by Jane Seaton

Part 1/4

History

This story takes place in an alternate universe. The divergent points of history which are relevant are as follows:

May 10 1997

A UN sponsored conference is held in Geneva to discuss the rescheduling of Russian foreign debt.

June 22 1997

The conference is abandoned.

July 15 1997

Suspension of the rouble on the New York, Tokyo and London currency exchanges, leading to the cessation of trade with Russia in grain and other basic foodstuffs.

July 26 1998

The AUM Sect, responsible for earlier nerve gas attacks on the Tokyo underground railway system, detonates a nuclear device in the Japanese city of Kobe.

October 23 1999

A state of emergency is declared in the former Soviet republics as food stocks are finally exhausted.

September 14 2000

Outbreaks of cholera in Georgia, bubonic plague in Kahzakstan and tuberculosis in the regions around Moscow are formally declared to be epidemics by the World Health Organisation.

February 2004

The UN agrees with the governments of the former Soviet republics to provide emergency aid in return for the destruction of all remaining Soviet arms stockpiles and the adoption of public health measures including compulsory vaccination and restrictions on free movement of individuals within designated 'plague areas'.

November 2005

The Johannesburg summit leads to the so called Russian Compromise, in which the maintenance of food aid and basic health provision by the UN is formally guaranteed in exchange for the surrender of all Russian economic autonomy to an agency authorised by the UN to realise Russian assets and repay all Russian foreign debt.

March 22 2267

The Terran High Court rules, in the case of CredStat and Starfleet, that payment of a capital sum to CredStat by Starfleet, to release a Russian citizen from the obligations imposed under the Compromise in 2005, would amount to intervention in the domestic politics of a member world, and is therefore unlawful under the founding charter of Starfleet.

Stardate 3201.4

Starbase 4 is destroyed when its warp powered main generator malfunctions.

Part One

Kirk came into the rec room and looked round for his first officer. The Vulcan was sitting alone, eating his customary vegetarian fare. The captain picked up his own tray and went to join him.

"Spock?"

"Sir," Spock responded without looking away from his meal. Vulcans didn't sulk, of course, but this one was clearly unwilling to engage in even simulated small talk at the moment.

"I'm sorry, Spock. I shouldn't have lost my temper."

"I was not aware that you had," Spock said. "It is, in any case, irrelevant. As you stated, by pressing the matter I was breaking the Federation principle of non-interference, the Vulcan principle of IDIC and the universal standard of good manners. I apologise."

"Accepted."

Spock did look up now. "Thank you, Captain."

Kirk sat down. "I don't like it any more than you do, you know. I didn't want him on board. But what else can I do? We can't just abandon him here. Every other ship headed to Earth was full. I'm just arranging to get him home the only way I can."

"Of course," Spock said neutrally. He laid his knife and fork neatly together. "Although you must be aware that his inability to fend for himself is one point at issue. By arranging repatriation, you are simply seeking to make an unpalatable situation a little more acceptable."

"I'll get him home, I'll locate his family, I'll even pass on Admiral Fleetwood's apparent high opinion of him with a straight face. That has to be the best we can do for him. I presume it's what he wants."

"Have you asked him what he wants, Jim?"

The use of his first name could have signalled a softening of the Vulcan's rigid disapproval, or a clumsy attempt to make an emotional appeal. Kirk couldn't see why Spock would care enough about the Russian to do that.

"How can I? We have about five words in common, four of which he pretends to misunderstand at every possible opportunity."

"Lieutenant Uhura has, I believe, some knowledge of Russian."

Kirk grinned, without really meaning it. "Judging by the fifth word we share, Pavel has no idea how to address a lady. If it was a matter of life and death, I'd ask her to translate. Not otherwise."

Spock was evidently puzzled by this manifestation of gallantry, and Kirk had to admit to himself it made little sense. The lieutenant was well used to the rich language of spaceport workers, and even of starship captains in tight corners, but Pavel's every-other-word fusillade of obscenity was different in a way that Kirk doubted Spock would appreciate, given his literal take on such matters.

"We'll be back at Starbase 3 in a week. I'll hand him over to Welfare as soon as we get there, and you can stop worrying about it. There are more important matters requiring our attention."

"Indeed," Spock said. "I have been reviewing Admiral Hardiman's request for personnel transfers, as you instructed."

Admiral Hardiman was the senior surviving officer in the sector. The whole fleet had been thrown into confusion, and shock, by the disaster at Starbase 4. Personnel from three starships and numerous smaller vessels had been aboard the Base, awaiting crew rotations and new postings. Casualties had exceeded 90%, and even when officers on leave and detachment for training had been recalled, and the few merely injured had been bandaged up and put back to work with indecent haste, the fleet was seriously overstretched in the very disciplines where competent people were hardest to find. There was talk of compulsory extensions to commissions and emergency call up of retired officers. If the Enterprise had not been delayed by the Klingon incursion on Organia, Kirk too might have been mourning a quarter of his crew.

"I hope you remembered that humans don't take to back to back shifts as well as Vulcans," Kirk said, taking the data padd that his first officer was holding out to him. He looked down the list Spock had prepared, his frown deepening. "We can't spare this many engineers."

"Mister Scott assures me that we can. He is happy that the trainees in his department are capable of taking increased responsibility."

Kirk looked doubtful. "Well, if Scotty is prepared to put his neck on the block... What's this? Farrell? And Riley?"

"The Endeavour currently has only two qualified helm and navigation officers. They would still be technically under strength even with Farrell and Riley aboard."

"And we'll be down to two here. One of them, yes, I can see we might have to offer that much. But..."

"I am currently qualified as a relief helm and navigation officer and shuttle pilot, while both Commander Scott and you, Captain, would require only minimal simulator time to reactivate your ratings."

Kirk looked at Spock through narrowed eyes. "That's true," he admitted.

"So the transfers are possible," Spock said, a trifle uncertainly. The captain had evidently reached a conclusion that eluded his first officer. Spock glanced down at the list, to see if the missing data were hiding there.

"Aren't there any qualified officers working in other areas on the Endeavour?" Kirk prompted.

"Captain Noakes has not listed them," Spock said. "You think that he has overstated his difficulties?"

Kirk nodded. "I hate to tell you this, Spock, but that's the kind of thing humans do sometimes. Look, I know it's late, but this is urgent. Everything else here I can agree to. I don't like it, but I know we can cope, particularly on a home run back into Starbase 3. Can you get into the personnel manifests for the Endeavour, and find out just how many qualified people they really have? If I ask Noakes direct, he'll hedge. Let's get the facts and take them straight to the admiral."

"Yes, Captain," Spock responded. He took the padd back from Kirk and stood up. "About the Russian..."

Kirk scowled. "What about him?"

"Admiral Fleetwood had been commander of Starbase 4 for two years, and I believe that the Russian was part of his establishment for all of that time. It seems unlikely that he only understands five words of Standard."

Kirk stared at him for a moment, then laughed. "And if Noakes can hide his light under a bushel, maybe my Russian can do the same? Why, Spock? Why should he?"

"You do not know what his intentions are, by your own admission," Spock reminded Kirk.

"I doubt he has any, and if he does, they're irrelevant. He's a Russian."

Spock looked at Kirk in blank incomprehension. "I do not follow your logic."

"You must know the history, Spock. Pavel is paying off a debt. The Russians messed up their economy and every other nation on Earth bailed them out. He can't just decide to go off and do something else. He has to pay off his share of the debt first. And in his case, he's doing it by working for me, or he would be if I had anything simple enough for him to do."

"Slavery," Spock said baldly.

"Indentured labour," Kirk corrected. "I know your Vulcan sensibilities don't like it, but you don't have a Vulcan equivalent of a Russian babushka and her thirty nine grandchildren that she expects the state to feed, house, vaccinate and generally nursemaid for life while their fathers get drunk on subsidised vodka and the tractors rust in the fields."

"Did the Soviet Union not beat the United States in what was known as the 'space race'?" Spock suggested seriously.

Kirk grinned. "They imported a large number of Scottish engineers some time back then. Some of them had the right idea."

With that, Kirk walked away, leaving Spock to contemplate the malleable nature of Terran history.

Spock's excursion into the Endeavour's records didn't do much to change his opinion of human veracity. Captain Noakes had at his disposal two further navigators, neither of whom would, in an emergency, find it impossible to abandon their current duties in astro-cartography and warp physics research. The Vulcan contacted Admiral Hardiman's makeshift office and found himself, unexpectedly, speaking to the admiral.

"Commander Spock!" The admiral positively twinkled, as if the Vulcan were a favourite nephew. "If your captain wants you to tell me you can't spare so much as a stores officer, just tell him how I'm having to play receptionist. You don't really need Lieutenant Uhura, do you?"

"I believe we could make a strong case for retaining her on board the Enterprise," Spock replied with a conscious lack of humour. "Certainly stronger than Captain Noakes' case for requisitioning the greater part of our bridge crew."

Hardiman laughed out loud. "Well, you can't blame him for trying."

"Admiral," Spock said severely, "surely you do not condone his lack of candour..."

"I'd do the same in his place. And it's not as if you don't have some spare manpower at navigation..."

"All our qualified navigators and pilots are in departments where we are similarly understaffed."

Hardiman dropped into the chair behind his desk. "Depends what you mean by qualified. You might have to bend the rules a little, but Jim Kirk's never been reluctant to do that."

"I'm not sure I follow you, Admiral," Spock admitted.

"Jim picked up Fleetwood's Russian boy, didn't he? Well, there's another pair of hands for a shuttle, or for the helm in an emergency."

Humans, Spock reflected, had a way of removing chunks of reality from under your feet when you least expected it. "The Russian is a qualified helm officer?"

"Of course not. But Woodie let him pilot his yacht. I have to admit, I thought the first time I saw him that it was just a piece of business, like having your dog fetch your pipe and slippers. But the boy could do it. He taxied me out to the Caesar a couple times, too. Woodie didn't feel he needed watching, said he was a real natural navigator. What does Jim have him doing?"

Spock was silent. It occurred to him, absurdly, that to admit Kirk had been entirely taken in by the Russian's facade of insolent stupidity would be in some way disloyal. Eventually, he said, "I believe Captain Kirk did not think it proper to give a civilian any official role on a Federation starship."

"Well, that's a damn shame," Hardiman said bluntly. "If Jim has a problem with the boy's lack of uniform, tell him he can have a letter from me to okay it. How's Pasha taken all this, by the way? He was lucky Woodie did let him fly the yacht, or he'd have been just one more statistic."

All Spock knew was that the Russian had been one of a small number of survivors picked up from the tip of Starbase 4's docking array. He'd been transferred on to the Enterprise because no one knew what else to do with him and Kirk had signed the Custody Order almost without giving it a second thought. Russians could leave Earth only if spoken for by employers who would guarantee to safeguard their indentured status and the income of the government agency whose task it was to realise the Russian debt. Fleetwood would have been paying Russia's creditors for Pavel, and now Kirk was doing the same.

"I believe our Chief Medical Officer pronounced him fit when he came aboard," Spock misdirected.

Hardiman just looked at him. "So, will you tell Jim I'd like to have his agreement to these transfers by noon today, at the latest?"

"I will pass on the request," Spock agreed correctly. He closed the channel and sat for a moment in front of the dead screen.

Spock knew all about the Russian Compromise of 2005, the decades of upheaval that led to it, the waves of famine and plague that had swept the northern Asian continent in the first years of the third Terran millennium, giving the Russian people no choice but to accept assistance on any terms. The Vulcan had called it slavery. In the official mostly European, American and Japanese history texts, it was called 'Controlled Debt Recovery'. In theory, it was simply an agreement that all the proceeds of Russian labour would, until the Russian debt was repaid, belong to the creditor states. With the formation of a Terran world government, the debt had been consolidated, so that the Russian people could no longer even hope that their creditors might fall out amongst themselves and so bring the agreement to a premature end. In practice, the effect was enslavement. A Russian might only work for an employer who agreed to pay a flat rate daily fee to CredStat. The fee was the same for good work or bad, genius or dunce. All the produce of native Russian agriculture and industry belonged to CredStat. A subsistence wage was the only return, whether one laboured till one's fingers bled or let the tractors not that there were many tractors rust in the fields. There was no hope, no incentive, no escape.

Kirk, like most Terrans, had probably never met a Russian until he'd found he had one aboard his ship. In taking the young man on, he'd no doubt acted generously. He had no conceivable use for what he perceived as an unskilled, probably illiterate, serf. He would be paying the higher off-world daily fee, inflated to offset the risk that once away from Terra, Russians would find their way into the hands of Orions and the like, and hence cease to be a source of income for CredStat. In return, he had nothing but an abusive and uncooperative tenant in the guest suite adjoining his cabin.

On balance, Spock reflected, the captain might be quite relieved if the Russian were to be requisitioned by Starfleet as a short-commission navigator and given his own cabin.

"Captain, I have spoken to Admiral Hardiman..."

Kirk was striding down the corridor towards his quarters. He slowed to accommodate Spock's more measured pace. "And?"

"He is... aware of the situation, but feels that the proposed transfer should take place."

"What?" Kirk stopped dead. "Are you telling me Noakes can't scrape up a single superannuated navigator or pilot? What's he done? Camouflaged them?"

"The Endeavour has two further officers who are qualified for the helm."

"Then I'll agree to Riley going," Kirk said readily, setting off again. "God knows, I've wanted an excuse to..."

"And apparently, we have overlooked one qualified person."

"We have?" Kirk placed a hand on the lock and the door to his cabin slid open. The desk chair crashed to the deck and the Russian stood there, looking as if he'd been found clutching the murder weapon with the corpse still bubbling its death rattle at his feet.

The young man brushed nervously at the heavy fringe which threatened to fall into his eyes. He was slender and less than averagely tall, with a round face which probably made him seem younger than he really was. Spock had only seen him once before, newly transferred from the shuttle that had lifted the survivors off the docking arm, shocked and exhausted by their ordeal. Frankly, the youngster looked more distressed now.

The computer screen let out a faint 'ping' as the image on it collapsed.

"How many times..." Kirk began, then stopped. He walked over to the computer, pointed at it. "No. You're not allowed to touch it. No." He gestured to the Russian and back to the screen, then to the keyboard. "No. Understand?"

The Russian suddenly shrugged, insolently. "No."

Kirk turned to Spock with a sigh of exasperation. "Is that a 'no, I'm not allowed to touch it', or a 'no, I don't understand'? Would you like to perform a mindmeld for me and check it out?"

"Captain," Spock answered levelly, "I do not need to use telepathy to tell you that he is intentionally challenging your authority in the only way open to him." He watched the Russian carefully as he spoke, but there was no reaction. The... the slave didn't care what Spock thought.

"God, I hate doing this, but it's the only thing he does understand," Kirk was saying, evidently not really interested in his unwanted possession's state of mind.

The true horror of slavery, Spock found himself reflecting, was its effect on the owner. He'd already known that, of course, in theory, but he had never seen before so graphic a demonstration. Kirk had opened a drawer, taken out a belt and turned back to the Russian.

"Captain..."

"I'm sorry if I'm offending your delicate moral sensibilities, Spock, but he's had three warnings. You said yourself, he's only doing it because he's been ordered not to. There's nothing on there that can possibly be of any interest to him. The screen in his cabin has all the entertainment channels. I've told him this is what happens if he disobeys me. Now I have to follow through. I suggest you leave if you don't want to watch." Kirk sounded more weary than angry.

"Captain, I do not wish to undermine your authority, but it might be wise for you to... postpone this."

Kirk frowned at him. The Russian, for the first time, was showing an interest in the two men, until he realised Spock was looking at him and his eyes glazed intentionally.

The captain coiled the belt loosely round his hand. "Well? Why?"

"What is your name?" Spock asked.

The Russian said nothing. Spock wondered if his blank expression would read as defiance or incomprehension to another human.

"His name's Pavel, or Pasha, according to Fleetwood's PA."

The slave's mouth tightened, as Kirk's would have, Spock knew, if a superior had introduced him casually to a stranger as 'James, or Jimmy.'

"Kak vas zavoot?" Spock asked.

Surprise showed equally on both the human faces.

"Menya zavoot Chekov, Pavel Andreievich." The reply came readily, almost gratefully.

"Orchin rat," Spock said, inadequately. 'Pleased to meet you', however, was the limit of his Russian vocabulary for polite introductions. What was one supposed to say, anyway, on meeting an indentured servant whose eyes kept flicking uncertainly to the leather belt in his master's hands?

Chekov smiled. It was a bitter, grudging smile.

"Do you understand Standard English?"

Chekov glanced at Kirk. "Yes," he said. He smiled again, inviting his owner to be angry with him.

"And speak it?"

"Yes."

"I never asked him..." Kirk said. He still didn't sound annoyed, more embarrassed. He looked down at the belt as if he couldn't remember why he had it. "Pavel," he began uncertainly. "This computer is part of the control system of this ship. It's very unlikely that you could do any damage by playing with it, but it's not impossible. That's why it's important that you don't touch it. You can get all the videos and music and so forth that you want on the screen in your cabin. There's nothing more available on here. Do you understand?"

Chekov had tensed up from the moment Kirk started speaking to him. Now he looked carefully at Spock before addressing himself to the captain. "I understand. I understand if I touch it you will beat me."

"So you won't touch it again?" Kirk said, clenching his hands on the belt.

"I understand if I touch it you will beat me," Chekov repeated. He shrugged.

Spock considered. There might not be spare personnel available at Starbase 3, when the Enterprise arrived there. If Riley and Farrell went with the Endeavour now, the Enterprise could be undermanned, dangerously, for months before the situation corrected itself. But if Kirk refused the transfer, the Endeavour would be at risk. The Vulcan had half suspected Fleetwood of keeping a lapdog, someone with no pride, happy to fly the admiral's yacht on a tight leash in exchange for a fairly comfortable existence. This was no lapdog.

While he was thinking, Spock missed some gesture or order from Kirk to the indentured man. Chekov suddenly turned his back on the captain, pulling the plain grey shirt he wore off over his head at the same time. His back bore a striping of recent bruises. It was strange, Spock thought, that there were no older marks, but perhaps they'd faded. Perhaps earlier episodes of discipline had been as carefully administered as the recent beatings, not breaking skin to leave scars.

"You don't have to watch if you'd rather not, Spock."

"I know it is happening. Whether I watch or not is immaterial."

Holding the shirt balled up in one hand, Chekov leaned his fists against the cabin wall and braced himself. Five new stripes, deepening in colour, joined the pattern of bruises. Chekov replaced his shirt immediately, and turned back, his face showing neither pain nor remorse, nor, Spock judged, any other emotion that the Russian could avoid. Certainly, the cheek of a few minutes earlier had vanished.

Spock watched Kirk stow the belt and push the drawer shut. "Why is this a problem, Spock?" he asked. "You know I can't postpone disciplinary action. It's for his own good. If I can't trust him to behave himself, he'll have to go back to Starbase 3 in the brig. Is that a better solution?"

"You have beaten him before?"

"Yes," Kirk said shortly. "For swearing at me. I gave him three warnings, but I don't think he believed me. Maybe in future he will." He looked at Chekov. "Right?"

Chekov looked back at him in silence.

"I believe that Mister Chekov is an experienced navigator and pilot."

"What?" Kirk exclaimed. "Spock, Noakes is pulling a fast one."

"Also, I suspect that if I examined the detailed logs of this terminal, I would find that he has obtained full access to the computer. That access was important to him, important enough to risk punishment."

Kirk turned to the Russian. "You broke through the security lockout? Without tripping any alarms? How? And why?"

Chekov's defiance seemed to evaporate. "I wanted to know if admiral was alive," he said simply. "But he is dead... After, I don't know what I want. The lockout was easy to fool," he added casually. "But I don't care that you caught me. Why should I care?"

Spock couldn't make sense of Chekov's reaction. A moment ago, he'd decided the Vulcan was sure not to court further pain. Suddenly, that decision was overturned. Perhaps, Spock considered uneasily, this man was a representative of a less sophisticated, less rational, sub species. A species to which Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Ahkmatova belonged...

Kirk shook his head, again ignoring emotions in favour of facts in a fashion that astonished his first officer. "You're a pilot? What have you flown?"

"Victoria, admiral's yacht. He taught me. Also to navigate. I ran simulator program." The Russian gestured at the computer. "Just because I was bored. I didn't hurt anything."

"Admiral Fleetwood let you sit as co-pilot? Is that what you mean?"

"To begin, until I knew how. Then he let me to pilot her, and plot course and so on. To begin, I am pilot while he is busy, or while he is resting sometimes. Then, later, he let me to fly alone, to bring yacht to meet him perhaps. I have papers... pilot's licence."

Kirk was beginning to look punched out by too many surprises. He scowled at Spock. "I have a staff meeting in a few minutes. After that, I'll take him... take Pavel to the auxiliary bridge and run some simulations with him. This sounds like snake oil to me, but if Woodie let him loose with his little dreamboat, and took the trouble to get him a pilot's licence... We'll just check it out."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "Of course, Captain, but shouldn't you..."

"Shouldn't I what?" Kirk demanded shortly.

"I am not pilot for you," Chekov said. He turned to Spock. "This is what you mean, he must ask me? There is no need. I am not pilot for anyone. I am stupid, ignorant, useless Russian. Not pilot."

"Well, d'you blame him?" McCoy demanded rhetorically as Spock poured coffee in the senior officer's mess. He shook his head when Spock offered him a cup. "I can't afford to have my hands shaking any more than they are already. I'm a quarter way through emergency surgical reconstruction on four patients this morning. No, I'm not surprised. He's probably the first Russian in two hundred years who's had something anyone else might conceivably want. Why shouldn't he try a little blackmail?"

"I can't afford to let him blackmail me," Kirk said shortly. "I need to make a decision and then we're both committed. I need to be able to trust him..."

"That is true," Spock agreed. "But I don't think it is a problem. Admiral Fleetwood trusted him enough to let him pilot the Victoria. The value of the yacht, even as stolen property, greatly exceeds any material reward which you are in a position to offer him, Jim."

"So what does he want?" Kirk asked impatiently.

"I believe he was close to tears when we left him," Spock said, sounding a little unsure of himself.

"Why not? The captain beat him, in front of you, Spock. A human male can't stand to be humiliated by another male, least of all in front of witnesses. The only way Jim could have made it worse would have been to do it in front of a woman, I reckon..."

"Bones!" Kirk interrupted. "I didn't set out to humiliate him. I just delivered exactly what he knew he'd get if he disobeyed me. And he wasn't in tears. He was as cocky as ever."

"He was not defiant, or insolent; not in the same way that he was earlier," Spock insisted firmly. "I repeat, I believe he was close to tears."

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence.

"Maybe tears worked on Woodie." McCoy suggested. "He always struck me as a soft touch."

"How old do you think Chekov is?" Kirk asked unexpectedly.

"I don't think. I know. He's not far off twenty two."

"And he'd been with the admiral how long? Two years, didn't you say, Spock?" Kirk queried.

"That seemed likely. I am not certain," Spock admitted.

"He's been on Starfleet's medical records since he was eighteen, so say three, near enough."

Kirk nodded at McCoy's answer, accepting the unspoken assumption that Starfleet wouldn't bother to keep records of a Russian unless he was connected to someone pretty high up. "When did we get the casualty list through? With all the fatalities on the station? I know rumours have been flying round ever since we got here, but when did the names get into the computer?"

McCoy shrugged. "An hour or so ago."

"So when we went to my cabin just now, Spock, he'd only just discovered for certain that Woodie was dead? Because I didn't tell him. It didn't occur to me."

Spock nodded slowly. "After that length of time, he might have felt some... attachment to the admiral."

The doctor snorted. "Who knows? Now, excuse me, gentlemen, I have a patient waiting for me."

To McCoy's surprise, the first officer followed him out of the rec room. "Problem, Spock?"

"You were not surprised that Captain Kirk has used physical chastisement on the young man."

"No. A kid like that is going to test the limits, see what he can get away with."

"The punishment did not appear to be particularly effective in correcting Chekov's behaviour."

"Then Jim didn't beat him hard enough, or long enough, or often enough."

"I do not believe the captain wanted to beat Chekov at all. He seems to think he has no alternative."

McCoy snorted. "No one else is going to beat another man's dog for him. If that won't work, if the boy's out of control, he'll just have to go to the brig."

"The brig is not usually considered appropriate for periods of detention exceeding forty eight hours."

"Well, no. I guess it is a little cramped. I suppose I could prescribe tranquillisers. That might be kinder..."

"Tranquillisers?" Spock queried.

"Yes, just till he gets back to Earth, to people he knows. Better than letting him get stressed and unhappy to no purpose..."

"Doctor McCoy, I had no idea you were also a veterinarian." Spock spun on his heel and positively stalked away down the corridor.