NOVEMBER, 2266

Chekov sat with the Captain's orphaned nephew in the galley. Leaving the healthy but grieving boy alone seemed unwise.

"Peter, have you been sleeping well?"

"Just some odd nightmares, sir. Nothing compared to what you guys have
seen, I'll bet."

Chekov shrugged.

"Try me."

"I'm--not sure if I should, sir. They get kinda weird. They're just things on my mind coming out as dreams, that's all."

Pavel had a hard time letting the boy withdraw into his shell, so he offered up a slightly provocative challenge.

"In Russia, it is considered great bad luck to not speak your mind."

The one set of grades Peter Kirk had bragged about were his history scores. He looked askance at the man ten years his senior.

"That couldn't have always been true. I'm thinking of the Tsars, Stalin, etc."

Pavel shrugged.

"In fact, that saying came about because of those periods. Many came to feel that Russians not speaking their minds lead to the vast amount of misery the land suffered for so long."

Peter sopped up his soup with a biscuit.

"But if anyone spoke up--they got chopped down."

Chekov shook his head.

"Not everyone. Now take the case of the famous boxer Rocky Balboa...."

Uncharacteristically, Peter interrupted.

"He was American!"

"Da. But he caused a Russian to successfully speak his mind."

The younger Kirk seemed intrigued.

"How?"

"Well, it seems that Premier Konstatin Chernenko, on the day of the fight, asked all of his very topmost aides who would prevail in that night's boxing match between Rocky Balboa and that chemically-bred monster, Ivan Drago. Almost to a one, they merely parroted the party line and said that Drago would win a victory so resounding, it would cause the American President Reagan to resign in shame and humiliation. Ridiculous, but that's how vastly and stupidly overconfident they were."

Peter began to form a slight smile.

"So what did the hold-out do?"

Chekov shook a finger in the air as he kept on.

"He apologized and said that having seen KGB footage of Balboa training for the fight, and given his reputation for enduring endless savage blows, he had to call the match a toss-up. He was laughed at and the others made plans for his office space, which a glaring Chernenko seemed certain to divest him of the next day. Among other things."

Peter was now openly smiling.

"And when the next day came?"

"Chernenko was in a foul mood. He fired all the sycophants for giving him bad advice. By now, it was common knowledge that the hold-out had called the fight much more correctly than anyone else dared, and Chernenko could not fire him. He fell into a cold frenzy which weakened his immune system and by the end of the next week, he was dead. The hold-out used his surviving position plus the tactics of the day and became head of state not long thereafter."

Peter nodded and chuckled, realizing at last how far he'd been drawn in. History could pivot on anyone, it seemed. Maybe even himself.

"Anything else?"

Pavel smiled back.

"Da. As Rocky Balboa later fell on hard times, the new head of state chose to help him by sending several hand-written, hand-signed letters of praise to the former boxer, so that most of these could be auctioned. And these said very simply : 'Rocky, know that you will always have a fan in me. Signed, your Comrade--Mikhail Sergeyivich Gorbachev.' Now, my young Mister Kirk--how about some borscht?"

Peter spoke his mind.

"I don't like borscht."

Chekov replicated a bowl, anyway.

"Eat it. Don't you know Its bad luck to refuse borscht?"