Captain James T. Kirk
USS Enterprise NCC-1701
C/O Starfleet Operations
Earth Central
STARFLEET DIPLOMATIC COURIER, CODED SECURE


George Samuel Kirk Jr.
Bioagricultural Industries, Kirk Inc
Deneva Central
17 Junque St.
Deneva, UFP

full encryption: fruit

Dear Sam 14

Dear Sam,


I had another nightmare last night. They are starting again
and I don't know what to do. In this one, I was naked and
standing on a platform, hundreds of people were staring at
me. I couldn't hear their voices. My hands and feet were in
chains and there was another one around my neck. I turned to
the side and I could see a tall, reddish brown woman, with a
thick black braid that hung down her back. I knew it was my
wife staring at me from her chains. Her belly was swollen
from pregnancy. She was so beautiful and regal, even naked
and standing on a wooden platform, that my heart started
racing and I wanted to reach out and touch her...but I
couldn't. 

This time, my skin was a dark rich brown. I must have been
in my twenties, I think. Judging from the clothes that I
saw, the period looked to be about the early 1700's in
either England or America. It was warm, but I couldn't tell
where I was. They were selling us, Sam and hate and loathing
filled me that anyone could do this to another. I stood and
stared back at them and they kept hitting me across my back
and telling me to look down and to not stare at my betters.
I wanted to kill them all, but I knew I could not, and
should not.

They sold my wife first. Words started to come through. They
were afraid I would not be breakable, so there was a
reluctance to buy me, but they sold my wife and my unborn
child. I began to scream and curse at them in my languages;
I spoke many. They beat me. The harder they beat me, the
more I cursed them. I felt each stripe of the lash, and I
vowed to slay them all. I woke up screaming in rage with my
back on fire. 

Spock heard me from his cabin and ran in to check on me. I
woke up to him holding my shoulders and trying to shake me
awake. He was honestly frightened for me; Vulcans do not
typically have nightmares. They control their dreams as
harshly as they control their waking state. He said Vulcans
have long known dreams were the source of emotional leaks
and turmoil, so they are trained at an early age to arrest
them. They have no REM state, no dreams; how sad. I would
not give up my dreams; some of them are so wonderful. It is
worth the downside, because in my dreams, I can fly.

I could feel his fear through his fingers. For a second, I
could hear him in my mind. That must have been him reaching
for my thoughts, because I know I can not do it. It is
burned from my mind forever.

I couldn't say anything to tell him why I was screaming.
When I talked to him at first, it was in the tongue of the
Iroquois and then the language of the Senegalese. How do I
know this, Sam? I had been born free, I knew that, also. It
means he must of survived, because the child in his wife's
womb would have had no memory of this, only the child to
follow. He must have survived. I need to believe that he won
his freedom again or else the grief threatens to overwhelm
me. You know how I feel about slavery. If you don't remember
ask Kleinschmidt, if you can find his ass in hell where I
sent him.

Sometimes, I can't breathe, Sam. The ancestral memories
crowd out my air. Help me, tell me what to do. Am I finally
going mad? I know my experience on the world with the dead
city started this again. I thought Tarsus had taken all my
memories from me. I heard their voices for the briefest of
flashes before I fainted. Spock thinks that the wind coming
out of the cavern made me fall and hit my head. I was
unconscious well before my head hit the rock. They
overwhelmed me with their sorrow and I could not stand
against them.

Four nights ago, my face was painted blue. I was waiting in
the trees in a primordial forest that stretched for miles
and miles. The shade was so deep that I was in an eternal
night, but I stayed still and waited; sometimes I had to
will myself to take a breath. I knew my fellow warriors were
in the surrounding trees and buried under hillocks that
would erupt with armed warriors on my signal. This time my
hair was braided into hundreds of long blonde braids that
were wound up into a topknot on the top of my head.

I heard the jangle of bells against cloth. A bird shot from
cover and headed for the open sky. Still I waited. In my
hands was an axe with a dull metallic head. It had sigils on
it to ward off evil spirits and I rubbed them silently as I
tensed. Finally, out of the gloom, a Roman Standard, double
Eagles, the Emperor's own, came slowly over the hill, higher
than the heads of the troops that walked beneath it. A bird
sound floated through the trees and I shifted my weight to
get ready. I waited until the entire troop had passed
beneath my position and then I leapt on the back of the last
man and killed him with one blow to the head.  The trees and
ground sprouted death and I awoke to the sounds of the
screams of the dying.


Three nights ago, I was in entering Egypt in a chariot drawn
by four coal black horses. I was full of pride and glory; I
was Ashanti and going to claim the crown of Egypt with my
leaders. I think I was a General or the equivalent, but I
felt like I was a God. We had finally defeated the corrupt
and  incestuous Egyptians, or so I had named them in my
mind. They had long sought to attain Godhead by forcing the
marriage of siblings and I knew that to be an abomination.
They then had sought to conquer us, and that had been an
unforgivable transgression. We went to reclaim our children
and lead them back from the abyss. 

We were ruthless conquerors and there was no kindness in me,
Sam. I had killed a phalanx of Egyptian soldiers down to the
last man-child that very day. The blood of the last man I
had slain was still on my robes. The noise of the crowd was
deafening. They wailed and cried out to Horis and all of
their Gods to protect them from the invaders. Our troops
stretched behind me for as far as I could see and the dust
of our marching made a cloud that blotted out the horizon. I
could still hear the trumpet notes when I awoke.

Two nights ago I froze. I was on the steppes of Mongolia. I
was riding a Steppe pony in a war-troop. It was freezing;
the wind howled and snow whirled around us until we could
only see twenty lengths in front of us. 

Our entire encampment was on the move against the
unification march of the Huns. We did not wish to be used in
Attila's war. He had heard of our gifts and wished us to
become his shamans. Our chief had been called to meet him
and when he had refused to allow us to join their war of
annihilation and domination, he had been slain and his body
had been raised on a gibbet for all to see. I had raided the
encampment and stolen his body back. I remember my pride at
doing so and my sorrow at the death of my leader. He had
been like a second father to me.

We were headed for the mountains in the distance, to
disappear until it would be safe once again to return to our
ancestral lands, if ever that day would come to pass. 

I looked across into the face of my brother, not of blood,
but by choice. We nodded to each other in our silent speech,
and raced off ahead of the clan to scout out the trail and
kill any that we might see, so that no-one would know of our
passing. Others trailed behind the clan to do the same. I
woke up freezing and covered with goose-bumps from that one.
 
I feel the weight of the millennia around my neck and
sometimes it threatens to pull me down into the abyss. I
know what I am supposed to do, Sam. I can only pray that I
have the strength and the endurance to accomplish my goals
before I am taken. What will I do when you are gone? Who
will keep me sane and away from the madness that lies on the
other side of my calm? 

I can see now why the Eugenics war had to be won. They were
even madder than we are, because they were foolish enough to
think they should rule. At least we only seek to serve and
finally to disappear as all humans become us, which I know
must happen if we are to survive as a people. The weight of
the past brings humanity to only two possible places,
obliteration, or total freedom. I choose freedom for us all,
but I think it will cause me great sorrow to stay to the
road I must tread to help us get there. I am afraid, but I
can never tell anyone but you the truth, because I am the
Captain and Starship Captains are never afraid. Even worse,
I am one of the Fruit of Humanity and we have eaten of the
tree of knowledge. Oh, Sweet Lord, forgive us all.


I am so tired, but never too tired to tell you that I love
you, Brother. Goodnight. Perhaps tonight I will sleep
without dreams. I hope so.

Jim









March 26, 1999
Page 4