"And another thing," I grumble, "I'm pretty sure she was eyeing me up, if you know what I mean."
"Captain Caird?" asks Kara Grant. "Yes, she's got, well, a reputation there."
I swivel the command chair around to look at her. Come to think of it, heads are turning all around the bridge, even T'Pren's, and the Vulcan doesn't normally go in for gossip. Kara shrugs. "She was on a temporary instructor's assignment at the Academy while I was there. Apparently, she takes James Kirk as a role model. In every respect, so she says."
I shake my head. "Reputation, you say. Deserved?"
"I wouldn't know, sir," says Kara primly.
"Well, I just hope she's not as successful in other departments," I say moodily. "You all know what Jim Kirk's missions were like - giant killer robots, quirky superbeings, brain-snatching bimbos - if it was crazy weird and crazy dangerous, you knew Jim would find it. Never mind boldly going where no man has gone before, his slogan should have been 'next stop the twilight zone'." Mystification all around the bridge. "Oh, come on, you must have heard of that one, it's a two-d video classic...." Still blank looks. This is the trouble - stuff that was classic in my day, it's ancient history to these whippersnappers. And they can get off my lawn, too, if I ever get a lawn.
So I stop talking and gaze into the viewscreen. We're zooming along at a tad over warp six, and the stars are shooting by.... Somewhere on my port flank, the Leacock is easily keeping pace with us, and I have a feeling that big battlewagon could outrun us by several warp factors if it felt like it. The power distribution curves and warp signature suggest the Xindi ship has been extensively retrofitted with technology that's way above my pay grade. So why does Caird need me to help out? What can the Harrier do that her ship can't?
Questions. And no answers till we get to Priyanapari. If then.
So now I try to concentrate on the meeps and bleeps from the bridge. Which are all normal, I guess, proceeding on course as planned... OK, so maybe we need a few dents beaten out of the hull, but basically we're intact; the planned shore leave parties are disgruntled at the sudden cancellation, but not actually injured. But there is something... something in the background, preying on my mind....
My eyes go wide open. There is something, indeed. "Can anyone else feel a draught?"
"I -" T'Pren turns. "There is an atmospheric disturbance. Nothing has registered on the environmental controls -"
"Find it. Quick." Unexpected air currents are something you need to worry about, on a spaceship.
And it's not just an air current, now - there is a sensation of heat, as if something's on fire, and a glow in the air -
A glow which coalesces into a flickering, blinding-white silhouette, then cools and fades into a humanoid form.
He is about my height, about my build - thin, with a narrow bony face, sparse brownish hair, a neat little goatee beard, and big, brown, sad, disapproving eyes. He's wearing what looks like homespun peasant garb out of Earth's Middle Ages... he looks like a primitive. But that isn't what he is, not at all.
"My name," says the Organian, "is Clefune."
---
The Harrier doesn't have a ready room next to the bridge. It's an oversight, the sort of thing the designers ought to fix. So we have to troop down to a conference room on a lower deck, with the Organian a silent, ominous presence in our midst.
The Organians.... Another one of Jim Kirk's happy discoveries. He picked this glum little mediaeval-period planet to confront the Klingons on, only it turned out to be not quite so mediaeval after all; the inhabitants were actually disembodied super-intelligences who kept the whole simple-life thing going as a front. They're no longer organic life forms, they don't feel particularly fond of organic life forms, and when they found that two groups of organic life forms were planning on having a barney in their back yard, their attitude could be summed up as "Bad puppies! No biscuit! We're taking away your chew toys!" After which they more or less disappeared, leaving us and the Klingons to thresh out a peace treaty which respects both cultures and paves the way forward for peaceful galactic development and, most importantly of all, does not make the Organians any more mad than they were already.
So having one appear on my bridge - assembling a body for himself out of spare breathing air, making any elements he needed by transmutation, all the sort of thing an average Organian can do like I blink - is not something that provokes me to any fresh heights of complacency.
"So," I say, when the Organian takes a seat at the conference table, "what can we do you for, then?"
Clefune blinks those sad eyes. I suspect my brand of diplomacy isn't going to work on him. "Captain Grau," he says, in a voice that is no fun at all. "The issue at hand is a question of your intentions."
"My intentions?" I don't bother trying the call me Ronnie, everyone does line, because I'm pretty sure it won't work. "My intentions are... umm... well, I'm on my way to the Priyanapari system in company with the USS Leacock, I think the plan is to neutralize an old Suliban weapons cache. I'm not a hundred per cent sure, because I don't think Dr. T'Mev and Captain Caird on the Leacock are telling me everything... but as far as I know, that's the plan. Should you, maybe, be talking to them?"
"No." Those sad eyes are fixed on me, and I have the feeling they're looking into me, searching, probing, and judging. "Your companions' intentions are... comprehensible. Your intentions are what concern us."
"Why mine? I'm just a Starfleet officer, I'm following orders - OK, slightly obscure orders, but that's the problem with this being some sort of Intelligence shenanigan. Can you have just one shenanigan, by the way?"
"There are factors," says Clefune, "of which you are not aware."
Oh, not him too. "Everyone keeps saying that. So why not tell me what they are, and then I'll be aware of them? Look," I lean forward to emphasize my point, locking eyes with him across the conference table, "we're not here to fight the Klingons, or to jeopardize the peace treaty in any way. Nobody wants that. Nobody wants to cause you people any - any inconvenience, annoyance, whatever. All the factors I am aware of... tell me this mission is all about removing a potential threat to peace in the quadrant. A Suliban weapons dump - if that's what this is about - is bound to spell trouble unless it's properly disposed of. So what's the problem?"
"I see," says Clefune, and blinks, once, slowly. "These are your intentions. Specifically, your intentions, and not another's. I have so informed my associates."
I'm mystified. "Not another's? Who else's intentions might I have got?" I'm not at all sure about the grammar, there, but I think it's the right question.
But he doesn't answer it. "I have completed my required tasks." He hesitates for a moment, appearing to think things over. "If you wish to avoid a technical treaty violation... although I assure you, my people are not overly concerned with such technicalities... nevertheless, on technical grounds, you should probably not be the first to enter the Priyanapari system."
"Why not?"
But, again, he doesn't answer. Or, at least, the only answer I get is a blinding glow and a waft of sudden heat, as he discorporates back into energy form and fades away, off to... wherever Organians go, when they're bored with us. He's not quite precise about it - the energy release is enough to set his chair on fire. Messy.
Fire suppression comes online pronto, blasting the chair with a fine particulate spray, sending a bitter chill into the conference room air. And I was feeling pretty darn chilled already.
I lean my elbows on the table and my chin on my hands, contemplating the smoking upholstery... and a whole lot of nasty new questions.
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