Being Human Page 12

  “That was unnecessary,” Calhoun said.

  She ignored him and continued speaking as if Selar had never interrupted her. “I will admit that Apollo’s decision hit all of us quite hard. I’ll never forget his pathetic, tragic ‘Take me’ as he allowed himself to discorporate. A number of our kind were so distraught by his decision that they followed suit. I very seriously considered it.”

  “Followed suit. Died, you mean.”

  “Captain,” she laughed, “we cannot die. We are creatures of energy. So are all creatures, really, except to much lesser degrees. We can, if we are so inclined, and if we tire of our existence, discorporate ourselves as Apollo did. Spread ourselves so thin that we lose consciousness of ourselves, awareness of our very being. We become . . . one with the universe, for lack of a less pretentious phrase. Apollo chose that route. So did some others. Ultimately,” and she stopped walking nearby McHenry, resting a hand on the back of his neck. “I opted to go on. As did Ra, Anubis, Thor, Loki, Baldur . . . and some . . . others . . .”

  The way she hesitated immediately fired Calhoun’s suspicions. She was keeping something back. He wasn’t sure what, though. It might be nothing . . . or it might be something that could be tremendously useful. He decided that now was the time to press the matter. “All right,” he said abruptly. “You got our attention. With those energy emissions in this sector, you drew us here. I assume that was your goal.”

  “All along, yes.”

  “Why? What do you want?”

  “Why, Captain . . . isn’t it obvious?” She smiled, leaned down and kissed McHenry on the cheek. “We want our beloved Marcus.”

  “ ‘Beloved’?” McHenry said, turning to look up at her. “Artemis, in case you’ve forgotten, our association ended previously because you tried to kill me!”

  “A trifling matter,” she sniffed, waving her hand domineeringly. “A misunderstanding, long forgotten.”

  “Not by me! You don’t forget it when a goddess tries to kill you. Would you forget something like that, Captain?” asked McHenry.

  “I doubt it would readily slip my mind,” Calhoun admitted. “But why Marcus . . . McHenry? Why would he be of interest to you?”

  Artemis didn’t answer immediately. Instead she looked to McHenry, her perfect arms folded across her equally perfect breasts. “Because,” she said simply, “Marcus is my lover. What woman, goddess or no, is not deserving of her lover.”

  “My understanding,” said Soleta dryly, “is that Artemis was a virgin goddess, disdaining such things as physical love.”

  She flashed her perfect teeth. “That’s why they call it ‘myth,’ dear. Don’t believe everything you read.”

  “But why McHenry?” Burgoyne said. “What is there about him, of all people, that would attract a goddess to him? I mean, he’s . . . he’s just McHenry . . .”

  “Hey!” snapped McHenry. “I never heard any complaints from you, Burgy.”

  “It’s not about that —”

  “All right, that’s enough,” said Calhoun. “It’s a fair question. A tactless one,” he acknowledged, seeing McHenry’s expression, “but a fair question nonetheless. Why the interest in McHenry?”

  There was a pointed silence then. “Marcus,” said Artemis, nudging his shoulder, “I believe your captain asked you a question.”

  McHenry looked at her in a manner that was hardly loving. Then he studied the faces of all those around him. Calhoun saw that they were regarding McHenry in a manner that was more evocative of studying some sort of unusual microorganism than someone who had served faithfully at their sides.

  When he did finally speak, he didn’t sound remotely like the McHenry that Calhoun had known for so long. His voice was flat and sad and filled with foreboding, as if he knew that his next words would change, for all time, the way that others perceived him. “Soleta,” he said slowly, “when you were researching the Kirk encounter with Apollo . . . did you happen to come across the name of Carolyn Palamas?”

  Soleta nodded. “An archaeologist and anthropologist on the Enterprise. According to the log description, Apollo became somewhat enamored of her. Apparently . . . too enamored.”

  “Meaning?” asked Calhoun, although he had a funny feeling where this was going.

  “The log of the Enterprise CMO indicates that Palamas became pregnant as a result of her encounter with Apollo.”

  “Pregnant?” said Selar. “From the readings I garnered before my tricorder encountered its mishap,” and she gave a severe look to Artemis . . . who clearly could not have cared less . . . before continuing, “if Apollo’s physical makeup was anything like his sister’s, then such a thing should not have been possible.”

  “I am not arguing with you, Doctor. I am simply relaying a log entry from a century ago. The doctor voiced some concern, claiming that his sickbay was not designed for delivering infant gods. As it happened, he needn’t have worried. Palamas transferred off the ship during her first trimester. There’s no further log entry on her. I could do further research . . .”

  But then McHenry began to speak. He did so very slowly and deliberately, as if he were addressing them from outside himself. “Carolyn Palamas took an assignment in an archaeological dig on Camus II. She gave birth to the child there—a little girl, named Athena, as a matter of fact. Feeling that a dig was no place to raise a child, Athena was sent to live with Carolyn’s sister while Carolyn intended to finish out the dig assignment and then resign from Starfleet. Instead, there was some . . . unpleasantness on Camus II some months later, and all but two people at the dig site died. Carolyn was not one of the two survivors, unfortunately.

  “Athena was subject to scrutiny from Starfleet medical for quite some time, but she displayed no . . . godly attributes, shall we say,” continued McHenry. “They ultimately decided that whatever powers or abilities Apollo may have possessed, they were not transferred to his daughter.”

  At that, Artemis laughed. “Foolishness,” she said with disdain. “As if any woman could experience the godhead and not be forever changed.”

  As if she hadn’t spoken, McHenry went on in that same distant manner. “Athena grew up . . . had a child, another little girl . . . who grew up, had a daughter of her own, who in turn had a lovely daughter by the name of Sheila. All girls, as you may have noticed, and all only children. All of them normal . . . at least, on the surface. And then Sheila gave birth to a little boy, whom she named,” and he winced, “Marcus. And Marcus, he had a Y chromosome, which was something that his mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and greatgreat-grandmother didn’t have. And guess what was carried on that Y chromosome?”

  “The godhead,” said Calhoun, who suddenly felt an impulse to back out of the room very slowly, relocate the entire crew to the rear of the ship, and fire the saucer section with McHenry on it off into space. He quickly put it out of his mind, since naturally he wasn’t serious about it . . . plus, for all he knew, Artemis or McHenry could read his mind, and he didn’t want them to perceive him as actively plotting against them.

  “The godhead,” McHenry sighed.

  Soleta leaned forward, and despite her Vulcan reserve, there was no hiding the incredulity on her face. Calhoun wasn’t surprised; she’d come up through the Academy with McHenry. Suddenly she was discovering that her classmate was not remotely who—or even what—she had always thought. “Mark,” she said, startled into informality, “are you saying that . . . that you have the powers of Apollo? Of a god?”

  “No, no . . . well . . . not exactly . . . I mean, not bolts of energy and things like that . . .” He was sounding more and more uncomfortable with the whole discussion. “Keep in mind, there were four generations between myself and my . . . my great-great-greatgrandfather. Things changed . . . got watered down . . . or . . . well . . .”

  “We knew at an early age that he was special,” said Artemis. She had now taken her seat once more, taking McHenry’s hand in hers. “I took a particular interest in him. I knew he had potential
. I knew that, once he was old enough, he would be mine.”

  “That,” noted Selar, “is a somewhat incestuous relationship, you understand. According to what you are telling us, he is a direct descendant of your own sibling.”

  “Zeus and Hera were brother and sister, offspring of the Titans Chronus and Rhea,” Artemis noted. “So what would your point be, precisely?”

  McHenry stepped in before Selar could reply. “When she first showed up, I was young . . . three, fours years old, something like that. I saw her. No one else did.”

  “He called me ‘Missy’ instead of Artemis. Wasn’t that sweet?”

  “Adorable,” rumbled Kebron.

  “There were some . . . problems when I got a bit older,” McHenry said, looking even more uncomfortable than he did before, if such a thing were possible. “My father proved . . . unable to handle the situation, after one particular incident. He left when I was eight. My mother . . . she stayed, but . . . well . . . she never hugged me. Or touched me. Or came near me if she could help it.”

  “What happened to cause that?”

  “If it’s all the same to you, Captain . . . I’d rather not go into it,” said McHenry. Calhoun paused a moment, then nodded. “In any event, I got older . . . and as I got older, Artemis became a greater and greater force in my life. We became . . .” He cleared his throat. “. . . friendly . . . to understate it . . .”

  “A gross understatement,” Artemis said. Calhoun saw Burgoyne make a face of barely repressed disgust.

  “However, in later years . . . we had a falling-out. I had decided to head off to Starfleet Academy, and Artemis strongly disagreed. We had an argument. Big argument. She tried to kill me . . .”

  “My loving Marcus,” she said, running a finger under his chin, “if I had been trying to kill you, you would be dead. Your recollection of your youth distorts matters out of all proportion.”

  “All proportion!” McHenry responded. “You blew up my house!”

  “What matter such mundane trappings to beings such as we?”

  “I’m not one of you! I don’t care what you say! For one thing, I’m not crazy enough and I’m not dangerous enough!”

  “Don’t underestimate yourself,” Kebron said.

  Calhoun did not need to hear comments such as that. “Save it, Lieutenant. McHenry . . . what did you have a ‘falling-out’ about?”

  “Artemis felt as if I was not living up to my ‘full potential’ by dedicating my life to Starfleet.”

  “And what would full potential be?”

  “Why,” she said, as if it should have been the most self-evident thing in the world, “to act as an intermediary, of course.”

  There were puzzled looks from all around. “A what?” asked Calhoun.

  “An intermediary,” Artemis repeated, as if the world were in some sort of alien tongue. “A diplomatic gobetween for ourselves and the rest of the Federation. You see, one of our number . . . one of our greatest, the mighty Zeus himself . . . has foreseen that we are going to help your Federation achieve a golden age.”

  “A golden age. I see.”

  “You sound skeptical.”

  Calhoun leaned back in his chair. “I am, to be candid. Some of the greatest tyrants and despots in history have announced that their intention is to make things far better than they were.”

  “Which makes sense,” said Burgoyne. “Who is going to attract followers by announcing that they’re going to subjugate everyone except a select handful, or run their resources and economies into the ground?”

  “Nevertheless, Zeus has foreseen it.”

  “And why is Zeus not here, then?”

  “Because I am,” Artemis said easily, once again adopting a tone that indicated to Calhoun there were things she was not saying. “However, our concern was that if we simply stepped in, with all our power and presence and majesty, your reaction would not be what we desired it to be. Some of you would accept . . . yes. But others, such as the notorious Kirk did, would attempt to dismiss us out of hand. We have no desire to be dismissed. It will benefit neither you nor us. So it was our desire to have a spokesman for us . . . one who straddled both worlds. My brethren and I decided it was only fitting that Marcus, the last descendant of my beloved brother, be that spokesman.”

  “Why?” It was Kebron who had spoken.

  She looked at him, clearly finding him to be the most curious-looking of the motley assortment before her. “Why what, large one?”

  “Why do you care? About us? About this golden age? What . . . is in it for you?” he said.

  Artemis appeared dismayed that he even had to ask. “Why . . . is it not evident?”

  “Not readily,” admitted Calhoun.

  She slapped her hands on the table in dismay. “Is chivalry completely dead in your society? Is charity, loving-kindness, truly a thing of the past? We wish to help you . . . because we care about humanity. We were there, after all, for when it made its first forays into culture . . . the arts . . . theater . . . elevated thought. Those things occurred largely because we were there to facilitate it. Think what could be achieved now!”

  “As others have noted,” Calhoun said, “there’s no one in this room who is actually a human being with the exception of Lieutenant McHenry . . .”

  “Jury is still out on that,” mumbled Kebron.

  Calhoun ignored the comment and continued, “. . . and all of our races—Xenexians, Vulcans, Brikars, Hermats—we all managed to reach the same levels of ‘civilization’ as humanity achieved without the help of such elevated and lofty beings as yourselves.”

  And Artemis leaned forward, fixing her devastating eyes upon Calhoun, and she said very softly, “Are you quite certain of that? Would you be willing to bet your life on that assumption? Because you might be surprised at the outcome.”

  Calhoun could think of nothing to say to that. He found that lack of response disturbing.

  “We wish to help,” continued Artemis, “because that is what we do. We are an altruistic race. We have seen how far the Federation has come . . . but we also are able to perceive that you have all come just so far, but will be able to proceed no further. You have leveled off, as it were. Reached a sort of evolutionary plateau in your collective development as a species, as a society. We are prepared to help you now to reach the next level. I do not pretend,” she laughed, “that you will be able to reach our level. The level of a race so advanced that—”

  “That your most famous member committed suicide since he lacked adulation from others,” Kebron said.

  Calhoun felt it again . . . that same dangerous sizzling in the air, as if power were being forcibly contained, lest it lash out in all directions. Like a gathering storm, Artemis turned and looked at Kebron.

  “If you say another insulting word about my brother,” she said, in a voice flat and devoid of emotion, “I will hurt you. I will hurt you more than you thought possible. I will hurt you in ways you cannot imagine. And if you should ever have a loved one . . . I will hurt her. Children? I will hurt them. Their children? They will be hurt as well. Insult Apollo, and on your deathbed you will look back to this moment to consider the day that you single-handedly brought a curse down upon your house. Consider your next observation wisely, Brikar, for the well-being of those not yet born who will bear your name hinges upon it.”

  Kebron said nothing.

  “You are wise beyond your years,” Artemis informed him.

  Calhoun sensed the energy buildup subsiding, but was still not pleased about what had just occurred. “I do not appreciate having my officers threatened,” he said.

  “Then tell them they would be well-advised to consider their words carefully when addressing the Beings,” she said. She looked around the table at them with an attitude of pure smug superiority. “In some ways, Captain, we have grown closer, your species and I. Early humanity—primitive by any standards—could only frame us as gods in their minds. Since science was a barely spawned discipline, there were no scient
ific means to explain us. We were, to them, beings of magic: inexplicable, incomprehensible. Now, though, you have a closer understanding of who and what we are. That is acceptable as far as it goes. But there is the old saying, Captain, that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Do not for a moment think that, because you know us better, you know us completely. Do not allow familiarity to breed contempt, for I assure you that if you act in a manner with me and my kin that is overfamiliar, it will instead breed disaster. Considering what we are capable of offering you, that would be most unfortunate.”

  “Artemis,” said McHenry, “this is ridiculous. How can you possibly think to bring about this ‘golden age’ you keep talking about? We meet about it for the first time and already you’re threatening people. You’re threatening my friends.”

  “I was your friend before any of these people knew you, Marcus,” she reminded him, her eyes flashing. “They insulted me. Certainly that must count for something.” Then she touched him once more on the shoulder, and he jumped slightly as if there was electricity in her fingertips. “As for how the golden age will come about, have you forgotten? That will be your job. To act as intermediary on our behalf, to set the stage for us. You will be our avatar, our standardbearer, our herald. You will be the angel of light who will guide your people through the night to the new dawn.”

  “Very high-flown and impressive words,” Calhoun said. “So tell me, Mr. McHenry: Are you accepting this offer? Apparently you’ve had some time to dwell on it: since before Starfleet Academy, if we’re to believe Artemis. Is that what you want to do with the rest of your life? Serve as spokesman for the Beings?”