The Final Nexus

by Gene DeWeese

  McCoy frowned. "You're saying that if we don't get the blazes out of here in short order, these secondary bubbles could disappear the same way the primary one did? And we'll end up dead in a few hours?"

  "There are far too many unknowns in the equation for me to make a reliable prediction concerning our own survival time. For example, the very fact that we are aware of the existence of these secondary bubbles may itself have an adverse effect on them."

  "In other words, your guess is as good as mine," McCoy snorted. "And you seem to be suggesting that what we didn't know couldn't have hurt us. Did I hear right, Spock? Did you say we might have been better off ignorant?"

  "In these peculiar circumstances, Doctor, that is unfortunately also a possibility. However, the overall knowledge we have just gained does give us a chance to save both ourselves and the Federation, whereas total ignorance would have gained us nothing—with the possible exception of a longer life here in exile."

  Kirk, listening to the exchange, turned to Ansfield. "If we can believe Kremastor, our only chance of getting back into the gate system is to get his nullifier working again."

  She nodded. "That or get rid of our invisible friend."

  "At least we have a chance of repairing the nullifier," he said. "But the question is whether Kremastor is telling the truth about it. Or about his entire 'mission.' Your evaluation, Commander? You have been in closer, more prolonged contact with him than any of us."

  Ansfield shrugged. "I believe him."

  "Anyone else?" Kirk asked, glancing around the bridge.

  "He did give us the map of the nexus system, Captain," Spock pointed out.

  "Which could be incomplete or a total fake for all we know," McCoy said, but then he grimaced. "But what other choice do we have, Jim? I don't relish making a career out of getting chewed up and spit out by that blasted gate. And I relish even less the idea of spending the rest of my days millions of parsecs from the nearest fishing hole."

  But they did try the gate one more time without the nullifier and over Kremastor's objections. The results, however, were no different from the first four times.

  Except that when they recovered this time, the strength of the entity's presence had increased dramatically. Now it could be felt by virtually everyone on board, not just Spock.

  "The clan is gathering," Ansfield said with a shiver.

  And when they spoke to Kremastor moments later, it was obvious that he, too, was feeling the entity's presence, perhaps even more intensely than anyone on the Enterprise.

  Minutes later, with a modified tricorder, Scotty began locating the circuits that powered the nullifier ring, itself mounted next to the sensor array on the front of Kremastor's blocky, otherwise featureless ship. Locating the circuits took only minutes, but considerably more time was required to cut through the seamless, diamond-hard coating that covered every square centimeter of the ship. Either an excess of power, causing the torch to cut too deeply, or a deviation of more than a few millimeters from the prescribed cutting path could have disabled essential circuits.

  Nor was modifying the alien circuits easy. Kremastor, his internal sensors monitoring the endangered circuits, provided Scotty with guidance that grew steadily more nervous, as if the effect the entity was having on Kremastor was growing stronger by the minute.

  But in the end, despite moments when Kremastor seemed almost incoherent, the job was completed. According to Kremastor's readings, the modified nullifier circuits were operating nearly as well as when the ship had first been constructed around him.

  Finally, the hull was resealed, and all was in readiness.

  A mixture of elation and dread dominated Kremastor's thoughts as he maneuvered out of the huge ship's hangar deck.

  Elation that the nullifier was once again in virtually perfect working order. After twenty thousand years of fear and frustration and isolation, the possibility of completing his mission had been revived and now hung before him like a tantalizing vision.

  And dread because of the ever more threatening presence of the creature. For all of those twenty thousand years it had been his constant companion, a constant source of numbing fear, but never had it been as powerful, as terrifying, as now.

  Was it gathering its strength to stop him from destroying the nexus system?

  As soon as the Trap was nullified, would it simply take complete control and once again have the same freedom it had enjoyed before?

  But he had no way of knowing if the creature was even aware of his mission.

  Or of Kremastor himself.

  The one called Spock seemed to be convinced that the creature had a mind—several separate minds, even—that was capable of thought, but he offered no proof other than his own unverified and totally ambiguous mental contacts with the creature. Kremastor, on the other hand, had lived in terrifying proximity to the creature, virtually in symbiosis with it, for millennia, and he had yet to detect any indication of intelligence, any attempt at communication. There had never even been a true indication that it was alive, that it was not simply a mindless phenomenon of nature, a by-product of whatever forces allowed the nexus system itself to exist.

  But regardless of its nature or its intelligence or its motives, if its power continued to grow as it had these last few hours, he would once again be totally incapacitated, as he had been when it had first attached itself to him, before the trauma of the Trap had overloaded his mind and given him the painful immunity that had allowed him to function at least minimally. Therefore, if he were going to complete his mission, it had to be done quickly. He had no time to waste.

  Those on the Enterprise, particularly the one called Spock, wished to "investigate" whatever could be found at what, according to the maps, was the source of the system, the central nexus. In order to gain information that they hoped would help them in their own struggles against the creatures that had already invaded their home territory, they insisted on accompanying him on his mission.

  And on delaying the final destruction of the system.

  "Wait at least one cycle," the one called Kirk had said. "You have already been forced to wait for thousands of years. A few more hours, in return for the possibility of saving tens of billions of lives in the Federation, doesn't seem a lot to ask."

  And Kremastor had agreed.

  He had even promised to do as they asked, but he was becoming increasingly certain that he could not keep that promise. Billions of his own ancestors had already been killed by this creature, and he could not bring himself to take even the slightest chance of allowing the killing to continue indefinitely into the future.

  If, when he arrived at his destination, the creature's strength was still building, he would activate the device immediately. The hundreds of lives on that ship, even the billions at risk in their Federation, were as nothing compared to his millennia-delayed mission and the possibility of its failure. It was too late to save his own people, and it might be too late to save those who called themselves human, but it was not too late to save the countless other races that had not yet encountered the nexus system and its deadly inhabitant.

  But first, before he could do anything, the Trap that had kept him here all those millennia had to be nullified.

  Slowly, Kremastor approached the nexus, the Enterprise barely a kilometer behind. His own sensors had not been modified, so the image was the same phantom it had always been in this universe.

  This universe …

  For a moment, the recurring realization that he was separated not only from his home world but from his entire universe froze Kremastor's mind.

  But at the same time, the even more chilling realization that he and his mission were responsible for not one universe but dozens or hundreds descended on him once again.

  He forced himself toward calmness and continued his approach to the nexus, its image deceptively pale and fragile in his sensors.

  Finally, he was within range.

  Without hesitation, without announcing his action to
the Enterprise, he activated the nullifier.

  The ring on the blunt prow of his ship pulsed invisibly. Only in the circuits he monitored was there tangible evidence of its activity.

  For a minute, then two, he continued. There was no indication of success, but he had known there would not be. The only indication would be when he once again attempted to enter the nexus system.

  Finally, he shut the nullifier down.

  And waited.

  In twenty minutes and thirty-seven seconds, if he and his contemporaries, now twenty thousand years dead, had interpreted the maps correctly, he could enter the nexus and emerge, only seconds later, from the central nexus.

  "Was it successful?" the one called Kirk asked when Kremastor had been silent for nearly five of the twenty minutes.

  "We will know when we attempt to enter," he responded.

  No one said more. For the remainder of the twenty minutes, there was silence between the ships.

  "Begin the approach," Kremastor said.

  As his last word died away, his ship surged forward. The Enterprise followed, now less than a half-kilometer behind. Within seconds, it was even with Kremastor, and there it stayed. The nexus filled his view. At these distances, even the phantom image his sensors produced began to show details, but swirls of ghostly smoke rather than the vivid, stormlike ragings the aliens had described.

  Abruptly, the creature's presence seemed to grip Kremastor even more powerfully than before, almost drowning him in terror, and for a moment he was paralyzed with fear, certain he would lose control and be unable to act.

  But he held on. The knowledge that completion of his mission, after all these millennia of tortured waiting, was once again within reach gave him a strength he had never known before.

  And forced the decision on him.

  He would not delay the destruction of the system a single second, let alone the hours the strangers requested.

  He dared not delay, no matter how grateful he might be, no matter what he had promised them. Obviously, the creature was more powerful than ever. Given the slightest chance, it could paralyze him as it had before and prevent him from acting against it, prevent him from carrying out the destruction of the nexus system.

  Or it could take control of the strangers—if it had not indeed been in control of them from the start!—and use their weapons to destroy him before he could act.

  It would then be free to roam the nexus system from universe to universe, free to destroy civilization after civilization without the slightest hindrance!

  He had no choice.

  The instant he emerged from the central nexus, before the creature had the chance to paralyze or destroy him, he would destroy it. He would activate the device immediately, destroying the nexus system once and for all!

  Chapter Twenty-three

  KIRK WATCHED THE GATE as they waited. Unlike the nexus—the junctions that joined the individual gates—the gates maintained a constant size, this one approximately five hundred kilometers in diameter.

  But the display of energies was no less spectacular, and the realization that a million such displays had been operating continuously for tens of thousands of years was almost impossible to conceive of. Whatever the source of those energies, it must be literally astronomical, as if someone had harnessed the Shapley center itself.

  Despite the virtual certainty that the system was beginning to break down, to spring dangerous leaks, some of which threatened the very existence of the Federation, Kirk could not help but feel a gut-wrenching regret at the thought of destroying the entire system. Not just shutting it down, which would take far more knowledge than either Kremastor's people or Federation scientists yet possessed, but destroying it.

  To shut it down, the energies involved would have to be understood, and Kremastor's people, after generations of study, had not had that understanding, any more than Benjamin Franklin had had an understanding of the nature of electricity when, with more daring than sense, he had almost killed himself by pulling a bolt of lightning from the sky with a metal key on a kite string. They had learned to measure and manipulate the energies to a small extent, but primarily by trial and error. The basic nature and source of those energies were no less mysterious now than when Kremastor's ancestors had stumbled onto that first gate.

  But perhaps the situation was different now, Kirk found himself rationalizing as he continued to watch the gate's almost hypnotic pyrotechnics. After all, none of Kremastor's people had realized that the gates were connected not just to different parts of their own universe but to totally different universes. With this new and critical information to work with, understanding might come more quickly than anyone could imagine.

  Perhaps the differences between the energy levels of the different universes were themselves the source of the energy that drove the gates, just as the difference between the energy level of a thundercloud and the energy level of the ground below produced bolts of lightning. Perhaps, with this information, the Federation could learn to fully control the energy, not just manipulate it empirically—blindly—with no real understanding of what they were doing. Perhaps the system itself could be controlled, even temporarily shut down while a solution to the problem of the entity was sought. The thought of its total destruction and the resultant immeasurable loss ran counter to everything Kirk had ever felt.

  Especially now that it was clear that not just one universe but several were involved. There was, in fact, no longer even a reason to assume that any two gates were in the same universe. Instead of a million gates spread throughout a dozen or a hundred universes, it could be that each and every gate opened into a different universe. The nexus in the Sagittarius arm might be the only opening in that entire universe.

  Except for the leaks.

  But wherever the gates led—could it be to different times as well as different universes?—was there no way to avoid destroying them? Now that the existence of the deadly creatures that roamed the system was known, now that the crew of the Enterprise had successfully coexisted with one of them for several days, wasn't it at least possible that, with this knowledge, the rest of the Federation could be taught to do the same?

  Until real, full-scale communication with the creatures could be established?

  Spock had already come close to communicating, particularly on his last attempt. And he insisted that he had detected no "hostility" during that or any other contact.

  Was communication the answer? Kirk asked himself abruptly. It had proven to be the answer—the only possible answer—dozens of times before. Even in that chain of wars that had been raging for thousands of years before the Enterprise had become involved, the answer had been communication. Once the latest in the long line of combatants had begun to talk to each other, the destruction had, at least for the time being, stopped.

  But in that instance, the warring factions had both been humanoid, not even all that different from each other physically or mentally.

  Here, despite Spock's findings, Kirk couldn't even be positive he was dealing with a living being.

  Shuddering inwardly at the memory of the paranoid fear the creature had generated during its brief attempt to control him, Kirk realized that there was really no decision to be made.

  He had no choice.

  For the sake of the Federation, for the sake of those other, unknown future civilizations, he dared take no chances.

  If the maps Kremastor had given them were correct, the Enterprise would have just under three hours from the time it emerged from the central nexus to the time when the first window to the Sagittarius nexus opened.

  They would spend those three hours gathering as much information as they could, but when the time was up, they would leave, no matter how little—or how much—they had learned. They would not try to convince Kremastor that he should postpone the completion of his millennia-spanning suicide mission for the sake of gaining more knowledge, not even for another single eight-hour cycle of the nexus.

  But eve
n as the determination firmed itself in Kirk's mind, Kremastor's voice forced itself through the static from the other ship: "Begin the approach."

  Kirk braced himself as both ships surged forward. If the modifications to Kremastor's nullifier were as successful as the modifications to the Enterprise's artificial gravity system had been—full impulse power now produced only the slightest hint of any imbalance—there would, at more than half of light speed, be only a flicker as they entered the gate and emerged from the central nexus milliseconds later.

  If the modifications had not been successful, and the Trap had not been nullified—Tensely, he waited as Spock counted down the seconds.

  And suddenly, between the syllables of "zero," the gate and the millions of parsecs of emptiness that surrounded it were replaced by a field of stars that could have been those of the Federation.

  Relief flooded through Kirk. They had made it!

  An instant later, the relief was replaced by a sudden chill.

  The entity, whose presence had been growing stronger virtually up to the moment of entry into the gate, was gone!

  "Spock, can you detect the entity's presence?" he asked sharply.

  "No, Captain. And Kremastor's ship," Spock added, indicating the viewscreen, "appears to be gone as well."

  Abruptly, Kirk swung back to face the screen. Spock was right. During the approach to the gate, Kremastor's tiny ship had been only a few hundred meters distant, clearly visible, but now there was nothing, not even the nexus from which they had just emerged.

  "The sensors, Spock," he snapped, but Spock had already turned and was absorbing the multiplicity of readouts.

  "Nothing registering, Captain," he said after a moment. "But the sensors now have a range of less than ten kilometers, and that range is already decreasing rapidly."