by Gene DeWeese
"I'm sorry, Sherbourne," Kirk said, fighting down a sudden fear that the Devlin's captain was right. "Tell Starfleet that if—when—we find an answer to the problem, we'll be back."
In a flare of color, the bridge of the Devlin vanished from the screen, replaced by the visual hiss of subspace static.
Simultaneously, the thousands of stars of the Sagittarius arm vanished, replaced by an emptiness that could only be that of intergalactic space,
"All stop, Mr. Sulu," Kirk snapped. "Mr. Spock, get that gate on the screen. We don't want to lose this one."
"Aye-aye, sir," Sulu responded, while Spock worked silently and efficiently with the sensor controls.
Within seconds, the main viewscreen was filled with the multicolored computer-generated image of the gate they had just emerged from. Like the one they had entered earlier, it was a massive, chaotic kaleidoscope, the colors and size shifting continuously. On an auxiliary screen over the science station, a visible light image showed only the blackness of space, except for a cluster of minuscule specks of light in one corner.
"Lieutenant Uhura?"
"Nothing, Captain, on any frequency."
"Mr. Spock, is your friend still with us?"
"The entity is still present, Captain."
Involuntarily, Kirk shivered as the combination of the emptiness of space and the unseen presence that still lurked among them bore down on him, sending a chill rippling up and down his spine.
"And doing what?" he asked, pulling in a breath and tightly hunching his shoulders in a momentary effort to banish the chill.
"Unknown, Captain," Spock said. "It is simply present."
"Waiting to see what we do, I suppose."
"That is possible, Captain."
For a moment, Kirk looked at the auxiliary screen and the specks in one corner. They could be the Milky Way galaxy and its satellites, or the Andromeda galaxy, or any of the millions of others that had been charted in the last three hundred years—or of the millions or billions still uncharted even now.
But the identity of those distant specks made no difference.
Whether the Enterprise was a million parsecs from the Federation, or a billion, or ten billion, was of no importance.
Resolutely, Kirk turned back to the main viewscreen. This was what was important now, this thing that flashed and flickered and danced madly with some form of energy that only the Aragos sensors could detect. This constantly shifting opening in space itself that swallowed starships whole and spit them across the universe. This door to what was—perhaps—the home of a being that had annihilated countless civilizations over thousands of centuries and now threatened to annihilate the Federation.
Unless they could learn its secrets.
He punched a button on the command chair.
"Mr. Scott, any ill effects from our latest trip?"
"None that ye can notice, Captain," Scott's voice came back from the engineering intercom.
"Thank you, Mr. Scott." Kirk broke the connection. "We're going back in and hope that there's a different and more informative map associated with this gate. Mr. Sulu, take us to one kilometer. From that point, the computer will have the helm."
"Aye-aye, sir."
As before, the closer they approached, the more chaotic the sensors showed the gate to be. In visible light, it remained undetectable, no matter how close they came. There was, in fact, no way to tell it from the gate in the Sagittarius arm.
At one kilometer, Spock briefly studied the computer readouts, currently displaying the highlighted series of navigational commands that would guide them past the limbo lurking within the gate and into the bubble of "real space" hidden at its center. The second series, to guide them back to normal space, was displayed separately, not yet highlighted.
Kirk leaned forward in his chair. "All right, Mr. Spock," he said. "Whenever you're ready."
Coming as close as a Vulcan ever could to mentally crossing his fingers, Spock keyed in the code that sent the map's navigational commands to the helm.
The Enterprise aligned itself at a forty-five-degree angle to the gate and moved ahead.
After more than a minute, the forward edge of the saucer touched the surface of the gate and slowed. The sensors, almost a hundred meters back, on the front of the secondary hull, showed the surface of the gate, still swirling and flickering chaotically, begin to stretch and bend, as if it were an elastic membrane onto which the chaos was being projected.
Spock—and the rest of the bridge crew—watched the viewscreen intently. For five seconds, then ten, then fifteen, the apparent stretching continued, with the main hull of the Enterprise virtually surrounded by the crackling energies of the gate, even though, in visible light, nothing could be seen.
Then, in an instant, just as it had before, the universe vanished, and Spock found himself—his mind—floating free.
And listening.
Unlike the first time, he wasted no time with the chimera of false freedom that once again assaulted him. Knowing what to expect, he had prepared himself. It had been in this state when his sense of the entity that had attached itself to the Enterprise had been the strongest. This time, with that preparation, perhaps he could establish a stronger link, perhaps even gain some useful information.
But before he could more than form the thoughts in his mind, the same sense of dizzying, bodiless motion that had marked the beginning of the end of his stay in limbo that first time gripped him again.
And he was once again on the bridge of the Enterprise. Once again, all viewscreens operating on visible light showed only featureless grayness, a never-ending fog, while those fed by the Aragos-modified sensors showed patternless chaos.
According to the chronometer, less than a second had passed.
"Captain," Uhura called almost instantly. "A signal is coming in. It appears virtually identical to the one that gave us the map."
As before, the incoming signal was piped directly into the computer's memory banks.
"Dr. McCoy," Kirk said into the intercom once the data were flowing smoothly. "How is Mr. Chekov doing?"
"As well as can be expected." McCoy's harassed-sounding voice came back after a brief delay.
"And the physicals you were going to run—"
"Blast it, Jim, things haven't settled down long enough for me to do anything!"
"I know, Bones. But even if you can't do it yourself, get someone on it. We're flying blind in here, and I need all the information I can get—on everything."
McCoy was silent a moment before letting his breath out in an acquiescent sigh. "I know, Jim. Chapel has three of the orderlies on the tables now, running all the checks. I suppose you want to interrupt her to see how she's doing."
"Since you suggest it, yes."
"Yes, Captain?" Nurse Chapel's voice came a moment later. She had obviously been listening to the exchange.
"Any results yet?"
"Nothing that appears significant, Captain. All diagnostic readings and all tricorder readings are well within normal ranges. So far, there is no reading that appears to bear any correlation to the subjective time each felt he or she spent in 'limbo,' as you referred to it."
"Keep at it, Nurse. And notify me immediately if you do find anything—anything that looks even the least bit peculiar. Understood?"
"Of course, Captain."
As he switched from sickbay to engineering, he was certain he heard McCoy snort in the background.
"Mr. Scott?" he said a moment later. "All ship's systems still functioning properly?"
"Aye, Captain, no' so much as a bellyache," Scott answered. Then he added in a faintly accusing tone, "Not even in the warp-drive engines, despite the strain ye put them under."
"I'll try not to overwork your engines in the future, but try to keep them ready just in case."
Silently, then, Kirk settled back in the command chair, his eyes on the featureless grayness of the main viewscreen. His mind, however, roamed uneasily among the dozens of unansw
erable questions that confronted him, until, finally, it came to an uncomfortable rest on the one that was both the most disturbing and, for now, the most unanswerable: could there be a degree of truth in the accusation Sherbourne had shouted after him?
Was he, no matter how unknowingly, doing precisely what the entity wanted?
The data transmission rate was no faster than before, but this time the signal cut off after less than half an hour.
"Take us back out," Kirk said abruptly once they were sure no more information was coming. "And we'll see what we were given this time."
Again, Spock keyed in the code that sent the navigational commands to the ship's computer. The ship oriented itself according to the map's commands, although the featureless gray that surrounded them still gave no indication of motion.
Impulse power came on.
Suddenly, the entire ship shuddered violently.
And vanished.
But this time, it wasn't a bodiless, sensationless limbo that everyone on the Enterprise was plunged into.
Instead, they were submerged in an ocean of pain, as intense and real as a thousand knives slicing through their flesh.
Chapter Fourteen
AUTOMATICALLY, SPOCK'S MIND retreated into the disciplines that allowed Vulcans to virtually isolate their conscious minds from their bodies whenever unbearable pains—or pleasures—descended on them.
But this time there was no body to retreat from!
There was only the same nothingness he had experienced before, but now it was filled with pain, more excruciating than any he had ever experienced, as if each and every nerve in his otherwise nonexistent body were being held to its own individual, searing flame. And it was heightened by his frustrating helplessness, by his inability to either pull away or strike back.
Finally, out of the ocean of pain, a logical thought emerged. In this state, his mind told him firmly, my body does not exist; therefore, it is suffering no real physical damage. The pain is, in that sense, only an illusion, and illusions are of no importance.
Suddenly, it was tolerable. Once the logic of the situation became clear to him, his mind could once more function almost normally.
And a thought came to him. What of the others, the humans, with their almost nonexistent tolerance for pain and their totally inadequate mental discipline?
Through the pain, he reached out to them, as he had before.
And, as he had before, he sensed their presence.
And touched them, feeling their own pain combine with his into one all-enveloping, molten nightmare, but a nightmare that was somehow easier to bear because of the sharing.
And the entity was there as well, still distant and withdrawn but experiencing the same agony. Not drinking it in or reveling in it, not even sharing it, but still experiencing it, even more intensely, Spock was certain, than himself or any of the others.
For the moment, the fear that had, until then, been the signature of its presence was gone, swallowed up by this new and different torment.
But the entity, Spock realized, was suffering yet another form of anguish. Before, in his first virtually timeless sojourn in limbo, he had sensed a need in the entity, a wordless, desperate need that had existed seemingly forever. And now, despite the pain the entity was suffering—or perhaps because of it—the need was even more intense.
And there was a form to that need.
A need to—absorb? To be absorbed? As Spock and the others, only moments before, had seemed to absorb each other, making the pain somehow more bearable for them all?
But there was more than a simple desire for the pain to fade.
It was a yearning, and for an instant it was as real as if it were his own, and the suppressed yearnings of his own childhood, the unacceptable yearning for love and closeness with his parents, suddenly gripped him and twisted at him with an emotional ache that was almost the equal of the seemingly physical agony that still ripped at his phantom body.
But then, in a fraction of a second, all the torments were gone.
And the universe returned.
Spock's mind, though relieved of the emotional anguish and the illusory pain, was once more weighted down by his physical body.
Around him, the bridge sprang into existence. The others—
Instinctively, he caught Commander Ansfield as, ashen-faced, she lurched, half falling.
The others, seated, did not fall, but neither, in those first split seconds, were they entirely aware of their surroundings.
Spock's eyes went instantly to the main viewscreen. For a moment, it was blank, showing only total darkness. Then, as if a shrouded light had been turned on, a dozen massive ships of alien design, their images dark and fuzzily indistinct, appeared and began to expand dizzyingly as the Enterprise careened toward them on a collision course.
Releasing Ansfield, leaving her to lean heavily against the science station console, Spock vaulted the handrail and lunged for the helm, where Sulu was only then showing signs of regaining control of his body. In the command chair, Kirk was lurching to his feet in his own rubber-kneed effort to reach the helm. Behind him, at the communications station, Lieutenant Uhura was grimacing as she tried to straighten in her chair.
Spock's fingers stabbed at the helm controls, bringing the impulse engines to surging life and surrounding the Enterprise with the invisible shield of the deflectors.
For an instant, the ghostly images continued to grow alarmingly, but then, as the impulse engines reversed and took hold, the images stabilized.
"Good work, Mr. Spock." Kirk's voice, beginning to steady, came from just behind the first officer. On his feet now, the captain was leaning against the handrail. "But what the devil happened? And where did those ships come from?"
Abruptly, as if the indistinct images were only now fully registering, Kirk shook his head sharply, frowning. "And what wavelength is the computer using for its images? And the stars—"
There were, Kirk realized even as he spoke, no stars on the screen. Only the ships, massive and darkly indistinct. Beyond them was only empty space.
"Full sensor scan, Mr. Spock," Kirk snapped. "Mr. Sulu, override the computer and go to visible-light images."
"Aye-aye, sir," Sulu said as Spock stepped wordlessly from the helm and returned to the science station.
The viewscreen went blank.
"Mr. Sulu—" Kirk began, but Sulu was already speaking.
"There is no visible light, Captain," he said, his voice hushed in surprise.
"No visible light? That's impossible, Mr. Sulu!"
"I know, sir, but—" Sulu broke off, rechecking his controls. "But that's what I'm getting, sir. There is no visible light."
"No stars?"
"None, sir. The images of the ships previously on the screen were being produced by wavelengths far beyond infrared."
Kirk frowned. "Mr. Spock, what do the sensors show?"
"Only one ship registers on the sensors, Captain."
"Only one? There were at least eight or ten, and they were far from Small!"
"I am aware of that, Captain. Nonetheless, the sensors show only one ship other than our own, and it is indeed quite large. Its mass, in fact, is approximately twice that of the Enterprise. In addition, its temperature is a uniform nineteen point six degrees Kelvin. That, of course, explains the extreme wavelengths the computer was forced to utilize to produce an image. The spectrum of black-body radiation at temperatures that close to absolute zero—"
"I remember my basic Academy physics, Mr. Spock," Kirk interrupted. "What else do the sensors show?"
"There are no indications of life or of functioning energy sources, Captain," Spock resumed, unperturbed, "although a mass of antimatter consistent with a warp-drive engine is present."
"And the other ships?"
Spock hesitated, his eyes flickering across the readouts, double-checking before replying. "As I have already stated, Captain, the sensors indicate the other ships do not exist."
Kirk shoo
k his head disbelievingly. "Return control of the imaging to the computer, Mr. Sulu," he snapped. "Get those ships back on the screen. Lieutenant Uhura, are you picking up anything on any frequency, either subspace or standard?"
"Nothing, Captain, not even background static."
On the screen, a half-dozen ships appeared, and for a moment the images seemed to waver, as if they were reflections on the surface of a sea in whose hidden depths something silently patrolled.
"Which one registers on the sensors, Mr. Spock?"
Spock glanced at the screen, then returned to his instruments. "The largest, Captain, and presumably the nearest. It is the one in the upper left of the screen."
Kirk studied it briefly, intensely, then scanned the others. The ship in question was a massive pyramid, bulky and plodding-looking, probably a freighter of some kind. Of those the sensors insisted didn't exist, one had convoluted, menacing contours that reminded him of a Klingon scout ship magnified hundreds of times. Another resembled nothing he had ever seen before, lumpy and irregular, as if it had been grown rather than built from some purposeful design. Yet another was comparatively small and extremely sleek, its almost needlelike structure apparent even in the fuzzy long-wavelength image.
And one, almost as massive and blocky as the first, was dominated by a jagged hole over what may once have been a crew compartment.
Shaking his head again, Kirk turned from the main viewscreen toward the auxiliary screen that monitored the modified sensors.
Abruptly, a leaden tightness clutched at his stomach. The auxiliary screen, like the main screen moments before, was blank.
The kaleidoscopic energies of the gate should have filled half the sky—had filled it when the Enterprise had first emerged into this space, Kirk was positive but now there was nothing.
The gate had vanished.
For a long moment, Kirk scowled at the blank screen, as if by concentration he could cause the gate to reappear. "Spock," he began, but before he could say more, the intercom from sickbay crackled on.