Chapter 27: Language
"Captain Kirk!"
"Yes, Mr. Sulu?" Jim answered.
"Sir, a ship's approaching—"
"Koronin again? Warn her to back off."
"It isn't Quundar, sir—it's a very small ship, a boat ... a sort of sailboat ... from the worldship."
The tiny ship, like a spiny pearl attached to a huge silken sail, sped toward them on the viewscreen.
Kirk glanced at Spock. "I wonder," he said, "if our new guests come bearing sampling devices?"
The little sailboat floated toward the Enterprise on a beam of power. On Hearing the starship, it balanced itself delicately between the worldship's gravitational attraction and the beam. The worldship people transmitted a detailed visual message to the Enterprise, making clear their wish to be transported on board.
"Captain—Quundar is powering up engines."
They watched the renegade fighter approach the Enterprise and hover, provocatively within range.
"Keep an eye and all your sensors on her, Mr. Sulu," Jim said. "That's all we can do for now." He rose and headed for the transporter room to wait. Dawn and Spock followed.
Sleek, naked, empty-handed, the tall scarlet being began to form on the transporter platform.
Dawn realized the mistake that had been made. "Spock, the gravity—" she leapt forward and caught the being as it materialized in a gravity field several times what it was used to.
Spock having realized what Dawn had quickly moved behind the transporter console as he motioned for Kyle to move out of the way. "I'm beaming them to the shuttlecraft deck," he said.
The beam swept Dawn and the beings to the tenth-g environment of the shuttlecraft deck.
Dawn let the scarlet being go and collapsed to his knees, her body stunned by the power of its mind.
Three other beings re-formed near Athene and Lukarian. One had cream-colored fur, the fur of another was patterned in narrow stripes of gold and brown, and the third's fur swirled in an intricate paisley pattern.
The music of their communication soared around Dawn. The equiraptor snorted in alarm. Her feathered wings cut the air as Lukarian tried to soothe her.
The three new worldship people spread their arms wide.
Long fingers that lay tight against the backs of their forearms unfolded, the frill at their sides extended, and they spread their wide wings.
They took flight into the dangerously low sky.
Dawn tried to rise, but her strength had vanished. Her hands trembled on her knees. She could barely lift her head.
When she did, she found herself gazing into the amberflecked gold eyes of the scarlet being, who knelt facing him.
It brushed its tongue across its sensory mustache; it raised its hand to its face and touched its forehead with one sharp-clawed finger. It made a sound in a tone that Dawn interpreted as questioning.
"You may," Dawn whispered, her voice hoarse almost to silence. She opened her Millenial gifts, all of them, to it and she felt its own mind touch hers.
Back in the transporter room, Jim bolted for the nearest lift, before the beam finished dematerializing Dawn and the worldship people. He could get to the shuttlecraft deck on foot faster than the beam could recharge. Spock was not far behind.
"Stupid!" Jim shouted. "Stupid! I didn't stop long enough to think! Damn!" He slapped the wall in fury and disgust. The lift crawled toward the shuttlecraft deck so slowly that Jim began to wish he had waited for the beam. The doors slid apart. He sprinted down the corridor.
On the catwalk he stopped, astonished.
Far from being injured, three of the worldship people glided back and forth, flying in the shallow airspace of the deck.
Flying! Graceful and beautiful, they reminded Jim of falcons seeking prey over summer fields.
Athene, unsure of her wings, half-trotted and half-flew after them, trying to follow, her head up, ears forward. The music of the beings reverberated against the bulkheads.
"Dawn!" Lukarian said. "Dawn, what's wrong?" She knelt beside Dawn and the scarlet being. Dawn lay rigid on the soft new grass, the left side of her face bruised and dark with a smear of pulverized stone. The fourth being, the scarlet one, pushed itself up on one elbow, dazed.
Jim leaped down the companionway, cursing himself. "Ame, what happened?" he knelt beside her.
Dawn looked terrible. Her skin had paled to an unhealthy yellowish green and her scraped cheek oozed blood.
"I'm not really sure," she said.
Spock who had followed Jim and had seen Dawn laying there had quickly moved to an intercom and got Buffy and McCoy down here quickly.
"Give her some air. Let me see her." McCoy said when he and Buffy arrived. He felt Dawn's pulse. "The beat's slow for Dawn. I'll get a stretcher down here."
"I'll do it," Buffy said.
"You be sure our guest isn't injured," Jim added.
"I am ... I am not ... I am not physically damaged."
Jim bolted to his feet. The words formed song, the music created the words. The scarlet flyer slid its long-fingered hands over its arms. It opened its outer three fingers, the elongated ones that supported its wings, and stretched the short-furred skin. Its wide scarlet wings rose up above it. It swept them forward and curved them in a circle, touching the tips behind Jim's back. Under the curtain of the wings,
The scarlet flyer folded its wings again. The flying webs folded with a sound-shimmer like silk.
"Did you ... speak to me?" Jim said.
"I have been speaking all along, but you did not understand me. Dawn might comprehend, in time. But this language of yours is so simple—"
"How did you learn it so fast?" Buffy wondered.
"I learned from—" The flyer spoke several words that sounded not at all like the sounds it had made before. "From Dawn."
The flyer sat on its heels beside Dawn. The backs of its hands touched the ground at its sides, as if it hunched with drooping wings. Dawn's rigid body had begun to relax, but she showed no sign of regaining consciousness.
"What happened?" Buffy said.
"I thought to exchange patterns with her. She agreed to the exchange. But our communication went far beyond that."
Jim struggled to think of something to say that would make sense. "We don't often meet people with abilities like yours, or with technology as high as yours. Dawn is the only being we know of with abilities might closely relate to yours. This is a new experience for most of us ... I'm afraid she is injured."
"Stretcher's coming, Jim," McCoy said. He returned from the intercom at the bottom of the companionway.
The other flyers landed and joined them, curious.
"Your flying area is very low," the scarlet flyer said. "How does your colleague exercise her wings? Where does she hunt?"
It was talking about Athene. "She's only just learning to fly. It's a long story. You're all right, aren't you, you and your friends? The gravity in the transporter room didn't harm you?"
"It would have, had Dawn not stopped me, had she not had your friend move us to this place."
"I'm sorry—we made an inexcusable mistake."
The flyers whistled and sang at each other.
"That is of the past," the scarlet flyer said.
"But what did you do to Dawn?" Buffy said.
"I thought to give her joy and song," the scarlet flyer said.
"And the process overloaded her," Buffy said. "Dawn has only been empathic a couple hundred of our years. She has only once ever been in touch with another empathically let alone telepathically like that."
A couple of stretcher operators arrived, and McCoy took Dawn away. Several security officers appeared on the catwalk, but Jim gestured for them to stay where they were.
The scarlet flyer blinked. "You are Buffy," it said as it looked at Buffy. It then turned to Jim," and you are Jim."
"Yes," Jim said. "My full name is James Kirk. My title is captain—I'm in charge of the ship; Are you the captain of the worldship—of your vessel?"
The scarlet flyer touched its tongue to the sensory mustache. "I am still assimilating the information Dawn gave me. A name is applied to you at birth, and a title is given you at adulthood. Is this true?"
"That will do for the moment."
"I am not, then, 'captain' of our—" The flyer hummed, somehow producing two simultaneous notes. "'Worldship' must suffice, though it is a misapprehension. But you have no suitable word, and I fear your vocal apparatus may not duplicate its true pattern. As for 'captain'—I have no such concept."
"Who gives the orders? How do you run the worldship? Who makes sure it doesn't break down?"
"I neither give orders nor accept them. The worldship cannot break down. It ... renews itself."
"Do you mean it's a natural astronomical body? It evolved? You didn't build it?"
The scarlet flyer conferred in music with its companions.
"The worldship is a natural body," the scarlet flyer said.
"How could it be otherwise? What would an 'unnatural' object be? Of course it evolved, and still evolves. All things evolve. And, no, I did not build it. I am but young, while the worldship is old."
"Since you know who we are," Jim said, "perhaps you'll consent to introduce yourselves." He waited expectantly.
"Jim, it is very likely the names they have would not translate into our language," Buffy said. She looked at the scarlet flyer. "Maybe for our sakes you could adopt a name we can say."
"How are names chosen in your civilization?"
"By family descent or personal preference. Patterns of stars in the sky or historical figures ..."
Again it transmitted the information to the other flyers, but the conversation continued for several minutes.
"I have none of these things: no family names, no historical figures. The patterns of my sky are inconstant."
"You could use nicknames," Buffy suggested. "They come from physical characteristics, vocations—whatever you choose."
"For example," Jim said, "I think of you as 'Scarlet.'"
"'Scarlet.' Scarlet will do for the moment. More talk must be of the future."
"But—"
"The companionship must confer."
"We have so many questions to ask you—"
"Jim, I want to try what Scarlet was doing with Dawn," Buffy said.
Jim could hardly bear the possibility of her lying unconscious, Buffy's face scraped in a convulsive fall. But out of all of them Dawn and Buffy were the most prepared for an encounter such as this due to their long lifetime; if he ordered Buffy to avoid it, he would be giving her notice that he distrusted her judgment and competence. That was the last message he wanted to give Buffy.
"All right, Buffy, if Scarlet doesn't object. But ... be careful."
Without assenting to or refusing Buffy's request, Scarlet joined the companionship and gathered Buffy into the circle.
Their voices soared and blended and enraptured her with their music.
Keeping an eye on the circle, Jim backed away and contacted the bridge.
"Quundar isn't doing anything, captain," Sulu said. "Nothing at all. But it's still here."
"Just sitting there?"
"Just sitting there."
"Then we'll do the same," Jim said. "For the moment. Yeoman Rand, announce change of environment. Ten-minute delay for critical objections."
The customary delay between announcing change of environment and making the change existed primarily to warn researchers doing experiments that a variable soon would change, but since the Enterprise still lacked its research staff, Jim received no critical objections.
He opened a channel to Engineering.
"Mr. Scott," Jim said, "please cut the gravity to one-tenth g on the whole ship."
"D'ye think that's wise, captain? D'ye—"
"We have guests, Mr. Scott. I'd like them to feel welcome."
"But captain, ye'll be giving these people free run of the Enterprise! We dinna know—"
Jim cut the connection. He glanced at the companionship, not wanting to leave. But Scott had argued with him once too often.
"Ame—I'll be back in a minute. Don't get too close to them, all right?"
"You do remember what Buffy and Dawn mean to my family, right?" Lukarian said as Jim leaped up the companionway, ordered the security officers to call him if anything changed, and headed for Engineering.
Lukarian stroked Athene's iridescent sweat-soaked shoulder. She twined one hand in her mane and urged her forward. Her wings half-spread, the equiraptor walked as if she could not bear to touch the ground. Her ears swiveled nervously, and a white rim showed around her eyes.
"It's okay, sweetie," Lukarian whispered. "Easy, sweetie, it's going to be okay." She wasn't sure who she was speaking to, herself or Athene.
Whenever the pitch of the companionship's conversation changed, Athene snorted and pranced, tossing her head and jerking Lukarian off her feet. Nothing Lukarian did made any difference. She wasn't sure how long Jim had been gone when she saw him on the catwalk. He climbed down the companionway and joined her. He was as keyed up as Athene.
"What happened while I was gone?"
"Nothing. They just kept singing to each other."
"Are you all right? Is Athene?"
"She doesn't understand why they can fly and she can't." Lukarian's fingers hurt from holding Athene's mane, and her arm ached with the fatigue of trying to guide the tremendously strong equiraptor, of trying to stay with her even when she reared.
"Do you want me to get a rope?"
"No. The harder you fight her, the spookier she gets. She just needs to get used to the flying people."
"What about you?" Jim asked. "After all you were right. I had forgotten the relationship you have with both Buffy and Dawn."
"I'm worried, I won't admit that I'm not."
The song of the flyers crescendoed. Athene snorted and pranced sideways, jolting Lukarian and knocking the wind out of her.
Jim backed off fast. "Put her in the repair bay, please."
"No! I can't keep her quiet in there. Not now. She'd hurt herself."
"Ame, I have to think of everybody's safety—"
"I won't do it, dammit! Besides, she's too hot, she's got to keep walking or she'll get sick. Just leave us alone and she'll be all right. Jim, I can't talk to you and calm her down at the same time."
Jim walked away from Lukarian. He knew that it wasn't just Athene that Lukarian was trying to keep calm but herself as well. He knew Lukarian had nothing to worry about since neither Buffy or Dawn could die for a few hundred more years. But he knew because of the fact that they shared a familial bond that she worried anyways.
He went to the intercom and patched a channel through to sick bay. "Bones, how long before Dawn can be back on duty?"
"Back on duty!" McCoy said. "Don't count on her soon, Jim. She's still unconscious."
"Damn." Jim tried, without much success, to keep the aggravation out of his voice.
"Jim—" McCoy said.
"What?"
"What's going on down there?"
The song soared, but the flying people had hardly moved:
Buffy stood among them, silent and attentive.
"Bones," Jim said, "it beats the hell out of me."
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
McCoy puzzled over the readings on the medical sensors. Dawn's pulse beat rapidly enough to sustain her. Treatment for shock pushed her temperature back toward normal intensity. McCoy could find no permanent physical damage. Yet Dawn remained in a state of deep unconsciousness, the patterns of her brain depressed and erratic.
"Maybe she's just asleep," McCoy muttered.
So, impatient with his inability to do anything useful, troubled and mystified, McCoy kept watch on Dawn and let her rest. Every so often the electrical patterns of Dawn's mind pushed themselves toward normal, but they always retreated again.
0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0
Jim sat on the bottom step of the companionway, watching the flyers and Buffy. The intense communication continued.
He wondered if he should make Buffy come out of the circle, but she showed no sign of the stunned shock that had affected her sister, no distress or even fatigue. Of course, he knew from Buffy's files that she had reserves Dawn didn't simply because before becoming Millennial she had been a Slayer. He wasn't sure if he believed in vampires and demons, but he had seen Buffy's abilities first hand, he knew that fatigue didn't affect her as much as it did someone like himself.
A footstep scraped the deck above him and Stephen climbed down the companionway. He sat on the step above Jim and rested his elbows on his knees.
"I hope you won't expect me to entertain your friends," he said, "because juggling in one-tenth gravity is about as boring an activity to watch as I can think of."
"I asked for critical objections," Jim said.
"Oh, I'm not objecting, just making an observation. Vulcans do that. What are they doing?" He nodded toward the flyers.
"I think they're talking to each other." Jim started to tell him—to ask him, since he was more or less a guest—to go back to the vaudeville company's quarters. Then he abruptly changed his mind. "Stephen, do Vulcans have some sort of extrasensory perception?"
For the first time since Jim had met him, Stephen expressed himself in a way entirely Vulcan. He raised one quizzical dark-blond eyebrow.
"Buffy mentioned that Dawn, T'Lekus, had only one other time connected with another being telepathically or empathically. The only person I could think of that she could have done that with would be T'Pol. After all, T'Pol is her adopted mother. According to her records she even lived with T'Pol on Vulcan for a while.
"A Vulcan mind can link with the mind of another sentient being," Stephen admitted. "Most Vulcans will go out of their way to avoid the experience. It's ... emotional. As for me—much as my family wishes I weren't, I am still a Vulcan."
The long symphonic conversation ended with a complex fluting exchange between Scarlet and a flyer person with fur patterned in paisley swirls of tan and brown. The music faded. The circle disbanded.
Buffy drew herself from their spell. She wanted time by herself to feel, think and understand what the flyers had taught her. She hummed a phrase. Not quite right. She tried once more. Not perfect, but closer.
Jim joined her. "Everything all right?"
Buffy nodded.
"Has Dawn returned to us?" Scarlet said.
"No," Jim said.
The paisley flyer hunched its shoulders and stretched, gradually unfolding its wings until they shivered above its head. Nearby, Athene snorted in alarm and spread her wings, holding them open as if for balance, for defense.
The paisley flyer gazed at Buffy, blinking its brilliant purple eyes. "Your language," it said, forming the words with care, "is monotonous. And its pattern is trivially simple."
Buffy for the first time in two hundred years understood Dawn's love of languages.
"How do you learn so fast?" Jim asked. "Can you telepathically link to another's mind?"
"Not in the way Dawn can," Scarlet said. "We have other ways of exchanging information quickly. That is why I had to stop speaking to you—to convey your language to the companionship. They objected to my speaking for them, and I felt unhappy, taking a place beyond the rest."
"What do you mean?" Jim said.
"It is as if ... as if I made myself a captain. I told you, James, we do not have such things."
"And now—you can all speak Standard?"
"This small companionship has the ability. In a few of your days, the information will make its way around the edge of the worldship."
Athene and Lukarian approached. Athene watched the flyers nervously, her wings still half-opened and quivering at her sides. The flyers regarded her gravely and curiously.
"She's frightened," Lukarian said. "She wants to follow you when you fly."
"This is Athene, and you are Ame, Dawn's goddaughter?" Scarlet said.
"Yes. I'm Ame. And yes, at one time I was Dawn and Buffy's goddaughter, just as my mother was and her mother before her was. Now it is my daughter's turn at being their goddaughter."
Scarlet extended one long sharp-clawed hand to Athene.
"Athene is not fully evolved to her environment. She cannot fly. She has no talons, and cannot hunt. She is unhappy."
"I'm afraid that's true," Lukarian said.
The equiraptor touched her nose to Scarlet's hand. Since Athene was essentially an herbivorous animal changed into an omnivore, the equiraptor might perceive Scarlet as a competitor or as a dangerous predator. But Athene showed neither fright nor aggression. Now that she had gotten used to seeing them, she seemed to accept the flying people.
Perhaps she perceived them as some odd kind of human being.
"Poor thing," Scarlet said. At the flyer's comment of pity and dismissal, Lukarian looked stricken. "This creature is very interesting, but I would like to see your craft."
Gold and brown stripes followed the curves of the third flyer's body in a subtle shaded pattern.
"The gravity is suitable for you now. You can visit the Enterprise without risk," Jim said.
"I will find great interest in meeting all the different beings here and in your companionship." Scarlet touched its sensory mustache with the tip of its tongue. "I have never met another sentient species."
"And I have still never seen a Federation starship," the gold and brown flyer said.
"Please come with us," Jim said as he looked at Buffy who nodded.
Scarlet and the paisley flyer climbed the companionway with Buffy and Jim, their claws scraping the treads, but the gold-striped flyer and the cream-colored green-eyed being who had not yet spoken in Standard leaped from the deck and soared the ten meters to the catwalk.
Author's Note: The end of this story is book ended by First Contact. I am thinking of doing a small followup of Dawn and Buffy on the USS Sunnydale (Future Dawn takes command of it after the end of First Contact.) This will allow to book end a couple other things that are seen in this story. For example Mirror Mirror is going to be in this story and does not have a book end. I was thinking of possibly adapting DS9's Mirror Universe episode for the follow up. I was also thinking of adding Trouble with Tribbles to this story and then adapt Trials and Tribble-ations for the followup.