by Джеймс Блиш
Gradually, however, the tension began to grow again as the Enterprise drew near to 11872 dy. by 85746 K, the arbitrary point in space-time where she would have to break out of warp drive in order to scan for Organia — and for something utterly unknown.
“Thus far,” Kirk told his watch, “we’ve no reason to suppose that the Klingons think we’re anywhere in the vicinity. But we’ll take no chances. Mr. Sulu, I want you to engage ship’s phasers with Lieutenant Uhura’s sensor alarms, so that if we get a lock-on even the instant we come out of warp, we get a proximity explosion one nano-jiffy later. There’s a faint chance that we may blow up a friend that way, but in this sector I think it can be discounted.”
Sulu’s hands flew over his board. Uhura watched hers like a cat, occasionally pouncing as she secured the sensor circuits to his navigation aids. The telltales for the phaser rooms came on, one after the other, as the hulking, deadly machines reached readiness.
“All primed, Captain,” Sulu said.
“What is our breakout time?”
“Fourteen thirty-five twenty.”
“Lieutenant Uhura, how long will you need for a minimum scan for Organia?”
“I can get one complete spherical atlas of the skies in ten seconds, Captain.”
“Very well. Mr. Sulu, give us ten seconds in normal space, then turn to a heading of forty-eight Mark zero-six-nine at Warp One. Better set it into the computer, Mr. Spock.”
Spock Two nodded, but Sulu asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier to clock it from my board?”
“I want it both ways, as a fail-safe.”
“Do you wish a countdown, Captain?” Spock Two said.
“I see no reason for it when we’re on automatic. It just creates tension unnecessarily. Steady as you go, and stand by.”
The minutes trickled away. Then, with the usual suddenness, the Enterprise was in normal space.
And with equal suddenness, nothing else was normal.
Though he could not tell how he sensed it, Kirk felt the presence of a huge maw, a wound, a vortex in the very fabric of space-time itself. It was as if some unimaginable force had torn open the underlying metrical frame of the universe, leaving absolute and utter Nothingness, the ultimate blankness which had preceded even the creation of Chaos. And the Enterprise was plunging straight into it.
The sensation was one of pure horror. Although the ten seconds seemed to stretch out into hours, Kirk was completely paralyzed, and around him his companions were as rigid as statues.
Then it was gone, as if it had never been. The Enterprise was back on Warp Drive.
The bell from the engineering deck jammered.
“What in bloody blue blazes was that?”
“Don’t know, Scotty, get off the blower till we figure it out and I’ll pass you the word. I assume the rest of your crew felt it too?”
There was a brief silence. “Aye, that they did.”
“Mr. Sulu, do we have our new heading?”
“Yes, sir,” said the helmsman, white-lipped.
“Did you get your pictures, Lieutenant? Good, let’s have a look at them. And open a line to Spock One — I have a hunch we’re going to need all the brains we can muster to crack this nut.”
The distorted stars of subspace vanished from the viewing screen, to be replaced by a normal-looking starfield. At its center, however, was a gently glowing, spherical object, fuzzy of appearance and with a peculiar silvery sheen.
“That,” said Uhura, “is at the coordinates for Organia. Unless my own memory is playing me tricks, it hasn’t the faintest resemblance to the images of Organia we have stored in the log from our first visit. Organia has pronounced surface markings and is a Class M planet. This thing looks like a gas giant, insofar as it looks like anything at all.”
“In addition to the fact,” Kirk said, “that we were heading straight for it when we came out of warp drive, and my mental and emotional impression was that there was nothing there at all — NOTHING in great quivering capital letters. Did anybody have a different impression?”
All shook their heads. Spock Two said, “Captain, we know the Organians are masters of hypnotism, and can manipulate other energy flows as well with great virtuosity. They are quite capable of giving their planet any apparent aspect that they like, even to the camera.”
“In ten seconds?” Kirk said. “I’ll grant that the emotional effect could be a part of some sort of general mental broadcast, but I doubt that even the Organians. could jump aboard a ship and scramble its camera circuits that precisely on that short notice.”
“Besides, my cameras aren’t standard; I’ve rewired them a lot from time to time,” Uhura said. “In order to know the circuits well enough to tinker with them, they’d have to read my mind, or get the altered wiring diagrams out of the computer.”
“The full extent of their capabilities is quite unknown,” Spock Two said.
“I’m not arguing about that,” Kirk said. “But why should they give one impression to us and a quite different one to the cameras? Either they want us to think that Organia’s not there, or that it has been drastically transformed — but why both? They know the contradiction would arouse our curiosity — though both appearances seem designed to discourage it, taken singly. And that seems to indicate that the camera appearance was not their work, and that the pictures show the real situation — whatever that is.”
“If so,” Spock Two said, “it is logically economical to suppose that there is a common explanation: that the Organians have surrounded their planet with some kind of an energy screen, which is what the cameras see, and whose effects are what we felt.”
“That’s reasonable,” Kirk said. “But if true, it throws a large wooden shoe into our original plan. To put it mildly, I have the distinct feeling that the Organians do not want to be visited. And if we were to go down there anyhow, I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to stand up under the pressure of that field for more than a minute. Do I hear any volunteers who think they might?”
Nobody volunteered. At length Kirk said, “Spock One, we’ve heard nothing from you thus far. Have you any thoughts on this problem?”
“Yes, Captain,” the intercom said in Spock’s voice. “Though I have not seen the pictures in question, your discussions have been complete enough to permit analysis. It seems evident that you are all off on the wrong track. The answer is in fact quite simple, though far from obvious.”
“All right, what is it? Spit it out, man.”
“Only on receipt of my guarantees, Captain.”
“That,” Kirk said grimly, “is blackmail.”
“The term is accurate, and therefore neither offends nor persuades.”
“And what about the security of the ship?”
“My analysis of the situation,” the intercom said, “leads me to conclude that the presence of the replicate first officer is a greater danger to the security of the ship than is the inaccessibility of Organia. I therefore continue to insist upon my terms.”
Kirk turned angrily to the simulacrum of the first officer who was on the bridge. “Spock Two, do you have any idea of what he might be hinting at?”
“None whatsoever, I regret to say. Our thought processes are now markedly different, as I predicted from the start that they would become. From the data available, I believe your present view of the Organian situation to be the correct one, though necessarily incomplete.”
That was superficially reassuring, Kirk thought, but actually no help at all. If Spock One did indeed have the answer, it might be worth giving him the guarantees he demanded (what was it that Shylock kept saying in The Merchant of Venice? “I’ll have my bond!”) to get it — which Spock Two, especially if he was the replicate, would resist to protect his own life. But if Spock One was the replicate, his claim to have a solution might simple be a ruse to insure the destruction of the original. If his solution turned out to be wrong, well, he could always plead inadequate data; Kirk had never required his first officer to be infallible, m
uch though Spock himself disliked finding himself in error.
“We’ll proceed on our present assumption,” Kirk said finally. “Working from those, the only chance we have of rescuing any part of our original plan is to find some way of getting past that screen, shielding ourselves from its effects, or neutralizing it entirely. I’ll throw that little gem to Mr. Scott, but he’ll have to have detailed sensor readings from the screen to analyze — which, I’m sorry to say, means another pass through the sector off warp drive. Orders:
“Lieutenant Uhura, find out from Mr. Scott what sensor setup he thinks would be most likely to be helpful to him, and what is the shortest possible time in which he could get sufficient readings. And once Mr. Sulu has set up a flight plan for the pass, make sure the entire crew is forewarned to expect another one of those emotional shocks, and how long it will last.
“Spock Two, have the computer print out a complete rundown of anything that might be known about any screen even vaguely like this one — including conjectures — and turn it over to Mr. Scott.” He stood up tiredly. “I’m going to the rec room for a sandwich. If I’m not back by the time the pass is set up, call me. All other arrangements for the pass are to be as they were before.”
“You are making a serious mistake, Captain,” said the voice of Spock One.
“You leave me no choice, Mr. Spock. All hands, execute!”
Kirk was more or less braced for the impact of the terror when the next moment of breakout came, but the preparation did not seem to do him much good. The experience was in fact worse this time, for it had to be longer — Scott had insisted upon a run of forty-five interminable seconds, during which the Enterprise and all her crew seemed to be falling straight into the Pit. And during the last ten seconds, there was a flash of intense white flame off to one side — the burst of a proximity explosion from one of the ship’s phasers. Three seconds later, there was still another.
“Heels, Sulu!” Uhura cried. “The place is swarming with Klingons!”
Chapter Seven — THE ATTACK
From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4181.6:
Apparently six Klingon battlecraft locked onto us during our second pass at Organia — or whatever it is where Organia ought to be. If they were in the vicinity during our first pass, which I think almost certain, only the briefness of our breakout can have saved us from being detected then. It is also possible, of course, that we would not have been detected the second time had it not been for our own automatic phaser fire, depending upon whether the Klingon force was a garrison or an ambush. If it was the latter, the proximity setting on the phasers did us a favor, for our hits must have disabled two of them; only four are following on warp drive. With another enemy I would expect someone to stay behind as a reserve, out of ordinary tactical common sense, but no Klingon would avoid a fight unless physically pinned down in one way or another.
Most battles in space are either over almost the instant they begin — as had evidently been the case with the two surprised Klingon vessels — or became very protracted affairs, because of the immense distances involved. (The first sentence of Starfleet Academy’s Fundamentals of Naval Engagement reads: “The chief obstacle facing a Starship Captain who wishes to join battle is that battle is almost impossible to join.”)
This one showed every sign of going on forever. None of the four surviving Klingon ships was as large as their quarry, whose phasers outranged theirs sufficiently to keep them at a respectful distance, while her deflectors easily swept aside the occasional Klingon torpedo. In short, a standoff.
Kirk knew from experience, however, that the standoff could not be a stalemate; the blasts of code being emitted steadily on subspace radio by the small Klingon vessels — three of them seemed to be corvettes, the other was perhaps as large as a cruiser — were obviously urgent calls for more high-powered help. Nor was there any further reason for the Enterprise to preserve radio silence.
“Inform Starfleet Command of our whereabouts,” he told Lieutenant Uhura. “Include a description of the Organian situation and a hologram of your best plate of the body in Organia’s orbit. Tell them we’re under attack and ask for orders. Second, as a separate message, send them Spock Two’s conclusions on current Klingon strategy. Third, route a flash Urgent straight through to the Scientific Advisory Board describing our superfluity of Spocks and exactly how it happened — with hard, full particulars from Mr. Scott — and ask them for analysis and advice…- By the way, how old is our most recent code?”
“Just a year old, Captain.”
“The Klingons will have broken that six ways from Sunday by now. Well, you’ll have to use it — but put the clear in Swahili and ask to get the answers the same way. That ought to give the Klingons pause.”
“It will indeed,” Uhura said, grinning. “But even modem Swahili lacks some of Scotty’s technical terms, Captain. There are Indo-European borrowings in every Earthly language — and the Klingons may be able to infer the rest of the message using them as contexts.”
“Blast and damn. Leaving the technicalities out will throw us right back on our own resources, and I can’t say we’ve done too well with those.”
“There’s an alternative, Captain, though it’s risky; we can translate the clear into Eurish.”
“What’s that? I never heard of it.”
“It’s the synthetic language James Joyce invented for his last novel, over two hundred years ago. It contains forty or fifty other languages, including slang in all of them. Nobody but an Earthman could possibly make sense of it, and there are only a few hundred of them who are fluent in it. There’s the risk; it may take Starfleet Command some time to run down an expert in it — if they even recognize it for what it is.”
Being a communications officer, Kirk realized anew, involved a good many fields of knowledge besides subspace radio. “Can it handle scientific terms?”
“Indeed it can. You know the elementary particle called the quark; well, that’s a Eurish word. Joyce himself predicted nuclear fission in the novel I mentioned. I can’t quote it precisely, but roughly it goes, ‘The abniliilisation of the etym expolodotonates through Parsuralia with an ivanmorinthorrorumble fragoromboassity amidwhiches general uttermosts confussion are perceivable moletons skaping with mulicules.’ There’s more, but I can’t recall it — it has been a long time since I last read the book.”
“That’s more than enough,” Kirk said hastily. “Go ahead — just as long as you’re sure you can read the answer.”
“Nobody’s ever dead sure of what Eurish means,” Uhura said. “But I can probably read more of it than the Klingons could. To them, it’ll be pure gibberish.”
And they won’t be alone, Kirk thought. Nevertheless, he could forget about it for the time being. That still left the problem of the Klingon ships on the tail of the Enterprise.
Sowing a mine field in the ship’s wake would be useless; the enemy craft doubtless had deflectors, and in any event the mines, being too small to carry their own warp generators, would simply fall out into normal space and become a hazard to peacetime navigation. But wait a minute…
“Mr. Spock, check me on something. When we put out a deflector beam when we’re on warp drive, the warp field flows along the beam to the limit of the surface area of the field. Then, theoretically, the field fails and we’re back in normal space. All right so far?”
“Yes, Captain, a simple inverse-square-law effect.”
“And contrariwise,” Kirk said, “using a tractor beam on warp drive pulls the field in around the beam, which gives us a little extra velocity but dangerously biases our heading.” Spock Two nodded. “All right, I think we’ve got the basis for a little experiment. I want to plant a mine right under the bow of that cruiser, using a deflector and a tractor beam in tandem, with a little more power on the deflector. At the same time, I want our velocity run up so that our warp field will fail just as the mine explodes. Fill in the parameters, including the cruiser’s pseudo distance and relative veloci
ty, and see if it’s feasible.”
Spock Two turned to the computer and worked silently for a few moments. Then he said, “Yes, Captain, mathematically it is not a complex operation. But the library has no record of any Starship ever surviving the puncturing of its warp field by a deflector while under drive.”
“And when nearly balanced by a tractor?”
“No pertinent data. At best, I would estimate, the strain on the Enterprise would be severe.”
Yes, Kirk thought, and just maybe you don’t much want that Klingon cruiser knocked out, either.
“We’ll try it anyhow. Mr. Sulu, arm a mine and program the operation. Also — the instant we are back in normal space, give us maximum acceleration along our present heading on reaction drive.”
“That,” Spock Two said in the original Spock’s most neutral voice, “involves a high probability of shearing the command section free of the engineering section.”
“Why? We’ve done it before.”
“Because of the compounding of the shock incident upon the puncturing of the warp field, Captain.”
“We’ll take that chance too. In case it has escaped your attention, we happen to be in the middle of a battle. Lieutenant, warn ship’s personnel to beware shock. Stand to, all, and execute.”
Spock Two offered no further obstructions. Silently, Uhura set up on the main viewing screen a panorama of the sector in which the trap — if it worked — was to be sprung. The Klingon cruiser would have looked like a distorted mass of tubes and bulbs even close on, under the strange conditions of subspace; at its present distance, it was little more than a wobbly shadow.
Then the dense, irregular mass, made fuzzy with interference fringes, which was the best view they could hope to get of the mine, pushed its way onto the screen, held at the tip of two feathers of pale light, their pinnae pointing in opposite directions, which were the paired deflector and tractor beams (which in normal space would have been invisible). As the mine reached the inside surface of the warp field, that too became faintly visible, and in a moment was bulging toward the Klingon vessel. The impression it gave, of a monstrous balloon about to have a blowout, was alarming.
