Chapter four — a problem in detection

 

 

From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4019.2:

I have appraised the Department heads of the situation and asked for suggestions. For the time being I have not informed the rest of the crew, in the interests of morale. Since any given one of them is seldom on the bridge, I am spared having to explain away the odd spectacle of Mr. Spock on duty all ten periods of the day.

To this decision, however, Kirk had to allow two exceptions. One was Yeoman Janice Rand, who served Kirk as a combination of executive secretary, valet and military aide, and as such was usually made privy to anything that was going on; ordinarily she needed to know, and in any event it was a lot easier to tell her how matters stood than to keep them from her. The other was Christine Chapel, McCoy’s head nurse; not only was she Doc’s surgical assistant, but she held several degrees in medical research, and hence would be closely involved in whatever attempts McCoy might invent to distinguish one Spock from another.

Both were highly professional career woman, coequal with male crewmen of the same rank during duty hours and expected to deliver the same level of efficient performance. Neither, however, was able to suppress a certain gleam of anticipation on being told that there were now two Spocks aboard the Starship USS Enterprise.

With Yeoman Rand, this was only normal and natural. She practiced a protective, freewheeling interest in men in general to keep herself and the Captain from becoming dangerously involved with each other. Kirk was, however, surprised to see it in Nurse Chapel. She came as close to being a professional confidant as the irascible McCoy was ever likely to find; acting both as a bond between them and a preventive against its transgressing onto the personal was the fact that she, too, was the veteran of a broken romance, and from it had apparently found a measure of contentment in a Starfleet Service.

What was the source of the oddly overt response that women of all ages and degrees of experience seemed to feel toward Spock? Kirk had no answer, but he had two theories, switching from one to the other according to his mood. One was that it was a simple challenge-and-response situation: he may be cold and unresponsive to other women, but if I had the chance, I could get through to him! The other, more complex theory seemed more plausible to Kirk only in his moments of depression: that most white crewwomen, still the inheritors after two centuries of vestiges of the shameful racial prejudices of their largely Anglo-American forebears, saw in the Vulcan half-breed — who after all had not sprung from any Earthly colored stock — a “safe” way of breaking with those vestigial prejudices — and at the same time, perhaps, satisfying the sexual curiosity which had probably been at the bottom of them from the beginning.

McCoy, once Kirk had broached both these notions to him — on shore leave, after several drinks — had said, “You parlor psychologists are all alike — constantly seeking for complexities and dark, hidden motives where none probably exist. Most people are simpler than that, Jim. Our Mr. Spock, much though I hate to admit it, is a thoroughly superior specimen of the male animal — brave, intelligent, prudent, loyal, highly placed in his society — you name it, he’s got it. What sensible woman wouldn’t want such a man? But women are also practical creatures, and skeptical about men. They can see that Spock’s not a whole man. That compulsive inability of his to show his emotions cripples him, and they want to try to free him of it. Little do they know what a fearful task it would be.”

“Oh. So in part it’s the mother instinct, too?”

McCoy made an impatient face. “There you go again, applying tags you don’t understand. I wish you’d leave the psychology to me — what’s the Service paying me for, anyhow, if you can do it? Oh well, never mind. Jim, if you’re really puzzled about this, watch the women for once! You’ll see for yourself that mothering Spock is the last thing they have in mind. No — they want to free him to be the whole, grownup, near-superman he hasn’t quite become, and make themselves good enough for that man. And as I said before, they don’t know how much they’d have to bite off before they could chew it.”

“The Vulcan cultural background?” Kirk said.

“Yes, for a starter. But there’s a lot more. Did you know, Jim, that if Spock weren’t half Vulcan, I’d be watching him now every day for signs of cancer?”

“I thought that had been licked a hundred years ago.”

“No, some kinds still show up. And men of one hundred per cent Earth stock, who have avenues for emotional discharge as inadequate as Mr. Spock’s are terribly susceptible to it in their middle years. Nobody knows why.”

The conversation continued to branch off, leaving Kirk, as usual, with most of his questions unanswered. Nor had McCoy been half as positive about his chances for setting up suitable physiological tests to distinguish between the duplicate Spocks.

“I don’t know how the replication happened, so I don’t know where to begin. And I was never trained in the details of Vulcanian biochemistry. I read up on it after Spock first came aboard, but most of what I know about it from experience I learned from monitoring him; and he’s a mixture, a hybrid, and hence a law Unto himself. Oh, of course I’ll try to think of something, but dammitall, this is really a problem in physics — I need Scotty for the whats, hows and whys of the accident to get even a start on it!”

“I was afraid of that,” Kirk said.

“There’s something else you ought to watch out for, though.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a psychological problem — this business of being identical twins. Even under ordinary, biological circumstances, being an identical twin is a hard row to hoe. You’re constantly having identity trouble; mothers think it’s cute to dress the kids alike, teachers have trouble keeping their records straight, friends can’t tell them apart or think it’s funny to pretend they can’t. It all usually comes to a head in puberty, which is when the who-am-I problem becomes acute for everyone, but for identical twins it’s hell. If they get through that period without becoming neurotic or worse, they’re usually all right from then on.

“But Spock didn’t go through it, and furthermore he has been emotionally isolated almost all his life, by his own choice. Now, suddenly, he has been twinned as an adult, and it’s a situation he has had no chance to adjust to, as the natural twin has. The strain is going to be considerable.”

Kirk spread his hands. “Help him if he’ll let you, of course, Doc, and I’ll try to take it into account myself. But it seems to me that the adjustment is almost wholly something he’ll have to arrive at by himself. And bear in mind that he has had a lifetime of training in controlling his own emotions.”

“Not controlling them — suppressing them,” McCoy said. “The two are very different. But of course he’ll have to handle it by himself. One thing laymen never understand about psychotherapy is that no doctor has ever cured an emotional or mental upset, or ever will; the best he can do is to show the patient how he might cure himself.

“But Jim, don’t minimize this — it’s no small consideration. In my judgment, there’s likely to be a real emotional crisis, and sooner rather than later. I’ve already noticed that one of them’s gone considerably off his feed. Won’t hurt him for a while — Vulcans can fast a long time — but anorexia is almost always the first sign of an emotional upset.”

“Thanks,” Kirk said grimly. “I’ll be on my guard. And in the meantime, let’s see if Scotty’s thought of any tests yet.”

He left the sick bay and went to the engineering bridge.

“Scotty, I hate to keep taxing you with the same old question, but Doc says he can’t get anywhere on setting up a test for the real Spock, or the replicate, until he has at least some sort of idea of how the duplication happened. Any clues yet?”

Scott said miserably, “Ah dinna ken, Captain. Ah dinna oonderstahnd it at all.”

There were blue-black isometric smudges under his eyes, and it was obvious that he had not slept at all since the start of the botched transporter experiment. Kirk stopped pressing him at once; clearly he was doing his best, and his performance wouldn’t be improved by distracting him.

Then everybody, not just Scott, was interrupted by the call to Battle Stations.

Kirk’s immediate assumption — that Uhura’s sensors had picked up something that might be another ship — proved to be true, but he was no sooner on the bridge than he became aware that this was only a small part of the story. For one thing, the automatic drive log on his control console showed that the Enterprise had been off warp flight for a split second before the alarm had sounded. She was now back in subspace, of course, but the trace the sensors had picked up was that of an object so small that if it had really been a Klingon ship it would have been incapable of detecting the Enterprise in subspace over the distance involved.

“What,” Kirk demanded grimly, “were we doing off warp drive?”

“The computer took us off,” Sulu said, with the justifiable irritation of the helmsman who has had control snatched away from him by a brainless mechanism. “It still seems to be operating on the old benchmarking schedule. Maybe in all the subsequent confusion, nobody ever told it we were going to Organia.”

“That’s flatly impossible,” Kirk said. “I logged that order myself. Somebody had to countermand it. Mr. Spock, ask the machine who did.”

The First Officer — it was Spock Two who was on duty — turned to the console, and then said, “The computer reports that I gave the order, Captain, as is only logical. But in point of fact I deny doing so — and I strongly suspect that my counterpart will also deny it.”

“Wipe that order, and see that it stays wiped. Mr. Sulu, put us back on warp drive on the double.”

“Already on, Captain.”

“Mr. Spock, is the computer malfunctioning?”

“No, Captain, it is in perfect order. There is no doubt that one of us did so instruct it. But since such a course clearly involves grave risks of detection by the Klingons, and has no compensatory advantages, it can only have been given because detection was exactly what was hoped for. That is why I conclude that my counterpart will also deny having given it.”

“The argument applies with equal force to you,” Kirk pointed out.

“I am thoroughly aware of that. Unfortunately, however, there is no other reasonable explanation.”

“No time is recorded for the issuance of the order, I suppose.”

“No, which further argues that the issuer wished to remain unknown.”

Kirk thought a moment. “Lieutenant Uhura, any sign that we have in fact been detected?”

“I think so, Captain. If the object has laid any sensors on us, they’re too feeble to register on my board — but it dropped into subspace just after we did, so it can’t be a natural object and may well be following us — though at a very respectful distance.”

“Mr. Sulu, execute some simple, showy evasive maneuvers and see if it follows those. If it does, lose it — or if you can’t lose it, outrun it. It can’t pack enough power to pace us.”

“I’ll lose it,” Sulu promised cheerfully.

“Mr. Spock, you are relieved of all duties. Mr. Sulu is designated first officer pro tern. Lieutenant Uhura, notify all concerned that henceforth and until further notice, orders from either Spock are without authority aboard this ship. We are proceeding to Organia as before, and until I say otherwise; the benchmarking program is cancelled. Any questions?”

There were none.

“Mr. Spock, call your counterpart in your quarters and notify him that we’re both coming to visit him. In the interest of ship’s harmony I’ve been trying to avoid such confrontations, but one of you has driven me to the wall — me, and himself.”

Kirk had not been in the first officer’s quarters since the incident of Spock’s near-marriage on Vulcan itself — the painful episode Kirk had obliquely referred to in his first interview with Spock One, the episode during which an amok Spock had quite seriously tried to kill him. These quarters were very like his own in general plan, but considerably more austere. What little decoration they sported consisted chiefly of a few pieces of cutlery, vaguely and misleadingly Oriental in design, which reminded Kirk that Spock’s parental culture — on his father’s side though now fiercely rationalistic in its biases — had once been almost equally fiercely military.

Kirk was not surprised to notice that the quarters showed not the slightest sign that they were being occupied by two people instead of one. There were two Spocks here now, however, and they were staring at each other with cold but undisguised hostility. The battle had been joined, overtly, at last. Perhaps that was just as well.

“One of you two gentlemen has been uncharacteristically stupid,” Kirk said, “and if I could detect which one it was, I’d fire him out the emergency airlock in his underwear. Wantonly endangering the Enterprise is as serious a crime as violating General Order Number One, as far as I’m concerned — and as you both know very well. So I’m at open war with one of you, and both of you are going to have to suffer for it. Spock One, did you countermand a course order that I’d logged in the computer?”

“No, Captain, certainly not.”

“A routine question. Very well. You are relieved of duty, both of you, and I wish you joy in trying to stay out of each other’s hair in the same quarters with nothing to do. In the meantime, I’ve got no grounds to want to cause either of you selective discomfort, if you know what I mean, and I’ll try to see that I don’t. In return, I want your advice. Spock One, do you agree that whoever had the computer take us off warp drive wanted the Enterprise detected by the Klingons?”

“It seems to be the only possible conclusion,” Spock One said.

“Why did he do it?”

“I can only guess, Captain. It is conceivable that the original Spock did after all reach Organia and found it occupied by the Klingons — or was intercepted by the Klingons in some other way — and that a double who was actually a Klingon agent was sent back along with the original. The fact that no memory of this exists in the original’s mind, nor any evidence of mental tampering, is not diagnostic; we are dealing with totally new and unknown forces here, as Mr. Scott’s bafflement makes very evident.”’

“The possibility certainly can’t be discounted,” Kirk agreed. “And it does offer a motive for what happened with the computer. Spock Two, any comments?”

“One word, if I may, Captain,” Spock Two said. “The word is: nonsense.”

“Again, why?”

“Because it involves too many ad hoc assumptions. William of Occam, one of Earth’s pioneers in scientific method, established that one must not multiply logical entities without sufficient reason. The principle is now called the Law of Parsimony.”

“Currently rephrased to read, the simplest explanation that fits all the facts is the preferable one,” Kirk said. “Have you got a simpler?”

“I think so,” said Spock Two. “There is no evidence that the original Spock was ever transported anywhere. It is far simpler to suppose that what we see is in fact the case: that something went wrong with the new process and materialized a mirror image. If this is what happened, it would involve the deepest levels of the replicate’s nervous system, producing a reversal of personality as well — and there would be the source of your motive for sympathy with the Klingons.”

“Spock One, what do you say to that notion?”

“It has the virtue of simplicity,” Spock One said coldly, “and as such is clearly to be preferred. But Occam’s Razor is only a human preference, not a natural law. And this mirror hypothesis is also an assumption for which no hard evidence exists.”

“Granted,” said Spock Two. “But may I point out, Captain, that though each of these assumptions excludes the other, both nevertheless argue toward the same course of action: the immediate destruction of the replicate.”

“Provided both assumptions are not equally wrong,” Spock One said.

“Or providing one of them is right,” Kirk said, “Either leaves me with the same question I had before: Which is the replicate?”

Neither Spock answered him — and he would not have believed them if they had.

 

Chapter Five — ON THE OTHER HAND…

 

 

From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4020.8:

I have interdicted further orders from either Spock until the identity question can be resolved — if it can be — although it effectively deprives me of my first officer. This is a long way from being even a satisfactory interim move, however, since even without authority an alienated Spock could work all kinds of mischief. But there is no way of preventing this short of throwing both of them in the brig, a step for which I have no present grounds.

Operating without a first officer was exhausting work despite Sulu’s best efforts, especially under the added strain of Klingon surveillance — Sulu had indeed managed to shake the scout ship that had been trailing the Enterprise, but there could be no doubt that the Klingons now knew she was somewhere in the area, and would be searching for her grimly, tenaciously and efficiently. Nevertheless, when Kirk came off watch he went to the sick bay before turning in.

“Something that Spock Two suggested has been nagging at me,” he told McCoy. “If the replicate is in fact a mirror image, wouldn’t fluoroscopy or an X-ray show it? Heart pointing the wrong way, appendix on the left side, something like that?”

“Afraid not, Jim,” McCoy said. “Anatomically, Vulcans have perfect bilateral symmetry — and no appendix, either. Of course, Spock is genetically half human, but the only influence that has in this particular area is in handedness.”

“I thought of that, but obviously the replicate has thought of it too. If he’s in fact left-handed, he’s counterfeiting being right-handed very successfully.”

“Let’s keep watching for it anyhow. Handedness is a very deep physiological bias — sooner or later he’s bound to slip.”

“Spock? You must be kidding.”

“I guess you’re right,” McCoy said gloomily.

“Nevertheless I agree that watching may be the only answer, and particularly by the ship’s psychologist, meaning you, Doc. If there is a major personality reversal here, there’s got to be something un-Spocklike to be seen in the replicate if we look hard enough for it.”

“Any suggestions?”

“We’ll have to play it by ear. But just for example, I’ll tell you privately that I’m highly suspicious of Spock Two. The emotional pressure he has been bringing to bear on me to have the replicate destroyed is uncharacteristic. The conservative approach Spock One advocates seems more like the old Spock. But it’s not enough to go on. We’ve got to have a test.”

“Easy,” McCoy said drily. “Just order Yeoman Rand to kiss one of them. If he responds shoot him.”

“If we can’t think of anything better, I’ll do just that,” Kirk said. “I’m dead serious, Doc.”

“I know you are, Jim, and I’ll keep my eyes peeled. Watching that human computer was a chore at the best of times, though. Having to watch two of them, under battle alert, is going to be a real cross.”

Kirk left, temporarily satisfied. McCoy would follow the lead; it did not matter that he was sarcastic about it. He could no more avoid that than he could avoid breathing.

After the next day’s watch — uneventful, but nerve-wracking — Kirk visited the engineering deck. Scott’s report was no more encouraging than the surgeon’s had been.

“I’ve been shooting out inanimate objects toward Organia’s coordinates, Captain, and I’ve got quite a collection of duplicate mathoms th’ noo. They don’t tell us a thing we didna ken before.”

“What’s a mathom?”

“A useless object, alas. The things do replicate in reverse, so we can regard that hypothesis as confirmed. But I dinna see bow that helps us. I suppose ye thought of checkin’ the Spocks to see where they were wearin’ their badges?”

“I did think of it, but not soon enough — not when the duplication first occurred. Now the replicate has had plenty of time to think of it himself and take steps.”

“Well, an’ next I’m goin’ to send out an experimental animal an’ give the replicate to Doc to play with. Though he won’t see much in the way of personality reversal there. If it’s a rabbit, maybe it’ll bite him.”

But the next day, all hopes for a testing program became academic — and in fact, impossible.

Spock Two was on the bridge when Kirk came on duty, to the Captain’s rather disquieted surprise. He said at once, “Captain, I have issued no orders and would not be here at all were it not for the gravity of the situation. However, I must report that the entity you call Spock One has barricaded himself in Dr. McCoy’s laboratory, and refuses to come out without a logged assurance of my destruction, and a guarantee of his own life.”

The atmosphere on the bridge was like the inside of an electrostatic chamber. Kirk said, “Confirm!”

“Confirmed,” the computer said.

Kirk snapped a glance at Uhura. “Lieutenant, ask Dr. McCoy to come up here, on the double. Mr. Spock, if you were he — that is, Spock One — what do you think you might be attempting to gain? Beyond, of course, trying to force my hand on the overt demands?”

“There are many possibilities, Captain. Simple disruption of ship’s routine is one. Or trying to force a loyalty crisis among your other officers. Or an attempt to gain privacy in order to jury-rig some form of communication with the Klingons.”

“Could you run up such a rig, in his circumstances?”

“Yes, in any of several different ways.”

“Mr. Sulu, deflector screens up.”

“Already up, Captain,” the navigator said with indefatigable cheerfulness. At the same moment, McCoy entered.

“Doctor, is there anything in your laboratory that Spock One could adapt to damaging the ship — or the personnel?”

“Quite a lot,” McCoy said. “In fact, probably more than I could guess. After all, he is the ship’s science officer — or a more than reasonably accurate facsimile.”

“Enough to justify our trying to cut our way in there with a phaser?”

“I would say not,” McCoy said. “There’s a lot of equipment in there that’s irreplaceable under our present circumstances, to say nothing of a good many reagents and drugs. If he resisted, much of it could be damaged or destroyed — or he could stymie us by threatening to destroy it himself. And consider, Jim, that he may be doing nothing more than what he says he’s doing: safeguarding his own life. Why not wait and see?”

“May I comment, Captain?” Spock Two said. Kirk nodded. “The risks in such a course are enormous. Surely this move — which is in direct violation of your standing orders to me — establishes that he is the replicate, not I. Leaving him unmolested is tantamount to inviting a highly qualified Klingon science officer aboard, handing him a full set of engineering tools and materials, and inviting him to do his worst.”

“Think highly of yourself, don’t you?” McCoy said.

“If you doubt that I am highly qualified, Doctor, I suggest that you ask the computer for my record.”

“Cut it out, both of you,” Kirk said. “This is no time for feuding. And Mr. Spock, I want you to bear in mind that I do not consider anything established as yet. I am highly suspicious of both of you, and the only chances I am prepared to take are those which will keep both of you alive. Dammit, man, don’t you know that you’re insisting on my destroying someone who may be my friend — as well as the best first officer in the Fleet? If you don’t, then it’s pretty clear that you can’t be the original Spock!”

“Of course I understand it,” Spock Two said. “But it is my duty to offer what I think to be the facts.”

“It is,” Kirk agreed, somewhat mollified. “However, for the present, we will leave this mess standing exactly as it is. In the meantime, I want you all to recall that we are still trying to dodge the Klingon navy and make a run for Organia — which is now our own best chance for survival, as well as of being of some use to the Federation.”

“We may not be in time even at best, Captain,” Lieutenant Uhura said. “I have just intercepted a general Klingon subspace broadcast. They claim to have inflicted a major defeat upon the Federation Fleet in the Great Nebula area of Orion. That’s awfully close to Earth itself.”

“It is more than that,” Spock Two said. “It is the area which the Klingons call New Suns Space, because fourth-generation stars are being born there.”

“Why does that matter?” Kirk said.

“Because, Captain, the process still has millions of years to run. It means that the Klingons are so confident of winning the war that they are willing to expend men and ships to capture solar systems that, as yet, do not even exist. And they may very well be right.”