Chapter thirteen — the steel cave

 

 

From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4201.6:

My suspicions, unfortunately, were correct; we are being herded into a trap. The sensors indicate a mass of heavy ships ahead of us, dispersed hemispherically with the open end of the cup toward us, and our pursuers are now deploying to form the other half of the sphere. We shall eventually be at its center, where conditions are obviously going to be a little uncomfortable at best.

We are on full battle alert. By the time the Klingons manage to destroy the Enterprise, they are going to wish that they had decided to let us quietly through, instead. It will leave a proud record for Captain Kirk, if he is still alive, to bring to his next command. I shall drop the Log by buoy just before the engagement.

It was true; the village was around them, not ruined now, but just as Kirk had remembered it, even to the people — and even to their complete lack of curiosity about the three uniformed starship officers, which had once been so puzzling. Kirk knew now that all this too was an illusion, for the Organians actually had no bodies at all, and no need of dwelling; but since it was — in contrast to the hallucinations that had preceded it — one generated by the Organians themselves, it was decidedly reassuring.

“They’re still alive, and still here, Mr. Spock.”

“So it would appear, Captain. Shall we proceed?”

“By all means.”

They entered the building which had once been designated to them as the meeting hall of the temporary Council of Elders — just how temporary (for the Organians had no rulers and no need of any) they had then had no idea. It, too, was as it had been before. The Council room proper had whitewashed stone wall, decorated with only a single tapestry and that not of the best, and was furnished with a single long, rude wooden table and even cruder chairs.

The putative Elders were there, an even dozen of them. They were modestly robed, white-bearded, benign, almost caricatures of paternal god-figures, smiling their eternal smiles — but were their smiles a little dimmed this time? Among them were three whom Kirk recognized at once.

“Councilor Ayelborne,” he said formally. “And Councilors Claymare and Trefayne. We are pleased to see you again, both personally and on behalf of our Federation. Do you remember me, by any chance?”

“Of course, Captain Kirk,” Ayelborne said, extending his hand. “And your non-terrestrial friend Mr. Spock as well. But we have not previously had the pleasure of meeting your second companion.”

“This is Mr. Scott, my engineering officer, who is really the main reason we are here, both for our sakes and yours. But first, if you please, sir, will you tell me just how much you know about the present situation, both on Organia and elsewhere?”

Claymare’s smile was now definitely shadowed.

“Surprisingly little,” he admitted. “Without warning, we found our world surrounded by a force-field of novel properties which not only prevented us from leaving, but which had most distressing effects upon our very thought processes. Until very recently, we also did not know by whose agency this had been done, or for what purpose, though of course we had several plausible hypotheses.

“Then an equally mysterious living entity somehow penetrated the screen and landed on our planet in a small spacecraft. We at first took him to be your Mr. Spock here, but we quickly discovered that he was instead an order of organic being quite unknown to us previously. Even his neural currents flowed backward; we could neither understand their import, nor decide what steps we ought to take about his presence.

“Finally, you three appeared, and we were able to determine from your thoughts that you knew what had happened, and that you had come to be of help. But the malignant creature who had arrived in the spacecraft had a mind as powerful as Mr. Spock’s — truly remarkable for an entity dependent upon a substrate of matter — and one which, furthermore, seemed to work well with the effects of the thought-shield, whereas ours were much impeded by them. We sent out impulses which we hoped would guide you to us, but until that creature was eliminated — which you have now managed to do, and for which we congratulate you — your course was necessarily somewhat erratic.”

“Aye, an’ thot’s for sooth,” Scott said feelingly.

“We now further see from your thoughts,” Trefayne added, “that the Klingons are responsible for the shield. They should be properly penalized. But we find ourselves nearly as helpless as ever.”

“Perhaps not,” Kirk said. “That’s why I brought along my engineering officer. It’s his opinion that the screen is generated by a machine which was deposited on your planet by a pilotless missile. Had it been manned, you would have detected the pilot’s thoughts. It’s probably hopeless to try to locate the generator itself, let alone the missile, but Mr. Scott believes that be can build a counteracting generator.”

The councilors of Organia looked at each other. At last Ayelborne said, “Then by all means, let him proceed.”

“I fear it’s no sae easy as a’ thot,” the engineering officer said, with an odd mixture of embarrassment and glumness. “You see, Councilor, it wasna possible tae bring much wi’ us in the way ‘of tools an’ parts. Since we didna ken where we were goin’ tae wind up, nor what we were goin’ tae encounter, we traveled light. We’ve got beltloads of miniaturized components an’ other leetle gadgets, but it’d be sair helpful to have some bigger bits an’ pieces with mair wallop to ‘em, if you follow my meanin’.”

“Quite without difficulty,” Claymare said. “Unfortunately, we have no — hardware? — of that sort…”

“Aye, I feared as much. An’ it’s oft before, lang an’ lang, that I’ve cursed the designer who thought it’d be cute to put no pockets in these uniforms.”

“…but we know where the malignant creature’s spacecraft is now stored. Would that be of any assistance?”

“The gig!” Kirk shouted. “Of course it would! Provided that the replicate entity didn’t booby-trap it; that is, rig it so that it would destroy itself and us if touched. But we’ll just have to take that chance.”

“It would also be interesting,” Spock said reflectively, “to study how he managed to equip a shuttlecraft with a warp drive.”

“Yes, but later,” Kirk said with a little impatience. “Scotty, would the parts and so on in the gig solve your problems?”

“One of them,” Scott said, even more embarrassed. “Y’see, Captain, I canna answer exactly, because my mind’s sae bollixed up by the screen itsel’, an’ by all the weirds I’ve had tae dree since I began walkin’ across this fearsome planet, that I hardly ken a quark from a claymore any mair. ‘Tis doubtful I am indeed that I could do useful work under such conditions. Equally likely, I’d burn us all up for fair an’ for sure.”

Claymare, who for an instant seemed to think that he had been addressed, frowned and held back whatever he had perhaps been about to say, but Ayelborne smiled and said, “Oh, as to that, we can protect the few minds in this present party against the screen. It is always easier, at least in principle, to raise an umbrella than it is to divert an entire cloudburst, even in the realms of pure thought. However, clearly we shall all have to proceed without delay. We are all suffering seriously, and ever more progressively, under the pressure of the screen — our own population included. Have you a decision?”

“Yes,” Kirk said. “Act now.”

“Very well. Since you need your renegade spacecraft, it is…”

“…here.”

The meeting chamber dissolved, and with it nine of the other councilors. Kirk found himself and the remaining five entities — one other Earthman, a Vulcan hybrid, three Organians whose real appearances would never be known — in a deep cavern, indirectly lit and perhaps no more than half as big as the hangar deck of the Enterprise. He did not know how he knew that it was far under the surface of Organia, but there was a direct feeling of a vast weight of rock above his head which he accepted without question as real mass, not any sort of hallucination. The air was quite dry, and motionless; the floor smooth, and cupped toward the center.

In the exact midst of the cup was the stolen shuttlecraft. It looked familiar and innocuous.

Spock obviously did not regard it as an old friend. Head cocked, eyes narrowed, he scanned it from nose to tubes with his tricorder.

“Anything out of the ordinary, Mr. Spock?” Kirk asked.

“Nothing that I can detect, Captain. There does not appear to be any unusual pattern of energy flow in the circuitry of the combination to the main airlock, though that is the first point where one would logically establish a booby trap — and the easiest. Nor can I think of any reason why the replicate, having decided not to interdict entrance to the shuttlecraft as a whole, would trouble himself to mine only parts of it.”

“I can think of several,” Kirk said. “If I wanted to use the gig again, to get off Organia in a hurry, I wouldn’t booby-trap the door; I wouldn’t even lock it. But I’d put a trigger on the controls, which only I could make safe easily, and nobody else could find at all.”

“Risky,” Scott said. “Somebody might touch it off by accident; might as well put a trigger on the pile and be done with it, so the gig would blow nae matter what was touched, an’ thot’s easiest done by wirin’ the lock, as Mr. Spock says. But maybe I’d want to blow the gig only if somebody fooled wi’ my invention; otherwise, I’d save it for mysel’ until the vurra last minute.”

“The miniature warp drive?” Spock said. “Yes, I might do that also, under the circumstances. But that would not be simple. He could have done so only after landing on Organia, and the probability is that he did not have nearly enough time to design such a system while in flight from the Enterprise, let alone complete it after a fast landing and a hurried escape.”

“We are going to have to take all those chances as they come,” Kirk said.

“Mr. Spock, actuate the lock. But Scotty, once we’re inside, touch nothing until Mr. Spock has checked it.”

“Sairtainly not,” Scott said indignantly. “D’ye take me for an apprentice, Captain?”

Spock approached the airlock, scanned it once more, replaced his tricorder and took out his communicator. Into this he spoke softly a chain of numbers. The outer door of the airlock promptly rolled aside into the skin of the shuttlecraft, almost without a sound. Under the apparently emotionless regard of the three Organians, they went in, almost on tiptoe.

The single central corridor which led from control room to engines was lit only by the dim glow of widely spaced “glow-pups” — tubes of highly rarified ethon gas which were continuously excited by a built-in radioactive source. That meant that all main power was off; the glow-pups themselves had no switches and would never go out within the lifetime of humanity, for the half-life of their radioactive exciter was over 25,000,000 years.

By unspoken consent, Spock and the engineer moved toward the shuttlecraft’s engine compartment. Kirk followed, feeling both useless and apprehensive; but after a moment, a great sense of peace unexpectedly descended upon him.

“Och, thot’s a relief,” Scott said. Even Spock looked slightly startled. It took Kirk several seconds to fathom the cause: the pressure of the field upon their minds was gone. The Organians were shielding them. He had become so used to fighting against it himself — it had become so much a part of his expected environment — that the feeling of relaxation was strange, almost like sleepiness.

“Keep alert,” he said. “This feeling of well-being is at least partly spurious. There could still be traps aboard.”

“A useful reminder,” Spock agreed.

The gig’s engines had not been modified noticeably, except for a small, silver-and-black apparatus which squatted, bulging and enigmatic, atop the one and only generator. Spock inspected this cautiously, and Kirk, his mind still a little erratic after its concentrated course of hallucinations, had the odd feeling that the machine was looking back at him.

Scott ignored it. Instead, he sat down before the very small maintenance board and began to unload the contents of the kits which were hung from his belt. Shortly, the board was littered with tiny parts, small snippets and coils of wire, and tools which seemed to be almost too miniaturized to be handled. Scott’s fingers, indeed, almost engulfed the first one of these he picked up, but he manipulated it, as always, with micrometric precision. For still finer work, he screwed a jeweler’s loupe into his left eye.

In the meantime, Spock was busy with tools of his own, taking the faceplate off the mysterious addition to the generator. It was slow work, for after each half turn of a screw he would step and take tricorder readings; evidently he suspected that the possible concealed bomb or self-destruct mechanism might be triggered after any one screw had been removed a given distance, and he was checking for preliminary energy flows which would mark the arming of such a trigger. This thoroughness was obviously sensible, but it made the time drag almost intolerably. It seemed to Kirk that whole battles could have been won or lost while they labored in their silent, utterly isolated steel cave on this inaccessible planet…

Scott’s apparatus, a breadboard rig of remarkable complexity and — to Kirk — complete incoherence, at last seemed to be finished. He was now wiring it into the maintenance board at various points; two such connections required him to crawl under the board, into a space that seemed scarcely large enough to admit a child.

“That’s as far as I go the noo,” he said, emerging at last. “Now, Mr. Spock, can I have a leetle power from yen generator, or have you bollixed it completely?”

“The generator is of course, intact,” the first officer said frostily. “I disconnected the replicate’s warp-drive device from it at the earliest opportunity, and made no alterations at all in the generator proper.”

“Sair gud for ye. Then I’ll just pour a leetle central heatin’ into my construction here.”

Scott snapped a switch and the generator hummed itself decorously up to operating level. Telltales lit up on the maintenance board under his watchful eye.

“I dinna ken,” he said dubiously, “whether I’ll be able to strip an energy envelope off a whole world with only a trickle of power like that to work with. Bu’ hoot, men, there’s only one way to find out.”

Slowly, he turned the knob of a potentiometer, still watching the board intently, as well as his own jury-rigged apparatus.

“We’re getting some feedback,” he said at length. “The battle is joined. Now to value up the gain a mite…”

The knob turned once more.

“‘Tis David against Goliath,” Scott muttered. “And me without my sling. Captain, somethin’s takin’ place out there, all richt, but I canna tell from these meters just how much effect I’m havin’; this board wasna designed to register any sich reaction. Mickle though it fashes me, I’ll ask you to request our friends outside tae step pretectin’ us, or I’ll get no read-out I can trust.”

Kirk started to turn back along the companionway, but the Organians must have picked up Scott’s request instantaneously from his mind. The eerie oppression of the thought-shield returned promptly. It was much less strong now, but Scott clearly was not satisfied.

“I’m only setting up a local interference,” he said. He turned the knob again. The sensation diminished further, but only slightly. “It’s nae gud. Even with the Organians’ help, I canna combat a planet-wide screen with no source but the gig’s generator. The necessary power just isna there.”

“I believe I can be of assistance,” Spock said. “I have worked out the principle of this warp-drive adjunct. It appears to draw energy directly from Hilbert space, from the same source out of which hydrogen atoms are born. In other words, a method of tapping the process of continuous creation.”

“What?” Scott said. “I’d as soon try to stick a thirteen-ampere tap directly into God. I’ll ha’e nothin’ tae do with thet.”

“It’s a hair-raising idea,” Kirk agreed. “But, Mr. Spock, obviously it did work once, for the replicate. Can you connect it back to the generator without starting some kind of catastrophe?”

“I believe so, Captain. Anything the replicate could do, I can probably do better.”

“Hubris,” Scott muttered. “Overweenin’ pride. Downfall of the Greeks. If ye don’t get a catastrophe, ye’ll get a miracle, an’ thot may well be worse.”

“At this point we need a miracle,” Kirk said. “Go ahead, Mr. Spock — plug it in.”

Spock worked quickly. Grumbling, Scott advanced the knob again. The sensation created by the thought-screen dwindled like the memory of a bad dream. His face gradually lightening, the engineer turned the knob all the rest of the way.

Five minutes later, Organia was free — and…

“Good day, Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said. “Mister Spock, assume command. All department heads, report.”