[Star Trek Logs 01] - Log One

by Alan Dean Foster - (ebook by Undead)

  STAR TREK

  LOG ONE

  Star Trek Logs - 01

  Alan Dean Foster

  (An Undead Scan v1.0)

  STAR TREK LOG ONE

  Log of the Starship Enterprise

  Stardates 5321-5380 Inclusive

  James T. Kirk, Capt., USSC, FS, ret. Commanding

  transcribed by

  Alan Dean Foster

  At the Galactic Historical Archives

  on S. Monicus I

  stardated 6110.5

  For the Curator: JLR

  PART I

  BEYOND

  THE

  FARTHEST STAR

  (Adapted from a script by Samuel A. Peeples)

  I

  Veil of stars.

  Veil of crystal.

  On the small viewscreen the image of the Milky Way glittered like powdered sugar fused to black velvet.

  Here in the privacy of the captain’s cabin on board the Enterprise, James T. Kirk had at fingertip’s call all the computerized resources of an expanding, organized galactic Federation in taped and microfilmed form. Art, music, painting, sculpture, kinetology, science, history, philosophy—the memory banks of the great starship held enough material to satiate the mind of any civilized being. Satisfy and fulfill him whether in the mood for matters profound or trivial, fleeting or permanent, whether curious about the developments of yesterday or those as old as time itself.

  Yet, now, in this particular off-hour, the man responsible for guiding the Enterprise safely through the multitude of known hazards and an infinitude of imagined ones that lay strewn throughout space—when he could have devoted his thoughts to little things of no importance and rested his mind—chose instead to study a smaller though no less awesome version of the same scene he was compelled to view so many times from the commander’s chair on the bridge of the starship.

  His eyes strayed idly to the lower corner of the screen. Gossamer thin threads of crimson and azure marked a spectacular nebula of recent origin—the flaming headstone marking the grave of some long vanished star, perhaps marking also a cemetery for a great, doomed civilization, caught helpless when its sun exploded.

  Men in his position who would have deliberately chosen to observe such a sight fell into three categories. First were those for whom natural creation was too small. Men who found universes of greater magnitude within—artists, poets, landscapers and dreamers of hologram plays, sculptors in metal and stone and wood.

  The second group would be that now dwindling but still sizable number of individuals who also looked inward—but whose gaze was forever out of focus—the catatonic, the insane, the mad…

  The third and last asssemblage fell somewhere in between, not quite artists, not quite mad. These were the men and women who forsook the solidity of Earth, gave up the certain knowledge of a definite sky overhead and unarguable ground underfoot, to ply the emptiness between the stars. Starship personnel.

  James T. Kirk was a captain among such, a leader of this kind—which made him, depending on which extreme you tended toward, either a frustrated artist or a well-composed madman.

  He sighed and rolled over on the bed, temporarily trading the pocket-view of infinity for the cool, pale blue of the preformed cabin ceiling.

  A visit to the Time Planet, where all the time lines of this galaxy converged—and who knew, perhaps those of others as well, for men knew nothing of other galaxies except what little they could see through their attenuated glass eyes—was their present assignment. A pity that time lines did not choose to make themselves visible to man’s puny instruments of detection. Only one race had found that secret.

  It hadn’t saved them.

  A visit to the Time Planet was always interesting. That wasn’t its designated name, of course. But popular conceptions had a way of overwhelming scientific notation. He smiled slightly. There were enough new shocks, enough running discoveries taking place every time a new section of space was charted to cause the once unbelievable Time Planet to recede into the land of the commonplace.

  Kirk was a starship captain, not a historian. So his prime interest in the Time Planet was from the standpoint of its curious chemistry and even more curious physics. The trip promised to be at least as interesting as previous ones. But it was no longer possessed of that special thrill.

  The remarkable view of the Milky Way in the tiny screen was as complete a portrait of the galaxy as anyone was ever likely to see. Few probes, even unmanned ones, had flown further outside the galactic rim than the Enterprise was now speeding. Starships were too expensive to operate and too scattered for Starfleet Command to waste them on, say, just convoying experiments from world to world.

  That’s why the Enterprise had swung wider than its best course to the Time Planet, to enable it to take readings and star-map this section of the galaxy’s fringe.

  Kirk flipped a switch on the tiny console by the bed and was rewarded with the view out the starboard side of the ship—a view of almost unrelieved blackness. Here and there were tiny dots of luminescence, dots which were not individual stars, but rather distant galaxies—some vaster, some more modest than our own.

  Thoughts uncommon to most men raced through the deepest pools of his mind as he contemplated that yawning, frightening intergalactic pit. Someday, he mused, someday we’ll have engines that won’t burn out at warp-maximum eight or nine. Someday we’ll have engines capable of driving a ship at warp ninety, or even warp nine hundred.

  Someday.

  Of course, the spatial engineers and physicists were agreed that it was impossible for any form of matter to travel faster than warp nine. Kirk thought that this belief was simply a modern superstition. It had also been said that man would never be able to fly or, wonder of wonders, exceed the speed of light.

  An inship communicator buzzed insistently for attention. Again. Kirk looked at it irritably, then remembered that he’d blocked off the channel. In effect, he’d hung out a Do Not Disturb sign. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. There was nothing for it but to answer.

  There were only two men on the starship who were on permanent, round-the-clock call. Doctor McCoy was one. He was the other. He opened the channel.

  “Kirk here.”

  “Spock, Captain.”

  It was only a trick of aural mechanics, true, but somehow the monotone of his assistant commander seemed less distorted by intervening kilometers of solid-and fluid-state circuitry than the voice of anyone else on board.

  No, not completely monotone—for now he heard a definite hint of puzzlement in Spock’s tone.

  “Captain, I hate to bother you during your rest period, but we have encountered what appears to be a unique and extremely peculiar situation—”

  That woke Kirk up. “An extremely peculiar situation” to Spock could be anything from just mildly serious at best to imminent disaster at worst.

  “Be right up, Mr. Spock.” He flipped the switch off, threw on his captain’s tunic, dilated the door, and headed for the bridge double-quick.

  Behind him, the miniature glowing panorama of the intergalactic gulf, forgotten, patiently awaited his return.

  The elevator paused once, at B-deck, where Spock joined him. At the same time, the lights in the lift car and in the disappearing corridor beyond began to flicker. An all too familiar uneven yowling sounded.

  “General Alarm.” He looked at Spock, who replied to the unasked question.

  “Lieutenant Commander Scott should be the officer of the deck, I believe.”

  “Why didn’t he call me direct?”

  “He did not say, Captain. But I think, if I interpret Mr. Scott’s actions correctly, that he did not feel qualifi
ed to interrupt the Captain’s rest period for a phenomenon of as yet undefinable proportions. He left that up to me.”

  Kirk considered that as the lift halted once more at the last level below the bridge. Dr. McCoy joined them.

  “Jim… Spock… what’s happening?”

  “I don’t know yet, Bones,” Kirk said honestly. “You know as much as we do. Something that Scotty felt strongly enough about to sound the general alarm for.”

  Seconds later the doors split, and the three walked onto the bridge.

  Helmsman Sum was working busily at the navigation station. Uhura glanced back and forth between her communications console and Sulu. And from the engineering station, Scott looked up at their arrival and let out a visible sigh of relief.

  “Glad to see you, Captain. I wasn’t ready for makin’ too many more decisions. Not considerin’ the nature of this thing, whatever it is.”

  Spock went directly to his library computer seat—the control station for the brain and nervous system of the Enterprise. As Kirk took his own place in the command chair, he noted that the alarm system was still sounding its howling warning.

  “That’s enough noise, Mr. Sulu.” Sulu nodded. Lights and alarm returned to normal status.

  “Situation, Mr. Scott?”

  Kirk was already studying the projected vector-grid Sulu had thrown up on the main screen. In a lower right-hand quadrant, the white dot of the Enterprise was moving rapidly centerward—too rapidly, Kirk thought.

  He envied the old sea captains of Earth’s ancient days, when a vessel’s energy came only from the blowing winds, envied a skipper who could feel a change in his ship’s speed through his feet. Out here in black, uncaring vacuum, there was nothing to push against, nothing to feel against you. Compared to a rambunctious sea or strong gale, artificial gravity was a poor stimulant.

  Man’s senses only operated here artificially, through enormous mechanical amplification—and the only waves one could get the feel of were in wave mechanics.

  “We’ve picked up speed, sir,” informed Scott, confirming Kirk’s analysis of the situation depicted on the screen. “A great deal of speed!”

  “Cut back, then, Scotty.”

  “I’ve already done so, sir—cut back twice—but we continue to gain momentum!”

  “Now don’t get excited, Mr. Scott—” The question had to be asked, despite any damage that might incur to the engineer’s pride. “—but have you checked your instrumentation?”

  “Aye, Captain, checked, and triple-checked. I’d prefer the instrumentation were off, than to have to proceed with these readings. No sir, the information is correct.” He gestured in the direction of the vector-grid.

  Kirk swiveled slightly in the chair. “Mr. Sulu?”

  If anything, Sulu’s expression was twice as worried and half again as uncertain as the chief engineer’s.

  “She’s not answering the helm, sir! We’re—” he paused to check his own readouts, “—two minutes right ascension off course.” He hammered at the stubborn controls in front of him, as if that might have some naturalizing effect on the incredible information coming in.

  “And drifting farther off every second, sir.”

  “Mr. Spock.”

  “Captain?”

  “Do me an in-depth computer-library scan on all known major stellar bodies in this fringe sector.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “And put it up on the big screen when it’s ready.”

  There was a brief, quiet pause. Nothing moved on the bridge except the white dot of the Enterprise on the view-screen. Then the vector-grid was replaced by another, an overlay star-map. Or rather, part of the grid was replaced. Three-quarters of the screen did not light up with the light blue of completed mappings. It remained maddeningly blank—except for one large word in yellow, a word Kirk had almost expected to see.

  UNEXPLORED

  A second later, information appeared beneath this first disappointing word in the form of the legend.

  To Be Mapped—No Accurate Data Currently Available.

  “That’s what I thought, Mr. Spock. But there was a chance. Information comes into Starfleet’s banks so fast these days.”

  “Evidently not fast enough, Captain.”

  “No. Not fast enough. That’ll do, Spock.”

  The uninformative star-map overlay blanked out and the vector-grid dominated the entire screen once more.

  “Captain?” The call came from the rear of the bridge.

  “Yes, Uhura?”

  She seemed confused. “Captain, I’ve been picking up strong, but very strange radio emissions for the past two hours. Both source and direction were at first far to the right plane of our course. But since our position has been shifting, the source of emission and the course of the Enterprise are lining up.”

  Kirk considered this piece of news. It was not especially foreboding. Not yet, anyway.

  “All right, Uhura, I’ll keep it in mind.” He looked back at the screen. “At least there’s something out there.”

  The white pinpoint continued to move purposefully across the grid, drawn by… what? He could reach out with a forefinger and blot the great starship from view. At the same time he reached a decision. While whatever was pulling them off course had shown nothing that could be definitely interpreted as a hostile action—it was probably a natural phenomenon anyway—it still behooved them to put up some form of resistance.

  “Mr. Sum, stand by to back engines.”

  “Standing by, sir.” Sum divided his attention between the screen and his bank of controls.

  “Back engines.”

  The helmsman’s hands moved over the navigation console, flipped a last knob 180 degrees. A slight jar traveled through the bridge, followed by a distant but distinct rumbling. Everyone made an instinctive grab for the nearest solid object. But only the slight jar gave evidence of the tremendous stresses operating on the starship.

  Kirk stared at the vector-grid intently. The white dot slowed perceptibly, slowed… but continued on its new path, moving inexorably forward.

  “Mr. Spock,” Kirk demanded, “have you got anything yet?” We’d operate a helluva lot more effectively if we had some idea of what we were up against, Kirk thought.

  Spock had remained glued to the hooded viewer of the computer readout. Now he looked up and over at the captain’s position.

  “At this point, Captain, I can only say we are headed toward an unknown object—probably natural, probably of at least planetary mass—that is generating a remarkable amount of hyper-gravity. Hyper-gravity more concentrated than any we have ever encountered.”

  “Well, if there’s something like that out there,” and Kirk gestured at the screen, “that can put out that kind of pull plus radio emissions, why aren’t our evaluative sensors picking it up?” He rolled his fingers against one leg. “Open the forward scanners all the way, Mr. Sulu, and close off everything else. Divert all sensor power forward.”

  “All of it, sir?”

  “All of it.”

  There was a moment’s rush of activity as Sulu hurried to comply with the order. It left them uncomfortably vulnerable to anything that might choose to sneak up on the ship from any direction but ahead. But what could be sneaking around, out here on the galaxy’s rim?

  The screen flickered. The vector-grid vanished. Extending from the left side of the screen two-thirds of the way across now was the outermost arm of the Milky Way. A distant, ethereal packing of rainbow-hued dust. The other third, except for a few scattered, lonely spots of brilliance, was black with the blackness of the intergalactic abyss.

  But in the center of the screen…

  In the center, something was taking a smooth, crescent-shaped bite out of the glowing star-mist that formed the arm. Something spherical, small—but growing. A globe of nothingness that was obscuring star after star.

  No, not entirely nothing, now. As they moved nearer, a distant, faint glint gave evidence of a solid surface. Fascinate
d, Kirk and the rest of the bridge personnel stared at the unknown, dark wanderer. They tried to define, pin down, regularize its maddeningly elusive silhouette.

  Uhura finally broke the silence.

  “Captain, that’s definitely the source of the emissions. They’ve changed considerably since I first detected them. And they’ve also grown much stronger since we’ve moved close.”

  “Pipe them over the communicators, Uhura. Don’t keep it a secret.”

  She hit a single control. Immediately the bridge was filled with a shrill, piercing electronic hum. She smiled apologetically and reduced the deafening volume. As the sound became bearable one thing was instantly obvious to the lowliest ensign. That whine was too wild, too powerful to come from an artificial source. It was as natural an extrusion of the object ahead as a solar prominence or a man’s arm. It was definitely not the product of a constructed beacon or station.

  Everyone listened to the alien hum as the outline on the viewscreen continued to grow, eating away at the distant star-field.

  “Mr. Scott, ready your engineers for a maximum effort.”

  “Aye, sir.” Scott turned to his direct line back to engineering.

  “Davis, Gradner, get off your duffs! The captain’s going to be wantin’ some work out ’o ye in a moment—”

  “Mr. Sulu,” Kirk continued, “stay on these back engines.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Mr. Spock,” and Kirk tried not to sound desperate, “anything yet?”

  “Sir, I’ve had the computers working since we first entered the peculiar gravity-well, but I hesitated to offer an opinion on preliminary sensor data alone. Now that we have achieved visual confirmation, I no longer hesitate.”

  Spock’s eyebrows shot way up, which surprised Kirk. For Spock that was an expression of astonishment equivalent to an audible gasp from a human. Something unique was surely in the offing.

  “It is a negative star-mass, Captain, Spectroanalysis confirms finally ninety-seven point eight percent probability that the object ahead of us is composed of imploded matter. Every reading on material composition records in the negative.”