from the underside of our primary hull and vectored
out into space toward the Klingon cruisers.
The captain moved toward the helm console and
turned briefly to me. With deliberate poise, he said,
"Hurry."
The Engineering deck was disturbingly quiet, jarred
only by rumbles of energy from outside that told us the
enemy ships had opened fire on us and the K!ingons
who possessed us. Perren, Sarda, and I were reso-
lutely silent as we gathered Perren's equipment and
carefully--so carefully--followed the directions
Spock fed through to us on how to dismantle his
elaborate isolation field around the transwarp mecha-
nism itself. The mechanism made little engineering
sense to me; it looked like something out of a child's
coloring book, a quincunx contraption with several
arms and a central core of funnels and circuitry.
247
Evidently that was the reaction chamber for the tri-
lithium. I didn't even try to understand it.
Perren and Sarda worked feverishly to wrestle the
various attachments into the central feeder unit for the
ship's energy/matter matrix restoration cowl. Okay, so
I didn't understand that either. It didn't matter, as long
as they understood. Even with their combined Vulcan
strength and a few good shoves from me, the installa-
tion of transwarp into a damaged warp propulsion
system was the work of more than three people. I
didn't bother asking what this or that was, especially
if, by some miracle, it happened to fit. I followed their
directions through the most muscle twisting sixty-two
minutes of my life. It seemed more like six minutes.
Finally the work dwindled down to minute delicate
adjustments and all I could do was watch. It was as
though Perren and Sarda had fallen into a different
language; though I was watching, their science was so
specialized that I might as well have been a thousand
solar systems away. My thoughts began to drift, jarred
each time the ship shook under us from enemy fire. I
held on to a nearby pylon and tried to keep hold of my
self-control. The frustration was building again. I
hated having to just watch.
I started thinking about the enemies out there. Tho-
hans, Romulans, Klingons of every breed, and that
persistent forked ship whose configuration we couldn't
pin down. Living beings, tangled in a web of power
grabbing. Each had a history and a goal of his or her
own. And so did I.
Without pausing between thoughts, I suddenly
blurted, "What's going to happen? When we imple-
ment this, what's the effect?"
Only when both Vulcans paused at the same time
did I realize I'd forced them to face something they
had been trying not to think about. Not only face it,
but put words to it.
They exchanged a disturbing glance. Perten gripped
248
the micropincer he was using. "We . . . have never
postulated the effect of an accidental imbalance. Our
efforts, of course, have always been directed toward
canceling out or circumventing any such occurence,
with the hopes of eventually preventing them alto-
gether. We take great care to stabilize the integrity of
the trilithium before funneling matter/antimatter
through the field core."
Spock's face filled my mind, completely unbidden.
Perren, so unlike him, was turning logic inside out to
avoid simply saying that he didn't know. Suddenly I
longed to hear those words; there was something
reassuring about the honesty in the phrase I don't
ktlow.
Anger boiled up in me and I snatched Perren's arm.
"I've got to understand! You've got to give me some
idea of what it's going to do to those ships out there."
Perten jerked away. His eyes flashed with the on-
slaught of my emotions coursing through him. Long
black hair waved when he pulled his arm free. I went
after it again, but Sarda caught my wrist.
A swell of perception washed through me, cooling
my nerves, running up my arm, and spreading through
my body. The anger didn't go away, but like the
distortion of transwarp flux, Sarda had turned it out-
ward and away from Perren. For a moment he took it
upon himself, seeing perfectly well that I was reaching
the limit of my patience with Vulcan ways. He slowly
absorbed my need to understand, and with his grip
forced me to comprehend what could be foretold and
what couldn't be.
Seconds passed, long ones. Sarda broke his gaze
from mine only once.
He nodded briefly to Perten, who collected himself
with difficulty and went back to work on the microcir-
cuits. When the triad of conflict faded to the two of us,
Sarda turned back to me.
"Piper," he began, "even we do not fully compre-
249
hend why transwarp works as it does. It is not meant
to be a weapon."
Though I knew how deeply he believed that, I
pressed, "I'm in the command line. I've got to have
some concept of what that thing's going to do to other
life forms. The captain has to know."
"We would tell you, if that information could be
gained without actually using the imbalance." Glints
of blue and yellow light from Perren's snapping panel
flickered in Sarda's bronze hair and in his troubled
eyes. Guilt gnawed at him. Would he ever have peace
from it? "The wave effect," he tried again, "is a reality
solvent. We may liken it to pouring water on a sand
castle. The sand remains, but.. 2'
The transwarp contraption trilled to life, singing an
electrical song, and saved him from having to find the
words for the terrible vision he saw. For a moment we
simply watched the equipment whirr and glow and
hum.
Sarda's expression filled with omen. "We cannot
allow hostile hands to possess this."
"And we shall not," Perren agreed, that rebellious
thorn sur facing again.
My opinion stuck its neck out again. I couldn't stop
it. I glared at Perren. "You should're thought of that a
long time ago."
Sarda watched me, silent.
Perren retreated to his work. The instrumentation
whistled and chirred happily under his hands. Even
poorly hooked up, fed into a damaged system, the
transwarp mechanisms showed the effort of years of
work.
"I can complete the calibrations," Perren said.
"Correlating the flux ratios of transwarp drive with the
sensors must be done from the sensor control room."
Sarda gathered the necessary computer disks and
said, "Contact me there when you're ready to begin."
250
"Very well," Perren said. "It may take several more
minutes to make the correct calculations."
Sarda only nodded. He knew all that, apparently. As
he stood up, his amber gaze caught fast to my ow
n and
I felt that wash of telepathy again. Was I really feeling
it, or had I learned to imagine it as I came to know him
better? He'd never confided in me about whether or
not these mental waves were normal for Vulcans--if
he even knew. I hadn't asked, and a good thing too.
He might be supremely embarrassed if my feelings
were induced by his inability to control that inherited
telepathy. He seemed so different from Spock, as
different from Spock as Spock was from Perrenm
Sarda, even more different from most Vulcans who
came to Star Fleet. Very few of Sarda's fair-haired
clan ever roamed from their home planet, yet he was
here, rare, and of great value to me. As we stood
together over a mechanism that might either save or
destroy us, I found myself hoping he never would
learn to control the soft inner communication.
"Where will you be?" he asked.
My answer was deceptively simple. "Where I'm
needed."
"I know you will do well."
"Thank you. For everything."
His expression remained stoic, but he dropped his
eyes, then raised them again. "And I thank you," he
said, almost whispering.
"Good luck," I responded.
Before we got into a chain reaction of thank-yous,
he wisely dipped away and left the area. I lingered
there long after he was gone.
Below me, Perren drew my attention when he
paused and put a hand to his lips. I knelt down.
"Something?"
His brows came together in contemplation. "This
arrangement must be coordinated from the bridge, at
251
the engineering subsystems monitor. If you can do
that, I can monitor and adjust the intermix according
to your readouts from pulse to pulse."
"I can do that," I told him. I could do it, if only I
knew what he was talking about. Let's hear it for blind
optimism.
Perren's face went blank for a moment, then twisted
in confusion.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
He shook his head. "I'm unsure about the sensor
output system. I can correlate the thrust ratios for
warp drive, but I do not know how to adjust them to
run through the sensory."
It sounded like a bigger problem than I could
solve--surprise, surprise---and I bit my lip before
making a wild assumption. My feet were tingling when
I stood up. "I know who does. I'll contact you when I
get to the bridge."
I started toward the exit. Before reaching the door,
though, I remembered my charge from a higher au-
thority--a trust I wouldn't betray.
Perren saw me turn, saw the tangle of emotions in
my face, the sensation of being torn between two
distinct duties. Even though I said nothing at all, the
problem was obvious.
He read my hesitation--even I couldn't say ff he
read it correctly--and paused fine-tuning the
transwarp to seal his credibility with a promise. "I
give you my word."
The throb and hum of Enterprise's sensor system
trying to accept the new energy of transwarp became
the pulsing of some great heart. I absorbed Perren's
promise. Think like a Vulcan.
With my tone, I charged both of us to fulfill the vow.
"I accept your word."
The hangar deck was cool with freshly circulated
air, sweet with the lingering odor of the antisomnial. I
252
swung around the corner of the alcove where the Arco
sleds were anchored down, and was only superficially
surprised to see Sarda there, kneeling beside Scanner.
He'd evidently decided to make good use of those
extra few minutes Perren said he had. He was holding
Scanner in a sitting position against the attack-sled's
folded solar wing.
I knelt beside Scanner, but my question was for
Sarda. "What are you doing here?"
His gaze was penetrating. He didn't want to explain.
"Deviating."
That was all I was going to get, too.
Scanner's face was clammy as I touched it and
turned him to me. "Scanner? Look at me. Are you
okay?"
He blinked past the pain left over from artificial
sleep and unnatural awakening and moaned. "If this is
life after death . . . I'll take death." He folded over,
and only Sarda's grasp kept him upright. When he
raised his head, his face was pale and his eyes glazed.
"You got... trouble upstairs."
Good. Sarda had been filling him in, probably trying
to distract him from his own discomfort.
I took him by the shoulders. "Scanner, listen to me.
We've tied the transwarp into the warp drive and
we've got to correlate the thrust ratios with sensor
issue. Can you tell me how to do tl,at?"
"Aim it... you mean?"
"Yes, aim it."
"Yeah... oh, worm guts... they killed me, Piper."
He let his head sag back against the solar wing. Pinch-
faced, he fought the gaspy breath of nausea and
cramps. Sarda and I shared a glance of penetrating
empathy and waited.
"We'll get you to sickbay," I promised.
"Can't y'just... bring sickbay down here?" Scan-
ner closed his eyes tight. When they opened again,
253
his wits. "Yeah... that transmitter on the bridge... a
dead jellyfish could work it. Y'all can do it easy."
"Gee, thanks. How?"
"Same way you aim sensors, except . . . push the
impulses through weapons override . . . even if the
safety system says you can't." I frowned. "It'll burn out."
He took a choppy breath. His cheeks flushed with
heat. "You can't stop that. It's all there is. That crazy
transwarp hookup won't last long anyway. You
might's well force a human heart to breathe air."
Cramps took hold of him again, piercing all three of us
and making me realize what Mr. Scott, with his hands
full of starship, was going through. Scanner pressed
his arm under his ribs. His free hand made a loop
toward Sarda. "Tell her, Points."
Sarda's lips flattened, a strange reflection of his
hand on Scanher's arm as it gripped tighter. He felt
responsible; I sensed it simmering. "Probably true,"
he admitted.
Obviously, none of us had possessed the courage to
say it before this. The captain's plans suffered as I
waded through the truth. Enterprise's systems were
sturdy, but not meant to funnel the shared energy we
would soon demand of them, the hazardous intermix
with its deliberate irabalances. In perfect condition,
possibly--but not with the damage I'd inflicted. The
K!ingons were towing us closer by the minute to the
system's edge where, at warp speed, they could easily
rush us into their home territory. Time now worked
against us. All we had was this one chance. Mutual
disablement.
'TI! tell the captain," I said. "
We'll make it work
somehow."
Scanner managed a weak smile. "I was hopin'
yaw!'d say that."
"Sarda, can you manage with him? I've got to get
back to the bridge."
254
Sarda nodded. "I'11 contact you from the sensory."
I started to get up, but faltered when Scanner caught
my sleeve. When I looked down, he said, "Don't let
the bastards beat us, Piper."
My hand caught his and squeezed. "You count on
it."
Comforted, he slumped back against the solar wing.
I didn't stay to help Sarda get him on his feet. The
bridge of Enterprise was waiting--and all the clocks
were ticking.
Make it work, make it work, make it work...
255
Chapter Twelve
"Risk is our business."
--Return to Tomorrow
THE BRIDGE WAS organized chaos. Captain Kirk was
leaning over the helm, his medieval costume incongru-
ent with the geometric surroundings, doing the jobs of
ten. The scarlet lights of Alert status were distorted by
blasts of color energy from enemy ships as they swung
by, lashing out at each other, and catching us in the
crossfire. Iridescent damage on the nearby Klingon
cruisers lit up our faces. To my right, Mr. Spock was
bending over his readout hood, its blue light on his
face clashing with the scintillas from the main viewer.
He had to hold on to the edge of the console to keep on
his feet as enemy fire cut at our battered deflectors. He
and the captain were alone on the bridge.
As I came out of the turbolift, a strange thought
flushed over me. Getting to the bridge hadn't been
easy, and I'd been thrown down at least twice as the
ship was rocked by battle turbulence. I'd had to ignore
the groggy, nauseous crewpeople just coming around
after having had their lives risked for them. When the
turbolift doors opened, ;,t occurred to me that precious
few of those people were authorized to come to the
bridge. Yet here I was, privileged to be at the hub of
decision, alone with Captain Kirk and Commander
Spock.
Kirk spoke into the intercom, correlating something
256