Star Trek: The Original Series - 162 - Shadow of the Machine by Scott Harrison Page A

drink.”
    The sun was starting to go down and a cool breeze was drifting in off the water. His mama called him over and asked him to take a seat next to her on the bench.
    “Now, you know that Starfleet has asked Mama to run a starbase for them,” she said softly.
    Sulu nodded. He knew what that meant, all right. “Starbase 718. There’s over two hundred men and women on it. Papa told me. You’ll be able to shout at them and tell them what to do.”
    “That’s right. Although, hopefully, I won’t need to shout,” she said with a smile. “But being a starbase commander means much more than just telling people what to do. You need to be quick-thinking, and to have your wits about you at all times. You make the wrong decision, and it affects more than just you. It affects everyone, even the people back here on Earth.”
    Sulu’s eyes were wide and unblinking as he listened to his mother. “Will you have to make decisions like that, ones that affect the whole crew?”
    “Almost every day.” His mama paused here, her hand lightly stroking his hair. “It also means that I’m going to have to be away from you and Papa for a while too. The starbase is very, very far away, near a part of the galaxy where a race called the Romulans live. Do you understand?”
    Sulu nodded again. He understood what his mama meant.
    “But I don’t want you to worry. I’ll be coming back to see you and Papa as often as I can, I promise.”
    “You won’t forget about us, will you, Mama?” Sulu asked, tears spilling from his eyes and running down his face.
    And as his mama hugged him and held him tightly, he knew that she’d never forget him, ever.
    “Hikaru-bō, how could I ever forget about you?” she asked. “When you are the most beautiful and precious thing to me in the whole universe?”
    You’re right, Mama, Sulu thought now. She is the most beautiful and precious thing to me in the whole universe, and I won’t forget about her, ever. I’m sure she’ll understand why I go away, just like I understood, all those years ago.
    Eventually Sulu closed his eyes, and the image of his mama began to float away into the darkness. A few minutes later, Sulu drifted down after her.
    Somewhere, inside that darkness, V’Ger was waiting for him.
    SHIKAHR, VULCAN
    Spock felt restless whenever he returned to his parents’ home on Vulcan, and this time was no exception.
    He found his parents’ company to be quite stimulating. However, to use an inaccurate human expression, the house held too many memories for him.
    Spock had spent the last forty-five minutes walking slowly through the house. He walked through each and every room, in a set order, from the basement to the second floor, counting his footsteps as he went. It was a unique system, a technique he had developed when he was a boy for focusing his mind. The regularity and rhythm of his steps, the slowly rising count, had a calming effect upon his thought processes. It allowed him to sort through his problems with reasoned clarity.
    This morning his impending meeting with the Kolinahr master weighed heavily on his mind.
    The fact that it still took him thirteen steps to cross the kitchen, and that there were still fourteen steps up from the conservatory to the bedrooms, just as there had been that last day before he left for the Academy, didn’t help. The precise pattern, the counted steps, the steady climb to the roof, the return to his father’s library: In the past, Spock had always found clarity. However, his mind was still in a state of agitation about the meeting, and, rather than turning toward the library, Spock decided to go out on the roof terrace.
    Situated on the eastern side of the house, the terrace was a wide paved area overlooking the vast expanse of the Forge. He was not expecting to find his mother out here so early in the morning; usually she took her early morning tea and P’eltac cake in the dining room. The fact that Amanda might have been waiting for him,