by Gene DeWeese
The Zeator on the ships said little, only listened, waiting tensely for the five who had supposedly been snatched from their exploded sister ship to be allowed to regain consciousness. Like the Hoshan commander, neither reversed the overload sequence in his ship but held it steady at barely eight seconds to terminal overload. Kirk also remained largely silent, letting Atragon do the talking.
When the five from the destroyed ship were allowed to awaken, Atragon was standing in front of the cushioned examination tables they still lay on, unrestrained. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy stood behind Atragon, flanked by the same security team that had stunned the arriving Zeator in the transporter room. Here, the team's phasers, though immediately available, were not drawn.
Automatically, the fingers of each awakening Zeator darted to the trigger mechanism in his ring. None, however, actually attempted to activate it, although their fingers invariably remained close to the rings, as if ready to make the attempt at a moment's notice, despite Atragon's assurance that the mechanisms had been at least temporarily disabled and his repeated explanation of the reasons.
For the most part, they listened to Atragon's tale with an outward calmness, even passiveness, but when he suggested that the Hoshan, the so-called World Killers, might not be the ones responsible for the Slaughtered Worlds, that they might even be innocent victims of Zeator paranoia, they rebelled.
"Who are these creatures that you believe the fantasies they spin?" the one who appeared to be the commander asked, casting what was probably a malevolent look at the humans.
"Fantasy?" Atragon demanded. "Was your inability to touch this ship with your weapons a fantasy? Are these devices that let us speak with them a fantasy? Is it a fantasy that you are alive, here, when you should by all rights have been vaporized with your ship?"
"I grant that they have a technology superior to ours," the Zeator said. "That does not necessarily make them truthful! Who are they? Where are they from? Why are they here?"
"If it will help," Kirk interceded, "we will show you what we have already shown Atragon."
All six were then taken to the bridge, where, when the five new arrivals became unfrozen enough to assimilate new information, they were shown roughly the same sequence Atragon had been shown earlier, a brief summary of the Enterprise's arrival and its subsequent encounters with the Hoshan and the Zeator. Atragon, seeing the images for a second time, explained as best he could to the other Zeator what they were seeing.
As with the Hoshan, however, it was the demonstration with the probe, with the Enterprise's phasers piercing the Hoshan defensive screens in a split second, that seemed to impress them the most. In any event, it was then that the five halted their angry questioning of Atragon on virtually everything he said and even began suggesting to the commanders of the remaining two Zeator ships that they had nothing to lose by accepting the translators and at least speaking to other Zeator of what they had seen and heard.
Finally, reluctantly, the overload sequences were reversed on both ships. A half-hour later the six Zeator on the Enterprise were transported, three to each Zeator ship, along with a plentiful supply of translators.
Dr. Jason Crandall, who had been allowed to listen but not to participate in the meetings with the Hoshan and the Zeator, found himself wishing with ever-increasing intensity that the Enterprise possessed the same type of self-destruct mechanisms that the alien ships did. Such a device, if it existed, would be a ready solution, probably the only solution, to his problems. Even in his present state of desperation, he doubted that he could bring himself to commit suicide, individually and alone, even if he could find a quick and painless method. For one thing, suicide would mean that he had surrendered, and it would give Kirk an easy and unqualified victory over him. But if there were a lever somewhere, the kind of lever that apparently existed on the alien ships, a lever that would destroy not only himself but the Enterprise and everyone on board—pulling such a lever would not be surrender. It would, in fact, be a victory, the only victory that Crandall could, now, ever know.
In the first hours following his ill-conceived and abortive attempt to overthrow Kirk and his emotionless first officer, Crandall had felt a brief surge of relief, even gratitude, at the seeming leniency of Kirk's treatment. Such feelings, however, had quickly soured as he began to realize that he had little reason for relief, even less for gratitude. Perhaps not everyone on the Enterprise knew the precise details of what had happened on the bridge, but they knew enough. The expressions on the faces of every crew member he passed in the corridors or on the recreation decks, even in the turbolifts, told him that much and more. They knew. They knew, and now they saw him not only as an outsider who could never be allowed to enter their exclusive club but as an enemy as well.
Worse, they now saw him as a fool.
Behind their fleeting, superficial smiles now lurked derisive laughter. This ludicrous outsider, they thought whenever they saw him, had deluded himself so thoroughly that he actually thought he could become one of us. In his ignorance, he thought that he understood us, thought even that he could come between us.
Even Ensign Davis, the young woman he had once thought of as an ally, had turned against him, unwilling even to listen to the reasons for his action. Once he had seen her walking alone down one of the ship's endless corridors. For a moment, their eyes had met, and he had thought that, in her, there was at least one person on board who had some understanding of what he had done. But he had been wrong. The instant he turned toward her and opened his mouth to speak, her face reddened angrily, and, deliberately averting her eyes, she turned and virtually ran to the nearest turbolift, as if his very presence were poisoning the air.
Life under such conditions, Crandall had quickly realized, was intolerable, and every day he became more certain that conditions would never improve. For a time he had thought there was at least a chance that some day he might be put down on the Hoshan home world. The Hoshan might not be totally human, but they would almost certainly be less alien to him than the crew of the Enterprise.
And if only the Enterprise had entered the battle on the side of the Hoshan, making heroes of everyone on board, himself included, who knows how far he could have gone?
But now, with Kirk so enamored of his role as godlike bringer of peace, even that door was closed. Hoshan and Zeator might soon be talking to each other for the first time in their histories, but neither would ever fully trust the Enterprise or anyone on it. The Hoshan and Zeator worlds were both now out of Crandall's reach, probably forever, and the possibility of finding other civilizations in this no-man's land of devastation was virtually nonexistent. That had become ever more apparent with each new stellar system the Enterprise scanned.
Worst of all, however, was the soul-shriveling knowledge that, because of his own stupidity and miscalculations, earth and the Federation were now as lost to him as everything else. Even if the so-called gate reappeared tomorrow and deposited the Enterprise in a standard orbit around Starbase One, it would do Crandall no good. No matter how lenient Kirk played at being here on the Enterprise, Dr. Jason Crandall was, in Kirk's eyes, a criminal and a traitor, and there was absolutely no doubt in Crandall's mind that, if they ever did get back to Federation territory, he would instantly be brought up on charges. Kirk could afford to do nothing else, not there.
Here, far from the reach of the Council, Kirk was all-powerful, and he could afford to play whatever catand-mouse games he wanted with Crandall. In Federation territory, where he was only a starship captain, he would have no choice but to bring charges. Not that Kirk would want to keep Crandall's blunders a secret, of course. Doubtless he would take great pleasure in telling and retelling the story of the pitifully deluded outsider who had tried to instigate a mutiny.
Kirk's only reason for keeping it to himself would be if he thought that by so doing he could gain leverage over Crandall and his influential friends. He might think that a little blackmail would get him some extra gold braid or a plum post with Sta
rfleet Command. Crandall had no doubt that Kirk would be more than willing to try it—if he thought he could get away with it. But blackmail with the entire crew of the Enterprise knowing the secret was obviously impossible. No matter how great their camaraderie, more than four hundred people, even the crew of a starship, were incapable of keeping a secret like this one.
No, even if by some miracle the Enterprise suddenly reappeared in Federation territory this very day, Crandall could see no acceptable future for himself, no future that he would choose to live through.
Lying back on the bed in his stateroom, from which he now rarely stirred, Dr. Jason Crandall continued to dream of levers and destruction.
"Captain Kirk! Ta' the bridge!" Lieutenant Commander Scott's voice crackled over the recreation deck intercom.
Kirk, sweating profusely from the calisthenics McCoy had insisted he start up again, dropped the medicine ball that Lieutenant Woida had almost floored him with and slapped the nearest intercom.
"Kirk here," he said between breaths. "What is it, Scotty?"
"Subspace contact, Captain, wi' both the Hoshan and the Zeator!"
"Where are they?"
"Both beyond our sensor range, Captain, and widely separated from each other. Both wish to speak wi' the commander of the Enterprise."
"On my way!"
Pausing only long enough to grab his uniform tunic, Kirk raced down the corridor to the elevator, slipping on the tunic as he ran. Less than a minute later, still breathing heavily, he emerged on the bridge.
"What—" he began, but the words froze as his eyes fell on the forward viewscreen, split to show two separate images, one in each half. On the left was a Hoshan, short and stocky in the same type of utilitarian, multipocketed outfit the others had worn, except that this one seemed somehow crisper, the pockets more numerous but more for display than for utility. Perhaps they were, Kirk thought briefly, a badge of rank for the Hoshan. He could remember no identifying markings on any of the Hoshan who had been on board the Enterprise.
On the right of the screen was a Zeator, tall and regal, his uniform a pale blue-green with white and yellow diamond-shaped markings on the breast, where the others had displayed similarly colored circles. A silvery streak ran down the center of his featherlike hair.
The two images had only two things in common. First, both Hoshan and Zeator held universal translators, and second, behind each of the aliens was a featureless bulkhead, revealing nothing of the interior of the ships.
"Their ships have always had a visual capability, Captain," Spock said, even as Kirk darted a questioning glance at him, "but neither the Hoshan nor the Zeator have used it before except in the compressed subspace bursts."
"You are the Commander James Kirk we have been told of?" the Zeator said.
Suppressing a grimace, Kirk ran his fingers through his perspiration-damp hair and stepped forward. "I am Captain James Kirk, commanding the U.S.S. Enterprise, yes," he said as he slid into the command chair that Scott had vacated only moments be fore.
"I am Endrakon," the Zeator said, "in command of all ships patrolling the Slaughtered Worlds."
"And I am Belzhrokaz," the Hoshan said. "All Hoshan in the Zone of Destruction are my responsibility."
"I am pleased that you both have contacted us," Kirk said. "I am also pleased that our gifts have enabled you to speak with each other."
"Your devices are most helpful," the Zeator, Endrakon, said, raising his translator a fraction. "Had they existed a hundred years ago, many lives might have been saved."
"Many lives can still be saved," Kirk said, "if you will continue the contact you have begun."
"Yes," Endrakon said, "that is our hope. And that is why we have contacted you, Commander Kirk. We have need of your great ship."
Kirk hesitated a fraction, darting a glance at Spock and Scott, who volunteered nothing. "As we told your people when they were on board the Enterprise," he said, "we will do whatever we can to help. What is it you wish?"
"As I am sure you can understand, Commander Kirk," Belzhrokaz said, "a hundred years of all-out war cannot be ended in a day, nor can trust be built in a similar period. Both will take time, and both will require more direct contact between Hoshan and Zeator than can be accomplished through subspace links such as these. We must meet, face to face, if peace is ever to come."
"Understood," Kirk said. "Do you wish to meet, then, on neutral ground? On board the Enterprise?"
"Neutral ground, yes," Endrakon said, picking up where Belzhrokaz had left off as smoothly as if it had been rehearsed. "It is a concept neither of us has considered in hundreds of years, but that is what we wish. However, there is more."
"Again," Kirk said, "anything we can do to help, we will."
"The rest of what we need is more onerous, Commander Kirk," the Zeator continued, "and more dangerous. We need—we both need your great ship to guarantee the safety of our own ships when we meet."
"Could you not simply agree to disarm your ships?" Kirk asked slowly.
"Impossible!" the Zeator said and was echoed by the Hoshan.
"You could keep your ships separated, then," Kirk said, "as they are now. The Enterprise could collect representatives from both ships and—"
"No," Belzhrokaz interrupted. "We must face each other, not only individually on your Enterprise but with our ships. There is no other way if our efforts are to succeed."
"He is right," Endrakon said. "We must meet. Our forces must meet, peacefully. We must learn, after centuries of war, to trust each other, but during those first steps, we both must have your protection."
"From each other?" Kirk asked, frowning. "How can we protect you against each other?"
"We believe your presence alone will be enough," Belzhrokaz said. "We have both seen what your weapons can do, how they can penetrate our shields as if they did not exist. If either of us attacks the other, you must be prepared to destroy whatever ship fires the first shot."
"I wasn't aware," Kirk said slowly, "that either of you trusted us all that much."
"We do not trust you completely," the Hoshan continued, "but we trust you more than we trust each other at this point. And we have little choice. If we are to have even the slightest hope of ending these centuries of war, we have no choice."
"On that," the Zeator said, "we agree. Our worlds have lived in fear for centuries. We must take this chance to end that fear. Your presence and your gifts that allow us to communicate have given us that chance, and we must take it. With your great ship to ensure a peaceful first meeting, perhaps we will succeed."
Slowly, Kirk looked from the image of the Zeator to that of the Hoshan, trying to penetrate the barrier of their expressionless faces, as he had tried with the Hoshan earlier. But this time there was nothing, not even the tiniest clue in their features to guide him.
"Very well," he said finally, "it will be as you wish."
"Thank you, Commander Kirk," Endrakon said, echoed by Belzhrokaz. "If you will continue your subspace transmissions, we will both follow them to your ship."
A moment later, the images faded.
"Both ships are still transmitting, Captain," Uhura said, "but only a carrier. Shall I do as they said?"
Kirk nodded. "Continue to transmit," he said, "but do as they do. Only a carrier, no modulation."
"I dinna like it, Captain," Scott said, shaking his head. "I wouldna put it past either o' them to rig their own ships to blow and then try to blame it on the other."
"The thought had crossed my mind, Scotty. But we can monitor them for that sort of thing easily enough. And before they arrive, we'll tell them we can. We'll make it abundantly clear that we can tell the difference between another suicide and an attack." Kirk paused, frowning at the blank screens. "I only hope it's something that simple that they're up to."
Chapter Fifteen
ALWAYS IN THE past, once Dr. Jason Crandall's spirits hit rock bottom, once he came to fully accept the situation as it existed and began to make plans base
d on that newly accepted version of reality, his spirits would begin to lift. From despair would come the seeds of anticipation. It had happened in the wake of the Tajarhi disaster, when he had finally accepted the fact that, even though the accident had not been his fault, he would be the one to shoulder the blame. Once he had accepted that basic fact, no matter how unfair it might have been, and had begun to plan accordingly, he was on his way back up. He had, of course, had to leave Tajarhi and start fresh on another world parsecs away, but he had, eventually, regained much of what he had lost.
And it had happened here, on the Enterprise, when he had realized that, no matter what he did, he would never return to the Federation. He had once again started fresh, filled with optimism and enthusiasm. Unfortunately, his subsequent decisions and actions had been disastrous, largely because that very optimism had allowed him to see opportunities that did not, in reality, exist. His total misreading of McCoy's feelings, his willful obliviousness to the mindless nature and strength of the bonds that held this insular little group together, and finally his foolish attempt at mutiny had combined to make his situation even more hopeless than it had been before.
But he had been able, finally, to accept even that. He had at last admitted to himself that he had no hope whatsoever of achieving any kind of tolerable life here on the Enterprise. He had realized that his only hope for any kind of victory over Kirk and the four-hundred-odd sycophants that made up this interstellar fraternity lay in the method of his own death.
