Part 1,Part 2,Part 3,Part 4,Part 5,Part 6,Part 7,Part 8,Part 9,Part 10,Part 11,Part 12,Part 13,Part 14
"Flag At the Edge of Space" page, Athena Home Page, Other Stories Home Page.
"Command officer's log, August 19, 2169, mission day thirty-four," Hall started, speaking slowly and carefully. By now, the speech recognition algorithms in the computer had been sufficiently exposed to his voice to transcribe his normal speech accurately, but having done it this way for so long, he found it difficult to change. It was almost easier to gather up his thoughts and express them in a clear and concise manner if he spoke in such a manner. "Our journey to Rigel is continuing on schedule and on course, and, as I have mentioned before, the Atlas is performing flawlessly. The crew has gone about their work, and have performed very well, and yet I do sense a certain restlessness in them. The boredom that comes inevitably from long-term journeys in space is still something that we are working on. Perhaps the best way that we can work on this is to speed up the travel and make the trips shorter. As far as I can tell, tomorrow could be pretty well the same day as today, which is pretty well the same day as yesterday, and so on."
Hall sat behind the desk in his quarters, and found that he simply had nothing else to say. This was different, he thought, than the military missions during the Romulan War. A lot of time was spent on those journeys contemplating the chance that he might not be coming back from the mission. This time around, he was more assured of returning home, simply because he had orders not to engage in any battles or pick fights. He was given the "coward's orders" to turn and run if the situation got too hot, and although that looked like the coward's way out when he reviewed them at Earth, he understood the logic of them at Rigel. Seven hundred and seventy light years from home, there was no backup, no support and no clear and immediate instructions to follow as a situation changed.
Captain Hall left his quarters and toured the ship. He did not see all that many peoples, since the Atlas was a big ship with a lot of space, and the crew was scattered through the ship. He could find a few in the mess hall, or in the smaller lounges, where card games and other games were a going concern. Even Hall had involved himself with that, as he had won two dart tournaments already, and was second in the more challenging zero-gee dart tournament. He had played enough chess to realize that he should avoid Weisser and if he needed his ego stroked, he should play Abuna. Other times, Hall would visit the stellar cartography lab, where a couple of the officers were monitoring the computer systems as they recorded relatively detailed information on any star within ten light years. So far, they had found nothing interesting. As the head of the department, Crystal Llanados, had pointed out, more than half the stars they scanned were red dwarfs, and the odds of finding a class-M planet there were so remote that it was not even worth considering. So far, in thirty-four days of travel, the sensors had detected four possible class-M worlds and one that was almost certain to be class-M. None showed signs of being inhabited by a warp-capable race. Nevertheless, they were gathering data on stars and other stellar phenomena to improve the star charts in case one day another ship came this way.
Hall had checked in on the hydroponics area. That was located at the rear of the ship, just before the shuttlebay. It was a large area, and located just above the cargo holds that contained the rest of their food supply, as well as other equipment. The hydroponics area consisted of rows upon rows of glass-partitioned tanks where high-intensity multi-spectrum lights were shining down on vats of growing vegetables. A wide variety of vegetables were being grown, including some that Hall recognized, like lettuce, beans, carrots, tomatoes, beets and his personal favourite, strawberries. They would not be ready for another ten days, however. Half the space was taken up by tanks that were growing wheat and corn, the former mostly so that they could produce pasta products and baked goods. A crew of two worked in this area, and their job was to maintain the equipment, check the nutrient levels in the tanks and adjust as necessary, and harvest the finished produce. They had already been serving "space lettuce" in the mess hall. Now, if only Hall actually liked lettuce and did not detest it.
Shortly after Hall left the hydroponics area, he ran into Abuna. The first officer asked, "Sir, what are you doing?" She sounded tentative.
"Touring the ship."
"But why?"
"Because my presence is not really needed on the bridge," Hall explained. "I can sit there for four or eight hours, but what do I accomplish? The ship is on its course."
"Well, it does make it easier to find you."
"If you need to contact me, Mary, you can have me paged." The captain, like all senior officers, carried with him a small device that allowed the computer to direct communications with him should he needed to be contacted.
"I'm still... not used to that idea," the woman started, as she began to walk alongside the captain. "The idea that the computer can track my every move has certain, very unpleasant memories."
"You were alive during the dictatorship, weren't you?"
"I was very young," Abuna started. "I still remember my mother imploring me that I wear the bracelet, that I never take it off, since taking it off could mean that I would ‘disappear.' The idea that the government wanted to track my every move, and record everything I did so that it could identify subversives did not really strike me until later, but I just knew. It was an act of defiance to take the bracelet off, or leave home without it."
"But this is hardly like the system set up by the Brazilian dictatorship."
"It echoes it, and that's bad enough."
"Anyway," Hall continued, and then changed the subject. Afterall, his first officer had just tracked him down, so she had to have a reason for doing so. "Why did you want to contact me?"
"There's this situation that has come up, and I'm not sure about it." Once more, Abuna sounded hesitant, but Hall was not saying anything that would lure the words out. "In one of the cargo holds in the lower levels, something... has been set up."
"Can you be more precise?"
"I heard that several members of the crew were going there, usually while off-shift, and doing something. I believe that you should check it out."
Actually, Hall thought, checking out something like that was the responsibility of the first officer, but he did not mention that just now. When Abuna said something was set up in one of the cargo holds, his first impression was that somebody had built a still. He was sure that during this voyage, somebody would do it. On board the Atlas were just a few bottles of wine for "very special" occasions, and a case of champagne to celebrate a successful mission. Otherwise, there was no alcohol on board, but men being men--and women being women--they were going to try to make some. Hall had served on very few ships that did not have secret stills somewhere on board, and Hall himself knew four different ways to make one using only common equipment found on board a starship. Being the captain, of course, he had no choice but to shut down any moonshine operation he found, although he could sympathize with those who built them.
Abuna led him to the lower-level cargo hold. From the corridor, he could see no outward sign that the hold was occupied, and he had brought along no instrument that would allow him to determine if anybody was in the room. He simply opened the door. Looking inside, he realized that something was going on in there, but it was not a still. It was also not that other thing that was on his mind, the kind of thing that men and women together, lonely with loved ones--if any--light years away, would be doing. Instead, he found two members of the crew, an engineer by the name of Carlos Mannimanario and a security officer known as Petr Skivorsky, floating in midair, as gravity had obviously been turned off in the room. They were not the only thing floating. A number of plastic spheres, each about fifteen centimetres in diameter and coloured in various colours, with hand-painted numbers on them, were floating as well. Some were drifting, and some were slowly moving around. In each of the eight vertices, the corners with the walls and ceiling and floor, was some kind of device that consisted of a ring with some kind of metal flapper over the opening.
For a few seconds, Mannimanario did not even notice that the captain and first officer had opened the door. Instead, he was lining up his move. He had in his right hand a black sphere that was a bit smaller than the ones floating, and he was trying to move his position so that he could get into the right position to throw.
Skivorsky spoke up, "Watch it, Carlos, the shot clock is running."
"I know, I know," the engineer said. "I won't miss." He finally was in position to throw, although throwing was not easy. To throw, one had to remain in contact with the wall, ceiling or floor, which at least gave him something to brace against when he did throw. The ball was not on a very good arc, and hit a glancing blow off of the sphere labelled "four." The coloured sphere moved lazily towards one of the vertex rings, but it was clear it was going to miss. "Damn," the man muttered. "This game's tough."
Now Hall walked into the zero-gravity field, but managed to stay relatively close to the ground. He looked up, and finally caught the attention of the two. "What is going on here?"
"Uh oh," Skivorsky remarked.
"Ah, sir," Mannimanario started, looking around, almost as if he wanted to find another way out of this. "It's just a game, three-dimensional billiards."
"I see."
Now the engineer, sensing that he might have been in some kind of trouble, had to find a way to explain the situation. "It's just a game, sir. Petr and I were off-duty, and since this hold is empty right now, we decided to set up 3-D billiards. There are no immediate plans to use this space, are there?"
"No," Hall admitted. "This doesn't look particularly easy.":
"It isn't," Mannimanario continued. "You have to make perfect throws, while being in contact with a surface. You have to get the spheres into the traps, and in order. If I miss, then Petr goes, and if he misses, I get a shot. The one who gets the most balls in the traps wins. You have two minutes to make a shot. The hardest part is that in two minutes, the balls don't always come to a stop due to air resistance, so you've got to hit a moving target. It feels good when you can trap a sphere that had been moving."
"I see."
"Surely you must've heard of this game. It's played on all the ships."
"Not the ships I've been on," Hall explained. "The warships didn't have this kind of open space. Maybe on the freighters."
Abuna, not wanting to come too far into the room since she never did like zero-gravity too much, spoke up, "But where did those spheres and the so-called traps come from? They were not on any equipment or cargo manifest that I saw. I can't believe that the engineers have so little to do that they've been fabricating this stuff."
"No, ma'am," Mannimanario explained. "Actually, it came on board with the engineering equipment."
"Really? That is against regulations."
"Ma'am," the engineer started, "it's just a game. We're on a year-long mission to Rigel, and we need something to pass the time. You're not going to confiscate the equipment, are you?"
Before Abuna could say anything, Hall stepped forward and said, "No."
Now the first officer turned to him, and said, "Sir, regulations are quite clear on this matter. It is against regulations for members of the crew to smuggle on board unauthorized equipment disguised as equipment vital for the operation of the ship. It is against proper procedure to set up facilities such as this in locations where they are not authorized to do so."
"What you call regulations, Mary, are just guidelines. They're not cast in stone, but are open to the interpretation of the captain. That's especially true on long-term missions like this one."
"You're not siding with them, are you?"
"I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt." Facing the two, he said, "I am hopefully assured that this is a strictly off-duty pursuit and not something that you will attempt to do while you are supposedly on duty."
"Sir," Mannimanario explained, "we are fully aware of what we have to do. We're Starfleet officers, and when we're on duty, we're focused to our tasks and concern ourselves with nothing but. However, when we're off duty, what are we supposed to do?"
"There are many approved leisuretime activities," Abuna spoke up.
"There are, but can they sustain an entire crew for a whole year? I mean, when I worked on the freighters, we had the same problem. Two-thirds of the movies in the computer library I've seen, and the other third I don't care to see. Most of the books I've read already too, and as for the poker games, well, you know."
"Poker games?" Abuna asked. She seemed almost startled that poker was played on the Atlas, and wondered what the stakes were.
"There isn't a ship in the fleet that doesn't have poker games. I mean, any ship that finds chess okay to play should have no problems with poker."
"But in poker, you make wagers, but not in chess."
"Wanna bet?"
Now Skivorsky spoke up, saying, "Carlos, you're going to get yourself into a whole lot of trouble if you continue."
"Do continue," implored Abuna. She made it sound like an order.
"Well," Mannimanario explained, "when you and the captain play chess, there are bets made. Right now, anybody who bets a eurodollar on you can get eight back. It used to be five to one, but now it's eight to one." Looking at the expression on the first officer's face, he added, "Sorry, ma'am."
Calmly, Abuna said, "I expect that such illegal betting will cease immediately." She turned and left the room.
Seeing that, Skivorsky said, "Man, I think you said too much."
"Maybe I shouldn't have said how high the odds were."
"Enough of that," Hall replied. "In that sense, Commander Abuna is correct. I do not want to hear of any more bets placed on games, any games, played by other people. If you want to put bets on your own games, that is your own business, but I won't tolerate betting on other people's games. Am I clear?"
"Yes sir," Mannimanario said, trying to sound humble, but the words came out a little more defiantly than he wished they had. On a freighter, a member of the crew had a lot of freedom in how they acted, since it was more of a team structure, rather than the hierarchical structure on a Starfleet ship. He had to remember that. The captain had to be obeyed, and could not be talked down to--even by a man floating near the ceiling. That also applied to the first officer and other senior officers. "Sir, I apologize for any remarks I made, or any implied attitude, or... whatever."
"Noted," the captain said. "Now, I want to try one shot in this game."
"Okay," Mannimanario started. "It's not that hard. The rules say you've got to be in contact with a wall or other surface during a shot. Through all of this, the number four ball has stopped, so it's not so hard to hit now. One warning, though. I'd recommend a more shot put-style throw. A baseball-style throw would put too much of a curve on the sphere, and it would be impossible to try to guide such a throw to hit the target sphere and get it going to the trap."
"What about spin?"
"Spin's okay. The balls are pretty smooth, so that's not a factor."
"Any trap?"
"Whichever one gives you the best shot."
With those words, Mannimanario stopped with the advice and left it up to the captain to make the shot. The sphere labeled with the digit "four" had stopped about three metres from one of the traps, so Hall moved along the floor, and then climbed up the wall, using practiced motions to keep him from drifting away. Because the room was designed to hold cargo, the walls had bars and notches at regular intervals, designed to hold cables and other methods for securing cargo, so he had something to hold on to. The play looked deceptively easy, he thought. The target sphere was about four metres from him, and steady. The smaller sphere which he would be throwing just hung there, motionless in the air, as he contemplated his angle and how he would throw. Basically, he had to get the sphere into position and give it a shove, all the while making sure that his arm moved outwards straight and true, so that the sphere would not go off to one side or travel in a curve.
Finally, Mannimanario spoke up, "Sir, just remember, there is a shot clock in this game."
"How long?"
"Under normal rules, a player has to make his shot in two minutes."
"I've been longer?"
"Much."
Hall said nothing more. He was, afterall, the captain, and he could make up the rules as he went along and enforce the ones that he wanted. Nevertheless, he had to make the shot sooner or later. Finally, he was ready. He placed his palm against the sphere, and braced himself against the wall, quite aware of the implication of Newton's Third Law. With all of his strength, he pushed the ball forward, trying his best to keep the arm straight, even as he felt the opposite effect push him into the wall. However, at the last minute, he felt a slight bend in the wrist, just enough to deflect the ball off of its course slightly. Hall still hoped. The throwing sphere did hit the target sphere more or less dead on, and imparted whatever momentum it could. However, the slight flutter of the wrist was enough. The sphere labelled "four" moved towards the trap, and bounced off of the rim.
"Not a bad first shot," the engineer said.
* * *
Some time later, Captain Hall was in the ready room, going over some of the routine reports from various departments on the Atlas. About the only thing to note, he thought to himself, was that the reports said much the same as the previous reports. The engines worked well. Occasionally, sensors picked up a possibly inhabited planet. The crew continued to imply that the worst aspect about this mission was not the boredom, but the food. One officer--who did not sign his name--even offered the suggestion that they should stop at one of those newly-detected class-M planets, find a local equivalent of the cow and turn it into steaks for a planetside barbecue. The idea had appeal, but was not going to happen anytime soon.
The door buzzer sounded. Hall stood up and walked to the door to open it. Standing on the other side was Abuna, which was the person he expected when the buzzer sounded. "What can I do for you, commander?"
"Sir, there's something that we must discuss."
At least Abuna was bringing it to the ready room, and not trying to discuss matters in front of the crew, Hall thought. She had done that on occasion. "Come in," he said, standing off to the side to let her in before tapping at the switch again. The door closed.
The ready room was not large, but Hall found it even more crowded than normal when Abuna was present. She sat down, as the captain went over to pour himself a cup of coffee from the small carafe that was sitting on a side table. He was about to pour a second when Abuna gestured that she did not want any. Hall found that odd. A Brazilian who did not like coffee? Maybe because she was Brazilian she was tired of it.
Taking the steaming cup of coffee, black and unsweetened, the way coffee was supposed to be, Hall sat down. He glanced at Abuna and noticed that she seemed impatient. Finally, he asked, "What did you want to discuss?"
"That incident in that cargo hold area."
"Was there a problem?"
"Sir, you were supposed to shut that down, not join in on the play."
"I just tried one shot, to see how it was. I've heard of similar games elsewhere, and was intrigued."
"But captain, it's not the proper thing to do. We're supposed to be Starfleet officers, highly trained, competent, mature."
"And we're also a hundred and twenty-five people on a starship on a year-long journey, commander. Remember, what we saw in that cargo hold was just a game, just two individuals who were off-duty and not neglecting any duty playing a game. Do you oppose the dart games, the poker tournaments, the canasta sessions, even the chess games that you so often partake in?"
"No sir, but this is different."
"In what manner?" Hall immediately retorted.
Abuna had to stop and think. She had sensed that something was not right about this so-called three-dimensional billiards, but she could not put her finger on it. She knew that anything she would say would be groping for excuses. "I'm worried that... games such as this might start to preoccupy the minds of the crew when they're supposed to be focusing on their duties."
"Do you have any examples of this?"
"No, sir, not yet. However, if this sort of thing is allowed to continue, then I can expect that we will see it have an impact on the crew and their performance."
"Negative or positive?"
Abuna was surprised at the question, as she said, "How could it be anything but negative?"
"I have a question for you, Mary. You have a lot of down time too. What do you do?"
The first officer again hesitated, realizing that the captain was asking a somewhat personal question. She finally answered, "I'm trying to use my time productively. I've been reading, using the chance to get up-to-date in reading various journals and other documents. I've also been reading just for enjoyment, and I've been trying to deal with the crew, by placing some of the better games. In addition, I've tried to become as prepared as possible for when we arrive at Rigel. I've read the Vulcan documentation on what they had found in this region of space, along with the other documents about this so-called Vegan Tyranny that preceded us into this region of space. It's important stuff, better than some of these silly games and diversions."
"Just so that you know, commander, I've read most of that material, twice. I'm intimately familiar with the mission details. Before we left Earth, I even spent several hours talking with a leading expert on the Vegan Tyranny, who had actually been to Vega, to find out what the Vegans might have known about Rigel and this region of space. I am prepared for what we might encounter at Rigel. I am hoping that my actions today, of participating even slightly in this game, do not suggest that I am not prepared for what we might face at Rigel, and that I didn't review this information, and that I don't continue to review it."
"No sir," Abuna answered slightly.
"Well, until you can present me evidence to the contrary, I have to assume that the crew is also approaching this with a great deal of dedication and professionalism. The games are merely a diversion, a relaxation, an inevitable result of a long journey in space. Have you taken any long journeys of this type?"
"No, sir."
"Then you have no idea what it is like?"
"I've read about, and been instructed on, what psychologists think happens on long journeys like this, and the proper way to deal with the boredom and the situation. I am assuming that Starfleet, in its testing and analysis, is determining who is capable of handling themselves on these long missions, and who is not. They would not send the latter."
"True, but people still need interaction."
"There are lots of opportunities for interaction."
"And sometimes they need spontaneity too. Sometimes, they have to follow their ideas, try something different, try something that is more under their control. We can't regiment every moment they're on board the Atlas, nor force them into ‘officially approved' activities either."
"So you're doing nothing about these games?"
Hall took a deep breath and waited a second before taking another sip of coffee. "In a word, no," he finally said.
"Sir, I will have to note my disapproval of your decision in my personal logs."
"That's up to you, commander, but one of the things that you will learn the longer your career goes is that the things you see on a starship are a result of our increasing experience in space, and are there because they work. Undoubtedly, you've been exposed to a lot of idealized views on how things should proceed on a ship, even one on a long mission like this one, but those views were not formulated nor created by those who were actually on ships. Those views are their best guesses on how things do proceed or should proceed on a starship, and in time, they'll be tampered by practical experience."
"So people playing games like this will become normal on a starship?"
"And the games will become even a lot more elaborate."
"I would personally dispute that, captain," Abuna started. "I think that not discouraging these unauthorized activities could have consequences in the future."
Smiling just a bit, Hall replied, "And I trust that you'll be right there to inform me when the first hints of these consequences appear."
Abuna had no immediate reply.
* * *
"Security alert in the mess hall!" came the voice over the intercom system. Hall, startled by the sound, looked up in his ready room, turning his eyes away from the terminal screen that displayed the latest log entries. The Atlas had been on its way to Rigel for the past sixty-two days, without stopping.
"Now what," the captained mumbled to himself. He saw those words appear on the screen as well. "No, computer, delete those last two words. Pause recording."
"Recording paused."
Hall left the ready room and the bridge, where he got a brief indication from one of the officers on the bridge that Quirk had already left.
When security chief Quirk and two of the marines entered the crew lounge, they saw a group of people standing around what looked like two people wrestling and trying to throw punches between two of the tables. Others were standing around, while a couple of braver individuals were trying to pull the two combatants apart, but with little success. One man tumbled into one of the tables, knocking off the trays and dishes and falling over a chair. Quirk and his officers had more experience in these matters. The two marines grabbed the man on top and physically lifted him into the air. He flailed away for a few seconds until the two got him to stand. The other man was pulled off the floor by Quirk and pushed about five metres away from the first man. They were still yelling, however. "This isn't over, Greg, not by a long shot."
"It has just begun!" retorted the other man.
Quirk knew who they were. It was the job of the security chief to know everybody on the ship. The man he was holding back was Kyle Dammond, who worked in ship services. The other man was Greg Mennard, who was an impulse engineering specialist. Quirk looked at the two disheveled men, with Mennard sporting a noticeable black eye and Dammond showing some scratch marks on his face. Both were sweaty and breathing hard, and clearly were not the type known as brawlers. "Enough!" Quirk finally said. "Whatever it was, it does not justify this kind of behaviour."
"But he--" Mennard started.
"Enough."
The door opened again, and Hall walked in. The mere presence of the captain caused the crowd to quiet down somewhat, with a few people close to the exits carefully sneaking out. Both Mennard and Dammond, in a more rational moment, were hoping that whatever had happened here could be resolved without the captain knowing about it, since otherwise would leave a black mark on their records. "Chief Quirk," the captain started. "What is the situation here?"
The security chief quickly answered, "We broke up a fight between these two individuals." He did not need to point nor name names, since Hall could clearly see who had been in the fight.
Hall stood where he could see the two men clearly. Fistfights on a starship were not unknown, and Hall had thought that one or two might erupt on the Atlas during its long and uneventful journey. However, he wanted to make sure that they were just limited to that number, so he had to make it look like the consequences of the fight or the reputations of the combatants were simply not worth whatever the cause was. He faced the ship services officer first. "Ensign Dammond, I presume that this fight was over a good cause."
"I did not start it, sir," Dammond said carefully.
"He's lying!" Mennard remarked.
Turning carefully to face the engineer, Hall said simply, "Remember that talking out of turn is not permitted, ensign. Your time will come." Turning back to Dammond, he asked, "If you did not start it, then why did Ensign Mennard start it?" Even as he spoke, Hall could sense the seething anger rising in the man behind him. Mennard did his best to keep it under control.
"He was upset that his side was losing."
"His side in what?"
"A group of us were playing Lacustrine Fours."
"With whom in addition?" Hall asked.
"Nancy and Yvette," Mennard admitted. Hall wondered if the fact that women were involved led to complications. He had heard of some shipboard romances, and even a few cases of where members of the crew spent a night in a bed other than the one in their own quarters, something that was against regulations but hard to enforce if everybody showed up ready to go at the start of their shifts. Nancy, Hall surmised was Nancy Oteo, the late-duty nurse, and Yvette was Yvette Shinggu, one of the third-shift pilots. He looked around, and saw Lieutenant Oteo standing in the background, but Ensign Shinggu was nowhere to be seen. He did not like that.
"So let me see. Ensign Dammond got mad because he was losing at Lacustrine Fours, bad enough that he was willing to start a fight over it. I find that hard to believe. The thing about Lacustrine Fours is that it is hard to be trailing by a lot, to be really losing. A few good hands, and the person in last place is back in front. You can't trail by a lot in that game. In reality, there's only one way that you can be sure that you're losing at Lacustrine Fours and you have no hope."
"And what is that, sir?" Mennard asked. He sounded a little nervous.
Dammond blurted out, "By cheating!"
"That's one way of putting it."
"He's got no proof of the accusations he's making," Mennard replied.
By now, Hall was getting the feeling that Mennard had allegedly done something that offended the other man and prompted him to start a fight. He turned to the ship services officer and asked, "Okay, lets hear it from your end. What did he do?"
"He was cheating."
With emphasis in his voice, Hall asked, "How was he cheating?"
Dammond took his time to compose his thoughts and explain what he believed to be the underhanded play of the impulse engineer. Mennard took the opportunity to blurt out, "Go ahead, Kyle, and test your ability to create fiction!"
That prompted the man to speak. "He was sitting across from Yvette. I know those two have been seeing each other lately, and they were passing information back and forth, to determine which cards to play. They were basically trying to gang up on me."
"How? I assume that they were not simply speaking out, either directly or in a code or some foreign language?" Hall asked.
"No. They were tapping feet. It was quite obvious."
"Really?" Mennard started. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of. Do you realize how complicated it would be to pass information like that by playing footsies with the person across from me? Why would we spend so much time to come up with a... system like that just for the occasional game of Lacustrine Fours?"
This time, Dammond had the immediate reply, "Because we've all got so much time on our hands and not all that much to do with it. Finding ways to cheat at cards or other games is a time-honoured tradition in the fleet. I've seen it."
"Honestly," Mennard continued, "I've got better things to do than that. Besides, if we had this sophisticated system, how come we lost yesterday, and the day before? You're suggesting that in one day, we came up with this system?"
In all likelihood, Hall realized, the two officers might have just been playing with each other's feet. Just the thought brought back long-ago memories when he and Hannah were still dating, still getting to know each other, and they engaged in such innocent play. Dammond could well have been on the edge because of the stress of this long journey. The excuse might not have been too important, but there was one facet of this that was. "Okay," the captain stared. "I can't tell if there was any cheating going on or not. Given what I know about this card game--and I'm no expert--passing along information on cards one has to another player is not too useful, unless you know what the player in the middle has. Maybe there was some cheating here, or maybe not. The question is, who started the actual fight? Ensign Dammond, did you attempt to back up your accusations of cheating by throwing the first punch."
"No, sir," the man admitted.
"Then who threw the first punch."
"Ensign Mennard, sir. He said he was going to come over and shut me up with my so-called accusations of cheating."
Turning to the other man, the captain asked, "Is that true, ensign?"
"Half is, sir. I admit I threw the first punch, but he would not stop yelling at me, and he kept saying that I was cheating. His language started to get foul, too."
Dammond blurted out, "Yeah, right. You came right across the table--you lunged across the table instead of coming around--with murderous intent in your eyes."
"That's quite enough, from both of you," Hall started, rising his voice just slightly. "Remember this, you're both Starfleet officers. You're supposed to be made of sterner stuff than this. I know that this is a long journey, and we're inside this ship for a long time, but we're supposed to be able to do this. I'm disappointed that you two came to blows over a trivial matter, whether it was cheating or accusations of cheating. It was only a card game--and I surely hope that is all it was. Now, as punishment, you're both being confined to quarters until your next duty shift, and I'll see to it that you two also get to pull some extra shifts. Clearly, you have too much time on your hands. Dismissed."
With those words, not only did Dammond and Mennard leave, escorted by Quirk's security people through different exits, but many of the others left the mess hall as well.
* * *
Captain Hall stood in the observation lounge on deck four, right at the front of the ship and just below the forward docking port and gangway. Large transparent aluminum portals looked out into space, but the view was not something that mankind was accustomed to. Hall heard the doors to the room slide open, and he turned in time to see his first officer enter. She seemed to be developing a knack for tracking him down, he thought. "What brings you here, Mary?" he asked.
The first officer did not immediately answer the question. Instead, she stood about a metre back and looked through the portal too. She saw what looked like distorted bands of light in various hues, spread out in front of her and roughly mimicking the shape of the warpfield around the Atlas. "What is the appeal for looking at this view of space?"
"Oh, just to note the contrast in the appearance of space as seen through the viewscreen. This is the more realistic view."
"Not exactly, sir. The photons outside the warpfield have been so shifted that the laws of physics cannot adequately describe them. What we see is the effect of the photons being destroyed by the warpfield. The red bands," she added, as some reddish-purple lights flickered across the field of view, "is starlight we're overtaking. The blue bands--"
Hall cut in, "I'm quite aware of why I'm seeing what I see. The idea is... this view is what is real, more real than the viewscreen anyway, and it almost makes it look like we're... somewhere else. We can't even look out the windows to see what's there." A flash of white streaked across the field of view. That was a dust mote or something tiny that the deflectors missed and which was destroyed by the warpfield. "It's almost symbolic of what we've experienced on board the ship. The vessel is large, and we all have a lot of space, and yet... it must be the feeling that we're so far away from home."
"None of us have ever attempted this before," Abuna started. "Mankind has never undertaken a journey this long. I'm sure there are examples of people being in a small, enclosed space for a prolonged period of time, like on old-time nuclear submarines, but even they surfaced once in a while and let the crew breathe fresh air and see the sun. They always had that option. We don't have it so readily."
"You're suggesting that we stop, if only to stretch our legs on a planet surface?"
"Well," the first officer continued, "I've heard what happened in the mess hall. It appears that both of them snapped. One snapped because he thought the other was cheating, and the other snapped because he was being accused of cheating. The ship has been running so well that the crew really does have too little to do. I almost think those old-time cryogenic chambers might not have been a bad idea. You did say that the crew still needed some training, some ability to handle planetside missions. This might be a time to check."
"Personally," Hall started, "I wish for some more discipline among the crew. It was there during the Romulan War, when we did spend months on a starship."
"And we've spent two months on this one. We need a change of pace."
Hall knew that what Abuna was saying was true. They did need to stop, but he just found it hard to agree with his first officer. He did not know why he felt that way, since the first officer was supposed to offer advice and suggestions. He just hated to have the idea come from the mouth of his first officer. He could not let his feelings towards her--professional feelings, perhaps a sense of competition--influence how he dealt with the rest of the crew. "I'll keep that under consideration," Hall finally said.
Part 1,Part 2,Part 3,Part 4,Part 5,Part 6,Part 7,Part 8,Part 9,Part 10,Part 11,Part 12,Part 13,Part 14
"Flag At the Edge of Space" page, Athena Home Page, Other Stories Home Page.
