Dreadnought! Read online

  “Is he?” The harshness of my words forced me into silence.

  Merete sensed the wisdom of shutting up. Together we sank back to absorb Proxima.

  But I was still thinking about Vulcans.

  This cruel tributary of destiny, and my mistake, had thrown Sarda into isolation. Back at Academy, in the privacy of his quarters. I knew Sarda spent sleepless nights trying to teach himself the disciplines only Vulcan acolytes could teach. I had watched him sink time and time again into that seclusion in our barrack—he never knew I was looking—and I sensed he was retreating into personal torture.

  It had made me angry with his race.

  Since entering Star Fleet, I had developed a … fascination for these spirits deviling about the Academy, casting human shadows and thinking alien thoughts, philosophies so doggedly Oriental as to vault entirely into the paranormal. Vulcans.

  I had some opinions about them.

  For instance, this business of Kolinahr. Was there any practice more harmful to a philosophy? The Vulcans were in reverence of throwing away everything that separated them from intelligent brick walls. Why would a culture do that to itself? They had once been barbarians who foresaw their future and deflected it, religioning out everything that might trigger a return to violence. The price—love, enjoyment, friendship, intimacy, sorrow, release … gone.

  Gone … and not. Anyone who ever knew a Vulcan, or even watched a Vulcan face carefully, knew better. It wasn’t the emotion that was forbidden; it was expression of emotion. The emotions were still very much there, and nobody would ever convince me otherwise. They didn’t show it, they didn’t let it interfere with their actions; it was turned inward, but it was there. Emotion rarely surfaced in a fully disciplined Vulcan, usually only in moments of shock, pain, or unexpected physical contact. But those that did surface were pure. They were uncolored examples of emotion, bald and spontaneous. Actually it was kind of refreshing.

  “Merete!”

  “What? Sorry. I dozed off.”

  “Where did you get this tape?”

  “This one?”

  “Any of them. Can we get any planet?”

  “Any recorded and stored by the library computer.”

  “You have access?”

  “Of course.”

  “Show me, will you?”

  “Just follow me.”

  Enterprise’s library had tapes.

  More tapes than anybody, anybody would ever be able to use. Any tidbit of accumulated knowledge, extending well into the subspecies of trivia, was here in some form, or at least accessible through tie-in to Memory Alpha Colony in this quadrant, Memory Gamma in the quadrant we were approaching.

  But the image projector was unique. It stood alone, proud in the middle of an array of comfortable furniture—any library was, in its way, a breed of rec hall—and begged to be used.

  I put the dreadnought and the grief it brought me on hold as Merete tapped us into the system. As with most PCs, it was designed to be operated by plankton if necessary, and opened itself to her.

  “What planet do you want to see?” she asked.

  “Can we do it in here? Don’t we have to be in an enclosed chamber?”

  “No. It’ll fill the area till it hits a wall,” she told me, “if it’s a landscape, that is. If it’s a person or other contained unit, it’ll just appear in proper scale. There’s nobody else here now. We don’t have to worry about bothering anyone, so tell me.”

  “Vulcan.”

  She looked at me. In a moment the questioning gleam in her tilted grey eyes subsided and she called up the tape. It was processed and regurgitated, and she handed it to me. “Want to see it now?”

  “Please.”

  Click. Beep-buzz. Whirr.

  Of course, I couldn’t really hear it. I was empathizing with the damned machine.

  Beneath us, Enterprise sizzled. From bare volcanic crust evolved red magma, heaved-up spires, regoliths and natural bridges—all red. It didn’t simply appear around us; we watched it evolve. In moments we were standing together on the sparse, funereal surface of Vulcan.

  It was a red planet beneath a sulphur sun, dusty as raw hematite and crowded with loneliness. In the distance there was part of a city, more like a gathering of dinosaurs than civilization. Primitive, it was, yet it glowered with the patina of tradition, as though it was being maintained out of respect. That didn’t seem consistent with what I had assumed about Vulcans.

  “What’s that over there?” Merete joined me between two spires of glittering muscovite, and gestured at a multisided structure with what appeared to be gargoyles without faces at every corner.

  “Looks like an ancient threshing floor,” I guessed, “but Vulcans were never agrarian. Possibly it’s a theatre. Maybe a temple. I don’t know.”

  “Vulcans don’t have gods, you know.” I didn’t. Suddenly I was furious with myself for not knowing. Knowledge was all around me, and I didn’t know.

  “They’re not very artistic,” Merete observed.

  “They wouldn’t be Vulcans if they were. But look at the way the buildings imitate the rocks, even complement them. They must be master metallurgists too. See the inlaid scrollings of ore?” I sank down on a jutting of hematite, polished to a dull gleam by weathering and looking more like a disembodied pupil than a rock, and for a moment closed my eyes on this bastion of intelligence around me. It was such a barren place … yet it had spawned the greatest philosophic structure in the known galaxy. It absorbed me … too much.

  “All right. Thank you. I’ve seen enough.”

  “Screen off.”

  When I opened my eyes, Vulcan was gone and the brightness of the library was painful. I took Merete’s place at the terminal and punched up a definition for Sele-an-t’lee.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “We’ll see.”

  The screen lit up. There was no voice.

  SELE-AN-T’LEE: VULCAN TRAINING LEVEL, AGE APPROXIMATELY 38-45 YRS. V.S. COMPRISED OF

  “Interrupt,” I ordered. “Convert to Earth-standard years.”

  SELE-AN-T’LEE: VULCAN TRAINING LEVEL, AGE APPROXIMATELY 25-29 YRS. E.S. COMPRISED OF LESSONS IN SUBDOMINANT BRAIN ORGANIZATION, ADVANCED PHILOSOPHY AND LOGIC, MUSCLE COORDINATION, AND CONTROL OF WILL.

  FIVE STEPS: BELIEF DISCIPLINE/REALITY AWARENESS/SENSORY ACUTENESS/VISUAL CALCULATION/FACT ANALYSIS.

  READING INCLUDE LOGIC AND DEFINITION BY LYRAS, THE INTERIOR BY TAL LUXUR OF ROMULUS, EQUATIONS BY SCORUS, SYSTEMS OF LOGIC BY SURAK, PURPOSE AS PRIME MOTIVATOR BY SURAK.

  ADVANCED MIND-MELDING TECHNIQUES. COMPLETE.

  “So that’s what he meant,” I murmured slowly. “He’s falling behind.”

  “You don’t mean he’s trying to teach himself.”

  “It seems he is.” I’d known that longer than I cared to admit. “He’s a drowning man, desperately trying to teach himself to swim before he becomes completely lost. Computer, provide a general listing of subjects studied by Vulcans from age eight through adult.”

  WORKING. PRELIMINARY NOTE: LAST COMPLETE ROSTER OF VULCAN STUDY AND TRAINING PROVIDED BY EARTH EMISSARIES STARDATE 7881.2.

  “Seventeen Earth-standard years ago,” Merete provided, voicing both her feelings and mine.

  “Well,” I decided, “it doesn’t matter if it’s a particularly accurate listing. Go ahead, computer.”

  The screen lit up without hesitation, and a list appeared.

  VISUAL MATHEMATICS

  NEUROLOGICAL ORGANIZATION

  PHYSICS

  ALGEBRA

  GEOMETRY

  VULCAN ANTHROPOLOGY

  CALCULUS

  QUANTUM PHYSICS

  TELEPATHIC COMMUNICATION AND ETIQUETTE

  SUPPRESSION OF CORTICAL STIMULAE IN DOMINANT HEMISPHERE

  VULCAN CULTURAL HISTORY

  RITES OF PASSAGE

  PHYSICAL DEPORTMENT

  LOGIC AND DEFINITION

  MEMORY ACCURACY

  PRINCIPLES OF ANALYSIS
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br />   LOGIC PARADIGMS

  CONTROL OF SUBDOMINANT CORTICES

  CONCEPTS OF GIVENS

  PROCESSES OF DEFINITIONS

  PAIN CONTROL

  PRESSURE POINTS FOR MIND MELDING

  “Are you seeing this?” I muttered.

  “Staggering, isn’t it?” Merete leaned forward, straining to read the small letters. “I can tell you right now some of that is out of date.”

  “But plenty of it isn’t,” I said cryptically. “Computer, specify training list for Vulcan adults over the age of thirty-five Earth-standards. Include suggested readings.”

  Without vocal response, the secondary list appeared before us.

  LOBE SEGREGATION OF THE BRAIN

  DIGNITY AND TRADITION IN VULCAN IDENTITY

  CONTEMPLATIONS OF INFINITY

  BEHAVIORAL NEURON STUDY

  ISOLATION OF THE KATRA

  READINGS INCLUDE:ESSAYS OF DISCIPLINE BYSURAKTHE RUNES OF T’VISHANALYSIS OF PSEUDODOXY BY T’VEEN

  “Wow,” I breathed, without realizing how teenaged it sounded. “I couldn’t wade through those with a phaser. Computer …” My hesitation belied a certain reluctance to hear more of what seemed to be mental flogging to a mere human like me. “What are the stages leading up to and inclusive of the process of Kolinahr?”

  WORKING. VENLINAHR IS THE STATE OF MOST VULCAN ADULTS. IT INCLUDES MEDITATION BY INDIVIDUAL DISCRETON, FURTHER STUDY OF THE VULCAN DHARMA, AND ADVANCED READINGS BY THE MYSTAGOGUES SURAK, SCORUS, TENNE, T’VISH, PRISU, AND SELTAR. KOLINAHR IS THE FINAL DIVORCE OF THE BRAIN, BODY, AND KATRA FROM ALL EMOTIONAL RESPONSES. IF NECESSARY, KOLINAHR MAY BE ACCOMPLISHED BY MEMORY ABERRATION.

  COMPLETE.

  “Screen off.” Contemplatively, I leaned back into my best position for thinking, and tugged absently at my lower-lip. “Merete …”

  “Hmm?”

  “What do you know about the makeup of a Vulcan brain?”

  She sprawled onto a cushion. “Enough to tell you it’s not as different from yours as their physiology is. They’ve trained themselves to use more of what they have than most self-awares.”

  “Have they learned to subdivide?”

  It had to be the answer.

  She frowned. “What do you mean?”

  I leaned forward, using my hands to hold the thought before me. “In college, on Earth, a student learns how to learn, then is served up a series of courses on different subjects, most of which is forgotten but can be relearned. It seems to me that Vulcan training relies on continuity and compilation instead of ability to relearn.”

  “Okay so far.” Merete was so casual, so unflustered, that I envied her for a moment.

  Encouraged, I went on. “You saw it yourself. Once an aspect of training begins, it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t make room for the next aspect. Instead it continues and is added to by increasingly complex lessons, each of which must be carried on as the burden of being Vulcan piles up.”

  “But eventually there wouldn’t be enough hours in a day to accommodate all the demands of calculating and meditating and—”

  “That’s right!” I was on my feet now, wading around in the mud of discovery. “That’s why they must have evolved subdivided brains. One part of one hemisphere might be calculating a problem, another part meditating, another pursuing some philosophical tidbit, while yet another does the day’s work and handles social interaction. That’s why Vulcans are almost impossible to distract. Don’t you see? Only a shock of cataclysmic proportions would be enough to upheave all those cerebral tiers at once!”

  Pin a medal on me, anywhere, just anywhere.

  Merete chewed the thought, folded her arms, and observed me with a look half proud and half warning. “Not a bad theory. But if I were you, I wouldn’t bring it up to Sarda.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think it would be wise to ask a Vulcan to admit their intellect is as much biological as it is mental. They wouldn’t want to tell us they’re born smart.”

  My enthusiasm shrank away. Reluctantly I let it go and chalked it all up to personal growth, thinking of how I would feel if I was Sarda. “Oh, Merete … thanks. I almost did it to him again. Now I understand why he reacted like he did every time I threw Kolinahr in his face. I’ve been playing a cruel game with him. Thanks for stopping me.”

  “A game? With a Vulcan?”

  “With a Vulcan soul.” The great window in the flank of Enterprise allowed me to look out into the sloe-and-jewel star field, and back into myself. “I’ve been trying to pinch emotions out of him. Maybe it was a game … or maybe I’ve been trying to win him over before he destroys himself trying to be part of a culture that turned its back on him. I won’t tamper with that anymore. I only wish … I wish I could …”

  “I have a suggestion.”

  “I’ll take one.”

  “Sometime, after this business with the dreadnought is over—”

  “Soon, I hope.”

  “There’s a Vulcan embassy at Starbase One that maintains closer relations with humans who have interest in Vulcan or Vulcan nationals. You could speak to them. At least then, you’d know.”

  They hadn’t paged me, not since Captain Kirk first summoned me to the bridge to have my heart shocked into my nostrils. My quest for distraction in those sixteen-point-whatever hours had taken me first to Proxima via Merete, then to Vulcan, now somewhere else.

  It was a vast place and often forgotten, much more like a great runway than an enclosed area inside a ship, and it was extremely dim. In fact, only a haze of unflickering blue walkway lights provided any illumination at all, and then barely enough to navigate by. High above, a skylight domed and allowed view of the expanse of stars and a purplish herd of nebulae we were passing. They must have been very large and very far away for us to pass them so slowly even at warp speed. Wide, insigniaed hangar doors on the far side were the homes of four shuttlecraft, practically starships in themselves with the new technology that had been redesigned into them for the past ten-odd years. On the near side were the hangars of six two-man fighters.

  It was an empty place, a place that, in the midst of space-efficient cubicles, was unique and somewhat disconcerting. It doubled as ballroom, solarium, lecture hall, funeral hall, art gallery, wedding area, military ceremonial hall, or diplomatic arena, mutating as needed to the many lives of a starship. Its primary purpose, that of military and scientific launch point, was actually its rarest duty, and there were more cobwebs here than anywhere else on the starship. I wondered what ancient tradition kept these decks on the blueprints for new ships, and how long it would be before superior transporters and independent docking craft finally shunted decks like this into obsolescence. Today, though, this place wore a different swaddling: that of inner sanctum.

  In the middle of all this, a lone figure knelt.

  Though the distance between us was obscuring, his face turned in my mind clearly and for a moment I thought we were in contact. No … he would have to touch me for that, but I closed my mind anyway, just in case. There were still sensations, perceptions to guard against. Even hunches. I averted my eyes in case he could feel my gaze. Even humans could feel eyes on them.

  The tape slipped from my hand into the access terminal and without pausing I manually ordered the computer to function. Instantly red haze bled across my black jumpsuit, coloring my skin and dashing the corridor with leachover. It was enough to satisfy me.

  Now I opened my mind and sent along on the mental wind an offering I could only hope might be accepted.

  Chapter Five

  “RED ALERT, RED alert. Battlestations. Captain Kirk to the bridge. Lieutenant Piper report to the bridge. Red alert. All personnel to battlestations.”

  Somehow—let’s hope no one ever pins me down on it—I ended up in the same turbolift as Captain Kirk as we raced for the bridge. Actually he ended up on my lift; I could never have overridden the priority code and interrupted his panic.

  He didn’t look panicked. Damn him.
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br />   He gazed at me askance, never blinking. All around us the ship pulsed with redness and the whooping red-alert klaxon; ever confined in the hurtling lift we could both feel it. It tingled on top of my skin and underneath his. It didn’t show on the Captain’s face, though I knew it did on mine.

  “Star Empire?” I quivered.

  “The rendezvous point, Lieutenant,” he said.

  “Then why—”

  “When we came out of warp we spotted four Klingon birds of prey coming about to attack position.”

  “To fire on us?”

  “Lieutenant, they’re firing on the dreadnought.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Firing on a Federation vessel? We’re that close to the Klingon Neutral Zone?”

  Was he enjoying my quandary as much as those little wrinkles beside his eyes said? “The rendezvous point is inside the Sabu’ka region. Disputed space. It’s claimed by both sides, but not yet incorporated into the neutral zone. Entry here doesn’t yet constitute a technical act of war.”

  “How convenient.”

  “For the Klingons,” he added, before I could cringe at my sarcastic mistake. What, what, what was it about him that made me say whatever popped into my head?

  “Sir, I … I don’t understand why the people on Star Empire would pick a place like this to talk to us. Why would they expose themselves and us to the Klingons?”

  His insignia badge glinted in the bleeding red light. “That’s where you come in. Once you clear the code, maybe other things will clear up. Let’s hope.”

  You have no intention of just hoping.

  There was someting about his face. Something elusive. I’d seen a drawing once, a hand-drawn ink illustration for an article in an Academy newsletter. The article had a decidedly you-can-aspire-to-this bent and the drawing, though good art, was harsher, more archetypally heroic than the face I saw before me now. It had been more like someone’s perception of his deeds. Definitely his face, but different.

  The face before me was rendered in soft pastels. No straight lines. No hard creases. Eyes soft as dark aurelites in a plume-pool at mating time. The face of a great hero? Not this. This face didn’t want the notoriety. No harsh lines at all. The strength in it differed from the strength I’d seen in Mr. Spock’s angular appearance, like two sides of the same coin—one an etching of dignity, the other a work of art. As I looked into the Captain’s eyes, I saw a strange personal battle going on—he couldn’t wait to face those Klingons. He equally wanted to turn away and forget them. I learned a lot in that turbolift. I—