Worlds in Collision

by Judith

  “Now wait just a minute,” McCoy sputtered.

  But Hammersmith cut him off. “No, sir, it’s your turn to wait. I’ve already put in my years to get to this rank and I’ve got a few more levels to go. And the reason I’ve gone as far as I have is because this is what I want to do. This is how I give something back. But like I said, Doctor, I don’t know what it is you’re doing here.”

  “I’m trying to set things right.”

  “I don’t mean here, on this moon. I mean why were you in Starfleet at all.” He held up his hand again to keep McCoy silent. “I checked your record, Doctor. You were a brilliant medical student. You could have gone anywhere and had success, wealth, whatever you wanted. But for some reason, you chose Starfleet, and then you chose a starship. And I happen to know what starship duty means for a doctor. Most of the time you don’t know what to do because your only patients are probably among the fittest and healthiest humans since the dawn of time. And the rest of the time you’re frantic with frustration because you’re facing diseases and toxins that no one has ever seen before, or even dared imagine.”

  McCoy didn’t interrupt. He had to admit that Hammersmith wasn’t far wrong. But he was damned if he knew what the vice admiral was driving at.

  “Now, I know you try to make yourself out to be some sort of rebel with a pioneering spirit and that’s one of the reasons you chose starship duty. But I’ve watched you with your friends, and I know you envy Mr. Spock for his clear-cut reasoning—no emotions to cloud the issues. And you envy Kirk’s cut-to-the-heart, full-speed-ahead ability to just make a decision and make it stick. And I wonder what might happen if you let some of Kirk’s spontaneity, or Spock’s logic, out in yourself?”

  Struck by the vice admiral’s insight, McCoy tried to make his face as unreadable as Hammersmith’s. But he hadn’t had the practice the vice admiral had had.

  Hammersmith zeroed in as he caught something in McCoy’s eyes. “Or have you already tried it? Have you already done something—out of compassion, out of logic—and realized it was the worst decision you could have made?”

  “I’m not in Starfleet anymore,” McCoy stated flatly. “I don’t have to stand here and listen to this.”

  Hammersmith shrugged. “I know you don’t have to hear this, Doctor, because everything I’ve said…you already know.”

  McCoy turned to follow the others.

  Unperturbed, Hammersmith kept talking. “You know, Doctor, when we had our big argument at the starbase—with all of your objections, and your reasoning, and my counter objections and all of that—there were a couple of times there when I thought that maybe you had me and I had better work a lot harder in trying to convince you what was the best thing to do—for yourself as well as Starfleet.

  “But when you finally stopped talking and hit me, that was the moment that I knew you’d lost—you’d given up.”

  McCoy turned back to him and spoke angrily. “You didn’t win anything. I quit.”

  “I can see you’ve been spending too much time with Kirk, Doctor. I didn’t say I had won. Sometimes, the point isn’t to win. Sometimes the point is just not to lose. And I didn’t lose. Starfleet procedures required you to be transferred, so I sent you where you could do the most good, if you were interested in doing it. But to tell the truth, I never expected to hear from you again.”

  “I guess you don’t understand me as well as you think you do, after all.” McCoy’s words were clipped with sarcasm.

  Hammersmith stopped beside McCoy. “I understand you better, Doctor, because Starfleet and the Federation are a lot like you. We’ve got humans on one side, Vulcans on the other, and we’re stuck in the middle trying to make everything work. And though we might not win every fight, what I can tell you is that we are never, ever, going to lose.”

  Hammersmith began walking down the corridor again. McCoy decided that meant the lecture was at last over.

  But the vice admiral hadn’t finished with him yet. “Oh, and Dr. McCoy, one last thing. I’m a very forgiving person, but if you ever try to hit me again, two things are going to happen.

  “One, I’m going to have a new set of trophies for my office wall back at Starbase 29, and two, you’re going to spend six months in a regen tube growing a new pair of lungs.” Hammersmith patted McCoy on the arm he had grabbed the doctor by. “I understand you, Doctor. This is just so you understand me.”

  Spock understood why Zalan Wilforth was so agitated. It was not just that his First Contact assignment had apparently been fatally compromised from both within and without. It was the inner conflict of his two different halves that truly troubled the man. Spock could look at Wilforth and see how his suppressed human side wanted to scream and rage at Alonzo Richter for what the scientist had done. But Wilforth’s other half—his Centauran heritage—struggled to avoid the confrontation altogether. The outpost’s former director was trapped between wanting the wrong resolution or none at all. Spock tried to think of something he might say to Wilforth to help ease his turmoil, but he knew from experience that help like that could only come from within. Spock wished Wilforth peace and returned to observing Vice Admiral Hammersmith. The vice admiral was someone Spock thought he could handle.

  Hammersmith sat behind what had once been Wilforth’s desk in the director’s complex. He leaned back in Wilforth’s chair, reading the data that came up on the desk display. The vice admiral’s body was completely relaxed, but Spock saw how his eyes moved rapidly to scan each screen of information, absorbing everything.

  The datafile came to an end and Hammersmith turned to the others in the room. McCoy sat in a chair in the corner of the office, arms folded defensively. Kirk didn’t move where he stood near the office’s closed door. Richter slumped in his own chair, staring past his folded hands at the floor.

  Hammersmith’s tone was compassionate, though it hid a trace of anger. “When did you know about them, Dr. Richter?”

  The scientist exhaled with a rattling sound from deep in his chest. “I suspected them…I suspected them, when I saw the first Richter Scale rating of Talin IV. That was maybe six or seven years ago.”

  Hammersmith rubbed at an eyebrow. “How can a Richter Scale of Culture rating indicate the presence of alien observers?”

  Richter looked up defiantly. His eyes were red rimmed, his lips moist, his skin sallow. “I invented the thing. I know how to read it.” He tapped his cane on the floor once, but only weakly. “What you people don’t understand is that life is the same no matter where it comes from. It has different colors, different forms, different chemistry, but what drives it is the same.” He looked at Spock. “Even Vulcans have the same drives and needs and emotions. They just have better discipline than most.”

  The vice admiral tried to remain polite, despite the pressure Spock knew he was under. “What point are you trying to make, Doctor?”

  “It’s so predictable, life is. The development of culture, of civilization, I wrote an equation about it. It makes the Richter Scale work. And the Talin didn’t fit the equation.”

  “How?”

  Richter coughed. From the sound, Spock noted that the congestion in the man’s lungs had increased since their trip from Earth. “If you had twenty years, I could teach you. If I had twenty years…Listen, the Talin culture was just like a thousand others—but for their level of understanding about the universe, for their technological achievements, they thought too much about the stars. They wanted to get to them too badly. Much more than most races do at their stage.”

  “I still don’t understand, Dr. Richter,” Hammersmith said.

  “They saw something. They knew there was something more beyond their planet. It was like a transtator current through their entire culture—their literature, their art. And that desperation to leave their planet when their technology still wasn’t ready—that skewed their entire Richter Rating.” He tried to tap his cane again for emphasis but almost lost his grip on it instead. “This isn’t just me blathering. Other people
saw the problem with the rating, too. That’s why Starfleet called me to consult. That’s why they ended up bringing me out here. Everyone saw the problem, but I was the only one who knew why it was there.”

  Spock glanced at Kirk. He showed remarkable patience. Spock had no doubt that if another, younger, scientist were being questioned here, Kirk would be asking questions faster than anyone could follow.

  Hammersmith persisted. “Why didn’t you tell Starfleet what you suspected?”

  Richter mumbled something to the floor.

  “I beg your pardon, Doctor?”

  “The Prime Directive,” Richter snapped. “The bloody damn Prime Directive, that’s why.”

  Hammersmith shifted in his chair, brows knitted. “Let me get this straight. You didn’t want to interfere?”

  “No! Of course I wanted to interfere. I hate the Directive. It slows everything down so much. It keeps secrets from us. Hobbles our research. Impedes…” He broke into a fit of coughing. McCoy was up instantly, holding a small medical scanner over the man’s back. Before Richter could recover enough to push him away, McCoy had held a spray hypo to the scientist’s arm.

  Richter took in a deep breath. His congestion was noticeably lessened. “But what could I do about it?” he continued irritably, waving McCoy aside. “One scientist among many here. And all so dedicated to noninterference—to just standing back and doing nothing.”

  This time he managed to keep his grip on his cane as he rapped it against the floor. “But the others—the aliens—were interfering. I didn’t know why. I wasn’t sure how. But that wasn’t important. The Talin saw them, talked about them, tried to hunt them down. I thought that if I kept what I suspected a secret, kept the controversy over their Richter rating going, then someday the Talin would succeed. They’d capture one of the aliens’ ships. Or one of our own Wraiths.”

  “You wanted that to happen?” the vice admiral asked accusingly.

  “Yes,” Richter said. “Because then the Talin would know for certain that there were other civilizations in the galaxy. And that would mean, according to the Federation’s own rules, it would be time for their ‘normal’ development to be at an end. The Prime Directive would cease to apply and we could finally talk to them. Learn from them. Know so much more.” Richter closed his eyes. Spock could see tears of frustration well up in them. “You people just don’t understand how much there is to know. How little time there is to find it all out.” He covered his face with his hands.

  Kirk spoke gently but with concern. “Dr. Richter, what I don’t understand is that if you were so set on circumventing the Prime Directive, why did you react so strongly when you thought there might be a chance that the Enterprise could be sighted by the Talin astronauts?”

  Richter didn’t look up. “If you, or the FCO, had done anything to break the Prime Directive, then Starfleet would have shut us down and sealed the system. But if those other aliens had been revealed, or the Talin had discovered us by their own efforts, then the whole planet would be wide open.” He raised his head to look at Kirk. “Instantly. No wasted time.”

  Hammersmith studied the desktop for a few moments. “Dr. Richter, sir, do you understand that by not cooperating with Starfleet’s First Contact Office, and by not following the provisions of the Prime Directive, that you might have contributed to the disaster that befell Talin IV?”

  “I didn’t want that,” Richter said in a strangled voice.

  “No one ever does, Doctor. That’s why we have the Prime Directive. So we won’t be in a hurry. So we won’t rush in blindly when there are entire worlds at stake.”

  “Too little time,” Richter whispered.

  “For you and me,” Hammersmith said, “perhaps. But not for the Federation, Dr. Richter. The Federation can afford to be patient. We’re going to be here for a long, long time.”

  Spock waited with Kirk and Hammersmith outside the director’s complex as McCoy treated the exhausted Richter.

  “What happens now?” Kirk asked grimly.

  Hammersmith was equally concerned. “I don’t know, Kirk. With what Richter said in there, and Wilforth’s admission that he thought Richter might be hiding something but didn’t want to put pressure on the man…it’s a mess. Starfleet’s going to have to launch a brand-new inquiry. It’s going to take years to sort out…” He shook his head. “I just don’t know.”

  But Kirk wouldn’t accept that. “What’s to sort out? There were other aliens interfering with Talin IV’s normal development so they could grow mutated algae—or whatever it is—in the oceans. That makes it an open-and-shut case.”

  Hammersmith glared at Kirk. “Don’t tell me what’s open and shut. I understand how you feel, Kirk. You lost your command. Maybe it was your fault, maybe it wasn’t, but that’s not the only consideration here.”

  “But it is! It all comes down to the Prime Directive. And with the presence of the other aliens—the Prime Directive does not apply.”

  “What other aliens, Kirk? You heard Richter in there. He suspected their presence. That’s all. Suspected.”

  “What about the images from Talin?” Kirk asked.

  “What about them? They’re computer data from a devastated world. Those disks passed through an FCO facility where a chief scientist admits he was trying to subvert the Prime Directive. Those data could have been manipulated a thousand different ways. It will take years for Starfleet experts to authenticate them. If they are legitimate. There’s nothing else that can be done.”

  Kirk was speechless.

  Spock wasn’t. “Excuse me, Vice Admiral, but I believe you are mistaken. There is another option open to us which might settle this situation once and for all.”

  “What, Mr. Spock?”

  But Kirk saw it instantly. “Find the aliens who were interfering with Talin.”

  Hammersmith spread his arms. “Be my guest. If they’re real, they’ve only been flying around in front of the FCO for the past eight years without anyone there noticing them. Care to guess how many years it’s going to take you?”

  “It will take approximately three hours,” Spock said.

  Hammersmith and Kirk stared at him.

  Spock returned their stares with a quizzical expression. “I know where they are,” he said.

  In another office, Spock switched on the desk display and swung the screen around so Kirk and Hammersmith could see it. Then he called up input channel forty-five. A graphic representation of Talin IV and its moon appeared.

  “A standard orbital map,” Hammersmith said. “What does this prove?”

  “By itself, nothing,” Spock agreed. “However, I shall use it to plot additional information.” He pressed a control on the desk computer. A small red triangle flashed on the picture of Talin IV.

  “Is that a military base like the other ones you were showing us?” Hammersmith asked.

  “No,” Kirk said. “I know those coordinates. That’s the site of the missile silo where the warhead exploded.”

  “Exactly,” Spock said. He pressed another control. A small blue dot appeared in fixed orbit over Talin.

  “That’s a geostationary orbit,” Kirk explained. “It’s one of the sensor satellites we deployed.”

  “Correct, Captain.”

  Kirk put his hands on the desk to lean closer to the display. “Just a minute. Is that sensor satellite number five?”

  Spock stood back. He had no need to explain anything more to Kirk.

  “What’s important about satellite five?” Hammersmith asked.

  Kirk adjusted the controls so that the display rotated the image of Talin IV. “Satellite five malfunctioned. All its transtator circuitry was wiped clean.”

  “That’s impossible, isn’t it?” Hammersmith asked. “I mean, for an FCO sensor satellite? They’re armored.”

  “It was right overhead,” Kirk said excitedly.

  “What is?” Hammersmith asked.

  “That’s got to be it!” Kirk adjusted the controls again. “Look
here. The satellite was deployed almost exactly over the area of the missile silo installation. Whatever kind of signal went down to the silo passed directly through the satellite and wiped out its memory.”

  Hammersmith didn’t follow Kirk’s reasoning. “A detonation signal was transmitted from space?”

  “No,” Kirk said. “The warhead blew up long after the satellite was crippled. The signal that wiped the satellite must have realigned the missile warhead’s circuitry so it would go off as soon as the Talin tried to disarm it. It must have been something similar to what Scotty used on the Talin’s lunar warheads.” He snapped his fingers. “Spock! If a signal of that strength wasn’t focused, but was allowed to spread throughout the entire system…”

  Spock nodded. “It would effectively block virtually all subspace transmissions, which could explain the Enterprise’s failure to receive Outpost 47’s emergency messages.”

  “But where did the signal come from?” Hammersmith protested.

  Kirk stood back from the desk as he watched the display draw in the final details of the diagram Spock had started. “It came from the most logical place of all, correct, Mr. Spock?”

  “Exactly, Captain.”

  On the display, the computer showed the continuation of a straightline transmission beam that reached from the missile silo, through sensor satellite five, and from there directly to the perfect base for observing Talin IV—its moon.

  Eleven

  The lunar dust of Talin’s moon drifted up in a small eddy, disturbed by the vortex of transporter energy which swirled above it. Seconds later, the dust of that moon was marked by Kirk’s footsteps.

  Kirk peered through the faceplate of his environmental suit at what waited for him on the brightly lit lunar landscape. Spock’s plotting had been precise, and it had taken the science officer only one hour to make his calculations instead of the three he had originally estimated.