Crisis On Centaurus

by Brad Ferguson

  Fortunately for Earth, though, by the middle of the twenty-first century Earth was not the only possible source of petroleum. There, were, for instance, the virgin oil fields of Centaurus.

  Although Earth now used the precious fluid only for the production of plastics and pharmaceuticals, Earth produced a lot of plastics and pharmaceuticals. Liquid hydrogen, small nuclear fission and fusion power plants, microwaved solar power and a range of less efficient but environmentally friendly alternatives met Earth's energy needs.

  But Centaurus's spacefaring supertankers were grounded for the duration—until Spock and his crew could solve the Defense Center problem. Add economic dislocation to the list of problems we have to solve, thought Kirk wearily.

  The limousine surmounted a hill, and the highway began to dip. McIverton lay ahead of them.

  Hayes pointed. "I was born here," he said. "McIverton's a port, but we don't do much ocean shipping. Everything goes by cargo flitter. But we have a lot of recreational boating. The east coast has a little shipping, but the east is much more heavily settled. New Europe, the southern continent, has a few settlements that are out of easy flitter range of New America, so we'll sometimes run a ship or two down that way. Easier to use airplanes, though. They might be old-fashioned, but they get the job done."

  "What about the third continent, across the Western Ocean?" Sulu asked. "Any settlements there?"

  "Not yet, Lieutenant," Hayes answered. "We don't plan to open up New Asia until the next century, at least. Some people go there for vacations in the wild, but there are no facilities except for a handful of scientific stations. Mostly they handle zoological studies and other things you can't do very well from orbit." Hayes paused. "Of course, with all the satellites out, we might have to continue some space-based surveys from the ground. We'll have to see."

  "You mentioned zoology," Sulu said. "I once specialized in biology. I know Centaurus has a goodly stock of Earth flora and fauna. What I was wondering was, how does it all cope with the nightless days you get here at maximum solar separation?"

  Hayes nodded. "That was tricky, all right. We've got three stars in this system, of course, but only two of them count for anything. Proxima Centauri is a red dwarf that orbits Alpha about a sixth of a light-year out. It's dim, cool and not worth worrying about." Sulu nodded; that was elementary cosmography.

  Hayes continued. "Most of Centaurus is semitropical; Alpha Centauri is pretty bright. Beta's smaller and dimmer but adds a little warmth, too. Centaurus orbits Alpha, while Alpha and Beta orbit each other, like a big bolo in space." Both Kirk and Sulu grinned at that; it was quite an image. "Alpha and Beta were as close as they ever get to each other about nine years ago; we called it the Great New Year and celebrated like crazy."

  Hayes grinned sheepishly. "I could tell you stories . . . but never mind; it's only once every eighty years." Kirk could not help grinning; he'd been there for it. The chief of protocol continued. "The stellar separation on Great New Year is about a billion and a half kilometers, and it gets a little warmer here. Thirty-one years from now, when the suns are at their widest separation—more than five billion kilometers—it'll be cooler."

  "But what about nightfall?" Sulu wondered. "I can see the twin suns are together in the sky now, but there must be several months during your year that the suns are on opposite sides of the sky. And it must get worse as the suns draw away from each other; one will eventually rise half a day after the other, which effectively wipes out your nighttime. Or did I miss something?"

  Hayes nodded. "Then we use Big Blotto."

  "'Big Blotto'?"

  "Our handy-dandy sun eradicator."

  "Oh," Sulu said, catching on. "You blank out one of the suns. Beta, I guess?"

  "That's right. Big Blotto is an automated station in a Luna-type orbit about half a million kilometers from Centaurus. It makes one complete turn around the planet per standard month. The station sets up a giant hyperpolarized field, and Beta's effectively gone from the sky, blotted out. Of course, it's really still there, but its heat and light never reach Centaurus because the planet sits in the 'shadow' of the hyperpolarized field. Then we get an artificial night on the side of Centaurus not facing Alpha; we get a mild planetary winter out of the deal, too, not to mention all the solar power the field absorbs. Big Blotto costs a bunch to run, let me tell you … but we all think it's worth it."

  Sulu looked quizzical. "But doesn't all this have some effect on native Centaurian life-forms? I mean to say, they evolved under vastly different conditions …"

  Hayes nodded. "There are problems. We think some forms—minor ones—are already extinct. But others are still thriving. Besides which, we need a day-night cycle for the Earth forms we brought here; they have priority. Without night, our animals would die and we'd have few if any edible crops—and a colony that winds up importing all its foodstuffs isn't much of a colony at all."

  Sulu nodded agreement. "I've been on worlds that depended on food imports. Sooner or later, there's always some disaster."

  "Right," Hayes affirmed. "Can you imagine, for instance, if we were dependent on imports to feed ourselves? We haven't had a ship land on the planet in nearly a week. We'd be running short even now; we'd be starving in another few days. There'd be chaos." Hayes sighed. "As bad as things are, they could be worse. We can at least take care of ourselves."

  There was a short silence, which Kirk broke. "I take it, Mr. Hayes, you haven't been chief of protocol for very long … ?"

  Hayes looked at him with a small smile. "Does it show that badly?"

  Kirk smiled back. "Not at all. I bring it up only because you're the first unpretentious chief of protocol I've ever met."

  Hayes laughed. "I'll take that as a compliment, Captain. Thank you. No, I haven't been doing this for long. President Erikkson pulled me out of the Ministry of Labor Relations for this job; I used to mediate labor disputes from an office right here in McIverton. The old protocol chief was in New Athens when the balloon went up, unfortunately. Most of us are new at our jobs, as a matter of fact."

  "What about the gentlemen we've already talked to? Ministers Perez and Burke?" Kirk asked.

  "They're from the old president's Cabinet; President Erikkson asked them to stay on, and they did. The three of them were on a west coast tour together when New Athens was destroyed. They were the only high government officials not in the capital when it was destroyed, as far as I know."

  "Do you know the new president well?"

  "I've barely met him, Captain. He was minister of state; he wasn't somebody I'd run into very often in the Ministry of Labor Relations. I don't know the other two gentlemen, either, although Minister Burke interviewed me for the job as chief of protocol."

  "Mr. Burke is the internal security minister, isn't he?" Kirk asked.

  "That's right."

  "You had to pass a security check?"

  Hayes nodded slowly. "Yes, I did."

  "Why?"

  Hayes was silent for a moment. "Forgive me, Captain—but I'd rather you talk with the president or Minister Burke before I answer any question in that area."

  "Oh. All right." Feeling a touch awkward, Kirk looked out the window. "We seem to be in the city already."

  "Yes, we are," Hayes said with all the enthusiasm one can bring to a gratefully changed subject. "This is Gregory Avenue; John Houston Gregory was the first man to land on Centaurus. The actual site is a few kilometers north of town; there's a village there now, called Gregory's Landing. We're using the government offices in Planetary Plaza, not far from here, as a temporary Government House. It's not nearly big enough, but there's nothing we can do except sit on each other's laps. At that, we had to evict umpteen government agencies to do it—including, I might add, the Ministry of Labor Relations." Hayes chuckled. "At least I got to keep my old office."

  The motorcade made a left turn onto a wide boulevard—Kirk saw a sign that said FOUNDERS WAY—and it began to slow. "We're arriving," Hayes said just as the limousin
es entered an interior driveway leading to an underground garage. There were armed guards on both sides of a narrow pedway parallel to the ramp. Kirk and Sulu's car continued downward, stopping sidewise to a large elevator.

  "Sorry for the back-door route, gentlemen," Hayes apologized, "but we have security problems at the present time." There were more guards here; one of them opened the passenger door and saluted smartly. On leaving the limousine Kirk smelled a peculiar odor, at once smoky and oily, not unlike one of Scotty's cruder lubricants; he could not place it because he had never before in his life sniffed the distinctive smell of a gasoline-powered internal combustion engine in a confined space. It wasn't pleasant.

  "The elevator, gentlemen?" Hayes beckoned. He gestured toward it, and the three of them entered.

  Chapter Twelve:

  The Defense Center

  SPOCK AND THE others had gained easy entry to the heart of the Defense Center, the control room. The blastproof door, like all other such doors they'd come across, had been wide open. Spock felt sure that there had been some fundamental breakdown here, that the untried protective systems in the center had failed when they were needed the most.

  They had found no one alive. Spock had held some faint hope that, if anyone had been left, they would have gathered here, in the control room, the most protected area in the whole Defense Center—but no one had. There hadn't been enough time.

  There were bodies sprawled here and there. It was apparent that death had come swiftly and nearly painlessly from an overwhelming wave of radiation. Heat and blast hadn't reached down this far; there hadn't been much, if any, overt physical damage, and ground shock from the spaceport disaster hadn't touched the control room. Spock imagined the whole place had been built on springs; such a technique was standard practice and was used to combat abrupt ground movement from blast concussion. The control room was dark and without power, but intact.

  Now they were in the central pit of the cavernous control room, surrounded by disabled consoles, readout screens, and dead men and women slumped at their stations. Spock aimed his DayBrite up into the catwalks and galleries surrounding the pit. The light faded into the darkness high above.

  Nothing. No one.

  "Gives me the creeps," Rawlings said. "No place should be this dead." He set his equipment down; Hudson did the same. Connie Iziharry bent to inspect the body nearest her; Chekov, feeling useless here, stood nearby. "This one's a general," Iziharry announced. "Perhaps he was the commander." She conducted a quick, efficient search. "No papers on him, Mr. Spock."

  "Can you determine the exact cause of death, Miss Iziharry?" Spock asked.

  She considered it. "Not without a lab to work in, but I can make a good guess. Radiation. See—there's not a mark on him. He wasn't burned or blasted. By elimination, that leaves radiation. I'd need to do some tests to be sure, though."

  "Thank you." Iziharry's independent diagnosis agreed with Spock's own, so he treated the question as tentatively settled and turned his full attention to other matters. He aimed his tricorder around the room. He got a fairly constant radiation reading at level twelve—certainly enough to kill an unprotected human, or Vulcan, in moments.

  "No one could live more than a minute or two without protective gear," Spock announced. "The readings in this area are nearly as bad as those we found above. We will not be able to take off our pressure suits." The science officer paused. "Our first priority is to re-establish power in this room. Mr. Rawlings, if you'll be so kind as to give me that portapack, I believe we can couple it to the circuits servicing the standby generator over there." He pointed to a large gray cube in a corner of the room. Thick wiring led to and from it.

  Spock brought the portapack—a small, heavy and efficient short-term power producer—over to the generator. Sure enough, there was a specialized socket for backup. The portapack lead wouldn't fit into it, but it was the work of a moment for Spock to clip the portapack plug off and fashion a new one from spare parts. He threw a switch on the portapack, and the room lights came on to the glad cries of the four humans.

  The center's consoles came alive; data began reading onto screens all over the room. Rawlings and Hudson seated themselves at stations marked NUMBER TWO and AUXILIARY COMMAND; Spock came over and sat at one marked WATCH COMMANDER. The computer consoles were old-fashioned typewriter keyboards, the kind humans had been using for hundreds of years; Spock was thoroughly familiar with such, having built several in his younger days, before he'd been directed toward more practical pursuits.

  The Vulcan began to type and caused several errors. Oh, of course, he realized. How stupid of me. His gloved fingers were too big to fit the keys. "Miss Iziharry," he asked, "will you give me a medical probe of some sort? A tongue depressor, perhaps?"

  She did, and Spock used it to hit the keys one by one. A bit of reasoned mathematical analysis quickly gave Spock the passwords he needed to get into the center's computers and talk to them; it was actually quite simple, much more so than Spock had anticipated. Spock then activated the keyboards on Rawlings's and Hudson's stations, so that they might be free to pursue the problem in their own ways. I will not dismiss human intuition on this occasion, Spock thought. It is not logical to give intuition free rein, unbound by logic—but it is more illogical to deny intuition its chance to deal with this problem. Humans designed this system; perhaps humans will be able to sense its makers' intent more easily than I. Spock typed, and the computers replied.

  Stand down.

  NEGATIVE FUNCTION.

  Priority command. Stand down.

  NEGATIVE FUNCTION.

  Deactivate defenses.

  NEGATIVE FUNCTION.

  Peacetime condition. Stand down. Go to inactive status. Priority command.

  NEGATIVE FUNCTION.

  Spock thought for a moment. Through the baffles in his pressure suit helmet, he could hear the tapping of keys to his left and right: Rawlings and Hudson, trying their own approaches. Rawlings would groan occasionally; Hudson seemed silently intent. Spock began typing again.

  Define mission. Short form.

  DEFEND PLANETARY NEIGHBORHOOD FROM APPROACH BY INVADING FORCES. NEIGHBORHOOD DEFINED AS ARBITRARY LINE DRAWN AT STANDARD ORBIT ALTITUDE TO AIR TRAFFIC CEILING.

  Stop. Define defense policy. Short form.

  DETECT INVADER. TARGET INVADER. COMMAND AND CONTROL GROUND-TO-SPACE MISSILES TO DETER INVASION. MAXIMUM EFFORT INDICATED.

  Define maximum effort.

  DESTRUCTION OF INVADING FORCES.

  Define possibility of missing target on first launch.

  ZERO. DESTRUCTION ASSURED.

  State policy regarding friendly forces during invasion.

  NO DATA.

  List catalog of friendly forces.

  NO DATA.

  List current status.

  WAR. INVASION IN PROGRESS.

  Give nature of enemy.

  NO DATA.

  Give catalog of enemy forces.

  ENEMY FORCES ARE DEFINED AS SPACECRAFT MEASURING ABOVE FIVE POINT SIX THREE CENTIMETERS FROM BOW TO STERN AND/OR EQUIPPED WITH WARP AND/OR IMPULSE DRIVE APPEARING IN NEIGHBORHOOD OF CENTAURUS AS PREVIOUSLY DEFINED.

  List targets destroyed in current invasion. Short form.

  LIST INCLUDES 39 CAPITAL SHIPS, 621 LANDING CRAFT, 157 CLOSE-ORBIT SATELLITES LAUNCHED BY ENEMY. MINOR OBJECTS NOT INCLUDED.

  Stand by.

  WAITING.

  "I know what is wrong now," Spock announced. "Some of my preliminary suppositions were correct. Mr. Rawlings, Mr. Hudson, how far have you gotten?"

  Rawlings sighed heavily. "Nowhere, Mr. Spock. I can't even get the computers to admit there's any such thing as a friendly ship."

  "Same here," Hudson said. "The computers assume everything and everybody is an enemy, and they go after it. They also won't react to stand-down codes. I've even tried to tell them Centaurus lost the war and surrendered. Nothing works."

  Spock's eyebrow went up; a fake surrender was something he hadn't thought of
, yet there would have to be provision for something like that so enemy forces could land on and occupy the planet in relative safety. Otherwise, an enemy might exact bloody reprisals against the conquered civilian populace.

  "What happens when you enter the surrender codes, Mr. Hudson?"

  "I get a 'no data' readback, sir."

  "Interesting." Spock thought for a moment. "My own investigations show the following: The system is active and alert in many ways, most notably in its detection of so-called 'enemy' ships. It will conduct an initial attack, but refuses to believe that such an initial attack will not result in the destruction of the ship. As we already know, gentlemen—and Miss Iziharry—a properly shielded ship can withstand at least one, and perhaps two, large nuclear detonations close aboard.

  "The computers define an enemy craft as any craft of a length greater than about six centimeters." Spock heard Rawlings and Hudson grunt; they'd missed that. "That is, of course, an absurd definition; one of our communicators is larger than that. Further, the computers believe that Centaurus is at war. They will not recognize any order to stop attacking, which is in fact the easiest order to give, since no one desires to carry out or continue an attack by mistake.

  "These and other factors tell me that the problem with the computers lies in their logic centers. The computers have forgotten large blocks of data—such as listing of friendly ships, configurations of possible enemy ships, and so forth—and have joined unrelated blocks of data together to form new, and dangerous, standing orders."

  "Excuse me, Mr. Spock," Chekov broke in. "Vhy do ve not simply destroy the control room?"

  "I would, if it would do any good, Ensign," Spock replied. "However, the errant logic centers are not located here, but in a vault several kilometers below us. They are deeply seated in rock and are unreachable by human agency, not even for repair; they are serviced by robots on permanent station. We could not even beam down there, were the transporters aboard the Enterprise working; the vault is too deep. Several annihilation devices, exploded in series just over the vault, might do the trick—but that, of course, is not desirable."