Chapter Twenty

A pair of security guards were waiting at the cabin marked “Ilia, Lt. (NAV) 07719.” Spock’s eyebrow came up on seeing the name on the door. Kirk had learned from Chekov’s panel that Intruder alert was in from their former navigator’s quarters, and this had prompted him to leave Decker behind at the conn.

One of the security men had an identity sensor trained on the door. Its tiny monitor was displaying digital readings: 165 . . . 160 . . . 155 . . .

“Whatever’s in there was white-hot only a few minutes ago,” said a security officer.

“Fascinating,” said Spock. Kirk nodded, aware that the Vulcan referred to the fact that neither smoke nor flame alarms had been triggered in there. And since a flare of temperatures that high should have caused something to burn, the aliens who had taken Lieutenant Ilia from them must have sent over something unusual to her cabin. Whatever it might be it was no place for Will Decker, who had reacted with such anguish at the Deltan navigator’s disappearance.

Other security details were hurrying in to close off bulkheads and handle the other “Intruder alert” routines. Kirk motioned to one guard to accompany himself and Spock.

“No weapons,” he cautioned.

Kirk cracked the door open slowly until they could peer into what seemed to be an empty cabin. As he expected, there was no sign of the frightening plasma-energy probe. The alien certainly realized by now that it was the wrong kind of device for an investigation of the Enterprise crew.

Spock was indicating the guard’s identity-sensor readouts. Whatever was in the cabin, its temperature had dropped to thirty-eight degrees and was beginning to hold steady near that temperature.

As they moved carefully in through the door, Kirk could make out a faint scent of Ilia still lingering in the fabric of her lounge-bed.

“The heat source is in the sonic shower,” said Spock.

“What the hell?” Kirk spun quickly toward the cabin’s dressing alcove. Through the transparent door of the hydrosonic shower he saw something moving. It was definitely a body—looking very human, or Deltan. The heat they had read in there? Some malfunction in the sonic cubicle? Or had something been cooling itself down to normal Enterprise temperatures there?

Then whatever it was, it moved closer to the transparent door. It was unmistakably a naked female!

Kirk stepped to the cabin’s master control panel, touched the sonics door switch—the transparency slid open. It was Ilia! Lovely, almost unbearably lovely in her nudity! Then Kirk felt a warning touch from Spock.

“This is not our navigator,” Spock said quietly.

But it almost certainly was Ilia—except that there was some sort of a glowing light from the throat. . . . Kirk found his eyes shifting from the tiny light glow to what seemed impossibly lovely, hard-tipped breasts, which were at this moment swinging around to point directly at him . . . damn! It had to be Deltan pheromones that were doing this to him! This meant Spock was wrong. She had to be Ilia!

“Ensign,” said Kirk, “get Dr. McCoy up here fast.”

It took the young security officer a moment to force his eyes away from the Deltan nakedness. Kirk knew how difficult it was. He had just realized that the pointing of those two breasts toward himself had simply meant that she was turning to look toward them. The eyes! They seemed devoid of living warmth! Was this, somehow, Ilia’s dead body? A corpse, reanimated and controlled by the aliens?

Kirk’s direction of thought was bringing his attention back to her naked body as he stepped toward her in the sonics cubicle. Her cold eyes followed his movements as he punched in a dress code, then slid the transparent door closed long enough for a leisure robe to form over her nakedness.

What was the look Spock had given him? Amusement or pity?Apparently, Deltan pheromones created no sensual excitement in the Vulcan; otherwise he would understand the wisdom of putting some garment on her. The transparent door slid open again and the Deltan form spoke.

“Yurathirkunit?

Kirk saw Spock cock an ear as if half-understanding. The voice came out . . . unpracticed? Like something mechanical trying to sound alive?

“You . . . are . . . the . . . Kirk . . . unit?”

“Remarkable,” said Spock. “It learns very fast.”

“I am Captain James T. Kirk, commanding U.S.S. Enterprise,” Kirk replied, feeling somewhat foolish saying this to what looked like his own navigator. Was Ilia really this incredibly sensuous?

“I have been programmed to observe and record normal functions of the carbon-based units infesting U.S.S. Enterprise.”

“Programmed by whom?” asked Kirk. “It is important we communicate with them.”

The probe seemed puzzled. “If you require a designation, I was programmed by Vejur.” Its voice was becoming more understandable, taking on some of their navigator’s throaty Deltan vocal tone. The Vulcan was watching it in absolute fascination. But it was intellectual fascination—the Deltan scents were clearly wasted on Vulcans.

“Who is Vejur?” Kirk asked.

“Vejur is that which programmed me.”

“Are you referring to someone in that larger vessel out there? The captain? Or the leader of whoever is aboard it?”

The door opened and McCoy rushed in. “Jim, what’s—?” McCoy’s trained eye took her in for only a moment before his medical tricorder came out fast and he began a scan of the female form.

“Who is Vejur?” Kirk repeated.

“Vejur is that which seeks the Creator.”

Kirk had difficulty believing that his ears had heard correctly. The Creator? The considerable astonishment on Spock’s features said he must have heard these same words, too.

“Jim—this is a mechanism.” It was McCoy, indicating “Ilia.”

Kirk stared at the ship’s doctor. This Deltan female form, as far as his eyes could tell, looked exactly real. It had reacted with Deltan sensuality and sexuality by releasing pheromones—and Kirk knew that both he and the security ensign could testify to their reality.

Spock was making his own scan with the doctor’s tricorder. “I believe this form replaces the plasma-energy probe which had been sent to examine our vessel, Captain. It may even be the same probe using the Ilia-pattern it carried back with it . . . ”

Kirk turned to the female form, making his question a demand: “Where is Lieutenant Ilia”?

“That unit no longer functions.” The mechanism’s tone sounded factual. “I have been given its form to more readily communicate with the carbon-based units infesting Enterprise.”

“Carbon-based units?” the security guard said, feeling some ominous undertone.

“Humans, Ensign Chavez,” McCoy said dryly. “Us.”

One of Spock’s eyebrows had raised at the probe’s use of the word “infesting.” He seemed to find it interesting, but Kirk had a more pressing question which must come first.

“Vejur’s ship,” Kirk asked, “why does it travel in toward the third planet of the solar system directly ahead?”

“Vejur travels to the third planet to find the Creator.”

It stunned them. Whatever Vejur might be, some single great entity or an entire alien race, it was simply impossible that anything capable of that vessel’s technology could believe that Earth was the location of anything that could be called “Creator.”

Kirk tried to pursue it sensibly. “What is the Creator?” he asked.

“That which creates,” answered the “Ilia” probe. The mechanical sound in its voice was almost gone—it also seemed to move more gracefully, as if becoming accustomed to the use of the various mechanisms making up its “body.”

“What does Vejur want of the Creator?”

“To join with Him.”

“Join with the Creator?” Spock asked. “How?”

“Vejur and the Creator will become One.”

“What does the Creator create?” asked Spock.

“The Creator is that which created Vejur,” the “Ilia” probe was saying.

This perfectly circular logic suggested that there might be some considerable communications gulf between them and Vejur—it might be difficult, perhaps impossible, to share common concepts or values. This probe had been sent to study them, and it seemed likely to Kirk that any findings accumulated here might be totally uncomprehensible to whatever sent the probe.

“Who is Vejur?”Kirk asked again.

“Vejur is that which seeks the Creator.”

Kirk wondered if this might not be the literal truth. The life forms over there were likely to be as advanced as their enormous vessel. Or their probes. What better use of their knowledge and technology than to seek the source of themselves and the universe? Kirk could accept that as philosophically noble and even proper—but he also knew that nothing definable as “Creator” would be found on that very ordinary planet ahead. And what might happen to that very ordinary world if the crew of that gigantic vessel felt disappointed with it?

The “Ilia” probe had apparently waited long enough. “I am ready to commence my observations,” it said.

“Doctor,” said Spock quickly, “a thorough examination of this probe might provide insight into those who manufactured it and how to communicate with them.”

McCoy agreed, nodding as he took an “Ilia” arm to escort it out. He was spun around off balance—the gentle tug on its arm had been like trying to pull a building after him. It ignored McCoy, addressed Kirk. “I am programmed to observe and record normal functioning procedures of the carbon-based units.”

“The examination is a normal function,” Kirk said with his old resourcefulness.

The “Ilia” probe considered it a moment. “You may proceed,” it said.

The examining room medical viewer was showing the probe’s “Ilia” body in near-transparent detail while console monitors revealed closer details. McCoy was muttering in amazement as he ran a scanner over the probe’s form. “ . . . micro-miniature hydraulics, sensors, molecule-sized multi-processor chips . . . and look at this. . . .”

Chapel was equally amazed. “An osmotic micro-pump here, and here,” she pointed out. “The smallest body functions are exactly duplicated, including the Deltan exocrine system.” She traced with her finger on the screen, indicating the extent of these mechanical replications of Ilia’s body.

Kirk’s thoughts had already moved on. He was no longer questioning how Vejur had built this probe, but why. Why did it need such minute perfection? What use would a probe have for, say, the sexually stimulating pheromones, secreting subliminal scents. . . . He interrupted his thoughts, cursing inwardly, as he felt a warm wave of sexual desire. Damn! Then he realized that the machine was doing something very Deltan and female at this moment. Decker had just entered the examining room and a surge of pheromones must have been released as he stepped through the door.

Chapel broke off her micro-scan comments as she saw the look on Decker’s face as he stepped up to the examining table. It reflected the kind of horror Kirk had felt when he wondered if the aliens were making use of Ilia’s dead body. The Ilia mechanism was peering back at Decker with what seemed to be recognition.

“Will . . . ” Kirk started to say.

“I’ve been . . . told,” interrupted Decker. Kirk could feel the effort it was costing the young exec to stand there looking down at this exact replica of the woman he had loved.

“Deck—er,” the probe said.

Kirk saw it jolt Decker. It also seemed to register with Spock, as if confirming something he had suspected.

“Interesting,” Spock said to the probe. “Not Decker-unit?”

But the mechanism ignored them all as it continued to peer at Decker. It was the first time its expression had looked anything but factual and bland.

As McCoy began another scan, turning “Ilia” away from them, Spock caught Kirk’s and Decker’s attention. He drew them out the adjoining door into McCoy’s new office and touched the locking mechanism on the door behind them.

The Vulcan faced them gravely. “Captain Kirk, Mr. Decker, this probe may be our key to the aliens.”

Decker was remembering how it had looked at him. The exactness was almost unbearable. He had to keep remembering that thing is not her—it is part of what killed Ilia!

“We have just seen that its body duplicates our navigator in precise detail. Suppose,” Spock continued, “that beneath its programming the real Ilia’s memory patterns are duplicated with equal precision?”

“They had a pattern to follow . . . ” Kirk nodded; he had seen the implications himself.

“ . . . and they may have followed it too precisely,” said Spock. Then: “Do you understand the significance of this, Mr. Decker?”

Decker nodded, wishing there was some way that he could have been left out of this.

“The exactness of the duplication suggests interesting possibilities,” said Spock. “It recognized you, Mr. Decker. It also reacted to you . . . ”

“Which means they read some of Ilia’s thoughts before she died . . . ” began Decker.

Spock interrupted. “I believe it entirely possible, Mr. Decker, that they may have duplicated our navigator so exactly in every detail that the probe may possibly contain the original’s memory patterns! Perhaps all of them.”

Kirk forced himself to ignore the fact of Decker’s grief. “Commander, we are locked in an alien vessel, less than half a day from Earth orbit; our only contact with our captors is that probe. If we can control it, persuade it, use it or get control of it in any way . . . ”

Kirk hesitated, struck with the thought that his own experience might be superior in this area, too. Unlike Decker, he had no emotional attachment to the Deltan navigator—and a mechanical replica of the navigator’s body would mean even less to him. But even as Kirk was telling himself this, he realized that the question here was not technique. It must be Decker for the simple reason that the real Ilia had loved this young man—sexual technique always came out a poor runner-up in any race with love.

Kirk turned at a sound. It was only someone trying to open the locked door behind them—but this was followed by the screech of metal-ripping and they whirled to see a slim hand tearing the dura-steel door open like paper!

The Ilia-probe stepped through the jagged rip in the door, its face absolutely impassive. A startled McCoy came into sight, trailed by Chapel and Chekov. “I have recorded enough here,” the Ilia-probe said. “The Kirk-unit will now assist me further.”

“The Decker unit can assist you with much greater efficiency,” said Kirk firmly.

The probe’s eyes turned and held onto Decker for a moment—then it nodded.

“Carry on with your assignment, Mr. Decker,” Kirk said. He hoped that Decker would understand why it was necessary to order him to do this.

Decker’s eyes traveled to the door, ripped raggedly open, then back to the probe. Kirk would have forgiven him had he said, “I’m supposed to persuade that?”But instead Decker simply replied, “Aye, sir.” Then he went out with the Thing.

Kirk turned to find Spock looking troubled. The Vulcan had come aboard with a mask of utter impassivity, but events had been ripping powerfully at it. “Spock?” Kirk asked.

“I am uneasy with this being our only hope of dealing with the Intruders.” For a second the Vulcan’s words hung in the air. Then he seemed to pull his mask back into place and left.

Kirk started to call after him. But, no; he had to trust his people to know their own jobs and do them. Whatever Spock had meant by that statement, Kirk would know at the appropriate time.