The Folded World (24 page)

“The Ixtoldans—the current ones, those who have assumed the planetary identity—have made a series of bad decisions,” Spock went on. “They invaded a neighboring planet rather than attempting to work out another solution to their dilemma. They eliminated all traces of the previous population, or so they thought. Believing that to be the case, they applied for Federation membership. When we set a course for their stolen planet, we did not know it would take us so near the dimensional fold, nor did we know that the
McRaven
would stumble into it. But having done so, they were at a moment of crisis. They had to hope we would not venture into the fold, and when we did, they had to try to prevent us from emerging with the evidence of their deeds. From the first shelling of the
original Ixtoldans, they have had to take every step possible to cover up their crimes, and each step has led only to another lie, another cover-up.”

“ ‘Oh what a tangled web we weave,'” McCoy quoted.

“We need to get off this ship,” Kirk said. “And back to the
Enterprise
.” The captain started toward the door of the big room. They still had crew members to recover. They'd lost too many already; he had to know if the
Enterprise
was safe.

They retraced the steps of the search party first, finding the bodies of Ruiz and Greene. Then they headed back to the upper decks, where they had lost others. En route, Spock stepped closer to Kirk, and spoke in low tones. “Captain,” he said. “I appreciate the urgency of leaving this ship behind, but if I may offer a suggestion?”

“By all means.”

“This vessel has been trapped here far too long, and the Ixtoldans on board, not living but also not quite dead, have been trapped here as well, due to the peculiar nature of the fold.”

“Are you proposing we try to get it out?”

“I am proposing that the ship should not be left here. Not just for the sake of the Ixtoldans here, but to prevent other ships, like the
McRaven,
from interacting with it. This ship is a death trap. We are fortunate that more of us have not succumbed.”

“We're not off it yet,” Kirk pointed out.

“True,” Spock said.

“Do you have any ideas as to how we might do this?”

“I do not, but I will give the matter all consideration.”

“Until then, we have to get back to the
Enterprise,
” Kirk said.

The landing party had recovered all of their dead and carried them back to the juncture between the Ixtoldan ship and the
McRaven
. The environmental suits were still there, but some could be left behind. Kirk hoped a single shuttle could take the weight of the entire landing party, since getting out of the fold might be too complicated to do more than once.

Gathering up their environmental suits, the
Enterprise
landing party worked their way through the
McRaven
. Kirk thought about Spock's request to free the Ixtoldan ship from the dimensional fold. They would need power, and lots of it, to break it out of the fold's grip. The ship had been stuck for a long time, and the chaotic nature of the fold had added years, centuries. The chances of getting its engines powered up were slim.

But there was still the
McRaven
. It had been in the fold for only a matter of days, as measured from outside the fold. Chances were, despite whatever bouncing around through dimensions and universes the
McRaven
had done, its power systems were still intact. If they could be brought back on line, maybe the
McRaven
could pull the Ixtoldan ship free.

“Change of plans,” Kirk said at the junction that led to the hangar deck. “We're going to the bridge.”

“Not the hangar deck, Captain?” Vandella asked.

“It's time to take the offensive.”

“I hope you know what you're doing, Jim,” McCoy whispered in the captain's ear.

“Bones, have you heard of flying by the seat of your pants?”

“Of course I have.”

“Well, that's what we're going to do. Seat of the pants all the way.”

McCoy looked sour. “I got a feeling I'm gonna wish my pants were armor-plated,” he said.

“Oh, you are. You definitely are.”

Remarkably, the
McRaven
's impulse engines powered up.

They were a long way from out of the woods. There was no indication that the ship would be able to escape the fold's grip on its own, much less towing the huge Ixtoldan vessel. If they could have escaped, Kirk was sure its crew would have done so, rather than be drawn deeper into the fold.

But he wasn't counting on its being able to get free on its own. He wanted its power for other purposes.

“It's not full power, Captain,” Bunker said. “We couldn't reach full impulse, and the warp drive is inoperable. But you have power, sir.”

“Thank you, Mister Bunker,” Kirk said. He went to the communications station and hailed the
Enterprise
. After a moment, he heard Uhura's voice, faint but unmistakable.

“
Cap
 . . .
that you? We've
 . . .
about
 . . .”

“It's me, Uhura,” Kirk said. “Your signal is weak, but I can read you faintly. Do you read me?”

“
Boosting sig
 . . .
tain,
” came back.

“Can you do anything here to boost our signal,
Bunker? We've got to cut through whatever interference the fold is creating.”

“I'll try, sir,” Bunker said. He dropped to the deck and removed one of the service bay panels at deck level, then scooted his upper torso inside.

The ship shook violently again. Kirk had felt earthquakes, and the rumble and shudder reminded him of that. “The Ixtoldan ship just took another plasma burst, Captain,” Spock reported. “We are feeling the effects because the
McRaven
is still joined to the Ixtoldan vessel.”

“Can you read me, Uhura? Is the
Ton'bey
firing into the dimensional fold?”

“
Yes, Captain.
” Uhura's voice was stronger now—the efforts on their side, or Bunker's work, or both, had helped. “
Mister Scott is formulating the appropriate response. After they fired the first time, we told them that any further offensive action would be considered an act of war.
”

“Tell Mister Scott to hold off,” Kirk said. “I think we need them.”

“
But Captain, they're firing on—
”

“On an empty ship,” Kirk said. “Or essentially empty. At any rate, we need the
Ton'bey
whole for now. Someone will have to approach Minister Chan'ya.”

“
Mister Scott read her the riot act,
” Uhura said. “
She might not be in a cooperative mood.
”

“Let her know that this is her only chance. Ixtolde won't be admitted into the Federation any time
soon—probably not in her lifetime. But she has a chance to avoid sanctions being leveled against her people for genocide. And when Ixtolde is deemed ready to apply again, many, many years from now, her cooperation at this time will be remembered. She has nothing left to lose and everything to gain by cooperating.”

“
We'll make that clear, sir. What is your plan?
”

The captain described what he had in mind.

When he had broken the connection, McCoy gave him a grin. “That's downright clever, Jim,” he said. “How'd you come up with that?”

Kirk settled himself into the
McRaven
's captain's chair. The entire landing party was on the bridge, using every available seat and sprawled out on the floor. The fallen were already stowed in the shuttle, but Tikolo was here, still unconscious. With the unreliability of the phaser within the fold, he had hit her a with a deeper stun than expected, or else her system was just so damaged that it had affected her harder than usual. They were still within the fold, though not on the Ixtoldan ship, so the captain was not sorry she was still out. Kirk looked around, knowing that every face would be turned his way. “Uncle Frank.”

“Uncle Frank?” McCoy echoed.

“He was a farmer,” Kirk said. “He grew corn, winter wheat, sorghum, whatever there was a need for. But Idaho was also ranching country, and he had friends in the ranching community.”

“What's the difference?” Chandler asked.

“In the most simplistic terms,” Spock said, “a farmer raises crops and a rancher raises livestock.”

“Winter comes early in Idaho,” Kirk explained. “And traditional ranchers still drive their cattle to winter pastures in the late summer. In that rugged country, cows don't stick close to the roads, and aerial drives are impractical. To move the herds, you've got to be on the ground, where they are. That means on horseback.”

“You were a cowboy, sir?” Vandella asked.

“For a couple of weeks, yes,” Kirk said with a smile. “I was a cowboy.”

McCoy laughed. “Jimmy Kirk in a big hat on an even bigger horse.”

“I was a pretty good-sized kid,” Kirk said. “Skinny, but tall. I'll grant you, it was probably a comical sight,” he admitted. “But I did what I could to help out.” He remembered horseback climbs up and down treacherous slopes, where a misplaced hoof could have spelled injury or death for the inexperienced rider. Uncle Frank had put a lot of faith in him, and he had returned that faith tenfold, trusting that his uncle would keep him safe no matter what. “Anyway, we were on that cattle drive for days and days, and hungry cowboys have got to eat.”

“A chuck wagon?” McCoy asked. The doctor had traveled to distant stars, but the idea of an old-fashioned chuck wagon seemed to fill him with wonder.

“A chuck wagon, pulled by a single mule. But on one occasion, on a steep uphill grade, that mule couldn't do the job by itself.” In his mind's eye, Kirk saw the chuck wagon again, all old, rough wood and heavy iron fittings, and that brown mule with the big ears and the teeth that had seemed gigantic to him. It had tried and tried to get that wagon up the hill, until finally the cook had to jump down off his bench and tell it to quit before it had a heart attack. The mule had sat down, glaring back over its shoulder at the wagon and braying.

“In a sense,” he continued, “that job was like this one. Everybody knew their job. If a wagon wheel broke, someone could fix it. If a calf was trapped in a thorny thicket, someone could coax it out and someone else could dress its wounds. They went where they had to go and did what they had to do to get the job done. At night, around the campfire, there was complaining and grousing and stories and songs. It was beautiful.”

“So, like this,” Bunker said. “But without the need for astrophysics or advanced quantum mechanics.”

“Right. The experienced hands decided to hitch a second animal to the wagon. They picked my horse, a big stallion named Champ. What one mule couldn't do on its own, the mule and Champ accomplished. They put their backs and legs and hearts into it, and they got that wagon up the hill.”

“Which is where the old term ‘horsepower' comes from,” McCoy offered. “Champ added just enough horsepower to get the job done.”

“Your plan makes perfect sense now, Captain,” Bunker said.

Before Kirk could respond, the comm crackled and Uhura's voice sounded. “
We're in place and ready to go, Captain,
” she said.

“Let's get it started, Uhura. We'll do what we can on this end.”

“
Aye, aye, sir.
”

“Places, everyone,” Kirk said. He kept his seat at the captain's chair, and Spock took his usual place at the science station. Bunker took the helm and Romer, her shoulder wrapped in a bandage, sat at the navigation station.

“We're ready, Uhura,” Kirk said.

•   •   •

“Easy, now,” Scotty warned. “Not too sudden. We dinna want to tear the
McRaven
apart.”

“Aye, sir,” Chekov said. “I must point out, we don't know how hard the
Ton'bey
is pulling.”

Scotty wished he were handling the tractor beam controls. If it became necessary he could relieve Chekov and take over. He didn't doubt the ensign's abilities, but he was an engineer at heart and he preferred to do it himself. Delegating did not come easily to him.

“Just ease it out of there,” Scotty said. “The captain
said they don't have much power, but he'll add thrust when he can.”

The engineer watched the viewscreen, which the
McRaven
's image had been magnified to fill. “The trouble is, she's attached to that big ship,” Chekov said.

“Aye, lad,” Scotty said. “We all understand Sir Isaac's first law.”

“I'm trying to maintain a lock on the
McRaven,
but there's so much extra mass.”

“Steady,” Scott ordered.
That's why the
Ton'bey
is also pulling,
Scotty thought. Captain Kirk had told them where to position the two ships, and at what angle to pull from. The captain had said something about horsepower, but Scott attributed that to the poor communication link—the pull of a starship's tractor beam was far too powerful to be measured by such primitive standards. The idea was to wrench the
McRaven
and the Ixtoldan ship away from those clustered around them.

It was all made more complicated by the uncertain nature of the dimensional fold. The reverse tractor beam had worked initially, pushing the shuttles into the fold; therefore, it should work to draw the ships out. But from Scotty's limited understanding of the fold, the pair of tractor beams might be converted, once inside the boundaries of the fold, to something entirely unhelpful.

“We have movement,” Sulu declared suddenly.