Star Trek 08 Read online

  "How bad is it?"

  "We can't repair it in less than a week."

  A week. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. Death by cold was said to be preceded by sleep. Alone in the Briefing Room, Kirk realized that imagination had become his mortal enemy. It showed him the planet's surface under the deadly grip of its incredible cold, its night ominous with the coming sleep of death as the blood in his men's veins turned to ice. They'd be moving slowly now if they could move at all . . .

  Reality endorsed imagination. Sulu was slowed to a crawl as he elbowed himself to the dying warmth to check his phaser. He fired it at another boulder. It burst into glow. The others inched toward it; and Sulu made his frost-blackened lips say, "That rice wine is taking too long. I'm giving Room Service another call."

  Nobody spoke as he opened his communicator. "Enterprise, this is Sulu."

  "Kirk here, Mr. Sulu."

  "Hot line direct to the Captain again. Are we that far gone, sir?"

  Kirk struck the Briefing Room table with his fist "Everybody but you's got the afternoon off. I'm watching the store. How is it down there?"

  "Lovely," Sulu said. "We're using our phasers to heat the rocks. One phaser's quit on us. Three are still operational. Any chance of getting us aboard before the skiing season opens down here?"

  The ice—maybe it would be merciful, quick. Think. But he couldn't think. His thoughts like comets that would not be stayed flashed through his mind—and were gone . . .

  He felt no surprise to see Spock quietly lift the speaker he had dropped.

  "This is Spock, Mr. Sulu. You will hold out a little longer. Hold out. Survival procedures, Mr. Sulu."

  "As per your training program, Mr. Spock."

  "Yes, Mr. Sulu."

  Kirk reached for the speaker. "Sulu—just don't drift, don't lose—awareness. Sulu, beware of sleep . . ."

  As Spock said, "Spock out," Kirk felt an irresistible impulse to return to Sickbay. He wasn't entirely composed of that atavism that had destroyed the Ionizer Unit. He was Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise, too—and he was going back to Sickbay. Courage was doing what you were afraid to do.

  The consciousness that had come back to the double was a thing of howling panic. It was thrusting madly against the net of cords that held it, the force of its screams swelling the veins of its neck. As he watched the writhing body on the bed, it seemed to Kirk that he could taste the acid of its frenzy in his mouth. How he knew what he knew he didn't know; but he knew that the double was feeling some ultimate terror it had met in the black labyrinth of its Cain fate.

  "It should be calming down," McCoy said, laying a hypodermic aside. "This tranquilizer should be working now." He threw a worried glance at the body function panel. All its readings showed a dangerous peak.

  The tormented body on the bed strained again at its bonds. A shudder shook it. Then, suddenly, it collapsed, its head lolling like a broken doll's.

  "What's happened?" Kirk cried. The readings on the body-function panel were rapidly falling.

  "The tranquilizer was a mistake," McCoy said. "Its system has rejected it."

  "He's not—dying?" Kirk said.

  McCoy spoke tonelessly. "Yes, it is."

  "No," Kirk whispered. "No." He reached for McCoy's arm. "I can't survive without him and he can't survive without me."

  McCoy shook his head; and the double moaned. "Afraid, afraid," it said.

  Kirk went to it. "Help me," it wept. "I am afraid—so afraid."

  Kirk took its hand. McCoy started forward. "Jim, you'd better not . . ."

  Kirk stooped over the bed. "Don't be afraid. This is my hand. Feel it. Hold on to it. That's it. Hang on to my hand. I won't let you go."

  "Afraid," whimpered the double pitifully.

  Some strength rose up from unknown depths in Kirk. It was as though he had lived through just such a scene before. The words that came to him seemed familiar. "You must hold on to me because we've been pulled apart. Come back! No, you're letting go! Hold on to me. Tight! Tighter!"

  He lifted the sheet to wipe the sweat from its forehead. "I'm pulling you back to me. We need each other! That's it. Tight! We have to hang on—together . . ."

  McCoy, at the body-function panel, looked around, astounded. But all Kirk saw were the tragic eyes fixed on his in abject dependence. "No fear," he said. "You can come back. You are not afraid. You are not afraid. Be back with me. Be back, be back, be back . . ."

  McCoy touched his shoulder. "Jim, it is back."

  Kirk stumbled over to McCoy's desk, slumping into its chair. "Now you can use some brandy," McCoy said.

  He gagged on the drink. Eyes shut, he said, "I must take him back—into myself. I don't want to, Bones—a brutish, mindless wolf in human shape. But I must. He is me, me!"

  "Jim, don't take this so hard," McCoy said. "We are all part wolf and part lamb. We need both parts. Compassion is reconciliation between them. It is human to be both lamb and wolf."

  "Human?" Kirk asked bitterly.

  "Yes, human. Some of his wolfishness makes you the man you are. God forbid that I should ever agree with Spock—but he was right! Without the strength of the wolf in you, you could not command this ship! And without the lamb in you, your discipline would be harsh and cruel. Jim, you just used the lamb to give life back to that dying wolf . . ."

  The double was listening, concentrated.

  The intercom buzzed. Drained, Kirk said, "Kirk here."

  "Spock, sir. Will you come to the Transporter Room? We think we may have found an answer."

  "I'm on my way," Kirk said. He turned to McCoy. "Thanks, Bones. And keep your fingers crossed."

  "Tell Mr. Spock I'm shaking all my rattles to invoke good spirits."

  But as the door closed behind Kirk, there came a cry from the bed. "No!" The startled McCoy went to the bed. The double was sitting up. It said quietly, "No. Everything is under control right now."

  In the Transporter Room, Wilson was holding the mild doglike creature.

  "What's that answer you think you've found?" Kirk asked.

  "A way to make the Transporter safe, sir," Scott said. "We have attached some temporary bypass and leader circuits to compensate for the velocity variation. There shouldn't be more than a five point difference in speed balance."

  "Our suggestion is that we send the two animals through the Transporter," Spock said.

  So that was the answer—hope that amendment in the Transporter would somehow rejoin the two halves of the animal as it had somehow cut them apart. It was hoped that his dying men could be beamed home to the Enterprise without risk of the fatal division. Hope. Well, without it, you couldn't live.

  "All right," Kirk said. "Go ahead."

  Spock took the hypodermic from the top of the Transporter console. He nodded at Scott. The Chief Engineer went to the specimen case and lifted its lid. "I'll grab it by the scruff of its neck and hold it as still as I can." He reached into the case. The snarling beast twisted and writhed against Scott's grip on its neck.

  "Don't hurt it!" Kirk cried.

  Injecting the shot, Spock said, "It's painless, Captain, quick. The animal will lose consciousness for only the few, necessary moments." The snarls subsided. Spock took the creature from Scott and carried it to the Transporter platform where Wilson was waiting with the other one. They laid them on the platform, side by side. Scott, at the console, said, "If this doesn't work—" He broke off at Spock's signal. He turned a dial. The platform flared into glow. The two animals vanished and the glow faded.

  "Energize to reverse," Spock said.

  Scott twisted a dial. The platform flared into light again. The two animals reappeared—and the light dimmed.

  Spock ran to the console. He made some adjustment of dials. "Again," he said to Scott. The process was repeated. The energizing dial was reversed. The platform broke into dazzle. As it shaped itself into substance, McCoy came in.

  One animal lay on the platform.

  "It's dead," Kirk sa
id.

  "Not so fast, Jim," McCoy said.

  Kirk waited while he checked the limp body for heartbeat. There was none. Into the silence Spock said, "The shock—the shock of reabsorption . . ."

  Kirk stumbled out of the Transporter Room.

  Later, in Sickbay, McCoy gave tentative support to Spock's diagnosis of the cause of the death. Straightening up from the table that held the dead beast, he said, "Maybe it was the shock of reabsorption that killed it. But it would take a post mortem before we could even approach certainty."

  "Why shock?" Kirk asked.

  "We're only guessing, Jim."

  "Yes, I know. But you've both used the word shock."

  "The consequence of instinctive fear," Spock said. "The animal lacked the ability to understand the process of reabsorption. Its fear was so great it induced shock. Other conditions that cause shock are not apparent." He was carefully examining the creature. "You yourself can see, sir, that the body is quite undamaged."

  Kirk was groping for some answer of his own. "He—in that bed in there—felt great fear." He turned to McCoy. "You saw him feel it. But he survived it. He survived it!"

  "Just by a hairsbreadth," McCoy reminded him. "I can hear it coming, Jim. You want to take this double of yours through the Transporter with you—you and it, with it. No, Jim, no!"

  "Four of my men are freezing to death," Kirk said.

  "But there isn't one genuine shred of evidence to prove this animal died of fear! Shock? Yes. But fear? That's mere theory!"

  "Based on the laws of probability," Spock said.

  "Probability be hanged!" McCoy shouted. "It's Jim's life that's at stake! And all of a sudden you're an expert on fear! That's a base emotion, Mr. Spock. What do you know about it?"

  "I must remind you, Doctor, that I am half human," Spock said. "I am more aware than you of what it means to live with a divided spirit—of the suffering involved in possession of two separate selves. I survive it daily."

  "That may be—but a piece of machinery is the problem. What do the laws of probability say about the Transporter? Is it reliable? You don't know! It's just more theory, more hopeful guesswork!"

  Kirk said, "I am going through the Transporter with him."

  McCoy threw up his arms in a gesture of hopelessness. "You've got more guts than brains, Jim! Use your head, for God's sake!"

  "I'm getting my four men back on this ship," Kirk. said. "And we can't risk using that Transporter until we know whether this animal died of fear—or mechanical malfunction in the Transporter."

  "I want to save the men, too, Jim! But you're more vital to this ship than four crew members. That's the . brutal truth—and you know it!"

  Listening, Kirk felt his weakened will sink to its final depth of hesitation. "I have to—try. I must be allowed to try. If I don't try, their death is sure. So will mine be. I shall look alive, Bones. But I shall live as a half man. What good to this ship is a half man Captain?

  "Jim, do me one favor. Before you decide, let me run an autopsy on this animal."

  "Delay is too expensive," Kirk said.

  "At least give Spock more time to test the Transporter. And let me get the lab started on the autopsy." McCoy gathered up the dead animal in a sheet. "Wait, Jim, please wait." He hurried out of Sickbay.

  Spock said, "I'll put the Transporter through another checkout cycle as soon as the Doctor returns."

  Kirk whirled on him. "I don't need nursemaids, Mr. Spock!"

  "As soon as the Doctor returns." The six words too many, Spock thought. The weakened will had finally steeled itself to decision only to meet doubt, argument, pressure. Those last six words had been a mistake.

  "If you will excuse me, Captain," he said.

  Kirk nodded. He watched Spock go. Half human, Spock—but you never came to the end of his aware humanity. Gratitude heartened him to do what he had to do. He was turning toward Sickbay's bed section when Sulu's voice sounded from the wall speaker.

  "Kirk here, Mr. Sulu."

  The voice was a whisper. "Captain—the rocks are cold—no phasers left—one of us is unconscious—we can't hold out much longer." The communicator crackled. "Captain—the cold is freezing the communicator—no time left—no time . . ."

  The whisper fell silent. There was another crackle from the dead communicator. Kirk sank down on the double's bed. Four lives at risk on the fatal planet—two lives at risk in the Transporter process. There was no alternative.

  The double spoke fearfully. "What are you going to do?"

  Kirk didn't answer. He began to untie the cords of the restraining net over the bed. The double reached out and touched the phaser at his belt. "You don't need that," it said. "I'm not going to fight you anymore. What are you going to do?"

  "We are going through the Transporter together," Kirk said.

  The double tensed. Then it controlled itself. "If that's what you want," it said.

  "It's what I have to want," Kirk said. He untied the last cord, stepped back and raised his phaser. Staggering, the double got up. Then it leaned back against the bed for support. "I feel so weak," it said. "I’ll be glad when this is over."

  "Let's go," Kirk said.

  The double moved toward the door; but on its first step it faltered, groaning. It tried again, staggered again—and Kirk instinctively reached out to help it. It saw its chance. Lunging, it drove its shoulder into Kirk, knocking him backward. The phaser dropped. It stooped for it. Recovering his balance, Kirk shouted, "No, no, you can't . . ."

  The phaser butt crashed into the side of his head. He fell back on the bed. The double paused to finger the scratches on its face. McCoy's medication covered them. It smiled to itself. Then it began to strap Kirk into the bed. "I'm you," it told him.

  Swaggering, it walked out into the corridor. At its end the elevator door slid open. Janice Rand was standing inside it. At once it tempered its swagger to a quiet walk.

  "How are you, Yeoman Rand?"

  "Captain," the girl said nervously.

  It smiled at her. "Is that a question? No, I am not the impostor. Are you feeling better?"

  "Yes, sir. Thank you."

  "Good."

  Maybe it was her opportunity, Janice thought. She'd done this man a grave injustice. "Captain," she said, "I've wanted to apologize. If I caused you . . ."

  She got Kirk's own grin. "That's a big word—'if.' I understand, Yeoman. I hope you do. I owe you, I think, a personal explanation."

  "No," she said. "It's I who owe you . . ."

  "Let's call it a clarification, then," the double said. "I trust your discretion. There was no impostor, not really. The Transporter malfunctioned. It seems to have created a duplicate of me. It's hard to understand because we haven't yet determined what went wrong. But what we do know I'll explain to you later. You're entitled to that. All right?"

  Bewildered, she nodded. "All right, sir."

  The elevator door opened. Politely, the double stepped back, gesturing her forward. As the elevator; moved on up to the bridge deck, it shouted with laughter. Slamming its hand against the elevator wall, it yelled, "My ship! Mine—all mine!"

  The sight of Kirk's command chair intoxicated it. As it settled back into it, a frowning Farrell spoke from the navigation console; "No word from Mr. Sulu, Captain."

  It ignored the comment; and Spock, hurrying over to the command chair, said, "Captain, I couldn't find you in the Transporter Room."

  "I changed my mind," the double said. "Take your station, Mr. Spock." It didn't look at the Vulcan.

  Spock walked slowly back to his computer. It was a very sudden change of mind for a mind that had struggled so valiantly for decision.

  "Prepare to leave orbit, Mr. Farrell!"

  If the order had commanded activation of the Destruct unit, its impact could not have been more devastating. Farrell stared in stark unbelief. The double became abruptly aware that every eye in the bridge was fixed on it.

  "Captain—" Farrell began.

  "I gave y
ou an order, Mr. Farrell."

  "I know, sir, but what—what about . . .?"

  "They can't be saved. They're dead now." Its voice rose. "Prepare to leave orbit, Mr. Farrell!"

  "Yes, sir." Farrell's hand was moving toward a switch when the elevator opened. Kirk and McCoy stepped out of it. There were badly covered scratches on Kirk's face but the hand that held the phaser was steady. The double leaped from the command chair. "There's the impostor," it shouted. "Grab him!"

  Nobody moved.

  "You are the impostor," McCoy said.

  "Don't believe him!" the double shrieked. "Take them both! Grab them!"

  Kirk, McCoy beside him, walked on toward the command chair. Spock, reaching out a hand, halted McCoy, shaking his head. McCoy nodded—and Kirk moved on, alone.

  "You want me dead, don't you? You want this ship all to yourself! But it's mine!"

  Farrell had jumped from his chair. Spock touched his shoulder. "This is the Captain's private business," he said.

  Kirk maintained his slow advance toward the maddened thing. It backed up, slow step by slow step, screaming.

  "I am Captain Kirk, you ship of pigs! All right, let the liar destroy you all! He's already killed four of you! I run this ship! I own it. I own you—all of you!"

  Kirk fired his phaser. The double crumpled to the deck, stunned.

  "Spock, Bones," he said quietly. "Quickly, please."

  Kirk had already taken up his position on the Transporter platform when they laid the unconscious body at his feet.

  "You'll have to hold it, Captain," Spock said.

  Kirk sat down on the platform. He lifted the drooping head to his shoulder, an arm around the flaccid waist. Then he looked up.

  "Mr. Spock . . ."

  "Yes, sir."

  "If this doesn't work . . ."

  "Understood, sir."

  "Jim!" McCoy burst out. "Jim, don't do it! Not yet! In God's name, wait!"

  "The console, Mr. Spock," Kirk said.

  Spock's half-human part had taken him over. This could be goodbye to Kirk. At the console, he bowed his head over his treacherously shaking hands. When he lifted it, his face was calm, impassive.

  "I am energizing, sir."

  He saw Kirk draw the double closer to him. In the glow that lit the platform, he knew that he was seeing the embrace of an acknowledged, irrevocable brother—hood. Unfaltering, Spock reversed the console's controls. The hum of dematerialization rose. There was dazzle—and silence.