Cover

Star Trek The Original Series

Living Memory

Christopher L. Bennett

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Title Page

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Dedication

For Nichelle Nichols

Epigraph

Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

In this distracted globe. Remember thee?

Yea, from the table of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond records,

All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past

That youth and observation copied there,

And thy commandment all alone shall live

Within the book and volume of my brain,

Unmix’d with baser matter.

—William Shakespeare Hamlet

Historian’s Note

The events of this story take place in the summer and autumn of 2279, approximately six years after the reunited crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise saves Earth from a powerful machine life-form called V’Ger (Star Trek: The Motion Picture) and six years prior to Khan Noonien Singh’s escape from exile on Ceti Alpha V (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).

Prologue

Passenger Transport Ballou

Iota Leonis system

Michael Ashrafi leaned against the forward viewport, straining his eyes as if it would somehow bring Argelius II into view sooner. “Ar-jee-lius, here we come!”

Vekal suppressed a twinge of annoyance. “As I have stated five previous times, Michael,” the Vulcan youth said, “it is ‘Ar-ghee-lius.’ A voiced velar plosive as opposed to a voiced palato-alveolar affricate. How illogical that your alphabet employs the same symbol for both.”

“It’s perfectly logical,” countered Zirani Kayros with an impish tilt to her hairless head. “Alphabets evolve over time and must adapt their existing symbols to new or foreign sounds.” The Tiburonian tapped one of her broad, elaborately contoured ears. “Sometimes they lack enough symbols to cover them all.”

“Then they could simply add diacritical marks to clarify the distinction.”