“Yes, sir!” they shouted as one.
Such bright and eager faces, the best and the brightest from all the Federation planets. Bobbie Ray showed his teeth in a grin. This was going to be interesting.
Read on for an excerpt from
Vulcan’s Forge. . . .
VULCAN'S FORGE
by
Josepha Sherman and Susan Shwartz
Please turn the page for asn excerpt from
Vulcan's Forge . . .
Intrepid II and Obsidian,
Day 4, Fifth Week, Month of the Raging Durak,
Year 2296
Lieutenant Duchamps, staring at the sight of Obsidian growing ever larger in the viewscreen, pursed his lips in a silent whistle. “Would you look at that. . . .”
Captain Spock, who had been studying the viewscreen as well, glanced quickly at the helmsman. “Lieutenant?”
Duchamps, predictably, went back into too‑formal mode at this sudden attention. “The surface of Obsidian, sir. I was thinking how well‑named it is, sir. All those sheets of that black volcanic glass glittering in the sun. Sir.”
“That black volcanic glass is, indeed, what constitutes the substance known as obsidian,” Spock observed, though only someone extremely familiar with Vulcans–James Kirk, for instance–could have read any dry humor into his matter‑of‑fact voice. Getting to his feet, Spock added to Uhura, “I am leaving for the transporter room, Commander. You have the conn.”
“Yes, sir.”
He waited to see her seated in the command chair, knowing how important this new role was to her, then acknowledged Uhura’s right to be there with the smallest of nods. She solemnly nodded back, aware that he had just offered her silent congratulations. But Uhura being Uhura, she added in quick mischief, “Now, don’t forget to write!”
After so many years among humans, Spock knew perfectly well that this was meant as a good‑natured, tongue‑in‑cheek farewell, but he obligingly retorted, “I see no reason why I should utilize so inappropriate a means of communication,” and was secretly gratified to see Uhura’s grin.
He was less gratified at the gasps of shock from the rest of the bridge crew. Did they not see the witticism as such? Or were they shocked that Uhura could dare be so familiar? Spock firmly blocked a twinge of very illogical nostalgia; illogical, he told himself, because the past was exactly that.
McCoy was waiting for him, for once silent on the subject of “having my molecules scattered all over Creation.” With the doctor were several members of Security and a few specialists, such as the friendly, sensible Lieutenant Clayton, an agronomist, and the efficient young Lieutenant Diver, a geologist so new to Starfleet that her insignia still looked like they’d just come out of the box. Various other engineering and medical personnel would be following later. The heaviest of the doctor’s supplies had already been beamed down with other equipment, but he stubbornly clung to the medical satchel–his “little black bag,” as McCoy so anachronistically called it–slung over his shoulder.
“I decided to go,” he told Spock unnecessarily. “That outrageously high rate of skin cancer and lethal mutations makes it a fascinating place.”
That seemingly pure‑science air, Spock mused, fooled no one. No doctor worthy of the title could turn away from so many hurting people.
“Besides,” McCoy added acerbically, “someone’s got to make sure you all wear your sunhats.”
“Indeed. Energize,” Spock commanded, and . . .
. . . was elsewhere, from the unpleasantly cool, relatively dim ship–cool and dim to Vulcan senses, at any rate–to the dazzlingly bright light and welcoming heat of Obsidian. The veils instantly slid down over Spock’s eyes, then up again as his desert‑born vision adapted, while the humans hastily adjusted their sun visors. He glanced about at this new world, seeing a flat, gravelly surface, tan‑brown‑gray stretching to the horizon of jagged, clearly volcanic peaks. A hot wind teased grit and sand into miniature spirals, and the sun glinted off shards of the black volcanic glass that had given this world its Federation name.
“Picturesque,” someone commented wryly, but Spock ignored that. Humans, he knew, used sarcasm to cover uneasiness. Or perhaps it was discomfort; perhaps they felt the higher level of ionization in the air as he did, prickling at their skin.
No matter. One accepted what could not be changed. They had, at David Rabin’s request, beamed down to these coordinates a distance away from the city: “The locals are uneasy enough as it is without a sudden ‘invasion’ in their midst.”
Logical. And there was the Federation detail he had been told to expect, at its head a sturdy, familiar figure: David Rabin. He stepped forward, clad in a standard Federation hot‑weather outfit save for his decidedly non‑standard‑issue headgear of some loose, flowing material caught by a circle of corded rope. Sensible, Spock thought, to adapt what was clearly an effective local solution to the problem of sunstroke.
“Rabin of Arabia,” McCoy muttered, but Spock let that pass. Captain Rabin, grinning widely, was offering him the split‑fingered Vulcan Greeting of the Raised Hand and saying, “Live long and prosper.”
There could be no response but one. Spock returned the salutation and replied simply, “Shalom.”
This time McCoy had nothing to say.
It was only a short drive to the outpost. “Solar‑powered vehicles, of course,” Rabin noted. “No shortage of solar power on this world! The locals don’t really mind our getting around like this as long as we don’t bring any vehicles into Kalara or frighten the chuchaki–those cameloid critters over there.”
Spock forbore to criticize the taxonomy.
Kalara, he mused, looked very much the standard desert city to be found on many low‑tech, and some high‑tech, worlds. Mud brick really was the most practical organic building material, and thick walls and high windows provided quite efficient passive air cooling. Kalara was, of course, an oasis town; he didn’t need to see the oasis to extrapolate that conclusion. No desert city came into being without a steady, reliable source of water and, therefore, a steady, reliable source of food. Spock noted the tips of some feathery green branches peeking over the high walls and nodded. Good planning for both economic and safety reasons to have some of that reliable water source be within the walls. Add to that the vast underground network of irrigation canals and wells, and these people were clearly doing a clever job of exploiting their meager resources.
Or would be, were it not for that treacherous sun.
And, judging from what Rabin had already warned, for that all too common problem in times of crisis: fanaticism.
It is illogical, he thought, for any one person or persons to claim to know a One True Path to enlightenment. And I must, he added honestly, include my own distant ancestors in that thought.