Star Trek - Blish, James - 01 Read online

  White as milk, Stiles said in a thin voice: "You do, sir."

  In his office, Kirk put his feet up and looked sourly at the doctor and his engineer. "As if we didn't have enough trouble," he said. "Spock's a funny customer; he gets everybody's back hair up now and then just on ordinary days; and this... coincidence... is at best a damn bad piece of timing."

  "If it is a coincidence," McCoy said.

  "I think it is, Bones. I trust Spock; he's a good officer. His manners are bad by Earth standards, but I don't think much of Stiles' manners either at the moment. Let's drop the question for now. I want to know what to do. The Romulan appears to be running. He'll hit the neutral zone in a few hours. Do we keep on chasing him?"

  "You've got a war on your hands if you do," McCoy said. "As you very well know. Maybe a civil war."

  "Exactly so. On the other hand, we've already lost three outpost satellites. That's sixty lives-besides all that expensive hardware... I went to school with Hansen, did you know that? Well, never mind. Scotty, what do you think?"

  "I don't want to write off sixty lives," Scott said. "But we've got nearly four hundred on board the Enterprise, and I don't want to write them off either. We've got no defense against that Romulan weapon, whatever it is- and the phasers can't hit a target they can't see. It just might be better to let them run back inside the neutral zone, file a complaint with the Federation, and wait for a navy to take over. That would give us more time to analyze these gadgets of theirs, too."

  "And the language and visual records," McCoy added. "Invaluable, unique stuff-all of which will be lost if we force an engagement and lose it."

  "Prudent and logical," Kirk admitted. "I don't agree with a word of it, but it would certainly look good in the log. Anything else?"

  "What else do you need?" McCoy demanded. "Either it makes sense or it doesn't. I trust you're not suddenly going all bloody-minded on me, Jim."

  "You know better than that. I told you I went to school with Hansen; and I've got kids on board here who were about to get married when the alarm went off. Glory doesn't interest me, either, or the public record. I want to block this war. That's the charge that's laid upon me now. The only question is, How?"

  He looked gloomily at his toes. After a while he added:

  "This Romulan irruption is clearly a test of strength. They have two weapons. They came out of the neutral zone and challenged a star ship with them-with enough slaughter and destruction to make sure we couldn't ignore the challenge. It's also a test of our determination. They want to know if we've gone soft since we beat them back the last time. Are we going to allow our friends and property to be destroyed just because the odds seem to be against us? How much peace will the Romulans let us enjoy if we play it safe now-especially if we let them duck back into a neutral zone they've violated them-selves? By and large, I don't think there's much future in that, for us, for the Earth, for the Federation-or even for the Romulans. The time to pound that lesson home is now."

  "You may be right," Scott said. "I never thought I'd say so, but I'm glad it isn't up to me."

  "Bones?"

  "Let it stand. I've one other suggestion, though. It might improve morale if you'd marry those two young-sters from the phaser deck."

  "Do you think this is exactly a good time for that?"

  "I'm not sure there's ever a right time. But if you care for your crew-and I know damn well you do- that's precisely the right way to show it at the moment. An instance of love on an eve of battle. I trust I don't embarrass you."

  "You do, Doctor," Kirk said, smiling, "but you're right. I'll do it. But it's going to have to be quick."

  "Nothing lasts very long," McCoy said enigmatically.

  On the bridge, nothing seemed to have happened. It took Kirk a long moment to realize that the conference in his office had hardly taken ten minutes. The Romu-lan vessel, once more detectable only by the De Broglie waves of its motion, was still apparently fleeing for the neutral zone, but at no great pace.

  "It's possible that their sensors can't pick us up either through that screen," Spock said.

  "That, or he's trying to draw us into some kind of trap," Kirk said. "Either way, we can't meet him in a head-on battle. We need an edge... a diversion. Find me one, Mr. Spock."

  "Preferably nonfatal," Stiles added. Sulu half turned to him from the pilot board.

  "You're so wrong about this," Sulu said, "you've used up all your mistakes for the rest of your life."

  "One of us has," Stiles said stiffly.

  "Belay that," Kirk said. "Steady as she goes, Mr. Sulu. The next matter on the agenda is the wedding."

  "In accordance with space law," Kirk said, "we are gathered together for the purpose of joining this woman, Angela Marline, and this man, Robert Tomlinson, in the bond of matrimony..."

  This time there were no interruptions. Kirk closed his book and looked up.

  "... And so, by the powers vested in me as Captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise, I now pronounce you man and wife."

  He nodded to Tomlinson, who only then remembered to kiss the bride. There was the usual hubbub, not seem-ingly much muted by the fewness of the spectators. Yeo-man Rand rushed up to kiss Angela's cheek; McCoy pumped Tomlinson's hand, slapped him on the shoulder, and prepared to collect his kiss from the bride, but Kirk interposed.

  "Captain's privilege, Bones."

  But he never made it; the wall speaker checked him. The voice was Spock's.

  "Captain-I think I have the diversion you wanted."

  "Some days," Kirk said ruefully, "nothing on this ship ever seems to get finished. I'll be right there, Mr. Spock."

  Spock's diversion turned out to be the cold comet they had detected earlier-now "cold" no longer, for as it came closer to the central Romulan-Reman sun it had begun to display its plumage. Spock had found it listed in the ephemeris, and a check of its elements with the computer had shown that it would cross between the Enterprise and the Romulan 440 seconds from now-not directly between, but close enough to be of possible use.

  "We'll use it," Kirk declared promptly. "Mr. Sulu, we'll close at full acceleration at the moment of inter-position. Scotty, tell the phaser room we'll want a brack-eting salvo; we'll be zeroing on sensors only, and with that chunk of ice nearly in the way, there'll be some dispersion."

  "Still, at that range we ought to get at least one hit," Scott said.

  "One minute to closing," Spock said.

  "Suppose the shot doesn't get through their screen?" Stiles said.

  "A distinct possibility," Kirk agreed. "About which we can do exactly nothing."

  "Thirty seconds... twenty... fifteen... ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, zero."

  The lights dimmed as the ship surged forward and at the same moment, the phaser coils demanded full drain. The comet swelled on the screen.

  "All right, Mr. Tomlinson... Hit 'em!"

  The Enterprise roared like a charging lion. An instant later, the lights flashed back to full brightness, and the noise stopped. The phasers had cut out.

  "Overload," Spock said emotionlessly. "Main coil burnout." He was already at work, swinging out a panel to check the circuitry. After only a split second of hesi-tation, Stiles crossed to help him.

  "Captain!" Sulu said. "Their ship-it's fading into sight. I think we got a hit-yes, we did!"

  "Not good enough," Kirk said grimly, instantly sus-pecting the real meaning of the Romulan action. "Full retro power! Evasive action!"

  But the enemy was still faster. On the screen, a radi-ant torpedo like the one they had seen destroy Satellite 4023 was scorching toward the Enterprise-and this time it was no illusion that the starship was the target.

  "No good," Sulu said. "Two minutes to impact."

  "Yeoman Rand, jettison recorder buoy in ninety seconds."

  "Hold it," Sulu said. "That shot's changing shape-"

  Sure enough: the looming bolt seemed to be waver-ing, flattening. Parts of it were peeling off in tongues of bl
ue energy; its brilliance was dimming. Did it have a range limit-

  The bolt vanished from the screen. The Enterprise lurched sharply. Several people fell, including Spock- luckily away from the opened instrument panel, which crackled and spat.

  "Scotty! Damage report!"

  "One hold compartment breached. Minor damage otherwise. Main phaser battery still out of action, until that coil's replaced."

  "I think the enemy got it worse, sir," Lieutenant Uhura said. "I'm picking up debris-scattering ahead. Conduits- castings-plastoform shadows-and an echo like the body of a casualty."

  There was a ragged cheer, which Kirk silenced with a quick, savage gesture. "Maintain deceleration. Evidently they have to keep their screen down to launch their weapon-and the screen's still down."

  "No, they're fading again, Captain," Sulu said. "Last Doppler reading shows they're decelerating too... Now they're gone again."

  "Any pickup from their intercom, Lieutenant Uhura?"

  "Nothing, sir. Even the De Broglies are fading. I think the comet's working against us now."

  Now what in space did that mean? Fighting with an unknown enemy was bad enough, but when the enemy could become invisible at will-- And if that ship got back to the home planet with all its data, there might well be nothing further heard from the Romulans until they came swarming out of the neutral zone by the millions, ready for the kill. That ship had to be stopped.

  "Their tactics make sense over the short haul," Kirk said thoughtfully. "They feinted us in with an attack on three relatively helpless pieces, retreated across the center of the board to draw out our power, then made a flank attack and went to cover. Clearly the Romulans play some form of chess. If I had their next move, I'd go across the board again. If they did that, they'd be sitting in our ionization wake right now, right behind us- with reinforcements waiting ahead."

  "What about the wreckage, sir?" Uhura said.

  "Shoved out the evacuation tubes as a blind-an old trick, going all the way back to submarine warfare. The next time they do that, they may push out a nuclear warhead for us to play with. Lieutenant Sulu, I want a turnover maneuver, to bring the main phaser battery aligned directly astern. Mr. Spock, we can't wait for main coil replacement any longer; go to the phaser deck and direct fire manually. Mr. Stiles, go with him and give him a hand. Fire at my command directly the turnover's been completed. All understood?"

  Both men nodded and went out, Stiles a little reluctantly. Kirk watched them go for a brief instant-despite him-self, Stiles' suspicion of Spock had infected him, just a little-and then forgot them. The turnover had begun. On the screen, space astern, in the Enterprise's ioniza-tion wake, seemed as blank as space ahead, in the dis-turbed gasses of the now-dwindling comet's tail.

  Then, for the third time, the Romulan ship began to materialize, precisely where Kirk had suspected it would be-and there was precisely nothing they could do about it yet. The bridge was dead silent. Teeth clenched, Kirk watched the cross-hairs on the screen creep with infinite slowness toward the solidifying wraith of the enemy-

  "All right, Spock, fire!"

  Nothing happened. The suspicion that flared now would not be suppressed. With a savage gesture, Kirk cut in the intercom screen to the phaser deck.

  For a moment he could make nothing of what he saw. The screen seemed to be billowing with green vapor. Through it, dimly, Kirk could see two figures sprawled on the floor, near where the phaser boards should have been. Then Stiles came into the field of view, one hand clasped over his nose and mouth. He was trying to reach the boards, but he must have already taken in a lungful of the green gas. Halfway there, he clutched at his throat and fell.

  "Scotty! What is that stuff-"

  "Coolant fluid," Scott's voice said harshly. "Seal must have cracked-look, there's Spock-"

  Spock was indeed on the screen now, crawling on his hands and knees toward the boards. Kirk realized belat-edly that the figures on the deck had to be Tomlinson and one of his crew, both dead since the seal had been cracked, probably when the Romulan had hit the Enter-prise before. On the main screen, another of the Romu-lan energy bolts was bearing down upon them, with the inexorability of a Fury. Everything seemed to be moving with preternatural slowness.

  Then Spock somehow reached the controls, dragged himself to his knees, moved nearly paralyzed fingers over the instruments. He hit the firing button twice, with the edge of his hand, and then fell.

  The lights dimmed. The Romulan blew up.

  On board the Enterprise, there were three dead: Tom-linson, his aide, and Stiles. Angela had escaped; she hadn't been on the deck when the coolant had come boiling out. Escaped-a wife of half a day, a widow for all the rest of her days. Stolidly, Kirk entered it all in the log.

  The Second Romulan War was over. And never mind the dead; officially, it had never even begun.

  The Naked Time

  Nobody, it was clear, was going to miss the planet when it did break up. Nobody had even bothered to name it; on the charts it was just ULAPG42821DB, a coding promptly shorted by some of the Enterprise's junior offi-cers to "La Pig."

  It was not an especially appropriate nickname. The planet, a rockball about 10,000 miles in diameter, was a frozen, windless wilderness, without so much as a gnarled root or fragment of lichen to relieve the monot-ony from horizon to purple horizon. But in one way the name fitted: the empty world was too big for its class.

  After a relatively short lifetime of a few hundred million years, stresses between its frozen surface and its shrinking core were about to shatter it.

  There was an observation station on La Pig, manned by six people. These would have to be got off, and the Enterprise, being in the vicinity, got the job. After that, the orders ran, the starship was to hang around and observe the breakup. The data collected would be of great interest to the sliderule boys back on Earth. Maybe some day they would turn the figures into a way to break up a planet at will, people and all.

  Captain Kirk, like most line officers, did not have a high opinion of the chairborne arms of his service.

  It turned out, however, that there was nobody at all to pick up off La Pig. The observation station was wide open, and the ice had moved inside. Massive coatings of it lay over everything-floors, consoles, even chairs. The doors were frozen open, and all the power was off.

  The six members of the station complement were dead. One, in heavy gear, lay bent half over one of the consoles. On the floor at the entrance to one of the corridors was the body of a woman, very lightly clad and more than half iced over. Inspection, however, showed that she had been dead before the cold had got to her; she had been strangled.

  In the lower part of the station were the other four. The engineer sat at his post with all the life-support system switches set at OFF, frozen there as though he hadn't given a damn. There was still plenty of power available; he just hadn't wanted it on any more. Two of the others were dead in their beds, which was absolutely normal and expectable considering the temperature. But the sixth and last man had died while taking a shower- fully clothed.

  "There wasn't anything else to be seen," Mr. Spock, the officer in charge of the transporter party, later told Captain Kirk. "Except that there were little puddles of water here and there that hadn't frozen, though at that temperature they certainly should have, no matter what they might have held in solution. We brought back a small sample for the lab. The bodies are in our morgue now, still frozen. As for the people, I think maybe this is a job for a playwright, not an official investigation."

  "Imagination's a useful talent in a police officer," Kirk commented. "At a venture, I'd guess that something volatile and highly toxic got loose in the station. One of the men got splattered and rushed to the shower hop-ing to sluice if off, clothes and all. Somebody else opened all the exit ports in an attempt to let the stuff blow out into the outside atmosphere."

  "And the strangled woman?"

  "Somebody blamed her for the initial accident-which was maybe just the las
t of a long chain of carelessnesses, and maybe irritating behavior too, on her part. You know how tempers can get frayed in small isolated crews like this."

  "Very good, Captain," Spock said. "Now what about the engineer shutting off the life systems?"

  Kirk threw up his hands. "I give up. Maybe he saw that nothing was going to work and decided on suicide. Or more likely I'm completely wrong all down the line. We'd better settle in our observation orbit. Whatever happened down there, apparently the books are closed."

  For the record, it was just as well that he said "ap-parently."

  Joe Tormolen, the crewman who had accompanied Mr. Spock to the observation station, was the first to show the signs. He had been eating all by himself in the recreation room-not unusual in itself, for though effi-cient and reliable, Joe was not very sociable. Nearby, Sulu, the chief pilot, and Navigator Kevin Riley were hav-ing an argument over the merits of fencing as exercise, with Sulu of course holding the affirmative. At some point in the discussion, Sulu appealed to Joe for support.