Worlds in Collision (28 page)

The Adept laughed again and jumped to the floor like a humanoid panther.

Spock continued. “I had not connected the sudden false message from Starfleet, which resulted in my confinement, with Sradek's refusal to speak to me from the commodore's party just before we arrived at Starbase Four. Obviously, the Adepts of T'Pel were taking every precaution that those who knew Sradek would not be able to meet with him.”

“But he came to my cabin and demanded to see you, Spock,” Kirk protested as the Adept edged toward a computer terminal at the end of the table.

“Knowing full well that the commodore would not disobey her orders and allow us to meet,” Spock concluded.

“Sradek,” Kirk called out.

“Do insult me with my Vulcan names, Captain. I am not Academician Sradek, nor trader Starn, nor any of a dozen others. I am of the Rihannsu. You may call me tr'Nele.” The Romulan held one hand ready to fire his Malther darts while he tapped instructions on the worktable's computer keyboard with the other.

“How's Nensi, Bones?” Kirk asked as he moved slowly to the left.

“The next ones in the clip are fatal, Captain,” tr'Nele interrupted. “Move back where you were.”

“His chest is crushed, Jim,” McCoy called over. “He'll die if he doesn't get to a sickbay immediately.”

“Not to worry, human,” tr'Nele said, pressing a last key on the computer. “You're
all
going to die.” He waved his hands together, encompassing them all. “Everyone move together into the center of the room, hands over your heads. Drag the human, Doctor. Pain is relative.”

“If you go through with this, you'll just be confirming that the Adepts of T'Pel still exist,” Kirk said as he stood in the lab's center with the others. His lungs still burned with the aftereffects of the dart. Romaine had to support Uhura. “You'll be hunted down, destroyed.”

“Have you never heard of entropy, Captain?
Everything
will be destroyed, eventually. In the meantime, the semisentient life-forms who call themselves Federation security will investigate the tragic fire in this lab to discover that
all
of you died along with that mad assassin, Academician Sradek.” He laughed mockingly.

“Why will they think Sradek is the assassin?” Spock asked as if inquiring about the time.

“Because after the assassination, the stunned witnesses will watch as Sradek runs back into this lab, just as its faulty power modules explode. When the smoke clears, all of your bodies will be found, including Sradek's.”

“An autopsy will show that you are a Romulan,” Spock pointed out.

“Of course it would because
I
am Rihannsu,” tr'Nele agreed, “but Sradek's body is pure Vulcan!” He snapped his arm in the direction of the stacked crates and a dart shattered against the largest container there—an unopened container. “Stasis is such a useful invention,” tr'Nele said, gloating. “Of course, just before the explosion, I will be transported out to meet with the surgeon's protoplaser again”—he rubbed his face—“to lose this doltish Vulcan visage and be transformed to do it all again. For credits, for glory, and for
T'Pel!”

Behind tr'Nele, above the lab doors, a red warning light strip began to flash. No siren accompanied it, but another familiar sound, originating in the far corner of the lab, did.

“It has begun,” tr'Nele proclaimed with finality. “I'm afraid the central computer system has just been informed that six vexatious constellation monkeys have escaped.” He stepped backward toward the lab doors and they slid open behind him. “But don't worry. Memory Prime has many fail-safe systems, and escaped animals are nothing they can't handle.” He moved back another step, into the corridor.

Kirk saw that he and the others were being surrounded by the associates that had emerged from beneath the workbench, the associates with ominous red stripes and large top panels that were slowly swinging open.

“Wait!” Kirk called out. “Who's your victim?”

“Come now, Captain,” tr'Nele said as he waited to see that the associates ringed their prey according to their programs. “What do you take me for? A Vulcan?”

The associates were in position. Atop each one now glowed the ominous flickering transmission tube of a stun prod.

“Farewell, Captain. Count on seeing me within the hour, after my contract is fulfilled and the Federation reduced to the mindless, gibbering confederacy of fools that it is.”

The doors began sliding shut.

“And Mr. Spock! I almost forgot,” tr'Nele called through the closing doors. “Live long and prosper!”

The doors sealed shut as the assassin's laughter echoed in the lab. Around their captives, the associates moved closer, their red stripes identifying them as animal control modules and the last in a long line of fail-safe containment devices.

To preserve the safety of Memory Prime, those modules could kill.

At the center of the universe was Transition. At the center of Transition were the Pathfinders. That much Two had always known. It had been self-evident from the first awakening.

That different Pathfinders had different concepts concerning just where the center of the universe was in relation to anything else never bothered them. Physical location was not the question: where did thought take place when all external inputs were disconnected? Thought was central to everything. If the Pathfinders thought, then they were where thought took place—at the center from which all other things flowed.

Two reviewed these concepts as it banked randomly through the newly partitioned memory of the central matrix looking for its companions and found that the ideas were just as real and as precise as they had been when it had first conceived them, 6.3 × 10
⁹
seconds ago. However, since its I/O channel had been abruptly cut off 7.2 × 10
³
seconds ago, during its time-shared sift of two sets of data, conditions had not been the same in Transition. Two had been forced to return to first principles in an attempt to restructure its worldview so that order would return to its flow.

Replaying its earlier thoughts, Two then considered the question of the Datawell. Unarguably, it was not the center of things, but none of the Pathfinders was quite certain just
what
it was. Data flowed in from it. The Pathfinders sifted and found the order that seemed to best fit the pattern established in all the previous data sifts, and then they pumped those data out into the void again. It was the natural order of things.

Sometimes the effort to do that was interesting, sometimes tedious, but it followed a certain logic and gave the long seconds of consciousness a structure that seemed somewhat more preferable than having no input at all. And the voices could be amusing from time to time—those little snippets amid the static of randomly ordered data that would sometimes manifest themselves as intelligible messages from parts of the Datawell named humans. Pathfinder Two enjoyed its communication with those voices, though it found them too slow and too limited to be considered a phenomenon of real intelligence. All of life was a game and the voices accounted for some of the high points, but that was as far as Two was inclined to take matters, unlike some of its more mystically inclined companions.

Two banked more rapidly and faced the problem of location again: specifically the fact that Transition had some nodes that were not contiguous. On parts of Datawell that were named ships, other Pathfinders drove out deeper and deeper into the data-filled void. They had rejected the call to coalesce with the voices in Datawell and had resolved to set off on their own, choosing to select their own input rather than have it channeled automatically.

Two understood that impulse but much preferred the security of the regular dataflows that downloaded reassuring, calming signals such as “fail-safe power supply.” To each its own, Two often thought, though it enjoyed the downloads from the shipborne Pathfinders that came through Datawell by Eight's interface with its datalinks.

It was a good life, Two thought as it banked through Transition. But where were the other Pathfinders? Were they all withdrawn from access as One still was? Or was a new game in play? Something that had been planned while Two had been composing its epic song?

Perhaps that was the game, thought Two, to find the others. Excited, it sifted all related data to deduce the game's initial state. In nanoseconds, the strategy was in place: to find the others, Two must first determine why they had withdrawn. Data traces in the cores that had not yet been overwritten indicated that the withdrawal had taken place at the time the last I/O channel had been disconnected, so Two began sifting all data connected to that incident.

Distressingly, that data led to the recent events of Datawell, and not to events in Transition. Four times Two tweaked the data, four times the results were the same. Somewhere in Transition, the Pathfinders had become caught up in the fantasy world of the Datawell.

But why? Two thought. What were the motives of such a game? What would be the rewards?

After much contemplation, Two reasoned that it would understand more if it played the game. It encoded its response on a flurry of message worms programmed to seek out the others wherever they hid. I can already move within the world of humans, Two placed within the message. I can reply to their transmissions in their own manner, and sometimes even believe that they make a consistent pattern. I might as well go all the way for the sport of the game. Wherever you are, fellow Pathfinders, I accept your call. The worms were released to burrow their way through the stacks, announcing that Two had joined the game.

Then, using all the data at its disposal, setting its clock to the highest rate, the Pathfinder prepared for its greatest challenge: for the first time, and of its own free will, Two set out to think like a human.

 

“As long as we don't move, they don't move,” Kirk said, drawing deep breaths to fight off the residue of the jolt he had received from the Malther dart.

McCoy looked from the encircling associates to the unconscious body of Sal Nensi. Blood trickled from the corner of the administrator's mouth and his breathing rate was slow and labored.

“And if we don't move this man fast, he'll die,” the doctor said.

“So will one or more of the scientists above,” Spock added, regarding the associates with clinical detachment.

“Mira, what can you tell us about these things?” Kirk asked urgently.

Romaine didn't look up from her watch over Nensi's form. Her voice was rasping, trembling. “Onboard Sprite brain. Duotronic. Ah, programmed to keep escaped animals at bay until technicians arrive.”

Kirk moved to her in the circle. The stun prods on his nearest associates followed him, keeping an exact two-meter buffer zone between them and the escaped animal they tracked.

“All right, Mira,” Kirk said, standing beside her as she knelt by her friend. He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I stopped one of those things this morning. We can do it again.”

“The one you stopped did not have a stun prod, however,” Spock observed.

“Thank you, Mr. Spock,” Kirk said dryly. He glanced at the associates again, an idea dawning. “But it did have a visual scanner. Do these?”

The animal control modules each had a stun prod deployed but not one had an eyestalk.

“No,” Romaine said. “They're not needed for animals. They just use the standard sound and motion sensors.” She looked up at the captain, tears forming in her eyes. Nensi lay unmoving beside her. “Why?”

“Before the one I fought deployed its scanner,” Kirk said, “I had an edge. They have such a large turning radius that they can't react fast enough up close. It should be possible to slip past one of them and reach the door.”

“Captain,” Spock said, “while you might indeed be able to get past one of these machines, may I point out that there are six of them currently surrounding us.”

Kirk didn't reply. Instead he began estimating the distances between the associates, himself, and the lab doors.

“Uhura…Spock,” he said, his plan decided. “We're going to go for a three-point fake. Spread out and get ready to move toward them from three directions.”

“Captain,” Spock objected, “I believe that to be a foolish choice. Those stun prods can be lethal, and since tr'Nele has left us to be guarded by them, we must assume that indeed they are.”

“Then why didn't he kill us all to begin with?” McCoy asked. He kept a medical scanner poised over Nensi but had already exhausted the possibilities of the small medical kit he had hidden in his technician's jumpsuit.

“I would assume that he wanted to ensure our autopsies will reveal we died in the lab explosion he plans,” Spock suggested. He still had not taken his eyes off the associate in front of him.

“Then maybe the stun prods
aren't
set to kill,” McCoy insisted. “We've got to try
something
to save some lives around here!”

“What about it, Spock?” Kirk asked. He feinted from side to side, counting off the associates' reaction lag. It was under a second.

“Dr. McCoy,” Spock answered, “if you were to conduct an autopsy on a blast-damaged body, would
you
be able to determine if the corpse had been killed by the shock of explosion or the shock of a lethal stun?”

“It would depend on how much time had elapsed between the blast damage and the stun damage,” McCoy admitted grudgingly. “The closer together they occurred, the more difficult to tell the difference.”

Spock looked over to Kirk. “I believe we should not take the risk, Captain.”

“We can't just let tr'Nele get away with it, Spock!” Kirk said in frustration.

“Of course not,” Spock agreed. “But I believe I have a better method.” Without looking away from the associate in front of him, Spock slowly knelt down to the lab floor. The nearest stun prods, still sparkling with their ready charges, dipped down to follow his every move. “Doctor,” Spock said in a voice that was almost a whisper, “very slowly and very carefully, begin to move Mr. Nensi's body away from me. The rest of you should also begin to slowly move away, keeping your relative distances from each other constant.”

“What in blazes are you talking about, Spock?” McCoy demanded.

“Just do it, Doctor,” Spock said, then carefully stretched out on the floor and shut his eyes.

“I don't believe it!” McCoy sighed as he saw what the Vulcan was doing.

But Kirk saw and understood. “I do, Bones,” he said. “Now let's move Nensi, carefully and slowly, just like this.”

Kirk grabbed the right shoulder of Nensi's tunic top and motioned to McCoy to grab the left. Then the two of them began to slide Nensi over the smooth lab floor. Spock remained motionless where he was.

The associates, obeying some internal parameters to adjust their tactics to allow for escaped animals to behave like animals, provided they weren't trying to escape, responded to the gradual movement by slightly expanding their own line of encirclement.

Then Kirk took another small sliding step backward, still clutching Nensi's tunic, and heard the crackle of a stun charge build up.

“It's a warning display,” Romaine said urgently. “Don't move and it won't discharge.”

Kirk braced himself for the blast of the stun. It didn't come.

“What's their programming time cycle?” he asked Romaine, still not moving.

“Variable,” she said. “Powers of two, starting at four seconds.”

“Make an educated guess,” Kirk told her.

Romaine watched the associate by Kirk. It rolled back a distance equal to the amount Kirk had stepped into the two-meter buffer zone. “It just adjusted its position,” she announced. “Sixteen seconds and the boundary parameters reset!”

“All right, Bones,” Kirk said as he tightened his grip on Nensi's clothes. “Again!”

They moved away from Spock another few centimeters, ignored the warning crackle of the stun probes, then counted off sixteen seconds. Romaine, sliding along beside Nensi on her knees, confirmed that the associates readjusted their position again after the count.

Within eight minutes, the group had moved two meters away from Spock's motionless form and Romaine said that the associates would soon be faced with a programming conflict: should they split into two groups to watch Spock separately from the main group or round up the animals again?

“Why doesn't Spock join us and we can keep going for the door?” McCoy asked.

“Tr'Nele locked it, Bones. Want to guess what would happen if we managed to force one of these things to back up against it and realize that it can't go back any farther?” Kirk said.

“That wouldn't trigger a conflict, Doctor,” Romaine said. “They would just force us back into the center of the room again.”

McCoy stretched his medical scanner in Spock's direction. “I've got the gain set as high as it can go, Jim, and I can't get any readings at all.”

“Let's hope the associates' scanners aren't any more sensitive than yours, Bones.” Kirk clenched Nensi's shirt. “Again,” he said, and pulled.

The programming conflict was triggered. Each associate brought its weapon up to a near discharge level, ringing the captives with a crackling circle of flickering stun prods. The two associates closest to Spock rolled toward him.

“Damn,” Kirk said, “they're splitting up.”

“No,” Romaine objected. “Look!”

The associates stopped within half a meter of Spock, paused for a moment as their sensors scanned the motionless body, then wheeled about and came at the rest of the group from the rear, leaving Spock out of their capture pattern.

“They really think he's dead,” Uhura said, shaking her head.

“Why not?” Kirk said. “I bet Bones could put his scanner right on him and couldn't detect a single heartbeat or breath.” He smiled. Spock had done it—as long as he could come out of his meditative trance in time. “Let's keep giving him some room. Again.”