AFTER THE EMERGENCY PATIENTS were beamed up to the ship, McCoy walked outside the clinic, in the shade of the giant trees supporting its roof. He knew it would be some time before Nurse Chapel had all the drugs he required and had processed some not in storage. There were some diseases, endemic to this planet, that his medical scanner had never encountered before; for the people with these he could do nothing. But everyone at that clinic who could be helped would be.
It's a gamble whether Starfleet will approve of this. We are still at odds with the government here. But morally, it's no gamble. It's the only thing I can do. And, in case it's bending the rules more than it seems, I want to be the one responsible. I don't want Jim's neck on the line for this.
At the end of the queue snaking out from the clinic, talking to the people who waited, McCoy again saw the Federation tourists. The young lady was trying to get a laugh out of a miserable-looking child; the child was not responding.
McCoy ambled over. She became aware of his presence, took in his uniform, and glared.
"What are you doing here? Haven't you done enough to these people? How many of you are there? Does the Council of Youngers know you're here?"
"Oh, there are a few more of us down here. And the council is taking real good care of us." McCoy let his geniality lightly mock her abrasiveness. "They wanted me to see this facility. Now, how 'bout you? What brings you to Boaco Six?"
The blond girl's little nose twitched. "Indignation. Outrage. Disgust. It's totally unbelievable what the Federation is doing to these people, so I'm here to lend support."
"Where? In farming, house building, maybe …"
"No," she snapped. "Moral support. We're here on an outreach tour. My husband and me."
The man had appeared out of the crowd and was now hovering by her protectively. Their Boacan guide stood a short distance away.
"Why are the Boacans providing you with this tour?" McCoy asked.
"Is this some kind of Starfleet interrogation?" the girl asked defiantly, perhaps hopefully. "Are you trying to crack down on people like us?"
McCoy shook his head. "Nope. That probably wouldn't be worth the effort. It was just out of curiosity that I asked."
"Well, they're showing us around because I guess they think it's time the galaxy learned the truth and someone exposed the way you're persecuting and dominating these people."
"Persecuting how?"
"Well, with the embargo and … stuff."
"Ah." She hasn't done her homework, McCoy mused. Even I could lambaste us better than that.
"And plus, I guess they're glad to show us around because we paid for the tour. That's another way we're helping. We paid the highest rate, so we got the full works. My husband's going to get to keep a genuine rifle, used by one of the council members. And they taught us some of their songs and cheers. And we get to visit practically everywhere."
Warming to her subject, she seemed to forget for the moment that McCoy, as a Starfleet officer, was evil incarnate. "And I was in the market all day yesterday. It was so colorful, so wild. I took some of the most amazing projections of the native people. They are so colorful, so great."
"You brought your projection cube with you?"
"Well, of course. Here, let me show you my best one. I took it of this little girl I saw selling vegetables."
She reached into a silken pouch attached to the crystal belt at her waist. Her long, manicured fingers drew out the black cube and fumbled with the mechanism.
"It was funny. I wanted her to pose for me, but she wouldn't. She said she'd seen a projection once before, and she thought I would be stealing her soul, or capturing it in my 'box,' or something really bizarre. Finally, her brothers and sisters got her to do it. But not until after I'd given them over a hundred credits worth of—I've got it!"
She flicked the switch, and a glowing projection shot out of the cube and shimmered in the air before them. Within its three-dimensional matrix, the image of a scared-looking little girl took form, skinny, in a cotton shift. Fresh green and black and maroon produce were arrayed behind her. McCoy knew that an intelligent computer, if fed this projection, would be able to touch it up, perhaps give the little girl a cuter, happier expression.
"Isn't she beautiful?" the projectionist murmured. "When I get home, I'm going to have it filled out, so it looks solid, and projected permanently on our lawn."
Where was her home? Judging from the cut of the luxurious jumpsuit, the Martian colony, McCoy guessed. This girl seemed to be of that "type." He imagined the filled-in form of this little Boacan child standing on a synthetic lawn under the grand colony atmosphere dome, the house arching up behind, as a backdrop. And this would be … something on the order of a lawn ornament? A garden gnome?
"How much longer is your tour going to be?" he asked.
"We're extending it," she said, switching off the projection cube with a click, and slipping it into the silk bag. "But I'll tell you, we're not seeing everything we're supposed to. Like that woman in there"—she pointed toward the clinic tent—"is not cooperating at all. She let us in there for hardly five minutes. And after we flew out here, to this nowhere, in one of those horrible machines!"
McCoy sympathized with her indignation. If roughing it didn't agree with him, how hard must it be on this poor princess?
"And you should see the place they're putting us up in Boa," she continued. "Insects on the walls sometimes. And they give us all this bizarre spicy alien food. But it's worth it to, um, absorb the primitive atmosphere."
McCoy saw the Boacan guide's mouth twitch. With amusement?
The doctor pulled at his ear. "Pretty inconsiderate of them, though, sending you way out here, where you might get that nice outfit messed up."
The girl stared at him. She was remembering again that he was the enemy, and became furious. "You think this is some kind of joke, don't you? Yeah, you can be all condescending to me, you can treat people who want to help your victims like they don't matter, but let me tell you, sir—"
"Easy, honey," her husband said, touching her shoulder, but she shrugged his hand away, and the blond mane shook behind her.
"I'm proud to support the Boacan Revolution, and I feel like I'm half-Boacan already, and in case you're wondering, my father is a very important, highly influential …"
McCoy tuned her out. These people weren't even worth baiting. Yet there was something that was important, something he should ask them about, that was not so trivial. What was it?
A whirring filled the air, and Nurse Chapel shimmered into being a few feet away from them in the clearing. As she materialized, the Boacans waiting on line gasped and pointed. A small boy ran forward to touch her, then ran back to the line and dove behind his mother. Chapel carried a large, opaque medicine kit, the vials and hypos glinting in the sunlight. The sight of them jogged McCoy's memory.
"Your reinforcements?" the girl sneered.
"Yes. Yes, and that reminds me. Were y'all properly immunized before you came to this world?"
"Immunized against what?"
"The native diseases. Here you are, hanging around a health clinic. Are you protected?"
"That's our concern, thanks. If this is some kind of ploy to scare us, it's not going to—"
"You'd better let me give you both vaccines for the most common Boacan diseases," McCoy said calmly. "Matter of fact, you're going to let me."
Nurse Chapel, hearing the exchange, called up to the Enterprise and ordered that several more hypos be beamed down.
"Do you think we're going to submit to this?" the girl demanded. "Do you think we can be ordered to—"
"Honey, be reasonable," her husband said. He turned to McCoy. "Yeah, it's probably a good idea that we get the shots. Thanks."
His wife pouted, then finally agreed.
Ensign Michaels was not escorted by any Boacan minister to have a program explained or to view a project in progress. The captain gave him leave, instead, to wander the city of Boa and get to know its people.
"Talk to people," Kirk urged, "but most of all, let them do the talking. Don't jump on them, coax them out; just sit back and observe."
"Yes, sir," Michaels said stiffly.
"And for heaven's sake, Ensign, don't say anything too inflammatory. The last thing we could afford now is some kind of diplomatic incident. I'm counting on you, Michaels," he said with a smile, to soften the implied reproach.
"Yes, sir!" Michaels cried again.
At ease, Kirk thought, then wondered if the boy knew the meaning of those words.
Michaels left the public square and wandered down a dusty, winding back street, viewing it with suspicion, nearly jumping in the air when a low-crawling mangy animal, dragging along a pouch full of babies in the dust, batted him with its snout.
He drew a few curious glances, and a few laughing propositions from the weaving women seated along the roadside, which caused him to hurry on.
At the end of the road an old gutted building half stood, the stone of its walls crumbling, the wooden beams of its roof crashing down to form a triangular sheltering darkness. Michaels's heart began to pound. As he determined to explore the ruin, his mind filled with undefined, lightning thoughts of secret meetings and cults, espionage or counterespionage, heroes or rogues who might be hiding there. He bent his head and entered.
His eyes took a while to grow accustomed to the dark. Part of a wall blocked his way, he saw, but beyond it there was a light, and some kind of activity. He inched his way along. A beam above him snapped, he looked up, and then an agile force tackled him, and brought him crashing to the ground. White terror gripped Michaels, a tension in his chest telling him that this was not a game, that he was out of his depth, that he should never have left home …
His shoulders were pinioned down into the rubble and dust. He opened his eyes and saw above him the laughing face of a boy his age. The boy seemed to enjoy his fear; the face was mocking, but not cruel.
"Look at you," the stranger said. "Here I expected some troublemaker from a rival gang, and I land on a little spaceman. I think someone is very lost." He eased off and allowed Michaels to get up and dust himself off. Michaels glared, but could not stop shaking.
"I'm not lost. I'm here to observe your planet," he said. "You didn't have to attack me."
The boy, still amused, regarded him from the ground, then sprang to his feet in a swift movement. "So come," he said, "observe."
Michaels followed him as he clambered easily over the jagged remains of the wall that blocked their way. Footing was slippery and difficult; the young ensign dug his nails into the crevices in the rocks and pulled.
On the other side of the wall a group of boys of various ages sat in a ring. A circle was drawn in the dirt within their circle, and a fire blazed at the center of that. In Michaels's mind there again stirred hopes of having stumbled upon some weird religious cult. But the boys seemed too boisterous and casual to fit such a scenario.
They laughed and joked loudly as their leader told of pouncing and landing on the intruder, and added, with mock gravity, "He has come to observe us." Michaels stood to one side awkwardly, unsure of what attitude to assume. The other boys laughed, and turned back to what they had been doing.
One boy—he looked about twelve—held colorfully painted stones in his hands, and shook them, and let them fall in the circle drawn in the dirt. An older boy spun a bundle of short sticks in the air, and let them fall on and among the rocks. The pattern thus formed meant nothing to Michaels. It seemed to mean a great deal to the gang; there were whistles for the winners of the wager, jeers for the losers.
Michaels watched intently as a few more hands were thrown, trying to get a grasp on the rules of the game.
"Want to play?" the leader asked him abruptly. Once again, Michaels felt all eyes in the room upon him.
For the few weeks he had been aboard the Enterprise, he had felt tremendous pride in his uniform, in his long-coveted assignment to a starship; these were the symbols of manhood he had sought his whole life to attain. But there was a glamour and an elegance to the swagger of this Boacan boy, his opposite, this grimy, tattered hooligan, that he knew could never be his. It caused him to feel a sharp pain. He straightened. "I'm ready when you are."
This resulted in more whistles and catcalls. The stones were placed in Michaels's hand, the other boy took the sticks, and the game began, a blur of color, and smoke from the fire, and crisscrossed patterns that Michaels could barely follow. Somehow, the pieces never rolled into the fire and somehow, Michaels sensed, every throw worsened his position. The jeers of the gang confirmed it. "Well?" he snapped at last.
The leader sat back on his heels. "Whoo. Keep to flying in the sky, spaceboy. This game is not for you. Never has anyone lost so much, so fast."
Michaels's hand moved to the money pouch at his waist. They had been given some of the local currency, been urged by the captain to use it sparingly. "How much do you want?" he said.
The other boy shook his head. "No, spaceboy. No, you'd be too easy to rob blind. You do not even know enough to demand that you get to throw the sticks at alternate turns. You keep your money. Let the others get on with the game."
The game recommended, and Michaels quickly sensed he had become invisible to the other boys.
"Does the revolutionary council know about gangs like yours?" he asked the leader sharply. "Or do you work for them?"
"Gangs like mine?" the boy laughed. "I think the council has more things to worry about than how we spend our time. For them, the gangs that have little street wars are a problem. Hard to control. But us? We are peaceful men." He grinned.
"But if there are many groups like yours," Michaels said, excited, "if you were coordinated, don't you think you'd be a threat to the Council of Youngers?"
The boy's grin faded, and he stood appraising him. "I'll say it again. I have no quarrel with the Council of Youngers. They, at least, don't try to tell me what to do."
He turned abruptly, and once again scaled the jutting projection of the fallen wall. Michaels, uncertain what to do, at last followed him. He found the boy waiting on the other side.
"Well," the boy said, "since you say you are here to observe, do you want to meet some of the people of Boaco Six? Would you like the grand tour of the poor neighborhoods of this city?"
Michaels nodded slowly and followed him out into the sunlight.