by Gene DeWeese
"Then we had better get a move on before we lose the use of the sensors entirely," Kirk said. "Mr. Sulu, all deliberate speed."
"Aye-aye, sir."
Another hour, and another two hundred forty-one ships later, Spock looked up from his readouts. "Functioning antimatter power source and a form of deflector screen and primitive sensor probe, Captain," he announced. "And a life-form reading."
Kirk, his attention wandering after nearly four hundred negative announcements from his first officer, was instantly alert, his eyes snapping to the viewscreen. "Which ship?"
"The ship at the lower right of the screen is the probable source, Captain."
The image Spock indicated was even fuzzier than the others, literally a three-hundred-meter-diameter blur. No features other than its irregular spherical shape were distinguishable.
"Keep moving, Mr. Sulu," Kirk snapped. "Continue the search pattern for the moment, but don't lose sight of that ship. Mr. Spock, have we found the source of whatever's affecting the sensors?"
"Unknown, Captain. However, all sensor readings pertaining to the alien ship appear decidedly erratic. In addition, the radius of the sphere surrounding the Enterprise decreased rapidly during the eleven point two seconds the ship in question was within sensor range. And the image on the viewscreen is not of the ship itself but of its deflector screens. Those screens are apparently designed not only to protect the ship but to modify its radiation pattern in such a way that its true surface temperature is not readily apparent through observations made in the standard electromagnetic spectrum."
"In other words, Mr. Spock, it's lying in the weeds."
"If I correctly perceive the meaning of that peculiar figure of speech, Captain—"
"It's been trying to hide from us. Or from someone."
"Almost certainly, Captain."
"And based on the way the field that's affecting our sensors suddenly shrank the moment that ship came within range, it's obvious there's a relationship of some kind between the ship and the field, whether or not the ship is actually the source."
"That would also seem likely, Captain."
"And the life-form readings?"
"One life-form aboard, Captain, but the readings regarding its nature are ambiguous. It is carbon-based, but there are contradictory indications regarding its physical form. Certain metabolic peculiarities point toward humanoid, but others are incompatible with that form."
"Drive?"
"Functional impulse power, Captain. Indications of nonfunctional warp drive."
"Weapons?"
"Nothing that could be identified as such by our sensors, Captain." Spock studied his console closely. "However, the sensors modified by the Aragos indicated a device capable of omnidirectional projection of massive amounts of energy that appear to be similar to that generated by the gates themselves."
A sudden hope stabbed through Kirk. Could this be someone who knew the secrets of the gates? One of the race that constructed them, even? But if so, what was it doing here? And could it—or would it—help them?
Or was it here only to destroy them, to add them to the already well-populated cosmic graveyard?
The image of a spider hovering hungrily in its web forced itself into Kirk's mind. There were dozens of shipboard theories regarding the gates, but the one that had generated the most discussion and spawned the most variations was that the entire gate system was a massive trap. The entities themselves, in that theory, were not the creators of the gate system but a form of poison that adhered to anyone passing through.
But perhaps the entities were more than a simple poison. Perhaps they were some form of artificial predator, programmed to capture those beings they failed to kill, programmed to capture them and bring them back into the limbo between the gates, to where those survivors could be hooked and dragged, like struggling fish, to where, on the end of a billion-parsec fishing line, the fisherman—the exterminator?—lay waiting.
Remembering the agony they had all experienced each time they had been spit out here, he realized uneasily that the hook analogy was certainly apt enough. And of the hundreds—thousands?—of ships that had been deposited in this intergalactic graveyard over the millennia, this one they had just discovered was the only one that showed any signs of life.
"What about that alien ship itself, Spock? What does it look like behind the camouflage its screens are putting out?"
"Like this, Captain," Spock said, tapping a code into the science station controls and indicating one of the auxiliary screens.
Kirk frowned. Small and utilitarian, vaguely resembling two shuttlecraft welded together side by side, the ship Spock had put on the auxiliary screen looked more like a personal craft than anything military. There were no markings of any kind visible. Nor were there any immediately obvious openings. The only breaks in the regularity of the surface were an antennalike device that could have been a sensor array and, next to it, a solid oval-shaped ring mounted on four stubby legs.
"Lieutenant Uhura?" he said, still watching the tiny ship, puzzled. "Any activity on any frequency?"
"None, sir."
"And the range of our sensors, Mr. Spock?"
"Decreasing at approximately ninety-two point three kilometers per hour, Captain."
"How much time do we have?"
"At the current rate, approximately three hours and seventeen minutes, Captain."
Frowning, Kirk glanced around the bridge. "I'm open for comments. Anybody?"
"Now that we've found something alive," Ansfield said quickly, "I recommend we take a shot at communicating. Before whatever it is out there decides to take a more lethal kind of shot at us. And before the sensors quit working altogether."
"Opinion, Mr. Spock?"
"It is impossible to calculate the odds for or against the advisability of such a move, Captain. It is, therefore, a decision that must be made by human intuition rather than by logic."
"But you see no logical reason not to follow Commander Ansfield's suggestion?"
"On the contrary, Captain, there are a number of logical reasons to attempt to avoid all contact with the alien ship. However, there are equally as many logical reasons to do precisely as she suggests. The validity of those mutually contradictory reasons depends entirely on the intentions of the alien and the power of its ship, and we currently have no reliable information regarding either. It is, therefore, impossible to determine an optimum course of action by the use of logic alone."
"In other words," Ansfield interjected impatiently, "flip a coin. I can supply one if it will help get this show on the road."
Spock arched one eyebrow a fraction as he looked toward Ansfield. "Is it your belief, then, Commander, that the results of decisions made on the basis of intuition are no better than the results of those made by pure chance? I have often been given to understand, particularly by the captain and Dr. McCoy, that human intuition—"
"Mr. Sulu," Kirk interrupted, speaking rapidly and not waiting for individual acknowledgments, "return us to within sensor range. Lieutenant Uhura, transmit our peaceful intentions, all frequencies, all languages. Mr. Spock, monitor that ship with everything that's working, no matter how erratic the readings. Pay particular attention to the device that's putting out energy similar to that emitted by the gate."
Ansfield nodded her approval as she renewed her scrutiny of Spock's readouts.
But there was no response from the tiny ship, other than a marked increase in the metabolic rate of the seemingly paradoxical life-form aboard it.
And another quantum decrease in the range of the sensors, down to less than seven hundred kilometers in less than a second.
Kirk's frown deepened at Spock's announcement of the newly shortened sensor range, and he turned to Uhura. "Any indication that our transmissions are being received, Lieutenant?"
"Indications, yes, Captain. There is increased absorption at certain standard frequencies, but it is impossible to be certain without—"
Suddenly, an
urgent voice erupted from the speakers.
"I must speak with the leader of this ship!" the computer translated immediately.
It was not the translation, however, that sent a shock through everyone on the bridge and sent Spock's fingers darting across the science station controls to confirm the life-form readings he had scanned only minutes before.
It was the voice itself, audible beneath the computer's translation. Despite a singsong intonation and a heavy but identifiable accent, it spoke in what they all recognized as a Klingon dialect.
Chapter Sixteen
KIRK TOOK A deep breath. "I am James T. Kirk, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise," he said warily. "Who are you? What do you want?"
"I am Kremastor," the voice said. "You must return with me to the nexus!"
"Nexus?"
"The phenomenon that brought you here. You must return with me, now!"
"Can you help us get through it?"
"It is possible we can both reenter safely—if we waste no more time!"
"Our instruments tell us that you have a device on your ship that is capable of generating a form of energy similar to that generated by the gate—the nexus, as you call it. Is that—"
"It is something I must use later! There is another device which will allow you—us—to reenter the nexus unharmed."
"If you have such a device, why haven't you already used it? Why do you need our help?"
"It is too complicated to explain! There is no time! We must act now, while we have the chance!"
"The language you speak—"
"It is not my language!" the voice, verging on panic, broke in. "It was one of many contained in the computer of another ship that came through the nexus earlier. It is the only one that was also among those languages that your own ship was transmitting."
"The life-form readings are definitely not Klingon, Captain," Spock said quietly.
"In that case, Kirk," Ansfield snapped, "I respectfully suggest we do as the gentleman asks. I don't see that we have a lot to lose."
Kirk hesitated a moment, glancing at Spock and then at the image of the tiny ship on the viewscreen, then nodded abruptly.
"Agreed, Commander. Kremastor, how do we proceed?"
"I will bring my ship alongside yours. Together we will approach the nexus."
"And then?"
"When we are close enough, I will activate the device that will allow us to reenter the nexus. Once we have reentered safely, you may do as you wish."
"And if you and your device separate from us, will we be thrown back out here? I assume you've seen—"
"There is no time for this! The dead space around your ship has maintained itself longer than any I have ever seen, but it is still shrinking at an increasing rate!"
"What is—" Kirk shook his head. "Bring your ship alongside, but keep talking! What is this 'dead space'?"
Immediately, the tiny ship began to draw closer. "I do not know what the dead space is," Kremastor said, sounding almost plaintive now. "I only know that it surrounds each vessel as it emerges from the nexus, and that it normally blocks my own ship's instruments. But the dead space that surrounds your ship for some reason behaves differently. It helps the device that will allow us to reenter the nexus."
"And what device is that?"
"It is a device that nullifies the Trap—the thing that brought you—that brought us both here."
"And all these other ships?"
"Those, too, but it is too late to help any of them."
"How is it that you alone of all these hundreds survived?"
"Because I am alone! And because I have not been allowed to die!" Kremastor almost shouted, and then, as if struggling to regain control: "We must proceed to the nexus. There is no time—"
"Kirk," Ansfield broke in. "I think Spock's little friend is coming back."
"I was beginning to feel it myself," Kirk said with a grimace. "I was hoping it was my imagination. Kremastor, do you—"
But the connection had been broken.
"Lieutenant Uhura, what happened?"
"I don't know, sir. The signal was simply cut off."
"Get it back! Kremastor, whoever or whatever it is, may be our only chance to get out of here!"
"Trying, sir, but—"
"We're being scanned again, Captain," Spock broke in. "Additionally, there is evidence of some form of transporter activity originating in Kremastor's ship. It appears to be—"
Suddenly, Spock's voice was drowned out by a deafening mixture of hissing and crackling. For an instant, everyone looked around urgently, trying to find the source of the sound, wondering which piece of equipment had suddenly started to fry itself.
But then they realized it was not coming from any piece of equipment.
It was coming from the air all around them.
A moment later, a tingling numbness filled everyone's body, as if an electrical charge were being induced into every inch of flesh, inside and out.
Then it was gone, and in the instant the feeling vanished, the bridge was filled—literally filled—with a fog of pulsing light.
Squinting against the blinding brilliance, everyone on the Enterprise bridge looked dartingly for the source, but, as with the noise that still crackled around them, there was no single source. The light, too, was coming from everywhere, from the very air around them.
Slowly, the light began to coalesce, swirling like fog being drawn into a bottle, until it was a single column, less brilliant now, running from deck to ceiling directly in front of Kirk's command chair. At the same time, the crackling faded to a tolerable level.
But as the sound faded, the column of light began to sculpt itself into a surrealistic version of a humanoid body, swirled for a moment, then moved toward Kirk, extending an arm of light as it moved.
In the split second that the pulsing light reached out toward Kirk, Commander Ansfield made her decision. Three thoughts flashed through her mind virtually simultaneously, spurring her into immediate action.
Kremastor had spoken in a Klingon dialect.
Typically impatient, she herself had urged Kirk to go along with Kremastor's wishes.
And, finally and most importantly, Kirk was needed on the Enterprise. She was not.
Indeed, at times, Kirk seemed to virtually be the Enterprise. Around him, the crew functioned as smoothly as she had ever seen a starship crew function. Even McCoy, with his continual grousing, and Spock, with his encyclopedic knowledge and unsurpassed logic, respected Kirk and his odd mixture of intuition and courage. And it was not the empty, grudging respect that many captains received simply because they were captains. She had heard stories, often envious, of the remarkable rapport between captain and crew, but now, after her few days on the Enterprise, they were no longer stories. As far as she was concerned, they were fact.
Without hesitation, she darted down the steps from the science station.
Apparently aware of her sudden motion, the extended arm of light shifted toward her.
She collided with it, finding it not a solid object but a kind of resistance, like a force field.
"Ansfield!" Kirk yelled, reaching toward her.
Abruptly, a tingling numbness gripped her entire body, and an instant later the bridge vanished behind a fog of light.
Then the light intensified, forcing her to clamp her eyes tightly shut. The deck vanished from beneath her feet.
The column of light that had absorbed Commander Ansfield amid an even louder, harsher outburst of crackling flared out until all definition was lost, and then, for a moment, the entire bridge was once again filled with blinding light.
And then nothing.
Except for some faint static on the radio, the light and sound were gone, Commander Ansfield with them.
"Captain, the screen!"
It was Sulu's voice, and for the first time since the light had appeared on the bridge, everyone looked toward the main viewscreen, where the alien ship now stood out like a nova among the other ships. During
the moments of chaos on the bridge, it had pulled back, almost to the limit of the still-shrinking sensor range, but it had also had to lower its deflectors to allow its transporter to operate.
"Don't lose it, Mr. Sulu," Kirk snapped, hoping against hope that the alien's transporter operation had been less deadly than the noise and the pyrotechnics accompanying it had indicated.
But even before the words were out, the glow of the alien ship vanished from the screen.
An instant later, the sensors lost it as well.
Chapter Seventeen
DISORIENTED AND HELPLESS, Commander Ansfield floated in the midst of the light and noise, her eyes clamped tightly shut against the blinding glare. Obviously, unless the artificial gravity had given out entirely, she was no longer on the Enterprise. The light had almost certainly been the result of the transporter energy that Spock had detected, but the transporter must have been either a very primitive one or one that was on the verge of breaking down.
But at least it hadn't killed her. Yet. It had taken her somewhere.
But where? To Kremastor's ship? Unless there was another operational ship out there, one that had successfully eluded their search, it had to be.
Slowly, the intensity of light bombarding her closed eyelids began to ease, but abruptly, long before she dared open her eyes, gravity returned, sending her thudding onto a hard, concavely curved surface.
An instant later, the light, a dull glare even through her closed lids, faded almost as abruptly as gravity had returned. At the same time, the crackling noises faded, leaving only a soft mixture of a hiss and a rumble.
Cautiously, she risked lifting her lids a fraction. When she was not blinded by a resurgence of the light, she opened her eyes the rest of the way.
For an instant, a new wave of vertigo swept over her as she found herself lying in a featureless gray sphere about three meters in diameter. Muted, shadowless light seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere simultaneously, just as the blinding glow of the transporter had done on the Enterprise bridge. But whatever the source of the light, it was obviously not intended for human eyes. Under it, her skin was sallow, almost jaundiced, the blue of her uniform contrastingly darker.