STAR TREK: TOS #2 - The Entropy Effect

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  “Well, until Spock gets some rest—”

  “Don’t! Not again! His captain’s dead, the crime’s unsolved, he’s in command, and you want me to believe he went off to sleep for three days? Even if he did, there’s been a complete power failure, you’ve got computers crashing all around you—and you want me to believe a Vulcan science officer stayed asleep? Come on!”

  “After so long—”

  “Dr. McCoy,” she said, and her voice chilled him, “Dr. McCoy, there’s nothing mystical about catch-up sleep. I know the techniques. You could probably learn them yourself. Spock isn’t catatonic, he’s not in some kind of trance that would damage him to come out of. He can wake up—and he would wake up, given the circumstances you’ve described.”

  McCoy’s hands felt cold, and a drop of sweat ran down his side. If he told her the truth ... She knew too much about the ship and the people on it to be fooled as long as Braithewaite had been, and he could not confine Hunter to quarters.

  But he did not think she would believe him, and he could not take the chance of trying to convince her he was telling the truth. In desperation, he tried once more to mislead her. All he needed to do was give Spock more time. But what was the science officer doing? With every second that passed, every random noise, McCoy expected the power to fail as Spock departed again. Why was he still on the ship?

  “Hunter,” McCoy said gently, “none of us has been acting very rational since Jim died. I know how you feel, truly I do, but I think you’re getting a little bit overemotional—”

  Hunter stood up.

  McCoy kept on speaking, recklessly.

  “I know how close you and Jim were. He told me ... the last thing he ever said to me was about you.”

  Her expression did not change. She gazed at him directly.

  “He knew he made a mistake, refusing your partnership’s invitation. He wanted to tell you himself, but when he got hurt, he knew he was dying. He knew he’d never see you again. He asked me—”

  “Shut up.”

  “He wanted you to know.”

  “I don’t believe you,” she said, her tone completely flat.

  “It’s true”

  “You haven’t said a true word to me since I came on board,” Hunter said. “Jim trusted you—he trusted you more than he trusted anyone else, including me. But I swear I don’t know why.” She started out of the officers’ lounge.

  McCoy jumped up and grabbed her arm. Startled, she spun away and into an attack position so quickly she nearly struck him, but she held back in time, lowered her hands, and turned away from him again.

  “Where are you going?”

  She did not answer, but McCoy followed. Soon he realized she intended to go to Mordreaux’s cabin.

  “There’s no point in trying to talk to Mordreaux.” He spoke all in a rush; his voice sounded even less convincing than the ragged words themselves. “He’s completely incoherent. He’s—”

  “Don’t lie to me anymore, Leonard,” Hunter said. “Either tell me the truth, or just be quiet.”

  Ian Braithewaite tried again to force open the door of his cabin, and again he failed. The lock no longer responded to his voice. The blocked communications terminal kept him from talking to anyone; he could not contact Mr. Scott. In frustration and fury, he pounded on the door. He had already made himself hoarse by shouting every time he heard someone pass.

  McCoy had really got to him, all right, with that sentimental tripe about carrying out his good friend’s last wishes. The man was a consummate actor. Ian supposed that was a talent most doctors cultivated anyway, and McCoy had used the ability magnificently. In a strange way, Ian could hardly help but admire him. He carried out his aims with a certain flair. The prosecutor realized now that McCoy could not be forgiven or excused any of his actions: however upset the doctor had been at the time of Kirk’s death, he had become well reconciled to it. No doubt the potential profits from the hijacking of the Enterprise and the use of the time-changer had soothed his grief and his conscience.

  Ian felt completely helpless, as helpless as he had been in al Auriga’s grasp. The security officer had not hurt him, but Ian was at the mercy of McCoy and Spock and Mordreaux. The precariousness of his own position began to grow clear. Until now he had been too angry to worry very much about his own safety. This was the first time since coming on board the Enterprise that he had not had too many other things to think about.

  He was not frightened. He considered his possible fate with a certain resignation, a fatalistic attitude. Perhaps they had beaten him. It certainly looked like it now. But if he got one more chance, just one stroke of luck, he would not be so fussy about absolute proof of their guilt.

  As far as he was concerned, the only question left to be answered was whether they planned to use the ship and the time-changer for their own benefit, directly, or to take it and the Enterprise, the most advanced example of Federation technology in existence, and auction them off between the Federation’s enemies.

  He flung himself down on his bunk and threw one arm across his eyes. His stomach churned; he felt nauseated by tension and anger. He lived his life on the verge of ulcers, a fact he denied. He was convinced that if he could just sort out the events of the last day properly and deduce what would happen next, then he could somehow stop the progression of disaster. But all he could do was think, over and over again, I shouldn’t have trusted McCoy. After everything I’ve seen I should have known better, I shouldn’t have trusted McCoy.

  He heard the door open; he lay very still, pretending to be asleep. Light crept past the folds of his sleeve. He wondered if McCoy had come to dispatch him, as he had got rid of the captain, or if Spock had come to poison him, as he had somehow poisoned Lee, and Judge Desmoulins, and the security guard. Footsteps approached. He prepared himself to fight, trying to tense his muscles without appearing to move.

  “Mr. Braithewaite?”

  The tension went out of Ian in a rush. He pulled his arm away from his eyes and sat up quickly.

  “Mr. Scott—thank god!”

  “I had to override the lock,” Scott said. “I tried to reach ye on the communicator, but I couldna get through.”

  “They’ve cut me off,” Braithewaite said. He sprang to his feet. “I tried to give McCoy another chance, and he had me arrested.”

  “Aye,” Scott said dully.

  Ian took Scott by the shoulders. The engineer did not meet his gaze.

  “I knew I could trust you,” Ian said. “I knew there had to be somebody on this ship who would make a difference. My god, if you weren’t here—”

  “Dinna remind me,” Scott said. “Dinna tell me compliments. There’s naught but shame in all of this.”

  “We’ve got to try to recapture Spock and Mordreaux. They’ve both left the ship but they might have overlooked some kind of clue. They were working in Mordreaux’s room—come on!”

  He plunged out into the corridor, oblivious to being seen or recaptured. Scott followed.

  Dr. Mordreaux hunched down in a chair, his arms crossed over his chest. He glowered at Spock.

  “Dammit, no!” he said again. “I knew this would happen if I helped you, I knew it. You’ll never be satisfied till you manage to impose your own will and your own ethics on mine!”

  “I assure you, Dr. Mordreaux—”

  “Shut up! Get out! Do whatever you want, I don’t care.”

  “Do you release me from my bond?”

  “No! Your actions are on your own head. If you do this, I’ll expose you for the liar you are.”

  Spock gazed down at the time-changer. Dr. Mordreaux’s threat was trivial enough: If Spock broke his promise and kept the professor from being arrested, the promise technically would never have been made; if Spock failed, the professor would be taken to the rehabilitation colony, and no one would pay attention to what he said. But even if the threat were a compelling one, it would not control the Vulcan’s actions. Spock alone had to decide whether he must break hi
s word, and whether he could live with himself afterward if he did.

  The door to Dr. Mordreaux’s stateroom slid open.

  “Ye said they’d escaped” Mr. Scott said to Ian Braithewaite.

  Braithewaite stared at Spock and Mordreaux, his stunned expression changing to relief and triumph. “It doesn’t matter, we’ve caught up to them. Get that thing away from Spock. It’s—it’s a weapon!”

  “Mr. Scott,” Spock said, “have you been looking for me?”

  “Mr. Spock ... Mr. Braithewaite has made some serious accusations against you, and against Dr. McCoy. I ha’ some questions I canna work out in my mind. I think we must talk.”

  Braithewaite snorted in disgust.

  “Are you giving me an order, Mr. Scott?” Spock asked.

  “I dinna wish to put in a formal charge of unfitness against ye, but I will if ye force me to it.”

  “You will be charged with mutiny.”

  “Will ye no’ just explain?” Scott cried. “Ye willna answer my questions, ye’ve lied to me—”

  “For gods’ sakes, Mr. Scott!” Braithewaite yelled. “This is no time to argue over your hurt feelings!” He lunged toward Spock. “Give me that—”

  As Braithewaite grabbed for the time-changer, Spock pushed him aside and fled. He shouldered his way past the two security officers at Dr. Mordreaux’s door, but Scott and Braithewaite followed him on the run, and the taller man closed the distance quickly.

  “Stop him!” Scott shouted, and the sounds of confused voices and running footsteps intensified into chaos.

  Spock raced through the corridors of the Enterprise. He spun around a corner and ran headlong into Dr. McCoy and Captain Hunter. But Hunter had no reason to try to stop him; he escaped again and abandoned McCoy to the confusion as Scott and Braithewaite caught up to them. He could hear everyone shouting at each other, cursing, yelling conflicting orders and explanations, with McCoy doing his best to complicate matters further. But after a moment the muddle broke up into a string of pursuers again. As Spock plunged into the transporter room, Ian Braithewaite put on a final sprint, launched himself at Spock, and rammed into the Vulcan’s knees. They went down in a tangle, Ian clutching at the time-changer and trying to drag it away.

  Spock clamped his fingers around the muscle at the base of Ian’s neck, seeking out the vulnerable nerve. The prosecutor collapsed in an angular heap. Spock freed himself and lurched to his feet. Without taking the time to double-check the settings of the changer, without stopping to think whether he should try to go farther back than he originally planned, all the way to the beginning, Spock leaped onto the transporter platform. Hunter appeared in the doorway, her energy-pistol drawn. She aimed it: it would not stun; it was a killing weapon.

  Struggling halfway to consciousness, Braithewaite groaned. “Stop him,” he said. “Stop him, he murdered Jim Kirk.”

  But she hesitated. As Mr. Scott and two bewildered-looking security officers rushed into the transporter room, followed a moment later by Dr. McCoy, Spock pressed the controls and felt the rainbow light engulf him, crush him, and rip him away into the continuum.

  Dr. McCoy felt the warp engines shudder into unwilling resurrection, feeding their power through the time-changer. The drain was too great. As the lights faded, the doctor watched Hunter lower her energy-pistol.

  She had plenty of time to fire, McCoy thought.

  “What the hell did he do?” Hunter said.

  “He made a fine botch of my repairs again, for one thing,” Scott said from the darkness, his old self for a moment.

  “Emergency power should come on line in a minute or so,”

  McCoy said. “Like I told you, we’ve been having some problems—”

  “You’ve got more than problems,” Hunter said, in a tone that silenced him.

  The quiet movement of the air returned, and the lights glowed dimly back to life around them. The voices of frightened crew members jumbled together in an erratic crescendo. The computer began to babble, then lapsed into fuzzy white noise.

  Mr. Scott helped Ian Braithewaite to his feet. Dazed, the prosecutor almost fell again. McCoy hurried forward, but Ian jerked away from his help.

  “Keep your hands off me.” He sat down on the transporter platform and buried his face in his hands.

  “All right, Ian,” McCoy said mildly. He turned to the security officers. “Is anyone guarding Dr. Mordreaux?”

  “I—I guess not, Doctor.”

  “You better get back there then, both of you. Everything’s under control here.”

  They looked skeptical. McCoy did not blame them.

  “Out!” he yelled.

  They left, reluctantly, to return to their post. McCoy folded his arms and regarded Braithewaite.

  “You’re supposed to be in your quarters, Ian,” he said. “What are you doing out?”

  “I freed him, Dr. McCoy,” Scott said. “I dinna ken what’s happened to this ship, I dinna ken what’s happened t’ye and Mr. Spock since all this started. But Mr. Braithewaite has asked questions that need answering, and you willna answer them.”

  “Scotty, you disobeyed my direct orders—”

  “Your orders! Ye are no’ a command officer! What business had he leaving ye in command?”

  “Spock left the doctor in command because it was the only way he could carry out his plans,” Braithewaite said. “He had to keep you out of the way.”

  “Now just a minute,” McCoy said.

  “Stop it, all of you.”

  The three men fell silent, recognizing the tone of someone who had earned obedience and respect.

  “I outrank all of you, including Spock,” Hunter said, “and if I have to pull rank to find out what’s going on, then consider it pulled. Dr. McCoy, do you have anything to say now?”

  He started to answer her—but Spock had got away, and perhaps he needed only a few minutes to put everything right, but if he failed again and returned, he would be stopped if his plans were known. McCoy could not take the chance of revealing what they were trying to do. He shook his head in defeat.

  “Mr. Scott?” Hunter asked.

  “I dinna ken what has happened. Dr. McCoy said Mr. Spock was deep asleep. He isna asleep, you saw that for yourself. That didna look like any transporter beam I ever saw before, either—and where could he go? I canna make his actions come out to make any sense in my mind. Unless Mr. Braithewaite’s suspicions are correct. I dinna want to believe them—but if they’re no’ true, why does Dr. McCoy want to go to Arcturus?”

  “Arcturus!” Hunter said.

  “Where’d you get the idea I wanted to go to Arcturus?” McCoy asked, baffled.

  “Ye told me ye did,” Scott said, and then, when McCoy shook his head, “Ye said, if ye asked for warp four to Arcturus, would ye get it.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” McCoy said. “I just picked the first example I could think of. But so what if I did want to go to Arcturus? What possible difference could that make?”

  “Leonard,” Hunter said, “Arcturus is almost exactly equidistant from Federation, Romulan, and Klingon space. It’s neutral—most of the time, anyway. People go to Arcturus to make deals.”

  “I don’t want to go to Arcturus,” McCoy said again. “I only wanted to know if the warp drive was on line.”

  “He doesn’t even make up decent excuses!” Ian said.

  “No, Mr. Braithewaite,” Hunter said, and she looked as if she were about to burst into laughter. “You’re right about that, Dr. McCoy doesn’t make up good excuses. But what do you have to say?”

  “Spock’s been trying to free Mordreaux,” Braithewaite told her. “He was on Aleph right after the trial, I saw him. And he was monkeying around with the transporter just before Kirk was murdered. But Spock couldn’t get Mordreaux away, so he settled for escaping himself once things began to fall apart on him. He’d already drawn Dr. McCoy into his scheme. The security commander was involved, but they got rid of her—”

  “The security com
mander? You can’t mean Mandala Flynn!”

  “Yes—She wanted to command a ship like this so badly she could taste it. It was no secret, she even told Kirk. But he laughed at her. He must have known that a stateless person had no chance of advancing that far in Starfleet.”

  “You’ve got some pretty strange ideas, Mr. Braithewaite.”

  “But that’s what happened! Spock probably offered her the Enterprise in return for her help. They had to get rid of Kirk first. Dr. Mordreaux tried to kill him but failed, so Spock pressured McCoy into letting Kirk die.”

  “Dammit, Braithewaite, he was dead! He was already dead!” McCoy’s voice broke and he turned away. In the following silence he managed to collect himself again. “I carried out his wishes. I followed the terms of his will. You can look at it if you want.”

  “I intend to,” Hunter said. “Whatever you did or didn’t do afterwards, that doesn’t change the fact that Jim was assaulted.”

  “You could have stopped them!” Ian cried. “Why didn’t you shoot Spock when you had the chance?”

  Hunter glanced down at the pistol still in her hand, and slowly holstered it. “Do you think I’d kill a person on your say-so?”

  Ian stood up and started toward the transporter console. “It still isn’t too late! We can still—” He halted just as McCoy was about to leap at him to prevent his revealing the time-changer’s auxiliary unit. Ian swayed, a lost, confused look on his face.

  “What’s the matter?” Scott said. “Ian—”

  The prosecutor collapsed, his body completely limp.

  “The nerve-pinch—” Scott said.

  “It isn’t that,” McCoy said, on his knees on the floor beside Braithewaite. He recognized the symptoms immediately, this second time in as many days. “It’s hypermorphic botulism! Help me with him, there isn’t time to wait for a stretcher!”