“Enterprise… this is the captain. We’re moving away from the Guardian. There’ll be two to beam up.”
“Aye, sir,” came Engineer Scott’s reply.
A moment later both men stood still as a luminescent glow enveloped them and turned them into pieces of sun.
This state was quickly reversed in the main transporter room of the starship. Both Kirk and Spock held their positions, however, after rematerializing—Kirk uncertain, Spock apprehensive.
“Well, well, well!” Dr. McCoy stepped into view from behind the transporter console as Scott concluded final shutdown. The doctor looked at them and nodded knowingly, his tone as irascible as ever.
“So you two finally decided to end your vacation. While you’ve been running all over creation, I’ve been stuck performing semiannual crew physicals. You two are the last ones.” Captain and commander exchanged glances, each certain he was more relieved than the other.
“Welcome aboard, Mr. Spock,” said Kirk. McCoy moved closer, shepherding them out of the alcove and toward the elevator.
“Never mind the chitchat. I’ve got the mediscanners all set up for a Vulcan. I have to recalibrate every time I run a check on you, Spock.” He made it sound like the biggest job since the hammering out of the Federation-Klingon peace treaty.
“Dr. McCoy,” said Spock, moving towards the closed doors, “you do not know the half of your good fortune. If things were only slightly different you might have to recalibrate for, say, an Andorian.”
He and Kirk activated the call switch simultaneously.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” McCoy inquired. When neither man replied. “If that’s supposed to be a joke, I have to remind you that Vulcans don’t tell jokes.” He followed them into the waiting elevator.
“Times change, Doctor,” suggested Spock meaningfully, “times change.”
McCoy grunted, sensing something more than mere argument in the first officer’s voice.
“Just give me time enough for a physical, that’s all.”
“All the time in the world, Doctor.” Kirk grinned as McCoy hit the necessary button and they began to descend to lower levels.
It wasn’t often he enjoyed something as much as that simple elevator ride.
PART III
ONE OF OUR
PLANETS IS MISSING
(Adapted from a script by Marc Daniels)
IX
Precisely two and a quarter ship-days after leaving the Time Planet the crew of the Enterprise received a general emergency call. There were undoubtedly rarer things in the universe than general emergency calls—but not many.
“What I’d like to know,” Kirk inquired of no one in particular, from his seat in the bridge command chair, “was why someone didn’t notice and chart this thing before it slipped into inhabited Federation space?”
Lt. Arex was seated next to Sum at the helm-computer. Now he lifted all three arms in a popular human gesture and swiveled his thin neck so that he was facing the captain. Bright, intelligent eyes stared out from under projecting ridges of bone.
“Quien sabe? Who knows, Captain?”
Uhura’s reaction was more reasoned. “Maybe no one thought it worth an emergency alert, Captain, until it did move so deep into Federation territory. It hasn’t made any aggressive moves. Why should it attract much attention while in free space?”
“Even given its benign nature, Lieutenant—something of which we have as yet no proof,” countered Spock, “the fact that a cosmic cloud of this size and density—not to mention its other peculiar characteristics—has never been observed before should have been sufficient to pique the interest of at least a couple of astronomers. I cannot help but wonder if there are other reasons why it was not detected.”
Kirk grunted. They’d been examining and reexamining these same arguments ever since the call had been received. He didn’t make a point of it, but he was upset. They’d been returning to starbase from the planet of the time vortex when the call had diverted them. R&R for the crew, not to mention needed ship-servicing, had to be postponed yet again.
“Just our usual luck—the Enterprise being the only starship of any size in the phenomenon’s vicinity. Sometimes I get the feeling Starfleet Command picks on us.”
“I suspect, Captain,” Spock suggested, “that if we were to perform below expectations a few times, Starfleet would be in less of a hurry to select us for such tasks.”
“Don’t tempt me, Mr. Spock.”
“I was not tempting you, Captain. I was merely proposing an alternative mode of operation with an eye toward alleviating your apparent discomfort at being so often chosen by Starfleet Command for such—”
“Oh, never mind, Mr. Spock.” If he thought Spock was capable of ironic humor, he’d have suspected that—no, ridiculous.
“Mr. Sulu, let’s see the grid.”
“Yes, sir.” Sulu’s hands moved over the complex navigation console. A brilliant star-chart appeared on the main viewscreen. The overlying grid network permitted fast, crude calculation of speed and distances. Kirk’s interest was on the Pallas XIV system. The exaggerated diagram showed close to one side of the moving white dot that was the Enterprise.
Three planets—Bezaride, Mantilles, and Alondra, plus a fair-sized asteroid belt—extended outward from Pallas I and II. All were small, inner-system type worlds. There were no gas giants.
The system revolved around a double star. Double-star systems were far from unusual, but those with planets were. And those with inhabited worlds were very much so. The Pallas system was very carefully studied before settlement was recommended. Not that Pallas II—Mantilles—was not a hospitable world. Quite the contrary. But Federation authorities wanted to make, well, double certain that the twin-star system was stable enough to support Mantillian life for at least a minimal period of time. Say, four or five hundred million years.
In addition to being blessed with two shadows per person, Mantillians enjoyed the notoriety of being the most remote inhabited world of consequence in the entire Federation. And while the planet was now safely populated and well beyond the initial stages of colonization, the Mantillians still liked to think of themselves as pioneers—their backs to the populous Federation and galactic center, their faces turned to the beckoning gulfs of intergalactic space.
They were a proud, self-reliant people. But the sudden appearance of this strange cloud had made them nervous. So the Mantillian government had shouted loud enough for Starfleet Command to hear, and Starfleet Command had shouted for the Enterprise.
And Kirk—Kirk could only shout at the gods of coincidence and bad timing. At least they didn’t shout back, they only snickered.
He sighed. They were here. Find out what the thing was, reassure the Mantillians, and head for starbase once again—with closed channels this time, maybe.
“Mr. Sulu, let’s have some timings.” The helmsman’s reply was quick and crisp.
“We will intercept the cloud in the vicinity of Pallas III—Alondra. The outermost planet, sir. It is not inhabited. There are only a few automatic scientific stations.” Spock looked up from his hooded viewer at the computer-library console.
“Also, Captain, I might add that we are now approaching sensor range of the cloud.”
“Initial readings, Mr. Spock? Starfleet wasn’t very specific. I kind of got the impression they expected us to dig out our own information.” He tried to show some interest as Spock looked back into his viewer and adjusted controls. Probably the cloud was a loose piece of nebula, a relatively harmless collection of thin cosmic gases.
Spock’s report changed all that. There was nothing ordinary about this cloud.
“It is an irregular shape with shifting, undefined boundaries, Captain. On the mean, I would estimate some eight hundred thousand kilometers across and perhaps half that in depth. And it is quite dense.” The soft-spoken Arex looked up from his seat at the helm and whistled, impressed.
“Immense! Twice the diameters of Sol Hi??
?s three biggest gas giants combined!”
“We’re all well grounded in basic astronomy, Lt. Arex,” said Kirk drily. “Put up our present position, please.”
Arex, looking slightly downcast, went to work at the console. “Yes, Captain.”
Inwardly, Kirk chastised himself. There was really no call for coming down on Arex like that. He was only expressing a sense of awe and wonder at the sight of the peculiar intruder, a feeling everyone else probably shared. It was a liberty Kirk couldn’t permit himself. Captains weren’t supposed to be awed.
Anyway, it wasn’t the thing’s size that had suddenly worried him. It was Spock’s information that the cloud was “quite dense.” Sizewise it was small stuff compared to even a little nebula. But if the gas was thick, and could actually have some effect on an atmosphere—
The scene on the screen shifted. The vast mass of the cloud now appeared on the screen. It bulked to the right, galactic inclination, of Alondra. Now it was very close to the uninhabited outermost planet.
Then further, more worrying sensor readings started coming in. According to the Enterprise’s detectors, the cloud was composed of gaseous matter so thick in some places that it bordered on the solid. It was too thick to be a nebula, too thin to be a world. It neither rotated nor tumbled, showing splendid disregard for all the usual effects of motion and solar gravitation. Pallas I and II should be having all kinds of effects on it now, yet sensors continued to claim the cloud ignored the twin suns completely.
And it moved rapidly. Much too rapidly.
There it was, then. The seemingly bottomless Pandora’s box of the universe had confronted them with yet another surprise.
“Come, Mr. Spock. Keep at the computer. Let’s have further information,” and, he didn’t add, information that made a little more sense. Spock paused, looked up from his viewer.
“I’m sorry, Captain. I find myself quite intrigued by the phenomenon. There is both matter and energy active in the cloud, it seems. But to say the least, the combination is highly unorthodox. For example, the quantities of each do not appear to remain constant, but rather exist in a continual state of flux.
“This would imply that matter within the cloud is being steadily converted to energy. Yet it does not radiate more than a trickle of this apparent production.”
“You’re right, Spock, that’s very intriguing.” Kirk pondered. The closer they got, the more information they obtained, the more impossible this thing became. “It’s very odd. It almost suggests…”
“Look!” Everyone whirled to face the screen at Sulu’s abrupt shout.
The cloud had reached Alondra. Sulu switched hurriedly to long-range visual pickup and before their horrified eyes, the cloud slowly crept amoebalike across the face of the planet. It traveled over the planetary surface patiently, inexorably, and—one couldn’t help but feel—deliberately.
Only Arex, mindful perhaps of Kirk’s earlier reproof, kept his eyes on his instruments.
“Captain,” he announced finally, “Alondra has disappeared from navigation scan.” That sent Spock’s gaze back to his library viewer.
Uhura suggested, “The cloud has come between us and the planet. Somehow that’s interrupting scan.”
“No, Lieutenant,” said Spock quietly. “The cloud has engulfed Alondra.” A long pause followed. The bridge was silent except for the tiny, nonconversational ticks and hums of various instruments. The next time he spoke, the science officer’s voice conveyed an unmistakable feeling of alarm.
“Captain! The planet seems to be breaking up. Sensors indicate a definite and rapid reduction of planetary mass.”
A hurricane of thoughts had roared through Kirk’s head in the past few minutes. Now he found himself voicing the least palatable of them.
“Spock,” he asked quietly, “is it possible that this ‘cloud’ consumes planets?”
“Captain, I believe that your question is unnecessarily replete with emotional overtones.”
“This whole situation is unnecessarily replete with emotional overtones, Mr. Spock. Please answer the question.”
“Extrapolating from all available sensor information, sir,” his first officer replied, argumentative to the last, “it would seem a reasonable assumption.”
“Sir?” Kirk looked over at Sum. “The cloud is changing course.”
“Ridiculous, Mr. Sulu. It’s not a powered vehicle. A natural object should not—”
“Course change verified, sir!” added Arex excitedly. “Initial course computation revision indicates—” he paused, triple-checking his figures, “indicates it is moving now in the direction of the second planet.”
“But if it continues on that course—” Uhura called.
Kirk’s voice was grim. “—Eighty-two million people will die.”
Very quiet it was on the bridge then. Only the computers continued to converse.
“Mr. Sulu, prepare to increase speed to warp-eight. Push it to the limit. Inform Engineer Scott of the reasons, if he so inquires.”
“Yes, sir,” Sulu nodded. Kirk continued.
“At warp-eight, Mr. Sulu, we will intercept the cloud.” At that Sulu looked back hesitantly towards the command chair, his gaze full of questions.
“We… will… intercept… the… cloud,” Kirk repeated distinctly. He was well aware everyone on the bridge was staring at him. Well, what the hell did they expect? “And before it reaches the inhabited planet, Mantilles. Despite the fact that we are still uncertain as to the cloud’s true nature. Despite the fact that it masses many millions of Enterprise’s.
“Ready, Mr. Sulu!”
“Course plotted and set, Captain.”
“Warp-eight, please, Lieutenant.”
Sulu did a small thing. Only God and helmsmen could warp the very fabric of space—and at times like these, some helmsmen got the two confused.
That’s why navigation officers and chief engineers had the highest rate of turnover and mental crackup in Star-fleet.
The Enterprise responded and leaped ahead.
“If we can’t stop it, Jim, millions of people will die.”
Kirk swiveled his chair. “Hello, Bones. I know. Perhaps more.”
“True, Doctor,” continued Spock. “If planetary annihilation is indeed a part of this thing’s nature, it might seek out worlds as instinctively as any animal seeks out food. It may even consume stars as well as planets—though it seems woefully small in comparison to even a small star.”
“Almost as small as we are in comparison to it?” Kirk mused. Spock, naturally, did not smile.
“Almost, Captain. Yet we know nothing of the cloud’s limitations. If it has such selective ability, it could prove a threat to every world in our galaxy.”
“Bones?” McCoy moved to stand close to Kirk. Everyone on the bridge could imagine, or thought they could, what was going on in the captain’s mind right now. So they resolutely ignored the resultant conversation.
“Bones, I need an expert medical opinion on mass psychology.”
“Then you’ve come to the wrong place, Jim.” The jest fell flat. “Seriously, I can venture opinions, but not expert ones.”
“You’re the best I’ve got, Bones. Tell me—do we dare tell the people on Mantilles what we know? So that they can attempt to save at least a portion of the population? They have instruments, they can guess—but they won’t know until it’s too late.”
McCoy looked up at the screen at the moving cloud. The distant view showed no bulging eyes, no gaping jaws. In appearance it was no more threatening than a cloud of steam.
“How much time do they have?”
Arex supplied the answer, and Kirk didn’t even think of reprimanding the lieutenant for eavesdropping. “Four hours, ten minutes, sir.”
McCoy looked at Kirk. “I suspect the people on Mantilles are organized, well-educated, civilized, thinking human beings, Jim.”
Kirk nodded in confirmation. “That’s how I see it, too, Bones. They’ll panic, all right.”
McCoy grinned tightly.
“On the other hand, Captain,” reminded Spock, and it was natural that he should be the one to voice the thought, “they may still manage to save some small portion of the populace.”
“A great deal could depend on the executive in charge, Jim,” McCoy continued. “Who’s the governor of Mantilles? Do you know anything about him?”
“Robert Wesley,” Kirk murmured, thinking back in time to a long-past incident. “He was in Starfleet once. Left it to accept the governorship.” He glanced meaningfully up at the doctor. “He’s no hysteric.”
McCoy didn’t hesitate. “Then tell him.”
“Coming up on the cloud,” interrupted Sulu. “ETA five minutes ten seconds.”
“Very well, Lieutenant.” Kirk whispered back at McCoy, “Thanks, Bones.” Then he raised his voice and gave orders to Uhura.
“Lieutenant, send a priority one call to Governor Wesley on Mantilles.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
As the Enterprise gained distance on the cloud, viewscreen perspective had to be forced down once, twice—yet a third time. Then it was impossible to widen the view or reduce it any further.
There was nothing in the screen now but the shifting, enigmatic, threatening cloud-shape. It blotted out the universe.
Bland as the actual picture was, it exerted a tremendous fascination. Everyone stared at the nearing gaseous form. Everyone but Spock. He found more of interest in his computer readouts.
“Captain, I’m getting anticipated readings from the chemical analysis sensors.”
“Anticipated, Mr. Spock? Oh, you mean…”
“Yes, Captain. They are most unusual, in keeping with the unique nature of the cloud.”
“Well, don’t keep us in suspense any longer, Spock. What kind of readings?”
“There are indications of elements present in the cloud that are utterly unknown in our periodic tables, sir—both natural and artificial. I am now ninety percent certain of what has heretofore been only theory.”