KIRK GLANCED AT the viewscreens. Those connected to the sensors were blank. Those operating on any portion of the standard electromagnetic spectrum remained operational, but the images were blurred. A camera in the Enterprise hangar deck showed the shuttlecraft, Kremastor's ship, and the engineering crew around them seemingly unaffected except for the blurring.
For an instant, then, the bridge seemed to waver, as if a distorting lens had been passed before Kirk's eyes, and at the same moment a wave of disorientation swept over him, ending in a pulse of dizziness and nausea.
But almost before he could react, the dizziness was gone. The bridge was once again rock solid.
Except—
Kirk blinked, shaking his head as if to clear it.
Everything was precisely as it had been before, except for color. Every color—the people, the clothes, the consoles and their lights, everything—was changed.
Spock's blue science tunic was a deeper blue.
The red of Uhura's uniform was lighter, shading toward orange.
His own tunic was lighter, too, much closer to yellow than before.
And the flesh—
Like the uniforms, everyone's face and hands—including his own—were slightly "off." Spock's faint coppery tinge had edged from green toward blue. Uhura and one of the security officers still flanking the turbolift door were a shade darker brown than before. Kirk himself, along with McCoy, Woida, Sulu, and the other security officer, had taken on a slightly jaundiced look, as if their blood had been diluted with orange juice.
"Jim!" McCoy was looking around disbelievingly. "What the blazes is going on now?"
"I have no idea, Bones. Mr. Scott, how are things in engineering? Is anything working? The sensors—"
"I know, Captain," Scott replied, static half obscuring his words. "They're dead. And the readings on half the other systems have gone daft. I'm tryin' ta get them settled down, but it's like workin' wi' your eyes shut!"
"Are the deflectors still operational?"
"I wish I knew, Captain! They're still drawing power—more than they should—but I canna say what they're doin' wi' the power."
"Understood, Mr. Scott. Do your best. Mr. Sulu, test-fire the phasers, minimum power."
"Minimum power, sir," Sulu acknowledged, activating the phasers.
An instant later, the bridge lights dimmed slightly. "Phaser banks drawing inordinate power, sir," Sulu said, "but no phaser beams are evident."
"Phasers off," Kirk snapped, and a moment later the bridge lighting returned to normal. "Mr. Scott, what happened?"
"I canna tell ye more than Mr. Sulu already has, Captain. The phasers were pullin' more power than they do on maximum, but no' a thing was comin' out!"
"Lieutenant Bailey," Kirk said, turning sharply toward the security team that was still on the bridge. "Try your phaser, carefully. Lowest stun setting."
Aiming at the deck by his feet, Bailey complied. A faint, purplish glow ringed the muzzle, but that was all.
Frowning, Bailey released the firing button, waited a moment, then pressed it again. Suddenly, he gasped and dropped the phaser.
"It's hot!" he said, shaking his hand and adding a belated "Sir."
"So," Kirk said, "our phasers obviously don't work any better than our sensors or transporters. I wonder what does work. Mr. Sulu, try the impulse engines, minimum power. Take us back toward the gate while you're at it. Now that this field has done whatever it's done, it might be worth trying to get through again, to see if there's been any change in the welcome it gives us."
"Aye-aye, sir," Sulu acknowledged as he tapped the commands into the helm.
Obediently, the Enterprise turned, pointing its bow in the direction of the invisible gate. "So far, so good, sir," Sulu said as the ship halted its rotation.
After a moment, the deck seemed to tilt very slightly, but the fuzzy image of the other ships on the viewscreen remained steady.
"Are we moving?" Kirk asked.
"Impulse power is being applied, sir, but without operational sensors, it's impossible to measure our speed, if any."
Kirk grimaced. "Scotty, how do the impulse engines look from down in engineering? They're not overloading, like the phasers?"
"There's nothing ta indicate it, Captain," Scott's voice came over the intercom. "They seem ta be operating normally—as normally as anything is operating, that is."
Kirk watched the seemingly motionless ships on the screen for another few seconds.
"All right," he said finally. "Mr. Sulu, bring the impulse engines up to quarter power."
"Quarter impulse power, sir."
A moment later, everything tilted.
Uhura almost slid off her chair into the communications station before she caught herself. The security team lurched backward, hitting the bulkhead on either side of the turbolift before they could regain their balance.
"Cut power!" Kirk snapped, but Sulu's fingers were reaching for the controls before the words were out.
The deck leveled itself, sending everyone lurching in the other direction.
"May I take it, Mr. Scott," Kirk said when stability had returned, "that the artificial gravity system was a partial casualty of the field? It can no longer fully compensate for impulse-power acceleration?"
"Aye, Captain, it seems that way," Scotty replied. "But at least the impulse engines seem ta be working."
"Is there anything you can do about the gravity? Or about anything else?"
"I canna say. If the readings can be stabilized, ta give me some idea o' what's really happening, then there's a chance. But, Captain, if ye're thinkin' o' testing the warp drive, I'd not be too hasty."
"Don't worry, Scotty, I'm not suicidal. Yet. Besides, even if the warp drive worked perfectly," he added, glancing at the viewscreen, "it would take us several thousand years to reach the nearest star. Either we find a way back through the gate, or—" Kirk pressed another button on the command chair. "Kremastor, now that our dead space is gone, what's the state of your nullifier? I don't suppose it's started working again."
"It has not."
"And after seeing this happen—how many times did you say? a hundred?—you still don't have any idea what this dead space is?"
"None."
"Is it always the same?"
"I have never before observed it from the inside, but it is always similar."
"Similar? But not the same? Tell us about the differences. Scotty, Spock, Ansfield, are you listening?"
"Of course I'm listening, Kirk!" Ansfield's voice erupted through the communication link. "The only reason I haven't been asking a mountain of questions myself is that I figured you had enough to cope with without me getting in your hair."
Kirk smiled. "Go ahead, Kremastor, tell us about the differences."
"Very few of the dead spaces have been precisely the same. My sensors function more efficiently in some than others. In some, they would not function at all."
"Have they all been the same size?"
"None has been as large as yours, nor has any lasted nearly as long."
"Is there any correlation between the size of the dead space and the size of the ship? Or the amount of time it takes it to close in?"
"I have never tried to analyze such things. I know only that none before has lasted more than a few minutes. And none of the beings in the ships has survived much longer. All, except you, have destroyed themselves within hours."
Kirk shook his head. "The more I hear, the more it sounds as if this dead space is something the ships themselves generate. But what about the color change? Does that always happen?"
"Color change?" Ansfield broke in. "What color change?"
"When the dead space vanished and everything stopped working, everything changed color. Didn't it happen to you in Kremastor's ship?"
"I didn't think—The colors looked different to me when he first kidnapped me, but I thought it was just the strange light in here. And there at the end, I was too busy listening to what was happening to you people to pay any attention to anything else. Besides, I was already so sickly looking—I'm looking at my uniform now, and at my hands—the uniform is a much deeper blue, and my hands are sort of jaundiced-looking, even more than when Kremastor first snatched me. Is it the same with you?"
"It seems to be," Kirk said. "All the blues are deeper, almost violet in some cases. The greens are shading toward blue, reds are closer to orange, browns are—"
"Kirk! I've got it!" Ansfield's voice exploded from the intership link.
"Got it? Got what?"
"I see what's happened! Why nothing works the way it should, why everything's changed color! And I think I know how I can get out of here without having to perform major surgery on Kremastor!"
Suddenly, she laughed. "Spock, can you get down to the physics lab?"
"I assume, Commander," Kirk interrupted, "that you have a logical reason for this request."
"Darned right I do! If Spock can run a few simple experiments for me, then I can tell Commander Scott how to get the transporters working again. I think."
"And how might that be, lassie?" Scott broke in from the engineering deck, an unusual mix of annoyance and sarcasm in his tone.
"It should be just a matter of making a few basic adjustments, Mr. Scott, that's all."
"I've been makin' basic adjustments until I canna see straight!" Scott said. "And a few adjustments not so basic! Unless ye know something that turns some o' the universal laws of physics upside down—"
Ansfield laughed again but cut it off sharply. "Actually, Mr. Scott," she said, "I think I do. I'm betting that the universal laws you mentioned don't apply here! That's what Spock has to do in the physics lab, find out what—"
"Don't be daft! They apply everywhere! That's why they call them universal laws."
"Everywhere in our own universe, Mr. Scott, our own universe. That's the catch. About a minute ago, when Kirk was telling me about the color changes, I suddenly realized something. We're not in our universe anymore!"