Streamlining had given way to functionality in the latter part of the Twenty-First Century. So the ships which carried freight between the stars were equal parts ugly and efficient, ungainly and profitable.
The S. S. Huron was typical if this class and its crew typical of crews on such ships. There were some who insisted that the small living quarters on board such craft made for small men. In reality, the reverse was usually true. They were no less daring, no less brave than starship personnel—only sloppier and more independent.
Captain O'Shea of the Huron probably fell about midway between fiction and reality. Outwardly there was little to distinguish him. He was of average build and temperament, excepting the special sole of his left shoe, constructed to accommodate the fact that the one leg was a number of centimeters shorter than the other one. On such minutiae do careers in Starfleet hang.
Naturally, that detail made him stronger than those he was passed over in favor of. O'Shea needed that strength. The duller the task, the more inner strength a man needed to survive.
His face, at least, was noble, adequately laden with planes and angles inscribed by years of service. It might have been taken from the bust of a Roman patrician, despite the incongruity of the five-o'clock shadow.
At the moment he stood in the small, curved chamber which served as the bridge for the Huron. His two assistants were seated before him at the compact control console, staring at the fore viewscreen.
Quarters were snug. On board a freighter everything was sacrificed for the comfort of the cargo. O'Shea and his crew were classed with the other incidental equipment.
"Time to rendezvous . . ." Elijah paused briefly to check a readout, ". . . two hours seven minutes, Captain."
O'Shea grunted in acknowledgment. It was his favorite mode of expression, being at once eloquent and economical. He also had an excellent negative grunt O'Shea could produce a veritable spectrum, an olla podrida of grunts, constituting a language in themselves.
But the unusual importance of this run compared to their usual assignments compelled him to greater loquaciousness, his ambivalent feelings about the job notwithstanding.
"Must be a pretty important drug we're carrying for the Enterprise. I'd just as soon get rid of it and get back to shipping plain dilithium."
The Huron's first officer, John Elijah, smiled to himself. Despite his constant complaining, he knew O'Shea was reveling in the attention they had received. The captain had been hard-pressed to keep the seams of his jacket intact when the priority call had come through from Starfleet, with its companion orders.
O'Shea already had had a chance to do a little strutting before the crew of the Potemkin. Now he was looking forward to playing hero before the officers of one of the most famous ships in the Federation, the Enterprise.
No wonder he was feeling talkative!
He felt a tap on his arm and looked across at his partner. Lieutenant Fushi eyed him questioningly, directed his attention to a certain readout on the other side of the console. Like nearly everything else, the by-play caught O'Shea's attention.
"What are you two on about?"
"Sir," Fushi confessed, openly puzzled, "our sensors are registering the presence of a ship ahead." Several intriguing new crevices appeared in the captain's mobile face.
"Odd. Could the Enterprise be this early? Sure, and this is listed as a priority meeting, but . . ."
"Still too far away to tell what it is, sir," Fushi replied.
"What's its approximate course?"
"Toward us, sir."
O'Shea grunted. Elijah and Fushi had no trouble translating it to, "Well, that's all very interesting information Lieutenant, and I certainly hope it is the Enterprise; but since we're not sure yet perhaps you'd best keep an eye on it."
In the hands of a master like the captain the content of a barely verbalized monosyllable could be truly startling.
Kirk halted dictation into his private log and looked to the helm. "Time to rendezvous, Mr. Arex?"
The Edoan checked the chronometer readout, compared it with the declaration of another gauge. "One hour forty-three minutes, Captain."
Kirk considered this briefly before turning his attention to the Bridge engineering station, where Scott was keeping a close watch on numerous gauges.
"Scotty, I hate to ask this, but . . ."
Scott simply looked back and nodded. "Aye, Captain, we'll squeeze a bit more speed out of her somehow."
"If it'll help, Scotty, I'll get out and push."
"Any of us would, Captain. Let me see what I can do."
An insistent buzz pulled Kirk's attention back to the chair intercom.
"McCoy to bridge."
Kirk opened the channel. "What is it, Bones?"
"Tell Spock it's time for another shot."
Kirk lowered his voice as he looked over toward the science station. "Again, Bones?"
"Again, Jim."
Kirk sighed. "All right, I'll send him down." He raised his voice. "Mr. Spock." There was no response. "Mr. Spock!" Now Sulu had turned to stare, and Uhura had swiveled 'round at her station.
"He looks tired, Bones," Kirk said into the pickup. "Just a minute." He got out of the chair and walked toward his first officer. "Spock? Spock!"
The first officer's eyes, which had been closed as Kirk approached, opened slowly. He gazed blankly up at Kirk for a moment. Then both eyes and mind seemed to clear simultaneously.
"I was conserving energy, Captain."
Kirk nodded matter-of-factly, trying not to let his relief show. "McCoy wants you in Sick Bay. Time for another injection."
Spock rose from his seat—slowly, carefully, but without aid—and walked toward the elevator with the same measured movements.
The silence on the bridge was deafening.
O'Shea leaned between his two juniors and studied the abstract overlay on the viewscreen. So far it could show no more than a moving blip—enigmatic and uniformly uninformative.
Fushi had been staring into a gooseneck viewer for long moments. Now he sat back, flipped a single switch and rubbed his eyes. He had collated the mass approximations, extreme-range silhouette configuration estimates, energy registration and a dozen others. These enabled him to make a single terse announcement
"It's not the Enterprise closing on us, sir."
"Another Federation vessel?" There was more hope than confidence in O'Shea's voice now.
"No, sir. It's an outsider for sure. A design I don't recognize. That's not to say half the helmsmen in the Federation wouldn't recognize it, but I don't."
"That's good enough for me," O'Shea acknowledged grimly. "Are we close enough yet for visual pickup?"
"Three minutes on our current course should bring it within range of our fore telescanners, sir."
O'Shea considered. From the beginning he'd enjoyed this mission. It had provided a chance for some infrequent recognition as well as an opportunity to present himself as a person of importance. Everything had run smoothly.
Now there was a loose neutron in the reaction chamber, and he found he didn't like it one bit.
Fushi was doing his best with the Huron's telescopic pickups. The abstract overlay vanished from the main screen, to be replaced by a wavering, fuzzy starfield. In its center was what appeared at first glance to be a red star.
Fushi made adjustments, and the star became a ship. O'Shea studied the unknown visitor intently. Its design was different, but not extreme—alien without being radical. It was colored blood red, a choice which might be coincidental, theatrical, or intentional.
One out o' three, he mused, ain't good.
"You sure it's coming toward us?" he asked again.
Eiljah was busy checking gauges. "Definitely on an intercept course, Captain. Estimates of speed . . . it'll reach us before we make contact with the Enterprise."
"Maybe," said Fushi quietly, "they just want to chat."
"Maybe," agreed O'Shea, staring at the alien image as it grew nearer and nearer. "Ma
ybe . . ."
"Maybe we can dispense with these injections soon, Spock," McCoy told him.
Spock was lying down on one of the diagnostic beds. Nurse Chapel stood nearby. McCoy wielded the air hypo like an artist with a brush, placed it against the first officer's shoulder.
"This won't hurt a bit now, Spock."
"An unnecessary reassurance, Doctor," his patient replied, "in addition to being untrue."
McCoy grimaced as he administered the serum. "That's the last time I waste my best bedside manner on a Vulcan."
Spock, rolling down the sleeve of his tunic, started to sit up. "Such restraint would be welcome, Doctor."
McCoy put a hand on the first officer's untreated shoulder and gently pressed him back. "Agreed, provided you show some of the same, Spock. Lie there quietly."
Nodding to Chapel, he directed his full attention to the screen over the head of the bed. Chapel adjusted the complex diagnostic mechanism. The result was a series of brightly lit printouts on the screen which the patient, in his reclining position, couldn't see.
Respiration, circulation—McCoy went through the succession of figures, compared them with those taken four hours earlier. There was nothing there he hadn't expected to see. That made them no less depressing.
Considering the massive doses Spock had been receiving, one would think those strobolin analogs would be more effective. To an observer basing his opinion on the present readings, all those injections would seem to have been worse than useless.
But McCoy knew that without those injections he would not be reading any results on Spock now. Corpses generate singularly uniform figures. He looked down at the subject of all this analysis, who waited patiently for permission to get back to his assigned tasks, and smiled in manner belying his true feelings.
"Well, that's not too bad . . . not too bad at all. I'm afraid it's back to the salt mines for you, Spock."
Spock started to get up, nearly fell. McCoy managed to restrain himself to the barest twitch and kept himself from extending a supportive arm.
"Thank you, Doctor," Spock said evenly, getting to his feet slowly but steadily now. Like a man in a dream, he left the room.
Chapel's professional smile didn't fade until he was gone. "The drug isn't working any more, Doctor. If it was, he wouldn't have lost that much ground in four hours." McCoy turned from her, troubled.
"I know, Christine, I know. The additional injections can't hurt his system and psychologically they may help. Don't worry . . . we'll have the strobolin soon."
That was what McCoy said. But a person did not have to be as familiar with him as Chapel was to read what he meant.
They'd better have the strobolin soon . . .
"They've increased speed, sir," Fushi reported tightly. "Closing fast on us now."
"Why do I have this nagging impression they want more from us than just talk?" O'Shea muttered. "Open hailing frequencies, Mr. Elijah. Standard intership call."
The first officer of the Huron reached for the required instruments, manipulated several. "Open, sir. They're plenty close enough; should pick us up easy."
O'Shea moved forward, spoke toward the directional mike.
"To unidentified alien vessel. This is Captain Svenquist O'Shea of the Federation freighter S.S. Huron—on whose course you are currently closing. Please state your registry and intentions." He paused, repeated, "Please identify yourself."
"No use, sir," a vexed Elijah reported. "They've got to be receiving . . . but they're not answering."
Well, that left two possibilities. The first was that the stranger was in sufficient difficulties to render his broadcast instrumentation inoperative.
The second was that O'Shea was in a lot of trouble and needed help, but fast.
"We've got a hold full of dilithium to protect, not to mention that drug," he ventured. "I don't like people who come at me fast and silent. Evasive maneuvers."
Fushi and Elijah were good. They tried right-left angle shifts. They put the Huron through turns warp-drive craft weren't designed for. They sent her galloping off course in a random-number spiral.
None of it fazed their silent pursuer. Whatever sought close contact with them was simply too fast to be denied. Time and again it would slip off the Huron's screens, only to reappear moments later. And with each new maneuver tried, each option exhausted, the alien grew harder and harder to shake. Their pilots might not have been any better—but their navigational computer and engines were clearly designed for more intricate work than traveling from point A to point B.
"It's no good, sir," a tired Fushi confessed. "Not only can't we lose them, they're still closing on us."
"All rigiht." O'Shea was running down a list of responses to possible challenges. "Resume course, and send out an emergency signal to the Enterprise. By drone. Subtly."
"Yes, sir." He programed the drone properly, sent it on its robotic way. "Might be a good idea to ready a backup, in case." His hands moved to make the necessary demands on the Huron's equipment—and hesitated as a certain telltale commenced a steady winking.
"Message coming in, sir."
"I can see that, man. Let's hear it."
Elijah acknowledged the call, put it on the speaker. They had cut in mid-broadcast.
It didn't matter. The message directed at them was as understandable as it was incomplete.
". . . or prepare to be destroyed. Stand by to surrender your cargo or prepare . . ."
VII
"Captain, I'm getting a signal from the Huron—by automatic emergency beacon."
Kirk stiffened in his seat. "Are we close enough for direct ship-to-ship contact yet?"
Uhura checked a readout. "Possible, sir—fringe tangency."
"Try it"
"Yes, sir." There was a pause, then, "Nothing, sir. Either we're still too far off or—it's definitely an emergency beacon doing the broadcasting." She didn't have to elaborate.
"Sensor report, Mr. Spock. Have they reached the designated coordinates?" It took Spock several seconds longer than usual to make the check and reply.
"No, sir. Long-range scanners also indicate a course change. They are veering off—and have reduced speed considerably."
"Compute new course to intercept, Mr. Arex. Lieutenant Uhura, keep trying to make contact. Let's find out what's going on—"
It took longer than Kirk expected to make the rendezvous, not because of the course change but because the Huron had not merely cut speed—she had practically stopped.
Visual contact soon revealed the reasons why. The freighter sat there on the main viewscreen, drifting aimlessly in space. All entreaties for acknowledgment were ignored with frightening uniformity.
Spock's attention was on his hooded viewer. "The Huron's power levels are functioning at the bare minimum required to maintain life-support systems, Captain. And sensors are picking up considerable metallic and other inorganic debris."
"Natural cause?"
Spock looked up from the viewer. "No, Captain. Extrapolating from preliminary data I would say without qualification that she was attacked. Indications are . . . indications are . . ." He swayed in his chair, eyelids fluttering.
"Spock!"
For a moment the first officer's eyes opened wide and clear. Then a faint suggestion of uncertainty crossed that stolid visage. "Captain, I . . ."
Kirk started forward—caught the limp form before it struck the floor. Uhura was already on the intercom.
"Bridge to Sick Bay—Emergency!"
Kirk felt no need to ask McCoy for a detailed interpretation of the readings that winked on and off on the screen above Spock's head. Anyone with a minimal knowledge of Vulcan physiology could see that they were appallingly low.
McCoy studied he unconscious Vulcan. "We've got to have that strobolin, Jim. The synthetic is useless now—hell, it's been useless for half a day! He has lapsed into coma." He looked unwaveringly at Kirk.
"If we don't get that drug soon, very soon, hell never come out of it." br />
"Do what you can, Bones." It sounded pitifully inadequate. "And I'll—I'll do what I can."
Now they had another problem to cope with. What had happened to the Huron? He gave McCoy a hesitant, encouraging pat on the back and left Sick Bay.
McCoy watched him go, his one note of satisfaction in this being Kirk's continued steadiness; then he turned his attention back to his patient. He examined the readouts again. For the moment they were unchanged. Temporary, false pleasure—they could only change for the worse.
"Blasted Vulcan!" he yelled at the motionless form, "Why couldn't you have red blood like any normal man?"
He prayed for a comforting insult.
He got only sibilant breathing—and silence.
Arex was manning Spock's station as Sulu positioned the Enterprise close to the unresponsive Huron.
"Status?" Kirk queried sharply, striding out of the elevator.
"Her engines are dead," Arex reported, studying the telltale sensor screen. "Backup battery power is operating life-support systems at a low but acceptable level."
"Anyone left alive?"
"There appears to be, sir. Several weak readings. I can't tell how many for certain."
"We'll find out soon enough. Mr. Scott, Lieutenant Uhura, come with me. Mr. Sulu, you have the con. We're beaming over to the Huron."
Dissolution . . . nausea . . . teasing oblivion . . . reassembly.
Kirk looked around and saw that Kyle had put them exactly where he had specified. They were standing on the Huron's bridge. Or rather, on what was left of it.
It looked as if something had taken the Huron by its stern and slammed the upper end against a nickel-iron asteroid. Signs of severe concussion were everywhere—in the shattered gauge covers, the slight ooze of liquid around loosened paneling from cracked fluid-state switches, in the decided chill in the air from the release of super-cooled gases.
Further evidence was to be found in the condition of two of the three skulls belonging to the crew.
Chapel made a quick examination of the physical damage and tended to Fushi, the most severely injured of the three, first. Whatever had battered the Huron had made no distinction between accouterments living and dead. Her three officers were scattered about the bridge with the same disregard and in the same condition as the furnishings.