The Folded World (4 page)

•   •   •

Ixtoldan air was slightly more oxygen-rich than that found on Earth, or on board the
Enterprise
. In their own quarters, the Ixtoldans could adjust the mix, but in public spaces, like the ship's conference room, their breathing was loud and ragged as they drew in deep, rattling breaths. The conference table was packed with Chan'ya and her retinue, the Federation delegation, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy.

“How long will it take?” Gonzales asked. Chan'ya sat at a side of the three-sided table, opposite Kirk. Her fellow Ixtoldans flanked her on her right, and the Federation diplomats on her left, with Gonzales immediately beside her. The symbolism of it disturbed Kirk; he understood the nature of the Federation mission, but believed that the organization's interests were in line with Starfleet's, and that should have been expressed in the seating arrangement.

“Since we don't yet know the nature of the situation,” Kirk said, “I can't answer that.”

“An estimate, surely?” Chan'ya asked. “We have been patient thus far.”

Kirk didn't have to spend much time in a room full of diplomats to feel his own patience slipping away. “My estimate, Minister,” he said, “is that it'll take as long as it takes. We will not abandon a Starfleet vessel in trouble.”

McCoy put his hands down on the table, probably more forcefully than he had intended. “You people have got to understand,” he declared. “Lives are at stake!”

“Everybody is aware of that, Doctor McCoy,” Gonzales said. His tone was somewhere between ingratiating and patronizing, but closer to the latter.

“Then stop tryin' to pressure the captain and worry about those folks on the
McRaven
.”

“My reason for asking you to join us here,” Kirk said quickly, hoping to calm Bones before he escalated the disagreement into an interplanetary incident, “was to let you know, at once, what we're up against. I wanted you to hear it from me. We're still studying the anomaly, and trying to determine the safest way to proceed. There's an unexplained field. Within that field are an assortment of starships, only one of which we can identify at this point, clustered around another vessel, which is truly massive. So far, we haven't
detected any definitive life signs, but we have picked up weak electrical impulses that seem to be centered aboard the big ship. We have no explanation yet for those.”

He paused to let all that sink in, then added, “As we learn more, I'll keep you all informed. Just know that we are trying to determine with certainty whether the
McRaven
crew is still alive.”

“And
our
mission must take second place?” Chan'ya asked, her flesh edging past rose.

“For now, yes. I'm sorry, but that's where things stand. If it's absolutely imperative that you reach Ixtolde on the original schedule, we could beam you over to your own ship, Minister. I'm sure the
Ton'bey
would be able to get you there on time.”

“But Captain Kirk,” the diplomat named Perkins said. “That would defeat the entire purpose. The idea was to have the minister and her people arrive on a Starfleet vessel, thereby demonstrating peaceful cooperation between the Federation and the Ixtoldans.”

“I'm afraid it's one or the other, Mister Perkins. Either the schedule is kept,
or
they arrive on the
Enterprise
. It's not going to be both.”

“I'm certain that we all understand what's at stake, Captain,” Rinaldo said. Her eyes narrowed, and parallel ridges formed between them. “And we appreciate your concern for the
McRaven
. That said, you must understand that we'll have to discuss your attitude with your superiors at Starfleet.”

“You are certainly free to do so,” Kirk added calmly.

This time, McCoy slammed the table with intent. “Remind them that you're Federation officials and you're dismissing the value of lives. That's something I believe even civilian officials swear to place above all else.”

“You must forgive Doctor McCoy, Minister,” Kirk said. “As a doctor, he has a particular obligation to help those in need. At any rate, I'm going to put these conversations in the ship's log and in my official report,” he added, fully aware that no matter how right McCoy was, there was no way a bureaucrat could admit it. “And I'm sure none of you were suggesting that we forgo our rescue mission.”

“In a pig's eye,” McCoy muttered.

“That, I must admit, is an expression I have never understood,” Spock said.

“I'll explain it to you sometime when I'm not bitin' mad,” McCoy offered.

“Minister Chan'ya, Mister Gonzales, I think we're finished here. We are all on the same page, correct?” Kirk said.

Gonzales met the minister's gaze for a long moment. Whatever passed between them, Kirk couldn't make out, but it seemed to be good enough for them. “Yes, Captain,” Gonzales said. “Carry on with your rescue mission. The minister holds every hope for its successful conclusion.”

“I appreciate that,” Kirk said. He didn't necessarily believe it. But he did appreciate the sentiment being expressed.

Because either way, he was going to get to the
McRaven
.

All he had to do was figure out how.

For a long time after joining the
Enterprise
crew, Miranda Tikolo had looked forward to meals in the crew mess, because they meant being surrounded by her peers. People talked and laughed, debated and pontificated, but there was generally a good-natured sociability that she enjoyed. The detachment assigned to Earth Outpost 4 had been a small one, and when that duty station had come to its tragic end, she had been entirely alone, on a tiny shuttlecraft, watching a Romulan bird-of-prey vaporize everyone. Since then, she had often sought out the comfort of crowds. She needed a certain amount of alone time—every human being did, she believed, and probably other races did as well—but she never wanted it to last very long, and she always felt somewhat ill at ease when she couldn't see other people.

Lately, though, both Paul O'Meara and Stanley Vandella had started putting pressure on her to choose one of them. She didn't want to do that, or even to limit herself to just those two men. Both were decent and kind, capable lovers if not spectacular, easy enough to look at. But neither one made
her heart race and her breath catch, not the way Eric Rockwell had, back on Outpost 4. She didn't know if that was because something had broken inside her, or if it had to do with them. But she wasn't ready to give up hoping that she could have it again someday, and Vandella and O'Meara seemed to want her to do just that.

“. . . so I told her, ‘With all due respect, I know you are the ranking officer and you've been with Starfleet longer, but that idea is—and I genuinely mean this in the nicest possible way—completely moronic.' I thought she would pitch a fit, and I could see it building, but then she kind of swallowed it back, smiled, and said, ‘You know what, Mister Vandella? You're right.' So then we sat down and we came up with a fix that really works.”

“That's great, Stanley,” Tikolo said. She had come late, and Vandella had started his dinner before she'd arrived. When he saw her enter the mess, he waved her over. Now he was almost finished, and she had barely begun. Her duty shift would begin in an hour, while Stanley was in the middle of his.

“Cooperation really does pay dividends,” he said. He set his fork on his empty plate. “I mean, yes, I would love to have everything my way all the time. Who wouldn't? But that's no way to run a starship, is it?”

“I suppose not.” Tikolo forked a piece of baked potato into her mouth.

“I hate to eat and run, darling,” Vandella said. “But I have to get back to my duty station. Making progress with the boss doesn't help if you blow it by coming back from dinner late. I'll see you later, won't I?”

“No doubt,” Tikolo said. She smiled and gave his hand a squeeze, then watched him leave.

She continued eating, alone at the table, picking up snatches of other conversations. She was not alone for long, though; minutes after Stanley left, she saw Paul O'Meara carrying a tray of food and scanning the room. He spotted her and headed straight toward her. “Is this seat taken?”

“It's all yours,” she said. “I'm just about done, though.”

He scooted back the chair that Vandella had vacated, put his meal down on the table. “No problem. Any time with you is better than time without.” He sat, drawing his chair in close. His foot brushed hers under the table, casually—but, she was convinced, not by accident.

“That's sweet,” she said.

“Just the truth.”

“How's your day been, Paul?”

“Better now.”

The truth was, most security shifts on board the
Enterprise
were boring. The ship was like a small town, and as in any small town, there were disagreements that grew into fights, and there was the constant
vigilance required in any controlled situation. But for the most part, the security crew was there to deal with the unusual, with emergency situations. They accompanied landing parties, they handled lawbreakers and attempts against the ship from without. They were assigned to “escort” dignitaries aboard ship, but that was to keep them out of areas they didn't belong. Those things didn't happen often, so they spent the rest of their time trying to stay sharp and prepared for when they did.

O'Meara's plate was heaped with something Tikolo didn't recognize, but he attacked it with gusto. The fare served up by the galley crew was still largely food from Earth, as most of the ship's crew came from there. But they added new and exotic dishes all the time, reflecting the diversity of Starfleet. Whatever O'Meara was eating looked to Tikolo like a heap of worms scooped out of the earth and served under a gritty yellow sauce, and she supposed it was quite the delicacy on Vulcan or Alpha 177 or someplace.

“What are you doing later?” he asked between mouthfuls.

“Working. Then probably sleeping. Eating, working again.”

“You have to have some awake time in there somewhere. You need to have some fun, Miranda. All work and no play isn't healthy.”

“I didn't say I never played.”

“I know. I'm just trying to pin you down to a specific time or activity.”

“We're eating together now,” she said. “Isn't that good enough?”

“Never good enough. I want to see more of you.”

“There's only so much of me to see, Paul.”

“You spread yourself thin. You spend time with Stanley and what's-her-name, Ari, and—”

“I like people! A lot of different people. Is that a bad thing?”

“Not in the abstract, no. But there's only so much time in the day, so much time in a life. When there's somebody who's really special, somebody you could make a life with—”

She interrupted before he could go too far. “I haven't found that, Paul. I thought I had, once, but you know what happened. I'd love to find it again. But I'm not there yet.”

“I just want to know there's a chance, Miranda. I think we could have a future, and I just need—”

“You need something I can't give you,” she said, cutting him off again. “You need some kind of guarantee? I can't do that. I like being with you. Most of the time. Not so much right this minute, though.”

O'Meara's fork clanked against his plate. Tikolo found him handsome, liked his high cheekbones and strong jaw and clear green eyes. But now his brow was furrowed and his lips were twisted into a scowl. “I'm not sure how long I can keep going this way, Miranda.”

“You don't have to,” Tikolo said, anger welling up inside her. “You can't change me, Paul. You are only in charge of yourself. If you don't like the situation, you can wait or you can do something about the aspect of it you can control.”

He held his gaze on her for a full minute without speaking. His hands were trembling and his face had turned a couple of shades darker than usual. Then he gathered his utensils and plate and stood up so quickly he almost knocked over his chair. “I love you, Miranda. That doesn't have to mean anything to you, and I guess it doesn't. But it's how I feel, and you'll just have to get used to that.”

Before she could respond, he stormed away, dropping his dishes off on an unoccupied table before passing through the door.

Everybody in the mess was looking at her. A couple of people made supportive comments, and within another minute or so, they returned to their own conversations, their private concerns. But the tone of the room was different, as if the floor had been strewn with eggshells nobody wanted to step on.

Tikolo looked at her plate, suddenly not so hungry. She didn't look up again until a pleasant female voice said, “Mind if I join you?”

Tikolo managed a smile for Christine Chapel, who served in sickbay as a nurse. “Be my guest.”

The nurse took the seat O'Meara and Vandella had occupied. She didn't have a meal, just a hot
drink in a mug, steam circling its rim as if held there by magnets, or gravity. “You okay?” she asked. Her hair was like spun gold catching sunlight, her eyes a piercing blue that Tikolo thought could see through anything.

“Sure. I mean . . .”

“That looked like a pretty emotional scene, is why I ask.”

“If you're worried about me medically, or psychologically—”

“I'm off duty, Miranda. I'm worried about you because you're a person.”

Tikolo felt the defensive wall she had put up start to slip away. “Thanks,” she said. “I guess I'm okay. It's just . . . why do people have to make things so complicated?”

“The eternal question.”

“I mean, I can handle myself in a fight. I can deal with the various traumas of interstellar travel. The only thing I can't seem to figure out is what people want. Or, no, not that.” She knew what Paul O'Meara wanted. The same thing Stanley Vandella did: some kind of commitment, of exclusivity. They each wanted to be the only romantic or sexual interest in her life.