Chapter Twenty-One

The blue-white bulk of U.S.S. Enterprise would sometimes almost disappear in the darkness, then be lit again by the flares of energy patterns which continued to erupt and die away, performing whatever their function was in the vast Intruder vessel. The starship’s running lights seemed impossibly tiny and her blue thrusters insignificant as they flared briefly in station-keeping.

A tiny sphere emerged from the Enterprise’s saucer hull—it moved toward the point on the Intruder’s inner wall where it had opened to allow the tractor beam to bring Enterprise inside her. It was a message launch, an attempt to break outside to where its signal could warn Starfleet of the nature of the huge alien Intruder vessel and of what little they had learned of its crews’ interests in Earth. But as the tiny message device came near the giant vessel’s inner wall, its path was abruptly blocked by a glittering swarm of what appeared to be tiny sheets of energy. Then they hardened into solid crystal shapes which swarmed over crushing the tiny sphere, crushing it and sweeping out of sight with its remains.

Sulu swore under his breath in old English, a language which could provide satisfying vulgarities when needed. It was the third attempt at a message launch—all had been destroyed in this fashion.

Spock came onto the bridge in time to see the message device crushed. A great power display had then flashed into existence and hit the ship’s forcefields hard, shaking the vessel and throwing Spock against the bridge railing.

“I’d say someone’s warning us to stop launching probes,” said the chief engineer’s voice from the intercom. “That time it took reserve power to keep our shields up.”

“Understood, Mr. Scott,” Sulu answered. “We’re finished launching for now.”

Chekov was at the science console, rising to yield it, but Spock motioned him back. “That will not be necessary, Mr. Chekov. I shall be only a moment here.”

Spock leaned over, his long fingers playing rapidly over the controls. It appeared to Chekov that the Vulcan was cuing some sort of security log channel. Then Spock left the bridge.

McCoy came into the captain’s cabin and stood eyeing Kirk for a moment.

“In case you’re interested, the ship’s doctor has finally logged James Tiberius Kirk as the new captain.”

Kirk looked up, surprised.

McCoy sat down. “Welcome back, Jim. I like you better than the Kirk who was here when I came aboard.”

“Thank you, Bones. What convinced you I’m back?”

“Your assigning Decker to deal with the Ilia-probe.”

McCoy had guessed that Kirk would be challenged by the unusual mechanical femaleness of the probe. Kirk, in turn, was pleased the doctor noticed that he had handled the matter solely as a command decision, without . . . well, almost without vanity. But he still felt uncomfortable as he remembered how alive and desirable that body had looked standing nude in the dressing room cubicle.

“I was about to check if Decker was making any progress?” said Kirk.

He reached for the cabin monitor switch, reminding himself again that this was not Decker’s private life that he was intruding on. And Decker’s companion was not a woman; it was an alien machine-thing. Kirk keyed in Decker’s identity pattern and the tracer located him bringing the probe onto the ship’s huge recreational deck.

If Kirk had fed in Spock’s identity pattern, he would have seen his Vulcan science officer in the midst of quietly entering one of the vessel’s emergency airlock stations. Moving with perfect stealth, he was coming up soundlessly behind the technician on duty there. Then the Vulcan closed his fingers in a Vulcan neck pinch and the technician slumped. Spock gently eased the unconscious form down to the deck.

“What are these, Decker?”

Decker turned, hopefully. The probe had used his name again, and this was the first time it had taken an interest in any ship’s area he had shown it.

The Rec Deck was empty of crew except for two wary security guards who kept a discreet distance. The Ilia-probe was looking at the decorative illustrations which showed vessels from a nineteenth-century sail frigate to the original version of this present starship.

“All of these vessels were called Enterprise,” said Decker.

The probe continued its interest in the illustrations, which also depicted a sea carrier of winged aircraft, NASA’s first orbiter model, and a very early kind of starship.

“Our navigator, Ilia . . . the carbon unit whose form you’ve taken, she was very interested in the history of humanity getting into space. Her own race had the knowledge to do it long ago but they decided to instead concentrate on what might be called inner space.”

The probe’s attention had been positively riveted on the displays, and it was giving a look of interest to Decker too. He hoped he had its attention now—it was important that he somehow get the mechanism to associate itself with the real Ilia and begin to explore any of her memory patterns which had been duplicated in the probe.

“Ilia’s race, the Deltans, are highly evolved in ways of finding adventure and gratification within themselves,” continued Decker. “But Ilia still felt the challenge of space. Her people said she was following a heartcall meaning that space interested her because someone she loved also was . . . ”

The probe turned and was walking off; Decker had no choice but to follow.

It even walks like Ilia! But this is a machine—maybe even the one that killed her! However real it looks, it is not flesh. It is not alive . . . and it is definitely not Ilia!

“The carbon-based units use this area for recreation. What type of recreation does your vessel’s crew enjoy?”

“Rec-recreation? Enjoy? Those words have no meaning to my programming.”

Jim Kirk, if you’re watching, I know I’m failing miserably at this. And maybe fatally, for all of us! I’m trying to show it some warmth and sincerity. What do I do? How would you handle it?

Decker also knew Kirk well enough to guess that he had been intrigued by this mechanical female. And with time running out, Kirk might be the better choice to handle this. Then, Decker began to become annoyed at that thought—primal male memory began to rebel at the thought of stepping aside to let Kirk take over this job, too.

“And this, Decker? You will explain its purpose.”

The probe was at the vitronic-B board. Decker put out a hand and pressed palm down to connect himself to the board’s circuitry. His mental patterns began a play of lights on the slick black playing surface, producing neurotactile designs in mindfind patterns. The probe started to move to where it could examine his patterns, but he waved it back.

“No, you’re supposed to place your own palm down over there and try to duplicate the mental designs you think I’m making here. Ilia enjoyed this kind of game,” Decker said. “She nearly always won.”

Humans could learn psi-empathic sensing, within reason. Deltans were born doing it. Decker watched as the probe imitated his actions, suddenly pressing its palm down. It scored a perfect “blindfind” on the first try.

Decker’s surprise rooted him to the deck for a moment. He had felt only a faint hope that the game machine would respond to the probe’s thoughts. It seemed impossible or certainly incredible that a mechanical probe could have empathic abilities.

At that moment, the Ilia-mechanism turned to Decker with an expression on its features that stunned him. It was exactly the same apologetic look Ilia would give whenever she won at anything!

“That’s better!” McCoy applauded. “Look back at her, Will! Forget it’s an it!”

But the words were hardly out of his mouth when he and Kirk heard the probe saying: “This device serves no purpose.” It moved on. Decker’s disappointment was obvious.

“Suppose he had something of Ilia’s to work with?” This from Dr. Chapel, who had come in from sickbay and was watching. “Something more personal, with some kind of an emotional tie?”

McCoy whirled, a pleased look coming onto his face. “You are beginning to sound like a doctor, Nurse.”

On the way out of the Rec Deck, the Ilia-mechanism had stopped at the Enterprise illustrations again. Clearly, the probe found something especially interesting in this.

“The crews of these previous Enterprises were also what you call carbon-based units,” said Decker. “In what way is the life form in your vessel different?”

“Carbon units are not life forms. Do these images represent how Enterprise has evolved into its present form? Clearly, carbon-based units have retarded its proper development.”

“And just what is Enterprise’s proper development?” Decker demanded.

“Enterprise should not require the presence of carbon-based units.”

“Enterprise would be unable to function without carbon-based units.”

“More data regarding this function is necessary before carbon units can be patterned for data storage.”

“Patterned for data storage?” asked Decker, startled. “What does that mean?”

The probe replied almost pleasantly: “When my examination is complete, the carbon-based units will be reduced to data patterns.”

Decker felt his skin crawl. Reduced to data patterns and data storage seemed to him to have much uglier implications than mere death. Had something that ugly happened to Ilia? To the Klingons? Was it possible that something like that was planned for Earth? Decker knew he had no choice but to fight, using every weapon and advantage he could find.

“Within you are the memory patterns of a carbon-based unit,” he said. “If I can help you to find those memories, Vejur would have an exact understanding of our functions.”

“Specify additional time and difficulties this would require.”

“None. In fact, less than you are experiencing now.”

“You may proceed.”