by Tony Daniel
“Wow,” remarked McCoy beside him. “I don’t believe I’ve eaten this well in years. Must be something in the soil around here. Seems like they grow perfect vegetables, make perfect beer, and”—he nodded toward Hannah Faber—“produce perfectly beautiful women. Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I noticed, Doctor,” Kirk replied, glancing in Hannah’s direction. She caught his gaze and returned it with her clear blue eyes. Her full lips turned into the slightest upturn of a smile. “Believe me, I have.”
Chancellor Faber pushed his chair back from the table and addressed all sitting there. “Now that we are refreshed as is our custom,” he said, “I trust that you see, Captain, that Vesbian hospitality is just as strong as it ever was. But before we begin any discussions, I wish to show you around the colony, and particularly to show you the preparations we have made in the past few months. They are expansive, and I believe they will help allay your concern for our well-being.”
Faber ushered the group outside, where there were two antigravity sleds waiting. He motioned Kirk and the landing party to climb aboard. Faber’s aide, Major Merling, who had been glancing warily at Spock since the landing party’s arrival, drew back and frowned. “Do I have to ride with that?”
“What?” Kirk asked, genuinely puzzled.
“I believe Major Merling is referring to the fact that I am a Vulcan,” said Spock.
“Now, Merling,” Faber intoned, “I told you to keep your retrograde prejudices to yourself.”
The chancellor turned to Kirk and shrugged. “He doesn’t approve of aliens. A portion of our population shares his opinion, I’m afraid. It is an unfortunate division in our otherwise peaceful society. My daughter and I are most certainly not among that faction, however.” He turned to his other aides. “Hox and Ferlein, you ride together with Merling,” he said. “Hannah and I will accompany these Federation officers.”
Each party boarded its respective sled and stood on the device’s surface. They held to a guardrail around the sled body as the sleds rose into the air. The transport devices were enclosed with some sort of force field, for though the passengers rose and flew away at great speed, there was no sensation of rushing air streaming past their faces. The ride was very smooth as well. It seemed to Kirk that Vesbius was far from being a galactic backwater. Even though Vesbius was a colony planet, being here was much like being back in the heart of the Federation.
After they had been aloft for a few minutes, Kirk turned to Hannah Faber and commented, “This is quite a planet you have here. One of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen many.”
“Thank you, Captain, I agree,” Hannah replied. Her voice was as mellifluous as her appearance was beautiful. “I was born here, and I feel that I am one of the luckiest creatures in the galaxy. I wish that you could have come at a less trying time. You seem to appreciate the finer things, and there is so much I could show you.”
“So you are native Vesbian?” Kirk asked. “And you have never left the planet?”
“Oh, I have been to Starbase Twelve and to a few other nearby Omega sector systems on short trade expeditions. But those only lasted for a standard week or so.” She looked over the rail of the antigravity sled and motioned outward. “For you see, Captain, I heard the call of my native world, I felt it. For a Vesbian, there is no place like home.” She turned back to Kirk. “Can you understand how I feel, Captain Kirk?”
“I don’t quite understand,” replied. Kirk. “But I’m beginning to.”
The antigravity sleds arrived at their destination after twenty minutes or so of flying and came to dock near a rocky outcrop in one of the snowcapped mountains.
“Welcome to the Hesse Mountains,” Hannah said. “I was born near here in a little chalet. My dear mother is buried in a cemetery at the foot of this hill.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” said Kirk.
“Since Miriam died, Hannah has been more than a daughter to me. She has been a helpmate,” the chancellor put in. “She is extremely accomplished, and a graduate of our finest institution. It is not nepotism that led me to appoint her to her current post, but her ability.”
Kirk leaped down from his sled to the landing platform surface. He turned to aid Hannah in her descent but found that she had lithely sprung off the antigravity sled and landed gracefully beside him.
In the side of the rock before them was set a large door at least ten stories tall. It hung on enormous hinges and was in the open position.
“How thick would you say that door was, Spock?” Kirk asked.
“Approximately 9.2 meters,” Spock replied. “A formidable barrier.”
So this was the plan, Kirk thought. Underground shelters. The chancellor led them through the opening and into the heart of the mountain.
It was an impressive tour. The Vesbians had dug deep. The shelter was not merely in the mountain but under the mountain, dug into its very roots. The Vesbians had carved a vast warren using mining phasers and hard labor. Spock provided an estimate that the space could easily house up to a third of the population of the colony, which was near twenty thousand. Under the living and working quarters were the food stores. Not only were there large stockpiles of grain and other essential nutrients in dried form, there were hydroponics labs filled with growing plants, and underground hangars filled with all variety of the planet’s fauna, including a herd of the local cattle. In fact, the complex resembled Noah’s Ark more than it did a fallout shelter.
“Would you estimate that they have provided sufficient genetic variety to re-create the ecosystem of the planet here, Doctor?” asked Kirk of McCoy.
McCoy checked his life sciences tricorder readings and nodded. “Possible,” he said. “I think they’re very near to the threshold for that. But the thing is, Jim, how are they going to do that on the surface after that giant rock hits? When that door opens up again, it’s going to be a different planet out there. Paradise will have vanished.”
“I know,” said Kirk. “We’ve got to get them to see this.”
“Seems you’ve taken a personal interest in the matter,” McCoy said, nodding toward Hannah Faber. “And if I’m not mistaken, the matter has taken a personal interest in you.”
“You could be right, Bones,” Kirk replied.
“I often am,” McCoy said. “But any country doctor could’ve told you that.”
• • •
During the tour of the fallout shelter, Kirk was disturbed to see that Major Merling’s attitude toward Spock was not a singular instance on the planet. There were many glances at the Vulcan, and most of them seemed to be hostile in Kirk’s estimation. The Vulcan, for his part, either did not notice or, more likely, he found the phenomenon interesting. Kirk, on the other hand, was bothered for his friend. Hannah Faber noticed his agitation and asked him what was wrong. When Kirk told her, she nodded.
“My people are wonderful and hospitable,” she said. “But some of us possess characteristics that are . . . some of us do harbor an endemic suspicion of outsiders and aliens. I, however, am not among those. And neither is my father. This attitude comes from living on such an isolated world, and I think being in close communion with the planet.”
“What do you mean, ‘close communion’?” Kirk asked.
Hannah looked troubled, as if she had said something she had not meant to. “I only mean that we Vesbians are people who are very near to nature,” she replied after a moment. “For most of us, the thought of leaving this world is akin to dying. And that, Captain, is an emotion I do share with most of my people.”
They returned to the government center and a feast that was the equal of the repast they had enjoyed upon first arriving. Kirk was impressed with the official dining room. Often such official venues were decorated in a cold and overbearing manner, but the Vesbians seemed to be expert at setting a grand spectacle.
First there was the table itself, which was not an indeterminate laminate but crafted of a hard and durable local wood with a beautiful
grain. The chairs were large, each fit for a king. And the platters set before them would have befitted a royal feast as well. The smell was delicious.
When he was about halfway through devouring a local roasted fowl with traces of rosemary and some local herb that was its perfect complement, Kirk looked up to see Hannah Faber watching him eat.
She laughed. “I take it you are pleased with the bürste henne, Captain? It’s a specialty of my home section. A planetary native, and entirely free range, but we’ve selectively bred them for their meat. The plumage also makes a matchless insulation for certain purposes.”
“The taste is . . . incredible,” Kirk said.
“And that’s a good thing?”
“A very good thing,” Kirk replied, and he quickly returned to chowing down.
When Faber and his retinue pushed back their chairs and made motions to return to their duties, Kirk decided the time had come for frank talk.
“Chancellor Faber, please indulge me for a few more moments, and hear out what I have to say. We’ve come a long way, and we did not travel here merely to tour your beautiful world and leave. We have been sent on a mission, to keep your people from dying when the asteroid strikes this planet. Since it is obvious that you understand this danger is looming, what I would like to do is emphasize the extent of the damage the asteroid will cause when it arrives.” Kirk held up his hands to forestall any objections. “Please allow me to attempt this, I beg of you. If not for your own sake, then for your people’s.” Kirk looked over at Hannah. “And for the sake of your children,” he added.
Faber sighed but sank back into his chair. “Very well, Captain Kirk. I will listen. But I must tell you that I doubt you will say anything that I have not heard before. As a matter of fact, you may be surprised to learn it, but Major Merling made the same argument and has long championed it to me and to the Council.”
“Absolutely,” said Merling. “It is my opinion that this colony must leave Vesbius, immediately. I have come to believe that the only way this can be accomplished is through military coercion. I believe that, for the sake of the people, these methods should be employed at once. This democracy with which we govern ourselves must give way to a stronger government, at least in the short term.”
“Treason,” muttered one of the large men who had accompanied the chancellor. And then he shook his head and said something that Kirk didn’t quite catch but that sounded like “exo” or “exos.”
Evidently Merling heard him and understood.
“No! I believe Chancellor Faber is the man to lead us, not some revolutionary junta. If only I could convince him of this.” Merling trailed off, shaking his head. This was clearly an argument he’d had with Faber before, and had lost before. But it was equally clear to Kirk that Merling was an obsessive, not to say rigid, sort of character—a type Kirk had encountered all too often before—and that the major was not about to give up on his argument.
“I didn’t say anything about needing a military government. Democracy can accomplish much when you give it a chance,” said Kirk. “But I can tell you the consequences of remaining—consequences that are entailed on a purely physical, scientific basis. It’s not pretty.” He turned to his first officer. “Spock, can you explain it to them?”
Spock leaned forward and templed his fingers together. “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain is correct. I estimate the chance of extinction at 98.253 percent in the two planetary years after the asteroid strikes.” Spock shook his head, as if considering any possible alternative and regretfully rejecting it. “Mister Chancellor, your shelters are not a long-term solution. They will not work, and your people will die.”
Two
Spock was frustrated. Although he strove to maintain what he considered a healthy detachment from the emotional consequences of problems he encountered, the situation on Vesbius called for action. The colonists were capable of rational behavior, yet they were not engaging in it.
The science officer recalled the intense efforts that he had employed in the attempt to divert the asteroid that was headed on a collision course with the planet Amerind. It had been an extremely . . . frustrating experience. At first he had attempted to use the ship’s deflectors to push the enormous asteroid off its path. When this failed, he had employed the ship’s full complement of phasers to try to split the asteroid. All of this he had done while his captain was absent, lost on the planet toward which the asteroid was headed. Logic dictated the course he followed, but Spock was troubled by the thought that his friend was in the path of that asteroid and, worse yet, might be hurt and in need of aid.
He knew the capabilities of the Enterprise, but he had come up against their limitations on that mission. As a Vulcan he avoided making intuitive decisions, but he had put a great deal of faith in Mister Scott based on past experience. The chief engineer always seemed to come through with engineering miracles when called upon, and Spock had trusted that Scott would be able to succeed. But he had asked too much of the ship and of her engineer; the Enterprise had been crippled.
The asteroid that had been headed toward Amerind was larger than the one that was hurling toward Vesbius, yet the energy necessary to deflect the Vesbius asteroid from its course had increased exponentially as it approached the planet. At its current position, there was no way that the Enterprise could deflect it onto a harmless vector. In fact, the asteroid had been extremely close, but not on a collision course, when it was perturbed by a conjugation of the two moons of Vesbius on the far side of the planet; the combined gravitational wells that resulted pulled it into a direct path for the planet. As a scientist, Spock did not deal in absolutes without proof. However, there had never been a chance that this asteroid could be moved to another course.
Furthermore, this asteroid was a different composition from the Amerind one. Sensors indicated that it had a semicometary structure, with a rock and ice accretion around a central metallic core. This was not an asteroid that could be split like a diamond in the manner attempted with the Amerind asteroid. It would require structural faults to do this, and the object presented no such fault lines.
Spock sought a way to communicate the dire nature of this threat to the Vesbians, to get to what, his experience told him, was the heart of the matter.
On a platter before Spock was one of the melons that the planet produced. It was similar to a Vulcan meela, and also shared characteristics with an Earth cantaloupe. The Vesbians, however, had applied some sort of quick-freeze method to the melon, and when served it was ice cold and quite tasty. Spock picked up the melon—this particular specimen had not been opened yet—and held it before him.
Yes, this will do, he thought.
“The asteroid that is headed in this direction is in fact a captured comet about one billion Earth years old,” Spock began. “In many respects, its properties resemble those of this melon. It has a hard exterior crust and a softer, more liquid interior. Unlike this melon, however, there is an iron-nickel central core around which the ice of the comet has congealed. You might imagine that such a structure will be less devastating to the planet upon impact, but this is not the case. In fact, the concentration of water and rock is of the perfect consistency to produce multiple and widespread strikes after atmospheric entry, ensuring that the strike will produce a splatter effect.”
Spock drew back his arm as if to throw the melon.
“If I were to toss this against the wall over there, you would observe the target spread of such an impact. And in fact, the pieces of the falling asteroid would be carried by elliptical trajectories around your world, and, slowed by atmospheric friction, even the side of Vesbius facing away from first impact would receive massive ancillary strikes.”
Spock noticed that the Vesbians around the table had flinched, perhaps thinking he meant to actually throw the melon. He noted that if he were human, he would probably take some pleasure in this reaction. The Vesbian prejudice toward him and toward all aliens was illogical as well as a personal hindrance to
carrying out his mission. Nevertheless, he must do what he could. Spock placed the melon carefully back on the platter before him and considered it.
“The Chicxulub crater, the geologic structure on Earth which is most probably the impact site of the asteroid or comet that hastened the extinction of the dinosaurs, is slightly oval, indicating an angled descent. It is approximately one hundred and seventy-seven kilometers across. This is just the middle portion of the impact site, furthermore, and the entire structure is three hundred kilometers across. Based on these figures, the asteroid itself would have been a little over ten kilometers wide and would have struck with the kinetic energy equivalent to about ninety-six teratons of TNT explosive.”
Spock gazed around the table and noted the general expressions of bewilderment on the faces of the colonists. “I would offer the comparison of the largest nuclear weapon ever used by humans. This was the Soviet Union’s Tsar bomb, which had a yield of fifty megatons. The largest volcanic eruption on Earth is the cataclysm that formed the La Garita Caldera in North America. The explosive yield of that event was equivalent to two hundred forty gigatons of TNT—that is, four thousand eight hundred times more powerful than the Tsar bomb. As you know, a teraton is one thousand gigatons. Therefore the destructive power of the asteroid that killed off the dinosaurs on Earth was equivalent to ninety-six million megatons, or one million nine hundred twenty thousand Tsar bombs going off simultaneously.”
The science officer saw he was still not getting through to some of his listeners. “Or consider it in terms of antimatter reactions. Most schoolchildren know the story of Philos D, the moon that used to circle the fourth planet in the Beta Geminorum system. This was where initial experimentation with dilithium crystals took place. On that moon, one kiloton of antimatter was accidentally exposed to ordinary matter, and that explosion not only utterly destroyed a small-sized moon but made the planet below uninhabitable. This was equivalent to roughly half the destructive potential of the asteroid heading your way.”
