• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

THE CAPTAIN’S TABLE

“AND DID YOU?”

Sulu glanced up from his empty mug of Martian Red Ice Ale, wondering who’d asked that question. The English sea captain was draining his own mug, and the old man with the meerschaum pipe was busy trying to get it to light for about the fiftieth time that night. The felinoid and the human freighter had slipped away, arm in arm, to some more private part of the bar during the last part of the storytelling session, and the Gorn was lying facedown in his beer bucket. The voice had been too low to be the red-haired pirate’s, which meant that it either belonged to the barman or to Captain Kirk himself. Both of them were smiling at him, so he gave up trying to track down the source of the question and simply answered it.

“No,” he admitted. “It’s been so many years, I’d forgotten all about that promise until I told the rest of the story. Captain Kirk was the one who remembered it, and came to find me.” He returned his mentor’s smile. “You’re right, sir. It was a good way to pass the time.”

“I thought you’d like it,” Kirk said, pushing his own glass away and buttoning up the flap of his uniform jacket. He slid off his bar stool, then gave the Gorn captain’s massive green shoulder a comradely thump. “I hope you enjoyed the story, Captain.”

The Gorn lifted an enormous ale-stained snout from his bucket. “What story?” he rumbled. “I forgot to listen.” Then he fell back onto the bar and began to snore again.

“Well, now that you know about the place, Captain Sulu, you can come back and find it on your own anytime,” the barman said, twisting a rag through a long, triangular glass. “We’re open whenever you’re passing through.”

“I’ll remember that.” Sulu reached in his pocket for a handful of coins to throw onto the bar, but the red-haired pirate reached out and caught his hand before he could drop them. She had perched herself cross-legged on the bar across from him for the last part of his story, so she wouldn’t miss a single exciting detail of the triumph of female Nykkus over their rogue males.

“You can’t leave now,” she protested. “You haven’t finished your story!”

Sulu threw Kirk a rueful look. “That’s true, I haven’t, but that’s because the epilogue hasn’t actually happened yet. If you can wait until after I pick up my new first officer tonight”

“No, I meant about the lizard-women! Did the evil Klingons add them to their archipelago? Or were they invited to join your federation of good nations?”

“That’s a whole other story,” Kirk informed her. “You’ll just have to wait until the next time we drop in to hear it.”

“Or ask some other captains to tell you.” Sulu couldn’t be sure, since the Captain’s Table bar was so crowded and wide, but he thought he’d seen a pod of familiar faces enter the room from the other side, dressed in the same Starfleet red Kirk and he wore. The glitter of their dark scales reminded him of his short-tailed stowaway, but he glanced around in vain. The slump of the sleeping Gorn’s neck showed no brown and gold gecko anywhere in sight. “Has anyone seen the little lizard I came in with tonight?”

The barman shook his head, looking concerned. “I hope the little furry animal didn’t eat him.”

“No.” The white-maned sea captain pointed with the stem of his pipe. “I saw him squiggle off toward those dark-skinned girls, over there.”

Kirk evidently had a better view of the group than Sulu did. He lifted his eyebrows in amusement. “Your gecko knows superior officers when he sees them, Mr. Sulu. You’ll have to get another pet tonight.”

“Actually, sir, I think I’ve had enough exposure to reptiles for a while.” Sulu stepped away from the bar, then paused to give their companions a respectful nod. “It was a pleasure meeting all of you. Fair skies.”

“And fairer stars,” said the Englishman seriously. “Travel safe among them.”

Sulu smiled and followed Kirk out into the midnight-blue Martian night. The two small moons weren’t up yet, and the desert-clean atmosphere made the stars burn like diamonds sprinkled on dark velvet. He glanced up, wondering just how many of them