Star Trek - NF - 12 - Being Human Page 12

  "My brother was not mad... not in the traditional sense, the sense that you would understand. But he was desperate... and despondent. As I told you, he had the most worshippers, so the loss of them as your people 'matured' hit him the hardest. He would sit there in his home on Pollux IV, brooding and frustrated. Believe it or not, Captain-all of you-my people truly did have other interests to pursue. There is a galaxy of life out there, and many ways for our people to divert ourselves."

  "Your people. What precisely are 'your people'?" asked Soleta.

  That seemed to perk Artemis up as she warmed to the subject. "The name we use for ourselves... you would not be able to pronounce it. Think of us simply as 'the Beings.'"

  "And you formed the basis for Greco-Roman myths?"

  "More than that, actually, my dear captain. My beloved brother was actually somewhat modest. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse... our people, my people, were the basis for all of them. Some even 'played' mul-tiple roles. For instance, we have one among our num-ber: Loki. Perhaps you have heard of him."

  Soleta nodded. "A giant and a shapeshifter in Norse mythology. Associated with trickery."

  "Yes. Except the frozen north truly was frozen, and Loki enjoyed getting away from that territory during the height of winter. So at those times he would roam the American West. There he became known as the coyote god. He adopted other personas in other regions. Per-

  haps I will introduce you. I suspect you might well get along with one another... for I believe, Captain, that you can be a very tricky man."

  "I prefer the term 'resourceful.' "

  "As you wish," she said lazily. She rose from her chair and began to walk in leisurely fashion around the conference lounge. She didn't appear to walk so much as glide, each move suffused with sensuality. Calhoun found it impossible to tear his gaze away from her looks. There was something incredibly captivating about her beauty... and yet, although he wasn't certain why, it seemed... off somehow.

  "In any event, my beloved brother always had an ap-preciation for the... dramatic, shall we say. He told your Captain Kirk heart-wrenching tales of how we," and she said it in a breathless manner to heighten the drama, drap-ing her arm across her forehead like a bad actress, "how each of us, despondent over not being worshipped, spread ourselves onto the winds of nothingness and vanished."

  "And that wasn't true?" asked Calhoun.

  She dropped the overacting poise and smiled. "It was true as far as it went. We did depart. But it wasn't out of ennui or depression. We were just tired of Apollo. Of his endless moping about and waiting for humanity to climb into space-going vessels and come out and find us again. Earth was an entertaining dalliance, to be sure, but hardly the be-all and end-all of an immortal being's soul. Let's be realistic, after all. We moved on to our business... and left Apollo to his. Ultimately, he chose the way out that he had originally ascribed to us. That was his choice. I..." She hesitated, and for a moment

  her pomposity wavered. "I... do miss him. I wish he had not allowed himself to dissipate. But it was his choice, and I am afraid I have no option before me save to accept it."

  "You are too perfect," Selar said abruptly.

  Artemis turned to face her, her head cocked slightly as if in thought. "How charming for you to say that."

  "I mean that literally," said Selar, snapping closed her medical tricorder. "Your face, your body, are perfectly symmetrical. That does not exist in nature. There are al-ways some minor variances. But not in your physiog-nomy. The left side of your face is identical to the right; the rest of your body follows suit, as near as I can deter-mine. It suggests that what we are seeing of you... is a construct of some sort. Not your real appearance."

  Calhoun noticed Soleta appearing to react to that statement, as if it crystallized something she was al-ready pondering. But Artemis, for her part, only seemed amused as she looked Selar up and down.

  "My 'real appearance.' As if embellishing one's ap-pearance is somehow limited to me. Your 'real ap-pearance,' Dr. Selar, is obscured by carefully groomed hair... by makeup... by clothing. I do not see you volunteering to appear relatively naked and honest to your fellow crewmen. Nor do you see me carping about that decision. If you, a mortal, are to be allowed your in-dulgences, then please be so kind as to allow a goddess hers."

  "You," Selar replied, looking unimpressed, "are not a goddess."

  "Met many for comparison, have you?"

  Suddenly Selar's tricorder was no longer in her hand, but instead in Artemis'. She was turning it over and over, studying it with great interest. Immediately the doctor started to get up from her chair to take it back, but Calhoun stopped her with a crisp, "Sit down, Doc-tor. Artemis... return that to Dr. Selar. Now."

  McHenry stiffened, as if concerned that Artemis was going to lash out at Calhoun for the tone of his voice. In-stead Artemis simply smiled... and then her hands flexed. There was a sharp crack, a crumbling, and just like that the tricorder was shattered shards in her palms. Bring-ing her hands forward carefully, she allowed the pieces to slide out from between them, collecting as a small pile of useless rubble on the table in front of Selar. "As you wish, Captain," she said, looking quite pleased with herself.

  "That was unnecessary," Calhoun said.

  She ignored him and continued speaking as if Selar had never interrupted her. "I will admit that Apollo's de-cision hit all of us quite hard. I'll never forget his pathetic, tragic 'Take me' as he allowed himself to dis-corporate. A number of our kind were so distraught by his decision that they followed suit. I very seriously con-sidered it."

  "Followed suit. Died, you mean."

  "Captain," she laughed, "we cannot die. We are crea-tures 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 con-sciousness 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, Bal-dur... 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 de-cided 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 dom-ineeringly. "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, Cap-tain?" asked McHenry.

  "I doubt it would readily slip my mind," Calhoun ad-mitted. "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 com-plaints fro
m 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 en-counter 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. Appar-ently... 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 phys-ical 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 re-laying a log entry from a century ago. The doctor voiced some concern, claiming that his sickbay was not de-signed 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 assign-ment 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 attri-butes, 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 god-head 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 great-great-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 McHemy could read his mind, and he didn't want them to per-ceive him as actively plotting against them.

  "The godhead," McHenry sighed.

  Soleta leaned forward, and despite her Vulcan re-serve, 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, star-tled 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 discus-sion. "Keep in mind, there were four generations between myself and my... my great-great-great-grandfather. 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 rela-tionship, 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 partic-ular 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 mo-ment, 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 po-tential' 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 intermedi-ary, 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 go-between 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 bis 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 bet-ter 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 then-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 at-tempt 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."