Ring Around the Sky - Allyn Gibson [35]
Gomez shook her head. “No, I suppose we wouldn’t.”
Tev nodded slowly, but said nothing.
“Why, Tev? Why allow everyone to believe the paper was his and not yours? You could have exposed him as a fraud at any time in the past few days. You could have even exposed him twenty years ago. Why remain silent, when he has the life that could have been yours?”
Tev sighed deeply and rocked back and forth slowly in his chair. His eyes narrowed and focused somewhere beyond Gomez, almost as if he was looking past her into the memories of the past.
Finally, Tev spoke. “Do you remember our first meeting with First Minister Grevesh? How he said I would never be a Kharzh’ullan, only a Tellarite?”
“Yes,” said Gomez. “I thought that was rather insulting.”
“Such is the attitude my family faced for the entirety of our time on Kharzh’ulla. I was born on Tellar, spent my first decade there. Tellar is a cold world, a wet world. Tellarites lead their lives in a state of constant fog and mental oppression. Our eyesight is poor. Our digestion is terrible. Gravity makes us short and stocky.” He paused, took a deep breath, and then continued. “Kharzh’ulla, on the other hand, was everything that Tellar was not. The weather was mild, the climate warm. Gravity was much lighter than the norm, and our bodies adapted to the new environment. Even though immigration from Tellar continues to this day, off-worlders are looked upon as outsiders and never as part of the community. Had I accused Eevraith of stealing my dissertation, nothing would have happened to him. The Kharzh’ullans expect such behavior on the part of off-worlders, never from one of their own.”
Gomez nodded. “You hate him, don’t you? Eevraith?”
Tev shrugged. “Hate? I stopped hating him long ago.”
“Why?”
“There was a time when I thought I wanted the life Eevraith has now. When my first attempt at an engineering career ended so abruptly, my father secured an appointment to Starfleet Academy, despite my being in my mid-twenties, and I discovered that I liked what I did in Starfleet. Do I have regrets? Certainly. But I have seen more and done more in my tenure with Starfleet than I would have if I had remained an outsider on Kharzh’ulla. So, no, I don’t hate Eevraith anymore. He has a politician’s instincts. I do not. Were it not for him, I would not be here now.”
Gomez smiled. “That’s very enlightened, Tev. Very philosophical.”
“Merely a statement of fact, Commander.”
“I’ll leave you to your work, then,” said Gomez as she stood.
“One thing, Commander,” said Tev.
She nodded perfunctorily.
“If this matter could remain between us…?”
“Of course, Tev. Well, between you, me, and Bart. And I think we can trust to his discretion.”
Tev nodded. “Thank you.”
She turned and walked to the mess hall doors. She turned and looked at Tev. “Good work on the mission, Commander. Thank you.”
Tev nodded, made a grunting sound, and turned back to his padds. Sonya Gomez smiled as she stepped through the mess hall doors. She had often heard the saying, “you can never go home again,” but until this mission it hadn’t occurred to her that it was more often a case of “you wouldn’t want to go home again.”
About the Author
When ALLYN GIBSON was seven years old, he and his father watched Cosmos on PBS. It was an event that shaped his life—he looked to the stars and dreamt of places unseen by human eyes. He still dreams, as seen in his short story “Performance Appraisal” in the Star Trek: New Frontier anthology No Limits and in this novella. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he works as a store manager for one of the leading video game retailers. When not working or writing, Allyn may be found watching Doctor Who videos. He maintains a Web site at http://www.allyngibson.net/.
Coming Next Month
Star Trek™: S.C.E. #38
Orphans
by Kevin Killiany
A colony ship careens out of control through space on the border between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. A joint rescue mission made up of both Klingon and Starfleet engineers is sent to investigate. But the