Captive

Out on the fringes of the galaxy, a small patch of 'nothing' appeared to be moving across the darkness of deep space. Observers, had there been any, would have been forgiven for thinking it was a black hole on a bizarre outing. Closer inspection with extremely specialised sensors would have revealed a very expensive, superbly sophisticated starship.

It was running fully cloaked, so its own sensor capacity was compromised somewhat. Even then, those sensor arrays far outperformed those of any likely watchers.

Helm and navigation were being meticulous in keeping track of the ship's location in this uncharted region. The last navbeacon had long been left behind. Science and cartography were assembling and correlating vast amounts of information. Any planets detected were classified for later examination. However, contrary to standard practice (in other parts of the galaxy), no markers were left to betray the ship's passage.

The senior officers were the best in the business, paid fantastically huge salaries. There was,of course, the added incentive that any slip-ups would most likely be paid for in blood. All of it.

The rest of the highly trained crew were well paid for their services aboard a state of the art research and exploration vessel. Not many thought to ask under which flag the ship actually operated. By some odd coincidence, most of them had no real family or friends left behind anywhere.

The commander, an exceptionally tall Cormarian, sat in that state of unease that comes with waiting. It was unusual for the flagship to do preliminary surveys, and even more odd to do them fully cloaked. Although it was certainly the best equipped and crewed ship in the fleet, such seemingly routine work was normally left to others. There was some surprise when the orders came through, but it was short lived. He and the other officers were well paid for their unquestioning obedience and silence. Despite the fact that they were unlikely to encounter any challengers here, weapons were kept to the ready.

Although Cormarians are generally a peaceful lot, they like a good scrap from time to time. The commander was half hoping that they would run into someone interesting. He'd not had a chance yet to use some of their new energy based weapons in actual battle. The tests the brokers arranged were impressive, but who can trust beings whose eyes change colour constantly?

The First Officer sat in her quarters and reviewed the figures on the display in front of her. She didn't like what she saw. Various manipulations hadn't improved them by one quantum. Irritably, she changed the display to show ship's status. All was running well, and on schedule. She then requested the data on the planetary systems they'd surveyed recently. Some entries were flagged as "suitable for further examination". The information had been relayed to Resources Management for evaluation, and cost/benefit analysis. Reports would be forwarded to the Board for final decisions.

She switched back to "status". A thorough department by department checked showed everything working as expected. The commander's efficiency rating was near perfect, as always. The bridge crew was performing excellently. Next she examined status reports from the rest of the fleet. These were not entirely up to date, as the flagship was completely out of range of any subspace communication relay beacon.

She didn't like what she saw there either. Too many reports of unexpected hostile encounters, in supposedly secure sectors. One ship lost, destroyed by the Rihannsu. It apparently had arrived at its rendezvous too early. Such carelessness carried its own penalties. The loss to the fleet was negligible, but replacement took time. Some of the free agents on contract were also missing. As was a moderately valuable shipment, destined for the Board.

As First Officer of the flagship, she had more responsibilities than others of her rank. She was supposed to monitor the overall performance of the fleet. Something was definitely going wrong, but she didn't know exactly what. There was little that could be done at the moment since communication was impossible.

Why were they surveying this sector anyway, and cloaked at that? It made her job that much more difficult. She shook her head in frustration. She then called up a display of their cumulative course. The ship was on the "downward" leg of a broad arc. The projected path would take them nearly into Federation space, not very far from a rather vague border with part of the Klingon Empire. A quick check of Starfleet postings in the area did not make the First Officer any happier.

The presence of the U.S.S. Enterprise was not good news at all. The flag ship could easily outgun and outrun any Starfleet vessel. The real problem was what those interfering do-gooders could do (and seemed to be doing) to business in the sector.

Perhaps by the time the flagship re-entered the charted sector, the Enterprise would have been reassigned elsewhere. Then the First Officer could begin the process of damage limitation. And save her neck in the process.

The next morning it was clear that the entire crew knew about their passenger. Kirk spent most of that morning reviewing the material Spock had compiled. First he went over the arrangements for the tour of the Beta Casarii system. His first officer had been his usual thorough self, and Kirk was grateful yet again. While he might have differed on one or two personnel choices for minor reasons, the selections were sound technically. He let them stand, not being the sort of commander to change things for the sake of change. He rose and stretched. The communit beeped. Kirk stared at it for a moment, then acknowledged.

"Sickbay, McCoy here" came the distant reply.

"Morning Bones. How is our guest?" The captain didn't ask how much sleep McCoy and Chapel managed to get the night before. He could hear McCoy shrug.

"Still the same. I s'pose you could call than an improvement. She isn't dead yet."

Kirk smiled slightly. "Thanks Bones. Meet me for lunch. Kirk out." He could hear the doctor's good natured grumbling as he cut the link. He settled back into his chair and stared at nothing. After a reflective minute or two, he turned again to the material Spock had prepared on the slave trade and options for rehabilitation. That the Federation in fact had clear policies about the matter meant that it was taken seriously, and that the problem was not as rare as it should be. The facts and figures were grim, and the visuals grimmer. As he read and listened, Kirk was embarrassed to realise he carried quite a glamourised idea of what being a slave meant in his head . The various entertainment media he had ever enjoyed were nowhere near the truth. Exotic dancers, having someone always on hand to serve, all those handsome men and gorgeous women fulfilling every desire...none of it ever took the slave's point of view. Possibly occasionally as the heroic freedom fighter or destroyer of evil civilisations.

The reality of a lifetime of forced labour was missing from those films and holos. The sheer degradation of being bought and sold didn't make such good entertainment somehow. He remembered his interlude with Drusilla on planet 892-IV with shame.The idea that sentient, self-aware, beings could be bought and sold was repellant to Captain Kirk and his Federation colleagues. However it wasn't something they personally ran into frequently. Having someone aboard who had been bought and sold in such a manner was another story. Even the arranged dynastic marriages common in many Federation (and non-Federation ) societies were at least considered honourable. In some cases they could even be dissolved if one of the parties desired it.

The occasional culture treated slaves as valuable possessions, to be cared for and handled carefully. They were still possessions however, and had no more right to a life of their own than the books Kirk enjoyed collecting. It may be argued that books are objects with no minds or voices of their own. Many slave owners certainly viewed their property in precisely the same manner. Just as the captain wouldn't dream of cutting up or defacing one of his precious books, a kind owner wouldn't dream of mistreating or injuring a slave. On the other hand Kirk sometimes had sold a less favoured book in order to purchase one he desired more. A slave owner would do the same without any more thought to the transaction.

True, there were cultures where desperate individuals sold themselves into slavery to avoid utter destitution. Sometimes they were able to purchase their freedom at a later date. Usually the price was too high, and freedom never came. What of those who sold their children to give those children (and themselves) a chance for a better life? To Kirk's mind starving to death as a free person was infinitely better than life without freedom. He realised however that he had never truly been faced with that choice. He and various members of the crew had been imprisoned any number of times. In the end they'd always been freed, whether through their own efforts of the efforts of others. He shuddered to think of the sort of life (and death) they would have had, on Triskelion for example. He also realised that he had nothing to feel superior about. His own planet had a very long history of slavery worldwide, much of it perfectly legal according to the laws of the time.

Kirk was still deep in his research when the door comm buzzed. "Come" he replied after a startled moment's worth of reality orientation.

His chief medical officer entered with a mock scowl on his face. McCoy stood in front of Kirk's desk, arms folded on his chest. "I thought were were having lunch together! What did I tell you about skipping meals?" He couldn't maintain the scowl very well for very long. With the insolence born of a long and deep friendship he reached for the captain's viewer and spun it around to see what prompted Kirk's tardiness.

Kirk could read on the doctor's face that McCoy had gone over the same file. "Any news Bones?" he asked quietly.

"Still with us" the doctor's casual shrug masking (unsuccessfully) his mingled concern for his patient, and anger with the unknown perpetrators. The captain didn't know about the late night cosmetic surgery. McCoy turned the viewer towards Kirk again. "What are we going to do with her, Jim?" he asked. The unspoken "assuming she lives,that is"was obvious. He sat on the edge of the desk.

Captain Kirk in his turn shrugged. "I don't know yet, Bones." he replied. "We've got to finish our mission in this system. By then Starfleet is bound to have new orders for us." He stood up and stretched. "Besides-we're nowhere near a starbase or Federation admin centre. She might as well stay here for now and we'll play it by ear." Any futher reply was cut off by a mighty gastric rumble. He grinned sheepishly at McCoy, who gave a knowing smirk in return. "Let's get some food!"

The library computers still had not come up with any identification for the Enterprise's guest. Sickbay's computers fed in increasing amounts of physical and genetic data as it was acquired from the medical sensor arrays surrounding the patient. Possibilities could be examined and discarded with greater speed. Mr. Spock knew there wasn't much chance for a positive identification. The number of races in the galaxy who were members of, or who had any sort of friendly relations with, the Federation was actually very small. Naturally there wasn't a great deal of information on individuals from those races who were antagonistic to the UFP. Added to the fact that the circumstances leading up to the woman's presence on board were decidedly irregular, one was left with little to go on with. Still...the effort had to be made.

Spock's work as first officer was up to date as usual. Little was required of him as science officer at the moment. The Casarii system was well charted and documented. Routine monitoring and long range sensor work continued automatically. The computer would flag any unusual readings. Spock had also reviewed the files he'd assembled for the Captain.

Vulcan had never had slavery as a commercial institution. During the centuries of intertribal and civil war that plagued the planet, slaves were taken simply as the spoils of conquest. Eventually they were integrated into the captor's society or clan. They were even welcomed, as they could increase the diversity of psi talents in a bloodline. Individuals were sometimes captured solely for their particular abilities. They were generally well treated (as a valuable commodity), and there was no stigma attached to being such a captive or the descendant of one. Several famous clans had originated in just this manner. Much later, as Surak's philosophies of logic and mastery of emotion spread, the wars ceased. The marriage laws and contracts of the various clans were still very complicated however, and the results could conceivably sometimes appear (to outsiders) as a form of slavery. As the Reformation and enlightenment displaced old ways of life, so too were the some of the ancient bonding and marriage customs eventually displaced. At no time in their long history did Vulcans ever engage in the buying and selling of each other. The deep basic respect for the individual (indeed for all individuals), and the belief that whatever one does to another one does to oneself, made slavery completely illogical and impossible. The entire concept was one of the most alien that Spock had ever encountered.

The Federation had several options for an ex-slave. The most obvious was repatriation to the planet of origin. Where this was impossible or impractical, resettlement on any cooperative planet suitable to the being's physiology and choice. Various forms of therapy and rehabilitation were offered according to individual need, lifelong, in some cases. The programme was relatively successful as a whole, treating several thousand ex-slaves per standard year. Spock wondered about the failures. What sort of life would they have? There were other programmes aimed at planets with slave taking cultures. These were designed to readjust economies based on slave labour. Outlawing slavery, once a planet decided it would like to be considered for Federation membership, was only the first small step. Even reconditioning the economy was fairly simple. After all, there were plenty of computer programmes to deal with those things. The major job was to change cultural attitudes. Populations had to be convinced that certain, possibly deeply cherished, convictions were unacceptable. This was the difficult, costly, and time consuming part of the process. There were some notable successes (Triskelion, for example) and equally spectacular failures ( Retix VI was forced to withdraw its application for Federation membership, and was currently in the midst of a civil war). Not every planet or system wished to be a member of the Federation if it meant such wholesale changes to established cultural patterns, no matter how sensitively those changes were handled.

Mr. Spock turned his attention to the genetic information Dr. McCoy's computers had provided. The woman's basic genetic background matched that of the many humanoid races in the galaxy. The fact that such similar races occur on such widely separated planets has alway intrigued interested observers. It was generally believed that these planets were "seeded" by a single, incredibly ancient race, popularly known as the Preservers. What they themselves looked like, as well as their purpose for such sowing of species remained unknown. It was becoming clear that their guest did not originate on Earth, or any Earth seeded colony. However, some of the more specialised (formerly called noncoding) DNA sequences she possessed didn't seem to fit the computer profiles of any of the other known humanoid races either. Since the bulk of the galaxy was unexplored and undocumented by the Federation, the Science Officer wasn't particularly concerned. The prospect of contacting a new planet and race always pleased him.

He looked up as the turbolift doors opened. The Captain and Dr. McCoy entered the bridge. Spock noted the doctor's fatigue. McCoy strolled over to the science station. He inspected the DNA sequences still visible on one of Spock's monitors. After scrolling through several screens worth of data, he sighed. "We're not going to get an ID on her, are we Spock?" he asked shaking his head. The doctor also did not like the idea that the woman could die nameless.

"Unlikely, Doctor" Spock replied. "but the analyses are not yet complete." He met McCoy's gaze.

McCoy flashed him a look that said "Thanks for trying". He knew Spock would wring every bit of information out of the ship's computers even if it meant taking the supercritical-plasma memory bubbles apart molecule by molecule. Which the Vulcan was probably perfectly capable of doing, and would somehow improve the system by doing it. McCoy looked at the displays again, seeing nothing. He wondered how Spock was really doing . The doctor had learned that Vulcan had no history of slavery. Spock sometimes expressed his seeming confusion over certain peculiarities of non-Vulcan human behaviour. What must he think of something so bizarre and cruel as slavery?

chapter 5