That was too much for Kritt. Despite Kumara's order, he was out of his chair, all but snarling at this infuriating example of a lower order.
"Let me have him for a few aines in the persuasion chambers, Most Exalted. I'll show him the folly of attempting to dictate to a Klingon commander."
"Please, Lieutenant." Kumara sighed irritably. "I am conducting the interrogation. While I might agree with your desires, emotionally, your suggestion is premature. Have you not studied this creature? I have done so, while he has been babbling.
"While possibly a veritable genius, he is obviously, like so many of this kind, mentally unstable. Torture might send him into a catatonic state from which his mind—and the secrets locked therein—might never emerge.
"In that case, I would find it necessary to have the questioner—yourself, for example—executed. I should prefer not to. At times you have shown yourself to perform somewhat less incompetently than your compatriots. Do return to your station."
Thoroughly disgusted both with the situation and with the commander's attitude toward it, Kritt returned once again to his position. He sat there fuming quietly and thinking of what he would do to the human if he were in Kumara's place.
"Van Delminnen," Kumara said, "I cannot understand your attitude. Even for a human, it is exceptionally obtuse. Let us try this—a communication between yourself and Captain Kirk which we monitored earlier showed you emphatically refusing him even permission to land. If you hate him and the Federation he stands for, which has so grievously and wrongly mistreated you, why not spite them all by turning your knowledge over to us?"
Delminnen drew himself up in a self-conscious pose of pride and arrogance—a very Klingon thing to do, in fact. "My genius," he informed Kumara, "is not for sale to the highest bidder. You all desire my knowledge, yet none of you is sufficiently intelligent to know how to ask for it." He smiled in a strange way—strange even for him.
Kumara was mildly amused, but not by the smile. "You have a novel way of rationalizing your insanity, Delminnen. Too novel for me. I haven't the time to probe it just now. Rest assured that there will be time for everything." He looked to the guard on the scientist's left.
"Convey him to Karau in Humanoid Psychology—perhaps they can figure this one out. And tell them not to damage him beyond what is absolutely necessary."
"It shall be as you say, Commander," the guard replied. The guards took hold of Delminnen, despite his protests, and escorted him from the bridge.
Kumara turned thoughtfully back to the main viewscreen. He hadn't really expected the human to be sensible and agree to the inevitable. The only time his demeanor had altered was when his sibling had been mentioned. If she were on board now, it would be a simple matter to use her as a lever with which to topple Delminnen's stubbornness.
But she wasn't on board. She was out there, somewhere in the bowels of Kirk's ship, and Kumara did not think Kirk would be so foolish as to permit him access to her.
Still, he had Delminnen. It might take longer, be a bit messier, but eventually they would pry the information out of him—provided they all weren't vaporized first.
With his mind he tried to bridge the gap between ships, reach across to the tiny bump at the apex of the cruiser's saucer which he knew housed the ship's bridge. He reached out and tried to penetrate a single mind therein.
What are you thinking, acquaintance of my youth, he mused to himself. How will you proceed? We are even with our guesswork now. Whatever happens next could be decisive. Whence will it come, and when it does, will the gods permit me to escape again?
The trouble is, James Kirk, I know you too well—and you know me. How does one fool a mirror . . .?
"I wonder what Kumara's thinking now, Bones." Kirk's gaze remained fixed on the screen, which still showed the image of the damaged Klingon cruiser.
McCoy's reply was bitter: "Probably laughing himself silly over the way he suckered us into that last barrage. Sitting in his command chair, watching us bleed and snickering to himself."
"How are things in Sick Bay?" Kirk asked, aware that the anger was directed more at the result of Klingon bellicosity—the casualties the ship had suffered—than at Kumara himself.
"Better than we deserve, Jim. If the one projector that did most of the engine damage had struck at a broader angle instead of slant-on, we could have suffered a blood bath back there. As it is, there are half a dozen specialists and one ensign who'll be lucky to pull through."
"If they're not dead already, they never will be, Bones. Not with you hovering over them."
"I wish I had your confidence in me, Jim." He glanced down at his wrist chronometer. "She ought to be here by now. I told—"
"Captain . . . Dr. McCoy?" Both men turned to face the elevator.
Two people had just emerged. One was a medical specialist. The other was Char Delminnen. She looked pale but otherwise none the worse for her wrestling match with transporter energies. The resemblance to her brother, Kirk noted, was amazing. A few slight changes in bone structure here, a movement of skin, and they could have been twins.
She was looking with interest around the bridge. Eventually her gaze settled on Kirk, and she inspected him with the same thoroughness with which he had regarded her.
The specialist marched her over, saluted, and waited for McCoy's instructions.
"Report, Mendez."
"All vital signs strong, body functions normal. No evidence to indicate delayed-time reactions. Mental condition stable."
"All right, you can go, Mendez," McCoy told him. "Tell Nurse Chapel to keep me posted if any of the casualties on critical show signs of deterioration."
"Yes, sir." The specialist saluted again and left the bridge, leaving Kirk and McCoy free to appraise Char Delminnen for the first time.
And they were in for a hard time, Kirk reflected, if she was anything like her brother.
"How do you feel, Ms. Delminnen?" McCoy ventured. Her gaze rested briefly on the doctor, then turned immediately to Kirk. He found her voice unexpectedly light, almost musical. But it was as adamantine as her brother's.
"Captain, where is Van?"
Kirk glanced for approval to McCoy, who nodded once. "She's as sound as I can make her, Jim. You might as well tell her."
Her attention shifted confusedly from McCoy to Kirk and back again. "What is this . . . what are you talking about? Isn't . . . isn't Van on board this ship?"
Kirk raised a placating hand and turned to indicate the screen. "I'm afraid I have to tell you he is not, Ms. Delminnen. Unless we're much mistaken, he's on that one."
They waited, McCoy watching her anxiously while she stared silently at the disabled Klingon cruiser. There was no scream, no violent outburst, not the slightest hint of hysteria. But her next words were whispered.
"I see. The Klingons got Van and you got me." She turned abruptly to look accusingly at Kirk. "Have you been in contact with them? Do you know if he's all right?"
"We've been in contact all right," Kirk explained patiently. "We've been fighting a running battle with them for much too long. Both our ship and the Klathas have been disabled. At the moment it's a race to see who can repair their engines first.
"As to your brother, we've had no word from the Klingons. They haven't volunteered any information, and we haven't had time to request any—not that they'd be inclined to make comments about anything other than our theoretical ancestry at the moment."
Char Delminnen turned her eyes to the deck and sighed. "Ever since our parents died and we were farmed out to foster parents, Van and I have never been separated for very long. We see things too much the same, too well, to look elsewhere for companionship." Her eyes turned up to him, and they were haunted.
"I don't know how he'll react if we're kept apart very long. In many ways Van is still a child. You've got to find a way to return him to me, Captain Kirk!"
The fury behind her request took both men aback. Though he had no reason to be ashamed of their efforts thus far,
Kirk found himself squirming under that demanding gaze.
"We've been risking the ship and our lives to do just that, Ms. Delminnen. I don't think you need worry too much. Your brother's extremely important to the Klingons as well as to us. You can bet they're being careful not to harm him." He did not think it would be diplomatic to discuss the ultimate steps they were prepared to take to keep Van Delminnen and his device from falling into the Empire's hands.
Char Delminnen relaxed physically at Kirk's assurance, but her words, as she turned away slightly, were still filled with fury . . . and bitterness.
"And all this has happened because of that stupid discovery of his. I told him some interloper might discover evidence of its use. I told him! But would he listen?" She shook her head slowly. "That child—the universe is his playpen." Her head snapped around, and Kirk found himself confronted by that accusing stare again.
"That's the only reason you're interested in us, isn't it? You're no better than the Klingons."
Kirk bridled. "I think we, and the Federation—your Federation, Ms. Delminnen, whether you like it or not—are entitled to better than that. As for personal concern, comparing us with the Klingons is akin to—"
"Yes, that is the reason," Spock interrupted. Kirk threw his first officer a look of reproach.
"Thank you, Mr. . . . Spock, isn't it? I appreciate your honesty. At least I'm sure of where I stand."
"We could express more concern for you," Spock continued, looking up from the library computer console, "but you and your brother make it exceedingly difficult for anyone else to be interested in anything but your work."
Kirk's look of reproach vanished, and he saw that Char Delminnen had no reply to Spock's accusation. All she could do was shrug.
"So Van and I are jealous of our privacy. We didn't ask for visitors. We didn't inflict ourselves on you. It was the other way around."
"So it was," Kirk agreed firmly, "but you invited this visitation whether you'll admit it or not. Yes, our primary concern is the device—and why shouldn't it be? Do you realize what the Klingons will do, what they'll be able to demand, if they gain possession of a weapon so destructive that—"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, don't you understand?"
Kirk and McCoy looked at her askance. "What do you mean?"
"The device . . . it's not a weapon."
VIII
Clearly, there were those on the bridge whose attention was not focused solely on their tasks of the moment, for the general shock this comment produced spread beyond Kirk and McCoy.
"Wait . . . I think I understand you," Kirk finally began, speaking in a soothing, calming manner. "It's all a matter of semantics. Very possibly your brother did not regard his invention as a weapon. You must see, however, that to an outsider any device which is capable of obliterating an entire world . . ."
"Yes, yes . . . but you have to know, Captain Kirk, it was never conceived as a weapon. For all his intransigence, Van could no more develop a weapon of destruction than he could moderate a diplomatic conference."
"If destroying planets isn't an offensive gesture," wondered McCoy, "then what was this machine's intended purpose?"
"You know that this system is exceptionally poor in usable metals? That was a major reason why it was never colonized, not even outposted."
McCoy looked blank. "So?"
"Van got the idea for a device which would enable orbiting vessels to mine such metals at depths previously thought impossible, and from great distances. It involved the calculus of stress in ways I don't pretend to understand. I'm not sure anyone but Van could understand them.
"It sounded like a grandiose absurdity at first, but Van became obsessed with the thought. He neglected all our other projects, threw himself wholly into this one. You have no idea, gentlemen, what Van becomes when he is obsessed with an idea."
"I can imagine," ventured McCoy.
"He doesn't eat, he doesn't sleep—he exists to work. He exists on work. And eventually he produced the concepts needed to make the device a reality." Her grim visage lightened in remembrance. "How excited he was, how thrilled, how expectant! This was the discovery which was going to refute his critics. This was to bring him the recognition forever denied by petty, less talented men." She slumped.
"What else is there to say? You saw the results for yourselves. We tried the finished machine out on kilometers-deep nickel-iron deposits in the mantle of the ninth planet. The result was destructive beyond all imagining. Van was appalled, then furious . . . at the machine and at himself. He reworked, recalculated everything. He found no mistake. By his calculations, the machine should have worked as it was.
"I tried to dissuade him from making another test." She laughed disconsolately. "Try to extinguish a sun. So we aimed the machine at iridium deposits on the eighth world . . . with identical results.
"Do you wonder, Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, at the manner in which he greeted you? It was his failure infuriating him, not your presence. The latter he could stand, but not the first. That's why he refused to cooperate.
"But you've got to believe that Van intended no harm to anyone. He's no world-smashing monster. He wanted to produce something that would vindicate him, yes, but also to create something which would benefit Federation peoples." Abruptly the hard shell splintered and she was pleading.
"Get him back, Captain Kirk, please get him back! Without me he's no danger to anyone, except himself."
"Ms. Delminnen, while it may come as a shock to you, we are concerned about you and your brother in ways other than mercenary. As Federation citizens, and as individuals, it's our duty to protect you. Even if your brother had produced nothing of value, the mere fact that he's a Federation citizen would probably have impelled us along the same course of action we're following now."
"And after you've got him back, assuming you can do that . . .?" she asked, in control of herself again.
"That will have to be decided by the Federation Council. I'm only a starship captain, you know—not the all-powerful manipulator of others' lives you seem to think I am."
She stared at him a moment longer. "Though I have absolutely no reason to do so, I find myself believing you, Captain Kirk. I realize, however, that you'll be forced to destroy the Klingon ship—and my brother—if you fail to recapture him."
Kirk looked surprised—he thought he had avoided the need to mention that final, fatal possibility altogether. He hadn't counted on this woman's perceptiveness—it was almost as if she'd read his mind.
"We don't intend . . ." he started to mumble, and then decided to be as forthright as she was. "You understand, then, that we simply cannot . . . cannot permit the Klingons to rebuild your brother's device."
Char Delminnen's reaction was unexpected. She was momentarily speechless with shock. "Oh, but don't you see . . . didn't you know?" she finally explained. "They can't."
Now it was Kirk's turn to be shocked. The rest of the bridge was equally stunned. "Maybe you ought to elaborate," he said slowly.
She began to pace excitedly back and forth, waving one hand animatedly as she spoke. "I thought you had done your research, studied us thoroughly. It seems in your haste and anxiety to recover the weapon, both you and the Klingons neglected to trouble yourselves much with its creators. Yes," she half shouted, forestalling McCoy's unvoiced comment, "I said creators. You've no idea how Van worked, do you?"
Kirk glanced over at Spock, who looked blank and shook his head negatively, once. Char Delminnen turned smug.
"Van couldn't build a toy truck, let alone anything as complicated as that machine. I told you how close we are. We always work together. Don't you remember me telling you that he was neglecting our projects? Ours! Van gets an idea into his head, spins it around, clarifies the theory—and then I draw the diagrams and execute the finished product. He conceives, I construct. It has always been like that.
"After all, I'm the one with the degree in practical engineering."
"Mr. Spock?" Kirk eyed his fir
st officer expectantly, but Spock was already working at the library computer. Shortly he turned and spoke softly.
"Historical records confirm the body of Delminnen's report."
"I see." He turned his attention back to the still-pacing woman. "What you're saying, then, is that your brother is incapable of duplicating the machine?"
"Duplicating! They couldn't construct a primitive crystal set from Van's instructions! I'm the only one who can understand his verbal and mathematical shorthand. The two of us make one genius, Captain. Separated, we're merely two competent technicians."
Kirk turned thoughtfully to the viewscreen and studied the still driveless Klathas. Soon he began to chuckle. The sound rose, concurrent with Spock's eyebrows, became a chortle, than a laugh.
"Jim!" McCoy stared at his friend. Spock was equally puzzled.
"Really, Captain. I hardly consider the information the young lady has recently imparted of such a nature as to—"
"I'm . . . sorry, Spock . . . Bones." He regained control of himself. "Forgive me, Ms. Delminnen. I wasn't laughing at your brother's plight, or at your concern. It's just so . . . so . . . I can't help but visualize Commander Kumara's expression when he pulls what you've just told us out of your brother, when he discovers that in all this haste and confusion, he's the one who should be chasing us!"
The situation they were now in suddenly dawned on McCoy. He too chuckled. Spock reguarded this display of emotion coolly.
Almost as coolly as did Char Delminnen: "I'll be in the cabin Dr. McCoy assigned to me, Captain. If and when you have additional questions, or have rescued my brother, you'll find I'm available."
She turned and marched pompously to the elevator. Kirk turned to McCoy.
"You're going to leave her to herself, Bones?"
"She's as healthy as I can make her, Jim. She and her brother may both need treatment, but not of a physical variety." He shook his head slowly. "What a family . . . so much talent enveloped in so many neuroses."