Kirk was trying to clear the backlog of ship's
reports when the door chime went.
"Come." he said. He looked up from his paperwork to
see Madison framed in the doorway. "Come in, Chief."
he said. "You wanted to see me?"
Madison took a few steps forward and stopped. "I'm
not 'Chief' anymore." he said. "The title dies with
the ship, *Captain*."
"Given what Scotty tells me, it won't be long before
you'll be a Chief Engineer again." Kirk said. "In
the meantime consider it - a courtesy title."
"Don't do me any fucking favours." Madison said.
"All right." Kirk said. "Would you do *me* a favour
and sit down before I get a crick in my neck?"
Madison sauntered across the room and dropped lazily
into the chair opposite Kirk. He laced his hands
across his stomach and stretched out his legs, the
very picture of a man at ease.
Kirk was not deceived.
"What did you want to see me about?" he asked.
"I've been making decisions - about my future."
Madison said.
"Have you come to ask for my advice?" Kirk asked.
"What would you advice be?" Madison asked.
"You could join up." Kirk said. "I'd write the
recommendation. Starfleet could use someone like
you."
Madison's face twisted suddenly, the tension he'd
been trying to hide abruptly present in every line of
his body. "Use someone like me," he said. "That's
what you do, isn't it - you use people. You see what
you can get from them, what they're worth, and then
you spend them. Spend their lives for whatever you
think you can get for them."
"Perhaps my choice of words was unfortunate." Kirk
said. "I meant, someone with your skills and
experience could make a valuable contribution to
Starfleet."
"Oh, yeah. What do you educated types call it when
you say what you mean without meaning to say it?"
"Freudian slip." Kirk said.
"Fre-yoy-dian slip." Madison said. "I'll have to
remember that. No, Captain, I can guarantee you that
none of my plans involve joining your fucking tin-pot
space navy."
"What, then?" Kirk asked. "Another merchant vessel?
As I said, you'll have no problem getting a berth -
with or without Starfleet help."
"No, I wasn't planning on going back into the
merchant fleet." Madison said. "I've had about enough
of jockeying third-rate second hand cut price
equipment through the cold arse of the back of beyond
to make money for some rich bastard lying about on
the beach on Geminius fucking Four." He looked down,
then back up at Kirk, and his face was hard. "Not
that I think I have the fucking option. I came here
to kill you, Boy Wonder."
He unlaced his fingers and lifted his hand a little
to show Kirk the knife up his sleeve. A shake of the
wrist and it dropped into his hand. No mistaking the
coiled menace in his posture now, poised to explode
into movement. " I came here to make you pay. To
make you fucking pay."
Kirk dropped his hand, out of sight behind the desk,
to the phaser he had ready, careful not to let the
movement show in his upper arm or shoulder. "Pay for
what?" he asked.
"Pay for who." Madison said. "Not for what. Or for
what you fucking are, maybe. But pay for *him*,
mostly." Then, looking at Kirk, he began to laugh.
"You don't know who the fuck I mean, do you? You
can't remember. I've spent my whole life, my whole
fucking *life* chasing you down to make you pay for
him and you don't even fucking know who I mean."
"Yeoman Mitch Madison." Kirk said. "Nineteen years
old. Tactical. Home planet, Meteran. Killed in
action in a landing party, Tau Syrius nine. Under my
command."
"You looked him up." Madison said.
"I remember them all, Madison." Kirk said.
"Are there so fucking many, then?"
"Yes." Kirk said. "There are. Too many. Always too
many. You know, I dream about them."
"Oh, give me strength!" Madison said scornfully.
"Poor Boy Wonder, Golden Kirk the Galactic Hero,
tormented by dreams of the men who died under his
command! You know how cheap that sounds?"
"It might be cheap." Kirk said. "But it's true. I
dream that I'm under water. I'm under water and I
can't breathe. I have to swim up to the surface to
breathe, but between me and there are the bodies of
all the men - the men *and* women, and other genders
- who've died following my orders. And I have to
name them all, one by one, before they'll let me
pass. Your brother is one of the first. He was one
of the first - not the very first, but close - to die
following an order I gave. Do you want to know how he
died?"
"He died like a fool." Madison said.
"He died like a hero." Kirk said. "You're not
surprising me, Madison. I knew you'd come to see me
before long. I knew what it would be about. You're
not the only Madison in the universe, and you may not
be the only Madison from Meteran, but you told
Lieutenant Larssen you had a brother who'd been
killed in Starfleet."
"She reported it to you." Madison said, nodding, "Of
course she did, of course she did."
"Did you think she wouldn't?" Kirk asked. "Even if
she hadn't, when I saw you, I couldn't have any
doubts. You look like the man he might have grown up
to be."
"Jesus wept, I fucking hope not!" Madison said. "If
he'd've ended up like me, then thank the God he's
dead."
"You're not so bad." Kirk said.
"I'm a washed up, used up old spacer." Madison said,
and spat to one side like merchant spacers did.
"I've pushed everyone of my nine lives as far as
they'd fucking go and I'm coming damn close to my
use-by date. I've spent nine years in space,
*Captain*, nine years since I've seen the fucking sun
the way it looks from the bottom of a gravity well,
nine years since I've tasted air that doesn't come
from a fucking can. Nine years since I've felt the
kind of gravity that doesn't depend on a generator
and nine years since I've see a window you can
*open*, just fucking open and lean out of. I don't
remember what it's like to walk on grass and look at
clouds, I don't remember what it's like to look at
anything other than metal, and plastic, and oil, and
indicator lights, and the fucking faces of other
fucking hardcases like me. I don't remember what
it's like to walk around without a weapon. I don't
remember what it's like to not have people afraid of
what I'll do them, and to know they've got every
reason to be afraid. I don't fucking remember what
it's like to think about the future as something that
might just include people you can sit down with of an
evening and talk to, just fucking talk to, about the
things that are important to you, because I don't
remember what it's like to have anything in my life
that's important besides finding you and seeing you
and making sure that you don't get away with it,
don't get away with it and keep on going and keep on
killing poor stupid idealistic kids who don't know
any better."
He was on his feet, knife held out to the side, low
and angled up in the way that spoke of plenty of
experience in real life fights outside the controlled
condition of combat training - fights in the dingy
back corridors of starbases where security never went
except in force, fights where rules and fairness
didn't count for much. Kirk could see that he was
working himself up to attack.
"How many have you killed, keeping yourself alive to
hunt me down?" Kirk asked mildly. He'd had Spock
call every reference to Madison out of the datalinks,
and he knew that the engineer had had his share of
run-ins with the law. He'd finished every fight he
got in.
"Enough. They picked it, Kirk, them or me." Madison
took a step back, his momentum broken. "I suppose I
could lay *those* fucking deaths at your feet too. I
wouldn't have been there for them to start the fight
except for you. And mine hasn't been a life I'd kill
to preserve, that's for fucking sure."
"So you're a killer too." Kirk said.
"I'm a killer." Madison said . "What you do isn't
nearly as clean. You just make the decisions. You
just make the decisions, kicking back in your chair
on the bridge, point your finger and say - oh, order
another five crew to sacrifice their lives over
there. And two over *there*. And six over *there*.
That's not killing. That's - I don't know what it
is. And I don't know how you live with yourself,
doing it."
"It's my job to make those kind of decisions". Kirk
said. "I don't enjoy it. None of us *enjoys* it.
We make them because someone has to. For the
greatest good of the greatest number of people."
"The general good." Madison said. His knife hand
dropped to his side. "The general good. You can't
ever make the perfect decision. Most times, your
choices are between two almost equally bad options.
But you have to try to make the perfect choice, every
time, even if it's never possible. It's that
impossible thing that we can never reach that gives
you guidance."
"That's right." Kirk said.
"You're surprised?" Madison said. "That some shit of
a merchant spacer would know anything about the noble
principles that guide you high and mighty Starfleet
types?" He dropped back into his chair. "Oh, Gods
help me, Gods help me. What am I going to do? It's
your *job* to make those kinds of decisions, you
say."
"It is."
"You get up in the morning, shave, shit and shower
and go to work. Who's going to die today? Who will I
let live until tomorrow?" Madison rocked in his
chair, shoulders hunched. "And it's her job too, or
it will be. Larssen. The path she's on leads to where
you are. It might not take her quite as fucking far,
but it sure as shit won't take her anywhere else.
Gods, what am I going to do? Boy Wonder, what am I
going to do?"
"Why don't you go home?" Kirk asked gently.
"Home?" Madison said vaguely.
"Meteran. Why don't you go to Meteran? Madison,
you're not a man who's made for the deep beyond. I
know you could make a success of a space career, in
Starfleet or out of it, if you chose, but I've spent
too many years watching too many crew to be mistaken.
You're not a spacer-born."
"I can't go back to Meteran." Madison said, and the
note of naked longing in his voice made Kirk think
suddenly of the hot sun on the back of his neck as he
rode through the fields of long grass down to the
river near his mother's farm. "I can't go back, Boy
Wonder. They won't let me. Once I kill you, it's
rehabilitation for me. I won't remember enough of
Meteran to know why I'd ever want to go back there."
"You don't have to kill me, Madison." Kirk said.
"It's all I have left in the universe to do." Madison
said, but there was no anger left in his voice, only
a terrible weariness. He looked levelly at Kirk,
held the knife up and let the blade catch the light.
"It's all I have left in the universe to be, Boy
Wonder. My brother's vengeance. Your judgement."
"And is that what your brother would have wanted? He
was a good officer, Mitch Madison. He was a good
man. He accepted his duty and his danger from the
time he joined Starfleet. He wouldn't have wanted
vengeance. He wouldn't have wanted the older brother
he admired to burn himself down to nothing more than
hatred -"
"Admired." Madison said. "What the fuck do you know
about whether he admired me?"
"He told me." Kirk said simply. "We played poker
together, trained in the gym together, served
together. He talked of you. Your carving, the
furniture you made, your gift with machines. Your
patience with him when he was younger. How much you
taught him about -"
He stopped. Madison was chewing his lip and staring
up at the ceiling, fighting tears. "I'd forgotten-"
he said thickly. "I'd forgotten - he used to-"
He flung himself out his chair and strode to the
other side of the room, dropping the knife as he
went. "I'd forgotten." he said again. He raised his
hands and leaned against the bookshelf, tried to
speak again and lost his voice completely.
Kirk went to him, kicking the knife to the other side
of the room in passing. Madison shied away when Kirk
touched his shoulder, but the captain persisted.
"How can you remember my brother better than I can?"
Madison whispered. "How can you?"
"Because I remember his life," Kirk said, "and you
only think about his death."
"I think about *avenging* his death." Madison said.
"My kid brother, Boy Wonder, I - that's - that's what
a big brother *does*, doesn't he, he looks out for -
he protects - I couldn't - I wasn't *there*, the
*one* *fucking* - *time* - it - *mattered* -"
Kirk said nothing, only stood with his hand on
Madison's back for long minutes until the engineer
took a shuddering breath, and another, and raised his
head.
"Go home, Madison." Kirk said. "Go home and be the
man you were meant to be."
"I don't know - the man I was meant to be - anymore."
Madison said with the grey distance of despair.
"Then go home and find out." Kirk said.
"Just like that?" Madison said. Then, seeing the
captain was serious, something kindled in his eyes,
an expression Kirk was willing to bet hadn't crossed
Madison's face for a long time. "Just like that."
he said again, and the hope in his eyes was there in
his voice.
"Just like that." Kirk said. "I can get you billeted
on Starfleet transports right now." Turning back
towards his desk, he detoured to pick the knife up
off the floor. "Believe this is yours." He held it
out, hilt first.
"Keep it." Madison said. "Keep it as a souvenir. I
don't think I'll be needing it anytime soon."