Star Trek: The Original Series - 147 - Devil’s Bargain (18 page)

The Horta assembled the containment barrier by climbing on the sides of the shuttle bay hatch itself, starting from the top and working down. It was very much like watching bees build a hive. The reconstruction was done in small parts, and very quickly. The welds themselves were chemical and not ultra-high temperature, so only smoke and no sparks arose from them. In the vacuum of the large shuttle bay, the smoke quickly dissipated, and since there was no draft, it spread out in uniform fashion from the weld point. Nevertheless, the entire process had an industrial feel to it, as if a huge Horta factory was at work, and it was fascinating to watch.

Finally, the last weld was put in place, and the Horta reported that they were finished. After checking the readings, Scott repressurized the shuttle bay. There was the rushing of air as the shuttle bay was oxygenated. Spock heard what he believed
was a collective sigh from the Horta outside, but it was more like a rumble of thunder. The Horta could survive in a vacuum, but their time limit for exposure had approached maximum. All readings soon returned to nominal, and Spock took off his EV helmet. The other members of the repair team did likewise, and at last the airlock door opened.

The Horta aboard the
Enterprise
were safe.

As to those who had been sucked out—their fate remained to be determined.

Eleven

The Horta known as Slider Dan to the humans was fascinated by what was happening to him and around him. There had been the moment of decompression, followed by the enormous tug of the atmosphere pulling his massive body toward the open doors. Before he could dig in or establish a chemical hold—he was floating in space.

It was like surfacing on Janus VI—but so much
more
. More everything. More sky. More space. No gravitational tug. There were several others with him who had almost instantaneously been pulled out just as he was. The tumble from subspace into normal space was a rush like none he’d experienced.

First of all, there was the physical sensation: the tumble and roll of being in a place where no gravity, either natural or artificial, existed. A Horta always knew the way up and down, but these directions ceased to apply with the suddenness and profound completeness that shocked the system like nothing had done before.

And then crossing the bubble of subspace into
normal space had shaken his mind as forcefully as falling out had shaken his body. There was a moment where both bubble universe and larger universe coexisted, where the stars were both near and far away at the same moment, and there was a double perception of everything. This was not merely a change in infrared perception but a change in awareness. It was like being in two places at once, like carving through rock and being at rest at the same time.

There was the shudder in the digestive cavity and the feeling of reality caving in all around him and then reestablishing itself, like one of his bad dreams of a tunnel collapse. When he’d first had those dreams, he’d gone to the All Mother and told her about them. She had explained that they were not that unusual among his kind and that a dream could teach you something, even if it wasn’t something that you could use directly. Dreams were ways of exploring feelings, and feelings must be mastered by a young Horta. Feelings were what had nearly destroyed the clans in the past, and while feelings were necessary, immature Horta needed to know how to keep them in check and use them in moments of need, and to not be overcome by them.

Then came the overwhelming sense of complete aloneness. So much of a Horta’s existence was spent pressed up against walls or against other Horta, and being shaped by those contacts. Slider Dan for the
first time felt nothing pressing in or pulling him from any side. His mind was also free of the hive, completely free, for the first time.

He knew himself in that moment. He was a very small thing in the universe, but something that was alive and full of thoughts and perceptions, and, Slider Dan realized, in that moment, he was somebody.

Somebody who wanted to stay alive.

Slider Dan sent out his thoughts to discover if there was any possibility of connection with his kin. To his immense surprise and relief . . . someone answered.

•   •   •

Around Slider Dan were the thoughts of four others who had been sucked out with him. He could not see them in the darkness, for there was no light to reflect off of them except the light from stars hundreds of millions of kilometers away. But he could feel the minds of the others, their presence within telepathy range. He realized that this told him something.

They must be fairly close by. For the telepathic contact would stretch only a short distance, a quarter kilometer or so. They could draw near to one another by gauging the increasing or decreasing strength of their own ability to communicate telepathically.

Come to me, brothers and sisters,
thought Slider
Dan.
Don’t be afraid. This is not a catastrophe. It is an opportunity. This is a chance to go where none of the people have gone before.

But we’re going to die,
said Missile-in-Rock, who, true to her namesake, was a very quick borer, but she had been shy and timid in personality when dealing with other Horta. She was not of Slider Dan’s clan but was of the Sand Blaster Clan. This did not trouble Slider Dan. He had always felt that his being a Horta was more important than his clan affiliation, and now he sensed this truth even more profoundly. Yet his own clan, the Tunnel Borers, remained extremely meaningful to him, as one is proud of a birthplace or place of schooling. One of the others was of the Sand Blaster Clan and the other was of the Melter Clan.

None of that mattered now. If one considered the odds, it was probable that they would be floating here forever. How long
could
a Horta live in space? They would perhaps be the first ever to find out. They would be the pioneers who knew the answer. Perhaps they would never be able to communicate this answer, perhaps they would.

The future was entirely uncertain—although the physical discomfort he was beginning to feel now was probably telling him something.

And then another thought occurred to Slider Dan: Was there a
reason
he and these others had been sucked out together, a greater meaning?

No. There could not be.

But perhaps there was a chance for a greater meaning. Perhaps he could
make
it mean something that they found themselves together.

Why not? When this was over they would have shared something that no other Horta had shared.

Space, the final frontier.

Let us try to move closer together,
Slider Dan thought to the others.
This is the only way we will form a hive mind with so few of the people present. Let’s attempt a simple formation.

What? We’re stranded out here, and you want us to fly around as if we were on recreational leave?
thought the Horta from the Melter clan.

That is exactly what I believe we should do,
Slider Dan replied.
Not for the sake of entertainment, although it will be entertaining, but for the sake of maintaining your sanity.

I feel like I have indigestion—this is probably the effect of the vacuum. Furthermore, what
you
propose seems insane to me,
said Missile-in-Rock.
But then all options seem insane at the moment.

That’s the spirit!
replied Slider Dan.
Let us try something crazy, then. Let us try to move about by expelling the cut-juice from our underbellies. The All Mother has taught us that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. I did not truly understand what she meant at the time, but it seems as if this might be a good time to try the theory in practice and experience it for ourselves.

They did just that, experimenting with expelling bits and pieces of their self-generated cutting solution from their undercarriages. They discovered that they need not expend much mass, only the equivalent of a few pellets ejected—but with the rail gun–like speed the Horta were capable of generating, it was enough to move them closer together. The telepathic field grew stronger among them. They were doing it. And moving through space felt almost . . . natural. Like sliding through rock.

Could it be that the people are made for space?
thought Slider Dan.

Let us try a crystalline arrangement, say a pentagon,
Slider Dan enjoined them.
There are five of us, let us form five points and see how we do.

After a few miscues and mistakes, that is exactly what they did.

Now let us determine if we can rotate,
Slider Dan continued, the urgency in his formed thoughts pushing them on.

And it worked. The Horta formation began to spin. The hive mind grew stronger and stronger among them the more they interacted. And there was a point when this hive mind grew stronger than the lines that separated them as clan members. There was a point when they became as one.

And in that moment, a new clan was born.

They didn’t have to discuss the matter of what the clan would be named. The answer came to them at once in their deeply connected reverie.

The Star Clan.

•   •   •

On the bridge, Pavel Chekov was busy tracking down every last Horta that had been pulled out of the shuttle bay hatch and beaming those Horta back aboard. This took much longer than the captain liked, but space is vast, and although the
Enterprise’
s sensors were very powerful, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Even more fortunate was the fact that when small bodies fell from subspace, they did so in dribs and drabs, as it were. There was a buildup until enough mass pressed against the space-time boundary, and then the dump into Newtonian space happened all at once. This meant that most of the Horta had dropped within a few kilometers of one another, and within that tiny space they were distributed in even smaller clumps of three to five.

Fortunately these groups were the equivalent of a very hot needle in a very cold haystack, so thermal long-range sensors proved to be effective, and the Horta were located down to the last one.

Toward the end of Operation Horta Overboard, as Kirk had heard Chekov name it sotto voce to Sulu, Spock reappeared on the bridge. He reported
that the saved Horta were being reintegrated into the crowd in the shuttle bay, and that there were many Horta equivalents of tearful reunions.

“The speaker of the Horta, the one I communicated with most effectively before, Slider Dan, is still among the missing. Do we have a report on any remaining Horta in space?” asked Spock.

“Our sensor tally and the Horta’s own count of their missing members match up,” said Chekov. “We’ll be in range to beam aboard the last five Horta within minutes.”

“That includes Slider Dan,” said Spock. “Captain, I suggest that we meet him in the transporter room and welcome him back aboard. The other Horta listen to him. He is the most individualistic of them, and the Horta with whom I have the greatest rapport. His mind is very strong and strategically oriented. In fact, it reminds me of another mind, one I have come in contact with in the past.”

“Who is that?” asked Kirk.

“You, Captain,” said Spock.

Kirk accompanied Spock to the transporter room, and they were standing by when Slider Dan was beamed aboard. He had a crust of what must be frozen atmosphere on his carapace, but he immediately began shuffling about in a Horta-like fashion after he materialized.

Spock established a mind meld immediately. This was becoming an easy procedure with practice.
There was, of course, the danger that he might at some point be absorbed into the Horta group mind and not be able to extract himself. But the Vulcan had found that the telepathic link that he shared with the Horta was much more casual and superficial than the more profound link he shared with other Vulcans, and yet not so much the jarring experience he’d experienced mind melding with the utterly alien.

“Spock, please express my regret about what’s happened, and ask them if they’re all right,” Kirk said.

Spock relayed the question and Slider Dan, after a moment’s hesitation, was able to answer in a sprightly manner that might have included a chuckle were it spoken aloud
. Hail, Spock! I am fine. Do not worry yourselves in that regard.

“He reports that he is doing well, Captain.”

“Very good. Tell him that we have tracked down one of the miscreants who sabotaged the shuttle bay hatch and that we will see that justice is done. When he has had time to rest, I will consult him and the other Horta upon this matter.”

Spock passed along the thought, wordlessly.

Speaker from the Stars, tell your captain that I am none the worse for wear, and that I was able to remain in contact with several of my fellow clan members. While we were floating in space, we found that we could use the effluvia of our undersides as reaction mass and fly about in any manner we chose. We expected rescue, or at least we had hopes for it, and we thought that the best use of our time was to enjoy ourselves while we were floating in the vastness of the galaxy. This also took our thoughts off the pressure discomforts. Such an opportunity will probably never come again, and we wished to make the most of it. That we did. We flew in formation, we flew separately, and we attempted various tricks and maneuvers. This we did to occupy ourselves and keep ourselves from worrying overmuch about rescue. In short, we had a wonderful time, and we believe that space may be in our future, at least for some of us.

I am glad to hear this,
Spock thought.
Perhaps you will also now be in a position to rethink your offer to me to become your new All Mother. You understand that I feel the same way about space exploration as you now do. Vulcans lack many emotions, but we are filled with a burning curiosity, and there is nothing like seeking out new worlds and new civilizations to fulfill that need.