Home Is the Hunter Page 12

  After dinner the girl, whose name was Megan, rummaged through the baskets that held her worldly goods. She pulled out two large woolen kilts, hand woven by herself, no doubt, and presented them to Scott and Seamus.

  "Here, take these, and burn those Sassenach rags," she said, with a cold rage. "And there is more," she continued. She dropped to her knees, scrabbling at the dirt floor. Scotty was the first to see what she was doing, and he took down the iron pot hook to use as a tool in the excavation.

  Before long Scott and Seamus had uncovered an old box covered with the dust of a generation of men and the cobwebs of dozens of generations of spiders. Scott hauled it up, squinting and coughing as he brushed off the top.

  Megan caressed the lid, then got to work prying it open. Inside the chest, reverently wrapped in an ancient plaid and tied with sturdy twine, were two fine Claidheamh beag, the basket-hilted broadsword of the highlands.

  "These were my father's and his brother's. They were hidden after the rebellion in 'fifteen. I would to God that they had not been under the ground, for if they had been in my father and brother's hands, they might not be now under the ground. Take them," she said passionately, forcing them on the two men. "Take them and fight for the clans in my family's stead."

  "I'll not dishonor his blade. I'll fight the enemy with heart and soul and flesh, before Mary and all the saints I will," Seamus swore.

  Scott looked at the girl. "I'll fight as I have to," he said. "But I'm not a young firebrand like Seamus here. I must admit to you, lass—I hope I don't have to raise my arm in combat any too soon."

  And from outside came the shout of a voice with a clipped, annoyed British accent.

  "Come out here! We know you're in there! You left a trail a blind man could follow. Come out here and, instead of savages, die like the men you would pretend to be!"

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Stalingrad, 1942

  "I'LL FLY LEFT SEAT if you want," Chekov said, offering to pilot the craft and dredging up a term he remembered from historical novels about the ancient war. John Kirk turned to look at him with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

  "Should have known you were a fly boy. Too crazy to be anything else. Let's go. I'll fly left. You copilot. Where are we flying?" he asked as they scrambled onto the flight deck. Russian soldiers were already there. Ivan hadn't been kidding when he said they wanted to get the transport. It had been made one of their priorities, obviously. The ground crew was doing its best to prepare for takeoff, as the partisans who chose to leave piled on board. The rest ran off to provide ground cover from any German forces, although the most serious danger was from friendly fire.

  "Over the Volga, east of Stalingrad. There's an airstrip," said Kirk. "Trust me on that. I was ferrying lend-lease P-39s when I was shot down, so I know what I'm talking about. We can fly visual. I'll point it out. You gonna make it, Chekov?"

  "Easily," replied Chekov. Yet for all his apparent cockiness, Chekov was in a cold sweat at the prospect of copiloting the strange aircraft and of risking not only his life, but that of the young Kirk, over the war zone.

  "You'd also better get on the radio and start talking in Russian. I don't think that your people are going to take kindly to this thing in their airspace. Flaps," he snapped, beginning a very quick checklist.

  "Flaps," Chekov echoed.

  Soon the ground crew was aboard, the propellers an invisible blur. The great plane started to roll forward, and suddenly Chekov heard from the back, "Look!"

  There was a furious burst of arguing from the rear. Kirk said briskly to Chekov, "Settle them down. I'm not going to need distractions." Chekov immediately unbelted and dashed to the back, where men were grouped around the rear hatch. It was hanging half open.

  "Close the hatch!" Chekov ordered. "Are you crazy?"

  But one of the ground crew was pointing and saying, "Look! Look!"

  Chekov leaned out and his eyes widened.

  Ivan was madly running down the runway after them, his arms pumping, his mouth open and gasping.

  "Kirk!" shouted Chekov, finding it odd to be barking orders to someone with that name. "Slow down! Ivan's out there!"

  "If I slow down I might not make speed to clear the end of the runway," shouted back Kirk, but nevertheless he slowed down just a bit.

  Ivan was running like mad, and Chekov hung out of the hatch, extending his arm as far as he could. Ivan's legs were churning, his arms pumping. In his eyes, Chekov could see desperation.

  "Hurry!" shouted Chekov. "Hurry!"

  Suddenly Chekov heard machine-gun fire. Swinging in hard from the left came a jeep with a mounted machine gun. The bullets chewed up the runway behind Ivan, nipping at his heels.

  It was all the additional spur Ivan needed, and with an extra burst of speed, the Russian hurtled forward and leaped, desperately, almost with an air of resignation.

  Chekov's hand snared Ivan's wrist. "I've got him!" shouted Chekov. "I've—"

  The machine gun spat out death, and Chekov felt, in a rather distant way, some sort of pain. He saw Ivan's eyes widen in despair.

  He sensed, rather than saw, warmth on his right arm, and he refused to acknowledge it. Additional hands were grabbing him now, pulling him into the plane, and still he held onto Ivan's arm. His hand had closed around Ivan's wrist with a single-minded determination that would defy death itself.

  He tumbled back into the plane and felt a heavy weight on himself. Then he realized that it was Ivan.

  "Move!" shouted Chekov. "Move!"

  The hatch was slammed shut, and Chekov staggered forward as he heard the roar of the engines increase.

  Kirk glanced at him as he dropped into his seat, then did a double-take. "My God, you're hit!"

  Chekov glanced at his right shoulder. There was a huge ugly red blotch on his shoulder, spreading rapidly.

  "It's nothing," said Chekov briskly, ripping the sleeve off his left arm. "Do your job."

  The plane picked up speed, the chattering of the machine gun fading as the plane left them behind. Then Chekov saw, even as he made a makeshift tourniquet, that they were coming up fast, too fast, on a grove of trees at the end of the runway.

  "We going to make it?" he grunted, ignoring the dizziness.

  "Oh, we'll make it," said Kirk. "Don't you worry about a thing."

  He drew back on the stick, and the airplane started to rise into the air. Chekov gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm and the pounding in his head.

  The plane rumbled, rising higher and higher, vibrating with urgency. The trees were coming up fast, too fast.

  Chekov gripped the sides of his seat and risked a glance at Kirk. The American was grinning broadly and was whistling a tune of some kind …

  "What is that song?"

  "What, you've never heard 'Off We Go into the Wild Blue Yonder'?"

  The plane leaped with an additional burst of energy, the landing gear just clipping the top of the trees.

  John Kirk turned and looked at Chekov cheerfully. "So … how do you like my plan so far?"

  Chekov made no reply, but instead put all his concentration into not passing out.

  They climbed higher and higher. Chekov looked down at Stalingrad laid out below them, and felt more remote from it than ever before.

  Then he heard Kirk give a low oath. "Vat?" said Chekov in English, not really in the mood for surprises.

  "They clipped our fuel line," Kirk informed him. "We're losing fuel fast."

  "Ve going to make it to the airport?"

  "Either that or crash," Kirk told him. "Maybe both."

  "Oh good," said Chekov. "For a moment I thought ve vere in trouble."

  "Naaah," Kirk assured him, even as he watched the gauge drop precipitously. "You'd better get on the radio and start talking in Russian, or we will be in trouble."

  Chekov reached for the microphone and pain stabbed through his right arm. He bit his lower lip to prevent himself from crying out, and then reached around and picked up the mike with hi
s left arm. He risked a glance over at his tourniquet and saw that it didn't seem to be slowing the flow of blood very much.

  "Wonder how much fuel we'll have left when we get to the strip?" Kirk mused.

  Chekov was wondering the same thing about himself.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  MCCOY ENTERED Kirk's quarters to find his captain staring at the computer screen.

  "It seems we have a deadline," said McCoy briskly.

  "You're referring to the decaying orbit."

  "I'm not referring to an overdue library book," he replied, surprised at Kirk's calm. "Dammit, Jim, you have to do something."

  "I know," said Kirk slowly. "I know. And I know what. But that doesn't make it any easier."

  "You know what to do?!" said McCoy with amazement. "Then why don't you do it? What are you supposed to do, anyway?"

  "I've been reviewing the ship's automatic log of when the immortal Weyland took the wind from our sails." He turned the screen of the computer around to face McCoy. There was an image of the Enterprise bridge crew facing a screen on which the massive head of Weyland appeared. "The key to this is how he faced things. He said that we can stay here and rot. Not that we will. But that we can."

  McCoy frowned. "You're saying that he suggested that it's up to us."

  "That's right."

  "Even though he's the one who disabled us and left us floating around like a prize turkey."

  "To him," Kirk said slowly, "his reactions are being dictated by our own. He reacts to what we do. And there're things that we can do to make him react the way we want him to react. Every single thing he's said to us is in that same, cloaked manner. If we wish it. If we allow it. And I'm damned annoyed with myself that it took me this long to realize it."

  "Why do you think that is?"

  Kirk glanced at him. "Why do you think?"

  "Garrovick?"

  Kirk nodded. "There was something special about him, Bones. You said once he reminded me of myself. When he came aboard ship this time, I saw it more than ever. I saw myself." He paused and said softly, "I've told you about David."

  McCoy was surprised. Kirk had mentioned David to him only once, and that was when they were deep in their cups. Come the dawn, there had been an unspoken agreement between them not to mention it again. But now Kirk was bringing him up.

  "Yes," McCoy said cautiously.

  "He's nothing like me. He's …" Kirk made a vague gesture, "cerebral. A scientist, like his mother. The only thing that makes me certain I'm his father is Carol's word, and we agreed that I would stay away … or at least she agreed." Kirk shook his head. "Years of gallivanting around the galaxy, Bones, and then you start to realize that when you're gone, you've left nothing of yourself behind you. Some impact on an individual, something … that you can help shape. David is his mother's son. I had thought of myself as mentor of sorts to Garrovick—bringing him along, and then being able to take personal pride in his achievements in a way that I never will be able to with my own son."

  Kirk flexed his back muscles and winced. "I'm getting old, Bones. Maybe too old for this."

  "And Garrovick was your way of continuing your 'adventures' vicariously through the galaxy."

  Kirk actually permitted a small smile. "You make it sound ridiculous. I suppose it is."

  "No such things as ridiculous dreams," said McCoy. "Just dreams we realize, and those we don't."

  "He was a good officer," said Kirk. "One of the best I've seen. And it makes me realize how lucky I've been, to survive as long as I have. What makes me any more worthy to survive than Garrovick?"

  "Jim …" McCoy put a hand on Kirk's shoulder. "You can sit here until doomsday, trying to make sense out of the incomprehensibility we call the universe. Deeper and more learned men have been trying for as long as man was able to think. And when all the shouting dies down and is just so much hot air, it leaves us with this: Nobody knows a damned thing."

  Kirk glanced up at him. "I do. I know that my ship and my crew need me. And I'm damned well going to do something about it."

  He got up and then turned to McCoy and said, "I suppose I should be grateful that David is with his mother. When all is said and done, Garrovick wasn't my son. He was a crewman. A valued crewman, whose loss was tragic, but a crewman. Not my son. My son is a scientist and, thank God, has no interest in Starfleet, and he'll probably outlive all of us."

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Japan, 1600

  ONEKO AND HER ESCORT left when the sky was still silver with fading night. There was no helping it if a spy were watching from the surrounding plain. Once on the road there would be no fluttering banners bearing Mototada's crest to betray their identity. Oneko was secured in a curtained palanquin, bumping along on the sturdy shoulders of her lord's soldiers. Sulu rode behind her, his bridle led by a soldier who set the slow pace along the road. What would have been a short trip without a pregnant woman, even by contemporary standards, was going to take the better part of a week.

  Sulu went over the map of the route once again, as if he doubted his memory or feared he might somehow lose track of the clearly marked road. He thought back to his first cadet command, but somehow the thought was now as fragile and fleeting as the world around him had been at first, while his current surroundings were taking on a solidity that at once thrilled him and terrified him. A stab of guilt struck him as he thought that he should be doing something to get back to his ship, but he didn't have the faintest inkling as to what that might be.

  If there was a simple solution to his situation, it had so far eluded him. And there was still that nagging hole in his memory. He knew something had happened, or someone … but, he shrugged to himself, it all really didn't matter now. All that mattered was escorting Oneko and, he told himself firmly, getting the hell out of there.

  He tried to put Sadayo's comments from his mind. It was as if the old samurai knew what he was thinking. Yes, he had said he would be loyal to Mototada, but that was before he knew … what? That it was suicide? Would he abandon James Kirk if he knew the mission was certain death? Of course not. But this was entirely different in many ways—none of which were coming to Sulu at the moment.

  At least he had managed to keep from acting like a complete fool around Lady Oneko, and he congratulated himself for that blessing, although he suspected it was merely the earliness of the hour and the rush to get started. And the tearful departure of the lady from her husband. Sulu had managed to repress a stab of guilt over his feelings for her when he bowed to Mototada before he left. After all, I haven't misbehaved in the slightest, he rationalized as he moved the party out onto the road. For most of the first day he kept his distance from her anyhow, not trusting himself, and hearing the warning of the sword master mocking him in his head.

  The lady had taken a kitten with her to amuse and comfort her in the swaying silken prison of her palanquin. At first when Sulu heard the soft crying, he had taken it for the complaints of the confined pet, but with a shock he realized it was the lady.

  "Halt," he ordered, and the jogging party of armed men and litter bearers came to a ragged stop. They lowered the palanquin, and Sulu drew back the curtain. Oneko's lady companion ran up to the litter.

  "Lady, lady, are you ill?" the woman cried out. Sulu had been told the woman had been the lady's old nurse and now was her lady-in-waiting, probably a poor relative of her noble clan.

  "Oh, Kiku, please," Oneko moaned, turning that peculiar shade of green that heralds seasickness.

  Sulu discreetly got clear as the lovely woman, the wife of his lord, got sick all over the road.

  "I cannot ride in that thing all the way to Edo," she said, gasping for breath.

  "Well, you cannot walk all the way," the woman, who was some years her senior, said with prim authority.

  "Kiku, I will loose the child if I sway all the way to Edo."

  "Lady, ride awhile," Sulu offered, dismounting and lifting her to the saddle. Slowly they proceeded, but soon she became tir
ed, and he lifted her back into the palanquin, where she blissfully fell asleep.

  By evening they came to a large farmhouse. A worn, wrinkled man greeted the armed party, on his knees, with his family, their heads respectfully in the dirt.

  "Please, accept the humble hospitality of my house," he pleaded hopefully. This current civil war was only the most recent of many which had erupted in the instability of the past century. If the man were lucky, he would only be eaten out of house and home, not burned out or killed.

  Sulu dismounted and ordered his men to bivouac around the property, with what he considered a nice mixture of armed protection for the lady and a low enough profile to avoid attracting trouble. The farmer and his wife were busy moving personal articles into the kitchen while they abandoned the sleeping rooms to the lady and her samurai protector.

  "We've brought rice enough for our men," Sulu offered graciously. "Some early pumpkins and radishes would be welcome."

  The farmer groveled in the dusty courtyard. He was lucky indeed. He called out orders as he scrambled to his feet, his sons and assorted relations hustling to drag baskets of vegetables to the troops. If there were daughters, they were not in evidence. There was, after all, no purpose in tempting fate.

  The farm wife had busied herself with a country meal for her distinguished guests, her fear giving way to a kind of pride. She would have good things to tell her neighbors. Soon the salty aroma of a simple stew, rich with fish and soy and thick with root vegetables, wafted out of the kitchen and throughout the house and courtyard. Kiku stood watching the proceedings with distaste. Clearly, in her opinion, such country manners were not worthy of her mistress.

  The farm wife scooped out rice and a bowl of the stew for Kiku to take to the lady, who was resting in her room. But as Kiku appropriated the tray from the peasant, Oneko appeared at the doorway, dressed in a peach kimono with an over robe of pale green, although of a much more practical cut than the flowing garments she wore at home, but so fine in these rude surroundings that she could have been the goddess Amateratsu come to earth.