Vonda McIntyre - The Entropy Effect

As it must.

He cried out in despair.

Fighting the hopelessness that washed over him, somehow he flung himself over onto his chest. Every nerve and muscle in his body shrieked as he reached to drag himself along the floor like the crippled creature he was, like the first primordial amphibian struggling for breath on the shores of a vanishing lake, knowing instinctively in the most primitive interconnections of his brain that he would probably die, if he continued, that he would surely die, if he stayed, that his only chance was to keep going, to try.

Hunter wandered into sick bay, wishing she were almost anywhere else in the universe. She stopped in the doorway of McCoy’s office.

“Leonard,” she said, “Mr. Spock’s twelve hours are nearly up.”

“I know,” McCoy said miserably. “Hunter, he told me he had an outer limit of fourteen hours—”

“Oh, gods,” Hunter said, exasperated. “Leonard—”

“Wait—” McCoy looked up. “Did you hear—it’s the sensors!” He jumped up and ran past her into the main sick bay.

In the critical care unit the signals had fallen to zero, but not because the toxin had finally overwhelmed Ian Braithewaite’s life. Hunter took one look at the empty bed and ran out into the corridor. She caught a glimpse of Ian disappearing around the corner.

“He’s trying to get to the transporter!” McCoy said.

Hunter raced after Ian. He was still very weak and she narrowed the gap between them, but he stumbled into the lift. Hunter launched herself toward him and crashed against the closed doors, an instant too late.

“Damn!” She waited seething; McCoy caught up to her as the lift returned. They piled inside, and as soon as it stopped again Hunter rushed out and after the prosecutor. He had already reached the transporter room, already opened the console: he stared down at the bioelectronic construct that bulged up out of the module like a glimmering malignant growth.

“Don’t, Ian! Gods, don’t!”

“It’s the only way,” he whispered.

Supporting himself on his elbows in the doorway of the laboratory, Spock whispered, “Dr.

Mordreaux...”

The small group of time-travelers parted, turning to look at him, all of them startled to hear his voice.

And all of them were there.

Spock could not force his eyes to focus properly: he thought he was seeing double. But then the second Dr. Mordreaux stumbled off the transporter platform and fell, as Spock had, and the first Dr.

Mordreaux, the one who belonged in this time, this place, knelt beside him and turned him over. The older professor groaned.

Using the doorjamb for support, Spock dragged himself to his feet. Mree looked from one Mordreaux to the other, then back at Spock.

“Sir—” Spock said.

“Nothing changed,” Mordreaux said. “Nothing . . . changed ...” His voice was like sand on stone, skittering, dry, ephemeral. “I waited, but the chaos ...”

Spock forced himself across the few meters of space between him and the professor, and fell to his knees. The present Dr. Mordreaux stared down at himself.

“They are determined to go, sir,” Spock said. “I tried to show them what would happen—”

Mordreaux’s hand clamped around his wrist. “I don’t want to die like this,” he said. He looked back at himself. “Believe him. Please believe him.” He sighed, and his eyes closed, his hand fell limp beside him, and the life flowed slowly from his body.

The present Dr. Mordreaux sat back on his heels.

“My god,” Mree whispered. “My god, look.”

The future Dr. Mordreaux faded gradually to dust, and the dust dissolved toward nothingness. As it collapsed into subatomic particles, Spock snatched up the time-changer, reset it, and flung it into the dust. Attuned to the molecules that had formed Dr. Mordreaux’s body, it pulled them with it as it quivered and vanished back to its own time. Spock wondered why he had bothered to make the repair in space-time, since it appeared that he would fail to prevent the more serious damage that was about to occur.

He stood up slowly, aching with fatigue. “Do you believe me now?” His fa9ade of control and emotionlessness began to crack. “He knew he would die if he came back this far again. He knew it! He feared it. By his time, the changes you have caused have become so intolerable that he deliberately chose death, to try to stop you!”

“What about us?” Perim cried. “That’s years in the future! Our hopes—”

“And the hopes of your children?” Spock glanced at the curious little girl who had asked if he were a Vulcan—he realized that no one had adequately answered her question—and she gazed solemnly at him, as if she understood everything that had happened. Perhaps she did, better than he or anyone else. “Far in the future, when your child is grown, and the universe is nothing but chaos—what then? You will go back, you will be safe.” He looked at each member of the group, adults and children alike. “Your children will take the consequences.”

The present Dr. Mordreaux rose. “Mr. Spock ...”

His voice shook. “Perhaps—”

“Georges!” Perim took one step forward, his fists clenched. “You can’t—”

Mree clasped his arm, gently, it seemed, but he stopped and fell silent.

“I think we’re going to have to find other hopes,” she said.

“No!”

“Perim,” Mree said, “Spock is right. We’ve been selfish—we knew that all along, but now we know what the results of our selfishness will be.”

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Mordreaux said. He looked around at his friends, Mree and Perim and the others who had watched, unbelieving.

The young student who had given Spock water had tears streaming down his face. “It would have been—” He could not finish.

“My friends, I’m sorry,” Mordreaux said. He went to the transporter and began to disconnect the additions. Perim and one of the others tried to stop him, but Mree and the other three adults prevented them from interfering. Mordreaux finished the dismantling, then, tears running down his face, too, he hugged each of the other people. “I can never make this up to you,” he said when he got to Perim. “I know it.”

Perim pulled back from the embrace. “You’re right,” he said, his tone nearer a growl than any human sound. “You can’t.” He picked up his child, and fled.

Ian Braithewaite stabbed at the control button on the time-changer. Hunter and McCoy reached him at the same time, but too late: they pulled him away from the transporter control as the strained warp engines rumbled into operation, so out of sync that the Enterprise itself shuddered. The light spilling across the transporter started its rainbow flux, red-orange-yellow—McCoy groaned in grief and despair.

—green-blue-violet—

The ship went dark; the beam faded, and McCoy found himself lying sprawled on the floor. When he opened his eyes the lighting was perfectly normal, and he was all alone. He pushed himself to his feet; he was as stiff as if he had been lying there for hours. Something terrible had happened, but it was like a dream that he grasped for as it slipped through his fingers. Something had happened: but he did not know what.

“What am I doin’ here?” he muttered. He looked around the empty room one last time, shrugged, and returned to sick bay.

In the sitting room, after the others had left, Dr. Mordreaux looked ruefully at Spock, then at Mree. “I suppose I’d better not publish my last paper,” he said.

Despite all that had happened, Spock felt more than a twinge of guilt and unease at the idea of suppressing knowledge. Again he wished for a society as settled as that on Vulcan.

“I guess not,” Mree said. “I sure won’t mention it. Damn. The idea was great while it lasted.”