“It would mean more responsibility, of course.”
“That would be all right,” Sulu said. “I mean—it would be wonderful!”
“Good. Let’s get together and talk about it. You give fencing lessons in the afternoons, don’t you?”
“On alternate days. The other times I take a judo lesson from Lieutenant Commander Flynn.”
“What time are you finished?”
“About sixteen hundred hours, sir.”
“Then, what do you say to seventeen hundred, tomorrow, in the officers’ lounge?”
“I’ll be there, Captain! Thank you, sir.”
Kirk nodded. They reached the turbo lift, got on, and started upward toward the bridge.
“By the way, Mr. Sulu, I think that’s going to be a very distinctive mustache once it gets a little longer.” Color rose in Sulu’s cheeks.
“I mean it,” Kirk said.
“I wasn’t sure that you’d approve, sir.”
“I grew a mustache myself, a few years ago.”
“You did? Why didn’t you keep it?”
“I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else.”
“Of course I promise, sir.”
“It came in red. Brick red. Most ridiculous thing I ever saw in my life.”
He laughed, and so did Sulu.
“I don’t think mine will come in red, Captain,” Sulu said.
The lift doors opened and they went out onto the bridge. Kirk grinned at Sulu.
“No, I don’t suppose you’ll have to worry about that possibility.”
Kirk took his place; Sulu relieved the junior helm officer and checked over the controls.
“Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said, “plot us a course out of here.”
“Yes, sir!”
It took him only a few seconds: he had been prepared to get the ship away from the singularity at almost any moment; he was ready for any sort of emergency.
“Course entered, sir, warp factor one.”
“Thank you, Mr. Sulu.”
Like a freed bird, the Enterprise sailed out of the grasp of the singularity, through the flaming curtains of disintegrating matter that surrounded it, and out into deep space.
Captain’s log, Stardate 5001.1:
We are now a day away from the singularity, and the unease that gripped the Enterprise and my crew throughout the entire mission there has faded, leaving In its place a feeling of relief and even contentment. Morale Is better than it has been in some time, particularly in the security section: though I personally find the new commander rather prickly, she does her job splendidly.
I have decided to take the Enterprise through the border region between Federation space and Klingon territory, which Is guarded by Captain Hunter’s fleet. The Klingons have been more aggressive than usual; they have inflicted some losses on the squadron, and until replacements arrive, the appearance of a ship of the line in the area cannot do any harm.
Administrative notes: I have forwarded to Starfleet my recommendation for Mr. Sulu’s field promotion to lieutenant commander. As this will make him one of the youngest officers of that rank without formal front line experience, I may have to wrestle down a few bureaucratic hair-splitters in order to get it approved; on the other hand, If serving on the Enterprise doesn’t qualify as some form of front line experience, I don’t know what does.
On the recommendation of Lt. Commander Flynn, I have also approved the transfer of Ensign Jenniver Aristeldes from Security to Botany, and Mr. Spock has asked her to take charge of a project he wants to begin, that of growing more bioelectronic components. Before now, Aristeides always seemed to me to be hardly any more the emotional type than Mr. Spock, but she is clearly delighted by her new job.
Mr. Spock is recovering from severe overwork. He has assured Starfleet that the singularity will soon wipe itself out of the universe. My science officer shows no more sign than before that he is willing to discuss the “unpredictable events” that occurred during his observations. Despite a certain temptation to ask him if this is Information we were not meant to know—a question that would undoubtedly grate upon his scientific objectivity— I’m not inclined to press him for more answers. It’s possible that he simply made some sort of mistake that would humiliate him to reveal.
Whatever did happen seems to have involved only Spock himself; whatever It was, it has not affected the Enterprise at all.
And that, of course, as always, is my main concern.
Captain James T. Kirk sprawled on the couch in the sitting room of his cabin, dozing over a book. The lights flickered and he woke abruptly, startled by the momentary power failure and by the simultaneous lurch in the Enterprise ’s gravity. The main shields strained to the limits of their strength, drawing all available power in order to protect ship and crew from the almost incalculable radiation of another X-ray storm.
Kirk forced himself to relax, but he still felt uneasy, as if he should be doing something. But there was nothing he could do, and he knew it. His ship lay in orbit around a naked singularity, the first and only one ever discovered, and Mr. Spock was observing, measuring, and analyzing it, trying to deduce why it had appeared, suddenly and mysteriously, out of nowhere. The Vulcan science officer had been at his task nearly six weeks now; he was almost finished.
Kirk was not too pleased at having to expose the Enterprise to the radiation, the gravity waves, and the twists and turns of space itself. But the work was critical: spreading like a huge carcinoma, the singularity straddled a major warp-space lane. More important, though: if one singularity could appear without warning, so might another. The next one might not simply disarrange interstellar commerce. The next one might writhe into existence near an inhabited planet, and wipe out every living thing on its surface.
Kirk glanced at the screen of his communications terminal, which he had been leaving focused on the singularity. As the Enterprise arced across one of the poles, the energy storm intensified. Dust swirled down toward the puncture in the continuum, disintegrating into energy. The light that he could see, the wavelengths in the visible spectrum, formed only the smallest part of the furious radiation that pounded at his ship.
The forces, shifts, and tidal stresses troubled everyone in the crew; everyone was snappish and bored despite the considerable danger they were in. Nothing would change until Mr. Spock completed his observations.
Spock could have done the work all by himself in a solo ship—if a solo ship were able to withstand the singularity’s distortion of space. But it could not, so Spock needed the Enterprise . Yet Spock was the only being essential to this mission. That was the worst thing about the entire job: no one was afraid of facing peril, but there was no way to control it or fight it or overcome it. They had nothing to do but wait
until it was over.
Kirk thought, with unfocussed gratitude, that at least he could begin to think of the assignment in terms of hours rather than weeks or days. Like the rest of the crew, he would be glad when it was finished.
“Captain Kirk?”
Kirk reached out and opened the channel. The image of the singularity faded out and Lieutenant Uhura appeared on the screen.
“Yes, Lieutenant?—Uhura, what’s wrong?”
“We’re receiving a subspace transmission, Captain. It’s scrambled—”
“Put it through. What’s the code?”
“Ultimate, sir.”
He sat up abruptly. “Ultimatel”
“Yes, sir, ultimate override, from mining colony Aleph Prime. It came through once, then cut off before it could repeat.” She glanced at her instruments and fed the recording to his terminal.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
The unscrambling key came up out of his memory unbidden. He was prohibited from keeping a written record of it. He was not even allowed to enter it into the ship’s computer for automatic decoding. With pencil and paper, he
