Star Trek "a Christmas trifle" - - part I I
"Let me guess, golf clubs?"
Carol smiled a little tightly. Jim had seen and held the gift she'd placed under the bough the night before; they'd joked about it — and she'd gone so far as to portend, in all seriousness, that it held some hint of their future together and had wanted him to open it then. Jim knew this set of "golf clubs" shaped rather like a bottle of alien liquid-grain was no carefully sought high risk "mystery box" and the only pleasure she got from that was that he confirmed how deeply she understood her man; she knew damn well he wasn't going to say a word about it until or unless she clearly wanted him to.
"Ah, the good stuff. Glengarry. Genuine Canadian rye whiskey," Jim said, pretending to be impressed, tearing the wrap as he read the old-fashioned paper label. "From Aldebaran." Carol shook her head, feeling decidedly ridiculous. He noticed. But he kept things lively, adding, "I'm gonna have me a time keeping this away from a certain CMO and a notorious Scotsman."
"There's an easy though foolhardy solution to that, you know."
That made Jim laugh openly— finally, this cold morning. "I'd like to see that, "Iron Guts" Marcus. This sweet hooch from planet hell has got your number!" He grabbed her with rough house playfulness, pulling her back against his chest, down on the floor against the sofa. Carol's smile lost its tightness.
"Care to make that interesting, Kirk?," she replied with a rakish cocking of her head, looking back up at him, as Jim reached under the bough and drew forth the largeish, flatish wrapped box, handing over his gift to her.
"I just did."
The ringing she'd heard outside the night before had been expected — the Chalet's gourmet Christmas Eve dinner's arrival What hadn't been expected was pure Jim Kirk. He'd arranged for none other than the local Effete itself, the renowned Piscesian, Vaquqes, to prepare the meal. But despite the Master's artistry, the results horrified. Jim's turkey-fried Ithian zebra porterhouse was a button of fat, his "fresh, local" corn cob, a monstrous, twisted buttered ram's horn; Carol's spinach salad was three odd grape-engorged leaves and calling the sliced Klingon qu'aab crispy, a political kindness. Vacquqes was leading his staff away in less than twenty minutes, pausing at the door.
"Food? Enjoy?"
Jim barely found the words. "It's, uh…"
"Wonderful!"
Then the chef was gone.
"—terrible."
Carol fought the laugh… and failed. "I'm sorry, sweetie, but— it— really— is… awful!" She broke down, nearly choking and snorting on the laughter. And the Captain wore the face of such a wounded schoolboy.
"He came so highly recommended." Carol fought her swallow of wine.
She'd made it up to him with the trifle. Prepping it n the ship's galley using her grandmother's recipe, she'd sent Jim, raised on apple pie and store-got ice cream, into eye-rolling ecstasy at its blend of soft cake, fresh fruit, its, wealth of custard and whipped cream doused with touches of sherry and vodka. She grinned with glint-eyed pride.
"Can I bake or can't I?"
She picked their holiday movie, too, bemused by the ease with which he nearly always agreed to her everyday private choices. She chose some old, vintage black and white remastered tri-di Americana, a funny romance that made even Jim, with his taste for complicated modern spy thrillers, chuckle. He saw more than a little of Carol in the airy-bright daffy female star, an off-beat beauty with an unusual voice playing a Main Line Philly socialite who resented the perception of her as a stone cold Goddess. She saw in him both leads — the musically named dashing cad, C.K. Dexter Haven and the good-humored, vaguely cynical romantic everyman with the endearing semi-stutter.
They only made it about it half way through the picture.
Carol slowly slid a hand along the inside of Jim's thigh as his fingers got lost in her hair. Then their open mouths were pushing against each others' and soon she was barely wearing the slip they'd chosen her recently and she was lighting candles then almost ritually stripping Jim naked. Carol knelt over him and he rose to draw her close but with her fingers flat on his chest, she pushed him down, ran her hands up along his body and pinned and crossed his wrists over him. He went to speak. She pressed her fingers over his full lips. There would be time for words later….
The lambent light of Nefud's sister planet Aqubi seeped through the bedroom curtain, the ambient blue reflecting off the snow fields. Carol watched Jim deep in sleep, still lightly thoughtful despite his carnal exhaustion. She'd never had much trouble sleeping in part because of the regiments of starship schedules, in part because of her own mental discipline. She was also alive now, vital, with the nervy energized buzz of womanly erotic satisfaction; he'd had the rare ability from the start to touch her depths and they both thrilled when their ardor turned raw, even rough in a shifting play and exploration of power, and felt no regret. Post-coital, Jim's sleep had turned slumber — manly, heavy.
She absently stroked his thick hair, each stroke a reminder of the joy of the day, a special joy. There'd been his eager attentiveness made funny by his self-aware near-obeisance, matched by her usually unappreciated stone-faced absurd humor but whether it was the emotional walls he'd erect without warning or her uncharacteristic simpleness of purpose, the appeal of the "mystery box" was slowly turning on Carol. It might have been just misgivings; then again, maybe it was recognition of a deeply wrong choice.
She rolled close to him and lightly shook his bare, wide shoulder. "Jim…?" She rubbed him again, a little more firmly. "Jim?" He looked up at her, his thoughts fuzzing into shape, perhaps not with the alacrity to the call-whistle from the bridge but always alert to her slightest query and expression of thought.
"Huh? Wha'sit?"
"How often do you…" She chose her words even more carefully than usual. "Think about the future?"
"You and me Our future, y'mean?"
"Yes."
"Gotta get back to the ship… two days. Sorry…. love to stay long- - I got Green Sheets, year end…. Earth Mean. You gotta refit the, uh…" was all he could manage.
"I mean actually… touching, being there and experiencing it — knowing the future."
Kirk groaned and pushed himself up, his weight back on his elbows…..
"Carol, you're a scientist. You know it doesn't work that way. You can go back into the past and come back again—" He noticed the old clock on the wall. "Honey, it's nearly oh-four-hundred," he fumbled. "You want to talk about time travel?"
"I'm not talking about slingshots or Gateway. I mean, if you could somehow try changing the future - - if you had that chance…" she asked, "do you think it too dangerous?"
"You mean other than just living your life? We're always changing things, our decisions…. any other way, I don't think it's possible," he objected, a little annoyed. "Sweetie, switch it off and go to sleep." He rolled back away.
"Don't "sweetie" me- -," she caught herself, had almost sneered. "When I ask you something, no matter how mad it sounds—" her tone couldn't lose that haughty edge that sometimes excited him a little as much as it turned him, more generally, peevish or, worse - - Captain-ly. "I expect to be taken with appropriate respect."
"What? You want me, the skipper-hick, to tell you some everything but the kitchen sink bedtime story about the future?"
"No, I expect my so-called superior officer, the genius," she snapped. "The future — an unknowable with an answer— a— an answer open to the kind of man unafraid of things maybe made to be afraid of," she said.
"Oh, Jesus."
"When something's that unknown, it's a challenge. A very scary one."
He laid his head back with a big breath of a bitter laugh, an exhausted disbelief…
"I don't mean you're frightened. You're a fearless man, Jim. Not even afraid of a… of the mystery the future holds. Our future. But maybe you should be." she said.
"Good night, Carol." He turned away, closing his eyes, closing her out.
She turned to her side of the bed. "Good night."
She shifted around, her energy up. Her anger with him and with her own weaknesses - - "falling for this man? Her own ship's Captain?! You know better, you're not, were never, such a stupid child, knowing men like this your whole life and only just managing to tolerate their overblown" - - finally forcing herself up, she sat on the edge of the bed, more and more aware of the grumble of his soft snores. His steady sonorous groans finally, after a time, became mild irritation. Before that irritation could grow into some form of dislike, she pushed herself away and left the bed chamber.
Picking a bottle of Altair water from the freezer, Carol wandered the main room. She paused and was distracted by the colorful twinkling string of Tikki lights, the festive tundra bough, the two wrapped gifts — his for her, that odd, flat thing, and the damn mystery box she'd took such effort to secure for him, that she'd wanted to open between them earlier. She went and picked it up, held it, turned it over in her palm….. and walked to the room's big closet by the vestibule entry and hid it in a pocket in her antique great coat. She'd wake early and find something else for him to open after brunch. She knew he'd know she'd changed his gift but she also suspected he wouldn't ask her about it — not without reason.
She slipped back into bed and he didn't stir at all.
The hard, cold surface whispered their footfalls against powder and dull ice; on Nefud, the snows didn't festively crunch. And even short hikes were difficult unless one was a hard time spelunker or enjoyed repelling sharp crags, something she knew he delighted in — thankfully not this morning. The air was fresh and the wind had died to merely bitter, though, and Carol was grateful for Uhura's last minute advice about throwing in a pair of old work boots. Her ski gear would have been uncomfortable for this travail; the boots she preferred, had brought for special ocasions, unwearable in this terrain. Despite her no-nonsense scientific thinking and her farther's quasi-military influence, she'd indulged since her late teens one unapproachable fetish courtesy of her mothers' "poor"-girl-made-good tastes- - high style. The boots she'd worn down to the planet, a Christmas gift to herself, she knew appealed to Jim but she also appreciated how they looked on her; black and laced to her knees, molded to her calves and ankles, the four inch stiletto heels and sharp pointed toes, and her grace in walking in them, were impressive but not quite meant for tundra. The old deck boots weren't insulated enough but practical and may earn her another of his preternatural foot massages.
"There!" she said, raising the antique binoculars to her eyes, her voice intense compared to the lightness of the venture, pointing down the hillock by the winding, steaming hot spring. She handed Jim the glasses. The old macros perplexed her when she'd first opened his gift to her and found them wrapped in tissue; now they were part of one of the adventures he so enjoyed sharing with her.
"I think that's it," he nodded as she drew back the eyepiece and lead him by the hand. "This better be worth it, kiddo," she said with mock sternness.
Carol had woken early despite her lack of sleep, showered, dressed and slipped away with a mug of field insta-coffee without Jim doing more than groan and turn over… like she knew he would. The proprietor of the twenty-one hour saloon gladly gave her a bottle of Glengarry — "Anything for Captain Kirk!" — and, also as she expected, Jim had made little comment about the replaced mystery box that now caused her such conflict. Opening his gift to her though, she never would have expected to find a pair of old binoculars. She couldn't help herself smart him: "Just what a girl wants. How about a TB Seventeen to clean my office for my birthday?"
"Such a diminished sense of exploration from one of Starfleet's best," he chided sweetly, their angry sleep-fuelled tones seemingly never having been sounded. She dug through the box and found, folded in an envelope, a hand drawn map of the landscape surrounding their cabin and a… letter? From Mister Sulu? Sulu's note explained to Doctor Marcus that the Captain had asked his help, and that of Pavel Chekov, to find a hiding spot — accessible but a bit of a climb — and beam his Christmas present for her there. "Happy hunting from your friends in the Command bridge crew." Carol looked at Jim, holding back her grateful smile, thinking, "such wonderful shipmates."
He helped her down an abrupt drop, tough hands gentle around her waist and they jumped the bubbling hot water stream. She climbed another short hillock, going on hands and knees and brushing away the snow from a nook to pull the small silver box she'd caught a glimmer of through the field glasses. She slid back down to his smile.
"You're a regular Edmund Hilary."
"That makes the Captain my Sherpa?" she chirped with a little smirk and a hike of her sharp pointed eyebrows, adding, "Come on, let's go back. I'm looking forward to opening this - - I feel I've earned it."
"You have. Open it now. Here and now."
"Jim, it's cold out."
"Open it."
"Okay," she relented.
She peeled back the clear protective wrap and slipped off her gloves to pop open the silver box itself. Her face fell. "Oh, Jim…" He ran his hands over hers and pulled the simple silver ring from the cushioned holding fold. "My dad gave it to my mom. She gave it to me for you." Carol stared at him, couldn't hold it… looked away. Jim moved to slip the ring on her finger, "Carol Wallace Marcus, how about making an honest dog of a space mongrel?" She slipped her hand away, leaving the ring between his fingers… looked back at him, deeply, wiped away a tear she pretended was pulled from her by the Nefudian wind. "No, Jim." She took deep breath to find the wherewithal… "No."
Jim paced the cabin like the lion he was, his words, his gestures curt. Carol sat on the couch, curling her legs up under her, with another coffee, this one shot with the double liquer that she hoped would relax her from his surprise and the reason for her spoiling his plans that was nestled hidden in her great coat.
"I thought we'd already talked about this," she said morosely, a little edgy. "It's too early, no matter how else we feel."
"I'm not talking about engagement. I'm certainly not talking about proposal — I know you don't want that and it's not the right time for me"
"Then what are we talking about?" the edge overcoming her better sense.
"It's a… it's old fashioned. My crazy aunt Madrigal called it a promissory ring."
"What? Like high school?" she asked, struggling. "Like you're asking me to go steady? Jim, you're twenty-nine. I'm nearly twenty-six—"
"That's not what this is about, age." He said it with that quiet certainty of discovery that astonished her, all his crew, because he was nearly always right and never remarked on the averages. "This is about that conversation at three in the morning. I'm sorry about what I said… but if this is about your concern about the future—"
"It's only natural, my concern. Don't you think I know that, those kinds of thoughts?" She fought the hostility — it was self-targeted and unhelpful. "But I'm talking about more than just gifted insight and the mistakes we'll make as a matter of course. I'm talking about—"
"Go get it, Carol," he said, knowing what she was running from, in a way that couldn't be argued with. And it was beyond just his Captain's bearing, a commander's attitude. It was why he led a crew fearlessly — as well as fearfully, carefully modulated — into that future. It was who he was. She got up, went to the great coat and returned with the mystery box.
Jim opened it. It wasn't dissimilar from the ring's packaging. He pulled out what looked, for all the world, a bit like a woman's compact — of black, dense plasti-form, a thin ring of blue-silver light glowing within its circumference.
She spoke softly. "You open it with a single touch of the pad on top. Only my print and yours — I don't know how he managed that."
Jim hesitated, pulled his fingers away. "Tell me everything before we…. go any further." He'd known enough to ask in the first place and she'd confirmed his suspicions. Now she, uncharacteristically, hemmed and hawed out as much as she knew.
She told him about the late night she and Uhura got half-drunk on Ensign Ritter's "home-made" wine as the ship waited days for crew replacements from the USS Jed Bartlett heading Earthward. They'd fallen over laughing comparing the attributes of the men in their lives, performing half-accurate impersonations, when Uhura confided a secret about Spock. In one of his infrequent but highly valued private talks with his near-mythic "other" elder self, now a Master of New Vulcan, he'd asked him about his relationship to Nyota both here and "over there." Uhura was surprised but found it telling that, as far as he'd reveal, the elder acknowledged a friendship that had developed during his travels with "his Uhura", a meaningful friendship, but otherwise no other kinship.
Carol would never impose on a friendship, especially when she had so few close genuine friends, and understood if Uhura and particularly Spock would have none of it but — and maybe it was the wine, but not really — she wondered aloud if they could ask the old Master about her future; not in any deeply upsetting galactic sense, what with the research she held dear and was privately aware of its potential… just about her and Jim and what was going to happen in the coming years. Spock, full of surprise when it came to her, Carol thought, discussed it, considered it and returned to her days later with arrangements for Carol to talk to the Master by secure subspace. She would be free to ask whatever she liked, and had to live with the fact the elder may chose not to answer a single question.
She was taken when they finally met over the wavering bands of deep space communication by the old man's most unusual presence — ancient almost in the manner of a wise gnome, carrying himself with the dignity she'd seen in Sarek and far more at ease with himself and the universe than the occasionally troubled young officer she served with, respected, and liked as much he'd allow it, and who held Jim in such high regard.
The elder listened to her with unimposing seriousness, without interrupting her; she'd prepared a presentation of herself she'd normally use to impress colleagues, and came out a babbling school girl. Before she'd begun, the elder Vulcan had told her in deep honesty that he'd known the Doctor Carol Marcus of his time and place not well or deeply but with the collegiality of mutual interests and, eventually, from a friendship she'd had wth his Captain Kirk before he had even come to serve under Kirk, before his Kirk had earned command of a different analagous starship Enterprise; much of what he knew of "Dr. Carol Marcus" was therefore second-hand, his Captain and friend's memories, though she felt the elder was intentionally avoiding…. something, an event, a being he, the elder and her "other" were connected by or to… his avoidance of drawing attention to whatever it was felt like a unusual, alien brokerage of friendship. And after listening to her and her foolishly high-minded words, he surprised her by informing her that he'd present her what he felt would not be intrusive in her daily life. He knew his time left was likely short so he felt that he should record some of his other reality for posterity so had further developed Daystrom's literal impression of his engrams into a form of sophisticated hologram "cascading" system, explaining it to her as best as her reality would, at this point, allow her to understand it. He'd send it to her in time for Christmas as she'd hoped and, as good as his word, that's exactly what he'd done.
Jim sat quietly for a moment, not even looking at her — just staring into space. Finally, he asked in a surprisingly everyday tone, "Have you taken a look at it yet?"
Carol was surprised he'd shown no other reaction, not even during her recitation, and at last said, "Uh no— I mean just a few minutes of it. I was curious to see what it looked like." She paused a moment in a way he recognized, such a slight pause - - more hesitation - - as she struggled how to best present a complex idea that even she couldn't quite get a lock on. "It's breath-taking. But it's meant for us to share." Jim swiped the device off the coffee table and told her, "Put your coat back on."
She stood on the lip of a jutting dry rock overlooking a deep ice canyon called Point Tozeur. He told her not to stand too close to the edge; unexplainable currents and shears, whipped away objects and beings at unstoppable speeds. "Uh, thanks, Captain," she muttered with a sarcastic frown. Kirk slipped his hand in hers.
"Ready?"
"Are you sure you want to do this, Jim?"
"Yes." He said it with steady certainty. "I am."
"What do we tell the Spocks?"
"Not a damn thing. You think either will ask?"
She grabbed the device and threw it out into the canyon. The cold air scooped it up and corkscrewed it and then it was gone. She turned to him and hung up her wrists around his neck. "Why?"
"Because I'm not your dad."
"What?" she was taken aback, started to draw her hands from him but he hugged her close around the waist and lead them down the craggy road back to their waiting air-and-snow mobile. "You're nothing like he was."
Jim shook his head in a small, uncertain way.
"Like he was, I'm natural born Starfleet. Meant to lead, to make the tough decisions and live with those decisions." Jim stopped and turned her to him , assuring her, "But if that's the future you're afraid of, I understand. You loved him, you adored him, and he betrayed your adoration and lost his soul."
"You're much cleverer than—" "Than my reputation suggests," he finished for her, receiving that broad smile of her perfect teeth. She continued thoughtfully, "But the future's not about fear or promise. It's floating on the wind over Tozeur canyon and it'll be buried for a thousand years."
They stopped by the 'mobile and Jim opened the passenger door, helping her in with a steady hand. "The future is best kept in a mystery box."
"Til we decide to open it. Together." She settled into the warm cab. "Then our world changes."
"I'm a fearless man, Carol Marcus," he leaned in close to her, "but I'm scared to death of you."
"No, you're not," she replied, her tone threatening a hint of melancholy. "But you should be." Her smile grew again at some more immediate thought, and she pulled him close to her by the collar of his navy blue heavy coat. She kissed him like she owned him and like he had every bit of her.
Hs right hand slipped from her body and into his coat's pocket and he drew forth the promissory ring. He held it up, fitting in between kisses - - "Almost forgot - - your turn - - " She pulled away a little as he stuck the ring in her hand; looked down at the the thin band of plain silver stark on her palm against the tight black leather of her lined gloves.
Jim glanced up the rocky way they'd come and said with little conviction, "Now we could climb back up Mount Tozeur there before the Howlers come in for the rest of the day and they seal the place off or we can - - Oh! I know!"
Carol looked back up at him, taken by his abrupt shift of tone, but her eyes had narrowed and her brow had lightly creased and she closed her fingers around the ring that had been his gift to her, what it stood for.
"Have you heard of the Tinja?"
"I think I saw something about it up at the Chalet," she replied, distracted. "It's some sort of touristy thing?"
"No, no! Well, yes. But I've heard its fantastic. It's a massive waterfall off the big river near the equator, the Tinja Kava. Most of the day, the falls are frozen solid, then 'round mid day - - sure as Yosemite - - when the temperature's as hot as it gets there and if the sun's clear, water breaks through the ice and its a waterfall again - -"
"And, let me guess - - about…," she bobbed her head as she made a complex calculation seem like a shopping list for groceries. "About forty-seven minutes later, you get to watch as the water slowly freezes over and the ice spreads and retakes the falls?"
"Fantastic, huh? Perfect place for you to pitch that thing."
She looked at him askance but he continued certainly…. "It's a good four hours in that ski-jet thingamajig that came with the cabin and not much to see en route but I think I can get the saloon-keeper's son to lend us that areochop I saw on the roof. It'll be a round trip in half the time - -"
'Jim," she said and he stopped immediately, his attention arrested. With inarguable certitude, she grabbed his right wrist and pulled his hand to hers. She turned his hand over, opened her palm and sealed it over his then wrapped his fingers around the ring. Her fingers around his wrist again, she guided his hand back into his heavy coat's deep pocket. She kept her hand in there with his, moving it 'round to grab his backside through the thick lining, and jerked him up close so he pressed his body to hers and smiled…. understanding.
"How about I give it to you again your next birthday. Gives me a little less than eight months not to foul up too badly."
She shrugged and faked a cool, controlling look. "Take your best shot."
As she pulled away, she said surely, "Let's go watch the rest of 'The Philadelphia Story' then turn the day sideways."
"All right." He closed her door with a little slam. "I wanted to see how it turned out."
- - STAR TREK "a Christmas trifle" I
As mentioned in part I's introduction, "a Christas trifle" is an "unintentional prequel" (written shortly after the release of "INTO DARKNESS" ) to my novel being written serialized and posted here, STAR TREK BEYOND FOREVER, set in J.J. Abrams' alternate reality and centering even more deeply than this short on the complex relationship between officers and lovers, Jim Kirk and Carol Marcus. If you haven't already, give it a look. And, as always post reviews, thoughts, theories etc. and get the conversation going as word of mouth is the best way to advertise (also feel free to privaely message me and you will receive a most prompt reply.
Thanks.
