Chapter ten — a scotch verdict

 

 

From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4196.2:

Hindsight is seldom a useful commodity, as all history seems to show; but it now seems almost inevitable, all the same, that Spock One should have chosen the hangar deck as his second hiding place. Not only is the area as big as a college playing field, and relatively poorly lit even when in use, but we almost never have any need for a shuttlecraft which can’t be filled better and faster by the transporter. Furthermore, even so small a ship as a seven-man reaction-drive shuttle offers abundant crannies in which to hole up, plus drinking water supplies (and Dr. McCoy tells me that Spock One could safely eat the carbohydrates from the shuttle’s food stores, too, since carbohydrates don’t have alternate molecular forms); and we have (or had) six such craft — not one of which we could scan inside from the main bridge, visually or with any other sensor, except for its control room and its power storage level. But none of this occurred to any of us until too late. Having a Spock for an enemy is a supernally dangerous situation.

In the meantime, our tracking missile’s trace seems to show that Spock One, if he is in fact aboard the runaway shuttlecraft, is heading straight for what used to be Organia, for reasons we can only guess at. Another mystery is how Spock One managed to convert the shuttlecraft’s engines to warp drive in so short a time, and without a supply of anti-matter or any way of handling it. But this is a puzzle for Mr. Scott; it may some day be a matter of vast importance for Federation technology, but under present circumstances I judge it distinctly minor.

“I’ve got an answer, Captain,” Scott said.

He was in Kirk’s quarters, together with Dr. McCoy and the remaining first officer. The Enterprise was still in Organia’s orbit, on the opposite side of Organia’s star from what had used to be the planet. She was still on full battle alert; no new Klingon ships had showed up yet, but their arrival could not be long delayed — and this time, Kirk expected at least one Star Class battleship to be among them. Against such a force, the Enterprise could put up a brave fight, but the outcome was foreordained.

And nothing had been heard from Starfleet Command — not in Eurish, nor in any more conventional code or language.

“An answer? To the miniaturized warp-drive problem? Just record it, Scotty; we’ve got more important fish to fry at the moment.”

“Och aye. Captain, that’s only a leetle puzzle, though I’ve nat solved it the floe. What I meant was, I think I’ve figured out what happened to Organia — and to Mr. Spock here.”

“Now that’s a different matter entirely. Fire away, Gridley.”

“Weel, Captain, it isna simple…”

“I never expected it to be. Spit it out, man!”

“All right. At least this answer does seem to tie in with all the others, as my confreres here seem to agree. Tae begin with: in ordinary common sense, if you’re going to have to be dealing with a mirror image, you’ll expect there to be a mirror somewhere in the vicinity. And Dr. McCoy has proven, as I think we also agree, that the replicate Spock is the most perfect of mirror images, all the way down to the molecular level.”

The engineering officer’s accent faded and vanished; suddenly, his English was as high, white and cold as his terminology. He went on, precisely.

“After I got the report from Dr. McCoy about the amino acids, I took the assumption one radical step further. I assumed that the mirroring went all the way down to the elementary particles of which space — time and energy — matter are made. Why not? The universe is complicated, but it is consistent. After all, parity — handedness — is not conserved on that level, either; the extremely fine structure of the universe has, in fact, a distinct right-hand thread, to put the matter crudely. If it didn’t, a phenomenon like polarization would be impossible, and even our phasers wouldn’t work.”

“We all know that much, Scotty,” Kirk said gently. “Please tell us what it has to do with our problem.”

“Right now, Captain. See here — our first officer’s simulacrum was sent toward Organia as a set of signals representing an object made up of elementary particles biased in the normal direction. Right? Okay. But when we opened the door, we had in the chamber not only our original first officer, but a replicate composed of elementary particles biased in the wrong direction. How could such a thing possibly happen?

“I could see only one answer which made any sense in physics. Our signal was sent out as a set of tachyons; and somewhere along the line, it bumped up against something which was a perfect, coherant reflector of tachyons. The signal came back to us as directly and in as good physical order as a radar beam would have — a completely ideal reflection — and we reconstituted it into ordinary nuclear particles, as our new transporter system had been set up to do, faithfully in reverse.

“But what could this mirror be? Obviously, it had to be something to do with Organia. And we have now observed that Organia is surrounded, or has been replaced by, something very like a deflector screen or some other sort of force field. If yen’s nae our mirror, where else should we begin to seek it the noo?”

That was clearly the most rhetorical of rhetorical questions.

“Carry on, Scotty, the floor’s still yours,” Kirk said.

“But I dinna want it any more, Captain, because now I’m in trouble. What I canna figure out is what the Organians — or for that matter the Klingons — might hope to gain by investing the planet with a tachyon reflector. So I passed that leetle nugget on to Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock, and with your permission, Captain or Sir, I’ll let them pick up the tale at this point.”

“Who’s on first?” Kirk said. Despite the desperate seriousness of the problem, he could not help being amused.

“I think I am, Jim,” McCoy said. “Bear in mind, I know less about tachyons than Scotty knows about polymorphonuclear leukocytes. But I am a psychologist. And one thing we all noticed about the present condition of Organia is that it has a unique and severe mental effect upon every man and woman on board the Enterprise. It repels us emotionally, as sentient creatures, just as surely and as markedly as it reflects Scotty’s insensate elementary particles.”

“Dinna be sae sure,” Scott said darkly, “that electrons don’t think.”

“Dammit, Scotty, I’m coming to that too, if you’ll give me the time. But first: we assumed almost from the beginning that the emotional repulsion was intentional — in other words, that the Organians didn’t want visitors, for some reason, and were letting everybody who came near know their preference, in no uncertain terms. So let’s continue to suppose that. If that’s the case, which comes first, chicken or egg? That is, what is the primary psychological reason for the screen? If it is to repel tachyons, then the emotional effect might have been an accident. If it is to repel people, then the tachyon reflection might have been an accident — or anyhow, a secondary effect.

“All this reminded me that though we — humanity, that is — know the elementary particles of matter and energy, know the unit of gravity, have even (so Scotty tells me) identified something called the chronon which is the smallest possible bit into which time can be divided, we do not know the elementary unit of consciousness. We do not even know the speed of thought.”

“We don’t?” Kirk said, startled.

“No, Jim. The speed of nerve impulses in the body is known, and it’s quite slow, but thought is another matter. Consider, if you will, how any one of us can call back to mind a childhood memory, across many years, within an instant, or think if we so choose of an exploding galaxy at the very limits of the known universe. And those are very crude examples. If there is an elementary particle, or wavicle, of thought, a faster-than-light one like the tachyon might be a good candidate for the honor.

“And of course, it was my puzzling about the problem of consciousness in relation to the way the transporter works that really created almost all of this mess, right from the outset. I began to feel that it was all fitting into place. But there was still a logical problem that baffled me, and I finally had to turn that over to Mr. Spock Two.”

“You all make me feel as though I might as well have no head on my shoulders at all,” Kirk said ruefully. “And not for the first time, either. Mr. Spock Two, pray proceed.”

“Sir,” Spock Two said with great formality, “I was not able to approach this complex as a pure problem in formal logic, or even as a problem in set theory or in the calculus of statement, because too many of its elements are still conjectural — despite the very consistent theoretical model Dr. McCoy and Mr. Scott have constructed. Nevertheless, given the model, there is a central logical problem: who benefits from a thought-shield around Organia? None of us can begin to guess why the Organians would have wanted such a shield, nor would guessing be a useful exercise here in any case. But the advantages to the Klingons are evident and considerable. Primarily, of course, the screen confines the Organians — who are nothing but thought-fields — to their own planet, and prevents them either from knowing what is going on outside, or acting upon it. And secondarily, it removes the planet from sight and contact from the outside. The field as we experienced it is emotionally repulsive…”

“Damn-all terrifying, I’d call it,” McCoy said.

“…and at close ranges tends to prevent the mind from even thinking about Organia except as an extinct planet,” Spock Two continued smoothly. “It follows, then, that there is a high probability that the shield was erected by Klingon action. It would further seem likely, though not immediately provable, that the shield is the Klingons’ one and only new weapon, the discovery of which encouraged them to start the forbidden war. This would explain why we found a Klingon garrison of some size posted nearby; they do not want anyone else investigating the situation or even understanding why it is important to them. As a further derivative, this weapon is apparently not very manageable yet except as a gross effect — that is, on a very large scale — or they would be using it in battle, against our ships, and to great tactical advantage.

“But it does appear to be quite manageable enough to permit the throwing of a similar screen around the Earth, if the Klingons can get close enough — or around Vulcan, or both. We do not know what it is like to have to live under such a shield, but the inverse square law suggests that the effects would be more severe than those we have experienced outside it. Such an action, should the Klingons be able to complete it, would win them the war…and very possibly reduce humanity and/or Vulcankind to tiny remnants, living in exile on sufferance — or in slavery.”

The sudden Miltonic turn in Spock Two’s precise phrasing made the awful vision all too vivid.

Kirk said grimly, “I don’t think Starfleet will let them get that close to Earth, but Vulcan may not be so well defended. Well, we’ve knocked out five Klingon warships, one of them a cruiser, and as we were hoping from the beginning, there’s still a lot of damage that we can do in their rear echelons — especially if we get away from the Organian quadrant before their reinforcements arrive. But I don’t especially want to get away. It would be far better to get to the heart of the matter, since we’re in its immediate vicinity anyhow, and rectify that. Can we?”

“Captain, I think we can,” Scott said. “That shield reflects tachyons, and, insofar as any theory I can construct predicts, it reflects tachyons only. And we are now within normal transporter range of Organia, so we don’t need my tachyon conversion system any more. It never did us any favors anyhow. We could verra well beam down there and find oursel’s some Organians, and let them know what’s been going on since the Klingons caught them napping.”

“What good would that do, if they’re still confined under the screen?” McCoy said. “They can’t move about by transporter — to their great good luck, I’d say.”

“Aha, Doc, but there now is one of the few benefits of bein’ poor weak critters made out of base matter, like me and the Captain and just possibly yourself. We need machines to help us manipulate matter, and we know how to make and use ‘em. If I were under yon shield, and had proper help, I might locate the Klingon device that’s generating it, and put the device out of commission. Or if I couldna, I might build a generator of my own to nullify the shield. That’s one thing the Organians for all their might canna do, or they’d have done it long ere this.”

“Are you sure you could, Scotty?”

“Noooo, Captain, I’m nae sure, but I’d be sair wilin’ t’ take the risk.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Kirk said. “We’ll assume orbit around Organia promptly, and handle the mental effects as best we can; I’ll have Uhura warn the crew, and Dr. McCoy will stand by to administer psychological help to anyone who needs it. Mr. Spock Two, you’ll beam down with me and with Mr. Scott — no, wait a minute. We still have no assurance that Spock One isn’t still aboard the Enterprise, and I’m not about to abandon it to his good offices.”

“I can give you such an assurance, Captain,” Spock Two said. “I do not know where he is, but he is a considerable distance away from the Enterprise — a minimum of two astronomical units, certainly.”

“How do you know?”

“I am sorry, Captain, but the very nature of the knowledge precludes my telling you that, at the present time. I am nevertheless quite certain of my facts.”

Kirk felt a faint stir of reborn suspicion, but he thrust it down. The evidence in favor of Spock Two was now overwhelming, and Kirk would just have to put up with whatever minor mysteries still remained in that sector.

“Very well. Then our present problems are, to fight the effect of the shield long enough for the three of us to locate the Organians and the Klingon generator down on the surface, and to give Mr. Scott whatever technical and logistic support he needs to knock the shield down, before Klingon reinforcements arrive, or Spock One can complete whatever plan he has in mind. Does that cover the ground to everyone’s satisfaction?”

Apparently it did, and a good thing too, for after that nonstop sentence Kirk was almost out of breath.

“Then I will put Sulu in command, with the same instructions I gave him during the first Organian expedition. His first duty will be to the ship, not to us, and if a Klingon fleet shows up in this quadrant, he’s to abandon us and get the Enterprise to safety — or anyhow, to Within useful distance of a Star base. But we shall have to move very fast.”

“Captain,” Spock Two said, “there is one further difficulty — potentially, at least.”

“What is it?”

“I mentioned that the emotional effects of being under the screen may be far worse than those we experienced outside it. It is by no means certain that any of us will be able to function in such a situation. We may not even be able to retain our sanity.”

“I understood that. And that’s why I want you along — in addition to the fact that only you and I know any of the Organians personally. The Vulcan half of your mind may resist the pressure long enough to complete the assignment if both Mr. Scott and I crack under the strain. Hence also the orders to Sulu; if the three of us don’t survive on Organia, he’s not to undertake any quixotic rescue missions…”

“Calling Captain Kirk,” Uhura’s voice said from the intercom.

“In quarters, Lieutenant; go ahead.”

“Sir, we have a reply in from Starfleet Command, finally. We are ordered to confine both our first officers to the brig until they can be studied by an Earthside team of experts. In the meantime, we are to attempt to rejoin the Fleet, causing as much depredation to the Klingon Empire along the way as you think consistent with the survival of the Enterprise.”

Well, it was nice of Command to leave him that much leeway, stale though the orders were otherwise. Orders, however, were orders — or were they?

“Lieutenant Uhura, in what code is the reply?”

“Eurish, sir. Very stiff Eurish — what’s called the Dalton recension.”

“What level of confidence do you place in your decoding?”

“I can’t give you a chi-square assessment, Captain. But I’d guess my translation of the surface meaning has a seventy-five per cent chance of being right, presuming that there were no garbles in transmission.”

“That doesn’t satisfy me. I don’t want to act on those orders until you are absolutely sure you know exactly what the message says. Do you follow me, Lieutenant?”

“I think, Captain,” Uhura said, with the ghost of a fat African chuckle, “that I get that message without any static. Communications out.”

“Kirk out…All right, Scotty go repair your transporter, line up your equipment and prepare to march.”

The engineering officer nodded and went out. Kirk added, “Doc, make whatever preparations you can think of to cushion us against the effects of orbiting about that shield. I think you’re safe to disassemble the construction in your lab and put that back in order too. But be sure you get a photographic record of it as it comes apart, for the benefit of any eventual court of inquiry.”

“Will do, Jim.”

He too left, leaving no one behind in Kirk’s quarters but the first officer. Kirk looked at him in some surprise.

“I thought my orders were clear. Transmit them to Mr. Sulu, and take all necessary steps to ready the mission for departure as soon as Mr. Scott has the transporter back in standard operating condition.”

“Very good, Captain.” But still the first officer hesitated. “Sir — may I ask why you persist in addressing me as ‘Spock Two’? Are you still in some doubt about my bona fides? Such a doubt would seriously compromise both our performances on the proposed Organian mission.”

“I am in no doubt at all,” Kirk said gently. “But there still exists another Spock, or rather a pseudo Spock, at large somewhere — and furthermore, he’s wearing my ring, which I would have given to no other man in the universe. As long as that man survives, I’m going to go on numbering both of you, in order to remind myself that the problem of the two Spocks is not yet completely solved — and that as long as it is not, and that we do not know what it is that Spock One intends, we continue to stand in the shadow of the unknown.”

“I see,” Spock Two said. “A useful mnemonic device.”

His face and his voice were as expressionless as ever, but something told Kirk nevertheless that he was faintly pleased.