Gemini (32 page)

Then he saw that the muzzle of the weapon was now securely placed against Peter's left temple. Kirk remembered that scene for a long time; Peter's left arm bore a long, jagged wound where the subcutaneous transponder had been removed with less than a surgeon's skill. Counselor Docos stood behind Peter, his stubby legs set wide apart to maintain his balance, his body reeling slightly back and forth with its own interior motion as the ship rocked.
He must have been a sailing man,
thought Kirk. “Let him go, Docos,” said Kirk.

“This time I'm calling your bluff, Captain,” growled Docos. His face was smudged with smoke, but the hatred in his gaze came through just fine. “Drop your weapons, or he will die.”

“Don't do it, Uncle Jim,” said Peter. He tried for defiance, but all he could manage was a whisper.

“Try me,” said Docos. “I don't even have to aim, anyone I hit is an enemy.”

“It doesn't have to end this way, Docos,” said Kirk.

“It won't,” replied Docos, his eyes briefly fixed on something far away. Then they focused again on Kirk. “Weapons down.”

* * *

“Uhura!” said Chekov. “Look!”

“I can see it, Chekov.” Uhura leaned forward in the conn. The storm had begun to shrink, to diminish like a puddle of rainwater in the summer sun. It continued to withdraw in upon itself, until it winked out of existence entirely.

“Drop shields,” said Uhura, immediately. “All power to transporters.” She tapped a stud on the arm of the captain's chair. “Mr. Scott, any sign of the Captain?”

“Not yet,”
came Scotty's fervent voice,
“and they've only got thirty seconds left.”

* * *

Kirk nodded to McCoy and Sulu. He kneeled slowly, hands spread wide, placing his phaser on the floor, as his men followed his example.

Then, suddenly, the surging of the beleaguered ship ceased.

Counselor Docos, used to the deck's constant dance, was taken off-balance by Peter, who shifted to one side and knocked Docos's weapon out of his hand. Before it hit the ground, Kirk was on him.

“Now, Docos,” said Kirk, “I want a name.
Who's behind this?”

Kirk felt a sudden, odd burning in his arm, and jerked away, in time to see the stiletto-like blade Docos had whipped from beneath his robes narrowly miss his right eye. “Stay away!” he shrieked.

“Captain, ten seconds!” shouted Sulu.

Kirk stepped toward Docos, expecting an attack, but not the one that transpired. Docos brought the blade, shining with blood, up, reversed it, and neatly skewered his own throat.

“Scotty,” Kirk shouted, to his communicator, “four to beam,
now!
And the cargo, too!” He felt the deck begin to buckle under him and thought that, for once, he had cut it too fine, that the odds had finally caught up with him, that the gods of chance had, at long last, turned their backs on him … .

The next thing he knew he was in the transporter room on the
Enterprise,
looking at Scotty, who was taking air in in long gasps, as if he'd just run a marathon.

Kirk wheeled around, saw McCoy, Sulu … and Peter. Uncertain whether he wanted to club him or hug him, Kirk settled for the latter. Plenty of time for the former later.

“How about that move?” Peter was saying, as Kirk moved across the transporter room. “Pretty good, huh? You taught me that!”

Kirk grinned back as he accessed the small viewscreen set in the transporter room wall. On it, the Nadorian ship was being swallowed up in a fireball that grew from within itself, like a sort of ravaging disease that consumed its host from within.

“Kirk to Spock,” said Kirk, into the intercom.

“Spock here, Captain.”

“However you shut off the storm, good work.”

“Thank you, sir. However, I cannot guarantee how long the results will remain effective.”

“Then we'd better get this over with. Meet me here as soon as you can.”

“Understoo—”

“Not so fast,” said McCoy. “You're not going anywhere until I take a look at that arm.”

Kirk looked behind him and saw a trail of red droplets from the transporter pad to the console. “Peter, are you hurt?”

“It's not me, Uncle Jim,” said Peter.

Kirk looked at his tunic and saw a red stain growing across his left arm, much like the explosion that swallowed the Nadorian ship. He leaned against the console; suddenly he did feel a little tired.

“Make it five minutes, Spock.”

“I
'M SORRY
, C
APTAIN
,” said Uhura, some minutes later. “There's no response.”

“You're sure?” asked Kirk, unconsciously scratching the new skin over his wound. “You tried the exact same frequency the smugglers used before … ?”

“The frequency is precisely the same, Captain,” said Spock, looking up from the monitor at his bridge position, “as is the strength and duration of the signal. It would be logical to assume that the person you seek to involve is aware of the death of Counselor Docos as well as the explosion of the smuggling ship, and has therefore become aware of your intent.”

Kirk nodded, bitterly. He had hoped that by broadcasting on the frequency the smugglers had used before, that one specific party would respond, said involvement leading to capture and evidence for a conviction.

“Sometimes,” he said, making light of his disappointment, “they just don't play by the rules.”

“But there must be something we can do,” said McCoy. “There's all the evidence—”

“None of which is conclusive, Doctor,” said Spock, inexorably. “Another stratagem will have to be devised. Logic indicates—”

“Not logic, Mr. Spock,” said Kirk, suddenly snapping his fingers. “Emotion is the key here.” He turned and began to stride to the turbolift, then stopped halfway and looked behind him. “Coming, gentlemen?”

“The last time I saw that look in your eye, you came up with corbomite,” said McCoy with a grin, as he joined Kirk. “I wouldn't miss this for the world.”

Spock sighed. “I must confess to being curious.”

* * *

When they materialized in the throne room of the Royal Palace, Kirk saw that everyone whose presence he had requested was there: Regent Lonal, trying to look as though he belonged on the throne; Commissioner and Janine Roget, the commissioner looking somewhat harried, as the end of the smuggling ring had produced a flurry of calls from diverse officials on and off planet; Chief Securitrix Llora, who stood just to one side and behind Regent Lonal, whether to keep him safe or to keep him honest Kirk wasn't quite sure; and the Lady Pataal, who finally seemed to have stopped crying, but whose countenance still looked entirely too mournful for such an attractive young woman.

“Captain,” said Lonal, stiffly.

“Prince Lonal,” said Kirk, half-bowing to the regent, giving the first word a faint, sardonic emphasis. Then Kirk turned to greet the others, all of whom save Llora were seated.

“There still remains some unfinished business to this affair,” began Kirk.

“‘Some'?” scoffed Llora. “Our monarchs have been assassinated, one of the highest members of government has been revealed to be responsible, and another is also one of his victims. I think your way with an understatement is wonderful, Captain.”

Kirk did not rise to the bait, but nodded, gallantly. “Nonetheless, the sooner we start, the sooner we'll be done.” He took out his communicator. “Kirk to
Enterprise.”

“Scott here, Captain.”

“Beam down that cargo we discussed, Mr. Scott.”

“Aye, sir.”

Kirk broke contact, put his communicator away, and waited. For a long moment, nothing happened. Then the trilling of the transporter signal hit the range audible to humans and two columns of light began to coalesce a few feet to one side of Kirk.

Lonal, of course, already knew the secret. On three of the other four faces were reflected nothing but pure astonishment. But across the fifth, almost too briefly to be perceived, played first a mask of pure dread and horror, then, oddly, one of relief, before the lid clamped down, before a savage instinct said:
It's not over yet.

But that moment of animal terror had not gone unperceived by Kirk. Deep within his being, he smiled.
This might work.

“I give you,” said Kirk, “Their Serene Highnesses, Prince Abon and Prince Delor.”

The princes stood there for a moment, hands behind their backs, as they surveyed the room.

Then Delor said: “We will be needing another throne, Lonal.”

Lonal shot out of the chair as if it had been electrified. No one else moved.

Then the Lady Pataal rose, her motion causing the dumbstruck Rogets to realize their gaffe; they imitated her movement.

The young woman walked to within a few feet of the princes, curtsying deeply. Her head was down, giving no clue as to her mental state.

Then she rose, approached Prince Abon, and, in violation of all protocol, gave the young monarch a kiss on the cheek, the joy radiating from her face belying the tears that flowed down it.

“Your Highnesses,” stammered Lonal, “we are of course delighted to see you alive and well.”

“Thank you,
Regent,”
said Abon, giving every impression of actually buying it. “It is good to be back.” His eyes swept across the room, including the young woman before him, and he smiled and breathed deeply.

“But how can this be?” asked Commissioner Roget. “Or, more to the point, why?”

“An excellent question, Commissioner,” nodded Kirk. “It was part of a ruse, naturally, to draw fire away from the princes. Once the conspirator thought them dead, they were no longer targeted for assassination.”

Around the room, heads nodded. “It obviously worked,” said Mrs. Roget.

“And very well,” said Kirk. “For a time, the conspirator, thinking the princes dead, returned to the original goal.”

“But,” said Prince Delor, “I thought our deaths were the conspirator's goal.”

“That's where we all went wrong,” said Kirk, striding back and forth across the throne room. “In thinking social upset was the main goal.” He grinned at the monarchs, shrugging apologetically. “I'm sorry to have to tell you, Your Highnesses, that your deaths were a secondary part of the plan—but I'm delighted to be able to tell you.”

“Then what was this so-called original goal?” asked Lonal, a little color returning to his face.

“Nothing more than old-fashioned financial gain,” said Kirk. “The deaths of Princes Abon and Delor, the toppling of the throne, the involvement of the Federation, all these placed distant second on the conspirator's agenda.”

“You keep speaking of ‘the conspirator,'” said Roget, irritably. “It was Counselor Docos … wasn't it?”

“It was not, Commissioner,” said Spock. “Docos possessed neither the wit nor the will to conceive and execute such a plan. He did, however, make an able henchman, before a reversal of fortune, as well as fear of exposure and imprisonment, led him to a quite unnecessary suicide.”

“The conspirator's plan was, as noted, nothing more than financial gain,” said Kirk. “It was assumed the smuggling of Nadorian statuary off the planet was a way of financing the overthrow of the throne. In fact, it was quite the other way around: the attempted over-throw of the throne distracted attention from the smuggling ring.”

“But this smuggling ring seems to have been quite inefficient,” said Llora. “Their first ship was destroyed by you, when you first approached the planet, and no fragments of statuary were found … .”

“I theorize that the ship was either returning from delivering smuggled statuary to its distributors,” supplied Spock, “or the smugglers were able to transport the statuary, as well.”

“And when Docos tried to escape,” continued Llora, “your report said he did not attempt to take any statuary with him.”

“That was what led me to the truth,” nodded Kirk. “When Docos tried to escape, why
didn't
he take any of the statues with him? His initial intent wasn't to attack us; his ship didn't turn to face the
Enterprise
until he was almost away. He clearly intended to leave Nador forever, so nothing in his past life would have been of any use to him. Surely the statues would have been a great financial help to him in starting a new life, elsewhere in the galaxy. But he didn't take them with him.”

“Well, Captain?” asked Commissioner Roget.

“He didn't,” said Kirk, “because he knew the statuary was dangerous.”

“Dangerous?” asked Lonal, intrigued despite himself. His eyes kept going back and forth to the princes, as though he expected them to take a swing at him. “Their possession was dangerous because it was stolen material, yes, but—”

“For more than legal reasons,” Kirk interrupted. “Their very possession was physically dangerous to him. Why? Look what happened when another of the psychic storms manifested itself. The storm attacked the
Enterprise,
but left the smugglers' ship untouched, even though it was as close to the storm as we were, sometimes closer.

“It occurred to me,” said Kirk, “that perhaps the sites the storms chose to strike were
not
random, as we at first thought. There may be an excellent reason why the storms struck the sites they did. When we were under assault up there, I ran through the list of locales where the storms attacked—Spock?”

“The
U.S.S. Enterprise,”
began the science officer, without consulting a list, “the Royal Palace of Nador, the Nadonan Heritage Museum, the Nadorian Art Students' League—”

“Thank you, Mr. Spock, that will be sufficient. ‘Why,' I asked myself, during combat, ‘did the storm assault
these
locations particularly?' The answer: Because all of them contained ancient Nadorian statuary.”