Songs of the DirhjaOUT OF PRINT
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DEEP ELEM BLUES
by Greywolf the Wanderer
NEW MINGLEWOOD BLUES
by Greywolf the Wanderer
MORNING DEW
by Greywolf the Wanderer
From Deep Elem Blues by
Greywolf the Wanderer
Eyes opened to darkness and pain. It was nothing new; he was in the world of
pain and had been for a long time. He still dreamed, occasionally, of bright-lit
rooms where it was always warm and there was always enough to eat. He'd had a
name, then, and duties. He'd still had pride, and strength to spare for other
things besides simple existence. That world was his home. He remembered that
sometimes—but when he opened his eyes, it was always this world that he saw.
He hadn't always been alone like this. There had been companions, comrades—one
he called t'hy'la—but that was long ago, and now he was no longer entirely
certain that any of that had been real. In that world he'd been whole and
healthy; he'd walked easily on strong, undamaged legs. He'd been a free man
among free men. In that world, the light hadn't burned his eyes. Pain had been a
stranger, seldom seen and easily vanquished. Surely that last was only a dream.
How could the pain be vanquished when it reached to the very core of his bones?
It was the first thing he knew each morning, and the last he knew each night.
Its continued presence reassured him that he yet lived.
The pain was himself, his own dark twin, bound to him more strongly than steel
to a hull, closer than any lover, deeper than life itself. He would never be
free of it; he no longer even dreamed of that. The cost of such dreams was
simply too high.
At times he doubted that he'd ever been anywhere but here. The face he saw in
dreams was that of a stranger, bearing little resemblance to his own haggard
visage—only the eyes were the same. That man's nose had never been broken, his
cheekbones never shattered. He had all his teeth. His hair was pure black,
unmarked by time or toil. He was unscarred. He stood straight and undamaged and
bowed his head to no man.
But that was in another world. In this world, he dropped his eyes before the
masters, just as the others did, for to refuse was costly—he had paid dearly for
that knowledge. In this world, he hauled rocks, dug the crystals from the mine,
made and stacked bricks side by side with the small graceful people whose world
this once had been. The masters were tall—even his own height seemed lacking
compared to theirs. Their skin was velvet-furred, as
black as space itself; their hair and eyes were silver. He had never seen anyone
like them before he came to this place. The overseers and the guards were of
another kind. Their skin was a deep green, much darker than his own, and their
hair was black. He thought that once, in that other life, he had known such
folk. But he couldn't remember. They commanded and he worked, long and hard,
forcing his damaged body to obey his will. The work was heavy, the conditions
harsh. The slaves were denied even the simplest conveniences to ease their load.
The masters allowed them no power tools at all, and very few hand tools. Such
things belonged to another world than this.
What was, was.
Sometimes something went wrong in his head; he would fall and lie insensible for
a time. Sometimes it was his lungs, always overworked in the cold, damp air.
Sometimes the veterinarian would put him into the animal hospital. Then he would
curl up in his cage, either to die or to heal as best he might. But that didn't
matter. He survived because it was all he knew to do.
He was always cold here. He wore as many layers of clothes as he could scavenge,
but he never really felt warm. The cold, like the pain, lived in the core of his
bones. Sometimes it reminded him that he didn't belong here, for at the height
of mid-day when the native people shed all but a
breechclout, he still shivered, unable to get warm. The sun here was somehow
smaller than he thought it ought to be, its light a harsh blue-white.
The masters wore protective lenses whenever they were outside. Even to his eyes
it was unpleasant, though the little brown people did not seem to mind it.
To the masters, this world was too hot. They wore insulated clothing, and clever
devices chilled the air in their homes and conveyances. On the rare occasions
when they remembered him and had him brought before them, it was all he could do
to stand up. Every nerve and muscle protested against the cold. He couldn't keep
his teeth from chattering, and the cold iron of the collar burned against his
flesh like fire, drawing from him heat he could ill afford to spare. They would
stare at him then with their cold silver eyes, poking at him with bored,
disinterested fingers, and he could see in their thoughts that he was less than
an animal to them, merely property. They saw none but themselves as being of any
worth. All else existed merely for their convenience. If they had known that he
could see their thoughts, they would have put him to death in an instant. He put
the knowledge away, as he had put so much else away already.
At times the overseers came and took him back to the place where the questioners
were. Those times were the worst. They had devices that could fill a man's
nerves with pain; they could make him feel it running like acid in his veins,
charring his bones to ash. Yet it was all a trick of some sort, for afterwards
when he curled, shaking, sweat-soaked, in his bunk,
there were no marks upon his flesh, no sign that any of it had happened at all.
There were only the memories of pain, the bruises where he'd fought without
success against restraints, and the tremors that never completely went away any
more. He could not answer their questions, and he did not understand what they
wanted of him—and the questioners couldn't, or wouldn't, accept that. And then
there were times when they didn't ask him anything. They just put him in the
chair and used the machine on him. At those times, the prospect of death took on
new meaning: peace and freedom from pain. But his body wouldn't let him die; it
clung fiercely to life. He no longer really knew why.
He did not let himself hope very often. What was the point? Here he was and here
he would eventually die, and although he knew that he had once had a reason for
clinging so hard to life, he no longer remembered what it might have been. He
didn't remember how he came to be here, or why he'd come, or when. He didn't
even remember what his name had been. There was only this life and the vague
recollection of another, long ago. Everything else he had lost over the years,
for in this place, merely surviving demanded his full attention.
No one here spoke his language, and he could only speak theirs a little. The
masters' speech had a much higher pitch than his, and although he could hear and
understand it well enough, his voice could not repeat it. His attempts to speak
it had brought only scorn and punishment. It didn't matter—he could hardly speak
his own tongue any more. He hadn't tried in a long time. There seemed no point.
He had learned to read the script they used, but it was of little use to him;
there were only a few signs posted, notices on this shed or that. Among
themselves, the small dark people spoke a chirping, twittering language,
sounding more like birds than people, and that speech he could not reproduce at
all, nor did he understand it. So he used the signed speech that the others had
taught him when he had to communicate. That, the masters accepted. It would have
surprised him to know that when he slept and dreamed, his hands moaned and wept
and cried out, in lieu of the voice that he never used any more. The others
never mentioned it, for so it was with many in this place. It was the only
privacy they could give to one another, and so was precious beyond any price.
He suffered less when the overseers just grew angry and beat him, for the mercy
of shock eventually put an end to that pain. He could seek refuge then in
blessed oblivion, a release that the questioners' machines denied to him. But
best of all were those times when it seemed that the masters had forgotten he
existed. Then he did his work, ate his meager rations, and slept as much as he
could—not seeking dreams but rather nothingness, simple not-being.
Only then did he feel any real peace, for he did not remember most of his
nightmares.
It was easy to lose the flow of time here, in this place where nothing ever
changed. There were no seasons; once, he thought, he had known what that meant.
He knew that he had been here a long time, some years perhaps, but he had no
idea how long. He had no way to keep track.
It felt strange, therefore, to awaken one morning, hours before sunrise, with a
man's face held clearly in his mind—a face he once had known, though he had
forgotten about it over the years. It had surely been a dream. And yet….
And yet, it had not. As he lay there on his hard narrow bunk, trying to think,
he found himself believing, more and more, that it hadn't been a dream. He never
did get back to sleep. That face, that unruly sand-brown
hair and hazel eyes, lazy cat-smile…. That face was a
part of his other life, the life he'd sometimes doubted ever was. Once, he had
known that face as well as he knew his own.
From New Minglewood
Blues by Greywolf the Wanderer
Dirhja beeped at him. Jim looked up from the padd he'd been doodling on—ah,
good. They'd just picked up the outermost beacon for the Vortex, and scan was
showing all clear. There was no-one but a couple of merchanters insystem right
now and one Klingon scoutship. That was fine; as long as the Border Patrol or
the Orions weren't here, it was safe to decloak. He sent the customary coded
squirt signal, waited for the ship to decode the autoresponse, and lowered their
cloak. It looked good. The port had assigned them a perfect orbit, close enough
for transporter range, but far enough out to make a quick retreat possible
should the need arise. Now all they had to do was wait for M'Shaa'a's signal,
and they could make their deal and get out.
The sound of quiet, uneven footsteps reached him then, telling him that Spock
was up and about. He turned and saw the Vulcan take his customary seat at the
copilot's station. He looked a little paler than usual, but seemed otherwise
unharmed.
"How do you feel?" Jim asked.
"Better. It… has passed." But Jim could feel his frustration as he tried to
speak. He reached into his pocket and retuned the wire, giving himself enough of
a boost to use the mindtouch instead. Depending on how high he wanted to boost
himself and how thrashed he was willing to be afterward, he could use it at
quite a distance. He had done so that first night at the mining colony, when
he'd found that Spock was still alive. Jim was no telepath; he couldn't touch
anyone else's thoughts in that way—but the Vulcan's mind was open to him, had
been for many years. There was a bond between them. Neither twelve years of
separation nor the worst the masters had thrown at them had been able to break
it.
<<You up for landing party duty?>> he asked. <<We're due to meet M'Shaa'a at the
Vortex Hole in a couple of hours.>> That was another advantage Dirhja gave
them—she could be set to beam them both up again without needing anyone on board
to run things, and she could be coded and locked so no other could do so. !M'zh!w*hee
had been a cast-iron bitch but she'd bought
herself—and, unwittingly, them—one very fine ship.
Spock shrugged Vulcan style, the spreading of the fingers. His eyes were hooded,
expressionless. <<I… shall manage, Jim. There is… need.>>
Jim looked down at the pilot station controls for a moment. He'd been thinking
the last couple of hours, thinking about need, and responsibility, and duty to a
friend. He'd been too damned worried about what might happen to him—but it
wasn't that simple. There were more important things at stake.
<<Listen, Spock. I've been thinking. Seems to me this problem of yours is
getting worse, not better.>>
The Vulcan turned away from studying the controls, to look at him. <<It is…
possible.>> He frowned, and for a moment the look in his eyes was bleak. Then
his face returned to that flat Vulcan non-expression
he'd always used in the old days when he didn't want to think about something.
<<What is, is.>>
<<Not necessarily. I've done some checking. There's a mining colony in the
chu'Harr system, less than ten lightyears away from here. They've got a pretty
good hospital, and they get funding from StarFleet XenoMed—>>
Spock cut him off in a flash of most un-Vulcan anger.
"No." Even now, his voice was still harsh, broken. For so many years, he had not
spoken at all…. He sat bolt upright, and as he went back to the mindspeech, his
hands moved, as they often did when he was disturbed, in the twisting,
fluttering signed speech he had learned as a slave.
<<No… StarFleet hospitals, Jim. I… will not go.>>
<<Dammit—why?>>
<<I will not go.>> Jim scowled fiercely and refused to look away. The two of
them glared at one another for a while.
Finally, Jim reached for his control and made his mood lighter. Then he tried
again. <<T'hy'la—don't shut me out. Why won't you even consider this? You know
as well as I do that something's wrong.>> The Vulcan stared out at the stars,
his hands laced together in his lap. Jim could feel the care with which he
organized his thoughts.
Even then, he had to fight for the words before he replied. <<It is…. There
are…. >> He sighed, and turned back to meet Jim's gaze. <<Jim, if I went… We are
thought… dead. I cannot, I do not want…. >> He hesitated, but Jim just went on
looking at him, his face and his thoughts kept carefully neutral, waiting.
Spock tried again. <<I do not wish my family… to know of this.>> He gestured
toward himself, the gesture taking in the scars on his face and hands, the collar-gall
about his neck, the damaged leg, all the rest of it. And Jim remembered that
Vulcan had never been conquered within their collective memory, a record which
went back uninterrupted for thousands of years. Slavery had been unknown on that
world since the days of the mind-lords, before the time of Surak.
<<I am thought… to be dead. They have already… grieved for me, and moved on. Let
it… stay so. A Federation hospital… will know who we are. Who we were. There
will be… inquiries, questions. Old wounds reopened. And we… we do not know that
anything… can be done. I prefer to retain… my privacy.>> He had spent too many
years without it.
Jim sighed. The worst of it was, he did understand. He felt the same way. He
knew of no remaining kin except his nephew, Peter, only survivor of his brother
Sam's family. Jim's mother might or might not be still alive—he'd found no trace
of her yet, but that didn't mean much. Peter had sworn from childhood on that he
would follow in his uncle's footsteps and join the Fleet. What would it do to
that idealistic young man if he were to learn that his beloved uncle was not
only a wirehead, but determined to stay that way? How could he ever explain it?
How could anyone who hadn't felt the damned thing understand? The only one who
did understand was Spock, and that was only because he could feel what it was
like.
"Well, shit," he muttered, under his breath.
That got him a raised eyebrow and the comment, <<As… a debating tactic, Jim…
that leaves somewhat to be desired. >> The very smallest of smiles flickered
across the Vulcan's eyes, then. Though his concern was real, Jim had to laugh.
He looked up and smiled, admitting defeat—for now. <<Whoever said cats were the
stubbornest animal sure as hell never met any Vulcans!>>
<<Perhaps not. >>
From Morning Dew by Greywolf
the Wanderer
The man seated at the antique writing desk knew that he looked as unfashionably
old as his furniture. But Dr. Leonard E. McCoy, MD, PhD (Biochem), PhD (VSA) (XenoPharm),
FFCS(T), FFCS (V), Rear Admiral (UFPSF, ret.), former head of StarFleet Medical
Academy, would have no truck with cosmetic fripperies. Oh, he took his longevity
treatments, the same as anybody—but he flat refused to dye his hair or have any
cosmetic surgery. He'd earned every damned one of his grey hairs, by god; he was
proud of them.
He'd retired three years ago. He had turned in his notice, started collecting
his pension, and gone to spend two years on Vulcan, studying. He had more than
half intended to go Vulcan-by-Choice;
he just hadn't had the heart to stay in the Fleet any longer. It sure wasn't the
same StarFleet he'd signed up for all those years ago. Even Nogura, the Grey
Eminence of StarFleet Intelligence, now Commanding Admiral of the Fleet, was
seldom seen in public anymore.
The Vulcans were a prickly bunch—but at least they were honest. Sick of the lies
and politics and business-as-usual on Earth, Bones had thought to find refuge
there.
But in the end, he'd come back to Earth, unwilling to just run away from his
ancestral home. Instead he had come here, to Augusta, Georgia, NorthAm Province,
back to his grandfather's house, which was now his own. His supposed intent had
been to begin his magnum opus, to complete the cataloguing and documentation of
thirty years of research, all the data that he had collected over his years in
space. He hadn't known what else to do with himself.
He'd had dreams of more, once. He'd dreamed of making The Discovery of the
Century, as many physicians do, dreamed of a life of service to his fellow man.
Well, he'd done the latter, he supposed—but it still wasn't satisfying, wasn't
what he'd thought it would be. Nothing had really been the same since they were
lost.
He remembered Scotty's efforts, when the captain and Spock first turned up
missing. The Enterprise had gotten a call saying they'd never arrived and Scotty
had burst into action. With the full support of the crew and the tacit
permission of FleetCom, they had backtracked and searched for days until finally
they found it, off to one side of their planned course—the burned and broken
remains of the Tycho Brahe, empty and abandoned, disruptor scars on what was
left of her hull. And there the trail had ended. No warp traces coherent enough
to follow. No bodies to bury, though after a few years FleetCom had declared
them "missing and presumed dead." There'd been some travesty of a funeral
service; he and Scotty had gotten through it by staying as drunk as it was
possible to get and still be standing more or less upright.
God, he hadn't thought about that in ages. Hadn't seen Scotty in ages, for that
matter. One by one they'd drifted apart as the years went by. Nyota still
dropped by, once in a while. Chris sent him tapes now and then. He'd seen Hikaru
briefly last year, at the transfer of command ceremony for the Excelsior. Sulu
was going to be an excellent captain—Jim would have been proud of him. But it
just wasn't the same. Nothing had ever been the same again.
Pirates, was what Fleet Intelligence had eventually decided. That's what it said
in their records. Huh! "Pirates, my piles," was McCoy's opinion. There was never
a pirate in Orion but what paid tribute to the Council of Chiefs—and that was
the closest thing to a government those bastards had. He didn't know what had
really happened. He supposed he probably never would. But he was willing to bet
cash money that whatever it had been, it hadn't been a random act of piracy. It
had been too neatly timed. How had their attackers managed to find them, one
small, stealthed scoutship traveling on a supposedly secret course? The whole
thing stank to high heaven.
And now this latest nonsense: hearings to decide whether a supposed breakaway
group of Orions could join the Federation—as if any of that lot would ever
really break away. McCoy couldn't believe they were even considering it. Seemed
like the Council these days was full of nothing but children and naifs; there
were only a few left, like Sarek, who had any brains.
Even the damned bourbon didn't taste right any more. Probably some highpockets
city-bred young techie was running the distillery these days—they should have
left well enough alone. Then he hoisted the somewhat diminished bottle and took
another slug anyway. What the hell, it was better than nothing. It was another
six months yet before Joanna would be back inSystem for him to fight with.
Leonard McCoy was drunk tonight—drunk, maudlin, and bored out of his skull. He
just didn't give a shit any more.
Soft Vulcan-style chime from the commset—that had been
a gift from Sarek late last year, in honour of the friendship they still shared.
Now, who in hell was calling in and spoiling a perfectly good drunk? He leaned
over and slapped at the Accept key, finally hitting it on about his third try.
"McCoy here. Now who-all's callin' at such an ungodly
hour—y'best have a damn good reason!"
The answer was one of those newfangled encryption screens. McCoy couldn't make
head nor tails of those, but Joanna had taught his system to accept them on her
last visit. What the hell, in for a penny, in for a pound. He sat and waited
while the two comms agreed on protocol. A flurry of snow onscreen, clearing to
reveal the pilot's alcove of a civilian ship—some kind of Free Trader, it looked
like. Two stations at conn, and seated there….
No.
No, it couldn't be. They were wearing Free Trader motley instead of the familiar
blue and gold, but… .
No. This was not possible. There was no way in hell that this could be real. He
had finally drunk too much and pickled his brains. He was seeing ghosts, now….
McCoy felt his stomach lurch. He had to grab the edge of the table to hold
himself steady. "Oh, my God. I will be dipped in shit. I don't believe this."
Sudden pain in his chest; it was as if someone had just kicked him. Now he knew
he was getting senile—when you start hallucinating the thing you want most in
all the world, the one thing you know you can never, ever have…. Damn! Hadn't he
been through enough already?
For years he'd been haunted by dreams like this, dreams that always ended the
same way, with the aching realization that it wasn't real. Oh, god, not again….
But the man on the left grinned wryly, and suddenly McCoy knew—this was real.
"Believe it, Bones. It's no trick." God's teeth, it was Jim. Older, thinner,
more haggard—finally quit wearing those damned hair augments—but it was Jim all
right. He'd seen that grin in dreams for years after they were lost. Never
thought he'd see it again in the flesh, for damn sure. And Spock—god, it really
was him—it was both of them. Back from the god-damned
dead. About him he felt the universe pause, felt it turn on its axis…. He gaped
at the screen, absolutely speechless for one of very few times in his life.
Jim smiled, very gently now. "What's the matter, Bones? Cat got your tongue?"
And by god, Spock was smiling, too—just the barest tilt, one corner of his
mouth—but for a Vulcan, it might as well have been a shit-eating
grin. His hand shaking like a leaf, McCoy picked up the bottle and took a long
drink. To hell with the niceties; he felt like he was about to faint dead away.
He stared a while longer, shocked into numb silence. It was too big. He simply
could not absorb this. It couldn't be real; the universe didn't work this way.
You never actually got to the pot of gold. Everybody knew that.
A soft sound, then—it took him a while to realize it was himself. He was crying,
like a god-damned baby, the tears pouring down his
cheeks, his nose starting to run. Angrily, he wiped his face on his sleeve and
fought to bring himself under some sort of control.
Spock leaned forward, and in the dark gaze was only sympathy and understanding.
"Doctor… McCoy," he said, his voice all rough and broken. "Leonard, it is… good
to… see… you." Beside him Jim was nodding, his own eyes very wide, his face as
wet as McCoy's. God, he couldn't talk either.
McCoy found himself laughing, then, still leaking tears. He blew his nose and
tried again. "God, look at us…." His voice cracked, and he couldn't go on.
For a while, none of them spoke. They just sat and looked at one another. Even
Spock's eyes were suspiciously bright. McCoy finally grabbed the bottle and took
another drink, and then he tried again. "God damn, Jim. Been a helluva long
time… but it's real, isn't it? I—how… shit, I can't even talk straight! I don't
know what to say. Welcome back? Damn, I don't believe this!" He felt dazed,
unreal. He was still half expecting he'd wake up to find that this was only
another cruel dream, like so many before it….
Jim gulped convulsively and nodded. "It's real. Bones, it is damn fine to see
you, my friend…." He trailed off, obviously unsure of what to say next.
McCoy grinned, though it was a pretty watery excuse for a grin. He leaned
forward and peered at the screen. It still looked like them. "I ain't just
imaginin' this, now, am I?"
Jim laughed, then—and his eyes kept right on leaking. "Well, if you are, then
I'm having the same hallucination, doctor." He paused, shook his head. "Bones—"
He stopped again. Just plain ran out of words.
It was Spock, finally, who managed to speak. What had happened to him?
"Gentlemen," he said, "… believe it. I… assure you this… is… real."