Джеймс Блиш - Spock Must Die

“Finally, you three appeared, and we were able to determine from your thoughts that you knew what had happened, and that you had come to be of help. But the malignant creature who had arrived in the spacecraft had a mind as powerful as Mr. Spock’s — truly remarkable for an entity dependent upon a substrate of matter — and one which, furthermore, seemed to work well with the effects of the thought-shield, whereas ours were much impeded by them. We sent out impulses which we hoped would guide you to us, but until that creature was eliminated — which you have now managed to do, and for which we congratulate you — your course was necessarily somewhat erratic.”

“Aye, an’ thot’s for sooth,” Scott said feelingly.

“We now further see from your thoughts,” Trefayne added, “that the Klingons are responsible for the shield. They should be properly penalized. But we find ourselves nearly as helpless as ever.”

“Perhaps not,” Kirk said. “That’s why I brought along my engineering officer. It’s his opinion that the screen is generated by a machine which was deposited on your planet by a pilotless missile. Had it been manned, you would have detected the pilot’s thoughts. It’s probably hopeless to try to locate the generator itself, let alone the missile, but Mr. Scott believes that be can build a counteracting generator.”

The councilors of Organia looked at each other. At last Ayelborne said, “Then by all means, let him proceed.”

“I fear it’s no sae easy as a’ thot,” the engineering officer said, with an odd mixture of embarrassment and glumness. “You see, Councilor, it wasna possible tae bring much wi’ us in the way ‘of tools an’ parts. Since we didna ken where we were goin’ tae wind up, nor what we were goin’ tae encounter, we traveled light. We’ve got beltloads of miniaturized components an’ other leetle gadgets, but it’d be sair helpful to have some bigger bits an’ pieces with mair wallop to ‘em, if you follow my meanin’.”

“Quite without difficulty,” Claymare said. “Unfortunately, we have no — hardware? — of that sort…”

“Aye, I feared as much. An’ it’s oft before, lang an’ lang, that I’ve cursed the designer who thought it’d be cute to put no pockets in these uniforms.”

“…but we know where the malignant creature’s spacecraft is now stored. Would that be of any assistance?”

“The gig!” Kirk shouted. “Of course it would! Provided that the replicate entity didn’t booby-trap it; that is, rig it so that it would destroy itself and us if touched. But we’ll just have to take that chance.”

“It would also be interesting,” Spock said reflectively, “to study how he managed to equip a shuttlecraft with a warp drive.”

“Yes, but later,” Kirk said with a little impatience. “Scotty, would the parts and so on in the gig solve your problems?”

“One of them,” Scott said, even more embarrassed. “Y’see, Captain, I canna answer exactly, because my mind’s sae bollixed up by the screen itsel’, an’ by all the weirds I’ve had tae dree since I began walkin’ across this fearsome planet, that I hardly ken a quark from a claymore any mair. ‘Tis doubtful I am indeed that I could do useful work under such conditions. Equally likely, I’d burn us all up for fair an’ for sure.”

Claymare, who for an instant seemed to think that he had been addressed, frowned and held back whatever he had perhaps been about to say, but Ayelborne smiled and said, “Oh, as to that, we can protect the few minds in this present party against the screen. It is always easier, at least in principle, to raise an umbrella than it is to divert an entire cloudburst, even in the realms of pure thought. However, clearly we shall all have to proceed without delay. We are all suffering seriously, and ever more progressively, under the pressure of the screen — our own population included. Have you a decision?”

“Yes,” Kirk said. “Act now.”

“Very well. Since you need your renegade spacecraft, it is…”

“…here.”

The meeting chamber dissolved, and with it nine of the other councilors. Kirk found himself and the remaining five entities — one other Earthman, a Vulcan hybrid, three Organians whose real appearances would never be known — in a deep cavern, indirectly lit and perhaps no more than half as big as the hangar deck of the Enterprise. He did not know how he knew that it was far under the surface of Organia, but there was a direct feeling of a vast weight of rock above his head which he accepted without question as real mass, not any sort of hallucination. The air was quite dry, and motionless; the floor smooth, and cupped toward the center.

In the exact midst of the cup was the stolen shuttlecraft. It looked familiar and innocuous.

Spock obviously did not regard it as an old friend. Head cocked, eyes narrowed, he scanned it from nose to tubes with his tricorder.

“Anything out of the ordinary, Mr. Spock?” Kirk asked.

“Nothing that I can detect, Captain. There does not appear to be any unusual pattern of energy flow in the circuitry of the combination to the main airlock, though that is the first point where one would logically establish a booby trap — and the easiest. Nor can I think of any reason why the replicate, having decided not to interdict entrance to the shuttlecraft as a whole, would trouble himself to mine only parts of it.”

“I can think of several,” Kirk said. “If I wanted to use the gig again, to get off Organia in a hurry, I wouldn’t booby-trap the door; I wouldn’t even lock it. But I’d put a trigger on the controls, which only I could make safe easily, and nobody else could find at all.”

“Risky,” Scott said. “Somebody might touch it off by accident; might as well put a trigger on the pile and be done with it, so the gig would blow nae matter what was touched, an’ thot’s easiest done by wirin’ the lock, as Mr. Spock says. But maybe I’d want to blow the gig only if somebody fooled wi’ my invention; otherwise, I’d save it for mysel’ until the vurra last minute.”

“The miniature warp drive?” Spock said. “Yes, I might do that also, under the circumstances. But that would not be simple. He could have done so only after landing on Organia, and the probability is that he did not have nearly enough time to design such a system while in flight from the Enterprise, let alone complete it after a fast landing and a hurried escape.”

“We are going to have to take all those chances as they come,” Kirk said.

“Mr. Spock, actuate the lock. But Scotty, once we’re inside, touch nothing until Mr. Spock has checked it.”

“Sairtainly not,” Scott said indignantly. “D’ye take me for an apprentice, Captain?”

Spock approached the airlock, scanned it once more, replaced his tricorder and took out his communicator. Into this he spoke softly a chain of numbers. The outer door of the airlock promptly rolled aside into the skin of the shuttlecraft, almost without a sound. Under the apparently emotionless regard of the three Organians, they went in, almost on tiptoe.

The single central corridor which led from control room to engines was lit only by the dim glow of widely spaced “glow-pups” — tubes of highly rarified ethon gas which were continuously excited by a built-in radioactive source. That meant that all main power was off; the glow-pups themselves had no switches and would never go out within the lifetime of humanity, for the half-life of their radioactive exciter was over 25,000,000 years.

By unspoken consent, Spock and the engineer moved toward the shuttlecraft’s engine compartment. Kirk followed, feeling both useless and apprehensive; but after a moment, a great sense of peace unexpectedly descended upon him.