Star Trek Log Four

by Alan Dean Foster

  McCoy nodded knowingly. "That's just like Scotty, Jim. He worries twice as much when there's no evidence for it. A good, solid crisis hardly bothers him at all, because he knows what the problem is. It's the nonexistent difficulties that he really agonizes over!" He sighed.

  "I wonder what his wife must go through when he's home. I can picture it, I can picture it. Can't you see him rolling over in his sleep and muttering something like, 'Darlin', your drive components need an overhaul and lube in the bearings.'" Kirk smiled in spite of himself, looked over to where Spock stood at his science station.

  "Speaking of radiations again, Mr. Spock, let's take a look at our immediate environment."

  "Very well, Captain." Spock touched a switch. The main viewscreen immediately came to life. Murmurs of appreciation were heard from those on the bridge. The Arachnae nebula had been painted by one cataclysmic, searing stroke from a palette filled with ruptured atoms and annihilated energy. A star had gone supernova and become a glistening memory. In so dying it had raised in its place one of those strange nebulae that constitute the most spectacular headstones in the universe.

  A sprawling, fiery mass of radiant gases and particles streaked across the screen - millions of kilometers of color, mostly electric white, tinged throughout with iridescent shades of crimson, azure and purple. The arms of fire were vaguely spiderish in shape and design, hence the name.

  Kirk took time to study the fluorescent panorama, overwhelmed for the thousandth time by the infinite beauty and endless spool of glory the universe unwound. Returning to prosaics, he thumbed the recorder switch set into an arm of the command chair.

  And spoke easily. "Captain's Log, Star Date 5525.3. We are approaching the remains of the supernova Arachnae." He paused a moment, studying the scene ahead, then continued: "Initial close-in visual observation correlates with advance telescopic probe-pictures.

  "We are moving deeper into the nebular region at standard observation speed. Location survey will commence, as requested, with extensive measurements of expansion rate and radiation levels." Another pause, then: "Certain new types of radiation have already been detected. At present they exist in minute amounts and constitute no danger to either ship or mission. Engineer Scott is taking precautions."

  Kirk clicked off the log recorder. That was that. A few days traveling through the region under study with the ship's automatic and manual monitoring systems operating at full capacity, and then they would be on to the next scientific station. Everything pointed to an uneventful yet interesting cruise.

  No wonder Scotty was nervous.

  "Mr. Spock," he said casually, "what do you think of Mr. Scott's unusual radiations?"

  "They have been measured and recorded, and the results are now being analyzed by the computer, Captain. Some of the shorter wavelengths are indeed peculiar. But we have been receiving them now for several hours and have no hint of any debilitating effects. I cannot yet view them as a threat - Mr. Scott's precautionary actions notwithstanding."

  "Have we any indication that this radiation might increase as we move deeper into the nebula?"

  Spock, having turned back to the computer readout at his console, spoke while studying it. "On the contrary, Captain, there are signs that certain wavelengths are peaking now and, if anything, they should decrease in strength. Arachnae is entering a cycle of very strong emissions, but we should be long gone before any strong bursts reach this area." He hesitated.

  "There are occasional brief bursts of a wave-form that does exhibit extraordinary characteristics. Extraordinary because they appear to be totally out of synchronization with the normal pulsations of the nebular center. These do seem to be growing stronger. But they are still too faint and of too brief duration for intensive analysis."

  "Keep on it, then, Mr. Spock. That's the most interesting discovery we've made so far. Any chance the source might be other than natural?"

  "Again, Captain, it is too early to form any definite conclusions. But I am working on it."

  Kirk nudged another switch. "Stewart?"

  "Here, Captain," came the voice of the head of the Enterprise's Astronomical Mapping Section.

  "What have we got on the rate of expansion?"

  "Preliminary reports only," the voice replied evenly. "We're just now starting to receive information in bulk. Thus far the rate appears consistent with what we know of other nova and supernova remnants, though it seems to be high. A good deal higher than the Crab Nebula, for example. Too early to say if it's anything remarkable."

  "Very good, Mr. Stewart. Let me know if anything unusual crops up."

  "Aye, Captain."

  Kirk switched off, considered possible details as yet unfinished and turned back towards Uhura. "Lieutenant, inform Star Base twenty-three that we are now officially on station and commencing reconnaissance."

  "Yes, sir." She turned full attention to her console, edged a little to one side and gave McCoy an irritated look. "Please, Doctor, can't you keep that thing out of my face while I'm working?"

  "It's the only way I can effectively monitor the condition of your exquisite eyes, Lieutenant," McCoy replied, juggling the medical recorder and trying to keep it in line with the communications officer's face. She continued to move around at the console, but no more objections were offered - for all of two minutes.

  "As you and others have repeatedly told me, Doctor, they're in perfect condition. Now, if you'll let me complete this call, you can then point that thing at me all you want."

  McCoy moved away, shaking his head with an expression of exaggerated disgust. "I wear myself out trying to make sure everyone on this ship stays in perfect health and what are my rewards? Indifference, obstruction, lack of cooperation..."

  "It is not that, Doctor," Spock suggested helpfully, "but rather that the desire to insure our health sometimes appears to be overridden by an exaggerated sense of what I would call the mothering instinct."

  McCoy stopped short, looked up quickly from the recorder's readouts.

  "Mother instinct?"

  "Your constant solicitude sometimes laps over into an empathic condition of such a degree that it can only be properly defined as such," the first officer continued blandly. "If you will objectively analyze some of your actions, you will clearly see that...."

  "Now just a minute. Just a doggone minute," McCoy began hotly. "If anyone's going to do any analyzing of reactions here, it's...."

  Uhura broke in, "Excuse me a minute, Doctor." All three officers turned to face her. "Captain, I'm getting some strange interference on the subspace radio, everything in the upper registers."

  "Any trouble in getting through to Starbase?"

  She shook her head, a puzzled expression on her face. "No, Captain. I'm sure they got the message, albeit a little fuzzily. But this interference is ... patturned. If it's a signal, I don't recognize it. It doesn't conform to any known pattern, though, distress or otherwise."

  "Can you pinpoint the source."

  "Just another moment, I think...."

  There was a long pause while the communications officer worked busily at her console. Occasionally she would trade questions and answers with Sulu or Arex.

  "There's a record of a star, with a single planet, in the region the interference appears to be coming from, Captain. Drone records on the system are slight or nonexistent, but..." She looked thoroughly confused.

  "There's no mention of the area producing any kind of radio emissions. Nothing beyond the normal electromagnetic discharge of the star itself, and it shouldn't produce anything up in these wavelengths. Nothing about them in either the drone records or," she glanced away for a moment to scan another readout, "or in standard radio-telescope surveys of that area."

  "Step up amplification and put it on the speakers," Kirk ordered. "Let's hear them. Maybe it'll strike a response in someone else."

  Uhura shrugged, looked dubious, but turned back to her instruments and made the adjustments. A minute later the bridge was inundated with a so
und like a million electrified shrimp all chattering at once. Normal star chatter, it seemed.

  But at ordered intervals they heard a definite, harsh, though modulated screech that pierced the standard static with a regularity that fairly screamed "Intelligence!"

  Uhura was right when she said it corresponded to no known broadcast signal - at least, not that of any civilization Kirk was familiar with. Nor anyone else, for that matter. While they listened and wondered, Spock worked at the computer. Great insights were not forthcoming.

  "Signals appear random," he said, watching the flow of figures and words across the readout. "There are a number of possibilities. We may be receiving only disjointed parts of a more complete message and that may be why the pulsations make no sense."

  "Could it be a radio mirage?" Kirk ventured. "There's certainly enough energy flowing for light-years around to transfer an awfully distant one."

  "An interesting possibility that cannot be ruled out, Captain."

  "Radio mirage?" McCoy looked properly blank.

  "They've been known only for a century or so, Bones," Kirk explained. "They happen when a broadcasting civilization shoots signals in the direction of a highly active electromagnetic energy source, which then boosts and bounces them all over the cosmos, though usually badly distorted. Primitive radio-telescopes on Earth were picking them up for years without ever knowing what they really were.

  "And the high cycle of activity Arachnae is entering would be particularly conducive to such," he finished. "It's as good a guess as to what these unknown pulses are as any."

  "Correction," Spock put in laconically. "There is one identifiable word detectable in the pattern." Kirk quieted, leaned forward slightly and listened intently. After another minute of trying to sort something recognizable out of the blare of noise, he shook his head.

  "I still don't recognize anything, Mr. Spock."

  "That is because it is in Interset code, Captain. If you grant the fact that someone may still be using it."

  "Interset," Uhura repeated. "A standard deep-space communications code - but one that has been out of use for nearly two centuries. A contradiction within a puzzle. I'm not conversant with all the old codes, Mr. Spock. What's the one word ... help, hello ... what?"

  "It would seem to be in phonetic English, Captain; but the word itself has no meaning. It may be an archaic term. When decoded, the signal spells the word T-e-r-r-a-t-i-n ... Terratin."

  Kirk considered a moment. "Try your directional receivers, cued to the code frequency being utilized, Lieutenant. See if we can't pick up more of that message."

  Uhura promptly returned to work at her instruments. But before she could make any readjustments the tiny screech which constituted the single burst of interpretable energy had faded abruptly from the speakers. Only normal star hiss was heard on the bridge. She tried the directional pickups anyway, in hopes of regaining that one elusive attempt at communication - if it was that - but with no luck.

  "No use, sir. It's gone completely." More adjustments, then a long pause while she studied various readouts. "I just broadcast multiple queries in the old Interset code for further information. No response at all to our signals."

  Kirk turned his attention back to the science station. "Spock, anything on that code word yet?"

  "No, Captain," the first officer replied, still staring into his hooded viewer. "The computers show no ancient interpretation of the word. Nor do exhaustive scans of all variants of Interset code give any clue to what it might mean."

  "Was it a random broadcast, Mr. Spock? A radio freak, perhaps?"

  "No, sir. That signal was repeated at least twice, on a patently non-natural frequency ... and possibly more often. It is difficult to be precise considering the amount of background interference."

  Kirk paused thoughtfully, the other officers watching him, waiting. The only noise on the bridge now was the muted hum of instrumentation, the steady babble of interstellar static over the speakers.

  "Two times ... one too many for semantic coincidence. It has to be of human origin, then. Mr. Sulu," Kirk said crisply, swiveling back to face the helm navigation console, "lay in a course for...," he hesitated until the name of the obscure star came to him, "...Cephenes."

  "Aye, sir," Sulu acknowledged, bending over his controls.

  That decision caused McCoy to lower his health scanner and walk over to stare uncertainly at Kirk.

  "Jim, you don't mean you're going to abandon the survey mission to check out some coincidence of stellar electronics that might or might not be part of a two-centuries dead code? At the outside, the most it might be is the dying gasp of some forgotten deep-space drone probe. Meaningless stuff. Ships run across that kind of junk all the time."

  "Maybe meaningless at the moment, Bones. But there's no record of anyone having come across any old Federation artifacts anywhere near this region. It's well away from the historical exploration routes. And I'd sure like to see any 'old dead probe' that can put out a traceable signal this far from Cephenes. Must have been some probe. No, it doesn't make sense. There are other possibilities, too, that we haven't fully considered."

  "Such as?" McCoy challenged.

  "An intelligence someplace that somehow picked up the Interset code and is trying to contact us." He gave a soft shrug. "There are a host of possibilities."

  "We've no indication that the signal - if it was a signal - was even directed at us."

  "True enough." The Captain nodded. "I admit it's a long shot, Bones. But if there's even a chance of it being anything more, we're bound to check it out ... even if that means deviating from our planned course. I'm rather surprised at you. Where's your spirit of adventure, Bones?"

  "On top of a three-centimeter microscope slide. That's far enough off course for me, Jim."

  Kirk glanced to his right. "Mr. Spock, continue intensive research on the word 'Terratin.' Check pre-Interset codes, too. There's always the chance the word may be a carry-over from an earlier, more primitive version of the code."

  "I've been doing so, sir," Spock replied. "No significant historical references have been revealed as yet. I suspect that if any do exist they are certainly pre-Federation."

  Kirk looked disappointed. McCoy merely turned away, muttering under his breath. "Waste of time if you ask me." Hefting the health recorder, he moved toward the helm. "Sulu, you're next."

  "I'm in perfect health, Doctor."

  "That's what they all say," McCoy countered, "until they show up in Sick Bay complaining of internal pains, vomiting, headache and irregularity and want to know why I didn't spot something two weeks in advance of symptoms."

  "Precautionary checkups are an excellent idea, Lieutenant Sulu," came sudden advice from Spock's station. "It is illogical to object to the doctor's informal checks."

  "Well, thank you, Spock," said McCoy, surprised and pleased at support from a totally unexpected quarter.

  "Although," the first officer continued mildly, "I see no reason why they could not be performed with considerably less frequency than at present."

  "I'll keep that in mind, Spock," McCoy said, "because you're next...."

  II

  Actually, McCoy's concern for the mission was exaggerated. They were not too far from Cephenes, so they could examine the source of the mysterious signal and return to the scientific mapping of the huge nebula with little time lost.

  Cephenes' lone planet proved to be a world of constant upheaval. Considerably drier and somewhat smaller than Earth, it resembled a convulsed Mars. The atmosphere was in continual motion, as unstable and violent as the surface.

  Sulu set a low orbit and the bridge complement stared at the screen as one external viewer after another provided varying closeups of the planet below. Telescopic subviews revealed shimmering flares of crimson and yellow, occasionally blending into violent orange eruptions as volcanoes belched forth the globe's insides at sporadic intervals.

  "Cephenes One ... and only," Sulu reported formally.

&n
bsp; "Doesn't look very hospitable," McCoy observed prosaically.

  "Mr. Spock, any information on conditions below?" Kirk asked.

  "Our only data are from that single early drone probe to this region, Captain, and it passed through the system very fast. Clearly there was nothing to trigger its automatics for a longer stay. We have no record of anything beyond the lower life-forms existing on the surface. Nor, indeed, mention of anything beyond a few basic statistics."

  On the viewscreen an enormous orange-red flare temporarily obliterated the view.

  "Two items of interest, though. The atmosphere is high in rare gases, but breathable - and surface conditions are indicated as being approximately normal."

  Kirk studied the screen. Another gigantic flare tinged distant clouds with hellfire. "Normal, hmmm? So either the probe's instrumentation was at fault, or else these eruptions are a fairly recent phenomenon." He looked at once satisfied and disappointed.

  "That probably accounts for our strange 'signal.' Natural source after all. Volcanic eruptions can produce great bursts of short-lived electromagnetic discharge. I still think it's a mighty peculiar coincidence, but it's possible. Still, we're here. We might as well run a more thorough survey. Keep scanners on and recording, Mr. Sulu?"

  "Yes, sir. Anything in particular you'd like to see on the screen?"

  "There doesn't seem to be anything particular. No...," he watched the changing images of tectonic belligerence. "I see nothing we haven't observed on a half-dozen similar worlds before. We'll run an equatorial survey. If our 'signal' doesn't repeat itself - and I'm not optimistic - we'll return to our planned mission." He glanced back at McCoy.

  "You were right, Bones. There's nothing to waste our time on, here."

  ***

  Actually, this was not entirely so. But at that point Kirk had seen no reason to think otherwise. Had he utilized the starship's high-resolution scopes on a certain area, however, he might have seen something interesting. A particularly protected, barren-looking valley, for example, dominated by towering crags of black and dirty gray, some of which were more ragged than others. Thick streams of viscous molten rock poured down their slopes. Occasionally a crisped-over river would crack, and harsh yellow light would flood the jumbled cliffs and crevasses.