“Let me guess: He has lots of names as well.”
The Old Father nodded. “Anubis, among the Egyptians. The Greeks called him Ares, the Norse knew him as Loki. Aborigine people called him the Coyote god. Ultimately, his forte was trickery, so really, who better?”
“I thought Anubis was the Egyptian god of death.”
“It’s much the same. Consider those who lie in agony, waiting for the release of death, yet it does not come. Meanwhile newborn infants lie asleep in their beds, just beginning their lives, and they are snuffed out for no apparent reason. Dictators and tyrants lead long, happy lives, while peacemakers and lovers of all who live are cut down in their prime. There is no greater perpetrator of morbid jests than death.”
“I’m living proof of that ... maybe,” said McHenry ruefully. “And in exchange for helping you, he was spared the indignity of being stuck away in some between dimension.”
“Exactly so. So I, with the aid of my trickster son, started gathering them up, one by one, shunting them away into another dimension, where they could cause no trouble. Artemis was the last of them ... and, damn my sentimentality, I was not able to complete the task I had set out to do.” He shook his head, clearly disgusted with himself. “She begged me, she pleaded. She swore to me that she had learned from observing her departed brother the foolishness of trying to thrust oneself into the affairs of mortals.”
“And so you spared her,” McHenry said tonelessly.
“Aye. I did.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said. “She can be very persuasive when she needs to be.”
“So I let her and Anubis wander free ... certain in my foolish confidence that I, ever vigilant, would be able to keep the rest of the beings contained. There is nothing so foolish as the pride of an old fool,” he added. “Although really, I should have known. When one has a son whose reputation is based upon trickery, what else can one expect but betrayal?”
“So Artemis pleaded her way out of exile. Hunh.” McHenry actually laughed at that. It was the first thing he’d found amusing about any of this insanity. “Boy. If Artemis had been penned up, my life would be very, very different. I’d be alive like a normal person, for starters. My parents wouldn’t have been driven insane by her presence in my life. ...”
“I am sorry, lad, for my misjudgment which brought her down upon you,” said the Old Father. “Unfortunately, I know that means very little.”
“No ... no, actually, it does mean something,” said McHenry, choosing to be philosophical about the matter. “Especially when you consider that, for centuries, peoples’ lives have been messed up by random calamities. At such times, they’ve always begged deities for enlightenment as to why these things happened. But they’re never really given any concrete answer. This may be the first time that a deity has actually stepped up and said, ‘My mistake. Sorry for the inconvenience.’ It’s appreciated. It doesn’t change anything, but it is appreciated.” McHenry pondered the situation a moment more and then asked, “How did he do it? Or I should say, how did they do it?”
“How did they release the other Beings?” When McHenry nodded, the Old Father grunted in response. “Those damnable gateways.”
“The gateways?” McHenry remembered them all too well. Portals through time, through space, even—it was believed—into other dimensions. They had begun popping up all over the galaxy, like weeds, manipulated by an alien race as part of a galactic power play. One of the blasted gateways had even swallowed Calhoun and Shelby, necessitating their rescue from an ice world that had nearly been the death of them.
The Old Father simply nodded. “It did not occur to me that my wayward son would become bored with the absence of his sparring partners. Nor did it occur to me that Artemis, so humble in her pleadings to me to be spared, so truthful in nature, would be deceitful enough to seduce Anubis over to the idea of releasing the others and turning my punishment back upon me.”
“Wait a minute,” McHenry said, a thought occurring to him. “Anubis ... Loki ... whatever you call him ... is he a giant?”
“Not a colossus, certainly. But by the standards of your race—of most races—he stands far taller and wider than could remotely be considered the norm.” The Old Father looked slightly askance at him. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, during the gateways incident,” said McHenry, “according to Captain Calhoun’s write-up on the subject, the words ‘Giant Lied’ were etched in the snow on that ice world I mentioned before, by a dying member of one of the races caught up in the whole affair. Did that giant refer to Anubis?”
“Very likely.”
“What did he lie about?”
The Old Father shrugged. It seemed such an odd gesture for a god to make. “Specifically? I could not say. My ravens keep me apprised of much, but it is a vast cosmos to try and keep track of everything.”
“I thought gods were omniscient, all-knowing.”
“Don’t believe everything you read. In any event, although the details of Anubis’s ‘lies’ to this individual are lost, I have no doubt that he deceived the poor creature into taking actions that suited Anubis’s goals. Very likely he was instrumental in finding a way to utilize the gateway that released the other Beings into the world.”
“At which point they came looking for you.”
“And put me here,” said the Old Father sadly, but with the air of one who thought the outcome to be inevitable.
“So ...” It was quite possibly the question that McHenry most dreaded asking. “So ... what do we do now?”
“Now,” said the Old Father with one eyebrow raised. “Now we count on my son.”
“On your son? On Anubis? Excuse me if I wasn’t paying attention, but ... wasn’t he the one who put you into this situation in the first place?”
The Old Father shook his grayed head. “Not him. My other, far younger, half-mortal son. Oh, he does not have much in the way of abilities ... not anymore, not since the passing of his mother ... but at least he can perceive us, and possibly obtain help for us.”
“What? What are you ...”
And then, of course he understood.
“Moke,” he said.
The Old Father made a sour face. “I despise that name, I should make quite clear. His mother named him that. Hardly an appropriate name, particularly for one who so obviously took after his father. What with his storm-related abilities and such. Me ... I would have named him Thor.”
TRIDENT
I.
SHELBY KNEW SHE SHOULDN’T feel a chill when Ambassador Spock materialized on the transporter pad. Nevertheless, she couldn’t help it. She had encountered him before, but she found that her basic reaction to being in his presence was exactly the same. The man was, literally, a living legend. She had studied his exploits in Academy texts. How could one be undaunted in encountering such an individual?
When the shimmering of the transporter beams ended, she squared her shoulders and stepped forward. “Welcome aboard, Ambassador,” she said formally, and then correcting herself, said, “Ambassadors.” For standing directly behind Spock were Si Cwan and Kalinda, both looking none the worse for wear. Si Cwan’s face was an inscrutable mask that surpassed Spock’s for sheer unreadability, but if Shelby was going to guess at his mental state, it would be total chagrin.
Spock, meantime, inclined his head slightly and stepped down.
“May I present my executive officer, Commander Katerina Mueller. And I believe you already know Lieutenants Arex and M’Ress.”
“Indeed,” said Spock. “Lieutenants Shiboline M’Ress and Arex Na Eth, it would appear that the years have been far kinder to the two of you than to me.”
M’Ress looked as if she were fighting to avoid having an emotional breakdown, so clearly happy was she to reencounter this figure from her past. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Mr. Spock. You look wonderful. A sight for sore eyes.”
He frowned slightly. “If your eyes are sore, Lieutenant, might I suggest a simple medicinal
wash easily available in sickbay.”
She smiled. “Thank you, sir. I’ll get right on that.”
“We’ve arranged quarters for you, Ambassador Spock,” said Mueller. “And your guest quarters are as you left them, Ambassadors Cwan and Kalinda.”
“Most considerate,” said Spock. “I think it would be best, however, if we proceed directly to the nearest briefing room so we may discuss the circumstances that have brought me here.”
Mueller looked blankly at Shelby. “Briefing room?”
“Conference lounge,” Arex said softly. “That’s what they call them now.”
“Of course,” said Spock. “I should have recalled. One of the disadvantages of age. That which is far distant is the most clear. The conference lounge, then, by all means.”
Shelby nodded and led the way as the small group emerged into the corridor. As they walked along, Shelby noticed the distinct change in the attitude of the Trident crew. Naturally they continued to conduct themselves as professionals; she would have expected nothing less. Still, there were all manner of double takes, lingering gazes, whispered conferences among crew members who walked past the Trident’s new guests.
She couldn’t really blame them. It wasn’t often that living history walked the corridors of the Trident.
Spock, meantime, seemed oblivious—the operative word most likely being “seemed”—of the stir he was creating. Instead he was having an animated discussion with M’Ress and Arex. “Your presence here is most unexpected. Did the two of you fall out of your own time together?”
“Totally separate circumstances, sir,” said M’Ress. “I came through a sort of time portal as a result of an ill-fated landing party ...”
“Which they call ‘away teams’ now, by the way, just to avoid further confusion,” Arex said. “And I was on a shuttle that fell through a wormhole.”
“I see,” said Spock. “And you both wound up in this time, serving together. It gives one cause to ponder.”
“Ponder what, Ambassador?” asked Mueller.
“The true nature of the universe, Commander.” He indicated M’Ress and Arex with a nod of his head. “The odds of the two of you, former shipmates, being hurled into the future to this particular time period, and serving together once more, are minuscule at best. One is almost inclined to perceive a divine plan.”
“A divine plan?” Mueller said skeptically. “Ambassador, I would think you, of all people, with your extensive science background, would be the ultimate supporter of rational matters in all things.”
“In my life, Commander, I have seen sufficient things to determine that the line between the rational and the irrational is not as strongly demarcated as you might think.”
“Meaning—?”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “I would have thought my meaning was clear enough,” he said, as they approached the turbolift. “I—as have all of you—have seen beings of such might that your ancestors considered them gods. I have seen beings who long ago surpassed the need for physical incarnation. There is a being named Q—with whom I have had some rather lively debates—who wields power bordering on the omnipotent. I had a half-brother who sought out what he believed to be God, and turned out to be anything but. That which some would term a Supreme Being may simply be an entity which we have neither encountered nor defined in terms that we could understand. To dismiss such a notion out of hand simply because we have not witnessed it firsthand would be highly illogical.”
They stepped into the turbolift and the doors closed behind them. “Deck three,” said Shelby, and as the lift moved off, she said, “I never looked at it in quite that way, Ambassador. Would you call yourself an agnostic?”
“I would call myself a Vulcan,” replied Spock. “I leave humans to apply other labels to me ... a pastime at which they have, historically, excelled.”
II.
Si Cwan was waiting for some sort of snide remark from Shelby. A contemptuous glance, a mocking sentiment. None was forthcoming. From the moment that they met in the transporter room to their sojourn to the conference lounge, Shelby—and Mueller, for that matter—were nothing but professional. In fact, Si Cwan was rather surprised when Mueller suggested a private dinner to him in a low voice for later that evening.
He received a further surprise when the turbolift opened on deck three, and a familiar, white-furred presence was standing there waiting to step in. “Ambassador Cwan!”
“Ensign Janos,” replied Si Cwan. “Aren’t you on the wrong ship?”
“There’s been some mixing of the crews,” Shelby told him. “The Excalibur had some ... difficulties. She’s laid up in drydock, so we took on some of her crew.”
“Yes, I ... heard about that,” Si Cwan said.
“Terrible business,” said Janos in his cultured voice. “Simply terrible. I trust it will all be sorted out sooner rather than later, and retribution will be distributed all around.”
“One can only hope,” Kalinda spoke up.
Janos stepped aside, allowing everyone else to emerge from the turbolift before he stepped aboard. Si Cwan thought he might have imagined it, but he could have sworn he saw Janos’s furred hand brush against M’Ress’s as they stepped past each other, and she smiling to herself as a result. It was so fleeting a moment that it was hard to tell.
“Captain,” Mueller said, “if we’re going straight into conference, it might be best if Lieutenant Commander Gleau were present as well.”
This time Si Cwan was certain it was no fanciful notion on his part: He saw M’Ress stiffen slightly at the mention of Gleau’s name. He wondered why that would be, but wasn’t entirely certain that it was any of his business.
Shelby, meantime, nodded. “Yes, I think you’re right, XO.”
Mueller promptly tapped her combadge and summoned Gleau from the bridge as the small group walked into the conference lounge. Gleau arrived less than a minute later, and Si Cwan watched M’Ress carefully to see how she reacted. But there was no visible response from the Caitian aside from a slight inclination of her head in acknowledgment of Gleau’s presence. Still, Si Cwan sensed that something was most definitely wrong, and was beginning to think that rather than content himself that it was none of his affair he might instead want to consider ways to make it his.
As if aware that something was up, Gleau looked at Si Cwan with an air of suspicion. But obviously Si Cwan wasn’t doing anything that Gleau could respond to, and so the Selelvian contented himself to take a seat after formally greeting the Vulcan ambassador.
Spock remained standing as he spoke, striking quite the impressive figure in his large, ridged traveling robes. “I am here,” he began without preamble, “at Starfleet’s request. Under ordinary circumstances, Captain, they would have communicated with you via normal sub-space transmissions. These are not, however, ordinary circumstances. Indeed, extreme caution is being dictated, since we do not yet fully comprehend the full scope of the situation presenting itself.”
“Meaning we don’t know what’s happening yet,” commented Mueller.
Spock looked at her with raised eyebrow. “I believe I just said that.”
“Yes, of course. Go ahead, Ambassador,” said Shelby, firing a mildly annoyed look at Mueller which amused the hell out of Si Cwan.
“As you know, individuals presenting themselves as ‘the Beings’ came to the planet Danter and have struck a bargain with the natives. In exchange for being worshipped, they will provide a substance they call ‘ambrosia’ to the Danteri. This substance, when ingested, is alleged to elevate the physical well-being of the consumers to previously unheard-of levels.”
“I can attest to that personally,” Si Cwan said immediately.
“You’ve eaten it?” asked Mueller.
“No. I did, however, get myself tossed around by someone who had. Someone whom I would have been able to break in half without much difficulty before that. Whatever their claims are that this stuff can do, I suspect it’s barely scratching the surface.?
??
“I don’t understand,” Gleau spoke up. “Did you say they will provide this stuff in exchange for ... being worshipped?”
“That is correct.”
“That’s exceedingly strange.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Spock, “but not out of the question as far as their psychopathology goes. I have encountered such creatures before, you see. That is why Starfleet brought me in from Romulus, asking me to delay my work on unification between the Vulcans and Romulans, and focus instead on this rather pressing question.”
“You did?” Shelby turned to M’Ress. “Have you as well, Lieutenant? Or you, Arex? You served with the Ambassador ...”
“It was before their time, Captain. The encounter involved an individual purporting to be Apollo, on Stardate ...” He paused half a moment, recalling information. “... 3468.1. In the vicinity of planet Pollux IV, the Enterprise was accosted and held immobile in space through a rather unique method.”
“Did it involve a giant hand?” asked Shelby. “Because, if so, that’s what happened to Captain Calhoun as well.”
Spock blinked slightly. “Apparently it was not as unique as I had thought.”
“Obviously Apollo’s kind isn’t all that interested in coming up with new tricks,” said Arex.
“You stay with what works,” Mueller said with a shrug.
“In any event,” continued Spock, “Apollo’s obsession likewise involved being worshipped.”
“Why?” asked Shelby. “Why such interest in being worshipped? It sounds like ...”
“Ego run amok?” suggested Kalinda. “Because I’ve had some small experience with that.” When Si Cwan stared at her in surprise, Kalinda immediately added, “I wasn’t referring to you, Cwan.”
“I should hope not,” he said archly.
Spock continued to stand precisely where he was, but Si Cwan noticed that he had steepled his fingers and appeared quite thoughtful. “Apollo’s interest in worshippers seemed to stem primarily from a sort of nostalgia. He appeared to prefer humans when they were more pliable ... more impressed by the various feats he could perform which—to more primitive minds—appeared to be magic.”