The Three-Minute Universe

by Barbara Paul

  Berengaria snorted.

  "Did you say something, Lieutenant?" Kirk asked.

  "No, sir."

  Spock spoke for the first time. "How did they go about kidnapping you, Mr. ev Symwid?"

  "I don't really know. All I remember is this horrible smell—and I started vomiting … the other two were doing the same. Then I lost consciousness. When I came to, I was wearing a helmet of some sort—it kept out the smell. We were on the Sacker ship. They told us they wanted us to poison the Zirgosian water supply. They even supplied the poison."

  "Just this one settlement?" Spock asked. "There are at least a dozen others on Holox."

  "Just this one. Because it's close to where they were building, you see, and they didn't want the Zirgosians bothering them. So their solution to that was to kill them. We refused, of course. But then the Sackers told us that if we did not, they would attack our homeworld. And to prove they meant what they said, they destroyed our ship."

  Kirk pressed his lips together. "Survivors?"

  "None." The Gelchenite covered his eyes with one hand. "They teased us, Captain. They fired over our ship first; then they fired to starboard a couple of times. This went on for several minutes before they got bored playing with us and blasted our ship out of the sky."

  "Didn't your ship fight back?" Berengaria asked, appalled.

  "Yes, of course—but their weapons didn't even begin to penetrate the Sackers' shielding … that ship's impregnable. I've never seen one like it. Anyway, all the other Gelchenites were dead except the three of us on the Sacker ship, and the Sackers told us that's what would happen to Gelchen if we didn't poison the Zirgosian colonists for them." He swallowed. "So we did it."

  There was a long silence. Then Spock said, "Mr. ev Symwid, why didn't the Sackers destroy the settlement themselves? They obviously have the firepower."

  "I don't know, Mr. Spock. They didn't explain their reasons."

  Kirk asked, "Where are the other two of you?"

  The Gelchenite lifted his shoulders, then let them drop. "Gone. Maybe they fled to one of the other settlements."

  Berengaria was seething. "And you did it? You just went ahead and did it?"

  The Gelchenite's head jerked up at her accusing tone. He heaved his stocky body out of his seat and faced her. "Yes, I did it. I'm ashamed of what I did, and I'm ready to die for it. But what choice did I have? Should I have sacrificed my own people to save the Zirgosians? What would you have done? It's easy to pronounce judgment."

  Berengaria stood toe to toe with him. "What would I have done? First I would have looked for a way to contact Gelchen and warn them a Sacker attack was imminent, and then I would have refused to poison the Zirgosians. If I failed in my attempt to warn Gelchen, I would still have refused. Gelchen isn't defenseless. Your people aren't stupid, are they? They know when they're being attacked? At least your people would have had a fighting chance—which is more than you gave the Zirgosian colonists. Or, I would have accepted the poison and looked for a way to use it against the Sackers. If I failed at that too, then I would have taken it myself. You ask me what I would have done? That's what I would have done."

  "That will do, Lieutenant," Kirk murmured, not entirely disapproving of her outburst.

  Berengaria turned her back to ev Symwid and said no more. The Gelchenite appealed to Kirk. "Do you think I'm making excuses? I'm telling you the truth, Captain, I swear I am! I'll submit to any electric or chemical memory probe you like!"

  "Oh, we have a quicker way than that. Mr. Spock?"

  Spock put down the tricorder he'd finished calibrating and went over to ev Symwid. "I have to touch you, Mr. ev Symwid. There is no pain involved." He spread the fingers of his right hand and placed them on one side of the Gelchenite's face. The latter evidently knew of the Vulcan mind meld because he remained still and did nothing to disturb Spock's concentration. A minute passed. Then another. Spock dropped his hand. "He's telling the truth, Captain."

  The intercom unit on the table came to life. "Captain Kirk. Acknowledge, please."

  "Kirk here. What is it, Uhura?"

  "Captain, the Sacker ship is receiving a message," she said. "And Captain—it's coming from the Enterprise."

  "Can you isolate it?"

  "G Deck—that's as close as I can pinpoint it."

  "We're on G Deck," Kirk said.

  Spock was reading his tricorder. "Captain, I'm getting a signal … within this room." The Vulcan moved the tricorder to home in on the signal—which led him directly to the Gelchenite. "The point of origin seems to be Mr. ev Symwid's arm."

  Puzzled, the Gelchenite raised his arm. "Me?"

  "An implant," Kirk snapped. "What did they put in there, ev Symwid? A homing device? A voice transmitter?"

  "I … I don't know. This is news to me, Captain. It must have been done while I was unconscious."

  Kirk spoke to the intercom. "It's all right, Uhura, we've got it. Kirk out." He cleared his throat. "Lieutenant Berengaria, escort Mr. ev Symwid to sickbay. Tell Dr. McCoy to remove the implant as quickly as possible."

  "Yes, sir," Berengaria said. "Come on, you." She gave the Gelchenite a tap on the shoulder and they both left the briefing room.

  Kirk and Spock exchanged a long look. The latter said, "An entire race doesn't change its nature overnight, Jim."

  "I was thinking the same thing myself," Kirk nodded. "Whatever turned the Sackers into such callous killers must have been building for a long time. Either that, or they've been planning this all along."

  "But exactly what are they planning? We have no evidence that the Sackers are responsible for releasing the new universe's energy into our space. The two could be entirely unrelated."

  "They could, but I'll bet you my retirement pay they're not."

  One corner of Spock's mouth lifted. "Your retirement pay, Jim? Really?"

  "Half my retirement pay, half. A fourth."

  "You are fortunate that I am not a betting man. Not to mention the very real possibility that neither of us will be around to collect."

  "I've been trying not to think of that. That heat front's still moving … Spock, is there any way of stopping that thing?"

  "I would say no. But if you are correct that the release of energy was precipitated by person or persons unknown, then that person or persons might also have the means of stopping it. It would have to be a way of sealing up the rupture between the two universes, and I for one know of no way such a monumental undertaking could be accomplished. Not even theoretically. But if the Sackers do possess this knowledge, they would have to use it eventually to prevent their own extinction."

  "Yes … you're right, Spock. What are they after? They must have some goal in mind. Maybe that woman we found in the Holox administrative center can tell us something when she wakes up. And isn't it about time Scotty reported in?"

  "Indeed, Mr. Scott is overdue."

  The intercom spoke with the chief surgeon's voice. "McCoy to Captain Kirk."

  "Here, Doctor."

  "I've got this gizmo out of the Gelchenite's arm. What do you want me to do with it?"

  "Take it to the bridge—we'll meet you there." Kirk broke the connection and stood up. "Let's go, Spock. You're about to get your first close-up look at Sacker technology."

  "What is this thing, Jim?" Dr. McCoy asked. "A transmitter of some sort?"

  "Looks like it," said Kirk. "Mr. Spock, is there some way to hook this thing up to the ship's computer?"

  "I shall try, Captain." Spock took the Sacker device that had been implanted in the Gelchenite's arm and examined it curiously. "Minuscule circuitry. Lieutenant Uhura, I will require your assistance."

  "Yes, sir. Microwaldoes?"

  The two got to work, with McCoy peering over their shoulders. Kirk sat in the command chair and said, "Status report, Mr. Sulu."

  "The Sacker ship is still keeping the planet between us, Captain. And they're still refusing communication."

  Kirk nodded, not expecting anything else.
<
br />   Chekov swiveled around in his seat. "Kepten, are the Sackers responsible for poisoning the colonists on Holox?"

  "Yes, through unwilling agents. They kidnapped three Gelchenites and forced them to poison the water supply."

  The young navigator looked puzzled. "But … but vhy? Vhat do they gain?"

  "That," sighed Kirk, "is the question, Mr. Chekov. What do they want here at all?"

  "What's their homeworld, Captain?" Sulu asked.

  "Nobody knows."

  "Maybe something happened to it, and they're looking for a new one," the helmsman suggested. "Maybe they just want a place to live."

  "Ve hef a wery nice place at home vhere they are velcome to live," Chekov said. "Ve call it Siberia."

  "Ready, Captain," Spock announced.

  "All right, what've we got?" Kirk looked at the viewscreen's display of light impulses generated by the Sacker transmitter. "They look like scratch marks. Is this what the Sacker ship is receiving?"

  "Yes, sir," Uhura said. "It will record in their computer banks in this form. The signal must be bouncing off one of Holox's communication satellites."

  "Tricky device. Those markings keep changing … Spock?"

  "Our computer does not recognize the code, Captain. I am initiating cryptographic analysis."

  Uhura's eyes narrowed. "There is a pattern here … wait, let me isolate this part." She froze ten lines of the Sacker symbols and transferred them to a smaller screen while the larger viewscreen kept running a changing array of what Captain Kirk had called scratch marks. "Look, see this symbol?" Uhura said. "It always stands alone, never part of a larger grouping. See here … and here … and here? Like a connective, or possibly whatever the Sackers use for punctuation."

  "That's a start," Kirk acknowledged. "Cryptoanalysis?"

  "None, Captain," Spock answered in a distinctly unhappy tone. "The computer cannot break the code because it is unable to find a starting point. The most it can do is transmogrify these symbols into approximations of English-language word groupings." He touched a few keys and a series of what looked like nonsense words appeared on the screen.

  "Stop talking!" Uhura suddenly cried. "Captain? Everybody … please stop talking!"

  They all looked at her in surprise, but at a gesture from Kirk the bridge was suddenly silent. The big viewscreen went blank.

  "There, you see!" Uhura cried triumphantly, and the viewscreen showed a new set of words.

  "Those are our words up there on the screen?" Kirk asked.

  "Yes, sir! This device we hooked up to the computer is a translator as well as a transmitter. That's the Sacker language we're seeing on the screen!"

  "Good going, Uhura!" Kirk exclaimed, pleased. "Now we've got something to work with!"

  "Excellently done, Lieutenant," Spock said more quietly.

  "No wonder the computer couldn't break the 'code'," said Kirk. "It has no Sacker words in its memory bank. And another thing—the Sackers can no longer pretend they're not receiving our messages." He raised his voice. "Sacker ship—this is Captain James T. Kirk of the U.S.S. Enterprise. We request immediate communication and an accounting of your part in the poisoning of the Holox colonists. Respond immediately."

  They waited. There was no answer.

  "Keep replaying that message, Lieutenant," Kirk instructed. "Mr. Spock—can the translator part of that device be separated from the transmitter without damage?"

  "I shall attempt to do just that, Captain. Doctor, if you could take just two steps backward …?"

  McCoy moved out of the way. They all waited in silence, now that they knew every word they spoke was being translated into the Sacker language and broadcast to the strange ship on the other side of Holox.

  Finally Spock lifted his head from his task. "Much of the circuitry is integral, Captain, used mutually by translator and transmitter. To keep one without the other would mean destroying one of them. I assume it is the translator part you wish to keep?"

  "You assume correctly," Kirk said. "Do it."

  A few minutes more and it was done. They all breathed a sigh of relief, all except Spock who was too caught up in examining the disassembled parts of the tiny transmitter to think of anything as mundane as a feeling of relief. "Truly a remarkable piece of microengineering," the first officer said.

  "Now why did the Sackers plant that thing in the Gelchenite's arm?" McCoy mused. "Were they expecting him to get caught? Did they expect us to catch him?"

  "Probably all three of the Gelchenites had implants," Kirk said. "In case something went wrong or the Gelchenites tried to run away. The Sackers would want some way of keeping track of them."

  "So eavesdropping on us was just a little extra bonus?"

  "Evidently." Quickly Kirk ran over in his mind everything that had been said in the briefing room before the implant had been discovered. He concluded nothing had been revealed that the Sackers didn't already know. "Lieutenant Uhura, since you're the one who discovered the secret of the translator, why don't you …?"

  But she was already at work on it. "Starship," she said into an isolated microphone she'd connected for the purpose. A word appeared on the screen, and Uhura keyed its meaning into the computer.

  "Ah … yes, something like that," Kirk smiled. "Well, Doctor, do you suppose your patient has had enough of that 'natural' sleep you think so highly of?"

  McCoy grinned. "Let's go see, shall we?"

  Uhura looked back over her shoulder. "I could use some help, Captain."

  "I vill help," Chekov volunteered. He was bored with having nothing to do so long as the ship stayed in a stable orbit.

  "There's your assistant, Lieutenant," Kirk said. "Let me know when you think you have a handle on it. Mr. Spock, I'll be in sickbay if you—"

  He was interrupted by the intercom. "Dr. McCoy to the transporter room! Dr. McCoy to the transporter room! Emergency!" Transporter Chief Kyle's voice was high and frightened-sounding.

  McCoy hit a button on the command chair arm rest. "What is the nature of the emergency?"

  "Burn case! The worst I've ever seen!" Kyle's frightened voice said. "It's Franklin, one of the security men. I … I never saw anyone burned so badly! Hurry, Doctor—hurry!"

  The examination room of sickbay reeked with the odor of charred flesh. Captain Kirk stood by helplessly as Dr. McCoy worked quickly to save the young security man. He'd sprayed a coolant foam over the horrendously burned body to give Franklin some immediate relief and now was treating him for shock. Liquids and whole blood were being pumped into his body after some initial difficulty; McCoy had had trouble finding an undamaged vein. Franklin was breathing shallowly through an oxygen mask.

  "That coolant foam has an antiseptic in it, so that should guard against infection for the time being," McCoy muttered to himself. "But is the body tissue getting enough blood? Dammit! All the nurses are down on the planet." He moved over to the intercom. "Bridge."

  "Bridge," Spock's voice acknowledged.

  "Spock, I need Nurse Chapel. Right now."

  "I will summon her immediately, Doctor."

  Franklin began to groan. McCoy hurried back to his patient and sprayed more foam over his body. "This stuff's only for temporary relief," he growled. "I need to get him into a burn bath—a proqualine solution. But I don't want to leave him alone long enough to prepare it."

  "Can I help?" Kirk asked. "Tell me what to do."

  "Watch his readings. If his respiration indicator begins to drop, call me." He hurried away to the intensive care unit.

  Kirk watched the respiration indicator. It wavered for a moment but then recovered. He looked down at what used to be a nice-looking young man and felt himself fill with a fury so intense that it made his vision blur. He shook his head and focused again on the indicator.

  "Ka-un."

  Captain. Kirk looked down at Franklin's face; the young man was trying to talk … but his lips had been burned away. "Franklin?"

  "S-Sackers … did this to 'ee." He couldn't say the
m-sound. "Ching … dead. Ih-ciherated her." Incinerated her.

  Kirk gritted his teeth. "Mr. Scott? And the other security man?"

  "Don't … know. They ha'—" Franklin broke off to concentrate on the difficult problem of breathing.

  "Don't talk any more," Kirk said. "Lie as still as you can."

  The door opened and Christine Chapel came in. She gasped at the sight of Franklin. "Burn bath," she said.

  "Dr. McCoy's preparing it." She hurried off to the intensive care unit.

  McCoy came back pulling an antigrav gurney. "You'll have to help me move him, Jim. Put on a pair of gloves—behind you, on that table."

  They got Franklin on the gurney. Nurse Chapel came back and said the bath was ready; she carried the transfusion equipment while Kirk and McCoy steered the gurney into intensive care. They lowered Franklin into the bath, and waited.

  After a few minutes Franklin opened his eyes and said, "That 'eels 'etter." And saw three faces grin down at him.

  "Feels better, does it?" McCoy said. "Ah, the resiliency of youth! You'll get sick of that bath soon enough." Nurse Chapel started sponging some of the solution on Franklin's face and head. "Just let yourself float. Relax every muscle as completely as you can."

  "Bones, will it hurt him to talk?" Kirk asked.

  "One minute. No more."

  "Franklin, what happened down there? What did you find?"

  "Sackers … 'uilt a 'lister do'."

  "Blister dome?"

  "Sea'less." Franklin thought that wasn't clear and tried again. "No sea's."

  "Seamless, I understand."

  "Looking 'or entrance. Couldn't 'ind one. Caught us."

  "A seamless blister dome with no visible entrance, and the Sackers caught you looking. Then what?"

  "S'ell … aw'ul s'ell." Franklin began to gag just from the memory of the smell. When he'd recovered, he said, "They use … 'ire 'eh'ons. Killed Ching, thought they killed 'ee."

  "Fire weapons? Did they use them on Mr. Scott?"

  "Don't know … I 'lacked out."

  "Minute's up," said McCoy.

  Kirk stepped back from the bath. McCoy gave Nurse Chapel some instructions, and then he and the captain went back out into the examination room. "I don't know how in the world he managed to call the ship, Jim. His hands are practically useless."