Star Trek - Blish, James - 01 Read online

  For answer, Joe flew into a white fury, babbling dis-connectedly but under high pressure about the six people who had died on La Pig, and the unworthiness of human beings in general to be in space at all. At the height of this frenzied oration, Joe attempted to turn a steak knife on himself.

  The resulting struggle was protracted, and because Sulu and Riley naturally misread Joe's intentions-they thought he was going to attack one of them with the knife-Joe succeeded in wounding himself badly. All three were bloodsmeared by the time he was subdued and hauled off to sick bay; at first arrival, the security guards couldn't guess which of the three scuffling fig-ures was the hurt one.

  There was no time to discuss the case in any detail; La Pig was already beginning to break up, and Sulu and Riley were needed on the bridge as soon as they could wash up. As the breakup proceeded, the planet's effective mass would change, and perhaps even its center of gra-vity-accompanied by steady, growing distortion of its extensive magnetic field-so that what had been a stable parking orbit for the Enterprise at one moment would be-come unstable and fragment-strewn the next. The changes were nothing the computer could predict except in rather general orders of magnitude; human brains had to watch and compensate, constantly.

  Dr. McCoy's report that Joe Tormolen had died consequently did not reach Kirk for twenty-four hours, and it was another four before he could answer McCoy's request for a consultation. By then, however, the break-up process seemed to have reached some sort of inflec-tion point, where it would simply pause for an hour or so; he could leave the vigil to Sulu and Riley for a short visit to McCoy's office.

  "I wouldn't have called you if Joe hadn't been one of the two men down on La Pig," McCoy said directly. "But the case is odd and I don't want to overlook the possibility that there's some connection."

  "What's odd about it?"

  "Well," McCoy said, "the suicide attempt itself was odd. Joe's self-doubt quotient always rated high, and he was rather a brooding, introspective type; but I'm puzzled about what could have brought it to the surface this sud-denly and with this much force.

  "And Jim, he shouldn't have died. He had intestinal damage, but I closed it all up neatly and cleaned out the peritoneum; there was no secondary infection. He died anyhow, and I don't know of what."

  "Maybe he just gave up," Kirk suggested.

  "I've seen that happen. But I can't put it on a death certificate. I have to have a proximate cause, like toxemia or a clot in the brain. Joe just seemed to have a general-ized circulatory failure, from no proximate cause at all. And those six dead people on La Pig are not reassuring."

  "True enough. What about that sample Spock brought back?"

  McCoy shrugged. "Anything's possible, I suppose-but as far as we can tell, that stuff's just water, with some trace minerals that lower its freezing point a good deal. We're handling it with every possible precaution, it's bacteriologically clean-which means no viruses, either- and very nearly chemically pure. I've about concluded that it's a blind alley, though of course I'm still trying to think of new checks to run on it; we all are."

  "Well, I'll keep an eye on Spock," Kirk said. "He was the only other man who was down there-though his metabolism's so different that I don't know what I'll be looking for. And in the meantime, we'll just have to hope it was a coincidence."

  He went out. As he turned from the door, he was startled to see Sulu coming down a side corridor, not yet aware of Kirk. Evidently he had just come from the gym, for his velour shirt was off, revealing a black tee-shirt, and he had a towel around his neck. He was carrying a fencing foil with a tip protector on it under his arm, and he looked quite pleased with himself-certainly nothing like a man who was away from his post in an alert.

  He swung the foil so that it pointed to the ceiling, then let it slip down between his hands so that the capped end was directly before his face. After a moment's study, he took the cap off. Then he took the weapon by the hilt and tested its heft.. "Sulu!"

  The pilot jumped back and hit lightly in the guard position. The point of the foil described small circles in the air between the two men.

  "Aha!" Sulu said, almost gleefully. "Queen's guard or Richelieu's man? Declare yourself!"

  "Sulu, what's this? You're supposed to be on station."

  Sulu advanced one pace with the crab-step of the fencer.

  "You think to outwit me, eh? Unsheathe your weapon!"

  "That's enough," Kirk said sharply. "Report yourself to sick bay."

  "And leave you the bois? Nay, rather-"

  He made a sudden lunge, kirk jumped back and snatched out his phaser, setting it to "stun" with his thumb in the same motion, but Sulu was too quick for him. He leapt for a recess in the wall where there was an access ladder to the 'tween-hulls catwalks, and vanished up it. From the vacated manhole his voice echoed back:

  "Cowarrrrrnrrrrrd!"

  Kirk made the bridge on the double. As he entered, Uhura was giving up the navigator's position to another crewman and moving back to her communications console. There was already another substitute in Sulu's chair. Kirk said, "Where's Riley?"

  "Apparently he just wandered off," Spock said, sur-rendering the command chair to Kirk in his turn. "Nobody but Yeoman Harris here saw him go."

  "Symptoms?" Kirk asked the helmsman.

  "He wasn't violent or anything, sir. I asked where Mr. Sulu was and he began to sing, 'Have no fear, Riley's here.' Then he said he was sorry for me that I wasn't an Irishman-in fact I am, sir-and said he was going for a turn on the battlements."

  "Sulu's got it too," Kirk said briefly. "Chased me with a sword on level two, corridor three, then bolted between the hulls. Lieutenant Uhura, tell Security to locate and confine them both. I want every crewman who comes in contact with them medically checked."

  "Psychiatrically, I would suggest, Captain," Spock said.

  "Explain."

  "This siezure, whatever it is, seems to force buried self-images to the surface. Tormolen was a depressive; it drove him down to the bottom of his cycle and below it, so he suicided. Riley fancies himself a descendant of his Irish kings. Sulu at heart is an eighteenth-century swash-buckler."

  "All right. What's the present condition of the planet?"

  "Breaking faster than predicted," Spock said. "As of now we've got a 2 per cent fall increment."

  "Stabilize." He turned to his own command board, but the helmsman's voice jerked his attention back.

  "Sir, the helm doesn't answer."

  "Fire all ventral verniers then. We'll rectify orbit later."

  The helmsman hit the switch. Nothing happened.

  "Verniers also dead, sir."

  "Main engines: warp one!" Kirk rasped.

  "That'll throw us right out of the system," Spock observed, as if only stating a mild inconvenience.

  "Can't help that."

  "No response, sir," the helmsman said.

  "Engine room, acknowledge!" Spock said into the intercom. "Give us power. Our controls are dead."

  Kirk jerked a thumb at the elevator. "Mr. Spock, find out what's going on down there."

  Spock started to move, but at the same time the elevator door slid aside, and Sulu was advancing, foil in hand. "Richelieu!" he said. "At last!"

  "Sulu," Kirk said, "put down that damned-"

  "For honor, Queen and France!" Sulu lunged directly at Spock, who in sheer unbelief almost let himself be run through. Kirk tried to move in but the needlepoint flicked promptly in his direction. "Now, foul Richelieu-"

  He was about to lunge when he saw Uhura trying to circle behind him. He spun; she halted.

  "Aha, fair maiden!"

  "Sorry, neither," Uhura said. She threw a glance de-liberately over Sulu's left shoulder; as he jerked in that direction, Spock's hand caught him on the right shoulder with the Vulcanian nerve pinch. Sulu went down on the deck like a sack of flour.

  Forgetting his existence instantly, Kirk whirled on the intercom. "Mr. Scott! We need power! Scott! Engine room, acknowledge!
"

  In a musical tenor, the intercom said indolently: "You rang?"

  "Riley?" Kirk said, trying to repress his fury.

  "This is Capt. Kevin Thomas Riley of the Starship Enterprise. And who would I have the honor of speakin' to?"

  "This is Kirk, dammit."

  "Kirk who? Sure and I've got no such officer."

  "Riley, this is Captain Kirk. Get out of the engine room, Navigator. Where's Scott?"

  "Now hear this, cooks," Riley said. "This is your cap-tain and I'll be wantin' double portions of ice cream for the crew. Captain's compliments, in honor of St. Kevin's Day. And now, your Captain will render an appropriate selection."

  Kirk bolted for the elevator. Spock moved automatically to the command chair. "Sir," he said, "at our present rate of descent we have less than twenty minutes before we enter the planet's exosphere."

  "All right," Kirk said grimly. "I'll see what I can do about that monkey. Stand by to apply power the instant you get it."

  The elevator doors closed on him. Throughout the ship, Riley's voice began to bawl: "I'll take you home again, Kathleen." He was no singer.

  It would have been funny, had it not been for the fact that the serenade had the intercom system completely tied up; that the seizure, judging by Joe Tormolen, was follow-ed by a reasonless death; and that the Enterprise itself was due shortly to become just another battered lump in a whirling, planet-sized mass of cosmic rubble.

  Scott and two crewmen were outside the engine room door, running a sensor around its edge, as Kirk arrived. Scott looked quickly at the Captain, and then back at the job.

  "Trying to get this open, sir," he said. "Riley ran in, said you wanted us on the bridge, then locked us out. We heard you talking to him on the intercom."

  "He's cut off both helm and power," Kirk said. "Can you by-pass him and work from the auxiliary?"

  "No, Captain, he's hooked everything through the main panel in there." Scott prodded one of the crewmen. "Get up to my office and pull the plans for this bulkhead here. If we've got to cut, I don't want to go through any cir-cuitry." The crewman nodded and ran.

  "Can you give us battery power on the helm, at least?" Kirk said. "It won't check our fall but at least it'll keep us stabilized. We've got maybe nineteen minutes, Scotty."

  "I heard. I can try it."

  "Good." Kirk started back for the bridge.

  "And tears be-dim your loving eyes..."

  On the bridge, Kirk snapped, "Can't you cut off that noise?"

  "No, sir," Lieutenant Uhura said. "He can override any channel from the main power panels there."

  "There's one he can't override," Kirk said. "Mr. Spock, seal off all ship sections. If this is a contagion, maybe we can stop it from spreading, and at the same time-"

  "I follow you," Spock said. He activated the servos for the sector; bulkheads. Automatically, the main alarm went off, drowning Riley out completely. When it quit, there was a brief silence. Then Riley's voice said:

  "Lieutenant Uhura, this is Captain Riley. You in-terrupted my song. That was petty of you. No ice cream for you."

  "Seventeen minutes left, sir," Spock said.

  "Attention crew," Riley's voice went on. "There will be a formal dance in the ship's bowling alley at 1900 hours. All personnel will have a ball." There was a skirl of gleeful laughter. "For the occasion all female crewmen will be issued one pint of perfume from ship's stores. All male crewmen will be raised one pay grade to compensate. Stand by for further goodies."

  "Any report on Sulu before the intercom got blan-keted?" Kirk said.

  "Dr. McCoy had him in sick bay under heavy tran-quilization," Lieutenant Uhura said. "He wasn't any worse then, but all tests were negative... I got the impression that the surgeon had some sort of idea, but he was cut off before he could explain it."

  "Well, Riley's the immediate problem now."

  A runner came in and saluted. "Sir, Mr. Scott's compli-ments and you have a jump circuit from batteries to helm control now. Mr Scott has resumed cutting into the engine room. He says he should have access in fourteen minutes, sir."

  "Which is just the margin we have left," Kirk said. "And it'll take three minutes to tune the engines to full power again. Captain's compliments to Mr. Scott and tell him to cut in any old way and not worry about cutting any circuits but major leads."

  "Now hear this," Riley's voice said. "In future all female crew members will let their hair hang loosely down over their shoulders and will use restraint in putting on make-up. Repeat, women should not look made up."

  "Sir," Spock said in a strained voice.

  "One second. I want two security guards to join Mr. Scott's party. Riley may be armed."

  "I've already done that," Spock said. "Sir-"

  "... Across the ocean wide and deep..."

  "Sir, I feel ill," Spock said formally. "Request permis-sion to report to sick bay."

  Kirk clapped a hand to his forehead. "Symptoms?"

  "Just a general malaise, sir. But in view of-"

  "Yes, yes. But you can't get to sick bay; the sections are all sealed off."

  "Request I be locked in my quarters, then, sir. I can reach those."

  "Permission granted. Somebody find him a guard." As Spock went out, another dismaying thought struck Kirk. Suppose McCoy had the affliction now, whatever it was? Except for Spock and the now-dead Tormolen, he had been exposed to it longest, and Spock could be supposed to be unusually resistant. "Lieutenant Uhura, you might as well abandon that console, it's doing us no good at the moment. Find yourself a length of telephone cable and an eavesdropper, and go between hulls to the hull above the sick bay. You'll be able to hear McCoy but not talk back; get his attention, and answer him, by prisoners' raps. Relay the conversation to me by pocket transmitter. Mark and move"

  "Yes, sir."

  Her exit left the bridge empty except for Kirk. There was nothing he could do but pace and watch the big screen. Twelve minutes.

  Then a buzzer went off in Kirk's back pocket. He yanked out his communicator.

  "Kirk here."

  "Lieutenant Uhura, sir. I've established contact with Doctor McCoy. He says he believes he has a partial solution, sir."

  "Ask him what he means by partial."

  There was an agonizing wait while Uhura presumably spelled out this message by banging on the inner hull. The metal was thick; probably she was using a hammer, and even so the raps would come through only faintly.

  "Sir, he wants to discharge something-some sort of gas, sir-into the ship's ventilating system. He says he can do it from sick bay and that it will spread rapidly. He says it worked on Lieutenant Sulu and presumably will cure anybody else who's sick-but he won't vouch for its effect on healthy crew members."

  "That sounded like typical McCoy caution, but- ask him how he feels himself."

  Another long wait. Then: "He says he felt very ill, sir, but is all right now, thanks to the antidote."

  That might be true and it might not. If McCoy him-self had the illness, there would be no predicting what he might actually be preparing to dump into the ship's air. On the other hand, to refuse him permission wouldn't necessarily stop him, either. If only that damned singing would stop! It made thinking almost impossible.

  "Ask him to have Sulu say something; see if he sounds sane to you."

  Another wait. Only ten minutes left now-three of which would have to be used for tune-up. And no telling how fast McCoy's antidote would spread, or how long it would need to take hold, either.

  "Sir, he says Lieutenant Sulu is exhausted and he won't wake him, under the discretion granted him by his commission."

  McCoy had that discretion, to be sure. But it could also be the cunning blind of a deranged mind.

  "All right," Kirk said heavily. "Tell him to go' ahead with it."

  "Aye aye, sir."

  Uhura's carrier wave clicked out and Kirk pocketed his transceiver, feeling utterly helpless. Nine minutes.

  Then, Riley's voice faltered.
He appeared to have for-gotten some of the words of his interminable song. Then he dropped a whole line. He tried to go on, singing "La, la, la," instead, but in a moment that died away too.

  Silence.