Maritime Registry vessel Edith Keebler, as issued by
Supreme Congressional Judge Michael Riley, stardate
4720.2."
Kirk bristled. "It's Keeler," he said, taking a nip at
what little flaws he could find in Lieutenant Alexan-
der's efficiency. Alexander had been handpicked, no
doubt. Most security people would have been more
intimidated by the monumental assignment of con-
fronting the captain of the Enterprise.
"If you don't mind," Alexander continued. "Lieu-
tenant Harsch and I will take a look underneath."
"Below," Kirk corrected. "And I do indeed mind,
20
Lieutenant. My privacy has been ruptured. No matter
how stringent your orders., I doubt they included
beaming without notice onto private property. Be
assured I'll have a discussion with your superiors
when we return to Command."
"Nevertheless, sir, I'm going to have to search the
boat."
Rushing back into the forecabin, I spun around
frantically. No, not the head--they'd look there. The
galley cabinets were too small . . . the berths were
military-neat, without any convenient piles of blankets
or clothing to hide under. I might have been able to
hide in or under a sail bag, but I couldn't get on deck
without being seen... unless the fo'c'sle hatch was
open...
Alexander and Harsch finally picked their way
through Kirk's stubbornness and started their search
of Keeler. In my mind, supplemented by careful listen-
ing and imagining how I would do it, I saw the Security
men investigate the ship's tight little hold, the engine
room where the now-quiet engine---of course, an old
restored dieseltsometimes throbbed, the supply
shelves in the aft hatchway, both heads, the forecabin
closet, and every other nook they could find. I wished
desperately for Vulcan ears as their slow footsteps
scraped on the upper decks. Poking the sail bags,
peering around the sea sides of the fores'l and jib, then
finally the walking and poking and opening and closing
stopped. There were voices, but I could barely hear
them. My hands were cold, sweating. I bunched them
up under my chin and tried to make sense of this. Was
Kirk being framed? Had someone pinned these
charges on Sarda in order to entrap Kirk? Or to
distract from other crimes surfacing during the purge?
A half-dozen members of the Admiralty had come
under suspicion--two had been court-martialed, one
actually jailed. Captains of other starships had been
21
dismissed--four of them! I'd made myself ready to
accept almost any change at Star Fleet Command--
but not this.
My skin tingled. The air around me vibrated ever
so faintly My ears buzzed for a long instant, then
everything settled again. Only the sea wind hummed
now.
I burst out of the larder, shoving upward against the
wooden board that made a lower berth and a seat
behind the madiera table in the forecabin. The seat
cushion bounced off as I climbed out. I unfolded my
legs and winced at the creases left in my thighs and
sides by cartons and tins of stored food. I'd been on
board Keeler weeks before I even knew that compart-
ment was there.
I quietly gained the top of the forecabin ladder and
peeked out, past the mainmast, rigging, and sails, to
the helm. Yeoman Philotoff was at the wheel, scanning
the blue sky. Looking for the low-at tug, no doubt.
McCoy stood near the aft hatch, hanging onto a block-
and-tackle, scanning the deck. He spied me. His head
craned forward and his brows shot together; but he
clamped his lips tight. With a roll of his eyes he told me
to stay hidden. He, too, evidently understood Kirk's
efforts to stall the search. Hide Piper, give her a
chance to act. But act how? What did Kirk want me to
do? Sarda was no thief, certainly no traitor, and if
anyone knew it, I did. Kirk was giving me some kind
of advantage. The captain knew what he would do if
Mr. Spock were in this position. Now I had to figure
out what that was, so I could do it too. That was all.
The low-atmosphere tug appeared on the distant
horizon, approaching rapidly. I ducked deeper into the
hatchway. The tug was a flattish aidspace vehicle with
bumpers all around its turtle-shaped hull just below
Star Fleet insignia and call letters. Typical of Security,
the vessel had no aesthetic catalog name.
ArthurJan . . . Culloden . . . Pioneer... Corinthian
22
. . Versailles, America, Proxima---could I name a
ship before I'd even seen it? I wouldn't want anyone to
impound my ship; I wasn't going to stand by while
Keeler was trussed up under Fleet red tape. She was
going to the port her captain wanted her in.
My hands shook now as I heard the low throb of the
tug's engines whine down t idle beside the schooner.
I scoured my brain for some memory of the crew
complement of a low-at--two or three, no more. Plus
Yeoman Philotoff, above decks. I'd wait. I'd let them
take us in tow. Then . . . phasers. There had to be
phasers on board somewhere. Jim Kirk was a cautious
man. Any sailor learned to anticipate pirates. I
wouldn't leave my ship or crew without some kind of
tangible protection; I guessed he wouldn't either. They
had to be aboardrebut where?
"This is Gavelan calling Keeler. Jim, is there some
problem aboard?"
My heart took a dive. "Damn it!" I hissed. The com
unit in the aft cabin! Ambassador Shamirian had no
idea what he was doing if Philotoff decided to come
below.
I was trying to crawl back into the compartment
under the bench when I froze, hearing voices.
"Do you mind," McCoy was saying, "if I go down
there and answer that? Our sister ship over there
wants to know what's going on."
"Go ahead, sir," Philotoff replied. Her voice had a
rough texture, but her tone was almost conciliatory
The vision appeared before me of McCoy's brow
rising in indignation. He grimly uttered, "Thank you."
Caustic bitterness was uncloaked in the doctor's tone.
I met him in the aft cabin, but waved him to silence
and motioned to the corn unit. He picked up the
transceiver and responded, "Ambassador Shamirian,
this is Leonard McCoy."
"Yes, Doctor. What's happening? What has the tug
come for?"
23
"We're... well, we're being impounded, Ambassa-
dor. Captain Kirk's been called back to Star Fleet
Command for, uh, administrative reasons."
"Ah. I'm not surprised. Do you need help?"
McCoy shifted the question to me with a look. I
shook my head, wide-eyed.
He swallowed, then spoke into the transceiver.
"Not right now, Ambassador. We'll let you know."
"We'll be here, Doctor
."
"Apparently so will we. McCoy out."
He replaced the transie and started to say something
to me, but I pressed a finger against my lips. I opened
my palms in an encompassing gesture and whispered,
"Phasers?"
The sharp blue eyes grew huge. He stared at me as
though I'd grown cauliflower ears. With a paranoid
glance up the hatchway, he exaggerated a shrug and
his eyes got even wider. Evidently it hadn't occurred
to him to rupture the flow of events planned for us by
Star Fleet security.
Above decks, we heard voices
Someone hailing from the low-at "You know how
to steer this fossil, Yeoman?"
Philotoff answering "I can keep it on course, but I
don't know how to change course. It's a museum-
quality relic, but it sure is slow."
"Can you fold up those membranes?"
"They're called sails, Vallo. And... we could try it.
I'll need help. I've never seen anything like this be-
fore. I'm used to automatic sail furlings." "Stand by."
Keeler rumbled as the low-at pulled up alongside,
hovering at a pace so slow as to strain the heavy-duty
tug engines. We heard a "thunk" as the tug officer
dropped onto the aft deck. "All right," he began,
"how do we do this?"
"Doctor!" I hissed from the bottom of my throat.
"Phasers!"
24
McCoy touched his mouth in thought, paused
through a few long moments, then whispered, "If I
know Jim, they'll be near his own bunk." He pointed
broadly to the captain's berth.
We went through every drawer and cubbyhole, ex-
panding our search away from that focal point, until
McCoy stifled a little yelp of victory; sure enough
there were phasers--hidden nicely in a dull wooden
box in the aft cabin head. In the head, of all places.
Knowing Kirk, he probably asked himself where any-
body who knew him would guess he might keep phas-
ers, and he went immediately in the opposite direction.
I crossed the cabin in one step. Mceoy watched,
wordless, as I separated the gun-handle unit from the
power pack of one phaser and stuffed it into the pocket
Of my flight suit. Good thing it had been a little chilly
during my wheel watch this morning, or I might have
been wearing a water suit or shorts and not been
prepared for this at all. As it was, I could barely
assimilate what had happened and what to do about it
in the time I had.
"What do you--"
"Shhh!"
He lowered his voice considerably. "What are you
going to do with that?"
"I'm taking this ship, sir," I told him. "The captai n
had something like that in mind... do you have any
idea?"
"Me? I'm a doctor, not a spy. Nobody tells me
anything. It does look like he left the ball in your
court, though."
At that, I stared at him and gushed, "What ball?"
"Are you going to take over the tug?" the doctor
asked.
"And leave it behind, yes."
"Wouldn't it be faster than Keeler?"
I nodded, struggling with shaky fingers to set the
phasers on heavy stun, and explained, "But they can
25
track the tug. Once we're in crowded Bahamian wa-
ters, the schooner becomes just another ship in the
flotilla. Stay here," I told him. With a second phaser,
the complete gun, wrapped in my clammy fist, 1
slipped through the ship's innards to the fo'c'sle, a
dark and cramped quarter in the pointed bow. Above
me was an open hatch, with no ladder. Beyond that,
bobbing high aloft, was the foremast. I would have to
climb out just right if the sail was t hide me. The
dangerous moment would come just as I surfaced, for I
would have to balance myself and had little option of
ducking to one side or the other. Turbulence . . .
Counterattack... Identity Crisis . . . the S.S. Nerve
Pinch...
I straddled the fo'c'sle, one foot on each bunk, and
hoisted myself up and out in a single motion, my head
low, coming out straight up so the mast itself would
hide me for a moment.
I crawled forward, squirming along the green deck,
keeping the big sail between myself and the invaders.
The ship shuddered and faltered. A loud scraping
noise filtered forward through the wind. I couldn't see,
but I felt the mains'i drop, felt the slackening of
control over the wind. I winced, thinking of those two
security clods trying to furl the main. Getting it to drop
was easy enough once the ropes were tracked back to
their sources, but folding up all that yardage of sail-
cloth was something I hadn't come close to mastering
even under Captain Kirk's tutelage. Not unex-
pectedly, Philotoff started yelling obscenities, both at
the sail and at the tug crewman.
The phaser pistol was warm in my hand. Within its
power pack, restrained compressed energy kept the
whole weapon warm even when not in use. It doubled
the sweatiness of my palms as I arranged it in police
position, one hand holding the phaser, the other
steadying that wrist. I backed as far to the schooner's
bow as I could get--right up against the jib--braced
my buttocks on the rail, and aimed at the position
where one of the men would have to stand in order to
drop the fores'l.
"It's good enough," Philotoff was calling. "We can
fix it later."
"I dunno... you really want to leave Captain James
T. Kirk's float looking like that?"
"I'm not so sure it isn't supposed to look like that.
And it's a boat, not a float." "Okay, okay."
It's a ship, my tense mind corrected. Typical secur-
ity inertia for brains.
Several more seconds I went on like that, brewing
up animosity for them, for their churlish intrusion, and
their offhanded treatment of Keeler. I gathered every
last annoyance into a lump and sat on it until my teeth
gritted and my finger itched on the phaser trigger. By
the time the fores'l began to drop, I hated security
people from the bottom of my... bottom.
The sail dropped. Wooden hoops scraped the mast.
Sailcloth luffed and piled up on the boom. The ship fell
out of the wind altogether. Soon the gaff was at my
eye-level. I tightened my grip on the phaser.
The gaff settled as two sets of hands pulled it down
from the other side. Thenmtwo faces.
They gaped at me for an instant. Then Vallo went for
his phaser.
I hunched my shoulders, and fired.
27
Chapter Three
"Sailor's luck, Mr. Spock."
--Amok Time
A PHASER IN full fire is a hot thing. All that energy so
tightly contained causes flushback into the phaser
casing, making it warm to the touch. The weapon
reminds the user of the power in hand. A weapon with
a conscience. My hands sweated as t
he beam pro-
pelled Vailo backward down the deck. He collapsed
against the rail, then tumbled to the deck. I didn't mind
using the phaser, but using it without a clear reason
took me down with my prey.
Perhaps it was guilt that made me hesitate. Caught
in the complexity, I held my breath as Vallo crumpled,
and gave Philotoff the time she needed to react. I saw
her phaser come up in my periphery, even saw the
infinitesimal glow as the beam gathered inside the tiny
muzzle perforation, and I would have loved to take
credit for the response of my nerves. Maybe Star Fleet
trained me better than I remembered or maybe prime-
val responses took over, but I found myself shoulder
down on the deck as the blue beam lanced over me.
Footsteps vibrated through the deck wood and I
knew she was coming around to find me. Scrambling
like a puppy on ice, I somehow made it to the foredeck
and hid behind the jib, the only sail still flying. The
schooner's forward movement had slackened to al-
most nothing when the fores'l luffed and went down,
28
and the jib was doing little more than providing some
stabilization as we bobbed in the choppy lapis seas.
"You're just making things harder on yourself,
Commander," Philotoff called as she circled the fore-
mast and carefully came toward the bow. "Come on. I
know who You are. Kirk cooperated, so why don't you
do the same?"
I didn't answer. I held my phaser close to my chin
and stepped carefully in the tight deck area on the
pointed bow. There was no place to go but overboard.
On a ship this size, even that wouldn't hide me. The
rope netting under the bowsprit provided no solutions
either. I would have to stay on board.
On the canvas sail I saw the ominously clear etching
of Philotoff's silhouette kindly provided by Earth's
vulgar yellow sun. She wasn't built so much differ-
ently from me, except that she was a little shorter and
her hips were rounder. She looked well trained and
strong in that silhouette, a uniform-bound power pack
just like the phaser she carded. She was about to come
around the sail. Her phaser was preceding her. Her