"Right over here, sir." Ensign Pridemore gestured Stiles to a seat in the cramped back of the transport pod. "I'd rather stand and look out the viewport." "Sorry, sir. Regulations."

Stiles stepped to the seat. "You don't have to 'sir' me. I don't outrank you."

"It's my honor, sir." Pridemore took off his helmet, hung it on the bulkhead hook, and turned toward the piloting console.

"Yeah, year." Stiles dropped into his seat and slumped into the cushions.

McCoy sat across from him. The other security ensign, his helmet obscuring his face, stood at the airlock hatch at full attention. Seemed kind of silly.

Within twelve minutes, they were landing in the bay of the starship. The pattern of approach and responses from the baymaster seemed like echoes of his past, as Stiles eavesdropped on the c.o.c.kpit action and imagined himself in the pilot's seat.

As the interior lights of the starship's hangar bay flooded the pod, Dr. McCoy clapped his 'knees with those gnarled white hands and said, "Ready to get this over with?" Stiles sighed. "Do elephants have four 'knees?"

McCoy stepped over and helped Stiles to his feet, which seemed bizarre and distorted. Being helped by a man well over a hundred-and needing it-reminded Stiles that he had a few months of recovery yet to go.

Ensign Pridemore got up and stepped to the hatch. "This way, gentlemen," the young man said.

Young... yes, Pridemore seemed young to Stiles. A long time since he'd seen a person younger than himself in any authority. He felt a sudden pang of sympathy for the two ensigns here with him today. So much was expected of them- "If you'll stand here, Mr. Stiles," Pridemore said, motioning him to the middle of the hatch entrance, only then motioning to McCoy. "Doctor? Here, sir."

Without comment the old surgeon came to stand beside Stiles. The staging was mysterious, but Stiles a.s.sumed a security team was stationed outside the door and would be escorting him to quarters under guard. The brig? Probably not. He wasn't a criminal, after all. Just a turkey being led to the slaughter. "Ready, sir?" Pridemore asked. "We're ready," the doctor confirmed. "Open'er up" Pridemore, curiously, stepped aside then instead of leading them down the ramp that must be out there, and punched the hatch controls.

The hatch swung open and for a moment Stiles was blinded, after weeks of dim smugglers and tramp ships, by an unfortunately placed spotlight somewhere in the hangar bay that plunged instantly into his eyes and made him blink.

Then a sound rushed up the ramp and engulfed him. Was something exploding?

He moved slightly to one side, enough to get out of the direct beam of that one culprit light, and let his eyes adjust. As he blinked, he identified that unfamiliar sound. Applause.

He stepped forward to see what was happening, and saw sprawled out before him a field of Starfleet crewmen, officers, civilian guests and dignitaries, all knocking their hands together and looking up the ramp at him and McCoy.

"Sorry!" Stiles gasped. He was standing right in the way. Careful of his new physical coordination, he stepped quickly to one side, faced the famous Leonard McCoy, and began to politely applaud also. "What're you doing?" Dr. McCoy asked. Stiles kept applauding. "I was in the way"

The doctor's leathery face crumpled in disapproval and he grasped Stiles by the arm and pulled him back to the middle of the ramp. "They're not applauding me, hammerhead? "Honor Guard! Atten-HUT!"

The sharp disembodied order echoed in the huge hangar bay, answered by the crack of heels on the deck as a tunnel of uniformed men and women came abruptly to attention, flanking the red carpet which stretched out from the end of the ramp to the edge of the crowd.

"What?" Stiles stumbled a few steps down the ramp, baubling drunkenly as he realized Dr. McCoy wasn't following him down the ramp. He stopped in the middle of the slope and stared at the throng of people applauding before him.

And there was music-trumpet fanfare in vaulting military tradition. He hadn't heard music in years.

A stimulating cheer rose now above the continuing applause, and some of the people in the crowd were jumping and waving, calling, "Eric ! Eric ! Eric !"

Stiles turned halfway around and looked back up the ramp at Leonard McCoy. The doctor wagged a scolding hand at him, waving him the rest of the way down the ramp.

Spreading his hands perplexedly, Stiles complained, "I don't get this..."

But he barely heard Iris own voice over the cheering. As he turned back to the crowd, confused and overwhelmed, a flicker of sense carne into the picture Amba.s.sador Spock now stood at the end of the tunnel of uniforms. The senior Vulcan now looked more amba.s.sadorial than the one time Stiles had met him. That day four years ago, the amba.s.sador had been wear~ lug a jacket and slacks. Today he wore a ceremonial robe of glossy purple quilted fabric and a royal blue velvet cowl. Apparently this was some kind of ceremony. With him stood a captain and some officers and a couple of dignitaries. They continued applauding as Stiles meandered down the red carpet, entertaining ideas of slipping between a couple of these guards at attention and maybe getting out of here somehow without anybody noticing.

He stopped five feet short of the end of the runway, staring like a jerk at the amba.s.sador and the captain and all those other spiffy dressers.

The amba.s.sador waited a few seconds, then came forward into the honor guard tunnel. The other dignitaries just followed him in there.

Amba.s.sador Spock's weathered face shone every crease in the harsh hangar bay lights, but under the Vulcan reserve there was an unmistakable sheen of pride and delight. In fact, a hint of a grin tugged at his bracketed mouth and his slashed brows were slightly raised. As he stood flanked by the captain and the dignitaries, all facing Stiles like a vast wall of phaser stun, the applause tapered off and then suddenly stopped in deference and respect.

"Welcome home, ensign," the amba.s.sador said warmly. The soft knell of victory rang in his words and triggered a whole new wave of applause and cheering. As he turned toward the captain beside him, the applause almost instantly fell off again. "I am honored to present Captain James Turner of the U.S.S. Lexington."

"Ensign Stiles, I'm pleased to finally meet you in person," the thin officer said, smiling broadly and pumping Stiles's hand. "I first heard about you when I was in command of the Whisperwood. Your story was very compelling to me, and I used it to train my fighter squadrons. I admit to pulling some strings so the Lexington could be the ship to meet you today."

"Oh... I... thanks." Stiles leaned closer and urgently told him, "This is some kind of mistake!"

The captain grinned again and took Stiles's elbow and turned him slightly. "My first officer, Commander Auch'ey."

"Welcome aboard, Ensign," the smiling woman said, "and welcome home."

The captain turned him a little more, while Amba.s.sador Spock watched in pa.s.sive approval despite the desperate glance Stiles tossed him. In a whirl he was introduced to a half dozen other people.

"Federation Amba.s.sador Whitehead... Provincial Amba.s.sador Oleneva... Chief Adjutant Kuy, representing Admiral Ulvit... Governor Ned Clory from your home state of Florida... Port Canaveral's Mayor Tino Griffith, Princess Marina from the Kingdom of Paln's on our host planet here in this star system .... "

They each greeted him and pumped his hand and patted his arms, some even hugged him,, but he scarcely caught a syllable, registering only the mention of an honors breakfast in the ward room.

"You've-got the wrong guy," he protested again as Captain Turner steered him back to Amba.s.sador Spock. By now, Dr. McCoy had shuttled down the ramp and was standing beside Spock, and for an instant as Stiles turned the years peeled back and he saw them as they had been so many decades ago. Spock, streamlined and subdued in his blue Science Division tunic, his black hair glossily reflecting a single horizontal band of light from the hangar ceiling. Leonard McCoy, in a shortsleeved medical smock, strong arms casually folded, his thick brown hair glistening in a much more raucous way, his supremely human expression enjoying a proud and friendly grin, cirrus-blue eyes set in a square face now famous throughout the settled galaxy. Two legends, standing together, for Eric Stiles. This couldn't be happening. They had something so wrong. He was whisked to a podium mounted at the far end of the hangar bay while a team taxied the pod into its cubicle and the crowd closed in on the hole it made. Somebody ushered him to a row of chairs and put him between Amba.s.sador Spock and Dr. McCoy-good thing, too, because then he had a buffer from those adoring grins. As Captain Turner and those other amba.s.sadors stood up to make speeches-heroism, selflessness, sacrifice, fort.i.tude, survival, strength, pride of Starfleet, son of Federation dynamism-Stiles caught only the odd word or phrase, none of which struck him as applying to himself, and he leaned slightly toward Dr. McCoy. Through his teeth he implored, "Will you please tell them?"

"Just smile and nod a lot," McCoy wryly advised. "Let 'em have their ceremony. Next week the president's giving you the Federation Medal of Valor."

Stiles stared at him briefly. How could anybody be so casual with a sentence like that coming out of his mouth?

"The m-" Nope, couldn't get it out of his own. "G.o.d... I don't get it... I just don't get this at all...."

"Indeed?" Amba.s.sador Spock offered a solemn gaze. He did look amused! "A hero's welcome is a mystery to you after your Meat sacrifice, Ensign?"

"I didn't sacrifice anything," Stiles argued, keeping his voice way down while the speaker's boomed over the P.A. sys-tem. "I crashed into a mountain, and sat there about to wet my pants because I was afraid of the big bad aliens. I must've looked like a kid to you !"

"You were a kid," the amba.s.sador blithely told him, startlingly familiar with the vernacular.

Dr. McCoy leaned forward a little. "My eighth psychology textbook, Spock," he explained, speaking from the comer of his mouth. "

Chapter Four.".

The amba.s.sador looked past Stiles to the doctor, and they communicated with a few eye movements. After a moment of this, Spock leaned back. "I see."

They were both silent for several minutes while listening-or pretending to listen-to the princess of somewhere happily welcoming the famous survivor Ensign Stiles and all the various dignitaries to her star system. Stiles heard part of her words as if listening to a training tape. The words bore no attachment to himself, except that he had the feeling he was getting into deeper and deeper trouble. When they found out what really happen~- "Stiles."

Maybe he should stand up and just explain what occurred and the mistakes he made and then offer to quietly retreat while they went on with their party. Would it be a good idea to compromise Starfleet's perception, point out this big mistake, right here in front of all these people? He'd hardly spoken to anybody but Zevon for so long... get up and talk to this crowd? His knees started shaking. "Kid. Psst." "Huh?"

McCoy still didn't turn to speak to him, and kept his voice barely above a whisper. "Now, listen and listen good. You did all right four years ago. Some deskbound paperpusher sent a bunch of kids into a tricky, dangerous political powderkeg without an experienced senior officer "

"Without briefing them about what they could be facing," Spock took over, very quietly, "to rescue some very important personnel-"

"With Romulans all over the place and riots going on," McCoy interrupted. "They took a pack of untried kids barely out of officer school, with no black s.p.a.ce experience at all, and sent you into a civil war and said, 'Go, do.'"

"Without a second thought," Spock added, "you took the initiative, sacrificed yourself, and allowed everyone else to get out alive. Then you kept yourself alive in an untenable situation long enough to be rescued. You are a hero, young man, by any measure."

Stiles felt his legs quiver, his hands grow cold as they spoke to him of these indigestibles as if telling tales of some unconfirmed legend. The crowd of dress uniforms, court gowns, and Sunday best shifted before his eyes and swam with applause as the speaker handed over the podium to the next one.

"Twenty-one-year-olds fail to see themselves as young," the amba.s.sador explained, able to speak up now in the cover of the applause. "They lack the perspective of experience. In Starfleet, they are frequently older than everyone else around them. That is the curse of being a 'senior in high school,' if you will."

"You're one of the older kids," Dr. McCoy said, "so you figure you're not a kid at all. I'm bigger than everybody, so I'm big. Kids feel as if they should know everything. Starfleet handed you a situation that should've gone to a lieutenant. You improvised. You did what you thought was right. We don't d.a.m.n people for inexperience."

"To you," Spock added, "your mistakes looked like crashing failures. To me, they simply looked like inexperience."

Now the amba.s.sador did turn and fix him with those eyes n.o.body could look away from. "All these people are proud of you." "And you deserve it," the doctor finished. "So shut up." Another round of applause. Another speech, more appreciation, more applause, cheering. They were as insubstantial as dust. All he heard was the amba.s.sador's words and the doctor's over and over in his head, like some musical echo or siren song drawing him along. His memories were of a b.u.t.terfingered ensign crowing his own authority and trying to win his spurs, fumbling every ball and landing a.s.s-backward in a flat failure. He balked at any other explanation. They were being kind to him, he knew, and to themselves for their part of the mistake. Starfleet was better at admitting its errors than Eric Stiles ever had been.

He had been young then, too young to know it was okay not to already have all the experience of life. It was all right not to know everything. Or much of anything. It was okay... it was okay. I'm okay, Zevon. Don't worry. In a flush of emotion and self-examination he endured the next half hour of applause and honors without really registering much of it. By the time Spock took his arm and drew him to his feet, Stiles was humbled beyond description. He collected his only pleasure from knowing his survival was making so many people feel good about themselves. That was pretty good, really. When they teased him and spoke poorly, he'd at least been giving them something to converse about. Today he was doing the same sort of thing, deserve it or not. He shook hands and denied his way across the platform, then down to the crowd as the people smiled and then left him alone. They seemed to understand that he was overwhelmed, and the crowd funneled politely to the exits, heading for the ship's mess and ward rooms where the banquets were waiting. Music played again over the PA, and everyone was laughing and cheery, all because of him. On this astonishing day, he had everything he'd once thought he ever wanted. And now he didn't want it.

"If you'll come this way," Amba.s.sador Spock was saying, "there are some other people who're been waiting a long time to meet you."

"Not more," Stiles moaned. He lowered his eyes. Maybe whoever it was would just get the idea he'd had too much and leave him alone. The ship's captain had gotten the message and corralled the princess and the mayor and governor and were waiting with them about halfway to the exit, giving Stiles a few minutes to breathe. They were conversing with each other, obviously waiting for him, but also deliberately not looking at him. He needed the time too. He stood at the side of the slowly emptying hangar bay, with Spock and McCoy providing a welcome buffer between himself and the throng. "Eric !" "Hey, Eric!"

With a notable wince, he turned away from the sound. If he kept his back to the ma.s.ses, maybe they'd think he just didn't hear. "Lightfoot!"

Something sparked in his head. Now he turned toward the calls. Not twenty steps away, held back by a couple pillars of meat in security uniforms, were the last people in the universe he had expected to see alive, never mind here. "Travis?" Stiles's voice caught in his throat.

At his side, McCoy gave him a little push. "Go ahead, son. Go see 'em."

Behind Travis Perraton, also crowding the guards, were Jeremy White, Matt Gitvan, Greg Blake, Dan Moose, and both the Bolt twins. At the front of the group, Travis Perraton's dark hair was grown out from the Starfleet junior-officer close-clip, and his blue eyes gleamed and bright smile flashed like a star as he reached between the guards and said, "They won't let us through !"

"Security guard," Amba.s.sador Spock smartly ordered, "stand down."

In unison the four guards snapped, "Aye, sir? and came to at-ease, allowing Perraton, White, Blake, Girvan, Moose, and the Bolts to flood into the reception area. All at once Stiles was engulfed in a coil of embraces, until finally he was clinging to Travis Perraton and getting his back slapped by everybody else.

Spock and McCoy graciously moved away, leaving the young men together without interference. The row of guards between them and everyone else would a.s.sure that the former evac team would have a few private moments before all the ringing and tickertaping started again.

Stiles shook like a scarecrow as he clutched at the physical reality of Travis and Jeremy and the Bolts.

"I thought you were all dead!" he gasped, tears flowing freely down his balanced face.

"Dead?' Jeremy White repeated. "Where'd you get that idea?"

"You showed up in the... I heard you... you said... the anti-aircraft guns-"

"We got clear, Eric," Travis said. "You gave us the extra seconds we needed to get away."

"You gotta be kidding," Matt Girvan protested. "He knows. He's just making us say it over and over"

Zack Bolt laughed. "And he'll never let us forget it. Wait and see."

"What is this?" Jason Bolt reached out and grasped Stiles' beard and shook it warmly. "Nonregulation Stiles! Since when!"

Dan Moose poked at Stiles's ribs. "And he's skinnier than Jeremy?

His eyes blurring as he shuddered under the coil of Travis's arm, Stiles blinked from one face to the other, then ran the route again. Without a bit of the shame he would've once felt, he wiped tears from his cheeks. "Where... where are.. ?'

Typically, Jeremy took over with a clinical explanation. "Well, Beret and Andrea left Starfleet and went back to Holland, but they send their good wishes and demand a crew reunion as soon as you feel up to it. Bill Foster got promoted, and he's stationed on Alpha Zebra Outpost. Brad Carter's a civilian now too, and he's coming in tomorrow. He's just finishing exam week at college, so he couldn't be here today"

Only now did Stiles register that Travis, Greg, and Matt were not wearing Starfleet uniforms. Civilians?

Jason held up a stern finger. "But they're all waiting for a communiqu? on when and where we're having a crew reunion. Those of us still in the service have been given special dispensation from our current duties just so we can attend. The dope civvies among us, who shall remain rankless, are being offered free transportation and hotel, as if they deserve it." "Troublemaker," Travis said with a laugh.

Greg Blake shrugged. "So I'll re-enlist;' he tossed off. "Eric's bound to need a new wing leader. Can't do without me, Call you?"

"He can't do without any of us," Zack said. "Who'd pick him up when he trips?"

Matt laughed. "Who'd stop him from putting his hand in front of a phaser?"

"Who'd he have to shout at when things didn't happen fast enough?" "You need us, Lightfoot," Jeremy punctuated.

"Not so fast." Travis protected Stiles from them and held up his free hand judiciously. "Don't be a tidal wave. Eric made it through four years in prison on a hostile planet without anybody to help him keep from making a jerk of himself. Maybe he doesn't need our help for that anymore."

Stiles laughed with them. The ribbing that would've unsettled him once today felt like cool pond water.

Travis gave him a comradely squeeze. "Maybe he doesn't even want to stay in Starfleet." "I sure wouldn't," Jason commented. The other twin added, "He's done his duty." "Twice over" Matt agreed. "They owe him now."

"What a life," Travis went on. "Speaking engagements all over the Federation-" "Scholarships," Dan Moose said. Blake made an exaggerated bow. "Honorary degrees-" "Ceremonial dinners" Matt fed in.

"Starring in training films, have books written about you-h.e.l.l, write your own book! Any idiot with a pen can do that!" Perraton looked at him admiringly. "You're gonna get rich and fat, Eric. Wish to the devil it could've been me!"

Until this moment Stiles had been lost in a daze, but Travis's latest sentence snapped him into biting clarity. He straightened his shoulders-a miracle in itself-and slipped abruptly back in command. Escaping from Travis's cordial embrace, be took hold of his friend's arm and control over the moment.

"No, you don't," he said. "I'm glad it wasn't you and you're glad too, and don't forget it, Travis. I'm so happy I could cry to see all of you, but I'm not the kid you knew"

Theft faces changed, subtly, though even after all this time he could still read them. Perhaps even better than before. Some were arguing with him in their minds. Others were realizing they may have made a mistake to say what they'd been saying, perhaps even to be here today.

From the captain's group nearby, Amba.s.sador Spock and Dr. McCoy finally breached the bubble of intimacy encircling Stiles and his crewmates.

"Mr. Stiles," the amba.s.sador began, "excuse me. As soon as you're ready, the captain and dignitaries are ready to go to the wardroom for the honors banquet. We have a table set aside for you and your friends?'

"Yes!" Travis beamed, and shook hands victoriously with one of the Bolts.

"You're most welcome, gentlemen," Spock allowed. "And Dr. McCoy has something for Mr. Stiles."

"Me?" Stiles rubbed his clammy hands on his thighs as Dr. McCoy stepped past Spock.

"Here you go, son." The doctor handed him a leather-bound packet with a Starfleet seal.