Crisis On Centaurus Read online

  The face of Pavel Chekov, the nightwatch duty officer, swam onto the screen, floating in and out of pickup range. Kirk could see a bloody cut just over Chekov's left eye—an eye, Kirk thought, that looked like it had a good chance of becoming a full-blown shiner before long.

  "Report, Mr. Chekov," Kirk snapped.

  "Ve are on yellow alert, Captain," answered the young Russian ensign. "Zero grawity conditions obtain throughout the ship. Air circulation and temperature control systems are out. Ve have lost some computer functions, mostly in housekeeping. Specifically, the computer vill not respond to werbal commands, nor vill the computer run any of its galley or plumbing subroutines—"

  "Yes, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said impatiently. "Security status?"

  "Sensors are fully operational and show no wessel, friendly or othervise, vithin range. Ve do have injuries; there are a number of medical cases on the bridge, but none appears to be serious. I have not yet had a report from the medical officer on duty. I am trying to locate Dr. McCoy as veil. Our computer problems are making some intraship communications difficult." Chekov turned away from the pickup and spoke to someone for a moment, then turned back and said, "Captain, Mr. Spock has reported in and is making his vay to the bridge. You also need to know that Mr. Scott is already in Engineering, and Chief MacPherson is the Engineering officer presently on bridge duty. He vas here vhen ve got into trouble."

  "Very good, Mr. Chekov," Kirk said. "Maintain yellow alert. Priority one: Get all hands up and moving. Everybody out of bed, now. Remind Sickbay to get air circulating somehow around sleeping patients, even if the head nurse has to wave a magazine around the room. And I want a full security sweep of all sections to pick up any unconscious or immobile injured."

  Kirk knew that, in zero gravity and with no air movement, exhaled breath tends to accumulate in an invisible, deadly globe around a person's head. An unmoving, sleeping member of the crew could smother in carbon dioxide while surrounded by a sea of fresh, good air. Kirk knew that, even without air circulation, there was just enough air in the ship to sustain life for about three hours; that made fixing the air problem his top priority.

  "While you're talking to Sickbay," Kirk continued, "tell them I want a medico designated for bridge duty. You get your eye attended to. I'll be up there as soon as I can."

  "Aye, aye, Captain."

  "Kirk out." The captain clicked the intercom off. Now all I have to do, Kirk said to himself, is try to get dressed while floating around the cabin.

  The door to Kirk's quarters squeaked open and the captain coasted on through and into the corridor, fetching up against the opposite wall. Kirk glanced off it at an angle and managed to send himself floating down the hall in the direction he wanted. The corridor was beginning to fill with people; Chekov had, indeed, awakened everyone.

  Along with his concern for his ship and crew, some part of Kirk's mind came up with a snatch of song he'd heard as a child, back in the American Midwest. Oh, he floats through the air with the greatest of ease, dum-dum dee dee dum-dum the flying trapeze—now just what was the rest of that? Kirk wondered as he floated down the corridor toward the turbolift.

  The captain rounded a bend by scrabbling across a wall, killing little of his momentum.

  "Watch out!!! Hot water!!!"

  Kirk looked ahead toward the source of the shout—and saw a translucent glob surrounded by a cloud of steam rolling and pitching toward him. People in the corridor were dodging this way and that, zooming wildly and sometimes crashing with thuds against a wall or a door. The amoeba-like blob looked alive as it floated down the corridor.

  Kirk quickly reached out and grabbed a doorframe, stopping his forward motion. He dragged himself down the frame and pushed himself against the deck. There was nothing for Kirk to hook his feet into, so the captain concentrated on making himself as small as he could; he drew his knees toward his chin and rolled himself into a ball.

  The glob wobbled on, narrowly missing Kirk. From the deck he felt the heat on his face as he watched the weirdly shimmering thing pass over his head. I have to get someone to take care of that, Kirk told himself. He shouted, "Corridor! Mid-air glob of hot water! Watch out!" But that was merely a precaution; the captain could see that the corridor behind him had been cleared.

  The captain heard a thump nearby. He turned his head and saw Lieutenant Sulu, his best helmsman, one-handedly holding onto a wall intercom panel. Sulu was wearing nothing but a towel and was holding several others in his free hand. The trailing end of Sulu's towel floated along with everything else; Kirk decided that zero G was no aid to modesty.

  Sulu looked worried. "Captain, are you all right?" he asked anxiously.

  Kirk nodded. "No harm done." He pushed himself easily off the deck. Keeping his grip on the doorframe, Kirk asked, "What happened, Mr. Sulu?"

  "Well, sir," the lieutenant said, "I was taking a shower—"

  "A hot shower."

  "A very hot shower, sir, and all of a sudden—"

  "—the gravity went off."

  "The gravity went off, sir, and all this water came out of the shower head and splashed around all over the washroom—"

  "—and gathered itself into a ball and wandered out into a public corridor."

  "Yes, sir, and I've been chasing it around and trying to soak it up with these towels—"

  "—and you haven't been having much luck," Kirk finished.

  Sulu considered it. "Yes, sir, that's about it—except that the shower wouldn't turn off when I ordered it to, and the emergency shut-off system didn't work, either. The thing just shut off by itself, eventually."

  "Thank you, Mr. Sulu. Carry on."

  "Uh, sir?" The lieutenant seemed hesitant.

  "What is it, Mr. Sulu?"

  "Sir, the, er, facilities did about the same thing."

  "You mean the toilets?"

  "Uh, yes, sir. There's flying water all over the place. But it's cold, sir."

  Kirk tried not to smile. "I'm sure whoever gets hit by those particular globs will appreciate that. Get after yours, now."

  "Aye, aye, sir. Thank you, sir." Sulu pushed away from the intercom panel and began sailing off after the glob of hot shower water. I wonder how much water I've got floating around inside my ship, Kirk thought as he watched the ensign drift away, and how many other problems have I got, ones I can't even guess the nature of yet? Well, Jim, that's why they gave you the fancy gold shirt. . . .

  Kirk thrust himself away from the doorframe and made for the hatchway of the turbolift. About halfway there he saw its doors part; the turbolift was empty. Chekov must have sent it for me, Kirk thought. He's on the ball, as usual. Kirk saw no need to alter his course; he simply shouted "Gangway!" Then he somersaulted in mid-air and sailed feet-first into the turbolift, softly landing on the wall.

  He grabbed the handrail and told the computer, "Bridge."

  Nothing happened. Kirk swore to himself and grasped the handle for manual override. The turbolift doors slid closed, and Kirk was finally on his way.

  The bridge looked to Kirk like a human aquarium.

  Mr. Spock was at his station—squatting placidly in mid-air, his legs folded under him as if he were in meditation. But Kirk knew from the set of the Vulcan's shoulders and the aura of concentration he projected that the science officer was communing not with the unseen, but with the ship's ill computers. Lieutenant Uhura was sitting at her communications station, held in her seat by a tied length of fabric. Her nightgown, I think, thought Kirk. Why didn't they install seat belts in this ship? A medico—Nurse Constance Iziharry, Kirk recalled—was tending to Chekov's eye; both the ensign and the nurse seemed to be doing an aerial pas de deux about a meter above the navigation console. The nightwatch helmsman—Lt. Peter Siderakis—had slaved the navigator's board to the helm and was running both stations.

  Somehow, somewhere, Siderakis had procured a sweater and was wearing it against the chill. Kirk envied him the sweater—a silly, garish thing with I LEFT MY CASH IN SAN FRANCISC
O emblazoned on it—but it looked warm.

  "Course, Mr. Siderakis?" Kirk asked.

  "Captain, our course remains three forty-five mark five, warp two. No glitches in our navigation and guidance systems, at least."

  "Fine. Steady as she goes, then. Lieutenant Uhura, what's our communications status?"

  "I've gotten several audio lines through to belowdecks, Captain," she replied. "Video is impossible at present; I can't get the computer to give me enough signal to push through."

  "Good enough, Uhura. Thank you." Kirk continued his quick visual inspection.

  To Kirk's left, at the Engineering station, was Chief Alec MacPherson, perhaps the biggest Scotsman Kirk had ever met. If genetic engineers were ever given a contract to design the ultimate, essential Scot, they might come up with something like MacPherson—two meters tall, broadly built, red-haired and red-bearded, with the blood of mighty Celtic kings in him.

  MacPherson was a fierce-looking man with the gentle and appreciative soul of a poet—gentle and appreciative, that is, unless he were confronted by incompetence or stupidity.

  But he hardly ever hit anybody.

  MacPherson was a relatively new arrival aboard the Enterprise. He had worked with Scott on a scout-class ship, the U.S.S. Gagarin, years before. Scott had eventually been assigned aboard the Enterprise and had quickly risen to chief engineer; MacPherson had risen to chief engineer on the Gagarin about as quickly.

  About a month back, the Gagarin had been decommissioned and her crew thrown into Starfleet's reassignment pool. MacPherson had sent his friend Montgomery Scott a short subspace message—NEED WORK. GOT ANY? CHEERS, MAC.—and Scott had requested Kirk to get Personnel to assign MacPherson aboard the Enterprise as Scott's new number two. "He's th' only mon I really trust t' watch me engines while I sleep, Cap'n," Scotty had said. "He's a good 'un, take me word for it."

  Kirk had never before heard Scotty admit that someone else in Starfleet might be qualified enough to tighten a bolt on the Enterprise without the chief engineer's personal supervision; impressed, the captain had put the Enterprise's request for MacPherson through Starfleet repple-depple marked with a PERSONNEL PRIORITY ONE code.

  Scotty's word had been good. In the past few weeks the Engineering section's efficiency rating had risen substantially. Kirk found Scotty's habit of calling MacPherson "lad" and "laddie" amusing—MacPherson was less than three years younger than Scott—but the two worked superlatively well together. Most of the ship's personnel had taken to calling Scott and MacPherson "the twins." It was as if there were two Montgomery Scotts aboard; each man had a sure knowledge of the skills and engineering approaches the other might take in a given situation. If a problem needed solving, and an engineer could choose from among fourteen equally valid but different ways to solve it, Scott and MacPherson were each likely to avail themselves of the same solution, without consulting each other—and neither man would find the coincidence strange or unusual. "Thot's just good engineerin'," Scotty might say.

  And MacPherson clearly liked working for Scott. The Enterprise was considered good duty in Starfleet; she was a ship whose captain brought his crew back home safely from exciting missions which had more than a whiff of adventure and danger. Also, going from number-one engineer aboard a scout ship to number two aboard a cruiser was a good career move in the fleet; MacPherson saw working aboard the Enterprise as a challenge, and working with Scott again a pleasure.

  But he doesn't seem to be having a very good time right now, thought Kirk.

  The big Scot was, incredibly, standing upright at his station. Then Kirk noticed that MacPherson had doffed his boots and hooked his toes under the lip of the Engineering station's console runner. MacPherson's left hand kept a grip on the station, while his right hand gripped a personal communicator—into which MacPherson was bellowing.

  "Aye!" MacPherson was shouting. "An' next I suppose you'll be tellin' me there's no reason whatsoe'er why th' gravity controllers aren't functionin', so we're all floatin' aroun' here just for th' sake of it! Aaaaggh! Put Scotty back on, ye moron!" The big Scotsman snorted in disgust.

  MacPherson turned slightly and saw Kirk floating in the entrance to the turbolift. "Cap'n on the bridge," MacPherson said formally, and nodded politely. "Good mornin', sir."

  Kirk nodded back. The captain planted a foot against the turbolift wall, sighted himself carefully, and thrust himself toward his command chair. He sailed through the air and stopped himself by reaching out a hand against the back of the chair.

  "Good navigatin', Cap'n," said MacPherson approvingly.

  "What's our status, Chief?"

  "Oh, things are still up in th' air, so t'speak, sir," MacPherson answered. Before Kirk could respond, the chief hurried on, "Mr. Scott has got his secondbest man with him down in Engineering, and th' first thing they'll be goin' after is th' air circulation problem."

  "Second-best man?"

  "Aye, sir," MacPherson said, surprised. "I'm up here, after all."

  "Oh. When do we get our gravity back?"

  "Soon, sir—very soon. 'Tis a matter o' pinnin' down th' original problem and patchin' it. Th' problem is, th' gravity generators are puttin' out a zero-G' field in default mode because th' poor babies were beginnin' to run wild. It's not thot th' generators are out, y'understand, sir; it's thot th' controllers are out o' whack …"

  "Fall to, Chief."

  "Aye, aye, sir." MacPherson put the communicator back to his ear and said quietly, "Scotty, are ye there? Ach, good. . . ."

  Kirk spun around and faced Spock's sciences station. Am I crazy, thought Kirk, or does Spock look a little, er … greener than usual? The captain got his bearings and launched himself toward Spock's position.

  "Mr. Spock?" Kirk said softly when he had arrived and steadied himself. "Are you all right?"

  Spock looked at Kirk. "I am quite able to function, Captain." He does look ill, thought Kirk. What's the matter?

  Kirk hesitated. "I don't mean to pry, Spock, but I must know—are you, er, feeling unwell?" I've got to be careful of his feelings on this, Kirk thought. Lord knows Vulcans are closemouthed about such things …

  Spock hesitated. "Captain, I assure you that my … physical condition … is quite manageable."

  Kirk looked Spock in the eye. "Spock, forgive me—are you spacesick?"

  The science officer hesitated, then said, "Yes, Captain. I have rarely experienced weightlessness, and have never liked it. I find that I am affected adversely by a lack of gravity. You would term it 'motion sickness'—"

  "Something like that."

  "—and I am handling the problem with such discipline as I am able to muster. I am fully able to man my post, with no loss in personal efficiency. That is why I have answered your questions in the manner I have. Of course, I would not mind a return to normal gravity and temperature status as soon as Mr. Scott and Chief MacPherson can effect such."

  Kirk smiled wryly. "I wouldn't mind that very much, either. Very well, Mr. Spock. Thank you for your candor."

  Spock nodded. "Of course, Captain." The Vulcan turned back to his close consultation with the ship's computers, and Kirk launched himself back to his command chair.

  I hadn't thought of space sickness, thought Kirk. He kicked himself mentally. If standard figures hold, half the crew must be down with it.

  More than a century before Kirk had been born, all types of spacecraft—humble orbital tugs and majestic starships alike—had begun carrying gravity generators as standard equipment. In fact, artificial gravity, along with inertial control and other byproducts vital to modern spaceflight, had come wrapped in the same neat package in which the great Zefrem Cochrane had given the Federation the secret of warp drive. Any pilot working in Federation space—legally, that is—had to pass a zero-G proficiency test to get his license, and zero-G fields were used routinely in medicine, entertainment, professional sports and a host of scientific applications. But nobody had to live or work in zero G anymore. Starfleet Academy demanded that
its graduating cadets demonstrate proficiency in zero-G maneuvering, just as it demanded that cadets know how to conn a sailboat, fly a glider and master other ancient skills.

  So there were few aboard the Enterprise who had more than a nodding, long-ago acquaintance with zero-G conditions. Kirk thought of all the accidents that could—and probably would, and probably had—happened aboard his ship, and he shuddered inwardly. That hot-water glob was just the beginning, he thought. Never mind all the water and trash that must be floating around and getting into the ship's most vulnerable places. The captain looked around the bridge; he saw people, trash, a few writing styli, an empty coffee cup and other flotsam meandering in the air.

  And it was still cold, and getting colder.

  Kirk fretted. Come on, twins, he said to himself. He shivered again, but told himself it was merely the chill on the bridge. Kirk again envied Siderakis that sweater; he wondered if hot coffee was possible, despite the problems with the computers' galley subroutines.

  "Cap'n?" MacPherson called out. "Would ye please talk t' Mr. Scott on th' communicator band? That'd be frequency three, sir."

  "Thank you, Chief." Kirk thumbed a button on the armrest of his command chair. "Yes, Mr. Scott? What can you tell me?"

  "Some good news, I hope," the chief engineer replied. "We've rigged emergency fans at all th' main vent outlets, so ye should be gettin' air circulation back in a moment. We've also installed space heaters next t' th' fans, so ship's temperature ought t' be headin' up nearer normal very soon now. Still workin' on our gravity problems, Cap'n, but I think Chief MacPherson kens a temporary solution. Any orders?"

  "None. Uh, what are we doing about all the debris and liquid floating around?" Kirk asked. "Won't that stuff get into the works?"

  "Aye, I'm glad you mentioned thot," Scotty said. "Not t' bother you wi' it, but I've got short circuits and things blowin' out all over the ship, thanks t' water gettin' inta th' wirin'. Nothing the apprentices canna handle, and I'll be doin' a thorough inspection later—but for now we've rigged submicronic filters in th' main air channels. They'll catch just about anythin', includin' th' water. I just hope th' filters catch everythin' afore the wirin' does. Ah, and there's th' air fans, goin' on now."