content.

Tough, McCoy thought. He’s half human. Hell, he’s half Irish. He ought to be used to this kind of thing by now.

Spock came to a stop in the center of the room, his hands clasped behind his back. “Doctor, I presume you have made this revelation because you believe it to be especially relevant to the admiral’s present emotional state.”

“Damn it, Spock, I don’t want what happened to me to happen to Jim as well,” McCoy said, gesticulating with the spent bottle as he leaned forward. “Right now he’s facing the same crisis I did after my first mission to Capella. He’s refusing to be true to what is his best destiny—commanding a starship.”

Spock nodded. “May I assume that you have already had this conversation with the admiral?” he asked.

“I tried,” McCoy said with a shrug, though he knew he’d spilled a good deal more of his proverbial guts tonight for Spock just so the Vulcan could understand the emotional toll. “He wouldn’t listen. He’s entombed himself in that office and that museum that he calls a home. Which is why I’m gonna need your help.”

“My help doing precisely what?”

“Saving Jim from himself.”

With that, McCoy got to his feet, weaving slightly in the process but quickly regaining his balance. He wasn’t sure whether or not Spock had noticed.

The Vulcan raised his right eyebrow in his characteristically inquisitive fashion. “Precisely what course of action do you have in mind, Doctor?”

Grinning conspiratorially, McCoy said, “Couldn’t be easier, Spock. All we have to do is convince Jim that he needs to sit down in the big chair again.

“We have to find a way to get him back his command.”

U.S.S. ENTERPRISE, SICKBAY

Stardate 8131.0 (March 23, 2285)

Leonard McCoy read the report again, exasperated that yet another medical supply delivery had been misplaced somewhere in one of the cargo holds. He handed the data slate back to the young nurse. “Don’t worry, Amy, we won’t need it. The worst thing we’re likely to face on this cruise is a cadet hyperventilating. Just pick—”

The boson’s whistle sounded. “An emergency situation has arisen. By order of Starfleet Command, as of now, eighteen hundred hours, I am assuming command of this vessel. Duty officer so note in the ship’s log. Plot a new course, for Space Laboratory Regula I.”

The intership cut off. McCoy assumed the new commander of the Enterprise was giving orders to the bridge crew.

“What does it mean, Doctor?” asked the nurse.

“Wonderful stuff, that Romulan ale,” McCoy mumbled.

“Doctor?”

He grinned. “Get sickbay ready. Find those drugs. Computer, make a note in the medical log that Admiral James T. Kirk is currently commanding Enterprise.”

Acknowledgments

In getting this book from its initial concept phase all the way to a finished product for your e-reading device, the author owes recognition and thanks to a veritable multitude, including (but not necessarily limited to): Ed Schlesinger and Margaret Clark, for offering me this gig, and for the patience they both exhibited during its execution; Dorothy Fontana, who wrote the Original Series episode “Friday’s Child”; Russell Bates and David Wise, for giving us the Capellan power-cat (aka “the lightningbeast”) in the animated Star Trek episode “How Sharper Than a Serpent’s Tooth”; Fred Bronson, who sowed the seeds of the Capellan flowers (aka “quickblossoms”) seen in the animated Star Trek “The Counter-Clock Incident”; Boris Borisovich Yegorov (1937–1994), the first medical doctor to fly in space; James Blish, whose “Friday’s Child” adaptation referenced the planet Altimara and its dwindling topaline supplies; Dr. Philip Plait (world-class skeptic, critical thinker, author, blogger, and proprietor of www.badastronomy.com), who graciously furnished a trove of useful information, both of the real-world and speculative varieties, concerning Capellan orbital mechanics and stellar characteristics, and who inspired some of the mythology I placed in Capella IV’s cultural backdrop; Brad Ferguson, whose Crisis on Centaurus established Leonard McCoy’s stint at Starbase 7 and James Kirk’s history with the pirates of Epsilon Canaris III; Dorothy Fontana (again), whose Original Series episode “This Side of Paradise” established the fact that Spock had another name—one that humans tend to find unpronounceable; Barbara Hambly, whose novel Ishmael revealed what Spock’s unpronounceable other name was; the kind and indulgent folks at the New Deal Café, where much of this e-book was written and revised; Jack B. Sowards, Harve Bennett, and Nicholas Meyer for bringing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan into being; William Shatner, not only for his portrayal of James T. Kirk, but also for sharing a birthdate (March 22) with the legendary starship captain; Leonard Nimoy, for breathing life into Spock, one of the most enduring fictional personae in television history; the late DeForest Kelley (1920–1999), who imbued Dr. Leonard H. McCoy with so much of his own dignity and humanity; the late Gene Roddenberry (1921–1991), for originating the universe in which I am sometimes privileged to play; and finally my wife, Jenny, and our sons, James and William, for their long-suffering patience and unending inspiration.

About the Author

Michael A. Martin’s short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and he is the author of several Star Trek books. He has also coauthored (with Andy Mangels) several Star Trek comics for Marvel and Wildstorm, as well as numerous other works of Star Trek fiction and three novels based on the Roswell television series. Other publishers of Martin’s work include Atlas Editions (producers of the Star Trek Universe subscription-card series), Gareth Stevens, Grolier Books, Moonstone Books, the Oregonian, Sharpe Reference, Facts On File, Star Trek magazine, and Visible Ink Press. He lives with his wife, Jenny, and their sons, James and William, in Portland, Oregon, where he occasionally plays bass guitar and tabletop role-playing games, and spends the balance of his free time preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse.

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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First Pocket Star Books eBook edition April 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4767-3819-2

Contents

Dedication

Historian’s Note

Epigraphs

PROLOGUE

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

INTERLUDE

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

INTERLUDE

Thirteen

EPILOGUE

Acknowledgments

About the Author