The Entropy Effect

by Vonda N. Mcintyre Неизвестный Автор

  Without explanation, he had told her straight out that he did not expect their carrier’s mission to pose much challenge. But he had asked her to arrange an impressive security force. And there was clearly no arguing with Mr. Spock about the use of the guest cabin. So the inexplicable Mister Mordreaux would be hermetically secure from the transporter to his cabin—but after that, Flynn could not be so confident, even putting him under twenty-four-hour guard, even with the new security door on the cabin and the energy-screens around it.

  Who, Flynn wondered, is putting on a show for whom? Who is fooling whom? And, more important, why?

  Kirk glanced at her.

  “We’re about ready to receive the prisoner, Commander Flynn.”

  “Yes, sir. The guard detail is due here at 1015 hours, as you requested.” She could hear their footsteps in the corridor.

  She could not repress a smile when the team came in. She hoped they did not feel ridiculous, but they knew why they had been chosen: she had thought it best to tell them what little she knew. Each of the five carried a phaser rifle, but the weapons paled before the physical presence of the security officers themselves.

  Beranardi al Auriga, her second in command, stood over two meters tall and was as blocky and solid as collapsed matter, black-skinned, fire-eyed, with a bushy red beard and flame-colored hair in all shades of red and orange and blond.

  Neon, despite iridescent scales and a long tail spiked like a stegosaurus’, most resembled an economy-sized Tyrannosaurus rex. Human beings often thought of her in dinosaur terms: strong and dangerous but slow and stupid. She was quick as electricity and the facets of her I.Q. that Starfleet could measure started at 200 and went up from there.

  Snnanagfashtalli and Jenniver Aristeides had been obvious choices for the team. Jenniver towered over even Barry al Auriga. She was like a steel statue. Flynn had, at first, thought Aristeides the most grotesquely ugly human creature she had ever seen, but after a few weeks she began to feel that the quiet woman had a strange, stony, sculptural beauty.

  Snnanagfashtalli was the only truly vicious member of the team. After seeing her in action the day before, Flynn had decided to use her only on assignments when she was sure nothing would happen, or when she was certain something would. Snarl did not attack for no reason, and she attacked ferociously when she had cause, but she was not good in the middle ground when restraint and discipline were called for. She possessed neither. Under stress she was more likely to use her ruby fangs than her phaser.

  Maximo Alisaunder Arrunja, the last member of the team, had a talent for blending into crowds. He was a craggy-faced, graying, middle-aged man. When he decided not to blend, he emanated the most chillingly dangerous aura of anyone Flynn had ever met. She had seen him break up an incipient fistfight between two irritable crew members: he never had to lay a finger on either of them, he did not even have to threaten them. They surrendered out of pure irrational terror at what he might do.

  Flynn glanced at Captain Kirk. “I hope the security force is adequate, sir.”

  “Yes, Commander Flynn,” he said, so poker-faced that she knew her assessment of the situation was not far wrong.

  Flynn glanced at al Auriga. “All set, Barry?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said softly.

  Then, after half a beat, Jenniver Aristeides said, “If we’re waiting for a troop of Klingons.”

  She just barely smiled. Max laughed, the sound like a growl, Neon made an eerie, tinkling, wind-chime noise, Barry giggled, and Snarl glanced from face to face, rumbling low in her throat, wondering if it were she who was being laughed at. Along with restraint and discipline, Snarl also lacked a sense of humor.

  “I appreciate all of you a very great deal,” Flynn said. Snarl raised her ears and smoothed her hackles and glided silently to her position by the transporter.

  “Captain Kirk,” Mr. Spock said, in a tone Flynn would have called very near distress, if anyone had asked her. “Captain Kirk, Dr. Mordreaux is an elderly academic. This . .. this .. . guerrilla strike force is

  hardly necessary.”

  “Come now, Mr. Spock—we want Ian Braithewaite to see that we’re taking him seriously, don’t we?”

  Spock’s gaze moved from Kirk, to Flynn, and across the security group. He looked at the ceiling for a long moment.

  “As you wish, Captain.”

  The transporter signalled ready, and a moment later the prisoner and Aleph Prime’s chief prosecutor materialized. Flynn’s quintet put their phaser rifles at ready, and she rested her hand easily on the butt of her holstered phaser pistol.

  Why—he’s drugged, Flynn thought, as soon as Mordreaux solidified. The blank expression and unfocussed gaze allowed no other interpretation. In addition, the prisoner wore energy-cuffs on his wrists, and a set of inertial-resistance leg restraints that would permit him to walk, but which would snap short and trip him if he overcame the drugs long enough to try to run. It was all as old-fashioned as a set of iron chains, as unnecessary and as humiliating. Mordreaux was in no shape to notice humiliation. Flynn glanced at Spock, but his face remained impassive; he had apparently expended any outburst on the guerrilla strike force.

  Braithewaite bounded down from the platform, glanced briefly at the security team, and nodded to Kirk. “Great,” he said. “Where’s the detention cell?”

  “Mr. Braithewaite,” Kirk said, “I’m taking the Enterprise out of orbit immediately. There’s no time for you to look around, nor any need.”

  “But Captain—I’m going to Rehab Seven with you.”

  ‘That’s impossible.”

  “It’s orders, Captain.” He handed Kirk a subspace transmission form. Kirk scanned it, frowning.

  “You’ll be on your own getting back, and as you pointed out yourself there aren’t many official ships.”

  “I know, Captain,” Ian Braithewaite said. His expression turned somber and thoughtful. “After what’s happened—this trial, and Lee, and . .. well, I need some time by myself. To think some things out. I’ve arranged for a single-ship; I’m going to sail back.” He glanced down at Kirk. “I’ll do my best to stay out of your hair till we get to Rehab Seven, and you won’t have to worry about me afterward.”

  He hurried after the security team and his prisoner. Kirk paused a moment, feeling rather nonplussed at being told not to worry about someone who proposed to fly all the way across a star system, all alone, in a tiny, fragile, unpowered sailboat. Shaking his head, he followed the others out of the transporter room.

  Jim Kirk returned to his cabin and collapsed in a chair, too tired to move even as far as his bunk. He had had no sleep in thirty-six hours; he had lost the best helm officer the ship ever had; his science officer, trying to salvage some results from his observations of the singularity, some possible explanation for its occurrence, had tied up most of the available computer time working out equations that no one else could even read, let alone understand; and Mr. Scott had just begun irritably demanding engineering’s share of the computer time. A brilliant lunatic or a slandered genius—possibly both—was under detention in the

  V.I.P. cabin, and his unrelentingly energetic watchdog was quartered nearby. The ship flew creaking like a relic, the warp engines needed a complete overhaul, and even the impulse drive was working none too dependably.

  One of the reasons Kirk felt so exhausted was that Ian Braithewaite’s animation never let up. It would have been far easier to deal with him if he were despicable, but he was only young, inexperienced, likeable ... and ambitious.

  Kirk regretted, now, that he had not explained to Commander Flynn just exactly what was going on—though she obviously knew it was something not quite completely above board. When Kirk pled the press of work and tried to persuade Ian to get settled in, the prosecutor waylaid Flynn for a tour of the security precautions. Kirk hoped she was perceptive enough to continue the show they had set up. He believed she was; now he would find out.

  Kirk could not keep his thoughts away from h
is conversation that morning with Dr. McCoy. Part of him wished it had never happened; he did not often go in for soulbaring, and on the rare occasion that he did, he always felt embarrassed afterward.

  Damn, he thought, but that’s just what we were talking about. Leonard McCoy and Hunter are the two best friends I’ve got, and I can’t even open up to either of them.

  It’s absurd. I’ve been trading my life for a fa9ade of total independence that I know is full of holes even when I’m holding it up in front of me. It isn’t worth it anymore—if it ever was.

  If Spock succeeds in clearing Mordreaux, we’ll have to bring him back to Aleph Prime. Even if he doesn’t, the Enterprise needs a lot of work before we can even think of restarting Spock’s observations, and the nearest repair yards are at Aleph. If Hunter has already left, I can hire a racer and fly out to wherever she’s got her squadron based. I need to see her again. I need to talk to her—really talk to her this time. Bones was right: even if it doesn’t change anything, I’ve got to tell her I was wrong.

  Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott tramped down the corridor, muttering curses in an obscure Scots dialect. Six weeks’ work for nothing, six weeks’ work that would have to be done all over again, or more likely abandoned if it were so trivial that it could be interrupted only two days from completion—and for such a foolish reason. Ever since the mysterious emergency message came and they had been diverted, all he had heard was Poor Mr. Spock, poor Mr. Spock, all his work for nothing.

  And what, Scott wondered, about poor Mr. Scott? Keeping a starship’s engines steady in the proximity of a naked singularity was no picnic, and he had been at it just as long as Spock had been at his task.

  The engines had been under a terrific strain, and it was Scott’s job to be sure they did not fail: if they had given out during a correction of the orbit, the mission would have ended instantly—or it would have lasted a lot longer than six weeks, depending on where one looked at it from. From outside, the Enterprise would have fallen toward the deranged metric, growing fainter and fuzzier, till it vanished. From inside the ship, the crew would have seen space itself vanish, then reappear—assuming the ship made the transit whole, rather than in pieces—but it would have been space in some other place, and

  some other time, and the Enterprise ’s chances of getting home again would have been so close to zero as to be unmeasurable.

  The engines were much of the cause of Scott’s foul mood. While everyone on the ship, or so many as made no never-mind, received a day’s liberty on Aleph Prime, Scott—rather than relaxing in the best place in this octant to spend liberty—had used every minute hunting up parts and getting them back to the ship. That was only the beginning of the work: he still had to install the new equipment in the disconnected warp engines. He felt far from comfortable, with impulse engines, alone, available to power the Enterprise . But they could not dock at Aleph Prime: no, they had to carry out their mission. Mission, hah.

  Then there was the matter of Sulu. True, Scott and Sulu were not particularly close, but he had known the helm officer for years and it was downright embarrassing to resurface after six hours fighting energy pods, to find not only that he had left, without so much as a good-to-know-you, but also that virtually everyone except Scott knew he had gone.

  He passed the transporter room, then stopped. He thought he saw a flicker of light, as if someone were using the unit. Of course that was impossible: they were too far from anywhere to beam anyone on board. Nevertheless, Scott backtracked.

  Mr. Spock stood in the middle of the room, as if he had just materialized on the platform, stepped down, and walked two or three steps before halting: his shoulders were slumped and he looked ready to fall.

  “Mr. Spock?”

  Spock froze for no more than a second, then straightened up and turned calmly toward the chief engineer.

  “Mr. Scott. I should have ... expected you.”

  “Did ye page me? Are ye all right? Is something wrong wi’ the transporter?” No doubt someone had neglected to ask him to fix it, though that was one of his responsibilities: it seemed as though no one thought Scott worth telling anything to, these days.

  “I simply noticed some minor power fluctuations, Mr. Scott,” the science officer said. “They could become reason for complaint.”

  “I can come back and help ye,” Scott said, “as soon as I’ve reported to Captain Kirk about the engines.” He frowned. Spock, who never showed any reaction to stress, looked drawn and tired—,far more tired even than Scott felt. So everyone—human, superhuman, Vulcan, and even Mr. Spock—had limits after all.

  “That is unnecessary,” Spock said. “The work is almost complete.” He did not move. Scott remained in the doorway a moment longer, then turned on his heel and left Spock alone. After all these years, he should no longer be offended if Spock did not say thank you for an offer of help he had not asked for and did not need. But today Scott was of a mind to be offended by nearly anything.

  As the chief engineer approached the turbo lift, a tall thin civilian hurried up: no doubt he was one of the people they had collected on Aleph. When Kirk had not taken Scott into his confidence about the reason for the change in plans, Scott had assumed some essential, vitally secret task had been assigned to them.

  He had assumed they were working on a strictly need-to-know basis. The assumptions were false, the message was trivial, and Scott had been left in the dark simply because, as usual, no one had troubled to let him know what was going on.

  Scott nodded to the civilian as they got into the lift; he wished he were alone because he felt more like being grumpy in private than churlish in public.

  “Hold the lift!”

  Scott pushed the doors open again and the captain came in. He looked rested; his uniform was fresh: Scott, on the other hand, had spent the six hours since leaving Aleph in the engine room, and he felt grubby.

  “Hello, Scotty,” Captain Kirk said.

  “Captain,” Scott replied shortly. It occurred to him suddenly that the civilian must be nearly the last one to have used the transporter, the person Spock implied had complained.

  “Sir,” Scott said abruptly, “could ye describe to me how ye felt, when ye arrived on the transporter? It would help track down the difficulty.”

  The civilian looked startled.

  “Sorry, sir,” Scott said. “I’m the chief engineer, my name is Scott.”

  “Good lord, Scotty,” Kirk said, “is the transporter on the blink too?”

  “Your transporter worked fine as far as I could tell,” the civilian said. He grinned. “I thought it was supposed to shake you up a little.”

  The doors opened and they all stepped out onto the bridge.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong wi’ it, Captain,” Scott said. “Mr. Spock just this moment told me—”

  Scott stopped short, and his voice failed him as he stared in astonishment at the science officer’s station. There, in his usual place, Spock bent over his computer terminal.

  Captain Kirk and the civilian went down to the lower level of the bridge, where Commander Flynn leaned against the railing waiting for them. Scott followed, but he could not drag his gaze away from Spock, and he stumbled on the stairs. Flynn grabbed his arm to steady him.

  “You okay?”

  “Aye,” he said, irked; he pulled away from her.

  Kirk took his seat and turned back toward Scott.

  “What’s the bad news on the engines, Scotty?”

  “The engines are no’ in very good shape, Captain. I got most of the parts we needed on Aleph, and I can keep things together to do what’s needed as long as the warp drive isna pushed, once i’ is on line

  again. ‘Twould be better to stay at sublight, till we’ve had a thorough overhaul...”

  His voice trailed off as Spock came down to listen.

  “What’s wrong, Scotty?” Kirk asked.

  “Well, nae a thing, really, Captain—but, Mr. Spock, how did ye beat me to the bridge? I c
ame here direct from the transporter room.”

  Spock cocked one eyebrow. “The transporter room, Mr. Scott? I have been on the bridge since Mr. Sulu left; I have not been near the transporter room for several hours.”

  “But you said there was something wrong wi’ it.”

  “I am unaware of any malfunction.”

  “Ye said it had power fluctuations, Mr. Spock, and that i’ was nearly fixed. But what I dinna understand is how you got up here before I did.” Among the junior officers were one or two inveterate practical jokers, but Spock would never engage in such frivolity, nor cooperate with it. Scott shook his head, as if that would disperse the fog of exhaustion and confusion that surrounded him. Everything would be so much clearer if only he did not feel so tired.

  “Mr. Scott, I have been here on the bridge for some time.”

  “But I just saw ye—I just spoke wi’ ye!”

  Spock said nothing, but he raised his eyebrow again.

  “Idid see ye!”

  “Scotty,” Kirk said, “how late did you stay out last night?”

  Scott turned toward his captain. “Captain, that isna fair! I took no liberty—I did naught but work on the engines!”

  “You were supposed to take liberty,” Kirk said, in a much more placating tone. “Scotty, we’re all tired, we’ve all been under a lot of stress for a long time. I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for what you saw—”

  “You’re saying I’m hallucinating, Captain! I dinna hallucinate Mr. Spock in the transporter room any more than I’m hallucinating him now!”

  “I’m saying no such thing. I’m saying I want you to get some rest. We’ll talk about this later, if we need to.”

  Kirk’s expression forbade more comment. Scott hesitated, but clearly he was to be excluded from any further conversation. Spock regarded him quizzically, but failed to offer any explanation for his peculiar behavior.