The Autobiography of James T. Kirk (3 page)

“Yeah, you can come in,” he said, without looking up. This was unusual for him to grant me permission to come into his room. It was also unusual for me to ask; normally I would just barrel in and wait for him to throw me out.

I took only a half step into the room and looked around. Sam had lots of trophies, some athletic, many academic. He always impressed me. In fact, from the minute I was aware, probably around two years old, all I wanted was my brother’s approval and attention, and it seemed to me he took great pleasure in withholding both. Most of his energy directed at me went into putting up an emotional blockade to my devotion, though sometimes, if his friends weren’t available, I was a stand-in playmate, or, more accurately, a fawning sidekick.

At five, I remember watching in fascination as he mixed homemade gunpowder and used it to make a cannon out of old tin cans with the bottoms cut out and soldered together. I shared the blame when his invention blew a hole in the side of the barn. Though we were given double chores for a week, I felt happy that somehow I’d been given credit for his rambunctious ingenuity. He, of course, was irritated by my delight at us being mistaken as a team.

He always seemed calm and logical, which led me to try to tease a reaction out of him with my big emotions. My dad would often have to intervene, but he seemed a little amused by my desire to get a rise out of Sam.

And as far as I could tell, both he and my father weren’t the least bit affected by Mom’s leaving. This didn’t help me make sense of the confusion I felt. Dad was especially unapproachable; I felt an almost psychic fence around him. Sam, despite his “disdain” for me as the little brother, was somehow a little more accessible. Or maybe just a little less scary.

“What do you want?” he asked without looking up from his reader.

“Sam … do you know why Mom left?”

“It’s because she got a job,” Sam said.

“She didn’t have a job before.”

“She did, but she quit it to have kids,” he said.

“Oh.”

“She had work she always wanted to do,” he said.

Sam stopped reading and looked at me. It seemed like he looked at me for a very long time. Then he spoke.

“Do you miss her?”

I don’t remember if I answered; I just started crying.

Sam got off his bed and came over to me. He then awkwardly hugged me. I don’t know if we’d ever hugged before that, and it didn’t come naturally to him, but it was enough comfort for me. At that moment, my brother seemed like an adult, though he was only 12 years old and probably was feeling as lost as I was. I don’t remember how long I cried, but eventually I stopped.

“You should probably go wash your face,” he said. I left his room, but from that point on, Sam was no longer as cool to me, and eventually we became quite close.

The weeks turned into months, and then years. Mom made a sincere, dogged effort to stay in touch with us over subspace, but there was no real-time communication over that distance, so we would record messages that she would watch, and then she would record responses that we’d watch. She kept her promise to be home for my next birthday, but it was the last birthday she’d celebrate with me for several years. Over time, the jealousy I had toward my friends whose families were still whole drove me into isolation. I spent my free time after school wandering our property, trying to get lost. I was starting to feel like I wanted to get away.

My dad still did his best to create the life he wanted us to have. We spent a lot of time together and took a lot of trips. He especially enjoyed camping, and during these excursions he would share with us his knowledge of the American frontier, which our ancestors helped settle. His interest became mine, one I pursue to this day.

We took advantage of the many national parks around the country, including Yosemite and Yellowstone. He had taught me horseback riding on our farm, and on these trips he’d let me go off on my own, as long as I was back in camp by sunset. I enjoyed the independence and the sense of adventure, though there was rarely any real danger.

However, during one of these solitary horseback rides, my horse was spooked by the sound of a loud boom. Once I’d gotten the animal under control, I looked up to find the source of the noise, and saw something high in the sky, falling fast. As it got closer, it looked like it was on fire. At first it was very distant, and then suddenly it wasn’t; it was growing in size and seemed like it was headed directly toward me.

I grabbed the reins tight, tapped my heels against my horse, taking off at a fast gallop. I kept looking back over my shoulder, and my error became clear. I had misjudged the angle of the approaching object, and if I had just stayed still it would have flown over me. But by riding off, I was actually putting myself more directly in its path. My panic only led me to continue to try to outrun it.

I finally looked back and saw the large metal object now only a few hundred meters behind me, flames dancing off it. It looked like it was going to hit me, and in terror I leaped off my moving horse. I hit the ground and rolled, and as I looked up, I saw the flaming belly of the craft as it flew over me, then heard it crash. There was a blast of intense heat. I smelled smoke and could hear the crackling of fire. I stood up and saw the crash, only about 30 meters from me.

There was a gash in the forest; trees on either side of the wreck were broken away and charred black. The wreck was smoking and clearly not from this planet. It was small, a two-person shuttle of some kind. My horse was gone; I was momentarily scared that it had been hit, then saw its hoof-prints heading off from the wreck. The animal had had the good sense of how to get out of danger. But now I was stranded. I wasn’t even sure how far away I was from our campsite, and it was getting dark.

“You! Get in here, now!”

The voice came from inside the ship. It was a scary, guttural, accented English. I started to back away.

“Stop, or you will regret it! Now get in here!”

I froze.

“Now!”

I slowly approached the craft. The front of the ship was firmly lodged in the ground, its back end pointed up toward the sky. There was an immense amount of steam emanating from the hull as the heat from its rapid reentry dissipated. There was an open hatch, but it was too dark inside to make anything out. I looked around for any sign of an adult. Spaceships couldn’t just land on Earth without being noticed; somebody had to know about this. But I didn’t see anyone. I knew, or hoped, help would be there soon.

“I said get in here!”

I climbed up inside the hatch. My eyes adjusted to the dim cabin light. The whole ship was on a severe tilt, and I held on to the hatch frame in order to maintain my footing. The cabin was small, jammed with control panels and storage lockers. There were two chairs in the front, and I could make out in the dim light two figures, both large, dark. One sat unmoving in the pilot’s chair, the other in the passenger seat, wedged under a fallen piece of the ship’s inner superstructure. He was the one who shouted orders at me. He was humanoid, but not a human. His features, dark eyes, prominent nose, and forehead were truly frightening. At first.

“You’re a child!” He said it as if I’d committed a crime.

“I’m eleven,” I said.

Trying to keep my balance in the tilted room, I moved carefully toward him. As I got closer, I became more fully aware that he wasn’t tall, but just wide. And his face … once I got a look at it, I wasn’t scared anymore. He looked to me like a giant pig.

“What are you waiting for? Get me out of here! Can’t you see I’m injured?!”

This was the first time I’d met a Tellarite, and to this day I’m still impressed by the ease with which they can slide into argument. I’ve since learned that disagreeing is actually a societal and academic tradition in their culture, a challenging of the status quo that they see as crucial to their growth and prosperity as a society. At the time, however, I accepted his disdain as an accurate judgment of my abilities.

The metal girder pinning him down had cut into his leg. There was a thick, brown liquid on his pants, which I realized was his blood. I stepped in to try to lift the girder, but it was ridiculous to try; even a grown man wouldn’t have been able to lift it.

“It’s too heavy,” I said. “I should go get help—”

“Ridiculous! You leave me and I will die!”

It was the first time I’d seen an adult of any kind more scared than I was. I turned and was startled at the other figure in the pilot’s chair. There was a piece of shrapnel lodged in his forehead. His eyes and mouth were open as if in a silent scream. This was also the first time I had seen a dead body. I was shaking as the complainer grabbed me.

“What are you waiting for?!”

“Your leg doesn’t look that bad. Are you sure I shouldn’t just get—”

“Idiot! Do the humans teach their children nothing?! My leg isn’t what’s going to kill me! The ship’s reactor is leaking radiation!”

I was old enough to know that “radiation” was bad. I suppose I should’ve run out of there to protect myself, but somehow I felt this pissed-off Tellarite was now my responsibility. I looked around the room for some kind of solution.

“Do you have a communicator or something?”

“You are an imbecile from a race of imbeciles! It’s been damaged!”

“What about …” I said. “What about an engineer’s tool kit?”

“Oh, so you think you’re going to fix my broken ship? You, the idiot human? How did I get so lucky …”

“No, I thought if you had a laser torch, I could cut the metal piece that’s holding—”

“Do I look like an engineer? Check those storage lockers,” he said. “Hurry!” He obviously quickly changed his mind about my idea. I opened the storage lockers and finally found what looked like a tool kit. Inside, the tools were unfamiliar.

“Which one’s—?”

“That one, you fool! We are going to die because you are such a fool!”

He indicated something that bore only a slight resemblance to my father’s laser torch. I picked it up. It was bulky and heavy. I didn’t know quite what do to with it, and felt a rising flood of frustration and anguish. I was going to cry. The Tellarite’s histrionics, the dead body, the dark room, and now this tool I didn’t know how to use. I wanted to leave, but I had to stay. Caught in an unresolvable conflict, I just tried to keep going.

I focused on the laser torch. It was designed for a hand with two thick fingers and a thumb. After a moment, I realized I could operate it if I used both of my hands, and quickly went back to the Tellarite. I aimed it at the girder just above his chest, when he grabbed my arm.

“What are you doing?! Trying to kill me? Is it revenge you want?”

“No,” I said. “If I cut the piece here, I will be able to move it so you can slide out.”

“Hurry up!” I guess he was on board.

I had seen my father use a torch to cut, but he used one designed for human hands. Still, I did what I could to imitate what I’d seen. I carefully aimed the torch and turned it on. A blue-white beam hit the girder. I slowly moved it up, away from the Tellarite, and I could see it was cutting through the thick metal. I took my time and sliced through the girder. I turned the torch off, carefully put it aside, then put both of my hands on the much smaller piece I’d cut and tried to move it. It initially wouldn’t budge, and I was suddenly worried that I’d missed something. I looked it over, and decided I had no choice but to try again. I pushed, and this time it gave and slid away. I chuckled involuntarily, surprised at my success. But the Tellerite wasn’t interested in congratulating me.

“Move!” He pushed me aside and slid from his chair. Screaming in pain, he fell to the tilted deck. He turned on his stomach, and I watched as he tried to scramble up to the hatch. But between his weight and his injury, and the severe angle of the deck, he was helpless. I stared at this pathetic sight, unsure of what to do, until he finally stopped struggling and turned to me, breathing heavily. He said nothing.

“Can … can I help you?” I asked.

He was silent. I took that as a yes.

It wasn’t easy getting the Tellarite out of the ship, but once I did, I got under his left arm and helped him walk as far away from the wreck as we could. We’d only gotten a few steps when a Starfleet Fire and Rescue team landed in a medical shuttle. As the medics tended to their patient, it was satisfying to watch the Tellarite treat them with the same amount of disdain he had for me.

As one of the doctors gave me an examination, another shuttle arrived, and several Starfleet officers piled out, three in red shirts, one in gold. The one in gold was in his fifties, gray haired, had a natural sense of authority. He walked over to the Tellarite, spoke to him for a moment. The Tellarite indicated me, and the gold-shirted officer turned, looked at me with surprise, then came over. I was concerned that the Tellarite had somehow gotten me in trouble.

“What’s your name, son?” he said.

“James Tiberius Kirk,” I said.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Captain George Mallory.” He shook my hand. “The Tellarite ambassador tells me you saved his life.”

“He’s … the ambassador?” I almost missed that part because I was so surprised that the Tellarite had given me credit for pulling him out of the ship.