Vonda McIntyre - The Entropy Effect

“That’s a nasty gash on Aerfen ’s side,” Sulu said. “I hope there wasn’t too much damage.”

Hunter looked away. “Not to the ship,” she said. “I lost two good people in that fight.”

“Captain—I’m sorry, I didn’t know ...”

“How could you? Mr. Sulu, no one volunteers for this particular assignment without knowing the risks.”

She appeared, suddenly, very human and very tired, and Sulu’s regard for her increased. To fill the silence, because he did not know what to say, he got up and refilled their cups.

“Where are you from, Mr. Sulu?” she asked when he returned. Only a hint of tightness in her voice betrayed her. “I feel like I should be able to place your accent, but it’s so faint I can’t.”

“It isn’t so much faint as a complete muddle. I lived in a lot of different places when I was a kid, but longest on Shinpai.” He used the colloquial name without even thinking.

“Shinpai!” Hunter said. “Ganjitsu? I’ve been there.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sulu said. “I know. I remember. No one there will forget for a long time.” It was his turn to look away; he had not meant to tell her anything about himself or the debt he and a lot of other people owed her, and now he realized why.

I’m afraid she’ll say it was nothing, he thought. I’m afraid she’ll shrug it all off and laugh at me.

“Thank you, Mr. Sulu.”

He looked slowly back at her. Shadows across her face obscured her gray eyes.

“In this career—you must know—you sometimes come to feel like everything you do, the conflict, the friends you lose, it’s all for the glory of some faceless, meaningless set of rules and regulations. And that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter a damn. It only matters when you know it makes a difference to a person.”

“It made a difference,” Sulu said. “Never think it didn’t make a difference.”

Jim Kirk had to put down the awkward boxes of bioelectronic crystals before he could get out his communicator.

“Couldn’t you at least have had this stuff delivered, Mr. Spock?” he asked.

“Of course, Captain, but I thought you would not wish to stay at Aleph Prime for several more days.” Kirk grumbled something inarticulate and flipped open his communicator. “Kirk to Enterprise .”

“ Enterprise. Sulu here, Captain.”

“Mr. Spock and I are ready to beam up, Mr. Sulu.”

A few minutes later, Kirk, Spock, and the assorted boxes materialized on the transporter platform. Kirk stepped down to greet Hunter, who had accompanied Sulu to the transporter room.

“You’ve met Mr. Sulu, I see,” Jim said. “This is Mr. Spock, my first officer.”

“Mr. Spock,” she said, nodding to him. “It’s good to meet you after hearing about you for so many years.”

“I am honored,” Spock said.

Kirk noticed Sulu moving slowly, and, he thought, rather reluctantly, toward the door.

“Mr. Sulu,” he said on impulse, “have you had dinner?”

“Dinner?” Sulu asked, surprised by the unusual question. “Captain, I’m afraid my system lost track of time about when we went into the sixth week around the singularity. I wouldn’t know what to call the last meal I had.”

Kirk chuckled. “I know how you feel. I’m going to show Captain Hunter around the ship, and then she and I and Mr. Spock are going to dine on the observation deck. Hunter, I want you to meet my officers. Mr. Sulu, would you see who else is on board? And would you join us yourself?”

“I’d love to,” Sulu said. “Thank you, Captain.”

When Kirk and Hunter and Spock had taken the new equipment and left the transporter room, Sulu hurried to the console and opened a channel to Aleph Prime.

“Sulu to Flynn, come in, Commander.”

The pause dragged on so long he began to worry; he was about to try calling again when Mandala’s voice came through.

“Flynn here.”

“Mandala—”

“Hikaru, is anybody else with you?” she said before he could tell her about the invitation.

“No. I’m alone.”

“Good. Beam us up, I’ve got two of my people with me.”

He heard the urgency in her voice: he tracked them quickly and energized.

He watched in astonishment as three disheveled figures appeared on the platforms. Mandala was accompanied by two of the more startling members of the Enterprise’s security force. Snnanagfashtalli looked rather like a bipedal leopard with a pelt of maroon, scarlet, and cream. Everyone called her Snarl, but never to her face. She appeared, crouching down on all fours, her ruby fangs exposed, maroon eyes dilated and reflecting the light like a search beam. Her ears lay flat back against her skull and she had raised her hackles from the back of her neck to the tip of her long spotted tail, now bristling out like a brush. She growled.

“We should go back. I had my eyes on a tender throat!”

Mandala laughed. Her hair had fallen down in a tangled mane. Her red hair, her brilliant green eyes, and her light brown skin made her look as much a lithe, wild, fierce animal as Snarl.

“That tender throat had the bad manners to call for Aleph security, and that’s why we got out of there.” Mandala looked happier than Hikaru had ever seen her since she had come on board the Enterprise .

The third member of the party, Jenniver Aristeides, stood staring down at the floor, her shoulders slumped. She was two hundred fifty centimeters tall, her bones were thick and dense, and she seemed to have more layers of muscle than humans possess. That was quite possible. She was human, but she had been genetically engineered to live on a high-gravity planet.

Mandala went to her, and Snarl rubbed against her on the other side.

“Come on, Jenniver,” Mandala said gently. She reached up to take the massive woman’s hand; she led

her from the platform. Jenniver looked up, and against her steel-gray skin her silver eyes glistened with unshed tears.

“I did not want to fight,” Jenniver said.

“I know. It wasn’t your fault. They’d’ve deserved it if you’d smashed their heads or if Snnanagfashtalli had ripped away a couple of their faces.”

“I have no right to get angry if someone says I am ugly.”

“I do,” Snarl said.

“But I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“I am friendly with trouble.” Snarl’s voice was a purr.

“She won’t, will she? You won’t, Commander? Will the captain be mad? It was my fault.”

“Jenniver, stop it! It’s all right. I was there, I saw what happened. Go get some sleep and don’t worry. Particularly don’t worry about Kirk.”

Snarl took Jenniver’s hand. “Come, my friend.” They left the transporter room.

Mandala stretched and shook back her hair.

“What happened?” Hikaru asked.

“Some creeps decided it would be a lot of fun to humiliate Jenniver, Snarl took exception to what they said, and about that time I came along,” Mandala said. “Thanks for beaming us up.”

“You got in a fight.”

“Hikaru,” Mandala said, laughing, “do I look like I’ve been out for a quiet stroll?”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, and we didn’t damage the other parties too much, either. That takes skill, I want you to know.”

He looked after the two security officers. “I wouldn’t want to be them when Captain Kirk hears about this, he’s going to blow his stack.”

Mandala looked at him sharply, narrowing her violent green eyes. “If Kirk has any problems with the way I act, he can take that up with me.” Fury came so close to the surface in her that Hikaru hardly recognized her. “But if there’s any discipline to be handed out in Security, that’s my job.” Abruptly, her anger vanished and she laughed again. She bunched her loose hair up at the back of her neck, and let it fall again. Hikaru shut his eyes for a moment, at the brink of calling himself a fool for refusing her, however short a time they might have had.