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.
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 logica
l.”
“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.”
“Youmust . 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.
McCoy did not blame them. He was frightened, too, and he knew what was going on.
McCoy glanced at the transporter platform, but decided it would be better to return in an hour than to wait for Spock here.
Starting out the doorway, he nearly ran into Ian Braithewaite.
“Damn,” Braithewaite said. “I hoped ...”
He blocked the door. Aside from being more than a head taller than the doctor, he was twenty years younger.
“It isn’t too late, Dr. McCoy,” he said earnestly. “I know what happened last night—I know what kind of stress you were working under. I know you weren’t yourself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I was awake, when Captain Kirk . . . died. I saw you arguing with Mr. Spock. I know you didn’t want to comply with his demands.”
McCoy stared at Braithewaite, dumbfounded.
“I can’t promise you immunity, not after last night.” He grasped McCoy by the shoulders. “But I know
how much pressure can be brought to bear on someone. I’ve seen what it can do. If you help me I swear I’ll do everything in my power to have this reduced from a capital crime.”
McCoy went cold. He realized—Finally you realize! he thought, it’syou he’s after, you and Spock, not just Commander Flynn or some faceless nameless phantom conspiracy.
Spock was not being so paranoid after all.
“Are you sayin’—” McCoy heard the soft threat again in his own voice. “Are you sayin’ you think Jim Kirk—Just exactly what are you saying?”
“Captain Kirk was still alive. I saw you disconnect the life-support systems.”
“He was dead, Ian. His brain was dead before I took him off the bridge, only I wouldn’t admit it. That’s what Spock and I were arguing about. I couldn’t admit that I couldn’t do anything to save Jim, I couldn’t admit that he was dead.”
Braithewaite hesitated. “You were so drunk you didn’t know what you were doing, how could you know if he was dead or not?”
“Even blind drunk I could have heard the brain-wave sensors. Hear them! My god, I’d been listening to them for hours.”
Braithewaite gazed down at him thoughtfully. “I’d like to believe you,” he said. “But why did you do it in the middle of the night, without contacting his family, or even his executor?”
“The only family he has is a young nephew.I’m Jim’s executor. You can look at his will if you want to. He asked not to be kept alive if there were no hope of recovery. I’d been keeping his body alive for hours, against his wishes, trying to pretend to myself that he might get well. It wasn’t fair, not to anybody, particularly not to Jim.”
Some of the tension left Braithewaite’s stance, and he stepped aside, but he followed McCoy down the corridor.
“The power fa
ilure—it was the result of using the time-travel device.”
McCoy did not reply.
“Dr. McCoy, I want to believe your story about Captain Kirk, please believe me. But you’ve got to tell me where—and when—you sent Spock and Mordreaux.”
“I didn’t send them anywhere. What do you mean, ‘when’? Time travel? That’s the craziest thing I ever heard. I told you you can’t talk to Spock till he’s gotten some sleep. But Mordreaux is still in his cabin. Why don’t you go check?”
McCoy was too preoccupied to notice the fury that spread over Ian Braithewaite’s expression when he was confronted again with the pathetic fabrication of Spock’s hibernation, or estivation, or afternoon nap if they wanted to call it that. The falsehood of it had been blatantly demonstrated to him. But Ian knew his own flaws. He was out of his depth in this case, and had been from the beginning, trying to balance his passion for justice against a threat so devastating it was almost incomprehensible, trying to weigh suspicion against his own good faith.
You’re being naive, Ian, he thought. Again.
But it was possible that McCoy himself was being deceived.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll check on Dr. Mordreaux. But you’ve got to come with me.” He was not so naive that he would trust McCoy till he had some proof of the doctor’s innocence.
McCoy sighed. “Whatever you want, Ian,” he said. His voice was uneven. He was shaking, from being forced to relive Jim’s death. He went with Braithewaite toward Mordreaux’s cabin, getting angrier and angrier at the attorney. He doubted that seeing the professor would allay the young busybody’s suspicions, and suppose Ian discovered that it was Spock, not Mordreaux, who was. missing? The only safe thing to do was to get him out of the way long enough for Spock to do his work.
At Mordreaux’s cabin, Barry al Auriga stood talking to the two guards on duty. All three security officers looked up.
“We’ve come to see Dr. Mordreaux—if he’s still here,” Ian said. al Auriga frowned, but kept his temper. “He’s here.”
The Entropy Effect Page 17
