Chapter Nine — THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

 

 

From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4194.6:

Whenever Spock One took alarm, he seems to have left himself plenty of time; he was gone by the time we cut our way into McCoy’s laboratory, evidently out the ventilator shaft. There was no damage to the lab equipment other than that we caused ourselves by breaking in, but Spock One had set up a complex maze of tubing and glassware in which various fluids were still bubbling, percolating and dripping. An ion exchange column and a counter-current distributor were the only parts of this rig that I recognized. I have forbidden anyone to touch it until McCoy can study it, but he says he thinks he already knows its purpose.

In the meantime, conducting any sort of major search for Spock One is out of the question. He knows every cubic centimeter of the ship, including the huge maze of the ‘tween-hulls area, better than anyone else aboard except Scott, and hence could be anywhere by now. I have posted one guard over Spock Two in his quarters, another over myself and each of the department heads and their alternates, and several in the transporter room, the hangar deck, the passenger quarters (a prime target because currently empty), the engineering deck, the rec room, the main bridge, the briefing room, the gymnasium, the quartermaster’s stores and the armory, as well as the laboratory, and if I have missed anyplace crucial where he might turn up, there is nothing I can do about it — I have used up everyone I can possibly assign to security duty without dangerously depleting the fighting and operating strength of the Enterprise.

I have ordered six hours’ sleep for everyone who was on duty during the battle and have named Mr. Chekov Officer of the Day. I shall get some sleep myself when he comes onto the bridge. In the meantime, I have an interview with Dr. McCoy in ten minutes.

“The apparatus in the laboratory completely confirms my guesses about the situation,” McCoy said, “which means that you can let Spock Two out now. He’s the real thing, all right.”

“What was it? The apparatus, I mean?”

“A system for synthesizing his own food, using the ship’s meals we sent him as raw material, plus some of my reagents. That’s why he chose my lab to barricade himself in — in addition, of course, to the chance it offered to hold all my equipment hostage. He could have holed up anyplace in order to avoid eating with the rest of us, but there was no place else aboard where he could have been his own chef.”

Kirk was completely baffled. The explanation was no better than none at all.

“?” he said with his eyebrows.

“All right, I’ll begin at the beginning,” McCoy said. “Although it’s hard to decide just what the beginning is. You’ll remember that Spock Two suggested that the replicate might be a mirror image of the original, and later, you and I discussed the possibility.”

“And could figure out no way to test it.”

“Right. Well, subsequently Scotty supplied me with some experimental animals which he had put through the new transporter system, and there was no doubt about it — the replicates of those were mirror images. They seemed quite healthy otherwise, with lively appetites — but they all died within a day or so, as I reported to you.

“I did autopsies on them, of course, but the only conclusion I could come to was that they had died of starvation, despite the fact that they had all been chomping their way through the chow just as steadily as vegetarian animals like rabbits have to do to stay alive. I didn’t understand this at all. And worse, it seemed to have no application to the problem of the two Spocks. Whichever of those was the replicate, he wasn’t starving.

“It makes me feel pretty stupid to remember that I didn’t grasp the clue even after Spock One shut himself up in my laboratory. What did finally give me the key was something that happened almost at the beginning of this affair — something apparently meaningless and irrelevant. It was this: You told me, you’ll recall, that in your very first private interview with Spock One, he showed a slight hesitation in his speech, almost like stuttering.”

Kirk thought back. “Yes, that’s true, Doc. But it vanished almost immediately. I thought I might have imagined it.”

“You didn’t. Only someone with the iron control of a Spock could have made it vanish over any period of time, but his letting it show at all was his Achilles heel. As the replicate, and a mirror image, he was left-handed, just as we had guessed, but he was suppressing it, as we had also guessed. Now, Jim, handedness is the major physical expression of which hemisphere of a man’s brain is the dominant one, the one chiefly in charge of his actions. It’s a transverse relationship; if the left hemisphere of your brain is dominant, as is usually the case, you will be right-handed — and vice versa. And so, Jim, the retraining of left-handed children to become right-handed — in complete contradiction to the orders the poor kids’ brains are issuing to their muscles — badly bollixes up their central nervous systems, and, among other bad outcomes, is the direct and only cause of habitual stuttering. You thought Spock One was stuttering from emotion or confusion, and that puzzled you. And well it might have. But in fact, he was stuttering because he was counterfeiting not being a mirror image, and hadn’t gotten all his reflexes for the impersonation established yet.”

“A brilliant piece of deduction, Mr. Holmes,” Kirk said. “But I still don’t see the connection between all that, and the food business.”

“Because I haven’t come to it yet. Let’s backtrack for a minute. I don’t have to explain to you how important the amino acids are to animal nutrition — they are the building blocks of protein. But what you may not know is that each amino acid has two molecular forms. If you crystallize a pure amino, aspargine for instance, and pass a beam of polarized light through the crystal, the beam will be bent when it emerges, either to the left or to the right. It’s the levulo-rotatory form, the one that bends the beam to the left, that the body needs; the dextro-rotatory form is useless.

“And evidently the mirror-reversal of Spock One went all the way down to the molecular level of his being. Those nutrients we have to have, he cannot use; and those that he must have, he can’t get from our food.

“There may be even more to it than that. It was not only starvation that he faced — no matter how much he ate, like my rabbits — but also the possibility that his central nervous system might be poisoned if he ate our food. For obvious reasons, no human being has ever tried to live on a diet consisting exclusively of reversed aminos, so nobody knows whether they might be subtly toxic to the higher brain functions — the functions that animals don’t have. Obviously, Spock One didn’t want to take any chances on that. He simply fasted for the few days he needed to contrive a good excuse for barricading himself in the lab. As a Vulcan hybrid he could go without food that long quite easily, and he did it so subtly that even Christine didn’t notice that he wasn’t eating. And then…”

“And then he set himself up to synthesize all twenty-eight amino acids for himself, and in bulk,” Kirk said. “In a word — whew!”

“No, that would be beyond even a Spock, any Spock; my lab didn’t have the facilities for it. But luckily for him, only eight of the aminos are absolutely essential in the diet. The rest can be synthesized by the body itself, from simpler raw materials. But even doing that much for himself was a pretty impressive achievement, I must admit.”

“And he hasn’t shot his bolt yet, either. Well, Doc, make sure you report this in full to Scotty.”

“Oh,” the surgeon said, “I already have it on tape for him. I was only delaying transmission until I’d gotten your reaction.”

“Very good; you have that. Now — any guesses as to where Spock One might have holed up?”

“Not the slightest. His psychology must be completely reversed, too, and I never did understand that when it was going in what I laughingly called its normal direction.”

Kirk grinned tiredly. “You’ve pulled off a miracle already,” he said. “I can’t very well ask for two in the same day. Congratulations, Doc.”

“Many thanks. What are you going to do now, Jim, if I may ask?”

“I,” Kirk said, “am going to my quarters and get some shut-eye. I think the Enterprise will be better off for a while if I’m asleep on my back — instead of on my feet.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so,” McCoy said soberly. “Otherwise I was going to tell you that myself — and damn well make it stick, too.”

Kirk had had perhaps three hours’ sleep — certainly no more — when the general alarm brought him bolt upright in his bunk.

“Mr. Chekov!” he snapped. “What’s up?”

“Spock One, Captain,” said the intercom. “He has just been spotted in the stores deck, very briefly. I’ve ordered all available security hands to converge on the area.”

“Cancel that,” Kirk said, coming fully awake for what seemed to him to be the first time in weeks. “Use only security hands in the engineering section proper; order full viewer scan of stores and monitor it from the bridge. All other security details to remain at their posts. Lock all stores exits with new codes.”

“Right. Will you be assuming the bridge, Captain?”

“Directly.”

But Spock One had obviously chosen his striking hour with great care, and his timing was perfect. Evidently his fleeting appearance in the stores area had been only a feint, for the search of stores had just gotten into full swing when the main board on the bridge signaled that the huge exit doors to the hangar deck — the doubled doors that led into space at the rear of the ship — were being rolled open, on manual override. Before the override could be interdicted from the bridge, the doors had parted enough to allow a shuttlecraft to get out, and flick away at top acceleration into the glare of the Organian sun.

“Tractors!” Kirk snapped.

“Sorry, Captain,” Chekov said. “He has just gone into warp drive.”

We have no shuttlecraft with warp drive, Kirk thought grayly; and then, Well, we do now.

“And good riddance,” said McCoy, who had arrived on the bridge just in time to see the end of the fiasco.

“Do you really think we’re rid of him, Doctor?” Kirk said icily. “I think that nothing could be more unlikely.”

“And so,” said Spock Two, “do I.”

“Communications, track that shuttlecraft and monitor for any attempt on its part to get in touch with the Klingons. If it tries within range, jam it. Helmsman, put a homing missile on its tail, but don’t arm its warhead until further orders. All security forces, resume search of the Enterprise as before, and this time include the interiors of all remaining shuttlecraft. Mr. Spock, attempt to gain remote control of the runaway shuttle and return it to the ship — but if you do get it back, don’t let it in.”

He paused for a moment to let the orders sink in, along with their implications. Then he added, “This has been a fearfully lax operation on everyone’s part, not excluding my own, and from now on it is going to be taut. Does everyone understand that?”

Though there were no answers, it was clear that everyone did.