Star Trek - Pandora Principle

by Pandora Principle

  And neither would the Vault-not now! Adrenaline and reflex took over. Kirk snatched the communicator from his belt and flipped it open.

  "Kirk to Enterprise! Kirk to-damn it!" He snapped the communicator back in place. What was he thinking? This was the Vault-his communicator wouldn't work down here! He lowered himself into the chair, aware of the tremor in his knees. All those people up there-dead. From the 18th floor, to the first, to the 69th-in seconds!

  Nothing happened that fast!

  But there was another reason for the sudden wave of nausea and fear that gripped him: communicators weren't the only things that wouldn't work in the Vault.

  Transporters wouldn't work down here either.

  Empty stillness wrapped around him, and Kirk could hear the beating of his heart. He drew a ragged breath, unclenched his fists, and tried to think.

  "Sure," he muttered, "piece of cake."

  ". lateness of the hour will be of no importance. Thank you for your assistance, Dr. Goldman. Spock out."

  The object's image faded as the transmission ended. Spock stared at his empty screen for a moment, then touched a pad and recalled the tape. At the point it switched to the scanner and the box, he cut out the audio, marked the place, and replayed the recording. Indeed, a curious object-and strangely compelling.

  "Saavik," he said, "this item is of considerable interest. The details of its discovery are classified, but not the object itself. You may come here and see it if you wish."

  She came to look over his shoulder: the box sat on the clear platform of the scanner, its lights weaving in rainbow designs, shimmering, expanding, folding up again.

  Spock wasn't sure what made him look up, but the sight of Saavik's face brought him to his feet: it was stark and bloodless, her eyes wide with fright.

  "Saavik!" He reached for her. She shrank away.

  "No!" she whispered, backing off and shaking her head. She was trembling violently, but her eyes never left the screen. "No. no. it was a dream."

  "What, Saavik? What is it?"

  "I've. seen that. before! In a. cave. on Hellguard-"

  Spock's hand was on the intercom, signaling the bridge.

  "-there were thousands of them!"

  Chapter Five

  "NOTHING, SIR, but I'd swear that signal's going through." Uhura switched frequencies, tried again. Something was very, very wrong. "And I'm sending on the captain's channel, Mr. Spock, but he's not answering. Didn't he take his communicator with him?"

  "He did. Are you trying all departments? All levels?"

  "Yes, sir-but we just had HQ! Not five minutes ago! Either that whole comm system just went down or. where was the captain going tonight, Mr. Spock?" For a moment, she thought he wouldn't answer; that cool Vulcan calm, usually so comforting, was frigid and terrifying now. His face looked carved out of stone.

  "Headquarters," he said much too quietly. "We must locate Admiral Nogura immediately-and discreetly if possible."

  "Yes, sir." Nogura? She turned back to her board, and Spock used the auxiliary panel to make a call of his own.

  "Dock Central, this is Spock, on Enterprise. Please put me through to Commander Dorish. He is aboard the ship in Repair Dock Four. Commander, Spock here. It is my belief that you and your crew are in grave danger. I must insist that you suspend work and evacuate all personnel into Dock. Yes, Commander, I realize that. No, Commander, no one may remain aboard. No, Commander, I can not give you the facts, because as yet I do not have them. Then on my responsibility, Commander!"

  "-but how do I log it, Spock? What about my report?" Dorish tugged at his graying mustache unhappily. "A dock shutdown? All right, I'll take it under-" He stared at the dead communicator in his hand. "Damnedest thing, Montgomery-now what're you doing? You passed up shore leave to get over here!" Dorish folded his arms across his portly midriff and glared. Scott had left the tangled machinery to gather up his probes and wrenches, and was polishing each one lovingly before replacing it in his tool kit.

  "Ye heard him, lad. Spock says to be shuttin' it down."

  "But-" Dorish looked around the dismantled engine room in frustration. "He won't say why! I don't think he even knows why!"

  "Aye," Scott nodded, "an' he'll be the devil himself till he finds out. You've just heard a rare thing, Malcomb-the sound of a Vulcan playin' a hunch."

  "What the hell do I tell HQ?" complained Dorish. "They're waiting for that report."

  "Well." Scott buffed a fingerprint off his laserseal and tucked it into a padded slot. "Start off by tellin' 'em how Mr. Spock outranks both you an' me-and then tell them about this." He handed a melted fragment of metal and wire to Dorish, who started at it, frowning.

  "This looks like part of a detonator."

  "Aye. It was way back in what's left of that ruptured coolant line. This scow was sabotaged, Malcomb, and if Spock says to shut it down, I say we'll bloody well be shuttin' it down! Now, give me my sonic calibrator, Malcomb-oh!" He rescued it from irreverent hands. "Show a bit of respect, lad-'twas made in Aberdeen!"

  "I don't get it!" DiMuro peered out the viewport as their pod floated away under a green and yellow painted wing. "All that secrecy, and then they pull us off?"

  "Uh-huh." Harper said absently, patting one of the arms wound around him. Obo was still frightened, its eyes shut so tightly that the skin on its head puckered into wrinkles. "Talk to me, Obo. Tell me what's wrong."

  "We go home nnoww?"

  "No, Obo. I'm sorry. We have to stay until they tell us we're done for the night."

  The Belandrid lifted its head from Harper's shoulder. One long, vertical eyelid parted from side to side, and a neon-yellow eye glowed balefully.

  "No, Bobby. We go home nnoww!"

  DiMuro chuckled. "Maybe we should go home now, Harper. Seems like the little guy knows something we don't."

  "Maybe," Harper said, as Obo clutched on to him tightly once again. Something sure had his friend spooked.

  He wondered what that something could be.

  ". because I want to know, that's why, Lieutenant! Adjutant! Michaels!" hissed Uhura furiously. "And I want to know yesterday!. Then you just get him, mister! Ensign Michaels can push a broom on some nasty little. Well, thank you, Michaels. yes, yes, very helpful." Uhura signed off and turned to Spock. "Still on Dock, sir. He'll call back."

  Spock nodded, fitted a comm plug in his ear and listened to the signal repeat at ten-second intervals. "Enterprise to Captain Kirk," he said, "come in please. Enterprise to Captain Kirk."

  That won't do a bit of good, and he knows it! Uhura watched him out of the corner of her eye. Apprehension and dread settled around her like a fog. Her board whistled; it was only inship.

  "Bridge. Oh, Mr. Scott." she listened closely. "Yes, sir. I'll tell him. Mr. Spock, Scotty found bits of a detonator in that coolant system, says it was sabotage, an inside job. They're all off the ship, and Commander Dorish is in his office. He's waiting for an ex-uh, an update, sir." The comm whistled again; she pounced on the incoming signal. "Enterprise-Captain!"

  "Captain! Are you all right? Where are you?"

  "HQ, Spock. You've got to reach Nogura-"

  "We are trying, Captain. Can you give us visual?"

  "I. yes, all right..." The main screen came to life with Kirk's face, and Uhura's gasp was audible: he looked drawn and haggard with shock. "Spock, we've got a problem."

  "Yes, Captain. Where in Headquarters? We tried-"

  "I'm. downstairs, Spock. They're all dead up there. Some kind of contamination in the Exo lab. Must've got into the-"

  "No one is alive. at all?"

  "No, Spock. No one."

  "Sir," Uhura broke in, "I'll notify the transporter room. We can triangulate and beam you-"

  "No, Uhura, you can't," said Kirk tightly.

  "But Captain-" A look from Spock stopped her. He swallowed hard, seemed to understand more than he was telling. Her board signaled again. "Enterpr-yes, Admiral! Please stand by. Mr. Spock, the captain's on a secured cha
nnel, but I don't know-"

  "Admiral, Spock here. Is your transmission secure?"

  "Affirmative. What's the problem, Enterprise?"

  "Stand by, sir," said Spock. "We're patching you through. Uhura, put them both on screen-and scramble our output."

  The main screen split, and Heihachiro Nogura frowned out at them. His ageless, Asian face was completely unlined; silver hair made a striking contrast to bright and bottomless black eyes. His enigmatic presence evoked varied reactions: Spock responded with a deference accorded few humans; McCoy found him nerve-racking and unfathomable. The irritating mix of admiration and rebellion that Nogura produced in Kirk manifested itself in subtle contests of wits against the only tactical mind Kirk believed capable of defeating him. Even more irritating to Kirk was an uncomfortable suspicion that this knee-jerk reaction was childish, that any contest was one-sided and of his own making. Nogura seemed above such things, but was he? That was the trouble with Nogura: you never knew quite where you stood. Kirk didn't like that at all.

  "Jim, what is it? Where are you?"

  "HQ, sir. There's been a. disaster down here. Some kind of contamination from the Exo lab. I have visual, Admiral. The maintenance shutdown wasn't fast enough."

  "What level are you on, Kirk? How bad is it?"

  "No one's alive upstairs. I'm. down in the Vault."

  "The Vault? What for?"

  Kirk took a deep breath; it all seemed so stupid now. "That incident report, Admiral. Your orders were... by 0800." He didn't bother to finish the sentence.

  "Got it," Nogura said; Kirk had no doubt that he did. "Show me what we're dealing with. Has anyone else seen this?"

  "No, sir. It only happened a few minutes ago."

  Nightmarish images unfolded on the bridge's screen. Uhura clamped a hand over her mouth, but her eyes filled with horrified tears. Spock watched, frozen, expressionless, and stricken. The lab, the lounge, the front desk, level after level, body after body.

  "Note the time factor, Admiral. Seal broke on the Contam-Alert at 20:52:32. "The view of the alarm casing in the Exo lab zoomed forward. "The glass broke, but the button never lit. Maintenance tripped the alarm at ten seconds, the failsafe shutdown at twenty. Now, here's the front desk."

  The tape showed Richards reading his book, toppling forward as he struggled in the throes of some unseen pain. When his curly head fell onto his outstretched arm and fingers on the security alert button froze without pushing it, Kirk stopped the tape and enlarged the running chrono display at the bottom of the frame.

  "Look at that, Admiral, 20:52:46-a total of fourteen seconds-and he was eighteen floors away! Sir, they never had a chance. They were dying before that alarm ever sounded."

  "But air doesn't circulate through the system that fast. Nothing could do that. Do we know what caused it?"

  "Yes, Admiral." On the bridge, Spock cued up his tape of Dr. Goldman's call. "This did. My conversation with Dr. Goldman ended at 20:51:33. The fragments now under the Infrascan were this."

  Once again, innocent and beautiful, the transparent box sparkled on the platform of Dr. Goldman's scan. Chains of rainbow lights wove and rippled, replayed themselves again and again.

  "We found four of these on board the Romulan ship," Spock continued tonelessly, "on the bridge, in a corridor, in command quarters, and in engineering. There was nothing to indicate." He paused. "I wished to. study one of them. I notified Dock authority, ordered regulation clearance at Exo, and requested preliminary data from Dr. Goldman. It seems the scanner beam has destroyed it. I speak for the record, Admiral. I am responsible."

  "Never mind that now, Spock," said Nogura brusquely. "What about the work crew on that ship?"

  "Evacuated into Dock, also on my responsibility. They found evidence of deliberate sabotage. The implications are grave, sir. Commander Dorish was in charge. He is awaiting further-"

  "Let him wait!" Nogura snapped. "Look, Spock, it wasn't your fault-that thing's intriguing. If you hadn't checked it out, someone else would, that's all. Jim, are all the doors secured?"

  "Computer says they are. Transporters were already offline."

  "I'm posting guards." Nogura tapped on his keypad, spoke quietly over his office intercom, and got back to them. "Crisis standby personnel are being notified. Security's rounding up a task force to report to Life Sciences. We'll have to beam in probes. Recommendations, gentlemen?"

  "They will need access to classified files," said Spock. "Intelligence data on the Romulan Empire, for example. System security will have to be overridden. Captain, you have direct access but-all due respect, sir-not the expertise. Admiral, this will be delicate work. We'll need an expert in computer systems."

  "Then get down there, Spock."

  "Admiral. there is another line of inquiry I must pursue. It is. imperative."

  On the screen, Nogura folded his arms, waiting for an explanation. None was forthcoming.

  "This won't keep, gentlemen. Jim, access Command database and evaluate qualified personnel. Get me a team, a high-level scientist and a computer specialist. Send them to Administration's terminal room. Spock, you join them when you can. You'll brief them from the vault, Jim, and keep everything under wraps. This is a need-to-know situation-we don't want a panic on our hands."

  Kirk gazed into the warm, empty gloom of the Vault and told himself there was no reason to feel such mounting panic or the illusion of walls closing in. Whatever this was, they'd clear it up, find an antidote or decontaminant or whatever. Until then. well, he had everything he needed to hold up here for a very long time. Somehow, that thought didn't comfort him at all. To keep himself from pacing, he reviewed the selections he'd made for the Task Force.

  Dr. Ayla Renn, Lt. Cmdr.: Acting head of the Exo-Science lab while Dr. Syng was on leave. MD, XMD, Ph.D., ZBA. her credentials scrolled by. Six years in Starfleet, three on Earth, and an impressive list of field work. A notation read Does not suffer fools gladly!, and Kirk nodded, satisfied. Dr. Renn was a straight arrow.

  Ensign Maxim Kinski: Computer rating A-7.1. Expert. Four months out of the Academy, not an experienced officer. But this wasn't a command-level assignment-and that rating! Only eight tenths of a point below Spock, who held the highest in Starfleet. Seven-plus ratings were hard to come by, and Kirk figured Kinski would do until Spock-

  His comm whistled.

  "Admiral Kirk here."

  "Good evening, Admiral. I'm Dr. Ayla Renn, and I'm in the Administration Building, Room 2103. I was told to report here and call in on this number."

  One thing her file hadn't mentioned: Dr. Renn was a knockout. She had the face of a china doll, all peaches and cream, emerald-green eyes and tumbling red hair, still wet from being out in the rain. The sight of her lifted Kirk's spirits.

  "Yes, Dr. Renn. You're in the right place."

  "But sir, I'm a scientist. There're just computers in here." "'Scuse me. "A pale, intense young man leaned into view. His black, electric-looking hair was due for a trim, and his Starfleet uniform hung on his bony frame. "I guess I'm here for the computers. Ensign Kinski, sir."

  "Yes, Ensign. You're both in the right place."

  "Is there some kind of emergency, sir?" Kinski asked, definitely on edge. "We had to ID with Security-"

  "Yes, Admiral," Renn confirmed. "There're guards all over the Plaza. And two of my people are in the lab at HQ. Can I just call and make sure they're okay, sir?"

  "No, Doctor, you can't. That's why we're here. I'm going to run some tape and tell you what we know so far, which isn't much. And I think you both had better sit down."

  Kirk waited for them to get settled. Renn was calm and focused, Kinski quiet and scared-probably the first real crisis he'd ever faced. No, not an experienced officer.

  What was taking Spock so long?

  Saavik abandoned her meditation; it wasn't working anyway. In the warm air of Spock's cabin, her cheeks still burned with shame at the disgraceful way she'd behaved. Her hands still clenched into fists when she wasn'
t looking, and chains of weaving lights still danced on her eyelids whenever she closed them and tried to think. Spock had been gone too long, too long for this to be some dreadful mistake. But how could a dream be not a dream? How could a nightmare come to life? Questions whirled in her mind.

  When the door chimed she felt a rush of panic, which she hated, and an absurd impulse to run away and hide. But there was nowhere to go; the past had found her, even here. She touched the button on Spock's desk, the door slid back, and one look at his face swept her questions away. The past had found them all.