Science Fiction

Madness? Obsession? Keris knew little of such things. It was impossible to believe that this was the same man; the man who had taken her in and nurtured her; who had impressed on her the conviction that the Kelanni needed to be protected and cared for. Yet somehow he had turned into a monster.

His hands slipped to one end of his staff and he swung it towards her in a wide arc. She jumped back instinctively, the diamond blade passing inches from her midriff. "I'm gratified to see that your reflexes are as keen as ever, Keris." He spun around and then leapt into the air a short distance, aiming the staff at her head. She side stepped neatly, and the blade flashed past her harmlessly. "Good, very good," he approved. "Now are you going to obey my wishes or are you going to defend yourself?"

He was advancing on her again. Keris felt as if she were in a waking dream. One hand moved involuntarily to her own staff, gripping the smooth darkwood. It felt solid, reassuring. Her other hand moved to her neck control and she adjusted the bronze layer of her cloak, seeking the pressure of natural lodestone. As she registered the strengths and directions of the familiar push of the ore, it was bizarrely the words of Mordal himself that came back to her, spoken in a different place and at a different time.

"Battling another Keltar is unlike any other battle you will ever fight. When encountering anyone else, the lodestone will furnish you with a decisive advantage in height and momentum. However, when you are facing another Keltar, those advantages are cancelled out. Instead, the field of battle and the configuration of lodestone deposits become all important. A clash between Keltar is primarily a battle of tactics. Even superior strength and agility can be overcome by superior positioning and spatial orientation. You must immediately determine the location and strength of any deposits and then `own' them, denying your opponent any advantage."

Keris tested the push on her lodestone layer from different directions, mapping out the floor of the corrie in her head. One directly behind her - weak. Two behind Mordal; one to the left - medium strength, and one he was almost standing on - the strongest of the three. His was the clear advantage. No doubt he had planned for this eventuality when arranging to meet her. The spot he had selected, even the place he had chosen to stand were far from random. Keris cursed her own lack of foresight. She would have to go on the defensive and stall for time, hoping to reposition herself so as to challenge his dominant stance.

Start with what you have. She backed off rapidly and activated her cloak, leaping and pushing off against the deposit behind her. It was more to see what Mordal would do than anything else. The next move was clearly his. The aged Keltar flared his own cloak and pushed off the big deposit, soaring over her. She descended, holding out her staff with both hands defensively. He dived, his staff meeting hers with a loud crack, then let loose with a flurry of blows as they both descended. He drove her down, finishing off with a powerful slicing move as her boots hit stone, forcing her to her knees. He locked staffs with her, eyes wild with elation.

Keris gritted her teeth and strained for a moment, before shoving him back. Mordal swung his blade and slashed her arm as she rolled away. Keris felt the flash of pain. She embraced it, allowing it to keen her senses. Getting her feet under her, she rose to face Mordal once again. He was still positioned between her and the main deposits of lodestone in the ground. In spite of his age, his reactions seemed unimpaired. If I don't come up with something soon, I'm finished.

Madness? Obsession? Keris knew little of such things. It was impossible to believe that this was the same man; the man who had taken her in and nurtured her; who had impressed on her the conviction that the Kelanni needed to be protected and cared for. Yet somehow he had turned into a monster.

His hands slipped to one end of his staff and he swung it towards her in a wide arc. She jumped back instinctively, the diamond blade passing inches from her midriff. "I'm gratified to see that your reflexes are as keen as ever, Keris." He spun around and then leapt into the air a short distance, aiming the staff at her head. She side stepped neatly, and the blade flashed past her harmlessly. "Good, very good," he approved. "Now are you going to obey my wishes or are you going to defend yourself?"

He was advancing on her again. Keris felt as if she were in a waking dream. One hand moved involuntarily to her own staff, gripping the smooth darkwood. It felt solid, reassuring. Her other hand moved to her neck control and she adjusted the bronze layer of her cloak, seeking the pressure of natural lodestone. As she registered the strengths and directions of the familiar push of the ore, it was bizarrely the words of Mordal himself that came back to her, spoken in a different place and at a different time.

"Battling another Keltar is unlike any other battle you will ever fight. When encountering anyone else, the lodestone will furnish you with a decisive advantage in height and momentum. However, when you are facing another Keltar, those advantages are cancelled out. Instead, the field of battle and the configuration of lodestone deposits become all important. A clash between Keltar is primarily a battle of tactics. Even superior strength and agility can be overcome by superior positioning and spatial orientation. You must immediately determine the location and strength of any deposits and then `own' them, denying your opponent any advantage."

Keris tested the push on her lodestone layer from different directions, mapping out the floor of the corrie in her head. One directly behind her - weak. Two behind Mordal; one to the left - medium strength, and one he was almost standing on - the strongest of the three. His was the clear advantage. No doubt he had planned for this eventuality when arranging to meet her. The spot he had selected, even the place he had chosen to stand were far from random. Keris cursed her own lack of foresight. She would have to go on the defensive and stall for time, hoping to reposition herself so as to challenge his dominant stance.

Start with what you have. She backed off rapidly and activated her cloak, leaping and pushing off against the deposit behind her. It was more to see what Mordal would do than anything else. The next move was clearly his. The aged Keltar flared his own cloak and pushed off the big deposit, soaring over her. She descended, holding out her staff with both hands defensively. He dived, his staff meeting hers with a loud crack, then let loose with a flurry of blows as they both descended. He drove her down, finishing off with a powerful slicing move as her boots hit stone, forcing her to her knees. He locked staffs with her, eyes wild with elation.

Keris gritted her teeth and strained for a moment, before shoving him back. Mordal swung his blade and slashed her arm as she rolled away. Keris felt the flash of pain. She embraced it, allowing it to keen her senses. Getting her feet under her, she rose to face Mordal once again. He was still positioned between her and the main deposits of lodestone in the ground. In spite of his age, his reactions seemed unimpaired. If I don't come up with something soon, I'm finished.

Most scientists, academics, and journalists who write about Star Trek claim to be fans and lovers of the various Starfleet Captains and their crews. But their customary methodologies function to deny to Star Trek its true originality as the creator of a reality-shaping "science fiction" that formatively influences culture, ideas, technologies, and even "hard sciences" like physics. Some book authors repeat the well-worn truism that Star Trek is a great modern mythology. Others follow the paradigm of The Science of Star Trek, substituting their own particular field of expertise for the word "Science" in that formula. This is exactly the opposite of clearing a path to the perception that Star Trek actively affects technoscience and techno-culture. It holds Star Trek in the weaker position of being "tested" against an established body of knowledge to see if it "measures up" on a scale of feasibility or correctness. The possibility that Star Trek is the lively initiator of a "new real" is thereby eliminated in advance.

What is the "essence" of Star Trek as a vigorously imprinting science fiction is for us a question still to be answered. To gain knowledge about something that we instinctively sense to be "inaugural" or "instituting," we must be willing to lose something that we already know with systematic certainty, to voluntarily dispose of erudition that we acquired with the instruments of fixed scholarly categories. We must stay keenly aware of the elusiveness of the object under study and the sought after apprehension. We must strive to see the object of the investigation as non-comparable with what we already know, and non-exchangeable in the currency of existing wisdom. Our goal is to learn Star Trek's internal and underlying logic. As a singularity, Star Trek can only be grasped through an exploration that is carried out in Star Trek's own terms. But we ironically do not know at the outset what these "own terms" are. Acknowledging this paradox leaves us with a seemingly daunting task, but it remains possible to take a few intuitions or "direct perceptions" as our starting point.

Willis October...will be back!