Star Trek: The Galactic Whirlpool by David Gerrold

Author:David Gerrold
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Trek, Fiction
ISBN: 9780553241709
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 1980-01-02T08:00:00+00:00

18

The elevator door whooshed open. The girl stepped onto the bridge with wide eyes. She was flanked by Kirk and McCoy. Spock followed discreetly. “This,” said Captain Kirk, “is the nerve center of my ship.”

“Is taught-excuse me. We’re taught that there is only one ship. The Ship. There are … legends, stories of the old days-and pictures-” She lapsed into silence, brooding over something, t hen abruptly said, “-but nobody ever really believed those stories. They were-fantasy. They didn’t have anything to do with real life. And-even if they did-none of us are going to live long enough to see Journey’s End. So, the whole question of-planets and starsis, oh, I don’t know word. Is sorry. Is difficult. I not actor. Not able do-to do this.”

“It’s alright. I think we get the idea. You’re more-that is, you communicate more than you think you do.” Kirk took her by the hand and led her to the Captain’s chair. “Now, you stand here and look forward at that big screen. Mr. Sulu?”

The helmsman touched a control on his panel and the forward viewscreen lit up.

“Is stars?”

“Yes,” nodded Kirk. “Those are stars.”

“Is pictures. I see pictures of stars at home. We have stars too. One year, I serve on crew to replace burned-out stars in ceilings. Is important job.”

“Uh, I can believe it-but these are different. These are real stars. Your lights are only imi-um, your lights are simulation stars, meant to look like the real things.”

She weighed the statement. “But-stories all say that real stars are big-“

“Yes, they are-“

“But these stars are small-“

“-but that’s because they’re so far away that they look small.”

She turned to stare at him incredulously. This is logic?

“Captain?” said Spock. “This girl has lived all of her life in an environment where the farthest object that she has ever seen has been only fifty meters away. If that.”

Kirk understood. He turned to Sulu again. “Helmsman, do you have something appropriate from the library?”

“Coming right up, Captain.” He touched the keyboard in front of him, looked at the screen, then touched again. The image on the forward screen scrambled, then cleared to show the surface of Capella, the red giant, as seen from a close-approach satellite. A seething, churning inferno. A vast boiling surface of tortured light.

The girl shrank back in fear from the screen-then realizing it was only an image, and nobody else was demonstrating anxiety, she stiffened her resolve and stared at the screen again, her nervousness diminished. After a moment, the image shrank to a pinpoint.

“And that’s what a star looks like from far away,” said Kirk.

“But there are so many of them-,” she said. “How is that possible?”

“There are more stars than you can imagine,” Kirk said to her. “I can’t begin to show you how full of light the sky is-but I’d like to try.”

She looked at him oddly. “Is what?”

Kirk said, “I would like to show you the stars.”

“Is showing now-” Her face was perplexed. “Is showing, yes?”

“I meant-I would like to show you from the surface of a planet, someday.

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