by Gene DeWeese
"A map? But how—? Never mind, Jim. I have the feeling you had better start from the beginning. What happened?"
Quickly, Kirk summarized everything that had happened since their decision to send a shuttlecraft into the gate.
"Remarkable," Noguchi said when he had finished. Kirk could almost hear the admiral shaking his head. "You do have a knack for stumbling into the jackpot, Jim."
"Thank you, sir," Kirk said, smiling. Though their face-to-face contacts had been few since Noguchi had given him the Enterprise and its first assignment, their relationship had grown over the years, one aspect of which was the admiral's seeming bemusement at the number of startling discoveries Kirk and his ship had figured in.
"However," Noguchi said, sobering, "you are not to use that map, and you are not to reenter that gate or any other until further notice."
Kirk's smile vanished into a frown. "Not use it, sir? I don't understand."
"Three hours ago, at approximately the time you were being dragged into that gate in the Sagittarius arm, a new gate appeared less than a parsec from Starfleet Headquarters. The gravitational turbulence that marked its appearance was such that, had it been in the vicinity of a planetary system, the planets' orbits would have been seriously disturbed. Had it appeared within a system, it would have virtually destroyed any planet within a billion kilometers."
"You certainly don't think there's a connection, Admiral?"
"I don't know. Mr. Spock can calculate odds better than I. For the moment, however, you are not to reenter that gate under any circumstances." Noguchi paused. "You will return to Starfleet Headquarters. We will use our own computers to perform the analysis."
"But the entity that Spock encountered will in all likelihood still be with us. If it attaches itself to someone in Starfleet Headquarters—"
"I am confident that we will be able to cope, Captain."
"With all due respect, Admiral, you have not experienced it directly. I have. I have felt its power, and I have seen what it can do to others. Ensign Stepanovich of the Cochise was—"
"Ensign Stepanovich had little experience dealing with alien life-forms. Rest assured, we will take every precaution."
"The gate here needs to at least be monitored, Admiral," Kirk pointed out.
"The Devlin is not more than a dozen parsecs from your present position. They will monitor the gate. Now, Captain Kirk, if you're finished debating, you will return to Starfleet Headquarters!"
Kirk frowned but said, "Very well, Admiral. We'll get under way as soon as the Devlin arrives."
"Now, Captain Kirk! Leaving the gate unmonitored for the few hours it will take the Devlin to reach it is of less importance than getting this map of yours into our computers for a full analysis. Understood, Captain?"
"Understood," Kirk said stiffly, knowing it would be pointless to suggest transmitting the map via subspace link. Despite Noguchi's words, the admiral's prime concern was obviously not the delivery of the map to Starfleet Headquarters. It was to keep the Enterprise from reentering the gate.
"Good," Admiral Noguchi said, and the connection to Starfleet was broken.
Kirk glanced around the bridge. "We have our orders. Mr. Sulu, lay in a course for Starfleet Headquarters."
"Aye-aye, sir, but the helm is still rigged as a remote control for the shuttlecraft."
"Will the extra connections interfere with normal operation?"
"No, sir. As long as the shuttlecraft is deactivated—"
"Then keep it deactivated. According to the admiral, we can't afford the time to disconnect the special circuits until we're under way. Lay in the course, Mr. Sulu, and get us moving, warp factor six."
"Aye-aye, Captain," Sulu responded, with only the briefest of sideways glances in Spock's direction.
"Mr. Scott," Kirk said, activating the intercom to engineering. "Pending your approval at the completion of your check of all systems, we will be increasing to warp factor eight. Meanwhile, I'd like a progress report."
"Captain, I would no' recommend—"
"Nor would I, under normal circumstances," Kirk said sharply. "Starfleet, however, considers time to be of the essence. Now, that progress report, please."
"Aye, Captain," Scott said, the reluctance obvious in his sighing tone. "I would estimate another hour till completion o' the checks you requested."
"And the results so far, Mr. Scott?"
"All systems are fully operational, Captain, and no irregularities have been detected anywhere."
"Thank you, Mr. Scott. Inform me the moment your checks are complete."
"Aye, Captain," Scott said, in much the same tone that Kirk had used in his final words with Admiral Noguchi. "But ye do realize what would happen if a problem did develop at warp eight?"
"I realize the dangers, Mr. Scott," Kirk said, but as he spoke, he felt a shiver ripple up his spine. No one knew precisely what would happen if the warp drive failed at such speeds. There were several theories, each worse than the last, but reality, Kirk suspected, could be the worst of all. "Just make sure a problem doesn't develop."
"Aye, Captain," Scott said, breaking the connection abruptly.
"Mr. Sulu?"
"Course laid in, Captain."
"Ahead warp factor six, then, Mr. Sulu."
"Aye-aye, sir."
With another brief glance toward Spock, Sulu executed the command, and the Enterprise surged forward. The brilliance of the relativistic starbow filled the screen for a second before it was replaced by the computer-generated image of the star field ahead.
"Now, Mr. Spock, what can you and the computer tell us about this map we seem to have been given?"
"As much, I suspect, as the computers at Starfleet Headquarters."
Kirk smiled faintly, briefly. "I suspect as much myself. Proceed."
"Very well, Captain. First, calling it a map is perhaps misleading in that the points—the destinations—it identifies are not laid out as, for example, a star chart of the Federation is laid out. A more accurate term would be descriptive list, primarily of the destinations that can be reached from the Sagittarius arm gate."
"And it tells you—or the computer—how to reach each of these destinations?"
"It does, Captain, in terms of the time during the cycle at which the gate must be entered. The starting point of each cycle was, as I suspected, the forty-four second 'quiescent state.' All times are measured from the end of that forty-four-second period. Based on a preliminary analysis, the destination we reached during our first, accidental entry can be reached only once during each cycle, fifty-three minutes and ten seconds into the cycle. All other destinations can be reached at least twice during each cycle. Many can be reached dozens of times."
"Could it be unique in that respect," Kirk asked, "because it is so distant?"
"That is possible, Captain. However, that destination is unusual, though not unique, in another respect. It is one of only a dozen for which secondary destinations are shown."
"Secondary destinations?"
"Destinations that can be reached through the gate that exists at those destinations but cannot be reached directly through the Sagittarius arm gate, Captain. Though I cannot be positive from the existing data, it would appear that this gate serves, in effect, as a hub for thousands of destinations, and those other gates serve, in turn, as hubs for a similar number of other destinations, although only a small number of these secondary destinations are actually shown."
Kirk was silent for several seconds, aware once more of the shiver that crept along his spine but unsure whether it signaled the return of the entity that had previously descended on Chandler and himself or was simply his own visceral reaction to the magnitude of what Spock had said.
"That would mean millions of destinations, Spock," he said finally, "just in the first two stages."
"Precisely, Captain."
For a moment, Kirk seemed lost in the immensity of this thing they had stumbled onto, but then he pulled himself back to practical r
eality. "How does it identify the destinations? Does it indicate anything at all about their locations? Their distances?"
"Nothing, Captain. There is a code number for each, originally in a base-twelve numbering system. For the hub gates and a small number of others, there are also what appear to be three-dimensional star charts for the areas immediately surrounding the gates. For the Sagittarius arm gate itself, there is a quite extensive chart, showing all major stars within thirty parsecs."
"Put it on the screen."
"As you wish, Captain."
A moment later, the auxiliary screen over the science station was alive with hundreds of stars.
Commander Ansfield, who had been watching silently the whole time, frowned. "That doesn't look right, Spock. The pattern doesn't look right."
Kirk frowned as he glanced at her. "You remember the star patterns that well, Commander?"
"I may be dense in some areas, Kirk, but my memory is close enough to photographic to have gotten me through the Academy a year ahead of schedule. Those are not the patterns I saw. Spock, are you sure this is the right chart?"
"One-hundred-percent certainty is impossible, Commander." He paused, studying the display as it slowly rotated. "But you are right. This is not the pattern we observed. However, I believe it is indeed the correct chart."
Quickly, precisely, Spock tapped a code into the computer. As he finished, a second star pattern, the stars in this one tinted green, was superimposed on the screen.
"That's the pattern," Ansfield said. "Where—"
She cut herself off as he tapped in a second code and the green-tinted stars began to move slowly.
For more than thirty seconds, they continued to move, drifting slowly in every direction until, finally, the two patterns matched.
Ansfield swore under her breath. "How long ago?" she asked, almost in a whisper.
Spock consulted a reading. "Approximately ninety thousand years," he said.
"If the two of you wouldn't mind letting us laymen in on the secret," Kirk said, "I would appreciate it."
"Sorry, Kirk," Ansfield said. "I thought you were following along. That second pattern Spock put up, those were the stars surrounding the gate now. As I'm sure you know, a starship's automatic mapping function requires its computers to automatically record the proper motions of all stars within several parsecs whenever they emerge from warp drive in previously unexplored territory. All Spock had to do was tell the computer to project those motions backward in time until the patterns matched."
"Precisely, Commander," Spock said in answer to Kirk's brief, questioning glance. "The patterns matched at eighty-nine point three thousand years in the past."
"Which means," Kirk said, "that the gate system—this part of it, at least—has been abandoned for almost ninety thousand years."
"Or that that's the last time they bothered to update their maps," Ansfield said. "If whoever runs these gates is anything like Starfleet, they just may not have been keeping up with their paperwork."
Kirk started to smile, thinking once again how Commander Ansfield reminded him of McCoy, but then, suddenly, the chill that had been sporadically brushing at his spine gripped it solidly, sending a shudder through his entire body. Automatically, his eyes darted about the bridge.
"Spock," he said sharply. "It feels as if your friend is back."
"I know, Captain. I feel it as well."
Bracing himself for an assault like the one he had experienced before, Kirk tensed, his fingers gripping the edges of the arms of the command chair. Ansfield, he saw, was watching him worriedly, and he could feel the eyes of everyone on the bridge.
But then, as abruptly as it had come, the chill was gone.
But not completely.
"All decks," he snapped, activating the shipwide intercom. "The entity has returned. Everyone on full alert. Phasers—"
"Captain!" Sulu, stiffening and jerking his hands back from the helm controls, almost screamed. "It's me! It's got me!"
Chapter Twelve
THE SECURITY TEAM flanking the turbolift doors stepped forward, phasers drawn and leveled.
"Don't fire—yet!" Kirk said quickly. "Mr. Sulu, can you hold on? Can you keep control?"
"I think so, Captain," Sulu grated between clenched teeth.
"Good." Kirk activated the intercom to McCoy's office. "Bones, get up here. It's got Sulu."
"On my way, for all the good it'll do," McCoy said, irritation as well as concern evident in the sharpness of his voice.
"Mr. Spock, take the helm."
Sulu, struggling to stand up and pull away from the helm controls, suddenly went limp, hitting the deck with a thud. Kirk was on his feet instantly, then kneeling next to the helmsman, but before he could say anything, Spock, in the midst of stepping down from the science station to the helm, stiffened abruptly.
"Captain," he said, his voice unnaturally stiff, almost mechanical. "I believe it is now making an attempt on me."
"If anyone can hold out—"
Chekov, at the navigator's station, gasped and almost screamed, his hands darting sideways toward the helm controls before they stopped, trembling.
Spock, apparently released after only a few seconds, staggered as if, like Sulu moments before, his muscles were betraying him. Sulu himself, pale and breathing heavily, was already struggling to his feet.
Chekov, grimacing, working his mouth as if trying to speak, began to reach for the helm controls again, but before he could touch them, before the recovering Spock or Sulu could reach him, one of the security guards fired.
But Chekov didn't fall.
Instead, he lurched violently sideways toward the helm, crashing into the helmsman's chair and sprawling over it facedown.
For a moment he lay there, motionless. Spock, apparently fully recovered from his own brief contact, reached down to lift him from the chair.
But as his fingers neared Chekov's arms, Chekov began to move again, and Spock pulled back, watching.
Slowly, Chekov got his arms under himself and, pressing against the seat of the helmsman's chair, pushed himself up.
"Mr. Chekov," Kirk began, but he cut himself off as Chekov raised himself enough to allow his face to be seen.
The eyes were closed, the mouth hanging partially open, as if all the facial muscles were relaxed. Slowly, he turned to face the helm controls.
The turbolift doors hissed open, and McCoy burst through, followed by the same orderly who had accompanied him earlier. The security team turned toward them sharply, phasers still drawn, but almost immediately they turned back to Chekov and the others near the helm.
"Get your tricorder on Mr. Chekov, Dr. McCoy," Kirk said sharply.
"What the blazes—" McCoy began, but then he, too, saw Chekov's face. Frowning, he hurried forward, unsheathing the tricorder's scanner as he went. "What happened to him?"
"He was struck by a phaser on medium stun a few seconds ago," Kirk said.
"Then what the devil's he doing moving around?" McCoy snapped. "He'd be out cold if he'd been—"
Simultaneously, Chekov's eyes opened and McCoy brought the tricorder scanner within range of Chekov.
McCoy's jaw dropped as he looked at the tricorder screen. "He is out cold—according to this. Then what—"
"I suspect, Doctor," Spock said, "that the entity that earlier attached itself to Captain Kirk has now attached itself to Mr. Chekov. It had, only moments earlier, attempted to attach itself first to Mr. Sulu and then to myself. Now, because Mr. Chekov himself was presumably rendered unconscious by the phaser, the entity is temporarily without opposition and is in control of Mr. Chekov's body."
As if to confirm Spock's words, Chekov turned to face the helm, lowering his now open, unblinking eyes to the controls.
"And you're all just standin' around watching?" McCoy turned abruptly to the orderly who had followed him onto the bridge. "Here, give me a hand, and we'll get him down to sickbay where he belongs!"
As McCoy was speaking, one of C
hekov's hands raised itself, slowly and uncertainly, toward the control board. Spock, still standing next to Chekov, watched until he saw which control the hand was reaching for, then reached out himself and grasped Chekov's wrist.
At the touch, Chekov's entire body stiffened spasmodically, and Spock himself felt some of the same irrational fear that had surged through him minutes before when the entity had tried to attach itself to him. Obviously, though the entity remained confined in Chekov's body, it could still have a powerful effect on anyone who came close enough.
"Spock, what the blazes are you doing now?" McCoy rasped as he reached for Chekov's other arm in an automatic comforting move.
But instead of being comforted, Chekov—the entity that was controlling Chekov's body—jerked violently, trying to pull away from McCoy's touch and tear himself out of Spock's relentless grip. No longer was he trying to reach the helm controls. He was simply trying to escape, thrashing violently in all directions. Spock, now gripping both of Chekov's arms as much in an attempt to keep him from damaging himself as to keep him from accidentally striking the helm controls, began to pull Chekov away.
"Security, give Mr. Spock a hand!" Kirk snapped.
Phasers still in hand, they hesitated a moment but then hurriedly put them away and moved forward, past McCoy.
As they touched Chekov, trying to grasp his legs and waist, they froze momentarily, their eyes widening, but they didn't pull back.
An instant later, after one final spasmodic outburst, Chekov collapsed.
For a long moment, there was only silence as a dozen pairs of eyes darted in all directions, looking for the next victim.
Then Spock, lowering Chekov gently to the deck, said, "The entity has withdrawn."
"But for how long?" Kirk asked. "And what was it trying to accomplish?"
"To return to the gate, I suspect, Captain," Spock said. "At the moment I attempted to restrain Mr. Chekov, he was reaching for the control that would have reversed our course."
"And you still sensed no hostility? No menace? Even before, when it was attempting to take you over?"
"None, Captain. I felt only the irrational fear generated in my own mind and in that of Mr. Chekov."