"No escape ... no escape ... no escape..." The words rattled around in his head maddeningly. There had to be a way. He'd seen little enough of this paradise, but one thing he did not doubt was Xerius' contention that everyone had tried to leave it at least once.
It was like the children's fable of the man who became a billionaire, had himself transformed into the handsomest man in the galaxy - and then found himself trapped on an empty world. Money is valueless with naught to spend it on.
The same was true of life. Yet ... it might be merely years of practice, of concealing truth, but as he read those expressions he could on the faces of the twelve, there were none that looked mad or unbalanced. These people had come to believe in their isolated immortality. It wasn't surprising, really.
Sanity dictated it.
Well, they could swim in it if they liked. He wanted no part of it. Right now all he desired was to be back on the bridge of the Enterprise where...
***
...Spock, Scott, and Sulu suddenly entered from the elevator, Kirk between them, still talking.
Otherwise the bridge was empty. The viewscreen remained on, still showing a panorama of the metal constellation swirling about them.
"...and that's the whole of it, gentlemen," he finished, sitting down in the command chair. Spock and Scott arranged themselves nearby while Sulu took up his position at the helm. Kirk gestured at the screen.
"They may not be able to get out of here; they may be resigned and even happy with their perfect society - but we are getting out."
"Then we'd better do it pretty quickly, Captain," Scott said warningly. Kirk eyed him uncertainly.
"I'm afraid speed may not be possible," Spock ventured. "As the captain has told us, these people have been here for centuries, and their escape plans have failed. We'll need time to find an answer." Typical Spock, Kirk thought admiringly, understatement and complete confidence in the same breath.
His confidence did not rub off on the chief engineer. "Time is just what we haven't got."
"What's wrong, Scotty," Kirk said calmingly. "I thought time was the one thing we had an unlimited supply of here."
"Only in the abstract sense, Captain," Scott replied crisply. "Not in the practical. No wonder no one's been able to work out an escape plan from this continuum.
"It's the dilithium crystals. They're deteriorating again, breaking up - and rapidly."
"But how...?" Kirk began, and then looked exasperated. "I sometimes wish, Mr. Spock, that Professor Jenkins and his associates had found a more stable substance on which to base their successful warp-drive."
"It is this very instability that gives dilithium crystals the triggering power necessary to drive starship engines, Captain," reminded Spock.
"I don't know how it's happenin', sir," Scott continued. "It's not like the last time ... the breakdown is fast, but not as bad. And it's a basic atomic breakdown, it's not in the molecular links this time.
"I've no doubt it's somehow connected with the same energies that slow time here. At any rate, I calculate that we've another four days our time before the power goes completely."
"It's a gradual breakdown, then?"
"Aye, Captain. That's the odd part of it. The crystals lose power uniformly."
Kirk nodded. "Otherwise we would lose every function on the ship. Be unable to maintain life-support. I wonder what the other ships here use as substitute for dilithium. Their drives don't appear radically different from ours."
"There are other races here whose engineering abilities we know nothing of, Captain. Think of the unique transporter, for example, which took both you and Commander Kor at a moment's notice. Clearly they possess an alternate energy system sufficient to keep them alive, but not sufficient to drive a ship at a decent rate of speed."
"Four days to get out of here, then." He threw his science officer a questioning glance. "Got any miracles in your physical-science tapes, Mr. Spock?"
"The basis for producing miracles does not exist in the system, Captain."
"I'll settle for a natural solution, then. You’ll start work on the theory immediately, Spock. When you have something worked out, talk it through with Scotty. If his objections get too strenuous, go back and start again.
"Requisition whatever you need. Work around the clock until you arrive at a formula for getting us out of here." He looked away, back up at the screen. "If you can't find one in ninety-six hours, you'll have plenty of time to catch up on lost sleep..."
***
On board the Klothos, in the pseudo-barbaric chamber that was the commander's quarters, Kor looked up suddenly from the sheaf of forms he was studying. His attention was focused on the erect figure of First Officer Kaas, who stood stiffly at attention.
"You call yourself a science officer!" Kor sneared, suddenly throwing the forms and printouts in Kaas' face. The first officer flinched only slightly.
"These computations are useless. You couldn't compute your way out of the defecatory." Standing, he jabbed a finger at the other officer's nose. "Get out of my sight and don't come back until you have a plan that will work. Not one that delineates at length the reasons for your ineptitude."
Kaas saluted smartly, his upper lip trembling only a little. "Yes, Exalted One." Then he knelt, quietly gathered up the scattered forms, and left the cabin.
Kor watched him go. He paced nervously for long minutes before throwing himself on the circular sleeping platform. Rolling over, he stared up at the multi-depth picture set into the ceiling. He felt caged - by this room, this ship, this accursed pocket in time and space.
His sole consolation was that Kirk must be as frustrated as he was.
***
Only three of the twelve who had welcomed the newcomers now waited in the council chamber. Devna and Xerius were seated at the far end of the dais.
Between them sat a female from a world in the little known Omega Cyna system - a world of light gravity, as shown by her long slender limbs and slimness across the body. There was a quality of ethereal suppleness about that form. Otherwise it was fully humanoid.
Her head was bent, her eyes shut tight in concentration. The lights in the chamber were dimmed.
"What do you see beyond your eyes, Megan?" Devna whispered softly, putting her lips close to one nearly transparent ear of the Cygnian.
Long, long pause. The female's head rose slowly. The lids slid back to reveal a pair of silver mirrors, blank, pupilless.
"The two newcomers..." The voice was delicate, fairylike - wind blowing through high grass. "In each ship, beings strive to solve a riddle."
"Name the riddle," demanded Xerius.
"The riddle of the time trap. Escape, escape." The wind blew harder. "They are desperate for a way out. A way back to their own space-time, to their own universe." Boneless hands fluttering in agitation, in helpless empathy. "Escape, escape...!"
Devna reached out hurriedly and took the woman's nearest hand, rubbed her own palm gently along its back. "Gently ... gently, good Megan. Easily ... return to us now. See us now."
The Cygnian named Megan let out a sibilant sigh, an almost imperceptible whisper of air as thin lungs contracted, The mirrors of her eyes appeared to dissolve, to break up like blots of silver ink. The eyes turned to a light gold color, and from a tiny pinprick in the center, black pupils appeared, expanded to full size. Vertical, they were, slitted like a cat's.
The Cygnian smiled sadly at her companions. "The new ones wish only to get away, to run. It's always the same for the new ones. I'm sad for them."
"You're sad for everyone, Megan. That's part of you and your people. The sympathy you feel for others, intensified by your mind, enables you to see with sympathy all that others do."
"They may wish to escape all they like, fight as hard as they want," commented Xerius. "It is quite impossible. There is no danger from that."
"Still," Devna countered, "it is natural that they do so. They cannot help themselves, Xerius. They must try. They would not be norma
l if they did not. All must try before they come to accept. Best to leave them so and not try to compel."
"That is truth," Xerius admitted. "All will be well in four days' time when they have no hope. I wish it were now. Even to keep the watch, to see that in their fear they do no harm to themselves or others, feels unnatural to me. It implies the threat of direct physical restraint.
"When I was forced to prevent Commander Kor from drawing his weapon in the council chamber, the action made me almost physically ill. Eventually they will feel the same - even the one named Kor."
"You controlled yourself well, Xerius," agreed Devna. "I think the effort it cost you was worth it. The lesson was taken to heart by Captain Kirk, at least I felt as sick as you. All of us on the council did.
"It is something we must go through. A close watch is especially vital in this case because it seems that these two are natural antagonists."
"So it would appear," Xerius admitted. "It is difficult, not knowing what is happening in the socio-political universe about us."
"But we do have our compensations, Xerius," Devna reminded him quietly...
***
Spock was working at the library computer station, Kirk staring over his shoulder. Both men were examining a series of figures the astrogation computer had just coughed up.
More than a little time had passed since Scott's ultimatum. Kirk was growing by turns tired and depressed. Initial results had not been encouraging. It seemed impossible that Spock would not be feeling the same emotions; but, of course, even if he were it would never show.
The most one could say for him was that his usual precision of manner was showing some wear. Spock held his fatigue inside. Kirk glanced back up, at the viewscreen.
Nestled squarely in its center and surrounded by ancient derelicts lay the Klothos. Behind it was the tight cluster of ships that still held power and life. Elysia's inhabitants tended to group tightly together for company and companionship, shifting from one ship to another as internal arrangements permitted.
In this way they achieved a certain amount of variety in companionship over the years. Over the centuries, Kirk thought. The image held before them was far from cheering. He turned from the thought and the view of the Klothos.
"This is the very best you and your theoreticians could come up with, Mr. Spock?"
"Yes, Captain. I was personally astonished we could produce a plan so efficacious in so short a time."
"I was hoping you could pull a whole rabbit out of that computer instead of part of one. You've done it before."
"I do not ever recall nor do I see any reason," Spock replied in confusion, "why you should suddenly expect me to produce a Terran mammal of the leporid family from the computer banks at this, or any other time."
Kirk waved it off. "Slip of the tongue, Spock. What I meant was that when there seemed to be no possible answer, no conceivable solution to a problem, you and that machine operating in tandem have produced one time after time."
"Not this time, it appears, Captain," Spock confessed, never one to offer an encouraging word in place of the truth.
"Have you covered every possibility?" Kirk pressed desperately. "Every factor - I don't care how extreme the mathematics."
"Every possibility, Captain, several times. The facts are, simply, that with our maximum drive we do not have the capability to pierce the continuum barrier. I do not wish to surrender all hope, but the facts do not offer reason for much encouragement. This was the best we could do."
Kirk looked around, suddenly stood up and stared uncertainly at the screen.
"Well, he isn't giving up, at least."
Spock turned away from his console too, as did everyone else on the bridge, to watch the screen.
The Klothos had begun to move. It was leaving its parking position and moving off at high speed. Automatic trackers, preset on the Klothos to free Sulu and Arex for research, adjusted themselves to follow the Klingon cruiser. Kirk spoke without turning.
"If they can do it, why can't we?"
"I do not believe they can, Captain," Spock said with assurance. Kirk stared at him. "I consider it the unlikeliest of possibilities. Clearly Commander Kor believes otherwise.
"Their S-Two Graph unit, which is roughly the equivalent to our warp-drive, began giving off depleted energy readings at the same time as engineer Scott reported the start of dissolution among our own dilithium supplies. Their situation is no different from ours, their abilities to react to it no better.
"Kor has apparently decided to try it anyway, regardless of the attempts of his navigator and engineers to dissuade him. I am certain they have tried. The attempt may cost them all their dilithium, even to the loss of power to their life-support systems."
"So he's going to try, contrary to the advice from his own experts, without a chance of getting through?" Kirk looked skeptical. "I don't see even a megalomaniac like Kor trying that."
"You are momentarily forgetting the Klingon mentality, Captain," Spock reminded patiently. "It concludes that the guiding law of life is that all laws are made to be violated. To them their treaties with the natural universe are as tenuous as those they make with other peoples. That is why their advancement in the physical sciences was held back for so long.
"I need not add mention of their pride, which is everything to a Klingon - especially to a commanding officer like Kor. He would do personal battle with a sun if his pride was at stake."
"You're right, as usual, Spock," Kirk turned back to stare at the screen. The Klothos was now passing beyond the last row of desiccated starships and out into the blackness beyond.
Kirk should have thought of that himself. Kor could not live with his trampled ego without at least making the escape attempt...
IX
A subtle trembling had begun to run through the bridge of the accelerating Klothos. Kor and his officers ignored it, as they ignored the alarm lights which had begun to flash around them.
The forward scanners showed a strange mix of light and faint color. Sensors indicated a concatenation of immensely powerful forces centered ahead.
The first officer of the Klothos struggled to keep his voice normal as he reported to his commander. "All power beyond minimal life-support has been diverted to the engines, sir. We're continuing to pick up speed."
Kor looked over at him, showing equal control - control he didn't feel.
"Continue on course for the coordinates indicated."
"Yes, Exalted One." Kaas' attitude was that of a Klingon warrior about to plunge into battle against overwhelming odds. He was prepared to die, he only wished for a less indifferent opponent.
"Approaching maximum drive, sir," he reported, after a glance at the controls.
The center of the glowing vortex appeared to take on a slight spinning effect, its flanks bursting with erratic flares of violet light. The Klothos impinged on the outer edge of the luminescent matrix.
A high-pitched whine began to build on the bridge, accompanied by a steady increase in the trembling beneath Kaas' feet. It built to the point where Kor had to hold tightly to the arms of his command chair to avoid being thrown to the floor.
Several other members of the bridge staff were not so lucky; they were thrown off balance and had to fight to regain their seats. The whine grew to deafening proportions.
The ship's lights went out and were replaced by a faint purplish light something like the color of the Terran sky seen from the bottom of a spaceport lift shaft. The whine became a scream, a howl. One officer clapped both hands to his ears, forgetting his controls. Another severe jolt rocked the bridge. Then they were all tumbling, falling, as the Klothos spun suddenly on its axis and the artificial gravity failed to compensate in time.
Instantly, their speed started to diminish. Though no one was able to report this immediately - least of all Kaas, who had been thrown against a far bulkhead and knocked unconscious.
Spinning, tumbling, rolling crazily, the Klothos had been thrown back along the pa
th it had come. Its speed reversed, it was slowing perceptibly by the time it neared its original parking position.
Attitude control was far from being reestablished, however. A slight deviation in its return path was enough to send it crashing into and through half a dozen of the unoccupied, drifting starships. Mangled and dented, it finally came to a complete stop as some desperate engineer shut down its engines completely.
Broken compartments released a small cloud of frost ... frozen atmosphere bleeding from a broad crack near the rear of the tilted hull.
On the bridge the shrill whine had been replaced by a wail of another sort - a mixture of the overworked alarm system and the cries of injured personnel. Kirk and Spock were not privy to such cries as they studied the damage to the once powerful battle cruiser, now centered in the main viewscreen.
For a moment, Kirk's pent-up anger at Kor's earlier actions was replaced by a grudging admiration. "You were right, Spock, but I almost wish they had made it."
"I am glad they did not," the first officer replied easily. Kirk gasped in surprise.
"Spock, you hold a grudge?"
"Not at all, Captain. I would never experience such an unreasonable, long-term emotion. It is rather that their unsuccessful attempt has given me an idea as to how we may be able to break through the barrier."
Kirk waited a moment, then, "Well ... what is it, Spock?"
"I would suggest that everyone concerned with the eventual attempt hear this together. There will be emotional as well as physical requirements."
"I don't understand."
"Neither may certain members of the crew, Captain. Especially any who have been involved in serious conflicts with the Klingons before. I suggest, therefore, that we and the principal officers concerned adjourn to the central briefing room."
"I'm not sure what you're leading up to, Spock, but if you think this is the way to handle it..."
"It is for the best, Captain."
Unlike previous gatherings in the spacious conference room, no one ventured any jokes in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. McCoy in particular wondered at the absence of Uhura. The reasons for excluding her from the conference would become clear as Spock explained his intentions.