AT THE TRANSPORTER CONTROLS, Lieutenant Crider frowned. The readings weren't right. Dematerialization had gone normally, but rematerialization at the destination, in the alien ship—
The energies of the transporter beam were being scattered somewhere between the Enterprise and the other ship! Rematerialization had not yet begun, but if it did, if those unfocused, incoherent energies were converted back into matter, there was no way of even guessing at the results!
Controlling his panic, Crider sharply reversed the controls, trying to draw the scattered energies back into the transporter matrix.
"Mr. Scott!" he called into the intercom over the repeated warble of the transporter controls. "Something's interfering with the transporter!"
"What's happening, lad?" Commander Scott's voice crackled back.
"I don't know, sir. I'm trying to get them back, but—"
"On m' way!" Scott snapped.
His heart still pounding, Crider moved the main controls slowly, carefully, in the reverse direction, watching the readouts, ready to instantly adjust any of the dials if he saw the slightest sign that the energies he was trying to retrieve were again being scattered or in any way interfered with.
But whatever had happened during the attempted transmission was not repeating its interference, at least not yet. Even so, retrieving objects or people from an aborted transmission was tricky at best. Slowly, the energies flowed back into the matrix, and the readings all inched toward stabilization, until—
The transporter-room door hissed open, and Commander Scott burst through. Glancing at the still vacant transporter platform, wondering if he had overlooked something during the checks he had completed only minutes before, he raced across the room to the controls. In the moment before Crider stepped aside, Scott took in the readings and their significance almost instinctively. He nodded as his own hands touched the controls, and he forced himself to be calm.
"Looks like ye've done everything humanly possible, lad," he said, continuing to ease the controls back even more slowly, more cautiously, than Crider had done. "It's like reelin' in a trout in a highland stream," he breathed, tight-lipped, half to himself. His eyes flickered back and forth between the readouts and the transporter platform. "Ye don't dare let them slip the hook. If ye do …"
His voice trailed off into silence as the warble of the transporter grew louder until, finally, the air above the transporter circles began to shimmer and then grow brighter with agonizing slowness.
For a moment, the glittering snowflake glow started to fade. Scott, his face grim, eased off entirely on the controls for an instant, then darted one hand to the side to make a minute adjustment to one of the dials. After another moment of wavering, the glow stabilized and then resumed its progress toward solidity.
Like ghosts, the forms of the captain and Spock gradually came into view, transparent at first, then translucent and shot through with the same glittering snowflakes he had seen a thousand times before. But now there were specks of multicolored light interspersed, as if some other form of energy were interfering with that of the transporter beam.
Scott's eyes widened momentarily. He felt the tension knot his stomach, but there was nothing he could do that he and Lieutenant Crider hadn't already done. The captain and Mr. Spock were coming back, or they weren't.
They had slipped the hook, or they hadn't.
With a touch that bordered on tenderness, he slid the controls the last few centimeters.
As the tingle faded and the transporter room vanished from around him, Kirk's first startled thought was that he must have somehow been transported into the limbo that existed within the gates.
But this was different, vastly different.
Instead of sheer nothingness, an overwhelming dizziness gripped him, as if his body still existed and was being whirled madly about, spinning helplessly in free fall with nothing to hold on to, nothing to even provide a visual reference.
But wherever he was, whatever was happening to him, he realized with a sudden stab of fear, it must be the doing of the entity. It had to be.
In the moments before Kremastor had snatched Commander Ansfield from the bridge, the entity had been returning, reexerting its power.
And, despite what Spock contended, Kirk was rapidly becoming certain that the entity, whatever its nature, whatever its motives, was behind everything that had happened to them since they had first encountered it.
One of the entities had boarded the Enterprise and had at first tried its conventional tactics, attempting to possess Kirk and a number of others, but that hadn't worked. They had been able to resist it, had been able to control the fear and paranoia that had destroyed countless other ships, countless other civilizations. As a result of the crew's successful resistance, the entity had been forced to adopt new tactics. It had attempted to lull them into a false sense of security by withdrawing, but it of course had not withdrawn entirely. It had remained attached to them somehow, attached to the Enterprise, but distantly, cautiously, its presence detectable by no one but Spock.
But it had obviously continued to influence them the whole time. It had even come out in the open and stirred up the temporary chaos on the bridge of the Devlin, the chaos that had allowed-forced?—the Enterprise to slip through the gate.
And into the trap toward which the entity had been leading them all along.
And now?
Now that it apparently had them where it wanted
them, what would it do?
And where was this place it had brought them? What was this alien ship that had apparently been lying in wait for them? This field that was inexorably closing in on them? Was the entity in control of it all? Or was the entity a pawn in the hands of those who had built the gate system, those who had perhaps built the entity itself? Was it—
Suddenly, the dizziness began to fade, the sense of spinning to slow, and Kirk wondered if some answers were about to be revealed.
Or if the entity, with or without malice, was about to do whatever it had drawn him here to do.
Tensely, he waited to see where, if anywhere, he would materialize.
The two figures lurched dizzily on the transporter platform, then regained their balance.
"Captain! What happened?" Scott was hurryingm from the controls to the platform.
Steadying himself, Kirk pulled in a relieved breath.
"I was hoping you could tell me, Mr. Scott." He stepped down from the platform and moved with Spock toward the corridor and the nearest turbolift. "The last I remember, Lieutenant Crider was beaming us to the alien ship."
"Aye, Captain," Scott said, and he went on to quickly outline what had happened. By the time he had finished, they were back on the bridge.
"It's my fault, sir," Lieutenant Denslow, Spock's replacement at the science station, said agitatedly the moment they emerged from the turbolift. "I'm sorry. I just didn't see it in time!"
"See what, Lieutenant?" Kirk asked, going with Spock to the science station as Denslow stepped back nervously. "Did the field take another jump?"
"No, nothing like, that, sir. The shrinkage is still accelerating steadily. What happened is that the alien ship developed a field of its own. It doesn't block the sensors entirely, just changes the readings, and it obviously doesn't block the tractor beam. I—I didn't realize what was happening until Lieutenant Crider called from the transporter room, and then it was too late!"
Spock glanced at the readouts and quickly called back a series of earlier readings. "We must share what blame there is, Lieutenant," he said after a moment's study. "The field began developing when we overtook Kremastor's ship, long before I turned the station over to you. That is when the readings pertaining to Kremastor himself first began to change, and I should have noticed. It was only moments after you took the station that the readings pertaining to Commander Ansfield were affected."
"Affected how?" Kirk asked sharply. "Is she still all right?"
"She appears to be, Captain. The changes are not indicative of a change in her condition or, indeed, indicative of any changes in the alien ship."
"Then what—"
"It is the definition that has changed, Captain. The sensor readings are, in effect, being blurred, much as your own vision might be blurred by an intervening substance that is not totally transparent. This field could, in fact, be similar to the one that is closing in on us. The difference could be only a matter of degree."
"Like the difference between something that's translucent and something that's totally opaque," Kirk suggested.
"The analogy is not without merit, Captain."
"But whatever the field is, it blocks the transporters even though it only slightly hinders the sensors," Kirk said. Then he added, frowning, "Could this new field have caused Kremastor's equipment to malfunction? He said it was no longer possible for him to get us back into the nexus, but after the way he tried to run from us, I just assumed he'd changed his mind and was lying."
"Without further information, Captain, both possibilities appear equally likely."
"And there's still no indication where the fields are coming from or what's causing them?"
"None beyond what we have already discussed, Captain."
Kirk shook his head in frustration. "If I didn't know better, I'd say we were the source of the field. The Enterprise is at its center, and no matter how we move, we remain at the center, just the way we remain at the center of our deflector shields when they're on. And now that Ansfield is on Kremastor's ship, it has a similar, weaker field."
"That is true, Captain. Remember, however, that the smaller field is centered on Kremastor, not on Commander Ansfield."
"You're saying Kremastor himself is creating the
fields? Or at least the smaller field?"
"No, Captain. I am only saying that the field surrounding Kremastor's ship originated at precisely the point Kremastor occupied at the time of the field's inception. Whether there is a causal relationship—"
"I take the distinction." Scowling at the screen, Kirk turned abruptly toward the communications station. "Lieutenant Uhura, anything from the alien ship?"
"Nothing, sir."
"Mr. Spock, are its impulse engines still functional?"
"Still functional, Captain, but shut down."
"And our tractor beam?"
"Still holding. It is apparently affected less by the field around Kremastor's ship than are our sensors and transporters."
Turning back to the viewscreen and the image of the tiny ship, Kirk was silent for a moment, then drew in his breath.
"Mr. Scott, are you back on the tractor beam?" he asked abruptly.
"Aye, Captain."
"Then bring that thing in. I want a closer look at it. And at that field around it, before the big one closes in on us all. Get a crew down there to give it a thorough examination, immediately."
"Aye, Captain. I'll have it on board in five minutes at the most."
"Mr. Spock, keep a close watch on those life-form readings. If either of them changes, particularly that of Commander Ansfield, let me know immediately."
"Of course, Captain."
"Mr. Sulu, is the helm still rigged as a remote control for the shuttlecraft we used earlier?"
"It is."
"Then send it out, now. Send it out beyond this field, and we'll see what happens to it."
"Aye-aye, sir."
With the hangar deck doors already opened for the entry of Kremastor's ship, it took barely a minute for a shuttlecraft to reach the still shrinking field and promptly disappear from the sensors.
Like a light winking out, all sensor readings from the shuttlecraft vanished. In the same instant, the subspace link with the shuttlecraft was cut off, and the signals it had been returning to the Enterprise ceased.
But on the viewscreens, the shuttlecraft remained plainly and solidly in sight, radiating brightly in infrared. Its impulse engines, still operating on the last order sent to them, continued to move the tiny vessel forward. The signals from the Enterprise helm, instructing the shuttlecraft to turn around and come back, were ignored, as if they hadn't been sent.
"Ship secured on hangar deck, Captain," Scott reported.
"Good timing, Mr. Scott. Mr. Sulu, overtake the shuttlecraft, and bring it back on board. Mr. Scott, be ready to give it as thorough a check as you're giving Kremastor's ship."
Within another minute, the shuttlecraft had been overtaken. The moment it was back inside the field, it reappeared on the sensors, and its controls once again responded to the helm. Thirty seconds later, it was back on the hangar deck, and Scott and his crew were swarming over both it and Kremastor's ship.
"Time, Mr. Spock."
"The shrinkage accelerated yet again, Captain, when the shuttlecraft reentered the field. The current projection is thirty-one point six minutes."
"Everything we do just speeds it up!" Kirk said, shaking his head sharply. "Mr. Scott, have you found any way into the alien ship? Any way to get at Commander Ansfield?"
"There are no breaks in the ship's surface, Captain."
"And the field around it, now that it's aboard the Enterprise, Mr. Spock?"
"Initially, it began to shrink, but it has now stabilized. It still encloses the ship and, I can only assume, would still block our transporters."
"If it begins to shrink again—"
"Of course, Captain."
"Mr. Scott, how did the shuttlecraft stand up to its
trip?"
"A preliminary check shows all systems fully operational."
"And the records of what its sensors found outside the field?"
"No' a thing, Captain, no' even the other ships. Nor the Enterprise itself It's as if the sensors themselves did no' exist!"
Kirk grimaced and turned abruptly toward Uhura and the communications station.
"Patch me through again, Lieutenant," he said grimly. "It's time we had another talk with Kremastor. And let Commander Ansfield know what's been going on."
For what seemed like forever to Commander Ansfield, there was only silence. The glaring light and ear-punishing crackling had faded simultaneously, and when she had opened her eyes, she had found herself still in the same featureless sphere. At first she had shouted, but there was no response from Kremastor or anyone else, nor was there any reaction when she pounded on the sphere as hard as she could with her boot heel.
Finally, breathing heavily, she had fallen silent, and since that time she had listened.
But other than a faint humming and her own breathing, there had been nothing to hear.
But now, suddenly, the ship shuddered. Not as violently as the first time, almost gently, and again there was silence.
Until—
"Commander Ansfield, can you hear me?" The voice, like that of the alien, seemed to come from the air around her.
"Kirk, is that you?"
"Yes, Commander. Are you all right?"
"Except for being trapped in what looks like a goldfish bowl, I'm fine. What happened?"
"You were apparently transported into Kremastor's ship."
"I'd figured that much out for myself! I mean since
then."
Hurriedly, he brought her up to date. "You're in the hangar deck now," he finished. "We'll see what we can do about getting you out. In the meantime—Kremastor! Can you still hear me?"
"I can. What is it you wish?" the Klingon voice
replied, sounding totally flat and resigned.
"You could start," Ansfield snapped, "by answering my last question. Are you a computer? You said you'd been watching ships arrive here for twenty thousand years, and no humanoid life-forms I know about live anywhere near that long."
"I am not a computer. For years I had a body not unlike your own, but for several lifetimes I have had only this ship."
"A cyborg, then?"
"Insofar as this ship is my only body, yes."
"If I could make a suggestion, Captain, Commander," Spock said, cutting off another question from Ansfield. "It would be more logical and more efficient for Kremastor to explain who he is and what he is doing here rather than for us to attempt to question him on a series of specific points."
"Just one more specific question," Ansfield said. "Kremastor, do you know of any way of getting me safely out of this ship of yours?"
"I do not, other than for your colleagues to disassemble my ship and, in all likelihood, myself. I would do nothing to hinder such action. After twenty thousand years of terror and futility, I would, in fact, welcome it."
There was a moment of silence, and then Kirk said, "I have one more question, too. What happens when this so-called dead space disappears? Will all our equipment simply stop functioning?"
"That is what has happened to many."
"But not to you? Your equipment has been functioning, you said, for twenty thousand years."
"Only in a very limited fashion. The warp drive is totally inoperable. My sensors show the nexus only as a faint ghost of what it really is. The nullifier—the device that would allow me to reenter the nexus—generates energy of some kind, but it no longer has any effect on the Trap."
"Twenty-six minutes to zero sensor range, Captain," Spock announced.
"And to massive equipment malfunction," Kirk breathed. "All right, Kremastor, tell your story—fast. And hope it gives us some ideas."