"Very well, sir." Spock returned to his instruments.
Kirk considered. After making sure to his own satisfaction that Arex was at least temporarily fit, McCoy had headed back for Sick Bay. He ought to be there any minute. Kirk pressed the intercom switch.
"Nurse Chapel here, sir," came the instant reply. "The doctor . . . he's coming in now, Captain." McCoy's deeper voice on the com, now.
"Sorry, Jim. Just finishing a quick check of my own. We've no casualties reported at all. Arex appears to have been the only one even slightly affected by the attack."
"Why 'attack,' Bones?" Kirk wondered. "We've suffered no damage and no casualties. It might have been a natural phenomenon."
"Call it my inherent pessimism, Jim. Anyhow, ineffectuality of method doesn't negate intent. Though I'll admit to the chance it was some random freak of tectonic activity. If that's what it was. I don't suppose . . ."
"As yet we've no idea what it was," Kirk told him.
"So then it wasn't completely harmless."
"Not hardly," Kirk observed. "Let me know if anyone walks in with any strange symptoms, Bones." A light was flashing on the arm console. "Scotty wants in. Kirk out."
"Sick Bay out."
McCoy flicked off the intercom and turned to Chapel.
"No one seems to have been injured, Christine. Let's hope it stays that way. Meanwhile, you can dig out the tape file on Arex for me. Also the ophthalmological standards and charts for adult Edoans."
"Yes, Doctor."
Engineer Scott turned and yelled instructions, liberally laced with suitable comments on certain probable ancestries, up at the four technicians who were running on the catwalk above him. Then he turned his attention back to the intercom as a beep told him it was clear.
"Engineerin' here, Cap'n."
"Let's have the details, Scotty. I know we're running on impulse power. Anybody hurt?"
"No casualties, Cap'n," Scott reported, breathing heavily. He had been doing considerable shouting and running, often at the same time. "But trouble aplenty with the engines. Every dilithium crystal's smashed in the warp-drive circuitry. Damnedest thing I ever saw. We're trying to rig a temporary bypass for them now."
"The main circuits, too?" Kirk asked incredulously.
"What main circuits?" Scott countered tiredly. "You have to see it to believe it, sir." He shook his head. "The big crystals in there have all come apart. Each of them fractured and re-fractured and re-re-fractured along its natural lines of cleavage until there's nothin' left but powder. Try to imagine an elephant steppin' on an opal, sir."
"What about spares, Mr. Scott?"
"I said all, sir. Even the spares. Whatever it was took a whack at us didn't seem to much care whether they were activated or not."
"And the other drive components?" Kirk asked, determined to know the worst.
"Nothin', sir. Only what shorted out when the activated crystals were pulverized. No problem replacin' them. Whatever hit us was damnably selective, Cap'n."
Somewhere in Scott's report, Kirk mused as he switched out, was the answer to the impulse beam they'd absorbed—and were still absorbing, according to Spock. He looked across the deck, found the first officer watching him.
"Though couched in emotional terms it would appear that Dr. McCoy's supposition may have some basis in fact," Spock ventured. "If this is truly a natural phenomenon, it has certainly chosen a sensitive portion of the ship to attack. Nor have I ever heard of dilithium crystals being affected in the way Mr. Scott described."
Kirk rose from his seat and started for the elevator. Spock followed. "We haven't seen it, either, Mr. Spock. But it seems that we're going to."
The chief engineer was waiting for them. They went to a small open hatch, stared into one of the dilithium holding cases for backup supplies.
"Not only is this situation different from anythin' I've ever seen, Cap'n," Scott was telling them, "but even if I had ever imagined dilithium breaking up, I wouldn't have visualized it happenin' like this."
"How so, Scotty?" Kirk asked.
"Well, sir, I would expect them all to go at once. Instead, whatever blasted us appears just to have initiated the process. The crystals are still in the act of disintegratin'. It's a steady process."
Moments later they stood before one of the operative grids. Scott made sure all activating circuits were inoperative, opened the double door and stepped back. Tiny crackling sounds, like glass popcorn, issued from within.
Staring inside, Spock and Kirk could see clearly what was left of one of the large dilithium crystals that not long ago had helped power the Enterprise. It had been reduced to a small pebble. And what was left was shedding tiny curlicues of itself, adding to the growing pile of dust in the grid. The curlicues were unique. Dilithium was the only mineral known subject to spiral fracture.
Kirk reached in, extracted a pinch of red-white powder. He studied the dust and tried to feel optimistic. The dust mocked his best efforts.
"This isn't going to power a toothbrush, much less the drive." He put the powder in Spock's outstretched palm and turned, heading for the engineering library. While Kirk and Scott looked on, Spock dropped the bit of dust into a depression set into one console. One switch sealed the depression; others activated the computer. Instructions were given.
"Any hope of recombining the powder into one or two usable crystals, Mr. Scott?" Kirk asked as they waited for the computer's verdict.
The chief engineer shook his head. "I know what you're thinkin', Captain, but the physicist who did that made a one in a million combination of heat and pressure work and he wasn't sure afterward exactly how he'd done it. It might take us a hundred years to grow one crystal from this powder.
"You can't play with dilithium like modeling clay. Too much of its peculiar potential is locked in subatomic structures. Even if we wanted to try it we haven't got the facilities here.
"No, Cap'n. Our only hope of gettin' out of here and back to a refuelin' station is a recirculatin' impulse from our stored emergency power cells—what's left of it. But before we can try that there are broken connections and linkages all over the place that have to be fixed."
Kirk looked thoughtful, considering their options. "Could we possibly . . ." but he was interrupted by an anxious voice at the computer console.
"Captain, this is quite unprecedented."
For Spock to say something like that it would have to be, Kirk mused, as he and Scott moved close to the instrumentation.
Spock had removed the sample of powdered dilithium from its holder and, following the directions of the computer, placed some of it under a electronic scope. He was peering into it now, but stepped aside so Kirk and Scott could have a look. Kirk put his eyes to the scope . . . and sacrificed a breath.
What had prompted Spock's typically understated comment was instantly apparent under the brilliantly illuminated circular field.
Dilithium was the only metallic substance whose molecules were arranged in helical instead of linear or linear-variant form. Now, even as he watched, the molecules were unwinding in various places, the chains spinning apart. In other molecules the chains were winding tighter and tighter until they broke apart, and then the fragments would begin to unwind or tighten.
In either case the resultant substance was no longer active dilithium.
This made his thin hopes of a minute ago obsolete. Even if they did manage to stumble across the near-magical process for recombining dilithium, soon there wouldn't be any honest dilithium shards left to recombine. Almost as remarkable was the fact that the breakdown was occurring without a hint of subsidiary radiation. It was a clean disintegration.
"Fracturing is spiroform," Spock went on, "as it has been theorized it would be. But it has never been observed to occur in an inorganic material like dilithium before—only in similarly built organic molecules."
Kirk leaned back from the scope, came down off his tiptoes. His mind was occupied by the impossibility just observed—otherwise h
e might have noticed what he had just done. He could be pardoned. It was the spiral structure that made dilithium the most rigid, stable . . .
III
Kirk's thoughts were broken by the nearing voice of second engineer Gabler. He spoke while walking quickly toward them.
"Mr. Scott, more trouble with the circuitry clearance. It's just that . . ."
"Blast," the chief engineer muttered. "What now?" He moved to the railing, looked down across the floor. "Now what, Mr. Gabler?"
"It's the tools, sir," Gabler yelled back up at them. They're too big for us to handle."
Several other members of the engineering section came into view. All held up wrenches, pliers, liquid circuit welders and sliders and molly-pugs. All appeared awkwardly large in their hands.
Scott didn't know whether to be confused or furious. If this were some kind of elaborate joke on the part of his section, at a time like this . . .
"You sound like you're all of you blatherin' . . . no, wait a minute. Let's have a look." After what they'd lust learned about dilithium molecules fracturing, he wasn't about to deny the possibility of anything. He moved to the nearest ladder and started down.
"That's an odd thing for Gabler to say," Kirk mused. Then he found himself frowning, staring. It seemed as if something were not quite right about Spock, all of a sudden. Nothing obtrusive—the first officer looked perfectly healthy.
Then why this sense of vague unease when he looked at him?
For his part, Spock's reaction was a dulled mirror of Kirk's own. He was eyeing the captain, both eyebrows raised, an expression he reserved for more than idle occasions.
Kirk's frown deepened. He gestured at the computer console Spock was standing by, blinked. The light that had momentarily blinded Arex—was there some subtle variant of it at work in the ship now?
"Spock, are you slumping?"
"I've never slumped in my life, Captain," the science officer replied with considerable dignity. "But it is most peculiar. I was just about to ask you the exact same . . ."
"Security!" The violent call issued from the open intercom. "Any security, respond!"
Kirk rushed to the com., reached to turn it to broadcast and had to stand on tiptoes to do it. What was wrong with Spock, what was troubling Gabler—he was astonished at how calm he was in the face of the dawning catastrophe. Maybe it was the fact that, physically, he still felt fine. Or it might be shock.
"Kirk here. What's the trouble?"
His steady tone apparently reassured the voice at the other end of the line. It responded crisply, less hysterically.
"Mess Officer Briel, sir." The young officer was clearly trying to calm herself with the captain on the line.
"What's going on, Briel? Speak up—what's that noise behind you?"
"It's the second shift, sir. They're nervous and frightened and so am I. We need psycho assistance in the main dining area. At least, I think we need psycho. Maybe it's just me. Or maybe I just . . ." The voice was rising again and Kirk's tone turned hard, sharp, no-nonsense.
"Easy, Briel. I think I know what you're experiencing."
The voice was still tense, but the relief was audible.
"You do, sir? I wish you'd tell me. Tables, chairs, silverware—everything seems to have grown larger, too large to use. Women are losing their rings, hairpins . . . everything. The people here are near panic, Captain, and I don't know what to tell them. I'm the ranking officer present and I . . ."
"Do your best to quiet everyone, Sub-lieutenant. Get up on a table—if you can still reach it—and make an announcement. Tell everyone we're passing through a distorting field phenomenon. We don't know how far it'll reduce us, but we will eventually return to normal. Meantime everyone is to improvise. Tell them to use their imaginations."
"Thank you, sir," came the much-eased voice of the mess officer. "I'll do that. Frankly, sir, I was beginning to get more than a little . . ."
"Don't waste time, Briel, or you'll have your full panic. Relay the information to Lieutenant Uhura and instruct her for me to broadcast it throughout the ship. Quicker dissemination that way."
And also, he thought, the responsibility would take the sub-lieutenant's mind off her own fears.
"Aye, sir. Mess out."
Kirk clicked off, noticed Spock still staring at him.
"Well, what are you goggling at, Spock?"
"You lie with great facility, Captain."
"You have this constant aberration in which you persist in confusing diplomacy with prevarication, Spock," he shot back. "Let's get back to the bridge. Scotty will have to handle things by himself here."
Having absolutely no idea what to expect, their shock as they returned to the bridge was magnified severalfold.
At first glance it appeared that the Enterprise was being manned by a group of well-drilled children. All crew members were sitting on the fore edge of their seats. It was the only way they could still reach the controls. Heads swiveled as Kirk and Spock entered.
Uhura started in immediately. "Captain, reports are coming in from all over the ship. The most incredible thing is happening."
"We know," he broke in. "The whole ship and everything on board has apparently expanded."
"An equally good possibility, Captain," hypothesized Spock, "is that the ship's personnel have contracted." He moved toward his library computer station and surveyed the abruptly oversized surroundings thoughtfully.
"And are probably continuing to shrink."
A moment of shocked silence on the bridge—somehow the idea that the Enterprise and its inorganic components were growing larger was merely ridiculously inconvenient, while the concept of the crew growing smaller held terrifying portents.
There was an element of grimness in Kirk's voice that hadn't been heard in some time as he turned to Sulu.
"Take us out of orbit, Mr. Sulu. Take us far out of here. Shut down all unnecessary systems . . . everything but defense and life-support. Draw on every ounce of remaining impulse power. We've got to get away from this planet."
Sulu and Arex worked furiously at the helm-navigation console. Occasionally they were forced to shift awkwardly in their seats to reach a particularly distant control. There was a mild rising hum as fresh power was fed to the ship's engines, then a tense pause.
"Mr. Spock?"
"We're shifting position, Captain, but slowly."
A red light appeared on the console to the right of Sulu's hand. He eyed it, ignored it.
"Still moving, Captain," reported Spock patiently.
Gradually, painfully, the single red light by Sulu was joined by others. A brief hooting whistle sounded near Arex. He slapped a hand down on a switch and the hooting stopped. Sulu gave his companion a questioning glance. Arex bent to his hooded viewer, studied its contents for a moment. Then he pulled away and gazed at each of the watching, expectant faces in turn.
"It's no good, Captain. The engines are completely dead."
"Confirmed, Captain," Spock added, studying readouts. "We simply do not have enough dilithium left in the holding grids to activate the matter-anti-matter annihilation sequence. We retain enough emergency power to maintain basic life and internal ship functions, but nowhere near enough to drive the ship."
"Not even enough for a last try?" Kirk asked desperately.
"It would be foolhardy, Captain. The chances are on the order of thousands to one . . . and we would surely lose life-support."
"Then that," Kirk murmured fatalistically, "is that." He glanced down toward his feet, shook his head and mumbled something Uhura strained to hear but couldn't. Then he thumbed a well-worn switch in the chair arm.
"Captain's Log, 5525.4. Our attempt to escape this world's gravity on limited power has failed after the ship's dilithium supplies have been wiped out. We are currently in a . . ." he glanced over at Arex. The navigator hit several controls.
Up to now the image on the main viewscreen had been a moving panorama of the planet's glittering surface. Now it shif
ted briefly to show a dull chart of the world with a blinking red dot floating nearby—the Enterprise. Kirk nodded and Arex banished the chart back to distant cells of memory. The roiling surface picture returned.
". . . low but stable elliptical orbit. Main engines and circuitry are one hundred percent incapacitated." Again a look to the library station.
"Mr. Spock, what about that diffuse wave bombardment?"
Spock checked his viewer, barely able to reach it now. "We're still receiving a light amount, Captain, but it shows no sign of thinning further."
"Thank you, Mr. Spock." He spoke into the Log pickup again. "Unidentified radiation bombardment continues, resulting in either a contraction of our bodies or an expansion of the ship by a factor of . . ." he glanced to Spock again and the science officer held up three fingers, ". . . by a factor of three." He switched off the recorder.
"Lieutenant Uhura, broadcast a general mayday."
"Aye, sir."
"Lieutenant Sulu, I know how precarious our reserve power situation is. But see if you can't compute something that would give us a little higher orbit without risking a fatal drain on the reserves."
"I'll try, sir."
"Arex," Kirk's voice remained brisk and businesslike, "give me a power reading on all backup cells."
As everyone on the bridge busied himself about his immediate tasks, Kirk sat back in the command chair . . . and discovered he couldn't even do that. He'd shrunk—or the ship had expanded—to the point that the chair no longer fit him easily.
He glanced over at Spock and studied the first officer in relationship to his surroundings. Assuming he was right and they were contracting, they now averaged about a meter and a third in height.
Then he stared tensely up at the main viewscreen and the glowing, angry landscape brought in close by the telephotos. Normally it would have been enough to examine the giant volcanoes, the lava lakes and strange movement in the burning, tortured crust. But now he found himself straining for sight of something more.
His first theory—that they'd been subjected to some unexpected burst of natural radiation—was being rapidly eroded. What natural effect would hit them for a microsecond with no discernible effect, come back full force, and then suddenly change to a steady low-power beaming?