Corona

  When Kirk's abrupt transmission was received, Scott acted on the orders immediately. The Enterprise accelerated and pushed herself into a higher orbit, maneuvering until she was in synchronous movement with the station four thousand kilometers below. The whole action took less than five minutes, and in that time—

  Radak twisted around, stared at the guards, and tried to transform back to the station. He could not transform by himself, however, and Corona had not yet returned. The guards floated toward him, phasers drawn. He tried to deactivate the phasers, but he could not. He backed away, feeling his weakness acutely. Then he realized the ship was moving, that he was already too far from the station to be transformed even if Corona did return.

  "He's not doing anything," Scott said.

  "Maybe we have him," Veblen said.

  Devereaux backed the boy up against the end of the corridor. "We're not going to hurt you," he said. "How in hell did you get here in the first place?"

  For the first time in ten years, Radak felt completely lost. His instructions said nothing about how to behave if he was captured.

  Chapter Eighteen

  They lay T'Prylla in the cage next to Chekov. McCoy changed the ampule in the subcutane and injected her with an antidote to the tranquilizer. "She'll come around in a few minutes," he said. "But she'll be weak for an hour or so."

  "I wonder if any Vulcan can ever be weak," Chapel said, massaging her shoulder.

  "Ceptain, I do not think she is the center of the being," Chekov said. "I think it concentrates on the children."

  T'Prylla's eyes opened. She stared intently at Spock. "Nine years, three months, two days and twelve hours," she said. "That is how long we have been slaves. My gratitude, Spock." She tried to sit up but her arms collapsed under her. Mason held her shoulders as she fell back.

  "I have many questions," Spock said, "and not much time to obtain answers."

  "Then the questions must wait. For all that time, I have been considering ways to overcome Corona."

  "Corona?" Kirk asked.

  "Yes. It manifests as a huge corona of Ybakra radiation emanating from the infant stars. It has a specific purpose—to create a new universe—and we must not allow it to succeed. Spock, Radak was the first to be taken over. T'Raus was next. Through the children, it extended its control to the rest of us. You must touch minds with Radak. You must communicate directly with Corona—force it to listen—or it will never understand."

  "How do you force an all-powerful, hostile intelligence to listen?" McCoy asked.

  "It is neither all-powerful, nor hostile," T'Prylla said. "It is merely dedicated. It is the last of its kind, and there will be no more like it unless it succeeds. It is quite weak—it is not accustomed to a realm of matter, and only through us can it manipulate small amounts of matter."

  "Yet it is a master of energy, of space and time," Spock said.

  "You have deduced that much. We could never have come so far in our researches without its help—yet I can hardly say the new machines belong to us, or fulfill our work. Spock! You must find Radak, and you must administer ka nifoor."

  "What's that?" Kirk asked.

  "He was just a child when he was taken over," Spock said. "Neither he nor T'Raus have undergone the discipline of Vulcan adulthood. If I can administer ka nifoor, it is possible the being's influence will wane."

  "It controls all of us through them," T'Prylla said.

  Spock looked troubled.

  "Well, Spock?" Kirk asked.

  "There is also the possibility the being will occupy my mind," Spock said. "I have resisted so far, though I am not certain why—"

  "You just won't admit it," McCoy said.

  "Doctor, Chekov is totally human, and it possessed him quite effectively."

  "In the beam of the transporter," T'Prylla said.

  "Which is why we aren't going to use the transporter," Kirk said. Outside the shuttle, there was a high-pitched whining sound, followed by a sharp, loud crack. "What in hell was that?"

  Wah Ching ran down the boarding tube, phaser drawn. "Captain, they're all in the storage dome—all but the boy. They're heading this way!"

  "Get Pauli inside the shuttle," Kirk said. "Spock, we're going back."

  "Yes, sir." Spock went forward to the shuttle controls. T'Prylla was now strong enough to sit up on her own, and Mason released her, instinctively wiping her hands on her pants.

  Pauli rolled into the ship just as the boarding tube seal separated. The shuttle was filled with roaring as air exploded through the crack. Mason screamed in silence, holding her ears with both hands and keeping her eyes tightly shut. Pauli rebounded from a bulkhead and reached up to slap the hatch lever down. Air screamed into the cabin from emergency repressurization valves, and Mason felt the horrible, straining emptiness in her lungs fill until she could breathe normally.

  "They tried to kill us!" Pauli shouted hoarsely.

  The shuttle's landing lifters pushed them a few meters off the station platform.

  McCoy quickly looped cargo cables across the deck and over Chekov and T'Prylla. "Get into a seat!" he shouted at Mason and Chapel. "And secure that damned machine!" Mason pulled the recorder forward and slammed it against a magnetic grip. She buckled herself in just in time to avoid a lurch which propelled McCoy across the cargo compartment. The Ybakra cage creaked ominously.

  Kirk grabbed hold of the navigator's chair and steadied himself. "They're not going to let us go without a fight."

  Spock struggled with the controls. Warning buzzers sounded and alert lights came on across the instrument panel.

  "Didn't we fix it?" McCoy called from the passenger cabin as he fell into a seat.

  Kirk's communicator beeped. He strapped himself in and flipped the device open. "Kirk here."

  "Captain! We've been trying to get through for hours—"

  "Scotty! Lock a tractor on to the shuttle! Pull us in!"

  "We canna', not at this angle through the planetoid, Captain. What's happening?"

  Kirk glanced at Spock for an explanation. "Our engines are being neutralized," Spock said grimly. "We will not be able to lift off. It does not wish to let T'Prylla go."

  "Scotty," Kirk said. "This may be a mistake, but can you get a transporter fix on us?"

  "Aye, that I can. But—"

  "Risk it, Scotty! Get everyone in the shuttle aboard the Enterprise—and the Ybakra shield, as well!" Kirk met Spock's questioning glance and shrugged. "Either way, Spock … let's just hope Corona doesn't have its mind on the transporter."

  As the transporter effect started, Mason began to pray, gripping the chair arms tightly. She closed her eyes. Across the aisle, McCoy let out a long and expressive string of expletives …

  The shuttle fell from an altitude of two hundred meters and crashed onto the scarred gray surface of the planetoid.

  "We have them all," Shallert announced from the transporter room. "But the goddamned thing's interfering again!"

  "Isolate each form-memory," Scott said grimly from the elevator. Veblen rode beside him.

  "They're isolated. We're racking up delay time … thirty seconds."

  "Triage," Veblen said.

  "How's that, Mr. Veblen?" Scott demanded. The elevator doors opened and the engineer leaped to the transporter controls. Shallert transferred the controls and Scott began to play them like the keys of a piano. Veblen stayed to one side, watching the fitful sparklings above the assigned disks.

  "I've already dumped the radiation cage," Shallert explained. "Even so …"

  "We only have a firm grip on seven," Scott said, looking as if he were about to cry. "It's wrestling us for them!" The transporter whined and groaned alternately. The air became thick with the sweet electric smell of unrealized transporter ghosts, and a special ventilator switched on. "Ye canna' ha' them, damn ye!" Scott screamed, pulling all the slides down at once and switching for emergency power. The transporter room floor hummed and one of the unassigned disks began to smoke.

  One b
y one, the assigned disks displayed transporter effects, until seven were occupied. The remaining two showed clear shafts of white light, signifying lost signals. Even before the effects were well formed, Scott redirected the two stray people. "I'm sending 'em to the station," he said. "They canna' return to the shuttle. I'm sending 'em back and God help them get there in one piece."

  Corona gave up its attempt to control all the form-memories in the transporter beam. The task was simply too much without the help of Radak and T'Prylla; Corona felt their loss keenly. Even though it realized T'Prylla was one of those in the beam, her data was confused with the form-memory of the cage, and Corona could not differentiate them in so little time.

  By the time the cage was cut from the beam, Corona had already concentrated on two others in the beam, separating them. The half-Vulcan, half-human science officer, Spock, and the only other female in the group, Mason, began to assemble in the storage dome, where Scott had redirected them. Corona reached deep into the form-memory of Spock, and exulted …

  Kirk, McCoy, Chapel, T'Prylla, Chekov and the two guards lay fully formed on the transporter platform. Kirk got up on his knees and looked at the other disks. "Spock? The girl? Where are they?"

  Scott's expression was pitiful. "I couldna' hold them, Captain. There was too much interference."

  Kirk cringed and held his head in his hands. He looked up almost immediately and asked where the cage was.

  "Dropped from the beam," Shallert said.

  "We'll need another. A large one—and some portable shields, too." He stood above Chekov and T'Prylla on adjacent disks, looking down on them suspiciously. McCoy helped T'Prylla to her feet while Kirk and Shallert saw to Chekov and the two guards.

  "Get stretchers up here," McCoy said, looking around for someone to take his orders and fixing on Veblen. "And get sickbay ready!" Veblen nodded and went to the wall com to relay the commands.

  Kirk opened and closed his hands helplessly, then bounded on still-shaky legs for the elevator. Veblen followed, reaching out to steady him as he wobbled. The doors closed. "Bridge," Kirk said.

  "Captain, we've captured the Vulcan boy, Radak. Somehow he reached the Enterprise and was found in the service corridor below the computer center. And as for Ybakra shields—the boy is in one right now. We've shielded an entire brig cell."

  "Then we have two of Corona's main extensions," Kirk said. "And Radak was the one T'Prylla wanted Spock to touch minds with …" He shook his head fiercely. "We may be in worse trouble than we think, Mr. Veblen. T'Prylla said something down there that scares me, especially after what we saw."

  "Captain, I'll need as much information as possible to feed the algorithms."

  Kirk looked at Veblen from the corner of his eye, prepared to tell the computer officer to go to hell, and take his algorithms with him. But he controlled his anger and worry and nodded. "On the bridge," he said. "I'll put as much as I can into the log while we're deciding what to do next."

  Spock rolled onto his back, his eyes tightly shut. Mason had assembled on her feet, and she looked around with no real comprehension of what had happened. Where was the transporter room, where was the Enterprise? She was in the storage dome—and the dome was empty. Then she saw Spock struggling near her feet, moaning.

  Oh my God, she thought. Now was the time to panic. She was alone in the station, alone with Vulcans …

  Spock controlled his writhing and opened his eyes. He rose to his knees and shook his head, then braced a hand on the floor and pushed himself upright. He looked dazed, preoccupied. His lips worked and he closed his eyes again. "I need help," he said.

  Mason backed away, hands clutching her throat.

  "I am about to be controlled by Corona," he said. "I only have a few minutes of resistance left. You must … help …"

  He swiveled and held out a tense, half-closed hand.

  "Please," Mason said.

  "I can feel it in my mind. I can hear its thoughts. It does not know how to listen … It does not respect us. We are here only for its use. And it is about to destroy … everything." His eyes widened.

  He's afraid, Mason realized. He's seen something and it terrifies him! Whatever reserves of pragmatism and toughness remained in her, evaporated. She was a little girl again, listening to scary stories about incredible off-world monstrosities, alien horrors, unseen inhuman demons. Standing before her was living proof of all the stories—an alien, strange and repugnant, himself taken over by a demon. The storytellers on Yalbo had told the truth!

  "I cannot hold it back. I must enter a trance state. But I cannot do that …" Spock's expression was pleading. "You must take part of me within you." He twisted in agony, arms held up in the air, and shouted a string of Vulcan words. She backed away two more steps, horrified—and fascinated. "I must pass on the ritual. It is not aware … it is blind inside me while I resist … I can pass everything on to you, give you instructions, a temporary part of my mind—"

  "NO!" But she did not back away any farther.

  Spock shuddered and appeared to draw himself together. "I am aware of your prejudices. I am aware of your fear. You must overcome them. Your life, your existence … perhaps the existence of our entire universe … are at stake. We are not enemies. I need your courage!" He reached both hands out to her.

  All right, a voice said away from all her repulsion and horror. Time to cut the crap and get down to business, don't you think? You can either live the rest of your life—however short that may be—slipping and sliding on all the muck your fellow Yalbans laid down for you, or you can rise above it. You can help the nasty, alien Vulcan, whom you've come to know and respect, underneath all your stupid bigotry, or you can let everything go to hell. Your one chance, Small-Planet Girl.

  She took a step forward, her stomach contracting to a tiny ball. Everything was elongated and strange. She grasped Spock's warm, dry hands and guided them to her temples. He lowered one hand and clasped the base of her neck. He said something in Vulcan and there was a fire in her brain, writing very tiny letters over every available centimeter of darkness …

  And then she understood his Vulcan words:

  "You have the courage and grace of an ahkor," he had said, and through Spock she remembered the most beautiful, the largest, the brightest bird she had ever seen, its feathers copper and gold and chrome, its eye red as the sun, flying over the sand and jagged, smoking mountains of Vulcan.

  Part of the Vulcan was inside her.

  He lay on the floor, limp, his face peaceful. He was locked in trance, useless to Corona.

  But, along with Spock, she could feel another touch, weak but still present.

  Corona—or some part of it—had also made the transition. She was now not one, but three …

  Chapter Nineteen

  The guard cleared the brig field from his path and Kirk entered the cell. T'Prylla sat with Radak in one corner, on furniture transferred from the rec room; Chekov sat in the opposite corner, still de-briefing onto a ship's log notepad. A makeshift curtain had been arranged across the diagonal for some privacy; it wasn't much for luxury, however, and Kirk felt called upon to apologize.

  "We understand perfectly," T'Prylla said. She touched her son's shoulder. "You have returned Radak to me. That is luxury enough for the time being. What has happened at the station?"

  "Spock and Mason didn't make it back with us. We assume they are in the storage dome, but we simply don't know. Uh … Corona is blocking all transmissions and jamming all sensor readings." His face was pale and lined with worry; he hadn't even changed uniforms after the narrow escape.

  "We are all in very great danger," T'Prylla said calmly. She looked at Radak. "I know the broad outlines of Corona's plans, but my son is much better informed. He will not tell us, however." Radak regarded Kirk with icy contempt. "Corona apparently gave him some measure of autonomy, and he is waiting for his contact to resume. It is all he has known for ten years."

  "I'm worried about two things," Kirk said. "Most immedia
tely, the fate of Mason and Spock. And this attempt of Corona's to create another universe. I don't like the sound of that."

  "Nor do I, Captain," T'Prylla said. "I assume that it means Corona would like to re-create conditions he is more familiar with."

  "And what might those be?"

  "Corona is a fugitive, Captain. And a kind of scientist. His world ended fifteen billion years ago … when it gave birth to our own."

  It was all well and good to be brave in the abstract. She had always been impulsive. But there were parts of her mind not nearly as noble and flexible as her conscious self, and right now they were twisting her thoughts into knots. Spock's distinctive voice spoke within her, trying to reassure.

  —Do not be afraid. I have abstracted knowledge from Corona—stolen it, if you will. That is what you feel.

  —(confusion, panic) You are in my mind!

  —You are in control. I am only knowledge, not Spock. I can only suggest, and answer questions. I am like the monitors aboard the Enterprise, except that I cannot even veto your actions. Spock is in a trance. I am only part, a very small part, of him, within you.

  Mason stood unsteadily, feeling worse than if she had discovered maggots erupting from her skin. How much of her memory was available to him—details of her life, her intimate moments, her embarrassments and shames?

  —What do you know about me?

  —Nothing. It is not important that I know. But we must do several things …

  —I … don't … think … I … can … take … this …

  —There is very little time. Grake, T'Raus and the others will return soon, and we must be prepared. You are temporarily safe from Corona's intrusion. It cannot take you over now, and it will not try. Here is what we must do first—

  —Vulcan! Get out of my mind!

  Suddenly, there was nothing. Just herself, and silence. She couldn't even feel the wisp of complete unfamiliarity that had been Corona's trace within her. Across the dome, she heard footsteps. T'Raus and T'Kosa materialized on each side of her. Grake and Anauk entered the dome through the hatchway.