Doctor's Orders by Diane Duane

Author:Diane Duane [Duane, Diane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 9780671661892
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1990-06-13T23:00:00+00:00

"What I do not understand," said the Master, "is why these Orion beings feel it necessary to kill our people as they have been doing.

Surely they could take what they desire and depart unharmed. There are many parts of this world with the same plants, the same earth, but where none of us lives."

"Sir, sometimes people like that just like killing. It's a game to them. Or else they see it as fumigation .

. . cleaning an inconvenient infestation off a world so they can more easily exploit it." Kirk's mouth set in a straight hard line. "The Orion pirates have done that often enough before. Early on in their history, they sometimes destroyed whole inhabited planets simply because they weren't economically viable . . . then us ed the fragments to build Dyson spheres and populate the increased areas with slave labor. In a way, they did us a favor . . . their behavior so disgusted a lot of worlds that the profit motive went out of style. There are a few holdouts, here and there.

But the pirates . . . I think they just like to kill."

The Master rumbled, a low slow sound that would have made Kirk very nervous if he had thought it was being directed at him. "I would tend to agree with you," it said.

Kirk stood up and started to pace slowly back and forth among the flowers. "But you've told me that you

can exist in other times. That's a tremendous advantage, or it should be. If you can exist in the future, why can't you perceive the pirates coming, and act to keep your people away from them? Or find some way to stop them?"

Kirk got a sense of profound regret from the Master. "Don't you think we would if we could?" it said. "We can exist in the future, but we cannot act on it or in it without withdrawing our presence from present and past. We would have to live permanently in the future, our own future, so that we might warn ourselves in the present of any danger. To do so would be to give up life in the present, forever."

Kirk thought about that for a moment. "I guess living in the future wouldn't be any more healthy than living in the past," he said. "You're right. There must be some other way."

"It is hard for us," the Master said. "We are prepared to do that if we must. We are, in our way, the guardians of the Ornae and Lahit. They share our perception of time, but not the wider view; they can live in past and present and future, but in only one at a time . .

. not all at once. They are innocents, with their own concerns-mostly one another, discovering their differences and likenesses. There are many."

"There certainly are," Kirk said.

"That's partly what brought us here-we know of no other place where three species so different all evolved together."

The Master seemed gently amused by that.

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