5
The Journey of K'Eihdan
Chapter One: The Human Hand-Shake
The passengers for Spaceflight 500 filed onto the craft in a polite, orderly fashion. For the most part, the passengers were Human, as the flight was bound for Terra; but there were a few Vulcan scientists, Betazoid tourists, and Tellarite businessmen. It was a relatively routine trip, and it was not uncommon to see such beings on a passenger ship bound for Earth.
For at least four passengers, however, it was anything but a routine voyage. The Klingon officers clomped noisily along the star-white corridor, hurrying to get in line before the flight left without them. Several passengers turned around in surprise. Some even appeared shocked. Klingons did not usually travel aboard Federation passenger vessels, especially not officers of the Kingon Empire.
This will indeed be interesting, thought K'Eihdan as he strode over to the line-up and stood stock still behind an elderly lady. He could tell from her fidgety hands that she was very nervous, and she evidently did not dare to turn around to find out what big, burly being was behind her.
K'Eihdan chuckled quietly to himself. Klingon warriors commanded a kind of notorious respect throughout the galaxy, in spite of the fact that the Federation and the Empire had shared a peaceful alliance for over seventy years. Although the alliance existed, there was little social interaction between the ordinary people of the Federation and the Klingon Empire.
K'Eihdan had noticed that most Federation people he had met seemed to know little about the Klingon way of life and assumed that all of his people were savage psychopaths. Indeed, K'Eihdan realized, it was true that some of them were, but they were all in government. The ordinary rugbahs like himself were really nothing to become alarmed about. It was, however, reassuring to see people shiver and quake at their arrival. It was important for a warrior to be perceived as foreboding. On the other hand, K'Eihdan found it a bit awkward. He was a man who liked to talk and laugh, which was difficult to do when everybody expected you to be sombre and fearsome all the time. K'Eihdan had always loved joking around, even as a small toddler. His mother K'aPrit always told him that he used to tangle himself in her balls of Yark-wool, yowling funny songs at her. He gave a low chuckle as he thought of it, and of the crazy tussles he used to get into with his large band of brothers and sisters. His younger brother, Kabrech, was now with him on this mission, and seemed to be very serious about it all.
K'Eihdan longed to tussle with him, to get him to test his fighting skills and perhaps to laugh, at least a little bit. It was not a good idea at the moment, he knew, but at some point he would take the young one for a tumble. At seventeen years of age, his brother Kabrech was the same age as K'Eihdan's son, who was in training school back on Qo'nos, one of the Klingon home-worlds.
"I have an urge to throw you to the ground!" K'Eihdan chortled, grabbing a strand of Kabrech's long black hair. Kabrech snarled, baring his teeth in true Klingon fashion. The passengers standing in front of them hurried along, wishing to avoid these combative creatures.
"Do not start, K'Eihdan!" barked K'Var, the junior officer in command of the three other men, "or I will have you put in chains...when we are finally assigned to an actual vessel instead of being forced to travel aboard fancy passenger ships, like a troop of fools."
"Yes, Sir," K'Eihdan squeaked in mock submission to his much younger superior. His irreverent attitude towards authority had on more than one occasion nearly cost him his life, but he knew exactly how far he could go with K'Var. K'Var was a man who was respected by his fellow warriors, but not feared. He was strong without being humorless, which was what K'Eihdan liked about him. Wohl, the oldest man among them, gave K'Eihdan a warning glance before shaking his head in a resigned fashion. Wohl was like a father to K'Eihdan, and was continually warning him to watch his behavior around authority figures.
"K'Eihdan, you are too much of a clown," he would tell him again and again, "you must not aggravate your commanding officers, or you will find yourself in big trouble...again."
K'Eihdan always laughed at Wohl's cautious attitude.
"Yes, Barbarr," he would respond, using one of the many Klingon terms for an elderly "father" or "uncle". The term was used mainly in the rugged rural areas of the Kahless Mountains, where both K'Eihdan and Wohl grew up. K'Eihdan was from a large family, from whom he inherited his folksy sense of humor. He spoke often in his own local dialect and engaged in what Klingons from the urban areas referred to as "mountain manners." Even when he was at home, his people knew him as a man who liked to fool around.
After he had joined the military, however, such behavior did not endear him to his superiors. In fact, K'Eihdan knew perfectly well what stupidity it was to fool around with certain officers—and he had learned which ones those were the hard way. He had been tied in the brig for days on end without food or water many a time, and stabbed with a knife on other occasions. He had survived all of these assaults, because he was very strong. Perhaps he was not one of the most educated people that Klingon society had to offer; but at least he had maintained his honor. That could not be disputed.
"Get going!" K'Var thundered to K'Eihdan, pushing him along after the retreating passengers. K'Eihdan hurried along after them, clutching his boarding pass. It was in the form of a strange, silver square as opposed to the rock-paper that Klingons used for such things.
He handed it to the attendant, a young human female who smiled and said, "Thank you, Sir. To your left, please; your host will show you to your quarters."
Once inside the ship, another smiling human ushered K'Eihdan and the others to a luxurious bedroom, complete with mattresses, bedspreads, sheets, many knickknacks, and a replicator for meals. K'Eihdan dropped his small shoulder-bag and stood there in surprise.
"We're to stay here?" he asked incredulously.
The host smiled.
"Yes, I hope it's to your liking, Sir?"
"Why, sure," K'Eihdan replied, speaking the Terran language.
He had learned the language from his ex-mate and her people, whose planet, Karlonn, had a great many humans dwelling on it.
"These are shared rooms," the host explained, "two of you stay in this room and two in the neighboring room."
He handed clip-on universal translators to the four of them.
"These translators are handed out to all of our passengers to facilitate communication among the vast array of linguistic forms spoken aboard our ship. They are yours to keep...courtesy of the Federation, which seeks to encourage understanding between all peoples in the galaxy."
"Yes, yes," K'Var growled irritably, "We know that the Federation seeks to monopolize all cultures into its own bland version of an Empire."
"With all due respect, Sir," the ever-smiling host replied, "That is not at all the mission of the Federation..."
"Leave us now!" K'Var barked authoritatively, "You have completed your function as host."
"Yes, Sir," replied the host cheerfully, "as you wish."
After the host had exited, K'Var fixed his gaze upon K'Eihdan.
"I'll stay in the other room with Wohl," K'Var stated bluntly, "you will drive Kabrech insane instead of me, K'Eihdan."
Kabrech scowled as K'Var and Wohl departed into the adjoining room. K'Eihdan threw his shoulder-bag across the room and then sat on the strangely soft "mattress". He bounced on it experimentally. He did not know how Humans and others could stand to sleep on a trampoline! Like most Klingons, he preferred his bed hard, flat, and low.
"It's a jumping mat," he murmured, "Why do Humans like to sleep on something designed to encourage exercise?"
"Because they're too soft!" Kabrech snarled, "I'm going to sleep on the floor."
"I'm going to try to sleep on the jumping mat," K'Eihdan countered, "as a challenge to myself. I will do battle with the jumping mat as I sleep."
"Just as you do battle with delicate flowers blowing in the breeze, Brother!" Kabrech scoffed.
"If not me," K'Eihdan taunted his younger brother gleefully, "then who else will defend the Empire against the soft beds and breezy flowers of the Federation?"
"Ahh," Kabrech replied, giving in to K'Eihdan's invitation to be foolish, "The mighty K'Eihdan challenges himself by sleeping on a bouncy-soft bed! What will be next for the fearless warrior? Perhaps the challenge of eating a Terran Ice-cream Sugar Sundae?"
K'Eihdan roared in laughter at his younger sibling's attempt to assert dominance.
Kabrech growled, baring his teeth once again. Finally, he sprung to his feet and attacked his older brother. The two men crashed to the floor, locked in jovial combat. K'Eihdan laughed as they tumbled into a bureau and sent a glass ornament crashing to the floor. The noise brought the host back to the room, flying through the door in alarm.
"What the...?" he exclaimed, startled. He stopped short upon seeing K'Eihdan sitting atop of Kabrech, who was lying on the floor snarling at his annoying family member.
K'Eihdan grinned sheepishly at the host, arising from his "victory" over the youngster.
"We apologize, Sir," he said, "I was simply teaching my younger brother his manners...Klingon style."
"Uh...that's no problem, Mr. K'Eihdan," the host replied reassuringly, "I'll have someone come in and remove the surviving breakables and then...you two can...er...go at it."
Once the host had left, Kabrech charged K'Eihdan once more, determined to establish dominance. K'Eihdan laughingly struck Kabrech down, sending him flying onto a table which was decorated with ornaments. There was no way in the galaxy that he was going to let a seventeen-year-old command him. Kabrech would eventually find his place within the command hierarchy, but it would not come easily to him. The playful tussle was to remind him of his place without eroding his youthful confidence.
Kabrech was not about to give up and was hurling himself upon K'Eihdan when the hapless host returned to the room with a maintenance-android. The Machine-Man was briskly ordered to clean the mess that the two brawling Klingons had created, retrieve the other delicate objects, and then get out as soon as possible. Unfortunately, in the host's absence the rest of the breakables had already broken, so the android only had to clear the shattered glass. K'Eihdan and Kabrech were considerate enough to pause their scrapping long enough to let him do that.
The two Klingons sat, staring dumbly at the robotic cleaning-creature from their place on the floor as another Human male, elderly and grey-haired, entered into the room.
"All right, Charlie," he said to the android, "just put the broken shards in the recycling machine."
The pale-faced android named Charlie obeyed without uttering a word. The Old One nodded at the host, who quickly withdrew.
"Now," the old man thundered, "does someone want to tell me what in the bloody blue blazes is going on here?"
"Oh, just a playful tussle with my young brother, Old Man," K'Eihdan retorted in what he considered to be a polite fashion.
The old man evidently did not share K'Eihdan's assessment of the melee and peered down at him as though he considered himself a god of the stars.
"All right, I'm going to be real clear," he roared, "You two are going to break it up...pronto...or I'll have security detain you both!"
K'Eihdan sprung to his feet, gesturing to Kabrech to stop all horseplay immediately. He looked into the gentleman's angry brown eyes and saw that this man had no doubt been a formidable force in his younger years...and perhaps even more so now that the wisdom of age was on his side. Although he was a small man, he had spoken without a trace of fear or hesitation.
"Are you the Chief of Security, Grandfather?" asked K'Eihdan in what he hoped would be interpreted as a good-natured jibe.
"No," the man returned evenly, "I'm the Chief of Maintenance Staff. I run the 'bots and androids that keep this barge tidy for the folks who ride in it. When the 'bots break, I fix them. When people get out of hand, I go in and smarten them up...and, by the way, I don't take 'no' for an answer."
"You've never traveled in a Klingon ship, have you, Grey-Hair?"
"Actually," the man revealed, "I have. I worked as a janitor aboard an Empire cargo ship for about two years. When I got sick of being hurled against the bulk-heads, I left to work for the Andorians."
"The Andorians," Kabrech snorted in derision, "are soft and feeble, with antennae like delicate butterflies."
"Shows how much you know about Andorians, Kid," the man grunted, "The Andies were worse than the Klingons. I lasted about eight months on that one and then jumped ship and took a job on a Tellarite cargo. I was there for thirty years...the Tells are brutally honest and pretty argumentative, but at least they don't go in for bullying people to prove how strong they are...for the most part. No species is perfect, but I was tired of my own and I wanted to learn something from The Others."
"How old were you when you worked for our people?" Kabrech asked, his curiosity outweighing his need to dominate.
"I was about your age," the old man responded, "seventeen or thereabouts. It's not easy, living among people who have different ways from your own. But when I was there, I respected the culture of the Klingons...and now that you two are riding aboard an Earth vessel, you need to respect our ways. So, boys, I'd better not hear any more about you rolling about on the floor locked in combat and smashing things left, right, and center."
"It was just silly frolicking," K'Eihdan reassured the oldster, "but we'll stop, if it offends you."
"It doesn't offend me," the man retorted, "It just pisses me off...and believe me, that's something you don't want to do. By the way, my name is Jorry Kettsen. We Humans usually greet each other by shaking hands...like this."
Jorry Kettsen held out his hand, and K'Eihdan took it. The man then bobbed both of their hands up and down, before turning and performing the same gesture with Kabrech.
"What does it mean?" Kabrech asked suspiciously.
"It was once performed by Earth-men who, with the act of shaking of hands, agreed in that moment to put down their weapons and not slay each other," Kettsen explained.
"In that case," K'Eihdan assured the elderly Human, "we agree not to slay you, Jorry Kettsen."