Ex Machina Read online

  “Hail them, Commander Uhura.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Kirk swiveled to the science station behind him. It was a bit awkward, having his first officer and most trusted advisor directly behind him instead of off to the side as he used to be. After the shakedown, he would propose returning the station to something closer to its original position. “Tell me, Mr. Spock. What is it about the Daran system that makes everyone we meet here want to beat us up, electrocute us, or shoot at us before they’re willing to have a conversation?”

  Spock raised a wry brow. “I have insufficient data to draw a conclusion, Captain. Though I would submit that the phenomenon is hardly unique to this star system. Perhaps the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves?”

  Kirk threw him a glare, and there was a trace of laughter in Uhura’s voice as she spoke. “Receiving a signal from the lead Shesshran ship, sir.” She stressed their name on the second syllable: Shessh-rahn. Kirk resolved to remember that. Come to think of it, he’d probably been pronouncing Daran wrong too.

  “On screen.” A rainbow pterodactyl appeared on the viewer, or so it looked to Kirk. The Shesshran’s head was very pterosaurian, with a long sharp beak and a shark-fin rudder on the top. Its body was streamlined, with a pronounced keelbone in mid-chest, and it floated in a spacious freefall cockpit to accommodate its batlike wings and saurian tail. Its silver skin shimmered and diffracted the light in a gorgeous prismatic display; indeed, the cockpit seemed to be equipped with extra lighting specifically to bring out the effect— although, since it was a one-person pod, Kirk guessed the extra lights only went on when the comm did. The Shesshran wore nothing but an equipment harness—if you had skin like that, Kirk thought, who’d want to cover it?

  The pilot spread its wings and raised its arms in an aggressive posture. Fascinatingly, its arms split at the elbow into two forearms each, giving it a total of four three-taloned hands—all of which looked like they were poised to disembowel. “I am Ssherrak Ki’threetl, speaking for the defense coalition of Kachissat,” the translator interpreted, giving the alien a female voice (someday he’d have to ask Spock or Uhura how it knew these things). “Declare your intentions and justify your presence, or leave this territory immediately!”

  Kirk nodded to Uhura, who opened the channel for him. “This is Captain James T. Kirk of the Federation starship Enterprise,” he said, enjoying how good it felt. “We come on a peaceful mission, at the invitation of the government of Lorina. I’m certain your own leaders were notified to expect our arrival.”

  Those fearsome talons twitched. “I have no ‘leaders,’ groundling. I fly in defense of the lands I own, and of the common cause I share.”

  “My apologies,” Kirk said. “But I’m sure if you confer with your… compatriots, you’ll find that we’re expected.”

  “What is expected is that you will do nothing to disrupt Shesshran affairs or undermine our autonomy in this system. Emerging in our space unannounced is such a disruption—particularly so long as you refuse to provide us with the technology to detect your approach.”

  If you had that technology, Kirk wondered, would you use it to prepare a welcome or an ambush? “Again, my apologies, Ms. Ki’threetl.” He hoped that was an acceptable form of address. “We will make a note of your approach protocols for the benefit of future visitors.”

  “My concern is only with your visit in the present. To ensure you do nothing to disrupt our interests, I will escort you to Lorina. Follow the course I set and do not deviate!”

  Kirk found this whole thing a bit ridiculous. The Shesshran had no power to enforce her demands, and she knew it. But that was just why she felt obligated to put on a forceful show, and in his three years dealing with Admiralty politics, Kirk knew the simplest way to deal with such people, at least when there was nothing at stake, was to play along and let them save face. “Certainly, Ms. Ki’threetl. After you.”

  Ki’threetl let out a rude puff of breath and cut the transmission. “Mr. Sulu… please be so good as to follow the lady.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Captain,” Chekov informed him, sounding puzzled, “the second ship is in range… and is firing on us.”

  “The Shesshran,” Spock explained, “are highly individualistic, since as avian raptors they each need a sizeable hunting ground to provide adequate sustenance, making it impractical for them to coexist in groups. What social institutions they have are based on mutual decision-making and mutual benefit, but each individual has a say in the process and the option to act autonomously.”

  “You mean we have to negotiate with all five scouts to stop them from shooting us?” Kirk asked.

  “And any others who decide to confront us.”

  Kirk sighed. “Ms. Uhura… open a hail to all the Shesshran ships.” This is going to be a long morning….

  * * *

  Bones was late. He’d been ordered to report to the transporter room five minutes ago and still hadn’t shown up. Not that Kirk was all that surprised, somehow. He was considering paging McCoy again, but then Chekov approached him and said, “Captain, I still recommend that you remain aboard the ship. Given the ongoing violence on the surface…”

  “Mr. Chekov, this is a diplomatic meeting with a planetary head of state. It would be rude for me not to come along. And I have full confidence in your people.”

  “But…”

  “Mr. Chekov… the matter is settled.” This was a side effect of Chekov’s promotion to security chief that Kirk hadn’t expected. The young Russian had always been fiercely loyal to his captain, and now that he was directly responsible for his captain’s safety, he was pursuing that duty with the same earnest zeal he applied to most everything else. But Kirk wasn’t out here to sit in his cushy ergonomic command chair while he sent other people out to risk their lives. He’d had enough of that as Chief of Starfleet Operations, deciding where starships should be deployed and having to watch helplessly from afar when those deployments led them into danger and death. And before that, as a captain, he’d lost far too many good security men and women. He couldn’t prevent them from risking or giving their lives for his protection; that was their job, whether he liked it or not. But if it had to be that way, at least he would be out there with them, as a comrade in arms.

  McCoy’s belated arrival mercifully disrupted that train of thought. “You’re late,” Kirk said. “Get your field jacket.”

  “Now, wait a minute. You ordered me to report, so I reported. But I haven’t agreed to get into that blasted machine again,” he declared, throwing a hateful glance at the transporter alcove. “The damn thing’s a deathtrap and you know it.”

  Kirk caught the wince on Chief Rand’s face as she stood at the console behind the clear partition. He knew that on some level she must still feel responsible for the deaths of Sonak and Ciana. After all, he still did, and always would, regardless of Scotty’s assurances. But he didn’t have time for this. “Bones, you’ve been through it since the accident.”

  “Once. And that was under duress. I’m not about to push my luck a second time.”

  “Doctor,” Spock interposed, “you may rest assured that the safety of this transporter design has been thoroughly verified. It has been in use within the Sol system for the past six years, and in all that time there has been exactly one accident, caused by a freak sensor malfunction whose cause was promptly identified and remedied, as your own continued existence attests. You are far safer in the transporter than you would be in a shuttlecraft, or even as a pedestrian within a typical city.”

  “Oh yeah, Spock? Then explain to me,” McCoy went on in his highest dudgeon, “why the designers felt it necessary to install a—a splatter guard in front of the console!”

  One of the security guards—Mosi Nizhoni, a deceptively dainty Navajo woman with her long hair styled in twin braids—stifled a laugh. Rand just looked mortified. Spock displayed his impatience openly—not that he’d ever really bothered to suppress that particular emotion
where McCoy was concerned. “Doctor, it is no different from the radiation protection which medical personnel once used when working with x-ray equipment, since they were exposed far more frequently than the patients.”

  That just made Bones look more alarmed. “But those patients only got scanned once or twice a year. We have to go through this damn thing all the time. Are you tellin’ me we’ve been getting dosed with radiation all along?”

  “Bones,” Kirk said sharply. He suspected that McCoy’s hesitancy had less to do with the transporter than it did with having to face Natira down on the planet. He looked his old friend in the eye and said, “You’re going to do this. I’m not letting you off the hook, and you know there’s no point in putting it off. So come on.” He figured the others would assume the exchange related to the transporter, but he could see in McCoy’s eyes that he’d gotten the subtext.

  “All right,” McCoy said, taking his khaki field jacket and equipment from Chekov. “Let’s get this over with.” He glared at Spock. “But we’re gonna have a talk about that radiation.”

  “Doctor, considering that the energies emitted by the transporter are intense enough to sever the molecular bonds of your body and reduce you to component particles, it hardly seems—”

  “Spock! You’re not helping!”

  * * *

  The people of Yonada, Kirk remembered, had spoken of their Creators’ promise that they would one day leave their austere, underground dwellings for a new, lush, beautiful world. In this respect, at least, the Creators had not been lying. When Kirk materialized in the courtyard outside the capitol building of Lorina City—or more accurately, the one and only city so far extant on the planet Lorina—it felt like coming home, except with lighter gravity. The air was fresh and warm, the sky a clear, vivid blue. The courtyard was airy and open, yet lined with tall, fragrant trees. The walls of the capitol building itself, a tall cylindrical tower of glass and stone, were adorned with flowering vines on their lower levels. It was a startling contrast to the barrenness of Yonada, to the enclosed corridors in which the Fabrini refugees had lived for so many generations. The only things that detracted from the idyllic scene were the security barricades and armed guards on the perimeter of the courtyard.

  A contingent of the guards was now emerging from the capitol building, approaching the landing party. Their uniforms—brown tunic and black trousers—were also a contrast; the guards on Yonada had worn robes patterned with tartans that wouldn’t look out of place in a Scottish regiment, and odd cylindrical black cowls. At least the swords were familiar, though they seemed to be largely ceremonial, since they were accompanied on the uniform belts by more modern sidearms. “Wireless electric stunners,” Spock observed, “evidently based on the same UV laser principle as the Oracle’s punishment shock.”

  At least this time the weapons weren’t drawn, and the guards’ approach was considerably more civil than it had been the first time. The leader bowed briefly and spoke to Kirk. “Greetings, on behalf of the People of Lorina. I am Tasari, Minister of Security.”

  Kirk returned the bow, finding the man familiar, though his nondescript features were hard to place. “Greetings, Minister Tasari.” He introduced the members of his party, though Tasari didn’t seem inclined to introduce the rest of his contingent.

  “I’ve been sent to escort you to Governess Natira’s office,” Tasari said in a simple, businesslike tone. “If you’ll follow me, please.”

  “Certainly,” Kirk said, now realizing where he’d seen the man before. “All you had to do was ask,” he said pointedly. Tasari stared dully for a moment, then gestured them forward.

  “Pardon me,” McCoy asked of the minister. “Have we met before?”

  “Indeed, you have, Doctor,” Spock volunteered when Tasari hesitated. “Though I can’t blame you for being vague on the encounter, since at your first meeting the gentleman struck you in the back of the head with the butt of his sword.”

  McCoy’s withering glare brought the first sign of expression the minister had shown yet, not counting the slight frown that seemed to be his default mode. “I was under orders to detain you, as possible invaders. You understand, of course.”

  “Oh, really? And who gave you the order to clock me from behind when I wasn’t looking?”

  “Bones,” Kirk warned. He’d seen enough regime changes to know that most of the people who made up the everyday machinery of a state generally had to be left in place to keep things running—and most of them didn’t really care much about ideology so long as they got their living wage. Tasari struck him as that type. And given Natira’s wholehearted rejection of the system she’d once embraced, Kirk doubted she would have promoted the man to Minister of Security if he’d been an Oracular loyalist.

  Tasari led them into the capitol building and through its spacious lobby. It was bright, airy, open—in every way the opposite of Yonada. The walls were adorned with art and sculpture imported from many Federation worlds: Terran landscapes, Vulcan mosaics, Axanar crystal topiaries, Tellarite erotic abstracts, Efrosian prismatic gels. The soft strains of Andorian flabjellah music played over the public address system. “Very eclectic,” Kirk remarked.

  Spock took it all in with a critical eye. “Very… nontraditional. I see little here that is Yonadi.”

  “After ten thousand years cooped up in the same tunnels, wouldn’t you welcome a change?” McCoy asked.

  “If I had lived for ten thousand years, perhaps. But as a shorter-lived inheritor of ten thousand years of tradition, would you be quick to abandon it for something alien?”

  Kirk frowned. “What’s your point, Spock?”

  “None at this time, Captain. It is merely odd.”

  Tasari led them into what seemed to be a standard-issue Federation turbolift car. Kirk realized a good deal of the city’s construction must have been done by the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. The level of technology being shared with the Lorini was presumably no greater than that available in Yonada and its databanks—about comparable to Earth circa 2100 but without warp drive and with more advanced medicine—but Kirk knew the Federation was eager to benefit from that medicine, and thus was offering all the cooperation it could within those limits.

  The lift deposited them on the top floor of the building. The view through its large windows and glass ceiling was spectacular, showcasing the northern mountains and the wide, vivid blue sky into which they almost seemed to merge. “And I have touched the sky,” Kirk murmured.

  Tasari led the party into the governess’s office, whose architecture and decor mirrored the rest of the building. Standing there to greet them was Natira, recovered from her injuries and carrying herself as regally as ever. She was clad in a metallic-blue, gold-trimmed gown that spiraled around her body, baring her right leg, left shoulder, and a diagonal swath across the midriff, and trailing a short cape behind. Her long mahogany hair was styled in an elaborate coif which continued the spiral. She stood out among the small group of people she was with, including a man and woman in colorful tunics, somewhat Yonadan in pattern but more Terran in cut; a tall, wizened Vulcan in subdued civilian garb; and a boyish blond human whom Kirk recognized as Christopher Lindstrom.

  “Captain Kirk,” Natira lilted, gliding forward to greet her guests. “And Spock, and McCoy. It is truly an auspicious day, for the saviors of the People stand on Lorina at last.”

  “Governess,” Kirk said, inclining his head. “You are a gracious host, but you overrate our importance. We merely helped you achieve the goal your Fabrini ancestors set with their great ingenuity and commitment.” With the obligatory exchange of praise out of the way, Kirk went on. “You know my first officer, Commander Spock, and my chief medical officer, Dr. McCoy,” he said for the benefit of the others in the room. “And this is Lieutenant Chekov, my chief of security, and Ensigns Perez and Nizhoni.”

  “You are all very welcome, as are our other guests from your esteemed Federation. Please allow me the honor of presenting Soreth of Vulcan, t
he Federation Commissioner for Aid and Reconstruction; and Lieutenant Commander Lindstrom, whom I believe you know.”

  Further greetings were exchanged, though Natira didn’t include the two Lorini with her; Kirk figured they were aides or attendants, and indeed they quietly made their way out of the room as the others traded pleasantries. Kirk took particular notice of the interaction between Soreth and Spock. “Peace and long life, Commander Spock,” the hawk-nosed elder Vulcan intoned in an aged but sharp tenor, his tone giving no indication that he genuinely wished such things. Though with a Vulcan, that coldness didn’t necessarily mean anything.

  “Live long and prosper, Commissioner.” Kirk was surprised to hear a similar coldness in Spock’s voice. Gone was the animation it had contained over the past few weeks; it sounded as cold and emotionless as when Spock had first boarded the Enterprise after the wormhole incident, when he was still aspiring to the sterility of Kolinahr. Spock’s features had grown equally cold, like an old mask slipping back into place. He supposed he couldn’t blame Spock for donning a little protective camouflage in front of other Vulcans, at least initially. Still, it was a bit unsettling.

  As if that weren’t enough, Bones had been just as closed off since they’d entered the room, though Kirk could see the tension in his old friend’s frame. But Natira hadn’t shown him any more attention than anyone else, keeping it formal while in public. McCoy had seemed somewhat relieved by this, but he still looked like a man waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Between the two of them, the Vulcans, and the respective security teams, Kirk felt surrounded by people with their guards up. The one exception was Mr. Lindstrom, whose boyish enthusiasm seemed undimmed from its level of six years earlier. “It’s good to see you again, Captain. And I guess I owe you my thanks.”