STAR TREK - TOS - 88 - Across The Universe

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Chapter One
LEANDER CORTES had known for some time that he was a dead man, that the vessel carrying him
and his shipmates would become their tomb.
Why had he and his companions insisted on clinging to life, even while knowing they were condemned?
Perhaps, he thought, in the hope that, if they were ever found by other voyagers across the interstellar
ocean, it would be seen that they had fought against death right up to the end. Maybe most of them had
gone on breathing and living only out of habit.
He did not know what his shipmates were thinking now. They had not said much to one another for a
while, as if preparing themselves for the absolute silence that would soon claim them all.
Cortes floated weightlessly in the forward control room of his ship. The relativistic craft had lost its
gravitational effect, simple acceleration against decks, nearly
a year ago when the drive failed, but the vessel had been slowing down long before that. He and those
with him had accepted the fact that they were not likely to arrive at their destination until they were past
the prime of their lives. They had to take only one more small step further to realize finally that they would
never reach that world at all.
He had grown so used to the nearness of death, so accustomed to the thought that he was almost ready
to welcome his end... and then, suddenly, a voice had called out to him across the universe.
The voice was a human voice, a male voice, speaking to him in a language he could understand, a
language that had hardly changed in all the years that had passed since he and his comrades had left
Earth. Another interstellar voyager had crossed the path of Cortes's ship while searching for nun and his
shipmates. The man had asked him for permission to come aboard.
Cortes could not remember exactly how he had replied, but by the time the stranger managed to reach
the nearest airlock in whatever sort of shuttlecraft he possessed and board the ship, perhaps-
No, Cortes told himself. The chance of anyone-of any other intelligence-actually finding his ship was
practically nonexistent. No one from Earth could be searching for him now, and no alien was likely to
address him in any language that he knew. There had been no voice from another ship; he had only
imagined that a rescuer was coming for him.
Now, suddenly, a bright ghostly shape was forming in front of him. Before he could cry out, a man
appeared,
and then another, and then three more human figures behind them.
I am going mad, Cortes thought; these apparitions could not be real. He watched in disbelief as they
reached out and grabbed at rungs and handholds.
"Captain Cortes." He had heard that voice before, over the ship's radio, the voice of his imagined
rescuer; it came from the young light-haired man who was hanging closest to him. "Captain Cortes, I am
James T. Kirk, captain of the U.S.S. Enterprise." Another of the apparitions floated toward Cortes, and
he was suddenly aware of this being's pale skin and long, pointed ears.
"We come in peace," the illusion called Kirk continued. "You have nothing to fear from my companion
with the pointed ears. He's my first officer and science officer, Commander Spock-he is a Vulcan."
Well, that explains everything, Cortes thought wildly, not understanding, fearful that the strangers might
not be human after all, and then the darkness he had been waiting for swallowed him.
"Captain Cortes." Another voice was calling to him through the darkness. "Captain Cortes."
He was lying against something that felt like a couch or a bed. Cortes took a breath, then realized that he
was no longer floating, that gravity had slipped its bonds over him once more.
He forced his eyes open, blinking against the light. An auburn-haired man with a concerned expression
on his face was gazing down at him. This man, Cortes realized,
was the twin of one of the apparitions that had so suddenly materialized in the control room of his ship.
"Captain Cortes," the man said again, "I'm Doctor McCoy, chief medical officer of the Enterprise. We're
beaming the rest of your people aboard as quickly as possible for treatment-we've already filled all the
biobeds near yours with new patients."
"What?" Cortes said, trying to grasp what the stranger was saying.
"You'll be all right," the man said. "You had better rest now, start getting your strength back."
Was that even possible? Cortes wondered. He had been ill for so long; would he ever be well again?
Then he closed his eyes and let himself sink into unconsciousness again, and dreamed of his deliverance
from death.
Chapter Two
JAMES KIRK leaned forward and rested his arms on the table top. Except for Dr. McCoy, all of the
officers he had summoned to the briefing room were present. Since Ilsa Soong, one of the other medical
officers, was already seated at the table, Kirk decided not to wait for McCoy.
"Dr. Soong," Kirk said, "we'll begin with your report and assessment of our new passengers."
"All of the people from the Hawking are resting now," Lieutenant Commander Soong said. "The ones
who seem strongest have been assigned to crew quarters, and the rest are sleeping in sickbay. Dr.
McCoy will probably have more to say when he gets here, but fortunately all of their physical problems
are conditions we can treat."
The physician paused for a moment. Kirk waited, seeing that she had more to tell him.
"Physically, I'm sure all of Cortes's people will recover quickly," Soong continued, "but psychologically
it's going to be a long haul for them. They're temporally displaced and at least a few seemed mentally
unbalanced. Under the circumstances it's a wonder none of them committed suicide. That's the one thing
that gives me a bit more hope for their eventual mental recovery."
Captain Cortes's craft, a relativistic vessel called the Stephen Hawking, had left Earth nearly two
centuries ago. The Federation ship Hoyle had been the first to encounter the old starship, but had kept
away, since the Hoyle's crew had no standing orders to make contact in such a situation. After the
Hoyle's commanding officer, Commodore Shirley "the Cat" Spencer, told Starfleet of what she had
found, a data specialist had discovered that a Federation historian had unearthed information about this
particular obsolete ship and its probable position. The Enterprise, under Starfleet orders to investigate,
had already been on its way to explore the old craft by the time Commodore Spencer had discovered
the long-forgotten ship from Earth.
"Another piece of the past, still coming at us," was the way Cat Spencer had put it in her message to
Kirk.
"Thank you, Dr. Soong," Kirk said. "Lieutenant Longstreet, I assume you've already begun preparing a
historical summary for the people from the Hawking."
Farley Longstreet nodded; the young officer was an information systems specialist as well as a historian
with a thorough knowledge of Earth's early and middle twenty-first century. "Filling them in on the history
that has
passed while they were on their voyage is going to be interesting," Longstreet said. "These people knew
they were leaving their own time behind, but they expected to settle another planet without ever knowing
what had happened on the world they'd abandoned. Now that future world has reached out to grab
them. They're going to find out what has happened. They'll have to deal with a future they never expected
to encounter, and somehow adapt to it."
"We can tell them what they escaped," Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu said. Kirk knew what Sulu meant. The
Hawking had left Earth about fifteen years before World War III.
'True," Longstreet said, "and that's just what worries me. They'll find out that people they knew-people
they cared about-probably died during the nuclear winter that followed our last world war."
Lieutenant Uhura glanced at Longstreet. "But they'll also learn that there were survivors," she said, "and
that Earth recovered from that war. They'll learn that humankind is finally at peace with itself, if not
necessarily with some of the races in this galaxy."
"Permission to speak, Captain," Ensign Pavel Chekov said then. "I have discovered something else about
our guests-about one of them, in any case."
Kirk nodded at the ensign. "Go ahead, Mr. Chekov."
"I have learned that one of the men we brought aboard is Dmitri Sergeievich Glakov, an ancestor-a
relative from the past-of mine. His name was on the Hawking''s manifest. I do not know much about him
except that he left Earth in the early years of space travel and-"
Chekov looked down for a moment before continuing. "He was something of a rogue, Captain.
According to the family stories I heard, he was involved in some shady ventures. I do not think they
could have been great offenses, because by that time the worst criminals among my countrymen had been
put away, so to speak, but I thought you should know."
"Very interesting," Kirk said.
"I suspect that when Dmitri Sergeievich Glakov disappeared from Earth," Chekov went on, "he was
trying to escape the consequences of some of his illegal acts. For many in my family, he was regarded as
a most colorful character-they would tell tales passed down to them about Dmitri Sergeievich shooting it
out with rival gangs and riding around Moscow in a stolen Limousine, a beautiful woman on each arm."
Commander Spock raised a brow. "Fascinating," the Vulcan officer said.
"I do not know how many of those stories are true." Chekov frowned. "Many of them probably grew in
the telling. But I do know that there was much criminal activity in my homeland during that time, and that
Dmitri Sergeievich Glakov was not what you would call a respectable citizen. Now he is aboard our
ship." He sighed. "At least now I know what happened to him. Of course, I would like to learn more."
"I'm sure all of your relatives will also be interested to find out about him." Kirk looked around at the
other officers. "Scotty, I want you and an engineering crew to scan the Hawking thoroughly as soon as
possible and find out if it's worth salvaging."
Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott nodded. "Aye, Captain. And we'll beam aboard to take a
look around when we know more about her."
"We also have to find out something about the Hawk-ing's original destination star," Kirk said, "and
whether or not there are habitable planets in its system."
Spock turned toward the captain. "I have already put in a search," the science officer said, "to learn if that
system has ever been visited."
Kirk leaned back. "We'll have to assemble the Hawk-ing's crew and passengers as soon as possible and
find out from them what they wish to do. By then, we should know if their destination star holds a viable
choice of habitable planets or not."
Spock raised a brow and said, "The Hawking's people may be most confused about their future plans,
given what they have already learned about their situation."
"Granted," Kirk said. "We must hear from them before we decide anything. Once they have a clear idea
of their options, we'll do what we can to assist them."
Uhura lifted a hand. "Captain," she said, "I'm sure there must be several colonial settlements that would
willingly accept a hundred people. That might be better than giving them a world to win entirely on their
own, in isolation."
"I agree, Lieutenant," Ilsa Soong murmured, "but I suggest that we assemble the people from the
Hawking in groups of twenty for discussion, rather than all of the one hundred in one group."
"Oh?" Kirk said. "And why?"
"My feeling is that being brought together in one large group for a meeting would prevent many from
voicing their true feelings," the physician replied. "Larger blocks might affect minority opinions, but in
smaller groups those opinions would become available to us, rather than being suppressed."
"Suppressed?" Kirk asked.
"We don't know the dynamics of this community, Captain," Uhura said. "I agree with Dr. Soong. People
might remain silent out of fear of rejection, afraid to say what they really think. In smaller groups, they're
likely to be more open. These people have been trapped aboard their ship for quite some time. I doubt
they could have survived that experience without forming strong bonds and keeping a lot of possibly
disruptive feelings to themselves. They may be especially reluctant to speak their minds too freely in a
large group."
The door at the end of the briefing room slid open, and Leonard McCoy came inside and sat down
quickly at the other end of the table. The chief medical officer looked harried and more than a little
annoyed.
"Anything to tell us, Bones?" Kirk asked.
McCoy took a deep breath and said, "Our new passengers are all very run down, and are suffering from
calcium loss and muscle atrophy from being gravity-deprived for so long. Several are anemic, several
others have sinus and respiratory infections, all of them have malnutrition and damaged immune systems,
and a few show signs of injuries from earlier accidents-broken and knitted bones, contusions, and the
like-fortunately, none of them serious. We're doing all the physical reconstructive
work quite easily, but I can't speak for the state of their minds."
All of the officers were silent for a few moments. Kirk thought of his first encounter with Leander Cortes
aboard the Hawking. The man had been so gaunt that he had looked like a figure out of an El Greco
painting, floating weightlessly with his long gray hair fanning out from his head. The unconscious man Kirk
had held while beaming back to the Enterprise had been hardly more than a bag of bones in his arms.
At last Kirk said, "I'm certain their spirits will improve with restored health."
"There's no question that improved health will banish some of their mental distress," Ilsa Soong said, "but
it will also present them with new problems."
McCoy nodded. "You're right. Some will make it, but there may be others who won't recover
emotionally, at least not any time soon."
"Hope can only grow," Kirk said, "from new, positive experiences. We'll just have to make sure these
people get those experiences."
McCoy sighed. "Easier said than done, Jim. The greatest unknown is still in the human mind."
Spock lifted a brow. "Not quite, Doctor," Spock said. "The greatest unknowns exist inside intelligent
minds."
"Yes, Spock," McCoy said, "and even inside literal-minded Vulcan minds. But the unknowns I'm most
concerned about right now are Leander Cortes and his people."
Chapter Three
PAVEL CHEKOV had approached his kinsman cautiously, wanting to make certain that Dmitri Glakov
could handle the shock of finding out that he had a descendant aboard. At last he had managed to take
Glakov aside for a cup of tea in one of the small meeting rooms near sickbay. After only a few days
aboard the Enterprise, the older man already looked much improved. There were fewer silver strands
and more chestnut ones in Glakov's thick head of hair, and his thin sharp-cheekboned face had begun to
fill out.
"It is good to talk with a countryman from my future, Pavel Andreievich," Glakov said in Russian as
Chekov handed him a cup of tea. "It is even better to hear my mother tongue spoken by you and to
know that it has not changed beyond recognition."
The man's dark eyes were warm, his expression open; he did not strike Chekov as a criminal, although a
skilled
confidence man or swindler might seem equally congenial. He had introduced Chekov to a few of his
companions, none of whom had seemed especially uneasy around Glakov. All of that, Chekov reminded
himself, might mean only that his relative had formed strong friendships aboard the Hawking, which was
not surprising given what he and his comrades had faced.
"You will find much new terminology in our language that is unfamiliar to you," Chekov said.
"I already have." Glakov drank from his cup. "But then I would have expected that. New words I can
learn, Pavel Andreievich. That will be the least of my problems."
"That is so, Dmitri Sergeievich." Chekov wondered how to broach the subject of his ancestor's past.
"It is also gratifying to know that Russia, and of course the rest of Earth, has become the kind of world so
many of our people once hoped for and envisioned. To tell you the truth, it did not seem such a likely
prospect in my time."
"I know how hard those times were," Chekov said. "We Russians have a long memory for our suffering.
Stories of the past came down to me from my father and my mother, and from my grandparents." He
paused. "But there is something I must tell you, Dmitri Sergeievich. I hope it does not come as too great a
shock."
Glakov leaned forward and rested his arms on the table top. "Say what you have to say. I have already
survived many surprises during the past few days."
Chekov cleared his throat. "On my mother's side, my grandfather had a direct male ancestor by the name
of Mikhail Sergeievich Glakov, who had an older brother
named Dmitri. They were both born in Zagorsk, but their parents moved to Moscow a few months after
the birth of their second son. It means-"
"-that you are part of my family," the other man finished, obviously drawing the correct conclusion
immediately. "You are a descendant of my brother!" Glakov reached across the table and clasped
Chekov's right hand between two palms. "But this is remarkable! Now that I know that, it seems to me
that there is indeed something of my brother Misha in your face."
"And I have heard some stories about you," Chekov said, "and about your life in Moscow."
Glakov was still looking at him with anticipation in his eyes. He did not seem like a man afraid that a
sordid past might now come back to haunt him. "And what did you hear?"
Chekov took a breath. "One of the more exciting tales was of an armed robbery you committed at a
jewelry store on Gorky Street in broad daylight. Another was of a high-speed chase in automobiles to a
town almost two hundred kilometers outside Moscow, where you were at last able to make your escape.
But I think my favorite is the shoot-out you had with some hoodlums in a Moscow cemetery, as if your
gang and its rivals were at the O.K. Corral of the old American West..." Chekov's voice trailed off.
Perhaps his tone had been a bit too enthusiastic.
Glakov gaped at him. Chekov tensed, keeping his hand near the phaser at his waist. Then Glakov threw
back his head and laughed.
"A high-speed chase!" He shook his head and laughed
again. "A shoot-out in a cemetery! Pavel, I am sorry to disillusion you, but my life on Earth was not
nearly so eventful as that."
Chekov stared at him, not knowing what to say.
"My sides are aching! I thought I had lost the power to laugh!" Glakov gradually stopped laughing and
grew calmer. "I will confess that I was not always on the right side of the law," he continued, "but my
illegal activities consisted largely of black-market currency transactions and picking an occasional pocket.
As for gangs, the only ones I had contact with were the ones to whom I sometimes had to pay protection
money." He leaned back in his chair. 'Times were hard, Pavel Andreievich. My mother was a widow on
a pension that barely kept her alive, and my brother Misha was still in school. I did what I had to do to
help them, and when Misha was out of school-" Glakov looked away for a moment. "I decided to leave
Earth when a friend informed me that the authorities wanted to detain me for questioning."
Chekov finished his tea. "That does not quite explain all of the stories I was told."
Glakov spread his hands, palms up. "I am afraid that I often told Misha exaggerated tales of my exploits.
I didn't do that solely to make myself more important in his eyes, I did it so that he would believe that he
had a brother able to protect him from harm and would not worry as much about his safety and that of
our mother. And then I was gone before he could find out the truth."
Chekov was silent.
"Please, Pavel Andreievich-you must tell me what happened to Misha in later years. Your comrade
Farley
Longstreet has already briefed us on some of Earth's history-I know about World War III."
"Your brother did not survive it," Chekov replied, "but he had three children who did."
Glakov sighed. "He has been dead all these years. I have known that had to be so for some time now,
and yet to hear this from you-"
"You have been through much hardship, Dmitri Sergeievich," Chekov said, feeling how inadequate his
words were.
"Yes. More than perhaps you can understand. You are looking at a man who gave up all hope some time
ago, when we knew that our ship's drive was failing. You are looking at a man who believed that he and
his comrades would never arrive at the world they sought, who saw friends dying aboard a vessel that he
believed would inevitably become a mass grave. You are looking at one who felt his body failing him,
growing weaker every hour. I did not consider suicide, for I was already dead. And now you and your
crewmates have resurrected me." The older man paused. "I think that to understand what we went
through, you would have to read some of the works of our country's great writer Dostoyevsky, if any
record of them still exists."
"His works have survived, my kinsman," Chekov said, "and I have read them."
"You will forgive me." Glakov got to his feet. "Your physicians are skilled healers, but I have grown
fatigued now, and must rest some more."
"Of course." Chekov was still wondering if he could believe everything his ancestor had told him.
Leander Cortes was sitting up on a biobed, getting scanned by Dr. McCoy, when Kirk entered sickbay.
Several other people from the Hawking lay on beds near their captain. A few people were resting; others
held small portable viewscreens. Chekov's relative, Dmitri Glakov, sat at a small table playing chess with
another man. A woman on a biobed in one corner was talking to Ilsa Soong.
During the week that Cortes's people had been aboard, Kirk had familiarized himself with the names of
most of them. That tall pale man gazing intently at his small viewscreen was Emo Tannan, the Hawking's
first officer, while the woman with the long black braid talking to Dr. Soong was Rachel Zlatopolsky, an
engineer. The short bearded man playing chess with Glakov was Nasser al-Aswari. All of them looked
healthier, and would soon be strong enough to discuss their future, but Kirk noticed the wariness in their-
faces as he crossed the room.
"Greetings, Captain Cortes," Kirk said. The commander of the Hawking looked rested, his lean face was
filling out, and his gray hair had been trimmed to collar length, but he still seemed nervous. Cortes shifted
uneasily on his bed and eyed McCoy's medical tricorder as if he expected the instrument to turn on him.
"Heart rate's normal," McCoy said as he passed the tricorder over Cortes chest. "Bone density's
returning to normal." He glanced at Kirk. "What brings you here, Jim?"
"I just wanted to see how our guests were doing." Kirk glanced back at the others in sickbay. They were
all watching him now. The youngest of the group in this area
of sickbay were two people in their late forties, while all the others were in their fifties and sixties; there
were no people younger or older than that from the Hawking. In a few weeks, they would be fully
recovered, feeling as though they were again in the prime of life. He wondered if they would be able to
accept that fact.
He turned toward Cortes and McCoy. "I trust, Captain Cortes, that you are feeling much better," Kirk
said.
Cortes leaned forward slightly. "Yes, I am. It's quite remarkable that your medical treatments work so
swiftly. I had thought that I would never feel well again."
McCoy cleared his throat. "And you're going to be feeling even better in a few days."
Cortes shook his head. "Remarkable."
"We'll be holding meetings soon," Kirk said, "so that you and all of your crewmates can start making
some decisions."
McCoy nodded. "And we'll all be looking forward to hearing more about your voyage, about its
beginnings and its goals."
Kirk realized instantly what Bones was trying to do get Cortes to look past his fears and suffering by
preparing to talk about his ordeal. It was an old-fashioned ploy, but sometimes effective. Kirk was of the
view that putting people into a new environment where they would have to function in fresh ways was a
more plausible therapy; but until the Enterprise deposited these people in their new home, McCoy's
gentle prodding would probably do no harm. Kirk reminded himself again that he still knew little about
these people. It wouldn't hurt to ferret more information out of them before any meetings took place.
Leander Cortes took a deep breath; for several long moments, he was silent, seemingly unwilling or
unable to speak.
"I don't mean to pry," McCoy said, "but I thought it might help-"
"That's all right, Doctor." Cortes rested his hands on his knees. "We left a choking, damaged Earth, only
to face the problems of a confined ecology aboard our ship." He paused and looked around the
infirmary, as if trying to make up his mind how to continue.
Kirk waited.
"The plan, upon reaching our new world," Cortes went on, "was to bring forth children from the
protected genetic material stored aboard our ship. But of course that became an increasingly distant goal
after we realized that the Hawking was slowing down. Some of us might have decided to have children
on board, but that prospect became an unacceptable horror as time dragged on and our ecosystems
developed problems of infestation and disease. We could not condemn innocent children to such a life, to
such constricted and hazardous circumstances. Twenty-five of our comrades died before we were able
to bring the most virulent viruses and bacteria under control. It was not the best ship that we started with,
but it was the best we could get. We were fortunate to have a ship at all."
"Lieutenant Longstreet tells me that it was quite a sophisticated vessel for its time," Kirk said. The
Hawking was equipped with a quantum gravitational-impulse power drive that drew its energy from the
vacuum flux.
"It obviously wasn't sophisticated enough to keep from breaking down," Cortes said.
"When Mr. Spock first scanned your ship," Kirk continued, "he mentioned that the sensor readings
indicated that the Hawking apparently ran into at least one flux dead spot in the vacuum. That would have
been enough to have erroneously convinced you that there was something wrong with the drive itself,
when it was only a dead spot in the field. A century from now, your drive would have cut in again."
"That would have been too late for us."
"True," McCoy said, "but you couldn't have been expected to know that its failure was the result of that
kind of problem. After all, you-"
"Yes, Doctor, I know," Cortes muttered. "I am only an ignorant man from a time long past, from a world
that no longer exists as I knew it." He fell silent, as if suddenly aware that he might be revealing too much.
Kirk thought of what Chekov had told him about his kinsman Glakov. Perhaps only a petty criminal, or
possibly a man guilty of serious crimes-they had no way of knowing what was true about the man, and
the same doubts could be applied to everyone from the Hawking.
"What, Captain," Kirk said, "were your specific reasons for leaving Earth?"
Cortes shifted on the biobed, clearly reluctant to reply.
"Let me assure you," Kirk continued, "as I have before, that there is nothing from today's Earth that can
do you and your people any harm, or which has any authority to hold you accountable for any old
wrongs."
Cortes drew his brows together. "We disapproved of the Earth we left behind, Captain Kirk. Most of us
knew, for one reason or another, that there was no future for any
of us there. That is about all I have to tell you at the moment."
"As you wish," Kirk said, "but rest assured that Earth now is a much, much better place than the one you
left behind. You've all had a chance to learn a little about what's happened there since you left, and
Lieutenant Longstreet will be happy to answer any of your questions."
"Oh, I'm sure he will," Emo Tannan said from behind Kirk, and the captain heard a tone of sarcasm and
bitterness in the man's voice.
"Jim, let me finish my examination of this man." McCoy studied his tricorder readings. "No more signs of
that respiratory infection you had when you came aboard, Captain Cortes. You've completely recovered
from that"
Cortes grimaced. "Considering the ecological difficulties of long-term life aboard our ship," he said, "it's a
wonder we didn't develop much more virulent infections. Of course our ailments and diseases were only
one of our problems. We also had the psychological problems of long confinement, to which was added
the distress of realizing that our drive was failing. And as we slowly gave up any hope of arrival, of
settling our new world and populating it with children, we became increasingly conscious of what we had
become-prisoners, condemned to incarceration with no hope of escape."
Now that he was talking more freely, Cortes seemed unable to stop himself. "We grew closer to one
another," he went on, "and then more suspicious of one another, and not a day passed without my
worrying that someone would suddenly lapse into insanity, fall into complete
catatonia, or commit suicide. I would make secret bets with myself about who might be the first to
succumb, as I suspect all of us did from time to time. And I would wonder what the first suicide or the
first person to slip into derangement would do to the rest of us. We grew more strange, and more
suspicious, and more fearful of saying or doing anything that might trigger any of our shipmates, and that
is what you see in us today."
Kirk found himself moved by the older man's words. Science and technology had left the people of the
Hawking behind. When they had come out of the solar system, it was to fulfill a yearning for a better
place among the stars, away from the turmoil of their home world. Their dream was not unlike the
impulse that had created the Federation, Starfleet, and the Enterprise. Cortes and his people might have
their greatest difficulty in accepting the enormity of the social progress that had occurred since their flight
from Earth, in knowing that a better life awaited them wherever they might wish to settle. They had been
without hope, and now they had prospects beyond anything they had envisioned. That might be enough
to unhinge many of them.
"What shall become of us now?" someone called out.
Kirk turned and saw that all of the others near him had been listening to Cortes.
"Will you take us to our destination?" Rachel Zlatopol-sky said from the other end of the room. "Or are
we to be returned to Earth?"
"We should know shortly," Kirk replied, "whether there is a suitable world at your original destination
star."
"We had every reason to think that there would be a
habitable planet there," Emo Tannan said from his bed. "But maybe you think of us as much too primitive
to have ascertained that before setting out."
"The suitability of your destination isn't all that we have to verify, Mr. Tannan," Kirk said, ignoring the
sarcasm. "We are checking not only to make sure that there is an Earthlike world in that system, but also
whether or not it already has a colony or has a claim on it that the Federation is bound to honor."
Cortes shook his head. "Of course. Faster ships...."
"We expect to have more information in a few days, perhaps sooner," Kirk continued, "and we'll let you
know immediately what we find out."
McCoy frowned. "In the meantime," he murmured, "your best course of action is to recover and rebuild
your strength, and not worry about the decisions you'll be making later on." The doctor gazed pointedly
at Kirk.
Cortes sighed. "I can tell you that at least some of my people, beaten down by what we've all endured,
may very well ask to return to Earth, especially if-as you say-it is now a better place. We'll have to wait
and see if the desire to settle a new world still exists in any of us."
"That," McCoy said, "will only become apparent when you have all regained your full health and strength.
Tired bodies and minds don't hope very well."
"Hope!" Emo Tannan almost spat the word. "I gave up on that long ago. Better to accept our hell and
give up the habit of hoping."
Nasser al-Aswari turned around in his chair. "Some of us may want to see our old home again," the
bearded man said, "if it exists, if what you're saying about it is the truth."
Kirk folded his arms. "I'll be very direct with all of you. Earth isn't anything like the place you
knew-psychologically, it may be too disorienting for you. Maybe later, after a few years of life on a
colony world that could give you something like the life you expected to have when you started on your
voyage, it might become possible for some of you to visit Earth. Some of your children may choose to go
there eventually."
"I see what you're saying," Rachel Zlatopolsky muttered from her bed. "We'd be obsolete. Everything we
would hope to see is long gone, and everyone we knew there is dead. It might be too wrenching to
endure."
"You may be wrong, Rachel," Dmitri Glakov called out as he looked up from his chessboard. "I have
discovered a kinsman of mine aboard this vessel, so I suspect that there are still some in my homeland
who would know of me!"
A few people laughed, but uneasily.
"Jim," McCoy said, "you'll be holding meetings with these folks soon enough. You're not going to start
holding them in sickbay. Time to let my patients get some of the rest they still need."
"All right, Bones." Kirk nodded briefly at Cortes, then moved toward the nearest exit. He felt the eyes of
the Hawking's people on him before the door slid shut behind him.
Spock sat at his station on the bridge, having finished his review of the rest of the data. He had attended
all of the meetings Captain Kirk had been holding with small groups from the Hawking, observing how
gratified the
captain was by the reactions of the exiles from Earth. Word had spread to the other passengers after the
first meeting, as Captain Kirk had known it would, so that each successive meeting had something to
build on. Each group of people, Spock had noticed, seemed a little stronger, more willing to express their
thoughts, more able to consider and discuss their future plans rationally.
As health had returned to Leander Cortes's people, larger numbers of them had shown an increasing
desire to go on to the star that was their original destination, to complete the original goal of their costly
venture by settling a habitable world in that system. Cortes had told both Spock and Kirk only the day
before that a majority of the Hawking's people now favored that option.
Unfortunate, Spock thought, that they would now be unable to carry out their plan.
He touched a communicator panel next to the display screen. "Captain," he said, "may I request that you
come to the bridge?"
"Kirk here," the captain's voice replied. "I'm on my way. What is it, Spock?"
"I now have all the information we were seeking about the Hawking's destination star."
Kirk had asked Leander Cortes and his people to meet him in the large briefing room near the
gymnasium. All of them were waiting for him when he entered the room, trailed by Spock, McCoy, and
Soong.
Most of them had found chairs; others stood on either side of the room against the walls. Cortes sat with
Emo Tannan on the raised platform at the other end of the
room. Kirk went to them, hurried up the two steps to the stage, then turned to face the gathering.
"Friends," Kirk said, "I have an announcement to make." Expectant, hopeful eyes watched him. He
glanced at Ilsa Soong, thinking of what she had told him earlier; these people, despite the great
improvement in their health and well-being, were still in a fragile emotional state. Even so, there was no
point in lying to them, in trying to save them this additional blow. Even if he had been able to get away
with lying, he and his crew had worked too hard to win the trust of these people to attempt to deceive
them now.
"Our destination," Cortes said. "That's why you've called us all here, isn't it? You've finally found out what
we need to know."
"Yes," Kirk said. "I'm sorry to report that your destination star has no Earthlike planets-no planets at all,
in fact. Commander Spock has confirmed this. There is no doubt."
There was a long silence. No one moved; no one even seemed to be breathing.
"But how can this be?" Cortes said at last. "We had every indication ... our data...." He shook his head.
"We would never have set off in complete ignorance of what we could expect."
Kirk looked into the eyes of the people nearest the platform, and realized that they would now have to
accept that their sacrifice had been in vain, that all their decades of suffering would have led them only to
a desert, an empty space.
"I can't believe it," Emo Tannan muttered. "Our drive
fails because of something we couldn't have known about, a dead spot in our drive's field. Now we find
out that there wasn't anything in the place where we were headed. Our lives were wasted-we threw them
away for nothing. We would have done better to stay on Earth and-"
"Emo," Cortes said softly, and the other man fell silent.
Kirk had to tell them the rest of the story, whatever fears that might stir in them. "Your data were not
mistaken," he said. "Your information was correct-there was a planetary system there, including an
Earthlike world, but all of those planets were destroyed by an alien mechanism, a giant thing that ate
planets for fuel."
"What?" Cortes asked.
"That is the fact," Spock said as he stepped onto the platform. "We managed to stop the intruder after it
had eaten other systems. This mechanism was apparently an instrumentality left over from an ancient
conflict, and it was the Federation's misfortune that it came into our sector of the galaxy. One cannot
ascribe any animosity to this device's actions. It had to consume matter to survive."
"And it isn't a threat any more," Kirk said quickly. "It was stopped. We destroyed the thing. A brave man
named Commodore Matthew Decker gave his life to stop it. The ship's computer has our record of the
encounter if you wish to reassure yourselves about its outcome."
Cortes sank back in his chair. "This is still terrifying news."
"But at least you know now that your original plan was not mistaken," Kirk said. "There might have been
a world
for you in that system. There would have been, except for that alien berserker."
"We would have got where we were going if our ship's engine hadn't developed problems we couldn't
foresee, and were too ignorant to repair," Tannan said. "We would have had a world to settle if some
damned planet-eater hadn't gobbled it up. How many other things that we can't possibly know about are
lying in wait for us?"
"Perhaps," Cortes said in a firm voice, "given what Captain Kirk has just told us, we should be grateful
that our ship's engines did fail, and that we didn't arrive at our destination sooner."
The other captain was also trying to put the best face on the news, Kirk realized. The people looking to
him still seemed stunned; this was simply too much for them to take in right away. Reactions of dismay,
disappointment, and even dread and despair would set in later, and some of those feelings would take
root, unless steps were taken quickly to prevent it
"Let me say something," McCoy said as he joined Kirk and the others on the stage. Kirk saw that Bones
had the matter in hand, and knew what to say now. These people might have more trust in the words of
the man who had restored them all to health.
"What can you possibly have to say?" Nasser al-Aswari shouted, but the people sitting near him w ere
already motioning to him to be quiet.
"Captain Kirk would not have come here," McCoy continued, "only to give you bad news and destroy
your hopes. Starfleet has informed us that there is a suitable planet in a nearby system where you can
settle, if you
wish. A colony from Earth was established there forty years ago, and we've been told that it's willing to
accept new settlers. You'd have some of the advantages of our present technology, but without the
extreme disorienta-tion you'd suffer on Earth. You could choose to live among the people already there,
or go off and found your own settlement. Of course, there are also other possibilities-this is only one you
might wish to consider."
"You don't have to decide this now," Kirk cut in. 'Think about it, talk it over, but you should know this-
Starfleet and the Federation look out for our member worlds and allies in what is often a dangerous
galaxy. As we look outward, it may get even more dangerous, but you've all faced danger already. You
were willing to risk the unknown." He paused. "Your ship isn't the first from the past that we've
discovered, and it may not be the last We might need your help in times to come, or the help of your
children, in assisting other voyagers to adapt to new circumstances. Your perspectives will be useful and
valuable."
After a moment, Captain Cortes got to his feet and came to Kirk's side. "Thank you for your reassuring
words," Cortes said.
"They're more than that," Kirk replied. "They are a pledge."
"I take your meaning." Cortes looked out at his shipmates. "We have much to consider now."
Kirk thought of the S.S. Botany Bay, another vessel from Earth's past, whose encounter with the
Enterprise had not been as peaceful or as productive as this one promised to be. He did not have to fear
that Leander
Cortes would try to take over his ship, as Khan Noonien Singh had tried to do. The future of Khan's
people on the world where they had been exiled, Ceti Alpha V, was still to be decided. A piece of a
violent past had been tied off in that encounter, as one might tie off a severed limb; but Kirk was
determined to find a better fate for the people from the Hawking.
摘要：

anothertrilobitescanChapterOneLEANDERCORTEShadknownforsometimethathewasadeadman,thatthevesselcarryinghimandhisshipmateswouldbecometheirtomb.Whyhadheandhiscompanionsinsistedonclingingtolife,evenwhileknowingtheywerecondemned?Perhaps,hethought,inthehopethat,iftheywereeverfoundbyothervoyagersacrossthein...

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