The Entropy Effect

Flynn’s will was unusual, for she had bequeathed nothing and mentioned no one. Half by accident, most ship people acquired souvenirs of the places they had visited, exotic, alien artifacts to keep or to give to friends and family back home. But according to boarding records the security commander had arrived with very few possessions, and according to her personnel file she not only had no living relatives, she had no official home world, either. She had been born in deep space, in transit between two out-of-the-way star systems; neither of her parents was a native of either. They had been members of a trading vessel,Mitra , which sailed under a flag of convenience; Flynn’s mother had been evacuated as a child from a world now deserted, part of a buffer zone between Federation and Romulan space, and her father was born in an artificial colony that went bankrupt and disbanded. A few years after Flynn joined Starfleet, the trading ship and all its crew, all her family, were lost, victims of accident or treachery, and no trace of them was ever found.

One would have to go at least two generations farther back in Mandala Flynn’s genealogy to find a world that might claim her, relatives who might acknowledge her; she herself had not cared to do so.

Even if she had, her classification would have remained that of a stateless person: a citizen of nowhere, with all the attendant prejudice and suspicion offered one with no real home, and—some would say—no real loyalties either.

Most ship people preferred cremation or space burial, but given Flynn’s background McCoy did not find it so surprising that she wished to return to the earth, any earth.

McCoy let Flynn’s will fade from the screen, and steeled himself to look at Jim’s.

Like most people, Jim Kirk had recorded his will directly onto a permanent memory cell. It could be amended by codicil or destroyed, but the main text could not be altered.

Jim appeared on the screen. McCoy’s eyes stung and he blinked rapidly, for it was as if his friend were merely in the next room, speaking to him, not cold and dead.

Reading from a sheaf of papers, Jim spoke legal formalities and proofs of identity, and a straightforward distribution of his estate. He left his assets in trust for his orphaned nephew Peter, his brother’s child.

Then he looked up, straight at the memory-recorder, straight into McCoy’s eyes, and grinned.

“Hello, Bones,” he said. “If you’re watching this, I’m either dead or so close to it as makes no difference to me anymore. You know I don’t believe in heroic intervention to preserve life after the brain is gone, but I’m repeating it so you’ll have a legal record of my preference for dying as gracefully as possible.”

The smile faded abruptly, and he gazed more intently at the recorder, strengthening McCoy’s eerie feeling that Jim really was just at the other end of a communications fiber.

“Leonard,” Jim said, “up till now I’ve never come right out and told you how much I value you as a friend. If I’ve gone from now till my death without telling you, I apologize. I hope you can forgive me; I hope you understand how difficult saying such things is for me.” He smiled again. “And I tease Spock about being emotionless—at least he admits that’s his ideal.

“Thank you for your friendship,” Jim Kirk said simply. He paused a moment, then finished giving the instructions required in a will. McCoy hardly heard the last few lines; he could hardly see Jim’s face. Unashamed, he let the tears run down his cheeks.

“I prefer cremation to burial in space,” Jim said. “I’m not much attracted by the idea of floating mummified by vacuum for the next few thousand millennia. I’d rather be burned, by the heat of my ship’s engines.”

“I thought he would choose fire,” Spock said as the screen faded to gray.

McCoy spun around, startled, wiping his face on his sleeve.

“How long haveyou been there?” he asked angrily, forgetting he owed Spock an apology.

“Merely a few seconds,” Spock said mildly. “I have been looking for you for a considerably longer time, Dr. McCoy. I must speak with you in absolute confidence. I have discovered something very important. I would like to resume last night’s conversation. Do you recall it?”

“Yes,” McCoy said, calming his irritation. “I have to apologize. I was wrong in the suggestions I made and I was wrong about the other things I said to you. I’m sorry, Mr. Spock.”

“No apology is necessary, Dr. McCoy.”

“Dammit, Spock!” McCoy said. “At least give me the chance to excuse myself gracefully, even if it doesn’t make any difference to you how big a fool I’ve made of myself!”

“On the contrary, Dr. McCoy. While it is true that your impulses were the result of overemotionality, it is also true that they were correct. They indicated the right course to take—indeed, they indicated a course which is absolutely essential. We must prevent Dr. Mordreaux from murdering Captain Kirk.”

McCoy searched Spock’s face for any clue to madness. His expression was as controlled as always.