Star Trek 08

by James Blish

Elizabeth Dehner had joined the expedition at the Aldebaran colony; Kirk had not yet had much chance to talk to her, and now was not the time. But she might be interested in the abyss now opening before them all. "Granted."

  The two appeared within a minute. Kirk said, "Dr. Dehner, you're a psychiatrist, I'm told, assigned to study crew reactions under extreme conditions."

  "Quite correct, Captain."

  Kirk gestured at the screen. "There's an extreme condition. Millions upon millions of light years of absolutely nothing, except a few molecules of ionized gas."

  Spock called from his station. "Getting something from the recorder now, Captain."

  But Dr. Elizabeth Dehner had more to say. "Sir, I shall be interested, too, in how the Valiant's crew reacted to disaster."

  Kirk eyed her curiously. Mitchell also appraised her, a little smile on his handsome face. "You want to improve the breed, Doctor?"

  "I've heard that's more your own specialty, Commander," she said icily.

  "Sock!" Mitchell murmured to Kelso. "It's a walking refrigerator, by gum!" She overheard him. A flush crept up and over her composed features.

  Coded electronic beeps were sounding from the listening device Spock had applied to the recorder. He looked up as Kirk joined him. "Decoding memory banks," he said. "Captain's log now—reports the Valiant encountered a magnetic space storm that swept it back into this direction."

  Kirk nodded. "The old impulse engines weren't strong enough to resist a thing like that."

  Spock was leaning closer to his listener. "The storm flung it past this point. . . about a half light year out of the galaxy . . . they were thrown clear of the storm . . . then they seem to have headed back into the galaxy." He made a control adjustment. "I'm not getting it all. It sounds as though the ship were struggling with some unknown force."

  The beeps grew louder. Interpreting, Spock said, "Confusion now . . . orders and counterorders . . . emergency power drains . . . repeated urgent requests for information from the ship's computer records." He stopped to look up at Kirk again. "They want to know everything there is to know about ESP in human beings!" He shook his head. "Odd, that. Very odd indeed."

  "Extrasensory perception!" Kirk was incredulous. But he motioned to Elizabeth Dehner. "Dr. Dehner, what do you know about ESP?"

  She went to the computer station. "In tests I've taken, my ESP rated rather high."

  Kirk said, "I asked what you know about ESP."

  She spoke with the pomp of the pedant. "It is a fact some people can sense future events, read the backs of playing cards and so on. But the Esper ability is always quite limited . . ."

  Spock broke in. "Severe damage—no, make that severe injuries." His face was strained with listening concentration. "Seven crewmen dead . . . no, make that six—one crewman recovered." He looked up at Kirk once more. "It's the casualties that appear to have stimulated the interest in extrasensory perception. Interest is the wrong word. It seems to be driving them frantic."

  Bent to the listener again, he suddenly stiffened. "No, this must be garbled. I'm getting something about 'Destruct.' " Frowning, he removed the earphone. "I must have read it incorrectly. It sounded as though the Captain had ordered the destruction of his own ship!"

  Kirk turned questioningly to the department heads.

  "You heard," he said. "Comments?"

  Piper shrugged. "The only fact we have for sure is that the Valiant was destroyed."

  "The fact," Kirk said, "which is the best argument to continue our probe. Other vessels will be heading out here someday—and they'll have to know what they'll be facing."

  He strode back to his command chair. "Commander Mitchell, ahead, warp factor one," he said. "We are leaving the galaxy."

  As the Enterprise moved past the last stars, the bridge alarm light flashed. All eyes turned to the large viewing screen. Against the blackness of deep space a wispy pattern of colors was building up ahead of the ship.

  Spock said, "Force field of some kind."

  Mitchell said, "Whatever it is, we're coming up on it fast."

  Kirk said nothing. Though distance from the phenomenon made certain judgment dangerous, it seemed to be some variety of impalpable barrier. Its colors were growing brighter, extending, interweaving into what appeared to a flaring, multicolored, massive curtain of pure energy. It might have been a monstrous space version of Earth's Aurora Borealis. And it was sending the bridge alarm siren into shrieks of warning.

  He stared at it, hard jawed. Its colors, radiating from the screen, rippled across the strained faces around him.

  The auroral colors were blazing now. Suddenly, with a muted crackle, a circuit shorted.

  "Field intensity rising . . ." Spock began.

  As he spoke, the bridge lights died. For several seconds Kirk didn't notice their loss, the radiance from the screen had simultaneously become so brilliant that hands were rising instinctively to shield dazzled eyes.

  Then a blinding whip of pure white light shot from the screen. At the same moment, an entire instrument panel went out in a shower of sparks and smoke. Another promptly shorted, with an angry crackle. The whole bridge seemed to be hazed in flying sparks. Elizabeth Dehner screamed and fell to the deck, writhing as if in the grip of some uncontrollable energy. Once down, she kept on screaming. The dial needles on Kirk's command board whirled.

  "Helmsman!"

  But the sparks had invaded Mitchell, too. Jerking like a marionette pulled, by a madman's strings, he staggered to his feet and then went rigid. With a last galvanic convulsion, he toppled to the deck, inert, unconscious. His body rolled as the ship shuddered.

  The confusion mounted, shock after shock, now joined by the mindless hysteria of the alarm siren. Kirk and Spock clung to their chairs; most of the others had been jolted out of theirs.

  In the end, discipline triumphed while technology failed all around them. Painfully, inch by inch, Kirk dragged himself back to his command control panel. Kelso crawled over to his. Spock, stepping over the crumpled Mitchell, took over his helmsman's station. But the battering continued. Wrenched metal screeched as the Enterprise fought to hold itself together.

  "Lateral power!" Kirk shouted. "Crash speed. Take her out of this!"

  Spock and Kelso wrestled with controls. Power returned to the shaking ship. The bridge lights glimmered back on. The alarm siren quieted. But many of the instrument panels were dead with their circuits. Smoke from one still drifted through the bridge.

  Kirk got to his feet. "Take damage reports, Mr. Spock."

  Spock relayed the order to the ship's crew—and Piper lifted Elizabeth's head. Clinging to his arm, she climbed shakily to her feet. "Something hit me like an electrical charge," she whispered. Piper left her to go to Mitchell.

  "Well?" Kirk asked.

  "He's alive. Appears to be in shock."

  Spock made his damage report. "Our main engines are out, Captain. We're on emergency power cells. Casualties—seven dead."

  A moment prolonged itself. Then Kirk said, "Perhaps we are fortunate."

  "Commander Mitchell is moving, sir," Spock said.

  Kirk dropped to a knee beside his senior helmsman. "Gary! How do you feel?"

  Mitchell's arm covered his eyes as though the screen's radiance still dazzled them. "Jim? Weak as a kitten—but better now. I think I'll live."

  He moved the arm from his eyes. Their blue had turned into a gleaming metallic silver.

  No amount of technical resourcefulness could repair the damage suffered by the crippled Enterprise. Moving now on impulse power alone, its dim bridge lights gave everybody the measure of the havoc. Kirk, considering his burned-out engines, remembered the burned recorder ejected by the Valiant. Had it survived the onslaught by that merciless radiation? If it had, what happened afterwards?

  On his computer station screen, Spock was busily flashing the names of certain members of the ship's personnel. Among them were those of Elizabeth Dehner and Gary Mitchell. Noting them, Kirk gave Spock a sober look. S
pock hastily flashed off Elizabeth's name as she approached them.

  "Autopsy report, Captain," she said. "Each case showed damage to the body's neural circuits—an area of the brain burned out."

  "And you?" Kirk said. "Feeling all right now?"

  "Much better. And Commander Mitchell is, too, except for the eyes. We're trying to find a reason for those. And why, of all the people in the crew, only certain ones were affected."

  Spock spoke quietly. "I think we have found that answer."

  "You said that tests show you have a high degree of extrasensory perception, Doctor," Kirk reminded her.

  "The others who were affected have it, too. Gary Mitchell has the highest ESP rating of all."

  She was clearly puzzled. "I suppose it's conceivable the Esper ability attracted some force." Then she shrugged. "But if you're suggesting there's something dangerous in that . . ."

  Spock interrupted. "Before the Valiant was destroyed, its Captain was frantically searching for ESP information on his crew members."

  "Espers are merely people who have flashes of—well, insight," she said.

  "Aren't there also those who seem able to see through solid objects?" Spock asked. "Or can cause fires to start spontaneously?"

  The question irritated her. "ESP is nothing more than a sort of sixth sense. There's nothing about it that can make a person dangerous!"

  "I take it you're speaking of normal ESP power, Doctor," Spock said.

  "Perhaps you know of another kind!" she flared.

  Kirk intervened. "Do you know for sure, Doctor, that there isn't another kind?"

  An angry disdain sharpened her voice. "I have work to do," she said. "You must excuse me." She left them to move quickly to the elevator.

  In Sickbay, Mitchell, propped up against pillows, was sufficiently recovered to use his reading viewer. The eyes that followed its turning pages were as gleamingly silver as quicksilver. Kirk, entering, watched him read for a long moment. Without looking up, Mitchell snapped off the reading viewer to say, "Hello, Jim."

  He hadn't even been obliged to turn his head to identify his caller. For some reason this realization troubled Kirk. He sat down in the chair beside the bed. "Hey, you look worried," Mitchell said.

  Kirk forced a smile. "I've been worried about you since that girl on Deneb IV."

  Mitchell nodded reminiscently. "She was a nova, that one," he said. "But there's nothing to worry about. Except for the eyes, I'm fine." He grinned his charming grin. "They kind of stare back at me when I'm shaving."

  "Vision all right?"

  "Twenty-twenty."

  "Nothing else, Gary?"

  Mitchell looked up curiously at Kirk's tone. "Like what, for instance?"

  "Do you—feel any different in yourself?"

  "In a way, I feel better than I ever felt before in my life." He paused. "It actually seems to have done me some good."

  "Oh. How?"

  Mitchell gestured toward the reading viewer. "I'm getting a chance to bone up on some of that longhair stuff you like. Man, I remember you at the Academy! A stack of books with legs! The first thing I heard from upper classmen was 'Watch out for Lieutenant Kirk! In his class you either think—or you sink.' "

  "Oh, come on," Kirk said. "I wasn't that bad."

  "You weren't what?" Mitchell laughed. "Do you remember almost washing me out?"

  "I sort of leaned on cadets I liked," Kirk said.

  "Man, if I hadn't aimed that little blond lab technician at you . . ."

  "You what?" Kirk stared at him. "You mean you actually planned that?"

  "You wanted me to think, didn't you? So I thought. I outlined her whole campaign for her."

  Kirk found it hard to return the grin. "Gary, I almost married her!"

  "I sort of lean, too, on people I like. She said you came through great."

  Kirk, remembering, struggled with his dismay. He repeated, "Gary, I almost married her."

  "Better be good to me," Mitchell said. He pointed again to the reading viewer. "I'm getting even better ideas from that."

  Kirk looked at the tape on the viewer. "Spinoza?"

  "That's one," Mitchell said. "Once you get into him, he's simple. Childish, almost. By the way, I don't agree with him at all."

  "No?" Kirk said. "Go on."

  "Go on where? So I'm finally doing some reading." The cold, silver glitter of his eyes made an uncomfortable contrast with the easy warmth of his manner. His white teeth flashed again in the charming grin. "I'm saying I'm fine! When do I go back on duty?"

  Kirk hesitated. "I want Dr. Dehner to keep you under observation for a while yet."

  Mitchell groaned. "With almost a hundred women on board, you choose that one to hang around me!"

  "Think of it as a challenge," Kirk said.

  The silver eyes fixed on him. "That's not so friendly, James, my friend. Didn't I say you'd better be good to me?"

  The mutually gauging moment passed. Finally Mitchell shook his head in mock resignation. Then he pointedly turned back to the reading viewer. Kirk, more troubled than before, didn't speak, either, as he got to his feet and left Sickbay.

  Behind him, Mitchell increased the speed of the viewer's turning pages. He read fast—a man locking facts into his mind with an incredible rapidity.

  An image of the turning pages was showing on Spock's library computer screen. When Kirk joined him, they were turning so quickly that their movement was blurred. Spock said, "He's reading faster with every passing second. Is that Gary Mitchell? The slowpoke reader we used to know?"

  Kirk took three paces away from the screen and returned. "Put a twenty-four hour watch on Sickbay. The fullest possible range of examinations and tests."

  The results gave joy to the heart of Piper. "Perfect—perfect," he murmured as he completed his final checkup. "Such perfect health is rare." He tapped the body function panel as though it were hard to credit the veracity of its readings.

  "Great in all departments, right?" said Mitchell. Bored, he spoke to Elizabeth. "Too bad psychiatry isn't an exact science, eh, Doctor? Be nice to have a dial that showed the level of a patient's sanity."

  "I am aware that you don't particularly like me, Commander," she said. "But since I'm assigned here, can we make the best of it?"

  "I've got nothing against you, Doctor."

  "Or against the 'walking refrigerator'?"

  He was openly startled. "Sorry about that." All his charm went into the three words.

  "Women professionals do tend to overcompensate," she said. "Now let's talk about you. How do you feel? Tell me everything."

  "Everything about what? Everyone seems worried because I don't have a fever or something." He pointed to the body function panel. "Now old Piper's gone, maybe I can make you happy by changing those readings . . ."

  The panel's normal levels altered into abnormal ones. Elizabeth stared at them and back at Mitchell. Slightly shaken himself, he said, "Now the normal readings again . . ."

  The levels dropped back to normal.

  "How did you do that?" Elizabeth demanded.

  "I'm not sure. I—just thought of making it happen. Then it happened." He eyed the panel. "It's not the instruments. It's me. Something I do inside. Hey, watch this . . ."

  All the panel's levels plummeted to zero.

  Elizabeth grabbed his hand. "Stop it!" she cried. "Stop it now!"

  The gauge needles quivered. Rising swiftly up from the "death" indication, they came to rest at normal.

  Mitchell stared at them, too. He had paled; and Elizabeth, appalled, said, "For twenty-two seconds you were dead! No life function at all!"

  Mitchell suddenly realized she was holding his hand. Reddening, she tried to pull hers away but he held it fast. "Hang on a minute, baby. I'm scared. There've been other things, too. Like going halfway through the ship's library in hardly a day. What's happened to me?"

  "Do you remember everything you read that quickly?"

  He nodded. She took a tape from his bedside table
. "On any tape? How about this one? Do you remember page 387?"

  "Sure," he said. "It's The Nightingale Woman written by Tarbolde on a Canopus planet back in 1996. It begins, 'My love has wings, Slender, feathered things, With grace in upswept curve and tapered tip—' " He stopped, amused. "Funny you should pick that one."

  "Why?"

  "It's one of the most passionate love poems of the last couple of centuries."

  She pulled her hand from his. He watched her do it, smiling. "How do you feel?" he asked.

  "What? Oh, you mean that electrical blast! It just knocked me down. That's all."

  "You're very sure?"

  She wasn't sure of anything in the presence of this man with the silver eyes so bright upon her. But somehow, she suspected that she'd given herself away. She was glad when the knock came at the door. It was Kelso. "I was on my coffee break," he told them, "and thought I'd just check up on Gary here."

  "It's OK, Lee," Mitchell said. "Come on in."

  It was Kelso's first full view of the changed eyes. They disconcerted him. Mitchell laughed. "Don't let my gorgeous orbs throw you, chum. The lady doctor here likes them, don't you, beautiful Doctor?"

  Surprised, Kelso said, "Oh. Yeah. Sure."

  "How goes the repair work?"

  "The main engines are gone." Kelso's face grew somber. "And they'll stay gone, too, unless we can find some way of reenergizing them."

  Mitchell frowned. "You'd better check on the starboard impulse packs. The points have decayed to lead." At Kelso's look of amazement, he said, "I'm not joking, pal. So wipe the shock off your face. You activate those packs—and you'll blow up the whole impulse deck!"

  The hardness in his voice got through to Kelso. "Sure," he said hastily. "I'll get on to them right away. I—I just wanted to say I'm glad you're all right."

  Mitchell glared angrily after him. "The fool! He's seen those rotten points a hundred times but is too dumb to notice their condition!"

  "How did you know about them?" Elizabeth asked.

  The arrogance was suddenly gone. "I don't know. Maybe the image of what he saw was still in his mind and I—I could see it in his mind." The silver eyes were looking up at her out of a bewildered, very frightened face.