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

by Tony Daniel

  Spock’s orders seemed to wake them and the engineers did as instructed. Spock entered the cubicle and examined the control panel. It was not visibly damaged.

  He reached down and brushed the surface. The metal—at least it had been metal—crumbled beneath the brush of his gloved hand to reveal the electronic innards of the controls.

  Fused. Destroyed.

  And yet the damage seemed self-contained. Someone who knew how to use nanotechnology had done this.

  “Interesting,” Spock said. Trailing out from the fused mass of wires and circuitry was a tiny silver strand, a filament no more than a hair’s breadth thick. It hung down across the manual override panel like a long, wispy hair from a horse’s mane.

  Spock keyed his suit transceiver to engage with the ship’s communication system and called up Scott. “Engineering, this is Spock. I have discovered a nanotechnological deployment in the auxiliary shuttle bay door control. It appears to be low-grade nanotech that requires activation from an outside source—”

  “Aye,” said Mister Scott, after presumably taking a moment to digest what Spock was reporting. The first officer was impressed by how quickly Scott grasped complex situations involving technology and machinery. “So have you found an antenna?”

  “Astute, Mister Scott,” replied Spock. “I have indeed. It is monofilament—” Spock looked at his tricorder readings. “And appears to be pure pergium.”

  “Mister Spock, you’re not saying . . . could the Horta have done this? That is the main mineral they’re mining on Janus VI, after all.”

  “Negative, Mister Scott,” Spock replied. “Pergium is used extensively in both transporter and subspace communication equipment.”

  “It’s a subspace receiver.”

  “That is my tentative conclusion. A part of the triggering mechanism.”

  “Can we . . . untrigger it? Have the nano rebuild the control panel?”

  Spock again checked his tricorder readout on the material.

  “Negative. The nano has deactivated and scrambled its previous programming. Someone was attempting to cover his tracks, Mister Scott. However, for this size subspace antenna to function would require a subspace receiver keyed to very high frequencies and within relatively close range, judging by the diameter of the antenna. The transmitter must be located on the ship, yet use frequencies very different from those commonly used aboard.”

  “You’re talking sabotage from within, Mister Spock,” said Mister Scott.

  “Indeed.”

  Spock continued, “Mister Scott, I am going to destroy this antenna. I would like for you to monitor and observe whether this elicits a subspace callback. If it does, you should be able to pinpoint the source.”

  “Aye, sir,” Scotty said. “That I can do. Standing by.”

  Spock realized his phaser was too powerful for what he intended to do. He looked around for another tool and his eyes lit upon a glassed-in cabinet that contained a titanium hammer. This was not standard issue for the control room but another one of Mister Scott’s personal design upgrades to the Enterprise, one Spock was very glad of at the moment. The glass case had a label: “For Emergency Use Only. Break Glass.” Spock used his elbow to shatter the glass, then retrieved the hammer. With a deft stroke, he brought it down in the middle of the little monofilament wire. Like all pergium, its tensile strength was virtually nonexistent, and it shattered into fragments as if it were of crystalline structure.

  “Antenna destroyed. Anything, Mister Scott?” Spock asked.

  “Sir, I got the smallest flash of the return signal,” said Scott. “Almost as if someone thought the thing had failed and was trying to turn it back on, then realized their mistake and shut down quickly. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  “Did you locate the source?”

  “Deck five, corridor two, compartments A through G, sir.”

  “That is sickbay, Mister Scott.”

  “Aye, sir. It is. Now who do you suppose would have the control for that thing in sickbay?”

  Spock remained silent. Once again, without the facts, speculation was illogical. But it did not escape his attention that the one anomalous patient in sickbay at the moment was none other than Hannah Faber.

  “The signal could be some kind of delayed mechanism, a plant,” Mister Scott said. “I know the Vesbians have mixed feelings about the Horta, but surely she would never stoop to this.”

  Spock overrode the control panel by creating a relay through the manual hatch closing toggle. The bay doors began to slide shut, soundless in the vacuum, and then—

  Stopped.

  Spock cycled the power again, flipped the manual toggle.

  Nothing, no sound. But a nearby gauge showed a power surge building. The doors were trying to shut, but something was jammed. He knew that if there had been air in the shuttle bay, he would hear the door closing mechanisms grinding away.

  “Mister Scott, we have another problem.”

  “What’s that, Mister Spock?”

  “The iris panels have closed unevenly, and the guide plate is disengaged,” said Spock. “I cannot close the door using the manual override.” He looked out the window and examined the base of the door. It was worse than he had thought. “Furthermore, the glide track itself is mangled. The shuttle bay doors will not close. The Horta may be vacuum resistant, but they are not immune to its effects.”

  Even now, Spock could hear the calls of the Horta hive mind.

  It hurts. The bubbles within hurt and harm. Help us, Speaker from the Stars! Help us, All Mother to Be! We are your children, and we are in pain!

  • • •

  “Sickbay?” Kirk was taken aback. He had been standing outside the shuttle bay main entrance listening to the communicator traffic and wishing he was inside. This was one of the hardest parts of being captain: delegation.

  “Scotty,” Kirk asked, cutting in, “can the reading be due to equipment malfunction?”

  “No, sir,” said Mister Scott. “It came from sickbay.”

  “What the devil’s going on?” Kirk wondered aloud. “All right, Scotty, get down here and help Spock. I’ll be expecting one of your miracles.”

  “Aye, sir,” Scott replied.

  “Kirk to bridge. Mister Sulu, interior sensor sweep. Have Chekov locate all Vesbians onboard.”

  “Scanning,” reported Chekov. “Major Merling in his quarters. The other three are in sickbay.”

  “That’s all. Kirk out.”

  It has to be the bodyguard who isn’t experiencing the autoimmune response. What was his name?

  Hox.

  Hannah was in danger.

  “Bridge, seal off sickbay. Notify McCoy. Have a security team meet me there on the double.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Kirk raced off down the corridor toward the lift and sickbay, ten decks away.

  • • •

  In sickbay, Doctor McCoy prepared another I.V. for Hannah Faber. Hox, one of the so-called aides, had returned from a short break and taken up his usual vulturelike position a few feet away from Hannah. McCoy did not at all approve of having the man in his sickbay. The other, Ferlein, was in a coma, hovering near death.

  McCoy wasn’t sure what electrolyte balance would best preserve the Vesbian woman or her aide, but he had few options at this point. There was no cure for a body that was actively rejecting its own organs. Immunosuppressant might help a human avoid autoimmune reaction, but this had actually accelerated the breakdown in the Vesbian system. McCoy as yet had no idea why this was the case. Whatever those Vesbian scientists had done, they had certainly made it impossible for them to be treated by conventional means when they did get sick, McCoy thought.

  While McCoy was checking the readings, he heard someone quietly step up behind him and felt a blow on the back of his neck.

  The world went white with pain, and then black as McCoy collapsed to the floor.

  • • •

  The doctor groggily got to his feet to witness a most
horrifying sight. The bodyguard Hox, it seemed, was attempting to suffocate Hannah Faber with a sickbay pillow.

  McCoy made a grab for Hox’s arm. “What the hell are you doing?” McCoy yelled into the man’s ear.

  “Let me go!” shouted Hox. “You fool, he’ll kill my family!”

  Hox shook his body mightily, but this failed to dislodge McCoy. He then let go of the pillow long enough to savagely push McCoy back. McCoy stumbled across sickbay and into a rack of medical instruments. He fell on top of skittering stainless steel and duroceramic clamps, blades, and scissors—

  And what was that? That lump against his back?

  McCoy flipped over and reached for the lump.

  It was a laser scalpel, a small cylinder that fit neatly into McCoy’s palm.

  As he rose, McCoy saw Hox standing by Hannah’s bedside and attempting, once again, to stuff the pillow over her face and suffocate her. She was faintly struggling, but in her weakened state, Hox was likely to succeed.

  Stalking up behind Hox as quietly as he could, McCoy put an arm around the Vesbian’s neck. With his other hand, McCoy pressed the scalpel into the middle of Hox’s back.

  Hox snarled, but before he could make another move, McCoy gripped him tightly by the shoulder and spoke slowly and carefully into the bodyguard’s ear.

  “This is a laser scalpel, Mister Hox,” McCoy said. “It can be adjusted from fifteen millimeters to twenty centimeters in length. If I set it for a short length, I cut your spinal cord in half. If I set it for long, the blade will reach into the chambers of your heart.”

  McCoy felt Hox shudder in his grip, but his pressure on the pillow remained firm. He increased his choke hold on the Vesbian’s neck and leaned very close to one ear.

  “Since you won’t release that pillow, I have to ask you: What’s it going to be, Hox? Your heart or your spinal column? I haven’t got all day, and I have other patients to tend to.”

  McCoy gave a poke with the scalpel handle, and Hox gasped. With a cry of frustration, the Vesbian let go of his hold on the pillow. McCoy backed up, dragging him from the sickbay bed, never letting go.

  He heard Hannah gasping, unable to regain her breath.

  Have to get to her soon, McCoy thought. But now I’ve got this Vesbian on my hands.

  And then Kirk and two red-shirted security officers burst through the door. They headed straight for Hox and McCoy.

  Hox twisted in McCoy’s grip with great strength—perhaps superhuman strength, McCoy thought—and snatched the laser scalpel away from the doctor.

  With the laser scalpel in his hand, Hox lunged at the captain.

  Kirk ducked under the lunge and punched Hox in the gut. The Vesbian stumbled back, catching his breath. But now murder was in his eyes.

  “I’ll cut you, normal,” Hox said. He held the laser scalpel before him and pressed the extension button.

  A red light flashed, but nothing happened.

  “What is this?” screamed Hox. He turned to McCoy. “How do you work this, normal scum?”

  This was all the opening Kirk needed. He moved in with a roundhouse punch that sent Hox reeling. The laser scalpel flew from his hand. Hox growled in frustration.

  “If I fail, they’re all going to die!” he shouted, and he charged the two security officers who guarded the door. They were taken by surprise and immediately drew their phasers.

  “No!” Kirk shouted, but it was too late.

  Energy whine and flash of power.

  Hox collapsed on the floor.

  “Phaser setting?” Kirk demanded of the security officers.

  “Full stun, sir,” one of the security officers answered. “Standard emergency protocol. He’ll be out for hours.”

  “Yes,” said Kirk ruefully. “Fine, but it will also be hours before we can question him. Good work, though. Take him to the brig.”

  As the security team moved to do their captain’s bidding, Kirk rushed over to Hannah.

  She was gasping for breath but still alive. He held her hand. “Hannah . . .” he said in a plaintive tone.

  Without another word, McCoy rushed over to Hannah’s sickbed with a hypo. “Tri-ox.”

  Hannah was breathing on her own. McCoy glanced at the life systems readout above the bed, then stood back beside Kirk and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “She’ll live, Jim,” he said.

  After a moment Hannah roused to a semiconscious state. “My own man. How can it be? How can they have gotten to him? He was . . . he was trying to . . .”

  “Best to be quiet now,” McCoy said. “Conserve your energy. You’re safe.” He nodded toward Kirk. “The captain is here.”

  “My captain,” Hannah whispered with relief.

  “Hannah.”

  • • •

  It was only after he was sure that Hannah was out of immediate danger that Kirk found McCoy in his office. This time it was McCoy, and not Kirk, who needed a drink. He was still shivering from the confrontation with Hox.

  Kirk poured out a round and each man sipped a shot.

  “So you held a laser scalpel to a man and threatened to shank him?” said Kirk. “Why Bones, I didn’t know you had such a cold-blooded killer instinct in you.”

  “I don’t,” McCoy said. He held up the scalpel and showed it to Kirk. A flashing red indicator light blinked weakly. “The scalpel’s power supply was depleted and I knew it all along. I had it on the stand recharging.” McCoy shook his head in wonder at his own audacity. “I may as well have stuck a salt shaker in his back.”

  “I’m going to get to the bottom of this,” Kirk said. “Hannah doesn’t believe he was acting alone, and neither do I. But we have more pressing matters to worry about at the moment.”

  “What’s that?” asked McCoy.

  “Physical forces, Bones,” said Kirk. “Space—and time. How long those Horta can withstand the vacuum, to be precise.”

  • • •

  Captain’s log. Stardate 6414.3. The Enterprise has been sabotaged. The shuttle bay has been breached by nanotechnological means, and an attempt has been made on the Vesbian ambassador and chief advisor, Hannah Faber. We have captured the would-be assassin. I’ve ordered the remaining Vesbian aboard, Major Johan Merling, confined to quarters, but there is no evidence against him as yet, and the nanotechnological sabotage may have been planted when the Vesbians came aboard for treatment. My main priority is rescuing the Horta who were pulled into space and securing the shuttle bay from vacuum damage.

  • • •

  When Captain Kirk returned to the shuttle bay airlock entrance, he found his first officer and chief engineer in an intense discussion over what step to take next. They were going over the technical details of the operation of the shuttle bay doors, and how they might be effectively shut, now that the main operating mechanism had been destroyed by the nanotech weapon.

  Scotty was outside the airlock door, while Spock was on the other side, still in his EV suit. The two were speaking through the transparent aluminum window via Spock’s suit communicator. It appeared that they had just arrived at an agreement on a plan of action.

  “Aye, it could work,” said Scotty.

  “Gentlemen,” said Kirk, “I trust you have a plan?”

  Scott turned to the captain and shook his head. “More a wild notion than a plan, sir. I can’t get the doors closed by any means before we make repairs,” he said. “But Mister Spock says that the Horta are feeling very uncomfortable. We’re going to have to either evacuate them or figure out a way to seal off the shuttle bay.”

  “The Horta have a suggestion, Captain, and I believe it is a good one,” said Spock. “They are capable of very fine precision when using the rock dissolving secretions on their undercarriages. They say if we can supply them with the appropriate materials to form a chemical weld, they will be able to seal the doors sufficiently to repressurize the shuttle bay environment until repairs can be effected on the door mechanism.”

  Kirk turned to Scott. “What kind of mat
erial do they need, Scotty? Is this even possible?”

  “Aye,” said Scotty, scratching his head. “We can turn a number of the empty storage barrels in the main cargo bay into the proper material. They’re made of a mettalic alloy that should be strong enough when heated. Of course, that will leave us without any transport storage containers until we can get some more. If we had to make a rescue run carrying grain or some other material that required bulk storage, we’d be out of luck, Captain.”

  “Understood,” said Kirk, “but let’s give the Horta the chance to make this repair. Do you have a way to get the barrels to them?”

  “The cargo bay is one deck below us,” said Scotty. “I figure I seal off a bulkhead down there, depressurize. Maybe then Mister Spock could ask some of his wee creatures to cut a hole through the deck, and we can pass the barrels up using antigravity lifts.”

  “They’re not my ‘wee creatures,’” said Mister Spock, “but fully autonomous beings in their own right. Nevertheless, I believe the Horta will agree readily enough. I think the effort to contain their secretions and not burn a hole through the deck has been a source of minor difficulty to them on the trip so far, and they will relish the chance to . . . dissolve something.”

  “All right,” said Kirk. “Let’s get on it. Meanwhile, I’m going to the bridge. Mister Spock, tell the Horta that we’re going to find every last one of their missing kin. And then I’m going to bring the monster who perpetrated this act to justice.”

  An hour later, the welding job began. The Horta did not waste time disassembling the barrels but gently dissolved portions of their surface, welded them together, and chemically annealed them in a process that Scott reported was fascinating and innovative. It all seemed a bit jury-rigged to Kirk, but Scotty seemed pleased as the crescent-shaped amalgamation of storage barrels began to take shape like a giant clump of frog’s eggs in a creek.

  The Horta assembled the containment barrier by climbing on the sides of the shuttle bay hatch itself, starting from the top and working down. It was very much like watching bees build a hive. The reconstruction was done in small parts, and very quickly. The welds themselves were chemical and not ultra-high temperature, so only smoke and no sparks arose from them. In the vacuum of the large shuttle bay, the smoke quickly dissipated, and since there was no draft, it spread out in uniform fashion from the weld point. Nevertheless, the entire process had an industrial feel to it, as if a huge Horta factory was at work, and it was fascinating to watch.