Meanwhile the Enterprise lay over in Valerian orbit to take on supplies for the first part of the new year and to make a few much-needed repairs. McCoy, for example, had a chance to go over his medical instrumentation with the testing facilities of a major ground-based hospital. And Scotty had help in repairing the deflector-shield links that Winston had thoroughly disrupted.
Despite her extensive facilities there were still a number of minor components the Enterprise required which the orbiting supply station couldn’t provide. But nothing the ship couldn’t do without.
To obtain them Kirk would have had to travel a fair number of parsecs to the major naval base at Darius IV. Instead, he chose to spend the rest of the holiday season orbiting somnolent, restful Valeria.
While Valeria was still something of an outpost world, its larger cities offered sufficiently sophisticated fleshpots to satisfy the more cosmopolitan tastes of certain of the Enterprise’s crew. And her rural attractions sufficed to assuage the nerves of the less adventurous.
In sum, it was an ideal stopover world.
Kirk spent a week fishing at a magnificently clear, unpolluted mountain lake—relaxing, hiking, and letting his beard grow. At the end of seven days he found the open spaces oddly confining, the theoretical vastness of the mountain valley closing in until the surrounding peaks induced a sensation bordering on the claustrophobic.
A sure sign vacation time was up.
He returned to the Enterprise. Two days later the last member of the crew had been rounded up, brought back on board, and either treated for accumulated cuts and bruises, formally bailed out, or sobered up.
While in space his crew formed a perfectly integrated, smoothly functioning machine. But they were a reservoir of human emotions and resentments. Every so often these needed to be drained to keep his personnel healthy. Depending on your point of view, Valeria was the lucky or unlucky world that served as the requisite sponge.
Once back in free space, Kirk set the Enterprise on a course that would bring it ’round in a wide swing to pass close by Rifton, one of the Federation’s seven principle Starfleet bases.
Kirk blinked, rolled over, and looked at the clock over his bed: 1730 hours. As good a time as any to make the necessary log entry acknowledging the formal orders they’d picked up from Starfleet branch headquarters.
In a sense, the log entry would be only a duplicate of the same orders, but apparently some analyst somewhere decreed it necessary. He sighed. Formal procedure, red tape, bureaucracy—as Einstein had claimed, one could circle the universe and arrive back at the starting point, which always seemed to be a forty-page report in triplicate.
He thumbed the switch activating the pickup in his desk, set the dial for cross-room reception.
“Stardate 5483.7. The Enterprise has been ordered to provide standard escort for a small convoy of ore carriers heading toward Carson’s World.” He didn’t add that he thought it an inexcusable waste of starship time, not to mention a colossal bore. The sentiment wouldn’t be appreciated.
If he’d known the alternative future he might have thought it otherwise.
“Said ore carriers are to pick up and then transport to Bethulia III four million metric tons of heavy chromium and other duralloy ores.” He paused thoughtfully to consider his next words, began again.
“This shipment of alloy ores is necessary to the development of the burgeoning metals industry on Bethulia III, and to the planned construction next fiscal Starfleet year of two and possibly three new deep-space starships. In view of the Federation-Klingon Treaty of 5260 limiting offensive weaponry in this quadrant of space, it appears—” He frowned before really noting the source of the annoyance.
The small viewscreen set on his desk was blinking steadily, a demanding yellow glow. Someone had a message for him that couldn’t wait. Irritably he shut off the log and swung his legs out of bed. It had better be important!
The viewer beeped as he approached the desk, and a green light winked on on the lower left side of the screen. Lt. Uhura was warning him that ready or not, the call was on its way in.
He sat down in front of the screen and activated the knob that would tell Uhura he was indeed present, alive, and well.
“Kirk here. What is it, Lieutenant?”
“Deep-space call from Starfleet Science Center, sir,” Uhura’s voice explained.
“But we’ve already received our—” He stopped. Someone on Rifton badly wanted to get in touch with the Enterprise, badly enough to requisition power to boost a transmission signal across the rapidly widening distance between them. It occurred to him that anyone who had the authority to do so might be rather an important person—and in a hurry.
He blinked the sleep from his eyes. “Put it through, Lieutenant Uhura.”
The blurred image that started to form was confused with the distance and the weakness of the signal, but under Uhura’s skillful hands the outside static was rapidly cleared. The picture that finally formed on the screen was that of Vice Admiral for Science Julianna van Leeuwenhook. It was still spotty and streaked with interference, but Kirk knew Uhura was working miracles just to hold it in.
“Captain James Kirk here.” The vice admiral smiled slowly, her long gray hair falling in waves to her shoulders. “How are things at Science Center, Admiral? Sorry I missed you.”
She shrugged, a slight gesture that might have confessed boredom, might mean something else entirely.
“So am I, Captain. It would have saved me the trouble of this call. But I didn’t know until after you’d left contact range that the Enterprise was in the area. No need to apologize for skipping a social call. Deep-space transmission is expensive, but…
“To answer your question, things are the same as usual. Instead of making our work easier, every problem we solve turns up a dozen new ones. Every discovery opens a hundred new avenues of inquiry. While my staff and budget increase arithmetically, the number of projects we are supposed to fulfill—all of them marked top priority, of course—grows geometrically.
“Why, if my people and resources were to quadruple tomorrow, James, in two weeks we’d be hopelessly behind.” She smiled.
“Meaning you’re not now?” Kirk countered.
“Most certainly we are, Captain. The only difference is, while it’s still a hopeless mess, it’s an organized hopeless mess.” The smile shrank, to be replaced with a no-nonsense frown. “That organization just turned up an interesting discovery. That’s what I want to talk to you about. But first, what is your present position and distance from Rifton?”
“Just a second, Admiral.” He thumbed the intership comm unit. “Mr. Spock, our present position please?” There was a short pause, then the information came back to him.
“Nine-six-five-five right declension to the galactic plane, a hundred fifty degrees north.”
“Thank you, Spock.” He repeated the figures for the vice admiral. She nodded and didn’t bother to check it on any device. Julianna van Leeuwenhook could do astrogation in her head.
“You’ve made good time. The ore convoy you’re escorting—that was your new assignment, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Admiral,” he admitted, steeling himself. The change in tense hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Well, they seem fairly well along their way. You’ve had no trouble thus far, have you?”
“No, Admiral.”
She seemed pleased. “Good. Then I would think they could make it the rest of the way on their own.”
“Their captains won’t think so.”
“They’ll have to think so. I’ll get in touch with the commander of the Dervish outpost. He can spare a small ship for the final escort run. He’ll have to. The captains of the ore carriers can travel on their own for a while.
“Oh, I know their cargo will be too valuable to consign to a small frigate or some such. But by the time they’ve finished on-loading at Carson’s World I’ll have another starship there to meet them.” She shifted in her seat, and the incredible communications syst
em instantly transmitted the squeak of chair on floor across the light-years.
“You might even be able to get back to meet them yourself, Captain.”
“Get back from where, Admiral?” Obviously their soft, if dull assignment was making off at maximum warp-speed for unexplored regions.
“I’d like the Enterprise to make a little detour.” She tried to make it sound unimportant, trivial. That really raised the hackles on Kirk’s neck.
“It’s nothing, really. Shouldn’t take you more than a day or two to investigate. The Enterprise is the closest ship to the… um, affected area.”
Kirk sighed. At least it didn’t sound like another catastrophe. He still had vivid memories of the Mantilles Incident.
“Yes, Admiral.” He hit another switch. “Recording new orders.” She leaned forward in her chair.
“You are familiar with the section of peripheral space that is now on—let’s see—your port plane? Sector 4423—also known as the Cicada Sector?”
“Cicada?” Kirk’s brows drew together as he considered the strange word. Oh, yes, the cicada was a terran insect that spent many years underground to eventually emerge for but a few days of activity in the sunlight before returning to the soil to develop and change.
The name seemed frivolous, too. But was it? Seems he recalled something about a mysterious, little-visited section of Federation-bordered space where starships vanished without a trace, not even leaving behind their log-torpedoes. These unexplained disappearances were infrequent.
All of a sudden, escort duty was beginning to look downright attractive.
“Cicada, that’s it, Captain. I’m sure your science officer can supply you with additional information and fill in any details you might require. But briefly, the situation in the so-called Cicada Sector is this: The sector was first reached—but never more than partially explored—over a hundred and fifty terran years ago. Claims to the territory have been in dispute for at least that long, but there appears to be little of value in the sector—certainly nothing worth fighting over has been discovered yet.
“Recent joint discussions with representatives of the Romulan and Klingon Empires reveal that a starship of theirs or of the Federation has disappeared in that sector precisely every twenty-seven point three-four star-years since its initial mapping.” She stared into the screen.
“Does that suggest anything interesting to you, Captain?”
Kirk was taken aback. The question was rhetorical. Losing a starship from the fleets of three principalities in a single spatial sector to a sum total of six in a hundred fifty years was unusual, but not startling.
But some eager beaver in Science Center had researched the disappearances and found an uncanny regularity to them. At the very least the inferences one could draw were ominous. Natural disasters rarely operated on so strict a timetable.
“You see what I’m driving at, Captain,” the vice admiral continued. “It would be only a slight shift from your current course and you would be able to check out the affected area. Nothing elaborate. Make a casual sweep of a couple of days through the sector, with your sensors wide open.
“Record anything out of the stellar ordinary. You can be in the sector in twenty hours.”
Not much use in hesitating. “We’ll be happy to do so, Admiral.” He paused to scratch a persistent itch behind one ear. All of a sudden, something didn’t smell right—something that bothered him and he couldn’t pin—ohhhh, yeahhhh!!!!
He stared into the screen. “Uh, Admiral, how long ago was the last disappearance of a ship in the sector in question?”
“Very perspicacious of you, James,” she replied easily. She made motions of consulting an off-screen chart. “Ummm, yes… it was, I believe, exactly 27.344 star-years ago.” Kirk nodded.
“I guessed, Admiral. Your reputation doesn’t include deep-space calls to order casual sweeps for anything.”
“I had intended to tell you eventually anyway, Captain,” she replied—a mite huffily, Kirk thought. “In any case, to observe the formalities, you may regard this as an official order from Starfleet Central. More than those of us at Science Center are interested in these disappearances.”
“I have priority override so far as the Carson’s World-Bethulia III expedition is concerned. If the ore carrier captains try to make things difficult for you, refer them to me.” She smiled wolfishly. “I’ll see to it that they get satisfaction. They won’t miss you for a few days.”
Kirk didn’t add that if the schedule of unexplained disappearances in the Cicada Sector held true, they might be missed for more than a few days. But he didn’t say that. It could be interpreted in some quarters as insubordination.
Besides, he was getting interested.
“Very well, Admiral. We’ll do our best to find your interstellar boojum.” Van Leeuwenhook relaxed.
“I know you will, James. Discovery to you!”
The picture of the vice admiral began to fade, dissolve in a shower of confused electrical particles. Uhura’s voice sounded over the grid.
“Transmission ended, sir. And just in time, we’re nearly out of range.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant.” He snapped off the viewer and sat thinking. Not that he was superstitious or anything. These disappearances could be due to natural coincidence.
Sure they could, Kirk old chap. Once every twenty or thirty years. But every 27.344 star-years exactly!
He was tempted to beam directly to Starfleet Science Headquarters on Vulcan and talk to Admiral Weems himself, but he dismissed the idea as soon as it occurred. Even a Starfleet captain had better be very sure of himself and his reasons before trying to go around a vice admiral—even if only for clarification of detail.
Besides, if something was in the unknown sector that could take Romulan and Klingon ships as well as those belonging to the Federation, there might be valuable military information to gain. The fewer interceptable deep-space calls made on the matter, the better. He worked the communicator again.
“Mr. Spock… Mr. Sulu…?”
Both responded. “Spock, I’ll be needing a lot of digging from you in a little while. Mr. Sulu, we have a new mission and a new course. Take us to the spatial border of the port sector known as the Cicada region.
“What do you mean you never heard of it? Tch-tch, I’m disappointed in you, Mr. Sulu. I thought everyone had heard of the Cicada Sector. Better stay up on your manuals. Mr. Spock will supply you with navigational supplements for cruising within the area. The only charts will be about a hundred-fifty years old, Spock. Kirk out.”
Now all he had to do was think out a way to tell the skippers of the ore carriers that their escort was going to take a hike.
VI
Actually it took nearly twenty-five hours for them to penetrate the edge of the mystery sector. No giant galactic monster waited there to devour the ship whole. There were no signs of incomprehensible interstellar weapons manned by unknown races, no all-destroying automatic fortresses ready to blast them from known space.
There were stars in the sector, of course. According to the old schematics some of them had planets. But they were few and far between. They’d been cruising inside the sector for half a day now, and nothing vaguely like a threat had materialized.
“It certainly seems peaceful enough, Captain.”
Kirk nodded, tried to relax in the command chair. He couldn’t, of course. It hadn’t been designed to put its occupant to sleep, but rather to keep him alert.
“How soon will we enter the so-called disappearance zone, Mr. Spock?”
“According to calculations, Captain, we have some thirty seconds to go.”
Kirk steepled his fingers on his lap and stared at the main viewscreen. Only interstellar space, spotted with the pinpoints of stars near and distant, stared back. A black ocean, concealing its threats with a sheen of dark beauty.
“All we know,” he muttered to himself, “is that ships have vanished in this sector every .twenty-seven star-years. A l
ong time for a pattern to hold.” He glanced at the helm chronometer. The twenty remaining seconds were up.
“Lieutenant Uhura, place the ship on yellow alert.”
“Something happening, sir?”
“No, purely precautionary, Lieutenant.”
Uhura felt relieved. Not that she expected any trouble, but the regularity of ship disappearances in this area made her more than a little nervous. It didn’t seem to bother the captain, though.
Kirk observed the cool demeanor of his communications officer and reflected how fortunate it was that his crew, at least, was not at all worried about this assignment.
“Aye, sir, yellow alert.” Uhura swiveled lightly in her chair, manipulated controls. Throughout the bulk of the starship, proper lights changed color, necessary noises yowled warnings.
If there was a lurking, malevolent entity out there somewhere capable of reacting to this gently defiant gesture, it did not do so. Spock checked out the gratifyingly fast compliance of all decks with the order.
“All stations now operating in yellow alert status, Captain.” Minutes passed. Still nothing. Kirk began to relax a little. He’d tightened up in spite of himself, but now that they were several minutes into the interference zone and nothing had appeared to volatize the deck beneath him, he felt assured in easing his vigilance.
Nervousness never failed to surprise him. Hadn’t he been through all this before? He sighed—tenseness was an occupational disease.
No one noticed Uhura look up sharply from her console. There was a faint, distant sound in her earphones and, no doubt about it, the strange sound had begun the instant they’d crossed into the sensitive sector. But it had been so faint at first that she hadn’t been sure.
It was growing rapidly louder, however. And there was no mistaking it for a natural output of any kind.
“Captain, I’m now picking up some kind of subspace radio signal.”
Kirk accepted this news calmly, almost expectantly. So there was something here. But a radio signal was hardly cause for alarm.
“Put it on the ship’s speakers, Lieutenant. Mr. Sulu, any chance this wavelength might interfere with navigation?”