THE BRIDGE WAS quiet with the hush of a routine watch.
Uhura was worried.
Captain Kirk had missed his morning check-in, and her efforts to reach him had not been successful. She had called President Erikkson's office over the shortwave transceiver several times and had been told repeatedly that the captain, Sulu and top government officials were in urgent meetings and could not be disturbed. Messages would be relayed, of course.
Uhura didn't like that. She thought the captain would call back, if he could. . . .
Now night was falling on the continent down below, and still she had heard nothing. She couldn't raise Erikkson's office at all on the shortwave. Communicator frequencies were still out. The transporters were not working yet, although Scotty had made their repair his top priority. Kirk and Sulu had taken Galileo, and Spock and Chekov still had Columbus. Right now Columbus was serving as a flying ambulance and cargo truck for the refugee camp Spock had found in New Athens.
If there'd been a third shuttle, Uhura would have torn down to the surface and taken a look for herself; Scotty would take the conn, whether he wanted to or not.
What galled Uhura was that things could be perfectly all right. Kirk could call on the president's transceiver, but was under no compulsion to do so; the Enterprise was no longer on alert. His only other way of talking to the ship would be to go out to the airfield and use the transceiver unit in Galileo. Kirk hadn't done that yet, but he had certainly been out of touch before under more pressing circumstances. The uncertainty of the situation gnawed at her.
So this is what command is like, Uhura thought.
She wished she could talk to Dr. McCoy about it, but he had assigned himself to detached duty at the New Athens camp, working with his daughter. Despite her worries, Uhura smiled. I'd like to be able to tell the captain about that, too, she thought.
She tentatively decided to raise hell if, in the morning, Kirk hadn't checked in and Erikkson's office continued to stall her. And I can raise a lot of hell, she said to herself, with a decisive and self-satisfied nod of her head.
Scott and MacPherson hadn't gotten much sleep in the past few days. It was becoming night aboard the ship as well, and the ship's two top engineers were still hard at work. Scotty had just finished uncrossing the last crossed circuit in the Jeffries tube, while MacPherson was still struggling with one of the Delaney valves that controlled the flow of coolant to the inboard port impulse engine.
"How's it goin', laddie?" Scotty asked him.
The big Celt snorted. "Balky as ever, Scotty. Th' upper-left quadrant is out o' phase, and I'm havin' t' shave th' lower-right quadrant t' fit. Tricky job, but I'll be done wi' it soon."
Scotty nodded tiredly. "I've got th' other lads cleanin' up th' last o' th' shorts in th' electrical system." He sighed. "I've ne'er seen th' poor girl hurtin' so badly."
MacPherson nodded. "You can be proud o' her, Scotty. Any other ship would have given up th' ghost an' just fallen apart if it'd gone through what this one has. This old girl o' yours ha' been fightin' like th' very devil, and she's come through it all in high style."
Scotty nodded again, but this time with more than a trace of pride. "I tell people o'er and o'er thot th' Enterprise is a special sort of ship wi' a life o' her own. She's got personality, this one does."
"I know. Th' Gagarin wasn't like her at all. No soul t' that bucket."
"Ah, lad, we did all right together when we served on her. But I know what ye mean, sure enough." Scotty paused. "Gagarin was like a hundred other ships I've set foot on. When I get t' Earth an' take the British Air flight from Heathrow to visit the old home places, I don't care about which plane I'm on; I couldn't e'en tell ye which one it was." Scotty patted a wall. "Planes ha' nae personality. Most ships don't, either. But this ol' girl is different. I'll be takin' a piece o' her soul wi' me wherever I happen t' be goin'. She's got style, laddie, and that style's served us all, includin' the captain himself."
"Hmmm." MacPherson tightened a connection on the Delaney valve and touched its coverplate here and there with a magnetic polarizer. "I think that'll do it," he said. "Let's try her out." The chief entered a series of codes onto a touchplate near the valve, and a green light winked on. MacPherson watched the valve carefully.
"Telltales all green, coolant flow nominal." MacPherson nodded, satisfied. "Now if th' valve doesn't blow, I'd say th' impulse engines are as good as they e'er were."
"Wish I could say th' same for the warp drive," Scotty replied. "But there's nae fixin' thot without a drydock and some new crystals. But th' impulse engines will get us t' Starbase Seven—not fast, but they'll get us there." He smiled. "An' when we get there, bucko, I'm goin' t' latch onto every gadget and gimcrack the latest catalog offers for a starship, and I'll be crammin' this darlin' t' th' overheads with th' best and most glitterin' things anyone ever saw."
Scotty patted the wall again, affectionately. "The ol' girl deserves th' best, don'tcha think?"
Dossie Flores was once again handling the helm and navigation stations; with the bridge roster stripped down for planetside duty, she and Peter Siderakis were working heel-and-toe watches. "Lieutenant Uhura?" she called. "Telltales indicate impulse engines are once again fully operational. Coolant circulation is nominal." She grinned. "If we have to beat it, we won't have to worry about springing a leak anymore."
Uhura smiled back. "Thanks, Deadeye." Boneweary, she got up and went over to the science officer's station, where Scotty had thoughtfully rigged a coffeemaker. The galley's delivery tubes had gone out when the computers had been wrecked, and so the usual goodies that came the bridge's way now had to be fetched by hand. The coffeemaker had been provided as a convenience, but Uhura now saw it as a necessity.
I don't know what I'd do without coffee, Uhura thought as she poured her sixth cup of the watch. I think I've been up—what, thirty hours straight? Her eyes were heavy with fatigue; she had grabbed a tenminute doze in the command chair earlier, and that had helped for a while, but she could use another. I don't think I've been this tired since I crammed for my Starfleet communicator's license exam.
There wasn't any sugar left; Uhura didn't care. She added some whitener and sipped. Good.
A light winked on her communications board: INCOMING TRAFFIC.The Starfleet channel? Uhura thought as she went over to answer it; she hadn't thought it necessary to man communications at all times, and Sergei Dominico had gratefully wobbled off to grab some sleep.
She put on her earphone and settled herself in her chair. "Enterprise here, Lieutenant Uhura."
Nothing. Just static.
"This is the U.S.S. Enterprise, in orbit around Alpha Centauri IV. We are not receiving you. Please boost your signal."
Did the static clear a tiny bit? Was there a voice in there somewhere? Uhura couldn't tell.
The INCOMING TRAFFIC indicator went out. Reluctantly Uhura cleared her board. Almost casually, she pressed the TRACE SIGNALcommand, hoping that what was left of the ship's computer complex had remembered to log the call and its direction. I hope it's not just a computer phantom, she thought. I don't think Scotty can cope with another repair, and Spock's not here to do it for him. God, I'm tired. She yawned widely; the coffee wasn't helping much anymore.
An indicator panel lit. TRACE COMPLETE.
"Origin of call?" Uhura asked aloud.
COORDINATES 347 MARK 5. RANGE 3,210 KM. ERROR PLUS OR MINUS SIX PERCENT.
Huh? thought Uhura, confused. That close aboard? The sensors showed nothing approaching them, and there was no one and nothing else in this sky. Just another computer glitch, I guess, she told herself, frustrated.
Then it hit her, and she came fully awake with the shock of it. The coordinates! she realized. 'Mark 5' is straight down! That call made it through the tachyonic blanket!
A few minutes later, after Uhura and Flores had done some quick figuring, they found where 347 mark 5 was, relative to the Enterprise: It was somewhere in the middle of New America, one-third of the distance between New Athens (where Spock was) and McIverton (where Kirk was). That didn't help Uhura at all. Who sent the call? she wondered. The captain, Mr. Spock, or somebody else? Or was it a computer phantom, after all? But the interference could be clearing a little; it's been days since the antimatter blast.
What also didn't help was that the coordinates pinpointed a circle almost 630 kilometers around, or more than thirty thousand square kilometers in area. Uhura decided that pinpointed wasn't quite the word.
It was all very mysterious.