The Face of the Unknown

by Christopher L. Bennett

  “Has that particular guard been on shift before during your incarceration?”

  “Yes. They’re on a four-shift rotation.”

  “How many times did he go past before I arrived?”

  “Maybe a couple of dozen. Why?”

  “Excellent,” Spock said. “That means his long-term memory stores an image of this cell with only you present within it.” He took a deep breath. “It is possible that if I concentrate, I may be able to influence the guard telepathically to see that image when he next passes. In effect, I can make myself invisible to him.”

  “You mean the same mental suggestion technique you used on Eminiar and the Kelvan settlement. Make the guard think we’ve escaped.” He frowned. “Are you sure that trick will work on this species? So far, your results have been hit and miss.”

  “I cannot be certain, but what I intend here is simpler than in those cases. Rather than imposing the specific concept of our escape, all I need do in this case is to restimulate a sense memory that has already been reinforced through repetition.”

  “I don’t understand,” Koust said.

  Spock turned to him. “Since this guard has only seen me in this cell once, after seeing the captain alone on multiple occasions, he will subconsciously expect this cell to have only one occupant. My presence is still a novel aberration in the long-term pattern. All I have to do is apply a slight telepathic pressure to the guard’s mind, making him see what he habitually expects to see and overlook the new input. Namely myself.”

  Kirk was grinning now. “But the guard will still remember you’re supposed to be here, right?”

  “Indeed. I will only affect his sensory perception.”

  “So he’ll look in the cell and see you gone. Thinking you’ve escaped, he’ll come in to investigate. And then you can come up from behind and whomp him.”

  Spock raised a brow. It wasn’t often that Kirk let his Iowan upbringing slip into his speech. “I was assuming I would use a nerve pinch, not a ‘whomp.’ ”

  “We can’t be sure a nerve pinch will work on his species either.”

  “Perhaps not,” Spock said. “But the less overt disruption we cause, the better our chances.”

  Kirk nodded. “Right. Finesse and subtlety.”

  “So how,” Koust wanted to know, “do we finesse our way to the transporter chamber?”

  “The guard should have access,” Kirk said. “You can extract the codes from his mind, right, Spock?”

  “In theory.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Spock moved to sit cross-legged in the forward corner of the cell, where he began to meditate, preparing himself for the mental effort to come. And preparing Kirk and Koust as well, as he explained it. He advised them to do their best to ignore him, which would be easier if he made no sound or motion until the guard came. Though if anything, his preternatural stillness made it hard for Kirk not to stare at him.

  Once the guard appeared in the viewport, Kirk gave the burly alien his best innocent look. The guard hesitated, seeming puzzled. Kirk forced himself not to glance over at Spock. “What . . . where is the other one?” the guard said.

  “What other one?” Kirk said in the most pure and guileless voice he could muster.

  As anticipated, the guard opened the cell and came in to double-check it. He looked around the whole cell, including the corner where Spock crouched, but did not acknowledge the Vulcan’s presence. The guard whirled on Kirk. “Where did he go?” the reptilian guard cried, looming over the captain menacingly.

  Just then, Spock’s hand appeared on the guard’s shoulder and squeezed.

  Nothing happened.

  The guard whirled, lashing out at the unseen intruder, but Spock had already ducked. Whereupon he struck the guard forcefully in the solar plexus, then shot his other fist upward into the Niatoko’s jaw with a force that seemed to originate in the ground beneath him and travel through his body. The guard fell as though poleaxed.

  Koust cheered. “That was a mighty whomp!”

  “Please, Mister Koust,” Spock said, massaging his knuckles while Kirk relieved the guard of his sidearm. “We should salvage what subtlety we can.”

  The rest of the plan went more smoothly. Using the guard’s keycard and the codes Spock plucked from his mind, they freed Koust, whereupon the threesome made their way to the guard post at the end of the corridor. “We should try to find where they’re holding Balok,” Kirk whispered.

  “Provided that the opportunity presents itself,” Spock agreed.

  A second guard, a reddish humanoid with backswept spines instead of hair, manned the post. Kirk tucked the sidearm into his waistband and strode forward casually, smiling at her. “Excuse me. Hello. I was wondering if you could tell me where to find the commissary.”

  Not that he expected the guard to fall for it; she just needed to be off-balance for a moment, unsure if he posed a threat. By the time she recognized him and pulled her sidearm, he had already whipped out the other guard’s weapon and brought it to bear. She froze, setting down her weapon at Kirk’s instruction. Spock moved behind her and used the nerve pinch, successfully this time. Spock went to work on the guard post’s computer, using the first guard’s access codes. “I have Commander Balok’s location. I have accessed the surveillance network and guard allocations. I shall clear a pathway to Balok’s cell and from there to the outgoing transporter station.” He relieved the second guard of her weapon, and they set off.

  “And how am I supposed to fight without a weapon?” Koust hissed.

  Kirk threw him a look. “The way you bluster about your fearsome Dassik battle prowess? Aren’t your bare hands and teeth enough to let you take down an army?”

  “Of course,” Koust countered. “But I don’t want to make you look too weak in comparison.”

  Spock looked back and forth between them. “Fascinating.”

  Soon, they reached Balok’s cell, where they found the Fesarius commander sitting quietly with his eyes closed. Once Spock had opened it, Kirk moved inside. “Balok!”

  The Linnik opened his eyes, focusing slowly on Kirk. “What is it?”

  “Balok, it’s Kirk. We’re here to get you out. Are you all right?” Had Mure “interrogated” him as well as Koust? If it came to that, Kirk was grateful that Balok would be easy to carry.

  But after another moment, the commander smiled and rose smoothly to his feet. “I’m fine. Shall we go?”

  Kirk traded a look with Spock. The commander’s lively attitude was nowhere to be seen. But Kirk supposed that imprisonment could do that to a person. The best thing for Balok was to get him to freedom.

  Luckily, Spock’s efforts to create a safe path were up to his usual standards of thoroughness. “You know, I think this is actually going to work,” Kirk said after the foursome had passed through several more nice, empty corridors, untroubled except by the intermittent rumbling and swaying of the module around them. “A victory for subtlety and finesse.” He swiped the keycard to open the next door.

  Beyond which were the sounds of phaser fire. Kirk looked around the door frame—just in time to see the tail end of a messy firefight. Sulu, Prescott, Nored, and several others from the Enterprise were caught in a crossfire with three guards, while behind them, a trail of stunned bodies led back to a large hole blown in the wall.

  “Hey!” Kirk called, dividing the guards’ attention. This let Sulu break from cover and advance to a better position, but two of the guards promptly resumed firing on his team while the third diverted fire to Kirk’s location. The captain returned fire and ducked back behind the door. He traded a glance with Spock—who had already shoved Balok behind the other side of the door frame—and dove across the doorway, firing wildly at the guards, drawing their fire so Spock could lean out and stun one of them. Kirk got off a shot at a second guard just as her gun barrel came to bear on
his head. The guard convulsed and the beam went astray, grazing Kirk’s ear. The action distracted the final guard enough for Sulu to take him down.

  Once the coast was clear, Kirk stepped forward, facing his delighted crew. He sighed and shook his head. “Honestly. I can’t take you people anywhere.”

  “Captain!” Sulu beamed. “Mister Spock!” He laughed. “I should’ve known you’d find your own way out.”

  “Jim!” Kirk’s eyes widened as Leonard McCoy’s head peeked out from behind Prescott’s burly frame. “My God, am I glad to see you!”

  “Bones?” Kirk laughed. “What the devil are you doing on a strike team?”

  “What do you think?” McCoy groused. “You always manage to get into trouble without me. Somebody’s gotta keep you alive.”

  “Captain!” Sulu’s eyes widened in alarm as Koust emerged behind Kirk. The young helmsman raised his phaser rifle, followed by his security team. “A Dassik!”

  “Stand down!” Kirk said forcefully. “This is Koust. He’s a fellow prisoner, a victim of an assassination attempt. And he’s agreed to work with us to escape.” The phaser barrels wavered, but only slightly. “If we want to get out of here, we need all the help we can get. So lower your weapons. That’s an order.”

  Sulu and the guards lowered their weapons, though they kept a close eye on Koust. The Dassik looked at Kirk. “You keep your word after all, human.”

  Jim smiled. “We have our moments.” He looked to the doctor. “Bones, any injuries?”

  “Zhang’s stunned,” McCoy said, kneeling over the black-haired ensign. “I’ll have her on her feet in a minute,” he added as he applied his ubiquitous hypospray to her neck. “No casualties on the Web side, but they’ll have headaches from the phaser stuns, and Sulu dislocated that guy’s shoulder,” he said, nodding at a fallen Tessegri. “I’d like to treat it, if we have time.”

  “If you can make it fast, Bones.” As McCoy hurried over to the guard, Kirk looked around, puzzled. “Balok? Where are you?”

  The Fesarius captain stepped out from behind the door frame, where he’d been the whole time. “I’m fine. Shall we go?”

  Kirk turned to Sulu. “Lieutenant, where’s our ride?”

  Sulu gestured over his shoulder. “A couple more blown walls back that way,” he said. “It’s a Web-built aircraft, designed for this atmosphere, so it’s plenty fast. Uhura’s aboard now, keeping it ready for a quick getaway.”

  “Uhura?”

  “She helped us fake our clearances and track protector activity.”

  “All right, let’s start moving out. Bones, wrap it up!”

  “That’s what I’m doing!” McCoy barked, and indeed he was literally wrapping the Tessegri’s shoulder with tape. Kirk sighed.

  “Captain,” Spock said, “we will no doubt face resistance from the protectors, now that we have drawn their notice. How will our escape craft evade their magnetic tractor fields?”

  Sulu grinned. “Same way we got here, sir. The dissidents know a few tricks.”

  “Then let’s go,” Kirk ordered. These must be the same dissidents Spock had told him about, the ones who’d promised to help the Enterprise escape Cherela. He just hoped they wouldn’t exhaust their bag of tricks getting the rescue craft back to the ship. Otherwise this escape might all turn out to be moot.

  * * *

  Sulu was beginning to regret his confident boast to the captain. The dissidents’ tricks had worked well enough on the approach, when the protectors hadn’t known they were coming and Uhura had been able to ­ensure they avoided drawing attention. But getting away from the prison while the protectors were actively trying to restrain them was a different matter. The escape craft was an actual airplane, given lift by a pair of compact, adjustable wings. Since it was designed to operate exclusively within Cherela’s immense atmosphere, there was no reason for it to waste energy relying on antigravs when there was so very, very much dense air available to provide buoyancy. It had powerful thrusters to propel it at supersonic speeds—a necessity given the vast distances it had to cover—but as a strictly aerodynamic craft, it had limited maneuverability, complicating Sulu’s efforts at evading the Web’s tractor field. The plane had magnetic deflectors that let it resist that field, but their charge was finite and diminishing quickly each time the tractors’ grip closed in on them once more. Sulu had done his best to keep the craft moving unpredictably to confound their attempts to focus the tractor effect, but he was pushing the vehicle’s performance envelope. “Recommend we take her above the ceiling, sir,” Sulu said to Kirk.

  The captain looked out at the looming clouds above and frowned. “Looks like there’s a storm brewing in there. Can this type of aircraft take it?”

  “It’s a risk, sir, but if we can get above it, we’ll have cover to lose pursuit.” All they needed was a few minutes out of sight. In an atmosphere this vast, it would be hard for the Web forces to intercept them if they didn’t know where to look. If the escapees could blend in with normal Web traffic, the recreational and short-range aircraft that didn’t use the conduits, then they’d be free and clear to reach their rendezvous with the dissidents and get smuggled back aboard the Enterprise. By which time, Sulu hoped, the captain and Spock would have a plan for getting away from Cherela and the Dassik. But that was a problem for later.

  Kirk turned to his first officer. “Spock?”

  The Vulcan pondered. “If we stay below the clouds, the risk of recapture approaches certainty. We must make the attempt.”

  Kirk nodded to Sulu. “Do it.”

  “Aye, sir,” Sulu said, grinning as he angled the plane upward, battling the wind. Lightning flashed before him, taunting him, and he grinned wider. “Just try it,” he told the storm.

  A deep, raucous laugh sounded over his shoulder. He saw the Dassik, Koust, reflected in the windscreen as a flash of lightning illuminated him, the image reminding Sulu of Munch’s The Scream. “Force Leader Grun told us you humans were cowards,” he said. “I think I was lied to.”

  “About that and a lot of other things, I’d wager,” Sulu told him.

  “Ahh, so you’re a gambling man too?”

  “I like a challenge.”

  “Then I wager you can’t get us through that storm alive.”

  Sulu stared at him in bewilderment. “What do you get if you win? You’ll be dead with the rest of us!”

  “But my death will bring me victory!” Koust said. “That is its own reward.”

  “But what do I get from you if you lose?”

  “You may demand what prize you will.”

  A console alarm beeped, warning him of a static charge buildup in the clouds ahead. It figured that the Web dwellers would build their aircraft with lightning detectors. He banked left, steering away from the charge concentration, but when the lightning bolt came, it arced dangerously close to the plane. He needed to get better at reading the clouds. “Okay. If we live, then you teach me Dassik fighting styles.”

  “Armed or unarmed?”

  Sulu threw him a quick glance. “Do you use swords?”

  Koust laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. “My friend, are you sure you aren’t part Dassik yourself?”

  The blow almost cost Sulu control of the aircraft. “Hey, watch it. No fair trying to make me lose.”

  “I thought you enjoyed a challenge.”

  “Koust,” Kirk said. “Sit down and let the man fly.”

  The young predator grumbled, but he complied. Sulu was relieved. The winds were picking up sharply, and it was a struggle to keep the plane level. He wanted to get up above the storm, but the instruments showed a massive charge concentration building up right overhead, stretching for some distance. Sulu realized he’d forgotten to account for the scale of things on a Jovian world. Here, even a small storm was the size of a continent.

  A continent with an attitude. A gu
st of wind kicked the plane upward, too close to the static charge. An immense lightning bolt struck the aircraft’s tail, deafening him. He could feel the kick through the fuselage. Ears ringing, Sulu checked the readouts. They flickered, but they were holding. The plane’s magnetic shielding had protected it from the worst of the lightning.

  But it did have some effect. “Jim!” McCoy called. Sulu turned to see him crouching beside Balok, who seemed to be having a seizure.

  Immediately, Kirk was by their side. “Balok? Are you all right? Bones . . .”

  McCoy was already deploying his medical scanner. After a moment, he stared at it in dismay. “Jim—this isn’t Balok! It’s a mechanism!”

  Indeed, there was a distinctly mechanical quality to the way “Balok” was jerking around. Spock examined the false Linnik for a moment, then found some kind of deactivation control, which he operated. The robot fell limp. “The same technology as the Dassik simulacrum aboard the Fesarius,” Spock said. “Though more lifelike, presumably because Balok did not have a live example of a Dassik on which to base his model.”

  “Do you think Balok faked his capture?” Uhura asked.

  “Negative, Lieutenant,” Spock said. “This is the First’s own technology, so surely their prison officials would have been able to recognize it. Besides, I was with him at the time of his arrest, and I can attest that his behavior was far more . . . idiosyncratic . . . than the simple, repetitive responses demonstrated by this apparatus. We know the Fesarius simulacrum was teleoperated by Balok himself, not unlike the Redheri infiltration drones we recently encountered on Sigma Niobe II. But this unit was programmed to operate autonomously, either because of the vast distances between world modules or to preclude the detection of control signals.”

  Kirk frowned. “Then it must have been substituted by Warden Mure. Probably on Tirak’s orders. And they couldn’t have known we’d escape, so it must have been Nisu they were trying to fool. They’ve taken Balok somewhere else, and they don’t want the Council to know about it.”

  “Then he is likely already dead,” Koust said. “As they intended the two of us to be. With our ‘accident’ under investigation, they could not risk another in the prison itself.”