"Turn down the brightness, Mr. Sulu." The cluster of cosmic matter was so dense now that the cumulative brightness on the screen hurt the eyes.
"It's down all the way, sir."
"Well then, put another filter over the scope."
"Aye, sir." Sulu touched a switch. Immediately the full brilliance of the tightly packed suns, gasses, and nebulae dimmed to a bearable level.
Kirk shook his head and envied a certain section of the Enterprise's crew. It was an astronomer's paradise, and in fact that section of the ship's scientific complement was working round the clock by its own choice.
Kirk, of course, was too occupied with administrative details to enjoy more than this occasional quiet study of the starscape. He sighed, pressed a well-used button on the arm of the command chair.
"Captain's Log, stardate 5524.5. For many years scientists have theorized that the galaxy was created by a great central explosion. If this was so, attendant new theories postulate that the galactic center may still be creating new matter.
"The Enterprise has the honor of being the first ship to attempt to penetrate to the heart of the galaxy. We will try to ascertain the truth or falsity of this and numerous other spatial hypotheses."
Despite the additional filter on the pickup telescope itself, the stunning brightness of the surrounding space continued to intensify. Gaseous and radioactive particle matter was so thick here that at times the Enterprise seemed to be drifting through a phosphorescent fog, a pale white submersible in a ocean of deep-sea fish. Readings on radiation meters remained within tolerable levels, but an older starship than the Enterprise would soon have had her crew fatally burned.
"Heading now zero zero one degrees due east of the galactic plane, Captain," Sulu broke in. "Maintaining indicated observation-recording speed of warp-one."
They were getting very close. A hand touched the button again. He would finish the log entry later.
"Maintain speed, Mr. Sulu. Correct ship to a heading of zero degrees." No other starship captain in history had been able to utter that momentous phrase, and it might be some time before another repeated it.
"The center of the galaxy," he murmured, for the umpteenth time. He looked over to the library computer station, where Spock, like the astronomers, had been working overtime just to record new information.
"I'm not sure what I'll do or how I'll react, if we find there actually is a central something that all matter springs from, like a well. How about you, Spock? Surely you've thought about it."
"From an astrophysical standpoint I find it all quite fascinating, Captain. Personally, I am more intrigued by what we may encounter there in the nature of subsidiary phenomena. How does gravity react at the center, for example.
"Yet I am afraid we shall be somewhat disappointed and find that the precise center is very much like the area immediately around it, an area such as we are traversing at this very moment," the science officer concluded.
"Galactic center in three minutes, Captain," Sulu reported.
"Thank you, Mr. Sulu. Lieutenant Uhura, sound yellow alert, as planned."
"Aye, sir, yellow alert." Uhura proceeded to make the necessary demands on her instrumentation. The proper alarm signal pealed out.
There was a short wait, then the communications officer looked back at him. "All decks and stations report yellow-alert status effected, Captain."
"Ready for whatever comes, then," Kirk whispered to himself, and added aloud, "I hope."
"What was that, Captain?"
"Nothing, Mr. Spock. Nothing."
At first it seemed as if Spock's dry evaluation was going to turn out to be correct. Nothing unique appeared on the screen; they saw nothing not already previously encountered.
Then it appeared with unexpected suddenness. Somewhere directly ahead was a phenomenon different from anything any of the bridge complement had ever seen.
At first glance it resembled a small nebula trying to turn itself inside out. But it was no normal nebula according to the sensors. The writhing, twisting mass of color was in constant violent motion, spitting out particles and gasses in all directions.
"Mr. Spock," said Kirk quickly, but the science officer was already attending to his recorders.
"Visual contact galactic center, Captain," he reported. "The volume of energy and mass here is overwhelming. Instrumentation can only calibrate a portion of the total flux - their levels don't read any higher."
"All right, Spock, be careful. There's enough energy out there to overload every sensor on the ship." He need not have said it; he was only verbalizing what was obvious to Spock and everyone else.
Kirk stared at the screen, thoroughly mesmerized. There was no form, no pattern, no structure to that violent, churning whirlpool of force.
"Evaluation, Mr. Spock."
"It is indeed the theorized creation point, Captain. Detectors indicate it is putting forth a tremendous amount of particulate matter, from the subatomic levels mostly. There are also new, as yet unidentifiable, structures ... Also radioactive gasses, free energy. Fortunately we do not have to make interspace calls from here - they would be drowned out a meter from the hull."
"Okay, Spock, we know what's coming out. Is anything going in?" That would be the critical test. Spock's answer would eventually make a number of astronomers happy.
"Very little, if anything, Captain. There are indications that the fabric of space in the immediate vicinity of the creation point is not stable."
"That's hardly surprising," Kirk observed, "in view of the forces at work here."
"Despite the evidence of considerable gravitation potential," Spock continued, as if he were talking about the most common household object, "there is no sign of hydrogen or anything else being drawn into the center from the surrounding space. Altogether an extraordinary phenomenon. I believe we may be looking at the rarest single structure in the known universe: a negative black hole - one that ejects, rather than attracts matter."
Kirk nodded. "That would confirm that all matter in our universe has been drawn from other universes, and that creation is truly infinite, as some theories state."
"Merely because our galaxy draws its substance from the black hole of another universe, Captain, and that our black holes may each well be the galactic center of other star clusters, does not mean that the universe itself is infinite - only somewhat larger than we had suspected."
Kirk wondered at his first officer. Only Spock could concede the possible existence of a billion billion other universes and make it come out as an understatement.
He returned his attention to the viewscreen, but it was only a moment before Spock glanced up from his hooded viewer again.
"There is also evidence of other forces at work here, Captain, which are unclassifiable under standard astronomical referents. I would strongly suggest that we -" He stopped.
An automatic stylus was beginning to jiggle up and down on the console to his left. As he watched it, the oscillation increased. Finally it became violent enough to knock the stylus loose from its holder. It rolled off the slanted console onto the deck.
At the same time Spock grabbed at the console edges. The Enterprise had begun a rocking motion, sideways, then up and down, then sideways again.
"Easy," said Kirk to everyone in general and no one in particular.
The buffeting grew more violent. "Reverse power, hold this position, then head zero zero one degrees left." They would use this strange new force to help slip around the storm of the center itself. "Deflector screens on full."
"Deflectors up, sir," Sulu informed him, adding, "it's taking considerable power to maintain this heading, sir."
"We'll hold it, Mr. Sulu," said Kirk calmly.
The buffeting didn't vanish entirely, but the increased power being fed to the warp-engines seemed sufficient to reduce it to an occasional sharp tremor. No one was in danger of being thrown from his seat.
The Enterprise continued to move around the fiery core.
&nb
sp; "Good heavens - look at that!" Sulu exclaimed. Kirk's attention had not varied from the screen, but he understood Sulu's automatic shout. "Just a moment, sir ... I'll widen the angle." The helmsman worked controls.
Abruptly their field of vision seemed to quadruple, and the phenomenon revealed by their new position became fully visible.
Once again, superlatives were insufficient.
Lines of pure force had grown so strong they had begun to radiate. They stretched from the spastic central core out to the nearest suns in great flaring arcs. Everyone on the bridge, who thought he was past amazement, sat enthralled by the spectacle. The lines glowed and shifted slightly and were to a solar prominence what a spider's web would be to a suspension bridge.
"I wonder," Kirk murmured, "if the surrounding stars hold the creation point steady, via these lines of force, at the center of our galaxy?" Or was the creation point fighting a constant battle, through millions and millions of less detectable lines of force, to hold its myriad suns around it?
"Charting scanners on, Captain," Spock said smoothly. "Commencing official survey central quadrant." Less sophisticated instruments took over now, as formal mapping was begun.
The doors to the bridge elevator slid aside, and McCoy entered, moving quickly.
"Jim, Spock -" Another jolt rocked the bridge. "What in the name of sanity is going...?" His voice trailed off. He had just gotten his first glimpse of the mind-boggling panorama spread across the screen.
"What on Earth is that?"
"Nothing we can detect from Earth itself, Bones - or even from nearby. We're here - at the center of the galaxy - and all the theories and guesses and hypotheses about this place appear to have been right ... with frosting."
They all watched as the Enterprise continued to move past the central core.
For the first time, an uncertain tone seemed to be present in Spock's voice. "Captain, we appear to be moving up on a completely new phenomenon."
"Another one?"
Apparently they were not out miracled yet. Something different was indeed showing up on the view-screen.
Kirk saw that some of the feathery lines of iridescent force, instead of leaping out toward nearby stars in smooth arcs, had twisted together. They were curling and writhing violently about themselves, a concatenation of energy separate from the core being manipulated by a galactic potter's wheel.
The forces created by this secondary center took on a definite shape as they moved closer. Instead of the central chaos, they formed a recognizable, colossal cone. It was visible only when destroyed matter at its edges exploded, or when a force-line flared with a discharge of energy that would dwarf the output of several suns.
Yet sensors revealed that instead of putting out energy-matter like the center point, here it was being drawn inward. But it was most definitely not a black hole, nor a neutron star. It was something as new as the negative black hole of Spock's hypothesis, and something even less recognizable.
A number of stars swirled like dust motes about its rim, spinning crazily. Occasionally one would impinge on the edge of the cone itself. The result was a flare of light - overwhelming if compared to a human-generated explosion, yet far from nova-sized.
Sulu shattered the awed contemplation. "Captain, I'm up to warp-six for flyby on revised course, but that thing seems to be pulling us in. Yet the gravity detectors show no new change in the surrounding field. I don't understand the forces operating here. And it's not a computer malfunction, sir. Our course is definitely being affected."
Even as he spoke, strong vibration rocked the bridge. Yet it was somehow different from before.
"Scanners indicate the energy cone is composed of both matter and energy, like the core itself." Spock said, checking his readouts. "But there appears to be some kind of order at work here, whereas the core point was anarchical in nature.
"There is indeed some powerful attractive force operating within the vortex, but it is, as Mr. Sulu has stated, something other than normal gravity. Something outside our experience, I fear."
"Warp-seven, Captain," the excited Sulu interrupted. "Warp-eight!"
"Take us out of here, Mr. Sulu," Kirk ordered; but the helmsman was already working at his console.
"I've been trying to, sir. We're still being drawn in. Warp-nine ... warp-ten, sir!"
"Emergency reverse power!"
Back at his post in engineering central, Scott noticed the sudden terrific demands being made on his engines. He held tight to a crossbar to keep from being thrown to the floor by the increasingly wild vibrations and hoped the drive could cope with the forces being pitted against them.
As the Enterprise was drawn inexorably nearer the energy vortex, the colors on the viewscreen began to pulse violently, the pastel rainbow giving way to deep golds and reds, all being subsumed into a vital, rippling purple.
Now the ship had been pulled to the very rim of the cosmic cyclone. It hung there a second, then caught and started to spin at tremendous speed around the rim, faster, and faster. On the Enterprise the artificial gravity compensators could barely keep up with the steady increase in centrifugal force.
Scott now clung desperately to the crossbar and stared grim-faced at his gauges. Shouts of pain and groans came from various members of his staff who had failed to gain a firm purchase on something immovable.
Somehow, hanging tight with both legs and one arm against the terrific sideways pressure, he managed to pull himself a hand at a time to the nearest wall intercom. From there he tried to raise the bridge.
"Captain ... Scott here. I don't know how much additional emergency power we can continue to put out before the engines start to break up."
Kirk listened but was helpless to acknowledge. He had been thrown to the floor. Despite the gravity compensators, the whirling was generating G-forces too powerful to be canceled out.
Spock was still seated in his chair at the library station, clinging tightly to the arms. He tried to shift for a still firmer grip. He felt a wrenching pull as the Enterprise hit an eddy in the rim of the vortex and was jerked loose. He slid past Kirk and came to a halt up against a console on the opposite side of the bridge.
"Spock ... you all right?"
His reply ignored Kirk's query. "Captain, there may be only one choice open to us. We must hope this vortex is analogous in its internal structure to Terran/Vulcan counterparts ... hope that there is a calm in its center where these forces either do not exist or cancel each other out."
"Agreed, Mr. Spock. Well try to make for the eye of the cyclone - if it has one. Mr. Sulu, Mr. Arex..."
But neither helmsman was in a position to carry out orders. Sulu was jammed in a tangle of arms and legs against Kirk's command chair, while Arex had skidded all the way back to communications, despite the frantic use of all six arms and legs. He lay pinned against Uhura's feet.
Kirk gritted his teeth and struggled to pull himself toward the deserted navigation console. As he moved, he rose slightly off the deck and was bounced end over end, coming to a stop against the library station.
"Allow me, Captain," said Spock. Now the G-forces seemed to increase, decrease, and change direction capriciously, making it far harder to judge one's movements. Up, down, and sideways changed without warning.
Uhura screamed as she was suddenly thrown and pinned against the ceiling. Much more of this, Kirk reflected, and it wouldn't matter whether the ship broke up or not, because her crew would long since have preceded her.
Somehow Spock managed to inch his way toward the helm. There was a crackling discharge, and the deck lights flashed on and off. More cracklings followed, mixed with the groans of metal alloy strained to its utmost. Kirk revised his estimates of the approaching catastrophe.
The Enterprise would disintegrate first after all. They would all experience the unique sensation of floating free in the maelstrom before the surrounding radiation and hard space would reduce them to their component atoms.
Spock reached the helm. Bracing him
self firmly with one arm, he used the other to fumble at several controls. The Enterprise began to break away from the spinning, violent iridescence and move toward the center of the vortex.
It hung there motionless for several long seconds, warp-engines fighting to drive her outward and back into normal space. Then the ship began to drift, slowly at first but with steadily increasing speed, down the rapidly narrowing funnel.
But that was all. The vibrating ceased; the smell of overloaded circuits and the sound of tortured metal stopped, and the crushing centrifugal force was instantly wiped out. Once more they had a recognizable up and down, as the ship's artificial gravity computer finally restored some order.
Back in engineering, Scott had to duck as one of his technicians fell slowly past him. Kirk's voice sounded over the intercom.
"Engineering ... status report." By now Scott was on his feet again - though moving cautiously - and checking readouts. Several of the delicate instruments used to measure gravitation were completely gone, having been maltreated to the point of destruction. They no longer registered anything, since they had been overloaded even beyond emergency shutdown.
Scott whistled silently. Without the powerful gravity compensators, there would be nothing left of the crew of the Enterprise now but a multitude of brownish smears against floors, walls, and ceilings.
But the readings on the instruments that had survived intact were encouraging. Scott spoke toward the wide open pickup grid.
"There's some damage, Captain, but I think everything can be repaired." He groaned and reached for his lower back. "Includin' me."
"Okay, Scotty, do your best. We're running down the center of some kind of spiraling energy storm. I don't know how long we've got till we reach bottom, or what will happen when we get there. Be ready. Bridge out."
"Be ready, he says," Scott mumbled, "and for what?" Well, whatever it was, he would do his best to see that the Enterprise was ready for it.
Star Trek Log Three Page 15
