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The surface terminal at Utopia Planitia had been rebuilt three times since Leonard McCoy had last seen it, which gave him the satisfaction of disliking it on entirely fresh grounds.
It was too large, for one thing. The ceiling arched over the arrivals concourse in a sweep of pale composite interrupted by skylights and suspended walkways. People crossed above them in steady streams: engineers in Starfleet uniforms, civilian technicians, construction supervisors, cargo coordinators, and several varieties of specialist McCoy could identify only by the equipment clipped to their belts. Through the broad windows at the far side of the concourse, Mars stretched away in rust-colored flats under a thin afternoon haze. Low buildings and towers dotted the landscape, some joined by enclosed transit tubes, while farther out a line of industrial structures shimmered faintly in the distance.
Chekov stood beside him with a small black case tucked securely under one arm.
McCoy leaned on his cane and looked at the nearest directional display. “Technical Archives,” he read. “Building twelve. Seven hundred meters.”
“There is a tram.”
“There damn well better be.”
Chekov smiled and started toward the transit platform. “You should be grateful, Doctor,” Chekov said. “I have rescued you from boredom.”
McCoy gave him a sour look. “I’ve earned my boredom.”
“You hate being bored.”
McCoy opened his mouth, found no useful counterargument, and settled for a grunt.
Chekov’s smile widened.
“Don’t look so pleased with yourself.”
“I said nothing.”
“You didn’t have to.”
The tram arrived almost soundlessly and settled against the platform. Chekov stepped aboard first, then turned automatically, one hand half raised toward McCoy. McCoy ignored it and climbed in under his own power. Chekov, having known him for nearly a century, had enough sense to pretend the gesture had never occurred.
There were only six seats in the little car. McCoy took one beside the window and lowered himself carefully into it. Chekov sat across from him, still holding the case.
McCoy eyed it. “So after dragging me halfway across the solar system, are you finally going to tell me what’s in there?”
“I told you.”
“You told me it was ‘historically significant technical material.’ That’s the sort of phrase people use when they know the truth will make everybody leave.”
Chekov adjusted the case on his knees. “It is a navigational reference module.”
McCoy stared at him. “That’s it?”
“It is an important navigational reference module.”
“Oh, well. I take it all back.”
The tram slipped away from the terminal and entered a covered causeway. Buildings moved past on either side, clean and low against the Martian landscape. Here and there, taller structures broke the horizon: communications towers, atmospheric processing equipment, heavy cranes servicing surface freight platforms. A cargo transporter complex stood several hundred meters away, its broad receiving bays busy with containers arriving and departing in orderly sequences.
Chekov tapped one finger against the case. “This module was aboard the Enterprise.”
McCoy’s expression changed slightly. “The first one?”
“Yes.” Chekov said it simply. At their age, distinctions that would have thrilled a museum curator could occasionally feel like references to somebody’s childhood home.
McCoy looked back at the case. “And you’ve had it all this time?”
“Almost.”
“Almost?”
“It was transferred with some of my personal effects after the refit. I found it again perhaps thirty years ago.”
“You found a piece of Starfleet navigation equipment in your closet thirty years ago and only now decided it belonged to Starfleet?”
“It was legally decommissioned.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Chekov looked out the window.
McCoy smiled faintly. “Thought so.”
“It is not valuable in the sense you mean.”
“I didn’t mean anything.”
“You meant theft.”
“I was circling it.”
Chekov gave him a patient look. “The module contains supplementary stellar fixes and manual correction tables from our long-range survey work. Some of them were entered by me. Others were entered by Lieutenant Hadley, and several by Mister Sulu.”
McCoy glanced again at the case, with rather more interest this time. “They still work?”
“The data was recovered years ago. The archive already has a copy. They want the original hardware because the corrections show how navigation officers actually used the system.”
“And this requires you to hand it to them personally.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Chekov thought about that. “Because it is mine.”
McCoy raised an eyebrow.
“For another fifteen minutes,” Chekov added.
The tram emerged from the covered section and crossed an open stretch between buildings. Beyond the glass, a broad paved yard held a row of utility vehicles and squat maintenance craft. Several technicians in pressure-resistant work clothes were clustered around an open machinery housing while an automated loader carried a cylindrical component past them.
McCoy watched it all with the detached curiosity of a man who had seen Starfleet facilities evolve from steel corridors and blinking switches into places that increasingly appeared to have been designed by people terrified of right angles.
“Whole planet looks like a machine shop.”
“Only this part.”
“Give them time.”
Chekov chuckled.
Building Twelve stood on the edge of the older section of the complex. It was smaller than the structures around it, six stories of beige composite and dark windows, connected to its neighbors by enclosed pedestrian bridges. A discreet sign beside the entrance read STARFLEET TECHNICAL ARCHIVES — MARTIAN COLLECTIONS.
McCoy stopped beneath it. “Martian Collections.”
“Yes.”
“There are enough old starship parts lying around that Mars needs its own archive.”
“Yes.”
“And somehow you knew this.”
“I read.”
“Show-off.”
Inside, the atmosphere changed at once. The broad industrial corridors of the shipyards gave way to something resembling a university library designed by engineers. Display cases occupied the walls. Old components rested behind transparent panels with neat identifying labels: control surfaces, computer modules, sections of sensor equipment, tools whose purposes had become obscure even to McCoy.
He stopped in front of a gray metal box with a row of physical switches across its face. “I remember these.”
Chekov came alongside him. “Environmental regulator.”
“Always broke.”
“They were very reliable.”
“They always broke in sickbay.”
“That may have been sickbay.”
McCoy turned slowly toward him.
Chekov studied the exhibit with great concentration.
A lieutenant at the reception desk looked up as they approached. She was young enough that McCoy abandoned any attempt to estimate her age beyond the broad category of offensively youthful.
“Admiral Chekov?”
Chekov gave a small nod. “Yes.”
The lieutenant came around the desk. “Lieutenant Devika Sharma. We spoke last month.”
“Of course.”
Her attention moved to McCoy, and for one unmistakable instant her professional expression failed.
“Doctor Leonard McCoy,” Chekov quickly introduced, before any potential hero-worshipping had a chance to begin.
“Yes, sir,” she said quickly. “Doctor. It’s an honor.”
“Charmed,” McCoy replied, a bit of his Southern Charm forcing its way through the gruff.
Then Chekov placed the case carefully on the desk.
Sharma entered a command into the terminal. “We have the accession record ready. We’ll verify the serial number, check the preservation seal, and then I’ll need your authorization for permanent transfer.”
McCoy looked at Chekov. “Permanent transfer.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“You could still run.”
“I am trying to behave with dignity.”
“That’d be a first.”
Sharma glanced between them, apparently uncertain whether she was permitted to laugh.
Chekov opened the case. Inside lay a rectangular device a little longer than McCoy’s hand. Its casing was dark gray, worn smooth at the corners. A faded Starfleet inventory code ran along one edge. Three recessed contacts occupied one side, along with a tiny physical selector switch. It looked thoroughly unimpressive.
McCoy leaned closer. “That thing navigated the Enterprise?”
“It assisted.”
“Good. I was about to revise several opinions about how we survived.”
Chekov lifted the module from its fitted padding. He turned it over and pointed toward a narrow label on the underside. There, written in faded black marker, were several characters in Chekov’s handwriting.
McCoy squinted. “What’s that say?”
“Do not erase.”
“That’s your contribution to history?”
“There were important corrections on it.”
“You couldn’t write ‘important corrections’?”
“I knew what I meant.”
Sharma smiled despite herself.
Chekov passed the module to her and for a moment his fingers remained beneath it while she took the weight. Then he withdrew his hands and rested them lightly on the edge of the desk.
Sharma examined the inventory number. “This is remarkable, Admiral.”
“It is an old box.”
“It’s an original operational artifact with user-entered navigational data from one of the most extensively documented exploration vessels of the twenty-third century.”
Chekov looked at McCoy. “You see?”
“She gets paid to say things like that.”
“I don’t believe I do, Doctor,” Sharma said.
McCoy pointed at her. “You’ll go far.”
She carried the module to a scanning station a few meters away and Chekov watched as she placed it beneath the preservation field.
McCoy watched Chekov. “So,” McCoy said, “you finally gave it up.”
“Yes.”
“Hurt?”
Chekov considered the question with the seriousness he usually reserved for questions McCoy had intended casually.
“A little.”
McCoy nodded.
Chekov looked around the archive. “It should be here.”
“Probably.”
“Someone may find it useful.”
“For navigation?”
“For understanding.”
McCoy followed his gaze toward the display cases. Half the objects in the room had once been ordinary. Somebody had cursed at them, repaired them, dropped them, spilled coffee near them, complained about requisitioning replacements for them. Enough years had passed and now they sat beneath preservation fields while young officers studied them carefully.
He tapped his cane once against the floor. “Still think you rescued me from boredom?”
“Yes.”
McCoy grunted again and Chekov smiled.
“Stop doing that.”
“I am standing here, Doctor.”
“You’re gloating.”
“I am standing here while gloating.”
“That’s worse.”
Sharma returned from the scanner carrying a PADD. “Everything matches. Admiral, if you’ll authorize the transfer here, the module officially becomes part of the permanent technical collection.”
Chekov accepted the PADD.
McCoy glanced down the corridor. Farther inside, beyond an open doorway, he could see larger exhibits occupying a long gallery: pieces of old bridge consoles, a transporter control assembly, part of what appeared to be an impulse engineering station.
“How big is this place?”
Sharma looked pleased to be asked. “The public collection is about fourteen thousand artifacts. The research holdings are considerably larger.”
McCoy closed his eyes briefly.
Chekov handed back the signed PADD. “Doctor,” he said pleasantly, “we have the entire afternoon.”
McCoy opened his eyes. “You planned this.”
“I hoped.”
“You planned it.”
Sharma was smiling openly now.
McCoy looked down the corridor again. A century and more of Starfleet machinery waited beyond the doorway, preserved in climate-controlled rooms by people who thought that throwing anything away constituted an offense against history.
Then he looked at Chekov. “You’re buying dinner.”
“Of course.”
“And we’re taking the tram back.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“And if you find something in there you personally used, you are forbidden from telling me its entire service history.”
Chekov picked up the now-empty case. “I can promise nothing.”
McCoy started toward the gallery, cane tapping steadily beside him. “I knew there was a reason I preferred being bored.”