Worlds in Collision (73 page)

“Good idea, Spock. Then we can—”

“Strange life block food.”
It was the clipped, mechanical voice of the universal translator circuitry.
“Strange life block food over here over here.”

McCoy smirked. “Several hours? I guess you missed reading about a few upgrades to the translator, Mr. Spock.”

“No, Doctor,” Uhura said. “The universal translator shouldn't have been able to even start decoding this kind of language for hours.” She held the computer board at an angle to clumsily punch in more commands. “I hate these gloves,” she complained.

At the same time, the translator's voice kept repeating,
“Strange life block food over here over here. Strange life—”

“Any idea what it means, Spock?”

“I'll let you know in a moment, Captain.”

Suddenly, McCoy shouted in surprise, and Kirk awkwardly turned to see four creatures grab the doctor's legs. “Kirk to
Exeter!”
he transmitted. His hand went to his phaser. The creatures dragged McCoy through the lunar dirt by his feet, sending up a cloud of billion-year-old dust.

Then they let him go.

Kirk leapt over to him. “Are you all right, Bones?”

“Just fine,” McCoy grumbled. He pushed himself up from the ground. His suit was streaked with black lunar soil. “And thank you for your help, Mr. Spock. From where you were standing, you must have seen them coming.”

“I did, Doctor.”

“Then why didn't you do something about it?” Kirk asked.

“The creatures were simply responding to their fellow being's call for assistance. Dr. McCoy's shadow covered the creature we were observing, thus cutting off its supply of food—the sun's radiation. As you will notice, the creature's transmission has now ceased.”

McCoy hopped back to join Uhura and Spock. “You might have warned me anyway.”

“Yes,” Spock said. “I suppose I might have. Next time, Dr. McCoy.”

Kirk went to Uhura. “Good work, Uhura. How'd you get such a quick translation?”

“The creatures are speaking in a language already known to the translator, sir.” Uhura turned to look questioningly at Kirk through her faceplate. “They are speaking in the primary language of Talin.”

“Spock, analysis.” Kirk was at a loss for an explanation. The creatures could not possibly be indigenous to Talin. Neither did the planet have the genetic engineering technology to create them.

“Sir, if my preliminary conclusions are correct, then what we see here are not intelligent life-forms. They are little more than worker insects, a group hive mentality which has worked to make Talin IV a suitable environment for growing the algaelike organism. In the absence of any language of their own, and given that they are able to transmit and receive radio messages, it seems likely that they have absorbed the Talin language by listening to the planet's radio transmissions over the years.”

“Years, Spock?” McCoy asked.

“In the time that this system has been under FCO jurisdiction, no alien vessels have been sighted entering it. Therefore, the creatures have been here since before the FCO arrived.”

“Sharing the same moon,” Kirk mused. “And no one ever detected them.”

“Since their carapaces are composed of the same material which covers this moon, it seems probable that the creatures reproduce by constructing duplicates of themselves from the raw materials at hand. The FCO's general scans would not have been able to distinguish the drones from their surroundings. I shall recommend to Starfleet that, in the future, airless planetoids should be scanned for small pockets of organic surface life contained within apparently nonliving shells.”

Kirk watched as the nearby creatures finished ripping apart their victim.
No, not victim,
Kirk corrected himself. Obviously what he was watching was a part of their life cycle. No sooner were the pieces of the first creature dragged away, than another creature hurried up, also to be disassembled. One of its legs appeared to be damaged.
How efficient,
Kirk thought uneasily.

McCoy was still caught by Spock's explanation of the creatures' language. “So what you're saying, Spock, is that these things are like mindless parrots, just mimicking what they've heard?”

“Not at all, Doctor. The fact that one of them was able to complain about the shadow you cast indicates that they have also absorbed some of the language's context and meaning, just as some Earth primates have learned to use symbolic languages, though they cannot develop such languages on their own.”

Kirk checked his suit's oxygen level. They would have to beam up in less than twenty minutes, and Spock and McCoy would have ample time to continue their discussion then. “Forget the details, Spock. The bottom line is that if these creatures have a language that they use, then we can use it, too.”

“To do what?” McCoy asked.

“Why, Bones,” Kirk said. “To talk to them.”

Kirk hopped over to the creature that had complained about McCoy's shadow. It used its forward legs to grip onto a section of the creature being taken apart, then kept twisting the section around in the same direction, almost in an unscrewing motion, until it fell off. The creature being dismantled did not appear to experience any discomfort.

“Uhura,” Kirk said, “can you link my helmet communicator to this one right here?”

Uhura brought her board over. “Aye, sir. Setting the frequencies now. Go ahead.”

Kirk moved to cast his shadow on the creature.

The translator circuits came to life instantly.
“Strange life block food over here over here. Strange life block food.”

Kirk spoke. “Would you like the food to continue?”

“Yes food eat.”
Uhura's link worked both ways.

Kirk stepped aside, then, after a few moments, he blocked the sun once more. The creature went into its recitation.

“Would you like the food to continue?” Kirk asked again.

“Yes food eat.”

“Then tell me who you are.”

The creature didn't protest or try to negotiate.
“We are the Many.”

Kirk was relieved. He had been worried that once his questions and the creature's replies had been passed back and forth through Standard, into Talin, and then into the creature's own internal system that there would be no common ground for communication. But it appeared Dr. Richter was correct. Life was almost the same everywhere, no matter what its chemistry.

“Do you know what I am?” he continued.

“You are strange life. Give back food now.”
As if it were running low on energy, the alien stopped disassembling the other creature.

Kirk stepped aside and let the alien have a few more seconds of light. It began to move again.

“Do you know where you are?” Kirk was carefully proceeding only one step at a time in his questioning.

“Here,”
the creature answered. It apparently did not need the threat of light starvation to answer questions. Though Kirk doubted with that kind of answer that he was going to be able to get much useful information from such a basic mind.

“What do you do here?”

“Work,” the alien answered readily. It twisted a leg off the motionless creature before it.

“Why do you work?” Kirk asked.

The alien did not respond.

Spock did. “Captain, if you are indeed conversing with a mind that functions at little more than an instinctual level, it will not be able to understand higher concepts such as motivation. It would be like asking a paramecium why it absorbs food. It is not a conscious decision.”

“But, Spock, there has to be some conscious intelligence at work here,” Kirk argued. “Think of what they accomplished on Talin. They were able to manipulate the entire planetary defense system. They realigned warhead circuitry. Blocked our sensors and deflectors. Launched Talin missiles at us. How could they do all that without conscious thought?”

“Sir, everything these creatures did was achieved by altering the functions of electronic and transtator-based machinery. At the most elementary level, all that they did was to simply manipulate the data that passed through that equipment.” Kirk heard Spock take a breath. It sounded almost like a sigh. “Captain, just as birds can fly without conscious knowledge of aerodynamics, and a virus can reprogram the complex chemistry of a living host without any awareness, these creatures can apparently provoke nuclear exchanges on a planet without any conscious knowledge of the cultures they are manipulating.”

McCoy was appalled by the analogy. “There's a huge gap between flapping some wings and blowing up a planet, Mr. Spock.”

“Only in degree, Doctor. As we have all seen in our voyages, given enough time, virtually any characteristic can be evolved. Given enough time, virtually any behavior can be learned.”

Kirk stared at the dismemberment ritual going on before him. “They've done this before, haven't they?”

“Undoubtedly, Captain. Perhaps millions of times, to achieve this level of sophistication. Their identification of the master circuit nodes in the
Enterprise
was quite precise.”

Kirk's mind reeled at the destruction that these creatures might have caused throughout the galaxy to grow food they couldn't use. He wouldn't accept that it was arbitrary action. No matter how they had evolved, no matter how their behavior had been learned, somehow, somewhere, there had to be a reason for it.

He stood in the sunlight and blocked the creature's food again.

“Why do the Many work?” he demanded.

The creature still did not respond.

“Captain, it cannot answer.”

“Did you
hear
me?” Kirk said.
“Why do the Many work?”
He kicked a cloud of slowly falling lunar dust at the creature but it continued its task without pause.

“Jim, let it go. Spock's right. It's like questioning a child.”

Child,
Kirk thought. He stared at the creature before him, silver and black mottles covering its body. He looked at the bubbles in which the algae grew—bubbles
grown
from the same mottled substance created from the lunar rock. And the shuttles, lying dormant in the shadows—the same shape, the same substance, the same…skin. Spock had said they were different forms of the same species, or different species with a common ancestor. That was the answer. It had to be.

“What
is your work?” he asked, changing his approach.

The creature stopped moving its legs, running out of energy in Kirk's shadow.

“What
is your work?” he repeated.

The translator came online.
“To sow the seeds of life.”

“Why?”

“To grow food.”

But they don't eat the food,
Kirk thought.
They don't need the food.

“Why
do the Many grow food? What
purpose
does the food serve?”

The creature's footpads scrabbled weakly in the loose soil as it tried to crawl out from beneath Kirk's shadow. Kirk moved with it, keeping it blocked, knowing his conversation with it was preventing it from calling for help over the same frequency.

“I said, why do the Many grow the food?”

“The Many grow the food for the One,”
the creature finally answered.

Kirk stopped. “The One?” he said. “What is the One?”

“The One is that which consumes the food,”
the creature said.

Obviously the drones were not the One because what could a hive mentality know about individuality?
Kirk thought. He began to feel a cold chill of apprehension.

“When
will the One consume the food?” Kirk asked.

“When the One is here.”

“Where is the One now?”

A burst of static rushed from the helmet speaker.

“Uhura,” Kirk asked anxiously. “What did the creature say? What language was that?”

Uhura studied the readouts on her computer board. “Sir, that wasn't a language. That was…” She put the board down and turned to Kirk.

“Sir, the creature transmitted coordinates.”

“Let me get this straight,” Styles said. “You and the
Enterprise
aren't guilty of any wrongdoing because of a colony of vacuum-breathing, rock-eating insects, which—even though they have no intelligence—were somehow able to trick the Talin into blowing themselves up?” The lieutenant did not bother to disguise his sarcasm. “You've beamed out once too often, Kirk. I always knew it would happen.”

Kirk and Styles glared at each other in the director's complex at Outpost 47. Neither had forgotten their first—and last—tour together on the
Farragut.

But Vice Admiral Hammersmith was interested in other matters. “Stow it, Lieutenant. You, too, Kirk.” He glanced down at Wilforth's desk and again read the printout sheet of the coordinates of “the One.”

“How could they know our coordinate system, anyway?”

Uhura answered. “The universal translator converted the aliens' coordinate system to Talin astronomical conventions, and then to our quadrant and sector standards, sir.”

Hammersmith looked at Spock. “Do you accept this as reliable data, Mr. Spock?”

“The drones had no reason to lie to us, assuming that they have the capability, sir. However, I cannot vouch for what might actually occupy those coordinates.”

Hammersmith swept aside the qualification. “But you do have a theory, don't you? You must have a theory.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

After a long pause, McCoy said, “For heaven's sake, tell the man, Spock.”

“I believe we will find a related group of creatures who will be arriving to consume the algae which the seeder drones have planted on Talin IV.”

McCoy shook his head. “Uh uh. Not related creatures. There's got to be some intelligence at work here someplace. The drones' behavior is far too complex to ever have come about by chance. The One has got to be a colony ship—an alien colony ship that sent these things ahead to prepare a world the aliens can live on. The seeder drones aren't naturally evolved creatures—they're a living terraforming machine. Only they aren't making Talin IV like Earth.”

Spock closed his eyes in subtle exasperation. “Doctor, if you would study the facts as have been recorded, you would—”

“I
have
studied the facts, Spock, and that's why—”

“Mr. Kirk,” Hammersmith boomed to stop the altercation. “How about you? What's your theory?”

Kirk loathed the vice admiral's use of “mister” but he wasn't going to show his anger in front of Styles. “I don't have a theory. Theories can wait until we get out there and see what it is we're dealing with firsthand.”

Hammersmith nodded. “Yes, I suppose that's what has to be done.”

“Good,” Kirk said. “Then may I request that—”

“I'll put it into my report to Starfleet Command,” Hammersmith added.

“What?” Kirk asked.

“You heard the vice admiral,” Styles said. “He's going to follow the chain of command. Remember what that is,
Mr.
Kirk?”

“Styles…” Hammersmith warned.

“Why bother reporting it until you've gone out there and checked it for yourself?” Kirk asked.

“It's only a half light-year away,” McCoy said.

“At warp six, a ship could intercept those coordinates in less than one day,” Spock added.

Hammersmith held up his hands to quiet everyone. “No one's going anywhere! Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Styles said smartly.

“I've got more than four hundred private vessels already stationkeeping at the edge of this system,” Hammersmith went on. “Starfleet's got Greenpeace and the Planetary Society breathing down its neck. Half the galaxy is geared up to send aid to Talin IV and I don't have enough personnel or ships to keep them out as it is.”

“By my estimation,” Spock offered, “the Council debate should have ended by now.”

“Even if it
has
ended, Spock, it's still going to take two days for the subspace relay to reach us.” Hammersmith almost sounded apologetic. “And I will not allow any breech of Starfleet's lawful blockade of Talin IV until the question of the Prime Directive is resolved and I am ordered to withdraw my ships.”

McCoy crossed his arms angrily. “You
know
how the Council will vote, Vice Admiral! They have no choice but to rule in Talin's favor.”

Hammersmith stood up behind his desk and leaned forward on his fists. “No, I don't know that, Doctor. The Council isn't ruling on wars being started by nonintelligent aliens who say they're working for ‘the One,' whatever that is. They are debating the legal question which Mr. Spock raised about whether or not Talin was already a
de facto
member of the Federation when the disaster occurred. That's a mighty big loophole in the Articles of Federation and the Council's vote on that could go either way.”

Spock tried to intercede as conciliator. “I agree on that point, Vice Admiral. However, you must be aware that when Starfleet receives the evidence we have uncovered here concerning alien intervention in the affairs of Talin, the question of the Prime Directive will not even have to go to Council. It does not apply.”

“That's right, Spock.
When
Starfleet receives this evidence and
accepts
this evidence, then and only then will a ruling be made.”

“The vice admiral is absolutely right,” Styles said.

“Oh, be quiet!” Kirk ordered the lieutenant. “Look, Vice Admiral, you've got a dying planet down there. You've got hundreds of people willing to help save it. Let them do it. Take down the blockade.”

Hammersmith was a man trapped in a nightmarish dilemma. “Kirk, believe me, I know what I've got on Talin IV. I wish I had a way out of this. But there are so many possible ways this thing could go, I don't have justifiable grounds for breaking orders. You lost your career over this, Kirk. Don't make me lose mine while there's still some good I can do here.”

Kirk turned away in disgust. If Hammersmith wasn't going to help, then Kirk wasn't going to waste any more time with him. “Spock, Bones, we'll go out of system to the
Ian Shelton.
Her captain will take us out to the coordinates and—”

“The
Ian Shelton,”
Hammersmith interrupted. “Is that Anne Gauvreau's freighter?”

“Yes,” Kirk said suspiciously.

“She's not going anywhere. The
Shelton
's a Federation registry vessel and Starfleet has commandeered her for picket duty.”

“What about the
Queen Mary?”
McCoy suggested. “It doesn't smell too—”

“The Orion ship's been impounded,” Hammersmith said. “And it's now serving picket duty as well. Face it, gentlemen, you aren't going anywhere. Every warp-capable ship is bouncing around the system turning back blockade runners.”

The answer hit Kirk like a phaser bolt. “Every
warp-capable
ship, Vice Admiral? Is that what you said?”

Hammersmith nodded. It was his turn to be wary.

“Then you don't mean the
Enterprise?”
Kirk asked.

“What do you mean, he doesn't mean the
Enterprise?”
Styles blurted. “I've spent three months getting her warp capable again. She's got new warp nacelles and…”

Hammersmith looked thoughtful. “Brand new, unrated warp nacelles. Which have to be tuned into balance well away from the gravity well of a star so the ship won't risk hitting a wormhole.”

“That means she's not warp capable
within
the system,” Kirk concluded. “She's no use to you here.”

“This is preposterous!” Styles fumed.

Kirk grinned. “You said you wished you had a way out of this, Vice Admiral. I think you've got one staring you right in your forward sensors.”

Hammersmith smiled then, too. “But who do I have who can take her out?”

“Excuse me, Vice Admiral?” Styles said weakly.

Hammersmith sat back in his chair. “I mean, you three aren't part of Starfleet anymore. You're embassy officials, of all things.”

“Vice Admiral Hammersmith?” Styles tried again.

“Chief Engineer Scott,” Kirk said. “Just the officer you'd want to take the
Enterprise
out for operational trials.”

“But Vice Admiral Hammersmith,” Styles said, raising his voice. “You said the
Enterprise
would be
my
ship.”

“Not too far,” Kirk promised. “Maybe a half light-year or so?”

Hammersmith nodded his head in agreement, a look of peace coming to his face at last. Kirk had found his compromise. “And I'll ask Mr. Scott if he'd mind taking along some observers from the Talin embassy. Thank you, Kirk.”

Styles exploded. “You can't do that! You said she was
mine!”

Hammersmith turned slowly to Styles, eyes wide. “I beg your pardon,
Lieutenant?”

Styles stammered.

“Did you just tell a vice admiral what he could or couldn't do?” Hammersmith began to rise from his chair.

Styles was hullmetal white. He glared at Kirk. “Someday, Kirk. Someday I'm going to catch up to you and…”

Kirk laughed easily. “Maybe someday, Styles. But the important thing is, that's not today.”