The Two Types of Vodka

The Captain surveyed the weathered structures that comprised the waterfront area as the salt-laced wind tore through his hair. "This must remind you of home," he commented.

Chekov's shifted slightly. "Reminds me of some of the places I've worked on restoring."

Kirk's eyes widened but there was no surprise in them. "You helped restore some of the seaports?"

"The main function of the Russian Navy is to preserve maritime history: what did you think the sailors do? If being a seaman wasn't such backbreaking work, I would never have joined Starfleet, Sir." He said it often as a joke to Sulu but he wondered now if there was not some grain of truth to it after all. Kirk couldn't have failed to notice that Chekov had never replaced his boots since he'd removed them to board the ships.

"I suppose I thought they sailed," the Captain admitted easily. "The initial survey is completed?"

Wide brown eyes studied Kirk a long moment. The Captain didn't need to be down here and the Security Chief had no illusion that the man was checking up on his work. "Yes, Sir," he answered dutifully. "They will begin the secondary survey tomorrow. The data and survey team's recommendations will be ready on time."

"Good." The Captain strolled a few steps own the wharf and cocked his head slightly, watching the sea birds dart lazily about the ship's timbers. "Strange that they take the same shapes on every planet," Kirk mulled aloud. "Ships, that is."

"The laws of physics are constant, Captain."

Kirk glanced at him quickly but didn't voice what caused the wry sparkle in the hazel depths of his eyes. "Yes, they are Lieutenant. How big do you suppose this ship is?"

"She's a bark," Chekov corrected tolerantly. "One hundred thirteen feet overall length, twenty seven feet beam amidships."

Kirk blinked dramatically at the younger man.

He shrugged. "I measured."

Flashing a charming smirk, the Captain quickly glossed over his own error. "Yes, well the other one is rigged as a ship."

"They're merchant vessels," Chekov elaborated. "The bark is a later design: built for greater speed."

"The shape of her hull," Kirk agreed. Then, with a sigh of wonderment, added: "You can trace a planet's entire history just by the developments in the ships they sent to sea."

" 'They mark our passage as a race of men'. "

The older man nodded soberly. "John Maesfield had the soul of a sailor. 'All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by'. "

'And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sails shaking...' Chekov's mind continued the stanza silently. Why, he wondered, do people always come back to that poem and yet leave its grandeur unsaid? "Ships do not simply trace a planet's history," Chekov maintained. "They dramatically shaped history."

"Ships from carried plague-infested rates all over the civilized world on Earth," Kirk noted instantly. "The massive reduction in the peasant population ended feudalism forever."

"Not in Russia."

A slight smile edged across the Captain's face and he paced several steps further down the pier. "No, Russia held on to their peasants, but the entire world grew through the trade provided by ships...silks and fabrics; spices, tea and coffee; gemstones, minerals and..."

"Slaves."

Kirk gave the Security Chief an exasperated scowl. "Chekov, the exchange of cultures that ships allowed..."

"The crusades, the inquisition, the decimation of native peoples throughout the world..."

"Lieutenant!"

Chekov had been expecting the Captain's exasperation with him. His gaze had been transfixed by the wild gleam in Kirk's hazel eyes as the older man spoke. He had seen that gleam in many people's eyes in his lifetime: the haunting shine that appeared whenever someone felt the touch of the ancient dreams. Through the passing eons of time those dreams had never gone away. They lingered about humanity, sheltered and guarded carefully by the elements of the sea. They waited patiently until the sea's gentle touch could remind one of humanity's place in the universe: could awaken the memories of those old dreams.

The ancient dreams glinted in all men's eyes when they came to the sea. It frightened some of them with its power but it was worse for those who had knowingly succumbed to it. It gripped the ones that were still bound with a force that couldn't be denied: with a union that shuddered in their very cells.

For humanity's cells were made up of the stuff of stars; they shared the same basic elements, the same foundation. The touch of the dreams guarded by the sea was much worse for the rare men who followed the stars. They knew that it was not the sea that had urged men out onto the water of their planets. It was the stars themselves that beckoned and the men that heard that call followed blindly, pushing so far onward that they had as least hurled themselves out into space itself when they had found a way.

For those people the touch of the dreams was not a gentle one. The gleam in their eyes had a character all its own. They could see it in each other, could recognize immediately another soul bound intimately into the fabric of the universe for reasons they had no control over. Kirk's eyes had that peculiar quality.

Chekov knew full well that James Kirk had visited this place before he'd given the Security Chief his assignment. The question was, Chekov now realized, what exactly was the assignment that he'd been given?

The Captain pursed his lips and asked: "Do you think a the Starfleet Corps of Engineers are going to be able to accommodate the atmospheric conditions that will be involved with putting a spaceport right on the water?"

"Captain," Chekov replied tonelessly. "It's the Starfleet Corps of Engineers."

Kirk hesitated, then screwed up his face in acquiescence. "I see what you mean. Still, with all this stuff gone they're still going to have to account for the water, tides, wind–the effects of the salt air on building materials. I don't envy them their task."

"Starfleet's preliminary plans for the spaceport are based on razing the waterfront area, Captain?" There wasn't much of a question in the Security Chief's voice. He simply knew it was futile not to play along with the older man's thinly disguised tack.

"Well, yes," Kirk replied immediately. "Bringing a place like this up to code and building around it would take a lot more effort than I'm sure they think it's worth. The planetary government wants to jump into their future as soon as possible."

"By destroying a living piece of their past."

A furtive glance at the Security Chief was at odds with Kirks's dismissive shrug. "It's just a bunch of old stones...and wood," he added, gesturing at the ships in front of him. "There's nothing alive here, Chekov."

"And the Enterprise is just a bunch of metal and circuitry."

Kirk seemed ready to answer but only shifted his gaze back to the wooden ships in the end. Chekov hadn't expected an answer. It would have been impossible for the Captain to do so and maintain the disinterested tone he'd been affecting during their whole conversation.

Chekov moved up next to the older man, the old wood planking biting into the soles of his bare feet. He swept his eyes over the sailing ships and their surroundings again. "Imagine making a landing approach coming in over the ocean and these ships."

"That," the Captain observed in a wistful tone, "would be unparalleled. 'They mark our passage as a race of men, Earth will not see such ships as these again.' Maesfield was wrong," he said. "There were a few rough spots but, thanks to the programs of the Russian Navy, Earth will never be without her traditional sailing ships."

The countries of a United Earth had long since dissolved their independent armed forces. Just within the last generation, however, the Russian Federation had reestablished its Imperial Navy not as a military organization but a living history museum dedicated to preserving Earth's maritime and traditional folk histories. This program, run under the Ministry of Culture, was the one which Chekov had participated in before he entered the Academy.

"These ships..." Kirk continued as the wistfulness filled the hazel depths of his eyes. "They don't look like they're getting closer as they approach land. No...these ships seem to rise out of the ocean like a phoenix rising out of the ashes. I saw the Russian Navy sail the Constitution into Baltimore Harbor a few years back. The experience was indescribable."

The Enterprise's Security Chief was always profoundly amazed that her Captain's romanticism didn't get them all into more trouble than it did. "The Constellation is in Baltimore, Maryland," he merely corrected.

"Oh yes, that's right," Kirk agreed quickly. "The Constitution is in Boston, Massachusetts."

"Charleston, Massachusetts."

The Captain nodded. "The two are sister ships, built at the same time."

"The Constitution's sister ship was destroyed. The current Constellation was a replacement built in 18..."

"You can't resist!" Kirk interrupted in a rush, his wry smirk victorious. "You purposely screw up history facts all the time but you can't stand to let mistakes in maritime history go uncorrected. The Navy still has its hold on you, Chekov."

"I am still in the Russian Navy," the Security Chief reminded him tersely.

The Captain's eyes widened in a transparent feign of innocence. "That's right: you're on reserve status. When they reincorporated the Navy they forgot to write a provision to quit."

"That's what they said, Sir."

"Something you probably should have checked on before signing up," Kirk commented drolly. "Are you required to put in time for the Navy every year?"

"Yes, Sir."

"How..." the Captain ventured after a moment's hesitation, "do you manage to do that?"

Chekov eyed him warily and considered in depth that James Kirk could benefit from a refresher course in diplomatic subterfuge. "I'm not on duty twenty four hours a day, Captain."

"How do you reconcile working for two different fleets at the same time?"

"I'm Russian, Sir," he replied tonelessly.

"Yes, well..." Kirk stopped. "I don't understand."

"Russians know there are two kinds of vodka."

Sighing slightly, the Captain gave the younger man a rueful look. "Okay, Lieutenant: I'll bite. What are the two kinds of vodka?"

"Good, Sir–and very good."

Kirk looked perplexed, but not annoyed. "I'm afraid I still don't see how that applies."

Chekov finally let a sly smile brush over his lips and intoned:

" 'And now the old ships and their men are gone;

the new ships and new men,

many of them bearing the old, auspicious names,

have taken up their watch on the stern and impartial sea,

which offers no opportunities but to those who

know how to grasp them with a ready hand and

an undaunted heart.'

"Joesph Conrad," he finished. "There are two kinds of vodka, Sir, but they're both good and it's all vodka in the end."

"You mean it doesn't matter what kind of ship it is," the Captain observed. "It's still a ship and the same dreams and stars that guide us."

"Yes, Sir."

Kirk pressed his lips together tightly and studied the Security Chief silently a long moment. "The traditional sailing ship is a testament to mankind's courage to take hold of his dreams and brave anything to make them come alive.'

Chekov regarded the man dubiously, but said nothing.

"We should never lose touch with where our dreams came from. These ships, this seaport area...they're who these people are: where they came from."

It was difficult not to point out that they seemed to have switched sides in their debate. "This is a Starfleet assignment, Captain. The engineer's plans are to raze the area and start fresh."

Kirk twitched and glanced furtively away. "Perhaps they need to change their plans."

Chekov folded his arms soberly across his chest and fixed a level stare on the older man.

A peculiar trace of guilt flickered through depths of the older man's eyes, but he merely said: "I have faith in your ability to do this job better than any of my other officers, Lieutenant: that's why I chose you. I know you'll find a way to get accomplished what needs to be done.

"Carry on."