“There’s a time and a place for that, Spock. You need to work on figuring out when.”
“Aye, sir.” He hesitated. “I do, however, have additional news that could be construed as positive. Do you wish to hear it?”
Pike sighed. “Report.”
“During the battle, two of the intruder vessels sustained enough hull damage to suffer minor atmosphere breaches. I was able to gather some sensor data on their atmospheric composition and shipboard conditions before they retreated. The results were most . . . unusual.”
“In what way?”
“The composition of their shipboard atmosphere is over ninety-five percent carbon dioxide, sir, followed by four percent nitrogen, with the remaining fraction of a percent consisting primarily of sulfur dioxide, argon, and vaporized water and sulfuric acid. The internal temperature of the vessels is over six hundred Kelvin, with an atmospheric pressure of nearly ninety bars. The conditions are analogous to those of a Class-N planet.”
Pike stared in amazement. “You’re telling me those aliens are from a Venus-type environment?”
“Correct, sir. Even if our transporters could have penetrated their hulls, it would have been unfeasible to send boarding parties. We would have needed to fabricate a sufficient number of heavy-duty environment suits, and those would slow the wearers’ movements too much to be effective in combat—besides which, even a minor suit breach would be instantly fatal. We do not even know if phasers would be effective on Class-N life-forms.”
The captain shook his head. “No wonder the Klingons called them demons. Do we even know of any kind of life that can survive in those conditions?”
“Only hypothetically, sir. However, the concentration of sulfuric acid and trace quantities of covalent carbon-carbon bonds are consistent with theoretical models. Under Class-N conditions somewhat cooler than the surface of Venus, sulfuric acid could remain liquid and serve as a solvent for exotic biochemistry, with carbon-carbon bonds filling the equivalent function of the carbon-oxygen bond in Class-M biology. A sulfuric acid solvent could also theoretically sustain a silicon-based biology, but that is less likely, and I detected no evidence of such compounds.” He tilted his head. “However, the composition of the vessels’ hulls is consistent with a Class-N origin. Tritanium is one of the few metals resistant to dissolution by sulfuric acid, along with lead and tungsten. The particular tritanium alloys used in the intruders’ hulls are high in silicon, chromium, and molybdenum, like known acid-resistant alloys. The crystalline ceramics used in their hulls are also resistant to acid, as are other compounds I have detected in scans of the debris they left behind, such as quartz, alumina, fluoropolymers, and polyvinyl fluoride.”
“All right,” Pike said. “So we know something about where they come from. Does it tell us what they want?”
“Possibly, sir. Both of the systems they have intruded upon, Adelphous and Bardeezi, do contain N-Class planets with surface temperatures and pressures that permit liquid sulfuric acid to exist. Long-range astrometric scans also register an N-Class planet in the Qalras system in Klingon space, the intruders’ first known target.” Spock moved back to his station and worked the controls to put up a trajectory chart on the screen above it, while Pike rose to follow. “Also, the most probable destination of the incoming fleet here at Bardeezi was the system’s N-Class world. The Bardeezans and Captain Chandra did not recognize this because Bardeezi Prime, Bardeezi IV, and several major asteroid mining stations were also within the cone of its potential destinations, and it did not occur to them that the intruders might not be from a Class-M environment.”
Pike paced along the railing before the science station. “All right . . . so they want to reach a Class-N world. Either to mine it for resources . . . or maybe to colonize.”
Spock leaned forward in his seat, steepling his fingers before him. “If that is all they wish, Captain, then perhaps there is no need for conflict. There are many N-Class worlds in Federation space, yet we have little or no use for them. If these intruders are seeking territory or resources, it would cost us nothing to provide them.”
“Then why didn’t they just ask for them?” Pike countered. “They’d have no use for our worlds either, but still they barge in and fight with us, kill our people without so much as a word of acknowledgment. Maybe they don’t even see us as people, because we’re not their kind of people.”
“Bigotry is quite common,” Spock agreed. “But it can also be reciprocal. The intruders did not fire until they were threatened.”
“But they still fired. They ignored our warnings and forced a fight, instead of stopping to talk or to ask. We gave them a fair chance to talk to us. We didn’t judge them ahead of time—we didn’t even know how different they were until now!” Pike shook his head. “No—we judged them by their actions, and their actions are ruthless and violent.”
“Conceded,” Spock said after a moment’s thought.
“But now that we know what they want,” Pike added, “or at least where they want to go, we can do something about it. We know they’re going after systems with N-Class planets. That lets us concentrate our defenses there, be ready when they come.”
“Not necessarily,” Spock told him. “We still have not determined how this fleet evaded detection at our border, or between it and the Bardeezi system. If they have some form of stealth technology, we may be taken by surprise yet again.”
“True,” Pike said. “And what worries me is that this attack force was just over half the size of the first one. Maybe that means they suffered more damage than we thought in the first attack, or maybe they engaged someone besides us and the Klingons in the interim. But maybe it means they’ve split their forces.”
He turned to face the viewscreen, on which the Bardeezan ships were locking tractors on the hulk of the Kongo and preparing to tow it into dry dock. “We may be in for an attack on another front,” Pike finished, “and soon.”
Capital arena, Kalea
Leonard McCoy winced as Jim Kirk took yet another punch from his massive Kalean opponent, twisting his head around and sending blood flying, adding several more splotches to the already wet and reddened arena floor. Kirk staggered but held his ground, managing to block the follow-up punch, but that just left him open for the Kalean to knee him in the gut, doubling him over. Kirk gasped for breath and struggled to rise again, but the sight of the opponent who towered over him—a two-meter quasihumanoid with facial features reminding McCoy of a cross between a gorilla, an opossum, and a horned lizard, covered in sherbet-orange fur everywhere except his face and his muscle-bound chest and abdomen—drove home to the doctor how badly outmatched his friend was.
Mercifully, the horn sounded at that moment, signaling the end of the round and giving Kirk some two and a half minutes’ respite before his pummeling resumed. McCoy ran out across the loose clay to the captain’s side, sparing an angry glare at Prime Rector Zonetox, who laughed at the bloody spectacle from her throne atop the forward corner of the fan-shaped arena. Kneeling by the crouching Kirk, he administered a shot of tri-ox and an iron supplement to help with the blood loss, plus an analgesic for the pain. He handed Kirk a water pack as well, still the simplest and most essential of remedies.
“How much longer are you going to keep up this farce?” McCoy demanded as Kirk drank, wincing as the nozzle touched his swollen lip. “This is no kind of ‘negotiation’! Zonetox just wants to humiliate you. Get her jollies at the expense of the lowly human. Just walk away, Jim. The Federation doesn’t need allies this bloodthirsty.”
Kirk coughed and spat out a mix of water and blood. “Better allies than enemies, Bones. We have enough of those already. I just have to prove humanity is strong enough to warrant their respect.”
“It’s the damn twenty-third century! We both have spaceships and computers! What difference does brute physical strength matter to either of us anymore?”
The captain chuckled, then winced again. “Listen to yourself. You’re the one who’s alw
ays saying we should rely on our basic strengths instead of technology.”
McCoy fidgeted. “I never say that. Not exactly.”
Kirk started to rise again, and McCoy helped him, holding on until he was sure the captain could stand on his own. “Diplomacy by combat is their custom, Bones. We don’t have to agree with it. And if I have to stand here and take a beating to win this treaty . . . well, I can handle it. I’ve been through worse.”
“Maybe,” McCoy grumbled. “But did you have to agree to do it stark naked?”
Kirk grinned. “That’s part of the custom too. Don’t worry, you’re a doctor.”
He strode forward unsteadily, but not without a touch of swagger. He smiled up at Zonetox as she stared down at him covetously. “Show-off,” McCoy muttered. What worried him wasn’t whether Kirk could handle the beating—it was that this was the kind of challenge a young, virile human male might enjoy a bit too much for his own good.
When the horn sounded again, Kirk came out swinging, getting in a couple of solid blows to his opponent’s abdomen, but it made little impact on the Kalean’s rock-hard musculature. The gladiator batted Kirk aside with a careless arm sweep, barely giving him time to raise his own arms to protect his head. The captain managed to roll to his feet, but his opponent merely stood there waiting for him. Kirk gathered his energies and charged forward, launching a flying kick at the Kalean’s midriff. It knocked the towering fighter back a few steps, but left Kirk flat on his bare behind. The captain was slow to rise, and that gave the gladiator an opening to grab him by the hair on his head and punch him repeatedly in the face. Kirk fell to the clay and struggled to rise again. Once more, the horn spared him from summary defeat.
Moments later, McCoy was at his side, tending him again. “Your nose is broken,” he said. “Hairline fracture of the right ulna. And you still have cracked ribs from before. Jim, you have to stop before you get yourself killed!”
“Just . . . get me back on my feet. The Federation . . . needs this treaty.”
“Not this badly! Not so much that they’d want to see you tortured over it! This isn’t about the Federation, Jim. It’s about you. You still feel you failed when those ‘demon’ aliens attacked Adelphous, killed so many of your crew. Now they’re back and they killed your old first officer, and you feel you let him down somehow too, even though you were hundreds of light-years away. So you’re overcompensating. You’re so afraid to feel like a failure that you don’t know when to stop!”
“That’s enough, McCoy! Get me back on my feet. That’s an order!”
“The hell with that. I can override your orders where your health is concerned.”
The horn sounded. “Resume!” Zonetox called.
“No!” McCoy cried, rising to face the prime rector. “Can’t you see he’s had enough? Surely you’ve proven your point by now! What’s to be gained by beating him even more?”
The rector glared down at him. “Your captain came here, little man, to try to prove your strength to us. Now stand aside and let him—or my gladiator—prove who is the stronger.”
“You think caving someone’s skull in is an act of strength? A falling rock can do that. Slipping in the damn shower can do that! It’s not that impressive! You want us to show you real power? Then let me take my captain to a hospital and watch me heal his injuries. Putting things back together again is much harder work than breaking them.”
The gladiator loomed over McCoy. “You heard my rector, tiny human. Stand aside or I will knock you aside to get to my opponent!”
“Fine!” McCoy countered, holding his ground. “Beat me up too if you must. Prove how tough you are by punching someone who won’t punch back. But that man is my patient, my captain, and my friend, and I will not stand by and let you break any more of his bones for no good goddamn reason!” He took a step closer, arching an eyebrow and continuing in his most scathing tones. “And for your information, sir, the proper form of address in these situations is ‘puny human.’ ”
The gladiator looked nonplussed, as though trying to decide whether or not to cave McCoy’s skull in and unaccustomed to the mental effort it required. After another moment, though, Zonetox laughed and rose from her throne. “Stand down, my champion,” she ordered as she descended the steps. “The Rectorate concedes the contest to the champion—the champions—from the Federation.”
She came to a halt before McCoy, gazing down at him with an intrigued look. “You have demonstrated your people’s strength to me, physician, and in a way I never anticipated. Such fearlessness, such passion and rage—all in the name of healing. You are a fighter, but in the name of compassion. This is what your Federation claims to be, but I did not understand what it meant until now. Perhaps what your captain said to us before was true—that your people’s real power lies not in what you conquer, but in what you build. Both your technology and your alliances.”
“I believe that’s true of us on our best days,” McCoy said. But he afforded a glance of exasperated concern toward Kirk, who stared up at him speechlessly, seeming content to yield the floor. “But sometimes even we need to be reminded of it. Maybe that’s why we keep trying to build new alliances with people like you.”
“And you have done so now,” Zonetox said. “Come—we will take you up on your offer. Bring your captain to our champions’ hospital, and show us how you heal. And then . . . we will have much to discuss.”
U.S.S. Sacagawea
“Chalan’s transmitting the signed treaty to the Diplomatic Corps as we speak,” Eshu Adebayo told Kirk as the latter rested in a sickbay bed. “Admiral Komack was quite pleased to hear of our success. He’s putting you in for a commendation, Jim.”
Kirk shook his head. “I wasn’t the one who pulled it off. Doctor McCoy’s the one who deserves the commendation.” He turned to the doctor. “And I intend to see that you get one.”
“I’ll see to it myself,” Adebayo said, smiling at both men. “Great work, both of you.”
The first officer left them alone in the ward. McCoy scowled as he fiddled with his medical scanner, but Kirk saw a trace of a proud smile slip through. “I don’t care about any of that nonsense,” the doctor said. “I’m just getting tired of patching you up all the time. I was tryin’ to make my job easier.”
“Well, say what you like, Bones. But you single-handedly pulled off a diplomatic coup just by being your usual ornery self.” He lowered his head. “And doing what I couldn’t.”
“You could, Jim,” the doctor countered. “You just forgot you could for a while there.”
“You were right, you know. Losing Commander Egdor . . . and to the same aliens who cost me so much before . . .” He sighed. “It’s so unfair, Bones. He strove so hard for so long to earn a command. He deserved a command, long before this. I really believed he’d get his shot eventually. Now we’ll never know.
“It made me feel . . . like I got where I am through a few lucky breaks. I know, I know,” he said, waving off McCoy’s protest, “I earned my successes. But there are others just as capable who could’ve done just as well given the same opportunities. Or if they’d lived through the disasters instead of me.” He paused. “It made me feel I had to prove something to myself. I was pushing myself, and I guess I pushed too far, and in the wrong direction.”
McCoy put a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve always had a bad habit of punishing yourself for not being superhuman. Or in this case, letting others punish you for it.”
Kirk groaned. “Don’t remind me.”
“Just try being human, Jim,” the doctor went on. “It’s something you’re actually pretty good at—when you give yourself a chance.”
Twelve
The people . . . may be changed by the knowledge, but it’s better than exterminating them.
—James T. Kirk
U.S.S. Sacagawea
“The microquasar Murasaki 274 has undergone a massive eruption,” Kirk told the assembled crew in the briefing room. “The radiation surge is projected
to endanger at least three inhabited worlds, including two Federation colonies. The Sacagawea and the Exeter are the closest ships to the area, so we will be assisting Captain Tracey and his crew in providing emergency assistance, building radiation shelters, evacuations if necessary, and so forth.”
Dr. McCoy leaned forward. “Pardon me, but astrophysics was never my best subject. A microquasar . . . that’s some kind of a black hole, correct?”
“Almost, Leonard,” Rhenas Sherev replied. “It’s a binary system consisting of a star and a black hole. The black hole’s gravity draws in the star’s atmosphere, forming an accretion disk around it as it spirals in. The friction and compression of the hydrogen gas make it hotter and hotter until it gives off hard X-rays, and jets of subatomic particles spray out of its magnetic poles at close to the speed of light. It’s like a smaller version of the quasars formed by the supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies, hence the name.”
“Sounds nasty.”
“It is. Sometimes the black hole can suck in an asteroid or even a planet, creating a radiation surge massive enough to endanger life on neighboring star systems. That’s what happened here.”
“Unfortunately,” Kirk added, “the quasar wasn’t being monitored closely enough to let us predict the surge, so we were taken off guard. We just have to hope we can ensure all endangered populations are suitably shielded or evacuated before the radiation hits.”
“Hold on,” McCoy said. “If they’re in other star systems, doesn’t that mean we have years to prepare?”
“In some circumstances,” Sherev said, “depending on the local subspace topology, the radiation from high-energy astronomical events like this can spontaneously tunnel into subspace and arrive at other star systems in weeks, even days. We know that happened here, because the energy we’re reading from the Murasaki object through normal space is considerably less than it should be.”
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