The Entropy Effect

STHRMK*

This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

ISBN: 0-7434-1209-5

POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster Inc.

To Gene Roddenberry, for letting me into

his universe for a while,

and

To David Hartwell, a singular friend.

Jim Kirk sat by Spock’s bedside, turning the strangely shaped bit of broken equipment over and over in his hands. He had never seen anything remotely like it before and he could not figure out what it was—or what it had been. This was the only piece large enough to inspect; the other shattered fragments lay jumbled together in a box nearby.

McCoy came in and sat down, rubbing his eyes tiredly.

“Bones,” Jim said, “I’ll call you when he starts to wake up. Why don’t you go get some sleep?”

“That’s just the trouble, I’ve been trying,” McCoy said. “Whatever Spock did to himself so he wouldn’t need sleep, I think he gave it to me, too.”

Jim rubbed his fingertip along the smooth curved amber surface, stopping at a broken edge.

“I’ve felt uneasy for the last couple of days,” McCoy said. “As if something awful is about to happen, and I can’t do anything about it. Or it’s already happened, and I don’t even know about it.”

Kirk grinned. “You’ve only felt it for a couple of days? I’ve been like that since we got within grabbing distance of that damned singularity.” He glanced at Spock, who had not moved at all since Kirk had come into the room. “Is he going to be all right, Bones?”

“I think so.”

“Aren’t you certain?” Kirk asked, startled, for he had only asked the question to get a reassuring answer.

“I’m reasonably certain,” McCoy said, “but I don’t see how he got himself into this state to begin with. I’ve been expecting somebody to have to cart him in here with exhaustion for days—”

“You knew he was going without sleep—”

“Yeah.”

“—and you didn’t tell me?”

“What would you have done? Forbade it?” McCoy grinned. “I didn’t tell you because of medical ethics. Doctor-patient confidentiality. Not wanting to get my head bitten off by my captain.”

“All right, all right. But what’s wrong with him, if it isn’t exhaustion?”

“Itis exhaustion, but it’s the sort I’d expect if he’d been through tremendous physical exertion. A couple of Vulcan marathons, say—a hundred kilometres through the desert. The scalp wound is completely inexplicable. He didn’t get it when he fell—he reopened a graze that was already partly healed. And it was patched with hybrid skin synthetic. Spock knew I made some to match his genotype. He could have used it himself. Only he didn’t; the packet was still in storage, unopened.” He stopped, and shrugged. “Shall I go on?”

“No. I can do that myself. He was out of uniform—I’ve never seen him out of uniform on the ship.

And—” He hefted the weird piece of equipment—“this is nothing I’ve ever seen before. Scotty doesn’t know what it does. It’s mostly bioelectronics, which are so new they’re hard to come by. I’ve never signed a requisition for them, and there’s no record that we ever brought any on board the ship.”

Mr. Spock, his awareness rising slowly through the depths of sleep, gradually became aware of the voices around him. They were discussing him, but as yet he could make no sense of the individual words. He tried to concentrate.

“Something very strange is going on,” Jim Kirk said. “Something I don’t understand. And I don’t like that at all.”

“Jim!” Spock sat up so quickly that every muscle and joint and sinew shrieked: he was aware of the sensation but impervious to it, as he should be, but for all the wrong reasons. He grabbed Jim Kirk’s arm. It was solid and real. Relief, and, yes, joy, overwhelmed the Vulcan. He slid his hand up Jim’s arm; he started to reach up to him, to lay his hand along the side of his face to feel the unsettling energy of Jim’s undamaged mind.

He pulled back abruptly, shocked by his own impulses; he turned away, toward the wall, struggling to control himself.

“Spock, what’s wrong? Bones—”

“Well, you wanted him to wake up,” McCoy said drily.

“Nothing is wrong, Captain,” Spock said. He eased himself back down onto the bunk. His voice was steady enough not to reveal that he was on the brink of laughter, of tears. “I am merely ... very glad to see you.”

“I’m glad to see you, too.” Kirk’s expression was quizzical. “You’ve been out quite a while.”

“How long, Captain?” Spock asked urgently.

“A couple of hours. Why?”

Spock relaxed. “Because, sir, the singularity is in the process of converting itself into a very small black hole, what you would call, in Earth tradition, a Hawking black hole. When the conversion is complete, the system will explode.”

Kirk leaped to his feet and started out the door.

“Captain—” Spock said.

Kirk glanced back.

“TheEnterprise is in no danger,” the Vulcan said. “The process will continue for another six days at least.”

“Oh,” Kirk said. He returned to Spock’s side. “All right, Mr. Spock. What happened?”

Spock reached up and touched the bullet wound in his temple. It was barely perceptible, for McCoy had put more skin synthetic on the gash, and sealed it with transparent spray. His brown and gold silk shirt lay crumpled on a table across the room ... and Jim held the remains of the time-changer in his hands.

“You were in the observatory,” Jim said. “Snarl heard you fall. Jenniver Aristeides brought you to sick bay. Do you remember?”

What Spock remembered, he recalled all too well. He glanced from Jim to Dr. McCoy. As they were now, neitheir had existed in the alternate time-stream. And Spock had quite clear memories of a time-stream in which his observations proceeded smoothly: the singularity indeed did appear, and though he could not deduce its cause, it was clear from the beginning that it would soon self-destruct and cease to be a danger. The Enterprise had never been called to Aleph Prime. Dr. Mordreaux had never come on board, and Spock had detected no acceleration in the increase of entropy.

And then he had reappeared in his observatory, dragged back to the Enterprise through space and time, to the place he belonged, and, simultaneously, it seemed, the miscalculation of his stamina caught up with him. Journey, or exhaustion, or both, caused him to lose consciousness.

“Spock?” Jim asked gently. “Do you remember?”

“No, Captain,” Spock said quite truthfully. “I cannot understand what happened.” He had not expected to remember the events in the time-loop he had turned back on itself and wiped out of existence. But he did.

He had learned how fragile the continuum was. He had not restored it to its original form. He had only managed to-stitch it back together where it had torn most seriously; he had put patches over the worst of the rents, and hoped they would hold: perhaps he should not be so startled that the seams were not quite straight and the grain not quite smooth. If the inconsistencies were no worse than an inexplicable astronomical phenomenon that would have to remain a mystery, and conflicting sets of memories in his own mind, then perhaps he should accept them gracefully, and gratefully.

“I apologize, Captain. I cannot explain what happened.”

“You’ve got a bit of a concussion,” McCoy said. “Your memory may return when you’ve recovered from that.”

Spock sincerely hoped it would not, but he did not say so.

Kirk hefted the broken section of the time-changer. “Maybe you can at least explain what this is.”

“Of course, Captain. It is an instrument which helped me to complete my assignment.” Though that was technically accurate, it was close enough to a lie for Spock to feel ashamed of himself for it.

“Where did you get it?”

“I made it, Captain.”

“There aren’t any bioelectronic components on this ship!”

“Hey, Jim,” McCoy said, “lay off, will you?”

“Sure, Bones, as soon as Mr. Spock answers my question.”

“That was not a question, Captain,” Spock said. “It was a statement. However, it is quite true that the Enterprise carries no bioelectronics. If I may point it out, though, one of the most interesting properties of bioelectronic crystals is that they can be grown.” He reached for the time-changer.

Kirk glared at him, then, quite suddenly, grinned. “Well, Mr. Spock,” he said. “I never thought of you as having a green thumb.”

Inexplicably, McCoy groaned. “That’s it! Out!”

Spock glanced down at his hands. He did not understand Captain Kirk’s remark, for if the captain were, for whatever peculiar reason, to think of Spock’s thumbs, he must surely note that they were, in fact, slightly green.

“Spock,” Kirk said, serious again, “you’re not telling me everything, and I don’t much like that.”

“Captain ...in the vicinity of a singularity, the only thing one can predict is that events will occur that one could not predict.”

“I take it you don’t care to elaborate on the nature of these unpredictable events.”

“I would prefer not to, Captain.”

Kirk scowled, and Spock thought he was going to refuse to give him the remains of the time-changer. Abruptly, Kirk grinned again and held the device out to the science officer.

Spock accepted it.

“All right, Mr. Spock. I trust you, and I trust in your judgment that whatever you can’t explain won’t affect the safety of this ship or anybody on it.”

“Your trust will not be betrayed,” Spock said.

McCoy folded his arms across his chest. “Now that you two have exchanged expressions of undying confidence, I want you—” he glared at Kirk—”to get out of here, and I want you—” he transferred his irritated gaze to Mr. Spock—“to go back to sleep. Right now. That’s an order.”

Jim laughed. “Okay, Bones. Mr. Spock, can we get out of here?”

“Yes, Captain. My observations are complete.”

“Good.” Kirk stood up and turned to leave. Spock pushed himself up on one elbow. “Captain—Jim—” Kirk glanced back.

“Thank you,” Spock said.

As he rounded a corner, Jim Kirk saw Mr. Sulu ahead of him, walking toward the turbo lift.

“Mr. Sulu!” he called. The helm officer did not turn around; Kirk called to him again.

Sulu stopped short, and faced him. “I’m sorry, Captain. I was .. . thinking about something.”

They continued down the hall side by side.

“Are you going up to the bridge?”

“Yes, sir. I go on duty in ten minutes.”

“I’m glad it’s your watch,” Jim said. “Mr. Spock’s work is finished and we can get out of here. I’d rather have you at the helm than any of the other helm officers, when we’re maneuvering near a singularity.”

“Why—thank you, Captain,” Sulu said, obviously astonished by the spontaneous compliment.

Sulu’s been looking preoccupied lately, Kirk thought. And he needs a haircut very badly. He’s starting a mustache, too—what’s this all about? He’s beginning to look like he belongs in the border patrol, not on a ship of the line. Of course, he has been under a lot of stress ...

He almost made a joke about Sulu’s hair, a joke that Sulu would of course take as a suggestion to get at least a trim.

Why do you want him to cut his hair? Jim Kirk asked himself. It doesn’t make any difference to his work; it isn’t as if he’s going to get it caught in the rigging.

He thought, again, Grow up, Jim.

“Are you happy on the Enterprise , Mr. Sulu?” he asked.

Sulu hesitated. His tone, when he answered, was as serious as if he had been thinking the question over very hard for a very long time. “Yes, Captain. It’s a better assignment than I ever hoped for, and the best I’m ever likely to have.”

Kirk started to demur, to shrug off the implied compliment, but he saw an alternate interpretation for what Sulu had said. Kirk knew Sulu’s record well; he knew how a desk-bound bureaucrat would look at it. “Insufficient variety of experience” would be the most likely analysis, despite the fact that no one could ask for more variety of experience than serving on the Enterprise provided. Unfortunately, the record

was what counted, and Sulu knew that as well as anybody.

Kirk realized abruptly: If he wants to advance, it’s almost inevitable that he’ll transfer off the Enterprise . You’re going to lose the best helm officer this ship has ever had, if you don’t do something, and do it fast.

“I’ve been thinking,” Kirk said. “And what I think is that it’s about time we talked about making sure your record reflects all the responsibilities you have, not just the formal ones. It would be a damned shame if somewhere down the line you wanted a position and it went to some semi-competent instead just because they went up the ladder in the usual way and you didn’t.”

Sulu’s expression gave Jim considerable excuse for self-congratulation.

“The solution isn’t to normalize your record,” he said. “It’s to make it unique, so you have to be judged on your own terms. I think a good first step would be a field promotion to lieutenant commander. There’s no question but what you’d get the promotion anyway in a few years, but a field promotion is unusual enough to stand out even to a red-tape shuffler.”

“Captain ...” Sulu sounded rather stunned.

“It would mean more responsibility, of course.”

“That would be all right,” Sulu said. “I mean—it would be wonderful!”

“Good. Let’s get together and talk about it. You give fencing lessons in the afternoons, don’t you?”

“On alternate days. The other times I take a judo lesson from Lieutenant Commander Flynn.”

“What time are you finished?”

“About sixteen hundred hours, sir.”

“Then, what do you say to seventeen hundred, tomorrow, in the officers’ lounge?”

“I’ll be there, Captain! Thank you, sir.”

Kirk nodded. They reached the turbo lift, got on, and started upward toward the bridge.

“By the way, Mr. Sulu, I think that’s going to be a very distinctive mustache once it gets a little longer.” Color rose in Sulu’s cheeks.

“I mean it,” Kirk said.

“I wasn’t sure that you’d approve, sir.”

“I grew a mustache myself, a few years ago.”

“You did? Why didn’t you keep it?”

“I’ll tell you if you promise not to tell anyone else.”

“Of course I promise, sir.”

“It came in red. Brick red. Most ridiculous thing I ever saw in my life.”

He laughed, and so did Sulu.

“I don’t think mine will come in red, Captain,” Sulu said.

The lift doors opened and they went out onto the bridge. Kirk grinned at Sulu.

“No, I don’t suppose you’ll have to worry about that possibility.”

Kirk took his place; Sulu relieved the junior helm officer and checked over the controls.

“Mr. Sulu,” Kirk said, “plot us a course out of here.”

“Yes, sir!”

It took him only a few seconds: he had been prepared to get the ship away from the singularity at almost any moment; he was ready for any sort of emergency.

“Course entered, sir, warp factor one.”

“Thank you, Mr. Sulu.”

Like a freed bird, the Enterprise sailed out of the grasp of the singularity, through the flaming curtains of disintegrating matter that surrounded it, and out into deep space.

Captain’s log, Stardate 5001.1:

We are now a day away from the singularity, and the unease that gripped the Enterprise and my crew throughout the entire mission there has faded, leaving In its place a feeling of relief and even contentment. Morale Is better than it has been in some time, particularly in the security section: though I personally find the new commander rather prickly, she does her job splendidly.

I have decided to take the Enterprise through the border region between Federation space and Klingon territory, which Is guarded by Captain Hunter’s fleet. The Klingons have been more aggressive than usual; they have inflicted some losses on the squadron, and until replacements arrive, the appearance of a ship of the line in the area cannot do any harm.

Administrative notes: I have forwarded to Starfleet my recommendation for Mr. Sulu’s field promotion to lieutenant commander. As this will make him one of the youngest officers of that rank without formal front line experience, I may have to wrestle down a few bureaucratic hair-splitters in order to get it approved; on the other hand, If serving on the Enterprise doesn’t qualify as some form of front line experience, I don’t know what does.

On the recommendation of Lt. Commander Flynn, I have also approved the transfer of Ensign Jenniver Aristeldes from Security to Botany, and Mr. Spock has asked her to take charge of a project he wants to begin, that of growing more bioelectronic components. Before now, Aristeides always seemed to me to be hardly any more the emotional type than Mr. Spock, but she is clearly delighted by her new job.

Mr. Spock is recovering from severe overwork. He has assured Starfleet that the singularity will soon wipe itself out of the universe. My science officer shows no more sign than before that he is willing to discuss the “unpredictable events” that occurred during his observations. Despite a certain temptation to ask him if this is Information we were not meant to know—a question that would undoubtedly grate upon his scientific objectivity—I’m not inclined to press him for more answers. It’s possible that he simply made some sort of mistake that would humiliate him to reveal.

Whatever did happen seems to have involved only Spock himself; whatever It was, it has not affected the Enterprise at all.

And that, of course, as always, is my main concern.

Captain James T. Kirk sprawled on the couch in the sitting room of his cabin, dozing over a book. The lights flickered and he woke abruptly, startled by the momentary power failure and by the simultaneous lurch in the Enterprise ’s gravity. The main shields strained to the limits of their strength, drawing all available power in order to protect ship and crew from the almost incalculable radiation of another X-ray storm.

Kirk forced himself to relax, but he still felt uneasy, as if he should be doing something. But there was nothing he could do, and he knew it. His ship lay in orbit around a naked singularity, the first and only one ever discovered, and Mr. Spock was observing, measuring, and analyzing it, trying to deduce why it had appeared, suddenly and mysteriously, out of nowhere. The Vulcan science officer had been at his task nearly six weeks now; he was almost finished.

Kirk was not too pleased at having to expose the Enterprise to the radiation, the gravity waves, and the twists and turns of space itself. But the work was critical: spreading like a huge carcinoma, the singularity straddled a major warp-space lane. More important, though: if one singularity could appear without warning, so might another. The next one might not simply disarrange interstellar commerce. The next one might writhe into existence near an inhabited planet, and wipe out every living thing on its surface.

Kirk glanced at the screen of his communications terminal, which he had been leaving focused on the singularity. As the Enterprise arced across one of the poles, the energy storm intensified. Dust swirled down toward the puncture in the continuum, disintegrating into energy. The light that he could see, the wavelengths in the visible spectrum, formed only the smallest part of the furious radiation that pounded at his ship.

The forces, shifts, and tidal stresses troubled everyone in the crew; everyone was snappish and bored despite the considerable danger they were in. Nothing would change until Mr. Spock completed his observations.

Spock could have done the work all by himself in a solo ship—if a solo ship were able to withstand the singularity’s distortion of space. But it could not, so Spock needed the Enterprise . Yet Spock was the only being essential to this mission. That was the worst thing about the entire job: no one was afraid of facing peril, but there was no way to control it or fight it or overcome it. They had nothing to do but wait

until it was over.

Kirk thought, with unfocussed gratitude, that at least he could begin to think of the assignment in terms of hours rather than weeks or days. Like the rest of the crew, he would be glad when it was finished.

“Captain Kirk?”

Kirk reached out and opened the channel. The image of the singularity faded out and Lieutenant Uhura appeared on the screen.

“Yes, Lieutenant?—Uhura, what’s wrong?”

“We’re receiving a subspace transmission, Captain. It’s scrambled—”

“Put it through. What’s the code?”

“Ultimate, sir.”

He sat up abruptly. “Ultimatel”

“Yes, sir, ultimate override, from mining colony Aleph Prime. It came through once, then cut off before it could repeat.” She glanced at her instruments and fed the recording to his terminal.

“Thank you, Lieutenant.”

The unscrambling key came up out of his memory unbidden. He was prohibited from keeping a written record of it. He was not even allowed to enter it into the ship’s computer for automatic decoding. With pencil and paper, he began the laborious job of transforming the jumble of letters and symbols until they sorted themselves out into a coherent message.

Lieutenant Commander Mandala Flynn changed into her judo gi and hung her uniform pants and shirt in her locker. For once, her long curly red hair had not begun to stray from its tight knot. She knew she ought to cut it. The border patrol, her last assignment, encouraged a good deal more wildness in appearance, and behavior, than was customary on the Enterprise : customary, or, probably, tolerated. She had only been on board two months, and most of her time and attention so far had centered on putting the security team back into some semblance of coherent shape. Consequently, she had not yet felt out the precise informal limitations of life on the Enterprise . She did not intend to fit in on the ship, she intended to stand out. But she wanted her visibility to be due to her professionalism and her competence, not to her eccentricities.

She wondered if Mr. Sulu were tired of their half-joking agreement, that she would not cut her waist-length red hair if he would let his hair grow. So far he had kept up his end of the bargain: his hair already touched his shoulders, and he had started a mustache as well. But Flynn did not want him to feel trapped by their deal if he were being harassed or even teased.

She went to the ship’sdojo , stopping just inside to bow in the traditional way.

On the judo mat, Mr. Sulu completed a sit-up, hands clasped behind his neck, elbows touching knees. But there he stopped, and let his hands fall limply to the floor.

Flynn sat on her heels beside him. “You okay?”

He did not look up. “Ms. Flynn, I’d rather beat off Klingons with a stick than balance a starship around a naked singularity. Not to mention balancing it between Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott.”

“It’s been entertaining,” Flynn said. “Walking innocently along and all of a sudden you’re floating through the air.”

Mr. Sulu stretched his body and arms forward in a yoga exercise, touching his forehead to his knees.

“Mr. Scott doesn’t think the gravity fluctuations, or the power hits, or the rest of the problems are all that funny,” he said in a muffled voice. The quilted jacket of his gi had hiked up around his ears. He sounded as though he would just as soon stay bundled up as ever come out again. “Mr. Scott’s convinced the next time we go through an X-ray storm, the overload on the shields will explode the engines.” He grunted in pain and sat up slowly. “All Mr. Spock wants, of course, is a perfectly circular orbit, storms or not.”

Flynn nodded in sympathy. It was not as if the danger were something one could stand up to. The responsibility for their course, and therefore for their safety, lay almost entirely on Mr. Sulu’s shoulders. He was overworked and overstressed.

“Do you want to skip your lesson?” Flynn asked. “I hate for you to stop when you’re doing so well, but it really wouldn’t hurt.”

“No! I’ve been looking forward to it all day. Whether it’s your fencing lesson or my judo lesson, they’re about the only thing that’s kept me going the last couple of weeks.”

“Okay,” she said. Taking his hand, she rose and helped him to his feet. After they had warmed up, Sulu, the student, bowed to Flynn, the instructor. Then they bowed formally to each other, opponent to opponent.

In fencing, Mandala Flynn was just getting the feel of parry six with the foil; Mr. Sulu could get through her guard with ease. In judo, their positions were reversed. Flynn had a fifth-degree black belt in the art, while Mr. Sulu was not too far past the stage of learning how to fall safely.

But today, the first time he came out of a shoulder-throw Flynn felt the position going wrong. She tried to catch him, but she had not expected clumsiness from him. Mr. Sulu hit badly and hard without rolling or slapping at all. Flynn glared down at him, her fists clenched, as he stared blankly up at the ceiling.

“Dammit!” she said. “Have you forgotten everything you’ve learned in the past two months?” Immediately sorry, she damped her anger. Learning to control her violent temper was one of the reasons she had taken up the discipline ofjudo. Usually it worked. She knelt beside Mr. Sulu. “Are you all right?”

He pushed himself up, looking embarrassed. “That was dumb.”

“I shouldn’t have yelled at you,” Flynn said, embarrassed herself. “Look, this is no good, you’re way too tense, you’re going to hurt yourself if we keep it up.”

She started to rub his back and shoulders. He made a sound of protest as her thumbs dug into knotted muscles.

“I thought I’d warmed up,” he said.

“Warming up wouldn’t help.” She made him take off his jacket and lie face-down on the mat, then straddled his hips and began to massage his back and neck and shoulders.

At first he flinched every time she kneaded a muscle, but gradually the tightness began to ease and he lay quiet under her hands, his eyes closed. A lock of his glossy black hair fell across his cheek. She would have liked to reach out and brush it back, but instead continued the massage.

When the fierce tautness of his body had relaxed, and her own hands began to cramp, she patted his shoulders gently and sat crosslegged beside him. He did not move.

“Still alive?”

He opened one eye slowly, and smiled. “Just barely.”

Flynn laughed. “Come on,” she said. “You need a good long soak a whole lot more than you need to be thrown around the gym for an hour.”

A few minutes later, they both sank down into the deep hot water of the Japanese-style bath. Flynn untied her hair and let it fall around her shoulders. The water drifted the strands against her back, tickling her; the heat soothed the faint ache where her collarbone had been shattered several years before. Absentmindedly, she rubbed the scar that radiated across her shoulder, silver-white streaks on her light brown skin. The bone had healed adequately, but some day she should go into therapy and get it re-grown. Not now, though. She did not have time for that now.

Sulu stretched luxuriously. “You’re right,” he said. “Just this once, the soak without the workout feels good.” He grinned.

She returned the smile.

“Do you realize,” Flynn said, “that we’ve known each other two months, and we still call each other ‘Mr. Sulu’ and ‘Ms. Flynn’?”

Mr. Sulu hesitated. “I did realize it, yes. I didn’t think it was .. . proper, for me to initiate any informality.”

As commander of security, Flynn was in no analysis of the hierarchy Sulu’s immediate superior. If she had been, she would never have permitted herself to find him attractive. But she was used to the traditions of the border patrol, where the established crew decided when to invite new people to use informal names. Rank was not a factor. Here was another case where the Enterprise ran along more strictly traditional military lines. Flynn outranked Sulu by a grade.

“I’ll start it, then,” she said. “My friends call me Mandala. Do you use another name?” She had never heard anyone call him anything but Sulu.

“I don’t, usually,” he said “But...”

Mandala waited a few moments. “’But’?”

He glanced away from her. “When I tell people my first name, if they know Japanese, they laugh.”

“And if they don’t know Japanese?”

“They ask me what it means, I tell them, and then they laugh.”

“I can match anyone in the weird name combination department,” Mandala said.

“My given name is Hikaru.”

She did not laugh. “That’s beautiful. And it fits.”

He started to blush. “You know what it means.”

“Sure. Hikaru, the shining one. Is it from the novel?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised. “You’re the only person outside my immediate family I ever met who’s even heard of the Tale of Genji .”

She looked at his eyes. He glanced away, glanced back, and then, suddenly, their gazes locked.

“May I call you Hikaru?” Mandala asked, trying to keep her voice steady. He had beautiful, deep, brown eyes that never lost their humor.

“I wish you would,” he said softly.

The intercom on the wall whistled, startling them both.

“Mr. Sulu to the bridge! On the double!”

Hikaru sank slowly down till he was completely immersed in the hot water. A moment later, he erupted like an outraged dolphin, swung himself out of the tub, and stood dripping on the tile.

“They can find you anywhere!” he shouted, grabbed his towel, and slapped the response button on the intercom panel. “I’m on my way!” He glanced back toward Mandala, who had already got out of the water. “I—”

“Go on,” she said. Her adrenaline level shot up; her heart pounded. “We can talk later. Gods only know what’s happened.”

“Good lord,” he said. “You’re right.” He hurried into the locker room, pulled his pants on fast, and left carrying his boots and shirt. Mandala dressed almost as quickly; she knew security could do very little if the singularity were about to snatch them and gobble them down, but she wanted to be ready for anything.

In the observatory of the Enterprise , Mr. Spock stared thoughtfully at his computer’s readout. It still did not show anything like what he had expected. He wanted to go through the preliminary analysis again, but it was nearly time to take another instrument reading. He was most anxious to obtain as many extremely accurate observational points as possible.

Since he was to report to Starfleet, and Starfleet was based on Earth, Spock thought about the naked

singularity in terms of Earth’s scientific traditions. The theories of Tipler and of Penrose were, in fact, the most useful in analyzing the phenomenon. So far, however, Spock had found no explanation for the abrupt appearance of a naked singularity. He expected it to behave in a peculiar fashion, but it was behaving even more peculiarly than theory predicted. The interstellar dust that it was sucking up should cause it to form an event horizon, but it was doing no such thing. If the singularity was growing at all, it was expanding into and through dimensions Spock could not even observe.

But Spock had discovered something. The wave functions that described the singularity contained entropic terms such as he had never seen before, terms so unusual they surprised even him.

Many scientific discoveries occur when the observer notices an unexpected, unlikely, even apparently impossible event, and follows it up rather than discarding it as nonsense. Spock was aware of this, never so much as now.

If the first analysis of the data held up in replication, the results would spread shock waves throughout the entire scientific community, and into the public consciousness as well. If the first analysis held up: it was possible that he had made a mistake, or even that the design of his apparatus was causing unsuspected error.

Spock sat down at his instruments, centered and focussed them, and checked the adjustments.

The Enterprise approached a gap in the accretion sphere around the singularity, a region where the X-ray storms ebbed abruptly and an observer could stare down into the eerily featureless mystery that twisted space and time and reason.

But as Spock’s battery of measuring devices scanned the singularity, the Enterprise suddenly and without warning accelerated to full power, ploughed back into the disintegrating matter and energy, burst through to deep space, and fled toward the stars.

Spock slowly rose to his feet, unable to believe what had happened. For weeks the Enterprise had withstood the chaotic twists and turns of spatial dimension: now, so close to the end of his observations, the whole second series of measurements was destroyed. He needed the replication, for all alternate possibilities had to be ruled out. The ramifications of what he had discovered were tremendous.

If his preliminary conclusions were correct, the expected life of the universe was not thousands of millions of years.

It was, for all practical purposes, less than a century.

The Enterprise sped through interstellar space at a warp factor that badly strained the already overworked engines.

At least Mr. Sulu got us out of there with his usual precision, Jim Kirk thought, sitting at his place on the bridge trying to appear calmer than he felt. He had never responded to an ultimate override before.

The door of the turbo lift slid open, and, for the first time in weeks, Mr. Spock came onto the bridge. He had hardly left the observatory since they first reached the singularity. The Vulcan science officer descended to the lower level, stopped beside Kirk, and simply gazed at him, impassively.

“Mr. Spock ...” Kirk said, “I received an ultimate override command. I know you haven’t finished

your work, but the Enterprise had to respond. I have no choice, with an ultimate. I’m very sorry, Mr. Spock.”

“An ultimate override command ...” Spock said. His expression did not change, but Kirk thought he looked rather haggard. All things considered, that was not too surprising.

“Can you salvage anything from your data? Could you reach any conclusion about the singularity at all?”

Spock gazed at the viewscreen. Far ahead, indistinguishable as yet against the brilliant starfield, an ordinary yellow type G star hung waiting for them. Behind them, the singularity lay within its fierce glow.

“The preliminary conclusions were interesting,” Spock said. He clasped his hands behind his back. “However, without the completed replication, the data are all essentially worthless.”

Kirk muttered a curse, and said again, lamely, “I’m sorry.”

“I can see no way in which you are responsible, Captain, nor any logical reason for you to apologize.” Kirk sighed. As always, Spock refused to react to adversity.

It would be a relief ifjust once he’d put his fist through a bulkhead, Jim Kirk thought. If this doesn’t turn out to be extremely serious, I may find something to punch, myself.

“Are you all right, Mr. Spock?” he asked. “You look exhausted.”

“I am all right, Captain.”

“You could go get some rest—it’ll be quite a while before we get close enough to Aleph for me to call general quarters. Why don’t you take a nap?”

“Impossible, Captain.”

“The bridge really can get along without you for a few more hours.”

“I realize that, sir. However, when I began my experiment I psychophysiologically altered my metabolism to permit me to remain alert during the course of my observations. I could return my circadian rhythm to normal now, but it does not seem sensible, to me, to prepare myself for rest when my presence may be required when we reach our destination.”

Kirk sorted through the technicalities of his science officer’s statement.

“Spock,” he said, “you aren’t saying you haven’t had any sleep in six weeks, are you?”

“No, Captain.”

“Good,” Kirk said, relieved; and, after a pause, “Then what are you saying?”

“It will not be six standard weeks until day after tomorrow.”

“Good lord! Didn’t you trust anyone else to make the observations?”

“It was not a matter of trust, Captain. The data are sensitive. The difference between two individuals’ interpretations of the same datum would cause a break in the observational curve larger than the experimental error.”

“You couldn’t have run several series and averaged them?”

Spock raised one eyebrow. “No, Captain.” If I didn’t know better, Kirk thought, I’d swear he turned a couple of shades paler.

Captain’s log, Stardate 5001.1:

We are now a day away from the singularity, but the unease that gripped the Enterprise and my crew throughout our mission there has not faded. It has intensified. We have left one mystery behind us, unsolved, in order to confront a second mystery, about which we know even less. The ultimate override emergency command takes precedence over any other order. The Enterprise is now under way to the mining colony Aleph Prime, maintaining radio silence as the code requires. I cannot even ask why we have been diverted; I can only speculate about the reasons for such urgency, and be sure my crew is prepared to face .. . what?