“Mr. Sulu, deflector screens up.”
“Already up, Captain,” the navigator said with indefatigable cheerfulness. At the same moment, McCoy entered.
“Doctor, is there anything in your laboratory that Spock One could adapt to damaging the ship — or the personnel?”
“Quite a lot,” McCoy said. “In fact, probably more than I could guess. After all, he is the ship’s science officer — or a more than reasonably accurate facsimile.”
“Enough to justify our trying to cut our way in there with a phaser?”
“I would say not,” McCoy said. “There’s a lot of equipment in there that’s irreplaceable under our present circumstances, to say nothing of a good many reagents and drugs. If he resisted, much of it could be damaged or destroyed — or he could stymie us by threatening to destroy it himself. And consider, Jim, that he may be doing nothing more than what he says he’s doing: safeguarding his own life. Why not wait and see?”
“May I comment, Captain?” Spock Two said. Kirk nodded. “The risks in such a course are enormous. Surely this move — which is in direct violation of your standing orders to me — establishes that he is the replicate, not I. Leaving him unmolested is tantamount to inviting a highly qualified Klingon science officer aboard, handing him a full set of engineering tools and materials, and inviting him to do his worst.”
“Think highly of yourself, don’t you?” McCoy said.
“If you doubt that I am highly qualified, Doctor, I suggest that you ask the computer for my record.”
“Cut it out, both of you,” Kirk said. “This is no time for feuding. And Mr. Spock, I want you to bear in mind that I do not consider anything established as yet. I am highly suspicious of both of you, and the only chances I am prepared to take are those which will keep both of you alive. Dammit, man, don’t you know that you’re insisting on my destroying someone who may be my friend — as well as the best first officer in the Fleet? If you don’t, then it’s pretty clear that you can’t be the original Spock!”
“Of course I understand it,” Spock Two said. “But it is my duty to offer what I think to be the facts.”
“It is,” Kirk agreed, somewhat mollified. “However, for the present, we will leave this mess standing exactly as it is. In the meantime, I want you all to recall that we are still trying to dodge the Klingon navy and make a run for Organia — which is now our own best chance for survival, as well as of being of some use to the Federation.”
“We may not be in time even at best, Captain,” Lieutenant Uhura said. “I have just intercepted a general Klingon subspace broadcast. They claim to have inflicted a major defeat upon the Federation Fleet in the Great Nebula area of Orion. That’s awfully close to Earth itself.”
“It is more than that,” Spock Two said. “It is the area which the Klingons call New Suns Space, because fourth-generation stars are being born there.”
“Why does that matter?” Kirk said.
“Because, Captain, the process still has millions of years to run. It means that the Klingons are so confident of winning the war that they are willing to expend men and ships to capture solar systems that, as yet, do not even exist. And they may very well be right.”
Chapter Six — NOBODY AT HOME
From the Captain’s Log, Star Date 4150.0:
We are now three months deep into Klingon space and remain undetected, although we have overheard Klingon ships working out a search grid for us. Hence I have ruled against any smash-and-grab raids on Klingon bases, which might help them predict our course, until and unless the situation on Organia turns out to be hopeless. We also continue to hear reports of Federation defeats. The computer judges Spock Two’s theory about the strange places in which the Klingon navy turns up to be highly probable, but there is still no way to report his conclusion to Starfleet Command. His behavior otherwise has been impeccable; but then, Spock One has been equally inoffensive, except for continuing to refuse to come out of his hole.
After three months, too, there was a spurious atmosphere of routine on the bridge, as though it were perfectly normal to have one Spock at the library console and one taking his meals behind a barricade in McCoy’s laboratory. (An attempt to starve him out had come to nothing; he had, as he had promptly announced, simply put himself on iron rations from among McCoy’s supplies — a diet which would have brought down any ordinary human being eventually with half a dozen deficiency diseases at once, but which could sustain his half-Vulcan constitution indefinitely.)
Kirk was just as well pleased to have his department heads adjusted to the situation. It was further evidence of their resiliency — not that he needed that, at this late date — and besides, nobody could afford to be distracted under present circumstances. McCoy and Scott, of course, continued to work doggedly at the problem of the replication whenever possible, but only one further clue had emerged: all of the experimental animals Scott had sent “out,” in imitation of Spock’s ill-fated non-journey, also “returned” as duplicates, but the duplicates all died within a few days thereafter. The surgeon could find no reason for their deaths, but even had he been able to do so, it seemed unlikely that the explanation would have been helpful, since it very obviously could not apply to the very much alive replicate Spock (whichever he was). Like all of the few other clues, it seemed to point nowhere in particular.
Gradually, however, the tension began to grow again as the Enterprise drew near to 11872 dy. by 85746 K, the arbitrary point in space-time where she would have to break out of warp drive in order to scan for Organia — and for something utterly unknown.
“Thus far,” Kirk told his watch, “we’ve no reason to suppose that the Klingons think we’re anywhere in the vicinity. But we’ll take no chances. Mr. Sulu, I want you to engage ship’s phasers with Lieutenant Uhura’s sensor alarms, so that if we get a lock-on even the instant we come out of warp, we get a proximity explosion one nano- jiffy later. There’s a faint chance that we may blow up a friend that way, but in this sector I think it can be discounted.”
Sulu’s hands flew over his board. Uhura watched hers like a cat, occasionally pouncing as she secured the sensor circuits to his navigation aids. The telltales for the phaser rooms came on, one after the other, as the hulking, deadly machines reached readiness.
“All primed, Captain,” Sulu said.
“What is our breakout time?”
“Fourteen thirty-five twenty.”
“Lieutenant Uhura, how long will you need for a minimum scan for Organia?”
“I can get one complete spherical atlas of the skies in ten seconds, Captain.”
“Very well. Mr. Sulu, give us ten seconds in normal space, then turn to a heading of forty-eight Mark zero- six-nine at Warp One. Better set it into the computer, Mr. Spock.”
Spock Two nodded, but Sulu asked, “Wouldn’t it be easier to clock it from my board?”
“I want it both ways, as a fail-safe.”
“Do you wish a countdown, Captain?” Spock Two said.
“I see no reason for it when we’re on automatic. It just creates tension unnecessarily. Steady as you go, and stand by.”
The minutes trickled away. Then, with the usual suddenness, the Enterprise was in normal space.
And with equal suddenness, nothing else was normal.
Though he could not tell how he sensed it, Kirk felt the presence of a huge maw, a wound, a vortex in the very fabric of space-time itself. It was as if some unimaginable force had torn open the underlying metrical frame of the universe, leaving absolute and utter Nothingness, the ultimate blankness which had preceded even the creation of Chaos. And the Enterprise was plunging straight into it.
The sensation was one of pure horror. Although the ten seconds seemed to stretch out into hours, Kirk was completely paralyzed, and around him his companions were as rigid as statues.
Then it was gone, as if it had never been. The Enterprise was back on Warp Drive.
The bell from the engineering deck jammered.
