Allyn Gibson

A repeat broadcast of the animated Star Trek episode “The Slaver Weapon” was Allyn Gibson’s first encounter with Gene Roddenberry’s vision of humanity’s future and began a lifelong love affair with Star Trek in all its myriad forms, with a particular fondness for the early 1980s comic books by Mike W. Barr and Tom Sutton. His discovery of Star Trek began a journey into other worlds-historical, science-fictional, and fantasy-from Doctor Who to the fires of Mount Doom to the far future of Asimov’s Foundation to the Royal Navy of the Napoleonic era. In time, Allyn began writing, to create his own worlds to explore. He wrote the Star Trek: S.C.E. novella Ring Around the Sky and the Star Trek: New Frontier short story “Performance Appraisal.”

Currently, Allyn works for the world’s leading video game retailer as a store manager. He maintains a blog at http://www.allyngibson.net/.

He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Hot sunlight beat down on Leonard McCoy, and sweat dripped from his brow. He may have grown up in Georgia and experienced firsthand its hot, muggy summers, but he never liked the heat-it wilted him too much, and years of starship duty with its climate-controlled environments diminished whatever tolerance he might have developed for the warmer climes. He bent over, placed his hands on his knees, and took a deep breath in the hope of gaining a second wind. “Jim,” he said, “I still don’t understand why we couldn’t have beamed right to the crash site.”

Ahead of McCoy in the waist-high alien foliage, Jim Kirk stopped and turned to look at his friend. “Bones, we couldn’t even locate the crash site from orbit.”

Still doubled over, his breathing heavy, McCoy looked up at Kirk. “All the things the Enterprise can do, and we can’t find a downed shuttlecraft.” He shook his head.

“Really, Doctor,” said Spock, who had come up from ahead to stand beside Kirk, “the explanation I gave aboard the Enterprise was not difficult to follow.”

“Yes, yes,” McCoy said, his breathing less ragged than before. “Pulsar activity, magnetic fields, Van Allen radiation. I remember.” Secretly McCoy thought that in some instances Spock simply created his complicated explanations out of whole cloth in hopes of confusing the issue. There simply was no difference between scientific babble and pseudo-scientific nonsense. The explanation Spock had offered aboard the ship for this occasion, McCoy decided, fell distinctly in the latter camp.

Kirk came up and clapped McCoy on the shoulder. “Holding up, Bones?”

McCoy nodded and straightened himself up. He took a deep breath. “How much farther?”

“Difficult to be precise,” Spock said, checking his tricorder. “Five kilometers, possibly ten.”

Kirk smiled wryly. “I’ll take point. Spock, you have the rear.” His officers nodded in acknowledgment of the orders. “Let’s do it.”

Onward they marched through the alien veldt. Grasses-for that is what McCoy dubbed them, so much did they resemble Terran grasses-grew tall here, sometimes waist high, sometimes well above their heads. Among the taller growths McCoy lost sight of Kirk ahead of him, and in those moments they navigated the foliage solely by tricorder and calling to one another. Above them animals-some like birds, some like monstrous insects-flew, ofttimes circling but never approaching closer than a few hundred meters. McCoy hoped they would reach their destination soon.

This mission should have been a simple matter, McCoy thought. An Enterprise shuttle had crashed here on the surface of Algenib II during a routine planetary survey while the Enterprise sped toward an urgent diplomatic conference. Upon the starship’s return to the Algenib system a week later, Kirk organized a search-and-rescue mission. Sensor readings had proven inconclusive, and the landing party beamed down not to the shuttle’s crash site but to the wreckage of one of the shuttle’s nacelles, shorn from the fuselage as the shuttle descended through the atmosphere. Unique conditions allowed few transporter and communication windows through Algenib’s magnetic field, which meant that, as a practical matter, it would be quicker for Kirk’s team to follow the debris trail from the nacelle to the shuttle, then contact the Enterprise and beam back to the ship with any survivors at the next transport window. With time so essential, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had set off on foot across the alien plain of Algenib II.

Ahead of McCoy the grasses thinned out and grew less tall. At last he came to a break in the foliage, bare ground that sloped upward. Kirk stood at the crest of the rise, and as McCoy joined him he saw that this was no ordinary rise-beyond it stretched a canyon, vast beyond his experience. The ground fell away, rock strata exposed to the elements, and from his vantage point McCoy could not see the far side. Intellectually, he knew there was an opposite wall, but it was lost to him in the mist and haze.

His mind staggered at the size of it. McCoy had first seen the Grand Canyon on Earth when his grandfather, T. J. McCoy, had taken him along on a business trip to Las Vegas and, as a reward for his good behavior, they took a shuttle flight through the enormous ravine’s eight-hundred-kilometer length. Years later, on a Starfleet survival course, he had overflown the Valles Marineris on Mars en route to a base camp at Fort Kiley, and even from twenty kilometers up and a thousand kilometers per hour, the largest canyon in the solar system presented an impressive sight. But never before had McCoy stood at the lip of a canyon’s walls-though not acrophobic, McCoy had little interest in seeing nature up close and personal. Here, now, at the edge of a yawning chasm, McCoy felt very small. Something had carved out a slice of this world, and measured against that, a single man was nothing.

“Fascinating,” said Spock from behind. He joined Kirk and McCoy on the canyon’s edge and held out his tricorder to perform a survey.

“How far’s the eastern side?” asked Kirk.

“Ten kilometers, Captain,” Spock said. McCoy thought the natural horizon, the distance one could see before the world fell away due to curvature, was five or six kilometers. It wasn’t the haze that prevented him from seeing the opposite side but the curvature of Algenib II itself.

Kirk stood quiet in contemplation. McCoy could see the resolute determination in his gaze, focused somewhere far into the misty horizon. The trail of shuttle debris had led them here-where would their journey take them now? Into the gorge itself? Only Kirk could make that decision.

McCoy looked down into the canyon. The haze that obscured the far side blanketed its floor as well, but McCoy thought that he could see something rising through the mists, something not quite natural. “What do you make of those, Spock?” he asked as he pointed at something far below. Spock’s Vulcan eyesight, McCoy knew, was sharper than any human’s, but even Spock would have difficulty seeing at a distance through Algenib’s haze.

Spock looked in the direction McCoy indicated, then raised an eyebrow. “Curious.” He raised his tricorder, adjusted the dials, and studied the data on its screen. “It appears, Dr. McCoy, that there are objects below us on the canyon floor. Constructed objects, alien machines of enormous size.”

“Machines,” said McCoy. “There’s more than one?”

“My tricorder indicates that there are one hundred fifty such objects within a ten-kilometer radius of our position.”

Kirk came to stand beside McCoy. “How enormous?” he asked.

“Judging by my tricorder readings, each one may dwarf the Enterprise in size.”

“Larger than the Enterprise?” said McCoy. “My God, what are they? Who built them, and why?”

“Unknown, Doctor,” said Spock.

Kirk shook his head. “What did my crew find?” He fell quiet, and neither Spock nor McCoy broke the silence. McCoy knew the thoughts running through Kirk’s mind-could the alien machines, their builders and purpose unknown, have been responsible for the downing of the Enterprise’s shuttle?

“Spock,” said Kirk at last, “I’m thinking the shuttle went down in the canyon. With one engine sheered off, she couldn’t have gone much farther, and as intact as the nacelle was, it couldn’t have fallen from too great an altitude.” He took a deep breath. “I’m thinking we’ll find the shuttle on the canyon floor.”

Spock nodded once. “A logical surmise.”

“Jim,” said McCoy, “how can you be sure the shuttle couldn’t have glided to a landing on the plateau beyond the opposite canyon wall?”

“I can’t, which is why we’ll descend into the canyon, look for signs of the shuttle, and if we find nothing by our next transport window, we’ll beam back to the Enterprise and resume our search for the shuttle from there.”

Before long, Spock found a way down. It was clearly a path, beaten and worn through use over the years.

“I don’t like this, Jim,” said McCoy.

“I will take the lead, Captain,” said Spock. Kirk nodded his approval.

McCoy began to follow Spock’s lead down the path. He stopped abruptly.

“Bones?”

McCoy heard something. It sounded like a voice, very faint and distorted, as if from far away. “Do you hear that?”

Kirk and Spock stopped, turned their heads to the sky to listen. “Clearly, Doctor,” said Spock, “what you hear is the sound of wind echoing off the canyon walls.” He started back down the path toward the canyon floor.

Kirk, however, continued to listen. “I think I hear it, Bones,” he whispered.

McCoy nodded. “It sounds like a woman’s voice, Jim,” he said quietly.

“But where’s it coming from?” When McCoy didn’t respond immediately, Kirk clapped him on the shoulder. “Bones…?”

“… did you hear me?” A pause. “Mrs. Howard?”

Gabby Howard shook her head, tried to refocus her train of thought. “I’m sorry, you were saying?”

“This is Mrs. Davis, the counselor at Lewis Elementary.”

Her eyes closed, Gabby could picture Mrs. Davis, a matronly woman of nearly sixty that she had met with several times over the past two months. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Davis?”

“I wanted to talk with you about your son, Brennan.”

“It’s Breandan,” said Gabby quickly. A common mistake-six-year-old Breandan still had difficulty pronouncing the “d” sound, and often-times strangers misheard his name. That the school counselor could mistake her son’s name bothered Gabby-if the counselor were genuinely interested in Breandan, she wouldn’t make such an obvious mistake.

“Breandan yes.” Mrs. Davis paused. “There was an incident at school today you should be aware of.”

Gabby sat down and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “An incident,” she repeated.

“Apparently Breandan brought a toy from home with him to school today, and during recess this afternoon he played on his own with that rather than with the other children. His teacher felt that Breandan hadn’t been socializing with his classmates recently, and he confiscated the toy from him.”

“Which toy was it, Mrs. Davis?” Gabby asked, though she was confident she already knew the answer.

“An action figure-Star Trek, Star Wars, I can’t tell these things apart.”

Gabby sighed. “It’s his Dr. McCoy action figure. Star Trek, if you must know.”

“Right.” Gabby thought from her tone of voice that Mrs. Davis cared not at all whether the action figure came from Star Trek or from something else entirely. “I take it you’re a fan.”

“Frankly, I couldn’t care less. My husband, though- ” She paused, took a deep breath to steady her nerves, and decided to shift gears back onto the important topic of conversation-her son-rather than a pointless digression into Star Trek fandom. “I take it, Mrs. Davis, that the incident was more than the teacher taking away Breandan’s toy.”

“That’s correct. According to the teacher, after the toy was confiscated your son…’shut down.’”

“Could you be more specific?”

“He didn’t play with the other children. In fact, he simply sat immobile where he had been playing with his Star Trek toy.”

Gabby frowned. “He does that, Mrs. Davis.”

“Your son isn’t socializing with the other children. Our school has policies, and children are not to bring toys from home because it can lead to situations like today’s where children play by themselves instead of with their classmates. Frankly, I’m concerned, Mrs. Howard, by your son’s behavior today and your own indifference to the problem.”

“My indifference? The problem, Mrs. Davis,” said Gabby, her voice rising, “is that you took away his toy. That’s your indifference. I made that mistake. I took his Captain Kirk toy away once, and he said not one word to me for a week. A week, Mrs. Davis. Do you think I want to go through that hell again?”

“Mrs. Howard…”

“No, you listen to me. His father bought him those toys, and while I don’t pretend to understand the hold they have on Breandan, I know enough not to mess with it.” She paused, took a deep breath, and felt relieved that Mrs. Davis didn’t quickly jump into the breach. “It’s not healthy, but what can I do?”

For several moments neither spoke. “I don’t think you appreciate our problem.”

Gabby buried her face in her free hand and wanted to cry. “I do appreciate your problem, Mrs. Davis.” Her voice grew hoarse and ragged, almost a whisper. “No one would be happier than I to see him parted from those toys. You and your teachers take them away from him at your own peril.”

“What does he do with the toys at home?”

“There’s a muddy hole in our backyard where he sits and plays with them for hours.” She stood and walked across the dining room to the bay window overlooking the backyard and Breandan’s muddy hole. “And he’ll sit there, from the time he gets home from school until the sun goes down, playing with his toys-his construction trucks, his other action figures. I can’t talk to him, he doesn’t pay attention. The toys, that hole, those are the only things that truly matter to him.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Davis. She paused. “You say his father bought him the toys.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you feel that this is something you and his father should address with Breandan?”

“I can’t,” said Gabby, her eyes welling up with tears. “My husband Kevin died in Iraq.”

The curtains are pulled shut so no sunlight can intrude. A sterile gloominess pervades the room. What light there is comes from the fluorescent tubes overhead, a weak, dull light that only enhances the room’s depressive air. Above, one tube lights momentarily, then flicks out from a short in its ballast, producing an unintentional strobe effect on the room’s occupants. No one notices.

People talk. A coffin sits on a dais at the front of the room, flanked by flower bouquets at both head and foot. The coffin sits closed; this is no open casket viewing. Kevin Howard was an army pilot. He died in an Apache helicopter crash, his body horribly mangled and burned.

The mourners make polite conversation, share anecdotes about college pratfalls, weekend excursions, business contacts. Remember that time back in Florida? People still talk about that Little League record he set. Wasn’t he a handsome child? Look at how sharp he was in his army uniform. Whatever happened to that old friend of his from college? No profundity in these conversations, they are the words one speaks when coming to grips with a senseless tragedy to comfort those left behind, important words but ultimately empty and hollow words all the same.

There Gabby Howard stands, her long red hair falling across her shoulders and halfway down her back, flowing freely for once instead of being pulled back into her usual ponytail. She wears a dark dress, blue not black, because she feels blue highlights her green eyes better, a long dress to obscure the sneakers she wears for comfort instead of dressier flats. She works the crowd, greeting those paying their respects to Kevin, in a kind of lazy orbit in the open area in front of the dais. Most visitors she knows, some she does not, but she makes conversation with anyone who wishes it. Her duty as the grieving widow, the concerned mother.

Her son, Kevin’s son, Breandan. He stands mutely near the foot of the coffin, his blue sport coat one size too small, his clip-on tie slightly askew, his blond hair combed but still ruffled. Breandan seems not to notice that his clothes don’t quite fit, that the pin of his tie irritates the base of his neck. Gabby had intended to hire a sitter, leave him at home, and only changed her mind on her mother’s advice- “He won’t understand, he may not remember years from now, but he deserves to be there. It’s his father.” She looks at Breandan from time to time, standing so quiet, so stoic, and she knows in her heart that bringing him was the right decision after all. He exudes a calm she wishes she felt. She sees in his quiet stoicism the strength she wishes she possessed. She feels pride in her son as other mourners approach him and offer their condolences, pride that he accepts their wishes and seems untroubled.

Outside night has fallen. Inside the mourning crowd thins out as the viewing hours end. Gabby walks up to her son, pats his head, tussles his hair. She kneels down and hugs him, but Breandan does not return the hug. Instead, he stands passive and looks her in the eyes, but she knows not what she sees there. His hands are folded before him, gripping something tightly. She takes his hands in hers, looks at his clenched fists and the object they hold. She says nothing, peels back his fingers.

Dr. McCoy.

“You’re late, Doctor,” said Kirk, a mischievous smile playing across his lips.

McCoy frowned slightly and took his seat at the conference room table. “Dr. M’Benga had some concerns about a tissue sample we took from Ambassador Gett’Ipher.”

“Anything I should be concerned with?” asked Kirk. Ambassador Gett’Ipher, a Tellarite diplomat aboard the Enterprise en route to an urgent diplomatic conference on Algol Prime, had taken gravely ill two days out of Starbase 31. Though Kirk could substitute for the ambassador if necessary, Gett’Ipher had been instrumental in bringing the two parties-the Gottar Hegemony and the Omjaut Republic-to the negotiating table. The ambassador’s health was an ongoing concern for the Enterprise senior staff.

McCoy shook his head. “The broad-spectrum antibiotic regimen we’ve applied has brought his fever down, and we’re seeing an increase in his white cell counts, but we’re not out of the woods yet, and I’ve got M’Benga and Chapel monitoring the situation closely.”

Kirk leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Keep me posted.” He turned and gestured to Spock. “The floor is yours.”

Spock nodded. “Thank you, Captain.” He touched the control panel before him, and the lights in the conference room dimmed. On the room’s viewscreen a single star appeared. “This is Alpha Persei, also known in ancient Earth astronomy as Algenib. A blue-white supergiant, spectral class F, approximately five thousand times more luminous than Earth’s own sun.” The image on the viewscreen changed, the single star replaced by a chart showing the plotted orbits of its twelve planets. “The Algenib system was first charted by the Earth starship Columbia, NX-02, in 2159.” Again the viewscreen changed, this time showing a single planet, gray and rocky, its face scarred by ancient asteroid impacts. “This is Algenib II, as photographed by the Columbia. A lifeless planet, not unlike Mercury in Earth’s solar system.” The image of Algenib II changed, replaced with a fuzzy image of a blue-white planet, obviously taken from long distance. “This is Algenib II as it appeared to the Enterprise’s stellar cartography telescope, six hours ago.”

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” said Kirk. He turned to the officer seated to Spock’s left, another man in sciences blue. “Mr. Pearson.”

Thorvald Pearson, the head of stellar cartography, nodded slightly. “The Enterprise is the first starship to pass within twenty light-years of Algenib in the past decade, and stellar cartography asked for a brief viewing window on Algenib and its system to compare our observational data to that collected by the Columbia a century ago. We expected to find twelve lifeless planets. We didn’t expect to find a Class-M planet.”

“Could the Columbia simply have missed it?” asked Kirk.

Pearson shook his head. “Unlikely, Captain. First, the world we observed is precisely where Algenib II is supposed to be, according to orbital predictions based on the Columbia data. Second, Algenib is a young system-no more than a quarter billion years-too young for any of its planets to have oxygen-nitrogen atmospheres.” Pearson must have seen the confusion on McCoy’s face, for he explained, “Earth itself has had an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere for only the last half-billion years or so, and that came about when single-celled life began producing and releasing oxygen as a waste product. Before that, Earth’s atmosphere was a muck of carbon dioxide and methane. Things happen faster in a supergiant system than they would in a system like Earth’s, but not that much faster.”

“So you’re suggesting, Mr. Pearson, that Algenib II’s atmosphere isn’t natural.”

“I’m not suggesting it, sir, I’m saying it-it can’t be natural,” Pearson said. “Something else to consider is that the image you see comes from our telescope observations. The Class-M world there on the screen is the way it was twenty years ago, not the way it is today.”

McCoy frowned. “So what does the planet look like today?”

“Unknown,” Spock said simply.

“We have a mystery on our hands, gentlemen,” said Kirk, “and we’ll need to take a look for ourselves.” He frowned. “The diplomatic conference is our priority, and though we can spare a brief detour into the Algenib system, we haven’t the time now for a thorough survey. We can, however, send a landing party to the surface for an initial survey while the Enterprise continues on our mission to Algol Prime for the diplomatic conference, and then return to Algenib once we’re sure Ambassador Gett’Ipher has the situation in hand. Opinion, Spock?”

“A logical strategy, Captain.”

Kirk pushed his chair back and stood. “Lieutenant Pearson, I’m placing you in charge of the planetary survey. You have six hours to pick your team. Any objections?”

Pearson seemed overjoyed at the opportunity. “None, Captain. I won’t disappoint.”

Kirk smiled. “You won’t.” He looked at the others. “Dismissed.”

“In other news today, President Bush rejected a call by Senate Democrats to dismiss Secretary of Defense Donald- ” Gabby clicked the television off and tossed the remote on the sofa.

“You could have left it on,” said Nicole.

Gabby frowned. “Old news-I’ve heard it already.” News depressed her, news about the ongoing Iraqi conflict even more so. Five months had passed since the President had declared that “combat operations in Iraq have ended,” yet a month later Kevin’s helicopter was shot down over the desert. How could “combat operations” have ended if combat was ongoing? She tried not to dwell on the disconnect between the two.

“I’ll fix dinner,” said Nicole abruptly as she stood.

Gabby blinked, her thinking labored, and she slowly turned her head to look at Nicole. “You don’t have to do that.”

Nicole smiled and shrugged. “It’s what sisters do.”

Gabby said nothing.

With a shake of her head Nicole gestured at the window overlooking the backyard. “What’s Squirt doing?” “Squirt” was the nickname Nicole had used for her nephew since he was a week old.

Gabby looked out the window. Mid-October, and the leaves were already falling. The oaks, maybe twenty yards distant, were bare, and at the edge of the woods the yard was littered with walnuts. Breandan’s hole lay halfway to the woods, created by rain runoff where the fill dirt from the home’s construction created a sharp incline down to the natural ground. Today Breandan lay prone on his stomach by his hole, each hand holding some toy. From the distance Gabby couldn’t tell which toys he had with him today, but certainly some were his construction trucks, others his Star Trek figures.

“He needs a jacket,” Gabby said.

Nicole came up beside her and looked out into the yard at Breandan. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and denim pants, but in the late evening the temperature on an October night was bound to drop severely. “Kids don’t think they need them. Until they really do.”

Gabby turned and shot Nicole a glare.

Nicole shrugged. “Call it the wisdom of experience. Three kids’ll do that to you.”

The two sisters watched Breandan play in the muddy hole, waving his arms back and forth as he moved his toys across the grass and into the runoff gully and back.

“Where are the kids?” asked Gabby.

“John wanted to take them to see his parents, which I was fine with since I wanted to come see you this weekend.”

Gabby came around the sofa and sat down. “You didn’t have to do that.”

Nicole took a seat. “You haven’t sounded well on the phone. Mom’s been worried.”

Gabby rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m fine. I haven’t been sleeping well, and I’ve been worried about Breandan.”

“Any particular reason?”

“The sleeping? Or Breandan?”

Nicole leaned forward and shrugged. “Both. Either.”

Gabby leaned back on the couch, took a deep breath, and frowned. “Explaining the sleep is easy-dreams. I wouldn’t say I have bad dreams, but I have… unpleasant dreams from time to time.” When Nicole said nothing, Gabby went on. “As for Breandan, I worry about him because I have to. I don’t understand why he spends all of his time in the backyard playing with his toys. I don’t understand why he’s getting in trouble at school for bringing his toys. I just don’t understand, and that’s what worries me.” She paused. “I tell myself that, were Kevin here, we wouldn’t have these problems-I wouldn’t have the troubled sleep, and Breandan wouldn’t spend all of his time in the backyard. But then I chide myself for thinking that way, because I don’t know how to deal with this.”

Nicole laid a hand on Gabby’s shoulder.

“It’s not like my life with Kevin was without its problems,” Gabby said. “Our life wasn’t perfect. I never understood his fixation on Star Trek and all that geek stuff he liked to do. I never understood why he had to spend his weekends playing soldier in the Army Reserves. We separated for a year after my second miscarriage, and at times I think we got back together due entirely to his persistence in making the relationship work. So why does it bother me to look at Breandan and see Kevin?”

“Because Kevin loved you,” said Nicole.

“I know,” said Gabby quietly. “And now Breandan, the one person in this world that reminds me the most of Kevin, shuts me out. It doesn’t make sense.”

Nicole rose, walked past Gabby on the couch, and looked at Breandan in the yard. “Do you think,” she asked, turning back to Gabby, “that perhaps he’s shutting you out so he can cope with Kevin’s death?”

Gabby bit at her nails. “Maybe.”

Nicole sighed. “I don’t know, it’s just a thought.” She tapped the windowpane. “It’s getting late, the sun’s going down. Maybe we should call him in.”

Gabby nodded and rose from the couch slowly. “I’ll get him,” she said, and she walked out to the porch.

Nicole stood at the window and looked out. Evening came early in October.

Hours earlier Algenib’s primary fell beyond the canyon’s western rim, bathing the Enterprise landing party in shadow. Without the harsh glare of the supergiant overhead, McCoy found it difficult to keep track of time-with the sun no longer visible he could judge the hour only by the sky’s deepening color, which passed from a bright white to a deep aquamarine.

Halfway down the canyon’s slope Kirk had spotted a long furrow in the distance. It appeared freshly dug, its sides bearing the marks of recent burns, straight and narrow, pointing generally from the direction they had come on the plateau above, and toward the canyon’s opposite wall. At the furrow’s far end he had seen what he took to be the shuttle’s fuselage, lying on its side. The light within the canyon had grown dim in the false twilight, and the haze of the canyon floor left Kirk unsure, but a quick tricorder scan by Spock confirmed Kirk’s naked-eye observation: At the furrow’s end did lie the wreckage of the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft.

As their vantage point improved on their descent along the path down the canyon’s wall, Spock observed that the machines appeared to be designed for digging into the earth, some equipped with enormous drills, others with giant hooks, cranes, and scoops. The immense scale of the machines became apparent as they approached, and as they navigated a path around one machine McCoy could not help but wonder at the beings that had built them and then abandoned them here.

The hour-long march to the crash site passed in stony silence, and McCoy had concerns for Kirk’s state of mind-except to set their direction he had said almost nothing the entire way. McCoy suspected that Kirk suspected that his crewmen were dead, but he kept those suspicions to himself. Kirk seemed strangely driven, his emotions corked, and McCoy knew his friend well enough not to inadvertently unleash the raw force inside him.

Kirk insisted on a survey of the initial impact site, hoping for some clue as to what had brought the shuttle down. But just as an examination of the shuttle’s nacelle hours earlier yielded no sign of the crash’s cause, so too did the scattered wreckage here-a few hull plates, a power conduit-offer no insight. Clearly frustrated, Kirk turned and stalked off down the furrow toward the shuttle, saying nothing to Spock and McCoy. McCoy looked at Spock, shrugged wordlessly, and the two of them fell into step behind their captain.

Several hundred meters later, they came across more wreckage-cracked hull plates, a hand phaser. The closer the Enterprise officers came to the shuttle’s final resting place, the more wreckage they found strewn along the furrow’s path. Less than half a kilometer from the shuttle they found the ship’s other nacelle, pointing nearly straight into the air as a lamppost might. At long last, nearly twelve hours after they had first beamed down to Algenib II, they reached the shuttle’s fuselage.

The shuttle lay on its side, its nose buried in an embankment. The mounts for the nacelles were gone, the hatch was torn away, and a great gash ran from the nose to nearly aft. After a reconnoiter of the crash site, cataloguing the location of every fallen hull plate, every loose wire, every personal effect, Kirk and Spock scaled the hull and, armed with flashlights, dropped into the shuttle.

The chairs had come loose of their moorings and were massed in a broken pile at the front of the cabin, resting against the viewports. Storage compartments were thrown open, their doors hanging freely from their hinges, their contents scattered across the cabin. Kirk carefully began to lift away the debris and handed off bits of chairs and headrests to Spock, growing more and more frustrated with every piece of the shuttle’s shattered interior that he moved.

Of his missing crew, there was no sign.

Gabby dreams.

Psychologists believe that dreams are the mechanism through which the mind organizes the day’s memories into long-term storage, but while this explanation holds some truth, it leaves out crucial details. How else to explain Gabby’s dreams? Some nights she wakes screaming, suffering dreams of a living Kevin, shattered by his Iraqi service, sometimes blinded, sometimes an amputee, sometimes emotionally and mentally scarred. In rare moments she imagines what it must have been like for Kevin to hold a rifle, aim at another human being, pull the trigger, and watch in horror as a body, a life, exploded into a reddish cloud of gore. Far too often her dreams are nightmares revealing unspoken fears long submerged in the subconscious. Were the psychologists correct, Gabby should dream of an angry phone confrontation with the school’s counselor and a painful conversation with her own sister.

But not tonight. For once, her dreams are pleasant. No terrors, no visions of a broken husband. She dreams instead of happier times: Kevin’s last day at home before his departure for Fort Bragg and, ultimately, his deployment to Iraq. She remembers holding her husband. She remembers being proud of her son that day.

Dreams are never narratives, following instead a surreal illogic. Her dreamtime memories begin with the day’s end, lying with her husband, cuddled together, on the family room couch. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan plays in the DVD player-Kevin’s favorite film, but one to which Gabby is indifferent. For once, though, she indulges him in his odd obsession. This is her husband’s last night home before his departure for training and eventual deployment.

The film nears its end, the climactic scene in the Enterprise engine room. The pointed-eared guy is dying of radiation burns, while his friend looks on helplessly. “Don’t grieve… Admiral,” the alien says, a line that Kevin echoes from memory. “It is logical. The needs of the many… outweigh…”

“… the needs of the few.”

“Or the one.”

Spock collapses, breathes his last. A tear streams down Kevin’s cheek.

“You’re weird,” says Gabby as she wipes the tear away.

“What’s weird?”

“You cry when that guy…”

“Spock.”

“Yeah. When Spock dies.”

“You cried when Boromir died.”

“That’s different.”

Kevin laughs. “How is it different?”

“Because Boromir was being all noble.”

“And Spock wasn’t? He sacrificed himself for his ship and his friends. How is that any different than Boromir sacrificing himself to save the hobbits?”

“Boromir is a tall drink of water. That’s what makes it different.” Kevin pulls the pillow from behind his head and playfully whaps Gabby across the face with it. She catches the pillow as he comes around for a second swing, pulls it from his hands, and throws it aside. They kiss. In time they roll onto the floor, their clothes discarded, and make love for the second time that day.

In Gabby’s dream her memories move backward, to the first time they made love that final day.

“What do you believe in?” Gabby asks afterward, her head resting on Kevin’s chest, her fingers running through his chest hair as he holds her naked body close to his and runs circles with his fingers across her back.

“Hmm?” Kevin replies, his eyes closed.

“What do you believe in? I want to know.”

Kevin opens his eyes and gazes upon his wife. He gives her a wry smile and crinkles his brow. “You. I believe in you.”

Gabby rolls in the compass of his arms and props herself up on her elbows. “No, really.”

“I can’t believe in you?”

“You shouldn’t believe in me.”

“I have to believe in you. And Breandan. No one in this world matters to me more.”

Night on Algenib II was cold, far colder than McCoy would have thought possible given the oppressive heat of the day. He huddled by the campfire, a heavy blanket draped across his shoulders and tugged across his head. He looked across the fire at Kirk, who sat impassive, staring into the flames.

“Why, Jim?” McCoy asked, ending the long minutes of silence. “We could have beamed back to the Enterprise, waited out the night, come back tomorrow with a whole team.”

For many moments Kirk said nothing, as if transfixed by the dancing flames. Finally he spoke, and his voice was low, his words not more than a whisper above the cracking and popping of the burning logs. “They were my men, Bones. My responsibility.” McCoy saw Kirk slump beneath his woolen blanket and pull it tighter to stave off the cold. “When, halfway down the canyon’s wall, I saw the shuttle, I knew-I’d sent them to their deaths. I owe it to them to know what happened and why they died.” Kirk took a deep breath and sighed. “Were the machines responsible, protecting some secret? Was it my own arrogance, thinking that a single shuttle, on detached duty while the Enterprise went elsewhere, could survive on its own for a week?” He paused. “I don’t know. I need to know.”

McCoy saw that Kirk’s eyes were squeezed tight, whether shutting out the cold air or the accusing flames he couldn’t say. “It’s not your fault, Jim.”

“If not mine, then whose?” Kirk looked across the fire at McCoy. “There’s more to being a leader than giving orders and expecting them to be followed. Being a leader means caring as much about those whose lives I’m responsible for as I do for my own. I can’t shake the feeling, Bones, that I didn’t care enough, and that lack of caring sent my men to their deaths.”

“That’s bull, Jim. Those men would have gone anywhere you asked them to, because you’re their captain. That’s enough.”

“No, it’s not enough. The relationship between a captain and his crew is built on faith and trust. Together we journey into the unknown every day, confront dangers we can’t begin to imagine. I trust in my crew to do everything I ask of them. In turn they have faith in me, in my abilities as a leader, to see them safely home. The loss of even a single man threatens that relationship and tests the faith.” Kirk paused, as much, perhaps, to collect his thoughts as it was to catch his breath in the chill night air. “If my crew loses faith in me, how can I have faith in myself?”

McCoy stood, pulled the blanket tight around him, came around the campfire, and placed his hand on Kirk’s shoulder. Kirk’s gaze never wavered from the dancing flames. “Jim, it’s late. We’ve had a long day. As your doctor, I recommend sleep.”

Kirk looked up, over the campfire, toward the canyon’s eastern rim. “The sun will be up soon. We’ll start fresh in the morning.” His voice grew low, quiet. “There’s still a chance. I need to know.”

McCoy nodded wordlessly, turned toward the tent Spock had erected hours earlier, and left Kirk huddled by the fire. Perhaps there was nothing more to say. Morning would come. Kirk’s quest for his fallen crew would continue.

If Breandan heard Gabby’s footsteps he gave no sign, content as he was to play silently with his action figures and construction vehicles.

“Breandan, honey,” said Gabby, “it’s time for dinner.”

Breandan ignored her.

She sat down on the shaggy grass beside him. “I talked to the school today. They told me about what happened during playtime.”

Again, Breandan gave no response. Instead, he dropped one action figure and picked up another.

Gabby picked up the figure Breandan had discarded. “Who’s this?” she asked.

Breandan looked up at his mother. “That’s Mr. Spock.”

Gabby nodded, but she was doubtful that in Star Trek Mr. Spock wore camouflage fatigues.

“What’s he doing?”

“Sleeping.” Breandan turned his attention back to the action figures in each hand.

She put “Mr. Spock” back where she had taken him from. She tapped one of the figures Breandan held. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Bonesey.”

“So the other one, he’s Captain Kirk?”

Breandan said nothing.

“What are they doing?”

Again, Breandan said nothing.

“Honey, what are they doing?”

“They’re looking for Daddy,” said Breandan quietly.

Gabby said nothing for a few moments as she rolled Breandan’s statement around in her mind. At last she said, “What do you mean, they’re looking for Daddy?”

Breandan bounced the figures across the rim of the runoff gully. “Daddy told me that Captain Kirk was sending him away. His shuttle crashed. Captain Kirk is looking for him.”

The last argument Kevin and Gabby had had before his Reserve activation centered on how best to explain to Breandan where his father was going and what he would be doing. Gabby preferred to deal with the issue by not dealing with the issue, but that would have been unfair to Breandan. So, Kevin sat down with Breandan the morning of the day before he left and explained patiently to him that Captain Kirk was sending him on a mission.

What will you be doing, Daddy?

Captain Kirk will have me flying shuttlecraft.

Gabby disagreed with the approach, and she wanted no part of the conversation, but she listened to it at least.

Now she understood. Her eyes began to well up with tears.

“Breandan,” she said, her voice choked with emotion, “would you like to come inside? We can eat dinner and watch Star Trek.”

Breandan looked up at her. She thought she saw a faint smile on his face, the first she had seen in months.

He stood, nodded, but said nothing. “Give me your hand,” Gabby said. “Let’s go inside.”

*

A mother and a child walk hand in hand. A captain looks to the east for signs of his crew. Their roads will never end. But perhaps, in make-believe, they will find their peace.