Chain of Attack (19 page)

"If I had a good old Georgia fly rod," McCoy said, "I might be able to snag some of that stuff. Unless there's a field around
it
that blocks out
in
animate objects."

"They're obviously supported by a force field of some sort," Spock said, "or perhaps embedded in it."

"Yes, but—" Kirk, still seated on the hard, plastic-like floor, frowned, stopping in the middle of pulling his boot back on. For a moment, he ran his fingers over the insulating inner lining.

"Something happened to this boot while it was in the barrier," he said. "Or on the other side."

The others leaned closer as he removed the boot again. The inner surface, instead of being smooth and seamless, was rough, as if it had been scraped by some harsh abrasive. It was still soft, like the dark foam rubber it resembled, but the surface texture was totally changed.

"Let me see your hand, Jim," McCoy said quickly. "If it was something in the barrier—"

Still frowning, Kirk withdrew his hand from the boot and looked at it with McCoy. It was, as far as either could tell, unchanged.

Meanwhile, Spock had leaned down and picked up the boot and was examining it. After a second, one eyebrow arched slightly and he glanced briefly through the barrier.

"A vacuum, Captain," he said. "There would appear to be a vacuum on the other side of the barrier or, at the very least, extremely low air pressure."

"How can you know
that?
" McCoy asked skeptically.

"It's quite simple, Doctor. As you know, the insulation in our boots contains, as does most insulation, thousands of minute bubbles of inert gas. Many of those bubbles appear to have burst, as they would do if exposed to a vacuum. The rupturing of those bubbles is the cause of the surface roughness."

Kirk took the boot back and examined the inner surface again. "At least," he said after a second, "it's still wearable. However," he went on, resuming the task of replacing the boot, "escaping through the barrier would not appear to be a viable option."

"I fear not, Captain. Nonetheless, I would suggest a close inspection of the entire perimeter. We do not yet know what conditions prevail in other areas, nor even that openings do not exist."

Standing, Kirk nodded. "Quite right, Mr. Spock. Scotty, Chekov, Sulu, you go that way. Spock and Uhura and I will go the other and meet you on the far side. Lieutenant Tomson, you bring Crandall and come—"

Abruptly, Kirk's words were cut off as he felt the clammy tingle of a transporter beam gripping him.

"Spock!" he snapped. "It's happening again! If I don't return—"

Again his words were chopped off, this time by the momentary paralysis that precedes the actual transporting process.

And then, with the same quickness he had noted before, the room and everyone around him faded into nothingness, and he waited tensely to see what would replace them.

 

ONCE AGAIN, KIRK had little time to wait. Within fractions of a second, his new surroundings leaped into view.

For just an instant, the thought flashed through his mind that he had been somehow returned to the
Enterprise
's transporter room, so similar was the dimly lit area he found himself in, but the illusion quickly faded as he saw the dark-skinned, bearded man who stood at the transporter controls, his shadowy eyes fixed on a metallic, switch-laden box that looked remarkably jury-rigged. It was, however, perched on the edge of a control panel whose levers and buttons vaguely resembled the
Enterprise
's transporter controls.

The platform on which Kirk stood on was also different, higher than the one on the
Enterprise
and equipped with only three transport units, not six. And, like the giant circle in the ceiling of the room he had just been snatched from, a faint red glow hovered around the upper, overhead section of each unit.

Cautiously, he tried to move and found that, for all intents and purposes, he was rooted to the spot. It was as if, he thought helplessly, he had been dumped into the middle of one of the barriers, one that kept him not only from moving forward but from moving more than two or three inches in any direction. He could breathe easily enough, and move his limbs and his head, but that was all.

Returning his attention to the operator, Kirk saw that he was wearing a dark, starkly plain tunic and trousers. If it was a uniform, there was no visible insignia of rank. His fingers cautiously worked a half-dozen of the switches on the jury-rigged box and then worked the other controls.

A moment later, one of the other two transport units glowed more brightly, and the air above it filled with a tightly contained volume of swirling fog that quickly metamorphosed into the shape of a woman, dark-skinned and short-haired like the operator, and dressed in the same featureless tunic and trousers. In her hands, she carried a small device that in general appearance reminded Kirk of a tricorder, except that it, too, had ajury-rigged look about it.

Unrestrained by whatever held Kirk, she stepped off and went to stand at the edge of the transporter platform. As she motioned with one hand, a panel slid up in one of the walls, revealing a window or viewscreen of some kind. Watching the screen, she tapped a series of instructions into the tricorderlike device she held.

As she did, an image appeared on the screen—an image of herself. A moment later, she spoke. Her voice was deep but somehow melodic, and the sound she made sounded to Kirk's ear like "Aragos." At the same time, what could have been a graphic representation of the sound appeared on the screen below her image, and a series of previously unseen, multicolored lights next to the screen flickered briefly.

Another series of instructions was tapped into the tricorderlike device, and her image vanished, only to be replaced by one of Kirk himself. Instead of speaking again, the woman turned to look at Kirk directly, with an expression that very well could have been eager expectancy.

Had she been introducing herself? he wondered with a frown.

"James Kirk," he said, watching the screen's graphics form and fade and the lights next to the screen flicker. "I am captain of—" he started to continue, but a sharply upraised hand silenced him.

Hastily, she tapped something else into the device, accompanied by more graphics and flickering lights, and he couldn't help but wonder if she were somehow erasing what he had said.

Then another image appeared, this time of the device she was holding, and again she spoke and again the graphics appeared and the lights flickered. When they faded, she nodded to the operator, and a moment later the air above the third of the transport units clouded and then cleared, revealing one of the
Enterprise
's medical tricorders suspended in midair. Simultaneously, its image appeared on the screen, and the woman looked expectantly toward Kirk once again.

And finally it dawned on him.

A language lesson!

Hope flooded through him. His captors, whoever they were, wanted to talk, not kill! In the same way he had wanted to communicate with the Hoshan and Zeator brought aboard the
Enterprise
, these people wanted to communicate with
him!
And that screen with its graphics and flickering lights must be a crude form of translator. Obviously, it did not have the ability, as did the universal translators, to read and map the corresponding neuronic activity of the speakers' minds, so the process would be long and tedious. Far
too
long to save the
Enterprise
from the combined Hoshan and Zeator fleet that was at this moment probably less than twenty standard hours distant.

If only he could get his hands on a translator!

On the screen, the image was flashing, as if to get his attention, and the woman was looking at him, obviously urging him to speak.

"Medical tricorder," he said, stimulating another set of graphics and flickering lights.

Ironically, the next item that appeared in the air above the transporter and on the screen was a translator, but, other than naming it, there was nothing Kirk could do.

* * *

An hour after he had been snatched away, Captain Kirk reappeared in the cavernous room, at almost the precise point from which he had originally been taken. Alerted by the billowing precursors of the transport beam, Spock and McCoy and a half-dozen others were hurrying toward him the instant he was completely materialized.

"They want to talk," Kirk snapped out while they were still approaching him. "They have a crude computer translator, and they appear to be simply trying to learn the language."

Before he could say more, Dr. McCoy and Lieutenant Commander Scott vanished in twin pillars of swirling transporter smoke.

"Captain," Spock said, barely missing a beat as his two companions disappeared, "you saw our captors?"

"I saw them," he said and went on to briefly describe the scene he had been snatched into. "Either they call themselves Aragos, or that's the name of the one who was trying to communicate with me."

"Aragos, Captain?" Spock said. "I am sure I have heard that word before."

"I know," Kirk said. "It sounds familiar to me, too, now that I have the time to think about it." He grimaced. "If we could just get in touch with the computer, or get our hands on a translator! Spock, no one's come up with a substitute for Bones's fly rod idea?"

"Negative, Captain. We have literally nothing but the clothing we wear. However, it was observed during your absence that several of the objects from the
Enterprise
were apparently transported somewhere and returned, one at a time."

Kirk nodded. "I'm not surprised. They were using them as part of the language lesson. In fact, that might be the main reason they brought them all down here. They transported them to the room I was in, showed them to me, and had me name them. They ran through one of everything, I think, and then started showing me pictures of the
Enterprise
's controls."

Turning to look out through the barrier, he saw one of the objects from the
Enterprise
turn momentarily to smoke and then vanish as he watched. "They seem to be running Bones and Scotty through the same routine," he said with a frown. "Apparently they didn't believe what I told them."

"Perhaps it is just as well, Captain."

"You sound as if you have an idea, Mr. Spock."

"I do, but it cannot be implemented unless they repeat their procedures again with me. If they do, I can attempt to influence them mentally."

"A mind touch? Without physical contact?"

"I can guarantee nothing, Captain. If I am given the chance, I can only try. If, as you say, they are anxious to communicate with us, they may be more receptive than they would be under other circumstances."

"Let's hope so. If we don't establish some kind of communication before the Hoshan and the Zeator get here, it probably means the end of the
Enterprise
. And the end of any chance to return to the Federation."

He broke off, shaking his head. "Even if these people have the technology to defend it, I don't think they're in control enough to use it effectively," he said and went on to describe the seemingly jury-rigged auxiliary controls for the transporter and the tricorderlike device the woman had used. "Whoever they are," he finished, "I don't think they're the ones who built this place originally. Their ancestors, perhaps, but not them."

For nearly an hour, then, the two of them talked, with Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov alternately listening and volunteering comments. Kirk described the transporter room and its controls in as much detail as he could remember, and even as he did, the items beyond the barrier continued to appear and disappear. Finally, as they were discussing the earlier, lower-level life form readings the
Enterprise
had detected, Spock suggested they might have been generated not by organic computers but by the same humanoids the later sensor readings detected.

"Suspended animation?" Kirk asked. "You're saying these people may have built this place as a sort of ultimate bomb shelter? A place to survive until whatever destroyed their world went away and it was safe to come out again?"

"Possible, Captain, even though the readings were not entirely consistent with suspended animation. Both the Hoshan and the Zeator told us they themselves constructed massive defenses for their own worlds, which apparently are outside this zone where all worlds have been destroyed. Here, directly in the path of whatever was destroying the worlds, this subsurface vault and the possibility of outliving their enemies may well have been their only hope for survival."

"But why would they awaken now, just in time to snatch us off the
Enterprise?
"

"Pure chance, perhaps. Or our earlier approach could have triggered some revival mechanism. There was, you will remember, an operating power source. I detected no sensor probes at the time, but that does not mean none was present. Or our own sensor probes might have been the triggering mechanism, reviving the people in order that they could defend themselves."

"Or find out if the war was over. Unlike everyone else we've run into here, this bunch at least wants to talk, so—"

Kirk broke off sharply as, a few feet away, the smoky forms of Scott and McCoy began to materialize.

Hurrying toward them, Kirk wondered who, if anyone, would be next.

"Bones! Scotty!" he said quickly. "A transporter room? Language lesson?"

"Aye," Scott said, "I think so."

But before he could say more or McCoy could do more than nod, Spock broke in.

"I am next, I believe, Captain," he said, and as Kirk turned sharply toward him, the swirling smoke of the alien transport system began to form.

"Spock!" Kirk shouted, as if raising his voice could penetrate the clouds and reach the Vulcan's now transparent ears. "Get that translator!"

Maybe, he thought, we have a chance after all, and he wondered if they were being watched, if even the fact that it was Spock he had conferred with after his return was what had prompted the aliens to take the Vulcan next.

"Captain!"

Lieutenant Tomson's shout jerked Kirk's attention away from the fading column of smoke that had been Spock. Turning abruptly, Kirk saw why she had yelled.

Someone else was disappearing in a swirl of smoke, the last someone Kirk had hoped would be taken.

If anyone could throw a monkey wrench into Spock's attempt to communicate with the aliens, it was Dr. Jason Crandall.