ii.
The heat struck Calhoun like a fist. That surprised him; he would have thought that returning to Xenex would simply be a homecoming with no measurable physical impact. Instead he actually staggered slightly as the change in climate nearly overwhelmed him. He recovered quickly, but it was disconcerting to him that he’d had any reaction at all.
The two human security guards, Meyer and Boyajian, who had accompanied him had an even more pronounced reaction. Meyer gasped and Boyajian started coughing violently before he managed to pull himself together.
Zak Kebron didn’t react in the slightest. The Brikar’s rock-like skin effortlessly resisted the heat. Since he had virtually no neck, he turned at the waist this way and that, inspecting the area where they had materialized and looking for some sign of possible danger.
There didn’t appear to be much of anything there, much less an overt threat.
Assorted small structures were scattered around in a haphazard manner, as if they had simply sprung up there with no rhyme or reason, much less any sense of designing a village. The skies were clear, orange and cloudless, although there was a distant shimmering haze upon the horizon.
Calhoun shook his head as he looked around. Absolutely nothing had changed. He thought of how far he had gone since leaving his native world, and all that he had accomplished, and yet the world of Xenex he had left behind—the so-called city of Calhoun in which he had been born and raised—was exactly the way he remembered it. He supposed that some people would take comfort in that, to know that some things remained the same. He was simply surprised to discover that he wasn’t one of them.
“Well, well, well. Look who decided to show his pathetic face around here.”
Mac turned and saw a familiar figure swaggering toward him. He was struck by the fact that, with each passing year, his brother D’ndai was looking more and more like their late father. Considering the violent demise that their father had met, being beaten to death by the oppressive Danteri in the town square, it was not a recollection that brought back any positive memories.
But Calhoun was far too experienced to let any of his thoughts be mirrored in his face. Instead he nodded toward his brother and said, “We both know you can’t live without me, D’ndai.”
D’ndai laughed and then put his arms out. Calhoun embraced him awkwardly. He was taller than D’ndai and so his older brother pulled him down toward him, slapping him on the back with such force that the sound reverberated. Mac, never the most demonstrative of men, did the best he could to return the affection, but in as restrained a matter as possible.
Then D’ndai stepped back, gripping Calhoun by the upper arms, turning him right and left and inspecting him as if he were a piece of prime meat. “You look like hell, boy.”
Calhoun frankly thought the same thing about his brother. The Xenex climate was obviously taking its toll; D’ndai looked far older than he had when Calhoun last saw him. But Calhoun didn’t see how matters would be helped if he made that observation. “You, however, look great.”
D’ndai scowled. “You used to be a better liar than that. On the other hand, I should be grateful. This way when you tell me what the hell you’re doing here, I won’t have to worry that you’re trying to be disingenuous. Come. Bring your guard dogs and explain to me why this isn’t simply a social call. I can safely assume that, can I not?”
“Yes,” was all Calhoun said.
Minutes later they were gathered in D’ndai’s modest home. Meyer and Boyajian remained standing just outside the entrance to D’ndai’s study. Kebron had chosen to remain outside the dwelling, keeping a wary eye out just in case someone or someones decided to make an unexpected and unwelcome visit. He remained as immobile as a statue, so much so that random Xenexians who happened to wander by wondered when it was that D’ndai had had the new artwork installed.
Calhoun was nearly as immobile, standing in D’ndai’s sparsely decorated study, sipping from a glass of water that D’ndai had presented to him with something akin to fanfare. D’ndai wasn’t sitting either; the brothers tended to remain standing in each other’s presence.
“Soldiers?” said D’ndai, his eyebrows knitting. “On Xenex?”
“That’s the information that I currently have in my possession.”
D’ndai looked amused. “When did you become so filled with words, M’k’n’zy? ‘That’s the information that I currently have in my possession’? The old M’k’n’zy would simply have said, ‘That’s what I’ve heard.’”
“It is what I’ve heard.”
“From whom?”
Calhoun was about to tell him, but then caught himself. Politics on Xenex were a tricky line to walk. Calhoun didn’t want to do anything to endanger Xyon’s ability to come and go as he pleased. If he told D’ndai that Xyon had been feeding information to Calhoun, then within the hour everyone in town would know about it. It could make matters problematic for Xyon should he happen to return to Xenex at some future date, and Calhoun had no desire to see that happen.
Carefully he said, “My sources don’t matter. What matters is, I want to know what you’ve heard.”
D’ndai paused, looking for a moment as if he wanted to pursue the matter, before apparently deciding that it wasn’t worth doing so. “Nothing.” He sipped his own glass of water. “I’ve heard nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“At all,” he confirmed. “Trust me, little brother. If there were soldiers on my world, I would know about it. And I’d know about it far sooner than you. I certainly wouldn’t need you showing up with your guards and your spaceship to tell me about it.”
“You make it sound like I’m being patronizing.”
“You are, a little,” he said, although he did not sound irritated. “Coming here to tell me about what’s happening in my own backyard, except it’s not.”
“Are you sure?”
“Again: my own backyard. If it were happening, I would know. Do you think I’m sloppy, M’k’n’zy? Do you think that I’ve gotten fat and lazy in my old age?”
“Not at all.”
“Again you lie, and badly,” said D’ndai scoldingly. “Let me make it clear for you, my brother: This world was conquered at one time. We will never, ever let it happen again. In order to prevent that, we have remained eternally vigilant. I have squads out there regularly, keeping watch for any sign of alien invasion. One never knows if the Danteri may decide they want to take another shot at subjugating us, and that’s just the beginning. You see, in case you haven’t heard, my brother is a rather high muck-a-muck in Starfleet. Consequently, there are some who may well decide to strike back at those on his homeworld, in order to use us as a weapon against my brother.”
“You’re blaming potential danger on me?”
“Do you deny the possibility?”
The truth was that it was a possibility that had long haunted Calhoun. He lowered his gaze and said softly, “No.”
“One word instead of ten. You’re starting to sound more like the M’k’n’zy of old.”
“D’ndai…”
“We have patrols out routinely,” D’ndai assured him. “We have sentry points with which we’re in constant communication.”
“Not on the far side of the world. There’s an entire continent that is inhospitable and fairly desolate. You couldn’t possibly hope to patrol that.”
“I will grant you, it’s a big planet, and we cannot hope to cover every square inch of it. But we’re far afield enough that I’m confident in our security. Contradict me, though, if you can. You have sensor devices. You can scan Xenex from on high. Do your marvelous sensors detect anything untoward happening here?”
“No,” Calhoun admitted. “That’s why it’s so puzzling to me.”
“It’s not puzzling to me. You haven’t found any potential invaders because there are none to be found.”
“So no unknown soldiers, then.”
D’ndai stared at him in astonishment. “Do you want me to write a b
allad about it?”
“That won’t be necessary—”
“There are no soldiers on Xenex, M’k’n’zy! Unless you count your own people and you yourself.”
“We’re not soldiers.”
“Oh really?” said D’ndai, looking amused at the claim.
“Starfleet isn’t a military organization.”
“You wear uniforms, you carry weapons, you have ranks, and you fly about the galaxy in ships bristling with weapons. You want to say you’re not soldiers, you’re not the military, go right ahead. You may well even fool yourself into believing that. But you’re certainly not fooling this old soldier.”
Slowly Calhoun nodded. “All right, D’ndai. I’ll take your word for it.”
“How generous of you,” D’ndai said sarcastically.
“But I want you to promise me something—”
“You want me to promise,” D’ndai cut him off before he could continue, “that if something should happen—should soldiers magically appear, should we poor, pathetic, backward Xenexians find ourselves in mortal danger—that I will immediately summon my brother, the non-soldier, to show up in his non-military ship and use their considerable firepower to blow the invaders to bits.”
“I would have presented the entire thing without the sarcasm,” said Calhoun, “but that’s more or less accurate.”
D’ndai patted Calhoun on the shoulder. “We may be a backward planet in your eyes, M’k’n’zy, filled with backward people. Certainly we’re nowhere near as advanced as that flying battleship you call home, even if you can’t admit you’re all soldiers fighting an eternal war on behalf of the Federation’s security. But we do have communications facilities, and I assure you that if a threat should present itself, and I believe that it is beyond our abilities to handle, then my younger brother will be the very first person I’ll call.”
“That’s the part that concerns me, D’ndai. The concept that it’s something you cannot handle. If there’s one thing I know about you, big brother, it’s that you’re as stubborn as the day is hot, and you’d be the last one to admit there’s anything you couldn’t handle.”
With a coarse laugh, D’ndai said, “In that, you are right. Very well, then: You have my oath, M’k’n’zy. Should unexpected armed forces show up on Xenex, I will operate on the assumption that they are the ones who you warned us of, and will immediately summon you and your associates to step in with your considerable firepower and attend to the danger.”
“That’s all I ask.”
“You can ask far more of me than that, M’k’n’zy. We may not be the closest of brothers, but brothers we remain. And…” He hesitated and then continued, “And I am always painfully aware that I exist in the shadow of the great warlord you once were.”
“That was a long time ago, D’ndai. People forget.”
“No.” His voice was deathly serious. “They don’t forget, little brother, and you do them a disservice if you believe they do. Your reputation remains legendary, and your name celebrated in all gatherings. Perhaps if you had stayed to govern, then eventually they would have tired of you, just as many have tired of me. But you departed at the height of your popularity and left your legacy of greatness behind you. A wise move indeed.”
“I wasn’t thinking in terms of it being a ‘move.’ It was just the direction that my life seemed to take.”
“It was a good direction.” For the first time, D’ndai allowed a trace of bitterness to invade his tone. “You abandoned the people and they loved you for it.”
“That’s not how it was—”
“That’s exactly how it was, and don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting otherwise.” Before Calhoun could say anything else, D’ndai put up a hand and said, “Look… we both have other things we should be attending to. There’s nothing to be said or done here that’s going to change anything, so it would probably be best if we didn’t even try. I have told you what you wanted to know, answered all your questions, and assured you that we will summon you if needed. Beyond that, I don’t see what else we really have to talk about.”
Calhoun was about to say that it seemed to him as if there was a great deal to discuss. Then he thought better of it as he saw the look in his brother’s eyes, and the way D’ndai’s fingers were wrapped so tightly around his glass that it looked as if it might shatter in his grasp at any moment.
“I suppose you’re right,” said Mackenzie Calhoun.
“Safe journey,” said D’ndai, and he turned his back, seemingly lost in thought. There was not much in his posture or bearing that would have qualified as a “hint,” but what there was of it, Calhoun decided to take.
He strode out of the study, moving so quickly that Meyer and Boyajian had to run to keep up with him. He kept going and walked right past Kebron, who watched him go with mild interest and called after him, “I have troops at the ready, Captain. Do we need to summon them?”
“Apparently not,” said Calhoun. “They don’t have any information to contradict what our sensors are showing us.”
“So what you were told was incorrect?”
“So it seems, yes.”
“How does that make you feel?” said Kebron, concern in his voice.
Calhoun looked up at him. “Like shooting my head of security.”
“I don’t see how that would solve anything, but if it will give you peace of mind…”
“Shut up, Kebron.”
“Yes, sir.”
Calhoun tapped his combadge and said, “Calhoun to Excalibur.”
“Burgoyne here,” came back the voice of his second in command.
“Burgy, it seems that this was a wild-goose chase,” said Calhoun, taking a final look around. Passersby had slowed and were looking at Calhoun in something akin to amazement. He heard them muttering to each other, heard his name being bandied about. One young man, while speaking to a friend, was touching his own face, drawing a line along his cheek in imitation of the vicious scar running down the side of Calhoun’s own. Clearly he was indicating the scar as evidence that Calhoun was, in fact, the legendary scarred warlord of Xenexian renown.
Part of him was pleased to be engendering that sort of reaction, but then his brother’s words about being worshipped and adored while having abandoned his people came back to haunt him. Suddenly the world that he had once stalked like a cunning animal was the last place he wanted to be right now.
The comm channel was still open. “Four to beam up, Burgy.”
“Aye, sir.”
Calhoun folded his arms, waiting for the familiar humming sound that would indicate the transporter beams of the Excalibur had locked onto them and were about to bring them back home.
Home. That’s what the Excalibur had truly become to him; certainly more so than Xenex, which had once been the entirety of his worldview. Once upon a time, he could not have envisioned a life beyond the horizons of Xenex. Now he had outgrown it, and it was about time that he admitted that to himself.
Then the air began to sparkle around him, the transporter doing its work, and seconds later Kebron, Meyer and Boyajian vanished from the surface of Xenex.
It took a few moments for Mackenzie Calhoun to realize that he was still standing right where he had been. At first he thought it was some sort of glitch. Seconds later the beams of the Excalibur transporter room would sound again and this time he would be brought up to the ship along with the security team that was already waiting for him. There would be some good-natured scolding of transporter chief Halliwell, and then he would return to the bridge and they would leave Xenex’s orbit and return to the scientific studies that they had been pursuing before he dragged the ship away on this waste of time. And at some point he would catch up with Xyon and inform him that he had been completely wrong, and that nothing was remotely out of the ordinary on Xenex.
None of this happened.
Instead he continued to stand there, feeling increasingly foolish. Very quickly, though, the feeling of foolishness was transfo
rmed into that of concern. He tapped his combadge once more and said, “Calhoun to transporter room. I think you forgot someone.”
No answer.
He tapped it again, with growing urgency. “Calhoun to Excalibur. Burgy, what the hell is going on up there?”
No answer.
He hesitated and then, with a slow, deliberate tone that was bordering on growing anger, he tapped it a third time and said, “Morgan. Come in.”
No answer. Which was, of course, the answer, as far as he was concerned.
Certainly, though, they were going to notice when Calhoun didn’t step off the transporter with them.
Except… naturally Morgan would have anticipated that and planned for it. And Calhoun, after only a few moments’ consideration, was able to come up with the way that Morgan would doubtless address it.
“Grozit,” he said softly, with the air of someone who knew that he was completely screwed.
iii.
All four members of the landing party stepped off the transporter pad on the Excalibur. Kebron saw the serious look on Calhoun’s face and felt immediate sympathy for him. Brotherly relations could be prickly affairs under the best of circumstances, and these were certainly not those. “Captain,” he said, “if you’d like to talk about it…”
“Honestly, Mr. Kebron,” said Calhoun with a touch of weariness, “what I’d like is to forget that I ever came here. Please inform Tobias that I want her to plot us a course back to PAS3000. This should teach me a lesson in the foolishness of varying from Starfleet’s plans for us. I’ll be in my quarters.”
“Not the ready room, sir?”
“I think I could use some downtime. If something happens, though, you know where to find me.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Calhoun turned on his heel and walked out of the transporter room. They watched him go, and then Meyer said, “He seemed a bit out of sorts.”
“It’s understandable,” said Kebron. “I’m sure his homecoming was very emotional. I think it best to give him as much distance as possible. I’m sure that he’ll be himself in no time.”