THE BRIDGE OF the Enterprise became a timeless place, silent except for the sounds of instruments like insects. Human will had failed to have its way. This was nothing new, McCoy told himself, seeing into James Kirk’s mind and finding there the usual appalled, insulted sensibility that demanded to be exempted, that behaved as though it could never bet on the losing numbers of the wheel. That was what his friend Jim had always wanted, and it was astonishing how often he got his way. He kept his few failures in a dark dungeon below the foundations of his mind, expecting them to die there when merciful memory erased them. But all that McCoy could see now, looking ahead, was a man who might one day be left standing alone, with all that he had known gone, struggling not to care, but caring nonetheless….
Ironically, what had always saved Kirk was his Starfleet training. Combined with his basic temperament, it allowed him to recognize the next best thing in the face of imminent defeat. Even when it was obvious that the game itself could not be changed, he would labor to accomplish the third or fourth best thing. Jim would accept Spock’s loss, mourn him, and then deal with the next problem.
Yeoman Barrows glanced at him, as if somehow agreeing with his thoughts, then turned her gaze back to Kirk. She and Janice Rand stood stiffly, their faces tense, their eyes on their captain as they awaited his next order. Blasted Vulcan, McCoy thought, realizing abruptly how much he would miss Spock.
“Mr. Massoud,” Kirk said hoarsely, “are there signs of any disturbances in the sun from having swallowed the alien vessel?”
“None, Captain,” the science officer replied.
“But it’s too early to tell,” Scotty’s voice said over the intercom.
Kirk did not turn to look in the direction of Myra Coles. McCoy glanced aft and saw the concern in the Tyrtaean woman’s eyes.
“Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said, “set course for a return to a standard orbit around Tyrtaeus II.” His voice was as decisive as McCoy had ever heard it.
“Aye, aye, sir,” Sulu responded.
Again, the instruments sang on a silent bridge. Kirk sat back at his command station and closed his eyes for a moment, and it seemed to McCoy that he was searching for Spock within himself.
“Captain!” Uhura called out suddenly. “I’m picking up a subspace signal … out of the sun! It seems to be … Mr. Spock!”
Kirk sat up as if awakened from a nightmare. McCoy looked toward Uhura. The communications officer was shaking her head, looking as unbelieving as he felt.
“Let’s hear it, Lieutenant,” Kirk said grimly, as if expecting nothing. Perhaps, McCoy thought, struggling against the hope that was rising inside of him. The message might be nothing more than some kind of delayed signal.
“Spock to Enterprise,” the Vulcan said, his voice filling the bridge. “Captain, as incredible as it may seem, I am alive and well.”
Yeoman Barrows cried out and clutched at McCoy’s arm. Behind him, McCoy heard a gasp.
“Spock!” Kirk shouted, leaning forward. “Where are you?”
“I would say, with a high degree of confidence, that I am in what might be called a subspace sun-core station. Is my signal coming from the sun?”
“Yes, it is,” Uhura answered.
“Spock, what’s happened?” Kirk asked with relief.
“From my observations,” Spock replied, “here in what seems to be a control center, the mobile entered the sun through a warp window, which opened, after some difficulty, to receive the mobile. I would say, from what has happened so far, that the mobile knew where it was going.”
“But will it stay there?” Kirk asked.
“There seems to be no further activity. For the moment, I plan to stay in this control area, where I expect to be able to gather more information. There is a kind of screen in front of me, which now shows nothing. The life-forms detected earlier seem to be part of the very structure of the mobile, with more intensive readings registering in the instrumentation site—if I may call it that—before which I am standing.”
“We have to get you out of there,” Kirk said, and McCoy nodded in agreement. The mobile had defied their predictions so far; there was no telling what might happen now.
“I would consider that advisable, Captain,” Spock said, “but I doubt that the transporter can cut through both the sun’s fields and the subspace barrier. I also do not think that we can call this space, within which the core station is located, subspace as we know it. Perhaps it should more properly be described as a kind of ‘otherspace,’ congruent with but shielded from the sun’s interior state in normal space. Any other configuration would be intolerable to any physical structure. I do not see any obvious immediate danger, but one must ask how long this oasis will sustain itself. It may be quite old and subject to chaotic instabilities.”
“You mean that it might fail,” McCoy said softly, “and be engulfed by the sun.”
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Is there anything you might be able to do before then?” Kirk asked.
“I shall attempt to discover how to open the warp window that seems to be the entrance to this station. If I am successful, I suggest that you send in a probe. If it arrives safely, you could then send in a shuttlecraft for me, since I have no other means of exiting.”
McCoy was growing impatient and fearful as he listened. The vagueness and generality of the Vulcan’s suggestions seemed unequal to the task.
“We’ll certainly try that, Spock,” Kirk said, and McCoy heard hope in the captain’s voice. “We’ll get you out.”
“I realize,” Spock continued, “that such a plan may be unworkable. But before I can act more specifically, I must study the controls in here—if the objects on this wall before me are controls. Perhaps one of them commands the entrance to this station.”
Or perhaps not, McCoy thought, wanting to wish away his skepticism; he had seen Spock and Kirk confront and overcome too many seemingly insurmountable difficulties in the past to discount their chances of even a partial success. Still, a barrier might rise one day that could not be breached, a knot tighten that could not be loosened, an end come that could not be undone. But not now, he told himself anxiously as he watched the sun on the screen; not yet.
McCoy struggled with his doubts. Jim had spoken to his trapped friend as if summoning Lazarus forth from a tomb of fire and light. But Lazarus had come out by way of a miracle.
* * *
The waiting was nearly unbearable, but Kirk refused to count the minutes. He had ordered Sulu and Riley to be prepared to launch a probe toward the sun. He listened as Scotty reported again from engineering. There were, according to Scotty, still no signs of disturbances in the sun; Massoud confirmed the engineer’s observations.
That was good news, Kirk told himself, trying to believe it. As long as nothing changed, Spock was still safe.
“Spock to Enterprise.”
Uhura tensed at her station and adjusted her earpiece with one hand.
Kirk sat down again at his station. “Kirk here.”
“Captain, I have been unable to find anything that might be a set of controls.”
Kirk tensed. “The probe is ready, Spock. We’ve set the coordinates to follow the path by which you entered. Shall we send it in?”
“Yes. I now suspect that the warp window opens automatically to receive any vessels approaching at those coordinates.”
“It had better open,” Kirk said. “Launch the probe, Mr. Sulu.”
“Probe away,” Sulu said.
The screen showed a small object whisk away from the ship and lose itself in the glare of the sun. Long before it got close enough to be destroyed, it would enter the coordinate window, Kirk hoped, and penetrate to where Spock was trapped—if the window opened automatically. Doing it was the only way to find out if Spock was right.
“Tracking the probe, Captain,” Riley said.
Kirk sat back and waited, trying not to worry about how Spock would escape if the probe met a fiery end and a shuttle could not be sent in to get him.
“It’s penetrated the sun’s corona,” Riley added after a few moments.
“It must be inside,” Scotty said over the communicator, “since our sensors show no evidence that it’s been destroyed. If it had, by now it would be no more than vapor inside the sun’s photosphere, but there’s no sign of that.”
“But, sir,” Massoud said from his station, “isn’t it possible that it could have been destroyed beyond the reach of our sensors, somewhere inside?”
“Mr. Spock?” Kirk’s hands tightened on the arms of his chair. “Any sign of that probe at your end?”
“Scanning now, Captain.” There was a long pause before the Vulcan said, “The probe is registering on my tricorder, in an area just outside the mobile, and it appears to be undamaged.”
Kirk felt some of the tension leave his body. “Good. We’ll prepare a shuttlecraft to go in unmanned. Board it and get out of there at once.”
There was no way to foresee what complications any delay would bring. Maybe the alien portal would close permanently; maybe its mechanism would trap the probe, the shuttlecraft, and the alien mobile for good. Spock might not be able to leave, or might die in the attempt.
“I shall leave as soon as the shuttlecraft arrives,” Spock said slowly, “although it would be most interesting to stay and explore a while longer. The interior of this mobile grows more fascinating the longer I am here.”
“Is it safe, Mr. Spock?” Uhura asked.
“I see no obvious danger now, Lieutenant.”
Kirk drew his brows together. Spock did not sound like himself; he seemed distracted.
“Mr. Spock?” Kirk said firmly.
“Yes, Captain?”
There it was again—that odd bewildered tone that did not sound at all like his Vulcan friend.
“Once you’re out,” Kirk said, “we can consider going in again, although we can’t be sure the window will stay open. Do you have an idea of what keeps it open?”
“Haven’t you and Spock pushed your luck enough?” Myra Coles asked.
Kirk was almost relieved to hear the sharp, angry tone in her voice once more. “I take risks, Miss Coles. I do not push my luck. I will get Spock out, and then consider what to do based on what he has discovered.”
She sighed. “If the sun actually remains unaffected by that mobile, Captain, we’ll be a lot luckier than we deserve to be.”
“You heard Miss Coles, Spock,” Kirk said. “She has a point. Still, I imagine that Starfleet will want this sun-core station explored if the entryway remains open. Do you see anything inside the mobile that might control it?”
“I am endeavoring to find … something …”
“Spock, we’re launching the shuttlecraft. You have only as much time as it takes to arrive.”
Spock had again sounded disoriented. Kirk tapped his fingers on his armrests, then said, “Be ready as soon as it’s inside. Board it at once—any more investigation will have to wait until another time. Is that clear?”
There was no answer.
“Spock? Answer me!”
“The channel is wide open,” Uhura said. “It’s just … it’s almost as if there’s no one at the other end.” Her fingers danced across her console. “Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock, can you hear me?”
“Spock!” Kirk shouted, afraid suddenly that his first officer might have lost consciousness and was lying there, unable to communicate. Perhaps the alien controls had protective mechanisms rigged to injure anyone who tried to manipulate them. He might be severely hurt, or even dead.
“Spock, answer,” Kirk said more softly as he stood up. “Spock? Spock!”
He waited for his friend to respond.
“Hold the shuttlecraft,” Kirk said at last, sitting down again. “It won’t do him any good if he can’t get inside.”
He considered what to do next.
“Shuttlecraft holding,” Scotty said.
The bridge was silent, waiting for his next order.
“Do we send the craft, Captain?” Scotty asked, “or keep holding?”
“No—shut it down,” Kirk said.