Star Trek - TOS - 04 by The Covenant of the Crown

Author:The Covenant of the Crown [Crown, The Covenant of the]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2010-08-07T14:09:40.797000+00:00

If there existed a common anxiety among good commanders, it was the fear of being out of command. Though experts weren�t able to reliably pigeonhole people the way they could the properties of biology and physics, command of people was still a science of sorts. At least, the approach had to be scientific and orderly�control as many variables as possible, and command became that much simpler. Nars was such a variable, and the moment he sparkled out of the transporter chamber, he was free of Kirk�s grasp. That thought brought a furrow to Kirk�s brow as he sat with Lieutenant Byrnes in the lounge, staring at a cup of tea. Transporter Chief Kyle informed them of the beam-down. �Well, Byrnes,� said Kirk, �it�s up to you and Chekov.� �Yes, sir.� She left, and Kirk stirred the tea absently. Then he looked down at the cup. He stopped stirring, and the tea continued to circle the cup without his assistance. Control sure is hard to come by, he thought.

Nars swirled the sickly greenish drink around the tumbler in his hand. He looked up at the clock over the bar, then took a sip. It was the only watering place in town, but it was still too early in the afternoon for the local farmers and laborers and artisans to be drifting in. It was also too early for his meeting, but he was nervous, too nervous to drink any more. He left a coin on the counter and headed outside. Treaton had only one main street, and it looked much as it had the last time Nars had walked it twenty-five years before. There had been little growth in any part of Zenna, none since the tridenite shortage began in the last decade. The government could have turned to other power sources in its effort to industrialize, but the Zennans were patient, loyal folk. They had struck a fair bargain with Shad�s ore traders, and they would wait to see how the war ended. If the King�s Loyalists won, tridenite would again be available available. If the Mohd Alliance won, and tridenite remained embargoed, only then would Zenna seek out an alternative. Zennans avoided urgency; the future would always be there and they were in no hurry to overtake it. The bird catches its prey, eats it,and it is gone, went a native proverb. And what then is left? The same brightly painted, high-gabled houses that Nars remembered lined the street, and the residents wore gaily striped togas identical to the ones their parents had worn. Change was not an important process, and life as a whole was easy on Zenna Four. Here in Treaton, the seat of provincial government, strangers were hailed as neighbors by every citizen who passed by. Immigration statutes were as lax as any in the known galaxy, making outworlders like Nars quite commonplace. It was rather easy to pick out a foreigner�very few Zennans surpassed five feet in height, and skin colors ranged from pale pink to bright orange-red.

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