The Wrath of Khan

by Vonda N. McIntyre

  David hurried to her side. "I did," he said. "I had to build a whole new bath for them, but I did it. Are they filled up already?"

  "That's what it says."

  He frowned and glanced around the lab.

  "Anybody have anything in storage here they've just been dying to get rid of?"

  Jedda, who was a Deltan and prone to quick reactions, strode over with an expression of alarm. "If you delete my quantum data I'll be most distressed."

  "I don't want to delete anything," Carol said, "but I just spent six weeks debugging this subroutine, and I've got to have it."

  At a lab table nearby, Del March glanced at Vance Madison. Vance grimaced, and Carol caught him at it.

  "All right you guys," Carol said. "Del, have you been using my bubble bath again?"

  Del approached, hanging his head; Vance followed, walking with his easy slouch. They're like a couple of kids, Carol thought. Like kids? They are kids. They were only a few years older than David.

  "Geez, Carol," Del said, "it's just a little something—"

  "Del, there's got to be ninety-three computers on Spacelab. Why do you have to put your games on the main machine?"

  "They work a lot better," Vance said in his soft beautiful voice.

  "You can't play Boojum Hunt on anything less, Carol," Del said. "Hey, you ought to look at what we did to it. It's got a black hole with an accretion disk that will jump right out and grab you, and the graphics are fantastic. If I do say so myself. If we had a three-d display …"

  "Why do I put up with this?" Carol groaned. The answer to that was obvious: Vance Madison and Del March were the two sharpest quark chemists in the field, and when they worked together their talents did not simply add, but multiplied. Every time they published a paper they got another load of invitations to scientific conferences. Genesis was lucky to have them, and Carol knew it.

  The two young scientists played together as well as they worked; unfortunately, what they liked to play was computer games. Del had tried to get her to play one once; she was not merely uninterested, she was totally disinterested.

  "What's the file name?" she asked. She felt too tired for patience. She turned back to the console. "Prepare to kill a file," she said to the computer.

  "Ok," it replied.

  "Don't kill it, Carol," Del said. "Come on, give us a break."

  She almost killed it anyway; Del's flakiness got to her worst when she was exhausted.

  "We'll keep it out of your hair from now on, Carol," Vance said. "I promise."

  Vance never said anything he did not mean. Carol relented.

  "Oh—all right. What's the file name?"

  "BH," Del said.

  "Got one in there called BS, too?" David asked.

  Del grinned sheepishly. Carol accessed one of the smaller lab computers.

  "Uh, Carol," Del said, "I don't think it'll fit in that one."

  "How big is it?"

  "Well … about fifty megs."

  "Christ on a crutch!" David said. "The program that swallowed Saturn."

  "We added a lot since you played it last," Del said defensively.

  "Me? I never play computer games!"

  Vance chuckled. David colored. Carol hunted around for enough peripheral storage space and transferred the program.

  "All right, twins," she said. She liked to tease them by calling them "twins": Vance was two meters tall, slender, black, intense, and calm, while Del was almost thirty centimeters shorter, compact, fair, manic, and quick-tempered.

  "Thanks, Carol," Vance said. He smiled.

  Jedda folded his arms. "I trust this means my data is safe for another day."

  "Safe and sound."

  The deepspace communicator signaled, and he went to answer it.

  Carol stored the Genesis subroutine again.

  "Ok," the computer said, and a moment later, "Command?"

  Carol breathed a sigh of relief. "Load Genesis, complete."

  A moment's pause.

  "Ok."

  "And run it."

  "Ok."

  "Now," Carol said, "we wait."

  "Carol," Jedda said at the communicator, "it's Reliant."

  She got up quickly. Everyone followed her to the communicator. Jedda put the call up on the screen.

  "Reliant to Spacelab, come in Spacelab."

  "Spacelab here, Commander Chekov. Go ahead."

  "Dr. Marcus, good. We're en route to Regulus. Our ETA is three days from now."

  "Three days? Why so soon? What did you find on Alpha Ceti VI?"

  Chekov stared into the screen. What's wrong? Carol wondered. There shouldn't be any time lag on the hyper channel.

  "Has something happened? Pavel, do you read me? Has something happened?"

  "No, nothing, Doctor. All went well. Alpha Ceti VI checked out."

  "Break out the beer!" Del said.

  "But what about—"

  Chekov cut her off. "We have new orders, Doctor. Upon our arrival at Spacelab, we will take all Project Genesis materials into military custody."

  "Bullshit!" David said.

  "Shh, David," Carol said automatically. "Commander Chekov, this is extremely irregular. Who gave this order?"

  "Starfleet Command, Dr. Marcus. Direct from the General Staff."

  "This is a civilian project! This is my project—"

  "I have my orders."

  "What gold-stripe lamebrain gave the order?" David shouted.

  Chekov glanced away from the screen, then turned back.

  "Admiral James T. Kirk."

  Carol felt the blood drain from her face.

  David pushed past her toward the screen.

  "I knew you'd try to pull this!" he shouted. "Anything anybody does, you just can't wait to get your hands on it and kill people with it!" He reached to cut off the communication.

  Carol grabbed his hand. Keep hold of yourself, she thought, and took a deep breath.

  "Commander Chekov, the order is improper. I'll permit no military personnel access to my work."

  Chekov paused again, glanced away again.

  What's going on out there? Carol thought.

  "I'm sorry you feel that way, Dr. Marcus," Chekov said. "The orders are confirmed. Please be prepared to hand over Genesis upon our arrival in three days. Reliant out."

  He reached forward; the transmission faded.

  On Spacelab, everyone started talking at once.

  "Will everybody please shut up!" Carol said. "I can't even think!"

  The babble slowly subsided.

  "It's got to be a mistake," Carol said.

  "A mistake! Mother, for gods' sake! It's perfect! They came sucking up to us with a ship. 'At our disposal!' Ha!"

  "Waiting to dispose of us looks more like it," Jedda said.

  "David—"

  "And what better way to keep an eye on what we're doing? All they had to do was wait till practically everybody is on leave, they can swoop in here and there's only us to oppose them!"

  "But—"

  "They think we're a bunch of pawns!"

  "David, stop it! You're always accusing the military of raving paranoia. What do you think you're working up to? Starfleet's kept the peace for a hundred years. . . ."

  Silence fell. David could not deny what she had said. At the same time, Carol could not explain what had happened.

  "Mistake or not," Vance said, "if they get Genesis, they aren't likely to give it back."

  "You're right," Carol said. She thought for a moment. "All right, everybody. Get your gear together. Start with lab notes and work down from there. Jedda, is Zinaida asleep?" Carol knew that Zinaida, Genesis's mathematician, had been working on the dispersal equations until early that morning.

  "She was when I left our room," he said. Like Jedda, Zinaida was a Deltan. Deltans tended to work and travel in groups, or at the very least in pairs, for a Deltan alone was terribly isolated. They required emotional and physical closeness of such intensity that no other sentient being could long
survive intimacy with one of them.

  "Okay, you'd better wake her. Vance, Del, Misters Computer Wizards: I want you to start transferring everything in the computers to portable storage, because any program, any data we can't move we're going to kill—that goes for BH or BS or whatever it is, too. So get to work."

  "But where are we going?" Del asked.

  "That's for us to know and Reliant to find out. But we've only got three days. Let's not waste time."

  The doors of the turbo-lift began to close.

  "Hold, please!"

  "Hold!" Jim Kirk said to the sensors. The doors opened obediently, sighing.

  Lieutenant Saavik dashed inside.

  "Thank you, sir."

  "My pleasure, Lieutenant."

  She gazed at him intently; Kirk began to feel uneasy.

  "Admiral," she said suddenly, "may I speak?"

  "Lieutenant," Kirk said, "self-expression does not seem to be one of your problems."

  "I beg your pardon, sir?"

  "Never mind. What was it you wanted to say?"

  "I wish to ask you about the high efficiency rating."

  "You earned it."

  "I did not think so."

  "Because of the results of Kobayashi Maru?"

  "I failed to resolve the situation," Saavik said.

  "You couldn't. There isn't any resolution. It's a test of character."

  She considered that for a moment.

  "Was the test a part of your training, Admiral?"

  "It certainly was," Jim Kirk said with a smile.

  "May I ask how you dealt with it?"

  "You may ask, Lieutenant." Kirk laughed.

  She froze.

  "That was a little joke, Lieutenant," Kirk said.

  "Admiral," she said carefully, "the jokes human beings make differ considerably from those with which I am familiar."

  "What jokes exactly do you mean?"

  "The jokes of Romulans," she said.

  Do you want to know? Jim Kirk asked himself. You don't want to know.

  "Your concept, Admiral," Saavik said, "the human concept, appears more complex and more difficult."

  Out of the blue, he thought, My God, she's beautiful.

  Watch it, he thought; and then, sarcastically, You're an admiral.

  "Well, Lieutenant, we learn by doing."

  She did not react to that, either. He decided to change the subject.

  "Lieutenant, do you want my advice?"

  "Yes," she said in an odd tone of voice.

  "You're allowed to take the test more than once. If you're dissatisfied with your performance, you should take it again."

  The lift slowed and stopped. The doors slid open and Dr. McCoy, who had been waiting impatiently, stepped inside.

  All this newfangled rebuilding, he thought, and look what comes of it: everything's even slower.

  "Who's been holding up the damned elevator?—Oh!" he said when he saw Kirk and Saavik. "Hi."

  "Thank you, Admiral," Saavik said as she stepped off the lift. "I appreciate your advice. Good day, Doctor."

  The doors closed.

  Jim said nothing but stared abstractedly at the ceiling.

  Doing his very best dirty old man imitation, McCoy waggled his eyebrows.

  "Did she change her hair?"

  "What?"

  "I said—"

  "I heard you, Bones. Grow up, why don't you?"

  Well, McCoy thought, that's a change. Maybe not a change for the better, but at least a change.

  "Wonderful stuff, that Romulan ale," McCoy said with a touch of sarcasm.

  Kirk returned from his abstraction. "It's a great memory restorative," he said.

  "Oh—?"

  "It made me remember why I never drink it."

  "That's gratitude for you—"

  "Admiral Kirk," Uhura said over the intercom. "Urgent message for Admiral Kirk."

  Jim turned on the intercom. "Kirk here."

  "Sir, Regulus I Spacelab is on the hyperspace channel. Urgent. Dr. Carol Marcus."

  Jim started.

  Carol Marcus? McCoy thought. Carol Marcus?

  "Uh … Uhura, I'll take it in my quarters," Jim said.

  "Yes, sir."

  He turned the intercom off again and glared at McCoy, as if having any witnesses to his reaction irritated him.

  "Well, well, well," McCoy said. "It never rains but it—"

  "Some doctor you are," Jim said angrily. "You of all people should appreciate the danger of opening old wounds."

  The lift doors opened, and Kirk stormed out.

  "Sorry," McCoy said after the doors had closed once more. Well, Old Family Doctor, he thought, needling him isn't working; you'd better change your tack if you want to bring him out of his funk.

  On the other hand, McCoy said to himself, depending on what that call is about, you may not have to.

  Jim Kirk strode down the corridor of the Enterprise, trying to maintain his composure. Carol Marcus, after all these years? It would have to be something damned serious for her to call him. And what, in heaven's name, was going on with McCoy? Every word the doctor had said in the past three days was like a porcupine, layered over with little painful probes veiled and unveiled.

  He hurried into his room and turned on the viewscreen.

  "Dr. Marcus, Admiral," Uhura said.

  The image snowed and fluttered across the viewscreen. For an instant, he could make out Carol's face; then it fragmented again.

  "Uhura, can't you augment the signal?"

  "I'm trying, sir, it's coming in badly scrambled."

  "… Jim … read me? Can you …"

  What did come through clearly was Carol Marcus's distress and anger.

  "Your message is breaking up, Carol. What's the matter? What's wrong?"

  "… can't read you. . . ."

  "Carol, what's wrong?" He kept repeating that, hoping enough would get through for her to make out his question.

  "… trying … take Genesis away from us. . . ."

  "What?" he asked, startled. "Taking Genesis? Who? Who's taking Genesis?"

  "… can't hear you. . . . Did you order …?"

  "What order? Carol, who's taking Genesis?"

  The transmission cleared for a mere few seconds. "Jim, rescind the order." It began to break up again. "… no authority … I won't let …"

  "Carol!"

  "Jim, please help. I don't believe—"

  The picture scrambled again and did not clear. Jim slammed his hand against the edge of the screen.

  "Uhura, what's happening? Damn it!"

  "I'm sorry, sir. There's nothing coming through. It's jammed at the source."

  "Jammed!"

  "That's what the pattern indicates, Admiral."

  "Damn," Jim said again. "Commander, alert Starfleet HQ. I want to talk to Starfleet Command."

  "Aye, sir."

  Jim Kirk strode onto the bridge.

  "Mr. Sulu," he said, "stop impulse engines."

  Sulu complied. "Stop engines."

  The bridge crew waited, surprised, expectant, confused.

  "We have an emergency," Kirk said stiffly. "By order of Starfleet Command, I am assuming temporary command of the Enterprise. Duty Officer, so note in the ship's log. Mr. Sulu, plot a new course: Regulus I Spacelab." He paused as if waiting for an objection or an argument. No one spoke. He opened an intercom channel to the engine room. "Mr. Scott."

  "Aye, sir?"

  "We'll be going to warp speed immediately."

  "Aye, sir."

  "Course plotted for Spacelab, Admiral," Mr. Sulu said.

  "Engage warp engines."

  "Prepare for warp speed," Saavik said. Her voice was tense and suspicious; only the regard in which Captain Spock held this human kept her from rebelling. She shifted the ship to warp mode.

  "Ready, sir," said Mr. Sulu.

  "Warp five, Mr. Sulu."

  The ship gathered itself around them and sprang.

  Kirk stepped back into
the turbo-lift and disappeared.

  In his cabin, Spock lay on a polished slab of Vulcan granite, his meditation stone. He was preparing himself to sink from light trance to a deeper one when he felt the Enterprise accelerate to warp speed. He immediately brought himself back toward consciousness. A moment later, he heard someone at his door.

  "Come," he said quietly. He sat up.

  Jim Kirk entered, hitched one hip on the corner of the stone, and stared at the floor.

  "Spock, we've got a problem."

  Spock arched his eyebrow.

  "Something's happened at Regulus I. We've been ordered to investigate."

  "A difficulty at the Spacelab?"

  "It looks like it." He raised his head. "Spock, I told Starfleet all we have is a boatload of children. But we're the only ship free in the octant. If something is wrong … Spock, your cadets—how good are they? What happens when the pressure is real?"

  "They are living beings, Admiral; all living beings have their own gifts." He paused. "The ship, of course, is yours."

  "Spock … I already diverted the Enterprise. Haste seemed essential at the time. . . ."

  "The time to which you are referring, I assume, is two minutes and thirteen seconds ago, when the ship entered warp speed?"

  Kirk grinned sheepishly. "I should have come here first, I know—"

  "Admiral, I repeat: The ship is yours. I am a teacher. This is no longer a training cruise, but a mission. It is only logical for the senior officer to assume command."

  "But it may be nothing. The transmission was pretty garbled. If you—as captain—can just take me to Regulus—"

  "You are proceeding on a false assumption. I am a Vulcan. I have no ego to bruise."

  Jim Kirk glanced at him quizzically. "And now you're going to tell me that logic alone dictates your actions."

  "Is it necessary to remind you of something you know well?" He paused. "Logic does reveal, however, that you erred in accepting promotion. You are what you were: a starship commander. Anything else is a waste."

  Kirk grinned. "I wouldn't presume to debate you."