“I’m sorry, Jim. I’m… sorry.” Kirk said nothing this time. It was amazing that Wesley had managed to hang onto his sanity.
“We can see the cloud approaching, Jim. We have no more ships left.”
Sulu’s voice intruded, charonlike. “Thirty-one minutes, four seconds to Mantilles, sir.” Kirk nodded absently.
“Bob, where’s Katie?”
“Here.” Wesley smiled and looked off-screen to his right. “With me.”
That, somehow, settled things. He’d been ninety percent sure. Now it was complete.
“Don’t worry, Bob. She’ll be all right. I promise you that.” He paused, tried to think of something else to say. There were many things, going all the way back to their days at Starfleet together. And no time. No time for any of them No time for anything more than a—
“Goodbye, Bob.”
“Goodbye, Jim.” The image faded from the screen. After a pause, McCoy spoke up.
“Who’s Katie?”
“Hmmm?” Kirk had been deep in thought. Should he have told Wesley what they were going to try? No… best not to raise false hopes. The Mantillians, it seemed, were resigned to their probable fate.
McCoy was waiting patiently. “Oh, sorry Bones. His daughter. She’s eleven, I think. Spock, you commented on the vast area of this brain. Is there anyway at all we could contact a mind so huge, any way at all we could determine if it’s intelligent? Perhaps a Vulcan mind touch—?”
“I had not considered it, Captain,” replied the science officer, genuinely surprised. “I expect I was too close to the idea. But it would require physical contact. That is quite impossible.” He paused, thinking.
“However, I might be able to reach out with my mind. There is an enormous quantity of electrical energy playing about the ship—the creature’s thoughts. If we focus our sensor pickups on them, the resultant information could be routed through the library’s phonetics/languages section for breakdown into comprehensible abstract idea structures—words. There is the strong possibility that none of these impulses represent anything as developed as reasoning thought…”
“But it’s damn well worth a try,” agreed Kirk. “Question is, can we handle it?”
“I can link in the universal translator,” added Uhura excitedly, “and route the results through the audio systems from here!”
“Too many complicated linkups,” Kirk complained. “But that’s all mechanical. What really worries me is… can you do it in time?”
Spock considered. “It is impossible to calculate all the variables, Captain. There are a great many unknown factors. I make no promises.”
Kirk noticed that he didn’t mention another possibility… that contact with such an enormous mind might fatally overload his own.
Sulu, “Twenty-six minutes exactly to Mantilles, sir.” Now who was wasting time?
“All right, Spock. Get on it.” Spock and Uhura’s stations became a center of feverish activity as technicians poured onto the bridge to help modify existing circuits and systems for a task their designers never dreamed of.
Kirk took a moment to take care of one other detail.
“Captain’s log, stardate 5372.1. This may very well be the last entry in the log of the U.S.S. Enterprise.
“It is only a matter of minutes before the cosmic cloud referred to in previous entry reaches Mantilles.” He glanced back at Uhura’s communications alcove. As his or her respective task was completed, the technicians began to leave the bridge. There were quiet murmurs of encouragement for Uhura and the rest of the regular bridge complement—especially for Spock.
“Science officer Spock has been working on the problems involved in reaching the cloud’s thoughts—if it has any. But even should he succeed, I doubt there is enough time left for any meaningful exchange to take place. The possibility that we could persuade it to avoid Mantilles is…” He stopped.
If Uhura and Spock failed, no one would ever read this entry. It would vanish with the rest of the Enterprise and her crew in a matter-destroying holocaust of stellar magnitude.
If such a possibility appeared imminent while they were in free space, he could have shot the log clear. It was permanently mounted in a special, super-fast courier torpedo equipped with a powerful homing beacon. The entire setup was supposed to insure that even if a starship was visited with total destruction, it log—and perhaps the reasons for its destruction—would survive.
Its builders had not envisioned this particular situation, however. Once free of the Enterprise’s sustained shields and deflectors, the torpedo would be barely a snack for the cloud’s energy-converting villi and amorphous drifting “teeth.”
No, he would finish this entry only if Spock and Uhura were successful. The entry would conclude on a positive note, or not at all.
Located on the helm-navigation console between Sulu and Arex was a large digital chronometer. Efficient and obedient, it shifted a seven out of sight and replaced it with a six. It took no notice of its impending annihilation.
Kirk spared only a brief glance at the elevator when the last of the technicians filed out and Engineer Scott arrived. He’d have to handle the engineering from on-bridge station now. Uhura would be completely occupied with monitoring the complicated communications linkup system.
“Engineering reports all tie-ins completed and operating, sir. The procedure is ready.”
“Thank you, Scotty.” He looked at Spock and waited.
Spock made two final connections, checked an audio lead, and then moved to the library-computer station.
“Ready, Captain.” Kirk and McCoy exchanged looks… perhaps their last, though neither man regarded it as such.
“You may proceed, Mr. Spock,” Kirk whispered, not knowing why he did.
Spock turned in his chair and swiveled it towards the main viewscreen. He leaned back, closed his eyes, and extended both arms, hands and fingers together, straight out in front of his chest.
Several seconds passed. They seemed like days. Then his wrists began to turn slowly from side to side, rotating with near mechanical precision. Kirk had seen this before, but he watched with as much fascination as everyone else.
No one dared make a sound.
With a sudden move that startled everyone, Spock’s hands jerked inwards and his fingers, still spread, started to shift backwards. They moved back, back, until the fingertips touched his head. The thumbs rested just under the earlobes and both little fingers met in a connecting line above the eyebrows.
The other fingers were fully extended and spread over his head, from forehead to just above the back hairline. He sat perfectly straight in the chair—rigid, motionless, even to the point of not appearing to breathe.
A voice spoke then… but it didn’t come from Spock. It had an eerie, faraway quality and emanated from a speaker in Uhura’s console. The phenomenon was startling to hear. It was even more startling to see.
It was Spock… and it wasn’t.
“Listen To Me… Listen to Me. You Are Not Alone Here. There is Someone Else. Listen To Me… Listen To Me… Listen to Me.”
Seconds. Gone. Now.
Silence. The chronometer changing. Five to Four.
An explosion… a tsunami of sound washed over them, swelling, to fill the bridge.
Uhura gave a little jump. Her free hand rushed reflexively to her earphone. She’d been prepared to detect, pick up the tiniest reply and had taken the full force of the aural jolt. It partially deafened her for a moment.
She adjusted a dial and brought the volume down. What came over the intricate farrago of circuitry and speakers was filtered via the slightly feminine alternate computer voice. It was hesitant… only one word, but clear and recognizable…
“…WHAT…?”
“You Are Not Alone Here,” Spock repeated. “There is Someone Else. Listen To Me… Listen To Me… Listen To Me….
Silence again. Then the voice that could only come from one place… and every place. From all around them.
> “…WHAT… YOU…?”
“I Am Another Being,” said Spockvoice from the console.
It was like watching a shadow play. There was the silent, motionless figure of Spock, his lips unmoving and his voice speaking from a grid halfway across the room.
And another voice replying from out of nowhere. Spock repeated the words, again.
“I Am Another Being.”
Vast immense slow voice.
“BEING…? BEING… WHERE…?”
“I Am Inside You.”
“INSIDE…? EXPLAIN. WITHIN ME…?”
“I Am Very Small, And There Are Many of Me. We Are Within a Starship Which Is Within You.”
“…EXPLAIN… ELUCIDATE… CLARIFY…”
“A Small Thing That Holds All We Smaller Things. We Beings.”
Somehow the great voice managed to sound astonished.
“…THIS… WITHIN ME…?”
“Within You.”
And now, curious…
“…EXPLAIN…?”
Kirk and McCoy exchanged desperate looks. At this rate it was going to be a long, complicated process… too long.
The digital chronometer read 04.
“We Came To Think To You,” Spock continued. “You Consumed Us. You Thought We Were Food.”
“…WHY…? WHY YOU THINK TO… ME…?”
Spock explained. “It Was Needed Done. Many of Us Live on Things You Consume.”
“…YOU LIVE ON THE THINGS I CONSUME…?”
“Yes. Many of Us Live on One Such Thing Near You Now. Do Not Consume It.”
“…ELUCIDATE…”
“The Spherical Mass Ahead of You. The Matter You Intend to Ingest. Sense It Closely. Sense It… As You Sense Me. Do This Now….”
There was a pause… they couldn’t afford.
“How near is Mantilles now, Mr. Arex?” Kirk whispered.
“The cloud will impinge on the Mantillian atmosphere in three minutes, twenty seconds, sir.”
“YES,” came the voice finally, “I PERCEIVE MANY SOMETHINGS, SO… SMALL…!”
“They Are Still Beings,” pressed Spock. “Alive… Like You. If You Consume Their Sphere-Thing-Home They Will All Die.”
Another pause. Navigational controls all but forgotten, both Sulu and Arex stared fascinated at the chronometer. Their unwavering gaze failed to halt 04 from shifting down to 03. Sweating cold sweat, they looked back at Spock.
“…TOO SMALL…”
“Explain,” said Spock.
“I AM SMALL… SOMETHINGS I PERCEIVE… TOO SMALL. NOT ALIVE BEINGS….”
Kirk hammered once, softly, on the arm of the command chair. There was no way, no way Spock could explain to it in time. How could he explain? How could a creature that dwarfed planets be convinced that there lived on those surfaces an intelligent mold called man?
“Listen To Me,” Spockvoice murmured. “I Am Going To Come Into Your Mind. At The Same Time, You Must Come Into Mine. Do You Understand?”
“…REASON(S)…?”
“Then You Will Be Able To Sense What Kind of Beings We Are. You Will Sense We Are Alive.”
“…NECESSARY…?”
Was there a hint of fear in that voice? Was the titanic, stellar-sized mass afraid? “Yes, Very,” Spock insisted.
Yet another wait… longer, this time.
“…PROCEED….”
The first officer’s hands reached out from his head again. His arms remained outstretched in front of him, fingers spread, palms upturned. No one breathed. No one moved. Several prayed.
Uhura forced herself to glance at her own console chronometer. Saw the 03 become 02. She stared at it, frozen, like a bird surprised by a snake.
Spock suddenly relaxed. He opened his eyes and looked around curiously—blank. Rising slowly from his seat he started to walk around the bridge.
He stared at Kirk, Dr. McCoy. At Arex and Sulu and Uhura, at the instruments on the console, the floor, the viewscreen, and then at his own hands and feet.
“Bones,” Kirk whispered, realizing once more that in the vastness of the universe it was often the unspectacular that was truly awesome, “he’s the cloud. Its thoughts are here.”
Attracted by the sound of his voice, the Spock/cloud turned and walked over to him, stared, examined. As though using a strange new tool for the first time it put out a hand and touched Kirk’s face. The hand moved awkwardly, roughly, and sensed what it touched.
McCoy made a move as if to interpose himself between Kirk and the Spock/cloud. Kirk’s order was sharp.
“Don’t move!”
Spock/cloud concluded its examination of Kirk and walked around the command chair. It looked curiously at the viewscreen, which still showed the diagram of the cloud’s brain. Kirk kept his voice low as he spoke to Uhura.
“Lieutenant, use the library computer. Put some views of the Earth up there.”
“Yes, sir.” She moved cautiously to Spock’s station, but it wasn’t necessary. The Spock/cloud was thoroughly engrossed in the screen. Buttons were depressed, switches struck. The screen changed to a view of Earth taken from space. Kirk rose and stood next to Spock/cloud, talked to it smoothly.
“This is the thing we come from.” He backed up a few steps, turned and whispered to Uhura.
“Lieutenant, this is what I want…”
The image on the screen changed, closing in on Earth until the continents—so familiar to Uhura, Sulu, and Kirk—showed. The picture moved in tighter on the Western Hemisphere, then on North America.
Uncaring of the frantic controlled activity going on around it, the chronometer adjusted from 02 to 01.
Still deeper moved the scene, for aerial views of cities. Closer and closer, as the timer began ticking off seconds.
People began to fill the screen… lots of people. People working, people playing, people eating and producing and reproducing and caring for children. Children playing as the chronometer went to thirty seconds.
“Awaiting your orders,” said First Engineer Scott calmly. He stood waiting at the engineering console, his thumb over the flip-up protecting the double combination self-destruct lever. Kirk held up a warning hand.
“A few seconds yet, Scotty. We have to give Spock that much.”
The pictures flashing on the screen concluded, fittingly—as Mantilles might—with children.
The chronometer said twenty seconds. Uhura wanted to scream.
She backed away from the library as the Spock/cloud turned slowly and walked back to its chair. It sat down easily and leaned back a little, slumped. Kirk returned quickly to his command seat.
McCoy’s voice was husky. “Jim, it’s got to be now. If we don’t self-destruct now, all those people will be killed.”
At McCoy’s words, something suddenly died inside the captain. He felt amazingly calm, unafraid. And tired, so tired. Just give the command, James, and you can rest. It’ll be over in an instant—
He turned to face Scott.
Like a man gasping his last breath while suddenly recalling his life, the chronometer went from 01 to 00…
Sulu nearly leaped out of his seat.
“The cloud has stopped, Captain! The edge is just touching the outer atmosphere, but it has stopped!”
“…COMPREHEND!” boomed the thunderous drone from Uhura’s open speakers. “…NOT DESIRE TO CONSUME OTHER BEINGS…”
The cheering that erupted on the bridge was spontaneous and thoroughly undisciplined.
“Quiet!” Kirk shouted.
“There Are Many Things in Our Galaxy Like The One You Now Perceive,” Spock continued, apparently unaffected by the outburst. He hadn’t joined the cheering.
“…TRUTH…?” rumbled the voice.
“Truth. You Do Not Desire To Consume Other Beings. It Would Be Best Therefore If You Returned To Your Place of Origin The Way You Came. Will You Do This?”
“…A LONG JOURNEY…”
“Will You Return?” The console Spockvoice was persistent—insistent.
&nb
sp; Eventually the voice replied. Its tone was almost indifferent, as though its decision were of no consequence.
“…PERCEIVE. WILL RETURN TO ORIGIN PLACE…”
There was a long wait. Then Arex spoke excitedly without shifting from his place at the helm.
“Sir, sensors indicate the cloud is moving away from Mantilles. And picking up speed rapidly!”
Kirk left his chair and moved quickly to Spock.
“Lieutenant Uhura, contact Governor Wesley and tell him he can bring his ships back. If he asks how and why, tell him it seems that armageddon has a conscience.”
“Yes, Captain!” Uhura’s voice was alive with relief.
Kirk studied his first officer. He started to put a hand on Spock’s shoulder. Maybe the slight touch—but it wasn’t needed.
An exhausted Spock blinked his eyes, held them open, and looked up at Kirk.
“Spock, you did it! The cloud is leaving.”
“I believe so, Captain. There is no way out from this sector. But there is a weblike arrangement of cloud-substance at the top of the brain. The cloud uses this thick grid to ‘sense’—it is not exactly like sight—other things with. A combination eye, ear, and many other senses too alien, too strange, to attempt description.” He shook his head, blinked again.
“I have had but the slightest touch with it… fortunately. Its intellectual potential is astounding, but it has developed in ways utterly different from anything previously imagined.
“This web at the top is dense by its own standards, yet comparatively empty by ours. We can escape through it.” No time for idle questions here.
“Mr. Sulu! Let’s get out of here. That grid’s on the schematic… take us through.”
Sulu’s response was… well, agreeable. His hands played the helm like an organ. Kirk started back to his chair, paused at a sudden thought.
“Spock, while the cloud was here, in you, perceiving us, where were—” His eyes widened slightly. “You must have been in the cloud. What did you perceive?”
Spock’s mind had returned to his body, but his thoughts were still elsewhere. He murmured softly.
“The wonders of the universe, Captain,” he shook his head at the incredible memories.