Crucible: McCoy

by David R. George III

  Lukoze proceeded quickly along and the shuttle crew had to hurry to keep up, the Otevrel sometimes stopping and waiting for them to do so. They made several turns into intersecting corridors, all of which bore markings along their circumference. As with the cylinder in which they’d awoken, the dual pentagons and dual towers repeated in many places.

  Finally, Lukoze opened another hatch and escorted them into a large chamber, not cylindrical this time, but spherical. Within, numerous metal spheres, about the size of the Enterprise’s shuttlecraft, lined the lower half of the bulkhead, sitting atop spoon-shaped shelves. A single sphere rested in the lowest part of the chamber, a circular hatch in its side standing open. Lukoze slid inside, and then its maw and the translation device reappeared. “You will enter the craft.” It moved away from the door, and Jim, Scotty, and McCoy followed.

  Inside, the interior looked very much like that of a spacecraft, though much of the equipment seemed oddly oriented due to the curved bulkheads. Three circular viewing ports looked out of one side of the sphere at its equator, with consoles both above and below it. There were no chairs, but against the bulkhead and in front of the forward stations, columns rose out of the deck, each with a concave side. It seemed clear that Lukoze could rest the length of his body within the hollow of any of the columns.

  “You may incline or…” Lukoze began, and then hesitated, as though searching for the proper word. “…sit,” the alien said at last. McCoy looked to Jim, who peered around the compartment, then nodded. Carefully, the three humans lowered themselves to the deck and leaned against the bulkhead.

  Ahead of them, Lukoze settled the length of his form into the concavity of one of the forward columns, then began to operate the controls. The hatch swung closed, and shortly after, a hum and a vibration began to suffuse the craft. With the translation device once more gone from view, Lukoze began to speak, his native language remaining untranslated, the squalling patterns of its speech sounding almost like the shriek of the insane. McCoy thought he could hear more than one voice and assumed the Otevrel to be in communication with others.

  McCoy saw movement through the viewing ports, though he felt nothing but the vibration that had begun earlier. He continued to watch, and before long, the speckled canvas of space appeared. Beside him, Jim reached up to his environmental suit and touched a control, and McCoy heard through his interior speaker the warble of a communicator channel being opened. “Kirk to Enterprise,” he said. “Kirk to—”

  A bolt of light seared into the captain, and he collapsed. McCoy looked back at Lukoze and saw the alien away from his column, holding a device he did not recognize in its tendrils, but that surely must have been an energy weapon of some kind. McCoy had no tricorder or other medical equipment with him, but he saw that Jim continued to breathe, his chest rising and falling with his respiration. He reached over and put a hand above the captain’s heart, and even through his gloved hand and Jim’s environmental suit, he could feel it beating strongly and regularly.

  McCoy peered back at Lukoze. With another tendril, the alien pulled the translation device from within its body and its maw once again formed. “No communications with your ship are permitted,” it said. “You will remain silent as we ford the inchento back to the lower distaari.” The translator apparently failed to interpret two of Lukoze’s words.

  McCoy looked over at Scotty. They said nothing to each other, but they didn’t need to: at least one aspect of the situation seemed clear. Lukoze was not taking them back to the Enterprise.

  Spock stood over the sciences station on the bridge, hands clasped behind his back, observing as Lieutenant Commander Dennehy cycled through her sensor scans. “Still nothing, sir,” reported the ship’s second officer. “No indications of an impending jump to warp and no movement within the system.”

  “Continue scanning, Mister Dennehy,” Spock said. The first officer remained convinced that, sooner or later, both events would take place. It had been nearly an hour since their last communication with the Otevrel, the inhabitants of this unique “solar system,” whose intent had been plain: They would execute the three Enterprise crewmembers who had violated their mores, but they would not do so on their fourth “world,” which would also constitute a desecration under their law.

  Spock stepped down to the lower, inner portion of the bridge and retrieved the slender data slate he had left on the command chair. He sat down and reviewed its contents. The slate currently showed a representation of the Otevrel’s seven-sphere system, along with Spock’s attempt to calculate the warp field they had earlier generated about it. At the time, the Enterprise had been caught within the field around the fourth sphere and had been dragged through space as the entire system had moved. The ship’s engines had been affected and could have become disabled had Sulu and DiFalco not managed to extricate the Enterprise as quickly as they had. An inductor manifold had buckled during the incident, but had subsequently been replaced.

  Touching a fingertip to the corner of the slate’s display, Spock executed a simulation of his latest computations. An electric-blue cocoon flowed around each of the disks that represented the black hole and seven spheres of the Otevrel system. As the simulation progressed, the encircling warp fields elongated, reaching toward each other. Before they merged to become one large field, though, they collapsed in on themselves.

  So far, scans had failed to identify the means by which the Otevrel had generated their warp field, or how the field geometry had functioned. Spock hypothesized that individual warp contours had been produced about the black hole and each of the seven orbiting spheres, and then somehow connected one to another, even though his simulations had as yet failed to demonstrate the viability of such an interaction. Regardless of the details of the Otevrel warp field, though, it had impacted not only the Enterprise’s drive systems, but those of the shuttlecraft Newton, which had also been caught within it. The shuttle had crashed onto the fourth sphere, with the Enterprise crew unable to do anything but confirm via sensors that Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Chief Engineer Scott had survived.

  Once Sulu had pulled the Enterprise free of the Otevrel warp field and the inductor manifold had been replaced, Spock had pursued the mobile system, which had stopped an eighth of a light-year away. By then, the Newton’s crew of three had disappeared from the wreckage of the shuttle. Fortunately, Lieutenant Commander Uhura had managed to establish contact with the Otevrel. It had taken more than an hour, but eventually Uhura and her Otevrel counterpart had been able to program their respective translation devices to permit meaningful communication. At that point, the fate of Captain Kirk and the others had become clear.

  The Otevrel, it turned out, held a uniquely parochial and ethnocentric worldview. They believed that the black hole at the heart of their system also marked the precise center of the universe, as well as the location of a physical nirvana. The Otevrel maintained a perspective that, when they erected a warp field about their system, they actually isolated themselves in a way that permitted them to move the entirety of the universe about their stationary worlds. Proximity to the black hole indicated one’s spiritual enlightenment and social station, and one had to earn the right to draw nearer. Individual Otevrel, throughout their lifetimes, sought to migrate from the outermost of their worlds to the innermost, and from there into the black hole itself. Each world represented a distinct distaari, or caste, with the physical and spiritual gulfs separating them designated as inchento.

  “Mister Spock,” Dennehy said, and the first officer turned in the command chair to face her. “I’m reading an energy surge on the fifth sphere.”

  “Could it be a part of the Otevrel’s warp field generator?” Spock asked.

  Dennehy worked her controls as she studied a display. “I don’t think so,” she said. “I see nothing resembling the energy signature of warp generation. It doesn’t appear to be a ship either.”

  “Could it be a transporter?” Spock asked.

  “Negative,” Dennehy
answered at once. “There’s nothing identifiable as a transporter beam, nor are they generating enough energy to accomplish an interplanetary transport.”

  “Very good, Mister Dennehy,” Spock said. “Continue scanning.” Based on the Otevrel’s stated intentions to execute the Newton crew, Dennehy’s ability to rule out the cause of energy production on the spheres provided valuable information. According to Korlant, the Otevrel with whom Spock had spoken, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, and Engineer Scott had traveled too close to the black hole, violating the distaari, a crime punishable by death. It did not matter that the three men were not Otevrel, nor that they had violated the caste law unknowingly. Korlant claimed sorrow regarding the circumstances, but remained immovable concerning the extreme sentence. But the Otevrel had revealed one piece of information that could be of consequence, though Spock had been unable to tell whether or not Korlant had intended that to be the case. All executions took place on the outermost of the Otevrel spheres, and so the captain and the others would have to be taken there before they were killed. With sensors showing no evidence of transporter technology within the Otevrel system, the Newton crew would therefore have to be taken by spacecraft from the fourth sphere to the seventh.

  Now, Spock awaited that event. He had ordered Sulu to keep the Enterprise away from the plane of the Otevrel ecliptic—about which the vast warp field formed—but within sensor range of the spheres. If the system moved again, the ship would follow. If the Otevrel carried Kirk, McCoy, and Scott out of the fourth world, the Enterprise crew would retrieve them. While the surfaces of the spheres prevented penetration by sensors, and therefore by transporters, Spock calculated that the same might not be true of Otevrel spacecraft. If sensors could not pierce the hull of any ships they detected emerging from the fourth sphere, though, then the Enterprise crew would simply employ a tractor beam to capture the ship.

  Twenty-three minutes later, Spock had his answer.

  “Sir, I’m detecting a ship traveling away from the fourth sphere,” Dennehy announced. “Heading for the fifth sphere.”

  “Life signs?” Spock asked.

  “Mister Spock,” Uhura interjected from her communications station, “I just received a hail from Captain Kirk.” She turned to face the first officer. “I think the Otevrel severed the transmission.”

  “I’m reading three humans on the ship,” Dennehy said. “Also another life sign.”

  “Mister Dennehy, transfer sensor readings to the helm and to the transporter room,” Spock said. “Chief DiFalco, set an interception course. Mister Sulu, take the Enterprise in at as great a velocity as possible, while still allowing the ship to slow to sublight within transporter range of the craft.” Spock activated the intercom. “Spock to transporter room.”

  “Transporter room, Chandler here,” came the response.

  “Lieutenant, Mister Dennehy is transferring sensor readings of the three Newton crewmembers to your station. Lock on and transport as soon as the Enterprise slows to impulse speed. Keep this channel open.”

  “Aye, sir,” Chandler said.

  “Chief DiFalco,” Spock said, “once the captain and the others are aboard, take the shortest route out of the Otevrel system.” He did not want the Enterprise caught again within the enormous warp field.

  DiFalco operated her controls at the navigation console. “Entry and exit course plotted and laid in, sir,” she said.

  “Go, Mister Sulu,” Spock said.

  “Accelerating to warp four-point-five,” Sulu said, his fingers jumping expertly across his panel. It would be a risk to move at warp within a planetary system—or the approximation of a planetary system—but a minimal risk, and one that Sulu and DiFalco had demonstrated themselves capable of taking without ill effect. “Warp one,” Sulu read from his display as the thrum of the Enterprise’s drive rose. “Warp two…warp three, sir…warp four…point five. Now decelerating.” Spock detected a distinct change in the tone of the engines. “Warp three…warp two…the Enterprise now traveling at sublight speed.”

  “Beaming,” declared Chandler via the intercom. Spock waited, even as he heard the sound of the transporter accompanying the lieutenant’s voice. “They’re aboard,” Chandler said.

  “Acknowledged,” Spock said. “Mister Sulu, best speed to depart the system.”

  “Aye, sir,” Sulu said.

  Once more, the background pulse of the ship’s drive established itself.

  McCoy sat in his office aboard the Enterprise and reviewed the recording again, stopping it partway through. On the monitor on his desk, he could see all of Korlant, from the slight widening at the base of the Otevrel’s body to the slight widening at the top. The doctor found the two rows of tendrils particularly fascinating, but as he looked now at the image of the alien, he focused on a slight stippling of its flesh. The recording had been made during Spock’s communication with Korlant, and with the prospect of future contact with the Otevrel questionable, McCoy had wanted to learn whatever he could about their physiology.

  After Spock had rescued the Newton crew, the captain had contacted the Otevrel. Despite being taken captive, stunned into unconsciousness, and as it had turned out, sentenced to die, Jim had decided to issue a formal apology for having broken their laws. He’d offered an opportunity for another meeting, on their terms, but they had demurred, though they had left open the possibility of establishing relations sometime in the future. Jim had gotten the impression, as had Spock, that Otevrel society might currently be in a state of transition, with some of their citizenry questioning their traditions and their view of their place in the universe.

  For his part, McCoy selfishly hoped that the Federation and the Otevrel could come to an understanding. Even from his brief encounter with just one of their species, he’d developed a fascination with their physiology, and he’d love to include information about them in the comparative physiology text he’d finally begun writing. Of course, if he continued adding new species to the list of those he intended to detail, he might never finish his work. Then again, he hadn’t actually made much progress so far on any of his research during the Enterprise’s voyage to the Aquarius Formation.

  McCoy employed an image-enhancement program to attempt to get a better look at the stippling on Korlant’s body. He hadn’t seen such markings on Lukoze, but then he hadn’t really had an opportunity to study the Otevrel, even casually. Now, though, seeing the markings on Korlant, McCoy suspected that they just might form some sort of sensory net.

  As he examined the magnified view of the rough, grainy patch of the Otevrel’s flesh, the doors to the corridor parted and Spock entered. He carried a slate in one hand and what looked like a slab of metal in the other. “Doctor,” Spock said, walking up to his desk, “I would appreciate a few moments of your time.”

  “Certainly, Spock,” McCoy said. He reached forward and deactivated the monitor. “What can I do for you?”

  “I would ask you to look at this,” Spock said, holding out the piece of metal to him. When McCoy reached for it with one hand, Spock suggested that he use two. McCoy did, and found the slab considerably heavier than he’d anticipated. He set it down atop his desk and examined it. About a quarter of a meter wide and twice as long, it had a silvery sheen and a series of evenly spaced ribs machined into it. On one of the long edges, he spied a hairline crack, four or five centimeters long.

  “Well, what is it, Spock?” McCoy asked. “I’m a doctor, not a metallurgist.”

  “This is a section of an inductor manifold,” Spock said. “It is a part of the Enterprise’s drive system. During the encounter last week with the Otevrel, when the ship was initially caught within their warp field, the manifold buckled. Engineering personnel replaced it with relative ease and the ship suffered no lasting ill effects. However, I became curious why this particular manifold had failed.”

  “All right,” McCoy said. “But I’m guessing it wasn’t caused by synthococcus novae or Rigelian Kassaba fever, so what does this have to do with m
e?”

  “In actuality,” Spock said, “the cause might have been simply material fatigue, possibly brought about by a weakening of the manifold during our battle with the Klingons.”

  “The Klingons?” McCoy said, confused. “Spock, the Enterprise hasn’t been anywhere near a Klingon in at least five years.” McCoy recalled that last meeting, at the Einstein station.

  “Precisely,” Spock said. “This manifold was a component of the Enterprise prior to Captain Kirk initially taking command more than a decade ago. It has not required replacement since then.”

  “All right,” McCoy said, “but I’m still not following you. An old piece of equipment failed under stress. That doesn’t seem that unusual to me. What’s your point?”

  “My point, Doctor, is this,” Spock said, holding up the slate in his hand. “In my curiosity to determine why this particular piece of equipment failed, I executed a number of molecular, atomic, and subatomic scans. Among the other data I collected, I found this.” He handed the slate to McCoy, who took it and inspected the display. On it, he saw a series of energy readings, along with a graphical representation of some discrepancies discovered in those values. “Does this remind you of anything?”

  McCoy saw it at once: the same unexpected divergence, the same pattern of increase, the same energy signature. The nature of the readings in this inanimate chunk of metal mirrored those that the medical staff had found in the M’Benga numbers of the crew during the five-year mission. “Are you sure about this?” he asked Spock.

  “I performed my scans a second time,” Spock said, “and I also ran diagnostics on my equipment. The results were the same.”

  McCoy stood up from his desk and paced across his office, still carrying the slate. “I don’t see how this can be, unless—” He turned back to face Spock from across the compartment. “—this isn’t a medical condition. It must be a physical condition, irrespective of the living or organic character of the subject.”