The Entropy Effect

Only the impulse engines were running—imagine how it would feel with warp drive on full force! The power vibrated at a frequency far too low to hear, but he felt it. It pounded up and through his legs, into his body, all the way to the tips of his fingers. It lent itself to his determination. He did not intend to let such a ship fall into the hands of traitors.

“Are ye lost?”

Montgomery Scott had seen more than one sleepless night recently, and the stress of the previous day overlaid even his exhaustion. Here was someone, Ian felt certain, who had been loyal to his captain.

“I need to talk to you, Mr. Scott.”

“Abou’ what?” Scott asked.

“This is a magnificent ship!” Ian said abruptly, unable to contain his admiration any longer.

“Aye,” Scott said listlessly. “That it is.”

“Mr. Scott—”

“Sir... it’s been a bad time. Technically you should no’ be here—I’m no’ one to stand on silly rules, but right now I canna show you around.”

“Mr. Scott, I’m not so insensitive that I’d ask for a grand tour after what’s happened. It’s about what’s happened that I must talk to you.”

Scott frowned. Finally, he said, “Come wi’ me, we can talk in my office.”

Mr. Scott came very close to telling Ian Braithewaite that if not for him none of this would have happened at all. But the prosecutor sounded so serious, so unsettlingly intense, that Scott decided he should acquiesce, if only to find out—for a change—what was going on. For he had tried to sort out the last twenty-four hours and failed utterly; the only explanations he could think of came to conclusions he could neither accept nor believe.

The engineer’s office, barely a cubicle, had room for a couple of chairs and a computer terminal and that was about all. Scott transferred a thick untidy stack of readout flimsies from the extra chair to the floor so Braithewaite could sit down, and turned the second chair away from the keyboard so he could sit down himself.

“It’s no’ usually so messy,” he said apologetically.

“That’s of no account,” Braithewaite said. “Mr. Scott—I’m trained as an investigator and I’m determined to apprehend the people who killed James Kirk.”

“’People’!” Scott said. “But the ship was searched. They found no one who could have helped Dr. Mordreaux—no accomplice.”

“They found no one on the ship who wasn’t on the crew.”

Scott stared at him coldly. “You’re saying one of us helped murder the captain. Is this to mean I’m under suspicion?”

“What—? No, on the contrary! I’m here because it looks to me like you’re one of the few people on the ship I can trust absolutely.”

“Why?”

“Mr. Scott... like you, I saw Mr. Spock where he was not supposed to be. I saw him where he could not be.”

“I dinna understand.”

“Somehow, he was on Aleph Prime, before the Enterprise arrived. Don’t ask me how, but he was. I saw him. He denies it.”

“But that’s—”

“Impossible? As it was impossible yesterday for him to be in the transporter room and on the bridge at the same time?”

“Surely—ye dinna think Mr. Spock is involved in the captain’s death!”

“I think something extremely peculiar is going on. You encountered it, and so did I. If Captain Kirk had paid attention to you yesterday, it’s possible he’d still be alive. Mr. Scott, I don’t pretend to understand what’s happened, not yet. All I’ve got is suppositions, which I don’t want to throw around. Without proof, they’re slander, for one thing, but more important, suspicion’s hard to take back once you’ve cast it.”

“Aye, that’s true,” Scott said, impressed despite himself, for he had been unable to talk over his worries with anyone—even in the hopes that they would show him some simple, undeniable reason why he was wrong—for just that reason. “And hard to take it out of one’s own mind ...” He stopped, not wanting to say any more, wishing he had not said as much.

The trailed-off phrase tantalized Ian, but it was too soon to follow it up directly. He asked a question that seemed to change the subject but actually did not.

“Mr. Scott, did Mr. Spock ever offer any explanation for his being in the transporter room? Any reason at all?”

“Ye heard all he ha’ said to me on the subject. And right after that, Captain Kirk...”

“Yes, of course.” Ian rubbed his temples: the headache had never really gone away, and now it had begun to intensify.

“Are ye all right? Do ye need some water?”

“Yes, please.” Braithewaite blinked to try to dispel the double vision. He closed his eyes tight for a

moment; that was better. He wondered what the early symptoms of hypermorphic botulism were. Scott handed him a glass of water and he drank it gratefully.

“Ye dinna look at all well,” Scott said.

“I’m not feeling too well, but I’m upset and I’m angry and that’s making it worse. Mr. Scott, could a person be beamed from some spot on the Enterprise to some other spot?”

“Well... one could beam from one place, to the transporter room, then to another place. Ye’d have to materialize on the platform in between. ‘Twould be a most lazy and energy-intensive thing to do. Verra wasteful”

“But it could be done.”

“Aye.”