Star Trek (2 page)

S
herman's Planet (so named, according to conflicting stories in the Memory Alpha databanks, either to repay a staggeringly large bar tab, to serve as a warning that a particularly obnoxious individual lived there, or to impress a woman) was in an area of space first mapped by Terrans in 2067 by John Burke, the chief astronomer of the Royal Academy of England. There had been a battle in orbit around nearby Donatu V in 2242 between the Federation and the Klingons over settlements in the sector, with inconclusive results which didn't really become clarified until the Organians came along and imposed a sort of unilateral peace between the two sides twenty years later. It was colonized by the Federation under the dictates of the Organian Peace Treaty. There had been a bit of unpleasantness with the Klingon Empire involving espionage, a famine, and a poisoned grain shipment, but it was a minor footnote to the early frontier days of the planet.

The Klingons never got around to that neck of the galaxy after the incident, as they appeared to have developed an aversion to the area—almost as if they were allergic to something.

The planet itself was quite hostile to most Earth plants, with only a few exceptions—fortunately for them, one of the exceptions was the grape. Within a few years of settling, superlative vintages were coming off the planet. Some of the native flora blended well with the Terran grapes, creating unheard-of varieties of wine. All in all, the colonists were able to eke out a comfortable existence—certainly until replicator technology had advanced enough so that a comfortable existence was almost a given for any citizen of the Federation who wanted it.

The human population of the planet had grown rather quickly in the century since, with an estimated three million people living there. Of course, on a planet about the size of Venus, that left a lot of room for people to spread out. It was rare for a family to have less than a few dozen acres of land under their domain—even if that land was still mostly rocks and trees.

With a planetary infrastructure built up after the major power problems of recrystallizing dilithium had been solved, people enjoyed the capacity to spread out. Personal shuttlecraft and the like made it easy to travel to the next town, even if that town was three hundred miles away. And with almost every family having their own on-site replicators, there was no real danger of going without anything. There would be no worry of a repeat of the famine that endangered the colony, though the famine did make for some entertaining stories told by grandparents to their young ones—at least, entertaining to the grandparents.

All in all, war and famine seemed like things of the past. Life was safe and comfortable. Nobody wanted for much, nobody needed too much. The biggest problem the planet's administrators had was that more and more young people wanted to “transport off this boring rock” and see the galaxy—a problem endemic throughout most of the Federation's worlds nowadays.

Abe Auerbach had a similar problem—he wanted off this rock too, and he'd just gotten there.

For the fifth time that day, he cursed his mother for deciding to resettle on Sherman's Planet. Now he was stuck with coming out here from a civilized part of the galaxy to help her with what she called “his inheritance.” He called it a great big bunch of hilly land in the boondocks. His taste ran more to beaches—preferably on Risa, with a nice cool drink in hand. But she had decided to move back to Armstrong City, and she had insisted her dutiful son should be the one to settle her affairs on Sherman's Planet, which included closing up and selling the house she'd lived in.

Once he'd gotten out there, Abe discovered his mom had let the place go to seed in her old age, and it was in such a condition that nobody would take it off his hands without some major renovations. Which was what he'd been doing for the last two months.

He'd done most of the home repair that he could in the winter, but now that spring was here, he was finally ready to put in that swimming pool. He'd rented an industrial phaser for the job and had already cleared the trees and brush, and now he was using it to disintegrate a hole in the earth. He'd decided on a deep pool, and had excavated about four and a half meters down. Unfortunately, before he could finish, it started to rain, and so he put it aside for another day. He figured it would be good for the rain to tamp down the newly exposed soil, anyway.

The rain and the dirt brought to light (literally) something that hadn't been seen on the surface of Sherman's Planet for about three thousand years.

Abe never knew about it. He was going to start lining the pool when the rain stopped, but by then he'd gotten a cold and hadn't really felt up to doing it. He just holed himself up in the house and watched old comedy vids, but switched to dramas after the laughing started provoking severe coughing fits.

Captain's Personal Log, Stardate 53663.3.

The
da Vinci
is oddly quiet. Most of the crew is off the ship, either engaged in various fixer-up projects on Sherman's Planet or engaging in some much-needed shore leave. Left on the ship, there's only myself, who just had shore leave a week ago; Wong at conn keeping us from falling out of orbit; Stevens, who begged off leave because “somebody had to run the ship here”; Hawkins, because Corsi insisted on leaving somebody on board, and Hawkins used up his leave time after the incident on the
Debenture of Triple-Lined Latinum
in any event.

And Dr. Lense.

I was actually of two minds as to keeping Lense up here. On the one hand, shore leave might be good for her. On the other hand, wandering around in a funk during a leave might draw even more attention to her, which I'm studiously trying to avoid. Besides, with the ship pretty much empty, it allows me to conduct a lengthier session with her, without drawing grief from the crew.

I'm keeping a copy of our sessions here in my personal log, to help collect my own thoughts and observations and to have a record I can hand to Starfleet Medical, if necessary. I'm hoping it won't come to that—but after today's session, I think I begin to realize just how damaged she might be. These quotes should illustrate.

TRANSCRIPT STARTS

• L: Hello, Captain.
  

• G: Hello, Doctor. Good to see you.
  

• L: If you say so.
  

• G: Have a seat. Water?
  

• L: Yes. You've almost gotten this down to a routine, haven't you?
  

• G: I hope so. My grandmother told me good manners should always be routine.
  

• L: How sweet. What was her opinion on prying into someone's personal life?
  

• G: She wholeheartedly practiced it.
  

• L: Of course she did.
  

• G: I
  nudzh.
  It's what I do. If you prefer, I'm invoking captain's privilege. You don't like it, find another counselor. Shall we get started?
  

• L: Sure, why not.
  

• G: So.
  

• L: So.
  

• G: Where would you like to start?
  

• L: I wouldn't.
  

• G: No, no, no. Not an option.
  

• L: Of course not. Pick a point, then. I have no idea.
  

• G: All right. Why do you call the EMH “Emmett”?
  

• L: [Laughs.] You don't know? I thought it was obvious.
  

• G: I'm slow to understand sometimes. Why don't you enlighten me?
  

• L: He's an Emergency Medical Technician. An EMT. You know, E-M-T. “Emmett.” Get it?
  

• G: Oh, of course. I should have realized. Okay, new topic. When did you first decide you wanted to be a doctor?
  

• L: I don't know … I was maybe thirteen or so. The competition for ballerinas was too intense.
  

• G: Surely competition didn't bother you?
  

• L: No, it didn't. I was kidding. Okay … it was something I was good at. I picked it up like that. It was easy to envision how a body was all put together, and how making a few changes here and there could affect so many things, make so many things happen.
  

• G: And from all accounts, you were excellent at it.
  

• L: Yes, a true idiot savant.
  

• G: Oh, now come on. Aren't you being needlessly hard on yourself?
  

• L: Maybe. But I am a good doctor. I'm supposed to be able to make these brilliant diagnoses.
  

• G: And yet, we agree your performance has been off its peak recently. When do you think it started?
  

• L: A little surprise happened about three years ago, when I was on the
  Lexington.
  It turned out that the salutatorian of my class, Julian Bashir, was genetically enhanced.
  

• G: I've heard of him. He's still the chief medical officer of Deep Space 9, correct?
  

• L: Yes. I understand his father pled guilty to the illegal genetic engineering charges and was sent to prison. Since it happened to Julian as a child and he was shown to be perfectly capable of functioning in normal society, he was allowed to keep his license and commission.
  

• G: That was my understanding as well. So what does all this have to do with you? Was he a friend?
  

• L: Julian? I didn't even know he existed in med school. Until we met on DS9 a few years after we got out, I thought he was someone else entirely—an Andorian, in fact. And considering what he's done since … well, he didn't do it, directly.
  

• G: I'm not following.
  

• L: Captain, I outperformed a genetically enhanced human. That's like beating a Gorn at arm wrestling. It's unheard-of.
  

• G: And yet you kept up with him. That's impressive work.
  

• L: Yes. Starfleet thought so too. That's why I was investigated.
  

• G: Investigated? There's none of this in your files.
  

• L: There damn well better not be. I made sure that it was all taken out. It was a baseless accusation. But it still made a mess out of my life. Here we were, in the middle of the war, and we get a request to dock at Starbase 314. Captain Eberling called me into his ready room, and there were two security officers there from the starbase. He said, “These are Lieutenants Cioffi and Shvak. They need to bring you onto the starbase and ask some questions.” And I was carried off to a lovely little suite inside the station where I had everything but a way to open the door. The starbase commander was a Phil Selden, and I stayed a month in the Selden Arms while they tried to prove that I was also genetically enhanced.
  

  I wasn't even told about Julian for the first two weeks. I had no idea what they were digging for. My family history was investigated eight ways from Sunday; I found out later that my mother had been detained and investigated as well. They were convinced I was covering up. They talked about sending me away to the Institute where they keep all the other people who were genetically enhanced—they alternated that with threats of criminal proceedings. It took a month of combing over my back history before they would let me go back to active duty. And of course, the
  Lexington
  was long gone.
  

• G: They left you behind.
  

• L: They were ordered to the front lines.
  

• G: They still left you behind.
  

• L: It was orders. There was a war on. Surely, Captain, you understand.
  

• G: Yes. But I can't imagine you liked it.
  

• L: By the time I could catch up with the
  Lexington,
  two-thirds of the crew had been killed in battle or rotated off the ship, including Captain Eberling—he died in one of the first skirmishes of the war. So I never got a chance for an apology from him.
  

• G: What did he owe you an apology for?
  

• L: For not supporting one of his officers. For jumping to conclusions.
  

• G: I see. Sorry for interrupting.
  

• L: I never got to say good-bye to any of them. Gaines, Leff, Bowdren, Twistekey—gone. When I came back, I didn't know who half the crew was on the ship. They didn't know me, either; they thought I was some rookie freshly promoted. Commander—sorry,
  Captain
  Anderson was promoted to the center chair from XO, and she and I never got along well. She kept insisting I call her “Heather.”
  

• G: Did you feel like you let them down?
  

• L: What do you mean?
  

• G: I mean, do you feel that if you were still there on the ship, you would have been able to keep those crewmembers alive?
  

• L: I—Maybe. I don't know.
  

• G: Your staff was, I assume, more than competent; I doubt you would have accepted less. You couldn't have done more if you were there.
  

• L: You don't know that. I don't know that.
  

• G: Yes, you do, Elizabeth.
  

• L: Do you know what the hell of it is? He flubbed the question.
  

• G: I'm sorry, what question?
  

• L: A question during the oral section of the finals. If Bashir hadn't mistaken a preganglionic fiber for a postganglionic nerve, he would've been valedictorian instead of me.
  

• G: You didn't crack, and he—
  

• L: You're missing the point. Preganglionic fibers and postganglionic nerves aren't anything alike. Any first-year medical student can tell them apart. He purposely gave the wrong answer. He flubbed it.
  

• G: Oh.
  

• L: Now do you see?
  

• G: Why do you think he did it?
  

• L: Well, I can't imagine it was the pressure of the exams. I think he was trying to hide that he was genetically enhanced. He was lying. And I was caught up in his lie. I'm sorry, I'd like to stop now. This isn't doing me any good. May I be dismissed, sir?
  

• G: Yes. But I'd still like to hear about your experiences on the
  Lexington
  after you resumed your post there. May we try to continue this tomorrow?
  

• L: Make it the day after tomorrow.
  

• G: Two days then. Dismissed.