A variant of this story has been rattling around inside me for a
few years now.
Let’s get it out in the open.
“Tiger by the Toe”
By Joseph Manno
Rajah Bagheer felt his hackles rise; and, as usual, his temper
wasn’t far behind.
Someone was following him, and keeping their distance out of
respect, or, more likely, fear. He didn’t know how he knew—whether some combination of sensory input had coalesced
in his unconscious, or if it was simple instinct. He didn’t particularly care,
either.
No one hunted him without becoming the hunted… and eventually, the
victim.
It had been less than five minutes since he’d left Alexander
Pierce and Luciano Mantovanni behind in the former’s office. While he would
have given a haunch of haara beast to
have been present for their subsequent conversation, the dual compensation of
promotion and assignment as commander of USS Sacramento was more than adequate.
Still, he could just hear the man who, until only moments ago, had
been his captain: “It took you how
long to find trouble?”
Trouble found him,
though. They both well-knew it: From religious fundamentalists on the Tzenkethi
homeworld who interpreted their sacred texts in a particularly violent way—a
way that declared a black-furred Tzen either messiah or demon—to any number of
Klingon officers desperate to avenge a comrade’s death, or their own maiming,
the list of potential assassins was long… if not what he would consider
particularly distinguished.
Of course, there were few things Bagheer enjoyed more than
shortening that list; and while he’d been able to do just that a number of
times during the course of the war, insofar as he was concerned, too much was never enough.
He took an abrupt turn into a relatively deserted corridor, and
increased his pace slightly.
After a few minutes, though, Bagheer’s aggravation was becoming
audible.
Circumstances were conspiring to hamper him. A starbase’s air
filtration system was, if anything, even more efficient than a starship’s; and
besides, considering the placement and direction of air vents, his stalker was
downwind.
He could simply have contacted the
Besides, Bagheer wasn’t one to run away—from anything.
No matter what the Tzenkethi did—whichever turn he took, whatever
pace he set—when he settled down to again listen, his enemies were there, the
same distance behind they’d been… and infuriatingly out of sight. He could even
hear their whispers.
Finally, he decided on a time-honored tactic—that of complete
silence and immobility. He set his tricorder to deflect scans, and boosted its
gain to absurdly high levels. While it would only protect him for a few
minutes, those might be the decisive ones.
Now, he thought, come find me.
I’m waiting.
At last.
He’d outmaneuvered them. Bagheer suppressed a purr of
satisfaction, and coiled himself to leap.
They rounded the corner; he sprang, snarling his challenge and
fury… and then desperately attempted to arrest his forward motion as his foes
saw him… and screamed.
Bagheer’s thoughts and body were a tumble as, for the first time
in his adult life, he didn’t land on his feet… but instead crashed into an
unyielding duranium partition, and practically slid down the wall into a
writhing black mass on the carpeted floor.
Young! Little more than
cubs!
He pulled himself to his feet, and it was all he could do not to
stopper his ears: He hadn’t known a pair of small children could be that loud. The high-pitched wail
tattooed his eardrums, raised every hair on his coat… and showed no signs of
abating.
He roared, “Stop that!”
And they did.
The two little girls—one human, the other Andorian—clutched at
each other and huddled back against the bulkhead.
For a moment he was at a loss… and that hesitation nearly cost
him: A pair of lower lips began to quiver; Bagheer realized he’d have to act
quickly or weeping would replace wailing. And he knew that gnashing of
teeth—his own—wouldn’t be far behind.
“Why are you two stalking
me?”
Having to consider a response delayed the onrush of tears, though
the tow-headed human had turned an alarming shade of gray, and the Andorian’s
antennae had peeled back to rest flush against her head.
He’d only delayed the flood, not prevented it.
“I shall not hurt you, children. I am
Starfleet.”
“B–but Tzenkethis eat people!”
They both geared up to scream again.
Pride Lord, preserve me.
Bagheer’s tail lashed in frustration… and both girls’ eyes were
immediately drawn to its tip.
In that moment, inspiration struck.
He moved his tail off the deck and had it tap him on the shoulder…
then, as he turned his head, moved it away.
“What was that?” he growled.
The Andorian girl gasped, and tried to hide a smile.
The tail poked his other shoulder. This time, though, it waited
for him while he swiveled, and he said, “Oh, it’s you. What do you want?”
The tip waggled back and forth, then quivered.
“Oh, really?” Bagheer growled in reply.
It bent and wiggled, as if nodding. He mirrored it for an instant.
Now both girls were giggling, the Andorian uncontrollably and the
human in fits and starts.
“I don’t think that’s
true,” Bagheer asserted… then yelped in mock
outrage as it rapped him smartly on the snout.
That last blow settled things in his favor: His audience was now
squealing with delight.
Well, if starship
command doesn’t prove appealing, at least I have a future as an animal act.
Time, he decided, to act the adult.
“You should not be wandering a starbase alone. Where are your
parents?”
They both danced in place a bit… and he grew suspicious.
“Um… uh…”
“We’re orphans!”
Bagheer had a certain admiration for the human imagination: This
child’s no doubt newfound parentless status seemed, in that moment, to fit her.
She managed to look pretty, pathetic and needy all at once.
He decided to play along.
“Then I shall take you to an orphanage. You will have to work very hard, but they will feed you, and
give you a place to stay.
“Come along.”
The tiny blonde’s artful hemming and hawing now followed on the
heels of her foot-shuffling. Her partner-in-crime clearly wasn’t as practiced a
fibber: the tips of her antennae were orbiting in opposite directions,
completing her expression of comic confusion delightfully.
He interrupted the ringleader’s newest storyline with, “What are your names?”
“I’m… Esmerelda!” She
seemed quite proud of this innovation.
“And you?” Bagheer inquired, turning to the Andorian girl.
“She’s
“‘
Even Bagheer almost laughed aloud.
These two must be a
wonderful torment for their parents—all six of them.
“Did you know,” he asked, “that the Tzenkethi often know if someone is telling the truth?”
Before she could edit herself, the little human girl muttered, “Uh oh”… then covered her mouth to hide
what she’d said.
“If I were to look at the nametag on the back of your blouse,
‘Esmerelda,’ what would it say?”
Dejectedly, she muttered, “Ami.”
“And you are…?”
“Aliara.” Andorians weren’t, as a rule, much for deception: She
looked almost relieved that the jig was up.
“And where are your parents, Ami and Aliara?”
Asking them both to answer at once was something of a
miscalculation.
“Well, see…”
“…not fair…”
“…have to…”
“…babysit…”
“…not babies…”
“…stupid sister…”
“…boys…”
“…cooties…”
He didn’t actually get much of what either said, but somehow
managed to formulate a cohesive theory.
Somewhere, a female
human adolescent is rending her clothes and tearing her fur, because both her
charges have disappeared while she was engaged in young lust.
The final question loomed.
“And why are you
following me?”
Now, they were suddenly shy. Each tried to step behind the other;
but Aliara was a little faster, and a lot stronger. After a brief, highly
entertaining struggle, Ami ended up in front.
“I wanted to know…”
“We wanted to know,”
chimed in Aliara.
“We wanted to know if…
“…if…
“…you purr when people
pet you.”
He actually chirruped in surprise—a noise he hadn’t made in almost
two decades.
Rajah Bagheer considered his answer carefully.
Then, he sank down into a crouch and waited.
“Come and find out,” he said.
***
Bagheer realized that he’d now shouldered a much larger problem
than he’d had moments ago: Engaging in a battle of wits and claws with imagined
or real assassins was one thing; carrying a pair of small hairless monkeys
through the public areas of a space station was entirely another.
He knew his capabilities and limitations… and even he couldn’t
appear forbidding and ferocious enough to offset these two.
The human child was indeed a charmer, but a chatterer, as well,
and had evidently decided that since the three of them were now all “friends”
(a category she took with great seriousness) that Bagheer needed an extensive
briefing on the sum total of knowledge she’d accumulated in her “four… no, five… I mean, five-and-a-half” years of existence.
Insofar as the little Andorian was concerned, the crisis was over,
and he made a perfectly wonderful rug against which to nestle for a nap. First
her antennae had drooped; then she had followed.
He considered his alternatives.
Killing everyone who laughs
at me as I take these two wherever they belong will run into dozens of deaths. And while that might prove
gratifying in the short term…
For a moment, Bagheer entertained himself with a scenario that had
him running amok on the station, killing indiscriminately—well, he’d
discriminate enough to kill the mouthiest
ones first—and his purr increased in volume, much to Ami’s delight.
“You’re like a furry
motor,” she murmured, and hugged him.
Bagheer sighed… and with more than a hint of genuine regret,
tabled option one.
Briefly, he thought of contacting Mantovanni, and rejected that
immediately.
Why immortalize my
humiliation?
There was always his new starship, Sacramento. Perhaps…
Just then, Aliara snuggled more determinedly against him:
Evidently the muscle underneath his pelt didn’t quite conform to her needs. She
commenced to wiggling about—even punching him thrice in succession, as if he
were a pillow that needed softening.
He grunted, at once annoyed and amused. The little blue larva was
stronger than she appeared, but he bore it.
Where was I?
Ah, yes. Sacramento.
The problem with that possibility was he had absolutely no idea
about either his vessel or its crew. Their previous commander might have forged
them into one of the best in Starfleet, or they could be a collection of
misfits and malcontents to rival those on his friend’s first Liberty—a group all too eager to gain
any advantage on their new captain by exploiting his discomfiture.
He need familiarity… discretion… and impromptu resourcefulness.
“Now you must promise to
be very quiet,” Bagheer told Ami, and noted with self-contempt the hint of
wheedling that had crept into his tone.
Fortunately, she was agreeable, and covered her mouth with such
determination that for a brief time he thought she’d match her companion’s
complexion within the minute.
Satisfied as to her compliance, though, he tapped his comm badge.
“Bagheer to… Hatshepsut.”
After a moment, her response came.
“Hatshepsut. Well,
Commander, to what to I owe this honor?”
Before he could tell her, though, she continued with a lilting, “This is a day I shall note with especial affection. I do not believe you’ve ever contacted me directly in the entire time we’ve served together.”
And I’m already
regretting this
one, the Tzenkethi thought. Perhaps
if you hadn’t done everything short of publicly presenting your rump in an
attempt to entice me…
Instead, he rumbled, “I… request
your assistance… M’Raav.”
She was clearly enjoying herself.
“And employing my
Goddess-given name, too! If only to reward you in the face of such unlooked-for humility, I
grant your request. What may I do to help you… Rajah?”
You’re holding kits,
Bagheer… so hold your temper.
“It’s a delicate situation. I have with me…”
Just then, Aliara stirred and yawned—loudly… and Ami took
exception to it.
“He told us to be quiet,
bug brain!”
The Andorian was not without literary resources of her own,
though.
“Don’t call me ‘bug brain,’ shell ears!”
The debate had been joined.
“Least I don’t have two worms
on my head!”
“Take that back!”
“No!”
“Pinky face!”
“Blueberry!”
Bagheer managed a strangled, “Hatshepsut,
please…!” and then thought he was experiencing time dilation, as the next
minute or so stretched on for approximately four… no, five… five-and-a-half…
days. He was on the verge of yowling like he hadn’t since he was their age…
…when, at long last, the transporter took them all.
If she had not seen it herself, even M’Raav Hatshepsut would have
hardly believed it: The tall and terrible Rajah Bagheer laid low—or, at least,
brought down—by a pair of cubs that would not have even made him a proper meal.
And, far from that, clearly the two already trusted and liked him,
for they shrank against his side for protection as the transporter effect faded
and they found themselves in very different surroundings than those of moments
ago.
Hatshepsut watched with extreme interest as he rose to his full
height, cradling a child in each arm, and practically bounded off the platform.
Before he could commence the introduction (and subsequent transfer of
responsibility), the doll-like blond human weighed in with her assessment of
the new situation.
Confidently, she asserted, “You’re
his wife.”
Bagheer almost dropped them both; fortunately, they thought he was
teasing them, and reacted with giggles—short-lived ones.
“And you’re a Vulcan,”
accused the Andorian girl, pointing at the woman behind the operator console:
one Sera MacLeod. She then, very theatrically, tossed and turned her head.
Bad enough that
Andorians savor grudges, Hatshepsut thought. Passing them on to your children is
inexcusable.
Again, though, Bagheer startled her: He spoke to the child, so
quietly only she could hear; but it wasn’t difficult to determine what he’d
said, considering her response.
“A nice Vulcan?” Her
voice was full of doubt, yet strangely tinged with hope as well.
Sera couldn’t help but smile… and it was exactly what had been
needed.
“All right,” she decided. Her antennae oriented on the “nice
Vulcan,” and a shy smile followed.
Heed, one and all, marveled Hatshepsut, as the
Tzenkethi facilitates improved relations between Andorria and Vulcan.
Quickly as he could manage, he briefed them on the events of the
last hour or so, managing to omit some of the more embarrassing moments. From
the concealed smiles and disguised vocalizations, though, the counselor knew
Bagheer understood they were filling in the blanks—all too well.
“I… appreciate this,
M’Raav,” Bagheer said, in her native Felisian. “Going aboard Sacramento with kits clinging to me would not have been
my preferred first impression.”
Replying in kind, Hatshepsut offered an amused, “Oh, I don’t know; it might have done wonders for your image.”
Even she couldn’t tell if the subsequent rumble was amused or
annoyed, and decided not to venture any further.
Best not to tickle the
panther’s tail too
often, she thought.
The girls, when told their time with Bagheer was at an end,
squawked a bit.
“But we don’t want to
go,” Ami said, a picture of adorable reason. “We like you. You’re such a nice
kitty.”
Though she did her level best not to react, Hatshepsut was unable
to entirely suppress a little trill… but covered it by assuring him, “I shall
deliver them home to their dens, sir.”
Sera didn’t help any. When the two “ex-orphans” renewed their
protests, she delivered a firm, “None of that, girls. Now say good-bye to
Captain Bagheer.
“He’s a very busy cat.”
It was amazing. Hatshepsut had no idea from what newfound well her
former shipmate was drawing his patience, but it was evidently not yet dry. She
watched, astonished, as he permitted the little moppets to hug and even pet him—eliciting
happy murmurs when he began, in response, to purr.
Fortunately, Hatshepsut too, was prime clinging material, or the
scene might have been fraught with histrionics in stereo. As it was, each girl
surrendered her perch in his arms only reluctantly. Hatshepsut, small even for
a Felisian, could carry only one comfortably, and again Ami was the odd girl
out—though she found consolation holding fast to her new guardian’s tail.
“Bye,” they chorused.
He waved… and so did his tail.
As the transporter room door slid shut between him and them, Ami
looked up at Hatshepsut, and told her, “You’re very pretty…
“…Mrs. Bagheer.”
If the Tzenkethi thought his ordeal was over, though, it was
because he had not reckoned with the impish humor of Sera MacLeod.
“You let them pet you.”
The purr turned perilous, and he replied, “What of it?”
She chose not to heed.
“I don’t suppose you’d let me
get away with that?”
For a moment, he seemed to have ignored the comment; Sera thought
he was wrapping himself in dignity. Then she felt something slide against her
midriff and realized, far too late, that what he was wrapping was his tail about her waist.
Bagheer yanked her into his grasp.
A thunderous rumble issued from his chest, so like the one he’d
shared with the children, and yet not. She felt his presence loom over her,
around her… and nearly wet herself.
He purred, and drew his unsheathed claws along her cheek with an
artist’s—or, perhaps, a lover’s—restraint, thrilling the nerves but leaving the
skin unmarked.
“Are you asking?”
“I…”
Sera had always thought women who said they liked a man who was
“dangerous” to be lack-witted little twits. Now, though, she was caught in
Bagheer’s embrace—in his eyes—and this time, her flush of warmth and moisture
had little to do with fear.
His nostrils flared as he noted her response.
“I sense that you are.”
And then, at once, he uncoiled from around the reeling Vulcan and
set her back on a pair of none-too-steady feet. After taking his place on the
transport pad, he reminded her of a certain distinction.
“You, Sera, are not a little girl.”
***
Sacramento needed work.
From the instant he’d gone aboard, Bagheer had immersed himself in
making her over in his own image… and, only now, days later, withdrawn to his
ready room, there to ruminate on what more needed doing. It was almost an hour
before his determined pacing dispersed enough energy to let him sit at his
desk. Only then did the weary Tzenkethi take note of his waiting comm traffic.
He scanned the subject matter: Ship’s business, mostly, including
a slew of mail addressed to “Incoming Commander, USS Sacramento.” There were, however, a number of congratulatory
missives from various well-wishers, including Mantovanni, Erika Donaldson and
Maitland Forrest.
Waiting almost unnoticed, though, amidst the “high priority”
communiqués, was a single message the subject of which startled him.
It read:
May we be on your ship
when we grow up?
Even before he read the rest, Rajah Bagheer, much to his own
surprise, found himself purring.