She stared at Janice Rand. They were in a park, seated on a bench, and Janice gestured for her to keep her voice down. When Demora had gotten out of school that day, Janice had been waiting for her. She'd met Janice a couple of times in the past, had brief and pleasant chats with her. None of those casual social interactions, however, had remotely prepared Demora for anything like this.
Demora was fifteen years old. The growth spurt had kicked in a couple of years earlier, as her father had long predicted. She was a half a foot taller, and her body no longer could be mistaken for preadolescent, even if she'd been clothed in a potato sack. Her face had also lost the babyish look, and now had the sculpted features of a striking young woman. Now, though, Janice was worried that the teen was on the verge of an apoplectic seizure that would preclude her ever seeing sixteen.
"He stole the Enterprise?" Demora said again. This time she managed to keep her voice to an appalled whisper. "What do you mean, stole. You can't just steal a starship. It's …"
Clearly she was having trouble fully grasping the notion. It was hardly surprising, considering the hellacious past couple of months they'd had. She'd heard chapter and verse about the routine training mission that had turned into a duel to the death with a twentieth-century madman named Khan. She'd remembered the blood draining from her face as Chekov had described (over Sulu's protestations) their nail-biting escape from the Genesis torpedo … an escape made only at the cost of Mr. Spock's life.
Maybe it had all been too much for him. Her father was out of practice for such life-and-death struggles.
"We can say it was stress," Demora said quickly.
Rand stared at her, confused. "What?"
"Stress. You know. After that training mission, and Spock's death … then he found out that they were planning to decommission the Enterprise, and he just … snapped. Temporary insanity."
But Janice was shaking her head. "Demora, it wasn't like that. It wasn't just some impulse thing. It was carefully planned."
"You mean he planned out a whole—"
"It wasn't just him."
"It wasn't." Demora paused a moment, her face clouding. "Let me guess: the usual suspects."
Rand nodded. "It had something to do with Spock … and with Dr. McCoy. I'm still a little hazy on the details. . . ."
"Oh my God," said Demora, her face in her hands. "But … but how? You can't just waltz into spacedock and leave with a starship. Shouldn't someone have tried to stop them?"
"Someone did try. Captain Styles of the Excelsior. But the Enterprise got away."
"Got away? From the Excelsior? How did …?" Her face went ashen. "They … they didn't fire on it, did they? Didn't get into a fight …?"
"No, no. Nothing like that. They just …" Rand cleared her throat. "They broke it."
Demora stared at her, not sure she'd heard right. "I beg your pardon?"
"They broke it."
"How do you break a starship?"
Janice waved her hands in exasperation. "They shot the hamster running on the little treadmill that makes it go. I don't know what they did! They broke it. The Excelsior went about ten meters and then the engines conked out. Captain Styles isn't real happy about it. Made him look like a fool. They're already calling him Styles Without Substance. No, not happy at all, that one."
Birds overhead, recognizing Demora as a customary easy touch for food, settled down near her. "Scram!" she shouted and shooed them away.
"Okay," she said after a moment, "okay … maybe this won't be so bad. No property's been really damaged. No one's been killed. Maybe this is salvageable. If … if Dad and the others just … just bring the Enterprise back … considering their record, maybe this can all go away. They just need a real good lawyer. Maybe that Cogley guy …"
Then she saw that Janice was shaking her head. "No Cogley?"
"That's not the problem. The problem is bringing back the Enterprise."
Demora's voice was deathly cold. "What … happened to the Enterprise."
"They broke it," said Rand.
"You mean broke it like shooting the hamster?"
"I mean broke it like into a million pieces. Admiral Kirk blew it up."
Demora, feeling ill, put her head between her legs. "Why did he blow it up?" she asked, her voice so faint that Janice could barely hear it.
"I don't know. I'm sure he had a reason."
"Of course he had a reason. The reason was to drive me insane!"
Clearly she was making no attempt to keep her voice down anymore. Passersby in the park glanced her way briefly and then hurried on about their business.
"Where's Dad now? Is he okay? He …" Suddenly she was struck by the horrible thought that maybe this was a long, labored way of breaking the news to her gently. . . .
"He's fine," Janice said quickly, patting her on the hand. "I swear, he's fine. He's on Vulcan."
"Vulcan? What's he doing on Vulcan?" "I'm a little confused on that part myself. Believe it or not … I think he's there with Spock."
"With Spock? Spock's dead."
"He …" Janice fished for words and couldn't find any good ones. "… he got better," she said.
Demora stood. "I'm going home now," she announced. "I'm going home … I'm going to crawl under the blankets … and when I wake up, I'll find out this was all an insane dream."
"Close. You'll go home and pack your stuff, and then you're coming to my place."
"Your place? Why?"
"Because the message your father managed to get out to me said that's what he wanted. Demora … you have to understand. Sulu, the admiral, all of them … they're criminals now. Wanted fugitives. They're under protection by the Vulcan Council, but they can't budge from the planet without risking immediate arrest."
Demora couldn't believe it. She felt as if her world had tilted at a forty-five-degree angle.
"It's not the kind of circumstance that allows a genuine freeflow of communication, you know? Sulu was able to get a brief message out to me, slipping it through Communicore. But that's the best he could do, and it's not likely we'll be hearing from him again until this whole business is settled."
"Which will be … when?"
"I don't know," said Janice Rand, not recalling a time in her life when she'd felt quite this helpless.
"All … all right. All right, Janice. I'll get my stuff … I'll lock up the apartment … and I'll room with you. If that's okay."
"That's fine," said Janice. "Really."
Demora stood, shaking her head. "I don't understand why … or how … he could have done this to me. I just don't."
"Actually … he asked me to relay something to you. Something he said he hoped would help you understand. He said to tell you that it was a matter of honor."
Demora sighed. "Yes. I had a feeling that's what he'd say."
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