Relics - Michael Jan Friedman [42]
The figure in the center seat cleared his throat. “I see, Mr. Chekov. I’ll have to remember to share that with the commander.”
Training his gaze on the command chair, Scott leaned forward. “Captain Kirk?” he ventured.
The captain turned and rose to face his chief engineer. He looked young, vital. Brash, in a way that Scott had all but forgotten. It seemed the holodeck had remembered Kirk better than his old colleague had.
There was something wrong with that, wasn’t there? With a machine remembering a man better than that man’s friend?
“Yes, Scotty,” said Kirk. “Is something … ?”
Suddenly, he stopped in mid-question, his gaze going to the bottle in Scott’s hand. He looked up until their eyes met. “Mr. Scott,” he said firmly but calmly, “what in the name of sanity are you doing here with that bottle?”
What indeed! “Stop program,” Scott commanded.
The program froze, but Kirk’s eyes still reproached him. Scott put the bottle and the glass down on the deck beside him.
“Computer,” he said, “can ye hide these for me?” He pointed to the items in question.
Abruptly, they were gone. Vanished into thin air.
“Good. Now resume the program.”
As life came back to Kirk, he blinked. “That’s strange,” he said.
“What is, sir?” asked Scott.
The captain shook his head. “For a second there, I thought I saw …”
“A bottle,” Scott reminded him. “Ye said something about a bottle, sir.”
Kirk’s eyes narrowed. “I could have sworn …”
“Aye, sir?”
The captain frowned. “Never mind, Scotty.” His demeanor changed, becoming more businesslike. “Have you run those diagnostics on the warp engines?”
“I have indeed, sir,” said Scott. And he had, too-about a hundred years ago. “They’re runnin’ as smooth as Saurian brandy.”
Kirk tilted his head to one side, his eyes narrowing. Probably thinking again about the bottle. “An interesting analogy,” he noted.
Scott nodded. “Thank ye, sir.”
Pulling down on the front of his tunic, the captain surveyed his bridge. Funny, thought Scott. Their uniforms looked a little skimpy to his eye. Had the computer erred, or had they always looked that way?
Spock, who had been hovering over his science monitor, chose that moment to straighten and turn to the captain. “Sir?”
“Yes, Mr. Spock?”
The Vulcan’s features were even more severe than in Scott’s memories, his demeanor more cold and aloof-more alien. “Sensors indicate a rather unusual phenomenon off the starboard bow. According to my files, we have encountered such a phenomenon before, but never one of such magnitude.”
Kirk grunted. “Does this phenomenon have a name, Spock?”
“It does,” said the first officer. “However, I believe you will recognize it without any help from me.”
With that, Spock turned to his control board and made the requisite adjustments to project his finding onto the main viewer. All eyes turned to the large screen, awaiting their first inkling of what Spock was talking about.
Scott knew what it would be, naturally. For him, this was deja vu. But he didn’t let on that he knew-it would have spoiled the surprise.
Even before the new image came up on the viewscreen, Chekov was chuckling into his fist, unable to quite contain himself. Finally, they all got to see the phenomenon.
It was a snakelike mass of iridescent energies, writhing in and out of every color imaginable. And it spelled out a single message “Happy Anniversary, Scotty!”
His anniversary with Starfleet, that is. A recognition of a romance that had begun the first time he set foot in Chris Pike’s engineering room.
Right on cue, the turbolift doors opened wide, allowing McCoy to come in carrying a big, white cake with a bonnie tartan design on top of it. “I hope you all like it,” he said. “After all, I’m a doctor, not a baker.”
Scott allowed his jaw to drop. “Of all the … !”
He looked around, at Kirk and Spock and then at all the others, accusing them with mock intensity. They were grinning like people who’d kept a secret about as long as they possibly could.