Worlds in Collision Page 19

  “The dispatch for Amanda is from Winona.”

  Spock rolled off the pipes and dropped catlike to the flooring beside the associate. “I am Amanda,” he told the machine. “Please present my dispatch.” Once again Captain Kirk had succeeded in beating the odds. While the troopers might have placed a message in the system for Spock from the captain, only the captain would have placed a message in the system for Spock’s mother from Kirk’s mother.

  The eyestalk rotated down and locked on to Spock’s face. “Identification confirmed. Dispatch to Amanda follows.” The machine’s floodlight slid back within the side port and a viewscreen rotated out and up to Spock’s eye level.

  Spock read the text that Romaine had entered in Nensi’s office describing the current situation. Learning that Commodore Wolfe had ordered the troopers to search for Spock with phasers set to kill confirmed Spock’s suspicions about the motives behind the transmissions the commodore was undoubtedly receiving.

  Finishing the written portion of the message, Spock studied the maps that appeared on the screen and saw how the captain’s allies hoped to meet with him near the emergency-evacuation modules. Spock had to admit that Romaine’s reasoning was sound, even though it was based on a false assumption: Spock had not escaped from the brig on the Enterprise in order to save himself. Indeed, fleeing from lawful authority solely to preserve his freedom would be dereliction of duty and an act of illogic, two actions that Captain Kirk regrettably appeared to have personally committed by leaving the Enterprise in defiance of Commodore Wolfe’s orders.

  Spock’s motive for escape was nothing less than to ensure the survival of the Federation. Unfortunately, the commodore’s actions had put him in a position where he could not communicate with others who would be able to undertake the tasks required. Logic dictated that Spock act as quickly as possible. There would be time enough to turn himself in and spend however long was required to explain the truth, once the stability of the Federation had been ensured.

  “This module has other duties,” the associate abruptly announced. “Does Amanda wish to log a reply to Winona?”

  “Yes,” Spock said. “To Winona, from Amanda. I strongly suggest that you return to the Enterprise. Access my personal work files headed by the following references: Agronomy, Memory Gamma, Sherman, and Sradek. Transmit them to Professor Saleel, Vulcan Academy of Sciences.” Spock paused.

  “End of dispatch?” the associate prompted.

  “No,” Spock said. “Add to dispatch: I regret not having a chance to explain, but…thank you, Jim, and thank the others for me. End of dispatch.”

  The associate drew in its eyestalk and viewscreen, then began to roll away in the same direction it had originally been traveling. Spock set off behind it.

  After no more than ten meters, the associate suddenly wheeled around and sped back to Spock, skidding to a stop before him.

  Spock watched calmly as the associate extended its eyestalk once more. Perhaps the captain had been close to another associate in the network and had been able to respond immediately.

  “Greetings, Vulcan,” the associate said. “Live long and prosper.” This time its voice wasn’t just remarkably lifelike—it was as clear and as textured as if a person had been transmitting over a closed communicator circuit. Spock did not have enough information to determine whether he was again addressing a standard duotronic unaware processing engine or someone on the other end of a comm link. He recognized his dilemma as an age-old puzzle brought to life.

  “Greetings,” Spock replied.

  “I see you wear the unit insignia of the Starship Enterprise,” the associate said.

  “That is correct.” It must be a com link, Spock thought. These were not the words or delivery of a duotronic brain.

  “What are you doing down here?” the machine asked.

  “Walking,” Spock replied.

  The machine backed up a half meter and twisted its eyestalk to the side as if to get a new perspective on Spock. “You’re the one they’re looking for, aren’t you?”

  “That who is looking for?” Spock asked noncommittally. He was certain that a control technician must have patched into a real-time connection with the associate and was now operating it as a remote-control device.

  “Don’t worry,” the machine said. “I won’t tell.” It accelerated toward Spock so quickly that its front wheels popped off the flooring and its back wheels squealed. Spock sidestepped to the right as the machine broke to the left, spun around, and stopped beside him. The eyestalk dipped and then angled up at the Vulcan. “Can I go with you?” it asked.

  “Where do you think I’m going?”

  “Scanning the communications that are filling subspace around here, your most probable destination is the nominees’ quarters. Correct?”

  “Who are you?” Spock asked. At this point he calculated he had an even chance that the technician on the other side of the com link was just delaying him until the troopers could reach this location.

  The eyestalk straightened up and rose to Spock’s eye level again.

  “My friends call me Two,” the associate said. “What do your friends call you?”

  Spock raised both his eyebrows. The scenario that came to mind was impossible, he knew, yet it was logical, too; the kind of situation he knew the captain and Dr. McCoy would enjoy.

  “My friends call me Spock,” Spock said, “and I would be honored if you accompanied me.”

  “Thanks, Spock,” the machine said, starting to roll slowly forward. “But I must warn you that I can’t let you kill any of the nominees if that’s what you’re planning to do.”

  “On the contrary,” Spock said, falling into step beside the machine, “I intend to attempt to save them.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that,” the associate said, rolling at a steady pace. It turned its eyestalk to look sideways at Spock. “You know, Spock, there’s something odd going on around here.”

  “Indeed,” said Spock, regarding the machine and trying to comprehend the personality it now housed. “I had surmised as much myself.”

  Kirk and Scotty materialized on a portable transporter pad in what appeared to be a warehouse storage area. Except for an assortment of blister crates marked with warning symbols and manufacturers’ labels, the cavernous room was empty.

  Kirk looked around the room to confirm that no troopers were present. They had not arrived where Farl had intended.

  “Theories, Scotty?” Kirk asked as he jumped down from the platform and jogged over to the closed loading doors. It appeared that Prime’s transporter system was in need of an overhaul.

  “Aye, Captain,” Scott said, hopping down after Kirk but stopping to do something to the pad’s control panel. “I changed the coordinate settings on the pad we were just on.” Scott then hefted a large crate onto the surface of the transporter platform.

  “When did you have a chance to set new coordinates?” Kirk asked as he studied the door panel to see if it gave any clue as to what it opened onto.

  “When the commander was calling off the search for us,” Scott said, joining Kirk, “and I looked as if I was about to succumb to phaser toss.”

  “How could you know the setting for the pad in here?” Kirk looked at Scott just as he prepared to go for broke and press the open switch. At least it wasn’t an airlock.

  “I didn’t hae to know the setting, sir. I just set it to override the central signal, beam us out at random, and trusted that one of the other pads would override and bring us in.”

  Kirk’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Scotty! A random beaming? ‘Trusted an override’? How could you?”

  Scott straightened his shoulders. “Why that’s what Mr. Spock did to get off the Enterprise,” he said as if no more needed to be said on the subject.

  Kirk relaxed. “Good point,” he conceded, then pressed the activate switch on the door panel.

  The double-height loading doors slid quietly open and Kirk saw that they were at the end of a smal
l passageway leading to a central plaza. No troopers were in sight.

  “Why haven’t these transporter pads been located at troop stations?” Kirk wondered out loud.

  “The commodore was saying something about the last pad we were on being unauthorized. Perhaps there’s a second network of them set up that she doesn’t know about,” Scott offered.

  Kirk looked over his shoulder at the pad they had just left. “Are they going to be able to track us down to that one?”

  “Nae, Captain,” Scott said with a smug smile. “I shut off the exclusion field then put that crate over the receiver. The pad will still show that it’s in whatever network it belongs to, but won’t accept any transmissions. We should hae a few minutes before they figure out what’s happened and beam someone into the room to check it out.”

  “Good work, Scotty,” Kirk said. “Let’s see where we are.”

  Memory Prime was still on night cycle and the overhead dome was dark. Small ground-level and pole-mounted light strips shone at intervals to mark out pedestrian and associate paths, and to highlight the trees that ringed the plaza. Kirk and Scott recognized where they were immediately.

  Kirk pointed to a group of empty tables on a large balcony overlooking the plaza. “That’s where we had dinner with Sal and Mira,” he said. The map to the Prime installation was laid out clearly in his mind. “So that means the transportation center is in that direction”—he pointed to his right—“and the evacuation modules are three domes over in that direction.”

  “The transportation center seems a likely place to start,” Scott said as he started off in that direction.

  “Not yet, Scotty,” Kirk said as he reached out to pull the engineer back into the shadows of the passageway.

  Scott looked at Kirk questioningly.

  “The coolant, Scotty. Tell me about the coolant you saw back there.”

  “Standard high-energy-source cooling fluid,” Scott said. “Ye can’t miss it because of the smell. Any repair depot that uses drones reeks of it.”

  “Could it have been from one of the research associates? They have hundreds of them on station here.”

  Scott shook his head. “Nae, Captain. I didn’t notice the smell until the Vulcan trooper was shot. An associate was the first thing I thought of because I’d like to get a look at the wee beasties. But then I would hae smelled the coolant when we first arrived. The coolant was from the Vulcan, nae doubt about it.”

  “Then it wasn’t a Vulcan, was it?” Kirk said.

  “No, sir. A robot’s what I’ve been thinking.”

  Kirk stared at the deck, mind tumbling, looking for the common thread that would pull all the pieces together. “So we have a robot. Probably two. That’s why the Vulcan robot disintegrated the one we stunned—so it wouldn’t be left behind and discovered.”

  “Aye, that makes sense. The scanner it was using was unlike any I’ve seen. It probably wasn’t designed for life-forms. But robots that are so lifelike are illegal, Captain. I know we’ve seen our share on nonaligned worlds, but there’s nae way they’re part of the Federation contingent on Prime.”

  “Of course!” Kirk suddenly said. “They’re not Federation. They’re the assassins sent to kill the scientists! Robots that look like Vulcans! That’s why Starfleet’s after Spock.”

  “Starfleet thinks Mr. Spock is a robot?” Scott wore the same expression he had when Professor La’kara had gone on about trilithium.

  “No, no,” Kirk corrected. “Starfleet only knows that the assassins look like Vulcans. If they suspected robots, it would be an easy thing to check the suspects for life signs. But Starfleet is expecting Vulcans and so they’re suspecting Vulcans. But why Spock and the three that worked for Mira?” Kirk’s eyes flared. “What am I saying? How could Starfleet suspect Vulcans?” He looked at Scott with deadly understanding. “Romulans,” he said.

  “Aye,” Scott nodded slowly. “Romulan assassins—robotic or otherwise—would explain a great deal.”

  “Of course it would,” Kirk went on. “That’s why Starfleet picked out only some Vulcans. Spock is half human. Maybe they think that means he’s not as dedicated to the Vulcan ways.”

  “Then they don’t know Mr. Spock,” Scott said.

  Kirk narrowed his eyes. “Commodore Wolfe called Spock a maverick. I bet you a month’s pay that Mira’s Vulcans also have something in their pasts. Mixed parentage. Raised off-world. Colony planets or something. That’s the link, Scotty. That’s it!”

  Scott nodded. “But who sent them?”

  “It doesn’t matter—all we have to do is get all the security forces on Prime to carry medical scanners to look for people who don’t have life-sign readings. Those will be the robots. The assassins.”

  “But now that we know that, how can we use it to save Mr. Spock?”

  Kirk stared at the empty plaza as he ordered his priorities. “First, we have to keep Spock away from the troopers. Next, we have to find one of the robot assassins.”

  “There’re almost four thousand people on Prime,” Scott said. “And the first assembly of the scientists is scheduled for tomorrow morning.”

  “Then we’ll just have to get more help,” Kirk said decisively.

  “Whose?” Scott asked.

  “Commodore Wolfe’s.”

  “Och, Captain Kirk! Ye canna be thinking of going back to the ship. She’ll throw you in irons if she dinna kill ye first!”

  “I’m open to other suggestions, Mr. Scott.”

  Kirk smiled as Scott fumed. Given the time constraints, there really didn’t seem to be any other choice. Only the Enterprise had the equipment that could examine such a large population in the short period of time they had, and only the commodore currently commanded the personnel who could use that equipment.

  Kirk pulled Scott aside to flatten against the wall as something approached from the shadows of the plaza.

  “It’s an associate,” Scott said.

  The machine had extended a multijointed arm from each side and used them to carry a wall viewscreen protected by no-break wrapping over its center of gravity. As it passed the entrance to the passageway, it rolled to a stop, rocking a bit from the viewscreen’s inertia, then produced an eyestalk from an upper bay.

  Unfortunately, the eyestalk could only emerge a few centimeters from its bay before hitting the bottom of the viewscreen. After a moment’s consideration, it slid back inside.

  “Do you require assistance?” the machine asked.

  “Yes,” Kirk said, acting quickly. “The loading doors back there are jammed. We need you to help open them.”

  Scott leaned close to whisper to Kirk. “The troopers will soon figure out that something’s amiss with the transporter pad in there. Do ye nae think we should be moving on?”

  Kirk shook his head as the associate replied.

  “This module does not repair doors. This module will scan the damage in order to alert the proper maintenance department.”

  “That will be fine,” Kirk said, stepping out of the way of the viewscreen as the machine turned precisely ninety degrees and headed down the passageway. “The troopers might be showing up in the warehouse any minute, Scotty, but anyone could walk by and see us talking to that thing in the plaza any second. Best to stay hidden,” he said as they walked behind the machine, back to the loading doors.

  “These doors are not jammed,” the associate announced after it had scanned the end of the passageway. “This module has other duties.”

  “Wait,” Kirk said. “Do you have any dispatches for Winona from Amanda?”

  The associate made a sound that was somewhere between a sigh and an escape of air pressure. It carefully shifted to one side the viewscreen it carried, then lowered it to the deck. The eyestalk reemerged and rotated to view Kirk’s face.

  “Affirmative,” the machine said. Then it shifted its field of vision to take in Scott. “This module also has a dispatch for Montgomery Scott from Mira Romaine.”

  Kirk and Scott smi
led at each other.

  “Time to check our messages,” Kirk said.

  The emergency-evacuation module was essentially a rescue shuttle launched directly into orbit by an over-powered one-shot cargo transporter. Because the matter/antimatter reaction that powered the transporter circuits destroyed the transporter pad point-eight seconds after the module had been beamed away, the system was useless on board ships and orbiting facilities. But it was a proven method for getting large numbers of people off planets and asteroids when runaway reactions or other emergencies threatened to destroy all life-support habitats.

  “Does it have warp capability?” Dr. McCoy asked as he and Uhura accompanied Nensi and Romaine around module eighteen, the first they had inspected.

  “Normally they do,” Nensi said. “But not these. In Quadrant Zero space, warp-eight cruisers are generally no more than three and a half days away at most. And the same reaction that powers the transporter circuits triggers a broad-band subspace distress signal, so even if the module’s communications gear is damaged, someone will know it’s been launched. Warp propulsion wasn’t considered necessary.”

  McCoy stopped for a moment and regarded the twenty-meter-long, two-story, white-skinned, angular shuttle with a frown.

  “Something wrong?” Nensi asked.

  “Why would Spock try and make it to one of these, then?”

  “To escape,” Romaine said.

  “But to where?” McCoy protested. “I mean launching one of these things would blast a crater in the asteroid big enough to drop the Enterprise into and set off a distress signal they could hear on Klinzhai. It’s not as if he’d be sneaking off, now would it?”

  “And where would he go if he did get away in one?” Uhura added. “Without warp, even if he were the only passenger, he wouldn’t have life support to make it to another system. And the Enterprise could pick him up in an hour.”

  “Well, usually you don’t plan on escaping just in one of these shuttles,” Romaine explained. “You just use it to get to a real ship that will take you where you want to go.”