But his gaze darted to Valeria Williams, Pioneer’s fetching and fiery armory officer, and he wondered if such an achievement would improve his standing in her eyes. It seemed unlikely, though; while they had bonded last year in the aftermath of a serious warp accident, the lieutenant had subsequently shown no more than friendly interest in Kirk. Indeed, though her physical relationship with Reynaldo Sangupta had ended even before then, she still responded more passionately to the brash young science officer than to the quiet Lieutenant Kirk, even if that passion usually took the form of argument. Right now, Val and Rey were lingering beneath the antique telescope, carrying on a hushed debate while Vons led Commander Mayweather out of the chamber, the sound of the Jelna’s rattling beads echoing in the hallway beyond. “You’re kidding,” Williams was saying. “You support Rigel’s admission? I thought you Planetarists were afraid it would trample your cultural autonomy or something.”
“Hey, I’m not just a label,” Sangupta countered. “Sure, I want the member worlds to hold on to their autonomy, but I don’t see why letting more worlds in would hurt that. I mean, space is really big. Even with warp drive and subspace radio, it takes a lot of time and effort for different worlds to interact. That’s why a more centralized government won’t work—the worlds are going to go their own ways just by being so far apart. So why not let Rigel and other worlds join?”
“Maybe. But what’s the rush?”
“Wait, wait. You’re against admission? I thought you backed al-Rashid.”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean I agree with Vanderbilt forcing the issue just so he can leave a legacy,” Williams told the science officer. “I’m all for a bigger Federation, but let’s choose our members wisely. That’s why we’re here, right? Because there’s so much we still don’t know. What’s really going on inside the Trade Commission? What aren’t they telling us about Rigel VII or the corruption on Two?”
“What makes you so convinced they’re up to something?”
“Because I don’t trust corporate government. You know what happened on Earth when the corporations got too much power. Political parties used as fronts for dismantling environmental and ethical regulations. Justice becoming a commodity to be bought. The wealthy few impoverishing the masses, the homeless walled inside Sanctuary Districts.”
Sangupta held up his hands to quell her increasingly fervent tirade. “All right, all right, no need to convince me. But in case you’ve forgotten, the RTC’s a nonprofit corporation. Like a charitable foundation. The board members are elected by their worlds. They get paid a stipend so they aren’t motivated by profit.”
“Sure, in theory. But they do business with a lot of companies that are definitely out for profit, and they don’t worry too much about keeping their excesses in check. What if they’re just as corrupt as the people they deal with? The Federation should’ve taken the time to learn all this before inviting them to Babel.”
“Well, that’s what we’re here for now, isn’t it?” Sangupta replied breezily, leading the way outside after Mayweather and Vons.
Williams rolled her eyes and turned to Kirk, implicitly inviting him to join her as she followed the science officer out. “So what do you think?” she asked him. “In or out?”
Kirk replied carefully. “I just think I’m lucky to be here to witness such a historic decision in the making. Even better, to be the one to chronicle it firsthand. It’s quite a privilege.”
Williams smiled. “Lucky you. We all get so caught up in the politics of the moment—you have the perspective to see the big picture. I guess that makes all our arguments seem a bit petty.”
The historian smiled back. “Without those arguments, my job would be more boring.”
She chuckled. “But you’re right. When all this is said and done, it’s your words people will read to learn about this. Students for centuries to come will know your name.”
He flushed. “It’s names like Jonathan Archer and Malcolm Reed that they’ll remember. I might get mentioned in citations here and there, but that’s not the same as being famous.”
She clapped his shoulder. “It’s not about fame, Sam. Fame is fleeting. It’s about making a lasting impact.”
Kirk gazed after her fondly as she pulled ahead to join the rest of the group. They had emerged into the large circular plaza surrounding the observatory, a plaza that was one vast orrery representing the Beta Rigel system. The observatory dome itself, painted bluish-white, represented Raij. Rotating slowly around it, driven by the oft-repaired antique clockworks under the plaza, were models of each of its planets. Williams jogged past the large blue orb representing the hot Jovian Rigel I, preceded and trailed at sixty-degree intervals by arc-shaped sculptures representing the Trojan asteroids held in orbit by the interaction of the Jovian’s gravity with the sun’s. Kirk followed her across the closely packed orbits of the planets within the habitable zone, though most of them were elsewhere in their courses at the moment. He paused to study the intricate mechanisms driving the multiple moons that circled Rigel VI, a Neptune-type giant whose rocky satellites hosted several of the Rigel Colonies along with some of the system’s most prominent mining and shipbuilding facilities.