STAR TREK: TOS #2 - The Entropy Effect

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  Spock looked over Dr. Mordreaux’s shoulder at the schematics the professor had been re-creating for the past several hours. They flicked past, one after another, glowing on the video screen. The device possessed the simplicity of an elegant mathematical proof; it was as streamlined and deadly as a crystal knife.

  “With both of us working on it we ought to be able to finish it in a couple of hours,” Dr. Mordreaux said.

  “How powerful is the unit, Professor?”

  “You mean how far back can you go? That doesn’t depend on the changer itself, it depends on how much current you can draw. The Enterprise could probably deliver enough power to send you back about a week if you diverted the warp drive. Much farther and you’d begin stressing the systems beyond their inherent resiliency.”

  “I see,” Spock said.

  Dr. Mordreaux glanced up at him. “That’s farther than you need to go. Unless you lied to me about what you intend to do.”

  “Vulcans do not lie, Professor. I will keep my word to you, however illogical I believe your position to be, unless you release me from my promise.”

  “Good,” Dr. Mordreaux said. “Go back and save your captain, and be satisfied with that.”

  Spock had no new arguments to offer Dr. Mordreaux to make him change his mind, so the science officer kept his silence.

  “It’s a happy coincidence you picked up those bioelectronics on Aleph,” Dr. Mordreaux said. “Without them the changer would be about the size of a shuttlecraft and twice the mass.”

  “I do not believe in coincidence,” Spock said absently, making a mental list of the other tools and materials they would need. “Any coincidence observed carefully and logically enough will prove explicable.”

  “You be sure and let me know what the explanation is, when you figure it out,” the professor said.

  For a concept Spock did not believe in, coincidence certainly had occurred to him frequently in the last few days. But he did not have time for careful and logical observation of the various phenomena right now. He bent over the video screen again.

  The door to Dr. Mordreaux’s cabin opened behind them. Spock turned.

  Ian Braithewaite glared at him from the doorway. “Asleep indeed,” he said. “I hope you’re having sweet dreams, Mr. Spock.”

  “My sleeping habits are none of your affair, Mr. Braithewaite.”

  “They are when they form the basis of a fabrication meant to mislead me.”

  “Did you wish to speak to me, Mr. Braithewaite, or are you merely checking on Dr. Mordreaux? As you can see, he is confined.”

  Braithewaite came closer, squinting to see the screen better. “Locking Dr. Mordreaux up with access to the computer is like giving anyone else the front door key. What are you—”

  Mordreaux hit CLEAR on the terminal’s board.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing you’d be interested in,” Mordreaux said, but his bravado faltered with his voice.

  “Dr. Mordreaux has offered invaluable help with the interpretation of the observations that your orders interrupted,” Spock said. “This could be his last opportunity to contribute to scientific knowledge, a fact even you should be able to appreciate.”

  Braithewaite glared at him with unrelenting hostility. “I find it very difficult to be impressed with his contribution to the universal pool of knowledge.” He reached toward the terminal.

  “Do not tamper with the computer on the Enterprise, Mr. Braithewaite,” Spock said.

  “What!”

  Spock did not acknowledge any need to repeat himself.

  Braithewaite stopped, fists clenched at his sides. Then, slowly, he relaxed. He nodded, thoughtfully, and without another word he left the cabin.

  Spock turned back to Dr. Mordreaux.

  “He knows you lied, Mr. Spock. He doesn’t threaten—he waits till he had enough evidence, and then he goes in for the kill.” Dr. Mordreaux returned their calculations from the computer’s memory to the screen.

  “I did not lie, sir.” Spock gazed at the convoluted equations twisting across the screen. “Working on the changer has given me valuable insight into the design of my observational apparatus. You have given me the aid I hoped for.”

  “A technicality. If I have it was purely inadvertent. Or—another coincidence?”

  “Most unusual,” Spock said, and went back to work.

  Dr. McCoy started at the sound of his name, jerking upright with the sudden moment of wild alertness that prepared him for emergencies. After all these years he had not ever really got used to it.

  “What is it? I’m awake!”

  He looked around and realized he was still on the bridge. Everyone was looking at him, with odd expressions: he could not blame them. His face reddening, he settled back in the command seat, not quite pretending he had not fallen asleep but not inviting anyone to comment on the subject, either.

  It was Chekov who had spoken to him, to bring his attention to the fact that Mr. Scott was calling the bridge.

  “Yes, Scotty?” McCoy said. “Is everything all right?”

  There was a short pause. “Dr. McCoy ... is that you?”

  “None other.”

  “I need to report to Mr. Spock on the state o’ the warp drive. Can ye tell me where he is?”

  “He’s probably sound asleep by now,” McCoy said, regretting the untruth that came more easily the second time he spoke it. “I guess you’d better report to me, for the time being.”

  Another pause. McCoy began to wonder if the intercom were on the fritz, too, like the engines and half the other equipment seemed to be these days.

  “T’ye, Dr. McCoy?” Scott said.

  “Well, yes, I’m more or less in charge till Spock comes back on duty.”

  “He ha’ made ye his second in command, then.” The hurt in Scott’s voice came through very clearly. His feelings were injured: he had been bypassed, no way around that. The chief engineer had no way of knowing it was for his own protection, and McCoy could not tell him.

  “Not exactly, Scotty,” McCoy said lamely, hoping to salve the bruised ego. “It’s just till everything gets sorted out. I suppose he feels you’re essential where you are.”

  “Aye,” Scott said, then, coldly, “ ‘sir.’ I dinna doubt he knows what he’s doing.”

  The intercom clicked off. McCoy sighed. He had managed Scott no better than he had managed Braithewaite earlier.

  As Montgomery Scott turned off the intercom in his office, he slowly met Ian Braithewaite’s gaze. Scott felt stunned and betrayed.

  “I’m very sorry,” Braithewaite said, quite sincerely.

  “Dr. McCoy is right,” Scotty said. “I dinna have time for administration. The work’s only half done on the engines—”

  “Dammit, man!” Braithewaite cried, leaping to his feet. “Either McCoy is working under duress, or he and Spock together have betrayed you and everyone else on this ship! How can you keep making excuses for them?”

  “I’ve known them both for a verra long time and I’ve never had reason to distrust either of them,” Scott said. His feeling of betrayal was mixed with anger; he was not sure if the anger was directed at McCoy and Spock or at Braithewaite. Perhaps it was at all of them; perhaps it did not matter.

  “It’s hard,” Braithewaite agreed, recalling one time, in particular, when he had offered his trust and found it used against him. “But Spock, at least, has exhausted his opportunities for being given the benefit of the doubt. It’s of no practical interest anymore whether Mandala Flynn was an instigator or merely a follower. McCoy may be less guilty—but there’s no way to make either of them out to be completely innocent.”

  Scott said nothing; he stared at a schematic design pinned to his bulletin board.

  “Is there, Mr. Scott?” Ian asked gently. “If you can tell me any other possible explanation for what’s been going on here, I’d be very grateful to hear it. I don’t like the idea that three Starfleet officers have conspired to take over a ship,
to free a dangerous criminal, and to murder their captain—”

  “Stop!” Scott said. “Please ... dinna recite the litany again.” He paused to collect himself. “Everything ye say is true, aye ... But I canna see the why of it. Maybe Starfleet will give Mr. Spock the Enterprise and maybe they won’t. It’s a terrible chance to take. He would ha’ got a command of his own had he wished, eventually. And why should Dr. McCoy agree to such a scheme? He canna gae any higher and still practice medicine, and he’s said any number of times he dinna want to give that up.”

  Ian sighed. He did not want to let Scott in on all his suspicions, not so much because he would find them impossible to believe, or even because revealing the knowledge would put Ian in breach of his own orders, as because the information itself would endanger the engineer.

  “I haven’t got absolute proof that Dr. McCoy is a willing member of the plan. I hope he isn’t—if he isn’t we still have the chance of bringing him back over to our side. I can make some assumptions, but you won’t like them any more than my suspicions. I hope what happened was that a plan to free Dr. Mordreaux got so far out of hand that nobody had any choice what to do anymore. The worst it could be ... well, Mr. Spock has control of the ship right now, he has no need to wait for Starfleet to turn command over to him.”

  “That’s crazy!” Scott said. “And forby, the crew wouldna stand for it!”

  “That’s what I’m counting on, Mr. Scott. That’s why I confided in you in the first place.”

  “Oh,” Scott said.

  “I can count on you to help me?”

  “Ye can count on me to try to help to find the truth,” Scott said, and that was all he would promise.

  Chapter 6

  That evening, ship’s time, Dr. McCoy walked nervously toward the transporter room, where Spock had said to meet him.

  The whole day had been dreadful. Spock had been squirrelled away working on the time changer. Scott’s bruised ego had put him into an unholy snit; he replied to nothing but the most direct questions and then only in monosyllables. Ian Braithewaite was skulking around giving the third degree to everyone he came in contact with and inventing heaven alone only knew what sorts of fantastical conspiracies. McCoy chuckled to think what the young prosecutor would do if he managed to stumble onto the truth, but his chuckle carried a certain rueful air. Barry al Auriga was infuriated because in trying to debrief the witnesses to Jim’s murder he kept running into people who had already had their observations overlaid by Ian Braithewaite’s preconceptions. And one of the preconceptions was that Commander Flynn, despite having died trying to protect Jim Kirk, had somehow planned his assassination.

  McCoy had a suspicion that al Auriga had had more than a subordinate’s respect for his commander: that he had some feelings he had managed to keep well-concealed till now. But Barry’s nerves were clearly stretched almost to the breaking point. He was trying to stay in control of himself; so far he had succeeded, but McCoy had a feeling the lieutenant was not too far from flinging caution and his temper to the wind, if Braithewaite got in his way one more time.

  Apparently McCoy’s warning to the prosecutor had had very little if any effect. McCoy did not want to carry out his threat to confine Ian to quarters, but he was going to have to do it. Morale on the Enterprise was so low it probably could not even be measured; McCoy could not let matters go on unchanged, with rumors and suspicions flying, for much longer.

  But Spock had finished the time-changer, so perhaps all McCoy’s worries were for nothing. The doctor stopped in the doorway to the transporter room and there the science officer was, altering a module from the transporter’s innards.

  If what he planned succeeded, McCoy would not have to do anything at all. If Spock succeeded, none of this ever would have happened in the first place.

  Spock acknowledged his presence. “Dr. McCoy.” He picked up the smaller of two peculiarly organic-looking devices and attached it to the module of the transporter.

  “Spock,” McCoy said, “Spock ... what happens to us?”

  “I do not understand what you mean.”

  “If you go back in time and change things around, we won’t exist anymore.”

  “Of course we will, Dr. McCoy.”

  “Not here, not now—not doing what we’re doing. What happens to ... to this probability-version of all of us? Do we just fade out of existence?”

  “No, Dr. McCoy, I do not believe that is what will occur.”

  “What, then?”

  “Nothing.” Spock closed the panel and opened it again, checking that the addition could be concealed in the available space.

  McCoy snorted with frustration.

  “You see,” Spock said, “if I succeed, this probability-version of us will never have occurred. We will not fade out of existence because we never will have existed in the first place. It is quite simple and logical.”

  “Sure.” McCoy gave up. He could feel his pulse accelerating with nervousness, and even fear; he did not even want to think about what his blood pressure must be just now. “Let’s do it and be done.”

  “Very well.” Spock picked up the larger device and slung it over his shoulder. It dangled from its strap, glimmering like a cluster of large amber beads.

  “Spock, wait—how will you get back?”

  “As you so astutely pointed out,” the Vulcan said, “if I succeed I will not need to come back. But if I should be forced to return, the energy required is far less. In fact, after achieving threshold energy, one is virtually dragged back to one’s own time. One sets up a strain that must eventually be relieved. The changer’s power-pack will be sufficient.”

  “Should I wait for you here?—Will you come back immediately after you go? Or—” McCoy could not resist. “Or before?”

  “I will endeavor not to return before I leave,” Spock said with perfect seriousness. “Though it would be an intriguing experiment ...” He paused, then returned his attention to the business at hand. “The calculations are far less complex if one remains away as long as one spends in the past. I expect to be gone no more than an hour.”

  “I’ll do my best to be here.”

  “Dr. McCoy ... if I am gone for an unconscionably long time, it is essential that I, or whatever remains of me, be brought back here, to my own time. Otherwise the conflict between where I am and where I should be could create difficulties; there is also the possibility of a damaging paradox.” He showed McCoy a control on the unit he had attached to the transporter. “The auxiliary changer will pull me back. All you need do is activate it. But this signal cannot be accurately aimed. It is not likely that I would survive if you were forced to use it.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  “You must. If I am gone more than ... one day, you must.”

  “All right, Mr. Spock.”

  Spock stepped up onto the transporter platform.

  “Goodbye, Mr. Spock. Good luck.”

  Spock touched a control on his unit of the time-changer. The transporter hummed to life, but instead of the usual stable beam surrounding the figure on the platform, there was a tremendous flash, like rainbow lightning.

  The lights went out. More frightening, the soft sound of the ventilation fans ceased, and the ship lay in a moment of darkness and silence so complete that McCoy thought the explosion had deafened and blinded him.

  The Enterprise had lost all power.

  Ian Braithewaite suspected instantly what was happening when the power went out: the same thing had happened on Aleph Prime when Dr. Mordreaux began playing around with his time-travel device. That was what had first alerted Braithewaite to the peculiar activities, and what had drawn him into this horrible complicated matter of conspiracy, treachery, terror, and murder. He cursed himself for underestimating Spock and Mordreaux; he cursed himself particularly for being too timid to run the investigation aggressively.

  He should have called in civilian police from Aleph long before now; he should have called in Starfleet as well. But he
had been trying desperately to keep the time-travel capability as secret as possible, as he had been ordered; there was no point in suppressing the work if it were publicized all over the Federation.

  Emergency generators brought the ship back slowly to an eerie half-light. Ian flung himself out of his cabin and pounded down the corridor toward Mordreaux’s cabin, fearing that the device had been used to take the professor out of even the absurd semblance of custody he had been in on the Enterprise. He wondered how long it would take before the ship was diverted from its course toward Rehab Seven—an suddenly realized that he had no way of knowing it already had not, except that surely Mr. Scott would know and tell him.

  And how long will it be before we’re all told our fate? he wondered. To be sold to the Klingons, or to the Romulans, as hostages, and the starship peddled to the enemy; or were the plans for starship and crew more direct, more private? Ian Braithewaite knew that if he ever had such a creation as the Enterprise in his own hands, he would not let it go for any amount of treasure.

  At the junction of two corridors, he stopped. What point to going to Mordreaux’s cabin? He would not be there: Spock had just freed him! But the science officer would have had to use the transporter in tandem with the changer. Ian might be able to catch him, at least. If he hurried.

  He changed direction, and ran.

  Still dazzled by the sudden flash of the transporter/changer, McCoy blinked. In the darkness, he wondered if this was what it was like never to have existed at all.

  “Mr. Spock?”

  He received no answer.

  He gradually became aware of the self-luminous dials on the transporter, casting a strange silver glow over his hands. He drew away, into the shadows, and stood quietly waiting for something, anything, to happen.

  The darkness crept away in the dim illumination of emergency power. He waited: but nothing changed.

  McCoy began to hear the shouts of consternation from nearby crew members: it was always traumatic, on the rare occasions when the power failed in a starship. Everyone was frightened.