“SOMETHING’S INSIDE OUR SUN,” Myra Coles said, “and not just that mobile, but an entire alien facility apparently designed to service it, with a technology far more sophisticated than ours. Yet you say that we’re in no danger.”
“None that we can discern.” Kirk rested his hands on the table. “They assured us of this.”
Her eyes widened in disbelief. “Can we believe them?”
The Tyrtaean leader had seemed almost as eager as his crew to welcome Kirk and his two fellow officers back to the Enterprise. He had given everyone on the bridge a brief summary of what they had discovered inside the sun, and described their encounter with the aliens. Myra had not objected when he ordered everyone who had been on duty to get some rest; she had even smiled at him before leaving the bridge with her aide.
“and not just that mobile, but an entire alien technology far more sophisticated than ours. Yet
Then she had requested a meeting with him after he had been awake less than an hour, before he could even begin entering a full report of the incident in his captain’s log. She had been waiting for him here in the briefing room with Wellesley Warren, when he and Spock arrived.
Well, he told himself, he should have known that her momentary warmth and friendliness wouldn’t last. Her obligations to her people were pressing in on her again.
Spock said, “We accepted the assurances we were given, Miss Coles, but we did not do so blindly. A deep scan of your sun reveals no evidence of any danger. In fact, after comparing this scan with our other records of this sun’s activity, even solar flares seem to have declined in frequency and duration. In fact, your sun seems more stable than ever.”
“But what about the long term?” Myra Coles looked from Spock to Yeoman Rand, who was sitting at Kirk’s left, then focused her gray eyes on Kirk.
“There may be problems with any star over the long run,” Kirk said.
“Based on what we have seen,” Spock added, “it would be a mistake to ascribe any future increase in solar activity to the presence of the alien mobile. Since the station may have been there for some time without altering your sun’s activity, we can infer that it is not likely to do so in the foreseeable future. In fact, it may have been beneficial, and may continue to be so.”
The woman let out her breath. “So what now, James—Captain? Are we to share our system with this alien artifact, embedded in our sun?”
Kirk glanced at Spock.
“The question is academic,” the Vulcan said, “since we are unlikely to be able to do anything about it. Our fears about the alien mobile appear to have been groundless.”
Myra Coles shook her head. “They may not be hostile now. What’s to stop them from turning on us especially if they feel threatened again? I don’t know if this is going to draw our malcontents closer to the Federation, or drive them even further from it. On the one hand, we could argue that if there is a possible threat, we may need Starfleet and the Federation to defend us later. On the other hand, this may bring even more people to join with the anti-Federationists in demanding an independent colony in another system, since they will surely believe we’d be safer somewhere else. We certainly won’t have any political stability on Tyrtaeus II for a while. Aristocles made that very clear in his latest subspace message.” She looked down for a moment. “And all I can do is keep insisting that there’s little reason for the aliens to be hostile, and every reason to assume that all they want is to be left to themselves. Maybe that message will get through if I insist on it long enough and the aliens don’t do anything to cast doubt on it. They’re not so different from us that way, wanting to be left alone.”
Spock nodded. “Indeed. That is an observation that should carry some force with your people.”
“Still, we can’t be certain that there will never be any danger to our world.”
Spock leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table top. “Certainty is not to be had about anything, Miss Coles. But I am as certain as is possible under these circumstances. What happened may be easily summarized.” He paused.
“Please continue, Mr. Spock,” Wellesley Warren said. “For the record.”
“By attempting to explore the mobile, we stimulated its defensive programs, which are run by a very advanced artificial intelligence that has given up on changing the given universe. Instead, it has achieved the experience of omnipotence, by linking the output of its minds to the AI input. This culture does not crave the secrets of a transcendent universe, which can never be unraveled because one cannot reach the end of a standing infinity—that is what they believe our universe to be. But do not misunderstand—they know enough about the physical universe to attain what they wish.”
“Mr. Spock—” Myra Coles began.
Spock glanced briefly in her direction, but continued: “A culture that has withdrawn into virtual worlds must, by its very nature, be shy and secretive, and protective of its security. It was apparently time for this one to renew its energy resources when we came along, so it began its journey toward the Tyrtaean sun, which alerted us that it was not a natural object. It became clear to them when we tried to contact them that they might become an object of study, so their defensive systems went into action.”
“Then we can’t make any overtures of friendship to them?” Wellesley Warren asked.
“I think not,” Spock replied. ‘They would be rejected. There will be no exchange of embassies.”
Myra Coles fidgeted, tapping her fingers against the table top; her face betrayed her agitation.
“Then from what you say,” Wellesley Warren went on, “we must tolerate them here, in our home system, and never learn anything more about them. Live and let live. Well, we Tyrtaeans, of all people, have to respect that.”
Spock nodded. “To repeat, nothing can be done about it.”
The Tyrtaean man sighed. “And we can’t protest to them, obviously.”
“Perhaps they also originated in this system,” Spock said. Kirk thought that extremely doubtful, but kept his doubts to himself. “If so, they have as much right to live in it as you do—perhaps more of a right. It seems clear, however, that they are willing to share it with you.”
“As long as they keep to themselves,” Myra Coles murmured, “and allow us to do the same, we can hardly object to that. But I’d feel a lot better if we could know for sure that they would never become a threat.”
“Miss Coles,” Spock said, “I have more reasons than I have given thus far for assuming that the aliens of the mobile are no threat to any of us now.” He cast a sidelong glance at Kirk. There was something in the Vulcan’s eyes that Kirk had not seen before. Anger? Concern? Chagrin? But Spock would not have such feelings; he certainly would never acknowledge them.
“These reasons are as follows,” Spock continued. “Had the aliens spoken only to me, they might still have felt threatened, and might still have considered taking some sort of strong action against us—not because they suspected any violent intent on my part, but because they had learned that my curiosity had motivated me to take a great risk. They had seen earlier that a team from the Enterprise entered their habitat for the sole purpose of exploring the unknown. To protect themselves, they might then have decided to destroy anyone else who could have led others to them. They might have believed that our curiosity outweighed everything else, and therefore that it posed a great danger to their safety. But they did nothing.”
Kirk sat back in his chair. He had known from the beginning that there were risks in exploring the mobile; he had not wanted to dwell on how high the stakes might be.
“I believe,” Spock went on, “that it was the arrival of Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy that caused the aliens to revise their judgment of us. The captain and the doctor came there, not out of curiosity, or because they were following orders, but to find their friend. The aliens learned that, for us, other things could outweigh curiosity, and in a much more effective way than if I had simply insisted on that fact. I think that may be one reason they decided to let us go.”
Kirk was struck by Spock’s words. It probably irritated him, Kirk thought, to admit openly that both logic and human feeling, and not reason alone, might have been required to free him from the mobile.
“Still,” Wellesley Warren said, “there’s a lot to be curious about, and much the aliens could show us. Yes, we do have to leave them be, but there’s so much we could learn from them.”
“Perhaps they can teach us something anyway,” Myra Coles said, a pensive look on her face. “Here is a race that has turned so far inward that they haven’t just cut themselves off from other intelligences, they’ve also retreated from the universe around them. Their kind of isolation is a prison, in a way. All that power, and what have they used it for? To shut themselves up, to be even more fearful of the outside whenever it intrudes on them. Maybe we should see their example as a warning.”
“I wouldn’t mind asking them some questions,” Wellesley Warren said, “before they retreat into their isolation completely.”
“Nor would I,” Spock said, “but at the moment, we have no direct communications with the mobile.”
“And we must abide by the promise we made to them,” Kirk added, “to recommend to Starfleet and the Federation Council that all contact with these aliens be prohibited, at least for now, while leaving us open to contact with them later, if they choose.”
“Of course, but I fear that may not work,” Myra Coles said. “Curiosity drew you. It will attract others. I don’t know if the Federation Council will agree to such a ban. Even if they do, some individuals will try to violate it, if the word gets out. I wonder how that will affect my people. Tyrtaeus II would be a natural base for anyone who wants to investigate the mobile. And I doubt that only Federation members will be interested. The Romulans might decide that the potential of this alien technology is worth violating a treaty and crossing the Neutral Zone to this system.”
That thought had already crossed Kirk’s mind. “We’re pledged to defend Tyrtaeus II,” he said. “This doesn’t change that—it just gives us another reason to honor that promise.”
She gazed directly at him. “In any case, I will now have to go back and tell Aristocles and my people that we must live with this predicament. Some, perhaps most, will believe that we provoked this situation and that the aliens may show future hostilities toward us as a result. Others will, with some justification, fear a Romulan incursion into our space. They will look for someone to blame.”
“But—” Kirk searched for something to say as he realized that this might be the end of everything for Myra—her position, her career, perhaps her life. Janice Rand gazed at the Tyrtaean woman, sympathy in her eyes. “I’ll do everything I can to help you,” Kirk said, hearing how useless that sounded. “When your people see my full report, they’ll know that, if anything, you were trying to be extremely cautious. We can appeal—”
“Bridge to Captain Kirk,” Sulu’s voice said over the intercom.
Kirk leaned toward the small screen in front of him. “Kirk here.”
Sulu said, “We’re reading some activity in the sun, sir.”
Kirk got to his feet. ‘I’ll be right there.” His stomach clenched as he imagined that Myra Coles’s fears might be realized, and that the mobile’s presence had indeed affected the star. He glanced across the table as he started toward the door, with Spock just ahead of him. Myra Coles stared after him with her lips pressed tightly together; her expression seemed a mixture of bitter satisfaction at having been right after all and uncertainty and fear about what might happen now.
* * *
Spock was out of the lift and hastening toward his station, where Ali Massoud and Cathe Tekakwitha awaited him, as Kirk hurried to his station. McCoy stood near it, his face flushed; he had obviously hurried to the bridge from sick bay.
“Any change?” Kirk asked as he sat down behind Sulu and Riley.
“None, Captain,” Riley replied.
“Something’s moving inside the sun,” Massoud said. “That much we know. Deep scanning of the sun now.”
The turbolift door whispered open again. Janice Rand came toward Kirk’s station, followed by Myra Coles and her aide.
“I believe I know what may be happening,” Spock said.
Kirk turned in his chair to see Spock peering at his instruments. “What?”
Spock looked up for a moment. “The alien mobile is about to emerge from the sun.”
“Put it up on the viewscreen,” Kirk ordered, facing forward.
The sun’s glare suddenly filled the bridge with filtered light. The screen pulled in on a tiny black dot on the sun’s equator. The dot swelled as it fled from the star.
“It’s accelerating,” Spock said. “Deep scan of the sun reveals that the sun-core station is collapsing at this very moment.”
Myra Coles clasped her hands together.
“It’s gone, Captain,” Spock said, “and with scarcely a ripple showing anywhere in the sun.”
“Almost as if it were never there at all,” McCoy murmured at Kirk’s side.
“Incredible,” Myra Coles said, sounding both disappointed and relieved at the same time. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it myself.”
“Indeed,” Spock responded. “I now conclude that the sun-core station was merely a temporary structure, opened solely for the replenishing of the mobile’s energy.”
“Amazing,” Wellesley Warren said. “What power they must have!”
Kirk thought of what Spock had said in the briefing room, and knew what he would have to do now to prove to the aliens that they were safe from interference; there were many ways to show one’s friendship and good will. He glanced toward the Vulcan for a moment. Spock was looking back at him with an expression that said: I know what you will do, Captain, and I know why.
* * *
McCoy saw the conspiratorial look on Jim Kirk’s face as he looked toward Spock, and wondered what the captain would do now. “Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said, turning around and leaning forward in his command chair, “make speed to pursue.”
“I agree,” Spock said from his station. “We must follow them as far as we can.”
Insanity, McCoy thought, and that Vulcan was going along with it. He glanced at the Coles woman, who was clearly sharing his doubts; her eyes were wide with bewilderment.
McCoy moved closer to the captain. “Jim,” he said in a low voice, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Kirk looked up at him. “Yes, Bones, I do. Right now, it seems like a good idea to follow the mobile and see where it’s heading.”
“And to finally provoke it into a hostile response? Shouldn’t we leave well enough alone?”
“We have no evidence that the aliens will engage in any hostile action.” Kirk turned toward the viewscreen. “In fact, we never had any such evidence.”
“But Spock admitted—” Myra Coles began, then paused. “He said that your actions were responsible for awakening its defensive systems.”
“Which have been quite benign,” Kirk said, “and have treated our attempts at contact with some consideration. They could have acted against us with devastating force—they clearly have the technology to do so. They haven’t. They don’t have to.”
“They haven’t yet,” the Tyrtaean woman said softly. McCoy waited for her to say more, but she was silent. She would be thinking that Jim Kirk was again playing with the lives of an entire solar system. McCoy could only hope that she was wrong—that they were both mistaken.
* * *
“Captain,” Myra Coles said, “are you actually going to try to catch them?”
Kirk was about to answer when Spock said, “We shall keep pace at a discreet distance.”
Kirk heard Spock’s statement with some surprise. His words were directed at the Tyrtaeans and smacked of diplomacy on the Vulcan’s part; or was it simply his usual rational caution? Spock would want to follow the mobile out of his natural curiosity, but his logical mind would also urge him to be prudent.
“Still accelerating,” Sulu said.
“Keep up with it,” Kirk replied.
“They’re going to warp one,” Riley said.
“Keep up,” Kirk said.
“Warp one point one!” Sulu called out, clearly unable to contain the excitement in his voice. “It’s going to go to warp two, Captain.”
Kirk suddenly had an inkling of what was going to happen. “Pursue, Mister Sulu.”
“Aye, aye, Captain. Now at warp two.”
“James,” Myra Coles asked, “why are we in pursuit?”
He glanced up at the Tyrtaean leader and said, “It’s not really pursuit, since we don’t aim to catch them.”
“Then what is it?” Myra demanded.
Kirk shrugged. “We’re … observing.”
“Warp three,” Sulu said.
On the screen, the alien was fleeing with an ever-increasing velocity, yet it seemed stately and relaxed to Kirk, as if hardly straining.
“Jim, what are you doing?” McCoy muttered.
“Spock,” Kirk said, “are you still thinking what I am?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“Warp four,” Sulu announced.
Kirk gazed at the viewscreen, thinking about the alien culture cradled in the mobile. As an old poem said—but he couldn’t quite remember the words—these people had remade their world nearer to their heart’s desire. But had they truly done so? From what he had seen, the outward safety of their culture was secured, was being even further secured as the mobile fled. But what had they lost, in turning away from an intractable universe? Was the real universe to be preferred to a great, creative, inward life? Spock would have some views about that.
“Warp five!” Sulu shouted.
“And they’re still way out in front of us,” Riley said.
Kirk thought of the alien panel in the domed oval chamber against which he had pressed his palm. It had to be a durable matrix of some kind, to contain a virtual plenum woven of mind designs. Outwardly, the panel wall seemed to be nothing much at all, but in the flow of electrons, deep down among the quanta, minds reveled with power over their desires …
“Warp six, Captain,” Sulu said.
“Continue, Mister Sulu.” Kirk sat back, watching the universe rush by the Enterprise. How did that poem go?
“Seven!” Sulu said.
“Eight!”
“Continue in pursuit.”
“Nine!” Sulu shouted.
“Engineering to bridge!” Scotty’s voice called out over the communicator.
“Kirk here.”
“What in blazes is going on up there, Captain? We’ll start to break up at just past ten!”
“I know what I’m doing, Scotty.”
“I hope so,” the engineer muttered.
“Ten, Captain!” Sulu’s voice rose. “They’re at warp ten!”
“Take it to ten and hold, Mister Sulu.”
“Holding steady, sir.”
For a long time, there was silence on the bridge. Kirk watched the mobile on the screen. The alien was holding at warp ten, almost as if it was reluctant to insult the Enterprise. The poem that he was trying to recall refused to come back to him.
Then the mobile began to shrink against the blackness of space and stars.
“It’s going to eleven,” Sulu said in a cracking voice. “Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. Fifteen—Captain, it’s way off our scale!”
And then it was gone—leaving only the usual warp of space rushing by the ship. Warp ten suddenly seemed slow to Kirk.
As he gazed with awe and admiration at the empty screen, he imagined the alien mobile riding a wave of immense nonEinsteinian velocity, doing what his beloved Enterprise could not do and would never be able to do—go anywhere in the universe, touch any star. Yet those who traveled inside it had turned inward, into themselves, and all the vast outwardness of the cosmos was to them only a cloak for their dream-life.
“Plot its course,” Kirk called out.
“Somewhere toward the center of the galaxy,” Riley replied. “Course untraceable.”
“Reduce speed,” Kirk said as he sat back. “Return course to Tyrtaeus II.”
“Captain,” Scotty said from engineering, “it was a marvel! I wouldn’t even call what they have warp engines. They were literally rolling up the universe before them like a carpet!”
“Advanced warp engines,” Kirk said. “We’ll have them one day.”
“Don’t try to console me, Captain,” Scotty said. “I know my betters when I see them, and they were a glory to behold!”
“Yes,” Kirk said. “It’s what you can do with the power of a sun to send you on your way.”
Myra Coles was looking at him wonderingly. “And what, may I ask, did that chase prove?” she asked.
Kirk glanced aft. “Mr. Spock?” he said. “Perhaps you should answer Miss Coles’s question.”
Spock left his post and came to stand at Kirk’s right. Sulu and Riley turned at their forward stations to look at the Vulcan; Uhura turned around at her station. McCoy frowned at Kirk’s left, as if ready to take issue with anything Spock said.
“Gladly, Captain,” Spock said. “The captain suspected, as did I, that the people of the alien mobile wished to make sure of their privacy and safety, and there was only one way for them to do that—by leaving this system in a manner that would preclude our following them. They would have been extremely trusting, even foolish, to rely only on our pledge that they would be left to continue their lives in peace. And the Federation would have had the added burden of forbidding all contact with the mobile and enforcing that injunction, as it did with Talos IV—although I think the two cases are somewhat different. …”
“But why did the captain pursue them?” Wellesley Warren asked impatiently.
“I’ll answer that myself,” Kirk said. “There were two aims to be accomplished. The first was to see what the mobile could do, to know firsthand what kind of science and technology we were facing. Second, to show the alien mobile that we could not catch them, that they could protect themselves from us by escaping from us completely. Otherwise, they might reasonably have had doubts about their security.”
“You thought of all of that?” the Tyrtaean leader asked, with a hint of newfound respect in her voice. “But what if you had been able to catch them?
Were you so sure that you couldn’t?”
Kirk nodded. “I suspected that we couldn’t catch them, but I wasn’t completely certain. Would you have preferred for us to leave a doubt in their minds, to have them always wondering whether we could go out and find them? I was prepared to slow down and show an ‘inability’ to catch them, if it had become necessary.”
Myra Coles sighed and nodded. “You’re right. With that level of science and technology, they could have done whatever they wished with us, if they felt sufficiently threatened. I must admit it—what you’ve done has probably ensured the safety of my people. The aliens have learned that we are willing to let them be, but also that we lack the capacity to go after them. They are safe, too.”
Kirk could not help smiling. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”
She tilted her head. “So in effect, their parting message to us is, we have our lives and you have yours. Good-bye.”
“I couldn’t have said it better,” Kirk said, meeting her open gaze and realizing that she was telling him the same thing on behalf of herself and her own world.
“Well, I say good riddance,” McCoy said.
Kirk paid no attention to the comment. He wanted to tell Myra that Federation colonies had to be competitive, suspicious, even for a time inward-looking and isolationist, in order to grow, to develop the cultural and biological individualities that human and humanoid life spreading across the star systems of the galaxy might one day need to keep their cultures vital. In that sense, the Tyrtaean antiFederationists were right, but they did not need a complete break to achieve their ends; the Federation was willing to leave its member worlds alone. Myra might call his words Federation paternalism, and mock him for his show of generosity, even though she clearly believed the same thing herself. He would say that in the short term it might seem like paternalism, but in the long term it meant survival and growth … and she would say that words were cheap … and he would tell her fervently that he believed every word of the Federation’s ideals … and she would look into his eyes and know it was right and true. …
But instead of the exchange of words and feelings that might have been in the duet he wished for, Kirk said, “I understand. The future of the Federation depends on its colonies and member worlds, Miss Coles.”
Myra Coles smiled at his formality. “Yes, Captain, of course.”