The Entropy Effect

Jenniver Aristeides gazed at a painting of her home. It hung on the wall, as if it were a window. She had done it herself, at a time when she felt miserably homesick and lonely, weak and incompetent. Painting was an accomplishment not much admired on her home world, and at times she felt contemptuous of herself for indulging in it. But the scene, a landscape, gave her some comfort. She had almost decided to paint the pasture behind her house, with the ponies out to graze after the day’s plowing. But that would have been hopelessly sentimental. And the picture would have been static; in a painting, the powerful creatures, twenty-four hands high, massing two metric tons apiece, would never prick up their ears, toss their manes, and gallop to the far fence kicking their heels like a group of foals. That was how she liked to remember them, not frozen in time. She needed a painting she could pretend might be reality.

The door to her cabin swung open. She heard it, but did not turn. Besides Jenniver, only Snnanagfashtalli could open the door, and she was glad she would to able to see her friend one last time. Not to say goodbye, though. If she said goodbye, Fashtall would try to stop her. She reached out quickly and concealed the remains of the crushed medical sensor. She had promised only that if she needed help, it would signal. It would never signal anything now, and she did not need any help for what she had to do.

“Ensign Aristeides.” The voice was not Fashtall’s; it belonged to the science officer, the first officer—the captain. “May I enter?”

Snnanagfashtalli came up behind her and rubbed her cheek against Jenniver’s temple in the greeting-to-friends. The cream and maroon fur slid smoothly across Jenniver’s short, coarse brown hair.

“If you wish,” she said. It was not an invitation; it bound her to nothing, not even, strictly, to courtesy.

She should stand, salute, make some acknowledgment at least of his presence, if not his superior rank. But she could not even summon the trivial effort required to move in earth-normal gravity. She did not want to offend Spock. On the contrary, he was one of the few people on board she truly admired.

Though Mandala Flynn had treated her kindly, not with the contempt of the previous security commander, Jenniver had feared her for the repressed violence in her, and, paradoxically, for her comparative physical fragility. As a duty, Jenniver had respected Captain Kirk, in the detached way she employed to separate herself from the majority of human-type people who looked through her, tried and failed to conceal their revulsion for her, and felt profoundly uncomfortable in her presence. Snnanagfashtalli, she felt about as she had never felt about another being in her life. Perhaps it was gratitude for friendship and consideration; perhaps it was love. But she had never experienced love, as giver or receiver, so she did not know. She could not ask Fashtall, and she knew no one else well enough to ask. If she asked and they laughed at her, the humiliation would overwhelm her.

But Spock she admired. She always felt she might turn clumsily around—though she was not, in fact, clumsy—and inadvertently crush any other human or human-type on the ship: but about Spock was a resilient strength that reassured her. She never worried about hurting him by mistake with some not-well-thought-out step. And he was the only humanlike creature on the ship who was not repelled by her form. He was indifferent to it, and that reaction was such a relief to her that she could feel comfortable in his presence.

“Do you feel well now?”

She hesitated, but answered. It did not matter what she said; he could not stop her. She hoped he would show her the courtesy of not trying.

“No.” She would not lie to a direct question. “I feel ashamed and dishonored. I have failed, just as I have always failed at everything.”

“Ensign Aristeides, do you realize that you almost died? That any other member of the crew surely would have died, too quickly to sound the alarm?”

“The result was the same. I fainted—I must have fainted, otherwise how could the prisoner have escaped? The captain and my commander are dead. I should not have become ill. My people do not contract illnesses. It would have been better if I had died.”

Fashtall growled. “I tell you again that your people expect too much of themselves.”

Jenniver patted Fashtall’s long-fingered hand, which lay curled and relaxed on her shoulder.

“They ask no more than all the others can give. Only I cannot answer.”

Spock came around and sat down facing her.

“I do not understand what you are saying.”