Star Trek: The Original Series - 147 - Devil’s Bargain

by Tony Daniel

  Merling was keenly aware that he was not an original settler. He had come to Vesbius after serving as a mercenary in several planetary forces inside and outside the Federation. What had been a job as a hired military chief to the chancellor had become a calling after the planet had begun to destroy his immune system. At that time, he’d had to make the choice to either stay and receive the genetic alteration necessary to avoid the autoimmune rejection by the Vesbius biosphere, or move on.

  Merling hated to remember that part of his life. The problem was that Vesbius was the last stop on the descending path of a military career that had not been distinguished to begin with. Merling had no offers anywhere else, and he had nowhere to go. He supposed he could have taken some sort of security billet on a merchant ship and gotten the hell off the planet in time to save himself from having to undergo the change, but he delayed until it was too late, and it was either receive the genetic alteration or die in a hospital bed on Vesbius. At that time, Merling had made a virtue of necessity and loudly proclaimed that he was ready to become a real Vesbian.

  Like many converts to necessity, once he was fully a member of the society, Merling forgot his previous objections to the population—he’d once called Vesbians freaks of nature—and instead began to glory in his new condition. He sought out those who felt the same way he did, those who believed that the change had not only made Vesbians different, but superior to humans: the Exos movement.

  Finally, he’d found a place to fit in. Be someone important. Be recognized as the superior man he felt himself to be.

  An Exo understood this essential truth, and then it came time to act on it. To make changes. Exos, forced underground by edict of the Vesbian Council, had been engaged in going further than the mere adaptation alteration. Why not use the opportunity of the crisis on the planet to get rid of the old settler deadwood attitudes and ring in a new future?

  What mattered wasn’t Vesbius the planet but the superior product that planet had produced.

  Vesbians.

  Merling began to see himself as the vanguard for a change in galactic history. He’d worried about his own courage and heroism before, particularly under fire. He’d had several bad experiences on his previous assignments in that regard, experiences he tried hard to forget. But now Merling worried about his place in the grand scheme of things no longer. And when the asteroid had been discovered, he knew that this was another moment of chaos and crisis and it was his duty to exploit it. He had to use this opportunity to press the Vesbians beyond their mere alterations and onward toward becoming something better than what they had been before. The pressure of the autoimmune rejection illness that a general evacuation would precipitate would drive the Vesbians to engage in quick and massive genetic tinkering to save themselves and their children. They would make themselves better in the process, better able to withstand the rigors of planetary settlement than they ever had been before, better than humans ever had been.

  They would finish what the ancient Augments were never allowed to finish. They would make themselves into the natural successors of Homo sapiens, Merling believed. With the subtle manipulation of humanity from within, and with Merling’s foresight directing the movement, Vesbians would emerge as the natural rulers of the galaxy—and especially of humanity. Humans were their ancestors; therefore they would be their natural subjects. It was going to happen sooner or later, Merling believed. He wanted to be the one to bring it about and the one to reap its initial benefits. Perhaps one day there would be a statue of him on Earth: the man—no super man—who was the father of a new, better human race.

  • • •

  The major made his way carefully back to his quarters, trying to pass through as many of the crowded corridors of the ship as he could. He made sure to bump into a few crew members along the way and give them reason to remember him with either an apology or a harsh word. It didn’t matter which, so long as he left an impression. Finally, he arrived at his quarters in junior officer country and slipped inside. It was all part of his job.

  If any creatures in the galaxy did not deserve his Vesbian respect, it was those bugs from Janus VI. Not only was it his duty to further precipitate the crisis on Vesbius until the desired outcome could be accomplished, but he also considered it a sacred duty to eradicate this infestation of roaches that the Vulcan had talked the weak captain into shipping straight to a human world.

  Merling brought out a communicator that he had concealed and brought aboard the ship. It was tuned to a little-used subspace frequency and double-scrambled for maximum secrecy. There was a matching communicator elsewhere on board.

  “Head One. Head One calling Hand.”

  After a momentary pause, an answer came over the communicator: “Hand here. I do not have much time. I am on a short break.”

  “The time has come to put a stop to the pollution,” Merling said.

  “As you say, Head. When she was touring the shuttle bay and touching those creatures, I released your powder. I have the activation device ready.”

  “Excellent.”

  “Head . . .” There was a momentary pause on the other end.

  “Yes, what is it?” Still no reply. “Hand? Hand, answer me.”

  A crackling response finally arrived over the communicator: “Phase two of the plan . . . I do not believe . . . I can’t do it, sir.”

  Merling sighed. Weakness. Why must he always be surrounded by weakness? He put the communicator back to his lips and spoke in a low, clear voice. “You realize that I have the entire planetary vaccine supply in my control.”

  “Yes, I . . . I suppose you do.”

  “And here on the ship, do you think it was an accident that the chief advisor was experiencing autoimmune rejection syndrome so early? And what about Ferlein?”

  “No, I . . . I supposed I preferred not to think about it, sir.”

  “Well think about it now. They have received only half-strength vaccines. The fool ship’s surgeon trusted the supply I provided and has administered incorrect dosages. If you fail at carrying out your instructions, I will do to you what I have done to the chief advisor. Do you understand?”

  A very long pause this time. Finally, a reply: “I . . . do.”

  “Good,” said Merling. “I know you are committed. You will not allow it to come to that because you will do what is right.”

  Merling closed his communicator and lay back on his bed, not bothering to take off his boots. It would be even better if he fell asleep—any life-sign readings in the compartment would show him snoozing—but he was too excited for that. He wished he did not have to resort to subterfuge but could confront his enemy head-on.

  The warrior who wins is the one who lives to fight another day, Merling told himself.

  The fight must go on. Against the Vulcan conspiracy. Against utterly alien devils such as the Horta who sought to taint the very breathing space of humanity.

  Worst of all, they meant to entangle Vesbius in their depravity and decadence.

  Vulcan manipulation, the desire to contaminate the pure stock of Vesbius with outside ideas and, eventually, outside blood. Outside DNA. To destroy what was better. Merling was not surprised at such perfidy in lesser species, although, as always, he could not contain his disgust no matter how many times he encountered it. Horta, Vulcan, Klingon . . . even humans. The galaxy would be a better place without any of them, and Merling was happy to do his part to bring that about.

  The time of purification would come sooner rather than later—but come it would. He knew that, no matter what happened, he was on the right side of history. But, unlike Khan, he would see his revolution through.

  Ten

  The alarm went off on the bridge just as Kirk was attempting to take a sip of his coffee. Wasn’t that always the way? He quickly handed it back to the yeoman who had brought it to him.

  Kirk pressed the intership button on his chair. “What do you have, Scotty?”

  “Captain, I was picking up a power drain from
some unknown source, and then I noticed that there was a pressure change associated with it. I ran a scan, and, believe it or not, we have a breach. I’m attempting to pinpoint it.”

  A hull breach. The worst disaster in space. It was almost unheard of in Starfleet. Ships were not only made of extremely tough stuff necessary for interstellar travel, but the exterior was reinforced with force fields to contain atmosphere and to keep out the radiation that a breach might produce.

  “Where, Scotty? Have you found it?” Kirk asked. He felt the adrenaline rising within him.

  “Captain, you’re not gonna like this, but the breach is in the shuttle bay,” Mister Scott reported. “Do you think one of the Horta has somehow disregarded our warnings and burned a hole in a bulkhead?”

  “I don’t think so,” Kirk answered. “How bad is it?”

  “From the power drain, I’d say it’s fairly large,” Scotty said. “I’ll get a team on it right now. It looks like the shuttle bay doors failed.”

  “That’s impossible. That thing has a dozen failsafes,” Kirk said. He shook his head. This smelled very fishy, and he wanted to investigate himself. “I’ll head for the shuttle bay. Have an EV suit standing by.”

  “Aye, sir,” Scotty said.

  “Full stop, Mister Sulu! Take us out of warp and maintain our position.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You have the bridge, Sulu.” Kirk rose from his chair.

  Chekov was manning the science station. “Ensign, get every sensor we have on the area we just passed through. Backtrack as far as you can.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  Kirk strode quickly to the turbolift, almost running into Spock. “Come with me, Spock,” said Kirk. “We have a situation in the shuttle bay.”

  When Kirk arrived, he saw that the interior airlock was fully engaged, cutting off the crew from the main shuttle bay area. It was only possible to open the airlock without expelling atmosphere if the shuttle bay shields were working, but that was not the case. The doors were partway open—this much could be seen through the airlock port—and the atmospheric gauge beside the airlock read near zero for the interior. Kirk turned and asked Spock, “What do we know about the Horta and a vacuum? Can they withstand it?”

  Spock reached over and touched the door. A troubled expression crossed his face for a moment, but then he returned to his usual placid indifference. “I am too far away for anything but the most tentative of communication. I am detecting signs of distress within, however, but not due to suffocation or other physical deterioration. What I feel is dismay and fright.”

  “Captain, this is the bridge,” said Chekov’s voice over intership. “Sensors indicate that several Horta have been ejected from the shuttle bay and have fallen out of hyperspace into Newtonian space-time.”

  “Life signs, Mister Chekov.”

  After a moment’s delay, Chekov reported back: “Sir, I am detecting fifteen independent readings.”

  “They’re alive?”

  “For the time being,” Chekov answered.

  “Can you get a lock to beam them aboard?”

  “Not yet, sir. They are too far, three groups clumped together, but each scattered over ten thousand four hundred kilometers.”

  “Captain, this is Sulu. I have brought the ship about. We should be in range within minutes.”

  “Let’s hope they have minutes,” Kirk said. “All right. Good work, bridge. Report any changes to me.”

  “Can we get the force field up?”

  “The shuttle bay force field is intended only to maintain atmospheric pressure for the time it takes for a shuttle to pass through. If we are unable to close the shuttle bay doors, pressurizing the bay will be ineffective. The force field will fail and the air will be expelled.”

  “Then we have to get the doors closed, and fast,” Kirk said.

  “Affirmative, Captain,” said Spock.

  The repair team was now suited up, and Kirk began to step into the suit they had brought for him.

  “If I may, sir,” said Spock.

  Kirk cut him off. “Spock? ”

  “Captain, it makes more sense for me to accompany the rescue crew,” Spock said. “I have a rapport with the Horta, and their aid may be essential in resolving the situation.”

  Kirk considered. There was something telling him viscerally to do something.

  Spock was right. “Agreed.” He thrust the EV suit at Spock. “Get going.”

  • • •

  The repair team opened the airlock door, stepped inside, and closed it behind them. Then there was a whoosh as the exterior door opened and the small atmosphere inside the airlock rushed into the vacuum of the shuttle bay. They sensibly held on to avoid being pulled forward by the negative air pressure.

  The crew rushed into the shuttle bay toward the crescent-shaped opening on the right side of the hatch. As Spock approached it, he observed that the doors were not fully open. One of the flanged components of the iris door had been retracted, leaving a space that was 3.02 meters wide. The width was just enough for a Horta to be sucked through.

  As Spock and the crew drew nearer to the huge bay doors, the emergency lights, still functioning overhead even in the hard vacuum, revealed that the way forward was blocked. Huddled Horta surrounded the shuttle bay door. Judging from the arrangement, it seemed the Horta had been pulled toward the open door by the huge rush of atmospheric discharge and were now clumped together at the opening.

  The problem now was to get the shuttle bay door closed. But first Spock must assess the state of the remaining Horta. They were not moving. When Spock reached the first of them, he saw the reason for this.

  The Horta had not merely held on, they had dissolved part of the deck in order to weld themselves inside the shuttle bay. Each of the creatures was sunken in a Horta-shaped declivity of nearly a half-meter depth, and they looked as if they were resting in their own giant footprints. They had made their own safety holds, in effect, in order to not be pulled out into space.

  Clever, Spock thought. Also extremely logical.

  Spock allowed himself to dip once more into the Horta collective consciousness.

  Alarm, alarm! The sucking, pulling winds! The flow outward into the void! Falling, falling! We must stick tight.

  Stick tight. Fuse. Hold to the not-rock under our carapace!

  Spock made his presence known to the Horta with a quick signal of thought—Spock pictured this signal as a blue flame within his mind—and then spoke directly to the Horta hive mind.

  We will discover the cause of what has happened and attempt to resolve the problem, Spock thought to them.

  Speaker from the Stars, All Mother to Be, you have come to save us!

  I am not the All Mother, and I may never be, Spock thought back to them. But I will do my best to help. It is necessary that I make my way by climbing over you.

  All is forgiven, Speaker from the Stars. He is the savior. The bringer of truth! The All Mother is here to protect us!

  I am not your mother, Spock thought one final time, but he could feel that it was a useless pronouncement at the moment. These Horta were frightened, and the only safety they had previously known was the All Mother’s benign presence.

  Spock keyed on the microphone in his EV suit helmet. “Repair team, this is Spock. I’m afraid were going to have to do something that may disconcert our alien guests. I can see no other way to the shuttle bay control room than to walk over the backs of the Horta.”

  “Walk on their backs, sir?” said one of the rescue squad members. “Won’t we dissolve into them, like if we stepped into lava or something?”

  “Negative,” said Spock. “The dangerous portion of the creature is on the bottom, Ensign.” Spock considered that, in this instance, showing might be better than telling. He leaped up onto the back of the nearest Horta and perched there, as if he were on the shell of an enormous turtle. “Follow me, Officers.”

  He stepped from Horta to Horta as if they were stones in a brook
crossing and made his way across the shuttle bay until he reached his intended destination: shuttle bay auxiliary control, where the manual override was located.

  Auxiliary control was normally a pressurized cabin in which an operator could open and close the enormous shuttle bay doors safely in atmospheric confinement. The door to the control panel booth was jammed, and the rescue crew immediately set about torching it open with phasers to get inside. Spock peered through the window to the control panel within.

  The shuttle bay manual override, which was set in a panel within the control room, was only for emergency use, and when it was engaged the assumption was that the atmosphere in the shuttle bay had already been cleared out, or that whoever was in the shuttle bay was prepared for the evacuation of the air. Nobody in his right mind would engage the mechanism without adequate warning and a direct order. In fact, it was locked against accidental triggering by a see-through covering. Spock saw that this covering shield had disintegrated entirely, as if it had been neatly cut from its support structure by a knife that could cut through pure crystal.

  Spock’s Academy-trained mind immediately recognized this for what it was.

  Military nanotechnology.

  Spock spoke rapidly into his EV suit communicator. “Repair and rescue crew, this is Spock. Immediately back away from the shuttle bay doors control room and form a line to prevent any Horta from venturing in this direction. Repeat, immediately retreat and form a cordon at least three meters from the doorway. Military-grade nanotechnology is suspected.”

  Spock looked outside and saw the repair crew stopped in their tracks. Nano was frightening stuff. And the use of military nano was a war crime within the Federation. “Quickly,” Spock told them.