“And what of regulations?”
“Regulations are absolutely mandatory and necessary,” she affirmed. “We cannot, and should not even try to conduct our business without them. However, regs are not a straitjacket to prevent us from doing things wrong. Instead, they’re a guideline as to how to do things right. Does that seem reasonable?”
“You don’t particularly care whether I think it is reasonable or not,” Ap’Boylan said with quiet confidence. “It is simply how you feel.”
“That’s correct,” admitted Shelby amiably. “One of the captain’s prerogatives is that she gets to make up her mind and stick to it.”
“And what prerogatives does the crew have?”
There was something in her tone—almost a warning sound to it—that got Shelby’s hackles up ever so slightly. She forced herself to cool down. “What … do you mean by that, Counselor?”
“Nothing,” said Ap’Boylan quickly.
“I rather think you meant something by it,” Shelby said, “but we’ll let it pass for the moment. Counselor, there is one thing upon which my resolve has not wavered in the slightest, and that is discipline. Discipline and obedience. If my crew wants to voice its feelings, and even register a protest, I am more than happy to listen to all sides for as long as is humanly possible. But it must never be forgotten that I’m the one in command, and no one else. Do you think any of my people are in danger of losing sight of that?”
“No,” said Laura Ap’Boylan. But there was something in her tone that made the captain feel as if something significant was being left unsaid. Then she asked a question that caught Shelby flat-footed: “Do you think he’s watching?”
“He?” Shelby stared at her, not understanding to whom the counselor was referring.
“He.” She pointed at the bulkhead just to the left of Shelby’s head. The sword of Mackenzie Calhoun was mounted there. “Calhoun.”
“Oh.” Suddenly Shelby felt as if her voice was terribly small, almost infinitesimal. “Do you mean, literally watching? Like a ghost of some sort?”
“No, not at all,” she said quickly, but then seemed to feel as if she had spoken too quickly. “Well … perhaps just a bit, I suppose.”
“I don’t see him standing off to the side, his hands covered in blood while waving a skull at me, if that’s what you mean. But, yes, I suppose that, to some degree, I feel as if he’s keeping an eye on me. Is that so unusual?”
“No, not at all. It is very common to feel …” She seemed to search for the right word. “… to feel a desire for approval from someone who is gone. Especially if we were not able to get that approval in life.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mac approved of me.”
“You don’t have to become defensive, Captain.”
“I do when I’m being attacked.”
“My apologies,” Ap’Boylan said mildly. “I was unaware that you were perceiving my thoughts as an attack.”
“It doesn’t have to do with my perceptions, it’s …” She made an impatient noise. “Never mind. This is exactly the type of situation that makes me reluctant to talk to counselors at all.”
“You have difficulty discussing your emotions?”
“Discussing? No. Dissecting, yes.” She leaned back in her chair, feeling in an expansive mood. “A captain, to a certain degree, has to fly by the seat of her pants. Do what she feels is right. Sometimes the regs are then brought in to justify a decision already made. But it’s justification all the same. The bottom line is that the captain does what she feels is right.”
“And you’ve always felt this way?”
No.
“Yes,” she said firmly.
No, you haven’t; you’re lying.
Through gritted teeth, she said, “Shut up.”
This drew an extremely surprised reaction from Ap’Boylan. “I’m sorry?”
“Nothing. It was nothing. I was …” She paused, knowing how it was going to sound, but seeing nothing else for it. “I was talking to myself,” she admitted.
“Do you do that often?”
“No.”
Yes.
She closed her eyes to force the inner voice to go away. “I … admit,” she said slowly, “that my philosophies have … changed a bit. But it’s natural that I would see things a bit differently now, isn’t it? I believed that regulations were the beginning, middle and end of command. I think Mackenzie Calhoun represents …” She paused, and then, with effort, amended, “represented … a philosophy that was at the extreme other end. But if nothing else, it’s made me realize that extremes of any sort are never a good thing. So it was probably appropriate for me to reassess and realize that regs can be the beginning and middle of command, but the end requires something more. That’s all I’m saying.”
“And was that a difficult thing for you to conclude?”
“Why would it be?”
“Because,” said Ap’Boylan, “it calls into question everything that you’ve believed up until that point.”
Shelby laughed at that. “Counselor,” she said, feeling more relaxed than she had in a while, “I happen to believe that any day that doesn’t call into question everything I believe is a day that’s been wasted. Truthfully, I’m not sure why more people don’t feel the same way.”
“I couldn’t begin to tell you.”
“Well, when you can, get back to me on it.” She stood, and the counselor mirrored her action.
But the Betazoid couldn’t quite let it go. “Captain,” she said, sounding as if she was feeling her way, “despite the confidence with which you’re speaking … I sense a degree of ambivalence from you. You’re still not quite certain where you stand. You’re feeling your way.”
“You say that as if it’s a bad thing. I happen to consider that a great positive,” Shelby replied.
“Leaders,” Ap’Boylan said, “don’t feel their way. They can’t. The one thing they can’t afford is to be tentative.”
“I never said I was tentative.”
“You’re becoming defensive again.”
“That’s because—” Shelby stopped and sighed, very loudly this time. “You know what? I’ve just made a very untentative decision: This discussion ends here.”
“We can resume it at some other time if you’d like,” offered the counselor.
Shelby smiled thinly. “I don’t know that I’ll be liking to anytime soon.” With that, she walked briskly out onto the bridge.
“For a man who just had his world divested of a lethal form of insect life, you certainly don’t seem particularly cheerful,” noted Captain Shelby.
Hauman’s image was on the screen of the bridge, and it was obvious to anyone that Shelby’s assessment was exactly right. Hauman did not look the least bit cheered by the fact that his people were going to survive. He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment and said, “Your observation is … not without its accuracy, Captain. If you desire, I shall endeavor to put on a happier face in the future.”
“You don’t have to do anything to accommodate me, Hauman.”
“But I do,” he replied, “since you have certainly gone out of your way to accommodate both me and my people. I must say that for you, Captain. You have done everything that you said you would. My scientists have swept the planet’s surface since you completed your ‘treatment’ some hours ago. No trace of the offending creatures can be found.”
“My people are very reliable,” said Shelby. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Tulley and Dunn—who had come up to the bridge specifically to witness this particular communiqué—look at each other with an approving nod. Even Garbeck had a relaxed air about her. That pleased Shelby. There were some officers who, if their opinion were overridden, would nurse a grudge or just sit there and steam over it. Certainly Shelby was familiar enough with the type, having been one of them herself for longer than she would have liked to admit. She’d outgrown it (or, at least, she liked to believe she had). But it had never been an ad
mirable trait of hers, and she disliked seeing it in others as much as she did in herself. Fortunately enough, Garbeck appeared to have risen above that in her attitudes and comportment. If she was at all upset that rules had been bent and the Makkusians spared slow depopulation through a pernicious insect, she certainly wasn’t letting on. Then again, who would want to make an attitude like that public?
“Yes, your people are obviously very reliable,” Hauman commended her. “And you will find my people to be … equally so.” But as he completed the sentence, there was an unmistakable air of wistfulness in his tone.
“Meaning … ?” said Shelby.
“Meaning that we will … honor our pledge to join your United Federation of Planets.”
“Even though it compromises your pledge of neutrality.” Shelby was leaning back in her command chair, drumming her fingers thoughtfully.
“Yes, Captain. Even though.” He still did not sound remotely happy about it.
“Well … good. Good,” Shelby was nodding approvingly. “I’m pleased that you’re going to stick to the agreement. I mean, yes, I understand that it does violate your philosophy. But … hell,” and she smiled lopsidedly, “it’s not as if you were pressured into making the promise, right? I mean, no one held a metaphorical gun to your head and told you, ‘You have to do such-and-such, or else …’ ” Forming her fingers into a gun, she mimed blowing her brains out.
“Captain …” Hauman said with obvious hesitation. “I … hate to bring this up … but, well … that is, in fact, what did happen.”
“No!” Shelby spoke with what was clearly a sort of false “shocked” voice. “Is it?” She sensed Garbeck stirring uneasily in the seat next to hers, but chose to ignore it. “You truly felt that you were forced into the pledge? That it was coerced from you, against your will?”
“Well … yes.” Hauman sounded very uncertain, as if unclear as to why something that self-evident was even being discussed. “Yes, of course it was against our will. I made that abundantly clear to you, did I not?”
Looking rather huffy over the mere notion of it, Shelby sat up straight and smoothed the line of her jacket. “You did not, sir. You did not make it clear at all. And I certainly wish you had.”
“But I thought—”
Ignoring his befuddled expression, Shelby pressed on, “Because we have a few philosophies and regulations back where I come from. And one of them states that any agreement entered into that is not completely mutual on the part of both parties is not an agreement at all.”
“Captain,” came a low, warning undertone from Garbeck.
“Not now, Commander,” she whispered back, before continuing at her normal volume, “That’s the entire purpose of entering into an agreement or contract. If someone compels you to do so, ‘or else,’ why … the very existence of the ‘or else’ negates any sort of good-faith dealing.”
Hauman clearly understood where this was all going, but couldn’t quite believe it. “Captain Shelby … are you insinuating that, if we wish to recant our agreement in this matter … there is a fundamental precept in your laws and philosophies that would allow such a thing to occur?”
“Of course.”
“Captain!”
This time it was clear that Garbeck wasn’t allowing herself to be ignored. “One moment, please,” said Shelby as she turned to face Garbeck, the former’s face a picture of innocence. “Problem, Commander?”
“Permission to speak privately, Captain?”
“Granted.”
Garbeck had half-risen from her chair, heading toward the ready room, when Shelby cut the legs out from under her by saying curtly, “But later. Not now.”
“Captain, I—”
“I said, not now, Commander. Was that confusing in some manner?”
For a long moment, Garbeck simply froze in place, and then, very slowly and very deliberately, she took her seat once again. She did not, however, look directly at Shelby.
“And what of the insects?” Hauman asked, suddenly cautious. “If I were to withdraw the agreement, would you—?”
“Put them back?” She laughed at the very idea. “No, not at all. Gone is gone, Hauman. Every one of those creatures—except for what’s being held by my people for study—is nothing more than free-floating atoms.”
“We have similar samples under investigation,” said Hauman. “Thanks to you, we should be rid of the beasts forever. But, in the unlikely event that we’re not rid of them, we can continue our research … this time without any help from the Federation.”
Shelby heard McMac moan softly in their collective chests.
“So, what are you telling me, Hauman? That you are now pulling out of your commitment to the UFP?” She spoke so slowly and deliberately that her meaning could not possibly be lost.
A slow smile split Hauman’s face. “Yes,” he said, and then remembered to add an air of reluctant tragedy to his voice. “I’m afraid that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Well!” She sat back, shaking her head and looking discouraged. “I have to say, I’m obviously disappointed in your decision. It may indeed be in line with your world’s philosophies, but I still feel the Federation has a great deal to offer you.” She thought about it a moment, and then said, “I would like you to consider something, Hauman. I would like you to consider that it is because of the UFP that your world now stands safe from that which nature turned against you. And it is because of representatives of the UFP that you are under no obligation other than to live as good a life as possible. We are an organization that honors individual philosophies and ways of life, banding together out of no other motivation than mutual protection, and sharing in the wonders of each other’s cultures. Have you considered the possibility that, by exposing other worlds to the way your people think, you might actually be serving to improve the existence of others, rather than simply diminishing the quality of your own lives?”
“We had not considered that, no,” admitted Hauman. He appeared moved by what she was saying, and stroked his chin thoughtfully. “I cannot make any promises, Captain, but my associates and I will strongly consider what you have said … and what we have learned. Much of this is very new to us, but we are willing to admit that everything that we’re doing … that, indeed, all of life … is a learning process. It is a foolish individual indeed who operates on the assumption that he knows everything there is to know. I may be many things, Captain, but I’ve never considered a fool to be one of them.” He thought a moment longer and then added, “If it wouldn’t be too inconvenient … would you be able to check back with us in, say, a month’s time? There are individuals I need to discuss matters with, meetings to be held. As I’ve said, I cannot guarantee anything. But it is possible that, upon reflection, we may eventually be able to give you an answer more in line with your reason for coming here.”
“All I have asked is fair consideration,” Shelby said. “Exeter out.” The screen blanked out, and she nodded approvingly to herself. Then she looked around at her crew—and saw, by and large, scowls or looks of disappointment. Very quietly, she said, “Does anyone have a problem?” When no immediate response came, she said, “It wouldn’t be wise to make me ask again.”
All eyes turned to Garbeck, who cleared her throat. “It’s just that … it was our first mission, Captain. It would have been nice for it to be a one hundred percent success. Instead, it’s something of a mixed bag.”
“Life often is, Number One,” Shelby said easily. “But ultimately, it is not our mission to browbeat reluctant races into joining us.”
“They’re ingrates,” said Dunn. “After all the work we went to—”
“It was a task we undertook on our own initiative, Dunn,” she reminded him. “We did it because it was the right thing to do … whatever the Prime Directive might have had to say on the matter. Just as not pressuring the Makkusians into joining was also the right thing to do. Two wrongs may not make a right, but two rights don’t necessarily add up to a third ri
ght either.”
“Actually,” MacGibbon noted, “three rights generally gets you back to where you started in the first place.”
This actually drew a mild laugh from others on the bridge. “Trust a conn officer to make note of that,” said Shelby, amused. “If that’s the case, MacGibbon, then I think we’re ahead of the game. Because my suspicion is that, when we check back with them, they will indeed want to join the UFP. And our mission will have ended successfully after all. It will just have taken a bit longer than we originally thought.”
“I hope you’re right, Captain,” Garbeck said diplomatically. But there was something in the way she said it that set off a small alarm in the back of Shelby’s head.
TAPINZA
“… AND OUR SON … MOKE …”
The uproar was instantaneous, but Tapinza didn’t hear it at first because of the roaring in his ears. That roaring came from the blood that was pounding furiously through his head, as he watched his meticulously crafted plan fall apart.
Even as he watched the town meeting erupt into chaos, Tapinza’s entire world telescoped down to two individuals: Calhoun and Rheela. She was staring at him, thunderstruck, his words just beginning to sink in. It was as if everything was happening in slow motion. Her mouth was moving, but no words were coming out. Moke was next to her, jumping up and down, his face incandescent with joy, pulling on her skirt and pointing to Calhoun while asking over and over again, “Is he? Is he?” Calhoun, inscrutable as always, was saying nothing. Instead, he actually seemed to be enjoying the chaos that his little announcement had caused. The Praestor was gaveling for order, but no one was paying attention yet.
That bastard … that bastard… Finally, words were creeping back into Tapinza’s mind, fighting their way through the blanket of raw fury that had been draped over his head. How the hell had this happened? Where had this Calhoun come from, that he was stepping in and making a complete bungle of a simple and elegant plan?