by David Stern
He keyed in a final set of commands and set the LeKarz to run.
On the left, the gamina molecule began attaching itself to other chemicals in the bloodstream.
On the right, the new Gamina-B molecule began doing the same. At first.
And then, all at once, the molecule started bonding with itself once more, clumping together.
“It’s not working,” Deleen said.
“No.”
Boyce had programmed the simulated molecule based on the bonding proportions of right- and lefthand molecules he had gathered in his data snapshots. He altered those proportions and tried a second simulation.
That didn’t work, either.
Nor did the third or the fourth.
He went back to the snapshots and studied the data more carefully. Interesting. The relative proportions of right- and left-hand molecules deviated little from the standard mean he’d been using, but the bonding loci of each appeared to follow no set pattern.
“It’s totally random,” he said, pushing the chair he’d been sitting in back from the LeKarz. “The arrangement of right- and lefthanded molecules.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, for one thing, it means the arrangement’s going to be impossible to duplicate.” Even for the LeKarz, to simulate an array of possibilities that complex just wasn’t possible. It was only a machine, after all.
He sat up a little straighter.
“What?” Deleen asked.
“Another idea,” Boyce said.
“A new simulation?”
“No.” He shook his head. “Real life.”
He crossed the bay, and from the lab station Zandar had shown him earlier, he obtained a vial of one of the failed gamina-B analogues. He unplugged one of the lab’s centrifuges.
“What are you doing?” Deleen asked.
“A small electrical charge,” he said. “If I’m right, it ought to randomize the molecular arrangement.”
“An electrical charge? That’s it?”
“The first step, anyway,” Boyce said. “We’ll find out for sure.”
He moved the vial toward the power-supply leads. They touched. The entire lab went dark.
“I didn’t do that,” Boyce said.
Emergency lights snapped on. The guards, Boyce saw, had their weapons raised.
“What’s happening?” Deleen called out.
“Hang on.” That came from one of the scientists, who was crossing the room as he spoke, gazing down at a handheld device about the size of Boyce’s tricorder. “ Power fluctuations. The grid is going down all across this portion of the ship.”
“How is that possible?” Zandar asked.
“I don’t know.” The other scientist shook his head. “Looks like some sort of phase cascade reaction.”
Boyce’s eyes widened. Hoto. He’d completely forgotten. All thoughts of gamina left his head.
He turned to Deleen. “Come with me,” he said.
“What?”
“Come with me. Now.” He started to pull her toward the entry.
A guard stepped forward, blocking his way.
“You are to continue working.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” Boyce said, suddenly seeing a way out. “We have to get to the medical wing.”
“The medical wing?”
“Yes. This is gamina. For the tallith.” He held up the vial. “I need to use the equipment there. Testing procedures.”
The guard and Deleen looked at him skeptically.
“Very well.” The guard nodded. “Come with me.”
He began walking toward the door. As he approached it, he gestured toward another guard, standing nearby.
The first guard led them through the door. The second followed.
Two of them. Boyce hoped Hoto would be as good as her word.
“The medical wing,” Deleen, walking side-by-side with him, whispered under her breath. “Dr. Boyce, what are you doing? Really?”
“The ship is going to be destroyed in a few minutes. I know a way out.”
“Destroyed.” She frowned. “The Singhino, you mean?”
“No,” he said.
Deleen stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean by that?”
Boyce opened his mouth to answer her—what he was about to say, he had no idea—when the guard in front of them, all at once, dropped to one knee and drew his weapon.
“Down,” he said, motioning with his hand for them to drop as well. “Get—”
A blue beam of light sizzled through the air and caught the Orion square in the chest.
He grunted once and fell to the floor.
The guard behind them stepped forward, firing as he came. Orange weapons fire, light phasing at a very high energy level. There was a slight curve to the corridor where they were; the orange beam caught the wall at that curve. Metal sizzled and smoked.
In the distance, someone cried out.
The guard reached toward a comm panel on the wall. He didn’t make it.
Another blue beam of light shot around that curve, and he crumpled to the floor just as his companion had.
“The Singhino.” Deleen looked as if she was about to cry. “They’re here.”
She raised her hands.
Boyce followed suit.
Captain Pike stepped around the corner.
“Ah.” He saw Boyce and lowered his weapon. “There you are.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
You’re dead,” Boyce said. “Aren’t you dead?”
“Never felt better. Who’s this?” He gestured toward the Orion girl standing beside Boyce.
“This,” Boyce repeated, looking a little shell-shocked, “is Deleen.”
Pike frowned. Not exactly an informative answer.
“I am the tallith’s daughter,” the girl said.
Pike raised an eyebrow. “The tallith’s daughter?”
“Enough talk,” growled Kritos. Spock and Hardin, phasers drawn—a step behind him—emerged from the bend in the corridor. “We do not have time to waste. You have found your doctor, now let us continue.”
“You’re Kritos,” Boyce said. “Captain Kritos.”
“And you are Boyce. Come with us.”
“Come with you?”
“Yes.” Kritos stepped forward and took the doctor’s arm. “We must reach the medical wing immediately.”
“Captain, what’s happening?” Boyce asked. “Why are you here? How—”
“One question at a time.” Pike smiled. “Among other things, we’re here to rescue you.”
“And to obtain proof that the Orions were behind the attack at Starbase Eighteen,” Spock said. “That is the case, is it not?”
“It is,” Boyce said, with such certainty in his voice that Pike, who had been about to accede to Kritos’s wishes and urge the others to move on, hesitated.
“You sound as if you know something about it.”
The doctor nodded. “I do. The proof you want—it’s back that way.” He gestured in the direction he and the girl had just come from.
At that instant, the lights dimmed again. The vessel shook.
“That was no power fluctuation,” the captain said, turning to Spock.
“Agreed.” His science officer nodded. “It felt like an explosion.”
“It was,” Boyce said.
“I told you. The ship is under attack,” Kritos said.
Pike frowned. If the Klingon was right, if the Orion ships that they had detected earlier circling Karkon’s Wing, waiting for an opportunity to dock the cloaked shuttle had moved in for the kill, as it were, Galileo was in danger.
“It is the Singhino,” the girl said.
“No. It’s not,” Boyce said. “It’s Lieutenant Hoto.”
“Lieutenant Hoto?” said Pike. “She’s alive?”
“Yes.” He hesitated a second, glanced over at the girl, and then plunged on. “She’s rigged the ship to self-destruct. To cover our escape.”
“What?” Del
een said.
“I’m sorry,” Boyce said. “I—”
The girl began to back away.
“Not so fast,” Hardin said, drawing her weapon again. “Stay right where you are.”
“Lieutenant Hoto. I assume she managed to gain access to the ship’s control systems?” Spock asked.
“Yes,” Boyce said. “I think so.”
The Vulcan nodded. “Impressive.”
“All the more reason for us to make haste. To locate Druzen and this vessel before it does explode.” Kritos looked down and studied the device he carried in his hand. The locator.
He pointed across the corridor. “This way.”
“Wait.” Pike put a little steel in his voice; perhaps a little too much. Kritos spun around and glared at him.
“Do not presume to command me, Pike.”
“I’m not. Just … wait. Please. Hang on a second.”
The Klingon grunted.
Pike’s mind raced. The mission hadn’t changed, but the fact that Hoto had rigged the vessel to explode … They had a ticking clock to deal with.
“How long do we have, Doctor?” he asked.
“Not sure,” Boyce said. “We were going to rendezvous at the medical wing.”
“All right. Slight change in plans, people,” Pike said. “We’re going to split up.”
“I am going to the medical wing,” Kritos growled.
“Yes,” Pike said. “Yes, you are. Lieutenant Hardin, you’ll accompany him. You find Druzen and Lieutenant Hoto—”
“No, sir,” Hardin said. “I stay with you.”
“I think I can handle myself.”
“Sir—”
“I can accompany Captain Kritos,” Spock said.
“Yes.” Kritos nodded. “The Vulcan will accompany me.”
“This isn’t a democracy,” Pike said. “I want you with me, Spock. To verify that proof Dr. Boyce is going to show us.”
“The doctor is coming with me, Pike,” Kritos said. “As we agreed. To see to Druzen.”
“Druzen,” Boyce said. “Wait a minute. Who is Druzen?”
“He is the reason we are here,” Kritos said. “These petaQ have taken him hostage.”
“The Klingon,” Boyce said. “In the medical wing.”
“You have seen him?” Kritos took a step toward Boyce, moving so quickly that the doctor started. “He is well?”
“I think so. Nothing seriously wrong with him, at any rate.”
Kritos bared his teeth in a smile. “Hah! Strong as a targ. Did I not tell you, Vulcan!”
He turned toward Spock and, for a second, seemed about to actually clap the Vulcan on the back. Spock, clearly, feared the same thing.
“Yes,” Spock said, taking a step back. “I believe you did.”
Pike stepped forward. “You’ll have to tell us how to find that proof you were talking about, Doctor.”
Boyce nodded. “It’s back that way. Up a single deck. You have to—”
“Sir, what about her?” Hardin gestured toward the Orion girl. “She can show us, can’t she?”
“I will do nothing of the kind.” The girl glared at Boyce. “You lied to me. You had no intention of replicating the serum. All you were trying to do—”
“I was trying to save your life,” Boyce said.
The girl frowned.
Pike frowned, too. Replicating the serum? The captain had a feeling there was a whole long story that went with that, one he didn’t have time to hear at the moment.
“Enough talk.” Kritos put a hand on Boyce’s shoulder. “Come, Doctor.”
“Enough talk is right.” Hardin raised her weapon and pointed it right at the Orion girl. “Show us where that proof is, or—”
“No need for that, Lieutenant.” Pike stepped between the two of them. He turned to the girl. “We have to have that proof. Or there’s going to be a war.”
“War.” She hesitated. “How? Why?”
Pike began to explain. It didn’t take long before Deleen was shaking her head.
“This is not what was supposed to … our people should be allies. We have common interests …”
Her words reminded him of something, someone. A second later, Pike had it. Noguchi. What the admiral had told him that long-ago morning after the officers’ briefing, how it would be good to make common cause with the Orions, to have a stabilizing force in this part of the galaxy, a bulwark between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. That conversation seemed suddenly a million miles—a hundred years—away.
“Allies.” Pike shook his head. “You people are responsible for the destruction of an entire starbase. And the death of eighty-seven Federation personnel.”
Deleen shook her head again. “That was never what we intended.”
“Prove it,” Pike said to Deleen. “Take us to that proof. And then we’ll talk.”
She hesitated a second longer—and then nodded.
“Good.” The captain turned to Boyce. “Get to Hoto. Stop the countdown.”
The doctor nodded. “We’ll try.”
“We will do it.” Kritos clapped Boyce on the back now. “Come, Doctor.”
The two set off at a run.
Boyce’s head was still spinning.
Captain Pike, alive. Captain Pike here. With Spock. And Hardin. And Kritos.
The Klingon and he were jogging side-by-side, heading down a corridor that, if Boyce’s memory served him correctly, would soon intersect the one leading directly to the medical wing.
“Druzen,” Boyce said.
“Yes.”
“He was at Starbase Eighteen.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Boyce was panting for breath as he talked. Kritos, a few steps ahead of him, was not.
“It is none of your concern,” the Klingon said.
“Kronos. It has something to do with Kronos, doesn’t it?”
The Klingon glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “That is none of your concern, either.”
“Has to be,” Boyce said. “It’s the only thing that makes sense. What was it, Kronos? Some kind of medical program or—”
Kritos, a couple of meters ahead of him now, turned around and glared. “Keep up, human.” The Klingon put on a fresh burst of speed and pulled farther ahead of Boyce.
The doctor put his head down, banished all questions of Kronos from his mind. If the Klingon in the medical wing was indeed this Druzen, if he was the reason—or part of the reason, anyway—they were there, then the others—Spock, Hardin, Pike—would probably have the answer to those questions, too.
Pike. Alive. How? Is it possible that Ben is, too? Probably not, Boyce decided. The captain would have said something.
Up ahead, Kritos suddenly came to a stop. The Klingon was holding a small device, about the size and shape of a Federation communicator, which Boyce had assumed to be a weapon, in one hand. He was staring at a little screen on it and shaking his head.
“What’s the matter?” Boyce said.
“Something is wrong.” Kritos ran his hand over the display; he pressed the side of it with one oversized finger, shook his head, and cursed. “Interference,” he said, in a half-questioning kind of way that suggested that he didn’t really believe it. “There must be interference.”
Boyce leaned closer. “What is that?” he asked.
“Biolocator. A prototype.”
“Biolocator?” On the screen, he saw a grid of lines. Directional arrows.
“There is no signal.” Kritos looked up and glared at Boyce. “What has happened to the signal?”
Boyce shook his head. “I’m not—”
“Here.” The Klingon punched a button on the device. “Last known reading. You see!” He held the device up right next to Boyce’s face.
Now, in addition to lines and the arrows, there was a single blinking red dot on the screen. If Boyce was reading the display right, it was coming from the direction of the medical wing.
Biolocator.
“The Klingon in the treatment room,” he realized. “This dot—”
“Yes. It is him. Druzen. I insisted on the implant before surrendering him to your research team. I did not trust …” The Klingon’s voice trembled with emotion; it took Boyce a second to recognize what kind.
Fear.
It suddenly occurred to him what the dot’s disappearance might imply.
“Which way, human?” Kritos lowered the device. “To the medical wing?”
Boyce pointed, and they ran.
It took Spock’s conscious mind, preoccupied with talk of the image projector the Orion female was telling Captain Pike about (a device whose capabilities seemed more like magic than technology to him, although those capabilities—far better than the distorting effects of the cloaking device, which having spent the last two days observing at work he was now quite familiar with—would fit with, account for the near-impossible sensor readings he had observed just prior to the apparent deaths of Captain Pike and the landing party), a few seconds to catch up with his unconscious one.
The realization that something was wrong—that something had changed—came only after he had followed Captain Pike and the female as they turned down another corridor.
The realization what that something was came an instant later.
Lieutenant Hardin was not behind him.
“Captain.”
Pike and the Orion female, two meters in front of him, stopped immediately.
“Lieutenant Hardin,” Spock said.
Pike turned and saw the problem. “Where is she?” he asked.
“Unknown. I will—”
“Check it out. Go.” Pike waved him back impatiently.
Spock understood the captain’s need for haste. In the approximately four and a half minutes since they had split with Dr. Boyce and Captain Kritos, there had been three explosions powerful enough to disrupt the artificial gravity field of the Orion ship, to force them to stop running and make sure of their balance. The lights aboard the ship had dimmed as well, on two of those three occasions; after the second explosion, they had failed to return to full power.
Whatever Lieutenant Hoto had done—or was in the process of doing—Spock suspected they were running out of time to reverse its effects.
